Solar probe to pass through comet’s tail for ‘bonus science’

May 29, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — The European Space Agency said Friday that its Solar Orbiter probe will pass through the tail of a comet in the coming days and scientists plan to switch on its instruments early to conduct some “bonus science.”

Solar Orbiter was launched in February on a mission to capture the first pictures of the sun’s elusive poles and the chance encounter with comet ATLAS wasn’t planned.

After being alerted to the opportunity by Geraint Jones of Britain’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory, mission scientists set about ensuring four of the probe’s instruments will be switched on to gather data about the trail of dust and charged particles left by the comet.

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ESA said similar chance flybys through a comet’s tail have only been recorded six times previously and only after the event had taken place.

The agency’s director of science, Guenther Hasinger, said the unexpected encounter “provides a mission with unique opportunities and challenges, but that’s good.”

“Chances like this are all part of the adventure of science,” he added.

Sundarbans devastated by cyclone, as virus halts migration

By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL

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This May 22, 2020 photo shows the damage caused by Cyclone Amphan in Deulbari village, in South 24 Parganas district in the Sundarbans, West Bengal state, India. The cyclone that struck India and Bangladesh last month passed through the Sundarbans, devastating the islands that are home to one of the world’s largest mangrove forests and is a UNESCO world heritage site. (Samrat Paul via AP)

This May 22, 2020 photo shows a woman inspect the damage caused by Cyclone Amphan in Deulbari village, in South 24 Parganas district in the Sundarbans, West Bengal state, India. The cyclone that struck India and Bangladesh last month passed through the Sundarbans, devastating the islands that are home to one of the world’s largest mangrove forests and is a UNESCO world heritage site. (Samrat Paul via AP)
NEW DELHI (AP) — The powerful cyclone that struck India and Bangladesh last month passed through the vast mangrove forests of the Sundarban delta, a UNESCO world heritage site. The mangroves dissipated some of Cyclone Amphan’s energy, shielding densely populated cities like Kolkata.

But the storm’s impact was devastating for the millions who live in the Sundarbans. Mud homes were swept away, embankments were destroyed and farms were inundated by saline water that made them unfit for cultivation.

The impact of climate change, including increasingly furious storms and coastal erosion from rising oceans, has forced many to migrate to the cities in recent years. But now with the coronavirus pandemic shutting down businesses and limiting mobility, villagers don’t have the option of moving to other places in search of work.
“It is a recipe for disaster,” said Annu Jalais, a professor at the National University of Singapore who has been studying the Sundarbans for two decades.

This May 22, 2020 photo shows the damage caused by Cyclone Amphan in Deulbari village, in South 24 Parganas district in the Sundarbans, West Bengal state, India. The cyclone that struck India and Bangladesh last month passed through the Sundarbans, devastating the islands that are home to one of the world’s largest mangrove forests and is a UNESCO world heritage site. (Samrat Paul via AP)

This May 22, 2020 photo shows villagers inspecting the damage caused by Cyclone Amphan in Deulbari village, in South 24 Parganas district in the Sundarbans, West Bengal state, India. The cyclone that struck India and Bangladesh last month passed through the Sundarbans, devastating the islands that are home to one of the world’s largest mangrove forests and is a UNESCO world heritage site. (Samrat Paul via AP)

This May 22, 2020 photo shows the damage caused by Cyclone Amphan in Deulbari village, in South 24 Parganas district in the Sundarbans, West Bengal state, India. The cyclone that struck India and Bangladesh last month passed through the Sundarbans, devastating the islands that are home to one of the world’s largest mangrove forests and is a UNESCO world heritage site. (Samrat Paul via AP)

Cyclone Amphan hit on May 20 with heavy rains, a massive storm surge and sustained winds of 170 kilometers (105 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 190 kph (118 mph). It passed directly through the Sundarbans, devastating it.

Jafar Iqbal, a village teacher, spent a night in a shelter while the cyclone raged outside. When he went home the next day, he found his house badly damaged.

“My home didn’t have a roof. It was lying crumpled on the floor,” he said by phone.

The Sundarban delta has 102 islands of which 54 are inhabited. The rest constitute the world’s largest mangrove forest. Most famous for its population of tigers, the mangroves — dense thickets of small trees with exposed supporting roots — act as a buffer during storms, slowing down tidal waves and dissipating a storm’s energy, said K.J. Ramesh, India’s former meteorological chief.

The lives of the estimated 4.5 million people in the region are tied to the fragile ecosystem. Farming, fishing, collecting honey and tourism are the few employment opportunities available. But climate change has been making their lives harder.

Cyclone Amphan also damaged almost the entire length of the 100-kilometer (62-mile) nylon fence that had been erected to prevent tigers from straying into human habitations, said Krishnendu Basak of the private Wildlife Trust of India. The fence is key in reducing the number of tiger attacks on people.

But it is the breaking of embankments, resulting in salt water pouring onto the land, which will have the most durable impact on livelihoods. Saline water kills freshwater fish in ponds in a day, most sources of drinking water disappear, and land can’t be used for cultivation for up to five years, Jalais said.

Amites Mukhopadhyay, a sociologist at Jadavpur University who has been researching the Sundarbans, said the ebb and flow of the tides makes it difficult to build new embankments. “The tides change every six hours. You need a very strong initiative from the government,” he said.

A cyclone in 2009 and another last year left similar devastation and triggered mass migration out of the islands. Even before Cyclone Amphan struck, many of those migrants had started returning home after losing their jobs in the cities due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Elema Bibi, a fisherwoman whose son returned home days before the cyclone, said, “We are left with nothing, with nowhere to go. There is no source of income. I just have a pile of rotting fish.”

This May 22, 2020 photo shows a boy looking at the damage caused by Cyclone Amphan in Deulbari village, in South 24 Parganas district in the Sundarbans, West Bengal state, India. The cyclone that struck India and Bangladesh last month passed through the Sundarbans, devastating the islands that are home to one of the world’s largest mangrove forests and is a UNESCO world heritage site. (Samrat Paul via AP)

The state has announced $827,000 in aid for rebuilding houses, helping farmers and repairing wells in the Sundarban, and the national government has announced a $130 million relief fund for the state.

The coronvirus is complicating relief work as well. During the cyclone, villagers huddled in crowded storm shelters, which authorities feared could spread the virus. Since the storm, the number of cases in the state has increased to over 5,500 with more than 300 deaths from 3,103 cases and 181 deaths on the day of the cyclone.

“Most families left the cyclone shelter as soon as they could,” Iqbal said. “No one wanted to risk getting infected by the virus.”

Some villages have blocked the entry of outsiders and asked for relief materials to be left on other islands for them to pick up, news reports say.

Mukhopadhyay said the region is no stranger to disasters, but the combination of the cyclone and the pandemic make the situation look “completely bleak.”

“People are resilient, but how much resilience can they have?” he said.

SpaceX captures the flag, beating Boeing in cosmic contest


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In this image taken from NASA video on Monday, June 1, 2020, NASA astronauts Robert L. Behnken, left, and Chris Cassidy right, listen as commander Douglas Hurley speaks about retrieving the American flag left behind at the International Space Station nearly a decade ago. (NASA via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The first astronauts launched by SpaceX declared victory Monday in NASA’s cosmic capture-the-flag game.

They quickly claimed the prize left behind at the International Space Station nearly a decade ago by the last crew to launch from the U.S.

“Congratulations, SpaceX, you got the flag,” NASA astronaut Doug Hurley said a day after arriving at the space station.

Hurley showed off the small U.S. flag during a news conference and again in a linkup with SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

“You can bet we will take it with us when we depart back to Earth,” said Hurley, floating alongside Dragon crewmate Bob Behnken.

– AP FACT CHECK: Trump claim of saving space program off base

The flag flew on the first space shuttle flight in 1981 and the final one in 2011. Hurley was on that last shuttle crew.

The flag was an added incentive for Elon Musk’s SpaceX company and Boeing, competing to be the first private company to launch a crew to the space station. Saturday’s liftoff of NASA astronauts was the first from the U.S. in nine years. Boeing’s first astronaut flight isn’t expected until next year. The crew will include Chris Ferguson, commander of the last shuttle flight who now works for Boeing.

“Proud to yield the title of “The last commander of an American launched spacecraft” to @Astro_Doug who, with @AstroBehnken, has returned US to space from KSC after 3,252 days. Well done,” Ferguson tweeted following the SpaceX liftoff.

An estimated 100,000 people — suppliers, vendors, engineers, etc. — were responsible for Saturday’s flawless launch of test pilots Hurley and Behnken aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center. The Dragon capsule, also built and owned by SpaceX, docked at the space station Sunday.

“It’s awe-inspiring for all of us,” SpaceX manager Benji Reed told the astronauts from Hawthorne.

Reed asked them about the Falcon ride. Hurley said he could feel when the rocket went transonic and broke the sound barrier. The final push to orbit, on the second stage, was full of vibrations and felt like “driving fast, very fast on a gravel road,” he said. The astronauts instantly went from pulling more than three G’s — more than three times the force of Earth’s gravity — to zero gravity as soon as they reached orbit.

“Sounds like the ultimate ride in a Batmobile with the jet engine turned on,” Reed said.

Behnken said one of the first things he did upon reaching the orbiting lab was call his 6-year-old son, Theo, to hear what is was like to watch his father blast into space “and share that a little bit with him while it was still fresh in his mind.”

Hurley and Behnken spent Monday making sure their docked Dragon is ready to make an emergency getaway, if necessary. The capsule will serve as their lifeboat during their space station visit. They joined three station residents — an American and two Russians.

Full Coverage: Space Launch

NASA will decide in the coming weeks how long to keep the pair there. Their mission could last anywhere from one to four months. The timing will depend on Dragon checkouts in orbit and launch preparations for the company’s next astronaut flight, currently targeted for the end of August.

With so much uncertainty and so many variables, Behnken said it was a little hard explaining to his son when he’d back.

“From his perspective, he’s just excited that we’re going to get a dog when I get home,” Behnken said with a smile.

___

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.

. Hurley was on that last shuttle flight.

CANADIAN STUDY EH
Monkeys, ferrets offer needed clues in COVID-19 vaccine race

ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION


By LAURAN NEERGAARD

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In this April 2014 photo provided by the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre at the University of Saskatchewan, a researcher holds a ferret at their facility in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2020, the lab is working with 300 ferrets developing a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine candidate and testing other vaccine candidates and therapeutics. (VIDO-InterVac at the University of Saskatchewan via AP)

The global race for a COVID-19 vaccine boils down to some critical questions: How much must the shots rev up someone’s immune system to really work? And could revving it the wrong way cause harm?

Even as companies recruit tens of thousands of people for larger vaccine studies this summer, behind the scenes scientists still are testing ferrets, monkeys and other animals in hopes of clues to those basic questions — steps that in a pre-pandemic era would have been finished first.

“We are in essence doing a great experiment,” said Ralph Baric, a coronavirus expert at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, whose lab is testing several vaccine candidates in animals.

The speed-up is necessary to try to stop a virus that has triggered a pandemic, killing more than 360,000 worldwide and shuttering economies. But “there’s no question there is more risk in the current strategy than what has ever been done before,” Baric said.

The animal testing lets scientists see how the body reacts to vaccines in ways studies in people never can, said Kate Broderick, research chief at Inovio Pharmaceuticals.

With animals, “we’re able to perform autopsies and look specifically at their lung tissue and get a really deep dive in looking at how their lungs have reacted,” Broderick said.



She’s awaiting results from mice, ferrets and monkeys that are being exposed to the coronavirus after receiving Inovio’s vaccine. Since no species perfectly mimics human infection, testing a trio broadens the look at safety.

And there’s some good news on the safety front as the first animal data from various research teams starts to trickle out. So far, there are no signs of a worrisome side effect called disease enhancement, which Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health calls reassuring.

Enhancement is just what the name implies: Very rarely, a vaccine doesn’t stimulate the immune system in quite the right way, producing antibodies that not only can’t fully block infection but that make any resulting disease worse.

That first happened in the 1960s with failure of a vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus, RSV, an infection dangerous to young children. More recently, it has complicated efforts at vaccines against mosquito-spread dengue fever.

And some attempted vaccines for SARS, a cousin of COVID-19, seemed to cause enhancement in animal testing.

Fast forward to the pandemic. Three recently reported studies in monkeys tested different COVID-19 vaccine approaches, including shots made by Oxford University and China’s Sinovac. The studies were small, but none of the monkeys showed evidence of immune-enhanced disease when scientists later dripped the coronavirus directly into the animals’ noses or windpipes.

Some of the best evidence so far that a vaccine might work also comes from those monkey studies. Oxford and Sinovac created very different types of COVID-19 vaccines, and in separate studies, each team recently reported that vaccinated monkeys were protected from pneumonia while monkeys given a dummy shot got sick.
Full Coverage: Racing for a Remedy

But protection against severe disease is just a first step. Could a vaccine also stop the virus’s spread? The Oxford study raises some doubt.

Those researchers found as much virus lingering in the vaccinated monkeys’ noses as in the unvaccinated. Even though the experiment exposed moneys to high levels of the coronavirus, it raised troubling questions.

The type of vaccine -- how it targets the “spike” protein that coats the coronavirus -- may make a difference. Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston designed six different vaccine prototypes. Some only partially protected monkeys -- but one fully protected eight monkeys from any sign of the virus, said Dr. Dan Barouch, who is working with Johnson & Johnson on yet another COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

 In this July 29, 2008, file photo, a rhesus macaque monkey grooms another on Cayo Santiago, known as Monkey Island, off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico. Since 1938, the 37-acre island has served as a research colony where the monkeys, originally from India, are studied. Even as companies recruit tens of thousands of people for larger COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine studies in the summer of 2020, behind the scenes scientists still are testing ferrets, monkeys and other animals in hopes of clues to those basic questions — steps that in a pre-pandemic era would have been finished first. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

In monkeys, the new coronavirus lodges in the lungs but seldom makes them super sick. Ferrets — the preferred animal for flu vaccine development — may help tell if potential COVID-19 vaccines might stop the viral spread.

“Ferrets develop a fever. They also cough and sneeze,” infecting each other much like people do, said vaccine researcher Alyson Kelvin of Canada’s Dalhousie University.

And while COVID-19 is a huge risk to the elderly, vaccines often don’t rev up an older person’s immune system as well as a younger person’s. So Kelvin also is studying older ferrets.

Some vaccine makers are reporting promising immune reactions in the first people given the experimental shots, including production of “neutralizing” antibodies, a kind that latches onto the virus and blocks it from infecting cells. But there’s a hitch.

Said Inovio’s Broderick: “Let me be honest. We’re still not clear at all on what those correlates of protection are” — meaning what mix of immune reactions, and how much, are needed.

Some clues come from the blood of COVID-19 survivors, although “there’s a huge variation” in immune reactions between the severely and mildly ill, Broderick added.

Still, if vaccinated animals that produce the same neutralizing antibody levels as certain COVID-19 survivors are protected — and people given test doses likewise produce the same amount — “that is great comfort that your vaccine approach actually may work,” said Kathrin Jansen, head of Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine research.

But ultimately the real proof won’t come before huge studies of whether vaccinated people get sick less often than the unvaccinated.

___

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.

Confederate monuments coming down around South amid protests


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Robert Walker poses for a photograph on the remains of a Confederate memorial that was removed overnight in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday, June 2, 2020. The city took down the more than 50-foot-tall obelisk following protests over the police death of George Floyd and a night of vandalism in the city. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Sarah Collins Rudolph thought she’d never see what happened in her hometown: Prompted by protests, the city removed a 115-year-old Confederate monument near where her sister and three other black girls died in a racist church bombing in 1963.

A wave of Confederate memorial removals that began after a white supremacist killed nine black people at a Bible study in a church in South Carolina in 2015 is again rolling, with more relics of the Old South being removed from public view after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minnesota.

In Birmingham, where Rudolph lives, the graffiti-covered, pocked base of a massive Confederate monument was all that remained Tuesday after crews dismantled the towering obelisk and trucked it away in pieces overnight. Other symbols came down elsewhere, leaving an empty pedestal in Virginia and a bare flagpole in Florida.

Rudolph, whose sister Addie Mae Collins died in the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church, had to see the sight for herself. She lowered a protective face mask to take in the absence of an edifice she long considered a symbol of oppression.

“I’m glad it’s been removed because it has been so long, and we know that it’s a hate monument,” said Rudolph, 69. “It didn’t represent the blacks. It just represented the hard times back there a long time ago.”

Graffiti, toilet papers and eggs are seen on and around the Confederate Monument in downtown Norfolk, Va., on Sunday, May 31, 2020. Protesters sprayed paint on the monument on Saturday night protest on May 30, 2020. (The N. Pham/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)


Confederate symbols across the South have been targeted for vandalism during demonstrations sparked by Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis. Now, even some of their longtime defenders have decided to remove them.

In Alexandria, Virginia, it was the United Daughters of the Confederacy that took action early Tuesday, removing the statue of a soldier gazing south from Old Town since 1889. And outside Tampa, Florida, a Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter lowered a huge Confederate battle flag that has long been flown in view of two interstate highways.

Birmingham took down the obelisk a day after protesters tried to remove the monument themselves, during one of the many nationwide protests. Crews were preparing to finish the job by pulling up the base.

The monument had been the subject of a protracted court battle between the city and state, which passed a law to protect Confederate icons after rebel monuments were challenged and removed following the killings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the city of Birmingham, seeking to fine the city $25,000 for violating the state law. Mayor Randall Woodfin said earlier this week that the fine was more affordable than the cost of continued unrest in the city. Online fundraising drives have raised more than enough money to pay the fine.


An unidentified man walks past a toppled statue of Charles Linn, a city founder who was in the Confederate Navy, in Birmingham, Ala., on Monday, June 1, 2020, following a night of unrest. People shattered windows, set fires and damaged monuments in a downtown park after a protest against the death of George Floyd. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

The state lawsuit does not specifically ask Birmingham to restore the monument.

Work to remove the monument began Monday, which was Alabama’s holiday honoring Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who was sworn in Montgomery. There, on the same day, someone knocked over a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee outside a mostly black high school named for him.

Four people were arrested on criminal mischief charges, and the toppled statue was removed.

Sarah Collins Rudolph, who survived a racist church bombing that killed sister Addie Mae Collins and three other girls in 1963, stands with husband George Rudolph at the remains of a Confederate memorial that was removed in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday, June 2, 2020. The city took down the more than 50-foot-tall obelisk following protests over the police death of George Floyd and a night of vandalism in the city. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

In Alexandria, a city spokesman said the United Daughters of the Confederacy informed the city on Monday that it would remove the statue, and the city’s only role was to provide traffic support. By morning, the pedestal was all that was left. City officials were not told where the statue was taken.

Titled “Appomattox,” it depicts a solitary Confederate soldier, his head bowed slightly. In 1890, a state law was passed barring local officials from ever removing it. That law was repealed earlier this year.

Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson tweeted photos of the removal on Tuesday, saying “Alexandria, like all great cities, is constantly changing and evolving.”

In Birmingham, Rudolph saw the removal of the monument as unfinished business from decades ago. The more than 50-foot-tall (15-meter-tall) memorial to Confederate soldiers and sailors was located just blocks from the church where Rudolph was badly injured and her sister died when a bomb went off on a Sunday morning decades ago.

“The things that we were fighting for in the ’60s aren’t solved yet,” said Rudolph, who testified against Ku Klux Klansmen convicted in the bombing. “We shouldn’t be treated the way they treat us.”

https://apnews.com/810a6cb13ce6cdbde5b534661c5f2da6__

Associated Press writers Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama; and Matthew Barakat in Falls Church, Virginia; contributed to this report.

THE DISPOSSED OF THE EMPIRE

UK study finds minorities at higher risk of COVID-19 death


Britain's Health Secretary Matt Hancock speaks during a media briefing on coronavirus, in Downing Street, London, Tuesday June 2, 2020. (Pippa Fowles/10 Downing Street via AP)


LONDON (AP) — People from ethnic minorities have died from COVID-19 in larger relative numbers in England than their white compatriots, according to a study published by health authorities Tuesday.

The Public Health England report indicated reasons for the discrepancy but didn’t offer any recommendations. The government didn’t offer any solutions, prompting concerns that people from black, Asian and other minority backgrounds will still face a disproportionate risk if there is a second spike in the coronavirus outbreak.

Dr. Kailash Chand, a former deputy chair of the British Medical Association council, said the report could be viewed as a “whitewash” for failing to deliver recommendations.
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“This was something to show that they were appearing to do something,” he said.

The study, commissioned by the government in April at the height of the U.K. outbreak, found that people of Bangladeshi ethnicity had about twice the risk of death from the virus as white Britons. It said people of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, other Asian, Caribbean and other black backgrounds also had a higher risk of death than white Britons – of between 10% and 50%.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said it was inarguable that “being black or from a minority ethnic background is a major risk factor” in the pandemic.

“This is a particularly timely publication because right across the world people are angry about racial injustice,” Hancock said at a news conference, referring to unrest in the United States over the death of unarmed black man George Floyd while he was being detained by police.

“I get that,” Hancock said of people’s anger. “Black lives matter.”

Hancock said the government would investigate the issues involved in the coming weeks and months.

“I totally understand the urgency, the importance and the sensitivity of getting this right,” he said.

The main opposition Labour Party said the government must act now to protect ethnic-minority groups. It said the review, which drew on official statistics and other data, largely confirmed what was already known about racial and health inequalities.

“When it comes to the question of how we reduce these disparities, it is notably silent,” said Marsha de Cordova, Labour’s equalities spokeswoman. “The government must not wait any longer to mitigate the risks faced by these communities.”

The study did not take account of factors such as obesity — which increases the risk of death from the coronavirus — or the occupations of those who have died. However, it acknowledged that these are “important factors because they are associated with the risk of acquiring COVID-19, the risk of dying, or both.”

It did find that care workers, security guards and road transport drivers, all jobs in which ethnic minority workers are strongly represented, had significantly higher than average death rates.

The report noted that an analysis of over 10,000 patients with COVID-19 admitted to intensive care in U.K. hospitals suggested that, “once age, sex, obesity and comorbidities are taken into account, there is no difference in the likelihood of being admitted to intensive care or of dying between ethnic groups.”

Dr. Veena Raleigh, a senior fellow at health care think tank the King’s Fund, said the report highlighted “profound inequalities” but that there were still some “very big unanswered questions” about the virus’ impact on ethnic groups. Raleigh acknowledged the “time constraints” involved in analysing all the data but said future research has to adjust for pre-existing conditions, such as diabetes, obesity, household densities and occupations, among others.

“This is not a lightbulb moment,” the epidemiologist said.

The study confirmed that the biggest risk factor with COVID-19 is age, with people aged 80 or over 70 times more likely to die from the virus than those aged under 40.

It also found that working age men were twice as likely to die as working age women. It also found that the mortality rates from COVID-19 in the most deprived areas were more than double those in the least deprived areas, and that that was the case for both men and women.

Rebecca Hilsenrath, Chief Executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the broader context of entrenched racial inequality across all areas of life needs to be addressed.

“Only a comprehensive race equality strategy will address these issues,” she said. “Now is a once in a generation opportunity for government to deliver one.”

Movie night in Venezuela barrio offers respite from troubles

The film Aladdin is projected on a screen set up on the roof of a home in the Petare neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, late Monday, June 1, 2020. A neighborhood group called The Download Zone set up the movie as a free entertainment option for families cooped up since mid-March under the COVID-19 quarantine. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)


CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — At nightfall in one corner of Venezuela’s largest and most notorious barrio, all eyes turned to the glow of a temporary movie screen set up on a hillside terrace atop stacked, red cinder block homes.

Families crawled up cramped stairwells, squeezing together on blankets and plastic chairs spread on their flat rooftops. Some leaned out of their kitchen windows, peering through tangled power lines, while others clustered at the foot of long stairways — anyplace to catch a view.

For a short time Monday, hundreds of families in the neighborhood of Petare had a front row seat for a showing of Disney’s “Aladdin,” allowing residents to escape the stress of the coronavirus quarantine and political wrangling that darkened their TV signals among Venezuela’s deepening troubles.

“We’re going to make some popcorn,” resident Adriana Carrillo said through the bars on her front door as her 5-year-old daughter, Aranza Sofía Guerrero, squirmed next to her. “It’s a great distraction, especially for the children.”

The movie projected a bright spot amid the shadow the pandemic has cast around the world at a time when Venezuelans were already struggling under years of political and social crisis. U.S. sanctions bent on forcing President Nicolás Maduro from power recently forced DirecTV to cut its satellite signal, leaving most families in barrios like Petare with no way to watch movies.


The coronavirus has not hit Venezuela as hard as neighboring Brazil, Peru and Ecuador. So far, officials report just over 1,600 illnesses and 17 deaths, but some fear it could easily overwhelm Venezuela’s hospitals.

A group of neighbors who lead the movie night project called The Official Download Zone work on donations from local charities to set up the screen, a projector and speakers on the rooftop terrace, providing low-budget entertainment for families cooped up since mid-March.

The group has been showing movies in the streets for about seven years, among its projects designed to help build a sense of community among Petare’s poor and working class neighborhoods, which have a reputation for violence.

Jimmy Pérez, one of the organizers, said the quarantine and lack of satellite TV made their movie night even more important to residents. They’re taking advantage of families’ rooftop terraces, which already hold an important place in Venezuelan culture, he said.

“It’s on our terraces that we dream and gather together,” Pérez said. “It’s where we bid farewell to each year, set off fireworks at Carnival and fly kites.”




The group, which pushes no political agenda in a deeply divided Venezuela, picks family movies that bring hope-filled messages as they move among neighborhoods, with one planned for each night this week.

They also believe the project will create a narrative for Petare that runs contrary to one of unbridled violence that too many people see. They highlight residents born and raised there who went on to become Major League Baseball players, beauty queens and professionals.

Still, many residents watching “Aladdin” said they remain shaken by a bloody turf war among gangs last month in a nearby part of Petare. The sound of heavy gunfire lasted through several nights. One neighbor described seeing a police helicopter hover outside her front door, making her run for cover.

 

On Monday, however, the only sound echoing throughout this part of Petare was the Disney soundtrack to “Aladdin,” bouncing through the canyon of hillside homes. Its songs and plot tell the story of an Arabian street urchin who wins a princess’s heart despite the obstacles a villain throws his way.

Santiago Vega, 9, said he would normally be playing on his tablet at this time of night, whiling away the hours. Rather, he squeezed in between his dad and uncle to watch the movie, grateful for something different for at least one night.

“I want to be able to see my grandmother, my cousins,” he said, wondering if he’ll be able to properly celebrate his birthday coming up on July 4. “But I can’t, because of all this.”

Concerns mount about two studies on drugs for coronavirus

 This Monday, April 6, 2020 file photo shows an arrangement of hydroxychloroquine pills in Las Vegas. On Tuesday, June 2, 2020, concerns are mounting about studies in two influential medical journals on drugs used in people with coronavirus, including one that led multiple countries to stop testing a malaria pill. (AP Photo/John Locher,File)

Concerns are mounting about studies in two influential medical journals on drugs used in people with coronavirus, including one that led multiple countries to stop testing a malaria pill.

The New England Journal of Medicine issued an “ expression of concern ” Tuesday on a study it published May 1 that suggested widely used blood pressure medicines were not raising the risk of death for people with COVID-19.

The study relied on a database with health records from hundreds of hospitals around the world. “Substantive concerns” have been raised about the quality of the information, and the journal has asked the authors to provide evidence it’s reliable, the editors wrote.

The same database by the Chicago company Surgisphere Corp., was used in an observational study of nearly 100,000 patients published in Lancet that tied the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to a higher risk of death in hospitalized patients with the virus. Lancet issued a similar expression of concern about its study on Tuesday, saying it was aware “important scientific questions” had been raised.

Although it wasn’t a rigorous experiment that could give definitive answers, the Lancet study had wide influence because of its size. The World Health Organization said it would temporarily stop a study of hydroxychloroquine and France stopped allowing its use in hospitals.

The drug has been mired in controversy since President Donald Trump repeatedly promoted it and even took it himself without clear evidence that it’s safe or effective for preventing or treating coronavirus infection.

Dr. Mandeep Mehra of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston led both studies, and the authors include Desai Sapan, Surgisphere’s founder.

A hospital statement says the authors launched an independent audit of the data in the New England Journal paper on Monday. A second statement notes that the Lancet posted a correction Friday on a discrepancy found in that study, and that an independent review would be done of its data too. The correction did not change the overall results or conclusions.

A statement on Surgisphere’s site says it stands behind the integrity of its studies, and notes that observational data like what it supplied from electronic health records are not a substitute for rigorous experiments to test a drug.

The Lancet and the authors need to do more to address the many concerns that scientists have raised, said Dr. Eric Topol, a research methods expert and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego.

“I had accepted the Lancet paper on its face” because the journal and lead author are highly regarded, and because the results are consistent with prior research -- 13 studies have found no benefit from hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus, Topol said.

With the new concerns and correction, the cloud around the database “has now been greatly amplified,” Topol said.

Bell, Telus give 5G contracts to Europeans, Huawei shut out

In this May 18, 2020, file photo, a man wearing a face mask to protect against the coronavirus walks past a Huawei retail store in Beijing. One of China’s biggest tech companies has criticized the Trump administration for “politicizing business” after it slapped export sanctions on 33 more Chinese enterprises and government entities. The announcement expanded a U.S. campaign against Chinese companies Washington says might be security threats or involved in human rights abuses. Beijing criticized curbs imposed earlier on tech giant Huawei and other Chinese companies but has yet to say whether it will retaliate. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)


TORONTO (AP) — Two of Canada’s three major telecommunication companies announced Tuesday they’ve decided not to use Chinese tech giant Huawei for their next-generation 5G wireless network.

Bell Canada announced that Sweden-based Ericsson will be its supplier and Telus Corp. later announced that it had also selected Ericsson and Nokia. Rogers already has a longstanding partnership with Ericsson.

Canada and its security agencies have been studying whether to use equipment from Huawei as phone carriers prepare to roll out fifth-generation technology. 5G is designed to support a vast expansion of networks to facilitate medical devices, self-driving cars and other technology.

Huawei is the world’s biggest supplier of network gear used by phone and internet companies, but has long been seen as a front for spying by China’s military and its highly skilled security services.

The U.S. has urged Canada to exclude Huawei equipment from their next-generation wireless networks as they claim Huawei is legally beholden to the Chinese regime. The United States and Australia have banned Huawei, citing concerns it is an organ of Chinese military intelligence — a charge the company denies.

“We look forward to the federal government completing its 5G review and making an evidence-based decision about Huawei’s role in helping build Canada’s next-generation wireless networks,” Huawei spokesman Alykhan Velshi said in an email.

The Canadian government is studying the use of Huawei as Canada and China are locked in a political dispute. China’s imprisonment of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor is widely seen as retaliation for the arrest in Canada of Huawei senior executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant. A Canadian judge ruled last week the U.S. extradition case against a senior Huawei executive can proceed to the next stage.

DUMPY TRUMP PLAYS TRICKY DICKY

Trump offers ‘domination’ of DC protests as model for states

Claiming he is backed by a “silent majority,” President Donald Trump turned the nation’s capital into a model for the overwhelming force

By ZEKE MILLER, JONATHAN LEMIRE and MICHAEL BALSAMO

President Donald Trump visits Saint John Paul II National Shrine with first lady Melania Trump, Tuesday, June 2, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Claiming he is backed by a “silent majority,” President Donald Trump turned the nation’s capital into a model for the overwhelming force he believes critical to stop sometimes-violent protests that have spread across the country in a time of racial unrest. His tactics were decried Tuesday by some fellow Republicans as well as his presumptive Democratic opponent.

The violent dispersal of peaceful protests near the White House the night before was a potent symbol of Trump’s policing tactics and a physical manifestation of the rhetorical culture war he has stoked since before he was elected. Moments after historic Lafayette Park was cleared, Trump walked across to pose with a Bible in front of a church damaged by fire during protests the previous evening.

“D.C. had no problems last night. Many arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination,” Trump tweeted Tuesday, after a night in which heavily armed military forces and federal officers swarmed the city. Trump added: “(thank you President Trump!).”

The president wanted to make the aggressive action in the nation’s capital — where he wields disproportionate powers — an example for the rest of the country, a senior White House official said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss internal thinking. Trump hoped his personal walk to the church, after federal officials dispersed protesters, would send a message about how dominant force could restore law and order.

The president has threatened that if states do not take tough enough action, he will deploy active duty military across the country to quell unrest in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“SILENT MAJORITY!” Trump tweeted Tuesday, embracing a phrase popularized by President Richard Nixon decades ago, in claiming broad support for his actions. Trump also emphasized the political importance of the moment to his supporters on Twitter and declared that “My Admin has done more for the Black Community than any President since Abraham Lincoln.”

The District of Columbia’s federal status gives the president outsized authority to act, allowing him to direct the deployment of the National Guard. He authorized Attorney General William Barr to oversee a surge in the deployment of federal law enforcement officers, including the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team and agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sought to distance themselves from Monday night’s events after former military officials criticized their appearance with the president. Senior defense officials told reporters the two were not aware that the Park Police and law enforcement had made a decision to clear the square or that Trump intended to visit the church. They had been in Washington to coordinate with federal law enforcement officials but were diverted to the White House to brief Trump on military preparations, the officials said.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said of Trump posing for photos holding up a Bible: “I just wish he opened it once in a while.”

And D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said of the routing of the protesters, “At no time do we think it was appropriate that people who had not violated the curfew or anything else received that treatment.”

Democrats weren’t the only ones saying Trump had gone too far.

“There is no right to riot, no right to destroy others’ property, and no right to throw rocks at police,” said Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse. “But there is a fundamental — a constitutional — right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop.”

It was Barr who gave the order Monday afternoon for law enforcement to clear out the protest before Trump’s walk to the church and ahead of Washington’s 7 p.m. curfew. Officials said the decision to clear the park was made earlier in the day in response to violence the night before.

Trump also ordered military aircraft to fly above Washington on Monday night as a “show of force,” according to two Defense Department officials. They said the U.S. military and National Guard were operating under the mission name “Operation Themis.” In Greek mythology, Themis is a titaness of divine law and order, whose symbols are the scales of justice.

Execution of the order to clear the park created striking split-screen images as officers deployed pepper spray, flash bangs and mounted units to break up the peaceful protest even as Trump was in the Rose Garden saying he supported the rights of peaceful protesters. Chemical remnants still hung in the air as he walked to the church.

Trump reacted to the clearing of the protesters with enthusiasm, pumping his fist at officers in the park. He’d been furious about weekend images juxtaposing the fires in the area with the darkened White House in the background, according to current and former campaign and administration officials not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

Trump was also angry about the news coverage revealing that he had been rushed to the White House bunker during weekend protests, believing the park fires in what amounts to his extended front yard made him appear weak.

But some White House and Justice Department officials privately acknowledged that Monday’s events didn’t serve the administration well.

Trump on Tuesday appeared to be backing off his threat to deploy federal troops to quell unrest under the 1807 Insurrection Act. White House officials said Monday night’s events indicated that the resources already available to local governments should be able to restore order.
Full Coverage: America Protests

Instead, Trump turned his Twitter fire on New York officials, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a frequent political sparring partner.

“New York was lost to the looters, thugs, Radical Left, and all others forms of Lowlife & Scum,” Trump tweeted. “The Governor refuses to accept my offer of a dominating National Guard. NYC was ripped to pieces.”

The federal government has provided all affected states with a list of National Guard resources available to them, the White House official said. The official added that Trump’s message to governors was that if they don’t use all the tools in their arsenal they shouldn’t expect a sympathetic response to any request for federal dollars to help with cleanup and recovery down.

Trump, meanwhile, toured a Catholic shrine on Tuesday in his second straight religious-themed appearance after he declared himself to be the “president of law and order.”

Washington Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory called it “reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree.”

On Tuesday’s drive to the shrine, Trump’s motorcade sped past National Guard members deployed around the World War II Memorial. Some onlookers along the route booed, held “black lives matter” signs or made obscene gestures as the convoy rolled past.

Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him down and pressed Floyd’s neck with his knee as the man pleaded that he couldn’t breathe. Violent demonstrations have raged in scores of American cities, marking a level of unrest unseen for decades.

___

Lemire reported from New York.