Month: June 2021

Disruptions in Wi-Fi Waves Could Help Catch Trespassers

Home security companies often rely on cameras and motion sensors to catch trespassers, but as VOA’s Tina Trinh discovers, Wi-Fi signals can be a less intrusive way to monitor activity.
Produced by: Tina Trinh     

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Nassib Becomes First Active NFL Player to Come Out as Gay

Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib on Monday became the first active NFL player to come out as gay.  
Nassib, who is entering his sixth NFL season and second with the Raiders, announced the news on Instagram, saying he wasn’t doing it for the attention but because he felt representation and visibility were important.
“I just wanted to take a quick moment to say that I’m gay,” Nassib said in his video message from his home in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now, but I finally feel comfortable enough to get it off my chest.
“I really have the best life. I got the best family, friends and job a guy can ask for. I’m a pretty private person, so I hope you guys know that I’m really not doing this for attention. I just think that representation and visibility are so important.”
Nassib added in a written message that followed the video that he “agonized over this moment for the last 15 years” and only recently decided to go public with his sexuality after receiving the support of family and friends.
“I am also incredibly thankful for the NFL, my coaches, and fellow players for their support,” Nassib wrote. “I would not have been able to do this without them. From the jump I was greeted with the utmost respect and acceptance.”
Nassib, whose announcement came during Pride Month, added that he was donating $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that seeks to prevent suicides among LGBTQ youth.
“The NFL family is proud of Carl for courageously sharing his truth today,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “Representation matters. We share his hope that someday soon statements like his will no longer be newsworthy as we march toward full equality for the LGBTQ+ community. We wish Carl the best of luck this coming season.”
Nassib’s announcement also was greeted by Brian Burke, president of the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins. Burke has been a major proponent of LGBTQ rights for more than a decade since his late son Brendan came out as gay.
“Proud to support Carl and his decision to come out as the first active gay player in the NFL,” Burke said. “I hope other sports executives will join me in publicly expressing their support as well.”
The Raiders showed their support, writing, “Proud of you, Carl,” on their repost of Nassib’s message on Twitter and adding a black heart emoji.
DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association, tweeted: “Our union supports Carl and his work with the Trevor Project is proof that he — like our membership — is about making his community and this world a better place not for themselves, but for others.”
Penn State coach James Franklin said he and his wife Fumi were inspired by Nassib’s announcement to donate $10,000 to the Trevor Project.
“I am very proud of Carl for his courage and voice,” Franklin said. “This announcement doesn’t surprise me because if you know Carl, you know his strength. Carl’s story continues to add chapters which will have an impact well beyond the field of play.”
Nassib led the nation with 15½ sacks in 2015, Franklin’s second season in State College, and he was a cornerstone of the program’s path back to contention.
“Carl’s brave announcement will forge a path for others to be true to their authentic self,” Franklin added. “I was proud of Carl when he led the nation in sacks, but I’m even more proud of him now.”
Former All-Pro linebacker Shawne Merriman commended Nassib and suggested teammates and opponents won’t have a problem with his announcement.
“Congrats to Carl Nassib on coming out that’s a big step, I think that most players are concerned if you can play or not,” Merriman tweeted.
In a post saying he was proud of Nassib, Hall of Famer Warren Moon said he played with several gay football players in a storied pro career that spanned from 1978 to 2000 but none were “comfortable enough to go public.”  
“They were great teammates, & obviously very talented. As long as they helped us win and were great teammates, their sexual preference was never a issue,” Moon wrote. “We live in a different time now where diversity is much more accepted. Cheers Carl, and I hope this lets other athletes know, its OK to say who you are…”
Added fellow Nittany Lions alum and Giants running back Saquon Barkley, “Much respect brudda.”
Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, a leading LGBTQ advocacy organization, called Nassib’s “powerful coming out is a historic reflection of the growing state of LGBTQ visibility and inclusion in the world of professional sports, which has been driven by a long list of brave LGBTQ athletes who came before him.”
Ellis said Nassib’s story “will not only have a profound impact on the future of LGBTQ visibility and acceptance in sports, but sends a strong message to so many LGBTQ people, especially youth, that they too can one day grow up to be and succeed as a professional athlete like him.”
More than a dozen NFL players have come out as gay after their careers were over.
Former University of Missouri defensive star Michael Sam was the first openly gay football player ever selected in the NFL draft, going in the seventh round to the then-St. Louis Rams in 2014. But he never made the final roster and retired in 2015 having never played in an NFL regular-season game.
Nassib is a sixth-year pro who was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 2016 in the third round (65th overall) out of Penn State. He played two seasons for the Browns and two for Tampa Bay before joining the Raiders in 2020. He has 20 1/2 sacks in 73 career games.

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Angelina Jolie Visits Burkina Faso as UN Special Envoy

Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has visited war-weakened Burkina Faso to show solidarity with people who continue to welcome the displaced, despite grappling with their own insecurity, and said the world isn’t doing enough to help.  
“The humanitarian crisis in the Sahel seems to me to be totally neglected. It is treated as being of little geopolitical importance,” Jolie told the Associated Press. “There’s a bias in the way we think about which countries and which people matter.”
While Burkina Faso has been battling a five-year Islamic insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State that’s killed thousands and displaced more than one million people, it is also hosting more than 22,000 refugees, the majority Malian.
As Special Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Jolie marked World Refugee Day on Sunday in Burkina Faso’s Goudoubo refugee camp in the Sahel, where she finished a two-day visit. She spoke with the camp’s Malian refugees and internally displaced people in the nation’s hard-hit Center-North and Sahel regions.
After 20 years of work with the U.N. refugee agency, Jolie told the AP the increasing displacement meant the world was on a “terrifying trajectory towards instability”, and that governments had to do something about the conflicts driving the vast numbers of refugees.
“Compared to when I began working with UNHCR twenty years ago, it seems like governments have largely given up on diplomacy … countries which have the least are doing the most to support the refugees,” she said.
“The truth is we are not doing half of what we could and should … to enable refugees to return home, or to support host countries, like Burkina Faso, coping for years with a fraction of the humanitarian aid needed to provide basic support and protection,” Jolie said.  
Malians began fleeing to Burkina Faso in 2012 after their lives were upended by an Islamic insurgency, where it took a French-led military intervention to regain power in several major towns. The fighting has since spread across the border to Burkina Faso, creating the fastest growing displacement crisis in the world. Last month Burkina Faso experienced its deadliest attack in years, when gunmen killed at least 132 civilians in Solhan village in the Sahel’s Yagha province, displacing thousands.
The increasing attacks are stretching the U.N.’s ability to respond to displaced people within the country as well as the refugees it’s hosting.
“Funding levels for the response are critically low and with growing numbers of people forced to flee … the gap is widening,” UNHCR representative in Burkina Faso Abdouraouf Gnon-Konde told the AP.
The attacks are also exacerbating problems for refugees who came to the country seeking security.  
“We insisted on staying (in Burkina Faso), (but) we stay with fear. We are too scared,” said Fadimata Mohamed Ali Wallet, a Malian refugee living in the camp. “Today there is not a country where there isn’t a problem. This (terrorism) problem covers all of Africa,” she said.

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Younger US Adults Less Likely to Receive COVID-19 Vaccine, CDC Study Reveals

 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that younger Americans are less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 than older Americans. The federal health agency issued a report Monday revealing that just 38% of adults between 18 and 29 years of age had received at least one dose of a vaccine by May 22, compared to 80% of adults older than 65.   The report also found that the percentage of 18- to 29-year-old Americans who were vaccinated between April 19, when all adults in the United States became eligible to receive the vaccine, and May 22 declined from 3.6% per week to 1.7% per week.   In another CDC study, nearly half of the 2,726 people between 18 and 39 years of age said they were either unsure about getting the vaccine or did not plan on getting the vaccine.    About 40% of younger adults said they believed others needed to be inoculated more than they did, while those considering getting the shot cited a desire to resume their regular social activities or keeping others from being infected. Cuba vaccinesCuba announced Monday that its three-shot COVID-19 vaccine dubbed Abdala has proved to be 92% effective in late-stage human clinical trials.  FILE – A man is vaccinated at a vaccination center amid concerns about the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Havana, Cuba, June 17, 2021.The Caribbean island had just announced that another of its domestically produced vaccines, Soberana 2, was 62% effective with just two of its three doses.   Cuba is facing its worst outbreak of COVID-19 infections since the start of the pandemic due to the arrival of new, more contagious variants of the virus. As of Monday, the island has posted a total of 169,365 confirmed COVID-19 infections and 1,170 deaths.   PhilippinesIn the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to arrest anyone who refuses to get vaccinated against COVID-19.   “There is a crisis being faced in this country,” President Duterte said Monday during a nationally televised address. “I’m just exasperated by Filipinos not heeding the government.” FILE – Health workers conduct a COVID-19 swab test on residents at a village in Quezon City, Philippines, May 31, 2021.The Pacific archipelago has more than 1.3 million confirmed coronavirus infections and 23,749 deaths. The country’s vaccination campaign has been sluggish, with a lack of vaccines and reports of low turnout at vaccination sites in the capital Manila.   New surge in ColombiaThe death toll in Colombia from COVID-19 surpassed 100,000 Monday as it deals with a new surge of coronavirus infections that has sparked several weeks of antigovernment protests.  FILE – Police officers spray a water cannon at demonstrators during a protest of Colombian President Ivan Duque’s government, in Bogota, June 9, 2021.The South American nation has more than 3.9 million total COVID-19 infections, while averaging more than 500 deaths per day since the spring, according to government health officials quoted by The Washington Post. The country reported a single-day record 648 deaths on Monday. The number of total coronavirus infections around the world now stands at more than 178.7 million cases, including more than 3.8 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.  The United States leads the world with more than 33.5 million total cases, including 602, 092 deaths.   

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STEM Jobs Lead List of Fastest-Growing Occupations

The number of STEM jobs — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — have sped past the number of non-STEM jobs by three times since 2000. And experts say there might not be enough graduates in those fields to fill the jobs.  “Look around at how many times a day you touch a computer, tablet, phone … these industries are accelerating so much that these high school kids will have jobs that don’t even exist yet,” said Kenneth Hecht, the leader of the National STEM Honor Society, an membership program that engages students from kindergarten into their career in STEM project-based learning (NSTEM). STEM covers both high-tech and long-established professions. For example, STEM jobs in demand include those in cloud computing, informatics and other software developers that write code for computation. They also include occupations for actuaries, cartographers, critical care nurses and epidemiologists.  Jobs in the medical and healthcare fields have boomed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as populations age, but traditionally, computer technology, or tech, is the number one major that international students pursue within STEM, according to a study by the Institute of International Education. Jobs in computer and information technology are projected to grow 11% from 2019 to 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) website, “much faster than the average for all occupations.”These occupations are projected to add about 531,200 new jobs to the U.S. workforce by 2029. Jobs in cloud computing, big data, and information security will be in high demand, according to BLS.COVID plus and minuses Recent enrollment declines because of the COVID-19 pandemic have slowed the pipeline between graduates and jobs, as most international students rode out the pandemic in their home countries. But recent graduates who land STEM jobs show greater availability and higher salaries.  “A STEM education and a STEM career can change the trajectory of one family’s path and even others,” said Kenneth Hecht, leader of the National STEM Honor Society that engages students from kindergarten into their career in STEM project-based learning (NSTEM).  Nidhi Thaker, a Ph.D. student in the biochemistry and molecular biology department at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, also is optimistic about the promise of STEM opportunities.    “Applying and combining a biology background with technology that can be helpful in making a product, and by product, I mean, it could be a machine, it could be a drug, it could be any other thing, to help medicine itself and to help the field grow,” is what biotechnology means to Thaker.   Her experience working in the Boston area, one of America’s biotech hubs and close to several top U.S. universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, has been largely positive.  “It’s not just work, work, work. They also incorporate, like, team-building exercises, going out and having parties and things like that,” Thaker noted. “It’s a very well rounded, cultural approach that they’re taking, in regard to giving all the benefits.”   Lack of people skills One problem, though, is many graduates have a proficiency in tech skills but lack people skills, said Sahil Jain, senior enterprise architect at Adobe.    “This means they are good at coding. You can give them a digest code, they will do it very well. But they cannot speak to the senior leadership at the customer site.” Jain explains that both soft and hard skills are necessary to do well in emerging technology jobs, yet students often excel at one or the other, not both.    “That means they are good at speaking, but when it comes to technicalities, the customer brings his architects on the call, ‘Oh, tell me how this will work? Can you give me some architectural aspects as well?’ … That is where the big gap is,” he explained. In addition, Jain said the STEM job market is crowded with numerous evolving technologies.    “The industry is evolving a lot. It’s no longer only cloud computing based. There are many, many areas of blockchain,” a way to code to enhance the security of the information.   “We have machine learning, we have [artificial intelligence] …” said Jain, who has recently enrolled in Georgia Institute of Techology, a public university in Atlanta, to keep his skills up to date.  Filling needed roles Even with initiatives to alert students to STEM opportunities, like NSTEM, there were an estimated 2.4 million positions unfilled in STEM fields in 2018, according to a study by Impact Science, a California teacher-founded initiative to engage young students with science.“Being on the educational side, these numbers are well published and well recognized in the world, and the question is and has been, ‘What do you do about it?’” Hecht asked.  “If you look at the differences in ethnicities and gender it would be even worse,” which inspires one of NSTEM’s missions to help close equity divisions in STEM, he added.  Immigration issues An April 2021 study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) found that “enrolling more international undergraduate students does not crowd out U.S. students at the average American university and leads to an increase in the number of bachelor’s degrees in STEM majors awarded to U.S. students.”  “Each additional 10 bachelor’s degrees—across all majors—awarded to international students by a college or university leads to an additional 15 bachelor’s degrees in STEM majors awarded to U.S. students,” the study found. The data suggests that U.S. students are more likely to major in STEM fields if they go to school with international students.    “In much of the U.S., STEM graduates are in short supply. Students who graduate with a STEM major typically earn more than other graduates, especially early in their careers,” according to the NFAP study.  “The finding here that the presence of international students actually increases the number of U.S. students graduating with a STEM major is another reason to encourage international students to come to the United States,” stated Madeline Zavodny, the study’s author.  “America’s future competitiveness depends on attracting and retaining talented international students,” according to companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter with other parties in a group letter to Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) in July 2020. ICE had announced it would revoke international student visas during the COVID-19 pandemic if those students were not in person to study on campus.  ICE Won’t Compel Foreign Students to Be on Campus Immigration agency retreats from ruling that risked student visa status

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UNESCO Panel Recommends Listing Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as ‘In Danger’

A special committee with the United Nations’s cultural agency says Australia’s Great Barrier Reef should be placed on a list of World Heritage sites that should be designated as “in danger.” The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage Committee, or UNESCO, recommended the 2,300-kilometer-long coral reef system should be placed on the list because it has deteriorated due to climate change.  Australian officials denounced the recommendation. Environment Minister Sussan Ley said Tuesday that Canberra opposes the designation and accused the World Heritage Committee of “a backflip on previous assurances” and that it would not take such an action before its formal meeting next month.  Ley said she and Foreign Minister Marise Payne had spoken by phone to UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay about the decision, which she called “flawed” and a decision influenced by politics.   “This sends a poor signal to those nations who are not making the investments in reef protection that we are making,” she said. But Richard Leck, the head of oceans for World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia, said in a statement the recommendation “is clear and unequivocal that the Australian government is not doing enough to protect our greatest natural asset, especially on climate change.” The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s biggest coral reef system that brings an estimated $4.8 billion annually in tourism revenue.  Climate change has driven temperatures in the Coral Sea higher in recent decades, leading to three mass “bleaching” events since 2015, destroying at least half of the Reef’s vibrant corals and prompting the Australian government to downgrade its long term outlook to “very poor.”   

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STEM Jobs Lead Fastest-Growing Occupations

The number of STEM jobs — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — have sped past the number of non-STEM jobs by three times since 2000. And experts say there might not be enough graduates in those fields to fill the jobs.  “Look around at how many times a day you touch a computer, tablet, phone … these industries are accelerating so much that these high school kids will have jobs that don’t even exist yet,” said Kenneth Hecht, the leader of the National STEM Honor Society, an membership program that engages students from kindergarten into their career in STEM project-based learning (NSTEM). STEM covers both high-tech and long-established professions. For example, STEM jobs in demand include those in cloud computing, informatics and other software developers that write code for computation. They also include occupations for actuaries, cartographers, critical care nurses and epidemiologists.  Jobs in the medical and healthcare fields have boomed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as populations age, but traditionally, computer technology, or tech, is the number one major that international students pursue within STEM, according to a study by the Institute of International Education. Jobs in computer and information technology are projected to grow 11% from 2019 to 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) website, “much faster than the average for all occupations.”These occupations are projected to add about 531,200 new jobs to the U.S. workforce by 2029. Jobs in cloud computing, big data, and information security will be in high demand, according to BLS.COVID plus and minuses Recent enrollment declines because of the COVID-19 pandemic have slowed the pipeline between graduates and jobs, as most international students rode out the pandemic in their home countries. But recent graduates who land STEM jobs show greater availability and higher salaries.  “A STEM education and a STEM career can change the trajectory of one family’s path and even others,” said Kenneth Hecht, leader of the National STEM Honor Society that engages students from kindergarten into their career in STEM project-based learning (NSTEM).  Nidhi Thaker, a Ph.D. student in the biochemistry and molecular biology department at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, also is optimistic about the promise of STEM opportunities.    “Applying and combining a biology background with technology that can be helpful in making a product, and by product, I mean, it could be a machine, it could be a drug, it could be any other thing, to help medicine itself and to help the field grow,” is what biotechnology means to Thaker.   Her experience working in the Boston area, one of America’s biotech hubs and close to several top U.S. universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, has been largely positive.  “It’s not just work, work, work. They also incorporate, like, team-building exercises, going out and having parties and things like that,” Thaker noted. “It’s a very well rounded, cultural approach that they’re taking, in regard to giving all the benefits.”   Lack of people skills One problem, though, is many graduates have a proficiency in tech skills but lack people skills, said Sahil Jain, senior enterprise architect at Adobe.    “This means they are good at coding. You can give them a digest code, they will do it very well. But they cannot speak to the senior leadership at the customer site.” Jain explains that both soft and hard skills are necessary to do well in emerging technology jobs, yet students often excel at one or the other, not both.    “That means they are good at speaking, but when it comes to technicalities, the customer brings his architects on the call, ‘Oh, tell me how this will work? Can you give me some architectural aspects as well?’ … That is where the big gap is,” he explained. In addition, Jain said the STEM job market is crowded with numerous evolving technologies.    “The industry is evolving a lot. It’s no longer only cloud computing based. There are many, many areas of blockchain,” a way to code to enhance the security of the information.   “We have machine learning, we have [artificial intelligence] …” said Jain, who has recently enrolled in Georgia Institute of Techology, a public university in Atlanta, to keep his skills up to date.  Filling needed roles Even with initiatives to alert students to STEM opportunities, like NSTEM, there were an estimated 2.4 million positions unfilled in STEM fields in 2018, according to a study by Impact Science, a California teacher-founded initiative to engage young students with science.“Being on the educational side, these numbers are well published and well recognized in the world, and the question is and has been, ‘What do you do about it?’” Hecht asked.  “If you look at the differences in ethnicities and gender it would be even worse,” which inspires one of NSTEM’s missions to help close equity divisions in STEM, he added.  Immigration issues An April 2021 study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) found that “enrolling more international undergraduate students does not crowd out U.S. students at the average American university and leads to an increase in the number of bachelor’s degrees in STEM majors awarded to U.S. students.”  “Each additional 10 bachelor’s degrees—across all majors—awarded to international students by a college or university leads to an additional 15 bachelor’s degrees in STEM majors awarded to U.S. students,” the study found. The data suggests that U.S. students are more likely to major in STEM fields if they go to school with international students.    “In much of the U.S., STEM graduates are in short supply. Students who graduate with a STEM major typically earn more than other graduates, especially early in their careers,” according to the NFAP study.  “The finding here that the presence of international students actually increases the number of U.S. students graduating with a STEM major is another reason to encourage international students to come to the United States,” stated Madeline Zavodny, the study’s author.  “America’s future competitiveness depends on attracting and retaining talented international students,” according to companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter with other parties in a group letter to Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) in July 2020. ICE had announced it would revoke international student visas during the COVID-19 pandemic if those students were not in person to study on campus.  ICE Won’t Compel Foreign Students to Be on Campus Immigration agency retreats from ruling that risked student visa status

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Japan Begins Workplace Vaccination Program

Thousands of Japanese companies began the rollout of their workplace vaccine programs Monday, inoculating company workers and their families.  Some of the companies had been critical of what they said was the government’s slow pace of Japan’s COVID-19 inoculation campaign.   Toyota and Suntory are among the companies participating in the workplace program with vaccines provided by the government.   Thousands of people are expected to receive shots through the initiative, which is beginning just weeks before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics.   Organizers of the Olympics announced Monday that they will allow a limited number of spectators into venues holding Olympic events, capping the number at 10,000 people, or 50% of a venue’s capacity. The decision comes just days after health experts told the government that banning all spectators was the “least risky” option for holding the games in light of a surge of new COVID-19 infections in the Japanese capital and across the country.    Record in IndiaIn India, the government announced it had given 7.5 million coronavirus vaccine doses Monday — a new single day record for inoculations. The country also saw its lowest daily number of new COVID-19 cases in about three months — 53,256 new infections.  FILE – A worker handles boxes of COVID-19 vaccines, delivered as part of the COVAX equitable vaccince distribution program, at Ivato International Airport, in Antananarivo, Madagascar, May 8, 2021.U.S. officials say the deliveries have been delayed due to legal, logistical and regulatory requirements in both the United States and the recipient countries. “What we’ve found to be the biggest challenge is not actually the supply — we have plenty of doses to share with the world — but this is a Herculean logistical challenge,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. Global numbersTaiwan recorded its lowest number of new COVID-19 infections since May 15. Health officials announced 75 new infections Monday. On Sunday, Taiwan received 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccines from the United States.  Indonesian health officials said Monday the country has passed 2 million confirmed coronavirus infections. They also announced the country’s largest one-day jump in new coronavirus infections — 14,536. Authorities say they are tightening restrictions to try to stop the spread of the virus for two weeks in 29 “red zones” across the country where infection rates are high. There are more than 178 million global COVID-19 infections as of Monday, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The U.S. has the most with 33.6 million, followed by India with 29.9, and Brazil with 17.9. Brazil became the second country, behind the United States, to record more than half a million COVID-19 deaths. 
 

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US Outlines Its Global COVID Vaccine Sharing Plan

The White House has laid out its plans for sharing 55 million COVID-19 vaccine doses abroad, with most of the allocations going to countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.The Biden administration said Monday that most of the doses would be shared through the COVAX international vaccine-sharing program, fulfilling a commitment by President Joe Biden to share 80 million U.S.-made vaccines with countries around the world.The Associated Press reported Monday that the administration is likely to fall short of its pledge to share the vaccines by the end of June, because of regulatory and other hurdles. Officials cited by the news agency say the vaccine doses are ready but are being delayed due to legal, logistical and regulatory requirements in both the United States and the recipient countries.Biden laid out his plans for the first 25 million doses earlier this month. On Monday, the White House revealed plans for the 55 million remaining shots, including 14 million for Latin America and the Caribbean, 16 million for Asia, and about 10 million for Africa.Another 14 million doses are being shared with “regional priorities,” including Colombia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, South Africa, the West Bank and Gaza.The United States has already begun delivering vaccine doses to Taiwan, Mexico, Canada and South Korea.“We have plenty of supply to deliver on the 80 million doses,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday’s press briefing. “Our biggest challenge is logistics, is the fact that there is not a playbook for this and there are challenges as it relates to getting these doses out to every country.”FILE – A health worker holds a tray with vials of the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19 during a priority vaccination program at a community medical center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 6, 2021.In addition, President Biden announced earlier this month that the U.S. would purchase 500 million vaccine doses from drug manufacturer Pfizer and distribute them worldwide over the coming year.The United States has surplus vaccine doses after more than 177 million Americans have received at least one shot and demand for COVID vaccines has begun to fall.The White House said in a statement Monday that the United States “will not use its vaccines to secure favors from other countries.” It said the U.S. goals for the program include increasing global COVID-19 vaccination coverage, preparing for surges and helping “our neighbors and other countries in need.”

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In the Absence of In-Person Classes, Dentistry Courses Use Virtual Reality

While virtual reality-based simulation is commonly used in medical education, its use in dental education is still limited. Two university professors in the U.S. want to change that. They developed a VR dental clinic that offers the potential to revolutionize dental education. Vina Mubtadi reports.

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Tokyo Organizers Predict Safe Olympics, But Many in Japan Skeptical

Opinion polls have for months suggested most Japanese oppose holding the Olympics. Some medical experts warn the event could lead to coronavirus clusters or spread new variants.But with only a month to go until the Olympic cauldron is lit in Tokyo, organizers remain confident they can safely hold the Games, thanks in part to pandemic precautions that will ensure this Summer Olympics are like no other in history. International spectators have already been banned from the Olympics, which start July 23. On Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said it is “definitely” possible the competition will be held in completely empty venues, depending on Japan’s COVID-19 situation. According to athlete guidelines issued last week, hugs, handshakes, and high-fives are forbidden. Off the field, virtually any degree of spontaneity has been outlawed, as athletes and staff must submit a detailed daily activity plan, including visits only to approved destinations.  A machine to check body temperature and hand sanitizers are placed at the doping control station of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Village in Tokyo, Japan, June 20, 2021.“You must not walk around the city,” specifies one section of the guidelines. Violators may be subject to disqualification, fines, or even deportation, the rules stipulate. With such measures in place, public opposition toward the Games is softening. But it is still widespread, with many saying Japan should instead focus on its own tepid pandemic recovery.Only about a third of Japanese support holding the Olympics, according to a poll released Monday by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Though that figure may seem low, it is up from just 14% who supported the Games last month. About 86% of Japanese are concerned about a resurgence in COVID-19 cases because of the Games, suggested a Kyodo News survey published Sunday. Vaccine woes Japan has seen a small number of coronavirus cases compared to many other countries, but its vaccination effort has been sluggish. Only around 6% of Japan’s population has been fully vaccinated, one of the worst rates among wealthy countries.  Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike inspects a vaccination of COVID-19 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government office in Tokyo as Tokyo Metropolitan Government started vaccination for the persons involved in the Olympic Games, June 18, 2021.While vaccinations have picked up in recent weeks, that does little good for the tens of thousands of Tokyo 2020 volunteers still waiting to be inoculated.One Olympics volunteer told VOA that if he does not get vaccinated soon, he may join the approximately 10,000 Tokyo 2020 volunteers who have already dropped out. “I’m very impatient,” said the volunteer, who did not want his name published because he is not authorized to speak with the media. He says unvaccinated volunteers feel unprepared to work with crowds. “Masks, disinfectant sprays, and leaflets distributed by the organizers to volunteers will not be enough to prevent infection when an infected person appears,” said the volunteer, whose job is to work with visiting media.  Japanese officials say they are considering vaccinating all 70,000 unpaid Olympics volunteers. But they are running out of time to do so. Even so, Japanese officials insist the danger will be minimal. They say an estimated 80% of the athletes and other Olympics visitors will be vaccinated. That may not be good enough, considering Japan’s low overall vaccination rate, according to some medical experts. “There is a big problem here,” Norio Sugaya, infectious disease expert and doctor at Keiyu Hospital in Yokohama, told VOA. “It is extremely difficult to completely regulate the behavior of a total of 100,000 people, including athletes, officers, and media personnel,” Sugaya said.  “I don’t think we should do something as risky as the Olympics at this time,” he adds.  A journalist looks at cardboard beds, for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Villages, which are shown in a display room the Village Plaza, June 20, 2021, in Tokyo.Pushing aheadBut Tokyo, which has spent billions of dollars in taxpayer money on the event, seems to believe moving ahead is the least bad option.The Games, which were already delayed a year because of the pandemic, This long exposure photo shows streaks of lights from cars passing by a Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics sign on the side of a building, June 11, 2021, in Tokyo.Political impact  Japan’s government, whose approval ratings are only in the 30% range, also hopes to reap some political benefit from hosting a successful event.  Prime Minister Suga’s government is planning to hold a lower house election once the Olympics finish, points out Wallace. “They will be hoping they get a little post-Olympics boost going into that election. But I think they will be unpleasantly surprised,” he predicts. Professor Kirsten Holmes of Australia’s Curtin University, who focuses on the sustainability of major international events like the Olympics, agrees that the pandemic has raised the cost for Tokyo in hosting the Games.  “On the other hand, being able to deliver a safe Olympic Games at this time during the pandemic will be an enormous boost to both people living in Japan but also Japan’s future in terms of hosting other events going forward,” she said.

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Poll: Support Rising in Japan for Tokyo Olympics this Summer

Around a third of Japanese now back holding the Olympics, up from just 14 percent last month, a new poll showed Monday, though a majority still prefer cancellation or postponement because of the pandemic. The poll reinforces other recent surveys that suggest opposition to Tokyo 2020 is softening slightly, just over a month before the July 23 opening ceremony. Support for holding the virus-postponed Games rose to 34 percent, according to the poll by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper published on Monday. However, 32 percent still want the Games to be cancelled altogether and 30 percent want the games to be delayed again, down from 43 percent and 40 percent in last month’s survey, respectively. Organizers have ruled out postponing the Games again, and the first Olympic athletes have already arrived in Japan. The Asahi survey was conducted on June 19 and 20, with 1,469 responses from people contacted on home and mobile phones. It comes after several recent surveys that offered respondents the choice between cancelling the Games or holding it — with no postponement option — found that more back holding the event than scrapping it. The shift in sentiment will be welcome news for organizers, who are expected to announce later Monday how many local fans, if any, will be in the stands for the Games. After a coronavirus state of emergency ended in Tokyo on Sunday, new restrictions limit audiences at large events to 5,000 people or 50 percent capacity, whichever is smallest. That rule is scheduled to be in place until July 11, after which the cap will expand to 10,000 people or 50 percent capacity. Local media reports suggest Olympic organizers will set a 10,000 spectator cap, but that the audience for the opening ceremony could swell to 20,000 including dignitaries and sponsors. Japan has seen a comparatively small virus outbreak, with around 14,500 deaths despite avoiding harsh lockdowns. But its vaccine rollout started slowly, only picking up pace in recent weeks. Around 6.5 percent of the population is currently fully vaccinated. 

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Spain’s Jon Rahm Wins US Open to Claim First Major Title

From a significant disappointment earlier in the month, Jon Rahm of Spain told himself that something good would come from that. It sure didn’t take long for that to unfold for one of the world’s emerging golf stars. Rahm shot 4-under-par 67 in the final round of the U.S. Open to cap a remarkable turnaround from two weeks ago and capture his first major championship Sunday at Torrey Pines in San Diego. “I’m a big believer in karma,” Rahm said. “After what happened a couple of weeks ago, I stayed really positive knowing big things were coming. I didn’t know what it was going to be. … I got out of Covid protocol early. I just felt like the stars were aligning.” Two weekends ago, Rahm dealt with devastation when a positive Covid-19 test meant he was forced to withdraw from the Memorial despite holding a six-shot lead after three rounds. That sent him into quarantine, putting his entry into the U.S. Open in jeopardy. Rahm’s four-round total of 6-under 278 was good for a one-shot victory on South African Louis Oosthuizen. Rahm had birdies on the final two holes — both with putts of more than 18 feet — to move to the front. It had been almost four decades since a golfer birdied the last two holes to win a U.S. Open. “I can’t even believe I made the last two putts,” he said. But Oosthuizen, who was in the final pairing, had three holes to play at that point. Oosthuizen secured five consecutive pars after a bogey on the par-3 11th, but a bogey on No. 17 pretty much ended his chances unless he could produce an eagle on the last hole — something he pulled off Saturday on the par-5 layout. Not this time, as he settled for birdie and a final-round 71. “I’ll keep knocking on that major door,” Oosthuizen said. Rahm, who became the first U.S. Open champion from Spain, was on the practice range warming up for a potential playoff when the outcome was sealed. He said he feels right at home on this California course, where he won for the first time on the PGA Tour by claiming the 2017 Farmers Insurance Open. “I’m very biased,” Rahm said. “I love this golf course, but I think it’s going to become one of those iconic venues as well.” Rahm became a father for the first time earlier in the spring. So he celebrated Father’s Day in style. He now lives in Arizona, but he’s fond of San Diego. “Every time we come here, we’re just happy,” Rahm said. “As soon we land in San Diego, we’re like ‘we’re in our spot.’ ” Rahm, 26, tied for third place in the 2019 U.S. Open for his previous best outing in a major. His background at the championship was notable because he was the low amateur in 2016, when he tied for 23rd. Rahm matched for the best score in the field Sunday, with Patrick Reed and Oosthuizen has won one major (2010 British Open) and he has six runner-up spots in majors. That list includes tying for second at last month’s PGA Championship. “I’m second again,” Oosthuizen said. “Look, it’s frustrating. It’s disappointing. I’m playing good golf, but it’s not winning a major.” Harris English finished third at 3 under, with his final-round 68 his lone sub-70 score of the tournament. He had bogeys on three of the first four holes, but played the last five holes in 3 under. Brooks Koepka (69), Collin Morikawa (70) and Italy’s Guido Migliozzi (68) were at 2 under to share fourth place. Russell Henley and Canada’s Mackenzie Hughes, who along with Oosthuizen were tied atop the leaderboard through three rounds, weren’t factors. Henley (76) tied for 13th at even for the tournament and Hughes (77) tied for 15th at 1 over. There were 20 golfers within five shots of the lead when the round began. Defending champion Bryson DeChambeau was two shots off the lead when the day began and was 2 under for the round through eight holes and briefly was in the lead. He tumbled out of contention, playing Nos. 11-17 in 8 over and ending up with a 77. His quadruple-bogey 8 on No. 17 was the final damage. “I’ve had plenty of times where I hit it way worse than today and I won,” DeChambeau said. “It’s just one of those things where I didn’t have the right breaks happen at the right time.” DeChambeau’s 3 over put him tied for 26th.  PGA Championship winner Phil Mickelson shot 75 and finished 11 over, tying for 62nd place. 

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Russian-Estonian Film ‘Minsk’ Examines 2020 Crackdown in Belarus 

A Russian-Estonian film ‘Minsk’ looks at the Belarus government’s crackdown on protesters in August 2020. The movie – all 90 minutes of it – was filmed in one shot and will be released in time for the one-year anniversary of the brutal events. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Iryna Solomko  

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US Sending 2.5 Million COVID-19 Vaccines to Taiwan

The United States says it is sending 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan, substantially increasing its initial promise of 750,000 doses.Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said the increased doses from the U.S. are a “moving gesture of friendship.”  U.S. President Joe Biden has said his administration will distribute 80 million vaccines to countries around the world.  The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday more than 178 million global COVID-19 infections and almost 4 million global deaths. More than 2 billion vaccines have been administered around the world. India’s Health Ministry said Sunday that it had recorded more than 58,000 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24-hour period. India has recorded close to 30 million COVID-19 cases.  Only the U.S. has more, with 33.5 million.A Ugandan athlete has tested positive for the coronavirus after arriving in Japan ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, according to an Associated Press report. The athlete was not named and has been placed in quarantine in a government facility.  The other eight members of the team tested negative in Japan.  The Ugandan team was fully vaccinated and tested before their flight to Japan, AP said.Brazil became the second country, behind the United States, to record more than half a million COVID-19 deaths, a Health Ministry official said Saturday.Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tweeted “500,000 lives lost due to the pandemic that affects our Brazil and the world,” according to an Agence France-Presse report.Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist from Espirito Santo University, told AFP, “The third wave is arriving, there’s already in a change in the case and death curves. … Our vaccination [program], which could make a difference, is slow and there are no signs of restrictive measures, quite the contrary.”Britain held its first full music festival since all mass events were canceled in March of last year, the start of the pandemic.About 10,000 fans attended a three-day Download Festival held at Donington Park in central England. The event featured 40 U.K.-based bands. The event ends Sunday.All of those who attended, which was only about a tenth of the festival’s prepandemic audience, were required to take COVID-19 tests before the event. Neither masks nor social distancing protocols were required, event organizers said.Britain has recorded nearly 128,000 COVID-19-related deaths, the fourth most in the world and the worst in Europe. It also ranks seventh in the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with 4.6 million.Earlier last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson delayed by four weeks a planned lifting of coronavirus-related restrictions on June 21. Britain is battling the highly contagious delta variant of the virus, which was first identified in India. 

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Tanzania Authorities Warn of 3rd Wave of COVID-19 

Tanzania Authorities Warn of Third Wave of COVID-19 A few days after Tanzania expressed its interest in joining the COVAX global vaccine-sharing facility, the government warned citizens of a third wave of COVID-19 and directed that all precautions to be taken, including the wearing of face masks. Authorities say cases are on the rise in all bordering countries, including Uganda, and that there are indicators the disease may again hit the country.Speaking with journalists Saturday, the director of prevention from Tanzania’s Heath Ministry, Leonard Subi, insisted citizens take all necessary precautions to protect themselves from infection. He reminded all citizens not to ignore COVID-19. The ministry has begun to see an indication of the occurrence of the third wave of COVID-19 Subi says. He added this is due to the monitoring reports of the disease being carried out by the ministry and the interaction between Tanzanians and other nations. In April of last year Tanzania stopped publishing COVID-19 data as the then president, the late John Magufuli, declared God had eliminated the infection. FILE – Tanzania’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan attends the farewell mass for the late Tanzanian President John Magufuli before the burial at Magufuli Stadium in Chato, Tanzania, March 26, 2021.Soon after Magufuli’s death in March of this year, new president Samia Hassan started a change in handling COVID infections, including admitting its presence. Now the country is waiting for vaccines. Opposition politicians such as Yerico Nyerere from the Party of Democracy and Development, or CHADEMA, say the government should emphasize controlling movements particularly in the area bordering Uganda, where the virus has hit strongly. Nyerere says those areas that have interactions with countries such as Uganda, where there is a high wave of the virus, should enforce serious controls, if possible, even closing the border with Uganda. He says Tanzania does not want to enter into the stage that Uganda has reached, lockdown. Tanzanians see the need for the government to enforce nationwide prevention campaigns that will also reach village people.Dar es Salaam resident Imani Henrick says she thinks the government should put in place an inclusive strategy, including encouraging people to wear masks and wash their hands. She says and there should be supervision from the government, not just saying people should take precautions. Henrick says there are people in the villages who know nothing about precautions and they can’t even afford face masks. So, Henrick adds, the government should come with a strategic plan, even including distributing free face masks, particularly for those in the villages and those who mostly meet with large numbers of people. For Ibrahim Chawe, another Dar es Salaam resident, things have changed and he hopes the government will fully implement all the precautions that were recommended by the COVID-19 committee formed by Hassan, including the publication of data. Chawe says publicizing information about COVID-19 and telling people to take precautions is a big step compared to the previous period. Chawe adds that before, wearing of masks was not approved of, but now there are major changes in how the infections are being handled. Since Hassan took office in March she has sought to gradually bring Tanzania in line with global public standards for tackling COVID-19. 

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US Sending 23.5 Million COVID-19 Vaccines to Taiwan

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday more than 178 million global COVID-19 infections and almost 4 million global deaths. More than 2 billion vaccines have been administered around the world.The U.S. says it is sending 23.5 million COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan, substantially increasing its initial promise of 750,000 doses. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said the increased doses from the U.S. are a “moving gesture of friendship.”  U.S. President Joe Biden has said his administration will distribute 80 million vaccines to countries around the world.India’s health ministry said Sunday that it had recorded more than 58,000 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24-hour period. India has recorded close to 30 million COVID-19 cases.  Only the U.S. has more, with 33.5 million.A Ugandan athlete has tested positive for the coronavirus after arriving in Japan ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, according to an Associated Press report. The athlete was not named and has been placed in quarantine in a government facility.  The other eight members of the team tested negative in Japan.  The Ugandan team was fully vaccinated and tested before their flight to Japan, AP said.Brazil became the second country, behind the United States, to record more than half a million COVID-19 deaths, a Health Ministry official said Saturday.Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tweeted “500,000 lives lost due to the pandemic that affects our Brazil and the world,” according to an Agence France-Presse report.Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist from Espirito Santo University, told AFP, “The third wave is arriving, there’s already in a change in the case and death curves. … Our vaccination (program), which could make a difference, is slow and there are no signs of restrictive measures, quite the contrary.”Britain held its first full music festival since all mass events were canceled in March of last year, the start of the pandemic.About 10,000 fans attended a three-day Download Festival held at Donington Park in central England. The event featured 40 U.K.-based bands. The event ends Sunday.All of those who attended, which was only about a tenth of the festival’s prepandemic audience, were required to take COVID-19 tests before the event. Neither masks nor social distancing protocols were required, event organizers said.Britain has recorded nearly 128,000 COVID-19-related deaths, the fourth most in the world and the worst in Europe. It also ranks seventh in the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with 4.6 million.Earlier last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson delayed by four weeks a planned lifting of coronavirus-related restrictions on June 21. Britain is battling the highly contagious delta variant of the virus, which was first identified in India. 

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Women’s College Sports Get Boost in TV Ratings, Visibility 

Odicci Alexander became an overnight sensation at the Women’s College World Series.James Madison’s dynamic, endearingly humble pitcher was well-known among die-hard softball fans, but she introduced herself to a national audience by throwing a complete game to help her unseeded squad stun tournament favorite Oklahoma in the opening game earlier this month. She threw another complete game the next day in a victory over Oklahoma State and a star was born.As her team was being eliminated in the semifinals, Alexander drew a standing ovation when she left the field. Fans watching on TV and streaming devices were sorry to see her go — and so was ESPN, which has been broadcasting the WCWS since 2000.Nick Dawson, ESPN’s vice president of programming for college sports, called her emergence and her battles with Oklahoma “the overarching story of the event,” and said she set the tone for a memorable week.”It just so worked out that she, as a dominant pitcher, ended up paired against arguably the greatest offensive softball team in the history of the sport in the opening game of the Women’s College World Series,” Dawson said. In the spotlightCoverage of Division I women’s sports has been in a particularly bright spotlight in 2021 and the record-setting WCWS was just the latest example of growing interest — and growing demands for a more equitable playing field when compared with men’s events.ESPN has been experimenting in recent years with showing more women’s sports on its various platforms, and good numbers have led the network to become more aggressive. Television viewership was up significantly compared with that of 2019 in the four most popular women’s college sports — basketball, softball, gymnastics and volleyball. The network expanded its volleyball coverage this year to include every match of the championship on an ESPN platform.The Walt Disney Co. owns ABC and ESPN, and Dawson said ESPN is pushing to get more sports programming onto Saturday afternoon spots on ABC. This year, ABC broadcast women’s basketball games and a women’s softball game for the first time.The women’s gymnastics final on ABC averaged 808,000 viewers, a 510% increase over the 2019 final on ESPNU.Ripples of the increased exposure are being felt. According to the Social Blade social media analytics site, Alexander gained more than 50,000 Instagram followers within a week of her win over Oklahoma. She has since signed a professional contract with the USSSA Pride.’Pentetrated the culture'”There were enough places where that story was told this time around that she’s reached a certain critical mass,” said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture. “She’s penetrated the culture. That is the important part of that story.”Alexander’s story resonated on various levels. She’s a Black player in a largely white sport who knocked off the eventual national champion while playing for an upstart school.”I’m sure there have been great stories filled with all of these great narrative flourishes like hers that have been going on in women’s sports for years,” Thompson said, “but people who would have loved those stories never hear them because there hasn’t been a lot of space given.”FILE – Oklahoma players celebrate with the trophy after defeating Florida State in the final game of the NCAA Women’s College World Series softball championship in Oklahoma City, June 10, 2021.The average number of viewers for the three championship final games between Oklahoma and Florida State was a record 1,840,000, up 15% over 2019. The average for the 17-game WCWS was 1,203,000, up 10% over 2019 and numbers comparable to those from the men’s College World Series in 2019.”Finally, there is this recognition that if you show it, people will watch it,” Thompson said. “And there’s been a lot of resistance to that to women’s sports, probably because a lot of the people managing the media outlets, a lot of the people managing the various sports venues and so forth just assumed they couldn’t get the kinds of numbers that they wanted.”As the viewership numbers climbed, coaches used the broader platform to speak up.Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso said changes were needed to make sure the sport makes positive strides as its popularity grows. She pointed out issues she had with the WCWS format, saying adding off days, eliminating doubleheaders and ensuring that games end at reasonable times should be among the changes considered. Though ESPN and the NCAA converse on those issues, the NCAA Division I Softball Committee oversees the format and scheduling for the event.Basketball, tooRatings also were high for the women’s basketball Final Four. The championship game drew more than 4 million viewers — the highest total since 2014 and up 9% from 2019. The semifinals averaged 2.8 million viewers, the best numbers since 2012 and a 20% jump from 2019. The Final Four weekend numbers overall were up 14%.The volleyball championship match between Kentucky and Texas averaged 696,000 viewers, up 28% from 2019. Kentucky’s victory was the most viewed telecast on ESPN2 for the month of April.The growth includes the number of sports getting exposure. ESPN added ice hockey, field hockey and cross country to the women’s sports championship schedule in the spring, bringing the total number of women’s championships the network broadcasts to 15.Dawson said ESPN would remain aggressive about expanding programming opportunities for women’s sports. Thompson said that made sense.”For women’s sports, there is lots and lots and lots of room for lots and lots and lots of growth,” he said. “If I were looking to invest in a genre of futures of American entertainment, women’s sports would be close to the top of my list.”

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WHO Declares End to Second Ebola Outbreak in Guinea 

The World Health Organization officially announced Saturday the end of Guinea’s second Ebola outbreak, which was declared in February and claimed 12 lives.At 16 confirmed cases and seven probable infections, according to WHO figures, the limited size of the flare-up has been credited to experience from the 2013-16 epidemic, which killed more than 11,300 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.”I have the honor of declaring the end of Ebola” in Guinea, WHO official Alfred Ki-Zerbo said at a ceremony in the southeastern Nzerekore region, where the disease surfaced at the end of January.International rules meant that Guinea had to wait 42 days — twice the virus’s incubation period — without a new case before declaring the epidemic over.That wait was over Friday, weeks after the last person was declared cured on May 8, a senior health ministry official told AFP.Health Minister Remy Lamah also declared the outbreak finished “in the name of the head of state,” President Alpha Conde.Saturday’s event in a health ministry building was attended by around 200 people, including local religious and community leaders.”We must also thank the communities who pitched in to overcome the disease,” the WHO’s Ki-Zerbo said.Previous resistanceDuring last decade’s outbreak, reluctance and outright hostility toward anti-Ebola infection control measures led some people in Guinea’s forested southeast to attack and even kill government employees.”Community engagement, effective public health measures and the equitable use of vaccines” had this time been key to overcoming Ebola, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.The U.N. body said it had delivered about 24,000 vaccine doses to Guinea and that 11,000 people at high risk had received shots, including more than 2,800 frontline workers.”We’ve beaten Ebola but let’s remain vigilant” read a banner unfurled at Saturday’s ceremony.”We must stay alert for a possible resurgence and ensure the expertise in Ebola expands to other health threats such as COVID-19,” WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement that genetic sequencing showed links between the previous outbreak and the latest epidemic.This year’s outbreak could have been caused by “persistent infection in a survivor from the West Africa outbreak” back then, the CDC said, emphasizing “the necessity for strong and ongoing survivor programs,” as well as more research.Ebola causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding. It is transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.

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Cameroon Sickle Cell Patients Say They Can Live Longer

Hundreds of sickle cell disease patients in Cameroon are using World Sickle Cell Day, June 19, to teach their neighbors that people with the disease can live longer, contrary to popular beliefs and stigma that label them as witches who must die before the age of 24. Cameroon says 20% of its 25 million people are carriers of the gene primarily seen in people of African descent. The government is also telling hesitant sickle cell patients to accept vaccinations against COVID-19.At least 300 sickle cell patients and their family members turned out at the Cameroon Baptist Convention hospital at Etoug-Ebe, a neighborhood in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. Hospital officials said hundreds of other sickle cell patients came out in the coastal city Douala and the English-speaking western towns of Buea, Bamenda, Kumba and Kumbo to observe the 2021 World Sickle Cell Day.Fifty-five-year-old Ashu Egbe was diagnosed with sickle cell when he was seven months old. He says he is living proof that people can live long with the disorder, in which red blood cells contain an abnormal type of hemoglobin.  ‘I am a sickle cell sufferer, I usually tell people that I am a sickle cell warrior because we go through the challenges of life, the pains and we think that we are warriors, we are overcomers,” Egbe said. “The younger ones should be courageous, avoid extreme colds or extreme heat and drink plenty of nonalcoholic fluids. You have a normal diet of good vegetables and then you have continuous follow up. You can live a good life.”Egbe said he created Ashu Egbe Foundation to educate sickle cell patients on their rights and encourage people to consider sickle cell patients normal citizens. Gene-editing Treatment Shows Promise for Sickle Cell, Other Blood DiseaseDoctors hope one-time treatment, which involves permanently altering DNA in blood cells with tool called CRISPR, may treat, possibly cure sickle cell disease, beta thalassemiaCameroon’s health ministry reports that 20% of the country’s 25 million people are carriers of the gene primarily seen in people of African descent.Cameroon says patients suffer stigma, including superstitious beliefs that sickle cell is divine punishment for wrongdoing. There are beliefs that people with the disease die before they reach 25 years because they are witches and wizards. Couples with sickle cell children are forced by their families to divorce.Twenty-seven-year-old Somo Francis Glenn lives with sickle cell. He says communities should stop abusing the rights of sickle cell patients. He says the government should ask hospitals to pay more attention to patients.”At times we are sick, but we are afraid to go to the hospital because if you get to the hospital at 7 a.m., you shall be received at 10 [a.m.],” Somo said. “Imagine the pain you go through. Doctors will tell you that you are not the first person to have pain. Those are the things that make us go psychologically mad. I am begging the minister of health to create a hematology center only for sickle cell patients in Cameroon. Our immune system is first of all weak. COVID-19 and sickle cell are a whole lot of problems.”Somo said the government could help eradicate the disease by asking people to have medical consultations before marriage and before having children.Cameroon’s health minister, Manaouda Malachie, said special services exist in all hospitals in the central African state to treat sickle cell patients. He said patients should not fear going to hospitals for fear of being infected by COVID-19.Lydie Ze Meka is president of Cameroon’s National Association for the Protection of Sickle Cell Patients. She says the association she leads is encouraging all sickle cell patients to be vaccinated against COVID-19.She says sickle cell patients are reluctant to be vaccinated against COVID-19. She says the coronavirus attacks lungs and sickle cell patients have fragile lungs which are constantly exposed to pulmonary infections that can cause deaths. She says on this year’s World Sickle Cell Day, she is pleading with reticent patients to voluntarily agree to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to save their lives.  The United Nations reports that sickle cell is common in most of sub-Saharan Africa, affecting close to 3% of births in some African countries.The U.N. recognizes June 19 as World Sickle Cell Day to raise awareness of the disease, which they say has not been eradicated due to ignorance. The U.N. encourages couples to have medical consultations before marriage and before having children. 

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Beyond ‘In the Heights,’ Colorism Persists, Rarely Addressed

Every year, Hollywood inevitably comes under criticism for its lack of racial diversity. But another lesser-known yet still pervasive problem also resurfaces: the lack of diversity in skin tone.It happened again with “In the Heights,” a big-budget film based on the musical created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, which was called out this week for its dearth of dark-skinned, Black Latinos in leading roles.  Colorism — or discrimination against darker-skinned people within their same ethnic group — lurks deep among pretty much all communities with varying levels of melanin. But it doesn’t get talked about, and that could be a setback for the racial justice efforts that intensified after the police killing of George Floyd last year.Avoiding the conversation will hinder the battle for racial justice because the two are “fully and inextricably linked,” said Ellis P. Monk, Jr., a sociology professor at Harvard University who has been researching colorism for years.  Monk says the issue is prevalent in all communities of color and has been taboo in part because it’s uncomfortable to talk about internal strife while also fighting against broader discrimination based on race and ethnicity.  “In a way, colorism and skin tone stratification is an even more difficult problem to fix because you could make the argument that everyone is involved in the system of colorism,” Monk said. “If we think about race and racial inequality without taking these skin tone differences seriously, then we’re actually missing how this system of racial inequality works.”Miranda, best known as the creator of the Broadway musical “Hamilton” and a longtime champion of including Latinos in the arts, recognized his own short-sightedness in addressing colorism and issued an apology.  “I can hear the hurt and frustration, of feeling still unseen in the feedback,” Miranda wrote. “I hear that without sufficient dark-skinned Afro-Latino representation, the work feels extractive of the community we wanted so much to represent with pride and joy.”The legendary Rita Moreno likewise turned introspective on colorism after she faced backlash in her defense of Miranda when she implied that Latinos should be grateful they’re being represented in any fashion. She has since apologized.There is little data that tracks discrimination based on skin tone, and therefore it is hard to quantify just how pervasive colorism is. But the studies that do exist show that people with darker skin have higher incarceration rates, lower access to health care and education and live in poorer neighborhoods, several experts say.  Nayeli Chavez, a clinical psychologist and faculty at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, has spent a decade looking into racial differences between ethnic groups.  “We have been socialized from childhood to look down on darker skin, on indigenous features,” Chavez said.As a psychologist who has dedicated her career to helping people heal from racial trauma, Chavez sees how avoiding the topic of colorism is detrimental and says there is a false assumption in Latin America that because those places were colonized and its people are of mixed races, there is no racism.  The key to changing behavior is by teaching history accurately and admitting that those biases exist.  “Racial justice begins with our own community. It literally begins in our own families,” Chavez said. “This is an area that there’s so little about. We are barely like touching the tip of the iceberg.”Nancy López, a professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico, said one way Latinos and other communities of color can begin to address colorism is by asking themselves a simple question: what is your “street race?”  Street race refers to the race someone assumes you are when you’re walking down the street and they know nothing else about you. Take former President Barack Obama, who is half-white. Someone who saw him in the street would likely see him as Black — his street race.  López, who also directs and co-founded the Institute for the Study of “Race” and Social Justice at UNM, said the concept of street race affects family dynamics, too. Two siblings from the same parents may have different skin tones and therefore different experiences in how they’re perceived and treated, López said. “Reflecting on your street race is one way of practicing solidarity with those siblings, cousins, partners, relatives who may be racialized very differently than you, may be experiencing racializing in a very different way,” she said.While some may find calling attention to colorism divisive, López says it’s the opposite. If communities don’t talk about it, they’re not in total solidarity, she said.

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Johns Hopkins: 177.8 Million Global COVID Infections

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has reported 177.8 million global COVID-19 cases and 3.8 million deaths. The U.S. remains the country with the most infections at 33.5 million, followed closely by India with 29.8 million.German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron urged European Union countries Friday to be vigilant against the spread of new coronavirus variants and called for the bloc to coordinate its COVID-19 border reopening policies.”Caution is still necessary so that we have a summer of many freedoms, if not all freedoms,” Merkel told a joint news conference in Berlin before the two leaders held a working dinner.”Some countries have reopened their borders earlier for tourist industry reasons, but we must be careful not to reimport new variants,” Macron said.Macron noted the situation in Britain, while Merkel pointed to Portugal to show how things can quickly change.Britain this week delayed a relaxation of pandemic restrictions because of the prevalence of the delta variant, which was first identified in India, while Portuguese authorities on Thursday banned travel in and out of the capital, Lisbon, because of the variant.In other developments Friday, Israel’s new government, which was sworn in Sunday, said it would transfer up to 1.4 million doses of soon-to-expire Pfizer coronavirus vaccine to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for about the same number of doses the authority anticipates receiving later this year.The authority canceled the deal later Friday, however. Its health minister, Mai Alkaila, told reporters that the expiration date for the vaccine was in June, which would not give the authority enough time to use the doses.Israel has been criticized for not sharing vaccine with the more than 4 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.Uganda announced Friday that it is tightening lockdown measures to stop a rise in coronavirus cases. Public and private vehicles are banned on roads except for those vehicles carrying cargo, essential workers or the sick.In the United States, President Joe Biden announced Friday that 300 million COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered in the United States since he took office Jan. 20.However, Biden’s plan to have 70% of Americans at least partially vaccinated by Independence Day, July 4, may fall short because of a sharp decline in the number of vaccinations that began about two months ago.Vice President Kamala Harris visited the southeastern city of Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday to encourage people to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.About 36% of Georgians have been vaccinated, a rate lower than those of most U.S. states.Canada announced Friday that border restrictions on nonessential travel with the United States will be extended until July 21.Bruce Springsteen’s Broadway show is set to open June 26. Proof of COVID vaccination must be provided, but the venue will not recognize the AstraZeneca shot, which has not been approved for use in the United States but has been accepted in Canada and other countries.Also, children 16 and younger must present proof of a recent negative COVID test and must be accompanied at the Saint James Theater by a fully vaccinated adult.

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