COVID vaccines saved 20M lives in 1st year, scientists say

Nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached, researchers reported Thursday.

By CARLA K. JOHNSON

FILE - In this March 2021 photo provided by Pfizer, vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are prepared for packaging at the company's facility in Puurs, Belgium. According to a study published Thursday. June 23, 2022 in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if global targets had been reached. (Pfizer via AP)


On Dec. 8, 2020, a retired shop clerk in England received the first shot in what would become a global vaccination campaign. Over the next 12 months, more than 4.3 billion people around the world lined up for the vaccines.

The effort, though marred by persisting inequities, prevented deaths on an unimaginable scale, said Oliver Watson of Imperial College London, who led the new modeling study.

“Catastrophic would be the first word that comes to mind,” Watson said of the outcome if vaccines hadn’t been available to fight the coronavirus. The findings “quantify just how much worse the pandemic could have been if we did not have these vaccines.”

The researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom.

An additional 600,000 deaths would have been prevented if the World Health Organization target of 40% vaccination coverage by the end of 2021 had been met, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The main finding — 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented — is based on estimates of how many more deaths than usual occurred during the time period. Using only reported COVID-19 deaths, the same model yielded 14.4 million deaths averted by vaccines.

The London scientists excluded China because of uncertainty around the pandemic’s effect on deaths there and its huge population.

The study has other limitations. The researchers did not include how the virus might have mutated differently in the absence of vaccines. And they did not factor in how lockdowns or mask wearing might have changed if vaccines weren’t available.

Another modeling group used a different approach to estimate that 16.3 million COVID-19 deaths were averted by vaccines. That work, by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, has not been published.

In the real world, people wear masks more often when cases are surging, said the institute’s Ali Mokdad, and 2021′s delta wave without vaccines would have prompted a major policy response.

“We may disagree on the number as scientists, but we all agree that COVID vaccines saved lots of lives,” Mokdad said.

The findings underscore both the achievements and the shortcomings of the vaccination campaign, said Adam Finn of Bristol Medical School in England, who like Mokdad was not involved in the study.

“Although we did pretty well this time — we saved millions and millions of lives — we could have done better and we should do better in the future,” Finn said.

Funding came from several groups including the WHO; the UK Medical Research Council; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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AP health and science reporter Havovi Todd contributed.

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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.

ABOLISH SCOTUS

After Supreme Court gun decision, what’s next?

By JESSICA GRESKO and MARK SHERMAN

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Sales associate Elsworth Andrews arranges guns on display at Burbank Ammo & Guns in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, June 23, 2022. The Supreme Court has ruled that Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, a major expansion of gun rights. The court struck down a New York gun law in a ruling expected to directly impact half a dozen other populous states.

 (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has issued its biggest gun rights ruling in more than a decade. Here are some questions and answers about what the Thursday decision does and does not do:

WHAT EXACTLY WAS THE SUPREME COURT RULING ON GUNS?

The Supreme Court said that Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. That’s important because about half a dozen states have conditioned getting a license to carry a gun in public on the person demonstrating an actual need — sometimes called “good cause” or “proper cause” — to carry the weapon. That limits who can carry a weapon in those states.

In its decision, the Supreme Court struck down New York’s “proper cause” requirement, but other states’ laws are expected to face quick challenges. About one-quarter of the U.S. population lives in states expected to be affected by the ruling.

The last time the court issued major gun decisions was in 2008 and 2010. In those decisions the justices established a nationwide right to keep a gun for self-defense in a person’s home. The question for the court this time was just about carrying a gun outside the home.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the court’s majority opinion that the right extended outside the home as well: “Nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms.”

HOW DID THE JUSTICES RULE?

The gun ruling split the court 6-3, with the court’s conservative justices in the majority and its liberals in dissent. In addition to Thomas, the majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The court’s three liberals who dissented are justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

ARE NEW YORKERS NOW FREE TO CARRY A GUN IN PUBLIC?

Not exactly. The justices didn’t touch other parts of New York’s gun law, so other requirements to get a license remain. The court made it clear that the state can continue to make people apply for a license to carry a handgun, and can put limitations on who qualifies for a permit and where a weapon can be carried. In the future, however, New Yorkers will no longer be required to give a specific reason why they want to be able to carry a gun in public.

The decision also doesn’t take effect immediately and state lawmakers said Thursday that they were planning to overhaul the licensing rules this summer. They have yet to detail their plans. Some options under discussion include requiring firearms training and a clean criminal record. The state might also prohibit handguns from being carried in certain places, like near schools or on public transit.

In addition, the decision does not address the law that recently passed in New York in response to the Buffalo grocery store massacre that among things, banned anyone under age 21 from buying or possessing a semi-automatic rifle.

WHAT OTHER STATES ARE LIKELY TO BE IMPACTED?

A handful of states have laws similar to New York’s. The Biden administration has counted California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island as all having laws similar to New York’s. Connecticut and Delaware are also sometimes mentioned as states with similar laws.

WHAT CAN STATES DO TO REGULATE GUNS AFTER THE DECISION?

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, noted the limits of the decision. States can still require people to get a license to carry a gun, Kavanaugh wrote, and condition that license on “fingerprinting, a background check, a mental health records check, and training in firearms handling and in laws regarding the use of force, among other possible requirements.” Gun control groups said states could revisit and perhaps increase those requirements. States can also say those with a license to carry a gun must not do so openly but must conceal their weapon.

Justice Samuel Alito noted that the decision said “nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm or the requirements that must be met to buy a gun.” States have long prohibited felons and the mentally ill from possessing weapons, for example. The decision also said nothing “about the kinds of weapons that people may possess,” Alito noted, so states might also try to limit the availability of specific weapons.

The justices also suggested that states can prohibit the carrying of guns altogether in certain “sensitive places.” A previous Supreme Court decision mentioned schools and government buildings as being places where guns could be off limits. Thomas said that the historical record shows legislative assemblies, polling places and courthouses could also be sensitive places. Thomas said courts can “use analogies to those historical regulations of ‘sensitive places’ to determine that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible.”

HOW DO COURTS ASSESS GUN RESTRICTIONS GOING FORWARD?

The court made it harder to justify gun restrictions, although it’s hard to know what the new test the court announced will mean for any specific regulation.

Thomas wrote that the nation’s appeals courts have been applying an incorrect standard for assessing whether such laws are impermissible. Courts have generally taken a two-step approach, first looking at the constitutional text and history to see whether a regulation comes under the Second Amendment and then, if it does, looking at the government’s justification for the restriction.

“Despite the popularity of this two-step approach, it is one step too many,” Thomas wrote.

From now on, Thomas wrote, courts can uphold regulations only if the government can prove that they fall within traditionally accepted limits.

Among state and local restrictions already being challenged in federal court are bans on the sale of certain semi-automatic weapons, called assault rifles by opponents, and large-capacity ammunition magazines, as well as minimum age requirements to buy semi-automatic firearms.

WHAT OTHER BIG RULINGS ARE IN THE WORKS?

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the guns case back in November and a decision had been expected before the court begins its summer recess. The court has nine more opinions to issue before it goes on break and plans to release more Friday. Still waiting is a major abortion decision.

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Associated Press editor David Caruso contributed to this report from New York.

At Pride, celebrations amid a darker national environment

By DEEPTI HAJELA

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Ellen Ensig-Brodsky, 89, a LGBTQ rights activist, pose in her home, Wednesday, June 22, 2022, in New York. Even with ailing knees, Ensig-Brodsky said she plans to be on the Pride Parade route on Sunday. "The parade is the display, publicly, of my identity." 

(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)


NEW YORK (AP) — LGBTQ Pride commemorations that sometimes felt like victory parties for civil rights advances are grappling this year with a darker atmosphere, a national environment of ramped-up legislative and rhetorical battles over sexual orientation and gender identity.

Big crowds are expected Sunday at Pride events in New York City and a range of other places including San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and Toronto, in a return to large, in-person events after two years of pandemic-induced restrictions.

Like every year, the celebrations are expected to be exuberant and festive. But for many, they will also will carry a renewed sense of urgency.

In March, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law barring teaching on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, which critics decried as an effort to marginalize LGBTQ people and lambasted as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, like DeSantis a Republican, sent a letter to state health agencies in February saying that it would be child abuse under state law for transgender youth to get gender-affirming medical care. A judge has halted full implementation of any parental prosecutions.

“There are so many anti-LGBTQ attacks going on around the country and a lot of them are really about trying to erase our existence and to make us invisible, and to make our young people invisible and our elders invisible,” said Michael Adams, CEO of SAGE, which advocates for LGBTQ elders.

“This year’s Pride is especially important and it is more powerful than ever because it is about people stepping up and stepping out and saying, ‘We refuse to be invisible. We refuse to be erased.’”

Protest has always been an element of New York City’s Pride Parade, which roughly coincides with the anniversary of the beginning of the June 28, 1969, Stonewall uprising — days of angry demonstrations sparked by a police raid on a gay bar in Manhattan.

Marchers in the 1980s protested a lack of government attention to the AIDS epidemic.

In recent years, though, they’ve often been celebrations of major victories for LGBTQ communities to celebrate, like in 2015 when the Supreme Court issued the Obergefell v. Hodges decision recognizing same-sex marriage.

That’s not this year, though.

“This year, we have seen an onslaught of aggressively hostile anti-LGBTQ+ bills in many state legislatures, and more of them have passed than last year,” said Jennifer Pizer, law and policy director for Lambda Legal.

There’s also concern over a potential Supreme Court ruling overturning a nationwide right to abortion — an upending of a long-established legal standard that has people wondering whether same-same sex marriage might be next.

It brings home a reality that in addition to celebration, there’s still a need for activism, said Joe Negrelli, 70, a longtime NYC Pride attendee.

“Could it be overturned? Yes, I do believe that. It is a conceivability,” he said of the court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. It “makes me want to put more energy into engaging in marching.

Anyone who might have been “lulled into a false sense of security” by previous civil rights victories “has been woken up now,” Adams said. “I think a lot of us who understand the history of the struggle for equality and equity and social justice in this country know that the fight is never over.”

It’s not just legislation. Those who track hate speech say anti-LGBTQ language has increased online, which raises the fear that extremists will take it as a call to engage in action, like the rash of protests and physical interruptions that have taken place at Drag Queen Story Hours, where adults in drag read books to children.

Earlier this month, 31 members of a white supremacist group, carrying riot gear, were arrested over accusations that they were plotting a major disruption at a Pride event in Idaho.

That doesn’t mean the celebration’s over, advocates said.

“There can be celebration and joy, and also purpose in protest,” Pizer said.

Ellen Ensig-Brodsky, 89, has embraced both those roles in her decades of attending Pride as a LGBTQ rights activist.

“The parade is the display, publicly, of my identity and my group that I have been part of for at least 40 or more years,” she said, adding that she will be marching again Sunday. “I certainly would not want to miss it.”

After all this time, the animosity and hostility she’s seeing around the country aren’t unfamiliar to her.

“The intent to increase anti-LGBTQ existence is a return to what I started out with” decades ago, she said. Back then, “we didn’t come out. We hid.”

Not now, she said, “I think we need to show that love can persist and continue and spread.”

Hong Kongers reflect on Taiwan, an imperfect exile

By JOHNSON LAI and HUIZHONG WU

Lam Wing-Kee, a Hong Kong bookstore owner who fled to Taiwan in 2019, speaks during an interview inside his bookstore in Taipei, Taiwan on June 8, 2022. Taiwan just 400 miles from Hong Kong, is close not just geographically, but also linguistically and culturally. It offered the freedoms that many Hong Kongers were used to and saw disappearing in their hometown. (AP Photo/Johnson Lai)


TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — For Lam Wing-kee, a Hong Kong bookstore owner who was detained by police in China for five months for selling sensitive books about the Communist Party, coming to Taiwan was a logical step.

An island just 640 kilometers (400 miles) from Hong Kong, Taiwan is close not just geographically but also linguistically and culturally. It offered the freedoms that many Hong Kongers were used to and saw disappearing in their hometown.

Lam’s move to Taiwan in 2019, where he reopened his bookstore in Taipei, the capital, presaged a wave of emigration from Hong Kong as the former British colony came under the tighter grip of China’ s central government and its long-ruling Communist Party.

“It’s not that Hong Kong doesn’t have any democracy, it doesn’t even have any freedom,” Lam said in a recent interview. “When the English were ruling Hong Kong, they didn’t give us true democracy or the power to vote, but the British gave Hong Kongers a very large space to be free.”

Hong Kong and Chinese leaders will mark next week the 25th anniversary of its return to China. At the time, some people were willing to give China a chance. China had promised to rule the city within the “one country, two systems” framework for 50 years. That meant Hong Kong would retain its own legal and political system and freedom of speech that does not exist in mainland China.

Lam Wing-Kee, a Hong Kong bookstore owner who fled to Taiwan in 2019, stands near a bunk bed during an interview inside his bookstore in Taipei, Taiwan on June 8, 2022. Coming to Taiwan was a logical step for Lam, a Hong Kong bookstore owner who was held by police in China for five months for selling sensitive books about the Communist Party. An island just 400 miles from Hong Kong, Taiwan is close not just geographically but also linguistically and culturally. (AP Photo/Johnson Lai)

But in the ensuing decades, a growing tension between the city’s Western-style liberal values and mainland China’s authoritarian political system culminated in explosive pro-democracy protests in 2019. In the aftermath, China imposed a national security law that has left activists and others living in fear of arrest for speaking out.

Hong Kong still looked the same. The malls were open, the skyscrapers were gleaming. But well-known artist Kacey Wong, who moved to Taiwan last year, said he constantly worried about his own arrest or those of his friends, some of whom are now in jail.

“On the outside it’s still beautiful, the sunset at the harbor view. But it’s an illusion that makes you think you’re still free,” he said. “In reality you’re not, the government is watching you and secretly following you.”

Though Wong feels safe in Taiwan, life as an exile is not easy. Despite its similarities to Hong Kong, Wong found his new home an alien place. He does not speak Taiwanese, a widely spoken Fujianese dialect. And the laid-back island contrasts strongly with the fast-paced financial capital that was Hong Kong.

The first six months were hard, Wong said, noting that traveling as a tourist to Taiwan is completely different than living on the island in self-imposed exile.

“I haven’t established the relationship with the place, with the streets, with the people, with the language, with the shop downstairs,” he said.

Other, less prominent exiles than Wong or Lam have also had to navigate a system that does not have established laws or mechanisms for refugees and asylum seekers, and has not always been welcoming. That issue is further complicated by Taiwan’s increasing wariness of security risks posed by China, which claims the island as its renegade province, and of Beijing’s growing influence in Hong Kong.

For example, some individuals such as public school teachers and doctors have been denied permanent residency in Taiwan because they had worked for the Hong Kong government, said Sky Fung, the secretary general of Hong Kong Outlanders, a group that advocates for Hong Kongers in Taiwan. Others struggle with the tighter requirements and slow processing of investment visas.

In the past year or so, some have chosen to leave Taiwan, citing a clearer immigration path in the U.K. and Canada, despite the bigger gulf in language and culture.

Wong said that Taiwan has missed a golden opportunity to keep talented people from Hong Kong. “The policies and actions, and what the ... government is doing is not proactive enough and caused uncertainty in these people, that’s why they’re leaving,” he said.



Kacey Wong, a Hong Kong artist who moved to Taiwan in 2021, stand next to his installation art piece depicting a giant red robot at the exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan on June 11, 2022. Taiwan just 400 miles from Hong Kong, is close not just geographically, but also linguistically and culturally. It offered the freedoms that many Hong Kongers were used to and saw disappearing in their hometown. (AP Photo/Johnson Lai)

The island’s Mainland Affairs Council has defended its record, saying it found that some migrants from Hong Kong hired immigration companies who took illegal methods, such as not carrying through on investments and hiring locals they had promised on paper.

“We in Taiwan, also have national security needs,” Chiu Chui-cheng, deputy minister at the Mainland Affairs Council, said on a TV program last week. “Of course we also want to help Hong Kong, we have always supported Hong Kongers in their support for freedom, democracy and rule of law.”

Some 11,000 Hong Kongers got residence permits in Taiwan last year, according to Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency, and 1,600 were able to get permanent residency. The U.K. granted 97,000 applications to Hong Kong holders of British National Overseas passports last year in response to China’s crackdown.

However imperfect, Taiwan gives the activists a chance to continue to carry out their work, even if the direct actions of the past were no longer possible.

Lam was one of five Hong Kong booksellers whose seizure by Chinese security agents in 2016 drew global concern.

He often lends his presence to protests against China, most recently attending a June 4 memorial in Taipei to mark the anniversary of a bloody crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Similar protests in Hong Kong and Macao, until recently the only places in China allowed to commemorate the Tiananmen massacre, are no longer allowed.

“As a Hong Konger, I actually haven’t stopped my resistance. I have always continued to do what I needed to do in Taiwan, and participated in my events. I have not given up fighting,” Lam said.

A new leader in the Philippines, and a family’s old wounds

By PHILIP MARCELO

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FILE - Demonstrators hold slogans as they gather at the People's Power Monument in Quezon city, north of Manila Philippines Friday, Nov. 18, 2016, to protest against the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Filipino Filipino voters overwhelmingly elected Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., as president during the May 2022 elections, completing a stunning return to power for the family of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., who ruled the country for more than two decades until being ousted in 1986 in the nonviolent "People Power" revolution. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)


BOSTON (AP) — He was the uncle I never met. But in my family’s origin story, Emmanuel “Manny” Yap always loomed large.

The life of great potential cut short. The cautionary tale. But also the reminder of doing what was right, no matter the cost.

A rising leader in the youth-led opposition to President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Manny Yap joined his parents and siblings for lunch at his mother’s favorite Chinese restaurant in their hometown of Quezon City.

It was Valentine’s Day in 1976, a few years into martial law, the moment in the country’s history when Marcos Sr. suspended civil government and effectively ruled as a dictator. After the meal, the 23-year-old grad student went off to meet a friend.

Days later, an anonymous caller delivered the news his family had dreaded: Manny had been picked up by the military and detained.

My uncle was never seen again.

Now his story is flooding back: The son of the man my family has held responsible for his death all those decades ago is set to become president of the Philippines.

___

“We were on the good side, the honor side,” Janette Marcelo, my mother and Manny’s younger sister, says to me by phone recently. Her voice is trembling but resolute. “You need to know that.”

Even now, nearly a half century later, her memories are vivid when she recalls her parents’ anguish as the days after his disappearance rolled into weeks, months, years.

Her mother, desperately trying to pass messages along to the nuns and priests granted entry to the notorious prison camp where they believed he was being held. Her father, eying each arriving and departing bus, hoping he might catch a glimpse of his eldest son.

But Manny’s body was never recovered. His heartbroken parents were never able to properly lay him to rest. The only markers of their loss are the monuments scattered across Metro Manila where his name is etched along with the more than 2,300 killed or disappeared during Marcos’ two-decade reign.

My mother is emphatic as she recounts the story my siblings and I heard countless times growing up.

“You had an uncle who believed so much in something that he was willing to die for it, and it was a great loss,” she says. “Not just for us, but for the country and the world. He could have done so much. I truly believe that.”

Next week, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. will be inaugurated following his landslide victory in May’s Philippine presidential election, completing a stunning return to power for the Marcos clan, which ruled the country for more than two decades until being ousted by the largely peaceful “People Power” uprising in 1986.

The moment has been a reckoning for my family, our painful past and the values we forged. But given everything else going on in the world, I’ve wondered how much it truly resonated among other Filipino Americans.

So I decided to ask.

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In conversations with Filipinos across the country in recent weeks, I found outlooks ranging from my mom’s simmering fury to unbridled excitement about the future.

It’s not entirely surprising. In the U.S. — where more than 4 million Filipinos represent the third largest Asian group, after Chinese and Indians — Marcos Jr.’s victory was much narrower than in the Philippines.

He claimed nearly 47% of the more than 75,000 ballots cast by dual citizens and other Philippine nationals in the U.S., compared to 43% by his main opponent, outgoing Philippine Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo, according to election results.

One of the first people I spoke with was Rochelle Solanoy, a 53-year-old state worker in Juneau, Alaska. She voted for Marcos Jr., because she believes he can bring a return to the “golden years” when the country was a rising force in Asia and its charismatic first family was the envy of rivals.

Solanoy, who left the Philippines in 1981, said she marched as a youth against the Marcos dictatorship but now feels like she was lied to.

“When the revolution ousted Marcos, that’s when things went downhill. That’s when the corruption happened,” she said by phone. “Now, I’m learning these things that I didn’t know when I was younger. Our minds had been poisoned the whole time.”

In California, Susan Tagle, 62, of Sacramento, said the election made her question everything she went through as a young university activist, when she was imprisoned for months by the Marcos regime.

Marcos Sr. died in exile in Hawaii in 1989. His widow, Imelda, whose vast shoe collection became the symbol of the family’s excess during the dictatorship, has served for years in the Philippine Congress while her children have served as governors and senators.

“We basked in the idea of ousting a dictator,” said Tagle, who voted for Robredo. “Then we went about our lives. We went back to school, started families, built careers and thought the worst was over.”

Constantino “Coco” Alinsug, who earlier this year became the first Filipino American elected city councilor in New England, says he’s willing to give Marcos Jr. a chance, even if he has strong reservations.

The 50-year-old Lynn, Massachusetts resident, who came to the U.S. in his 20s, marched against the Marcos dictatorship as a youth. But he’s also an ardent supporter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, whose bloody crackdown on illegal drugs has sparked its own international human rights concerns. Duterte’s daughter, Sara, will serve as Marcos Jr.’s vice president.

“I want to give this guy a chance, but I honestly have no idea what he’s about,” said Alinsug, who wasn’t able to vote because he isn’t a dual citizen. “He didn’t debate. He didn’t campaign. He just let his machine and money do the work.”

Brendan Flores, chairman and president of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations, was similarly guarded.

“I’m well aware of what the history books say. There’s lots of baggage, no doubt,” said the 37-year-old Sarasota, Florida resident. “The key difference this time is that the world is watching. We’re not going to sit idly by if things go wrong.”

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I wish I could say my mom is as hopeful.

For her, there’s new urgency in the lessons she has tried to impart for all these years. As she sees it, the past has been rewritten to cast the villains of her childhood as today’s saviors.

After the elder Marcos was deposed, my grandfather, Pedro Yap, joined the Philippine government commission tasked with recouping the ill-gotten assets of the former first family.

He worked to freeze Swiss bank accounts and seize properties in Los Angeles, New York City and elsewhere in order to repatriate wealth back to his impoverished nation. The family, still reeling from the loss of our uncle and fearing Marcos retribution, begged him to quit.

Grandpa, who also served on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, eventually did — when he was appointed to the nation’s Supreme Court and briefly served as chief justice until retirement.

I ask my mom: Does seeing the Marcos family back in power mean grandpa’s work and Uncle Manny’s death were in vain? She doesn’t hesitate.

“All I can say is there were good people who tried and there still are good people who will continue to try,” she says. “But it’s futile. It’s never going to change.”

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Philip Marcelo is a reporter in the AP’s Boston bureau. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/philmarcelo

A world apart, Lebanon and Sri Lanka share economic collapse

By ZEINA KARAM and DAVID RISING

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Riot police stand guard as anti-government protesters try to remove a barbed-wire barrier to advance towards the government buildings during a protest against a slate of new proposed taxes, including a $6 monthly fee for using Whatsapp voice calls, in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019. The measures set a spark to long smoldering anger against the ruling class and months of mass protests. Irregular capital controls were put in place, cutting people off from their savings as the currency began to spiral. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon and Sri Lanka may be a world apart, but they share a history of political turmoil and violence that led to the collapse of once-prosperous economies bedeviled by corruption, patronage, nepotism and incompetence.

The toxic combinations led to disaster for both: Currency collapse, shortages, triple-digit inflation and growing hunger. Snaking queues for gas. A decimated middle class. An exodus of professionals who might have helped rebuild.

There usually isn’t one moment that marks the catastrophic breaking point of an economic collapse, although telltale signs can be there for months — if not years.

When it happens, the hardship unleashed is all-consuming, transforming everyday life so profoundly that the country may never return to what it was.

Experts say a dozen countries — including Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Pakistan — could suffer the same fate as Lebanon and Sri Lanka, as the post-pandemic recovery and war in Ukraine spark global food shortages and a surge in prices.

ROOTS OF CRISIS

The crises in Lebanon and Sri Lanka are rooted in decades of greed, corruption and conflict.

Both countries suffered a long civil war followed by a tenuous and rocky recovery, all the while dominated by corrupt warlords and family cliques that amassed enormous foreign debt and stubbornly held on to power.

Various popular uprisings in Lebanon have been unable to shake off a political class that has long used the country’s sectarian power-sharing system to perpetuate corruption and nepotism. Key decisions remain in the hands of political dynasties that gained power because of immense wealth or by commanding militias during the war.

Amid the factional rivalries, political paralysis and government dysfunction has worsened. As a result, Lebanon is one of the most backward Middle East countries in infrastructure and development, including extensive power cuts which persist 32 years after the civil war ended.

In Sri Lanka, the Rajapaksa family has monopolized politics in the island nation for decades. Even now, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is still clinging to power, although the family dynasty around him has crumbled amid protests since April.

Experts say the current crises in both countries is of their own making, including a high level of foreign debt and little invested in development.

Moreover, both countries have suffered repeated bouts of instability and terrorist attacks that upended tourism, a mainstay of their economies. In Sri Lanka, Easter suicide bombings at churches and hotels killed more than 260 people in 2019.

Lebanon has suffered the consequences of neighboring Syria’s civil war, which flooded the country of 5 million with about 1 million refugees.

Both economies were then hit again with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

LEBANON PROTESTS

LEBANON PROTEST

SRI LANKA PLASTIC WASTE ON BEACHES AS SHIP CATCHES FIRE AND SINKS 

SRI LANKAN BUDDHIST NUN OVERCOME BY TEARGAS 

TIPPING POINTS

Lebanon’s crisis began in late 2019, after the government announced new proposed taxes, including a $6 monthly fee for using Whatsapp voice calls. The measures set a spark to long smoldering anger against the ruling class and months of mass protests. Irregular capital controls were put in place, cutting people off from their savings as the currency began to spiral.

In March 2020, Lebanon defaulted on paying back its massive debt, worth at the time about $90 billion or 170% of GDP — one of the highest in the world. In June 2021, with the currency having lost nearly 90% of its value, the World Bank said the crisis ranked as one of the worst the world has seen in more than 150 years.

In Sri Lanka, with the economy still fragile after the 2019 Easter bombings, Gotabaya pushed through the largest tax cuts in the country’s history. That sparked a quick backlash, with creditors downgrading the country’s ratings, blocking it from borrowing more money as foreign exchange reserves nosedived.

On the brink of bankruptcy, it has suspended payments on its foreign loans and introduced capital controls amid a severe shortage of foreign currency. The tax cuts recently were reversed.

Meanwhile the Sri Lankan rupee has weakened by nearly 80% to about 360 to $1, making the costs of imports even more prohibitive.

“Our economy has completely collapsed,” the prime minister said Wednesday.

UPENDED LIVES

Before this latest descent, both Lebanon and Sri Lanka had a middle-income population that allowed most people to live somewhat comfortably.

During the 1980s and 1990s, many Sri Lankans took jobs as domestic workers in Lebanese households. As Sri Lanka began its postwar recovery, they have been replaced by workers from Ethiopia, Nepal and the Philippines.

The recent crisis forced most Lebanese to give up that luxury, among others. Almost overnight, people found themselves with almost no access to their money, evaporated savings and worthless salaries. A month’s salary at minimum wage isn’t enough to buy 20 liters (5 1/4 gallons) of gasoline, or cover the bill for private generators that provide homes with a few hours of electricity a day.

At one point, severe shortages of fuel, cooking gas and oil led to fights over limited supplies – scenes now replicated in Sri Lanka. Cancer drugs are often out of stock. Earlier this year, the government even ran out of paper for new passports.

Tens of thousands of professionals, including doctors, nurses and pharmacists, have left the country in search of jobs.

Similarly, Sri Lanka is now almost without gasoline and faces an acute shortage of other fuels. Authorities have announced nationwide power cuts of up to four hours a day and asked state employees not to work on Fridays, except for those needed for essential services.

The U.N. World Food Program says nearly nine of 10 Sri Lankan families are skipping meals or otherwise skimping to stretch their food, while 3 million are getting emergency humanitarian aid.

Doctors have resorted to social media to seek critical supplies of equipment and medicine. Growing numbers of Sri Lankans want passports to go overseas to search for work.

OTHER DISASTERS

In addition to the political and financial turmoil, both countries have faced disasters that worsened their crises.

On Aug. 4, 2020, a catastrophic explosion s truck Beirut’s port, killing at least 216 people and wrecking large parts of the city. The blast, widely considered one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, was caused by the detonation of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate that was stored in a warehouse for years. The dangerous material was housed there apparently with the knowledge of senior politicians and security officials who did nothing about it.

There was widespread outrage at the traditional parties’ endemic corruption and mismanagement, which were widely blamed for the calamity.

Sri Lanka faced a disaster in early 2021, when a container ship carrying chemicals caught fire off the coast of the capital of Colombo. It burned for nearly two weeks before sinking while being towed to deeper waters.

The burning ship belched noxious fumes and spilled more than 1,500 tons of plastic pellets into the Indian Ocean, which were later found in dead dolphins and fish on the beaches.

Fishing was banned in the area because of health risks associated with the chemicals in the water, affecting the livelihoods of some 4,300 families, who still have not received compensation.

___

Rising reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writer Krishan Francis in Colombo, Sri Lanka, contributed.

LEBANON PORT AFTER EXPLOSION

More than three-fourths of U.S. teens have gotten HPV vaccinations

By Alan Mozes, HealthDay News

By 2020, about 77% of girls and 74% of boys had gotten at least one dose of an HPV vaccine, a recent study showed. File Photo by Alexis C. Glenn/UPI | License Photo

More and more of America's teens are getting vaccinated against the human papillomavirus virus (HPV), new research indicates.

Between 2015 and 2020, the study found, the percentage of 13- to 17-year-olds who had gotten at least one dose of the vaccine steadily increased, rising from 56% to just over 75%.

"In addition, the adolescents who completed their HPV vaccination series increased from 40.3% in 2015 to 59.3% in 2020," said lead researcher Dr. Peng-jun Lu, an epidemiologist with the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta.

That's a significant boost for a controversial vaccine that was slow to catch on when it was introduced in the United States in 2006. It is offered to prevent a virus that causes a wide range of sexually transmitted cancers, including cancers of the cervix, vagina, penis, anus, mouth and throat.

The HPV vaccine is recommended starting at age 11 or 12, though it can be administered as early as age 9, the CDC notes.

Given as a two- to three-dose regimen (depending on the age of the initial vaccination), it was originally just for girls. But by 2011 it was recommended for boys, as well.

A year after the vaccine was recommended for each, only about 25% of girls and 21% of boys received it, due in part to some parents' concerns about offering their kids a vaccine tied to diseases linked to sexual activity.

Still, those numbers did improve over time. By 2015, for example, about 63% of girls had gotten at least one of the recommended vaccine doses.

And CDC surveys of teens between 2015 and 2020 show that the upward trend has continued. By 2020, about 77% of girls and 74% of boys had gotten at least one dose.

The 2020 numbers suggest "there were larger increases among males than females in HPV vaccination rates," Lu noted. In the end, the gender gap in vaccine uptake shrank from 13% in 2015 to just 3% by 2020.

As to what's driving the steady improvement, Lu pointed to vaccine education efforts by a wide range of groups, including the CDC, state and local health departments, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Cancer Society.

"The study also found that those who received a doctor recommendation were far more likely to get an HPV vaccination," Lu noted.

As trusted sources of health information, healthcare providers "can serve as a key influencer in decisions by patients to get vaccinated," Lu added.

But other survey indicators paint a less clear cut picture as to what's going on.

For example, teens in households in which the mother was relatively more educated were less likely to get vaccinated, Lu said. That was also the case among kids in more rural areas.

And, Lu emphasized, the findings do not take into account the COVID pandemic's impact on vaccine rates.

"We will need additional years of survey data to fully assess the impact of the pandemic," Lu said.

That issue is of particular concern, said Debbie Saslow, managing director of HPV-Related and Women's Cancers at the American Cancer Society. She reviewed the findings.

"The HPV vaccination uptake was measured before the pandemic started," she said. "We know there has been a very large drop in vaccinations in the last two years, particularly for the HPV vaccine."

In addition, Saslow noted that while uptake of the HPV vaccine has been gradually and steadily increasing over many years, it still lags far behind other vaccines given at the same age.

In that light, she said, the best strategy will be to encourage doctors and nurses to continue recommending the HPV vaccine.

The new findings were published online Wednesday in Pediatrics.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about HPV vaccination.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

BAD MANAGEMENT DECISIONS COST JOBS

Netflix laying off more employees, eliminating 300 further jobs
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Netflix is laying off around 300 employees, the streaming service confirmed Thursday. 

File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo


June 23 (UPI) -- Netflix is laying off around 300 employees, the streaming service confirmed Thursday.

The number represents about 3% of the California-based company's workforce of around 11,000 full-time employees.

"Today we sadly let go of around 300 employees," Netflix said in a statement to NBC Thursday.

"While we continue to invest significantly in the business, we made these adjustments so that our costs are growing in line with our slower revenue growth. We are so grateful for everything they have done for Netflix and are working hard to support them through this difficult transition."

This is the latest negative financial news for Netflix.

The company laid off 150 employees in mid-May in the face of subscriber losses, slower revenue growth and a shareholder lawsuit.

Most of the layoffs were in the United States, representing around 2% of Netflix's workforce at the time.

In mid-April, Netflix saw its shares plummet after failing to meet earnings projections. The company's shares fell 37% in one trading day, revealing it lost subscribers for the first time.

"While we continue to invest significantly in the business, we made these adjustments so that our costs are growing in line with our slower revenue growth," a company spokesperson told CNN Business Thursday.

"We are so grateful for everything they have done for Netflix and are working hard to support them through this difficult transition."

Netflix closed up 1.58% Thursday, following the news, trading at $181.71 per share at market close.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell: Rate hikes could cause higher unemployment

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks at the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Hearing on Semiannual Monetary issues on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. 

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/UPI | License Photo

June 23 (UPI) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified in the House on Thursday that aggressive interest rate hikes by the Fed to tame inflation could cause unemployment to rise.

"There is a risk that unemployment will move up, from what is an historically low level though," Powell told the House Financial Services Committee, according to CNN.

Powell said the Fed's interest rate increases are designed to drive growth down to a more sustainable level to give the supply side time to catch up with demand.

"Making appropriate monetary policy in this uncertain environment requires a recognition that the economy often evolves in unexpected ways," Powell said in a statement delivered to both the House and Senate. "Inflation has obviously surprised to the upside over the past year, and further surprises could be in store."

As head of the U.S. central bank, Powell led the move last week to increase key interest rates by 0.75 percentage point, which was the largest one-time hike since 1994. The move is intended to control rising inflation by reducing consumer spending.

Powell's appearance on Thursday completed two days of congressional testimony on the state of the economy.

He appeared in the Senate on Wednesday to deliver the Fed's outlook -- which said U.S. markets have remained "strong" in the face of difficult conditions, such as rising gas prices.

"At the Fed we understand the hardship that high inflation is causing. We are strongly committed to bring inflation back down and we're moving expeditiously to do so," Powell told the Senate banking committee Wednesday.

"We have both the tools we need and the resolve it will take to restore price stability on behalf of American families and businesses."

In the Senate, Powell also said he expects more interest rate hikes -- probably at each of the Fed's remaining four policy meetings in 2022. The Federal Reserve's next policy meeting is scheduled for July 26-27, and additional meetings will be held Sept. 20-21, Nov. 1-2 and Dec. 13-14.

Powell said on Wednesday during Senate testimony that a U.S. recession is "possible," but unlikely.

"The U.S. economy for now is strong. Spending is strong. Consumers are in good shape. Businesses are in good shape," he told the Senate banking committee. "Monetary policy is famously a blunt tool, and there's a risk that weaker outcomes are certainly possible. But they are not our intent."

Bison runs across highway during rush hour west of Edmonton

 

June 23 (UPI) -- A traveler on an Alberta highway captured video when she came across an unusual traffic hazard: a bison running loose in the roadway.

Keira Boutilier said she was on her way to visit friends in Stony Plain on Wednesday when she spotted a large animal on Highway 16, near Highway 779.

"The people coming west, they're all like slowed down and I'm, like, just so confused," Boutilier told CTV News. "And then I see this giant, like, buffalo bison thing. I thought it was a moose at first and then it started running into my lane."

Boutilier captured video of the bison running out of the median and crossing three lanes of traffic to reach a field at the side of the highway.

"I was so confused. I didn't even realize there was bison close to here. It was so random. I've been driving at night and I've seen moose, but to see a bison, I'm like, 'Where did that come from?'" Boutilier said.

The origins and ultimate fate of the bison were unclear.

An elusive bison was recently captured after eight months on the loose in Illinois. Lake County Forest Preserves officials said the female bison, variously nicknamed Tyson the Bison and Billy the Bison, was captured in late May at Lakewood Forest Preserve in Wauconda by personnel from Loose Cattle Caught.