Thunberg has hope for climate, despite leaders’ inaction
By FRANK JORDANS June 20, 2020

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Climate activist Greta Thunberg during a radio statement at the 'Sveriges Radio' in Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday, June 14, 2020. In a wide-ranging monologue on Swedish public radio, teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg recounts how world leaders queued up to have their picture taken with her even as they shied away from acknowledging the grim scientific fact that time is running out to curb global warming. (Photo/Mattias Osterlund)

BERLIN (AP) — Preparing for her appearance before the U.N. General Assembly last fall, Greta Thunberg found herself constantly interrupted by world leaders, including U.N. chief Antonio Guterres and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had formed a queue to speak to her and take selfies.

“Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, waits in line but doesn’t quite make it before it’s time for the event to start,” Thunberg recalls.

Such surreal memories for a teenager form the opening to a 75-minute monologue broadcast on Swedish public radio Saturday that soon shifts to the serious matter of climate change that’s at the heart of Thunberg’s work.

The 17-year-old has become a global figurehead of the youth climate movement since she started her one-woman protests outside the Swedish parliament in 2018.

Thunberg’s blunt words to presidents and prime ministers, peppered with scientific facts about the need to urgently cut greenhouse gas emissions, have won her praise and awards, but also the occasionalpushback and even death threats.

To Thunberg’s disappointment, her message doesn’t seem to be getting through even to those leaders who applaud her work.

The message is certainly stark: Thunberg cites a U.N. report that estimates the world can only keep emitting the current amount of carbon dioxide for the next seven-and-a-half years. Any longer and it becomes impossible to meet the Paris climate accord’s ambitious goal of keeping global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) this century.

Most governments refuse to accept the idea that the world has only a fixed “carbon budget” left, because it implies that a sudden shift away from fossil fuel will need to happen in just a few years.

“Do you remember the London Olympics? ‘Gangnam Style’ or the first ‘Hunger Games’ movie?” Thunberg asks her audience on Swedish radio station P1. “Those things all happened about seven or eight years ago. That’s the amount of time we’re talking about.

Her months-long journey from Sweden to America’s West Coast and back — by train, sailboat and an electric car loaned by Arnold Schwarzenegger — highlighted the impact that global warming is already having, from melting glaciers to fiercer forest fire seasons, Thunberg said.

FILE - In this Tuesday, May 28, 2019 file photo United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, from left, pose before the R20 Austrian world summit at Hofburg palace in Vienna, Austria. In a wide-ranging monologue on Swedish public radio, teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg recounts how world leaders queued up to have their picture taken with her even as they shied away from acknowledging the grim scientific fact that time is running out to curb global warming. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, file)

It also opened her eyes to economic and social disparities affecting in particular Indigenous, Black and minority communities, voices she has sought to amplify in the climate debate.

“The climate and sustainability crisis is not a fair crisis,” Thunberg says. “The ones who’ll be hit hardest from its consequences are often the ones who have done the least to cause the problem in the first place. "

Her frustration extends to journalists who want to know about “the real Greta” but interrupt her when she talks about the science of climate change.

“People want something simple and concrete, and they want me to be naive, angry, childish, and emotional,” Thunberg says. “That is the story that sells and creates the most clicks.”

Thunberg blasts governments and businesses that use what she calls “creative accounting” to makes their emissions look lower than they are and apply the word “green” to industries that are not.

“The emperors are naked. Every single one,” she says. “It turns out our whole society is just one big nudist party.”
Some critics have accused Thunberg of being a doom-monger. But she insists that her message is one of hope, not despair.

“There are signs of change, of awakening,” she says. “Just take the ‘Me Too’ movement, ‘Black Lives Matter’ or the school strike movement (for climate action) for instance,” she says, adding that the world has passed a “social tipping point” where it becomes impossible to look away.

FILE - In this Friday, Feb 21, 2020 file photo Climate avtivist Greta Thunberg, center, from Sweden lifts a poster as she takes part in a protest rally of the 'Fridays For Future' movement in Hamburg, Germany. In a wide-ranging monologue on Swedish public radio, teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg recounts how world leaders queued up to have their picture taken with her even as they shied away from acknowledging the grim scientific fact that time is running out to curb global warming. (Christian Charisius/dpa via AP, file)

The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic may provide a necessary wake-up call, she suggests.

The corona tragedy of course has no long term positive effects on the climate, apart from one thing only: namely the insight into how you should perceive and treat an emergency. Because during the corona crisis we suddenly act with necessary force.”

Russian nickel producer admits pollution in Arctic tundra

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In this handout frame taken from video released Sunday June 28, 2020, by Novaya Gazeta, showing what the report is water from a Norilsk Nickel enrichment plant gushing out of a pipe and into a river which also runs into the lake near Norilsk, 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia. Russia's main criminal investigation body has launched a probe after a report that a nickel-processing plant was pumping water contaminated with heavy metals into the Arctic tundra. (Elena Kostyuchenko, Novaya Gazeta via AP)
MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian metallurgical company said Sunday that it improperly pumped wastewater into the Arctic tundra and that it has suspended the responsible employees.

The statement from Nornickel is the second time in a month the company has been connected to pollution in the ecologically delicate region.

In May, around 21,000 tons of diesel fuel leaked after a reservoir at a Nornickel-operated power plant collapsed; some of the fuel entered a lake that feeds into an arm of the Arctic Sea.

The statement came hours after the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that water tainted with heavy metals from the tailings at a nickel-processing plant were being pumped into a river.

In this photo released Sunday June 28, 2020, by Novaya Gazeta, showing what the report is an excavator disassembling a pipe from a Norilsk Nickel enrichment plant with water gushing into a river which also runs into the lake near Norilsk, 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia. Russia's main criminal investigation body has launched a probe after a report that a nickel-processing plant was pumping water contaminated with heavy metals into the Arctic tundra. (Elena Kostyuchenko, Novaya Gazeta via AP)

Nornickel said the water was improperly pumped because of an overflowing sump; it said the water was “clarified” and there is no threat of waste leakage.

Both facilities are near Norilsk, north of the Arctic Circle, 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) no
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This story has been corrected to show that the name of the company is Nornickel, not Norilsk Nickel.

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Follow all AP stories about pollution and climate change at https://apnews.com/Climate

The Arctic is on fire: Siberian heat wave alarms scientists

By DARIA LITVINOVA and SETH BORENSTEIN June 24, 2020

1 of 6This photo taken on Friday, June 19, 2020 and provided by ECMWF Copernicus Climate Change Service shows the land surface temperature in the Siberia region of Russia. A record-breaking temperature of 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) was registered in the Arctic town of Verkhoyansk on Saturday, June 20 in a prolonged heatwave that has alarmed scientists around the world. (ECMWF Copernicus Climate Change Service via AP)

MOSCOW (AP) — The Arctic is feverish and on fire — at least parts of it are. And that’s got scientists worried about what it means for the rest of the world.

The thermometer hit a likely record of 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Russian Arctic town of Verkhoyansk on Saturday, a temperature that would be a fever for a person — but this is Siberia, known for being frozen. The World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday that it’s looking to verify the temperature reading, which would be unprecedented for the region north of the Arctic Circle.

“The Arctic is figuratively and literally on fire — it’s warming much faster than we thought it would in response to rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and this warming is leading to a rapid meltdown and increase in wildfires,” University of Michigan environmental school dean Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist, said in an email.

“The record warming in Siberia is a warning sign of major proportions,” Overpeck wrote.
In this handout photo taken Tuesday, June 23, 2020 and provided by Olga Burtseva, a beach on the bank of Yana river is empty due to hot weather, during sunset outside Verkhoyansk, the Sakha Republic, about 4660 kilometers (2900 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia. A record-breaking temperature of 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) was registered in the Arctic town of Verkhoyansk on Saturday, June 20 in a prolonged heatwave that has alarmed scientists around the world. (Olga Burtseva via AP)

Much of Siberia had high temperatures this year that were beyond unseasonably warm. From January through May, the average temperature in north-central Siberia has been about 8 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, according to the climate science non-profit Berkeley Earth.

“That’s much, much warmer than it’s ever been over that region in that period of time,” Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said.

Siberia is in the Guinness Book of World Records for its extreme temperatures. It’s a place where the thermometer has swung 106 degrees Celsius (190 degrees Fahrenheit), from a low of minus 68 degrees Celsius (minus 90 Fahrenheit) to now 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit).

For residents of the Sakha Republic in the Russian Arctic, a heat wave is not necessarily a bad thing. Vasilisa Ivanova spent every day this week with her family swimming and sunbathing.

“We spend the entire day on the shore of the Lena River,” said Ivanova, who lives in the village of Zhigansk, 270 miles (430 kilometers) from where the heat record was set. “We’ve been coming every day since Monday.”

But for scientists, “alarm bells should be ringing,” Overpeck wrote.

Such prolonged Siberian warmth hasn’t been seen for thousands of years “and it is another sign that the Arctic amplifies global warming even more than we thought,” Overpeck said.

Russia’s Arctic regions are among the fastest warming areas in the world.
In this Thursday, June 18, 2020, handout photo provided by the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, workers prepare an area for reservoirs for soil contaminated with fuel at an oil spill outside Norilsk, 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his government to fully repair environmental damage from a massive fuel leak in the Arctic. A power plant in the Siberian city of Norilsk leaked 20,000 tons of diesel fuel into the ecologically fragile region when a storage tank collapsed on May 29. (Russian Emergency Situations Ministry via AP)

FILE - In this handout file photo dated Tuesday, June 2, 2020, provided by the Russian Marine Rescue Service, rescuers work to prevent the spread from an oil spill outside Norilsk, 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday June 19, 2020, has ordered his government to fully repair environmental damage from a massive fuel leak in the Arctic. A power plant in the Siberian city of Norilsk leaked 20,000 tons of diesel fuel into the ecologically fragile region when a storage tank collapsed on May 29. (Russian Marine Rescue Service via AP, File)

The temperature on Earth over the past few decades has been growing, on average, by 0.18 degrees Celsius (nearly one-third of a degree Fahrenheit) every 10 years. But in Russia it increases by 0.47 degrees Celsius (0.85 degrees Fahrenheit) — and in the Russian Arctic, by 0.69 degrees Celsius (1.24 degrees Fahrenheit) every decade, said Andrei Kiselyov, the lead scientist at the Moscow-based Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory.

“In that respect, we’re ahead of the whole planet,” Kiselyov said.

The increasing temperatures in Siberia have been linked to prolonged wildfires that grow more severe every year and the thawing of the permafrost — a huge problem because buildings and pipelines are built on them. Thawing permafrost also releases more heat-trapping gas and dries out the soil, which increases wildfires, said Vladimir Romanovsky, who studies permafrost at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

“In this case it’s even more serious, because the previous winter was unusually warm,” Romanovsky said. The permafrost thaws, ice melts, the soil subsides and then it can trigger a feedback loop that worsens permafrost thawing and “cold winters can’t stop it,” Romanovsky said.

A catastrophic oil spill from a collapsed storage tank last month near the Arctic city of Norilsk was partly blamed on melting permafrost. In 2011, part of a residential building in Yakutsk, the biggest city in the Sakha Republic, collapsed due to thawing and subsidence of the ground.

Last August, more than 4 million hectares of forests in Siberia were on fire, according to Greenpeace. This year the fires have already started raging much earlier than the usual start in July, said Vladimir Chuprov, director of the project department at Greenpeace Russia.

Persistently warm weather, especially if coupled with wildfires, causes permafrost to thaw faster, which in turn exacerbates global warming by releasing large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that’s 28 times stronger than carbon dioxide, said Katey Walter Anthony, a University of Alaska Fairbanks expert on methane release from frozen Arctic soil.

“Methane escaping from permafrost thaw sites enters the atmosphere and circulates around the globe,” she said. “Methane that originates in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. It has global ramifications.”

And what happens in the Arctic can even warp the weather in the United States and Europe.

In the summer, the unusual warming lessens the temperature and pressure difference between the Arctic and lower latitudes where more people live, said Judah Cohen, a winter weather expert at Atmospheric Environmental Research, a commercial firm outside Boston.

That seems to weaken and sometimes even stall the jet stream, meaning weather systems such as those bringing extreme heat or rain can stay parked over places for days on end, Cohen said.

According to meteorologists at the Russian weather agency Rosgidrome t, a combination of factors — such as a high pressure system with a clear sky and the sun being very high, extremely long daylight hours and short warm nights — have contributed to the Siberian temperature spike.

“The ground surface heats up intensively. .… The nights are very warm, the air doesn’t have time to cool and continues to heat up for several days,” said Marina Makarova, chief meteorologist at Rosgidromet.

Makarova added that the temperature in Verkhoyansk remained unusually high from Friday through Monday.

Scientists agree that the spike is indicative of a much bigger global warming trend.

“The key point is that the climate is changing and global temperatures are warming,” said Freja Vamborg, senior scientist at the Copernicus Climate Change Service in the U.K. “We will be breaking more and more records as we go.”

“What is clear is that the warming Arctic adds fuel to the warming of the whole planet,” said Waleed Abdalati, a former NASA chief scientist who is now at the University of Colorado.

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Borenstein reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jim Heintz in Moscow, Frank Jordans in Berlin, Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Roman Kutukov in Yakutsk, Russia, contributed to this report.

UN evaluates reports of record Arctic heat in Siberia

June 23, 2020
In this handout photo provided by Olga Burtseva, children play in the Krugloe lake outside Verkhoyansk, the Sakha Republic, about 4660 kilometers (2900 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, June 21, 2020. A Siberian town that endures the world's widest temperature range has recorded a new high amid a hear wave that is contributing to severe forest fires. Russia's meteorological service said the thermometer hit 38 Celsius (100.4 F) on Saturday in Verkhoyansk, in the Sakha Republic about 4660 kilometers (2900 miles) northeast of Moscow. (Olga Burtseva via AP)
GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. weather agency is investigating media reports suggesting a new record high temperature of over 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Arctic Circle amid a heatwave and prolonged wildfires in eastern Siberia.

The World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday that it’s looking to verify the temperature reading on Saturday in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk with Rosgidromet, the Russian federal service for hydro-meteorological and environmental monitoring.

The reports suggest yet another possible sign of global warming in the Arctic, which the agency said is among the fastest warming regions in the world and is heating at twice the global average.

 this handout photo provided by Olga Burtseva, an outside thermometer shows 30 Celsius (86 F) around 11 p.m in Verkhoyansk, the Sakha Republic, about 4660 kilometers (2900 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, June 21, 2020. A Siberian town that endures the world's widest temperature range has recorded a new high amid a hear wave that is contributing to severe forest fires. Russia's meteorological service said the thermometer hit 38 Celsius (100.4 F) on Saturday in Verkhoyansk, in the Sakha Republic about 4660 kilometers (2900 miles) northeast of Moscow. (Olga Burtseva via AP)



Apparently, this particularly region of eastern Siberia has very, very cold extremes in winter, but is also known for its extremes in summer, so temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius in July are not unusual,” World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis said. “but obviously 38 degrees Celsius is exceptional.”

“We’ve seen satellite images this morning, and it’s just one mass of red -- it’s striking and worrying,” she told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.

The area has been hit by wildfires that have driven up temperatures.

“A WMO fast-response evaluation team has given tentative acceptance of this observation as a legitimate observation, which is consistent with current upper air observations at the time in Siberia,” WMO special rapporteur Randall Cerveny said in a statement.

“This will now be subject to a normal process for a detailed formal review by a panel of WMO atmospheric scientists,” added Cerveny, who is also a professor of geographical sciences at Arizona State University.

The World Meteorological Organization has not previously verified possible records for the “highest temperature recorded north of the Arctic Circle,” but is considering creating such a category given the “interest in this extreme observation,” the agency said.

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Follow all AP coverage of climate change issues at https://apnews.com/Climate.

Panel: NOAA bowed to political pressure in Dorian dispute

By SETH BORENSTEIN June 16, 2020

\ In this Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019 file photo, President Donald Trump holds a chart as he talks with reporters after receiving a briefing on Hurricane Dorian in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. A report from the National Academy of Public Administration released on Monday, June 15, 2020 says that NOAA’s acting chief Neil Jacobs and its then-communications director, Julie Kay Roberts, twice breached the agency’s rules designed to protect scientists and their work from political interference, putting out a press statement that “did not follow NOAA’s normal proves and appear to be the result of strong external pressure.” (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration leaders violated the agency’s scientific integrity when they chastised a local weather office that had contradicted President Trump’s inaccurate comments about Hurricane Dorian, an outside panel found.

NOAA’s acting chief, Neil Jacobs, and its then-communications director, Julie Kay Roberts, twice breached the agency’s rules designed to protect scientists and their work from political interference, the National Academy of Public Administration concluded. Jacobs and Roberts released a statement that “did not follow NOAA’s normal process and appear to be the result of strong external pressure,” the group wrote in the 144-page report released late Monday.

NOAA’s science department had asked the public administration group to look into several complaints, including from its chief scientist and past administrator, after Hurricane Dorian threatened the East Coast in September.

As the storm approached the U.S., Trump tweeted that Alabama, along with the Carolinas and Georgia “will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated,” even though the National Hurricane Center had pretty much said Dorian would not hit Alabama. He later defended his statements with a crude Sharpie-drawn addition to a forecast map.

Twenty minutes after Trump’s tweet, meteorologists in the National Weather Service’s Birmingham office tweeted “Alabama will NOT see any impacts” from the storm.

After a phone call to Jacobs from his boss, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and other conversations with Commerce Department political appointees, NOAA put out the statement chastising the Birmingham weather office tweet. The statement said the Alabama office “spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”

Dorian made landfall in North Carolina and had no major impact on Alabama, which is about 600 miles away.

The outside report said the violations of scientific policy were, first, issuing the statement without talking to the Birmingham meteorologists and, second, issuing it after political pressure.

No one was disciplined, and Jacobs and Roberts disputed the findings. Roberts left NOAA for another high-ranking job in the Department of Commerce.

In a response letter, NOAA’s acting chief scientist, Craig McLean, criticized the lack of discipline against the two.

“While there may be found causes of sympathy for the oppressed and meek subordinates of domineering autocratic ogres, I hardly can find sympathy in this scintilla of an argument for clemency,” McLean wrote in a response letter. “If not the single highest person in NOAA, who will stand for the Scientific Integrity of the agency and the trust our public needs to invest in our scientific process and products? The NOAA Administrator? The NOAA Director of Communications?”

In this Thursday, May 28, 2020 file photo, Neil Jacobs, assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction, stands next to a chart during a briefing with President Donald Trump on the 2020 hurricane season in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. A report from the National Academy of Public Administration released on Monday, June 15, 2020 says that NOAA’s acting chief Jacobs and its then-communications director, Julie Kay Roberts, twice breached the agency’s rules designed to protect scientists and their work from political interference, putting out a press statement that “did not follow NOAA’s normal proves and appear to be the result of strong external pressure.” (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

In a statement Tuesday, Jacobs called the report “an overly broad interpretation” and faulted it for creating “new standards for scientific misconduct.” He said NOAA’s unsigned statement in September “was not intended to imply Birmingham did anything wrong.”

Other investigations, including an inspector general report, are still pending.
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AP writer Meghan Hoyer contributed to this report.

Russia’s low virus death toll still raises questions in West

BABA'S SECRET 

VODKA, HONEY, GARLIC, 

BEET JUICE

SUNFLOWER SEEDS 

SHAKEN NOT STIRRED 

By DARIA LITVINOVA and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

June 14, 2020

1 of 8 https://apnews.com/aa848f2d7b9f83aea0a0e53bce0a82ea
FILE - In this May 15, 2020, file photo, gravediggers in protective suits carry the coffin of a COVID-19 victim as relatives and friends stand at a distance in the section of a cemetery reserved for coronavirus victims in Kolpino, outside St. Petersburg, Russia. The way Russia counts fatalities during the coronavirus pandemic could be one reason why its official death toll is far below many other countries, even as it has reported at least 511,000 infections, behind only the United States and Brazil. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)
MOSCOW (AP) — When Leonid Shlykov’s father, Sergei, died in a Moscow hospital last month after 11 days on a ventilator, the death certificate listed the coronavirus as an underlying condition but not the actual cause of death.

“Yes, he was suffering from impaired kidney function and diabetes, but if it hadn’t been for COVID-19, he would’ve been alive,” the son wrote on Facebook. “If we had known the real number of infections and deaths … it would have helped us make the decision to hospitalize (dad) earlier.”

The way Russia counts fatalities during the coronavirus pandemic could be one reason why its official death toll of 6,948 is far below many other countries, even as it has reported nearly 529,000 infections, behind only the United States and Brazil

The paradox also has led to allegations by critics and Western media that Russian authorities might have falsified the numbers for political purposes to play down the scale of the outbreak. Even a top World Health Organization official said the low number of deaths in Russia “certainly is unusual.”

Russian authorities have bristled at the suggestions.

“We have never manipulated the official statistics,” said Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova.

Finding the true numbers during the pandemic is difficult, since countries count cases and deaths in different ways and testing for the virus is uneven.

Still, several factors could contribute to Russia’s low virus mortality rate, including the way it counts deaths, a tendency among some officials to embellish statistics, its vast geography and the shorter life expectancy of its population.

An autopsy is mandatory in Russia in every confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19, with a determination on the cause of death made by a commission of specialists, said Dr. Natalia Belitchenko, a pathologist in the medical examiner’s office in the region around St. Petersburg.

She deals with coronavirus deaths almost daily, but said only about 20% of them have been attributed to COVID-19. In other cases, the virus was determined to be an underlying condition.

“In the vast majority of cases, the pneumonia itself wouldn’t have led to death, had the underlying conditions not flared up to a point of becoming fatal,” she told The Associated Press.

Unlike Russia, some countries’ official death count includes those who had COVID-19 but died from other causes, said Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program.

“It will be important that the Russian authorities review the way in which death certification is done to reassure themselves that they are accurately certifying deaths in the appropriate way,” he said.

This photo shows fresh graves at the Butovskoye cemetery, which serves as one of burial grounds for those who died of the coronavirus, in Moscow, Russia. The way Russia counts fatalities during the coronavirus pandemic could be one reason why its official death toll is far below many other countries, even as it has reported at least 511,000 infections, behind only the United States and Brazil. (AP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov)

In this photo taken early Thursday, June 11, 2020, fresh graves have been dug at the Butovskoye cemetery, which serves as one of the burial grounds for those who died of the coronavirus, in Moscow, Russia. The way Russia counts fatalities during the coronavirus pandemic could be one reason why its official death toll is far below many other countries, even as it has reported at least 511,000 infections, behind only the United States and Brazil.(AP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov)

Death counts vary around the world because countries underreported the number of COVID-19 deaths early on, said Ali Mokdad, professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. They ascribed virus deaths to other causes due to insufficient testing or initially only counted deaths in hospitals, he added.

Some countries also are overcounting by including “presumptive deaths” — those who likely died of COVID-19 but were never tested for it, Mokdad said.

What sets Russia apart, however, is a habit of obscuring embarrassing truths, said Judy Twigg, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The way mortality data is recorded in Russia is affected by a Soviet-era tradition of setting future targets for improving public health through efforts to reduce mortality from certain reasons, such as alcoholism or tuberculosis.

Health officials “shift the way they code causes of death in order to try to meet those targets,” Twigg said.

Pathologists told AP there is pressure from hospital administrators to produce better-looking reports.

FILE - In this Friday, May 15, 2020, file photo, gravediggers in protective suits carry the coffin of a COVID-19 victim as relatives and friends stand at a distance in a cemetery reserved for coronavirus victims in Kolpino, outside St.Petersburg, Russia. The way Russia counts fatalities during the coronavirus pandemic could be one reason why its official death toll is far below many other countries, even as it has reported at least 511,000 infections, behind only the United States and Brazil. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

FILE - In this May 26, 2020, file photo, grave diggers wearing protective suits carry a coffin of a COVID-19 victim for burial in the section of a cemetery reserved for coronavirus victims, outside Moscow, Russia. The way Russia counts fatalities during the coronavirus pandemic could be one reason why its official death toll is far below many other countries, even as it has reported at least 511,000 infections, behind only the United States and Brazil. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)

FILE - In this May 15, 2020, file photo, cemetery workers in protective suits disinfect a grave as they bury a COVID-19 victim in a section of the Butovskoye cemetery reserved for coronavirus victims outside Moscow, Russia. The way Russia counts fatalities during the coronavirus pandemic could be one reason why its official death toll is far below many other countries, even as it has reported at least 511,000 infections, behind only the United States and Brazil. (Kirill Zykov, Moscow News Agency photo via AP, File)


Requests and instructions to obscure certain causes of death in postmortems are “an inevitable part of our job,” said a pathologist in Siberia who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Data analysts say inconsistencies in Russia’s virus statistics suggest manipulation, such as regions reporting similar numbers of new cases for several days in a row, or the number of deaths in regional reports differing from those in federal reports.

“I don’t trust official statistics, and I believe I have reasons not to,” Boris Ovchinnikov, director of the Moscow-based Data Insight research agency, told the AP. “But we don’t have any good alternative indicators for assessing the real situation.”

Among the anomalies:

— The governor of the Lipetsk region in southwestern Russia was recorded telling subordinates last month that “numbers need to be changed, otherwise our region will be judged poorly.”

— In the Altai region in southern Siberia, a task force posted a daily infection update containing the words “for approval” addressed to the provincial governor. It quickly erased the words after it was reported on social media.

— Unusual spikes in pneumonia deaths indicate possibility more virus deaths than officially reported by mid-May: St. Petersburg reported 694 pneumonia deaths, with 63 from coronavirus; the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan reported 657 pneumonia deaths and 29 from coronavirus.

“Without doubt, there have been manipulations with statistics on the regional level,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, an independent analyst and former Kremlin political consultant, adding that it seems they did it “on their own initiative.”

At the same time, he noted that a decrease in cases was a key factor for holding two big events on the Kremlin agenda that were postponed by the virus: a massive Red Square parade for the 75th anniversary of the victory in World War II and a vote on constitutional amendments that could extend President Vladimir Putin’s rule until 2036.

Citing a slowdown in infections, Putin ordered the parade for June 24 and the vote for July 1. Most regions, including Moscow, also recently lifted tight lockdowns imposed in March even though daily numbers of new infections have remained high, hovering around 9,000.

In a bid to dispel claims of underreporting mortality, the government released updated statistics for April showing patients who died of other causes while testing positive for the virus, as well as those who tested negative but likely died of it.

If those were counted as coronavirus deaths, mortality would have been 60% higher than announced. Authorities insist they shouldn’t be included in the official toll, but even if all extra deaths recently reported by federal and Moscow officials were added, it would still be around 11,000.

Russian officials credit early quarantine measures and quick expansion of hospital capacity that prevented the health care system from being overwhelmed. They also cite more than 14 million tests that helped spot asymptomatic cases that account for more than 40% of all recent infections in the country of 146.7 million.

Officials noted that infections in Russia peaked later than in Europe, and deaths are now climbing more quickly.

Experts say Russia’s statistical gaps may result from its outdated system of collecting mortality data: In many regions, a death certificate must be delivered by a relative to a local civil registry office. Many of those offices were closed or had limited hours due to coronavirus lockdowns.

“So what we’re seeing now is insufficient data in many regions,” said Alexei Raksha, an independent demographer.

He said data from civil registries he studied showed that some regions reported fewer deaths in April than in previous years. Deaths were five times lower in the southern republic of Ingushetia, while in Krasnodar, they fell by about 1,500 from the monthly average, a record low.

“Some people just bury their relatives without going to the civil registration office,” Raksha said.

Researchers expect most of these gaps to be filled in next year, when the Russian State Statistics Service issues its annual report.

Raksha said Russia’s few virus deaths could also be due to less-frequent travel across the vast country, its low population density and lower social mobility. He also said because the country has a much lower life expectancy than the West, it has fewer elderly targets for the virus
_

Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Temperature spike: Earth ties record high heat May reading

WE PUT OUR GARDEN IN TWO WEEKS EARLY

BY SETH BORENSTEIN June 12, 2020

FILE - In this Wednesday, May 27, 2020 file photo, a boy stands on the shore of the Ganges River during a hot summer day in Prayagraj, India. Earth's temperature spiked to tie a record high for May, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on Friday, June 12, 2020. The global land temperature was the hottest for May on record. The heat was especially extreme in Siberia, Alaska, Asia, along the equator, the Southern Hemisphere and parts of the Northern Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Earth’s temperature spiked to tie a record high for May, U.S. meteorologists reported Friday.

Last month the global average temperature was 60.3 degrees (15.7 degrees Celsius), tying 2016 for the hottest May in 141 years of record keeping, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That’s 1.7 degrees (nearly 1 degree Celsius) higher than the 20th century average for Earth.

Temperature on land set a heat record, while ocean temperatures ranked second.

Parts of Africa, Asia, western Europe, South and Central America had record warmth.

“We continue to warm on the long term and in any given month we’re likely to be knocking on the door, close to a record in the era that we’re in,” NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt said.

The last seven Mays, from 2014 to 2020, have been the seven warmest Mays on record.

This past spring was the second hottest on record, behind 2016. And this year so far is the second hottest five-month start of a year.

Pangolin released into wild under China’s new protections
By SAM McNEIL  June 12, 2020

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In this photo taken June 11, 2020, and released by CBCGDF, Sophia Zhang, a staffer from China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, or CBCGDF, collects oral and nasal secretion sample for testing from the Pangolin named Lijin at the Jinhua wild animal rescue center in eastern China's Zhejiang province. (CBCGDF via AP)

BEIJING (AP) — Activists in China have released a pangolin into the wild to celebrate new protections for the armadillo-like animal whose numbers in the country have dropped to near extinction levels.
Volunteers had rescued and rehabilitated the pangolin nicknamed Lijin after it was found by a fisherman in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang.

“This is a good start … but this is not good enough,” said Zhou Jinfeng, secretary-general of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Fund, the group behind the lone pangolin’s release on Thursday.

Just last year in Zhejiang, authorities arrested 18 smugglers and confiscated 23.1 tons of pangolin scales sourced from an estimated 50,000 creatures, according to Chinese state media.

After volunteers unlocked a transport crate, the foot-long pangolin crawled onto the lush forest floor outside Zhejiang’s Jinhua city. It’s brown scales and pink paws quickly disappeared in the emerald underbrush.

“We will release a lot more soon,” said Zhou, who has vowed to free all pangolins in captivity in China.

In this photo taken June 11, 2020, and released by CBCGDF, a worker from China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, or CBCGDF, holds the Pangolin named Lijin before its release from the Jinhua wild animal rescue center in eastern China's Zhejiang province. (CBCGDF via AP)

The U.S.-based group Save Pangolins said China’s granting of top-level protected status earlier this month was “a massive win for pangolins” after years of weak enforcement of existing restrictions. Pangolin scales are an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine and its meat is considered a delicacy by some.

Environmental groups say that poachers had regularly circumvented the original regulations to sell illegally hunted pangolin scales and meat, often sourced from Africa and Southeast Asia.

That has made pangolins “one of the most illegally traded mammals on the planet” with an estimated 1 million sold in the past 15 years, according to the Environmental Investigations Agency. Seizures have been recorded from Belgium to Singapore to Australia and the Philippines.

China’s increased protection forbids the raising of pangolins in captivity and the use of their scales in the nation’s mammoth traditional medicine industry.

Zhou said that efforts to halt the sale of pangolins in China were buoyed by a raise in global awareness of the wildlife animal trade linked to the outbreak of the coronavirus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

In this photo taken June 11, 2020 and released by CBCGDF, Sophia Zhang, a staffer from China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation or CBCGDF, watch as the Pangolin named Lijin curls up for a rest at the Jinhua wild animal rescue center in eastern China's Zhejiang province. (CBCGDF via AP)

The June 5 order from the National Forestry and Grassland Administration did not explicitly mention the outbreak as a reason for the measure, but the timing appears to indicate it could be part of China’s nationwide crackdown on the wildlife trade following the pandemic.

Scientists say the coronavirus was most likely transmitted from bats to humans via an intermediary animal such as the pangolin.

Trade in wildlife including bats and pangolins has been linked to so-called zoonotic diseases that leap from animals to humans, and China quickly cracked down on the industry in a series of measures long-promoted by environmental groups.

Zhou said China’s native pangolins have been all but wiped out. Over the past five years, Zhou and volunteers found only five where hundreds of thousands lived just three decades ago.

Zhou said the new protections give groups like his the right to sue businesses and individuals selling pangolin scales. However, he wants to go a step further by releasing into the wild all captive pangolins in China and burning all confiscated pangolin scales, similar to how Kenya incinerated seized elephant tusks in a bid to end the illegal trade that continues to this day.

Ohio State University soil professor gets World Food Prize

By DAVID PITT June 11, 2020

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In this undated photo provided by the World Food Prize Foundation, Rattan Lal, a professor of soil science at The Ohio State University poses at the University in Columbus, Ohio. Lai was named the recipient of the 2020 World Food Prize on Thursday, June 11, 2020. He was recognized by the Des Moines, Iowa-based organization for his soil research which has led to improved food production and a better understanding of how atmospheric carbon can be held in the soil improving climate change.(World Food Prize Foundation via AP)


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A soil scientist whose research led to improved food production and a better understanding of how atmospheric carbon can be held in the soil to help combat climate change was named this year’s recipient of the World Food Prize on Thursday.

Rattan Lal is a professor of soil science at Ohio State University and founding director of the university’s Carbon Management and Sequestration Center.

World Food Prize Foundation President Barbara Stinson announced Lal as the winner. The ceremony was held online rather than live in Washington because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

“Dr. Lal is a trailblazer in soil science with a prodigious passion for research that improves soil health, enhances agricultural production, improves the nutritional quality of food, restores the environment and mitigates climate change,” Stinson said.

Lal has developed and promoted the idea that healthy soil must not only have the usual nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, but must have depleted carbon restored by leaving crop residue. This focus on soil’s physical properties diverged from the conventional soil fertility strategy in the 1970s, which relied heavily on replacing nutrients by applying fertilizer. 

Lal’s research in the 1990s revealed that restoring degraded soils through increasing soil carbon and organic matter not only improved soil health, but helped combat rising carbon dioxide levels in the air by sequestering atmospheric carbon. His analysis showed that soils can sequester carbon at rates as high as 2.6 gigatons per year.

His career has taken him to posts in Australia and Nigeria. He has led soil restoration projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America, integrating no-till farming and use of cover crops, mulching and agroforestry to protect soil, conserve water and return nutrients, carbon and organic matter in the soil.

Though the concepts have been around for 50 years, farmers in developing countries are beginning to understand and implement his suggested practices. Lal also seeks wider use of soil conservation measures focused on soil health in developed countries.

“In the U.S. soil conservation is practiced only on a very small percent of the total areas,” he said. “It’s catching up, but I wish it could be at a faster speed and more area going to that kind of concept.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a videotaped message that a growing world population creates a need to improve agriculture productivity to feed more people.

“He’s helping the Earth’s estimated 500 million small farmers be faithful stewards of their land through improved management, less soil degradation, and the recycling of nutrients. The billions of people who depend on these farms stand to benefit greatly from his work,” Pompeo said.

Lal, 76, was born in India and studied soils from his earliest days at Punjab Agricultural University. His pursuit of higher education led him to Ohio State University for a doctorate. He established the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center in 2000.

AN ILL FITTING SUIT FIRST THING GET A CUSTOM

TAILORED SUIT FROM SEVILLE ROW, WITH YOUR WINNINGS

In this undated photo provided by the World Food Prize Foundation, Rattan Lal, a professor of soil science at The Ohio State University poses at the University in Columbus, Ohio. Lai was named the recipient of the 2020 World Food Prize on Thursday, June 11, 2020. He was recognized by the Des Moines, Iowa-based organization for his soil research which has led to improved food production and a better understanding of how atmospheric carbon can be held in the soil improving climate change.(World Food Prize Foundation via AP)

Lal said he now is focused on nutrition-centered agriculture to help the world’s 850 million undernourished and 2 billion malnourished.

“We must eliminate hunger. We must also make sure that the food consumed is healthy and this is where the concept of healthy soil, plants, animals, people and the environment is a one and indivisible concept,” he said.

The World Food Prize was created by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug in 1986 to recognize scientists and others who have improved the quality and availability of food. The foundation that awards the $250,000 prize is based in Des Moines.

Spanish award honors Turkish economist wary of globalization

June 11, 2020

MADRID (AP) — Turkish economist Dani Rodrik, whose studies have warned about the flip side of economic globalization, will be this year’s recipient of the Princess of Asturias Social Sciences Award, Spanish organizers announced Thursday.

According to the jury, Rodrik, 62, “has strengthened the rigor in the analysis of the dynamics of the globalization of international economic relations” and his conclusions have made the economic system “much more sensitive to the needs of society.”

The Istanbul-born Rodrik’s career has been linked from its onset to Harvard University, where he currently holds the post of Professor of International Political Economy at its John F. Kennedy School of Government.

A supporter of free trade but a critic of what he has called “hyperglobalization,” Rodrik has published more than twenty books on political economy, some of them sparking intense debate among academics.

In “Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy,” published two years ago as relations between China and the United States became ensnared in trade disputes, he warned about how global free trade, for all its benefits, inevitably ends up depressing some industries and communities.

The Princess of Asturias Foundation, which organizes the annual award, has as its honorary president the heir to the Spanish throne — currently the 14-year-old Princess Leonor.

The Social Sciences award is one of eight in different fields handed out annually. Recipients receive 50,000 euros ($56,400) at a ceremony held in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo in October.

Pandemic hampers raising rare whooping cranes for the wild

WHOOPING CRANES (NORTH AMERICAN IBIS) SUMMER IN ALBERTA AS DO THE GREAT BLUE HERON BOTH ENDANGERED SPECIES 

By JANET McCONNAUGHEY June 10, 2020

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In this May 11, 2014 photo provided by the International Crane Foundation, curator of birds Kim Boardman holds an endangered whooping crane, while senior aviculturist Marianne Wellington performs artificial insemination. The foundation is not using the technique this year because foundation officials feel it would go against COVID-19 social distancing guidelines. This is among reasons that far fewer young whooping cranes than usual will be released into the wiild this fall to help bring back the world's rarest crane. (International Crane Foundation via AP)


NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The COVID-19 pandemic is drastically reducing the number of young whooping cranes to be released this fall to help bring back the world’s rarest cranes. Zoos and other places where the endangered birds are bred have had to cut not only staff size but use of two techniques to boost the birds’ numbers: artificial insemination and hand-rearing -- or, rather, costume-rearing -- chicks.

Whooping cranes are North America’s tallest birds, 5 feet (1.5 meters) high from their black feet to the little red caps on their heads. They’re white with black tips on wings spanning 7 feet (2.1 meters). They mate for life.

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Only about 825 exist. All are descended from 15 that had survived habitat loss and hunters in 1941, breeding in Canada’s largest national park and wintering in Aransas, Texas.


In this photo provided by the Audubon Nature Institute, Heather Holtz takes semen from an endangered whooping crane for artificial insemination on Sunday, May 31, 2020, while Elyssa Buch holds the bird at the institute's Species Survival Center in New Orleans. In the background, Hanna Carter keeps the female crane from trying to protect her mate. Because of money losses and staff cutbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Audubon is using the technique only for its most genetically valuable birds. (Audubon Nature Institute via AP)

Biologists are trying to establish two more flocks to mitigate disaster should anything happen to the original flock, now 500 strong. There are 75 birds based in Louisiana and 85 in a flock taught to migrate from Wisconsin to Florida by following ultralight aircraft.

In a normal year, breeders in various areas and wildlife agents in Louisiana and Wisconsin would collect some eggs for incubation, knowing the parents will lay a second and even a third clutch. That both increases the number of chicks per year and, in Wisconsin, helps keep wild chicks from hatching during the worst of the bloodsucking black fly season, which has proven dangerous to them.

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Some incubated chicks get captive whoopers as surrogate parents, but there aren’t enough for all. To keep the rest from viewing people as their flock, keepers don baggy white “crane costumes” that cover them from head to ankles, and manipulate crane-head hand puppets to teach chicks to forage for insects.

Audubon Nature Institute’s Species Survival Center in New Orleans usually costume-raises a number of chicks. But COVID-19 is expected to cut revenues $21 million — nearly 37% of the year’s planned budget — at the institute, which also includes a zoo, aquarium, insectarium and nature center. That has meant staff cuts -- mostly in maintenance — which means keepers are doing some of that work and have less time overall, curator Michelle Hatwood said.

She said costume-rearing is expensive and will be used only if a crane couple turns out to be poor parents. The center’s 21 birds include eight pairs, some unmated birds and a few that would normally be housed next to growing chicks as behavior models.

The birds were moved to Audubon two years ago after the federal breeding center at Patuxent, Maryland, closed down, she said. “Most are brand-new -- they’ve never raised a chick.”

FILE - In this March 23, 2018 file photo, an endangered whooping crane flies over a crawfish pond in St. Landry Parish, La. Louisiana's flock is one of two made up almost entirely of birds raised in captivity and released in the wild to mitigate disaster in case anything happens to the only natural flock. But the COVID-19 pandemic will mean fewer youngsters than usual to release in the wild in fall 2020, helping to bring back the world's rarest cranes. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

No chicks at all are expected at the species’ largest breeding center. All 41 whooping cranes at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin, require artificial insemination. One person holds a bird while another collects or injects sperm.

“That doesn’t really go with the social distancing guidelines,” aviculturist Kim Boardman said.

The technique is needed for a variety of reasons -- old injuries, arthritis, or because their mates aren’t the best genetic match in a highly inbred species


The big birds mate standing up, and a male with a bad wing or leg can’t do the job, Hatwood said.

FILE - In this June 11, 2018 file photo, a pair of captive-bred whooping cranes and their 2-month-old wild-hatched chicks forage through a crawfish pond near an egret, far right, in Jefferson Davis Parish, La. The COVID-19 pandemic means far fewer chicks than usual are being bred in captivity to release in the wild in fall 2020, helping to bring back the world's rarest cranes. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)


Each center sets its own policy, and Audubon decided the procedure was brief enough to let keepers in masks and eye shields work with the most genetically valuable birds.

A third person is often needed to fend off a bird’s mate during the operation, Hatwood said: “They have very sharp nails and very poky beaks.”

Other breeding centers are at the Calgary Zoo in Alberta, Canada (27 birds), the White Oak Conservation Center in Yulee, Florida (10) and the Dallas Zoo and Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Virginia (9 each), with another 25 birds too old or otherwise unsuited for breeding living at zoos for display only.


The Dallas Zoo’s birds, which arrived at a 2½-acre off-site breeding facility last August, were chosen as both genetically well suited and likely to breed on their own, said Matt James, senior director of animal care. “We’re going to try for the first couple of seasons to do this naturally,” he said.

Wild whooping cranes are hatching chicks, but those don’t get counted as members of the flock until they can fly. And even then, it isn’t easy being free. In Louisiana, 21 chicks hatched from 2016 through 2019. Seven lived to fly. Three have avoided perils such as predators, power lines and people who shoot at birds, and are still alive.

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FILE - In this June 21, 2018 file photo, a recently hatched endangered whooping crane chick follows a keeper wearing a "crane suit," to resemble an adult endangered whooping crane so the chick doesn’t view humans as its flock at Audubon Nature Institute's Species Survival Center in New Orleans. The center usually "costume-raises" a number of chicks. But because the coronavirus pandemic has cut money and staffing it will do so in 2020 only if adult whoopers at the center are doing poorly at raising chicks. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

FILE - In this June 11, 2018, file photo, a captive-bred whooping crane and its wild-hatched chick forage through a crawfish pond in Jefferson Davis Parish, La. The COVID-19 pandemic means far fewer chicks than usual are being bred in captivity to release in the wild in fall 2020. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

Follow Janet McConnaughey on Twitter: @JanetMcCinNO

Colorado reexamines Elijah McClain’s death in police custody

By PATTY NIEBERG and THOMAS PEIPERT June 25, 2020

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File-In this Nov. 23, 2019, file photo, demonstrators gather for a press conference at the Aurora Municipal Center after the police department released the body camera footage of Elijah McClain, who died after being stopped by three Aurora officers in August 2019. (Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado via AP,File)

DENVER (AP) — The Colorado governor on Thursday ordered prosecutors to reopen the investigation into the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man put into a chokehold by police who stopped him on the street in suburban Denver last year because he was “being suspicious.”

Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order directing state Attorney General Phil Weiser to investigate and possibly prosecute the three white officers previously cleared in McClain’s death. McClain’s name has become a rallying cry during the national reckoning over racism and police brutality following the deaths of George Floyd and others.

“Elijah McClain should be alive today, and we owe it to his family to take this step and elevate the pursuit of justice in his name to a statewide concern,” Polis said in a statement.

He said he had spoken with McClain’s mother and was moved by her description of her son as a “responsible and curious child ... who could inspire the darkest soul.”

Police in Aurora responded to a call about a suspicious person wearing a ski mask and waving his arms as he walked down a street on Aug. 24. Police body-camera video shows an officer getting out of his car, approaching McClain and saying, “Stop right there. Stop. Stop. ... I have a right to stop you because you’re being suspicious.”

Police say McClain refused to stop walking and fought back when officers confronted him and tried to take him into custody.

In the video, the officer turns McClain around and repeats, “Stop tensing up.” As McClain tries to escape the officer’s grip, the officer says, “Relax, or I’m going to have to change this situation.”

File-In this Nov. 23, 2019, file photo, attorney, Mari Newman, right, hugs Sheneen McClain during a press conference at the Aurora Municipal Center after the police department released the body camera footage of McClain's son, Elijah, being stopped while walking by three officers from the Aurora Police in late August 2019. McClain died three days later from injuries sustained during the stop. (Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado via AP, File)

As other officers join to restrain McClain, he begs them to let go and says, “You guys started to arrest me, and I was stopping my music to listen.”

One of the officers put him in a chokehold that cuts off blood to the brain, something that has been banned in several places in the wake of Floyd’s death May 25 under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer and the global protests that followed.

In the video, McClain tells officers: “Let go of me. I am an introvert. Please respect the boundaries that I am speaking.” Those words have appeared on scores of social media posts demanding justice for McClain.

He was on the ground for 15 minutes as several officers and paramedics stood by. Paramedics gave him 500 milligrams of the sedative ketamine to calm him down, and he suffered cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. McClain was declared brain dead Aug. 27 and was taken off life support three days later.

A forensic pathologist could not determine what exactly led to his death but said physical exertion during the confrontation likely contributed.

McClain’s younger sister, Samara McClain, told The Denver Post shortly after his death that her brother was walking to a corner store to get tea for a cousin and often wore masks when he was outside because he had a blood condition that caused him to get cold easily.

File-In this Oct. 1, 2019, file photograph, the father of Elijah McClain, LaWayne Mosley, left, and mother, Sheneen McClain, right, flank the family's lawyer, Mari Newman, during a protest outside city hall in Aurora, Colo. Elijah McClain died after being stopped by three police officers while walking in the east Denver suburb of Aurora. (Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado via AP, File)

In the video, Elijah McClain sobs as he repeatedly tells officers, “I’m just different.” Samara McClain said her brother was a massage therapist who planned to go to college.

The Police Department put the three officers on leave, but they returned to the force when District Attorney Dave Young said there was insufficient evidence to support charging them.

“Ultimately, while I may share the vast public opinion that Elijah McClain’s death could have been avoided, it is not my role to file criminal charges based on opinion, but rather, on the evidence revealed from the investigation and applicable Colorado law,” Young said shortly before Polis ordered the investigation reopened.

Aurora police said interim Police Chief Vanessa Wilson won’t comment to avoid interfering with the investigation.

Mari Newman, the McClain family’s attorney, said she was pleased with the governor’s decision.

“Clearly, Aurora has no intention of taking responsibility for murdering an innocent young man,” she said. “Its entire effort is to defend its brutality at all costs, and to lie to the public it is supposed to serve. It is time for a responsible adult to step in.”

Colorado’s attorney general said in a statement that the investigation will be thorough and “worthy of public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system.”

Nieberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

DEPT.OF DUH OH
Can tear gas and pepper spray increase virus spread?

By CARLA K. JOHNSON

June 8, 2020

FILE - In this May 31, 2020, file photo, a protester tries to talk the police back amid tear gas in downtown Atlanta, as protests continue across the country over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25. Police deployment of tear gas, pepper spray and chemical agents on protesters has raised concern that the practice may have increased the spread of the coronavirus. (Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)


Police departments have used tear gas and pepper spray on protesters in recent weeks, raising concern that the chemical agents could increase the spread of the coronavirus.

The chemicals are designed to irritate the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose and throat. They make people cough, sneeze and pull off their masks as they try to breathe.

Medical experts say those rushing to help people sprayed by tear gas could come into close contact with someone already infected with the virus who is coughing infectious particles. 

Also, those not already infected could be in more danger of getting sick because of irritation to their respiratory tracts.

There’s no research on tear gas and COVID-19 specifically, because the virus is too new. 

But a few years ago, Joseph Hout, then an active duty Army officer, conducted a study of 6,723 Army recruits exposed to a riot control gas during basic training. The study found a link between that exposure and doctors diagnosing acute respiratory illnesses.

o-Chlorobenzylidene Malononitrile (CS Riot Control Agent) Associated Acute Respiratory Illnesses in a U.S. Army Basic Combat Training Cohort 

Joseph J. Hout, MS USA, Duvel W. White, MS USA, Anthony R. Artino, MSC USN, Joseph J. Knapik, ScD Author NotesMilitary Medicine, Volume 179, Issue 7, July 2014, Pages 793–798,

https://doi.org/10.7205/MILMED-D-13-00514

Published: 01 July 2014ABSTRACTAcute respiratory illnesses (ARIs) are among the leading causes for hospital visits in U.S. military training populations and historically peak during U.S. Army Basic Combat Training (BCT) following mandatory exposure to the riot control agent o-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile (CS). This observational prospective cohort studied the association between CS exposures and ARI-related health outcomes in 6,723 U.S. Army recruits attending BCT at Fort Jackson, South Carolina from August 1 to September 25, 2012 by capturing and linking the incidence of ARI before and after the mask confidence chamber to CS exposure data. Recruits had a significantly higher risk (risk ratio = 2.44; 95% confidence interval = 1.74, 3.43) of being diagnosed with ARI following exposure to CS compared to the period of training preceding exposure, and incidence of ARI after CS exposure was dependent on the CS exposure concentration (p = 0.03). There was a significant pre-/postexposure ARI difference across all CS concentration levels (p < 0.01), however, no significant differences were detected among these rate ratios (p = 0.72). As CS exposure is positively associated with ARI health outcomes in this population, interventions designed to reduce respiratory exposures could result in decreased hospital burden and lost training time in the U.S. Army BCT population.

FILE - In this May 31, 2020, file photo, milk is poured into a demonstrator's eyes to neutralize the effect of pepper spray during a rally at Lafayette Park near the White House in Washington. Police deployment of tear gas, pepper spray and chemical agents on protesters has raised concern that the practice may have increased the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

Could tear gas lead to an increase in coronavirus infections? “I think it’s plausible, yes,” Hout said Monday.

The gases and sprays “by their nature, make you cough, sneeze and excrete fluids,” said Hout, now employed by Fairfax, Virginia-based Knowesis Inc., a private contractor.

“If there is a person who is positive for the virus, I can see them coughing on someone else and spreading it that way,” Hout said. “Another less likely way is through irritation of the respiratory system. It could create an environment for opportunistic infection in the body.”

Last week, more than 1,000 medical professionals and students signed a letter urging public health officials to oppose any use of “tear gas, smoke, or other respiratory irritants, which could increase risk for COVID-19 by making the respiratory tract more susceptible to infection, exacerbating existing inflammation, and inducing coughing.”

In the U.S., mayors in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle have ordered limits on the use of one common gas for crowd control. A judge in Denver imposed restrictions on the use of chemical weapons by police. And officials in Pittsburgh, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., have proposed bans or limits on tear gas use.

As protests over the death of George Floyd and other black Americans killed by law enforcement continue, it will take weeks before the effect might show up in rising COVID-19 case numbers. If cases increase, there are other factors that could share the blame, such as shouting, singing and, for thousands who were arrested, being confined in close spaces with others.

FILE - In this May 30, 2020, file photo, a protester is assisted with a solution to help neutralize the effects of tear gas fired by police outside the Minneapolis 5th Police Precinct. Police deployment of tear gas, pepper spray and chemical agents on protesters has raised concern that the practice may have increased the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Venice flooded by unusual high tide, 3rd highest for June

A quarter of Venice has been submerged by a near-record high tide for June, a time of year when such flooding is rare.

June 5, 2020


A view of flooded St. Mark square in Venice, Italy, Thursday night, June 4, 2020. Venice has been submerged by a near-record high tide that is rare for this time of year. The water level in the lagoon city reached 116 centimeters late Thursday, the third-highest mark for June. That level indicates around a quarter of Venice has been flooded. (AP Photo/Luigi Costantini)

ROME (AP) — A quarter of Venice has been submerged by a near-record high tide for June, a time of year when such flooding is rare.

The water level in Italy’s lagoon city reached 116 centimeters (3 feet, 9.7 inches) late Thursday, the third-highest mark for June. That level indicates that around a quarter of Venice has been flooded.

Venice’s sea monitoring agency blamed the unusually high late spring tide on a storm in the Atlantic that brought heavy winds and rain to northern Italy. Another unseasonably high tide is expected Friday night.

The highest June high tide was registered in 2002, when the water mark hit 121 centimeters, followed by 117 centimeters in June of 2016.

Venice authorities on Friday didn’t put out pedestrian bridges, which are usually only used in the peak “acqua alta” season from September to April.

Venice and the rest of Italy are still closed to cruise ships but Italy relaxed travel restrictions for Italians and most Europeans on Wednesday.

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Read all AP coverage of climate change issues at https://apnews.com/Climate

BET Awards highlight Black voices as artists turn political

1 of 12 https://apnews.com/82d410e5f6697ab2c46e1cfed96329e7

In this video grab issued Sunday, June 28, 2020, by BET, rapper DaBaby performs "Rockstar" as an actor playing a police officer presses his knee on DaBaby's neck, replicating the last few moments of George Floyd's life, during the BET Awards. (BET via AP)


NEW YORK (AP) — The BET Awards served as an extension of the voices of Black people protesting in the streets about the inequalities Black people face daily, as artists used their performances to highlight the Black Lives Matter movement, civil rights and the lives of those lost because of police officers, including George Floyd.

DaBaby, with his face pressed against the ground as an officer’s knee crippled his neck — replicating the last moments of Floyd’s life — rapped a verse from the Black Lives Matter remix of his hit song “Rockstar.” His performance also featured images from protests, a reflection of the current world in the wake of Floyd’s death and the death of others, including Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

Sunday’s show, a virtual event because of the coronavirus pandemic, featured a number of highly produced, well-crafted and pre-taped performances. The BET Awards kicked off with Black artists rapping and singing anthems about the Black experience and fighting for equal rights.

Keedron Bryant performs "I Just Wanna Live" during the BET Awards.

The 12-year-old sensation Keedron Bryant, who turned heads on social media with his passionate performance about being a young Black man in today’s world, started the show with an a cappella performance of his poignant song “I Just Wanna Live,” which earned him a record deal. That was followed by an all-star performance of Public Enemy’s 1989 anthem “Fight the Power,” featuring Nas, Black Thought, Rapsody and YG adding new lyrics to the song, even namedropping Taylor and others.

Michelle Obama highlighted Beyoncé’s commitment to the Black community before presenting her with the humanitarian award, saying: “You can see it in everything she does, from her music that gives voice to Black joy and Black pain, to her activism that demands justice for Black lives.”

Beyonce accepts the humanitarian award during the BET Awards.

Beyoncé used her speech to encourage viewers to vote “like our life depends on it” in the upcoming election.

“I want to dedicate this award to all of my brothers out there, all of my sisters out there inspiring me, marching and fighting for change. Your voices are being heard and you’re proving to our ancestors that their struggles were not in vain. Now we have one more thing we need to do to walk in our true power, and that is to vote,” she said. “There are people banking on us staying at home during local elections and primaries happening in states across the country. We have to vote like our life depends on it, because it does.”

Sunday’s show celebrated BET’s 20th awards show and BET’s 40th year as a network. The three-hour event, which aired on CBS for the first time, was hosted by comedian, actress and TV personality Amanda Seales, who starred in several skits, including one about women who identify as “Karen,” a common stereotype and term for racist and privileged white women.

Roddy Ricch wears a shirt that says Black Lives Matter while performing during the BET Awards.

Other artists were political during their performances, including Roddy Ricch, who wore a Black Lives Matter shirt while he rapped, Alicia Keys, Anderson Paak and Jay Rock, as well as brothers SiR and D Smoke, who performed with their mother Jackie Gouché.

Lil Wayne paid tribute to NBA icon Kobe Bryant, who died in January, with a performance of his 2009 song “Kobe Bryant,” weaving in new lyrics. Wayne Brady, in a glittery suit, rolled around on top of a piano as he sang a medley of Little Richard hits.

Nipsey Hussle, who was named best male hip-hop artist and earned the humanitarian award at last year’s BET Awards, won video of the year for “Higher,” a clip he filmed with DJ Khaled and John Legend shortly before he died .

“This is for Nipsey Hussle and hip-hop,” Khaled said in a taped video. “Nipsey Hussle, thank you for working with me on this ‘Higher’ record. I appreciate you. Nipsey’s family, we love you.”

Chloe x Halle perform during the BET Awards.

The BET Awards, one of the first awards shows to air virtually, featured performances that were sharp with artsy stage production, giving extra life to the songs being performed. It was a welcome break from the “living room” and homebound performances hundreds of artists have shared on social media since the pandemic hit in March.

Chloe x Halle, who have successfully performed for various TV shows and events during the pandemic while promoting their new album, gave an epic performance of their songs “Do It” and “Forgive Me.” R&B star Summer Walker, who played guitar and sang, was also impressive during her performance, which featured Usher.

Megan Thee Stallion went to the desert with background dancers as she twerked and rapped her No. 1 hit “Savage.” She won best female hip-hop artist, beating out Cardi B and Nicki Minaj.

Megan Thee Stallion performs during the BET Awards.

“Oh my God, I probably recorded this video like 10 times. It feels so crazy doing this from my house,” she said. “I used to watch the BET Awards all the time thinking, ‘One day that’s going to be me going up there accepting my award’ — and now it is.”

Though the BET Awards are technically about handing out trophies, the awards were an afterthought. During the live telecast, Richh won album of the year for his debut “Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial”; Lizzo was named best female R&B/pop artist; and Burna Boy won best international act. Overall, Chris Brown, Beyoncé and Ricch were the night’s big winners, taking home two honors each. Beyoncé won the BET HER award for “Brown Skin Girl,” shared with daughter Blue Ivy Carter as well as Wizkid and Saint JHN. The song also won Beyoncé and Blue Ivy a Soul Train Music Award last year.

ALICIA KEYS