Air quality levels in Ukraine dip to 'moderate' as fires continue to burn

By Christen McCurdy APRIL 18, 2020

Smog haze hangs over Kiev, Ukraine, on Friday. This week air quality in Ukraine ranked as worst in the world due to multiple fires burning in the country, including in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA-EFE

April 18 (UPI) -- Multiple wildfires spreading across Ukraine have burned 38 homes and 15.4 square miles of forest and forced residents to keep their windows shut due to air pollution.

On Friday and Saturday the concentration of dust and burning residues have at least doubled and may have increased fourfold, with concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and formaldehyde increasing by two or three times over typical amounts, the Kyiv Post reported.


Air quality levels in Ukraine this week have registered as the worst in the world.As of Saturday morning, Kiev's Air Quality Index ranged from 360 and 499 in different parts of the city, rated "hazardous," though markers had returned to a "moderate" rating by Saturday evening.

Meteorologists say air quality in Kiev, the country's capital and largest city, may improve early next week due to a predicted change in wind direction.

Kiev officials initially said smoke in the city was caused by fires in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, but Anatoly Prokopenko, deputy director of the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center, said fires in the Zhytomyr Oblast -- a large province in the north of Ukraine -- had caused Kiev to be blanketed in smoke since Thursday night.

By Saturday evening, six of 15 fires in the Zhytomyr Oblast forests had been extinguished and five more had been contained, said Volodymyr Demchuk, director of the emergency response at the State Emergency Service.

Firefighters were also trying to extinguish four fires in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The Chernobyl fires broke out April 4 and were considered contained by Tuesday, but flared up again Thursday due to high winds in the area.

A report released Wednesday by the French Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute found elevated levels of radiation in the area, but Demchuk was quoted in the Kyiv Post on Saturday saying radiation was at a normal level.

Ukrainian officials: Fires out near Chernobyl nuclear plant

In this photo taken from the roof of Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant late Friday April 10, 2020, a forest fire is seen burning near the plant inside the exclusion zone. Ukrainian firefighters are labouring to put out two forest blazes in the area around the Chernobyl nuclear power station that was evacuated because of radioactive contamination after the 1986 explosion at the plant. (Ukrainian Police Press Office via AP)

Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2020 


KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian emergency officials said Tuesday they have extinguished forest fires in the radiation-contaminated area near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but acknowledged that grass was still smoldering in some areas.

Hundreds of firefighters backed by aircraft have been battling several forest fires around Chernobyl for the past 10 days. They contained the initial blazes, but new fires raged closer to the decommissioned plant.

Emergencies Service chief Mykola Chechetkin reported to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that rains helped firefighters put out the flames, but acknowledged that it would take a few more days to extinguish smoldering grass.

Chechetkin said emergency workers have prevented the fire from engulfing radioactive waste depots and other facilities in Chernobyl.

The emergencies service said radiation levels in the capital, Kyiv, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the plant, were within norms.

On Monday, activists warned that the blazes were getting dangerously close to waste storage facilities.

Yaroslav Yemelyanenko, a member of the public council under the state agency in charge of the closed zone around the plant, said one fire was raging within 2 kilometers (about 1.2 miles) from one of the radioactive waste depots.

Last week, officials said they tracked down a person suspected of triggering the blaze by setting dry grass on fire in the area. The 27-year-old man said he burned grass “for fun” and then failed to extinguish the fire when the wind caused it to spread quickly.

On Monday, police said that another local resident burned waste and accidentally set dry grass ablaze, triggering another devastating forest fire. They said he failed to report the fire to the authorities.

The 2,600-square-kilometer (1,000-square-mile) Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was established after the April 1986 disaster at the plant that sent a cloud of radioactive fallout over much of Europe. The zone is largely unpopulated, although about 200 people have remained despite orders to leave.

Blazes in the area have been a regular occurrence. They often start when residents set dry grass on fire in the early spring — a widespread practice in Ukraine, Russia and some other ex-Soviet nations that often leads to devastating forest fires.

Copyright 2020 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Ukraine gov't: Fire under control near Chernobyl nuclear power station

Firefighters battle a wildfire in the exclusion zone near the Chernobyl nuclear power station on Friday. Photo by EPA-EFE

April 14 (UPI) -- The Ukrainian government said Tuesday a large fire burning in the "exclusion zone" near the Chernobyl nuclear power station is under control, but some witnesses say that doesn't appear to be true.

The Ukrainian interior ministry said there "were no open fires" remaining within the 18-mile zone that surrounds the plant, which was the site of one of the world's worst nuclear accidents in 1986.

Interior ministry officials said crews had dumped 500 tons of water onto the fire and there's only "a slight smoldering of the forest floor with separate cells" remaining. They said 500 people and 110 vehicles were sent into the exclusion zone to fight the blaze.

Background radiation in Kiev and the surrounding region is within normal limits, the ministry added.

Ukraine's State Agency on Exclusion Zone Management said in a Facebook post that fires were still burning in the Rossokha village, a scrapyard containing the irradiated emergency vehicles that responded to the accident.

A Chernobyl tour operator, however, said the fire is still out of control and has reached the abandoned city of Pripyat, less than two miles from a site where contaminated debris from the accident is stored.

The situation has raised some concern that radiation still contained the exclusion zone could be spread by the fire, which started on April 4.

The No. 4 reactor at Chernobyl exploded and experienced a core meltdown following a safety test at the plant on April 26, 1986. It's one of only two nuclear disasters rated at seven, the maximum level, on the International Nuclear Event Scale. More than 77,000 square miles in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, which in 1986 were all part of the Soviet Union, were seriously contaminated by radiation.

The disaster directly killed less than 50 people, mainly emergency first responders known as the Chernobyl "liquidators," but it's estimated that as many as 60,000 have died over the last three decades due to ailments related to the radiation fallout. Officials concluded design flaws at the plant contributed to the accident.

Scientists have said the area around the Chernobyl plant won't be habitable for 20,000 years.

Wildfire near Chernobyl releases spike in radiation
By Clyde Hughes

A wildfire near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, show following the April 26, 1986 explosion, burned 50 acres inside an established exclusion zone. UPI File Photo | License Photo

April 6 (UPI) -- A weekend wildfire in a forest inside the shuttered Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant's exclusion zone in Ukraine caused radiation to spike in the area.

The fire, which started Saturday, burned about 250 acres.

The National Police said the fire started "on dry grass and bushes" near the village of Vladimirovka. Firefighters made 42 water drops on the largest fires as 124 others battled smaller blazes started by the wildfire.

Police said 50 of the acres burned were inside the exclusion zone. No new fires were reported in the area as of Monday morning.

Yegor Firsov, Ukraine's ecological inspection service chief, said the fire caused radiation to spike.

"There is bad news -- in the center of the fire, radiation is above normal," Firsov said, posting a video of a Geiger counter on Facebook. "As you can see in the video, the readings of the device are 2.3, when the norm is 0.14. But this is only within the area of the fire outbreak."

He would later say the fire did not "affect the radiation situation" in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and suburbs, so people should not be afraid to open windows there.

The police said it opened a criminal investigation into the fire for possible violations of fire safety requirements.

Vladimirovka is part of a deserted 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone established after the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explosion that sent radioactive fallout across Europe and exposed millions to heightened levels of radiation.

Thousands of Israelis demonstrate to 'let democracy win'
AFP / JACK GUEZ

The demonstrators observed social distancing rules

Thousands of Israelis demonstrated Sunday in Tel Aviv to warn against what they said was a threat to democracy from ongoing coalition talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former rival Benny Gantz.

Some 2,000 protesters, according to media estimates, followed a call launched on Facebook by the "Black Flag" movement which condemns Netanyahu's continuing rule.

Israel's parliament was tasked with forming a government on Thursday after speaker Gantz and Netanyahu missed a deadline to seal an alliance, but negotiations between the sides were ongoing.

Israel's deeply divided 120-member parliament has no clear path towards a stable governing coalition, so the move risks prolonging the country's worst-ever political crisis.

Many waved black flags as a symbol for threats against Israel's democracy

Gantz and Netanyahu could still agree on an emergency unity government to help Israel confront the COVID-19 pandemic, prospect the protesters spoke out against.

Wearing protection masks and mostly dressed in black, the protesters observed social distancing rules in force to fight the coronavirus.

"Let democracy win", said one placard, while some protesters had written "Minister of Crime" on their masks, an apparent reference to Netanyahu's upcoming trial for corruption.

Many waved black flags as a symbol for threats against Israel's democracy.

"You don't fight corruption from within," said Yair Lapid, the new opposition leader, of his former ally Gantz. "If you're inside, you're part of it."

Democracies in 21st Century died because "good people are silent and weak people surrender", Lapid said.y win'

AFP / JACK GUEZ The demonstrators observed social distancing rules

Thousands of Israelis demonstrated Sunday in Tel Aviv to warn against what they said was a threat to democracy from ongoing coalition talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former rival Benny Gantz.

Some 2,000 protesters, according to media estimates, followed a call launched on Facebook by the "Black Flag" movement which condemns Netanyahu's continuing rule.

Israel's parliament was tasked with forming a government on Thursday after speaker Gantz and Netanyahu missed a deadline to seal an alliance, but negotiations between the sides were ongoing.

Israel's deeply divided 120-member parliament has no clear path towards a stable governing coalition, so the move risks prolonging the country's worst-ever political crisis.



Anti-Netanyahu rally draws thousands under coronavirus curbs

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Wearing face masks, waving black flags and keeping two yards apart, thousands of Israelis demonstrated against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu under strict coronavirus restrictions on Sunday.

Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing, is under criminal indictment in three corruption cases.

He is also negotiating a power-sharing deal with his rival Benny Gantz to form a coalition government that would end a year of political deadlock after three inconclusive elections.

Demonstrations are allowed under Israel’s coronavirus restrictions, as long as participants maintain distance from each other and wear face masks.

Under the banner of “Save the Democracy,” protesters called on Gantz’s Blue and White party not to join in a coalition led by a premier charged with corruption.

Gantz has campaigned for clean government, but said that the coronavirus crisis has forced him to go back on his election pledge.

A Reuters cameraman estimated that a few thousand demonstrators attended the rally in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. Israeli media put the figure at about 2,000 people.

Israel has reported more than 13,000 coronavirus cases and 172 deaths. A partial lockdown has confined most Israelis to their homes, forced businesses to close and sent unemployment to about 26%. Some restrictions have been eased since Saturday.

TODAY IN HISTORY APRIL 19
Warsaw remembers World War II ghetto uprising with low-key events

AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

Zygmunt Stepinski, head of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, lays a wreath to mark the 77th anniversary of the doomed rebellion by Jewish partisans against Nazi Germany, in front of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial anniversary

Poland commemorated the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising on Sunday, replacing its annual official ceremonies with low-key gatherings on site or online as the coronavirus pandemic prevented any big events.

Wearing a protective mask, Poland's chief rabbi Michael Schudrich recited a prayer at the monument dedicated to the uprising in front of a few dozen people who observed social distancing rules before laying a wreath.

April 19 commemorates the day in 1943 when Jewish insurgents began a violent resistance against police and SS auxiliary troops who planned to deport the Jews in the ghetto to concentration camps.

Their revolt, which the insurgents knew was doomed but allowed them to die fighting rather than in gas chambers, bogged down the German advance into the ghetto by several weeks.

The main part of the revolt lasted 10 days but it was only definitively ended almost a month later on May 16 when the Nazis demolished the Great Synangogue of Warsaw.

An estimated 13,000 Jews were killed in the ghetto during the uprising. It was the largest single act of Jewish resistance against Nazi Germany.

On Sunday sirens went off in Warsaw at midday, like every year, honouring the rebellion.

In the streets, there was no distribution of daffodils which Warsaw residents usually pin to their clothes to mark the day, and which ressemble the yellow badges Jews were ordered to wear by Nazi Germany.

Instead, the Polin Musem of the History of Polish Jews published a template online inviting Poles to use it to make their own yellow flowers out of cardboard and post their picture wearing it on social networks -- a call that was widely followed.

The museum is also planning to re-broadcast online conferences, documentaries, ceremonies and artistic events linked to the anniversary.


On This Day:APRIL 18

 Ireland formally declares independence
On April 18, 1949, the Republic of Ireland formally declared itself independent from Britain.
By UPI Staff

On April 18, 1949, the Republic of Ireland formally declared itself independent from Britain. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

April 18 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1506, the cornerstone was placed for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

In 1775, U.S. patriot Paul Revere began his famous ride through the Massachusetts countryside, crying out "The British are coming!" to rally the minutemen.

In 1906, an earthquake estimated at magnitude-7.8 struck San Francisco, collapsing buildings and igniting fires that destroyed much of what remained of the city. Researchers and historians concluded that about 3,000 people died in the quake and its aftermath, and roughly 250,000 were left homeless.

In 1912, three days after the sinking of Titanic, her survivors arrived in New York City aboard the RMS Carpathia.

In 1923, Yankee Stadium opened in New York.

In 1942, Lt. Col. James Doolittle led a squadron of B-25 bombers in a surprise raid against Tokyo in response to the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

In 1945, U.S. journalist Ernie Pyle, a popular World War II correspondent, was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire on the island of Ie Shima in the Pacific.

In 1949, the Republic of Ireland formally declared itself independent from Britain.

In 1968, McCulloch Oil Corp. paid $2.24 million to buy London Bridge, which was sinking into the Thames under the weight of 20th century traffic. The oil company rebuilt the bridge bloc by block over Lake Havasu in Arizona.

In 1980, Rhodesia became the independent African nation of Zimbabwe.

In 1983, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, was severely damaged by a car-bomb explosion that killed 63 people, including 17 Americans.

In 1992, an 11-year-old Florida boy sued to "divorce" his natural parents and remain with his foster parents. The boy eventually won his lawsuit.

In 2002, former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., revealed that at least 13 civilians were killed by his U.S. Navy unit in a Vietnamese village in 1969.



File Photo by Ezio Petersen/UPI

In 2007, more than 125 people were killed in a suicide car-bomb explosion near a Baghdad market.

In 2014, an avalanche on what is known as a particularly dangerous route to the top of Mount Everest in the Himalayas killed 16 Sherpa guides.

In 2018, the first movie theaters in Saudi Arabia opened with a public screening of Black Panther.

In 2019, Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee was shot to death while covering riots in Belfast. The New IRA claimed responsibility.



File Photo by Jess Lowe/EPA-EFE




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USA
Tribes sue over distribution of coronavirus relief funding
By FELICIA FONSECA April 17, 2020

FILE - In this Jan. 18, 2020, file photo, George Chakuchin, left, and Mick Chakuchin walk on ice over the Bering Sea in Toksook Bay, Alaska, a mostly Yuip'ik village. Native American leaders are raising questions about how $8 billion in federal coronavirus relief tagged for tribes will be distributed, with some arguing that for-profit Alaska Native corporations shouldn't get a share of the funding. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Several Native American tribes sued the federal government Friday, seeking to keep any of the $8 billion in federal coronavirus relief for tribes kept out of the hands of for-profit Alaska Native corporations.

The U.S. Treasury Department is tasked with doling out the money by April 26 to help tribes nationwide stay afloat, respond to the virus and recover after having to shut down casinos, tourism operations and other businesses that serve as their main moneymakers.

The Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation and the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians in Maine, and the Akiak Native Community, Asa’carsarmiut Tribe and Aleut Community of St. Paul Island in Alaska filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Treasury Department, named as the defendant, did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

“It is what Indian Country will rely on to start up again,” said Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. “And Congress surely didn’t intend to put tribal governments, which are providing health care, education, jobs, job training, and all sorts of programs, to compete against these Alaska corporate interests, which looks like a cash grab.”

The Interior Department, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said Alaska Native corporations are eligible for the funding, pointing to a definition that includes them as an “Indian Tribe” in the federal bill. The corporations are unique to Alaska and own most Native lands in the state under a 1971 settlement but are not tribal governments.

Tribes argue that the Interior Department has taken a limited view of the definition and that Congress intended for the money to go to the country’s 574 federally recognized tribes that have a government-to-government relationship with the U.S.

The Treasury Department posted a form online Monday for tribes to submit information to get funding, including their land base, number of tribal citizens, corporate shareholders, employees and spending. The deadline to respond is Friday.

It’s unclear how the agency will decide which tribe gets what.

FILE - In this Jan. 20, 2020, file photo, a woman walks before dawn in Toksook Bay, Alaska, a mostly Yuip'ik village on the edge of the Bering Sea. Native American leaders are raising questions about how $8 billion in federal coronavirus relief tagged for tribes will be distributed, with some arguing that for-profit Alaska Native corporations shouldn't get a share of the funding. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

For some tribes, Monday was the first time they saw any mention that Alaska Native corporations would be eligible for tribal funding. They had to respond quickly because the deadline to weigh in on the funding formula was the same day.

Jonodev Chaudhuri, chairman of the Indian Law and Policy Group at the law firm Quarles and Brady LLP, said the timing is concerning.

“The federal government’s responsibility to consult with tribal nations is based on not only longstanding policies, but it’s also based on important standards of respect,” said Chaudhuri, a former Interior Department official. “Consultation is to be meaningful and timely.”


Federal officials held two talks with tribes by phone April 2 and April 9, drawing more than 3,000 participants, according to the Interior Department. Tara Sweeney, who oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, held a separate call with Alaska interests Monday.

Some tribes have suggested that Sweeney has personal motives in ensuring Alaska Native corporations receive funding. An Inupiaq Eskimo from Alaska’s North Slope, she worked for nearly two decades for the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. — one of the largest and most profitable of the Native corporations in Alaska.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota said it’s prepared to file a court challenge to halt the distribution of funding, alleging Sweeney has recommended at least $3 billion go to Alaska Native corporations.

The Interior Department said Sweeney has not made that recommendation and supports all indigenous people in the U.S.

“To suggest she has personal motives or that she is attempting to divert funds away from American Indians is completely false,” the department said in a statement. “Her approach has always been focused on inclusiveness, transparency and partnerships.”
Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Sweeney in a tweet Thursday of diverting funds for tribal governments to the corporations.

She responded with her own tweet: “Even for you, this is an ignorant and despicably low attack that could not be further from the truth. Perhaps you should read the law you negotiated and voted for as Alaska Natives are entitled to receive the funding from @USTreasury.”

The Alaska Federation of Natives supported Sweeney, saying if the Interior Department was deviating from the law, the agency’s solicitor would have taken action. Alaska has nearly 230 federally recognized tribal governments.

The Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Association, the Inter-Tribal Council of Five Civilized Tribes, the National Congress of American Indians and the Navajo Nation also said Alaska Native corporations should not be on par with tribal governments.

The Navajo Nation has reported more coronavirus cases than any other Native American tribe. As of Friday, it had 1,127 cases among the 175,000 residents of the vast reservation that extends into New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Deaths total 44.


Associated Press writer Stephen Groves in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, contributed to this story.

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=NAVAJO

Fear meets fortitude in Peru hospital hard hit by 

COVID-19

By FRANKLIN BRICEÑO April 18, 2020

1 of 10
A nurse places an oxygen mask on a patient inside the intensive care unit for people infected with the new coronavirus, at the 2 de Mayo Hospital, in Lima, Peru, Friday, April 17, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Seated in a wheelchair at one of Peru’s oldest hospitals, 84-year-old Emma Salvador struggled for each breath, aided by an oxygen mask pinching her face. Her son fanned her with folded sheets of paper, wishing he could do more.

“Seeing her in such pain is what overwhelms me,” said José Gonzalez, 57, who confessed fearing that the worst outcome awaited his mother, while encouraging her to drink some water.

This scene Friday at the Dos de Mayo Hospital in Lima depicts just one of the 13,489 new coronavirus cases in the South American country, which faces a growing number of patients desperate for emergency attention.
Emma Salvador, 84, supplements her oxygen as her son Jose Gonzalez watches over her in a makeshift tent set up at the 2 de Mayo Hospital to treat people who are infected with the new coronavirus, in Lima, Peru, Friday, April 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
\

Doctors say they’re doing all they can to treat patients throughout the country that’s reporting the second largest number of coronavirus cases in Latin America following Brazil, which has more than double the number. Decades of economic growth in Peru did not include extensive investments in the health system.

Founded in 1875, the Dos de Mayo hospital has long been the preferred choice of medical students eager to gain experience treating a wide spectrum of illnesses. It’s no different now, with tents recently set up on a patio to care for roughly 100 patients a day — including criminals hospitalized under police supervision.

On this day, doctors and nurses treated more than 50 patients. The six most severe in the intensive care area were put into a sedative-induced coma and put on mechanical ventilation.

They are being monitored with cameras connected to large screens that show some of the patients’ lungs filled with white spots due to the injuries and inflammations brought on by the virus.

In the tents, patients silently cling to life on medical beds while some nearby sit on benches. These men and women are hunched over, panting and lonely, despair in their eyes.

Doctors fear that despite their best efforts and a strict government-ordered quarantine, the hospital will struggle to help an increasing number of patients, including those needing scarce medical ventilators. The situation will only become more difficult in the coming days when the infections peak, according to the epidemiological forecasts.

“We have already reached a state of collapse,” Dr. William Torres said Thursday while protesting with colleagues who demanded N95 face masks and medical grade equipment needed to protect themselves.

At least 237 doctors have been infected with the new coronavirus in the country’s hospitals, and the government has summoned foreign health workers to fill the gaps. The urgent need has opened up the possibility for trained Venezuelans who recently migrated to escape their own troubled country.
Doctors tend to a patient inside the intensive care unit for people infected with the new coronavirus, at the 2 de Mayo Hospital, in Lima, Peru, Friday, April 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)


“We are having to give priority to those who are younger, to those who do not have high-risk factors,” Torres told reporters. “That should not be the case, but we have to do it since there are no more mechanical ventilators.”

It’s a problem that has begun hitting medical centers across the South American nation. A new hospital dedicated to the coronavirus that opened last week only has been staffed by 34 health workers, when it requires 320. It has just 20 intensive care beds, and many of the 35 ventilators are inactive because they are missing parts, the comptroller’s office reported.

At a smaller hospital a few blocks away, and eight dead had to be placed in an improvised morgue built to hold two corpses, officials said.

Despite the lack of personnel, mechanical ventilators and adequate protective equipment, the doctors, nurses and technicians at Dos de Mayo Hospital say they continue to fight the pandemic.

Juan Alaya, 54, supplements his oxygen in a makeshift tent set up at the 2 de Mayo Hospital to treat people who show symptoms related to the new coronavirus, in Lima, Peru, Friday, April 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

A reported 300 people in Peru have died so far from the COVID-19 disease, officials report.

President Martín Vizcarra said this week that Peru has a “poor” and “disjointed” health system.

Faced with the global shortage of ventilators, the government took the initiative to begin manufacturing 500 devices. They will be called “Samay,” which means “to breathe” in Quechua, the Incan language spoken in the Andean nation.

In Peru, as the sick are brought into the emergency room desperate for breath, health workers of the Dos de Mayo Hospital say they’re doing all they can with inadequate resources.

“We are stressed, but we are doing our best to get patients through this,” said Raquel Chávez, chief of the intensive care unit’s nursing staff.

A glimmer of hope emerged this week, resonating among medical staff throughout the old halls of Dos de Mayo: A 90-year-old man, Valerio Santa Cruz, recovered from the coronavirus and was sent home.

Hearing about the man’s recovery raised the spirits of José González, the son of 84-year-old Emma Salvador, who struggled to breathe in the treatment tent.

“If the old man could pull through,” Gonzalez said, “my mother can be saved.”

AP PHOTOS:

The workers who keep Spain going under lockdown 

PHOTO ESSAY

By ÁLVARO BARRIENTOS
yesterday

OH NO!!! A TEAR IN MY BEER
Virus outbreak threatens Germany’s tradition-laden breweries

In this , Friday, April 17, 2020 photo junior director Christine Lang of the "Wernecker brewery" stands in the brewhouse of the brewery in Werneck, Germany. Due to the impact of the coronavirus the traditional brewery has to close 400 years after its foundation. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

APRIL 19, 2020

WERNECK, Germany (AP) — The Werneck Brewery has survived a lot: world wars, economic crises and decades of declining beer consumption. But after 400 years in existence it has finally met a challenge it can’t overcome: the coronavirus outbreak.

The brewery, which traces its history to 1617 and has been owned by the same family since 1861, is closing for good, taking with it 15 full-time jobs and more part-time positions. Also gone is a chunk of local history and tradition in Werneck, a town of 10,000 people in the brewery-rich southern state of Bavaria.

German brewers fear its demise is the leading edge of more closures as the virus outbreak threatens the existence of the country’s many local producers of the national beverage - community institutions, often family owned for generations, whose buildings and affiliated taverns are regional landmarks in a country where the hometown brew is often a sentimental favorite despite competition from national brands.

In this , Friday, April 17, 2020 photo old beer barrels of the "Wernecker brewery" are seen at the brewery in Werneck, Germany. Due to the impact of the coronavirus the traditional brewery has to close 400 years after its foundation. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Hardest hit are smaller breweries that like the one in Werneck that depend on supplying kegs to local taverns and events such as local festivals. Restaurants are closed and the government says mass gatherings will not resume until Sept. 1 at the earliest — and even then it may take years before they rebound to levels seen before the virus outbreak.

Retail sales are providing some support as people drink at home. Breweries are trying things like drive-through sales and even shipping beer and glasses to customers so they can join an on-line tasting.

But for many the months without income may be more than they can handle.

Family member and brewery manager Christine Lang said the decision to close came with “many tears.” The beer market was already hard fought with tough price competition, she said. Then came the virus, and the restaurant customers the brewery depended on were suddenly closed, with no clarity on when they might open.

“No one knows how long the coronavirus will last, when there will be an improvement, and whether the restaurants will open again at all,” she said. “And in our business it’s the case that a beer that isn’t drunk today won’t be consumed twice in a couple of months, the sales revenue is gone, lost.”

According to a survey by the national brewers association some 87% of breweries say they are putting workers on short hours, taking advantage of a government program that pays up to 60% of net salaries during business interruptions. The program is aimed at getting companies through a crisis, keeping workers from being laid off, and supporting consumer spending in the economy. But other programs such as credits and delays in collecting taxes are less useful, brewers say. Credits mean taking on new debt for the future, and the taxes will eventually have to be paid as well.

In this , Friday, April 17, 2020 photo worker of the "Wernecker brewery" transports beer crates in Werneck, Germany. Due to the impact of the coronavirus the traditional brewery has to close 400 years after its foundation. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Holger Eichele, secretary general of the German Brewers Association, said that “many breweries will not survive this crisis, that is already becoming clear.” In addition to longtime brewers focused on restaurants, “we also have many entrepreneurs, that is, craft breweries, that are not yet profitable, that have borrowed money to finance their startup, and it’s also very difficult for them.”

The unexpected shock comes at a time when enthusiasm for craft beer and microbreweries has helped the industry overcome several decades of declining beer consumption. The number of brewers has grown in recent years to over 1,500, as startups introduced new products such as India pale ales into what had been a very conservative lineup based on traditional pilsners and wheat beers.

More diversified producers are better equipped to survive. Welde, a family run brewery near Heidelberg that traces its history to 1752, normally sells about a third to retail outlets, a third to wholesalers who supply events and sports clubs, and a third to restaurants.

Managing director Max Spielmann, who represents the ninth generation of Spielmanns to run Welde, estimates that 30-40% of sales will be lost in April, May and June. “If you have 85% of your sales in keg beer to restaurants, then you only have 15% of your revenue left,” he said. “The only sales channel that is doing well is retail sales in grocery stores, one can see that the consumption that normally would have taken place in restaurants has shifted to home.”
In this , Friday, April 17, 2020 photo junior director Christine Lang of the "Wernecker brewery" sits in the brewhouse of the brewery in Werneck, Germany. Due to the impact of the coronavirus the traditional brewery has to close 400 years after its foundation. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
He and other brewers are trying new things out of necessity. Welde offers an on-line beer tasting on Facebook. Participants can have six different beers and the appropriate glass delivered for 25 euros ($27) so they can taste along with the chat on April 23.

The Schumacher Brewery in Duesseldorf is offering drive-through service on Fridays and no-contact home delivery. The website of the Gaffel brewery in Cologne, which makes the city’s trademark beer dubbed koelsch, encouraged home consumption by showing two neighbors on adjacent balconies enjoying what the company says is “the best koelsch, by a good distance,” a pun on the social distancing requirements of the moment.

Says Spielmann: “All my forecasts say that we will get through it, with a black eye.” He thinks the crisis could spur people to support their local brewers, food producers, restaurants and hotels, keeping international tastes for food and drink but indulging them close to home, a prospect he called “glocal,” combining “global” and “local.”

For Lang from the Werneck Brewery, something irreplaceable has been lost.

“My family and I will miss it very much. The brewery has been ever-present, part of every dinner table conversation all our lives,” she said. “We will be missing part of our identity, and in a way the region will, too.”

In this , Friday, April 17, 2020 photo beer barrels of the Wernecker Brewery are stacked at the brewery in Werneck, Germany. Due to the impact of the coronavirus the traditional brewery has to close 400 years after its foundation. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Coronavirus accelerates decline of slumping coal industry

FILE - This Tuesday, July 2, 2019 file photo shows Eagle Butte mine in in Gillette, Wyo., following the closure of the Blackjewel mines.The coal industry was already hurting before the coronavirus. The pandemic has made things a lot worse. Production is down along with electricity demand, with office and school lights off across the nation. (Josh Galemore/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP, File)
APRIL 18, 2020

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Travis Deti has been working the phones to try to get government support for the U.S. coal industry during the coronavirus pandemic. Between recent calls, the head of the Wyoming Mining Association tried to unclog a sink at home.

But unlike Deti’s sink, which eventually started flowing again with help from a plumber, aid remains stubbornly clogged for an industry whose already rapid decline is accelerating because of the economic effects of the virus.

“We’d take anything right now,” said Deti, whose group represents companies that produce about 40% of the nation’s coal.

FILE - This Sept. 5, 2019 file photo shows a poster urging locals to stay strong amid hardship in a Gillette, Wyo, storefront on the Eagle Butte mine just north of Gillette. The coal industry was already hurting before the coronavirus. The pandemic has made things a lot worse. Production is down along with electricity demand, with office and school lights off across the nation. (AP Photo/Mead Gruver, File)

Coal demand has tanked over the past decade amid competition from cheap natural gas and expanded renewable energy sources. Coal companies have faced a reckoning as the world looks to combat climate change and move away from fossil fuels despite President Donald Trump’s effort to revive the industry.

Now, the pandemic has made things worse. Lockdowns have shut off lights and computers in offices and schools, sapping demand for electricity provided by coal-fired power plants. Americans stuck at home binge-watching Netflix aren’t coming close to making up for that drop in demand, expected to be 3% for 2020.

The safety of workers is another issue. In the most productive coal region in the U.S. — Wyoming and Montana’s Powder River Basin — companies are staggering shifts and running more buses to and from mining towns to create more space between workers.

Companies have temporarily suspended operations at mines in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Virginia to stop the spread of the virus. Some miners are only working two or three days a week.

“There is no consistency from mine to mine, even within the same company,” said Phil Smith, spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America, a union representing thousands of coal miners primarily in the eastern U.S.

Even before the virus, companies were forced into bankruptcy and workers faced furloughs and layoffs. Six of the top seven U.S. coal companies have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy since 2015 and analysts expect more as the economy dives.

There are bright spots, however. The worldwide decline in electricity consumption, along with less fuel being burned for transportation, has meant clearer skies. Particulate pollution is down almost 19% in India and 6% in China since before the outbreak, according to Fiona Burlig with the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute. The decrease in the U.S. is a modest 0.5%.

The U.S. is expected to see a 7.5% drop in climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions tied to reduced production — that is until carbon dioxide emissions surge next year as the economy rebounds, according to projections by the Energy Information Administration.

But there is little doubt of the crushing effect of the virus’s economic fallout on coal. In January, before the pandemic took hold in the U.S., coal production was forecast to drop 14% this year. With the coronavirus and a mild winter that meant less electricity needed to heat homes and businesses, that drop is now expected to be as much as 25% — falling to levels not seen in 55 years.

“It will simply be that renewables and gas will keep their market, and coal, being the more expensive fuel, is going to get pushed out even more than it would,” said Seth Feaster of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

St. Louis-based coal company Foresight Energy, which employs 800 people, may be the industry’s first coronavirus-related casualty. It filed for federal bankruptcy protection in March, citing in part “a slowdown in the global economy due to concerns over the coronavirus.”

The National Mining Association last month asked Congress and the White House for $822 million in federal assistance by reducing or eliminating royalties, taxes and fees.

“If we can stay operating, that’s the big thing for us,” said Deti of the Wyoming group.

Congress has shown little willingness so far to help, and none of the industry’s requests were included in the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill. Analysts doubt any significant aid will come.

“Typically, when you think about industries that the government has protected, it’s large, strategically vital industries,” said Benjamin Nelson, a senior credit officer with Moody’s Investors Service. “So, in an industry that’s in a steep, secular decline, I think there’s less incentive to get involved.”

One U.S. lawmaker from a coal state, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, said mining companies could apply for relief but that there are bigger challenges for the economy than propping up coal corporations. The priority should be small businesses, he said.

“They are the ones that, quite frankly, we need to make sure are able to survive through this,” Tester said.

Even if the industry gets what it wants, the boost would be only temporary and leave the same fundamental problem: a lack of demand, said Feaster of the energy economics institute.

“Both royalty relief and tax relief depend on your ability to produce or make a profit,” Feaster said. “If there’s no demand and nobody wants to buy, that doesn’t really help you.”

___

Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Associated Press reporter Dylan Lovan contributed from Louisville, Kentucky.

Ventilator from old car parts? Afghan girls pursue prototype
In this Wednesday, April 8, 2020 photo, a group of young girls are developing two types of cheap ventilator devices using Toyota car spare parts to help the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Herat, west of Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan faces the pandemic nearly empty-handed. It has only 400 ventilators for a population of more than 30 million. So far, it has reported just over 700 coronavirus cases, including 23 deaths, but the actual number is suspected to be much higher since test kits are in short supply. (AP Photo/Hamed Safarazi)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — On most mornings, Somaya Farooqi and four other teen-age girls pile into her dad’s car and head to a mechanic’s workshop. They use back roads to skirt police checkpoints set up to enforce a lockdown in their city of Herat, one of Afghanistan’s hot spots of the coronavirus pandemic.

The members of Afghanistan’s prize-winning girls’ robotics team say they’re on a life-saving mission — to build a ventilator from used car parts and help their war-stricken country battle the virus.

“If we even save one life with our device, we will be proud,” said Farooqi, 17.

Their pursuit of a low-cost breathing machine is particularly remarkable in conservative Afghanistan. Only a generation ago, during the rule of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban in the late 1990s, girls weren’t allowed to go to school. Farooqi’s mother was pulled from school in third grade.

After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, girls returned to schools, but gaining equal rights remains a struggle. Farooqi is undaunted. “We are the new generation,” she said in a phone interview. “We fight and work for people. Girl and boy, it does not matter anymore.”

Afghanistan faces the pandemic nearly empty-handed. It has only 400 ventilators for a population of more than 36.6 million. So far, it has reported just over 900 coronavirus cases, including 30 deaths, but the actual number is suspected to be much higher since test kits are in short supply.

Herat province in western Afghanistan is one of the nation’s hot spots because of its proximity to Iran, the region’s epicenter of the outbreak.

This has spurred Farooqi and her team members, ages 14 to 17, to help come up with a solution.

In this Wednesday, April 8, 2020, photo, a group of young girls are developing two types of inexpensive ventilator devices using Toyota car spare parts to help hospitals care for patients infected with the coronavirus in Herat province west of Kabul, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Hamed Safarazi)

On a typical morning, Farooqi’s father collects the girls from their homes and drives them to the team’s office in Herat, zigzagging through side streets to skirt checkpoints. From there, another car takes them to a mechanic’s workshop on the outskirts of the city.

In Herat, residents are only permitted to leave their homes for urgent needs. The robotics team has a limited number of special permits for cars.

So far, Farooqi’s father hasn’t been able to get one, but the girls are in a hurry. “We are concerned about security driving out of the city but there is no other option, we have to try to save people’s lives,” Farooqi said.

At the workshop, the team is experimenting with two different designs, including an open-source blueprint from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The parts being used include the motor of a Toyota windshield wiper, batteries and sets of bag valve masks, or manual oxygen pumps. A group of mechanics helps them build the frame of a ventilator.

In this Wednesday, April 15, 2020, photo, Somaya Farooqi works with a team of five young girls is developing cheap ventilators from Toyota car spare parts to help the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Herat, west of Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan faces the pandemic nearly empty-handed. It has only 400 ventilators for a population of more than 30 million. So far, it has reported just over 700 coronavirus cases, including 23 deaths, but the actual number is suspected to be much higher since test kits are in short supply. (AP Photo/Hamed Safarazi)

Daniela Rus, a professor at MIT, welcomed the team’s initiative to develop the prototype. “It will be excellent to see it tested and locally produced,” she said.

Tech entrepreneur Roya Mahboob, who founded the team and raises funds to empower girls, said she hopes Farooqi’s group will finish building a prototype by May or June. In all, the team has 15 members who work on various projects.
The ventilator model, once completed, would then be sent to the Health Ministry for testing, initially on animals, said spokesman Wahid Mayar.

Farooqi, who was just 14 years old when she participated in the first World Robot Olympiad in the U.S., in 2017, said she and her team members hope to make a contribution.

“Afghans should be helping Afghanistan in this pandemic,” she said. “We should not wait for others.”

In this Wednesday, April 8, 2020 photo, a group of young girls are developing two types of cheap ventilator devices using Toyota car spare parts to help the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Herat, west of Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan faces the pandemic nearly empty-handed. It has only 400 ventilators for a population of more than 30 million. So far, it has reported just over 700 coronavirus cases, including 23 deaths, but the actual number is suspected to be much higher since test kits are in short supply. (AP Photo/Hamed Safarazi)

Factory shutdowns near WWII demobilization levels in US
April 15, 2020

FILE - In this April 13, 2020 file photo, a worker wears a mask as he cleans up an area outside an entrance at Boeing Co.'s airplane assembly facility in Everett, Wash., north of Seattle. American industry collapsed in March as the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy. Manufacturing and overall industrial production posted the biggest drops since the United States demobilized after World War II. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — American industry collapsed in March as the pandemic wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy. Manufacturing and overall industrial production posted the biggest declines since the United States demobilized after World War II.

The Federal Reserve reported Wednesday that manufacturing output dropped 6.3% last month, led by plunging production at auto factories that have entirely shut down. Overall, industrial production, which includes factories, utilities and mines, plummeted 5.4%. The declines were the biggest since 1946 and far worse than what economists had expected.

The lockdowns and travel restrictions imposed to combat COVID-19 have brought economic activity to a near-standstill. Output dropped 3.9% at utilities and 2% at mines as oil and gas drilling plunged, the Fed said.

Factories were running at 70.2% of capacity last month, down from 75.1% in February and lowest since 2010 when the U.S. economy was still recovering from the 2007-2009 Great Recession.

“The outlook is bleak for the industrial sectors,″ James Watson and Gregory Daco at Oxford Economics wrote in a research note. “With the global coronavirus recession leading to a sudden stop in activity at home and around the world, factory output is likely to fall even further in April. Major supply chain disruptions, reduced energy activity and tighter financial conditions will continue to represent major headwinds in the coming months.″ They say industrial production could drop 15% overall

In another sign that industry is in a full-scale retreat, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s index for manufacturing in New York state plummeted an unprecedented 57 points this month to -78.2, lowest lowest level in records dating back to 2001.

For meat plant workers, virus makes a hard job perilous

In this April 13, 2020, photo, Kulule Amosa steps out of the apartment she shares with her husband who works at the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D. He tested positive for the coronavirus this week after an outbreak at the plant. (AP Photo/Stephen Groves)


APRIL 19, 2020

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Kulule Amosa’s husband earns $17.70 an hour at a South Dakota pork plant doing a job so physically demanding it can only be performed in 30-minute increments. After each shift last week, he left exhausted as usual — but he didn’t want to go home.

He was scared he would infect his pregnant wife with the coronavirus — so much so that when he pulled into the parking lot of their apartment building, he would call Amosa to tell her he wasn’t coming inside. When he eventually did, he would sleep separately from her in their two-bedroom apartment.

“I’m really, really scared and worried,” Amosa said Monday.
In this April 14, 2020, photo, a package of Smithfield Foods breakfast sausage sits in a shopping cart outside of a local grocery story, in Des Moines, Iowa. The surge of coronavirus cases at Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, S.D. has highlighted the vulnerability of meat processing workers, who stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the line and congregate in crowded locker rooms and cafeterias. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) 

This was no abstract worry: At the Smithfield Foods plant, the locker rooms were so tightly packed Amosa’s husband told her he sometimes had to push his way through a crowd. Coughs echoed through the bathrooms. The plant in Sioux Falls clocked so many cases that it was forced to close this week. It has reported 518 infections in employees and another 126 in people connected to them as of Wednesday, making it among the largest known clusters in the United States. A 64-year-old employee who contracted COVID-19 died Tuesday, according to his pastor.

The concentration of cases has highlighted the particular susceptibility of meat processing workers, who stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the line and congregate in crowded locker rooms and cafeterias. As many as half a dozen plants have shut because of outbreaks. Because the workers who slaughter and pack the nation’s meat are vulnerable, so, too, is the supply of that meat. Smithfield CEO Kenneth Sullivan said the closure of the plant, which produces roughly 5% of the U.S. pork supply each day, was “pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply.”

Amosa and her husband, who are originally from Ethiopia, once saw working at the plant, where she also had a job until she became pregnant, as key to building their new life in the United States: It was well paid, union employment that gave them a community. But amid the coronavirus pandemic, the couple found themselves — like many workers whose jobs cannot be done remotely — exposed on two fronts: Both their health and their livelihoods were at risk. The couple agreed to speak to The Associated Press on the condition that Amosa’s husband not be named because he feared losing his job.

The plant is vital to a burgeoning immigrant community in Sioux Falls, offering opportunities for even those without a college degree or fluent English. Smithfield offers pay starting at over $15 an hour, health insurance and plenty of overtime.



The plant has attracted a diversifying workforce to the city, where Somali and Vietnamese restaurants have joined diners and craft breweries. But the city remains fairly divided, with many immigrants living in neighborhoods near the plant, which employs 3,700 people in a city of about 180,000.

(THIS IS THE RESULT OF REAGAN POLICIES OF AMNESTY, DEREGULATION AND SELF REGULATION IN ORDER TO UNION BUST BY DRIVING WAGES DOWN IN THE MEAT PACKING INDUSTRY)

The outbreak at the plant has also presented a significant test to a governor who has resisted issuing sweeping stay-at-home orders. As Republican Gov. Kristi Noem was pressed again this week to impose tighter restrictions on Sioux Falls, her response instead was to announce that the state would give wide access to an anti-malarial drug championed by President Donald Trump as a promising treatment for COVID-19, but that has yet to be proven effective.

Noem has fired back, arguing that plant workers were deemed essential and would have been reporting for duty regardless.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, but, for some, especially the elderly or infirm, it can cause severe illness and lead to death.

Even before the coronavirus began sickening workers, jobs in the meatpacking industry have been considered among the most dangerous in the U.S. Workers are exposed to a long list of dangers from hazardous chemicals to sharp knives. Just last month, a maintenance worker at a Tyson Fresh Meats plant in Kansas died after investigators say he got caught up in the assembly line belt.

The work is physical, starting with butchering hogs that weigh nearly 300 pounds (135 kilograms). On the processing line, repetitive-motion injuries are common. One worker at Smithfield described often waking up with his right hand so swollen he couldn’t make a fist. 
FILE - In this April 9, 2020, file photo, a car with a sign calling for a safe and healthy workplace drives past Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, S.D., during a protest on behalf of employees after many workers complained of unsafe working conditions due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The surge of coronavirus cases at Smithfield Foods has highlighted the vulnerability of meat processing workers, who stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the line and congregate in crowded locker rooms and cafeterias. (Erin Bormett/The Argus Leader via AP, File)

Union leaders and immigrant advocates cheered the decision to close the plant indefinitely but wish more had been done sooner.

Smithfield spokeswoman Keira Lombardo said difficulty in getting masks and thermal scanners led to delays in implementing some safety measures when the plant was open. But she said last week the plant was adding extra hand-sanitizing stations, scanning employees’ temperatures before they entered and installing Plexiglas barriers in some areas.

Six current employees interviewed by the AP who, like Amosa’s husband, insisted on anonymity because they feared they would be fired described far more haphazard measures. They said they were given flimsy masks made of hairnet-like material, hand-washing stations were in disrepair, and there was pressure to keep working even if they felt sick.

One employee told his supervisor on March 30 that he had a fever the previous day, but he was told to report to work and not to tell anyone about the fever. He worked that day, missed the next two and returned when the fever broke, he said.
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“No one asked if I went to the doctor, if I was tested,” the employee said.

Lombardo said Smithfield “fully rejects any claims that employees were pressured to report to work,” calling it “completely counterproductive” to do so.

Smithfield has said it plans to clean the plant and implement more protections in the hopes of reopening. The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control sent a team to the plant this week to examine how it can be safely restarted.

But that may be difficult. Workers say they cannot fathom how butchering lines could be reconfigured to accommodate social distancing.

Meanwhile, Amosa and her husband are both home now — nervously awaiting their first child. But they also have a new worry: His coronavirus test came back positive Tuesday.

___

Associated Press writer Amy Forliti in Minneapolis, Minnesota, contributed to this report

SEE  

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=SMITHFIELD

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=TYSON

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MEAT+PACKING

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=COVID19

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=JBS

‘They’re killing us,’ AFRICAN AMERICAN Texans 

say of Trump EPA rollbacks

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Activist Hilton Kelley poses along the railroad tracks that divide East and West Port Arthur Monday, March 23, 2020, in Port Arthur, Texas. "Now we may not drop dead that day," Kelley said of the environmental protection rollbacks, and the communities surrounding the refineries and plants. "But when you're inundated day after day...we're dead. We're dead." (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
HOUSTON (AP) — Danielle Nelson’s best monitor for the emissions billowing out of the oil refineries and chemical plants surrounding her home: The heaving chest of her 9-year-old asthmatic son.

On some nights, the boy’s chest shudders as he fights for breath in his sleep. Nelson suspects the towering plants and refineries are to blame, rising like a lit-up city at night around her squat brick apartment building in the rugged Texas Gulf Coast city of Port Arthur.

Ask Nelson what protection the federal government and plant operators provide her African American community, and her answer is blunt. “They’re basically killing us,” says the 37-year-old, who herself has been diagnosed with respiratory problems since moving to the community after Hurricane Harvey in 2017.


“We don’t even know what we’re breathing,” she says.

The Texas Gulf Coast is the United States’ petrochemical corridor, with four of the country’s 10 biggest oil and gas refineries and thousands of chemical facilities.

Residents of the mostly black and Latino communities closest to the refineries and chemical plants say that puts them on the front line of the Trump administration’s rollbacks of decades of public health and environmental protections.

Under President Donald Trump, federal regulatory changes are slashing requirements on industry to monitor, report and reduce toxic pollutants, heavy metals and climate-damaging fossil fuel emissions, and to work transparently with communities to prevent plant disasters — such as the half-dozen major chemical fires and explosions that have killed workers and disrupted life along the Texas Gulf Coast over the past year alone.

And that plunge in public health enforcement may be about to get even more dramatic. Last month, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist before Trump appointed him to the agency, announced enforcement waivers for industries on monitoring, reporting and quickly fixing hazardous releases, in cases the EPA deems staffing problems related to the coronavirus pandemic made compliance difficult.

Since then, air pollutants in Houston’s most heavily industrialized areas have surged as much as 62%, a Texas A & M analysis of state air monitor readings found.

EPA says it is balancing public and business interests in trimming what the Trump administration considers unnecessary regulations.

“Maintaining public health and enforcing existing environmental protections is of the upmost importance to EPA,” agency spokeswoman Andrea Woods said by email. “This administration’s deregulatory efforts are focused on rooting out inefficiencies, not paring back protections for any sector of society.”
A playground outside the Prince Hall Village Apartments sits empty near one of the petrochemical facilities in Port Arthur, Texas, Monday, March 23, 2020. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

But environmentalists call the EPA’s waiver during the coronavirus crisis the latest in a series of alarming moves.

“Traditionally less data and enforcement has never added up to cleaner air, water or land for communities of color and lower wealth communities,” said Mustafa Santiago Ali, head of the EPA environmental justice office under President Barack Obama.

On the Texas Gulf Coast, African Americans under segregation were shunted to low-lying coastal areas prone to high water — literally on the wrong side of the tracks, Port Arthur activist Hilton Kelley says. bumping over those rails on a tour of his industrial neighborhood. As Texas towns grew, refineries, interstates and other, dirtier industries moved to those areas.

Stopping at the site of a razed public housing project where he was born in a bedroom looking out on the refineries, Kelley recalls, “always hearing about someone dying of cancer, always smelling smells, watching little babies using nebulizers.”

During the Obama administration, Kelley traveled to Washington for signing ceremonies for rules tightening regulations on pollutants and other health threats, and requiring industries to do more to report hazardous emissions. These days, Kelley’s trips to Washington are to protest rollbacks relaxing those rules.

”That’s a death sentence for us,” Kelley says, driving past the the sickly yellow light of a refinery burning off methane gas. “Now we may not drop dead that day,” he says. “But when you’re inundated day after day...we’re dead. We’re dead.”

In Houston, one of the country’s largest cities without zoning rules, the exposure to toxins is compounded. In Hispanic Galena Park, a developer this year fracked an oil and gas well just hundreds of yards (meters) from a school. In another Hispanic community, Manchester, chemical storage tanks tower over single-story frame homes, encasing all but their porches and driveways.

Before dawn one day last month a headache-inducing chemical stench suffused the neighborhood as a child waited for a school bus. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle rolled by. Latino residents, afraid of attracting official attention, lay low and don’t often complain, resident and activist Juan Flores says.

Even before the Trump administration began the rollbacks, Houston’s urban freeways and industries were pumping enough poisonous refinery chemicals, heavy metals, and diesel and car exhaust to “almost certainly” be to blame for some respiratory problems and early deaths, as well as an “unacceptable increased risk” for cancers and chronic disease, concluded a landmark city task force, started in 2005 to study the health impacts.

Residents of some predominantly minority Houston neighborhoods face at least three times the cancer risks of Americans overall, according to a 2014 EPA assessment, the most recent available.

Last year, state health officials confirmed a cancer cluster in one African American Houston neighborhood where residents had for years complained that creosote from a former rail yard was killing multiple members of families. One woman drove around with a mock human skeleton in her passenger seat to try to draw attention to the deaths.

Among other health harms, Houston’s African American families, many of them in neighborhoods near one of the nation’s largest clusters of petrochemical plants, report twice as many asthma cases as the city’s white families, according to a federal government study.

One recent day, 50-year-old Felicia Lacy hummed a hymn in the early-morning darkness as she nuzzled her 4-year-old granddaughter, Kdynn, who lay in bed with a plastic oxygen mask on her face. Lacy wakes the girl at 5:30 a.m each morning for an hour of asthma treatment.

Lacy blames Houston’s polluted air for the asthma-related pneumonia that killed a son at 27, and for the little girl’s asthma and her own. She takes her own turn at the nebulizer after she gets the child off to preschool.

Lacy doesn’t often allow Kdynn and another grandchild play outside, no matter how much they plead.

“I can’t have it happen to them,” she says, referring to her son’s asthma death. “Not on my watch.”

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey released hundreds of millions of gallons of contaminated industrial products and hundreds of tons of air toxins. Low-lying black and Latino neighborhoods were devastated, including Galena Park, which for days became an island cut off by a half-billion gallons of toxic industrial wastewater.

Over the past year, additional chemical disasters have been similarly life-changing.

“Boom! Boom! Boom!” resident Cruz Hinojosa says, describing life in Galena Park.

Six major chemical plant and facility fires and explosions in the area since March 2019 have killed at least four people, destroyed hundreds of homes and sent tens of thousands of people fleeing or hunkering down under shelter-in-place orders. The disasters poured cancer-causing xylene, benzene and other petrochemicals into the air, nauseating residents.

Port Arthur and Houston residents say it’s difficult to find out from authorities what they’re breathing and how bad it is.

After Hurricane Harvey, EPA and state officials declined to have a NASA monitoring plane gauge the threat from chemical releases. An EPA internal watchdog faulted authorities’ failures in tracking toxic releases, which included turning off air monitors to protect them from damage.

A joint investigation by The Associated Press and Houston Chronicle a year later found the toxic contamination far more widespread and extensive than authorities reported.

Woods, the EPA spokeswoman, said the NASA offer came more than two weeks after Harvey made landfall, and at a time when EPA and Texas environmental regulators were going out day and night with hand-held monitors and other equipment to gauge hazardous emissions.

“Any assertion that EPA’s decision not to accept NASA’s flight offer obstructed information-gathering that would have helped Houstonians, particularly those in low-income communities near industrial facilities, is misleading and does not reflect the more effective monitoring efforts that were in place,” Woods wrote.

Three years after Harvey, community activists have taken monitoring into their own hands.

Last month, Bridgette Murray, a retired nurse and community leader in Houston’s African American community of Pleasantville, snapped cellphone pictures of neighborhood volunteers erecting the last of seven new air monitors, given to the community by an environmental group.

In Galena Park, Flores, the activist in that Latino community, is moving on a project to install air monitors at schools, after toying with the idea of giving each schoolchild a monitor to dangle off their backpacks.

The aim of the monitors, Flores says, is not to warn children when the air is unsafe for them to play outside, but to alert them when plant emissions are low enough to make outside activities safe.

“We have to defend ourselves,” Flores says. “Because the federal government isn’t going to do it.”

‘Cartels are scrambling’: Virus snarls global drug trade

CORONAVIRUS VS CRIMINAL CAPITALISM

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This March 2020 photo provided by the U.S. Border Patrol's San Diego Tunnel Team shows a tunnel under the Otay Mesa area of San Diego, Calif. Federal authorities seized a panoply of narcotics inside the newly discovered underground passage connecting a warehouse in Tijuana with south San Diego. The bust of $30 million worth of street drugs was also notable for its low amount of fentanyl - about 2 pounds. (U.S. Border Patrol via AP)


APRIL 19,2020

NEW YORK (AP) — Coronavirus is dealing a gut punch to the illegal drug trade, paralyzing economies, closing borders and severing supply chains in China that traffickers rely on for the chemicals to make such profitable drugs as methamphetamine and fentanyl.

One of the main suppliers that shut down is in Wuhan, the epicenter of the global outbreak.

Associated Press interviews with nearly two dozen law enforcement officials and trafficking experts found Mexican and Colombian cartels are still plying their trade as evidenced by recent drug seizures but the lockdowns that have turned cities into ghost towns are disrupting everything from production to transport to sales.


Along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border through which the vast majority of illegal drugs cross, the normally bustling vehicle traffic that smugglers use for cover has slowed to a trickle. Bars, nightclubs and motels across the country that are ordinarily fertile marketplaces for drug dealers have shuttered. And prices for drugs in short supply have soared to gouging levels.

“They are facing a supply problem and a demand problem,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst and former official with CISEN, the Mexican intelligence agency. “Once you get them to the market, who are you going to sell to?”

Virtually every illicit drug has been impacted, with supply chain disruptions at both the wholesale and retail level. Traffickers are stockpiling narcotics and cash along the border, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration even reports a decrease in money laundering and online drug sales on the so-called dark web.

This March 2020 photo provided by the U.S. Border Patrol shows drugs seized from a tunnel under the Otay Mesa area of San Diego, Calif. Federal authorities seized a panoply of narcotics inside the newly discovered underground passage connecting a warehouse in Tijuana with south San Diego. The bust of $30 million worth of street drugs was also notable for its low amount of fentanyl - about 2 pounds. (U.S. Border Patrol via AP)

“The godfathers of the cartels are scrambling,” said Phil Jordan, a former director of the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center.

Cocaine prices are up 20 percent or more in some cities. Heroin has become harder to find in Denver and Chicago, while supplies of fentanyl are falling in Houston and Philadelphia. In Los Angeles, the price of methamphetamine has more than doubled in recent weeks to $1,800 per pound.

“You have shortages but also some greedy bastards who see an opportunity to make more money,” said Jack Riley, the former deputy administrator of the DEA. “The bad guys frequently use situations that affect the national conscience to raise prices.”

Synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl have been among the most affected, in large part because they rely on precursor chemicals that Mexican cartels import from China, cook into drugs on an industrial scale and then ship to the U.S.

“This is something we would use as a lesson learned for us,” the head of the DEA, Uttam Dhillon, told AP. “If the disruption is that significant, we need to continue to work with our global partners to ensure that, once we come out of the pandemic, those precursor chemicals are not available to these drug-trafficking organizations.”


Cartels are increasingly shifting away from drugs that require planting and growing seasons, like heroin and marijuana, in favor of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which can be cooked 24/7 throughout the year, are up to 50 times more powerful than heroin and produce a greater profit margin.

Though some clandestine labs that make fentanyl from scratch have popped up sporadically in Mexico, cartels are still very much reliant upon Chinese companies to get the precursor drugs.

Huge amounts of these mail-order components can be traced to a single, state-subsidized company in Wuhan that shut down after the outbreak earlier this year, said Louise Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University, which monitors Chinese websites selling fentanyl.

This April 17, 2020 image from a website shows an offer for a chemical known as "99918-43-1" made in China. According to C4ADS, a Washington research group, the price of the chemical, which can be used to make fentanyl, has risen since late February 2020.

“The quarantine of Wuhan and all the chaos there definitely affected the fentanyl trade, particularly between China and Mexico,” said Ben Westhoff, author of “Fentanyl, Inc.”

“The main reason China has been the main supplier is the main reason China is the supplier of everything — it does it so cheaply,” Westhoff said. “There was really no cost incentive for the cartels to develop this themselves.”

But costs have been rising and, as in many legitimate industries, the coronavirus is bringing about changes.

Advertised prices across China for precursors of fentanyl, methamphetamine and cutting agents have risen between 25% and 400% since late February, said Logan Pauley, an analyst at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, a Washington-based security research nonprofit. So even as drug precursor plants in China are slowly reopening after the worst of the coronavirus crisis there, some cartels have been taking steps to decrease their reliance on overseas suppliers by enlisting scientists to make their own precursor chemicals.

“Because of the coronavirus they’re starting to do it in house,” added Westhoff.

This April 16, 2020 image from a website shows an offer for the chemical xylazine made in China. According to C4ADS, a Washington research group, the price of the chemical, which can be used as a cutting agent for heroin, has risen since late February 2020.Some Chinese companies that once pushed precursors are now advertising drugs like hydroxychloroquine, which President Donald Trump has promoted as potential treatment for COVID-19, as well as personal protective gear such as face masks and hand sanitizers.

Meanwhile, the gummed up situation on the U.S.-Mexico border resembles a stalled chess match where nobody, especially the traffickers, wants to make a wrong move, said Kyle Williamson, special agent in charge of the DEA’s El Paso field division.

“They’re in a pause right now,” Williamson said. “They don’t want to get sloppy and take a lot of risks.”

Some Mexican drug cartels are even holding back existing methamphetamine supplies to manipulate the market, recognizing that “no good crisis should be wasted,” said Joseph Brown, the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Texas.

“Some cartels have given direct orders to members of their organization that anyone caught selling methamphetamine during this time will be killed,” said Brown, whose sprawling jurisdiction stretches from the suburbs of Dallas to Beaumont.

To be sure, narcotics are still making their way into the U.S., as evidenced by a bust last month in which nearly $30 million worth of street drugs were seized in a new smuggling tunnel connecting a warehouse in Tijuana to southern San Diego. Shelley said that bust was notable in that only about 2 pounds of fentanyl was recovered, “much lower than usual shipments.”

This March 2020 photo provided by the U.S. Border Patrol's San Diego Tunnel Team shows an agent in a tunnel under the Otay Mesa area of San Diego, Calif.

Trump announced earlier this month that Navy ships were being moved toward Venezuela as part of a bid to beef up counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean following a U.S. drug indictment against Nicolás Maduro.

But the pandemic also has limited law enforcement’s effectiveness, as departments cope with drug investigators working remotely, falling ill and navigating a new landscape in which their own activities have become more conspicuous. In Los Angeles County, half of the narcotics detectives have been put on patrol duty, potentially imperiling long-term investigations.

Nonetheless, Capt. Chris Sandoval, who oversees special investigations for the Houston-based Harris County Sheriff’s Office, said there’s a new saying among his detectives: “Not even the dope dealers can hide from the coronavirus.”

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Bleiberg reported from Dallas. AP writers Erika Kinetz in Rieti, Italy, Mark Stevenson in Mexico City and Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org

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