WHO: COVID-19 cases continue to fall globally while increasing In United States


A customer buys food in a half-empty grocery store, in Shanghai, China, on March 25 during a COVID-19 lockdown. The World Health Organization said, though, cases are now declining around the globe. Photo by Alex Plavevski/EPA-EFE


April 21 (UPI) -- Weekly confirmed cases of COVID-19 around the globe dropped 21.7% as of April 11, the World Health Organization revealed on its weekly tracker as cases continued to drop internationally.

The WHO reported 5.76 million confirmed coronavirus cases around the world, a decrease from 7.36 million for the week concluding April 4. It marked the fourth straight week global cases have fallen

Weekly confirmed cases reached an all-time high of 23.29 million for the week ending Jan. 17 during the peak of a surge of the more contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Deaths from COVID-19 have also fallen, with 17,963 reported the week ending April 11, down 17% from 22,103 the week before and a weekly high of 76,479 from the Omicron surge reported on Feb. 7. Global deaths had reached 101,917 the week of Jan. 18, 2021.

While cases dropped around the world, confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States increased nearly 24% to 245,594 for the week ending April 11 from 198,085 the week before. Weekly confirmed cases in the United States had dropped to 193,417 on March 21.

Cases in the United States had reached a record 5.61 million in one week on Jan. 10 during the rise of the Omicron variant. The dramatic increase forced some localities to return to pandemic restrictions until the recent drop in cases.

The federal government is appealing a court ruling this week that struck down a mask requirement for commercial flights in the United States.

Protesters march against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Washington

Protesters make their way to the Lincoln Memorial during a demonstration against COVID-19 vaccine mandates on the National Mall in Washington on Sunday. 

Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI | License Photo

Biden's drug control strategy urges more 'harm reduction,' fewer barriers to treatment

A member of the U.S. Coast Guard guards almost 30,000 pounds of cocaine offloaded at Naval Base San Diego. President Biden's drug control policy Thursday gives emphasis for targeting traffickers' finances and disrupting trafficking paths into the U.S.

 File Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Connie Terrell/U.S. Coast Guard



April 21 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled his first national drug control strategy, which emphasizes a need to bring down overdose deaths and gives special importance to preventative efforts amid a record number of drug-related deaths in the United States.

The White House and drug czar Dr. Rahul Gupta announced the strategy, which will be sent to Congress for legislative development.

Among other things, the proposal illustrates a "comprehensive path forward to address addiction and the overdose epidemic."

Biden's plan underscores the need for prevention education and treatment and prioritizes "harm reduction" for untreated addicts.

"The [plan] is the first-ever to champion harm reduction to meet people where they are and engage them in care and services," the White House said in a statement.

"It also calls for actions that will expand access to evidence-based treatments that have been shown to reduce overdose risk and mortality. Finally, it emphasizes the need to develop stronger data collection and analysis systems to better deploy public health interventions."

Biden's strategy comes at a time when opioid deaths and other overdoses are reaching record highs nationwide. The White House noted that close to 110,000 people have died in the United States over the past year due to overdoses.

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter offloads a shipment of cocaine in San Diego, Calif. 

File Photo by Sondra-Kay Kneen/U.S. Coast Guard/UPI

A study last week reported that overdose deaths for American teenagers aged 14-18 has more than doubled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. A different study said that only about a quarter of Americans who need medication to treat their abuse actually get it.

"It instructs federal agencies to prioritize actions that will save lives, get people the care they need, go after drug traffickers' profits and make better use of data to guide all these efforts," the White House said of the strategy.

The plan notes that less than 7% of people who need help for substance use disorders actually get it, partly because there are so many barriers to treatment. It underscores that access to naloxone, a drug that counteracts the effects of opiate narcotics, and syringe service programs are often restricted or underfunded at the community level.

Biden's plan calls for states to change or eliminate barriers to treatment and support harm reduction.

"Some states still have legal barriers that limit access to naloxone, and even in states where those barriers don't exist, naloxone does not always make it to those most at-risk of an overdose," the White House said.

The American Medical Association and other experts have previously recommended that naloxone be available over the counter to make it easier to obtain, thereby saving more lives.

Biden's plan also would target the finances of transnational crime organizations that smuggle drugs into the United States by calling for a $300 million budget increase for both U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"The strategy prioritizes a targeted response to drug traffickers and transnational criminal organizations by hitting them where it hurts the most: their wallets," the White House said in its announcement Thursday.

"It also includes efforts to strengthen domestic law enforcement cooperation to disrupt the trafficking of illicit drugs within the United States and increase collaboration with international partners to disrupt the supply chain of illicit substances."

"Everyone who wants treatment should be able to get it," Gupta told reporters on Wednesday.

In congressional testimony last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said his department plans to allocate more than $10 billion for discretionary funding for programs that address opioid addiction and overdose-related activities.

Also, money from Biden's proposed 2023 budget would go toward removing the word "abuse" from the official names of federal agencies to remove harmful stigmas and stereotypes.

For example, it would change the National Institute on Drug Abuse to the National Institute on Drugs and Addiction. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism would be rebranded as the National Institute on Alcohol Effects and Alcohol-Associated Disorders.

Fewest Americans collecting jobless aid since 1970

By MATT OTT

A "now hiring" sign is posted in Garnet Valley, Pa., Monday, May 10, 2021. Applications for unemployment benefits inched down last week, Thursday, April 21, 2022, as the total number of Americans collecting aid fell to its lowest level in more than 50 years.

 (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Applications for unemployment benefits inched down last week as the total number of Americans collecting aid fell to its lowest level in more than 50 years.

Jobless claims fell by 2,000 to 184,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average of claims, which levels out week-to-week volatility, rose by 4,500 to 177,250.

About 1.42 million Americans were collecting traditional unemployment benefits in the week of April 9, the fewest since February 21, 1970.

Two years after the coronavirus pandemic plunged the economy into a brief but devastating recession, American workers are enjoying extraordinary job security. Weekly applications for unemployment aid, which broadly track with layoffs, have remained consistently below the pre-pandemic level of 225,000.

Last year, employers added a record 6.7 million jobs, and they’ve added an average of 560,000 more each month so far in 2022. The unemployment rate, which soared to 14.7% in April 2020 in the depths of the COVID-19 recession, is now just 3.6%, barely above the lowest point in 50 years. And there is a record proportion of 1.7 job openings for every unemployed American.

The U.S. job market and overall economy has shown remarkable resiliency despite ongoing supply chain breakdowns, the economic consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the highest consumer inflation in 40 years.

Tensions over race, religion in France’s presidential race

By ARNO PEDRAM

 Women wait in line before voting for the first round of the presidential election at a polling station Sunday, April 10, 2022 in the Malpasse northern district of Marseille, southern France. French voters head to polls on Sunday in a runoff vote between centrist incumbent Emmanuel Macron and nationalist rival Marine Le Pen, wrapping up a campaign that experts have seen as unusually dominated by discriminatory discourse and proposals targeting immigration and Islam. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)


PARIS (AP) — From attacks on “wokeism” to crackdowns on mosques, France’s presidential campaign has been especially challenging for voters of immigrant heritage and religious minorities, as discourse painting them as “the other” has gained ground across a swath of French society.

French voters head to polls on Sunday in a runoff vote between centrist incumbent Emmanuel Macron and nationalist rival Marine Le Pen, wrapping up a campaign that experts have seen as unusually dominated by discriminatory discourse and proposals targeting immigration and Islam.

With Le Pen proposing to ban Muslim headscarves in public, women like 19-year-old student Naila Ouazarf are in a bind.

“I want a president who accepts me as a person,” said Ouazarf, clad in a beige robe and matching head covering. She said she would defy the promised law should Le Pen become president and pay a fine, if necessary.

Macron attacked Le Pen on the headscarf issue during their presidential debate Wednesday, warning it could stoke “civil war.”

In the first-round vote, far-right candidates Le Pen and Eric Zemmour together collected nearly a third of votes. An elementary school teacher in the ethnically diverse Paris suburb of Saint-Denis on Thursday described pupils who are “scared to death” because of the campaign.

Le Pen’s National Rally party, formerly called the National Front, has a history of ties with neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and militias that opposed Algeria’s war for independence from colonial France. Le Pen has distanced herself from that past and softened her public image.

But a top priority of her election program is to prioritize French citizens over immigrants for welfare benefits, a move that critics see as institutionalizing discrimination. Le Pen also wants to ban Muslim women from wearing headscaves in public, to toughen asylum rules and to sharply curtail immigration.

She has gained ground among voters since 2017, when she lost badly to Macron. This time around, Le Pen has put a greater emphasis on policies to help the working poor.

Saint-Denis student Yanis Benahmed, 20, said he was unconvinced by the candidate’s attempt to broader her appeal.

“We live in this city, and we know exactly how things are, the kind of people you have here,” he said. Le Pen “wants to ‘clean’ everything. With everything she’s said and her family history, we know exactly what her plan is. And Zemmour didn’t make it any better.”

The rabble-rousing Zemmour, who placed fourth in the first-round vote, boosted Le Pen’s popularity by making her seem softer. He has multiple convictions for inciting racial or religious hatred in France.

Zemmour also has promoted the baseless “great replacement” conspiracy theory, used as justification by the white supremacists who committed massacres in New Zealand’s Christchurch and in El Paso, Texas, and attacked a California synagogue.

“Eric Zemmour’s presence placed the issue (of Islam and immigration) on the side of aggressive and violent stigmatization,” Cecile Alduy, a Stanford semiologist who has studied Zemmour’s language, told The Associated Press. “Meanwhile, there is a decline in humanist values: words such as equality, human rights, fight against discrimination, or gender are qualified as politically correct or ‘wokeism’ by a large swath of media, public intellectuals, and ministers of the current government.”

For some experts and anti-racist groups in France, Macron, too, is at fault for the current climate. His administration has adopted legislation and language that echoes some far-right mottos in hopes of eating into Le Pen’s support.

Racial profiling and police brutality targeting people of color, which activists in France have long decried, have also remained a concern. During Macron’s presidency, France saw repeated protests against police violence after George Floyd, a Black American, died at the hands of police in the U.S.

Also under Macron’s watch, France passed a law against terrorism that enshrined in common law a state of emergency imposed after the deadly 2015 attacks on the Bataclan theater, Paris cafes and Charlie Hebdo newspaper.

The law extended the government’s right to search people, conduct surveillance, control movement and shut down some schools and religious sites in the name of fighting extremism.

Human rights watchdogs warned the law was discriminatory. “In some cases, Muslims may have been targeted because of their religious practice, considered to be ‘radical,’ by authorities, without substantiating why they constituted a threat for public order or security,” Amnesty International said.

In 2021, the government passed another law targeting what Macron labeled “separatism” by Muslim radicals. The measure extended the state’s oversight of associations and religious sites. The government’s own watchdog argued that the law’s scope was too broad.

Abdourahmane Ridouane has seen this firsthand. In February, two police officers handed him a notice of closure for the mosque he manages in the southwestern town of Pessac in Bordeaux wine country.

Authorities argued the mosque’s criticism of “state Islamophobia” allegedly encouraged and justified Muslim rebellion and terrorism. The authorities also criticized anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian posts on the mosque’s social media page.

Ridouane challenged the action and won on appeal. The appeals court found the closure was a “grave and manifest illegal infringement on religious liberty.” The state took the case to France’s highest court, which is expected to rule in the case soon.

“I felt deeply saddened by a process I deemed unworthy of a democratic state,” Ridouane told the AP.

Islam is France’s No. 2 religion, though there are no hard data on the races and religions of voters because of France’s doctrine of colorblindness, which sees all citizens as universally French and encourages assimilation. Critics say the principle allows authorities to ignore deep-seated discrimination, both on the French mainland and in overseas French territories where most voters aren’t white.

France has also seen the rise of criticism of “Islamo-leftism” and “wokeism,” and Macron’s government has commissioned a study into its presence in French universities. Yet race or colonial studies research departments don’t exist in French universities, because they are seen as contrary to French universalism.

“The election comes in this climate, the increasing right-wing and conservative discourse, a retreat into a white, universalist, colorblind discourse blind to all discriminations and systemic racism in French society,” said Nacira Guénif, an anthropology and sociology professor at Paris VIII University who focuses on race and gender.

On the left, meanwhile, “denial prevails,” Guénif said, because many left-wing French voters are “profoundly uncomfortable with the question of race because they think that talking about race makes you racist.”

The criticism of so-called “wokeism,” championed in particular by Zemmour’s campaign, is reminiscent of attacks on critical race theory in the U.S. Critical race theory is an academic framework that analyzes American history through the lens of racism. It centers on the idea that racism is systemic in U.S. institutions, which maintain the dominance of white people.

Despite concerns over some of the policies adopted in France under Macron, Ridouane, the Pessac mosque director, has no doubt for whom he will - and for whom he won’t - cast his vote for president on Sunday.

“If Le Pen manages to take the levers of power, it will be the worst thing we will have ever seen,” he said.

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Elaine Ganley in Paris and Sylvie Corbet and Alex Turnbull in Saint-Denis contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the French election at https://apnews.com/hub/french-election-2022

Love thy enemy: Critics key for Macron in France’s election

By JOHN LEICESTER

A demonstrator holds a banner that reads: 'Neither Macron nor Le Pen', during a protest in Paris, April 16, 2022. Disgruntled left-wing voters whose candidates were knocked out in the first round of France's election are the wild cards in the winner-takes-all runoff on Sunday April 24, 2022. How they vote — or don’t vote — will in large part determine whether incumbent Emmanuel Macron gets a second five-year term or cedes the presidential Elysee Palace to far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen. 

(AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)


PARIS (AP) — As France elects a president, Paris-based artist Vincent Aïtzegagh is going to ground, escaping to a bucolic village to avoid what for him — and millions of other left-wing French voters — is a painful, even impossible, electoral choice. For the first time in his life, the 65-year-old has decided to not vote at all in the decisive ballot this Sunday.

“I am fleeing,” he says. “Because it stinks.”

Disgruntled voters like Aïtzegagh whose favored candidates were knocked out in the election’s first round on April 10 are the wild cards in the winner-takes-all runoff. How they vote — or don’t vote — on Sunday will in large part determine whether incumbent Emmanuel Macron gets a second five-year term or cedes the presidential Elysee Palace to far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen, a seemingly unlikely but not impossible outcome that would be seismic for France and Europe as they deal with the fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

With the stakes high, never has the decision been so difficult for leftist voters who view both Macron and Le Pen as anathema — a choice that some describe as “between the plague and cholera.”

“It’s horrible, enough to make one cry. I have spent sleepless nights in tears not knowing what to do,” says Clek Desentredeux, a disabled and queer artist and live-streamer who voted for hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon in round one.

With 7.7 million votes, Melenchon finished just 420,000 votes shy of the runoff, in third place behind Le Pen. Le Pen and Macron have since expended much time and energy trawling for support in Melenchon’s now orphaned and disappointed reservoir of voters. It is an uphill battle for them both.

Generally speaking, many leftist voters resent Macron for having dynamited France’s political landscape with his get-things-done middle-way method of governance, siphoning ideas, supporters, government ministers and political oxygen away from mainstream parties on both the left and right.

His pragmatism is too vanilla and opportunistic for many leftist voters hungry for a sharper and more ideological political divide. More specifically, many describe the 44-year-old former banker as friend to the rich and oppressor of the poor. Some also blame him for Le Pen’s rise, saying that in trying to undercut support in France for the extreme right, Macron swerved too far right-ward himself.

Macron’s saving grace, however, is also Le Pen. After years of drum-banging about immigration and Islam’s influence in the country with the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, the 53-year-old is reviled by many on the left as a racist xenophobe, too dangerous for France’s stated principles of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” to ever vote for. In conceding defeat in round one, Melenchon said his backers “must not give a single vote to Madame Le Pen” — repeating the exhortation four times.

But he stopped short of asking his electors to shift their votes to Macron, instead leaving them to wrestle alone with what Melenchon described as a choice between “two evils.”

Some will deliberately spoil their ballots, even putting toilet paper in the voting envelope instead of a candidate’s name to show how dimly they view the options. Some won’t vote. Some will cast ballots with no name.

They include 22-year-old Emma Faroy in Paris.

“I’m going to vote because some women died for my right to do so,” she said. “But I’m going to cast a blank ballot because I don’t want to choose between either of them.”

Others will, almost literally, hold their noses and vote for Macron to keep out Le Pen. Some will back Le Pen, in a poke at the president. Multiple polls indicate that Macron, who won round one, is now building a significant runoff lead, larger than the polling margin of error. Melenchon voters from round one appear to be shifting in greater numbers behind him than Le Pen. But the outcome remains uncertain because many have yet to choose.


Demonstrators hold a banner that reads: "Against Le Pen", during a protest against the far-right in Paris, April 16, 2022. Disgruntled left-wing voters whose candidates were knocked out in the first round of France's election are the wild cards in the winner-takes-all runoff on Sunday April 24, 2022. How they vote — or don’t vote — will in large part determine whether incumbent Emmanuel Macron gets a second five-year term or cedes the presidential Elysee Palace to far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen.

 (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

“I’ll decide at the last moment,” said retired power worker Pierre Gineste. Having voted Melenchon in round one, round two for him is the dilemma of a ballot for Macron, a blank ballot or not voting. He said he won’t vote Le Pen.

The choice is so difficult and divisive that friendships and families are being tested. Aïtzegagh voted for the green party candidate in round one; his daughter chose Melenchon. She then told her dad that she might vote Le Pen in the runoff because she cannot stomach Macron. Aïtzegagh said he responded by warning: “If you vote Le Pen, I will repudiate you.”

In 2002, when Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, stunned France by advancing to the runoff, Aïtzegagh was among the 82% of voters who came together behind conservative Jacques Chirac, in a powerful rejection of the extreme right.

In 2017, Aïtzegagh voted for Macron in the run-off — once again solely to be a barrage against a Le Pen, this time Marine. Macron won handily — 66% to 34% — but in the knowledge that many of his votes were simply ballots against her. The same will be true on Sunday.

In a first for him and with “sadness and disgust,” Aïtzegagh will abstain, because Macron’s first term has been “five years of cholera, five years of crap, five years of destruction” and Le Pen isn’t an option for him.

“I don’t want to be a barrage any more,” he said. “I have had enough.”

Desentredeux, who uses the gender-neutral pronoun they, agonized long and hard over their choice — and then decided that Le Pen’s presence again in the runoff left them with no choice at all.

This is the first presidential election that Desentredeux has been old enough to vote in and it will end with a reluctant vote for Macron.

“Macron winning would be a catastrophe, but Le Pen getting through would be criminal,” Desentredeux said. “I don’t want to do it but I feel obliged.”

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Associated Press journalist Alex Turnbull contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the French election at https://apnews.com/hub/french-election-2022

UK lawmakers OK probe into PM Boris Johnson’s alleged lies

By JILL LAWLESS

yesterday

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, center, poses with Sadhus, or Hindu holy men, in front of the Swaminarayan Akshardham temple, in Gandhinagar, part of his two-day trip to India, Thursday, April 21, 2022. (Ben Stansall/Pool Photo via AP)


LONDON (AP) — British lawmakers on Thursday ordered a parliamentary investigation into Prime Minister Boris Johnson for allegedly lying about whether he broke coronavirus restrictions by attending illegal gatherings during the pandemic.

The move, approved by cries of “aye” and without a formal vote in the House of Commons, means Parliament’s Committee of Privileges will investigate whether Johnson knowingly misled Parliament — historically a resigning offense if proven.

The probe piles more pressure on a Conservative prime minister whose grip on power has been shaken by claims he flouted the pandemic rules he imposed on the country, then repeatedly failed to own up to it.

The move was instigated by the opposition Labour Party and passed after the government abandoned efforts to get Conservative lawmakers to block it. Johnson’s Conservatives have a substantial majority in Parliament, but many lawmakers are uneasy with the prime minister’s behavior.

Labour leader Keir Starmer said the move sought to uphold “the simple principle that honesty, integrity and telling the truth matter in our politics.”

“It is a British principle ... guiding members from every political party in this House,” Starmer said. “But it is a principle under attack.”

Johnson was not present for the decision on a scandal that has rocked his leadership of the country and the Conservative Party. He was more than 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) away in India, insisting he wanted to “get on with the job” of leading the country.

Johnson was fined 50 pounds ($66) by police last week for attending his own birthday party in his office in June 2020, when people in Britain were barred from meeting up with friends and family, or even visiting dying relatives. Johnson is the first British prime minister ever found to have broken the law while in office.

He has apologized, but denied he knowingly broke the rules. Johnson’s shifting defense — initially saying there were no illegal gatherings, then claiming it “did not occur to me” that the birthday event was a party — has drawn derision and outrage from opponents, who have called for him to quit.

“The truth is simple and it’s this – he lied to avoid getting caught, and once he got caught, he lied again,” Scottish National Party lawmaker Ian Blackford said in the House of Commons.

Usually lawmakers are forbidden from accusing one another of lying, but Blackford was not reprimanded by the Speaker.

A growing number of Conservatives are uncomfortable about defending a leader who broke rules he imposed on the country. A few have called openly for Johnson to go, and the number is rising. Others are waiting to see whether public anger translates into Conservative losses at local elections on May 5.

“It is utterly depressing to be asked to defend the indefensible,” said Conservative legislator William Wragg. “Each time part of us withers.”

Lawmaker Steve Baker, until now a prominent supporter, said that Johnson “should be long gone” for violating the “letter and spirit” of the rules.”

“I’ll certainly vote for this motion,” he said. “But really, the prime minister should just know the gig’s up.”

The Committee of Privileges probe will not start until twin police and civil-service investigations into “partygate” have concluded.

Senior civil servant Sue Gray is investigating 16 events, including “bring your own booze” office parties and “wine time Fridays” in Johnson’s 10 Downing St. office and other government buildings. Police are probing a dozen of the events and so far have handed out at least 50 fines, including ones to Johnson, his wife Carrie and Treasury chief Rishi Sunak. Johnson is believed to have attended about six of the gatherings and could face more police fines.

Johnson and his allies argue that it would be reckless for the country to change leaders now amid the war in Ukraine and a cost-of-living squeeze sparked by soaring prices for energy and food.

As he flew to India for a two-day visit focused on boosting economic ties, Johnson again denied knowingly misleading Parliament and insisted he would lead the Conservatives into the next national election, due by 2024.

“I have absolutely nothing, frankly, to hide,” Johnson told Sky News during his visit to the western Indian state of Gujarat. “I want to get on with the job that I was elected to do.”

Bird flu drives free-range hens indoors to protect poultry

By DAVID PITT

 In this Oct. 21, 2015, file photo, cage-free chickens walk in a fenced pasture at an organic farm near Waukon, Iowa. Some farmers are wondering if it's OK that eggs sold as free-range come from chickens being kept inside. It's a question that arises lately as farmers try to be open about their product while also protecting chickens from a highly infectious bird flu that has killed roughly 28 million poultry across the country. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Is it OK for free-range chickens to not range freely?

That’s a question free-range egg producers have been pondering lately as they try to be open about their product while also protecting chickens from a highly infectious bird flu that has killed roughly 28 million poultry across the country.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that chickens be moved indoors to protect against the disease, but while some are keeping their hens inside, not everyone agrees.

John Brunnquell, the CEO of Indiana-based Egg Innovations, which contracts with more than 50 farms in five states to produce free-range and pasture-raised eggs, said any of his chickens in states with bird flu cases will stay in “confinement mode” until the risk passes.

“We will keep them confined at least until early June,” Brunnquell said. “If we go four weeks with no more commercial breakouts then we’ll look to get the girls back out.”

Bird flu cases have been identified in commercial chicken and turkey farms or in backyard flocks in 29 states, according to the USDA. Spread of the disease is largely blamed on the droppings of infected migrating wild birds.

The farms Brunnquell contracts with are in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Wisconsin, all of which have had at least once case of bird flu.

But some, like Mike Badger, the executive director of the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association, are taking a different approach.

Badger, whose Pennsylvania-based nonprofit group has about 1,000 members across the country, believes birds kept outdoors are at less risk of infection than chickens and turkeys raised amid thousands of others in large, enclosed barns.

“We put them outside and they get in touch with the environment so I think they have a better immune system to be able to fight off threats as they happen,” Badger said.

Research has not clearly proven significant immune system differences in chickens housed outdoors versus indoors. And Badger speculates that lower density of animals, air movement and less sharing of equipment and staff in pasture-raised operations may contribute to a lack of virus infections.

He said the decision whether to bring hens inside to wait out the annual migration of wild waterfowl is a farm-to-farm decision “based on the comfort level with the risk acceptance.”

Commercial outdoor flocks make up only a small percentage of U.S. egg production. About 6 million hens, or 2% of national flock, are free-range and about 4.2 million hens, or 1.3% of U.S. egg production, are from pasture-raised chickens.

Chickens are categorized as free-range or pasture-raised primarily by the amount of time they spend outdoors and space they are provided.

Free-range chickens typically must have at least 21.8 square feet (2 square meters) of roaming space outdoors and remain out until temperatures drop below around 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 1 Celsius), according to the American Humane Association, which certifies egg operations. Pasture-raised chickens typically must have 108 square feet (10 square meters) outdoors each and remain outside most of the year except during inclement weather.

The certifying organizations have protocols for high-risk situations and allow for temporary housing indoors — a time period not specifically defined — once a farm documents an outbreak near an outdoor flock. Certification agencies monitor farms to ensure they don’t use bird flu as an excuse to keep birds inside too long.

Brunnquell said none of his farms had infections during the last big outbreak in 2015, and he hasn’t had any cases this year.

Farmers in Europe have been dealing with the bird virus longer than those in the U.S., with cases reported as early as last December.

The United Kingdom has ordered free-range hens to be housed inside to protect them from the avian flu, and that has forced changes to how those eggs are labeled in stores. Free-range packaging is still used but must be marked with an added label of “barn eggs,” according to a communications representative for the British Free Range Egg Producers Association. Each egg also is stamped with a No. 2 that denotes “barn” rather than No. 1 for “free-range.”

For U.S. consumers, it means the free-range eggs they buy at a premium price could come from a chicken being temporarily kept inside. But producers say they think people who pay more for pasture-raised or free-range eggs have animal-welfare concerns and don’t want the chickens to be endangered the virus.

Brunnquell also noted that the certification agencies monitor farms to ensure they don’t use bird flu as an excuse to keep birds inside too long.

Eggs of all kinds have grown costlier recently thanks to bird flu concerns and a national spike in food costs.

Last week, prices for conventional eggs increased by 40 cents per dozen to $1.47 while cage-free egg prices rose 3 cents to $2.40 per dozen, according to the USDA. Organic eggs, which are from chickens required to have access to the outdoors, were selling for a national average of $4.39 a dozen last week, up from $3.65 the week before.

The price of eggs used by bakeries and other food products soared to a record high on April 8.

So-called breaker eggs, which will later be broken by processors and sold in containers weighing up to 50 pounds, peaked at $2.51 per pound, said Karyn Rispoli, egg market reporter for Urner Barry, a New Jersey-based food commodity market research and analytics firm. Many of the egg layers that have died from bird flu were on farms contracted to provide breaker eggs used as food product ingredients, Rispoli said.

Bird flu likely will remain a problem for at least several more weeks as migrating waterfowl will remain on the move in the Mississippi Flyway until June. In the past, warmer weather and the end of migration brought an end to bird flu cases, allowing turkey and chicken farmers to begin the monthslong process of replenishing flocks and resuming production.

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Associated Press writer Courtney Bonnell contributed to this report from London.

EXPLAINER: What medical treatments do transgender youth get?

By LINDSEY TANNER

Barbara Dale, from Atlanta, mother of a transgender child, waves sign reading "Love Knows No Gender" at Gay Pride Transgender March at Piedmont Park in the city's Midtown District in Atlanta, Ga, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019. Transgender medical treatment for children and teens is increasingly under attack in many states, labeled child abuse and subject to criminalizing bans. But it has been available in the United States for more than a decade and is endorsed by major medical associations. (AP Photo/Robin Rayne, File)


Transgender medical treatment for children and teens is increasingly under attack in many states, labeled child abuse and subject to criminalizing bans. But it has been available in the United States for more than a decade and is endorsed by major medical associations.

Many clinics use treatment plans pioneered in Amsterdam 30 years ago, according to a recent review in the British Psych Bulletin. Since 2005, the number of youth referred to gender clinics has increased as much as tenfold in the U.S., U.K, Canada and Finland, the review said.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a professional and educational organization, and the Endocrine Society, which represents specialists who treat hormone conditions, both have guidelines for such treatment. Here’s a look at what’s typically involved.

PUBERTY BLOCKERS

Children who persistently question the sex they were designated at birth are often referred to specialty clinics providing gender-confirming care. Such care typically begins with a psychological evaluation to determine whether the children have “gender dysphoria,″ or distress caused when gender identity doesn’t match a person’s assigned sex.

Children who meet clinical guidelines are first offered medication that temporarily blocks puberty. This treatment is designed for youngsters diagnosed with gender dysphoria who have been counseled with their families and are mature enough to understand what the regimen entails.

The medication isn’t started until youngsters show early signs of puberty — enlargement of breasts or testicles. This typically occurs around age 8 to 13 for girls and a year or two later for boys.

The drugs, known as GnRH agonists, block the brain from releasing key hormones involved in sexual maturation. They have been used for decades to treat precocious puberty, an uncommon medical condition that causes puberty to begin abnormally early.

The drugs can be given as injections every few months or as arm implants lasting up to year or two. Their effects are reversible — puberty and sexual development resume as soon as the drugs are stopped.

Some kids stay on them for several years. One possible side effect: They may cause a decrease in bone density that reverses when the drugs are stopped.

HORMONES

After puberty blockers, kids can either go through puberty while still identifying as the opposite sex or begin treatment to make their bodies more closely match their gender identity.

For those choosing the second option, guidelines say the next step is taking manufactured versions of estrogen or testosterone — hormones that prompt sexual development in puberty. Estrogen comes in skin patches and pills. Testosterone treatment usually involves weekly injections.

Guidelines recommend starting these when kids are mature enough to make informed medical decisions. That is typically around age 16, and parents’ consent is typically required, said Dr. Gina Sequiera, co-director of Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Gender Clinic.

Many transgender patients take the hormones for life, though some changes persist if medication is stopped.

In girls transitioning to boys, testosterone generally leads to permanent voice-lowering, facial hair and protrusion of the Adam’s apple, said Dr. Stephanie Roberts, a specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital’s Gender Management Service. For boys transitioning to girls, estrogen-induced breast development is typically permanent, Roberts said.

Research on long-term hormone use in transgender adults has found potential health risks including blood clots and cholesterol changes.

SURGERY

Gender-altering surgery in teens is less common than hormone treatment, but many centers hesitate to give exact numbers.

Guidelines say such surgery generally should be reserved for those aged 18 and older. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health says breast removal surgery is OK for those under 18 who have been on testosterone for at least a year. The Endocrine Society says there isn’t enough evidence to recommend a specific age limit for that operation.

OUTCOMES

Studies have found some children and teens resort to self-mutilation to try to change their anatomy. And research has shown that transgender youth and adults are prone to stress, depression and suicidal behavior when forced to live as the sex they were assigned at birth.

Opponents of youth transgender medical treatment say there’s no solid proof of purported benefits and cite widely discredited research claiming that most untreated kids outgrow their transgender identities by their teen years or later. One study often mentioned by opponents included many kids who were mistakenly identified as having gender dysphoria and lacked outcome data for many others.

Doctors say accurately diagnosed kids whose transgender identity persists into puberty typically don’t outgrow it. And guidelines say treatment shouldn’t start before puberty begins.

Many studies show the treatment can improve kids’ well-being, including reducing depression and suicidal behavior. The most robust kind of study — a trial in which some distressed kids would be given treatment and others not — cannot be done ethically. Longer term studies on treatment outcomes are underway.

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Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content

LGBTQ leader is key in blocking Kansas ban on trans athletes

By JOHN HANNA

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Tom Witt, executive director of the LGBTQ-rights group Equality Kansas, follows a legislative committee meeting at the Statehouse Monday, March 7, 2022 in Topeka, Kan. For 18 years, Witt has used a variety of tactics to stymie conservative lawmakers' proposals, including a bill this year to ban transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports in schools and colleges. (AP Photo/John Hanna)


TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — As state lawmakers moved to ban transgender kids from girls’ sports, Kansas’ most visible LGBTQ-rights lobbyist recently said during an interview in a Statehouse corridor that conservatives don’t mind if kindergartners “have their genitals inspected.”

The politically needling comment was bold enough to make Tom Witt’s point, and loud enough for a lobbyist supporter of the ban to hear as she walked by. It was also classic Witt: Boisterous. Engaged. And well-targeted.

Witt is a key reason Kansas is unlikely to join a growing number of states this year with a ban, despite Republican supermajorities in its Legislature. With lawmakers returning Monday from a spring break, supporters don’t yet have the two-thirds majorities to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of their bill. They didn’t last year, either.

Witt, 60, is executive director of Equality Kansas and a Democratic consultant. During 18 years at the Statehouse, he’s spotlighted conservatives’ bills so that unwanted publicity prompts Republican leaders to disavow them or discourages GOP-led committees from even holding hearings. Others describe him as relentless in pursuing just enough “no” votes when it counts, and was influential enough in the state Democratic Party to help push it to the left.

He’s even let his health slide. In 2017, he ignored growing fatigue to successfully lobby against requiring transgender students to use facilities associated with their genders assigned at birth — then had a heart attack and bypass surgery.

As for this year’s bill, he said unnamed Republicans told him they “really hate” it before voting for it anyway. He said he’s bitter that they might have considered the political cost of voting no.

“This is life and death for some kids,” he said. “This is not trivial. This is not politics.”

Witt plans to retire from activism, lobbying and consulting by year’s end, having mentored younger, self-described progressive lobbyists.

Democratic state Rep. Stephanie Byers, the state’s first elected transgender lawmaker and a retired Wichita band director, credits Witt with connecting her to national groups and making media interviews easier to navigate during her 2020 campaign. Kari Rinker, a friend and American Heart Association lobbyist, said he taught her how to fundraise and work with a nonprofit board.

But Witt is sometimes profane and often pugnacious, even with friends. As for lawmakers, he said, party doesn’t matter: “If they vote against LGBT rights, I’m going to go after them.”

Brittany Jones, the conservative lobbyist who was walking by Witt’s recent hallway interview, begins her recollection of their Statehouse introduction in 2019 with, “I believe he’s made in the image of God just like I am.”

“As soon as he found out who I worked for, he dropped my hand, walked away and wouldn’t speak to me,” said Jones, policy director for the conservative group Kansas Family Voice. Witt doesn’t dispute that.

As Witt fights to keep Kansas from following at least 15 other states in banning transgender athletes from female school and college sports, some Kansas lawmakers are conflicted.

State Sen. David Haley, a Kansas City Democrat, voted no earlier this month but said “reasonable” constituents see the bill as common sense. He was the deciding vote last year against a veto override, giving a speech weighing both sides before voting no — as Witt sat in the main visitors’ gallery, visibly on edge.

“You know, it’s kind of like he’s a Marine Corps drill sergeant when he is committed to the advocacy for his ideology,” Haley said. “It’s like, ‘Everybody line up. This is the way it’s going to go.’”

The Kansas measures have applied to K-12 students, and a few lawmakers cite that as a problem. Witt said elementary schools would be forced to physically inspect children as young as 5 to settle disputes over transgender kids competing against other girls.

The bill’s text doesn’t says exactly how disputes would be resolved, and Haley called Witt’s argument “a little bit beyond belief.” State Rep. Barbara Wasinger, a Republican from western Kansas, said Witt’s argument is diverting attention from what she sees as the real issues, fair competition and scholarship opportunities for young women.

But Witt sees this year’s proposals triggering bullying and suicides. He pointed out a scar on his left cheek and said it’s from being attacked and cut with a knife in a high school bathroom in the 1970s.

“In some respects, not a damn thing has changed,” he said. “In the 70s, the things that trans people are being called today are what gays and lesbians were called then. The panic about bathrooms? We had the bathroom panic in the 70s.”

He also recalled how his activism began ahead of a 2005 statewide vote in favor of banning same-sex marriage in Kansas. A computer software writer and IT troubleshooter, he was living in Wichita with his future husband and their daughter.

“All I ever wanted in my life was a family,” Witt said. “And it felt like those people were coming after it.”

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Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

A protest in a small Sri Lankan town that quickly turned deadly



Wed, April 20, 2022, 
By Devjyot Ghoshal

RAMBUKKANA, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - When K.D. Chaminda Lakshan was wheeled into the Kegalle Teaching Hospital in central Sri Lanka around 6 p.m. on Tuesday, the father of two was fighting for his life.

Hours earlier, the 41-year-old had been waiting outside a filling station in the nearby town of Rambukkana, when people angered by long queues for petrol clashed with police.

Lakshan was likely hit by live ammunition, which police said they used to scatter the demonstrators, and died later on Tuesday, the hospital's director Mihiri Priyangani told Reuters.

His was the first death during an unprecedented wave of unrest that has roiled Sri Lanka since last month, underlining the risk of more violence as the country faces its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in largely peaceful protests against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's government, angered by shortages of essentials like medicine and fuel, lengthy power cuts and spiralling inflation.

Tourism has been decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic and soaring oil prices after Russia invaded Ukraine have added to Sri Lanka's financial woes.

In Rambukkana, a small town of low-rise buildings surrounded by forested hills in the centre of the country, residents recounted how some people had lined up at a fuel station overnight to get petrol, but on Tuesday morning there was none.

"The shortage is causing frustration," said Kausala Desilva, 39, who runs a small restaurant near the station. "We weren't informed about when supplies would come."

The crisis is gnawing at middle-class households as well as poorer families, some of them already reeling from the pandemic.

Indika Priyantha Kumara, who runs a baking business, said that prices of eggs, butter, flour and sugar had gone up in recent weeks, and cooking gas had become scarce.

"Life has never been so difficult," said Kumara, who had a large bandage on his forehead covering an injury he said he sustained during the protests. "We can't live with these shortages."

'REASONABLE FORCE'

In separate statements on Wednesday, President Rajapaksa and his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, said that Sri Lankan police would carry out an impartial investigation into the incident at Rambukkana.

Police have said that their actions, including initially firing tear gas, were justified because protesters were attempting to set alight a fuel tanker that they had blocked at the railway crossing.

"According to the police officers who participated in the operation... they state that they used reasonable force according to the law," police spokesman Ajith Rohana told reporters on Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning, Reuters reporters saw rocks, tear gas canisters and bullet cases strewn across the ground near the scene.

Locals in Rambukkana said the protest that blocked the crossing had gone on for several hours without any violence, until the police fired tear gas and the crowd retaliated.

"It was very peaceful," said Kumara, "We didn't damage anything."

Video footage taken by a resident near the railway crossing seen by Reuters shows what he said were people arguing with a group of police at around 4:30 p.m. (1100 GMT) on Tuesday. Reuters could not independently verify the images.

By around 6 p.m., the Kegalle Teaching Hospital had started receiving casualties from Rambukkana, including Lakshan and three others with suspected gunshot wounds who are still in intensive care.

Priyangani, the medical director, said some had been wounded in the abdomen.

Outside their family home where dozens had gathered on Wednesday afternoon, Lakshan's daughter quietly wept as she remembered her father, a small businessman.

"My father was a very good person who loved to help other people," said Piumi Upekshika Lakshani, 19. "He never bothered or troubled anyone."

(Additional reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe in Colombo; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Cynthia Osterman)

Rights group demands probe into Sri Lanka police shooting

BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI and KRISHAN FRANCIS
Thu, April 21, 2022,

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — An international human rights group urged Sri Lankan authorities to conduct a prompt and impartial probe into a police shooting that left one person dead and 13 others injured during protests over the country's worst economic crisis in decades.

New York-based Human Rights Watch asked the government to probe the “apparent use of excessive force by police” in the incident and “take appropriate steps against any wrongdoing.”

Patricia Grossman, the group’s associate Asia director, said the use of live ammunition by police against demonstrators “appears to be a flagrant misuse of lethal force.”

“People protesting government policies that affect their lives and livelihoods shouldn’t have to fear for their lives,” she said in a statement late Wednesday. “International law prohibits the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers unless there is an imminent threat to life.”


The group said Sri Lanka has a long history of failing to provide justice and redress to victims of human rights violations.

The statement came hours after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa pledged an impartial and transparent inquiry into the shooting, which was the first by security forces during weeks of protests and reignited widespread demonstrations across the Indian Ocean island nation.

The shooting occurred in Rambukkana, 90 kilometers (55 miles) northeast of the capital, Colombo. Police said the demonstrators were blocking railway tracks and roads and ignored police warnings to disperse. Police also said protesters threw rocks at them.

The calls for an investigation came as Parliament on Thursday observed a minute of silence in memory of more than 260 people killed in 2019 in Islamic State group-inspired suicide bomb attacks on churches and tourist hotels.


Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, at a multi-religious memorial service in Colombo, reiterated his criticism of what he called the government's lack of interest in uncovering those whose alleged inaction contributed to the attacks.

Ranjith has urged authorities to investigate possible links between the attackers and some members of the state intelligence service after reports that they knew at least one of the attackers and had met with him.

Protesters who have camped outside the office of Sri Lanka’s president for 13 days demanding his resignation also offered alms to Buddhist and Christian clergy in memory of the dead.

Much of the anger expressed in weeks of growing protests has been directed at Rajapaksa and his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who head an influential clan that has been in power for most of the past two decades. Five other family members are lawmakers, three of whom resigned as Cabinet ministers two weeks ago.

Sri Lanka is on the brink of bankruptcy, with nearly $7 billion of its total $25 billion in foreign debt due for repayment this year. A severe shortage of foreign exchange means the country lacks money to buy imported goods.

Sri Lankans have endured months of shortages of essentials such as food, cooking gas, fuel and medicine, lining up for hours to buy the limited stocks available. Fuel prices have risen several times in recent months, resulting in sharp increases in transport costs and prices of other goods. There was another round of increases earlier this week.

The government has announced it is suspending repayment of foreign loans pending talks with the International Monetary Fund on a rescue plan.

China has pledged about $31 million in emergency aid, including 5,000 tons of rice, medicine and raw materials, Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

The ministry announced the aid after Foreign Minister Gamini Peiris met with Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Qi Zhenhong. Qi earlier said China is mulling a request for $2.5 billion in economic assistance including a credit line to buy essentials and a loan.

The debt crisis is partly blamed on projects built with Chinese loans that have not made money.

THIRD WORLD USA

Spike in deaths of homeless people not due to COVID, study finds

David Knowles
·Senior Editor
Thu, April 21, 2022

BERKELEY, Calif. — In a state where tent cities continue to proliferate underneath freeway overpasses and rows of broken-down RVs provide shelter to a growing number of people, the number of deaths among the homeless has been soaring in recent years.

“It’s like a wartime death toll in places where there is no war,” Maria Raven, an emergency room doctor in San Francisco and the co-author of a study on homelessness deaths during the coronavirus pandemic, told the New York Times.

The study, which focused on the deaths of indigent people living in San Francisco, found that “twice as many people died while homeless in the year starting March 17, 2020, compared with any prior year.” Between that date and March 16, 2021, 331 deaths among homeless people were recorded.

People walk past homeless encampments on the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles in April 2021. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

The leading cause of death, however, was not COVID-19, and death by overdose was due primarily to exposure to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency says is “80-100 times stronger than morphine.”

In fact, for the year covered in the study, “COVID-19 was not listed as the primary cause of any deaths” among the city’s homeless.

California is home to the largest percentage of an estimated 500,000 homeless Americans, accounting for roughly one-quarter of the total, the Times reported. Yet the number of deaths reported among the homeless is also on the rise in cities like Indianapolis, Nashville, Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas. Still, as the Times noted, based on reporting from officials in 58 California counties that tally the deaths of homeless people, last year the state recorded at least 4,800 such fatalities.

A homeless encampment in Los Angeles. (Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

Nearly 2,000 of last year’s deaths of homeless people were recorded in Los Angeles County.

A study of the deaths of homeless people living in Alameda County, which includes Berkeley, from 2018 through 2020 found that 57% of those fatalities “took place outside of a medical setting,” instead occurring “on streets/sidewalks, outdoors, in vehicles, encampments, shelters, others' residences and other locations.”

As with the study conducted in San Francisco, the leading cause of death in the county was from drug overdoses, with “25% of homeless deaths between 2018 and 2020 (190) ... directly due to drug overdose, with the number of overdoses among people experiencing homelessness rising sharply in 2020.”

With sky-high housing costs, especially in urban centers like the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, Californians are often stretched to make rent or pay a mortgage. A March poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California found that nearly 55% of state residents said they were concerned about not having enough money to cover their housing costs.

According to data compiled by Zillow, California's median home price rose by more than 20% in 2021, to $793,100. In the coming year it is expected to rise another 5.2%, to $834,400.

As of September 2021, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in California was $1,996, according to Statista.

Time running out in Horn of Africa as millions confront hunger: UN


Sharon Udasin
Wed, April 20, 2022

With major precipitation failing to materialize nearly a month into the Horn of Africa’s rainy season, the number of people suffering from drought-induced hunger could surge from an estimated 14 million to 20 million by the end of the year, the United Nations’ food agency warns.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says unending drought conditions, exacerbated by stagnant and decreasing humanitarian aid, are straining communities in the Horn of Africa — a large peninsular region in East Africa that generally includes Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti as well as parts of Kenya.

This critical situation has been exacerbated by knock-on effects of the war in Ukraine, as food and fuel prices have soared to unprecedented highs, the WFP noted, adding “time is fast running out for families who are struggling to survive.”

“We know from past experience that acting early to avert a humanitarian catastrophe is vital, yet our ability to launch the response has been limited due to a lack of funding to date,” Michael Dunford, WFP’s regional director for Eastern Africa, said in a Tuesday statement.


Somalia is facing a particularly severe risk of famine, while half a million Kenyans are what the WFP described as “one step away from catastrophic levels of hunger.” Meanwhile, malnutrition rates in Ethiopia have surged well above emergency thresholds, according to the WFP.

The cost of a food basket has risen by 66 percent and 36 percent in Ethiopia and Somalia, respectively. Both nations rely on wheat from Black Sea basin countries, the WFP noted, adding that some transit routes have seen a surge in shipping costs since the beginning of the year.

In Ethiopia, the WFP described a situation of widespread crop failure, with over a million livestock deaths and an estimated 7.2 million people waking up hungry every day in the southern and southeastern portions of the country.

While WFP representatives are on the ground, the program said it requires $239 million over the next six months to respond to the drought in this area.

In Kenya, meanwhile, the number of people in need of assistance had increased fourfold in less than two years, according to the WFP. Escalating drought conditions have left 3.1 million people acutely food insecure, including half a million individuals who are confronting emergency levels of hunger.

The WFP said that it requires $42 million over the next six months to nourish the most critically impacted areas in the country’s northern and eastern regions.

As far as Somalia is concerned, the WFP found that some 6 million people — 40 percent of the population — are facing “acute food insecurity,” and that the country faces “a very real risk of famine in the coming months if the rains don’t arrive and humanitarian assistance isn’t received.”

To help bridge these gaps, the WFP said it has been scaling up emergency food and nutrition assistance that will support 3 million people by the middle of this year. However, the organization stressed that it still requires $192 million in relief funding over the next six months.

The WFP said it last pushed for additional funding for the agency in February, but less than 4 percent of requested funding had been secured.

Acknowledging that the Horn of Africa also experienced a severe drought in 2016-2017, the WFP explained that catastrophe was avoided during that period due to early action. At the time, the organization said it was able to scale up assistance before widespread hunger occurred.

This year, however, a critical lack of resources has led to a different situation entirely, the program warned.

“WFP and other humanitarian agencies have been warning the international community since last year that this drought could be disastrous if we didn’t act immediately,” Dunford, the regional director, said.

“But funding has failed to materialize at the scale required,” he added.