FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE
Telemedicine was made easy during COVID-19. Not any more

By TOM MURPHY

yesterday

Helen Khuri poses for a portrait on the campus of Emory University Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022, in Atlanta. Khuri’s mother found a specialist to help her when the 19-year-old’s post-traumatic stress disorder flared up last spring. But the Emory University student had to temporarily move from Atlanta to Boston for treatment, even though she never set foot inside the hospital offering it. “It didn’t necessarily make sense to … kind of uproot my life, just to receive this three-week treatment program,” Khuri said.

 (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Telemedicine exploded in popularity after COVID-19 hit, but limits are returning for care delivered across state lines.

That complicates follow-up treatments for some cancer patients. It also can affect other types of care, including mental health therapy and routine doctor check-ins.

Over the past year, nearly 40 states and Washington, D.C., have ended emergency declarations that made it easier for doctors to use video visits to see patients in another state, according to the Alliance for Connected Care, which advocates for telemedicine use.

Some, like Virginia, have created exceptions for people who have an existing relationship with a physician. A few, like Arizona and Florida, have made it easier for out-of-state doctors to practice telemedicine.

Doctors say the resulting patchwork of regulations creates confusion and has led some practices to shut down out-of-state telemedicine entirely. That leaves follow-up visits, consultations or other care only to patients who have the means to travel for in-person meetings.

Susie Rinehart is planning two upcoming trips to her cancer doctor in Boston. She needs regular scans and doctor visits to monitor a rare bone cancer that has spread from her skull to her spine.

Rinehart doesn’t have a specialist near her home outside Denver who can treat her. These visits were done virtually during the pandemic.

She will travel without her husband to save money, but that presents another problem: If she gets bad news, she’ll handle it alone.

“It’s stressful enough to have a rare cancer, and this just adds to the stress,” the 51-year-old said.

Rinehart’s oncologist, Dr. Shannon MacDonald, said telemedicine regulation enforcement seems to be more aggressive now than it was before the pandemic, when video visits were still emerging.

“It just seems so dated,” said MacDonald, who recently co-wrote a piece about the issue in The New England Journal of Medicine.

To state medical boards, the patient’s location during a telemedicine visit is where the appointment takes place. One of MacDonald’s hospitals, Massachusetts General, requires doctors to be licensed in the patient’s state for virtual visits.

It also wants those visits restricted to New England and Florida, where many patients spend the winter, said Dr. Lee Schwamm, a vice president for the Mass General Brigham health system.

That doesn’t help doctors like MacDonald who see patients from around the country.

Cleveland Clinic also draws a lot of patients from out of state. Neurosurgeon Dr. Peter Rasmussen worries about how some will handle upcoming travel, especially because winter can bring icy weather.

A fall “literally could be life ending” for someone with a condition like Parkinson’s disease who has trouble walking, he said.

Psychiatrists have a different concern: Finding doctors for patients who move out of state. This is especially difficult for college students who temporarily leave home.

Most U.S. counties have no child and adolescent psychiatrists, noted Dr. Shabana Khan, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s telepsychiatry committee.

“If we do try to transition patients, often there is no one there,” Khan said.

Helen Khuri’s mother found a specialist to help her when the 19-year-old’s post-traumatic stress disorder flared up last spring. But the Emory University student had to temporarily move from Atlanta to Boston for treatment, even though she never set foot inside the hospital offering it.

She rented an apartment with her father so she could be in the same state for telemedicine visits, a situation she deemed “ridiculous.”

“It didn’t necessarily make sense to … kind of uproot my life, just to receive this three-week treatment program,” Khuri said.

Even people seeing doctors close to home can be affected.

Dr. Ed Sepe’s Washington, D.C., pediatric practice has patients in Maryland who have started driving a few miles across the border into the city to connect by video. That saves them a 45-minute trip downtown for an in-person visit.

“It’s silly,” he said. “If you are under a doctor’s care, and you are in the U.S., it doesn’t make any sense to have geographic restrictions for telemedicine.”

Sepe noted that low-income families tend to be in jobs that don’t allow time off for in-person visits. Some also have a hard time getting transportation. Video visits were helping with these obstacles.

“It’s bigger than just telemedicine,” he said. “There’s a missed opportunity there to level the playing field.”

States can play an important role in telemedicine’s growth by guarding against fraud and protecting patient safety, according to Lisa Robin, an executive with the Federation of State Medical Boards.

But the federation also recommends that states loosen some telemedicine restrictions.

That includes permitting virtual follow-ups for someone who has traveled out of state to seek care or for people who temporarily move but want to stay with a doctor.

States could also form regional compacts with their neighbors to ease cross-border care, noted Dr. Ateev Mehrotra, a Harvard health policy professor who studies telemedicine.

“There’s so many ways that these issues can be addressed,” he said

In the meantime, patients who need care now are trying to figure out how to manage it.

Lucas Rounds isn’t sure how many visits he will make to see MacDonald in Boston to monitor his rare bone cancer. The 35-year-old Logan, Utah, resident already spent months away from home earlier this year, undergoing radiation and surgery.

Plus he has a wife and three young girls and expenses like a mortgage to consider.

Rounds says he has to think about taking care of his family “if the worst happens.”

“If I die from cancer, then all these expenses we’ve accrued … those are dollars that my family wouldn’t have,” he said.

___

Follow Tom Murphy on Twitter: @thpmurphy

___

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.

Singer driven from Belarus for speaking out tries to rebuild
By MARK PRATT

yesterday

Opera singer Ilya Silchukou sits for a photograph at a park in a suburb of Boston, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022. Silchukou was a cultural icon in his native Belarus, the lead soloist at the State Opera Bolshoi who represented his nation at official government functions at home and abroad and performed at opera houses all over Europe. He lived a privileged and comfortable life in his homeland, but gave it up after joining tens of thousands of Belarusians at election protests that were violently suppressed by the Lukashenko government. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)


BOSTON (AP) — Ilya Silchukou was a cultural icon in his native Belarus, the lead soloist at the State Opera Bolshoi who represented his nation at official government functions at home and abroad and performed at opera houses across Europe.

He lived a privileged and comfortable life in his homeland.

And he gave it all up.

Silchukou dared to speak out against Alexander Lukashenko, who has led the former Soviet republic with an iron fist for nearly three decades.

He’s now living in suburban Boston with his wife and three children and teaches music to middle school students while he tries to revive his singing career in the U.S., where he remains relatively unknown.

“I am known in Europe, but I’ve never performed in the States, and it was like a blank piece of paper for me, just a new page,” he said during a recent interview in Boston. “We had to start from scratch here.”

When Lukashenko won a sixth term in office in 2020 in an election regarded by his opposition and the West as fraudulent, Silchukou joined tens of thousands of Belarusians at election protests that were violently suppressed and resulted in the arrests of thousands.

“It was so evident to all of us that we could not keep silent any more,” he said.

He renounced three awards that he had received personally from Lukashenko.

His friends warned him of the risks.

“They said, ‘What is the problem with you? You have everything you need,’” he said. “I was well paid in Belarus and I had all the benefits from that. I said, ‘Yes they pay me, but they don’t own me.’”

His public opposition to Lukashenko got him fired from the opera for an “act of immorality” and he was black-listed, he said. In response, he had one more act of defiance — using his baritone voice in a video of the traditional Belarusian hymn, “Mahutny Bozha,” which means “Mighty God,” and has become a signature anthem of the opposition to Lukashenko.

Still, it wasn’t until March 2021 when the police came after his wife, Tanya, and accused her of defrauding the nation’s state-sponsored child support system and threatened her with two years in jail that he knew he had to get out. He took it as a thinly-veiled threat to break up their family.

“Lots of kids in Belarus have both parents in prison,” he said.

When his children finished school in May of that year, the family packed four suitcases with some vital documents and photos and flew from Belarus to the nation of Georgia, then on to Seattle, where his parents live.

The family came to the East Coast about a year ago at the suggestion of Marina Lvova, who runs the nonprofit Belarusians in Boston, drawn by Boston’s cultural scene, proximity to Europe and vibrant Belarusian expatriate community.

Lvova and her husband first saw Silchukou at one of his last public performances in Minsk and “fell in love with his voice,” she said.

But she was also impressed with his bravery for standing up to Lukashenko.

“Ilya is a real patriot of Belarus,” she said. “You cannot be successful in a country that is a prison, and unfortunately our country is a prison right now.”

Silchukou is making ends meet teaching 5th through 9th graders at the private Star Academy school.

“It’s pretty incredible that he’s able to share some of the experiences he’s had at some of the best opera houses in Europe,” said Margarita Druker, Star Academy’s co-director.

The school has many students of Eastern European descent whose families have similar stories of fleeing oppression.

“It was very courageous for someone of his stature to walk away from all he had into so much uncertainty,” Druker said.

Silchukou has returned to the stage, collaborating with pianist Pavel Nersessian, an associate professor at Boston University, for two recent concerts in Boston and New Jersey.

For both, he put together a retrospective of some of his personal favorite pieces spanning his career from his first singing lessons to his time at the national opera, including “Papageno” from “The Magic Flute” and “Cavatina Figaro” from the “The Barber of Seville.” He capped off the shows with what he called the “jewel of the concert,” a duet with his mezzo-soprano wife.

He recently had an audition with the Boston Lyric Opera and is trying to secure auditions with other opera houses in the U.S., and he’s in negotiations with U.S. agents.

“I am looking forward with hope,” he said.

One of those hopes is a return to his homeland.

He remains in touch with friends and colleagues in Belarus who are “working in fear,” afraid of speaking out against Lukashenko.

“We hope to see them again, and for sure we will sing our songs on the squares on our true independence day,” he said.

COLONIALIST NEWS NETWORK
CNN apologizes for entering Thai massacre site, pulls video

Buddhist pray with relatives of the victims of a mass killing attack gather for a Buddhist ceremony front on the Young Children's Development Center in the rural town of Uthai Sawan, north eastern Thailand, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022. Thai police are investigating a report that a CNN crew inappropriately entered the daycare center where more than 20 preschoolers were slain as they were reporting on the attack, authorities said Sunday. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand (AP) — CNN pulled a story on the massacre of Thai preschoolers and apologized Sunday over criticism its journalists entered the day care where the children were slain and filmed the crime scene without permission.

The two CNN journalists involved were fined after authorities found that they had been working in the country after entering on tourist visas, but cleared of wrongdoing for entering the day care center where more than 20 children were killed, deputy national police chief Surachate Hakparn said.

He said his investigation had determined the journalists believed they had obtained permission to enter and film after being waved into the building by a volunteer or a health officer, and were unaware the person was not authorized to allow them inside.

They each agreed to pay fines of 5,000 baht ($133) and leave the country, he said.

Both journalists apologized, as did CNN International’s executive vice president and general manager Mike McCarthy.

In a statement, he said his reporters sought permission to enter the building but the team “now understands that these officials were not authorized to grant this permission,” adding that it was “never their intention to contravene any rules.”

“We deeply regret any distress or offense our report may have caused, and for any inconvenience to the police at such a distressing time for the country,” he said in the statement tweeted by CNN.

He said CNN had ceased broadcasting the report and had removed the video from its website.

Authorities began looking into the incident after a Thai reporter posted an image on social media of two members of the crew leaving the scene in northeastern Thailand, where they were reporting on the Thursday attack by a fired policeman who authorities say massacred 36 people, 24 of them children. One CNN crew member was seen climbing over the low wall and fence around the compound, over police tape, and the other already outside.

That prompted criticism from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, which said it was “dismayed” by CNN’s coverage and the decision to film the crime scene inside.

“This was unprofessional and a serious breach of journalistic ethics in crime reporting,” the FCCT said.

The Thai Journalists’ Association criticized CNN’s actions as “unethical” and “insensitive,” and called for an internal company investigation of the incident in addition to the official Thai probe.

In an initial response, CNN tweeted that the crew had entered the premises when the police cordon had been removed from the center, and were told by three public health officials exiting the building that they could film inside.

“The team gathered footage inside the center for around 15 minutes, then left,” CNN said in its tweet. “During this time, the cordon had been set back in place, so the team needed to climb over the fence at the center to leave.”

As Thailand’s worst such massacre, the attack drew widespread international media attention to the small town of Uthai Sawan in the country’s rural northeast. By Sunday, few remained but a large number of Thai media continued to report from the scene.

Families seek truth as Airbus, Air France face crash trial

By NICOLAS VAUX-MONTAGNY and JEFFREY SCHAEFFER

yesterday

1 of 10

Workers unload debris, belonging to the crashed Air France flight AF447, from the Brazilian Navy's Constitution Frigate in the port of Recife, northeast of Brazil, June 14, 2009. It was the worst plane crash in Air France history, killing people of 33 nationalities and having lasting impact. It led to changes in air safety regulations, how pilots are trained and the use of airspeed sensors. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

PARIS (AP) — Nicolas Toulliou had just proposed marriage to his girlfriend. Nelson Marinho Jr. was heading off on a new oil exploration job. Eric Lamy was about to celebrate his 38th birthday.

They were among 228 people killed in 2009 when their storm-tossed Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris slammed into the Atlantic. After more than a decade of legal battles, their families have a chance at justice in a courtroom.

Aviation industry heavyweights Airbus and Air France are charged with manslaughter in a trial that opens Monday over the crash of Flight 447 on June 1, 2009. The worst plane crash in Air France history killed people of 33 nationalities and had lasting impact, leading to changes in air safety regulations, how pilots are trained and the use of airspeed sensors.

But it almost didn’t come to trial. The companies insist they are not criminally responsible, and Air France has already compensated families. Investigators argued for dropping the case, but unusually, judges overruled them and sent the case to court.

“We made a promise to our loved ones to have the truth for them and to ensure that they didn’t die for nothing,” Ophelie Toulliou, whose 27-year-old brother Nicolas was killed, told The Associated Press. “But we are also fighting for collective security, in fact, for all those who board an Airbus every day, or Air France, every day.”

She said the companies present themselves as “untouchable,” and that Airbus made no effort to address families’ concerns. “For them, we are nothing. They did not lose 228 people. They lost a plane.”

Few families in Brazil, which lost 59 citizens in the crash, can afford to travel to France for the trial. Some feel the French justice system has been too soft on Airbus and Air France — two industrial giants in which the French government has an ownership stake.

The trial is expected to focus on two key factors: the icing over of external sensors called pitot tubes, and pilot error.

The Airbus A330-200 disappeared from radars over the Atlantic Ocean between Brazil and Senegal with 216 passengers and 12 crew members aboard. The first debris was only spotted at sea five days later. And it wasn’t until 2011 that the plane — and its black box recorders — were located on the ocean floor, in an unprecedented search effort at depths of more than 13,000 feet.

France’s air accident investigation agency BEA found that the accident involved a cascading series of events, with no single cause.

As a storm buffeted the plane, ice crystals present at high altitudes disabled the pitot tubes, blocking speed and altitude information. The autopilot disconnected.

The crew resumed manual piloting, but with erroneous navigation data. The plane went into an aerodynamic stall, its nose pitched upward. And then it plunged.

The pilots ”did not understand what was happening to them. A difficulty of interpretation, in an all-digital aircraft like all the aircraft in the world today — well, it’s easy to be wrong,” said Gerard Feldzer, a former pilot and pilot trainer for Air France.

He said he and pilots around the world asked themselves afterward “if it had been me, would I have acted in the same way? It has been a very difficult question to answer.”

No one risks prison in this case; only the companies are on trial. Each faces potential fines of up to 225,000 euros — a fraction of their annual revenues — but they could suffer reputational damage if found criminally responsible.

Nelson Marinho, whose son Nelson Jr was killed, is angry that no company executives will be tried.

“They have changed various directors, both at Airbus and Air France, so who will they arrest? No one. There won’t be justice. That’s sadly the truth,” Marinho, a retired mechanic who leads a support group for victims’ families, told The AP.

Air France is accused of not having implemented training in the event of icing of the pitot probes despite the risks.

In a statement, the company said it would demonstrate in court “that it has not committed a criminal fault at the origin of the accident” and plead for acquittal.

Air France has since changed its training manuals and simulations. It also provided compensation to families, who had to agree not to disclose the sums.

Airbus is accused of having known that the model of pitot tubes on Flight 447 was faulty, and not doing enough to urgently inform airlines and their crews about it and to ensure training to mitigate the resulting risk.

An AP investigation at the time found that Airbus had known since at least 2002 about problems with pitots, but failed to replace them until after the crash. The model in question — a Thales AA pitot — was subsequently banned and replaced.

Airbus blames pilot error, and told investigators that icing over is a problem inherent to all such sensors.

“They knew and they did nothing,” said Danièle Lamy, president of an association of victims’ families that pushed for a trial. “The pilots should never have found themselves in such a situation, they never understood the cause of the breakdown and the plane had become unpilotable.”

Lamy lost her son Eric a few days before his 38th birthday. She has struggled ever since to find out the truth.

“The plane had sent messages to the ground about the problem but had not warned the pilots. It’s as if you were driving a car at 130 (kph, about 80 mph), your brakes were no longer working but the car sent the alert to the mechanic and not to the driver,” Lamy told the AP.

She is among 489 civil parties to the trial, which is scheduled to last through December.

The crash forced Airbus and Air France to be more transparent and reactive, Feldzer said, noting that the trial will be important for the aviation industry as well as for families.

“The history of aviation security is made from this, from accidents,” Feldzer said.

___

This story corrects the type of plane to A330-200 and corrects the spelling of Toulliou’s last name.

___

Vaux-Montagny reported from Lyon, France. David Biller in Rio de Janeiro and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.

Ukraine nuclear plant reconnected to grid after line was cut


 A view of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, in Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia region, in territory under Russian military control, southeastern Ukraine, on May 1, 2022. An external power line to Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — the biggest in Europe — was repaired on Sunday Oct. 9, 2022 after shelling disconnected the facility from the grid and forced it to resort to emergency diesel generators, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said. (AP Photo, File)


BERLIN (AP) — An external power line to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — the biggest in Europe — was repaired on Sunday after shelling disconnected the facility from the grid and forced it to resort to emergency diesel generators, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said the 750-kilovolt line was reconnected to the plant on Sunday evening following repair work by Ukrainian engineers. That enabled the plant to start switching off the generators that had kicked in to provide it with power after the line — its last connection to the grid — was cut early Saturday.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi tweeted that the reconnection was “a temporary relief in a still-untenable situation.”

The plant has been held by Russian forces for months, but operated by Ukrainian employees. All six reactors at the site are shut down but they still require electricity for cooling and other safety functions.

Grossi has spent weeks pushing for the establishment of a “nuclear safety and security protection zone” around the plant. He says he will travel to Russia and then see Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an effort to realize that plan.

Grossi condemned attacks “in areas that could affect the safety and security” of the plant, including in nearby Enerhodar and in the Ukrainian-held provincial capital of Zaporizhzhia.

“Almost every day now, there is shelling in the region where the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is located and where the plant workers and their families live,” he said. “The shelling must stop, immediately. It is already having an impact on the nuclear safety and security situation at the plant.”

Ukrainian operating staff told IAEA experts that a convoy of five trucks carrying “vital additional diesel fuel supplies” is currently in the city of Zaporizhzhia and plans to cross the front line to reach the plant on Monday, the agency said. The site currently has diesel reserves for about 10 days. Separately, a supply of diesel provided by the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom has arrived in Enerhodar, the IAEA added.

Zaporizhzhia is one of four regions in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin has annexed in violation of international laws.

Putin signed a decree Wednesday declaring that Russia was taking over the nuclear plant. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called it a criminal act and said it considered Putin’s decree “null and void.” Ukraine’s state nuclear operator, Energoatom, said it would continue to operate the plant.

___

‘War crime:’ Industrial-scale destruction of Ukraine culture

By HANNA ARHIROVA

yesterday

1 of 9

The 1,500 year-old golden tiara, inlaid with precious stones, one of the world's most valuable artifacts from the blood-letting rule of Attila the Hun, is seen in a museum in Melitopol, Ukraine, in November 2020. Russian troops stole and carted away the priceless crown and a hoard of other treasures after capturing the Ukrainian city of Melitopol in February. (AP Photo)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The exquisite golden tiara, inlaid with precious stones by master craftsmen some 1,500 years ago, was one of the world’s most valuable artifacts from the blood-letting rule of Attila the Hun, who rampaged with horseback warriors deep into Europe in the 5th century.

The Hun diadem is now vanished from the museum in Ukraine that housed it — perhaps, historians fear, forever. Russian troops carted away the priceless crown and a hoard of other treasures after capturing the Ukrainian city of Melitopol in February, museum authorities say.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, now in its eighth month, is being accompanied by the destruction and pillaging of historical sites and treasures on an industrial scale, Ukrainian authorities say.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Ukraine’s culture minister alleged that Russian soldiers helped themselves to artifacts in almost 40 Ukrainian museums. The looting and destruction of cultural sites has caused losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros (dollars), the minister, Oleksandr Tkachenko, added.

“The attitude of Russians toward Ukrainian culture heritage is a war crime,” he said.

For the moment, Ukraine’s government and its Western backers supplying weapons are mostly focused on defeating Russia on the battlefield. But if and when peace returns, the preservation of Ukrainian collections of art, history and culture also will be vital, so survivors of the war can begin the next fight: rebuilding their lives.

“These are museums, historical buildings, churches. Everything that was built and created by generations of Ukrainians,” Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, said in September when she visited a Ukrainian museum in New York. “This is a war against our identity.”

Workers at the Museum of Local History in Melitopol first tried hiding the Hun diadem and hundreds of other treasures when Russian troops stormed the southern city. But after weeks of repeated searches, Russian soldiers finally discovered the building’s secret basement where staff had squirrelled away the museum’s most precious objects — including the Hun diadem, according to a museum worker.

The worker, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, fearing Russian punishment for even discussing the events, said the Ukrainians don’t know where Russian troops took the haul, which included the tiara and some 1,700 other artifacts.

Dug up from a burial chamber in 1948, the crown is one of just a few Hun crowns worldwide. The museum worker said other treasures that disappeared with Russian soldiers include 198 pieces of 2,400-year-old gold from the era of the Scythians, nomads who migrated from Central Asia to southern Russia and Ukraine and founded an empire in Crimea.

“These are ancient finds. These are works of art. They are priceless,” said Oleksandr Symonenko, chief researcher at Ukraine’s Institute of Archaeology. “If culture disappears, it is an irreparable disaster.”

Russia’s Culture Ministry did not respond to questions about the Melitopol collection.

Russian forces also looted museums as they laid waste to the Black Sea port of Mariupol, according to Ukrainian officials who were driven from that the southern city, which was relentlessly pounded by Russian bombardment. It fell under Moscow’s complete control only in May when Ukrainian defenders who clung to the city’s steelworks finally surrendered.

Mariupol’s exiled city council said Russian forces pilfered more than 2,000 items from the city’s museums. Among the most precious items were ancient religious icons, a unique handwritten Torah scroll, a 200-year-old bible and more than 200 medals, the council said.

Also looted were art works by painters Arkhip Kuindzhi, who was born in Mariupol, and Crimea-born Ivan Aivazovsky, both famed for their seascapes, the exiled councillors said. They said Russian troops carted off their stolen bounty to the Russian-occupied Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

The invasion has also wrought extensive damage and destruction to Ukraine’s cultural patrimony. The U.N.’s cultural agency is keeping a tally of sites being struck by missiles, bombs and shelling. With the war now in its eighth month, the agency says it has verified damage to 199 sites in 12 regions

They include 84 churches and other religious sites, 37 buildings of historic importance, 37 buildings for cultural activities, 18 monuments, 13 museums and 10 libraries, UNESCO says.

Ukrainian government tallies are even higher, with authorities saying their count of destroyed and damaged religious buildings alone is up to at least 270.

While invasion forces hunted for treasures to steal, Ukrainian museum workers did what they could to keep them out of Russian hands. Tens of thousands of items have been evacuated away from the front lines and combat-struck regions.

In Kyiv, the director of the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine lived in the building, guarding its artifacts, during the invasion’s first weeks when Russian forces sought, unsuccessfully, to encircle the capital.

“We were afraid of the Russian occupiers, because they destroy everything that can be identified as Ukrainian,” recalled the director, Natalia Panchenko.

Fearing Russian troops would storm the city, she sought to confuse them by taking down the plaque on the museum’s entrance. She also dismantled exhibits, carefully packing away artifacts into boxes for evacuation.

One day, she hopes, they’ll go back into their rightful place. For now, the museum is just showing copies.

“These things were fragile, they survived hundreds of years,” she said. “We couldn’t stand the thought they could be lost.”

___

AP journalist John Leicester in Paris contributed. Efrem Lykatsky contributed from Kyiv.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Biden signs executive order on privacy protections in intelligence data

By Doug Cunningham


President Joe Biden speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Monday. Friday Biden signed an executive order enhancing privacy and civil liberties protections for personal data collected by U.S. intelligence agencies. Photo by Shawn Thew/UPI | License Photo


Oct. 7 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday to enhance privacy and civil liberties protections for people's personal data collected by U.S. intelligence agencies as part of an agreement with the European Union on transatlantic data transfers.

The Biden executive order mandates that U.S. intelligence agencies only collect data from signals intelligence "in pursuit of defined national security objectives."

It sets up a Data Protection Review Court at the Justice Department to allow individuals to challenge how personal data is used by intelligence agencies.

Biden's action was taken based on a commitment to foster trans-Atlantic data flows while addressing Court of Justice concerns in Europe about privacy in personal data transfers to the United States.

RELATED Biden to sign directives on quantum computer national security risks

The order directs steps the United States will take to implement the European Union-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

According to the White House, the order will add privacy safeguards for U.S. intelligence activities, requiring privacy and civil liberties be taken into consideration.

The White House said in a statement Friday that transatlantic data flows "are critical to enabling the $7.1 trillion EU-U.S. economic relationship."

The European Commission will incorporate Biden's executive order into its own rules for transatlantic data transfers to satisfy the Court of Justice data privacy concerns in E.U.-U.S. data transfers.


A White House statement said, "These steps will provide the European Commission with a basis to adopt a new adequacy determination, which will restore an important, accessible, and affordable data transfer mechanism under EU law. It will also provide greater legal certainty for companies using Standard Contractual Clauses and Binding Corporate Rules to transfer EU personal data to the United States."

Vermeer painting 'Girl with a Flute' declared a fake by National Gallery


A painting titled Girl with a Flute, long believed to have been made by the Dutch baroque master Johannes Vermeer, has been determined to be a fake. Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

Oct. 7 (UPI) -- A 17th Century painting long believed to have been made by the Dutch baroque master Johannes Vermeer has been declared a fake by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The painting, titled Girl with a Flute, is now believed to have been made by an associate of Vermeer in his studio, challenging long-held assumptions that Vermeer worked alone.

The National Gallery announced the new findings during a press conference Friday ahead of the Saturday opening of an exhibit called Vermeer's Secrets.

The museum has since updated its gallery notes for the painting, describing it as having been made by the "studio of Johannes Vermeer."

RELATED Mondrian painting could be auctioned for more than $50 million

"Although the general character and appearance of the work relate closely to works by Vermeer, especially Girl with the Red Hat, the quality falls short of Vermeer's standards," the gallery notes now read.

"Girl with a Flute demonstrates an awareness of Vermeer's idiosyncratic painting processes -- such as the use of certain unusual pigments and the distinctive application of highlights -- but a lack of skill or experience in reproducing them."

The National Gallery noted that no surviving documents provide evidence that Vermeer maintained a studio with pupils or assistants who worked with him.

"The existence of other artists working with Johannes Vermeer is perhaps one of the most significant new findings about the artist to be discovered in decades. It fundamentally changes our understanding of Vermeer," said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art.

"I am incredibly proud of the interdisciplinary team of National Gallery staff who worked together to study these paintings, building on decades of research and using advanced scientific technology to uncover exciting discoveries that add new insight to what we know about the enigmatic artist."

The new research also determined that the Girl with the Red Hat, which has long been disputed to be a true Vermeer painting, was in fact made by the artist at a "turning point" in his career.

RELATED British artist covers entire mansion in doodles

The exhibit, which runs through January 8, will also include two other Vermeer paintings - Woman Holding a Balance and A Lady Writing -- as well as two 20th-century forgeries.

F FOR FAKE (1973) ORSON WELLES

 

ICYMI

SpaceX delivers Russian, Native American women to station

By MARCIA DUNN

October 7, 2022

1 of 8

In this image from video made available by NASA, Russian Cosmonaut Anna Kikina enters the International Space Station from a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. Kikina is the first Russian to launch from the U.S., in 20 years. (NASA via AP)


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A Russian cosmonaut who caught a U.S. lift to the International Space Station arrived at her new home Thursday for a five-month stay, accompanied by a Japanese astronaut and two from NASA, including the first Native American woman in space.

The SpaceX capsule pulled up to the station a day after launching into orbit. The linkup occurred 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the Atlantic, just off the west coast of Africa.

It was the first time in 20 years that a Russian hitched a ride from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the result of a new agreement reached despite friction over the war in Ukraine.

Cosmonaut Anna Kikina joins two Russians already at the orbiting outpost. She’ll live and work on the Russian side until March, before returning to Earth in the same SpaceX capsule.

Riding along with Kikina: Marine Col. Nicole Mann, a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in California, Navy Capt. Josh Cassada and Japan’s Koichi Wakata, the only experienced space flier of the bunch with five missions.

As the capsule closed in, the space station residents promised the new arrivals that their bunks were ready and the outside light was on.

“You guys are the best,” replied Mann, the capsule’s commander.

Mann and her crew will replace three Americans and one Italian who will return in their own SpaceX capsule next week after almost half a year up there. Until then, 11 people will share the orbiting lab.

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio arrived two weeks ago. He launched on a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan, kicking off the cash-free crew swapping between NASA and the Russian Space Agency. They agreed to the plan last summer in order to always have an American and Russian at the station.

Until Elon Musk’s SpaceX started launching astronauts two years ago, NASA was forced to spend tens of millions of dollars every time an astronaut flew up on a Soyuz.

___

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.

EPA moves to address pollution from leaded fuel in small airplanes

By HealthDay News

The proposed endangerment finding is considered a first step in using EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to address this source of lead pollution. Photo by Zorandim/Shutterstock

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken a major step to curb the largest remaining source of airborne lead pollution.

The agency has proposed a so-called endangerment finding that aircraft that use leaded fuel cause or contribute to pollution that could harm public health and welfare.

A majority of aircraft that use leaded fuel are smaller piston-engine aircraft that carry two to 10 passengers. Commercial jet aircraft don't use leaded fuel.

The proposed endangerment finding is considered a first step in using EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to address this source of lead pollution.

RELATEDInterest in electric aircraft grows as NASA nears test of X-57 Maxwell

"When it comes to our children the science is clear, exposure to lead can cause irreversible and lifelong health effects," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in an agency news release.

"Aircraft that use leaded fuel are the dominant source of lead emissions to air in the country," he said. "Today's proposal is an important step forward as we work to reduce lead exposure and protect children's health."

The next step is seeking public notice and comment on the proposed endangerment finding. The EPA will then review those comments and issue a final finding in 2023.

The agency is not proposing aircraft engine lead emission standards with this action, but it could propose regulatory standards later.

Levels of airborne lead in the United States have declined 99% since 1980.

The EPA action is the latest in a series of moves by the U.S. federal government to curb lead pollution. The Biden Administration has moved toward safe replacement of leaded aviation gas. Earlier this year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) joined with aviation and energy industries in announcing an initiative to transition piston-engine aircraft to unleaded fuel.

The FAA has approved the safe use of an unleaded fuel that can be used in many piston-engine aircraft as well as other fuels for specific aircraft.

Besides jet fuel, lead exposure can come from several sources, including leaded paint, tainted soil and industrial emissions from battery recycling or metals processing.

No safe blood lead level has been identified for children, who can suffer irreversible health effects from lead exposure. Low levels can affect IQ, ability to pay attention and academic achievement. Adults can experience heart problems, increased blood pressure, decreased kidney function and reproductive issues from lead exposure.

More information
The World Health Organization has more on lead poisoning.