Deceptive videos used to link athlete deaths to COVID shots
By ANGELO FICHERA and SOPHIA TULP

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Julie West poses for a portrait at the Play For Jake Foundation, named after her 17-year-old son who died in 2013, of sudden cardiac arrest, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, in La Porte, Ind. His death, well before the pandemic, has not stopped news coverage of his collapse from being misappropriated online in a widely shared video designed to cast doubt on COVID-19 vaccination. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Jake West was a seemingly healthy 17-year-old when he collapsed during high school football practice in Indiana and died of sudden cardiac arrest. A video widely shared online falsely suggests COVID-19 vaccination is to blame, weaving headlines about him into a rapid-fire compilation of news coverage about athletes collapsing.

The vaccine played no role in West’s death — he died from an undiagnosed heart condition in 2013, seven years before the pandemic began.

The video is just one example of many similar compilations circulating on the internet that use deceptive tactics to link vaccines to a supposed wave of deaths and illness among the healthiest people, often athletes, a claim for which medical experts say there is no supporting evidence.

The clips inundate viewers with a barrage of stories and headlines delivered without context, some translated from other languages and offering few details people can check on their own.

They are highly effective at spreading misinformation using a strategy that sows doubt and bypasses critical analysis, capitalizing on emotion, according to Norbert Schwarz, a professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Southern California.

“It’s designed to foster that feeling that the vaccines may be risky,” Schwarz said. “You’re doing that with material that seems real, because it is real. All of these events actually happened, they just have nothing to do with the vaccines.”

The nearly four-minute montage that included West’s story originated on “The HighWire,” an online talk show hosted by Del Bigtree that is popular among the anti-vaccine community, and gradually became magnified via social media.

It takes the viewer through more than 50 cases of medical emergencies in rapid succession while eerie music plays and a beating heart pulses in the background, ending with somber images of medics and teammates rushing to fallen athletes.

After airing the video, Bigtree noted on his show that there is “no proof” vaccines were responsible for the cases — even while suggesting they might be.

“All of these sports are mandating this vaccine on everybody in order to play, and I can only ask the very simple question, do you ever remember hearing a story of an athlete having a heart attack on the field?” Bigtree said.

Yet cases of sudden cardiac arrest — an abrupt malfunction of the heart, different from a heart attack — have long been documented among young athletes.

One analysis based on 2016 emergency medical services data estimated that there are more than 23,000 pediatric, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases in the U.S. annually — 4,000 of which were caused by primarily cardiac issues.

Dr. Jonathan Drezner, director of the University of Washington’s Center for Sports Cardiology, said there is “no scientific evidence” that either COVID-19 or the mRNA vaccines have increased sudden cardiac arrest, often referred to as SCA, among athletes.

“SCA has been the leading cause of sudden death in athletes during sports and exercise well before the pandemic ever began,” Drezner said. “There is no evidence that the cases shown in that video were caused by a vaccine.”

A rare risk of myocarditis, a condition that causes inflammation of the heart and tends to occur mostly in young men and teen boys, has been associated with the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. Those affected usually recover quickly, however, and health officials have concluded that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks.

Experts point out that COVID-19 itself carries the risk of myocarditis, too.

Dr. Jonathan Kim, chief of sports cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine and team cardiologist for Atlanta’s NFL, NBA and MLB teams, also disputed the claim that such cardiac issues among athletes are increasing.

“One of the key points that all of us in the sports cardiology community are really trying to emphasize is there have been tragic cases of athletes dying before COVID, and after COVID ends there are going to be tragic cases of sudden cardiac death,” Kim said.

Still, the claims circulate widely online and gain traction in anti-vaccine circles.

Dr. Robert Malone, a self-identified inventor, and now skeptic, of the technology used in some COVID-19 vaccines, shared the “HighWire” video with his more than 440,000 Twitter followers, saying: “Safe and effective?”

Malone deleted it in late November, around the same time a lawyer sent a cease-and-desist order on behalf of the West family. He did not respond to an AP request for comment, but tweeted that he took the video down after learning it had been “doctored.”

While a lack of details makes it impossible to check every case mentioned in the “HighWire” video, many the AP was able to examine had no connection with COVID-19 vaccines. Some local reporting showed environmental factors such as heat exhaustion or different underlying conditions could have played a role.

An early version of the video showed clips of the University of Florida’s Keyontae Johnson collapsing during a basketball game, as did other compilations. But Johnson’s collapse was in December 2020, before vaccines were widely available. University officials confirmed to AP that he was not vaccinated at the time.

Others featured in the video were Florida teen Ryne Jacobs, who collapsed during tennis practice in January 2021, and Danish soccer player Christian Eriksen, who suffered cardiac arrest on the field this June during a match vs. Finland. Neither were vaccinated, according to Jacobs’ family and Eriksen’s club.

The video was updated weeks later after issues were raised with some of the stories it included. Johnson’s and Jacobs’ cases were removed after they were found to be “no longer relevant due to timing or newly disclosed medical records or statements,” Bigtree said in an emailed statement.

West’s story remains in the latest iteration, as do other disputed cases, such as that of Jack Alkhatib, a 17-year-old South Carolina student who died during football practice in August. His mother, Kelly Hewins Alkhatib, said an autopsy revealed he had a rare heart disease unrelated to vaccines.

Some of the other athletes had reportedly received the vaccine, though the status of many others isn’t clear. At least one, Dutch speed skater Kjeld Nuis, reportedly experienced pericarditis after being vaccinated, but he posted on Instagram soon after that he had recovered.

For West’s family members, who have worked to raise awareness about sudden cardiac arrest through their Play for Jake Foundation, seeing his story co-opted in the service of spreading anti-vaccine misinformation has been distressing. His mother, Julie West, questioned whether those behind the videos ever considered the feelings of parents.

“My tragedy of losing my son is always upsetting, and to think that somebody would use that for their gain is very upsetting,” she said. “It’s mind-boggling to me that there are people out there like that that want to spread or have their own agenda.”

___

Associated Press writer Mark Long in Gainesville, Fla., contributed to this report.

USA, CANADA, EU, UK  ITS ALL THE SAME

Nurses in crisis over COVID-19 dig in for better work conditions

 nurses are a little like coal miners. They tend to help each other. They are watching each other's back. They have solidarity.

By Christine Spolar & Mark Kreidler & Rae Ellen Bichell, 

Kaiser Health News

A small group of employees picket outside the Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Calif., on May 19, 2020. The picketers claim management is putting their health and safety at risk because of lax protocols around the treatment of COVID-19 patients, a lack of personal protective equipment and short-staffing. 

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Dec. 16 (UPI) -- In California, which has a strong union tradition, Kaiser Permanente management misjudged workplace tensions during the COVID-19 crisis and risked a walkout of thousands when union nurses balked at signing a four-year contract that would have slashed pay for new hires.

In Colorado, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Massachusetts, nurses have been embroiled in union battles over staffing and work conditions.


A small group of employees picket outside the Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Calif., on May 19, 2020. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

As deadly coronavirus cases spiked this year, daily pressures intensified on hospital floors. Some nurses retired; some became travel nurses, hired by agencies that advertised more than double, even triple, the day rates for intensive care unit, telemetry and emergency room nurses. Others gave up their jobs to avoid possibly carrying the COVID-19 virus home to their families.

"Things had gotten particularly stark for nurses," said Rebecca Kolins Givan, an associate professor of labor studies at Rutgers University.

'Make more at McDonald's'

It was so grim in Pittsburgh that registered nurses at West Penn Hospital, part of the Allegheny Health Network, voted this year to authorize a strike -- less than a year after they unionized with SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania. Chief among their complaints: The hospital system had balked at improving staff ratios even as it offered bonuses, up to $15,000 for some, to hire registered nurses to fill vacancies.

Kathleen Jae, a member of the bargaining team that reached a pact without a work stoppage, said nurses wanted management to work harder to retain veteran staff members: "We had to face the fact that nurses are retiring, nurses are leaving the bedside out of frustration, and, in certain instances this year, nurses had more patients than they felt comfortable taking care of."

RELATED U.S. short on faculty to train next generation of nurses

Allegheny Health Network said the first-ever pact with RNs at West Penn provides "competitive wages and benefits" to help it "recruit and retain talented, experienced nurses."

Liz Soriano-Clark, a teacher-turned-nurse on the bargaining team, said the pandemic had made workers across the health sector more careful and choosier about what jobs they'll take.

"There's a nursing shortage and a shortage of nursing instructors, nationwide. They've seen aides leave. They've seen cleaners leave," Soriano-Clark said. "Why is that? Because they can make more at McDonald's and not have to clean up vomit."


Nurses hold photos of fellow healthcare workers who have died from COVID-19 during a protest calling attention to healthcare infections nationwide and demanding the Trump administration provide extra protective equipment for healthcare workers at the White House on April 21, 2020. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Pho

In September, the American Nurses Association alerted the Biden administration to an "unsustainable nurse staffing shortage facing our country" in a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services. The ANA said a "crisis-level human resource shortage" was evident: Mississippi had 2,000 fewer nurses than it did at the beginning of 2021. Tennessee called on its National Guard to reinforce hospital staffs. Texas was recruiting 2,500 nurses from outside the state.

Union membership among U.S. nurses has inched up over the past 15 years and held steady, at about 17%, for five years, according to unionstats.com, an academic website. But 2021, a year of union organizing and holdouts in such disparate workplaces as Starbucks cafes and John Deere tractor plants, might well be a turning point for essential workers in healthcare.

"If you ask nurses what they want," said Givan, who interviewed dozens of nurses for a 2016 book on healthcare workers, "they want working conditions where they can provide a high level of care. They don't want appreciation that is lip service. They don't want marketing campaigns. They don't want shiny new buildings."

Still, Givan noted, the healthcare sector has spent handsomely to fight unions.

A woman holds a photo of a deceased registered nurse as nurses, elected officials and community members come together to commemorate the final day of Nurses Week with a vigil in Yonkers, N.Y., on May 12, 2020. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

After years of staff retention issues at Longmont United Hospital in Colorado, nurses are awaiting the results of a vote on whether to join National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the United States.

Stephanie Chrisley, a registered nurse in the hospital's ICU, said nurses are regularly caring for double the number of patients considered appropriate -- often three to four "ventilated, sedated, critically ill patients."

She and others protested outside the hospital in early December. They said the company that runs the hospital, Centura Health, this year had employed aggressive union-busting tactics, including disputing a handful of votes, which dragged out the union election for about five months.

In another instance, her colleague Kris Kloster said, Centura, founded by Catholic nuns, issued company-wide emails announcing raises and retention bonuses for everyone except nurses at her hospital.

"Where there should have been newly hired nurses, there were anti-union consultants roaming around the hospital," Chrisley said. Since July, she added, the hospital has lost nearly 80 RNs, "nearly a third of our nursing staff." Longmont United Hospital interim CEO Kristi Olson said in a statement that the hospital "will remain open and fully operational" and that "we are committed to making sure that all voices were heard" in the union election.

Organizing can take a long time, Givan said, pointing to tense labor negotiations in Massachusetts, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. "But when there is a crisis -- what we call a hot shop -- you can get workers to organize quite quickly."

Nurses represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association walked off the job March 8 in Worcester. A chance to break the bitter impasse collapsed when management, Tenet Healthcare, refused to allow some nurses to return to their original jobs. In North Carolina, registered nurses at Mission Hospital in Asheville ratified a contract with the HCA management that locked in 17% raises over three years and set up a committee to review patient care conditions.

A recent poll by Gallup, the global analytics firm, found that the share of Americans who say they approved of unions was at 68%, its highest point since 1965.

Sal Rosselli, president of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, said that in the past year "there has just been an explosion of leads," queries from health workers exploring how to unionize.

Rosselli, whose organization represents about 15,000 health workers, said the pandemic exposed practices that had long antagonized employees. Too many hospitals scrambled for masks, gloves and gowns, he said, and front-line workers were on round-the-clock schedules and facing ghastly daily deaths.

"They weren't keeping their employees and their patients safe," Rosselli said, "and all because these systems were focused on profit over anything else. That has been coming on for a long, long time."

Registered nursing is among the U.S. occupations expected to experience the greatest levels of job growth in the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Employment Projections 2020-2030. Also among the fastest-growing occupations are nurse practitioners, home healthcare aides and assistants. Shortages of RNs and other healthcare workers are expected to be the most intense in the South and West.

Some of the most powerful nursing unions in the nation operate out of California, representing employees in Western states. "The nurses in California have the hours they have, the care they have, the protections they have because of the union," said Soriano-Clark, who has worked at hospitals in California and Pennsylvania.

Ready to picket

Douglas Wong, a physician assistant, never imagined hoisting a "strike" sign outside Riverside Medical Center. But that nearly happened after a sobering breakdown in talks between Kaiser Permanente and a top nurses union at the facility, part of the KP system. Nurses, pharmacists and operations staffers are among the insurers' 160,000-plus unionized employees, according to KP spokesman Marc Brown.

The California-based health system giant tried to force a two-tier pay schedule that would have cut wages for new nurses by 26%. Wong and thousands of allies -- many who dryly noted they had been heralded as "heroes" in the COVID-19 crisis -- prepared to picket in the middle of a pandemic. Kaiser Permanente's demands crumbled when dozens of affiliated unions threatened one-day sympathy strikes.

The tiered-pay demand and an attempt to lower wages in some markets were dropped. Staffing ratios were adjusted to ease safety concerns. Wong said that, despite the pact, the bruising negotiations "felt like a betrayal."

"Make no mistake: This was an enormous win for labor, especially pushing back on the two-tier. At the end of the day, they pulled back. And we made huge strides toward improvement in our staffing," said Wong, a six-year KP employee and an official with the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals.

The negotiations were a marked shift for Kaiser Permanente, which for most of three decades has relied on a labor-management partnership with its unions, emphasizing cooperative decision-making and robust discussions. Talks were held with teams, set around circular tables, hashing out concerns. KP was known for much of the past decade as a market leader in wages and quality of care, and the labor-management partnership was received by academics and labor experts as an innovative, successful approach to managing a workforce.

The health system recently hired new top executives, and, to the surprise of the unions, Kaiser Permanente used negotiations this year to offer the two-tier pay regimen, a tactic used by auto- and steel-makers during economic downturns in the 1980s. The union negotiators noted this: The healthcare giant's management wanted to scale back wages after notching $6.8 billion in net revenue from 2018 to 2020.

On Thursday, workers voted to ratify a four-year contract with KP. The company declined to comment for this article. In a news release, Christian Meisner, KP's chief human resources officer, saidThe Wall Street Journal recently reported that nurses' pay was sweetened in 2021 by thousands of dollars in raises -- handed out without union wrangling -- as hospitals competed for workers. Premier, a healthcare consultancy hired by the Journal, analyzed 60,000 registered nurses' salaries and found that average annual pay, not including overtime or bonuses, grew about 4% in the first nine months of the year, to more than $81,000. That compares with a 2.6% rise in 2019, according to federal data.

Raises don't necessarily mean retention.

"There always seems to be a shortage of nurses," said Professor Paul Clark, who is a former director of Penn State University's School of Labor and Employment Relations and has studied nursing and labor organizing. "But it's important to realize there's not a shortage of RNs. There's a shortage of RNs willing to work under the conditions they've been asked to work."

Aya Healthcare, a national travel nurse provider, has found that the pandemic aggravated historical understaffing at hospitals, spokeswoman Lisa Park said in an email. "There were over 100,000 vacancies at the start of the pandemic. And now, that number has increased to over 195,000," Park said. Travel nurses account for fewer than 2% of the nursing workforce, she added, but "with the increase in permanent vacancies due to burnout/resignations, the demand for temporary healthcare workers has increased."

David Zonderman, a professor of labor history at North Carolina State University, noted that nurses unions have grown more political and more outspoken -- in Washington, D.C., and their home states. Nurses on the hospital floor lived through a crisis -- fearing for their lives amid shortages of protective equipment -- much like the trials of American workers in the mining and manufacturing industries in decades past.

"This may sound weird," Zonderman said, "but nurses are a little like coal miners. They tend to help each other. They are watching each other's back. They have solidarity."

"And," he said, "if you treat people badly long enough, they finally say, 'I'm done.'"

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. Neither KHN nor KFF is affiliated with the health insurance company Kaiser Permanente.

Google still running ads for anti-climate change content, watchdog report says

The report said it found that 50 ads for climate change-denying articles were published after Google's promised policy deadline. 

File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Tech giant Google has not yet fully implemented its pledge to stop running advertisements for articles that deny climate change, according to a watchdog analysis.

Google had said on Oct. 7, ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26 in Scotland, that it would cease running ads that promote content that deny climate and set a Nov. 8 deadline for the policy.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate said in a report Thursday that it found 50 ads for climate change-denying articles were published after the deadline. The non-governmental organization said those ads reached nearly 50,000 interactions on Facebook.

"Climate change denial is a cynical strategy that seeks to delay the action needed to prevent ecological disaster," CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said in a statement.

"In making their initial announcement, Google appears to recognize that they have played a part in making climate change denial a profitable business, and yet they have not followed through with real action."

Last month, the group published a "Toxic Ten" report that showed that just 10 publishers were responsible for almost 70% of Facebook interactions with climate denial content. The analysis said eight of the 10 earned $3.6 million from Google Ads in the six months leading up to Google's pledge.

Thursday's report also cited multiple ads for articles that attacked climate science as "alarmism."

Google said in response to the report that it's "taken appropriate enforcement actions." 

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

Google communications manager Michael Aciman told The Verge after the report was posted that the company has "taken appropriate enforcement actions."

"When we find content that crosses the line from policy debate to promoting climate change denial, we stop serving ads on that page or site," Aciman told The New York Times.

Facebook bans seven companies accused of surveillance for hire

A months-long investigation identified the seven companies over four countries.

 File photo by Kon Karampelas/Unsplash

Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Facebook's parent company Meta on Thursday banned seven surveillance-for-hire companies from the social media platform over concerns about spying that could affect close to 50,000 users.

The Facebook users across 100 countries may have been targeted by the surveillance companies working for both government agencies and private clients.

"We alerted around 50,000 people who we believe were targeted by these malicious activities worldwide, using the system we launched in 2015. We recently updated it to provide people with more granular details about the nature of targeting we detect, in line with the surveillance chain phases framework we shared above" states the report.

"Given the severity of their violations, we have banned them from our services. To help disrupt these activities, we blocked related internet infrastructure, putting them on notice that their targeting of people has no place on our platform."

The move comes after months of investigation by the parent company, which used terms such as "cyber-mercenaries" and "surveillance-for-hire" to describe the bad actors.

The Meta report says the banned companies provide "intrusive software tools and surveillance services indiscriminately to any customer -- regardless of who they target or the human rights abuses they might enable.

The spying was not limited to Facebook. The parent company confirmed that users of Meta-owned Instagram were also targeted with malicious software.

The seven surveillance companies are located across four countries.

Facebook said it removed approximately 1,500 fake accounts, blocked malicious web addresses, and sent cease-and-desist letters to the companies.

END STATE MURDER OF CITIZENS

House Democrats seek answers on federal executions from Justice Department
By Danielle Haynes

House Democrats sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to provide them with an update on the Justice Department's death penalty policies. Photo by Leigh Vogel/UPI | License Photo


Dec. 16 (UPI) -- House Democrats on Thursday asked the Justice Department whether the Biden administration plans to resume federal executions using a single-drug lethal injection protocol.

Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking the Justice Department to provide an update on its policies by Dec. 23.

The request comes nearly five months after the Biden administration issued a moratorium on federal executions pending a review of the Justice Department's policy to use a single drug, pentobarbital, in its lethal injections.

Despite the halt -- and President Joe Biden's stated preference for abolition -- the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in June after it was overturned.

"Given its recent actions, we are concerned that DOJ may renew its efforts to obtain pentobarbital from non-[Food and Drug Administration]-regulated pharmacies for use in future federal executions," the letter read. "This would be consistent with the actions of certain states that have continued using single-drug pentobarbital in state executions."

Former Attorney General William Barr announced plans in 2019 to resume federal executions after an unofficially moratorium since 2003, when the government administered the lethal injection to Louis Jones Jr., who raped and killed Army Pvt. Tracie McBride in 1995.

Barr's Justice Department faced lawsuits, though, over its plan to use a single drug -- pentobarbital -- in its lethal injection protocol. Under federal law, the U.S. government must use the same execution method as the state where the crime was committed and most states use a multi-drug cocktail.

The Trump administration ultimately executed 13 federal death row prisoners between July 2020 and January 2021. Those executions surpass the total number of federal executions that took place between 1949 and 2019.

During his campaign for president, Biden said he opposes the death penalty, despite supporting the punishment as a senator.

"Because we cannot ensure we get death penalty cases right every time, Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government's example," his campaign website said.

Biden's changing views on the issue have reflected an overall decline in support for the death penalty in the United States. A Gallup poll released in November found that 54% of American adults favor the use of the death penalty as a punishment for those convicted of murder, down from 55% in 2020 and 80% in the mid-1990s.

Use of the death penalty also has dropped sharply in recent years. Eleven people were executed in the United States in 2021, down from 17 in 2020 and a high of 98 in 1999 since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. The last time there were this few executions was in 1988.

Twenty-three states have abolished the use of the death penalty, including Virginia in March.

"The death penalty grew increasingly geographically isolated in 2021 and public support dropped to its lowest levels in a half-century," said Robert Dunham, the Death Penalty Information Center's executive director.

"Virginia's repeal created a death-penalty-free zone along the U.S. Atlantic coast that now runs from the Canadian border of Maine to the northern border of the Carolinas. In the west, an execution-free zone spans the Pacific coast from Alaska to Mexico. The handful of states that continue to push for capital punishment are outliers that often disregard due process, botch executions, and dwell in the shadows of long histories of racism and a biased criminal legal system."

ECOCIDE

Poland's border wall will cut Europe's oldest forest in half
By Katarzyna Nowak & Bogdan Jaroszewicz & Michał Żmihorski

Białowieża Forest is rich in dead and decaying wood. Photo by Michał Żmihorski/The Conversation

Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Poland is planning to build a wall along its border with Belarus, primarily to block migrants fleeing the Middle East and Asia.

But the wall would also divide the vast and ancient Białowieża Forest, a UNESCO World Heritage site which harbors more than 12,000 animal species and includes the largest remnants of primeval forest that once covered most of lowland Europe.

Frontiers like this are of conservation priority because they often host unique biodiversity and ecosystems but are increasingly threatened by border fortification. We are experts in forest ecosystems and two of us combined have more than three decades of experience working in Białowieża, at the intersections of forest, plant and bird ecology.

In the journal Science, we recently described how the border wall planned by Poland would jeopardize this trans-boundary forest.

The core of Białowieża is characterized by old-growth forest rich in dead and decaying wood on which mosses, lichens, fungi, insects and also many vertebrates depend. Big animals such as the European bison, boar, lynx and wolf inhabit the forest on both sides of the border.

A wall would block the movement of these animals, for instance preventing brown bears from recolonizing the Polish side of the forest, where they were recently observed after a long absence. The wall would also risk plant invasions and would mean noise and light pollution that will displace wildlife. The influx of people and vehicles, and already accumulated garbage (mainly plastics) also pose risks, including disease -- we already know that humans can transmit COVID-19 to wild species, like deer.

Poland's wall will be 18 feet high, solid, with barbed wire at the top, and will replace an 80-mile provisional 8-foot high razor-wire fence built during summer to autumn 2021. This wall will be high enough to affect low-flying birds, such as grouse.

Impeding wildlife

Poland's proposed wall resembles the barrier built along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border. Research there based on camera-traps shows that such walls deter people less than they impede wildlife. Animals affected by the U.S.-Mexico barrier include jaguars, pygmy owls and a bison herd whose food and water were split by the border.

The fences across Europe are highly varied, and no mitigation standards exist. A razor-wire fence, constructed in 2015 by Slovenia along its border with Croatia, killed deer and herons with a mortality rate of 0.12 ungulates (hoofed mammals) per kilometer of fence. Along the Hungary-Croatia border, mortality in the first 28 months following construction of a fence was higher, at 0.47 ungulates per kilometer. Large congregations of red deer were also observed at the fence line, which could spread disease and upset the predator-prey dynamic by making them easier for wolves to catch.

People can and will use ramps, tunnels and alternative routes by air and sea, whereas wildlife often cannot. Walls have a big human cost, too. They may redirect people, and to a lesser extent wildlife, to more dangerous routes, for example, river crossings or deserts, which may intersect with areas of high natural or cultural value.

Physical barriers such as fences and walls now line nearly 20,000 miles of borders worldwide with significant increases over the past few decades. According to one recent study, nearly 700 mammal species could now find it difficult to cross into different countries, thwarting their adaptation to climate change. The fragmentation of populations and habitats means reduced gene flow within species and less resilient ecosystems.

Security over climate

According to the Transnational Institute, wealthy nations are prioritizing border security over climate action, which contravenes pledges made at COP26, such as protecting the world's forests. Some of the 257 World Heritage forests are releasing more carbon than they absorb, but Białowieża Forest is still a healthy, well-connected landscape. Poland's border wall would put this at risk.

The construction of such walls also tends to bypass or be at odds with environmental laws. They devalue conservation investment and hamper cross-boundary cooperation. It was already hard for us to collaborate with fellow scientists from Belarus -- the new wall will make cross-border scientific work even harder.

It is possible to mitigate the effects of certain border barriers. But that requires, at the very least, identifying at-risk species and habitats, designing fences to minimize ecological harm and targeting mitigation at known wildlife crossing points. It may also mean assisted migration across a barrier for certain species. To our best knowledge no formal assessment of either social or environmental costs has yet been carried out in the case of Poland's planned wall.

It's time conservation biologists made themselves heard, particularly when it comes to the issue of border barriers. As climate change threatens to disrupt borders and migratory patterns of people and of wildlife, we will need to reform, not only policies and frameworks, but also how we perceive borders.

This is already happening without us as "natural borders flood, drift, crumble, or dry up." Walls -- like reactive travel bans -- are out of sync with the global solidarity, and coordinated actions we urgently need to safeguard life on Earth.

Katarzyna Nowak is at Białowieża Geobotanical Station, Department of Biology, at the University of Warsaw; Bogdan Jaroszewicz is a professor of biology and director of Białowieża Geobotanical Station at the University of Warsaw; and Michał Żmihorski is a biogeography research leader at the Mammal Research Institute at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors.


Sponsored

New smart roof coating may provide year-round energy savings, study finds


Samples of an all-season smart-roof coating designed to keep homes warm during the winter and cool during the summer. Photo courtesy of Junqiao Wu/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Dec. 16 (UPI) -- An all-season "smart roof" coating keeps homes warm during the winter and cool during the summer, without using natural gas or electricity, a study published Thursday in the journal Science found.

The technology, called temperature-adaptive radiative coating, outperformed currently available commercial cool-roof systems in energy savings in cities representing 15 different climate zones across the continental United States, the researchers said.

In the study, it reflected about 75% of sunlight year-round, with a thermal emittance of approximately 90% in temperatures above 77 degrees Fahrenheit, releasing heat from the home into the sky, the data showed.

In cooler weather, the coating's thermal emittance automatically switches to about 20%, helping to retain heat from solar absorption and indoor heating.

With temperature-adaptive radiative coating installed, the average household in the United States could save up to 10% of electricity consumption annually, researchers said.

"Our all-season roof coating automatically switches from keeping you cool to warm, depending on outdoor air temperature," study co-author Junqiao Wu said in a press release.

"This is energy-free, emission-free air conditioning and heating, all in one device, said Wu, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

Currently available cool-roof systems, such as reflective coatings, membranes, shingles or tiles, have light-colored or darker surfaces that cool homes by reflecting sunlight.

These systems also emit some of the absorbed solar heat as thermal-infrared radiation as part of a natural process called radiative cooling, the researchers said.

However, many of these cool-roof systems continue to radiate heat in the winter, which drives up heating costs, they said.

Temperature-adaptive radiative coating is designed to create energy savings by automatically turning off the radiative cooling in the winter, overcoming the problem of overcooling, according to the researchers.

The coating is made from vanadium dioxide, a material that behaves like a metal in response to electricity, meaning it conducts it, but acts as an insulator to heat.

Below 153 degrees Fahrenheit, vanadium dioxide is also transparent and thus does not absorb thermal-infrared light.

However, above that temperature, it switches to a metal state, becoming an absorber of thermal-infrared light, according to the researchers.

This ability to switch from one phase to another is characteristic of what's known as a phase-change material. Wu and his colleagues were able to lower its phase-change threshold to 77 degrees Fahrenheit, a more common real-world temperature, by adding tungsten, they said.

By combining vanadium dioxide with the metal tungsten, a process called "doping," the researchers were able to engineer a top layer -- a coating -- for a roof system that also includes a reflective bottom layer made from silver and a transparent middle layer composed of barium fluoride.

That top layer, the temperature-adaptive radiative coating, "looks like Scotch tape, and can be affixed to a solid surface like a rooftop," Wu said.

As part of this study, the researchers set up a rooftop experiment at Wu's East Bay home last summer to demonstrate the technology's performance in a real-world environment.

A wireless measurement device set up on Wu's balcony continuously recorded responses to changes in direct sunlight and outdoor temperature with a temperature-adaptive radiative coating-based roof system and a commercially available product over multiple days.

The researchers then used the data from the outdoor experiment to simulate how temperature-adaptive radiative coating would perform year-round in 15 cities or climate zones across the country, they said.

In addition, using a set of more than 100,000 building energy simulations, the researchers predicted the annual energy savings generated by temperature-adaptive radiative coating, thanks to its ability to reduce the need for both cooling energy in summer and heating energy in winter.

The coating outperformed existing roof coatings for energy savings in 12 of the 15 climate zones, the data showed.

It was most effective in regions with wide temperature variations between day and night, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, or between winter and summer, such as New York City.

The researchers plan to develop temperature-adaptive radiative coating prototypes on a larger scale to further test its performance as a practical roof coating.

It may also have potential as a thermally protective coating to prolong battery life in smartphones and laptops, and shield satellites and cars from extremely high or low temperatures, according to the researchers.

It could also be used to make temperature-regulating fabric for tents, greenhouse coverings and even hats and jackets, the researchers said.

"Simple physics predicted temperature-adaptive radiative coating would work, but we were surprised it would work so well," Wu said.

"We originally thought the switch from warming to cooling wouldn't be so dramatic [but] our simulations, outdoor experiments, and lab experiments proved otherwise," he said.

SAY WHAT

Biden administration pulls out of talks to compensate families separated at border
By Jake Thomas


Young and old activists join demonstrators across the country as they converged on the offices of congressional leaders to demand that detention camps holding immigrant children and their families be closed and voicing outrage over reports of inhumane conditions in Los Angeles in 2019. On Thursday, lawyers and civil rights groups said the Biden administration pulled out of talks to compensate separated families. File photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Dec. 16 (UPI) -- The Biden administration has abandoned negotiations to provide cash payments to thousands of migrant families as compensation for a Trump-era policy that separated parents from their children at the Mexican border.

Lawyers and civil rights groups expressed outrage, pointing to how President Joe biden and top officials had earlier condemned the policy as cruel and promised to make amends.



"This is outrageous behavior by the Biden administration, and every decent American should be shocked," Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Projects, said in a video posted to Twitter.

He said that children as young as six months were taken from their families upon arriving at the U.S.'s southern border with Mexico. Parents didn't know the location of their children, who suffered irreparable trauma, he Gelernt. While the Trump administration devised the policy, "it's now on the Biden administration," he said.

Gelernt told NBC News that the Biden administration should expect legal action that will seek to hold "individual federal officials responsible for family separation."

"While the parties have been unable to reach a global settlement agreement at this time, we remain committed to engaging with the plaintiffs and to bringing justice to the victims of this abhorrent policy," the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.



Biden called the policy "criminal" during the first presidential debate with Trump last year. Human rights groups similarly condemned the hard-line policy meant to deter asylum seekers that separated more than 5,000 children The American Academy of Pediatrics called the policy "government-sanctioned child abuse," and a study found separated children continued to suffer from psychological trauma even after being reunited.


After taking office earlier this year, Biden formed a task force seeking to reunite families. Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in March the administration was "working around the clock to replace the cruelty of the past administration with an orderly, humane and safe immigration process."

Lawyers representing the families told The New York Times that negotiations stalled after a leak in October suggested payments could be as high as $450,000. Conservatives and Republicans responded with withering criticism to the high payments, with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell saying Biden wanted to "literally make millionaires out of people who have violated federal law." Biden dismissed reports of the high payments.

Lawyers for the families told the paper they would seek compensation in court after being surprised by the Biden administration's sudden reversal.

Audi to invest $20 billion in developing 20 all-electric cars by 2025
By UPI Staff

The Audi e-tron S line black edition. Photo courtesy of Audi

Dec. 16 (UPI) -- German car manufacturer Audi on Thursday announced a plan to invest $20 billion into developing electric cars over the next five years.

The company goals include delivering 3 million cars per year, developing 20 fully electric models by 2025, and phasing out internal combustion engine cars by 2033.

From 2033 and on, the company plans to be fully electric.

Audi will also open charging hubs and offer charging options at home. It currently has 26,000 charging hubs in 26 European countries.

Ionity -- a high-power charging network -- will also increase its capacity from 1,500 to 7,000 by 2025, according to the car company.

With 60,000 employees in Germany, the VW subsidiary decided to cut 9,500 jobs at its plants in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm in 2019.

Audi joins Nissan, Subaru, Hyundai, Dodge, and Volvo in the race to develop all-electric cars and contribute to meeting COP26 goals.

Earlier this year, U.S. President Joe Biden set a goal for half of all new vehicles to be electric by 2030.

Full 'Cold Moon' to illuminate weekend before Christmas

By Brian Lada, AccuWeather, Accuweather.com

The nights surrounding the December solstice are the longest of the year across the Northern Hemisphere, and this year, the nights leading up to the beginning of astronomical winter will be a bit brighter than normal.

Just three nights before the winter solstice, which occurs on Dec. 21 at 10:59 a.m. EST, the full moon will illuminate the sky.

December's full moon has been given several nicknames over the years, many of which revolve around the chilly weather that starts to settle across North America at the onset of winter.

One of the most popular nicknames is the Full Cold Moon, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.

"This is the month when the winter cold fastens its grip and the nights become long and dark," the Old Farmer's Almanac explained on its website.

Other nicknames for December's full moon include the Little Spirit Moon, the Long Night Moon, the Winter Maker Moon and the Hoar Frost Moon.

A full moon rises over a snow-covered landscape. (Frank Cone)

Saturday night's full moon will be just one of several celestial objects to spot in the sky this weekend.

Venus, Saturn and Jupiter continue to shine in a line across the southwestern sky after sunset, offering more opportunities to enjoy views of the planets with or without a telescope.

A few stray shooting stars could also be seen this weekend following the Geminid meteor shower, which peaked on Dec. 13, and ahead of the approaching Ursid meteor shower, which peaks on Dec. 21.

The next full moon is set to rise on Jan. 17, 2022, and this moon also has several weather-themed nicknames, including the Freeze Moon and Frost Exploding Moon.

'Christmas comet' to zip through sky, won't be back for 80,000 years
By Brian Lada, Accuweather.com

Comet Leonard seen with the help of a telescope on November 28. Photo courtesy of University of Hertfordshire Observatory

The 2020 holiday season featured a "Christmas star" when Jupiter and Saturn appeared extremely close and shined together, and this year, stargazers are in for another gift as the brightest comet of 2021 races through the evening sky.

Comet C/2021 A1, more commonly referred to as comet Leonard, was discovered earlier this year and made its closest approach to the Earth on Sunday. Before its approach, it was visible only in the early morning sky, but its journey has now made it more prominent in the evening sky, making it a target for backyard stargazers.

The "Christmas comet" will appear in the evening sky throughout the rest of the year, but folks should look for it sooner rather than later as it will become dimmer and dimmer heading into the final days of December.

Comet Leonard is not expected to be a repeat of comet NEOWISE, which impressed stargazers last year on its journey through the inner solar system.

"Based on how bright comet Leonard has been appearing recently, it looks like it will not be as bright as last year's comet NEOWISE," said Gordon Johnston, a program executive at NASA headquarters.

"This comet should be visible with a backyard telescope or binoculars and may be visible to the naked eye under very clear and dark observing conditions," Johnston said.

Even with the help of a telescope or binoculars, it will look like a fuzzy green star with a small tail.

The green track shows where Comet Leonard will appear in the sky through Dec. 25, 2021. Image courtesy of NASA

Friday will be a good opportunity to spot the comet as it will appear directly below Venus after sunset.

The fuzzy green comet will continue to glow below and to the left of Venus through the weekend before eventually shifting directly to the left of Venus by Christmas.

"Viewers will need a clear view of the horizon, as the comet will only be a few degrees above the horizon as evening twilight ends," Johnston said

The coming nights will be the only chance to see comet Leonard as it will not swing past the Earth again for another 80,000 years.

After comet Leonard fades into the depths of the solar system, it is difficult to say for sure when another comet will emerge from the darkness and become bright enough to see with the naked eye.

The University of Hawai'i discovered comet C/2021 O3 (PANSTARRS) earlier this year and predicts that it could be bright enough to see without the help of a telescope or binoculars in late April or early May of 2022, but it is difficult to say for certain.

"Comets are notoriously difficult to predict in terms of brightness and visibility," NASA explained. "With comets, you really never know."

Isolated cases of deadly 'black fungus' spotted in U.S. COVID-19 patients
By Ernie Mundell, HealthDay News

Some patients in India earlier this year contracted "black fungus" during recovery from COVID-19, with officials reporting that isolated cases of the infection have now been found in the United States. File Photo by Adi Weda/EPA-EFE

It's a phenomenon first identified in India earlier this year: Patients who have or are recovering from COVID-19 who then contract a sometimes deadly fungal infection known as mucormycosis -- also known as "black fungus."

Now, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said isolated cases of the disease are hitting COVID-19 patients in the United States.

"During Sept. 17-24, 2021, three clinicians independently notified the Arkansas Department of Health [ADH] of multiple patients with mucormycosis after a recent diagnosis of COVID-19," CDC researchers reported.

The condition is caused by a variety of naturally occurring fungi that are typically harmless, but can trigger illness in folks whose immune systems have been depleted by illness, including COVID-19.

In a statement issued by the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in May, experts there explained that "people catch mucormycosis by coming in contact with the fungal spores in the environment [soil or decomposing leaves]. It can also develop on the skin after the fungus enters the skin through a cut, scrape, burn or other type of skin trauma."

"Mucormycosis begins to manifest as skin infection in the air pockets located behind our forehead, nose, cheekbones, and in between the eyes and teeth," the Indian agency added.

"It then spreads to eyes, lungs and can even spread to the brain. It leads to blackening or discoloration over the nose, blurred or double vision, chest pain, breathing difficulties and coughing of blood," the agency said.

Once established, "black fungus" disease is tough to treat.

As the Indian experts explained, "treatment involves surgically removing all dead and infected tissue. In some patients, this may result in loss of upper jaw or sometimes even the eye. Cure may also involve a 4-6-week course of intravenous antifungal therapy. Since it affects various parts of the body, treatment requires a team of microbiologists, internal medicine specialists, intensivist neurologists, ENT specialists, ophthalmologists, dentists, surgeons and others."

Reporting in Friday's issue of the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers led by CDC epidemiologist Dr. Jeremy Gold said they identified 10 lab-confirmed cases of black fungus illness in patients treated at six Arkansas hospitals between July 12 and Sept. 28, 2021.

Nine of the 10 patients lived in the state, all were white, seven were men and the average patient age was 57.

All had tested positive for COVID-19 within the previous two months, and eight of the 10 patients also had diabetes -- another noted risk factor for contracting mucormycosis, the researchers noted.

Many cases were severe -- four patients showed disease that had spread to the nose and mouth, with three of those patients also having the brain affected.

In two cases, the illness attacked the lungs, and in one case the gastrointestinal system was affected, Gold's team said.

None of the patients had been vaccinated against the new coronavirus.

Besides battling mucormycosis, eight of the patients suffered such severe cases of COVID-19 that they required either supplemental oxygen or mechanical ventilation to breathe, the researchers said.

Most patients did not survive their ordeal: "Five patients received surgical treatment to excise mucormycosis-affected tissue," the CDC researchers said, and "six of the 10 patients died during hospitalization or within one week of discharge."

The team noted that the outbreak in black fungus cases in Arkansas coincided with a midsummer statewide surge in COVID-19 cases, driven by the emergence and spread of the Delta variant.

In the absence of COVID-19, mucormycosis is exceedingly rare in Arkansas or other states. However, based on the summer outbreak, the Arkansas Department of Health "coordinated a statewide call on Oct. 11, 2021 to infection preventionists for COVID-19-associated mucormycosis cases," the researchers said.

Dr. Amesh Adalja is senior scholar at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. He wasn't involved in the new report, but said "it is not surprising that mucormycosis is also able to 'super-infect' COVID-19 patients who have severe immune dysregulation."

As they battle COVID-19, some of these patients may also be receiving medications that suppress their immune systems, such as dexamethasone or tocilizumab, and many will have already suffered lung damage, Adalja pointed out. That leaves them even more vulnerable to fungal infections such as mucormycosis.

Of course, many of the tragedies outlined in the Arkansas report could have been easily avoided, he added.

"The best prevention is to not have a case of severe COVID-19 in the first place, by being vaccinated," Adalja said.

More information

Find out more about mycormycosis and its link to COVID-19 at the American Society for Microbiology.

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