USA

Massive referee exodus hits youth sports

Jeff Tracy
Axios 

Illustration: Sarah Grillo

Referees often get an earful from fans and players, but the behavior has gotten so bad in youth sports that they're now quitting en masse.

State of play: 50,000 high school referees (roughly 20% of the nationwide total) quit between 2018 and 2021, per the National Federation of State High School Associations, NYT reports.

60% of officials surveyed in 2020 said their top reason for quitting would be verbal abuse from parents and fans.

Sadly, verbal abuse isn't even the worst of it: Last year, a high school football player tackled a ref; three weeks ago, kids and parents attacked a basketball ref. The list goes on.

Why it matters: This exodus has led to canceled games across the country, threatening youth sports just as they've begun returning to normal after two pandemic-stricken years.

Context: This crisis began well before March 2020, but the pandemic exacerbated it. Some older refs feared returning for health reasons, while younger ones left the oft-abusive gig behind amid the shutdown.

The last word: "This is a nightmare across all sports," Dana Pappas, director of officiating services for NFHS, told NYT.

EARLY WARNINGS FOR FLOODS IN SA: ENGINEERING FOR FUTURE CLIMATE CHANGE

It is natural to ask whether the recent floods will occur more often within the context of climate change or whether they were simply freak events

A general view of a severely damaged home and a crack in the road following 

heavy rains and winds in Durban, on 12 April 2022. 

Picture: RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP

Justin Pringle | a day ago
This article first appeared in The Conversation.

Severe weather, rain and flooding are at the forefront of the minds of many South Africans, especially those in KwaZulu-Natal. Early last week (11-12 April 2022), the province’s coast received heavy rain, with some areas recording over 300mm in 24 hours. This is about a third of the annual rainfall in KwaZulu-Natal.

The rain was caused by a strong cut-off low weather system off the east coast of southern Africa. Cut-off lows frequently occur off this coast during the autumn months. These systems can cause localised flooding as well as large wave events.

The port city of Durban (in the municipality of eThekwini) has experienced flooding events almost every year since 2016. Storms responsible for these floods typically dropped 100mm-150mm of rain in 24 hours, according to the eThekwini data portal.

Between 11-12 April 2022, a storm system dropped even more rain than that. It caused devastating floods, landslides, and loss of life. It is natural to ask whether the recent floods in the area will occur more often within the context of climate change or whether they were simply freak events. It is not possible to state conclusively that this storm was a result of climate change. However, scientists believe these types of intense weather systems will occur more frequently in the future.

Perhaps more pertinent is the question: did anyone see this coming? There isn’t a simple answer. It’s something that has been challenging scientists and engineers around the world for decades. For example scientists like myself have been trying to apply the principles of fluid mechanics to address these types of questions.

This is important because if we can predict the occurrence of an event, we can arm disaster management teams with life-saving information.

PREDICTING FLOODING

Predicting flooding is not new and consists of two methods. The first relies on historical rainfall and flood records that come from weather stations and river gauges. South Africa has many of these stations throughout the country. It is vital that these stations are properly maintained.

The second method involves computer modelling. It is difficult to predict where rain will fall, how much will fall and whether this will cause flooding. These processes depend on spatial gradients that are not resolved in regional climate models. For example wind moves from high pressure to low pressure, sometimes bringing with it rain. However the wind speed (and how quickly the rain arrives) depends on the difference between the high and low pressure. This is typically very difficult to model accurately. Advances in computer power will likely be able to address this in the future.






Predicting where the water will flow once it reaches the ground is also challenging. Some water infiltrates the soil and flows as groundwater, while some water runs along the surface (called surface runoff). Both the surface and groundwater runoff contribute to the water flowing in rivers. If the ground is saturated, there is less infiltration and more surface water will flow into rivers, causing more flooding. Increased surface runoff also contributes to landslides and erosion. Hardened impermeable surfaces in cities and residential areas also cause increasing surface runoff. Storm duration is another factor that can influence flooding.

All these factors can combine to drive significant flood events.

How do engineers and city managers develop plans to respond in real-time to these events? A possible answer lies in developing forecast early warning systems. There are good examples in the Netherlands.

FORECAST EARLY WARNING SYSTEM

The eThekwini coastal, stormwater and catchment management department has developed a forecast early warning system in conjunction with the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Dutch engineering research institute Deltares. The design incorporates weather forecasting, flood prediction and coastal modelling. The goal of the system is to alert authorities to severe weather to provide them with temporal and spatial information to guide decision making. An example of a system like this is the Global Storm Surge Information System.

The department’s engineers and managers have deployed hundreds of rain, weather, water level and coastal monitoring gauges throughout the region that provide authorities with real-time information. The system is still in a developmental stage and requires resource investment from national government, South African universities and local authorities.

The early warning system works by downscaling output from global modelling centres such as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and National Centres for Environmental Prediction. This data is fed into numerical models that predict flooding and coastal processes at regional and local scales.

The European Centre model did predict severe rain, about three days before the flood. The National Centres model did not. This highlights the difficulties in predicting weather and any decision making that follows.

Observations from the recent flood event suggest there is still a long way to improve and further develop the system. This will rely on improved data sharing between government departments, universities and communities. Currently this isn’t easy in South Africa, for policy reasons.

Furthermore, government and local authorities must invest in city engineering staff and technical decision-makers.

Lastly, even if the forecast system works, African cities of the future need significant “on the ground” support in the form of disaster management teams such as police, rescue workers, paramedics and places of shelter.

EXPLAINER: Can climate change be solved by pricing carbon?

By MATTHEW BROWN

yesterday

FILE - In this Sept. 18, 2021 photo, emissions rise from the smokestacks at the Jeffrey Energy Center coal power plant as the suns sets, near Emmett, Kans. As climate change bakes the planet, dozens of nations including the U.S. and many local governments are putting a price tag on greenhouse gas emissions that are causing more floods, droughts and other destructive events. 

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)


BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — As climate change bakes the planet, dozens of nations and many local governments are putting a price tag on greenhouse gas emissions that are increasing flooding, droughts and other costly catastrophes.

Pennsylvania on Saturday becomes the first major fossil fuel-producing state in the U.S. to adopt a carbon pricing policy to address climate change. It joins 11 states where coal, oil and natural gas power plants must buy credits for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit.

President Joe Biden is attempting a less direct approach — known as the social cost of carbon — that calculates future climate damages to justify tougher restrictions on polluting industries. Republicans say that could crush many businesses. They want the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the administration after lower courts in Louisiana and Missouri split on the issue.

Governments elsewhere have moved more aggressively. Canada, for example, imposes fuel charges on individuals and also makes big polluters pay for emissions. It’s one of 27 nations with some kind of carbon tax, according to The World Bank.

The varied strategies come as scientists warn climate change is accelerating — and all can help reduce emissions. But experts say U.S. efforts have been hobbled by its fractured approach.

“Part of the reason you need all of these things to work in tandem is we do not have a federal climate policy,” said Seth Blumsack, director of the Center for Energy Law and Policy at Penn State University. “We have social cost of carbon used in regulatory decisions but not (a carbon price) that is faced by the market.”

SO WHAT’S THE PRICE TAG?

It varies. A lot.

The Biden administration’s social cost estimate is about $51, meaning every ton of carbon dioxide spewed from a power plant or tail pipe today is projected to contribute to $51 in economic damages in coming years. The state of New York has its own social cost of carbon, updated in 2020 to $125 a ton to account for economic trends.

By contrast, emissions were most recently valued at $13.50 per ton at auction under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast, which Pennsylvania is joining. A similar “cap and trade” emissions program is in place in California, and one is due to go into effect in Washington state in 2023.

Canada’s carbon taxes include a minimum fuel charge for individuals equivalent to about $40 per ton.

WHY THE BIG DIFFERENCES?

The social cost of carbon attempts to capture the value of all climate damage, centuries into the future. Carbon pricing reflects how much companies are willing to pay today for a limited amount of emission credits offered at auction.

In other words, the social cost of carbon guides policy, while carbon pricing represents policy in practice.

“You’re trying to get the price to reflect the true cost to society,” said economist Matthew Kotchen, a former U.S. Treasury Department official now at Yale University. “A more stringent policy would have a higher carbon price. A more lax policy would give you a lower carbon price.”

In the most efficient world, economists say the two figures would line up, meaning there would be agreement about what climate change damages will cost and the policies used to address them.

IS ANY OF THIS WORKING?

Emissions from northeastern states would have been about 24% higher if the carbon pricing consortium hadn’t been in place, according to researchers from Duke University and the Colorado School of Mines.

The carbon auctions also have brought in almost $5 billion that can be used to reduce household energy cost increases and promote renewable energy.

The consortium began in 2009 — the year of a failed push in Congress to establish a nationwide cap and trade program. The bipartisan proposal died amid arguments over cost and whether climate change was even occurring.

Following lawsuits from environmentalists, President Barack Obama’s administration crafted the social cost of carbon and began including future damage estimates in cost-benefit analyses for new regulations. It was used under Obama more than 80 times, including for tightened vehicle emissions standards and regulations aimed at shuttering coal plants.

President Donald Trump moved to roll back many of the Obama-era rules — and to help justify the changes, the Republican administration cut the social cost of carbon from about $50 per ton to $7 or less. The lower number included only domestic climate impacts and not global damages.

“On its face that might sound okay, but when you think about it, global harms from climate change have implications in the U.S. in terms of the global financial system,” said Romany Webb, a climate change law expert at Columbia Law School.

WHAT’S NEXT?

On the day Biden took office, he set up an interagency group that revived the Obama estimate and promised a revised figure incorporating previously overlooked consequences of climate change. Many economists expect the revised figure to be higher, perhaps more than double the current $51.

Without a nationwide cap and trade program, environmentalists and some economists want the government to be more aggressive in using the social cost of carbon to overhaul government energy policy.

Under Biden, the U.S. Interior Department for the first time is applying climate damage considerations to oil and gas sales on public lands and waters. An upcoming lease sale in Wyoming, for example, could result in future emissions of 34 million tons (31 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide. That’s equivalent to more than $1.5 billion in future damages.

But the agency still plans to sell the leases because officials said there were no “established thresholds” to evaluate whether the increased emissions were acceptable, or not.

The expansion of carbon pricing into Pennsylvania remains tenuous. A legal challenge is pending and the state’s term-limited Democratic governor could soon be replaced by a successor who opposes the state’s participation.

“While pricing carbon would be the gold standard, it seems politically difficult to actually get there,” said Brian Prest with Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization.

—-

Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter: @matthewbrownAP

MAKING FRIENDS AND INFLUENCING PEOPLE
Israeli restrictions on ‘Holy Fire’ ignite Christian outrage

Christian pilgrims hold candles as they gather during the ceremony of the Holy Fire at Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead, in the Old City of Jerusalem dead, Saturday, April 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)


JERUSALEM (AP) — Christians celebrated their “Holy Fire” ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Saturday against a backdrop of rising tensions with Israel, which imposed new restrictions on attendance this year that it said were needed for safety.

Israel says it wants to prevent another disaster after a crowd stampede at a packed Jewish holy site last year left 45 people dead. Christian leaders say there’s no need to alter a ceremony that has been held for centuries.

In the dense confines of Jerusalem’s Old City, where Jews, Christians and Muslims must share their holiest sites — no matter how reluctantly — even small changes can cause prophetic angst.

The city has already seen a week of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at the nearby Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam. It stands on a hilltop that is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount.

This year major Jewish, Christian and Muslim holidays have converged against a backdrop of renewed Israeli-Palestinian violence. Tensions have soared as tens of thousands of people flock to Jerusalem’s Old City to visit some of the holiest sites for all three faiths for the first time since the lifting of pandemic restrictions.

Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that on the Saturday before Easter a miraculous flame appears inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a sprawling 12th century basilica built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.

On Saturday, Greek Patriarch Theophilos III entered the Holy Edicule, a chamber built on the traditional site of the tomb, and returned with two lit candles, passing the flame among thousands of people holding candles, gradually illuminating the walls of the darkened basilica. The flame will be transferred to Orthodox communities in other countries on special flights.

The source of the Holy Fire has been a closely guarded secret for centuries, and highbrow skeptics going back to the Middle Ages have scorned it as a carnival trick for the masses.

Two years ago, the church was nearly empty because of a coronavirus lockdown, but Israel made special arrangements for the flame to be carried abroad. Hundreds attended last year, when travel restrictions were in place and the ceremony was limited to the fully-vaccinated.


Christian pilgrims hold candles as they gather during the ceremony of the Holy Fire at Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead, in the Old City of Jerusalem dead, Saturday, April 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

This year, Israel applied a safety law that limits crowd size based on space and the number of exits. Authorities say they want to prevent a repeat of last year’s stampede on Mount Meron in northern Israel during a religious festival attended by around 100,000 mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews.

It was one of the worst disasters in the country’s history, and authorities came in for heavy criticism over alleged negligence.

“There’s never a problem until there’s a problem, and this is what happened last year in Meron,” said Tania Berg-Rafaeli, the director of interreligious affairs at the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

If something were to happen at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, “we would have to take responsibility for that, and we want to avoid any problem,” she said.

Authorities said they would allow a total of 4,000 people to attend the Holy Fire ceremony, including 1,800 inside the church itself, which has a single large entryway with a raised step. Berg-Rafaeli said Israeli authorities have been in close contact with the churches and would revise the quota upwards next year if more doors in the basilica can be opened.

“It’s totally about safety and not at all about anything else,” she said.

Church leaders rejected any restrictions on principle, saying they infringe on religious freedom. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, like Al-Aqsa, is governed by a decades-old set of informal arrangements known as the status quo. As at Al-Aqsa, seemingly minor violations have ignited violence, including notorious brawls between monks of different denominations.

In a statement released earlier this month, the Greek Patriarchate said it was “fed up with police restrictions on freedom to worship.”

“The orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has decided, by the power of the Lord, that it will not compromise its right to provide spiritual services in all churches and squares,” it said. “Prayers will be held as usual.” The patriarchate says up to 11,000 people attend in normal years.

Police sealed off the main entrances to the Christian Quarter with barricades. Large crowds jostled to get in, as the police waved through a trickle of local residents and some foreign tourists.

A Christian pilgrim holds candles during the ceremony of the Holy Fire at Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead, in the Old City of Jerusalem dead, Saturday, April 23, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

The ceremony, which goes back at least 1,200 years, hasn’t always passed peacefully.

In 1834 a frenzied stampede broke out in the darkened church, and the ruler of the Holy Land at the time barely escaped with his life after his guards drew swords and hacked their way through the crowd, the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore recounts in his history of Jerusalem. Some 400 pilgrims died in the melee, most from suffocation or trampling.

Israel says it is committed to ensuring freedom of worship for Jews, Christians and Muslims, and has long presented itself as an island of tolerance in the Middle East.

In recent years, however, tensions have risen with the local Christian community, most of whom are Palestinian Christians, a population that has steadily dwindled through decades of conflict as many have sought economic opportunities abroad.

Israel captured east Jerusalem — which includes the historic Old City and its religious sites — along with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war.

The Palestinians want all three territories for a future state with east Jerusalem as its capital. Israel annexed east Jerusalem shortly after the war in a move not recognized internationally, and considers the entire city to be its unified capital.

In recent years, the Greek Patriarchate has been locked in a legal battle with a Jewish settler group over the sale of three properties in the Old City, including two Palestinian-run hotels. The patriarchate says it has proof of corruption in the disputed 2004 sale.


Christian pilgrims hold candles as they gather during the ceremony of the Holy Fire at Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the sale in 2019, ruling in favor of Ateret Cohanim, an Israeli organization that seeks to expand the Jewish presence in mostly Palestinian neighborhoods of east Jerusalem.

The settlers took over part of one of the hotels — a popular backpacker hostel — last month. Christian leaders denounced the move, accusing them of trying to change the religious character of Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter.

The frustration could be felt outside the New Gate leading to the Christian Quarter on Saturday, as crowds waited to enter. Some lifted baby strollers and small children over the barricades as they were waved through.

“It’s like this every year and every year there’s a different excuse,” said Dr. Muna Mushahwar, a physician who argued with police as she tried to organize the entry of a foreign delegation.

“They don’t want the Christians here. The more you push people the more frustrated they get and then they leave.”

Russian mercenaries are Putin’s ‘coercive tool’ in Africa

KEEPING UP WITH AMERICAN CONTRACTORS

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This undated photograph handed out by French military shows three Russian mercenaries, right, in northern Mali. Russia has engaged in under-the-radar military operations in at least half a dozen countries in Africa in the last five years using a shadowy mercenary force analysts say is loyal to President Vladimir Putin. The analysts say the Wagner Group of mercenaries is also key to Putin's ambitions to re-impose Russian influence on a global scale. (French Army via AP)

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — When abuses were reported in recent weeks in Mali — fake graves designed to discredit French forces; a massacre of some 300 people, mostly civilians — all evidence pointed to the shadowy mercenaries of Russia’s Wagner Group.

Even before these feared professional soldiers joined the assault on Ukraine, Russia had deployed them to under-the-radar military operations across at least half a dozen African countries. Their aim: to further President Vladimir Putin’s global ambitions, and to undermine democracy.

The Wagner Group passes itself off as a private military contractor and the Kremlin denies any connection to it or even, sometimes, that it exists.

But Wagner’s commitment to Russian interests has become apparent in Ukraine, where its fighters, seen wearing the group’s chilling white skull emblem, are among the Russian forces currently attacking eastern Ukraine.

In sub-Saharan Africa, Wagner has gained substantial footholds for Russia in Central African Republic, Sudan and Mali. Wagner’s role in those countries goes way beyond the cover story of merely providing a security service, experts say.

“They essentially run the Central African Republic,” and are a growing force in Mali, Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commander of U.S. armed forces in Africa, told a Senate hearing last month.

The United States identifies Wagner’s financer as Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch who is close to the Russian president and sometimes is called “Putin’s chef” for his flashy restaurants favored by the Russian leader. He was charged by the U.S. government with trying to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and the Wagner Group is the subject of U.S. and European Union sanctions.

Russia’s game plan for Africa, where it has applied its influence as far north as Libya and as far south as Mozambique, is straightforward in some ways, say analysts. It seeks alliances with regimes or juntas shunned by the West or facing insurgencies and internal challenges to their rule.

The African leaders get recognition from the Kremlin and military muscle from Wagner. They pay for it by giving Russia prime access to their oil, gas, gold, diamonds and valuable minerals.

Russia also gains positions on a strategically important continent.

But there’s another objective of Russia’s “hybrid war” in Africa, said Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Siegle said Russia is also waging an ideological battle, using Wagner as a “coercive tool” to undermine Western ideas of democracy and turn countries toward Moscow. Putin wants to challenge the international democratic order “because Russia can’t compete very well in that order,” Siegle said.

“If democracy is held up as the ultimate aspirational governance model, then that is constraining for Russia,” Siegle said.

Rather, Wagner promotes Russian interests with soldiers and guns, but also through propaganda and disinformation, as Prigozhin has done for Putin before.

In Central African Republic, Wagner fighters ride around the capital Bangui in unmarked military vehicles and guard the country’s gold and diamond mines. They have helped to hold off armed rebel groups and to keep President Faustin-Archange Touadera in power, but their reach goes much further. Russian national Valery Zakharov is Touadera’s national security advisor but also a “key figure” in Wagner’s command structure, according to European Union documents accusing the mercenary group of serious human rights violations.

A statue erected last year in Bangui depicts Russian soldiers standing side by side to protect a woman and her children. Russia is cast as the country’s savior and pro-Russia marches have been held in support of the war in Ukraine and to criticize former security partner France — though several protesters said they are paid.

“A Central African adage says that when someone helps you, you have to reciprocate. This is why we have mobilized as one to support Russia,” said Didacien Kossimatchi, an official in Touadera’s political party. “Russia has absolved us of the unacceptable domination of the West.”

Kossimatchi said Russia was “acting in self-defense” in Ukraine.

Such support from African countries is a strategic success for Russia. When the United Nations voted on a resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine, 17 of the 35 countries that abstained from the vote — nearly half — were African. Several other African nations did not register a vote.

“Africa is fast becoming crucial to Putin’s efforts to dilute the influence of the United States and its international alliances,” said a report in March by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a non-profit set up by the former British prime minister.

Russia’s strategy in Africa comes at a minimal cost economically and politically. Analysts estimate Wagner operates with only a few hundred to 2,000 mercenaries in a country. Many are ex-Russian military intelligence, Siegle said, but because it’s a private force the Kremlin can deny responsibility for Wagner’s actions.

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The real price is paid by ordinary people.

The people of Central African Republic aren’t more secure, said Pauline Bax, Africa Program deputy director of the International Crisis Group think tank. “In fact, there’s more violence and intimidation,” she said.

France, the U.S. and human rights groups have accused Wagner mercenaries of extra-judicial killings of civilians in Central African Republic. A U.N. panel of experts said private military groups and “particularly the Wagner Group” have violently harassed people and committed rape and sexual violence. They are just the latest accusations of serious abuses by the group.

Central African Republic in 2021 acknowledged serious human rights violations by Russians, which forced Russian ambassador Vladimir Titorenko to leave his post.

The Wagner group has responded with a charm offensive — creating films designed to please the public, sponsoring beauty pageants and distributing educational materials that promote Russia’s involvement in Africa. Russian is now being taught in universities.

Russia has taken its Central African Republic blueprint to Mali and elsewhere in Africa. In Mali, there has been an “uprooting of democracy,” said Aanu Adeoye, an analyst on Russia-Africa affairs at the London-based Chatham House think tank.

Following coups in 2020 and last year, France is withdrawing troops from its former colony that had been helping fight Islamic extremists since 2013. Wagner moved in, striking a security deal with Mali’s new military junta, which then expelled the French ambassador and banned French TV stations. Tensions with the West have escalated. So has the violence.

Last month, Mali’s army and foreign soldiers who witnesses suspected were Russian killed an estimated 300 men in the rural town of Moura. Some of those killed were suspected extremists but most were civilians, Human Rights Watch said, calling it a “deliberate slaughter of people in custody.”

This week, when French forces handed over control of the Gossi military base, suspected Wagner agents hurriedly buried several bodies nearby and a Russian social media campaign blamed France for the graves. The French military, however, had used aerial surveillance after their withdrawal to show the creation of the sandy graves.

Both atrocities bear the hallmarks of Wagner mercenaries and Russia’s foreign policy brand under Putin, say several analysts.

“They have no concerns about minor things like democracy and human rights,” said Chatham House’s Adeoye.

___

Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa. AP writer Jean Fernand Koena in Bangui, Central African Republic contributed.

Feline social media star with unusual eyes to serve as 'Mayor of Hell'



Jinx, a California cat who became famous on social media for her unusually large eyes and feet, is set to become the first feline to serve as mayor of Hell, Mich., for a single day on April 24. Photo by Sswonk/Wikimedia Commons


April 21 (UPI) -- A cat who became famous on social media for her unusually large eyes and feet is set to become the first non-human to serve a day as mayor of Hell, Mich.

The town of Hell, which offers anyone the chance to serve as mayor for one day for $100, agreed to allow Jinx the cat to become the town's first animal mayor.

Jinx, who lives in California with owner Mia, has 735,000 followers on TikTok and 400,000 followers on Instagram.

"I made a joke on Twitter saying, imagine Jinx will run for President. I had also seen animal mayors before and I sent a tweet out asking how to make Jinx mayor and someone mentioned Michigan and that you could pay to be mayor of Hell for a day," Mia told MLive.com

Mia adopted Jinx three years ago after finding the kitten in her back yard.

"I rescued Jinx in 2018 and I wasn't even looking for a cat," Mia said. "I came home early from a football game. I was supposed to be home much later. I heard meowing in my backyard and discovered her. She was super tiny, only about 3 weeks old."

She soon noticed the cat was unusual.

"She had big eyes and as she grew bigger, her eyes didn't get smaller and I also noticed she had big feet. She doesn't have a condition and the vet says she's healthy. She just has these birth defects. She's also not as agile as most cats and is a little clumsy. She only learned how to land on her feet a year ago," Mia said.

Jinx will be sworn in as mayor virtually on April 24. She will serve as mayor for the day, ending with a call from Reverend Vonn, the town's "Minister of Hell," informing her of her impeachment.

"We love our in-person and distant mayors," Reverend Vonn said. "Our Mayor of the Day package is the perfect gift for those who are hard to buy for and/or have everything. They get to have one Helluva fun day and at the end of it, will receive the dreaded phone call to be impeached."

 

 

CPR performed on 14 cats rescued from fire in Fajar Road flat, saving lives of all but one

CDC data: COVID-19 was third-leading cause of death in 2021

A child and his mother watch as a couple add flags to the more than 600,000, representing one life lost to COVID-19 in the United States since the start of the pandemic in 2020, on the National Mall in Washington on September 21.

 File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

April 22 (UPI) -- COVID-19 was the third-leading cause of death in the United States in 2021, according to data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC said 415,000 people died of COVID-19 last year. Only heart disease, with 693,000 deaths, and cancer, at 605,000 deaths, killed more.

The CDC numbers relied on death certificate data.

The virus was also the third-leading cause of death in 2020, but caused 60,000 more deaths in 2021 over 2020.

Researchers analyzed the data, tabulating the number and rates of overall deaths and COVID-19 deaths by age, sex and race and ethnicity.

The death rates from COVID-19 were highest among people ages 85 and older, non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders and Alaskan Native populations.

The overall U.S. death rate increased by 0.7 percent from 2020 to 2021.

On Friday, government figures showed more than 7 out of 10 people living in England -- 38.5 million people -- have caught COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic.

As of March 7, at least 6 million people worldwide had died of COVID-19, according to trackers at John Hopkins University.

A study released April 8 found vaccinations have prevented 2.2 million deaths in the United States

Study: 7 in 10 people in England have had COVID-19


The number of COVID-19-infected people between April 2020 and February 2022 amounts to 70.7% of England's population, the Office for National Statistics' researchers found.

 File Photo by Andy Rain/EPA-EFE

April 22 (UPI) -- More than seven out of 10 people living in England -- 38.5 million people -- have caught COVID-19 since the pandemic's onset, Britain's Office for National Statistics revealed Friday.

The study examined coronavirus cases that occurred in England between April 27, 2020, and Feb. 11, 2022.

The number of infected people amounts to 70.7% of the country's population, researchers found.

"Today's release is a valuable piece of the puzzle for understanding the impact of the pandemic across the U.K.," the study's deputy director, Duncan Cook said, according to The Guardian.

"It's encouraging to see that infections have decreased in all age groups across England. Despite the decrease in infections, it's important to note that levels remain high," he said. "We continue to monitor these going forward."

One in 14, or 3.7 million people in England, have COVID-19 currently, The National reported.

The study, which sampled 535,116 people, also examined COVID-19 cases that emerged in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

In Northern Ireland, about 1.3 million people caught the virus between July 27, 2020, and Feb.11, 2022 -- about 72.2% of the country's population.

COVID-19 infections in Wales between June 30, 2020, and Feb. 11, 2022 amounted to 56% of the population, or 1.7 million people.

Infections between Sept. 22, 2020, and Feb. 11, 2022 reached 2.7 million, or 51.5%, of Scotland's population.

The study's participants were regularly tested during the study, and had one or more nose and throat swabs to test for the virus, which has infected more than 505 million people globally, according to the World Health Organization.

Over 6.2 million people have died from COVID-19 infections, the WHO reported.

The study took into account both negative and positive test results.

Researchers first needed to define what counted as a new infection episode, they note in the study, to tell the difference between subsequent infections in the same person and to figure out how long a person would test positive.

They defined a new episode of infection as "a new positive test which occurs 120 days or more after an individual's first positive test in the survey and their most recent prior test result was negative."

Also, If 120 days had not passed since the participant's first positive test in the study, a new infection episode was logged if their last positive test was followed by four consecutive negative tests.

The Office for National Statistics infection survey tests and retests the same large sample of people monthly, regardless of whether they are symptomatic.

It's considered the most reliable way of measuring COVID-19's prevalence, according to The National.

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. 

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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.

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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. 

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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.