Face masks limit COVID-19 risk for vulnerable as new variants emerge, experts say

A recent court decision has led to the overturning of mask mandates across the country, leaving the decision to wear face coverings in public to individuals, Duke University experts said Thursday. 

File photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

April 21 (UPI) -- Face coverings still help limit risk for infection in those vulnerable to severe COVID-19, experts said Thursday, three days after a federal judge struck down a government-imposed mask mandate for planes, buses and trains.

Although masks have been a "political issue" since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, "research has clearly shown that masks are bi-directional in their effects," meaning they protect both the wearer and those around them, infectious disease specialist Dr. Cameron Wolfe said on a call with reporters hosted by Duke University.

However, while this means that people at risk for severe illness from COVID-19 due to having a weakened immune system, such as those with cancer, can protect themselves by wearing a mask, "their risk is not zero" if people around them are unmasked, Wolfe said.

This could make travel complicated, now that airlines have removed mask requirements on flights in the aftermath of the federal court decision, according to Wolfe.

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Federal judge strikes down mask mandate for airliners, public transportation

It could also present challenges for those who rely on public transportation to get to and from school or work, as the court decision said local masking requirements for trains and buses exceeded the authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he said.

"I'm not a legal scholar," said Wolfe, an associate professor at the Duke University School of Medicine. "I always find it difficult to be diplomatic when public health guidelines fall into legal disputes."

He said he still recommends that his patients, particularly those who are immunocompromised with underlying health conditions, wear masks, "particularly on longer flights" and on other forms of public transportation.

The questions about mask mandates come at a time when a new subvariant of the virus that causes COVID-19, Omicron BA.2.12.1, is "really starting to take off in the United States," Wolfe's colleague, David Montefiori, said on the call.

"It is already becoming the predominant variant in many parts of the country, including New York City," said Montefiori, a professor and director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.

"The good news is that these variants are not causing more severe disease and, as far as we can tell, the vaccines are still very effective against them," he said.

Still, all forms of Omicron BA.2, including BA.2.12.1, are more contagious than earlier strains of the virus, including Delta, which surged across the United States in 2021, and the original strain first identified in Wuhan, China.

This increased transmissibility has led to an upward trend in infections nationally, from an average of 25,000 cases per day in mid-March to more than 50,000 per day through Tuesday, based on CDC data.

These numbers are likely a "significant underestimate of the burden of COVID-19" across the country because use of at-home tests is increasing, Wolfe said.

Despite the rise in cases, however, there has not been a corresponding spike in hospitalizations or deaths -- at least not yet -- due to "pre-existing immunity" from prior infection with the virus or vaccination, Montefiori said.

This could change, though, if people allow their immunity to "wane," or decline, by not getting a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine," he said.

Through Wednesday, 219 million people in the United States were considered fully vaccinated, meaning they had received both doses of either of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech shots or the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the CDC reported.

However, fewer than 100 million of them received a third booster dose, even as federal health officials are recommending a fourth one for older adults and those with compromised immune systems, the CDC said.

"Not enough people have been boosted," Montefiori said. "Everyone will want to get second booster [at some [point] ... because of waning immunity."

Even if the United States sees a rise in severe illness -- and hospitalizations -- from COVID-19 with new variants, health officials are "more optimistic" that they can "handle surges in patients should they come" than they were earlier in the pandemic, Wolfe said.

This is due to higher rates of vaccination and because hospitals and health systems have learned how to manage severely ill patients over the course of the pandemic, even though not all of them will respond well to available treatments, he said.

Provided people receive booster doses of the vaccines, and the virus continues to evolve in a way that makes it less lethal, as the new Omicron strains appear to be, COVID-19 could finally become more like the cold or flu in terms of its public health impact, Montefiori added.

"The virus is always going to with us and we're going to have to learn to live with it," he said.

Routine childhood vaccination rates fell during pandemic

By HealthDay News

About 94% of kindergarteners had their required vaccines during the 2020-2021 school year, a drop of about one percentage point and just below the 95% vaccination target, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. 

Photo by EsHanPhot/Shutterstock

Many kindergartners fell behind on their childhood vaccinations during the pandemic, U.S. health officials warned.

The drop has not been precipitous: About 94% of kindergarteners had their required vaccines during the 2020-2021 school year, a drop of about one percentage point and just below the 95% vaccination target, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report.

"This means there are 35,000 more children in the United States during this time period without documentation of complete vaccination against common diseases," Dr. Georgina Peacock, acting director of the CDC's immunization services division, said during a media briefing on Thursday, The New York Times reported. "This is further evidence of how pandemic-related disruptions to education and healthcare could have lingering consequences for children."

The numbers of children missing vaccines may even be higher, since there were 400,000 children who had been expected to start school but did not.

Why the drop in shots? It could be that families skipped routine pediatrician visits during the pandemic, an easing of immunization requirements for remote school, heavy demands on school nurses, or more evidence of a backlash against the COVID-19 vaccine, CDC scientists suggested.

"There's a greater proportion of parents who are questioning routine vaccines," Dr. Jason Terk, a pediatrician practicing in a suburb of Dallas who also acts as a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the Times.

"The experience of the pandemic, and the agenda-driven disinformation that has been pushed out relative to COVID vaccines fed the fire of distrust and skepticism that is really sort of the new pandemic of hesitancy for routine vaccines," Terk added.

Some states saw bigger drops in childhood vaccination rates than others in the report, published Thursday in the CDC publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Nationally, the vaccination rate was slightly below 94% for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine the diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccine and for the varicella vaccine (chickenpox), the CDC report found.

But Idaho had only 86.5% coverage of the MMR vaccine, while Maryland's rates dropped 10%. Wisconsin, Georgia, Wyoming and Kentucky all had rates of decline of about 5%. Virginia, Kansas and Alabama were among a small number of states that reported higher levels of the MMR vaccine. The United States nearly lost its status as a country that had eliminated measles in 2019, when the country experienced a high number of measles outbreaks in communities where vaccination levels had slumped.

Some of the decline may be due to reduced staffing and difficulty collecting information, which could have artificially lowered the numbers in some places, the researchers noted.

The numbers were based on counts provided by federally funded immunization programs that work with schools and local education departments. National coverage estimates from this report include 47 of the 50 states, plus Washington, D.C. There was no evidence of more families seeking vaccine exemptions.

The CDC expressed hope that the return of in-person schooling would prompt parents to catch up on their children's routine shots, and the agency encouraged schools and doctors' offices to send reminders to families.

Dr. Gary Kirkilas, a pediatrician in Phoenix, Ariz., who cares for patients whose families are often poor or homeless, noted that some families have become more resistant to vaccines than they had once been.

"All the rumblings about vaccines for kids and the misinformation that was going on at the time - that sort of amplified that particular segment of families, where 'I'm distrustful of the flu vaccine and then I'm also distrustful of the COVID vaccine and maybe I'm starting to be distrustful of vaccines in general,'" Kirkilas told the Times.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has more on childhood immunizations.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

US NIH research funding has positive 'ripple effects' on future studies, study finds

National Institutes of Health funding often produces research beyond the study involved in the initial grant, according to a new analysis. 

Photo by jarmoluk/Pixabay

April 22 (UPI) -- Federal funding for medical research has a "ripple effect," fostering new studies beyond the original grant and increased productivity from scientists, a study published Friday found.

Nearly 70% of the funds provided by study grants from the National Institutes of Health are used to hire staff and researchers to work on these projects, data published Friday by Science Advances showed.

Increases in funding led labs to hire more staff and career researchers, the authors of the report said.

As funding increased and research teams grew, they produced more scientific papers outside the scope of the initial grant, particularly on subjects directly related to patient care and other types of medical innovation, the researchers said.

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"We see a great increase in productivity in publications directly linked to a grant, but also in new studies that go beyond it," study co-author Enrico Berkes said in a press release.

"There is this ripple effect where people supported by the grant also produce other quality work," said Berkes, a post-doctoral researcher in economics at the Ohio State University in Columbus.

The findings are based on an analysis of study funding information from the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science's UMETRICS dataset, which provides records of grant-sponsored research projects at 72 universities across the United States, the researchers said.

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The dataset allowed the researchers to use payments to identify all people working on research projects funded by the NIH, from faculty members to trainees to staff, they said.

They then cross-referenced these records against information on published studies listed in the PubMed database, the National Library of Medicine's compendium of peer-reviewed research, to find all research publications produced by the scientists in the UMETRICS database.

They focused specifically on NIH grants awarded between 1985 and 2020, they said.

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For the included grants, 68% of the funding went to spending on employees, which included faculty members, postdoctoral researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, research staff and other staff, the data showed.

However, the largest increase in papers came from studies not directly related to the initial grant, many of them authored by staff hired for the original project, the researchers said.

This included papers not co-authored by the principal investigator, the researcher who is responsible for getting and managing the funding, according to the researchers.

Principal investigators are behind the largest increase in new scientific papers that result from additional funding, the data showed.

Still, at least in relative terms, trainees, including graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, involved in these studies see a larger percentage increase in papers they produce after being a part of funded studies, the researchers said.

"We can see how research funding is jump-starting the careers of trainees who take what they learn while working on these funded projects, and the collaborators they met on the grant, and start investigating other important issues," study co-author Bruce Weinberg said in a press release.

This "funding is actually producing the kind of research that would lead to improvements in clinical outcomes for patients," said Weinberg, a professor of economics at Ohio State.

Study: Heart attack can come within an hour of exposure to air pollutants

By HealthDay News

Exposure to air pollutants -- even at levels below World Health Organization air quality guidelines -- may trigger a heart attack within the hour, according to a new study from China. 

File Photo by Abhishek/UPI | License Photo

Exposure to air pollutants -- even at levels below World Health Organization air quality guidelines -- may trigger a heart attack within the hour, according to a new study from China that found the risks were highest among older people and when the weather was colder.

The study found exposure to any level of four common air pollutants could quickly trigger the onset of acute coronary syndrome.

ACS is an umbrella term describing any situation in which blood supplied to the heart muscle is blocked, such as in a heart attack or unstable angina, chest pain caused by blood clots that temporarily block an artery.

The strongest risk occurred within the first hour of exposure and diminished over the course of the day.
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"The adverse cardiovascular effects of air pollution have been well documented. But we were still surprised at the very prompt effects," said Haidong Kan, a professor in the School of Public Health at Fudan University in Shanghai.

He led the study published Friday in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

"Another surprise was the non-threshold effects of air pollution," he said. "In other words, any concentrations of air pollutants (such as fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide) recorded in the present study may have the potential to trigger the onset of a heart attack."

Exposure to fine particulate matter -- microscopic solids or liquid droplets that come from automobile emissions, power plants, construction sites and other sources of pollution -- has been unequivocally linked to heart disease, stroke and other health issues, as well as 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide.

These particles can be so small that when inhaled, they may go deep into the lungs or even the bloodstream.

In the new study, researchers analyzed medical data for nearly 1.3 million people treated for heart attacks and unstable angina at 2,239 hospitals in 318 Chinese cities between 2015 and 2020.

They compared hourly onset times of heart events with concentrations of fine particulate matter, coarse particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and ozone.

Short-term exposure to any level of fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide was associated with the onset of all types of acute coronary syndrome.

As levels of the studied pollutants rose, so did the risk for heart attacks. Exposure to nitrogen dioxide was most strongly associated, followed by fine particulate matter, and was most dangerous during the first hour following exposure.

The link was strongest among adults age 65 and older with no history of smoking or other respiratory illnesses and for people exposed during the colder months.

"The cardiovascular effects of air pollution should be a serious concern for all, including policymakers, clinicians and individuals," Kan said.

"For policymakers, our findings underline the need of further tightening air quality standards, more stringent air pollution control and prompt public health response."

The study is the first to establish a link between pollution exposure and heart attacks on an hourly basis, said Dr. Sanjay Rajagopalan, director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Rajagopalan was not involved in the study.

"The authors were able to show with a fair degree of certainty that air pollution levels at the hour of heart attack occurrence were strongly correlated with air pollution levels during that same hour," he said.

"This suggests that taking protective measures when air pollution levels are high could help prevent heart attacks."

Rajagopalan co-authored an American Heart Association scientific statement in 2020 about how to reduce exposure to air pollution. Strategies include closing windows and using portable air cleaners and built-in air conditioning filters, as well as personal air-purifying respirators that cover the nose and mouth for people at high risk.

Properly fitted masks, such as those used to prevent the spread of COVID-19, also can help, Rajagopalan said.

"One of the silver linings of COVID-19 is the widespread use of N95 masks," he said. "These are very good at reducing particulate exposures. They will stop you from inhaling them."

Though this study was done in China, which has some of the worst air quality in the world, the findings still are meaningful for other countries, Kan said.

The fact there was no threshold of pollution - no minimum that was safe - suggests the findings can be applied to countries with lower levels of air pollution, such as the U.S., he said.

"However, the effects of specific air pollutants on ACS need to be replicated given the apparent differences of air pollution characteristics and population vulnerability."

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Dalai Lama urges move to renewable energy to combat climate crisis


The 86-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader said the threat of climate change is not limited by national boundaries but affects us all

‘We need to take urgent steps to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and adopt renewable sources of energy such as … wind and the power of the sun’ he said
\

Associated Press
Published: 11:55pm, 23 Apr, 2022

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama with a block of ice from the Himalayas, talks about climate change. Photo: AFP

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama urged the public to reduce fossil fuel use during a meeting with activists to mark Earth Day, warning that the climate change crisis transcends national boundaries.

The 86-year-old – who is now living in exile in India’s Dharamsala – was presented with a block of ice carved from one of the fast-melting glaciers in India’s Himalayan Ladakh region.

Mounted on a wooden stand, the hunk of ice was meant to highlight the effects of climate change on the Tibetan plateau.

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“In my own life I have witnessed the decline in snowfall, first in Tibet and later, in Dharamsala,” the Dalai Lama said during the Earth Day event.

He urged for the adoption of renewable sources of energy to mitigate the crisis that is posing a threat to the entire human race.

“We need to take urgent steps to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and adopt renewable sources of energy such as those that rely on the wind and the power of the sun,” the Tibetan spiritual leader said.

“The threat of climate change is not limited by national boundaries – it affects us all.”

The glaciers are melting fast in parts of the Himalayas, said to be due to global warming. Photo: Bloomberg

The Himalayan ice block expedition covered around 250 kilometres (155 miles), with the trekkers travelling on foot, bicycle and in electric vehicles to raise awareness about the effect of fossil fuels on glaciers.

They also used low-carbon technologies to keep their sample from melting.

Earth Day, which falls on April 22 every year, is the most widely observed secular holiday around the globe. While EarthDay.org underlines that we should invest in our planet every day of the year, Earth Day is seen as a prominent day of action.

More than 1 billion people worldwide mark the holiday by working to both instigate climate policy change and shift everyday human behaviour for the betterment of our world.

Dalai Lama calls for reduced fossil fuel use, more tree planting in Earth Day message


The Dalai Lama marked the 52nd Earth Day with a message saying that all creatures -- humans, animals, birds and insects -- want to live a “happy life” in their “collective existence."

 File Photo by Edwin Locke/UPI | License Photo

April 22 (UPI) -- The Dalai Lama called for reduced fossil fuel use in favor of renewable energy sources across the globe in his climate crisis-focused Earth Day message on Friday.

The Tibetan spiritual leader said that all creatures -- humans, animals, birds and insects -- want to live a "happy life" in their "collective existence," The Hindu reported.

"As human beings our marvelous brains provide us with remarkable opportunities to do good, but if we look at how the world is today, we should be able to do better," the Tibetan leader said in the message posted to his official website.

The Dalai Lama went on to push for more inner value-encompassing holistic education that takes into consideration other people's wellbeing.

"We have to put the global interest first," he said, calling the world "heavily interdependent."

He pointed toward wind and solar power as alternatives to fossil fuels, and asked for better protection of the environment, the planting of more trees and closer watch on deforestation.

Deforestation and forest degradation are occurring at alarming rates around the world, according to a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Though deforestation has decreased over the past 30 years, the organization estimates a loss of 420 million hectares of forest since 1990 through conversion to other land uses.

The Dalai Lama said in his message that in his lifetime, he's seen a decline in snowfall in his native country of Tibet and Dharamsala, India, where he lives.

"Some scientists have told me that there is a risk of places like Tibet eventually becoming deserts," he wrote. "That is why I am committed to speaking out for the protection of Tibet's fragile environment."

Thousands protest in German town threatened by mine expansion


Some of Saturday's protesters made the link with the Ukraine conflict, which has led Germany to seek to wean itself off Russian gas imports (AFP/Bernd Lauter)

Sat, April 23, 2022,

Thousands of protesters gathered Saturday in a northwest German village slated to disappear because of a coal mine expansion, as the country looks to decrease its reliance on Russian gas.

Organisers said around 3,500 people demonstrated at Lutzerath in the Rhine mining basin, only a few hundred metres from the gigantic Garzweiler open-pit lignite mine, one of the largest in the world.

About a hundred activists decided to protest directly at the edge of the mine, which can be "extremely dangerous", regional police said in a tweet.

The village, like some others, has long been condemned to disappear to allow the mine to expand further.

Germany is planning to abandon coal by 2030, as part of the fight for cleaner energy sources. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, however, the energy debate has been revived in the country, which is heavily dependent on Russian hydrocarbons, particularly for gas, which accounts for some 55 percent of its energy imports.

To ensure sufficient electricity production while reducing dependence on Russian imports, the German government gave itself the option last month of "suspending" the closure of certain coal-fired power stations, while standing by the objective of phasing out coal by 2030.

"How can we trust the government's ability to contribute to peace in Ukraine if it is destroying homes and villages in its own country for fossil fuels?" said Ilyess El Kortbi, an activist from the Fridays For Future movement.

Lutzerath has become the new rallying point of the German environmental movement. Activists have built huts and are preparing for a confrontation with police.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg visited the area last September.

The coal that lies under the ground in these municipalities will be "necessary from 2024" to supply power stations, while other mines in the region are closing, according to the operator, the RWE group.

bur-ys-ilp/pvh/jm

Scientists to scour African waters to gauge ocean pollution

The Tara research vessel left its homeport of Lorient in France in December 2020 to embark on a 70,000-kilometre journey. Since then it has traversed the coasts of Chile, Brazil and Argentina, as well as the Weddell Sea in Antarctica 

Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS AFP


Cape Town (AFP) – Scientists on Saturday began a five-month mission to study how plastic pollution in Africa's main rivers and climate change stresses are impacting microorganisms in the Atlantic ocean, they announced.

The survey is being staged from the 33-year-old Tara research schooner which arrived in South Africa's Cape Town on Friday ahead of the expedition up the West African coast.

The researchers will analyse how nutrients and pollution in major African rivers - the Congo, Orange, Gambia and Senegal - are affecting the Atlantic.

They will trace the sources of plastic pollution at river mouths, to understand their distribution and the types of material involved.

The research station will also cast nets that can go up to 1,000 metres below the ocean's surface, to collect samples from ecosystems called "microbiomes", to be analysed in labs on land. The data gathered will help answer key questions about the world's oceans.

The researchers will also study the Benguela Current, which moves up from South Africa to the Namibian and Angolan coasts.

It pulls up cold water from the ocean depths in a process known as upwelling, bringing nutrients to the surface.

"You get more nutrients here than anywhere else in the world," Emma Rocke, a 42-year-old research fellow at the University of Cape Town, who is working on the vessel, told AFP.

"Understanding that, and characterising it at a microbiome level is something that hasn't been done really ever, and more importantly, it's not incorporated in climate change models".

She said the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports published so far don't consider the microbiome, "yet without it, ocean life would not exist".

Marine biologists will later study an upwelling current off the Senegalese coast, the world's third most powerful after Benguela and the Peru-Chile upwelling system.

The Tara vessel is on its 12th global mission and it involves 42 research institutions around the world.

Tara Ocean Foundation executive director Romain Trouble, 46, said that this is the first time the ship has traversed the West African coast.

"There's very little data on this kind of microbiome, microscopic species, in this ecosystem," he said.

University of Pretoria's microbial ecology and genome professor Thulani Makhalanyane, 37, will be focusing on the effect of agriculture and plastic pollution from African rivers.

"In coastal communities, we expect to see evidence of a high degree of pollution," said Makhalanyane. "We are also interested in other polluters that are perhaps not as well characterised, things like antibiotic resistance genes".

The vessel left its homeport of Lorient in France in December 2020 to embark on a 70,000-kilometre journey. Since then, it has traversed the coasts of Chile, Brazil and Argentina, as well as the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.

© 2022 AFP

INDIA

Idol Wing-CID apprises HC of stolen idols recovered from the U.S., London and Australia

Mohamed Imranullah S.
UPDATED: APRIL 22, 2022

It says 13 idols had been returned to the temples from where they were stolen and nine are with ASI, New Delhi

The Idol Wing-Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Friday told the Madras High Court that it had booked 49 idol theft cases, arrested 109 accused and recovered 128 stolen idols since December 1, 2019. Of the recovered idols, 13 were repatriated from the United States, London and Australia.

In a status report filed before a special Division Bench of Justices R. Mahadevan and P.D. Audikesavalu, who were seized of cases related to temple properties, the Idol Wing-CID said it had also registered 13 cases, arrested 69 accused and recovered 55 idols between July 21, 2017 and December 1, 2019.

R. Dinakaran, Inspector General of Police, Idol Wing-CID, said nine more idols were recovered from the United States and Australia between 2014 and December 1, 2019. Of the 22 idols recovered from foreign countries since 2014, 13 were given to the temples concerned and nine are with the Archaeological Survey of India.

Additional Advocate General P. Kumaresan submitted the status report in response to a contempt of court petition filed by retired Idol Wing-CID head A.G. Ponn Manickavel in 2019 against the then Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan, Home Secretary Niranjan Mardi, Director General of Police T.K. Rajendran and others.

Petitioner’s counsel V. Selvaraj recalled that the special Division Bench had appointed Mr. Manickavel, as a Special Officer, to continue the investigation in a host of idol theft cases, just hours before he was about to retire from service on November 30, 2018, giving him the liberty to form a special investigation team.

Thereafter, he had filed the contempt plea against the top officials of the State government, alleging excessive interference by them in performing his duties without political and bureaucratic interference. He had also alleged that a senior Minister and the DGP were sneaking into the investigation.

While hearing the matter on Friday, the judges wondered how the AAG could defend the alleged contemnors, especially when most of them had retired from service. They directed him to take instructions by next week on whether those individuals should engage private lawyers or appear in person before the court.

In the meantime, in compliance of the directions issued by the Bench during the last hearing to disclose the status of various idol theft cases, R. Dinakaran, Inspector General of Police, Idol Wing-CID, told the court that 276 cases were transferred to the court-constituted SIT, till November 30, 2019.

Subsequently, 101 more cases were transferred. Apart from this, the Idol Wing-CID had registered new cases and arrested several accused, besides recovering many idols. Though the case diaries in 41 idol theft cases had gone missing, the police traced out 28 of those diaries and registered fresh cases in 11 of them, the I-G said.

After taking the status report on file, the judges adjourned the contempt petition for further hearing to April 27.

As California turns to renewables, who will clean up old plants?

Some fossil-fuel facilities have been abandoned by their owners, with cities saying they cannot afford the costs to tear them down.

A power plant in Oxnard, California sits near a United States federal

 Superfund environmental clean-up site [Brian Osgood/Al Jazeera]

By Brian Osgood
Published On 22 Apr 2022

Oxnard, California, US – For years, poor communities of colour have lived with a disproportionate share of the burdens generated by fossil-fuel production, including pollution and proximity to industrial sites.

Today, as California seeks to transition to renewable energy for 100 percent of its electricity needs by 2045, the future of some of the US state’s 217 natural gas plants is uncertain. In a cruel twist, the same communities that have suffered from generations of pollution could now be saddled with the costs of dismantling and cleaning up old fossil-fuel facilities.

Oxnard, situated around 100km northwest of Los Angeles on California’s central coast, is one such city. Home to a largely working-class Latino community, it has seen numerous industrial facilities litter its otherwise pristine coastline. Some now lie empty, as questions linger over the future of this land and the substantial clean-up costs.

For Shirley and Larry Godwin, who bought a home in Oxnard in 1966, such questions have turned them into “accidental activists”

.

Larry and Shirley Godwin show maps of the area surrounding their neighbourhood 

[Brian Osgood/Al Jazeera]

On their kitchen table, they place a hand-drawn map of the area surrounding their neighbourhood, including a slag heap abandoned years ago by the company that operated it, and two natural gas plants – one dormant and one active, both fuelling contentious debate within the community.

Several blocks away is a plant that produces paper for cardboard boxes, and a small train track shuttles goods past the Godwins’ backyard several times a day.

“Whenever we would take our children to the beach, you could count on seeing the exhausts coming out from one of the gas plants,” Shirley Godwin told Al Jazeera. “Our community doesn’t agree on everything, but there’s one thing that unites almost everyone, and that’s that almost nobody wants them [energy companies] to stay.”
Environmental justice

In 2018, after years of mobilising by local groups such as Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) around issues of environmental justice and renewable alternatives, Oxnard rejected an attempt by an energy company, NRG, to build yet another natural gas plant on its coast.

“It’s a part of California’s coast people don’t see, coastal communities like Oxnard with large working-class communities of colour,” Lucas Zucker, CAUSE’s policy and communications director, told Al Jazeera. “It’s not a coincidence that these stretches of industrialised coastline are in communities like Oxnard. As the state transitions to renewables, what happens to this fossil-fuel infrastructure?”

A power plant is seen in Oxnard, California

 [Brian Osgood/Al Jazeera]

A recent study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley in coordination with various community organisations, including CAUSE, found that Oxnard and the surrounding area are at heightened risk of industrial sites flooding due to sea-level rise driven by climate change.

The same study found that disadvantaged communities are more than five times as likely to live within one kilometre of industrial sites at risk of flooding by 2050. “Sea level rise, toxic facilities and social vulnerability all map onto each other,” Zucker said.

For those charged with threading the needle between a future without fossil fuels and the thorny dilemmas of how to finance the clean-up of old industrial sites, there is no easy path forward.

In 2020, Oxnard City Manager Alexander Nguyen helped to broker a deal with the energy company GenOn, extending the lifetime of the Ormond Beach Generating Station, a natural gas plant, until 2023, in exchange for a portion of profits – $25m – going into a trust dedicated to clean-up.

“People ask what we’ll do if $25m isn’t enough to dismantle the site, and I always give the same answer: We’ll still be $25m ahead of where we would be otherwise,” Nguyen told Al Jazeera.

Maps show the abandoned industrial sites in Oxnard, California

 [Brian Osgood/Al Jazeera]

The California State Water Resources Control Board had initially suggested that Ormond, along with a number of similar plants throughout the state that use ocean water for their cooling systems in a way that damages the ecosystem, be shut down. But in September 2020, responding to concerns that without the plants, the state’s energy supply might be inadequate, the board suggested (PDF) that they remain open until 2023.

Unwanted ‘monuments’

Nguyen points to what he calls “monuments to the 20th century” scattered throughout California: gas plants that have been unceremoniously abandoned by the companies that once operated them, leaving cities, such as Morro Bay, unable to afford the prohibitive costs of tearing them down.

“In California, a plant can be forced to close, but not dismantled. So other plants have been decommissioned, and now they’re just sitting there, rusting and leaching into the ground,” Nguyen said. “What I didn’t want is for that to occur in Oxnard.”

GenOn did not respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera regarding the deal with Oxnard to extend the lifetime of the Ormond plant.

Signs warn of no entry allowed to a US federal Superfund environmental clean-up site

 [Brian Osgood/Al Jazeera]

A short drive north, Oxnard’s coast is bookended by another natural gas plant, the Mandalay Generating Station, which has been dormant since 2018. A local newspaper, the Ventura County Star, reported that the site was recently sold to an LLC, formed earlier this year, for around $8.7m. According to the paper, the new owners have offered no information on the future of the site, and elected officials have expressed hopes that it will be something besides industry.

Mandalay was previously owned by GenOn, the same company that oversees the Ormond plant. Visible from kilometres away, the shuttered plant and its massive smokestacks dominate the landscape.

Even with the future of such sites in question, the Godwins remain upbeat about what lies ahead for their community, as they speak with fierce pride about the city they call home.

“We always say we were two of the least likely people you could find to get involved in activism. I’m terrified of public speaking,” Shirley Godwin said. “But we love our community. When we got involved with these issues, we met so many people from all different cultural and class backgrounds. It’s a diverse community, and that’s what we like about it.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

LGBT+ Afghan deaths ‘preventable’ if West had prioritised evacuations, campaigners say

"I am in danger 24 hours a day and can’t work which is causing financial problems. I am feeling that no one is helping me," one trans Afghan trapped in Kabul said.

by Oliver Murphy
2022-04-17 
in News



The deaths of LGBT+ people in Afghanistan could have been prevented if Western governments had prioritised their evacuation after the country fell to the Taliban, campaigners have said.

It comes after a new report from Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action International found that life for LGBT+ Afghans has “dramatically worsened” following the Taliban’s violent takeover last August.

Nemat Sadat, one of the first native Afghans to come out publicly as gay, told TLE that much of the community has spent the last eight months under self-imposed “house arrest” to evade capture, but warned the risk of being seized by authorities had intensified.

“What irks me is that this could have been prevented. If the international community and powers-that-be listened to my call and prioritised the evacuation and resettlement of the 1,000 most at-risk LGBT+ people in Afghanistan,” he said.

‘They will not survive’

With the names of 1,075 individuals currently on his list, Sadat has spent the last seven months independently organising evacuations for some of the most vulnerable in Afghanistan although, for some, time is running out.

He said: “I can fairly assume that the 49 people who do not respond to my emails and phone calls are either missing or dead, unless they have disconnected their mobile and Internet service because they can no longer afford to keep it active.

“Most LGBT+ people on my list are experiencing food insecurity and have been repeatedly tortured. About a quarter have suffered one or more physical attacks since the Taliban takeover.

“My estimate is that most LGBT+ people in Afghanistan will be dead within two years’ time. They will not survive the Taliban’s punishing brutality against them.”

His comments follow a response to a Freedom of Information request which revealed that since October last year, the government has accepted just 62 LGBT+ Afghans – only two of whom are transgender.

Last year, the government announced that a group of 29 LGBT Afghans had settled in the UK, and said it hoped the first arrival would be the “first of many” able to start new lives.

Designed to protect women and children as well as religious and other minorities, the Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme will allow 5,000 Afghans to settle in the UK, with a long-term goal total of 20,000.

‘Failing to deliver’

The prominent LGBT+ rights activist, Peter Tatchell, however, accused the government of failing to “deliver on its pledge” to provide a safe haven for LGBT+ Afghans, and called on the international community to step up its support.

“The UK and other Western nations promised a lot and have done very little. It is a shameful betrayal of their obligations under the Refugee Convention which they have signed and pledged to uphold.

“What is required is the commitment of western governments to each take a share of vulnerable, at-risk LGBT+ Afghans. But this is not happening. The US, Canada, UK, Australia and the EU have taken only a handful,” he said.

Sadat added: “If you’re comparing the 62 people compared to the 1,075 people on my list, I would say it’s an embarrassment. Any of the major western countries, France, Germany, the US or the UK, could have easily resettled all 1,000 LGBT people from Afghanistan.

“It wasn’t a priority for them. Saving LGBT+ people is just not as important, in their minds, as rescuing heterosexuals. They should have worked directly with me – listened to my pleas and coordinated with me to work toward their resettlement.”

One transgender Afghan still trapped in Kabul, told TLE that life has now become so dangerous since the Taliban’s takeover that they have “no hope for living”.

“I feel danger outside. I used to work as a dress designer in the media: I was arranging dresses for the singers and arranging private programs, but the Taliban said that LGBTQ are not in Islam so they should be killed.

“I was living in Jalalabad before the Taliban came with threats – so I shifted to Kabul. I am in danger 24 hours a day and can’t work which is causing financial problems. I am feeling that no one is helping me. I’ve applied to many organisations for help.”

‘Terrible conditions’

Their comments follow an interview in which a Taliban judge confirmed that gay men will be executed by having walls toppled on them once the militant organisation are back in power.

A 2009 Justice Department report noted that “no death sentences are reported to have been dispensed with after the end of the Taliban rule but… this is still technically possible” under criminal law in the country.

According to Artemis Akbary the founder of the Afghan LGBT Organisation, most European countries have done “very little” for LGBT Afghans who continue to live in “terrible conditions”.

He told TLE: “They’ve let down LGBT people inside of Afghanistan, because when the Taliban took over, most of the LGBT community felt hope; hope that Western countries would help them.

“Many of the European countries, especially Germany, Canada and Britain, said that they will accept LGBT Afghans. I gave them a list of names, but only a few have been relocated while the rest remain trapped.

“But unfortunately, they didn’t, because the war started in Ukraine. I think they’re focusing on Ukraine. They’ve closed their eyes on Afghanistan and the many people left behind. I think that’s really terrible.

“The Taliban haven’t changed, they’ve become even more dangerous. Right now the situation for LGBT people has become harder, especially for lesbians and bisexuals because right now women cannot go to another city without a husband.”