Study: Zinc may help shorten cold, flu

By Ernie Mundell & Robert Preidt, HealthDay News

Zinc supplements may help shorten bouts with colds and the flu, according to new research. 

Photo by Mojpe/Pixabay


Many people pop a zinc supplement at the first sign of a cold, and there's new evidence supporting the habit.

Australian researchers found that the supplements appear to help shorten respiratory tract infections, such as colds, flu, sinusitis and pneumonia.
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Many over-the-counter cold and cough remedies offer only "marginal benefits," the researchers noted, making "zinc a viable 'natural' alternative for the self-management of non-specific [respiratory tract infections]."

The study was led by Jennifer Hunter, associate professor at the NICM Health Research Institute at Western Sydney University in Penrith, New South Wales. Her team published the findings Tuesday in the BMJ Open.

According to Hunter's team, zinc as a nutrient has gained attention from researchers because it's known to play an important role in immunity, inflammation, tissue injury, blood pressure and in tissue responses to any lack of oxygen.

To learn more about zinc's potential, the investigators reviewed more than two dozen clinical trials that included more than 5,400 adults.

All were published in 17 English and Chinese research databases up to August 2020. None of them specifically examined the use of zinc for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19.

Lozenges were the most common form of zinc intake, followed by nasal sprays and gels, the research team said. Doses varied substantially, depending on the formulation and whether zinc was used for prevention or treatment.

Compared with placebo, zinc lozenges or nasal spray were estimated to prevent about five new respiratory tract infections in 100 people per month, and the effects were strongest for reducing the risk of more severe symptoms, such as fever and flu-like illness.

However, these findings are based on only three studies, the team noted.

On average, symptoms cleared up two days earlier with the use of either a zinc spray or liquid formulation taken under the tongue, or sublingual, compared with a placebo, the data showed.

Patients who used nasal spray or sublingual zinc were nearly twice as likely to recover during the first week of illness as those who used a placebo, the study authors noted in a journal news release.

And 19 more patients out of every 100 were likely to still have symptoms a week later if they didn't use zinc supplements.

Zinc was not associated with reduced average daily symptom severity, but it was associated with a clinically significant reduction in symptom severity on the third day of illness, Hunter's team found.

No serious side effects were reported among zinc users.

All in all, zinc may be offered as a treatment option by doctors to patients "who are desperate for faster recovery times and might be seeking an unnecessary antibiotic prescription," the researchers suggested.

Dr. Len Horovitz is a pulmonologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He wasn't involved in the new study, but agreed that "most clinical evidence supports the use of zinc supplement for prevention and treatment of colds, some inflammatory processes, and respiratory infections."

"The usual recommendation is 25 mg of zinc daily," Horovitz said, but he cautioned that "it is unclear exactly what dose is best."

The Australian team agreed. "Clinicians and consumers need to be aware that considerable uncertainty remains regarding the clinical efficacy of different zinc formulations, doses and administration routes," they concluded.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more on zinc.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Police hunting for loose monkey spotted in Tokyo

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Police in Tokyo are trying to locate a loose monkey in the city after the primate was spotted near a religious shrine and a subway station.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said officers from the Kitazawa police station responded Monday when a monkey was spotted in a tree at the Setagaya Hachimangu shrine in Setagaya Ward.
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Law enforcement was unable to locate the primate, which was next spotted Tuesday at Komaba-Todaimae Station on the Keio-Inokashira Line in Meguro Ward, about 2 miles away from Monday's sighting.

Police said officers were searching the area around the station for the monkey. Officers warned members of the public not to attempt to approach or feed the animal.

Police said reports of monkey sightings have been on the rise in Tokyo since August. A monkey was captured at Haneda Airport in late September.

Water is the biggest driver of infectious disease outbreaks, study says

By HealthDay News

Contaminated water is the leading cause of large-scale outbreaks of infectious diseases that can be transmitted from animals to people, researchers say.

These health threats are called zoonotic infectious diseases, and recent outbreaks include COVID-19 and Ebola.

"In the age of COVID-19, it is understandable that many people may not realize how many outbreaks of other infectious diseases are caused by complex, intertwined ecological and socioeconomic conditions," said lead author Patrick Stephens, an associate research professor at the University of Georgia's Odum School of Ecology in Athens.

His team analyzed 4,400 zoonotic disease outbreaks worldwide since 1974.

RELATED  Experts: Mink ranches, carnivore farms could launch the next COVID-19

They identified the 100 largest, all of which infected thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. These were compared with 200 outbreaks that included 43 or fewer cases.

Water contamination was the most common cause of large outbreaks and the second most common cause of smaller ones. Examples of these water-associated diseases include hepatitis E, typhoid and dysentery.

In addition to water contamination, large outbreaks were most often caused by unusual weather patterns, changes in the abundance of disease carriers such as mosquitoes and ticks, and sewage management.

RELATED Study: Pandemics spread in much the same way as invasive insects

Large outbreaks were also much more likely to be caused by viral pathogens such as SARS coronavirus -- the same group of pathogens that cause COVID-19 -- influenza virus and Japanese encephalitis virus.

Smaller outbreaks were associated with food contamination, local livestock production and human-animal contact.

The researchers also found that large outbreaks tended to be caused by a greater variety of factors than small outbreaks, according to findings recently published in the journal Philosophical Transactions B.

RELATED Light pollution may increase risk of West Nile virus jumping from birds to humans

"We know that factors like exposure to wild mammals, habitat disruption, international trade and travel and contact with contaminated food and water are important considerations," Stephens said in a university news release.

"Our research was designed to understand what proportion of outbreaks various drivers contributed to. To our knowledge, this study is the first to do so for a global sample of outbreaks of many diseases," Stephens said.

Stephens said much work remains to understand how large-scale infectious disease outbreaks can be prevented and controlled.

"Perhaps two-thirds of future infectious disease outbreaks are expected to be caused by zoonotic pathogens, and the number of these diseases is growing worldwide," he said. "Our research is an extremely important first step to better understand global variation in the drivers of outbreaks."

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on zoonotic diseases.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Study: Air flow 'dead zones' in public restrooms may boost spread of COVID-19


Recirculating flow in 'dead zones' in public restrooms can trap infectious particles for long periods, including those that spread COVID-19, according to a new study. Photo by Vivek Kumar/Ansys Inc.

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Preventing airflow "dead zones" within indoor spaces may help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other dangerous pathogens, an analysis published Tuesday by the journal Physics of Fluids found.

Computer simulations of airflow within a public restroom show that infectious aerosols in dead zones, where air does not flow, can linger up to 10 times longer than they do in other parts of the room, where air flows in and out, the data showed.

These dead zones of trapped air are frequently found in corners of a room or around furniture, the researchers said.

"Surprisingly, [dead zones] can be near a door or window, or right next to where an air conditioner is blowing in air," study co-author Krishnendu Sinha said in a press release.

"You might expect these to be safe zones, but they are not," said Sinha, a professor of aerospace engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

COVID-19 spreads primarily through the air, after virus droplets are emitted from infected people, research suggests.

This is particularly true in confined, crowded, indoor spaces -- including those with air conditioning and air purifying systems -- where air may not flow freely and virus particles may linger as a result.

These virus droplets or particles essentially float in the air in these spaces, where they can be inhaled by others and transmitted.

For this study, Sinha and his colleagues focused on public restrooms, which typically generate aerosols and are found in offices, restaurants, schools, planes, trains and other public spaces.

In particular, public restrooms have been identified as a potential source of infection transmission within densely populated areas in India, the researchers said.

RELATED In confined spaces, air purifiers may actually aid the spread of COVID-19

Ventilation design for public spaces is often based on air changes per hour, calculations that assume fresh air reaches every corner of a room uniformly.

However, "from computer simulations and experiments within a real washroom, we know this does not occur," Sinha said.

The researchers' computer simulations of air flow in one public restroom showed that air moves "in circuitous routes, like a vortex," co-author Vivek Kumar said in a press release.

Ideally, air should be continuously circulating in every part of the room and constantly replaced by fresh air, said Kumar, a student in bioengineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

This isn't easy to do when air is recirculating in a dead zone, however, where furniture or other structures may be inhibiting flow, the researchers said.

"ACH can be 10 times lower for dead zones," Sinha said.

"To design ventilation systems to be more effective against the virus, we need to place ducts and fans based on the air circulation within the room, [but] blindly increasing the volume of air through existing ducts will not solve the problem," he said.

RESIGN
Alberta premier's office appoints HR expert as minister speaks about drinking allegations

Elise von Scheel 

© Josee St-Onge/ CBC A lawsuit filed by a former chief of staff in Jason Kenney's government alleges sexual harassment and excessive drinking in the Alberta Legislature building last fall.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney's office has selected Edmonton's integrity commissioner to conduct a review of its HR policies for staff after serious allegations of misconduct in the Alberta legislature building.

A lawsuit filed by a former chief of staff in Kenney's government alleges sexual harassment and excessive drinking in the legislature building last fall, and says complaints about the behaviour were not appropriately addressed despite being raised to multiple senior staff in the premier's office.

Ariella Kimmel, the plaintiff, also alleges she was fired in February as retaliation for persistently raising these issues.

Kenney's office promised an independent review of its HR policies for political staff after CBC News first reported the allegations last week. Kenney himself is not named in the lawsuit. None of the allegations have been proven in court.

On Tuesday, an email from Kenney's office to staff in the legislature announced that Jamie Pytel has been retained to perform the review. The email was obtained by CBC News.

Pytel is currently serving as the City of Edmonton's integrity commissioner and is a co-founder of Kingsgate Legal, specializing in workplace culture, harassment, ethics, whistleblower policy and HR management.

"Ms. Pytel's review will begin immediately and will be fully independent. Should new policies be adopted as a result of Ms. Pytel's review, those would be made public," a statement from the premier's office said.

They did not say when Pytel's findings are expected to be delivered. CBC News has also reached out to Pytel for comment.

"This suggests that they are certainly taking action that is appropriate and proportionate," said Lisa Young, a professor at the University of Calgary's school of public policy.

"Of course, taking action and getting advice is one thing. Acting on it is another thing, so it remains to be seen what kinds of recommendations are going to be put in place and what kind of action is going to be taken."
Dreeshen speaks about drinking claims

In addition to the sexual harassment allegations, the lawsuit included allegations of excessive drinking by ministers and staff in legislature offices.

Kimmel singled out Agriculture and Forestry Minister Devin Dreeshen for allegedly being heavily intoxicated in October 2020 and yelling so aggressively at her that a bystander intervened. The two had previously been romantically involved.

Dreeshen addressed those allegations for the first time Monday.

© Will Wang/CBC Alberta Agriculture and Forestry Minister Devin Dreeshen, seen here in March 2020, on Monday addressed allegations of excessive drinking by ministers and staff in legislature offices.

"It's been long, hard days in the legislature and I think that's something that everybody's had to deal with," he said, adding he does not have an alcohol problem.

"There's a social aspect to politics where I think people do sit down and talk about politics over a drink. I think that's something that's happened for a long time, obviously I didn't invent it."

Young says it's unlikely the premier will address any of the allegations in a fulsome way because the lawsuit against his office is before the courts.

"I do think that if further public allegations come out, then it's going to put the government in an increasingly difficult spot," she said.

People average fewer than 2 lies a day, and chronic liars are rare, small study finds

FOUND ONE

Very few people are chronic liars, according to a study that may draw eyerolls from Americans swamped by "fake news" and misinformation.

Previous research has found that people tell an average of one or two lies a day.

But these new findings suggest that doesn't reflect the behavior of most people, and that most fibs are told by only a few prolific liars, the study authors said.

"There are these few prolific liars out there," said lead author Timothy Levine, who studies deception and heads communication studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

RELATED Study: Kids with good memories are better liars

"And I think this study showed that they are a real thing. There is that kind of top 1% who are telling more than 15 lies per day, day in, day out," Levine said.

Most previous studies on lying focused on one point in time, while this one tracked people's lies every day over three months. The 630 participants kept daily deception journals, which yielded 116,336 lies.

Three-quarters of participants were consistently honest, telling between zero and two lies per day, the findings showed.

RELATED Why people vote for politicians they know are liars

But about 6% of them averaged more than six lies a day and accounted for a large share of all the lies in the study, which was recently published online in the journal Communication Monographs.

The findings suggest that everyday communication is probably safer than you may think, according to Levine.

The study also found that people have good and bad days, where they tell fewer or more lies than usual, and that most people don't lie unless they have a reason.

"People are mostly honest, and people mostly believe other people -- and deception is more of a kind of exceptional thing rather than a chronic worry," Levine said in a university news release.

More information

Recovery.org offers advice to stop habitual lying.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

A Subway franchisee said she pulled her 16-year-old son out of school to work at her store because it was so understaffed

Grace Dean

Tue, November 2, 2021

Restaurants have been hit especially hard by the labor shortage. Grace Dean/Insider

• A Subway franchisee told Fox 13 she pulled her son from school to work at her understaffed store.

• She said she wasn't getting any applicants at her store, in Salt Lake City, despite raising wages.

• The labor shortage was "just a mystery," she added.

The owner of a Subway franchise in Utah said her store was so understaffed that she once pulled her 16-year-old son out of school to work there.

Sharon Cockayne told Fox 13 that she wanted to hire three people at her store near Salt Lake City International Airport but wasn't getting any applications.

"I've brought my 16-year-old son in after pulling him out of school once, my boyfriend has come in to help me, it's gotten to that point," she said. "It's scary."

The US is suffering from a labor shortage as record numbers of Americans quit their jobs in search of better wages, benefits, and working conditions. Restaurants have been especially hard-hit.

This has prompted companies to reassess how they compensate workers. Many have been boosting wages and offering improved benefits in a desperate bid to attract new employees and cling to existing ones. In May, average hourly wages for nonsupervisory staff in the restaurant industry hit $15 for the first time.

Cockayne told Fox 13 that she had lifted her pay by $2 an hour over the past year but was struggling to hire. The report didn't say what her new pay rate was.

Other business owners have said that hiking wages had helped them overcome - or even completely avoid - the labor shortage. One restaurant owner in Manhattan told Insider that she'd had no problems recruiting after raising her wages to $25 an hour.

Though workers say they're largely quitting their jobs because they want higher wages or better working environments, some lawmakers and business owners have blamed the labor shortage on enhanced federal unemployment benefits introduced in March 2020.

But the benefits ended in September, and companies still say they're struggling to attract more job applicants - even in states that cut off the benefits more than eight weeks early.

The labor shortage is "just a mystery," Cockayne told Fox 13.

Cockayne said she normally recruited high-school students, but that they weren't applying for jobs at her store anymore. "I don't know if parents don't want their high school kids working during the pandemic," she said.

Some businesses have tapped into younger workers to plug their labor shortage, such as a McDonald's in Oregon that's been recruiting 14-year-olds.

In October, Wisconsin's Senate approved a bill that would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work until 11 p.m. on some days. Supporters say it could help plug the state's labor shortage.

A LARGE SEA GOING BOILER
China's state media accuses the US of lying about what happened to submarine it says hit an underwater mound in the South China Sea


The Seawolf-class attack submarine USS Connecticut. US Navy

Bill Bostock
Tue, November 2, 2021,


A US submarine hit an underwater object in October, for reasons that were initially a mystery.


The Navy concluded Monday the USS Connecticut hit an uncharted hill beneath the surface.


Chinese state media are not satisfied, and without evidence floated the idea of a nuclear spillage.

Chinese state media are casting doubt on the US account of what happened to a nuclear submarine that collided with an object last month.

US Navy investigators concluded Monday that the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Connecticut hit an uncharted underwater hill while patrolling in international waters in the South China Sea on October 2.

"The investigation determined USS Connecticut grounded on an uncharted seamount while operating in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region," Cdr. Haley Sims, a 7th Fleet spokesperson, told Insider on Monday.

China claims the South China Sea as its own, and objects to other nations sailing military craft there.

The US rejects Chinese claims to the waters, and makes a point of sailing there in so-called freedom of navigation missions, as do other Western nations, often angering Beijing.

The presence of a US Navy submarine in the South China Sea represents an aggression to Beijing, and Chinese state media were quick to seize on the collision and attack the official US narrative.

On Tuesday, the state-run Global Times newspaper published claims from Chinese military experts who said the collision may have resulted in nuclear leakage that the US is trying to conceal.

"A nuclear leakage could have taken place, and a recent flight of a US nuclear material detection aircraft to the South China Sea shows the US understands the possibility," the Global Times wrote.

A Beijing-based think tank said last week it had satellite evidence showing that US spy planes, including a "nuke sniffer," recently flew over the South China Sea, according to the South China Morning Post.

Experts told the SCMP that the aircraft were likely establishing whether there was any nuclear fallout from the collision.

Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the Naval Research Academy of China's People's Liberation Army, told the Global Times the US justification for the collision "lack sincerity, transparency and professionalism."

Last week the Global Times launched an online petition calling on the US to disclose information about the collision.

Even though the US did then release some information, it appears not to have satisfied the outlet, which often gives voice to aggressively pro-Beijing points of view.

Other outlets also cast doubt on the US version of events.

"Covering up the truth is a tradition of the US military," the People's Daily newspaper wrote Monday, referring to the collision as an "accident" in inverted commas.

The newspaper previously referred to the crash as an "example of the superpower's reckless military presence."

After the Navy first reported the collision on October 7, five days after it happened, Chinese officials accused the US of a cover-up.

Zhao Lijian, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, said on on October 26 that the US was "irresponsible" and "cagey." Zhao added that China had "every reason to question the truth and the intention of the US."

"What was USS Connecticut up to do secretively in the South China Sea this time? What did it collide with? Why did that collision happen?" he said.

"Was there a nuclear leak that creates nuclear contamination in the marine environment?"

SEAMOUNT

Here's how a $3 billion US attack submarine can run into an underwater mountain, according to a former submariner


Ryan Pickrell
Tue, November 2, 2021

The Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine USS Connecticut (SSN 22) at Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton. US Navy


A US Navy submarine collided with an underwater mountain last month, the service revealed Monday.


The submarine was a $3 billion Seawolf-class submarine, one of the Navy's most capable subs.


A former submariner talked to Insider about how such an advanced submarine could run into something.

It does not happen often, but submarines sometimes run into things beneath the waves. Last month, a US Navy attack submarine collided with something in the South China Sea.

A Navy investigation into the incident concluded that the Seawolf-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Connecticut grounded on an uncharted seamount. Defense officials clarified for the Associated Press that the submarine struck an underwater mountain.

The collision caused an unspecified amount of damage and injured a dozen members of the crew.

The Connecticut is one of only three Seawolf-class submarines, some of the most powerful and most capable submarines in the US Navy. Built at a cost of more than $3 billion each, these submarines were built to hunt Soviet submarines in deep waters.

So how exactly does a multi-billion dollar submarine equipped with high-end capabilities crash into an undersea mountain? A former US submariner told Insider about how crews try to manage these risks.

"It's very rare for this to happen," Bryan Clark, a former US Navy submarine warfare officer and defense expert at the Hudson Institute, told Insider. "There's a lot of careful planning that goes into these operations."

"You do that careful planning to figure out what are the best maps or charts that we have of the area, what our plan is for where we're going to operate in terms of depth, what is the risk of there being an uncharted something on the bottom, whether it's a seamount or a pile of containers or something, and how to avoid areas that are likely to have those kinds of hazards," he said.

But sometimes unexpected contingencies force changes in plans, sometimes charts are not as good as they need to be, and sometimes sailors make mistakes.

The South China Sea is a challenging operating environment for submarines because it is very shallow, limiting the depths at which a submarine can safely operate with a low risk of being detected or running into something.

To make things more difficult for submarines, "the charts of a place like the South China Sea may not be nearly as detailed as you want," Clark said.

If a submarine is trying to be quiet and operate undetected, then it would likely be closer to the bottom and not relying on active sonar, which can alert the submarine to any potential dangers, such as naval mines, in its path but will also alert any potential adversaries to its position.

So in that situation, "you don't have anything that's looking forward of you in terms of active sonar," Clark said. "And, of course, you have no visual indication of what's ahead of you."

Submarines have passive sonar, but that only detects things that are making sound. "If you have something ahead of you that doesn't make any noise, like a seamount, you may not know it is there until you run into it," Clark explained.

"You might have your fathometer on, which is what you can use to measure the water depth below the ship. It has got a pretty narrow beam, so it's not as detectable," he said. "But the problem is that it only detects the depth underneath the ship and not forward of the ship."

That bottom-facing sonar could potentially detect inconsistencies in the charts and subtle changes in depth but may not necessarily get a vessel through a blind spot, where an uncharted topographical feature might be rising up sharply from the ocean floor.

"You could have a seamount pop up in front of you before your fathometer has a chance to detect it and you could run into it," Clark said,

He explained that these are challenges submarines face no matter how advanced they are. Submarines try to avoid these dangers by operating high enough in the water column, but sometimes that is not always an option.

It's unclear exactly what happened to the Connecticut, as the command investigation has yet to be released. The investigation has been passed up to the 7th Fleet commander, who will make any relevant accountability decisions. The sub is currently in Guam undergoing initial repairs.

THEY ARE COVERING UP BECAUSE IT WAS A KRAKEN

Virginia Parent Turns Tables on Fox News Host Over Critical Race Theory Obsession

Justin Baragona
Tue, November 2, 2021

Fox News

Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum found herself admitting on Tuesday that it was a “little bit of a misnomer” to claim critical race theory was being taught to young Virginia children after one parent called out such misinformation on Fox’s airwaves.

Hours before the polls closed in the closely watched Virginia gubernatorial race, MacCallum sat down with two Loudoun County mothers—a Democrat and a Republican—who had already cast their ballots, asking them about the issues they found most important in this election.

Naturally, since much of the national media conversation about the Virginia race has centered around education and curriculum—specifically in Loudoun County—both women brought up schools.

Brooke Corbett, a mother of three who voted for Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, said she “got a window into our children’s education” during the pandemic, adding that there were “some concerning things” she saw. Specifically, the mother claimed she “started hearing about critical race theory,” which she had “never heard about” before.

“After some investigation, some FOIA requests that I’ve started seeing on the news, a lot of taxpayer money, my taxpayer money, our taxpayer money, had been invested in some teacher training and that would be rolled into the student curriculum that I didn’t agree with,” Corbett continued. “A lot of it looked not only off, but it looked like—it bothered me. It was controversial. There’s aspects that look racist. So I had a hard time with that.”

Seth Meyers Mocks Fox News Host Judge Jeanine Pirro for Accidentally Calling Trump a Criminal

MacCallum, who has helped push Fox’s year-long obsession with so-called critical race theory in schools, agreed with Corbett while also bemoaning that schools are “watering down the standards” for students.

That’s when Mara Stengler, a mother of two who voted for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, jumped in to offer some pushback.

“I don’t think people truly understand what critical race theory is,” Stengler stated. “Younger children are not being taught critical race theory. They can’t understand critical race theory. They’re being taught history.”

Using as an example how one Loudoun County parent expressed anger that their child was taught that Christopher Columbus killed many indigenous people, Stengler noted such information was merely history.

“That’s what Christopher Columbus did,” she added. “So I have a hard time—I think kids have to learn history; the good, the bad, the ugly.”

After saying she “would have to do a fact-check” on Stengler’s Columbus remarks, MacCallum then conceded that perhaps Fox News has taken some liberties with its portrayal of critical race theory in K-12 schools.

“Critical race theory sometimes is a little bit of a misnomer because what is happening is there’s sort of a reformed thinking and approach to history that teaches that the country was founded in racism,” the Fox News anchor said. “You can say critical race theory is like a legal theory that is found more in colleges.”

She added: “So maybe giving it that label has thrown some people off. But it doesn’t mean that there’s not things being taught that they’re teaching kids things that they are inherently victims or oppressors.”

Stengler, for her part, told MacCallum that they’d “have to agree to disagree” as she had “different thoughts and feelings on that.”

Virginia schools, meanwhile, say that critical race theory does not appear in any educational or training material for students. PolitiFact found in August that while CRT—a broad set of ideas about systemic racism largely constrained to legal and graduate studies—has been widely discussed by educators in the state, there is “no evidence that critical race theory is being taught” in the state’s schools.

Furthermore, critical race theory is not mentioned in the state’s standard of learning and a number of local school boards have specifically said they do not teach it.

Haitians hold voodoo rituals to honor ancestors amid crisis





Voodoo followers celebrate the Day of the Dead, in Port-au-Prince

Gessika Thomas
Tue, November 2, 2021

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haitians honored their ancestors to mark the Day of the Dead on Tuesday in colorful voodoo rituals that offered a respite from the tough day-to-day reality of fuel shortages, gang violence and rising malnutrition.

Voodoo followers in the Caribbean nation gathered in cemeteries, many dressed in white and some with their faces covered in white powder, to sing and dance as part of rituals that involve communing with ancestral spirits.

"Voodoo, if you want to define it, is the means at your disposal to establish harmony between you and everything that surrounds you, both visible and invisible," said Carl-Henry Desmornes, the religion's "ATI" or supreme leader, in an interview.

More than half of Haiti's 11 million people are believed to practice voodoo, a religion brought from West Africa by enslaved men and women and practiced clandestinely under French colonial rule.

It is closely identified with the struggle against slavery in Haiti, which declared independence from France in 1804 following what is widely considered the world's only successful slave revolt.

Voodoo followers celebrate the Day of the Dead in Port-au-Prince

"Despite the difficulties caused by the lack of gasoline, people have made the trip to the cemetery. As I speak, my car is out of gas," said Valcin Antoine, a voodoo priest or "ougan" known as "Toutou," who led a ceremony on Monday at a cemetery in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petion-ville.

"We are not afraid when we do the work of the spirits, they protect us."



For decades voodoo has been portrayed in Western films as a black magic cult, but it was officially recognized as a religion by Haiti's government in 2003 under President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Haiti has for nearly two weeks suffered severe fuel shortages. Gang blockades have prevented trucks from reaching fuel terminals, forcing some businesses to shut their doors and hospitals to limit services.

A wave of gang kidnappings, including the abduction last month of a group of American and Canadian missionaries, has spurred local outrage and led several transport industry groups to call general strikes.

(Reporting by Gessika Thomas in Port-au-Prince; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Richard Chang)