Tyler Perry stirs crowd contrasting Harris and Trump: America is a 'quilt' — not a 'sheet’

Matthew Chapman
October 24, 2024 

RAW STORY

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris (AFP)


Actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry invoked a deep analogy on the stage of Vice President Kamala Harris' jam-packed stadium rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, comparing Harris and former President Donald Trump's visions of America to a "quilt" versus a "sheet."

It's the latest in a long series of celebrity appearances at the star-studded rally, which also featured former President Barack Obama and rock star Bruce Springsteen playing "Land of Hope and Dreams."

"I'm closing here, I just want to talk about that quilt that I used to wrap up in my car, the quilt that my grandmother gave me," said Perry. "That quilt was a tapestry of beautiful pieces, but I completely ignored it, I didn't think it was worth anything, because she had made it from all of these stitches and gave it to me as a gift. And I was walking past this antique store years later, and I saw one in the window, and I go, 'Wow, that's a beautiful quilt, it reminds me of my grandmother.' So I walk in, I talk to the lady, and she started explaining to me that each patch in that quilt was worth this, and meant this, because of the woman who made it."

"So when I think about America, I think about my grandmother's quilt," said Perry. "We are all shapes, sizes, and colors, but we are one. "And it was so important for me to stand with a candidate who understands that we as Americans, we are a quilt. And I could never stand with a candidate who wants America to be a sheet."

This comes as Trump rallies in Tempe, Arizona, with a polar opposite message to his voters, raging against the presence of immigrants throughout America.


“They unleashed an army of migrant gangs waging a campaign of violence,” said Trump. “We're a dumping ground. We're like a garbage can for the world.”

Watch the video below or at the link here.

'Outrageous abuse of power': Governor slams Trump for withholding aid after criticism

Carl Gibson, AlterNet
October 24, 2024 

A new report describes how former President Donald Trump routinely denied federal disaster aid money to states whose governors either criticized him or declared President Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election. And he didn't discriminate between Democratic and Republican critics. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

A new report describes how former President Donald Trump routinely denied federal disaster aid money to states whose governors either criticized him or declared President Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election. And he didn't discriminate between Democratic and Republican critics.

Politico's E&E News reported Thursday that when natural disasters hit states led by governors Trump disliked, he either withheld, delayed or outright denied aid for political reasons. In 2020, when Washington state was affected by wildfires, Democratic Governor Jay Inslee requested $37 million in aid for the affected areas. But even though the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) found that the Evergreen State's wildfires met the threshold for a federal disaster, Trump sat on the request for the final four months of presidency, only approving it just prior to leaving office.

"It really was an outrageous abuse of power," Inslee told E&E.

Inslee, who unsuccessfully sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, had previously criticized the ex-president's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic when he said the federal response to the virus would "be more successful if the Trump administration stuck to the science and told the truth." Trump bristled at the critique, and called the governor a "snake" and a "nasty person."

Two days before Inslee requested federal assistance, he slammed the former president's "reckless statements" about global warming and his "gutting of environmental policies." The irony of Trump withholding aid to Washington state is that even though it's considered safe Democratic territory in presidential elections, the wildfires primarily affected the eastern part of the state, which is solidly Republican.

While Washington state eventually got aid money from the federal government, the Trump administration didn't send any aid at all to Maryland after Republican Governor Larry Hogan requested it. Hogan — who also criticized Trump's oversight during the pandemic and bought 500,000 Covid tests from South Korea — sought federal money to recover from a tropical storm that FEMA said met the disaster threshold. However, Trump never officially approved his November 12 request. Trump attacked the Republican governor from his official Twitter (now X) account, labeled him a RINO [Republican in name only] and said he was "just as bad as the flawed tests he paid big money for!"

Biden ultimately approved the aid request in February of 2021. However, the damage had already been done. Russell Strickland, the director of the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, said the "delay [in receiving aid] caused us to miss opportunities" to better protect residents against future natural disasters.

"Citizens do not have the ability to wait months to receive assistance and return to their homes and businesses," Strickland said.

Utah Republican Governor Gary Herbert also experienced Trump's vindictiveness when he requested federal aid in October of 2020 for a series of destructive storms. Even though FEMA estimated the storms more than surpassed the threshold to qualify for assistance, the former president still took 97 days before finally approving Herbert's request. Notably, Herbert was one of the first Republican elected officials to recognize Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, and denounced his state's Republican attorney general for adding his name to an effort to overturn election results.

E&E's report is particularly noteworthy as Trump has baselessly accused Biden of failing to adequately respond to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. In reality, governors from both parties praised the Biden administration for rapidly declaring federal emergencies in the affected states in order to expedite the deployment of federal resources to the hardest-hit areas. Even Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto called Trump's claims about Biden's hurricane relief efforts "wrong" and "bull."

Click here to E&E's report in its entirety.

Political divisions deepen over Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson’s innocence claim

Kayla Guo, Texas Tribune
October 25, 2024 


A week after death row inmate Robert Roberson was set to die, the extraordinary quest to save his life has morphed into a deepening political battle between Texas House lawmakers and the state’s leading Republicans as they trade bitter accusations and push conflicting narratives around his guilt — or likely innocence.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday condemned the bipartisan Texas House committee that forced a delay of Roberson’s execution, saying it “stepped out of line.”

Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a graphic press release Wednesday, insisted on Roberson’s guilt and accused the committee of pursuing “eleventh-hour, one-sided, extrajudicial stunts that attempt to obscure the facts and rewrite his past.”
Reference


Read the Texas House members’ rebuttal of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s statement.
(1.5 MB)

Lawmakers, in return, blasted Paxton for publishing a “misleading and in large part simply untrue” summation of Roberson’s case.

State Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, along with Reps. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, Rhetta Andrews Bowers, D-Rowlett, and Lacey Hull, R-Houston, issued a 16-page, point-by-point rebuttal on Thursday to Paxton’s release, including citations and exhibits shown at trial and since recovered during the appeals process.

The Office of the Attorney General attached the autopsy report of Roberson’s 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, whom he was convicted of killing, and a statement from the medical examiner who performed it. But Paxton otherwise referred broadly to the trial record and did not acknowledge any of the new evidence presented in Roberson’s appeals.

“There are no new facts in the OAG’s statement, only a collection of exaggerations, misrepresentations and full-on untruths completely divorced from fact and context,” Moody wrote on social media Thursday.


The political fight over Roberson’s execution came as a result of the unusual transfer in venue for debate over his case from the courtroom to the broader public discourse — a shift wrought when the courts shut down all of Roberson’s appeals and lawmakers, convinced of his likely innocence or at least of a failure by the courts, turned to their bully pulpit to intervene.

As part of a rare campaign to stop Roberson’s execution, the Texas Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence held two, daylong hearings featuring a stream of experts and advocates testifying live to his innocence.

“These people believe Robert isn’t guilty,” Moody, Leach, Bowers and Hull wrote in their rebuttal. “These people know Robert didn’t get a fair trial.”


The clash of narratives around Roberson’s guilt or innocence has since played out in the public sphere — the Texas Capitol, social media and dueling press releases — turning every observer into a quasi-juror, judge and potential executioner.

Paxton stepped in shortly after Roberson’s execution was halted to quash plans for Roberson to testify before the House criminal jurisprudence committee in person at the Capitol. His office said Roberson would only testify over video “in the interest of public safety,” to which Roberson’s attorney and the committee objected.

Doug Deason, a GOP megadonor and Abbott ally, called Paxton’s release “completely unhinged from reality,” while former Texas Republican Party Chair Matt Rinaldi described the response to the release from Roberson’s attorney as “gaslighting at its finest.”


Roberson was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for the death of his chronically ill daughter. He has maintained his innocence over two decades on death row while seeking unsuccessfully to use Texas’ 2013 junk science law to argue that the shaken baby syndrome diagnosis at the crux of his conviction is scientifically unsound.

The Texas Supreme Court stopped Roberson’s execution on Oct. 17 after a subpoena issued by the House panel touched off a separation of powers issue between the state’s legislative and executive branches. Roberson still faces the death penalty, but his execution has been delayed pending the resolution of that constitutional conflict.

The argument to carry on with Roberson’s death sentence as pushed by Paxton, the state’s top law enforcement officer, relied on a sometimes misleading and incomplete summation of his trial — itself, Roberson’s advocates say, tainted by a discredited shaken baby diagnosis, incomplete medical records, uncorroborated and prejudicial allegations of sexual abuse, bias against a man with undiagnosed autism, and non-credible testimony about Roberson’s history.


Roberson’s supporters point to reams of new scientific and medical evidence that suggest Nikki died from undiagnosed pneumonia, which suppressed her breathing and was worsened by medications that are no longer prescribed to children, leading to bleeding and swelling in her brain.

The lawmakers in Thursday’s rebuttal refuted Paxton’s claims that Nikki had extensive bruising when Roberson brought her to the hospital, and that she died not only from being violently shaken, but also from “blunt force head injuries” caused by beating.

The autopsy photos, they said, show “almost no outward injuries” — a fact the state acknowledged at trial when asking the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy to explain the “large discrepancy” between “what you see on the outside and what you see on the inside.” The lack of external injuries, in fact, is what led a doctor to diagnose shaken baby syndrome, the lawmakers wrote.


In response to Paxton’s claim that Roberson had a history of violence and domestic abuse, the lawmakers argued that the witnesses who gave that testimony at trial had serious credibility issues and provided no corroborating evidence.

They also condemned Paxton’s reference to another inmate’s claim that Roberson had admitted to molesting his daughter — a report so dubious that even the prosecution did not include it in its case.

“By including this information, the OAG has repeated a lie with, at best, a complete indifference to the truth,” the lawmakers wrote. “The ‘jailhouse snitch’ here wove a tale so outrageously contrary to the evidence that prosecutors didn’t use it at trial.”


And they highlighted the “mountain of evidence and changed science that’s accumulated since Robert’s trial — the same changed science that caused the Court of Criminal Appeals” to overturn another shaken baby conviction out of Dallas County this month.

Roberson’s attorneys issued their own 27-page rebuttal Thursday in response to Paxton’s release.

“We know that the laws our Legislature created to correct those problems haven’t worked as intended for Robert and people like him,” the lawmakers wrote.” That’s why we’re here and why we won’t quit.”

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/24/texas-robert-roberson-execution-political-battle/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

FOUR YEARS TOO LATE

US Lawmakers urge Justice Department to investigate Jared Kushner as unregistered Saudi agent

Matthew Chapman

RAW STORY
October 24, 2024

Jared Kushner participates in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords between Israel, UAE and Bahrain at the White House. (Shutterstock.com)

A pair of lawmakers called on the Justice Department to investigate former President Donald Trump's son-in-law under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, arguing that he may be illegally acting as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of Saudi Arabia, Politico reported Thursday.

Kushner's financial ties to the country — which have grown extensively since the former president left office — have raised alarms from legal experts for years.

According to the report, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) "sent a letter on Thursday to [Attorney General Merrick] Garland, urging the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate if Kushner had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. They point, among other things, to Saudi government-linked investors for his firm and reports that Kushner is playing an informal advisory role to Trump’s campaign."

Kushner, who was intimately involved in negotiations with Middle Eastern countries when Trump was in office, inked a $2 billion investment deal from the Saudi government's Public Investment Fund in 2021, shortly after Trump left.

The Saudi royal family, whose crown prince Mohammed bin Salman was a beneficiary of Kushner's White House work and who has been extensively praised by Trump despite his involvement in the murder of a Washington Post journalist, oversees the PIF, and reporting has indicated that the Kushner deal was approved over objections by the managers leading it.

“The scale of these undisclosed foreign payments to Mr. Kushner coupled with the national security implications of his apparent ongoing efforts to sell political influence to the highest foreign bidder are unprecedented and demand action from DOJ,” the letter stated. “We therefore urge you to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate whether Mr. Kushner is influencing U.S. domestic and foreign policy on behalf of foreign government clients without making the appropriate mandatory disclosures.”

FARA exists to require anyone who is representing a foreign government to make their ties clear to the public. Some other people in Trump's orbit have been criminally charged with violating this statute.

Split Gen Z: Gender divide grows in US youth vote


AFP
October 24, 2024


Young men have moved in unexpected numbers to the right in US politics, providing Donald Trump with fertile new ground - Copyright AFP Pablo PORCIUNCULA
Aurélia END

An unexpected schism among American youth could decide the US presidential election, with young women largely leaning left to back Kamala Harris, but many men turning right to rally behind Donald Trump, according to polls.

The growing gender divide means Harris is having to fight Trump for a big chunk of the youth vote — and it’s a battle that will be played out vividly on Friday.

Trump, who has already spent time with young social media influencers from the kickboxing and cryptocurrency worlds, will head to Texas for an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, a podcast reaching a largely male audience of millions.

Facing the tightest of elections, the Republican ex-president is betting he can tip the scales thanks to surging support from young men drawn to his brand of macho politics, real estate business lore, and love of sports talk.

Harris will also be in Texas, but aiming her message loudly and clearly at young women.

Joined by superstar Beyonce, the queen of US pop culture feminism, Harris is set to deliver a speech on abortion rights in a state that has imposed some of the most radical restrictions in the country.

Overall, the youth vote still very much tends to favor the Democratic Party.

A Harvard University poll released in September of 18- to 29-year-olds who plan to vote gave Harris a 31-point advantage over Trump.

But the same poll found 70 percent of young women planned to vote for Harris and 23 percent for Trump. Among young men, however, Harris had the support of only 53 percent, while Trump got 36 percent.

A more recent NBC poll of the same age-range showed an even starker divide: 59 percent of young women favored Harris to Trump’s 26 percent, but among young men the margin narrowed considerably, 42 percent for Harris and 40 percent for Trump.

– Clashing visions –

“I’m worried about women’s rights, and especially women’s health care. It’s like, they’re already trying to take away our right for an abortion, what else can they take away? What’s next?” asked Madeline Tena, an 18-year-old medical student in Arizona.

Tena, who follows campaign news through TikTok, said “I’m going to vote for Kamala, because based on what I’ve seen on social media, Kamala looks a lot better than Trump,” who can appear “really childish.”

On the other hand, Zackree Kline, who at 21 is working 60-hour weeks as a waiter and at a funeral home in Pennsylvania to get by, said he was won over by Trump’s image as good for the economy.

“I know a lot of people are still in favor of Trump, just because everything was a lot lower when he was president,” he said, referring to prices.

Jennie Sweet-Cushman, a Chatham University political science professor, has noticed something deeper: a growing rift in how young Americans see their futures.

The women are increasingly likely to get college degrees and to leave the Republican camp, she said. The men are embracing the right.

“When I asked my students if they plan on having children, the young men pretty consistently do see themselves as having children someday. And almost none of the young women do,” she said.

– Losing their religion –

Studies show that a growing number of young US women are shunning traditional conservative ideas about family, marriage and sexuality and are also distancing themselves from religion in a country where faith and politics can be closely linked.

An April poll by the Survey Center on American Life found that post-World War II, men were more likely than women to leave the religion in which they were raised.

But in Gen Z — people born from the late 1990s to early 2010s — it is the other way around, with women representing 54 percent of those who leave their religion.

Whether these gender dynamics will be decisive on Election Day is impossible to say, given the many variables in such a tight contest.

But one thing is clear: women are historically far more likely to vote.

“Women have outnumbered and out-voted men for over 40 years in American politics. And so there’s, you know, no indicator that that would be different in 2024,” Kelly Dittmar, a professor of political science at Rutgers University, said.

At US border, frustration over immigration as political football


AFP
October 24, 2024


Image: — © Frederic J. Brown, AFP
Romain FONSEGRIVES

In her store located a stone’s throw from the wall separating the United States and Mexico, Ida Pedrego sighs at the thought of White House hopefuls visiting the border to talk about immigration.

Last month, she saw Democrat Kamala Harris arrive in Douglas for a photo op at the looming metal barrier and then a speech in a nearby building.

The month before, Donald Trump was about an hour’s drive away, holding forth about what a disaster he thinks the situation is.

“The problem is… they come and they’re here for a few minutes,” the 72-year-old told AFP.

“What can you see? What can you learn in such a fast time?”

Immigration is repeatedly cited as a major issue for voters ahead of next month’s presidential election.

But of the seven swing states expected to decide who gets the keys to the White House, only Arizona has a border with Mexico.

That means it gets a lot of attention from the candidates and their surrogates.

For Pedrego, a Democrat, the attention — and the misrepresentation she feels she hears from Trump — is tiring.

His apocalyptic vision of a country overwhelmed by hordes of the insane and the unrelentingly criminal, where unsanctioned foreigners wreak violence on a cowering population, is utterly unrecognizable to her.

“Douglas is one of the safest communities,” she says, noting that violent crime is a rarity and there is so little petty theft that she doesn’t even lock her car.

The town’s Republican mayor, Donald Huish, agrees.

“We don’t have the crime that people seem to think is associated with living on the border,” he says.

“That’s not true. It’s totally not true.”

Huish, who describes himself as “an old school Republican,” says neither side of the political debate takes the issue of the border seriously.

The American city of Douglas is separated from Mexico’s Agua Prieta by the border wall, but they are linked by family and economy – Copyright AFP Olivier Touron

Trump’s inflammatory sensationalism — with his talk of immigrants eating people’s pets — is no better than what he considers the Democratic Party’s laissez-faire talk of decriminalizing illegal crossings.

“People don’t understand the border,” says the 65-year-old Huish, a native of Douglas.

– ‘Frustrating’ –

In this dusty town of 16,000, Spanish jumbles freely with English in the restaurants, bars and stores.

Many here have family in Agua Prieta, a 100,000-strong city on the other side of the wall, whose factories and economic dynamism are crucial to the lifeblood of Douglas.

The record influx of migrants recorded under President Joe Biden was not felt in Douglas for a long time, but when they began arriving last winter, the city organized itself.

Migrants were housed in a church, or transferred by bus each day to somewhere else in the United States.

Between September and March, Douglas saw 8,400 people pass through.

Dealing with them stretched the border police force, which usually dedicates itself to the fight against drug trafficking — a problem that has beset the town for decades.

Huish says he wants more resources to tackle the scourge — like those promised in the bipartisan immigration bill that Congress drafted in the spring, which Democrats say Trump sank because he did not want the problem fixed before the election.

“It’s frustrating,” the mayor says.

Immigration is being used like “a political football” that the parties are passing back and forth, he says.

“I wish somebody would just stop and bring out the (video replay) and look at the situation and see what’s best.”

– Deadly consequences –

During her visit to Douglas, Harris said she would resurrect the bipartisan bill if she wins, and would maintain an executive order issued by Biden that has largely shut off the flow of migrants.

But like many Republicans, Timm Klump has no confidence in the vice president.

On his ranch that abuts the border, flood gates designed to protect the land in the event of heavy rainfall have been left open since 2021, he says, allowing anyone to just wander across from Mexico.

“I think it says like, ‘hey, the previous administration built a wall, we’re not maintaining it. We just want to destroy what they did, come in as much as you want’,” he says.

The 35-year-old rancher says he often comes across thirsty migrants on his land. Occasionally, he finds their desiccated corpses.

People who have died in the desert are honored every Tuesday at a vigil in Douglas, with dozens of white crosses placed on the sidewalk.

The crosses are tended by Mark Adams of the Frontera de Cristo, a Presbyterian ministry that works on both sides of the border.

In the 25 years he has been helping migrants in Douglas, Adams says he has seen the wall grow a little in some way under each president.

But the problems continue.

At fault, he says, is Congress, which for decades has refused to take on the difficult but vital issue of immigration reform, which needs to go hand-in-hand with border security.

Without one, you’ll never have the other, Adams says.

“Instead of addressing the root causes of the realities of migration… we’ve continued a policy that has led to death,” he says.

US unveils national security memorandum on AI


AFP
October 24, 2024


US regulators have begun investigating tech giants' investments in generative artificial intelligence startups including OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.

 — © AFP/File Pau BARRENA

The United States unveiled Thursday a framework to address national security risks posed by artificial intelligence, a year after President Joe Biden issued an executive order on regulating the technology.

The National Security Memorandum (NSM) seeks to thread the needle between harnessing the technology to counter the military use of AI by adversaries such as China while building effective safeguards that uphold public trust, officials said.

“There are very clear national security applications of artificial intelligence, including in areas like cybersecurity and counterintelligence,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters.

“Countries like China recognize similar opportunities to modernize and revolutionize their own military and intelligence capabilities.

“It’s particularly imperative that we accelerate our national security communities’ adoption and use of cutting-edge AI capabilities to maintain our competitive edge.”

Last October, Biden ordered the National Security Council and the White House Chief of Staff to develop the memorandum.

The administration of US President Joe Biden is seeking to both counter artificial intelligence as a military threat, and build safeguards to uphold public trust 

– Copyright AFP Mandel NGAN

The instruction came as he issued an executive order on regulating AI, aiming for the United States to “lead the way” in global efforts to manage the technology’s risks.

The order, hailed by the White House as a “landmark” move, directed federal agencies to set new safety standards for AI systems and required developers to share their safety test results and other critical information with the US government.

US officials expect that the rapidly evolving AI technology will unleash military and intelligence competition between global powers.

American security agencies were being directed to gain access to the “most powerful AI systems,” which involves substantial efforts on procurement, a second administration official said.

“We believe that we must out-compete our adversaries and mitigate the threats posed by adversary use of AI,” the official told reporters.

The NSM, he added, seeks to ensure the government is “accelerating adoption in a smart way, in a responsible way.”

Alongside the memorandum, the government is set to issue a framework document that provides guidance on “how agencies can and cannot use AI,” the official said.

In July, more than a dozen civil society groups such as the Center for Democracy & Technology sent an open letter to the Biden administration officials, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, calling for robust safeguards to be built into the NSM.

“Despite pledges of transparency, little is known about the AI being deployed by the country’s largest intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement entities like the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, and Central Intelligence Agency,” the letter said.

“Its deployment in national security contexts also risks perpetuating racial, ethnic or religious prejudice, and entrenching violations of privacy, civil rights and civil liberties.”

Sullivan is set to highlight the NSM in an address at the National Defense University in Washington on Thursday, the officials said.

Most of the memorandum is unclassified and will be released publicly, while also containing a classified annex that primarily addresses adversary threats, they added.

New research on mpox, dengue, malaria at tropical medicines event


ByDr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
October 22, 2024

A scientist harvests H7N9 virus growing in bird eggs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received samples of the virus from China. — James Gathany/CDC/Douglas E. Jordan / (CC0 1.0)

The 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene is set to convene thousands of scientists and public health specialists in New Orleans to embrace global health.

Researchers and policy experts will meet against the backdrop of a world still facing regular waves of COVID-19 infections while dealing with a host of new challenges. This includes the declaration of mpox as a global health emergency.

The mpox symposium at the conference will focus on the fight against the recent surge of infections in sub-Saharan Africa and the emergence of an especially dangerous strain that prompted WHO to declare a public health emergency of international concern.

Related mpox presentations at TropMed include new research documenting potentially protective immune responses generated by both mpox and smallpox vaccinations — insights that could inform the development of new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics–and evidence that mpox infections may have been spreading in East Africa. This is the region where the disease was not known to be common, earlier than the 2024 outbreak.

Also under the spotlight is the U.S. threat from Chagas Disease. Experts in this neglected parasitic disease — primarily spread by insects known as kissing bugs — are set to explore the latest evidence for a potentially growing presence in the continental U.S, notably probing risks in California, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arizona and Texas.

As an example, researchers from Tulane are investigating whether the Chagas parasite is circulating among insects and rodents in rural and urban areas of New Orleans.

Further with the U.S., as global progress against leprosy is stagnating — and armadillos emerging as potential carriers in the U.S. — a symposium brings global and domestic experts together to reinvigorate the global fight against the ancient disfiguring bacterial infection also known as Hansen’s disease.

To add to these issues, there has been a surge of dengue outbreaks globally (and rising risks in the U.S.); the worrisome rise of highly pathogenic influenza (H5N1) infections in animal populations and humans with close contact (like U.S. dairy workers); Oropouche virus outbreaks, many of which are under the radar due to lack of approved diagnostic tests.

Furthermore, there have been cholera and diphtheria outbreaks amidst Haiti’s political crisis. There has been a resurgence of cholera in 2022, after two years of relatively low levels of infections, along with diphtheria outbreaks and a potential threat to HIV programs. In addition, a cholera symposium will present evidence from clinical trials testing new cholera vaccines as the world grapples with a vaccine shortage caused by a surge of outbreaks globally in 2021 and 2022.

There is some cause for optimism including the latest evidence from clinical trials of monoclonal antibodies that have shown early promise in providing strong protection against malaria; as well as the latest tools and strategies that could eliminate sleeping sickness.

Monique Wasunna, Africa ambassador for the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and former chief research officer at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), will deliver the opening keynote at the conference.

Dr. Wasunna has served as a principal investigator for clinical trials focused on new treatments for visceral leishmaniasis, malaria and HIV.

S. Korean Olympic shooter Kim keeps cool over newfound fame


AFP
October 23, 2024


South Korean shooter Kim Ye-ji launched to fame after a video of her nonchalantly firing went viral - Copyright AFP Jung Yeon-je
Cat Barton and Kang Jin-kyu

When Kim Ye-ji first tried shooting at age 12 she could not lift the gun. Now, she is the world’s most internet-famous Olympic shooter, thanks to her steel nerves — and Elon Musk.

Kim, 32, won silver in the women’s 10m air pistol at this summer’s Paris Olympics and captured the internet’s attention with her nonchalant cool. But she told AFP that she fell into her sport by accident.

When her middle school teacher asked for volunteers to try shooting, Kim did not raise her hand but was selected anyway. Despite being too small to hoist the pistol, she was hooked.

“I thought it looked cool,” Kim, dressed in an oversized black suit and heels after a commercial photoshoot, told AFP at a shooting range in Seoul. Her visit to the venue prompted gasps of excitement from other young Koreans at the firing line.

Her parents strongly opposed her taking up shooting, but “for three days, I didn’t eat and just cried, begging to be allowed,” Kim said. Eventually, they relented.

“I didn’t have a clear goal when it came to my studies. But with shooting… I knew I had to be the best,” she said.

She has dedicated her life to shooting ever since. In Paris, she said she had a “single goal — winning a medal.”

She was not using social media at the time, viewing it as “toxic” and a distraction from training, so she was initially unaware when videos of her shooting started going viral.

At a photo session with other medalists in Paris, where journalists told her she had “a lot of Brazilian fans” and asked her to greet them in Portuguese, she started to realise something had happened.

“I didn’t think of myself as special, and I still don’t,” she told AFP.

“There are many other medalists with lots of fans, and I just see myself as one of them.”

– Internet sensation –

The video that launched Kim to stardom shows her in an all-black uniform, a backwards baseball cap and wire-rimmed shooting glasses while taking aim and firing. After breaking the world record she barely reacts, glancing at her score calmly as the crowd applauds.

The clip, which was actually taken from a competition in May 2024, triggered an internet frenzy, with people hailing her “main character” energy, and Elon Musk calling for her to be cast in an action movie, “no acting required”.

Videos of her Olympic performance quickly went viral, but the preternatural calm which captivated the internet’s attention is simply how she shoots, she said.

“I wasn’t initially good at concentrating,” she said, but she was advised to keep her gaze ultra-focused at the firing line.

She found this “helped me concentrate, and to calm my nerves”.

She said she is a “naturally restless person”, but when she shoots “my arm is not just my arm anymore; it’s all part of the gun”.

“When holding the gun, everything must be perfectly fixed in place. Nothing should move — wrist, hand, or any other part. I think of it all as part of the gun.”

– Fame, humbly –

When Kim returned to South Korea after the Olympics, she was inundated with interview requests, invited to model for brands like Louis Vuitton, and even appear in a short movie — as an assassin — with Indian actress Anushka Sen.

She says she is “grateful and happy” for the attention, particularly as it has boosted interest in the sport she loves, and that her family has helped her stay humble.

“My father told me: ‘I think people are overreacting a bit when you just won silver'”, she says laughing, adding that her six-year-old daughter also likes to cheekily point out her mum “didn’t win gold”.

Kim says she sees no conflict between her life as an elite shooter and a fledgling celebrity. She still trains five days a week, fitting in photo shoots and interviews in her spare time.

She is now focused on winning gold at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and believes she is only just hitting her sporting prime.

“In terms of shooting, it’s less about age and more about individual skill,” she said, plus preparation and effort.

“This year and last have been my best seasons, and if I continue to work hard, I think I’ll keep performing well,” she said, adding that she hopes to compete until she is 50 years old.

Since the viral videos, “people refer to me as ‘shooter Kim Ye-ji’ rather than just ‘Kim Ye-ji'”, she said.

“I want to continue my work so that the word ‘shooter’ will always be remembered.”

Thai massacre families demand justice as charge deadline expires


AFP
October 25, 2024

The 20-year statute of limitations expires Friday on the "Tai Bak massacre", meaning that the killers will never be brought to justice - Copyright AFP I-Hwa CHENG

Montira RUNGJIRAJITTRANON

Survivors of one of Thailand’s most notorious massacres Friday joined the families of 78 victims who suffocated to death in army trucks to voice anger that those responsible will never be brought to justice.

Twenty years after the October 25, 2004 tragedy known as the “Tak Bai massacre”, relatives and supporters gathered for prayers to commemorate those who died.

As well as the anniversary of the incident, Friday is also the day the 20-year statute of limitations expires, and murder charges against seven suspects will be dropped.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra — whose father Thaksin was premier at the time of the incident — on Thursday apologised on behalf of the government.

But she said it was not possible to extend the statute of limitations or prolong the case, despite appeals from campaigners.

The incident has long stood as an emblem of state impunity in the kingdom’s Muslim-majority southernmost provinces, where conflict has rumbled for years between government forces and separatist insurgents.

“There is no natural justice in our country,” Khalijah Musa, whose brother Sari was killed at Tak Bai, told AFP in an interview, saying those responsible deserved the death penalty.

“It’s not equal… we in the southernmost provinces are not part of the (Thai) family. Our voices are just not loud enough.”

The conflict in the “deep south” has seen more than 7,000 people killed since January 2004 as security forces have clashed with insurgents seeking greater autonomy for the region, which is culturally distinct from the rest of mostly Buddhist Thailand.

Around a hundred relatives, survivors and supporters gathered at the cemetery of a mosque in Narathiwat province on Friday morning to pray at a mass grave for the Tak Bai victims.

“It feels like it was only yesterday. I don’t think I can get over it,” Mariyoh Chewae, who lost her brother in the incident, told AFP.

“I hope the Thai state treats everyone equally no matter which religion we practise.”



– ‘Not worth it’ –



Security forces opened fire on a crowd protesting outside a police station in the town of Tak Bai in Narathiwat province, close to the Malaysian border, killing seven people.

Subsequently 78 people suffocated after they were arrested and stacked on top of each other in the back of Thai military trucks, face down and with their hands tied behind their backs.

Mariki Doloh, who survived the incident but had to have a leg amputated, said he was still deeply traumatised by his experience.

“I was just passing by and the police arrested me,” he told AFP.

“I don’t understand why they did this to us. I didn’t think I would survive.”

In August, a provincial court accepted a criminal case filed by victims’ families against seven officials, a move Amnesty International called a “crucial first step towards justice”.

But the officials — including a former army commander elected to parliament last year — have avoided appearing in court, preventing the case from progressing.

On Monday the court is expected to formally dismiss the charges, ending a case that has become synonymous with lack of accountability in a region governed by emergency laws and flooded with army and police units.

No member of the Thai security forces has ever been jailed for extrajudicial killings or torture in the “deep south”, despite years of allegations of abuses across the region.

In 2012, the government of then-prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra — Thaksin’s sister and Paetongtarn’s aunt — paid the families of each of the dead 7.5 million baht ($220,000) in compensation.

But Parida Tohle, 72, whose only son Saroj, 26 died in one of the trucks, said the compensation meant little.

“In exchange for my son’s life it was not worth it,” she told AFP.