Hungary’s military finds mission in life for abused dog

By JUSTIN SPIKE

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Sgt. 1st Class Balazs Nemeth and his bomb sniffer dog Logan are seen together at the garrison of Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Warship Regiment of the Hungarian Defense Forces in Budapest, Hungary, April 28, 2022. Logan, a two-year-old Belgian shepherd, has received a second chance after being rescued from abusive owners and recruited to serve in an elite military bomb squad. Logan is undergoing intensive training as an explosive detection dog for the Hungarian Defense Forces. 

(AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s military has found a new mission in life for a talented dog who was rescued from abusive owners, recruiting 2-year-old Logan to serve in counterterrorism operations for an elite bomb squad.

The Belgian shepherd is undergoing intensive training as an explosives detection dog for the explosive ordnance disposal and warship regiment of the Hungarian Defense Forces.

At the unit’s garrison on the Danube River in the capital Budapest, Logan receives daily socialization and obedience exercises, and is trained to recognize the smell of 25 different explosive substances.

“He has already started to learn how to smell explosives in a completely homogeneous environment, and he has also started to learn how to search motor vehicles and ships,” said Logan’s trainer, Sgt. 1st Class Balazs Nemeth.

Logan’s new role as a bomb sniffer came only after an early life full of hardships. In 2021, animal welfare officers received a tip that a dog was being abused and held in inhumane conditions at a rural residence in northeastern Hungary. During an on-site inspection, the officers found Logan confined to a one-meter (3-foot) chain and suffering from malnourishment.

Several weeks later, Nemeth, the regiment’s training officer, visited the shelter where Logan was housed and began assessing his suitability for becoming a professional bomb sniffer.

“The moment we met him the first impressions were very positive. We saw a well-motivated dog in relatively good condition and we immediately had confidence in him,” Nemeth said.

In a demonstration at the unit’s garrison, Nemeth opened a case containing two dozen vials of mock explosive materials like C-4, TNT, ammonium nitrate and others, which Logan is trained to detect.

After concealing a small package of explosive in a hidden crevice on one of the regiment’s river boats, Nemeth brought Logan to the training area where he went immediately to work sniffing for the package, which he found within seconds. The dog’s body tensed as he pointed with his nose at the source of the smell, alerting his handler.

The regiment’s commanding officer, Col. Zsolt Szilagyi, said that the increased use of improvised explosive devices by extremist cells since the turn of the millennium have made it necessary to employ new methods for detecting potential bombs.

“This was a challenge to which the military had to respond, and one of the best ways to detect these devices is to use explosive detection dogs,” Szilagyi said. “These four-legged comrades have been supporting the activities of our bomb disposal soldiers.”

Logan, he said, will serve as an inspector of important sites in Hungary, and could be sent along with the country’s military to NATO missions abroad.

While rescued dogs often present challenges in training given their often traumatic backgrounds, Nemeth said he is confident that Logan will be successful and make a valuable addition to the unit.

“Logan is very valuable because about one out of 10,000 rescued dogs is fit for military service, both medically and psychologically,” he said.

Recruiting rescued dogs often reveals their undiscovered capabilities, and allows for them to find a new home where they can thrive, Szilagyi said.

“There are dogs that have great potential but for some reason they have been pushed to the margins,” he said. “We can give these dogs a new opportunity to be placed in a family, so to speak, where they can live a proper life in loving, competent hands and be useful.”


Sgt. 1st Class Balazs Nemeth and his bomb sniffer dog Logan are seen together at the garrison of Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Warship Regiment of the Hungarian Defense Forces in Budapest, Hungary, April 28, 2022. Logan, a two-year-old Belgian shepherd, has received a second chance after being rescued from abusive owners and recruited to serve in an elite military bomb squad. Logan is undergoing intensive training as an explosive detection dog for the Hungarian Defense Forces. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

LEFT WING POPULAR FRONT A WINNER

Emmanuel who? 

Far-right fighting hard-left for French vote

By ELAINE GANLEY

 French far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon leaves after voting in the first round of the presidential election at a polling station, April 10, 2022 in Marseille, southern France. A month before the first round of voting, the campaign for the 577 seats in France’s lower house of parliament has been brutal. After losing to Macron in the April presidential election, far-right leader Marine Le Pen now faces a challenge from her political nemesis, hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon who has set his sights on becoming prime minister. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)


PARIS (AP) — The stakes are high, the fight nasty and the party of centrist President Emmanuel Macron is the one to beat. But to a visitor from outer space, June’s parliamentary election in France could look like a contest between the far right and the hard-left.

A month before the first round of voting, the campaign for the 577 seats in France’s lower house of parliament has been brutal. Pressure has been mounting since the April presidential election when Macron won a second mandate, beating far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the run-off to quash her third bid for the job.

The pot bubbled over when Le Pen’s political nemesis, hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, clinched alliances with a swath of leftist parties, positioning himself to outdo both her and, he hopes, Macron, in June.

So for now, Le Pen sees Melenchon as her main opponent, as she seeks to keep her National Rally party politically relevant with a good showing in parliament.

Her party’s campaign slogan, “The Only Opposition to Macron,” attests to her rivalry with the hard-left leader.

Melenchon himself, bolstered by his alliances, has set his sights higher, declaring that he will steal Macron’s majority to become France’s next prime minister — an appointment made by the president alone.

Le Pen’s hopes are less grandiose: to create a “powerful” parliamentary group — at least 15 lawmakers — that would accord her anti-immigration party more speaking time and other privileges so it can be heard, and harass the powerful.

 Electoral posters reading "Elect Melenchon Prime Minister", are displayed before a local meeting, May 5, 2022 in Lille, northern France. A month before the first round of voting, the campaign for the 577 seats in France’s lower house of parliament has been brutal. After losing to Macron in the April presidential election, far-right leader Marine Le Pen now faces a challenge from her political nemesis, hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon who has set his sights on becoming prime minister. (AP Photo/Michel Spingler, File)

Le Pen mocks Melenchon as the “court jester” who will never be prime minister. But with enough votes, she told RTL radio this week, Melenchon could transform the National Assembly into a squatters’ heaven of leftist causes, “with defenders of (anarchist) Black Blocs, defenders of burkinis, those who want to disarm the police, those who want to open up prisons because prisons aren’t nice.”

For her party’s interim president, Melenchon represents “a threat to the Republic.”

“I think that extremism today is located on the side of Mr. Melenchon,” Jordan Bardella said at a news conference, using the precise label the French press favors for his own far-right party.

Le Pen and Melenchon are longstanding political enemies. But for Le Pen the animosity has clearly deepened with the leftist alliance Melenchon concluded with Socialists, Communists and Greens that strengthens his hand. Le Pen’s party refused an alliance with the upstart far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, who stole some of her party’s known figures but finished with only 7% of the vote.

Paradoxically, while Le Pen placed second in the presidential race, compared to Melenchon’s third place, and lifted the far-right to an unprecedented electoral performance, her party goes into the June 12 and 19 legislative elections in a weaker position than Melenchon, backed by his alliances.

France’s legislative voting system favors the president and all but prevents Le Pen’s party from clawing deeply into the majority. Only eight National Rally lawmakers won seats in the last election. Le Pen, looking to renew her seat, is among the 569 candidates her party is fielding around France.

“It’s a very brutal campaign … At the same time, it’s a campaign where you don’t see a real debate, where lots of French have the impression that their daily problems aren’t addressed,” said far-right expert Jean-Yves Camus. It is also, he added, “a rather surreal campaign with Mr. Melenchon saying, ‘Me, prime minister.’”

Macron’s party and its centrist allies hold over 300 seats in the outgoing parliament. Still, his Republic on the Move has changed its name to Renaissance and allied with other centrists.

“This will be the toughest campaign,” the president warned his party’s candidates this week. “Our country is divided.”

Divisions, drama, and tough rhetoric aren’t new to French elections.

“France is a country where the political tradition is extremely divisive,” Camus said. “You have the impression of two parts of the country that have a hard time talking.”

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

Records: 2 people in execution knew drugs hadn’t been tested

By KIMBERLEE KRUESI

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FILE -Officers on horseback guard the entrance to designated demonstrator areas near Riverbend Maximum Security Institution as people wait to enter before the scheduled execution of inmate Oscar Smith, Thursday, April 21, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. Newly released records show at two least two people connected to a planned Tennessee execution that was abruptly put on hold April 21 knew the night before that the lethal injection drugs the state planned to use hadn’t undergone certain required testing. Last month, Gov. Bill Lee abruptly halted inmate Oscar Smith’s execution, citing an “oversight” in the execution process. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — At least two people connected to a Tennessee execution that was abruptly put on hold last month knew the night before that the lethal injection drugs the state planned to use hadn’t undergone some required testing, newly released records show.

Citing an “oversight,” Gov. Bill Lee had called off the execution of 72-year-old Oscar Smith barely an hour before the planned lethal injection April 21 for Smith’s conviction in the 1989 killings of his estranged wife and her two teenage sons. The governor’s office later disclosed that the drugs had not been tested for endotoxins.

The Republican governor’s administration declined to release much information, saying the issue was “technical.” Instead, Lee recently appointed a former U.S. attorney to lead an independent investigation and also paused four other executions scheduled this year.

On April 21, there were no signs the lethal injection would not take place until about an hour beforehand, when the governor’s office issued a news release calling it off. Just before learning of his reprieve, Smith had received communion from his spiritual adviser, who was going to be allowed in the execution chamber. He had eaten a last meal, and media witnesses and relatives of the families were gathered and waiting. The U.S. Supreme Court had also denied Smith’s last-hour bid for a stay.

On Friday, the Department of Correction released 20 pages of heavily redacted emails and text messages to The Associated Press through a public records request.

In them, experts say testing was not performed for so-called endotoxins, which usually come from bacteria. Such testing is considered vital because it could be an indication of problems with the manufacture of the drugs. However, the endotoxins themselves likely wouldn’t cause a problem in an execution setting because endotoxins typically are not immediately fatal, according to Frank Romanelli, professor of pharmacy at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy.

The Department of Correction declined to respond to questions surrounding when the state knew the execution drugs had not been properly tested.

“As you know the governor has announced an independent review of these matters which we fully support. We are unable to offer further information until the review is complete,” said a spokesperson, Dorinda Carter, in a statement.

Tennessee’s execution protocols require any compounded drugs to be independently tested for potency, sterility and endotoxins. It wasn’t known from the records provided if the other testing had been conducted.

At last week’s news conference announcing the independent investigation, Lee said the testing problem was noticed shortly before the execution was to have been carried out. The records provided to AP imply that some people knew almost a day before.

Almost all names, email addresses, phone numbers and any other identifiable information was removed from the records. Even the name of the governor’s communication team, which is regularly distributed to media and the public, was stripped out. According to the correction agency’s general counsel, the state redacted the names of those who had been, or may in the future, be directly involved in the execution process.
Tennessee uses a three-drug series to put inmates to death: midazolam, a sedative to render the inmate unconscious; vecuronium bromide, to paralyze the inmate; and potassium chloride, to stop the heart.

The records did contain a text exchange between two unidentified individuals whose names had been blacked out in the records, the night before Smith’s scheduled execution starting at around 8 p.m. with one person asking for the lab results on the midazolam and potassium chloride.

The Department of Correction redacted the response, but when that same person asked for the results of the endotoxin test, the response from a separate person stated that it “isn’t required” based on the amount they make.

“Sorry, I didn’t have it tested,” the text reads.

“It’s been done on prior ones,” the exchange states.

Later that morning, a separate text message asks if it would be possible to test for endotoxins on the day of the execution.

“Honestly doubt it,” the response states.

Tennessee and many other states have passed exemptions to open records laws in recent years, shrouding the identity of drug suppliers and other information about executions in secrecy.

“The failure to ensure that the lethal injection chemicals were produced in accordance with .. standards is disturbing,” said Smith’s attorney Kelley Henry in an emailed statement. “Compounded high risk sterile injectables such as those used in the Tennessee lethal injection protocol are extremely risky.”

Smith was sentenced to death for fatally stabbing and shooting estranged wife Judith Smith and her sons, Jason and Chad Burnett, at their Nashville home on Oct. 1, 1989. Tennessee had planned for five executions this year, including Smith’s. It had been seeking to resume its quick, pre-pandemic pace of putting inmates to death.

Smith has maintained he is innocent. He earlier declined to choose between the electric chair and lethal injection, Tennessee’s two execution means, so lethal injection became the default method. An initial June 2020 execution date for Smith was delayed because of the pandemic.

___

Associated Press writers Jonathan Mattise and Travis Loller in Nashville contributed to this report.

Myanmar’s gaming stars face barriers in tough eSports journey

Patrick LEE
Fri, 13 May 2022,

Myanmar eSport members watch a game on a phone at the SEA Games 

(AFP/Ye Aung Thu) (Ye Aung Thu)


Myanmar's eSports athletes must battle not only online opponents but also a creaky national infrastructure in their bid to make it in the ferociously competitive world of gaming.

A relative newcomer to the fast-growing electronic sports scene, Myanmar sees eSports as a way of connecting to the outside world, a top gaming official from the country told AFP at the SEA Games in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.

ESports are a popular choice among many Asian youths seeking the promise of fame and fortune on the digital battleground.

But Myanmar's budding gaming stars face challenges that are unthinkable for many of their rivals.

Power outages and internet connection problems are routine obstacles in the developing country where the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi was toppled by the army in February 2021.

"Blackouts are a challenging factor," Myanmar Esports Federation vice president Kaung Myat San said, adding that gamers who do not have back-up generators "will find it difficult".

Myanmar is plagued by a frail energy grid that particularly stumbles during the hot summer months when electricity use is high, forcing locals to buy costly generators for their power needs.

Another barrier is the country’s internet, which although "getting better" is still slower than other countries, said Kaung.

Gamers can suffer "high ping" -- a lag between the player inputting a command and the server responding to it -- which can be fatal in a sport where fractions of seconds are the difference between online life and death.

"High ping is an issue for some games, especially to enter international events that are hosted online," he said, adding that was however "only a small percent".

He declined to comment if his country's political troubles were a factor on local eSports performance.

Underlining the fears people have of being seen to criticise the ruling junta, one eSports player at the SEA Games declined to give his name in describing how they sometimes have to hop from one location to another in the middle of the day when the power cuts out.

He said that they usually get about 18 hours of electricity a day.

- 'Catch up to the world' -

ESports made its debut at the biennial SEA Games in 2019 and was also set to feature at the Asian Games in China later this year, before those Games were postponed because of Covid. Talk has bubbled away for years about eSports one day making the Olympics.

International gaming competitions meanwhile can draw vast online and in-person audiences and prize pools in the tens of millions of dollars.

The obstacles teams from Myanmar face has not stopped some making their mark in eSports.

The Burmese Ghouls, a professional team, took second place at the Mobile Legends M2 World Championship in January 2021.

At the SEA Games in Hanoi, a row of Myanmar eSports players furiously tapped at their phones against Singapore in a Friday group-stage match of League of Legends: Wild Rift.

After a 15-minute battle, the Myanmar group bowed out from the brightly lit stage with their second loss of the day after being beaten earlier to Vietnam.

The athletes declined to speak to the media, shying away from queries.

Kaung said despite the defeat, the country’s 29-strong eSports squad still stand a chance at winning medals in two other mobile gaming events in Hanoi.

He is confident about Myanmar’s long-term gaming prospects, but the players need help.

"For our players to overcome these problems, they have to join professional eSports organisations which can support them. Sponsoring them can grow their careers," he said.

"Through eSports we can catch up to the world."

pl/pst

South Korea Turns to Surveillance as 'Ghost Surgeries' Shake Faith in Hospitals


John Yoon
Fri, May 13, 2022,

A computer monitor shows a closed-circuit television feed of Dr. Choi Sang-wook, second from left, the director of Kookmin Hospital, during surgery at the hospital in Namyangju-si, South Korea, near Seoul, May 3, 2022. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea has a reputation for world-class medical care. But faith in its hospitals has been shaken by years of complaints about doctors mishandling unconscious patients, including turning them over to unsupervised assistants who perform what are known as “ghost surgeries.”

To stem the practice, lawmakers amended the country’s medical laws last year to require cameras in all operating rooms that handle patients under general anesthesia, making South Korea one of the first countries to do so.

Ethicists and medical officials, including those at the American College of Surgeons, have cautioned that surveilling surgeons to deter malpractice may undermine trust in doctors, hurt morale, violate patient privacy and discourage physicians from taking risks to save lives. The Korea Medical Association, which is opposed to the new mandate, has lobbied to limit its effect.

But supporters of the law said the move would help protect patients, build the public’s trust in doctors and provide victims of medical malpractice with evidence to use in court.

“People are dying in operating rooms,” said An Gi-jong, an advocate for patients. “We can’t rely on doctors to solve problems on their own anymore.”

About five patients have died from ghost surgeries in the past eight years, he said. They include Kwon Dae-hee, a college student in Seoul who died of a hemorrhage in 2016 after jawline surgery. His mother, Lee Na-geum, who obtained footage of his operation and reviewed it hundreds of times, found evidence that the operation had been botched because parts of it had been conducted by an unsupervised nursing assistant.

A court convicted the surgeon of involuntary manslaughter in 2021, sentencing him to three years in prison.

Lee, 62, who has held a public vigil denouncing ghost surgeries since her son’s death, said in an interview: “Once the cameras are installed, your lies will be exposed if you’re a ghost doctor. Cameras reveal truth.”

Cameras in hospitals are not new. Vietnam requires them to catch corrupt medical staff — but not in operating rooms. In 2019, Philippine lawmakers proposed a bill requiring cameras in operating rooms, but it did not pass.

No U.S. state requires them. In Rhode Island, a former state health director, David Gifford, ordered a hospital to install them after a series of surgical errors in 2009. But he came to regret the decision, saying that the cameras foster distrust.

“It was a Big Brother looking down and videoing you, which never was the intention,” he said in an interview. “If I knew that that’s what they would have done, I don’t think I would ever have mandated it.”

South Korea is accustomed to widespread video surveillance. By 2020, the government had installed more than 1.3 million cameras in public spaces, often to deter crimes. Demand for the camera mandate in hospitals escalated in recent years with revelations by whistleblowers that doctors had inflicted ghost surgeries, and even sexual abuse, on anesthetized patients. Fears about ghost surgeries were a plot point in the Korean Netflix hit “Squid Game.”

The surreptitious surgeries began occurring at plastic surgery clinics in South Korea in the 2010s, after the government started promoting medical tourism as an economic driver, according to legal experts. Patient advocates say plastic surgeons took advantage of the high demand by deputizing nurses, assistants and even medical device technicians to perform operations. That allowed physicians, they say, to pack in more patients to maximize profits.

Ghost surgeries spread to spinal hospitals because of a confluence of factors, said Kim So-yoon, a professor of medical law and ethics at Yonsei University. Spinal operations are in high demand because of the country’s aging population. There is an undersupply of doctors to meet that demand, she said. Doctors account for 2.5 out of every 1,000 people in South Korea, lower than the 3.3 average of other nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Many spinal procedures are also relatively uncomplicated, making it easier to train nurses to do them, she added.

In May of last year, video footage emerged from a spinal clinic, Incheon 21st Century Hospital, that showed nursing assistants performing incisions and putting in sutures. Choi Jeong-kyu, a lawyer who has represented medical malpractice victims, said he received the footage from someone who had worked at the clinic and recorded it secretly. Choi passed it on to the broadcaster MBC.

Nineteen surgeries were captured in the footage, which showed three nursing assistants operating on patients’ spines. Surgical machines buzzed as the assistants, looking through a medical microscope, used them on patients’ bones and bloody gauze piled up on one side of the surgical table. During each operation, a surgeon eventually appeared and worked on the patient for about five minutes.

“They were treating patients like objects on a conveyor belt in a factory,” Choi said. “It’s frightening.”

After the video emerged, prosecutors filed suit against the clinic. Five doctors, three of whom were the clinic’s directors, and three nursing assistants were arrested in August. In February, a court found them guilty of unlicensed medical practices and fraud. They were sentenced to up to two years in prison and fined up to 7 million won (about $5,700) each.

The clinic’s directors — Hyun Yong-in, Jung Hyun-tae and Lee Wan-soo — had booked as many patients and surgeries as possible when staffing levels were low, the court found. They had carried out the crime “systematically” and “for the purpose of profit,” and had “undermined patients’ legitimate trust in doctors and medical institutions,” the verdict read.

The defendants have appealed the verdict. None of the doctors’ medical licenses were permanently revoked. The clinic has closed. And the case boosted support for the camera mandate, which goes into effect in September 2023. Lawyers for the defendants, reached by phone, declined to comment, citing the pending appeal.

About 100 cases of ghost surgeries were prosecuted in the five-year period before 2018, according to the health ministry. But between 2008 and 2014, about 100,000 patients were victims of ghost surgeries, the Korean Society of Plastic Surgeons has estimated.

Under the new law, hospitals performing surgeries on unconscious patients must install video cameras in their operating rooms. If a patient or a relative requests that a surgery be filmed, the hospital must comply. Doctors can refuse for certain reasons, such as if a delay in the operation would put the patient’s life at risk, or if the filming would significantly impede residents’ training. The recorded footage can be viewed for criminal investigations, prosecutions, trials, medical disputes or mediation.

Advocates for patients say the punishment for ghost surgeries is too lenient in South Korea. Under current laws, doctors can face fines and up to five years in prison, and they can lose their licenses, though they may reapply after three years at most. In the United States, charges of battery have been brought in cases where a doctor performed surgery on another doctor’s patient, Choi said. But South Korean courts treat ghost surgeries as practicing medicine without a license, not battery, he said.

South Korean doctors’ financial incentives have made ghost surgeries alluringly profitable, said Kwon Soon-man, a professor of public health at Seoul National University. The health insurance system, which uses a fee-for-service payment model, has incentivized physicians to choose more resource-intensive ways to treat patients, he said. And while about 10-20% of U.S. hospitals are for-profit, he added, private hospitals in South Korea account for over 90% of all hospitals.

Some South Korean hospitals are ahead of the mandate. Kookmin Hospital, in Gyeonggi province, installed surveillance cameras in 2020. Set in the ceilings of its operating rooms, they recently recorded a shoulder surgery as visitors observed (the hospital had granted rare permission).

The doctor’s back faced the camera, blocking the surgical site. A surgical cloth covered the patient’s face. But the footage clearly showed who was performing which tasks.

Dr. Choi Sang-wook, the hospital’s director, said the cameras had improved patients’ confidence in the hospital.

“They’ve helped us win our community’s trust,” he said. “That has been the biggest advantage.”

© 2022 The New York Times Company

More research links air pollution exposure and covid-19 risk



Allyson Chiu

WASHINGTON POST
Fri, May 13, 2022

Research has shown that being unvaccinated raises a person's risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus, while being older, overweight or immunocompromised can increase the severity of the disease. Now scientists think there is another risk factor that may increase the likelihood of contracting the coronavirus and the possibility that it will lead to a poor outcome: exposure to air pollution.

A growing body of evidence suggests links between breathing polluted air and the chances of being infected by the coronavirus, developing a severe illness or dying of covid-19. While many of these studies focused on long-term exposure to air pollution, experts say there is also building evidence that even short-term exposures may have negative effects.

A recent study of 425 younger adults in Sweden found that brief exposures were "associated with increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection despite relatively low levels of air pollution exposure," according to the paper published in April. Unlike many other studies that analyzed vulnerable populations, such as the elderly or young children, and tracked the effects of long-term exposures on hospitalizations and deaths, the median age of participants, who largely reported mild to moderate symptoms, was about 25 years old.

The findings will hopefully raise awareness "that actually these kind of exposures can be harmful for everyone," said Erik Melén, the study's principal investigator and a professor in the department of clinical sciences and education at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

Zhebin Yu, the study's lead author and a researcher with the Karolinska Institutet, noted that the research was based on unvaccinated people during an earlier phase of the pandemic. So the results, he said, may not be applicable to more recent coronavirus variants, such as omicron, and vaccinated individuals.

The findings, however, add to the understanding that when it comes to health effects, including covid risk, "there is no safe limit or safe threshold of air pollution," said Olena Gruzieva, an associate professor at the Karolinska Institutet who worked on the study.

Scientists are still trying to determine how air pollution exposure might be increasing covid risks. But there are some theories.

Exposure to pollutants, for example, is linked to inflammation and an imbalance in the body known as oxidative stress - both of which could exaggerate a person's response to any virus, including the coronavirus, said Meredith McCormack, a volunteer medical spokesperson with the American Lung Association.

Another theory suggests that breathing polluted air might help the virus penetrate deeper into the body or cells, added McCormack, who is an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins. Pollution can also impair the immune response.

The pollution exposures documented in many of the studies that have shown an impact on covid are generally below current regulatory standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, said Alison Lee. Lee is a lung specialist at Mount Sinai in New York who has published research on air pollution and covid.

It's critical, McCormack and other experts said, for people to protect themselves on poorer air-quality days and for individuals and governments to work toward reducing air pollution.

"The transition toward a green economy with green renewable energy resources will really further protect both the environment and public health, and it's also very closely related to the climate change crisis," said Donghai Liang, an assistant professor of environmental health and epidemiology at Emory University.

Concerns about air pollution exposure and covid have existed since the early months of the pandemic. A study from Harvard University that analyzed coronavirus data from counties in the United States up to June 2020 found that "a small increase in long-term exposure" to fine particulate matter - one of the most insidious types of air pollution - "leads to a large increase in the covid-19 death rate."

Another study of U.S. county-level data from the first few months of the pandemic reported that chronic exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), an air pollutant that comes from traffic and power plants, was associated with significant increases in covid fatality and mortality rates.

"If we did a better job earlier, if we could have reduced long-term exposure to NO2 by 10 percent, it would have avoided more than 14,000 deaths among those people who tested positive for the virus back in July 2020," said Liang, the study's lead author.

Researchers and outside experts noted that such observational population-based studies cannot account for individual risk factors that may affect a person's chances of becoming severely sick or dying after contracting the coronavirus.

A "more rigorous approach" is to follow individuals over a period of time and track who becomes infected with the virus, and then who develops severe covid symptoms, requires hospitalization or dies, said Kai Chen, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health and director of research at the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health.

He and other experts called for further research to clear up some key questions.

"There's still some uncertainty in the magnitude of the risk," McCormack said. "For a given increase in air pollution on a given day, does that increase your risk of getting covid by 1 percent or 5 percent, more than 5 percent? Those estimates are still being refined."

Researchers also need to determine exactly what may be influencing a person's risk of contracting the coronavirus and the severity of infection, said Chen, who published a study showing that certain meteorological factors, such as humidity, could affect the virus's ability to spread. If a major confounding variable isn't controlled for in a study's statistical analysis, it could lead to overestimating the effect of air pollution, he said.

Additionally, research should continue into the potential harms of short-term exposure, Lee said. "It's important to see the short-term data because these data fill a critical data gap and thus have policy implications."

Because long-term data averages exposures over longer periods of time it "can hide spikes in exposure," Lee said. Lower-income communities and people of color, many of whom tend to live closer to sources of air pollution, are often disproportionately affected by such spikes. "By strengthening both long-term and short-term air quality standards​ and placing more regulatory monitors near these exposure hot spots, we can better improve health in environmental justice communities," she said.

Whether increased exposure to pollutants is responsible for pandemic-related health disparities in these communities, which have been hit harder by the coronavirus, is unclear, McCormack said. "We haven't had a study yet that disentangles all of the factors," she said, "but we definitely know that by quantifying the effect of air pollution on covid infection, we have evidence that that's one of the driving forces that likely contributes to the differences we've seen - but it's one of several."

Experts said they hope the findings connecting air quality and covid will help push the issue of air pollution's toll on our health to the forefront of public consciousness.

"Air pollution is like a silent pandemic," Chen said. While pollution's impact on the environment is well-known, fewer people might be aware that outdoor and indoor air pollution exposure causes an estimated 7 million premature deaths worldwide each year, and is associated with lung and heart disease, among other serious health issues.

The coronavirus pandemic, however, "has really heightened awareness of the importance of clean air," McCormack said.

Lee agreed. "The overarching takeaway from all of these studies is that air pollution is bad and that we really need to fight for more protective air quality standards," she said.

GMO IS OMG SPELLED BACKWARDS

The hidden race to design the perfect farm animal

We're squeezing as much food as possible out of our livestock. We breed cows to give more and more milk and modify salmon's genes to make them grow faster. But if we can make our animals more productive, can we also make them more sustainable? And, perhaps more importantly, should we? Reporter: Tim Schauenberg Video Editor: Madmo Cem Adam Springer Supervising Editor: Kiyo Dörrer, Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann

 #PlanetA #GMO #SustainableAgriculture

WORKERS REVOLT

'Employees are not showing up': Return-to-office plans unravel as workers revolt in tight job market

WHITE, BLUE, PINK,

NO MATTER THE COLOUR OF YOUR COLLAR 

WE ARE ALL PROLETARIANS NOW

Workers stubbornly sticking to remote work while struggling with child care, the grind of commuting and COVID worries

Bloomberg News
Matthew Boyle
Publishing date:May 13, 2022 

A person works in an office building in San Francisco. 

PHOTO BY DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG

Even the most inflexible bosses are softening their return-to-office expectations.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief Jamie Dimon has been one of the most vocal critics of remote work, arguing that it’s no substitute for the spontaneous idea generation that results from bumping into colleagues at the coffee machine. But in his annual letter to shareholders last month, the head of America’s biggest bank allowed that working from home “will become more permanent in American business,” and estimated that about 40 per cent of his 270,000-person workforce would work under a hybrid model, which includes days in the office and at home.

Soon after Dimon’s missive, one of the bank’s senior technology executives told some teams that they could cut back from three days in the office per week to two, citing internal feedback.

Many white-collar workplaces are making similar retreats as their employees stubbornly stick to working from home while struggling with child care, the grind of commuting and worries about rising COVID-19 cases. Bosses are wary of taking punitive action against those who aren’t following their ambitious so-called RTO plans, fearing it will backfire in today’s tight labour market. That leaves them to re-evaluate their carefully crafted strategies and reconsider what is a realistic long-term approach to in-person work.

A person is reflected in a window of a JPMorgan Chase & Co. bank branch across the street from the company’s headquarters in New York. 

PHOTO BY MICHAEL NAGLE/BLOOMBERG

“We are seeing policies slip in real time,” said Melissa Swift, the U.S. transformation leader at workforce consultant Mercer. “There was previously all this talk about how, for white-collar jobs, collaborating in the office was important. That’s slipping. Now, only the people who need to turn a screwdriver need to be in the office.”

Not all workers are rebelling against directives to return the office, with variation across companies, sectors and job categories. Still, employers are seeing fresh reason to doubt the viability of their RTO guidelines. People are coming back to just about everything else — travel, restaurants, concerts, stores — amid a general loosening in state and federal COVID-related restrictions. So executives can no longer reassure themselves that workers would dutifully come back once those rules relaxed.

We are seeing policies slip in real time

MELISSA SWIFT

At the same time, organizations that returned to the office in the first few months of the year now have loads of feedback from employees, many of whom are frustrated by commuting in just to spend half their day on Zoom calls. That adds to two full years of data on how workforces remained just as productive — and often were more satisfied — while working from home, and emerging research from academics. The result is a groundswell of hard evidence that can convince even the staunchest remote-work skeptics.

Examples of RTO resistance abound. At Apple Inc., a small group of employees has pushed back against the iPhone maker’s plan that will soon require most corporate workers to be in the office three days a week. A worker group called Apple Together penned an open letter to company leadership last month, in which signatories asked “to decide for ourselves, together with our teams and direct manager, what kind of work arrangement works best for each one of us.” The staffers also dismissed the oft-cited desire for in-person collaboration, saying “this is not something we need every week, often not even every month, definitely not every day.” Apple declined to comment.

Some Apple workers are pushing back against plans to return to the office three days a week.

 PHOTO BY MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS

For some companies, there’s no longer any debate. Airbnb Inc. had previously pegged September 2022 as its return to the office, but Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky dumped that plan last month, instead telling his 6,000 employees that they could work remotely indefinitely. “Each of us works best in our own ways, and we’re giving you the flexibility to make the right choice based on where you’re most productive,” Chesky wrote in an email to staff.

A smattering of law firms have relaxed once-stringent attendance policies. Cooley LLP, a 3,000-person firm, said last month that it would let its lawyers decide whether and when to go into its offices, provided their duties allow for remote work.

When old-school bankers and lawyers grudgingly accept the value of working from home, it’s a sign of how much things have changed. A new survey of real-estate executives by CBRE Group Inc. found that the share of them who expect their workplaces to be “office-based” for most employees going forward declined to 19 per cent from 30 per cent last year. At the recent Milken Institute Global Conference, a popular icebreaker was asking fellow attendees about their organization’s work-from-home approach. “It’s as common a conversation opener as asking about someone’s kids,” said Bob Kricheff, a portfolio manager at Shenkman Capital Management.

A growing body of research supports these shifts. While many companies settled on three or four days in the office when initially establishing hybrid-work arrangements, the ideal setup is actually just one or two days in the office, according to a recent working paper from Harvard Business School. Hybrid work schedules can also reduce employee quit rates by 35 per cent compared with those who work entirely from the office, research co-led by Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University found. With Americans quitting jobs at a record pace — 4.5 million in March alone — that flexibility matters.

An empty office in Montreal. 

PHOTO BY ALLEN MCINNIS/MONTREAL GAZETTE

When data-storage giant Teradata Corp. asked employees across all its U.S. locations if they wanted to come back to the office at least a few days a week, about half said yes, according to Chief People Officer Kathy Cullen-Cote. But of that group, only half show up. “If I’m sitting in the corner of the office, and only half the people are there, will I have that watercooler conversation? No,” said Cullen, whose company has cut its real-estate footprint in half.

“Employees are not showing up, and it’s hard for employers to deal with this,” said Stanford’s Bloom, whose ongoing analysis of pandemic-era workplaces has found yawning gaps between what managers and workers desire when it comes to RTO policies. That’s because for every boss who claims that corporate culture and innovation suffer when offices are sparsely populated, there are plenty of workers, particularly women and under-represented racial groups, with no desire to return to the inequities, double standards and microaggressions of daily cubicle life.

Eighty-two per cent of working moms polled earlier this year by Future Forum, a research consortium backed by Slack Technologies Inc., said they wanted flexibility in where they work, the highest level since the group began surveying white-collar workers in 2020. Black workers are also more likely to want some say over where they work than white employees.

While many companies have adopted so-called “work from anywhere” policies akin to the one at Airbnb, others have put a price on remote work. London-based law firm Stephenson Harwood, for example, recently told staff that anyone wanting to work from home permanently will have to take a 20 per cent pay cut.

But such ultimatums are rare. Instead, frustrated bosses are increasingly making more emotional appeals. In a recent memo to staff, Rich Handler, chief executive officer of Jefferies Financial Group Inc., said “we are mentally healthier when we are around each other regularly. Our juniors and mid-level partners need our empathic seniors to truly lead them in person.”

While acknowledging the efficiency of remote work, Handler and President Brian Friedman said it’s left many mid-level and junior staff “feeling abandoned,” and they “need to be in your physical presence” to see big deals get done or learn how to cultivate clients. “They need this from you,” the bosses said to the firm’s senior staff. “It just requires more effort from all of you.”

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Bloomberg.com

U.S., Britain enter commercial spaceflight partnership


Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (L) and his British counterpart, Grant Shapps, sign a commercial spaceflight partnership agreement on Thursday at Maryland's Smithsonian Institution. Photo courtesy of Britain's Department for Transport


May 12 (UPI) -- The United States and Britain entered into a commercial spaceflight partnership agreement Thursday with the aim to launch cheaper, quicker and more streamlined spaceflight operations.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his British counterpart, Grant Shapps, signed the agreement at Maryland's Smithsonian Institution, London's Department for Transport said in a statement Friday.



Under the agreement, the two nations agree to work together to boost opportunities for British and U.S. companies to launch missions from either countries' spaceports through reducing red tape and regulatory obstacles, it said.

Specifically, the agreement removes duplication for licensing between the two countries for commercial space activities, reducing costs and procedure burdens while seeking to maintain a high-level of safety standards.

"Commercial space travel is growing swiftly and it's our responsibility to ensure that these innovations advance safely, encouraging them to develop in ways that benefit us all," Buttigieg said. "We're proud to launch this partnership with the United Kingdom to bring more of the benefits of commercial space travel to our workers, businesses and communities."


Britain's Department for Transport called the agreement a "landmark partnership" that will reduce London's reliance on other countries to launch British-made and -operated satellites.

London has been seeking to bolster is space industry, which supports some 47,000 jobs, as it nears its first-ever launch from home soil at SpacePort Cornwall later this year.

"This transformational partnership is one giant leap for both countries as we prepared for an exciting new era of spaceflight to lift off," Shapps said. "As we look beyond the UK's first planned spaceflight later this year, I look forward to seeing the innovations and opportunities skyrocket thanks to this collaboration."

There are seven spaceports currently being developed across the European island nation.

FDA approves underwear to protect against STDs during oral sex

By HealthDay News

Infections such as herpes, gonorrhea and syphilis can be transmitted through oral sex, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The first underwear meant to protect against sexually transmitted infections during oral sex was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday.

Lorals -- which are available as bikinis or shorties -- are made of vanilla-flavored latex about as thin as condom material and form a seal on the inside of the thigh to keep fluids in, developer Melanie Cristol told the New York Times. They are to be used only once, like a condom.

On Thursday, Cristol's company will begin selling the underwear explicitly for infection protection.

Infections such as herpes, gonorrhea and syphilis can be transmitted through oral sex, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

RELATED Cases of gonorrhea, syphilis rose nationally in 2020, CDC reports

Until now, the only FDA-authorized product for protection during oral sex was a dental dam, a thin sheet of latex polyurethane typically held in place with hands to form a barrier between the mouth and genitals, according to the Times.

"The FDA's authorization of this product gives people another option to protect against STIs during oral sex," Courtney Lias, director of the FDA office that led the review of the underwear, told the Times.

"Oral sex is not totally risk-free," Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told the Times.

There's growing need for such protection because more "teenagers are initiating their first sexual activity with oral sex," she said.

Offering protection that's enjoyable to use could "reduce anxiety and increase pleasure around that particular behavior," for people of all ages, Marrazzo added.

Human clinical trials of Lorals were not needed for the FDA's approval, but the agency did require documentation about thickness, elasticity, strength and other measures, as it does with condoms, the Times reported.

In the past year, the FDA has also given approval to two new dental dam companies, which may suggest increased consumer interest, according to the newspaper.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on sexually transmitted infections.

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