Historic Warsaw store, seeking rebirth, hit by pandemic

By VANESSA GERA and MONIKA SCISLOWSKA

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The modernist 1914 six-story building of the Jablkowski Brothers Department Store that survived World War II bombings by Nazi Germany is a historic landmark, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, July 10, 2021. After World War II the business was forced into bankruptcy and seized by the communist regime. The Jablkowski family regained the historic building in a long battle after communism fell, and were preparing to relaunch business when the pandemic hit and forced some changes to their plans, but did not undermine them. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The Jablkowski Brothers Department Store was once a Warsaw landmark that revolutionized shopping and brought goods to a modernizing society in the early 20th century. But unlike Harrods in London and other Western counterparts, the business was forced into bankruptcy and seized by Poland’s communist regime that took power after World War II.

When communism fell in 1989, the Jablkowski family heirs began a long legal struggle to regain their properties. They were preparing to launch when the coronavirus pandemic hit, dealing one more blow to a family business that has seen a history of hardship mirroring Poland’s adversities.

“The pandemic hit us in a moment when we were almost ready to go,” Monika Jablkowska, one of the heirs, told The Associated Press.

The pandemic has created new uncertainty because it has accelerated a trend toward online shopping, leaving questions about what kind of in-store retail experiences consumers will embrace in the coming years.

The family business started when Aniela Jablkowska began selling stationery from a chest of drawers in 1884. It expanded into the largest and most important department store across Eastern Europe. In 1914 — just as World War I began — the family opened its main building, a six-story gem of modernist architecture with soaring ceilings and stained glass windows that is now a historic landmark.

This April 20, 2021, photo shows the 1914 stained glass windows that decorate the main hall of the Jablkowski Brothers Department Store a historic landmark in Warsaw, Poland. The modernist building and the windows survived World War II, when German occupying forces destroyed most of Warsaw. Currently under renovation, the windows are to be re-installed in September. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Today a European Union member, Poland was at the time carved up by foreign powers, with Warsaw part of the Russian empire. In its early years, the company sold its merchandise in rubles, with a catalogue and delivery service that sent goods as far away as the Russia’s far-east city of Vladivostok.

The business pulled through two world wars, hyperinflation and even the flu pandemic of 1918-20. During World War II, when German occupying forces destroyed most of Warsaw, the building was among the few to survive.

What dealt the final blow to the business, though, was Poland’s postwar communist regime, which imposed a huge tax forcing its bankruptcy, and then seized the store in 1950.

Jan Jablkowski, one of the heirs, says the family feels a “strong sense of obligation to continue” as an element of the city’s heritage, and has turned down even attractive purchase offers.

“We believe that such firms, present for many generations — just like the material substance of the city, its squares, its monuments, the street names — are all elements of the identity of this city,” said Jablkowski, a retired engineer who was formerly the head of Poland’s Institute for Automation and Measurements.

According to Cezary Lazarewicz, author of a book about the business, “Six Stories of Luxury,” the store offered a number of innovations to city shoppers -- not only all the clothes, toys and other goods for sale, but also neon advertisements, a terrace cafe, fashion shows and live piano music to stimulate shoppers.

He said the business was “revolutionary” in its introduction of catalogs, making it the Amazon of its age, and in its introduction of ready-to-wear clothing to a huge market.

“It wasn’t just a department store,” but a place that offered up a sense of magic, Lazarewicz said. “It was an exceptional place on the Warsaw map.”

After the fall of communism, the family began a legal battle to get back the building, but it took more than 20 years because they first had to reconstitute the prewar business. Even after the property was legally returned in 2004, a bookshop refused to vacate the premises, triggering more court cases until the store was finally regained in 2013.

The heirs’ initial plan was to revive the department store, but with department stores struggling to survive across the world — a trend accelerated by the pandemic — they realized that business model was no longer sustainable.

So they developed a new business plan to open it as a retail space of 4,500 square meters (48,500 square feet) with concept shops, restaurants, and spaces for cultural events. Then came the pandemic.

“The big question is how the business will look post-pandemic and whether the model will still be relevant afterwards,” Monika Jablkowska said.

Even before the pandemic, Poland has seen a huge retail upheaval, with international companies like Marks & Spencer and The Gap coming in, only to later leave the dynamic but demanding market where foreign brands compete with Polish clothing makers like Reserved. Online shopping has also taken hold, with Amazon recently entering Poland.

The fact that people buy fewer clothes now and have embraced more casual clothing creates uncertainties about what stores might want to open up in their building, Jablkowska said.

The modernist 1914 building of the Jablkowski Brothers Department Store that survived World War II bombings by Nazi Germany is a historic landmark, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, July 10, 2021. The family business started when Aniela Jablkowska began selling stationery from a chest of drawers in 1884. It expanded into the largest and most important department store across Eastern Europe. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Two business professors who have studied the Jablkowski company, Tomasz Olejniczak and Anna Pikos at the Kozminski University in Warsaw, argue it’s in a weaker position financially than counterparts elsewhere because of the way Polish industry and businesses were stripped of their capital by communist authorities.

Other department stores from Tokyo to Paris to London “are struggling, but over their continuous history they have amassed enormous wealth and resources which they can now use to reinvent or redefine themselves in the age of luxury and e-commerce,” Olejniczak and Pikos said in joint email.

“They have all the freedom they want to reinvent themselves, but they also have virtually no resources and very limited money,” the two said about the Jablkowski project.

Jablkowski says the family is taking a cautious approach now to ensure its survival. During the pandemic, managers and employees took voluntary pay cuts and the company again is earning revenue by hosting fairs and exhibitions. No key decisions will be made until the shape of the post-pandemic world comes into better focus.

“We remember the history of the past 100 or so years, and we are very sensitive about the secure functioning of the business,” Jablkowski said. “For this reason, we are being cautious.”

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Review prompted by building collapse closes Miami courthouse
By DAVID FISCHER

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This Oct. 8, 2020 photo shows the Miami-Dade County Courthouse in Miami. Officials say the Miami-Dade County Courthouse will begin undergoing repairs immediately after a review found safety concerns within the building. A joint statement from multiple leaders late Friday, July 9, 2021 says the review was prompted by the collapse of a condo building in Surfside. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

MIAMI (AP) — The Miami-Dade County Courthouse will begin undergoing repairs immediately because of safety concerns found during a review prompted by the deadly collapse of a nearby condominium building, officials said.

An engineering firm that examined the 28-story courthouse recommended that it undergo immediate structural repairs and that floors 16 and above be closed. All courthouse employees, including those who work on lower floors, will return to working from home, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and other leaders said in a joint statement late Friday.

In its report, engineering firm U.S. Structures Inc. said that during its June 30 inspection, it found structural distress in various structural members such as support beams and joists, including steel columns that are in “poor condition” and concrete columns that have numerous cracks.

“In general, we observed numerous members with visible signs of structural deterioration that have been documented and reported by this and other firms for quite some time now. Many of these members are in an advance state of deterioration,” inspector Jose Toledo wrote in the firm’s Tuesday letter to Miami-Dade County officials.

The announcement about the courthouse, which is in Miami, came during the third week of the search for victims of the collapse of the Champlain Towers South building in nearby Surfside. On Saturday, authorities raised the confirmed death toll to 86, with 43 people still missing.

The courthouse, which was completed in 1928 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989, is where most civil cases are heard and contains some administrative offices. Separate courthouses for criminal, children’s and family cases are not affected.

Workers only recently returned to the building after working remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic. Court operations will go back to a remote format until the safety concerns are addressed. The court planned to notify people with upcoming court proceedings of the changes.




(July 10)

“They had only been back in that building about a week,” Levine Cava said at a Saturday news conference. “So they have everything they need to continue to operate remotely and also at other locations, so it should not disrupt substantially.”

Authorities didn’t disclose details about the specific types of repairs that are needed, and they still plan to inspect its basement to determine if additional ones are required.

In its report, the engineering firm warned that one column on the 25th floor needed “immediate attention” and urged that it be repaired within 30 days. It also found overhead beams and slabs that had cracks and spalling, which is when pieces of concrete break off and potentially allow water in. In addition, it advised officials to remove heavy items such as books, office supplies and sandbags that were stored on upper floors.

Miami-Dade County is in the early stages of constructing a new civil courthouse and had been planning to sell the current one, which has been beset by leaks, mold and issues with its facade over the years. It’s unclear how the new findings might affect those plans to sell the building.

The building underwent a review following the June 24 collapse of the Champlain Towers South building, where efforts are ongoing to recover the bodies of those missing and presumed dead. Levine Cava said those efforts would continue throughout the day Saturday despite bad weather, though work was paused for about an hour Saturday morning due to a nearby lightning strike. She also said no asbestos has been found during the search of the rubble.

“Please pray for all those who’ve lost loved ones and for those whose hearts are broken by this unspeakable tragedy,” she said.

Rubble and debris of the Champlain Towers South condo can be seen in Surfside, Florida on Tuesday, July 6, 2021. (Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald via AP)

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said crews were making good progress, especially in clearing debris from the section of the building that didn’t collapse but was later demolished. That section will likely be cleared sooner than originally expected, he said.

“It’s astounding the pace at which they’re working in getting that rubble out of there,” he said.

Several other buildings have been reviewed to search for any structural concerns, and some — such as a condo building in North Miami Beach — have been evacuated.

___

Associated Press writer Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this report

With Harris and Hannah-Jones, Howard University is on a roll

By ASHRAF KHALIL

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WASHINGTON (AP) — With the surprise twin hiring of two of the country’s most prominent writers on race, Howard University is positioning itself as one of the primary centers of Black academic thought just as America struggles through a painful crossroads over historic racial injustice.

But then, Howard University has never exactly been low-profile.

For more than a century, the predominantly Black institution in the nation’s capital has educated generations of Black political and cultural leaders. Among them: Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, civil rights icon Stokely Carmichael, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and Vice President Kamala Harris.

But even by those standards, the school has been on a hot streak lately, with new funding streams, fresh cultural relevancy and high-profile faculty additions. This past week’s hiring of Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates serves as confirmation that Howard intends to dive neck-deep into America’s divisive racial debate.

Hannah-Jones opted against teaching at the University of North Carolina after a protracted tenure fight centered on conservative objections to her work and instead chose Howard, where she will hold the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism. She rose to fame with The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which reframed U.S. history through a racial equity lens and helped mainstream the idea of critical race theory — a topic that has become a core Republican talking point.

Coates has written critically on U.S. race relations for years and is closely associated with the argument for reparations for slavery.

Howard’s president, Wayne Frederick, doesn’t characterize either hiring as overtly political, but merely a natural extension of the university’s motivating ethos.

“Howard University has been on that caravan for social justice for about 154 years,” Frederick said in an interview. “Howard has a rich legacy. ... My responsibility is to contemporize that and to bring faculty to the university who are in the contemporary space, speaking to present-day issues.”

Columbia University journalism professor Jelani Cobb, a Howard alumnus, described the moves as a pivotal jump in the university’s national stature. Howard, he said, had gone from traditionally “punching above its weight class” to “moving up a whole division.”

All this is just a few years removed from a period of internal tension and financial scandal. In 2018, six employees were fired amid revelations of more than $350,000 in misappropriated grant funding, and students staged a nine-day occupation of the administration building over demands that included better housing and an end to tuition increases.

But even amid those problems, Howard has seen a boost in applications and enrollment as more Black students choose to attend historically Black colleges and universities. “I do think that we’re seeing a renaissance, and that that’s driven by the students more than the parents,” said Noliwe Rooks, chair of Africana studies at Brown University. Rooks attended Spelman, an all-female HBCU in Atlanta.

Vice President Harris returned to Howard days after the hirings were announced. Speaking at a news conference on a voters’ rights initiative sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, she received a rapturous welcome from a packed house that supplied church-style “amens” and burst into applause when she called Howard “a very important part of why I stand before you at this moment as vice president of the United States of America.”

For current students, the school’s rising profile is a confirmation of their choice to attend “The Mecca” — one of Howard’s many nicknames.

“There’s something truly intangible about this university,” said Kylie Burke, a political science major and president of the Howard Student Association, who introduced Harris at the event. Like Harris, Burke came from Northern California to attend Howard, and she served as a legislative fellow in Harris’ office when she was a senator. “Howard teaches you a thing about grit, it teaches you to remain focused, it teaches you to be persistent,” Burke said.

The hirings capped a dizzying stretch for Howard.

Within the past year, Harris was elected vice president; MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, donated $40 million; and actor Phylicia Rashad returned to her alma mater as dean of the newly independent College of Fine Arts. That college will be named after the late Chadwick Boseman, a Howard graduate whose role as African superhero Black Panther made him an instant icon and shined a fresh cultural spotlight on the school.

Boseman expressed his love for the university in a 2018 commencement speech, calling it “a magical place.” He cited one of the school’s more modern nicknames, “Wakanda University,” a reference to the movie’s technologically advanced African utopia.

Although there’s rising interest across the HBCU network, Cobb said Howard will always attract a particular demographic of Black student such as Harris with an interest in politics and governance. The school has produced members of Congress, Cabinet secretaries and mayors. One of Cobb’s undergraduate classmates was Ras Baraka, now mayor of Newark, New Jersey.

Rooks said Hannah-Jones’ move could have ripple effects throughout academia.

Traditionally, Rooks said, Black academics were drawn to predominantly white universities because that’s where the funding and the prestige lay. But Hannah-Jones didn’t just bring her reputation; she also brought nearly $20 million in funding.

“It’s a whole other thing when you become the benefactor,” Rooks said. “We all learn how to behave, how to act, in the presence of power. If you’re the power and it’s your money, you’ve taken a whole racial dynamic off the table.”

Still, Howard’s rising prominence does bring the risk that it will overshadow smaller HBCUs. Rooks said Howard and a handful of other big names such as Morehouse, Spelman and Hampton dominate the headlines and the funding. She said, half-jokingly, that most Black American students couldn’t name more than 12 of the 107 HBCUs in the country.

One possible example of the phenomenon: In 2019, NBA star Steph Curry donated an undisclosed amount to allow Howard to launch Division I men’s and women’s golf teams, and fund them for six years. Curry was raised in North Carolina, home to 10 active HBCUs, and holds no particular connection to Howard.

The HBCU world still boils down to “five or six schools that really attract a lot of attention,” Rooks said, and dozens of others that are “desperate for funding.”

Howard’s recent fortune, she said, is “not necessarily going to raise all the boats.”

___

Associated Press writer Hilary Powell contributed to this report.

___

Follow Khalil on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ashrafkhalil

Survivors of Bosnia massacre grapple with horrors, deniers

By SABINA NIKSIC

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SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Through tears and in between fraught silences, Devla Ajsic refuses to remain quiet any longer.

Ajsic was 21 years old and three months pregnant in July 1995 when she was repeatedly sexually assaulted in Srebrenica while her fiance and thousands of other mostly Muslim men and boys were taken away and executed in Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since World War II.

For decades, Ajsic did not talk openly about the horrors she endured after Bosnian Serb forces stormed the eastern Bosnian town in the waning months of the Balkan country’s 1992-95 war.

“I locked it all inside for 26 years and suffered in silence. I had no one to confide in, no one to share my pain with. ... I cannot take it any longer,” said the now 47-year-old Ajsic, steeling herself as she finally spoke publicly of her ordeal on the eve of the 26th anniversary of the massacre Sunday.

When Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica, which had been declared a U.N. “safe haven” for civilians in 1993, about 30,000 of its terrified Muslim residents rushed to the U.N. compound at the entrance to town in the hope that the Dutch U.N. peacekeepers there would protect them.

However, the outgunned and outnumbered peacekeepers watched helplessly as Serb troops took some 2,000 men and boys from the compound for execution, raped the women and girls, and then bused the women, children and elderly to Bosniak Muslim-held territory.

Ajsic said she was sexually assaulted and tortured for three days before departing Srebrenica in one of the last buses packed with refugees.

“The things they did to me, they tied me to a desk, my neck and my chest were blue from bruises, I was sprawled naked on that table,” she recounted, sobbing. The Associated Press typically doesn’t name sex abuse victims except in cases where they opt to speak publicly.

Ajsic said the Serb soldiers drugged her, clouding her mind, but even so she was acutely aware she was not the only woman kept bound and subject to horrific abuse in a hangar of the then-U.N. compound.

There are no words to describe their “screaming, their cries for help,” she said of the women. “What could we do when (the soldiers) came through that door unzipping their pants and walked toward us? We were like lambs, like sacrificial lambs waiting for a knife to slaughter us.”

And yet, she believes her personal nightmare, including the loss of the fetus she had to abort after fleeing Srebrenica, is dwarfed by the weeklong Bosnian Serb killing spree in which over 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys from the town perished.

FILE - In this July 8, 2021, file photo, participants, some of them survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, walk through a mountain area near Nezuk, Bosnia, during a Peace March recreating the path taken 26 years ago by people trying to escape the advancing Bosnian Serb forces. Twenty-six years after the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the only episode of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war to be legally defined as genocide, its survivors continue to grapple with the horrors they endured while also confronting increasingly aggressive downplaying and even denial of their ordeal. (AP Photo/Kemal Softic, File)

Most of the victims were hunted down and summarily executed as they tried to flee into nearby forest. Their bodies were plowed into hastily dug mass graves and then later excavated with bulldozers and scattered among other burial sites to hide evidence of the crime.

Many wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of those killed in Srebrenica have dedicated their lives to fighting for the truth about what happened to their men and searching for their remains. And yet, in over a quarter-century, only a handful have publicly spoken of the sexual abuse they suffered during the fall of Srebrenica.

The women stubbornly stood their ground when confronted with political opposition to their request to set up a memorial cemetery across from the former Dutch U.N. base, where on every July 11 since 2002 they have reburied the remains of their loved ones.

So far, the remains of more than 6,600 people have been exhumed from mass graves, identified by forensic analysis and reburied at the site. The remains of 19 more victims will be laid to rest there Sunday.

Srebrenica’s Bosniak women were also key to cases brought against the United Nations and the Netherlands over the failure of the Dutch U.N. troops to protect the town’s civilians in 1995, and the adoption of a European Parliament resolution commemorating July 11 as the Day of Remembrance of the Srebrenica genocide.

FILE - In this July 13, 1995, file photo a woman and her mother, refugees from Srebrenica, cry worried about the fate of the rest of their family, after reaching a U.N. base near Tuzla, Bosnia. Twenty-six years after the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the only episode of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war to be legally defined as genocide, its survivors continue to grapple with the horrors they endured while also confronting increasingly aggressive downplaying and even denial of their ordeal. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic, File)

Among them was Munira Subasic, who lost her husband, a son and 22 other male relatives in the massacre.

She, along with dozens of others testified before a special U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague to prosecute the crimes committed during the 1990s Balkan wars that followed the dissolution of former Yugoslavia, helping put behind bars Bosnian Serb war-time political and military leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, both convicted of genocide and war crimes and jailed for life.

Although the Srebrenica massacre was branded genocide by international and national courts, Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials still downplay or deny the crime. For many Srebrenica women setting the historical record straight about what happened to their men has become their life’s purpose.

“We have to keep fighting for truth and justice in order to prevent the young generations (in the Balkans) from being infected by hate, from seeking revenge,” Subasic said.

“I hope that the conscience of the world will awaken and that they will protect us as they had protected the Jewish mothers, help us get a law against genocide denial, spare us from the offense and humiliation of its denial.”

“Only then will we and our children start living a normal life,” she said.

Bosnian Serb political leaders have consistently prevented the country from adopting a law that would ban genocide denial, with the Serb member of Bosnia’s presidency, Milorad Dodik, even publicly describing the Srebrenica slaughter as a “fabricated myth.”

What Bosniak Muslim women like Subasic are up against is “active, institutional and institutionalized genocide denial” by Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials, said Emir Suljagic, the director of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre.

“The people who took part in genocide are still alive and the political class which is deeply invested in (the war crimes) of the 1990s is still in power,” Suljagic said, noting that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was a former ultranationalist government minister who, in July 1995, threatened to kill 100 Muslim Bosniaks for every Serb killed if the international community intervened to stop the Srebrenica slaughter.

Vucic has now rebranded himself as a pro-European Union reformer, but it did not stop him from condemning as “an act of betrayal” resolutions passed recently by Montenegro and Kosovo condemning the Srebrenica genocide and banning its denial.

Having returned a year ago to Srebrenica with her 24-year-old son and his family after living for decades in a region of central Bosnia, Ajsic no longer believes a normal life is possible after the horrors she endured.

Her late husband banned her from talking publicly about the abuse because of the stigma still surrounding the rapes, but with his death she felt free to unload a little of her trauma now.

She says she is afraid to walk the streets of Srebrenica, a town now shared between massacre survivors and massacre deniers, because she never knows if the people she encounters consider the genocide a fabrication or even took part in it.

“I came back to live in Srebrenica, but I am terrified to walk on the streets here because I don’t know who the people driving in the cars around me are, what kind of people they are,” she said.

Srebrenica victims buried 26 years after genocide

Issued on: 11/07/2021 - 

Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys after they captured Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, in the final stages of Bosnia's 1990s war ELVIS BARUKCIC AFP

Srebrenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina) (AFP)

The remains of 19 more victims of the Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims were laid to rest on Sunday during a commemoration marking 26 years since the genocide that still deeply divides the Balkan nation.

Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys after they captured the ill-fated town on July 11, 1995, in the final stages of Bosnia's 1990s war.

It marked the worst atrocity committed on European soil since World War II and was deemed a genocide by international justice, though most ethnic Serbs and their leaders in both Bosnia and Serbia reject the label.

Because the bodies of the victims were originally dumped into mass graves, most of which were then moved in an effort to hide the atrocity, families were not able to bury the remains of their loved ones until they were found years later.

The remains of 19 such victims, including two teenagers, were laid to rest during Sunday's ceremony, held at a memorial centre just outside of town.

They joined the remains of 6,671 Srebrenica victims that have been buried at the cemetery so far, while another 236 people have been laid to rest elsewhere.

"I will bury only the scull of my brother but even it is not whole," Azir Osmanovic told reporters.

His brother Azmir was 16 years old in July 1995 when he tried to flee Srebrenica with a group of other teenagers as the Serbs captured the town, but entered a mine field, Osmanovic said.

"My brother and two other boys died there."

Azmir's scull was found in 2018 and identified a few months ago.

"I decided to bury him this year to have at least a place to pray for him.

"I don't think anything else could be found after all these years," Osmanovic said.

- Still searching for victims -

Most of the massacre victims were shot dead in groups of hundreds at different sites in the Srebrenica region.

"It's getting more difficult to find new mass graves," the memorial centre spokeswoman Almasa Salihovic said.

"We are still searching for more than one thousand victims."#photo1

A UN court sentenced both Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic and his army chief Ratko Mladic, to life in prison, notably for Srebrenica.

On the eve of this year's massacre anniversary, the Serb member of Bosnia's joint presidency Milorad Dodik repeated his view that "there was no genocide."

"There is information that coffins (with victims remains) are empty, that there are no remains in them, they just put a name," he said quoted by the Bosnian Serb television RTRS.

Head of Bosnia's institute for missing people Amor Masovic labelled Dodik's comments "horrifying."

"At the memorial centre, there are victims of whom only one bone was found and buried."

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and the bloc's enlargement commissioner Oliver Varhelyi urged Balkan political leaders to face the past.

"There is no place in Europe for genocide denial, revisionism and glorification of war criminals," they said in a joint statement Saturday.#photo2

The Bosnian government earlier this week failed to proclaim July 11 the national mourning day since ethnic Serb ministers opposed the move.

© 2021 AFP

‘Like we’re on an island’: How Missouri’s inaction allowed delta variant to spread


BY JONATHAN SHORMAN,

JEANNE KUANG,

JAKE KINCAID, AND DEREK KRAVITZ 

JULY 11, 2021 




Missouri COVID-19 surge

Missouri is experiencing a rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations due in part to the spread of the delta variant. Read our latest coverage.

On June 2 Jessica Pearson, an epidemiologist with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, sent a concerned but business-as-usual email to local health officials in the northwest corner of the state.

Pearson took note of the highly contagious COVID-19 delta variant, which had surged in some northern Missouri counties.

“Just a reminder that there is nothing additional that needs to be done as far as public health action for variant cases,” Pearson wrote, recapping a conference call earlier that day, “but we emphasize the importance of a timely investigation and implementation of control measures.”

One month later, as the United States as a whole experiences the fewest cases and hospitalizations in months, Missouri is in crisis.

Delta is rampaging through the unvaccinated, spurring rising cases and threatening to overwhelm Springfield hospitals. Missouri now has the second-highest rate of new cases per capita, according to data compiled by The New York Times, and among the lowest adult vaccination rates among all states.

What went wrong?

A joint investigation by The Kansas City Star and Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation reveals how June became a lost month in the fight to slow the spread of delta across Missouri. Thousands of pages of internal emails and other documents from 19 local health departments trace the growing alarm and a sense of near-resignation among officials about their chances of halting the advance of the variant.

The consequences of the squandered month will last well into summer. CoxHealth, a major Springfield hospital, told The Star it’s bracing for hospitalizations to rise for weeks to come. Delta is still spreading and has now been found in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas, though state officials hope higher vaccination rates in those places will limit increases in cases. Schools will also begin next month with some parents in open rebellion against imposing mask requirements, even with delta all but certain to continue circulating.

The emails, obtained through records requests by the institute’s Documenting COVID-19 project and shared with The Star, paint a portrait of local health officials eager to vaccinate their communities but encountering resistance from residents, apathy from some politicians and a milquetoast state-level response. They document rising frustration with everyone from DHSS to elected officials to the public. An official in one county even privately mocked a video released by DHSS explaining the delta variant.

“I feel like we’re on an island, all alone in the COVID fight, but I know others in the state are feeling the same way,” Laclede County Health Department Administrator Charla Baker wrote to a DHSS official in late June. “With our community leaders and residents not wanting to take any remedial actions to protect themselves and others, we are just very frustrated and concerned with our current situation.”

BEHIND OUR REPORTING

How we did this story

This story was a collaboration between The Kansas City Star and Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation’s Documenting COVID-19 project.

The institute is a joint venture of Columbia Journalism School and the Stanford University School of Engineering. Throughout the pandemic, the project has been gathering documents related to COVID-19 through records requests and sharing them with news outlets.

In early July, the project began sharing with The Star records from local Missouri health departments it had received in response to requests under the Sunshine Law. Star reporters Jonathan Shorman and Jeanne Kuang, along with Derek Kravtiz and Jake Kincaid from the project, combed through the documents for noteworthy communications and information.

They also interviewed health officials, including some featured in the documents, and others to gather additional context and information. Gov. Mike Parson and other state officials have made public comments about the spread of delta, which are featured in the story.

The emails also show local leaders sometimes going to extraordinary lengths to win even modest advances in vaccinations, in the absence of new state initiatives. In Joplin, the city manager sought an incentive program for municipal employees but urged city council members to minimize their comments about it to not arouse public anger.

“We’ve alerted our local elected officials and decision makers with very little interest in discussion of mitigation measures,” Taney County Health Director Lisa Marshall wrote to health officials across the state on June 17.

“Our last election cycle saw a turnover in many of our elected officials resulting in a ‘pro-recovery’ focus. We are also seeing low uptake of vaccine in our county despite education and clinic offerings,” she wrote. “Without local support and continued low interest in vaccines, coupled with the welcome sign, I anticipate our numbers will continue upwards.”

This week, Taney, which includes the tourist destination of Branson, was among the top 10 counties in the United States for new cases per capita.

A Taney County health official voices concern that elected officials don’t have interest in new mitigation measures.

Missouri’s cases remain below their winter peak but are steadily trending upward. But even as health officials desperately try to engage the public, the messages from the state’s leadership remain mixed.

The Republican-dominated Missouri House in June debated a measure to undercut vaccine mandates for hospital employees. Some lawmakers have also repeated baseless theories that the vaccine affects pregnancy.

Gov. Mike Parson hasn’t used the same alarmed language of senior officials elsewhere to prompt residents to get shots. Instead, he has highlighted data points such as the higher rates of vaccination among seniors. His agitated response to the arrival of federal assistance that his administration requested provoked a rebuke from the White House. This past week, he stressed the state “is not in crisis mode.”

“I think we’ve took every action we could possibly take in the state of Missouri to prevent this,” Parson told reporters on Wednesday. “You have a vaccine that’s out there, and frankly it’s been out there for seven months now. … Everybody has access to it.”

While fully containing delta was likely impossible, health officials across the state quickly ruled out new mask mandates or other restrictions as politically taboo. Local leaders felt the state didn’t provide enough information to easily track where delta was showing up. And June passed without Parson announcing a vaccination lottery.

On Friday, State Epidemiologist George Turabelidze acknowledged a lack of precautions and low vaccination rates have fueled delta’s rise. He told reporters that even before the current surge, epidemiologists had predicted future outbreaks would occur in vulnerable areas.

“Unfortunately, Missouri turned out to be among those several states that do have those vulnerable spots,” Turabelidze said, “and those are spots where people are undervaccinated, people have low natural immunity levels, and some communities that assumed that pandemic was already behind us, and mitigation was dropped too quickly.”

“All those factors made us vulnerable, as a state. And that’s what happened, as it was predicted,” he said.

Asked about Pearson’s comments at the start of June, DHSS spokeswoman Lisa Cox said public health strategies are the same for all variants and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed this to the agency.

“The same prevention methods apply regardless of the variant,” Cox wrote in an email. “Vaccination is the best defense against all variants, and we encourage all individuals age 12 and up to be vaccinated.”

Whatever happens next, Missouri is probably in for weeks of rising cases, hospitalizations and ultimately deaths — the vast majority likely avoidable if the deceased had been vaccinated. Going forward, a decline in vaccine hesitancy or behavior changes such as more voluntary mask wearing will take weeks to reach their full impact.

As the rest of the country keeps a wary eye on Missouri, the state offers a grim prophecy for other regions where vaccination rates remain low.

“It looks to me as though Missouri is the tip of delta’s spear,” said William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.


WARNING SIGNS AS JUNE BEGINS

Missouri emerged from Memorial Day weekend with cases at their lowest levels in months.

On June 1, the 7-day average of confirmed daily new cases was 239, according to DHSS. In November, the average exceeded 4,500.

But something was wrong in Joplin.

Admissions were rising at two of its biggest area hospitals, Freeman Health System and Mercy. Devin Blankenship, assistant director at the Joplin Health Department, wrote in a June 2 email to city officials that he had talked to infection control nurses at the facilities.

Freeman had reported a COVID-related death each of the last three days. Blankenship relayed that the hospital “may need to flex” their COVID unit, closed since March. He wondered whether Mother’s Day and graduations were contributing and expressed concern about what Memorial Day could mean.

“Doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the admits,” Blankenship wrote.

In central Missouri, Stephanie Browning, director of the Columbia-Boone County Health Department, was thinking about contact tracing. Browning had been asked by a University of Missouri researcher whether it was still occurring.

Because of the up to 14-day gap between infection and symptoms, contact tracing was a difference maker in Missouri — and across the United States — in slowing the spread. But interviewing positive cases and reaching out to their contacts was a time-consuming task that burned through employee hours.

Contact tracing was still happening in Boone County, Browning wrote back on June 5. But a number of other counties “have stopped altogether,” she wrote.


The day before Browning sent the email, Boone County had reported just seven new cases. On July 6, there were 104.

In an interview, Scott Clardy, the department’s assistant director, said the number of cases rose so quickly that the department couldn’t call every contact anymore. Workers call who they can; everyone else receives a packet in the mail.

Missouri residents have also grown increasingly uncooperative with tracers. As delta spread, the reluctance or outright refusal of many to participate limited the effectiveness of an indispensable tool for public health officials.

Debra Bradley, director of the St. Joseph Health Department, disclosed in an email later in the month that about half of those called “do not answer their phone or refuse to give us information.”

In Jackson County, health officials initially ran into resistance as they tried to investigate an outbreak tied to a camp hosted by Crown Pointe Church in Lee’s Summit. Charles Cohlmia, an official at the Jackson County Health Department focused on communicable diseases and public health preparedness, wrote to DHSS on June 17 that it had been trying to get a roster of participants from the church.

“So far, we’ve gotten radio silence until a few minutes ago when the church lead said they would not be cooperating,” Cohlmia wrote.

Crown Pointe Lead Pastor Dennis Luce told The Star that the church did cooperate via its parent organization, which hosted the camp.

“Our concern was turning over personal information from our students and families, so in consultation with our District Office, they communicated all of that information on our behalf,” Luce said in a statement. “We have always cooperated and complied with the Health Department to reduce the spread of Covid and keep people safe.”

OFFICIALS WEIGH INCENTIVES

By mid-June, it was clear cases were rising again.

The state’s 7-day rolling average of new cases had surged to 411. Wastewater samples detected delta in all corners of the state.

Local health officials, facing stagnating rates of vaccination, asked the state to encourage hesitant residents to take the shot, according to notes of a meeting DHSS held June 8 to address COVID hotspots. The notes were prepared by a Joplin health department nurse who attended.

Among the questions asked at the meeting were: “The demand for vaccines continues to decline and we are not seeing much in the way of marketing from our leaders to change the mindset of people. can our elected leaders do more to support or promote vaccines? Haven’t really heard anything from Governor.”

“Thanks for the input,” a Parson administration official responded, according to the notes. “The most impactful means by which to drive engagement and reduced hesitancy rate is through physicians, public health, and medical providers based on the data.”

It’s not clear from the notes which official made the remarks.

At the same meeting, Adam Crumbliss, director of the state’s Division of Community & Public Health, discouraged local officials from sharing a state virus hotspot map with the public. He told them to “use discretion” and share it with partners “in an appropriate and thoughtful context,” according to the notes.

The following week, Parson told reporters he was skeptical of implementing a vaccine lottery, as other states had done.

He’s since changed his tone. On June 25, the health department told local officials the state was considering rolling out a sweepstakes program with the Missouri Lottery. On Wednesday he said the state was still working on a potential incentive, but he remained unsure.

“I’m not a huge fan of that, but I also want to move the needle in this state,” he said. “If it helps, I think we need to try it … At the end of the day, you know, I’m caught between that decision, do you really pay somebody to go get something they need that protects people and protects them?”

On Friday, state health officials promoted a $5 million ad campaign and other efforts to inform the public about the benefits of vaccination.

“Fear is not the means by which to move forward in Missouri,” Crumbliss told reporters. “The way to move forward is an aggressive action plan and engagement at the very individual level, and then having trusted voices on the ground.”

Emails show local officials weighing their own incentive programs. In Joplin, City Manager Nick Edwards wrote to the city council on June 15 floating an extra vacation day for city employees who are vaccinated by September.

He wrote that the city was facing staffing issues because of sick workers. At the time, 19 fire department employees were out due to the virus.

He estimated the cost of the vacation incentive at $30,000 and suggested that federal funds might pay for it.

But even as he tried to convince the elected officials, Edwards also urged them to minimize their comments if it was discussed at a meeting.

“Knowing the strong feelings on COVID, and further the use of taxpayer dollars to incentive vaccinations because some employees have not made the safe decision will likely be a divisive topic,” he wrote. “This conversation has the ability to negatively impact the election conversations.”

Edwards didn’t elaborate in the email on what he meant by election conversations, but in August the city will vote on renewing a sales tax for parks and stormwater improvements. He wrote the next day to colleagues that he had heard from the mayor and that the council unanimously supported the incentive program.

The initiative was rolled out before the end of the month. Reached for comment, Joplin community health director Ryan Talken said the program “has had success” but “the final results have not been realized yet” because it is ongoing.




An email from Joplin City Manager Nick Edwards to city council members about a potential vaccination incentive program for municipal employees.

‘I DON’T WANT ANY OF YOU ... CAUGHT UNAWARE’

On June 17, Springfield-Greene County Health Assistant Director Jon Mooney decided the time was right to send a warning to colleagues across the state.

Over the past month, the average of daily new cases in the county had grown from 18 to 78. Perhaps even more alarming was the corresponding rise in hospitalizations, from 34 to 94 in a month.

Variant testing in the last week had shown 91% of cases were delta.

“While I could certainly be wrong, I don’t want any of you to be caught unaware or dismiss the rise in cases that we are experiencing as something that is unique to our area or is likely to remain localized here,” Mooney wrote.

Kelley Vollmar, director of the Jefferson County Health Department, asked in response whether Missouri would consider travel advisories for areas experiencing case growth. In the past, COVID spread across Missouri along Interstate highways.

In an interview, Vollmar said nothing appeared to come of that idea at the state level, though that has now changed. DHSS issued its first “hotspot advisory” on Wednesday for Camden, Miller and Morgan counties — the location of the Lake of the Ozarks.

Vollmar said as of Thursday no delta cases had been identified in her county, but she was confident it was already present.

“Probably within this next week we’re going to see numbers start to explode in many more areas because people have brought it back,” Vollmar said. “That’s why a travel advisory earlier would have been much more helpful.”

As the case surge gathered strength in mid-to-late June, local officials privately conceded that resistance from the public and elected officials would make it impossible to reimpose any meaningful mitigation measures.

Many of the largest metro areas issued mask mandates earlier in the pandemic, but Parson never implemented a statewide order. Since the CDC loosened its mask guidance in May, new rules appeared out of the question.

After a CoxHealth official informed Webster County officials of rising cases on June 17, Logan-Rogersville R-VIII School District Superintendent Shawn Randles wrote that vaccinations and masking were in “the same category as Religion and Politics.”

He suggested reducing the number of days children must quarantine after testing positive, and said the district is testing out not wearing masks during summer school.

“I’m just telling you the storm that is brewing in the parents,” he wrote. “They are not going to tolerate continued masking and quarantines. No matter how hard and often we try to explain that we masked last year to stay in school and avoid quarantines.”

A district staff member said Randles could not be reached for comment because he was on vacation. Webster County Health Director Scott Allen wrote to Randles that he appreciated the feedback, but wrote to Springfield officials with concerns.

He told The Star his department will help the schools implement whatever the state COVID guidance would be in the fall.

“I think folks are just ready to be able to move beyond this,” Allen said of the public. “The virus isn’t moving anywhere unless we do something to mitigate it.”

In northern Missouri’s Livingston County, one of the first to see the recent spike in cases in May, officials considered reinstating a mask mandate but feared one mitigation strategy would interfere with another.

“If you put on a mask mandate some people could say, ‘What’s the point of getting a vaccination?’” presiding county commissioner Ed Douglas said in an interview. “There was kind of the consensus in there being a backlash, it would do more harm than good.”

On June 24, Marc Johnson, a University of Missouri professor leading an initiative to test wastewater in the state for COVID, dashed off a quick email to Browning, the Columbia-Boone County health director, noting that Missouri had the most new cases in four months.

Browning wrote that it made her “sick” to think about it. The next morning, Johnson offered a poetic take:

“Vaccine in a year

But that does not help us to

Save them from themselves”

DELTA MAY ‘RUIN OUR SUMMER’

Missouri’s surge was drawing national attention by late June. But even when the state did muster a response, some local officials were leery.

In Laclede County, Baker, the health administrator, on June 22 turned down an offer from a state official to get the county CDC-funded epidemiologists or case investigators.

“I never want to turn down assistance, especially when it seems that Laclede County cases are skyrocketing,” Baker wrote. But when the county got DHSS help last year, Baker wrote, “it caused my staff and I more work.”

In an interview, Baker said there was poor communication between DHSS and the county on which cases they were investigating last fall.

In other quarters, DHSS’s efforts were mocked. The agency posted a nearly 10-minute Q & A video to YouTube on June 23 of Turabelidze, the state epidemiologist, talking about delta. The video shows a picture of his face and the text of the question he is answering.

“Ya, he has a thick heavy accent and is kind of boring...bla bla bla. Just him talking with the view below. It is on our website anyway,” Andrew County Health Department Administrator Andrew Hoffman wrote to a colleague.

Hoffman told The Star that his statement was inappropriate and shouldn’t have been made and apologized.

Andrew County Health Administrator Andrew Hoffman disparaged a video released by the state health department featuring the state epidemiologist.

Some local health departments also spent late June in a dispute with DHSS over whether they can use federal preparedness dollars for COVID-related expenses. Columbia-Boone County says the state gave multiple indications that the funds could be used for that purpose. At stake in Boone County is nearly $200,000 in grant money.

“I think what is most frustrating here is if we can’t spend preparedness dollars on the worst public health emergency in over 100 years, what should we be expected to spend it on,” Clardy, the department’s assistant director, wrote to top DHSS officials on June 30.

Cox, the DHSS spokeswoman, said Friday the agency can “only authorize funds be spent by the federal authority.” She wrote in an email that the preparedness funds are no longer applicable for COVID expenses.

As June gave way to July, hospital leaders entered near-panic mode. CoxHealth CEO Steve Edwards told leaders spreading vaccine misinformation to “shut up.”

The White House announced the creation of “surge response teams” for areas struggling with delta. DHSS quickly confirmed it had requested help, only for Parson to later tweet that he wouldn’t accept federal officials going door to door to “compel” vaccinations of residents — a mischaracterization given that vaccinations are voluntary.

Meanwhile, hospitalizations continue to rise. Earlier this week, hospitals were treating more than 1,100 virus patients, the most since March. Mercy Hospital in Springfield ran out of ventilators and was looking for more respiratory therapists to cover for the exhausted staff over the July 4 weekend. On Friday, the state reported the most new cases in a single day since January.

Lana Zerrer, chief of staff at Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital in Columbia, wrote on June 28 to other VA officials that the best time to get vaccinated was three months ago — but the second best time is today.

“The Delta variant may prove to ruin our summer,” she wrote.

The Star’s Katie Bernard and the McClatchy Washington Bureau’s Bryan Lowry contributed reporting


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JONATHAN SHORMAN
816-234-4274
Jonathan Shorman is The Kansas City Star’s lead political reporter, covering Kansas and Missouri politics and government. He previously covered the Kansas Statehouse for The Star and Wichita Eagle. He holds a journalism degree from The University of Kansas.


JEANNE KUANG
573-635-7839
Jeanne Kuang covers Missouri government and politics for The Kansas City Star. She previously covered local and state government at The (Wilmington, Delaware) News Journal and reported on criminal justice issues in Illinois. She graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

California denies 21 oiling permits in effort to end fracking



California denied 21 oil drilling permits this week in the latest move toward ending fracking in California.


Saturday, July 10, 2021 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California denied 21 oil drilling permits this week in the latest move toward ending fracking in a state that makes millions from the petroleum industry but is seeing widespread drought and more dangerous fire seasons linked to climate change.

State Oil and Gas Supervisor Uduak-Joe Ntuk sent letters Thursday to Aera Energy denying permits to drill using hydraulic fracturing in two Kern County oil fields to "protect "public health and safety and environmental quality, including (the) reduction and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions."

Aera Energy, a joint venture Shell and ExxonMobil, called the permit denials "disappointing though not surprising."

"This is the latest decision attacking the oil and gas industry that is based solely on politics rather than sound data or science," Aera spokeswoman Cindy Pollard said Friday, adding that the company was evaluating its legal options.

"Banning hydraulic fracturing will only put hard-working people of California out of work and threaten our energy supplies by making the state more dependent on foreign oil," she said.

Fracking involves injecting high-pressure water deep underground to extract oil or gas from rock. Critics say it can pollute groundwater and contributes to climate change.

RELATED: California governor criticizes increase in fracking permits after firing state's top oil regulator

"In the face of the effects of the climate emergency, the risks to everyday Californians are too high to approve these permits," Ntuk said Friday in emails to the Bakersfield Californian and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Gov. Gavin Newsom applauded the move, his office said. In April, Newsom directed the state's Geologic Energy Management Division, or CalGEM, to develop a plan to stop issuing new fracking permits by 2024 after a measure to ban fracking died in the Legislature.

Newsom also has ordered the California Air Resources Board to figure out how the state can end all oil production by 2045. Those decisions would make California the largest state to ban fracking and likely the first in the world to set a deadline for ending oil production.

Still Newsom, who is facing a recall election in September, is treading a risky path. California is the seventh-largest oil-producing state, with more than 60,000 active wells. CalGEM has approved 100 new oil well-drilling permits and a dozen new fracking permits this year, according to state records cited by the Chronicle.

The industry directly employed about 152,000 people and was responsible for $152.3 billion in economic output, according to a 2019 study commissioned by the Western States Petroleum Association.

Even though oil production fell last year to its lowest level in state history, the industry retains plenty of political pull.

RELATED: Gov. Gavin Newsom announces California will phase out all new gas-powered cars by 2035

Lawmakers representing Kern County, an oil-rich area of the Central Valley, condemned the permit denials.

State Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, issued a news release Friday critical of Thursday's permit denials.

"The attack on oil must end," Grove said. "A California without oil is an implausible dream being pushed by progressive politicians. The governor should protect quality careers and vital tax funding while ensuring Californians have access to affordable and reliable energy."

Conservation groups also weren't entirely satisfied.

Newsom should "instruct his agency to deny all new oil and gas permits immediately," said a statement from Alexandra Nagy, California director for the nonprofit group Food and Water Watch.

"Incremental steps are not enough to protect Californian communities and our climate, or save our scarce water resources from drilling operations that usurp them," Nagy said in a statement.

US to push development banks to step up climate financing effort
Updated / Sunday, 11 Jul 2021 

Janet Yellen told a news conference that development lenders needed to boost efforts to encourage more private-sector climate-friendly investment

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she will push the major multilateral development banks to "increase their climate ambition" and accelerate timelines to support the Paris Agreement on carbon emissions reductions.

Ms Yellen told a news conference that development lenders, including the World Bank, needed to boost efforts to encourage more private-sector climate-friendly investment.

"I plan to shortly convene the heads of the MDBs to articulate our expectations that the MDBs align their portfolios with the Paris Agreement and net-zero goals as urgently as possible," she said in remarks to a G20 climate forum.

"We also expect them to take steps to more effectively mobilise private capital so that developing countries can increasingly benefit from private sector pledges to support climate-aligned and sustainable investments," Ms Yellen said.

Ms Yellen wields significant influence over the development lenders, as Treasury manages substantial US shareholdings in the institutions.

The United States is the dominant shareholder in the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, while it is among the largest in the Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank.

It is not a member of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Ms Yellen said multilateral development banks have the policy expertise, relationships, and financial tools to make a substantial contribution towards meeting climate goals.

"As leading sources of official finance, the MDBs need to maximise the catalytic impact of their support for countries seeking to confront a changing climate, and to harness the economic opportunities embedded in the transition to a low-carbon economy."

Ms Yellen also said she was working through the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a US multi-regulator body she chairs, to assess the impact of climate-related risks to the financial system.

The Treasury also is seeking to improve disclosures of climate risks to investors, and Ms Yellen said she working closely with domestic regulators and international partners to promote consistent cross-border approaches to such disclosure rules.

 

3 billionaires' dreams of space tourism are more than flights of fancy, planetary experts say

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If space travel becomes more affordable, there's a potential for more research

Stephanie Dubois · CBC News · Posted: Jul 11, 2021 

Two of the upcoming launches will be within or near the so-called Kármán Line. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale defines the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space as 100 kilometres above Earth's mean sea level. (CBC News)

It might be several years before most Canadians can afford a ticket to outer space, but some planetary experts say the upcoming space launches led by billionaires could bring a new era of space exploration.

On Sunday, Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson will become the first of three billionaires to get into space if the launch from New Mexico is successful.

Nine days later, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin is planning to launch into space from Texas, with Tesla founder Elon Musk's SpaceX launch scheduled for later this year.

It's the beginning of what Kate Howells — Canadian space policy adviser for the Planetary Society, the world's largest non-profit space organization — says is the next era of space tourism.

And if trips to space become more affordable and more frequent, Howells and others say, researchers at universities and private companies could have a quicker way to travel to space.

• Jeff Bezos to fly into space on Blue Origin rocket's 1st crew flight

"Previously, the only way for tourists to go to space was to fly to the International Space Station. And that hasn't happened for many years," she said.

"This is taking space tourism to the next level, opening up a more affordable — still not very affordable — but a more affordable way for tourists to go into space."

Virgin Galactic's Unity 22, which is scheduled to launch Sunday, will have a crew of six, including Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson, third from right. (Virgin Galactic)

Ticket prices to get aboard aren't cheap, with someone paying $28 million US in an auction for a seat on Bezos's first flight to suborbital space.

If successful in their launches, Virgin Galactic's and Blue Origin's crafts will be near or within the edge of space. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, the world governing body for air sports, defines the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space as 100 kilometres above Earth's mean sea level, the so-called Kármán Line.

• Virgin Galactic gets OK for passenger flights to space — and Richard Branson will be on one

But the crafts will have enough height to give both crews a chance to experience weightlessness for just a few minutes.

"That's the part of the experience that you're paying for," said Marc Boucher, founder and editor-in-chief of SpaceQ Media Inc., an online Canadian space news company based in London, Ont. 

New space race, new research

This year's space race is much different than the race to the moon in the 1960s. The modern race is defined primarily by competition and dreams to commercialize space flight, said Sara Mazrouei, a planetary scientist and an educational developer at Ryerson University in Toronto.

But planetary experts like Mazrouei and Howells said this space race can also bring some benefits to Earth.

If trips to space become more accessible, research in suborbital space could happen more often — and that could lead to exciting discoveries.

Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos will be on board the New Shepard spacecraft when it launches July 20. (Isaiah J. Downing/Reuters)

"The last space race that we had to get to the moon gave us the technology for our running shoes, for our foam mattresses, for our bulletproof vests," Mazrouei said.

"I'm really hopeful that once we move beyond this initial set of billionaires getting to space, there will be room for other experiments and for more involvement."

Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX all have calls out on their websites for what is known as payloads, referring to elements on spacecraft dedicated to producing mission data and then relaying that data back to Earth, according to the European Space Agency.

• Moon Landing 50th: CBC News takes you inside the landmark mission and its impact

Boucher said the potential research opportunities are exciting.

"We have to understand that there's a lot of research that's going on in space right now. A lot of that is happening on the International Space Station, but it's really expensive," he said.

"So these flights of opportunities on these new suborbital vehicles will offer a much cheaper cost to do some of this research."

With files from Inayat Singh and Alice Hopton