UK
Fears for home working as prospect of national BT strike grows

Ballot over job cuts and site closures could mean first nationwide industrial action since 1987

The Communication Workers Union will hold a ballot in the coming weeks and says a yes vote will have a ‘massive impact’ on the network. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Rupert Jones
Sun 14 Mar 2021 

BT is facing the threat of its first national strike since 1987 as a row about planned job cuts and site closures intensifies.

The Communication Workers Union, which represents 45,000 BT Group staff, will hold the ballot in the coming weeks and said that a yes vote would have a “massive impact” on the network.


BT warns rural areas will suffer broadband delays unless government steps up

The ballot will cover workers at BT, EE and Openreach, which controls most of the UK’s broadband network, and could lead to walkouts in late spring if passed, at a time when millions of people will still be working from home and heavily reliant on their broadband connections.

Andy Kerr, the CWU’s deputy general secretary, said: “This is a decision we did not want to take. Last year our members delivered a huge yes vote in a consultative ballot but BT Group are still in denial.

“We want to assure businesses and the public that we do not want to see disruptions to services. This action is about protecting our members but also it is about protecting the service they provide to homes and businesses.

“My message to BT Group is that our door is still open, and we want to resolve this dispute, but this will require a huge shift in attitude from the company. My message to our members is to continue supporting their union and prepare to deliver a massive yes vote.”

BT’s chief executive, Philip Jansen, wants to accelerate BT’s shift to fibre broadband and 5G networks, and has also discussed the possibility of selling a stake in its Openreach arm. Jan du Plessis unexpectedly resigned as chairman earlier this month amid claims that Jansen was frustrated at the pace of change.

According to the union, the company wants to close hundreds of sites across the country over the next few years and concentrate the majority of its operations at 30 key locations.

Dave Ward, the CWU’s general secretary, said BT, Openreach and EE staff had been key workers during the coronavirus pandemic: “They have kept the country connected, held together the homeworking revolution and enabled the wheels of the economy to keep moving – all while dealing with the realities of the pandemic themselves. Their reward from BT Group has been the threat of compulsory redundancy or the closure of their workplace.”

A BT spokesperson said it was going through a period of “immense change” that would result in it having fewer staff. “Such change is always difficult – that’s why we have been discussing our plans with the unions and will continue to do so.

“We’re disappointed that CWU is contemplating industrial action, though the union has not started the formal industrial action process. We remain committed to discussing the concerns they have raised.”

Combination of climate change, development to fuel urban flooding


The way cities are designed, and how much waste heat they put into the environment, increases the risk for urban flooding linked to climate change, according to new research. File Photo ventdusud/Shutterstock


March 15 (UPI) -- The combination of climate change and urban development is likely to fuel urban flooding in cities across the United States, according to a new model.

Previous studies have demonstrated a link between rising ocean and air temperatures and bigger, slower-moving storms -- storms capable of dropping record amounts of rain.

Because warmer air can carry more water, many parts of the country are expected to experience increases in precipitation as the climate heats up.

For the latest study, published Monday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, scientists looked at how urban development will affect the risk of heavy precipitation and flooding.

RELATED Study: Global warming could make survival in tropics impossible

"When we account for these twin forcing agents of environmental change, the effect of the built environment and the effect of greenhouse gasses, we note a strong tendency toward increased extreme precipitation over future U.S. metropolitan regions," lead study author Matei Georgescu said in a news release.

Georgescu is an associate professor in Arizona State University's School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.

Previous models have shown urban development frequently boosts a city's heat island index, warming the surrounding air. Warmer air rises faster, causing moisture to condense more quickly.

The pattern can yield increases in precipitation downtown, boosting urban precipitation, or push rainstorms downwind of the city.

The new models, developed by Georgescu and his colleagues, showed the two climate forcing agents -- greenhouse gas emissions-fueled warming and urban island index-induced precipitation -- have compensating impacts on one another.

"This new study is unique," said Georgescu. "We used climate-scale simulations with a regional climate model to examine potential changes in future extreme precipitation resulting from both urban expansion and increases in greenhouse gasses, across dozens of cities across the continental United States."

RELATED Scientists explore how to recalculate the social cost of carbon

Previously, models showed increases in a city's heat island index can sometimes cause precipitation to decrease across urban environs, as fast-rising air rains out downwind of the city.

The latest models showed climate change counteracts the sometimes-diminishing effect of urban development on extreme precipitation.

"These are the effects our cities are likely to experience when accounting for the twin forcing agents of urban expansion and greenhouse gas emissions, simultaneously," said Georgescu.

"What this means for U.S. cities in the future is the need for a consistent response to an increase in extreme precipitation. We're no longer likely to see a decrease in precipitation as we've seen before," Georgescu said.

The models showed the cities of Atlanta, Denver, Phoenix and Houston are especially vulnerable to extreme precipitation and urban flooding.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions must be a priority, the study's authors contend, but urban planners and policy makers must also work to build more prepared, less flood-prone cities.

"It's also about how you build cities," Georgescu said. "How extensive they are, how vertical they are, how dense they are, how much vegetation there is, how much waste heat you put into the environment through electricity use, through air conditioning, or through transportation."

"All of these things can impact future precipitation in our cities," Georgescu said.
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HISTORIC

Deb Haaland confirmed as first Native American Interior secretary

The Senate voted 51-40 on Monday to confirm Deb Haaland as the first Native American to serve as Interior secretary, overseeing Native American affairs and federal lands. File Pool photo by Jim Watson/UPI | License Photo


March 15 (UPI) -- The Senate on Monday confirmed Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., to serve as secretary of the Interior Department, making her the first Native American to serve in a presidential Cabinet.

Following the 51-40 vote Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, will helm the department that oversees 574 federally recognized Native American and Alaskan Native communities as well as 480 million acres of federal land including 400 national parks, 100 national monuments and 500 national wildlife refuges.
The agency, which has never been led by a Native American, includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. It also manages and administers 55 million acres of estates held in trust by the United States for hundreds of tribes.

"Rep. Haaland's confirmation represents a gigantic step forward in creating a government that represents the full richness and diversity of this country because Native Americans were, for far too long, neglected at the cabinet level and in so many other places," Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said before the vote.

Four Republicans crossed the aisle to join Democrats in supporting Haaland's confirmation, although many expressed concerns about her support for the New Green Deal and her opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voiced her support for Haaland before the vote despite declaring she had concerns about how Haaland's positions could affect the state's oil industry, while Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Haaland's deep knowledge of Native American Affairs gained her trust.

During her confirmation hearing, Haaland said she would focus on helping Biden's climate plan which includes allowing some mining, oil and gas drilling while looking to limit emissions in addition to restoring lands damaged by excavation

She also expressed a personal goal to solve the issue of high rates of missing and murdered women in Indian Country.

Images of NYC's COVID-19 dead projected onto Brooklyn Bridge

Images of New Yorkers who have died of COVID-19 are projected onto the Brooklyn Bridge on Sunday night during a "Day of Remembrance," in New York City. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

March 15 (UPI) -- New York City paid tribute on Sunday night to tens of thousands of people who have died of COVID-19 in the city over the past year, by projecting their images onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

The images changed throughout the night on the famous bridge, which spans the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Since the coronavirus arrived a year ago, more than 30,000 people have died in the city.

Commemorative events were held at several locations and candles were lit at fountains.

"Shoulder to shoulder, one for another, we will bring our city back together," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement Sunday.

"The people walking around today, they carry the hearts of those we've lost with them. The moms, the dads, the grandparents, all that was great about them, all that was warm, their souls continue on in their sons and daughters and then their grandchildren."

New York City councilor Corey Johnson said the city has found some success lately in lowering transmission rates, but there are still too many falling ill.

RELATED California, Texas among states opening access to COVID-19 vaccines Monday

"Our city suffered so much in a short time, but we also witnessed the best of humanity by front-line workers who risked their lives daily to save others," he said in a statement.

"I'm confident that together we can help New York recover ... and come back even stronger."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said the city's losses have been "staggering," but promised that state and federal leaders will renew their commitment to providing families with "resources they need to begin to heal."

Amityville Horror killer Ronald DeFeo

dies in N.Y. prison at 69

The Amityville, N.Y., house in which Ronald DeFeo Jr., killed six members of his family is pictured in 2005. Photo by Seulatr/Wikimedia Commons/UPI

March 15 (UPI) -- Ronald DeFeo Jr., whose 1974 murders of his Long Island, N.Y., family inspired the horror movie franchise The Amityville Horror, has died in prison at age 69, state officials said Monday.

New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision records showed DeFeo died last week while serving a 25-to-life sentence at Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, N.Y., Newsday initially reported

A department spokeswoman later confirmed that DeFeo was pronounced dead Friday at the Albany, N.Y., Medical Center. She did not reveal why he was hospitalized and indicated the cause of death would be determined by the Albany County Medical Examiner's Office.

DeFeo was convicted of using a .35 caliber rifle to murder his father, mother, two brothers and two sisters in their five-bedroom waterfront Dutch Colonial home in Amityville, N.Y., on Nov. 13, 1974.

The family that bought the house after the killings complained of ghosts and paranormal activities and moved out less than a month later. Their story formed the basis of the 1977 horror novel The Amityville Horror, A True Story, by Jay Anson, followed two years later by the cult classic film The Amityville Horror and several subsequent sequels.

DeFeo claimed insanity at his 1975 trial, saying his drug use led him to believe his family was plotting against him. Experts, however, testified that while DeFeo had indeed used LSD and heroin, he was sane at the time of the murders.

He claimed in a 2006 documentary that both his drug use and the killings were triggered by abuse he suffered at his father's hands. He alleged that one of his sisters, Dawn, was an accomplice in the killings and that she had actually slain three of their younger siblings.

He said the two of them fought after the slayings and that he killed her accidentally.

During the interview, DeFeo recanted his trial admission that he had killed all of the family members, claiming it was a lie made in an effort to appear to be mentally ill.


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Study: Black adults in rural areas more likely to die from heart-linked causes

MARCH 15, 2021 

A new study suggests Black adults living in rural areas face greater risk for death from heart-related causes than White adults. 

Photo by hamiltonpaviana/Pixabay

March 15 (UPI) -- Black adults who live in rural areas of the United States are nearly three times as likely to die from high blood pressure than White adults in the same areas, an analysis published Monday by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found.

Black adults also are more than twice as likely to die from diabetes and have an up to 40% higher risk for death from heart disease or stroke, the data showed.

Although racial disparities in health have improved generally across the country over the past two decades, much of these gains have been seen among adults living in urban areas, with "minimal" changes among residents of rural communities.

"Our findings demonstrate that Black adults experience worse cardiovascular outcomes than White adults in the United States, and that these disparities are magnified in rural communities," study co-author Dr. Rahul Aggarwal told UPI in an email.

RELATED Lupus more deadly for Asian, Hispanic people, study says

"Black adults disproportionately face systemic inequities that lead to worse health outcomes, including poverty, worse access to health care services and structural racism," said Aggarwal, a physician and clinical research fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

For this study, Aggarwal and his colleagues used information from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Wonder Database, which includes statistics on the cause of death for people in the United States.

They focused on those in rural areas who died from causes related to diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke between 1999 and 2018.

RELATED Study: Black, Hispanic kids get fewer imaging tests in ER than White kids

Historically, in the United States, death rates from heart-related causes have been higher in rural areas than in urban ones, due at least in part to less access to healthcare services, according to the researchers.

The disparities have been particularly pronounced among Black people, who are at higher risk for heart disease and have less access to quality healthcare compared to White people, they said.

In rural areas, between 1999 and 2018, Black adults with high blood pressure died at a rate of 31 per 100,000 in the general population, compared with 11 per 100,000 among White adults, the data showed.

RELATED Study: Black patients get worse care after cardiac arrest

The death rate for Black adults with diabetes was 76 per 100,000 in the general population compared with 37 per 100,000 for White adults.

Death rates for Black adults with heart disease living in rural areas were 425 per 100,000 in the general population and for stroke were 113 per 100,000.

Among White adults, there were 332 deaths from heart disease per 100,000 in the general population and 74 for stroke per 100,000.

Meanwhile, in urban areas, the death rate for Black adults with high blood pressure was 25 per 100,000 in the general population, compared to 11 per 100,000 for White adults.

The death rate for Black adults with diabetes was 63 per 100,000 in the general population compared to 31 per 100,000 for White adults.

For heart disease and stroke, death rates for Black adults living in urban areas were 371 per 100,000 in the general population and 89 per 100,000, respectively, compared with 292 and 64 for White adults.

The "persistent" racial disparities in the death rates for diabetes and high blood pressure in rural areas may reflect structural inequities that impede access to primary, preventative and specialist care for Black adults, the researchers said.

The modest improvement in racial disparities for heart disease and stroke mortality in rural areas, however, may reflect improvements in emergency services, the expansion of referral networks and the opening of stroke and heart attack care centers, they said.

"Income inequality, inadequate access to health care services and structural racism all contribute to worse health outcomes among Black Americans, particularly in rural areas of the United States," study co-author Dr. Rishi Wadhera told UPI in an email.

"Public health and policy initiatives need to intensify their focus on tackling these critically important issues, which are inextricably tied to health, and are contributing to racial health inequities in the United States," said Wadhera, a cardiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.


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Study: Racist 'redlining' policies increased stroke risk for Black people

By Dennis Thompson, HealthDay News
HEALTH NEWS
MARCH 15, 2021 


In addition to its socioeconomic impacts, research shows the racist policies of "redlining" affected people's health -- including increasing stroke risk for black people. Photo by StockSnap/Pixabay

Discriminatory housing practices from nearly a century ago continue to influence a person's risk of suffering a stroke, claims a new study that reveals the legacy of structural racism in the United States.

Researchers found a 1.5% higher rate of stroke within census tracts in Columbus, Ohio, most heavily marked for "redlining," compared to neighborhoods in the city least affected by housing discrimination.

"These redlining practices that were established in the 1930s are still having health impacts almost a century later," said lead researcher Jeffrey Wing. He's an assistant professor of epidemiology with the Ohio State University's College of Public Health, in Columbus.

"We need to take ownership of that and work toward dismantling the effects of these long-established practices," Wing added.

RELATED Study: Racist neighborhood 'redlining' has led to fewer green spaces today

Redlining began in the 1930s, as an unintended consequence of the New Deal's National Housing Act of 1934, which was intended to make housing and home mortgages more affordable.

The law created the Federal Housing Administration, which in 1935 directed a government-sponsored corporation called the Home Owners' Loan Corp. to survey more than 200 U.S. cities and assess the credit-worthiness of neighborhoods.

"Assessors described the neighborhood and ended up with these color-coded maps that depicted the level of perceived desirability and investment risk in neighborhoods," said study co-author Helen Meier.

RELATED 'Redlined' neighborhoods have higher rates of asthma than others

"If you look at them, they're very racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic," said Meier, an assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.

For example, 1930s assessors said of the redlined "Alberta District" in Portland, Ore.: "The racial composition of its population is subversive, the western part having heaviest percent of foreign-born of any area in the city. This particular part being known as 'Little Russia.'"

Elsewhere, in the city's "Lower Albina" neighborhood: "This area constitutes Portland's 'Melting Pot' and is the nearest approach to a 'slum district' in the city. Three-quarters of the negro population of the city reside here and in addition there are some 300 Orientals, 1,000 Southern Europeans and Russians."

RELATED Urban development, pandemic will further diversify suburbs

Higher stroke risk

Redlined neighborhoods suffered from economic decline and neglect, Meier said. Housing reform laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s made the practice illegal, but researchers suspect the effects of this discrimination have echoed down over the decades.

"Having a house is one of the best ways to build wealth through equity," Meier said. "When you're systematically denying certain portions of the population access to the best ways to build wealth, that disadvantage then accumulates over generations. Socioeconomic disadvantage is very tied to health."

To test this theory, the researchers calculated historic redlining scores for neighborhoods in Columbus, and assessed the association between those scores and 2017 stroke rates.

Higher historic redlining scores were associated with greater rates of stroke when comparing neighborhoods with the greatest and least amounts of housing discrimination, the researchers found.

These results jibe with previous research on community health, said Sterling Fulton, evaluation director of the nonprofit Center for Black Health and Equity.

"There's been extensive research that shows where you live dictates your longevity," Fulton said.

Because the tax base is lower, people in redlined neighborhoods also had fewer educational opportunities, Meier noted, and "education level is extremely tightly tied to health."Years of neglect

People in impoverished areas have less access to health care and are more exposed to environmental pollutants, like smog, Meier added. Cities also tended to invest less in these areas, resulting in fewer parks and places for outdoor exercise.

Areas economically decimated by practices like redlining also tend to be "food deserts," where people lack access to healthy food, Fulton said.

"If the only food that you can get is processed food at your neighborhood convenience store, you're not going to get the healthy fruits and vegetables you can get at your local grocery," Fulton said.

Higher levels of stress in these communities also lead to unhealthy habits like smoking, she added.

Wing said that cities need to invest in neighborhoods victimized by housing discrimination.

"If you grew up in an area that had been disinvested, this means these homes are continuously short-changed in terms of lower home values and less tax revenue," Wing explained.

"Whether redlining is outlawed now or not, I feel like is kind of irrelevant. We know it continues to have an impact, so we need to develop new policies and new ways to support individuals in these communities to give them a chance to prosper," Wing said.

Wing will present these findings next week at the American Stroke Association's virtual annual meeting. Such research is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.More information

The University of Richmond has digital copies of redlining maps for communities across the United States, including neighborhood descriptions.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has a zip-code-based life expectancy calculator.

Copyright 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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NO LONGER THE CHINA FLU ITS THE BREXITFLU

British COVID-19 variant to become dominant U.S. strain within weeks: CDC


A health worker administers the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to a local resident at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, California, on March 8. File photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo


March 15 (UPI) -- A highly contagious COVID-19 variant could soon become the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the United States even as spring break festivities ramp up, a top health official warned Monday.

The B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant, first identified in Britain, remains on track to become the dominant variant by the end of March or early April, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a briefing Monday.

Although its spread is not evenly distributed across the United States, "we do have B.1.1.7 reported in 50 jurisdictions, over 4,700 cases reported so far, and that's just based on what we're evaluating and sequencing," she said.

"In some states, Florida and California, it's up to 25 percent. In other states, it's lower. Our current models still project, by the end of March, early April, B.1.1.7 will be the dominant variant."

THE FOURTH WAVE TSA: U.S. airports see most air travelers since March 2020

The variant is up to 100% more deadly than the original strains of the virus, according to a study published last week by the British Medical Journal.

Researchers also found it is more contagious than earlier strains and was the primary reason for the most recent round of lockdowns across Britain. It has already been detected in more than 50 countries worldwide.

Walensky noted that the emergence of the British variant has been associated with sharp spikes in new COVID-19 cases in Europe and voiced fears that the United States could see a similar surge.

RELATED Pfizer says COVID-19 vaccine highly efficient against U.K. variant in Israel

"This past Friday, we saw more travelers pass through our airports -- over 1.3 million," she said. "This is the most travelers that we've had in a single day since last March, before the WHO declared the global pandemic.

"We have seen footage of people enjoying spring break festivities maskless. This is all in the context of still 50,000 cases per day."

Walensky pleaded with Americans "for the sake of our nation's health" not to relax in their vigilance against transmission.

RELATED 'U.K.' variant of COVID-19 up to 100% more deadly, study finds

New COVID-19 cases, she said, "will climb now if we stop taking precautions when we continue to get more and more people vaccinated."

Also at Monday's briefing, White House healthcare advisor Andy Slavitt announced the administration is increasing the Medicare reimbursement for COVID-19 shots from about $23 per shot to $40 per shot, or $80 total for a two-dose vaccine.

"This will make it easier for more healthcare providers to get out into communities and give more COVID shots to people in need,

Agency review finds some Trump administration CDC guidance was not grounded in science or free from undue influence

By John Bonifield, Jacqueline Howard and Caroline Kelly, CNN
Mon March 15, 2021

(CNN)A review of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Covid-19 guidance has found that some of the agency's guidance during the Trump administration was not grounded in science or free from undue influence, according to a statement from a CDC spokesperson.

The review found that some guidance "used less direct language than available evidence supported," "needed to be updated to reflect the latest scientific evidence" and "presented the underlying science base for guidance inconsistently," according to the spokesperson.

Additionally, the review identified three documents that were not primarily authored by the CDC and yet were presented as CDC documents, according to the spokesperson. The agency has removed two of the documents from its website, and updated and replaced the third.

The review was ordered by President Joe Biden's CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, in response to concerns about some of the agency's guidance during the first year of the pandemic under the Trump administration.

"I am focused on moving CDC forward with science, transparency and clarity leading the way. It is imperative for the American people to trust CDC. If they don't, preventable illness and injury can occur -- and, tragically, lives can and will be lost," Walensky said in a statement to CNN.

"This agency and its critical health information cannot be vulnerable to undue influence, and this report helps outline our path to rebuilding confidence and ensuring the information that CDC shares with the American people is based on sound science that will keep us, our loved ones, and our communities healthy and safe."

The CDC review was first reported by The Washington Post.
The Trump administration repeatedly butted heads with its own medical advisers on the nature and subsequent public messaging of the ongoing pandemic. As early as February 2020, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a top CDC vaccination expert, warned that the virus could bring severe disruption to American life, affecting schools and businesses, and told people to get ready at the same time Trump was reassuring the nation that the virus was "going to go away" and was "very well under control."

The effects of the clash were stark, with Trump appointees often taking the upper hand. Michael Caputo — a close Trump ally who served as a top official in the Department of Health and Human Services — was accused by critics of politicizing the CDC and the HHS response to the coronavirus pandemic. CNN reported in September that Caputo and his team had demanded to see weekly science reports out of the CDC before they were released, with some HHS communications officials pushing to change the reports' language so as not to undermine Trump's political message. In response to that assertion, Caputo criticized the CDC with conspiratorial accusations.

In October, sources told CNN's Jake Tapper that Messonnier was told to "lay low" as Trump downplayed the threat of the coronavirus. The Trump White House stopped CDC briefings on the pandemic last March after Messonnier warned of worsening spread and disruptions, angering the then-President.

Walensky wrote in the agency's review of the Trump administration's guidance that she had some difficulty making sense of which guidance documents had provided major new updates -- and she recommended ways in which the agency under the Biden administration can do things differently.

While conducting the review, Walensky wrote that she "found it too difficult" to tell whether a new document represented a major or very minor update to existing guidance, and to decipher what the core recommendations were in long documents.

Some documents also were removed or replaced from the CDC's website during the review. The review names the document that had been previously removed as "The Importance of Reopening of America's Schools this Fall," while the document "Overview of Testing for SARS-COV-2" had been replaced. According to the review, a link to the document "Opening up America Again" also was removed from the website.

Walensky noted in the review that "there was not a consistent practice of publicizing the supporting evidence in a scientific brief in conjunction with every major new guidance." But, she added, "We are now committed to providing updated science briefs if there is research to inform guidance updates."

Walensky wrote that the CDC "will finalize production and reviews of remaining prioritized new guidance" in the weeks ahead. Walensky laid out several recommendations for moving forward, including making it clear what scientific evidence was used for major new guidance documents, as well as planning media briefings when new guidance is released, along with several other recommendations.

PAMELA ANDERSON'S GHOST WRITER RABBI

UK royal family hated Meghan for being American, not biracial - opinion

I would take an American hell of blood, sweat and tears over a royal heaven of effortless beauty, prosperity and success.

By SHMULEY BOTEACH
MARCH 15, 2021 

Meghan Markle has just shaken the British royal family with her bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.

A confident, self-assured and highly articulate woman, she was always going to find it hard to fit in with the stodgy, conservative and überconformist culture of the royals. It’s no surprise that there is no love lost between the two parties.

But amid Meghan’s charges of racism against the family – undoubtedly believable since racism exists in many quarters, and why would the royal family be substantially different? – the reason they dislike her is not her being biracial but, rather, her being American.

I lived for 11 years in Great Britain. Six of my nine children were born there. I ran a successful and renowned student organization in Oxford which numbered among its members Cory Booker, Ron Dermer and Eric Garcetti. But I was a young American at Oxford, and I know how many of the British students viewed me. Yes, they liked me as a person. But as an American they found me loud, brash, moving too quickly, and too ready to share my emotions.

Sound familiar?

We forget what an amazing culture clash there is between the UK and the United States, two countries separated – as George Bernard Shaw said – by a common language.

My own advice to Meghan is this: Get over it. They don’t like you. But you don’t need them. You have the love and support of your husband. You live in beautiful California. So what if baby Archie doesn’t’ have a title? You yourself said the “firm” is stifling. So why burden him with the suffocating straitjacket of illusionary royal titles anyway?

Everything you’ve achieved as a professional and as an actress, Meghan, you’ve achieved on your own. We Americans believe in a meritocracy, where people are judged by their talent, effort and character. We reject the aristocracy of the British where people are judged by their birth.

That’s why we sent King George III packing a quarter of a millennium ago when he had the insolence to try to tax our tea. You want to try to govern a free people from across the Atlantic and profit off our blood, sweat, and toil, while you sit in a castle you never built enjoying riches you never earned? No thank you.

Respectfully, Meghan, you kind of want to have it both ways. You want the royal family to embrace you, but on your terms, as an assertive and independent-minded American woman. It ain’t gonna happen. Look at what they did to an assertive and independent-minded Diana, and she wasn’t even an American.

Meghan, your obsession with the royal family while being simultaneously put off by its uppitiness is as old as America itself, because we Americans have a strange love-hate relationship with British royals that is positively bizarre.

In December 2014 Prince William and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, came to New York on a celebrated visit.

They looked like a very loving couple, decent folk. I especially feel for William and Harry, who lost their mother at a young age. I am happy they have found fine women who love them and with whom they have built beautiful families.

William and Harry are impressive men. Their wives equally so. But because I’m an American, I don’t see them as any more special than the next person. In fact, that’s the very essence of being an American.

America was born through the rejection of royalty, a detestation of the divine right of kings, a revulsion at the idea that any man or woman is born superior to their fellows.

President Joe Biden sits in his chair because he earned it. Prince William, for all his decency, sits there because he was born into it.

America is a meritocracy where people are rewarded for effort. We have no dukes, no counts, no lords.

A FEW years ago I debated atheist Richard Dawkins at the University of Toronto at the Idea City convention. He went on about how religion is a lie. There is no proof for God, so why do people insist on perpetuating this lie?

He insisted that he has nothing against religion, other than the fact it is not true.

When it was my turn, I asked, “Since you’re a British subject, did you ever find scientific evidence that some people are born with blue blood? that royalty is born with a DNA structure different from that of us mortals? And if not, why do you perpetuate it? Why does the “lie” of religion bother you but not the lie of royalty? Why haven’t you devoted your life and your books to refuting that lie?”

There was no response.

Which raises the question: Why are we Americans – for all our history – so fascinated with this stuff? Why do royal visits dominate New York, where the American Revolution was felt so deeply, and which spent much of the war under royalist occupation? Americans back then hated their king and did everything to get rid of him.

Now, we go gaga over a royal visit?

I don’t quite know the answer. Perhaps my readers can help me.

Is it a human need to deify humanity? Is it that, in an increasingly godless age, we all require objects of worship?

Or perhaps it has something to do merely with celebrity. The royal family is famous.

Or perhaps in an age of flimsy and ephemeral novelty, we have nostalgia for something old, unbroken and ancient.

If I had to guess, I would say it’s something different entirely.

Walt Disney called his resort “Magic Kingdom.” The two words so often go together, as if every kingdom is somehow magical. The same applies to the words “beautiful princess,” as if none are ugly.

The underlying attraction to royalty is the human desire for an effortless life, where all things are magical and where all beauty is innate. A meritocracy has its own rewards. It allows ordinary people to become extraordinary, but it always involves hard work: the entrepreneur who must burn the midnight oil to build his business. The rising politician who must travel around the country begging rich people for money to make his candidacy viable.

Even human attraction involves such hard work. It means dieting and giving up the foods we love. It means exercising, running and weight lifting.

But then there are people who are all those things – rich, beautiful, wonderful – without any effort at all. They are angels who live among us. They are magical.

In giving us things like “enchanted forests” and “Never Never Land,” where no boys grow old, Disney tapped into our sense of tiredness and weariness at the constant struggle that life demands, the never-ending battles to make something of ourselves. The battle to feed our families. The struggle to be happily married. The demands of raising purposeful children. The struggle to sustain healthy self-esteem.

After all that exertion, we need an escape, a place to which we can retreat where everything is wonderful without having to try.

And royalty is fantasy in the flesh. An impossible, effortless, wealthy, magical existence that seemingly requires no effort or struggle.

I get it. And I’m drawn to that world as well. Would it were that all men were princes and all women princesses.

But I would take an American hell of blood, sweat and tears over a royal heaven of effortless beauty, prosperity and success.

Because the only thing really worthwhile about heaven is that it’s a place we have earned rather than it being handed to us on some magical platter.

So Meghan, stop trying to earn the approval of the royal family. It’s enough that we Americans admire and appreciate you. And that appreciation is not given. It is earned.

Enjoy your beautiful family and be happy that you’re an American, among a people that rejected the divine right of kings centuries ago, even as you’re married to a prince whose real specialness is that he is a loving father and a great dad.

God bless you.

The writer is the best-selling author of 30 books and recipient of the American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. He published Lust For Love with the actress Pamela Anderson. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmule

Fear banning 'safe' AstraZeneca jab will set back Europe's COVID-19 fight

 

 

Thomas Wintle

CGTN Europe, 16-Mar-2021

Experts have cautioned that while we shouldn't be "too worried" about taking the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine, governments should be concerned that a ban on the jab may cause more long-term vaccine hesitancy.

The warning comes as a slew of European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and France, suspended the UK-made jab after reports the drug was linked to "serious blood clotting in adults."

However, Lawrence Young, a professor of molecular oncology at Warwick University, told CGTN Europe that despite the reports, there was little to worry about: "I don't think any of us actually have any concerns that this is a dangerous vaccine."

"We've seen all the data that's come out from the clinical trials that demonstrate this vaccine, along with others, is safe," he said, pointing to the fact the UK and the EU's regulators had already signed off on the jab.

"It's inevitable that there are going to be some bumps in the road and, of course, one has to be always concerned about safety and monitoring safety," he said. But stressed: "I don't think we should be too worried."

European nations initially started suspending single batches of the AstraZeneca vaccine in early March. However, after several reports of blood clotting and deaths in people who had taken the jab, some countries started enforcing a temporary ban.

READ MORE: Which European countries are suspending the AstraZeneca vaccine and why?



More and more European countries are suspending 

the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after reports of 

unexpected possible side effects. /Joel Saget/AFP

But Young, an internationally renowned virus specialist who has recently been developing tests to detect COVID-19 antigens and antibodies, said it was vital to compare any adverse effects of vaccines with those that normally occur in the general population.

That was particularly true, he said, when blood clots were already a regular complication of COVID-19 and even prior to the pandemic, were "sadly, very, very common."

"In the UK alone, there are at least 3,000 reported cases of blood clot-associated diseases a month," said the professor. "When you're vaccinating millions of people, you're going to see a similar trend in those individuals."

However, he expressed concern that the decision to suspend AstraZeneca could cause serious problems, given the fact that in Europe "there are many folk who are vaccine hesitant."

He added: "I think it's really important that we report these differences, these adverse effects responsibly, but also stress the fact that overall, the safety data for this vaccine and the other vaccines are very, very good indeed."

Our current COVID-19 vaccines are "much safer than lots of over-the-counter drugs that people take every day," he added, saying that if AstraZeneca's bad PR didn't stop, it would negatively impact Europe's vaccine programs.

"This is one of the front-runner vaccines, not least because it's cheap, and also we know it's very effective," said Lawrence.

"We've heard a lot through the pandemic about 'none of us are safe until all of us are safe,'" he added in reference to the need for mass-vaccination.