Drawing back the curtain to a photo gallery unlike any other, NASA will soon present the first full-color images from its James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary apparatus designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe.

The highly anticipated July 12 unveiling of pictures and spectroscopic data from the newly operational observatory follows a six-month process of remotely unfurling various components, aligning mirrors and calibrating instruments.

With Webb now finely tuned and fully focused, astronomers will embark on a competitively selected list of science projects exploring the evolution of galaxies, the life cycles of stars, the atmospheres of distant exoplanets and the moons of our outer solar system.

The first batch of photos, which have taken weeks to process from raw telescope data, are expected to offer a compelling glimpse at what Webb will capture on the science missions that lie ahead.

NASA on Friday posted a list of the five celestial subjects chosen for its showcase debut of Webb, built for the U.S. space agency by aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp.

Among them are two nebulae – enormous clouds of gas and dust blasted into space by stellar explosions that form nurseries for new stars – and two sets of galaxy clusters.

One of those, according to NASA, features objects in the foreground so massive that they act as “gravitational lenses,” a visual distortion of space that greatly magnifies the light coming from behind them to expose even fainter objects farther away and further back in time. How far back and what showed up on camera remains to be seen.

NASA will also publish Webb’s first spectrographic analysis of an exoplanet, revealing the molecular signatures from patterns of filtered light passing through its atmosphere. The exoplanet in this case, roughly half the mass of Jupiter, is more than 1,100 light years away. A light year is the distance light travels in a year – 9.5 trillion kilometers.

‘Moved me as a scientist … as a human being’

All five of the Webb’s introductory targets were previously known to scientists. One of them, the galaxy group 290 million light-years from Earth known as Stephan’s Quintet, was first discovered in 1877.

But NASA officials promise Webb’s imagery captures its subjects in an entirely new light, literally.

“What I have seen moved me as a scientist, as an engineer and as a human being,” NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy, who has reviewed the images, told reporters during a June 29 news briefing.

Klaus Pontoppidan, a Webb project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, where mission control engineers operate the telescope, has promised the first pictures would “deliver a long-awaited ‘wow’ for astronomers and the public.”

The $9 billion infrared telescope, the largest and most complex astronomical observatory ever sent to space, was launched on Christmas Day from French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America.

A month later, the 6,350-kilogram instrument reached its gravitational parking spot in solar orbit, circling the sun in tandem with Earth more than 1.6 million kilometers from home.

Webb, which views its subjects chiefly in the infrared spectrum, is about 100 times more sensitive than its 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits Earth from 547 kilometers away and operates mainly at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.

The larger light-collecting surface of Webb’s primary mirror – an array of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-coated beryllium metal – enables it to observe objects at greater distances, thus further back in time, than Hubble or any other telescope.

Its infrared sensitivity allows it to detect light sources that would otherwise be hidden in the visible spectrum by dust and gas.

Taken together, these features are expected to transform astronomy, providing the first glimpse of infant galaxies dating to just 100 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint that set the expansion of the known universe in motion an estimated 13.8 billion years ago.

Webb’s instruments also make it ideal to search for signs of potentially life-supporting atmospheres around scores of newly documented planets orbiting distant stars and to observe worlds much closer to home, such as Mars and Saturn’s icy moon Titan.

Besides a host of studies already lined up for Webb, the telescope’s most revolutionary findings may prove to be those that have yet to be anticipated.

Such was the case in Hubble’s surprising discovery, through observations of distant supernovas, that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, rather than slowing down, opening a new field of astrophysics devoted to a mysterious phenomenon scientists call dark energy.

The Webb telescope is an international collaboration led by NASA in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies.
…

When Melissa, a nurse in the U.S. state of Alabama, went to pick up her regular prescription medication for rheumatoid arthritis last week, she was told the drug was on hold while the pharmacist checked she wasn’t going to use it to induce an abortion.

“He said, ‘Well I have to verify if you’re on any contraceptives to prevent pregnancy.’ ”

“The hell you do,” she recalled thinking.

Melissa, who is in her early 40s and asked to be identified only by her first name for fear that speaking out might affect her livelihood, then called her doctor, who succeeded in having the pharmacy in the Southern U.S. state release the medicine.

“I picked it up a couple hours later, but I felt violated,” she told AFP. She said that she’d had a hysterectomy six years ago and that her lack of recent contraceptive history might have led the pharmacist to suspect she was pregnant.

Consequence of court ruling

Stories of people facing similar struggles have come to light in the weeks since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade on June 24, highlighting an overlooked consequence of new state-level bans or severe restrictions on abortion.

It’s not yet clear how widespread the cases are, but national organizations including the Lupus Foundation of America and the American College of Rheumatology said they were aware of such concerns and were asking people affected to come forward.

“The Arthritis Foundation supports unencumbered access to and coverage of FDA-approved drugs for managing arthritis in alignment with scientific and clinical guidelines, as well as evidence-based medical recommendations,” the organization said.

The issue centers on methotrexate, a drug that tempers inflammation and is commonly used against autoimmune conditions including inflammatory arthritis, psoriasis and lupus.

Methotrexate stops cell division and is given in higher doses as a cancer drug.

It can also sometimes be used in medical abortions, though not as frequently as the Food and Drug Administration-approved combination of two other drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol.

Nevertheless, many states have passed laws carrying threats of legal action against health care workers and pharmacies providing methotrexate.

Another woman contacted by AFP, a 20-year-old university student from Ohio, said she has had a methotrexate prescription since 2020 to treat her lupus, which affects her kidneys and liver and causes joint pain.

A pharmacist at a national chain told her they were “no longer accepting prescriptions for methotrexate unless it was for the FDA-approved use of [treating] breast cancer, or the patient was not presumably fertile,” she said.

She tried again, without success, to fill her prescription at a family-owned pharmacy, and this week got a letter from her doctor’s office stating the practice would no longer be prescribing methotrexate because of the number of patients having difficulty accessing it.

Though the first pharmacy later changed its position, the experience left her “annoyed and angry,” she said.

‘Provider approval’ needed

A third woman, Jennifer Crow, 48, a writer and produce gardener in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, told AFP she’d received an automated call from CVS Pharmacy saying her methotrexate refill had been declined “pending provider approval.”

Crow said methotrexate had helped her enormously in managing her inflammatory arthritis, allowing her to roll out of bed and get dressed without severe pain, and walk without a cane for the first time in years.

Though her doctor was able to resolve the situation, Crow, who has also had a hysterectomy, said she was worried for others with chronic illnesses who don’t have the same access to resources that she does.

In statements to AFP, national pharmacy chains CVS and Walmart confirmed they were working to adhere to new state regulations in light of the high court’s decision to revoke the constitutional right to an abortion.

“We encourage providers to include their diagnosis on the prescriptions they write to help ensure patients have quick and easy access to medications,” CVS added.

Alisa Vidulich, policy director of the Arthritis Foundation, told AFP she was hopeful the situation might be remedied quickly as medical professionals and pharmacies developed new guidelines.

“But that may not actually be the case in all states, and it may in fact turn into a longer-term issue,” she said.

Melissa, the nurse, said she was incensed at the double standard that allowed one of her best friends, who is a man, to get his methotrexate prescription filled right away with no questions asked.

“We’re headed in the wrong direction and it’s terrifying. I have two daughters. I don’t want to see this,” she said.
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A Texas judge issued an order Friday to continue blocking the state from investigating two families of transgender youth who have received gender affirming medical care and said she was considering whether to prevent additional investigations.

The ruling extends in part a temporary order issued last month blocking investigations against three families who sued and preventing any similar investigations against members of the LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG Inc. The group has more than 600 members in Texas.

In her order Friday, Judge Amy Clark Meachum said she was still weighing whether to issue a similar order prohibiting similar investigations against the third family and PFLAG members. An order preventing those investigations had been set to expire Friday. An attorney last month said the third family of a transgender minor had learned after the lawsuit’s filing that the state had dropped its investigation into them.

The two families to whom Friday’s order applies would “suffer probable, imminent, and irreparable injury in the interim” without the order, Meachum wrote.

The ruling was the latest against the state’s efforts to label gender affirming care as child abuse.

The Texas Supreme Court in May allowed the state to investigate parents of transgender youth for child abuse while also ruling in favor of one family that was among the first contacted by child welfare officials following order by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

The latest challenge was brought by Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the families of three teenage boys — two 16-year-olds and a 14-year-old — and PFLAG.

“The Court recognized yet again that being subjected to an unlawful and unwarranted investigation causes irreparable harm for these families who are doing nothing more than caring for and affirming their children and seeking the best course of care for them in consultation with their medical providers,” the groups said in a statement.

The families had talked in court filings about the anxiety that the investigations created for them and their children. The mother of one of the teens said her son attempted suicide and was hospitalized the day Abbott issued his directive. The outpatient psychiatric facility where the teen was referred reported the family for child abuse after learning he had been prescribed hormone therapy, she said in a court filing.

A judge in March put Abbott’s order on hold after a lawsuit was brought on behalf of a 16-year-old girl whose family said it was under investigation. The Texas Supreme Court in May ruled that the lower court overstepped its authority by blocking all investigations going forward.

The lawsuit that prompted that ruling marked the first report of parents being investigated following Abbott’s directive and an earlier nonbinding legal opinion by Paxton labeling certain gender-confirming treatments as “child abuse.” The Texas Department of Family and Protective Service has said it opened nine investigations following the directive and opinion.

Abbott’s directive and the attorney general’s opinion go against the nation’s largest medical groups, including the American Medical Association, which have opposed Republican-backed restrictions filed in statehouses nationwide.

Arkansas last year became the first state to pass a law prohibiting gender-confirming treatments for minors, and Tennessee approved a similar measure. Judges have blocked laws in Arkansas and Alabama, and both of those states are appealing.

Meachum set a Dec. 5 trial on whether to permanently block Texas’ investigations into the families.
…

The Canadian government is set to put health warnings on each cigarette and ban certain types of plastics, parts of a new round of regulations from the Trudeau government.

“Poison in every puff.” By 2023, this is the warning the Canadian government is planning on having on each cigarette sold in the country. This will make Canada the first in the world to do so, much as it did with graphic health warnings on packages of cigarettes in 2001.

Changes are also proposed for the health warnings on packages; they would be required to cover 75 percent of the back and front of each package and include warnings about colorectal cancer, stomach cancer, cervical cancer and diabetes. These are among the 16 diseases — besides lung cancer — believed caused by cigarettes.

Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society, said putting a warning on each cigarette will make sure the health message gets delivered every single time one is lit.

“Sometimes you experiment by smoking, by ‘borrowing’ a cigarette from a friend or a brother or sister without directly touching the package. And so … this type of reach to kids experimenting is a very positive thing,” he said. “Sometimes smokers who go out for a smoke break will just take a cigarette, not the full package, when they go outside.”

The Canadian government is also banning the importing or manufacturing of plastic bags and containers, like those used for restaurant takeout meals, by the end of 2022. It will ban sales of the bags and containers by the end of 2023 and exports of them by year’s end in 2025.  

The government is also working toward abolishing many single-use plastics, like those for straws, stir sticks for drinks, cutlery and the plastic rings used to hold together six- and 12-packs of cans and bottles.

Plastic was listed as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act in 2021.

Sarah King, head of Greenpeace Canada’s oceans and plastics campaign, said the move is a good start, but there is still more work to be done.

“We still aren’t even at the starting line in terms of tackling Canada’s plastic waste and pollution problem,” she said. “So, you know, we definitely are keen to see the government take plastic reduction more seriously and start accelerating our transition to more reuse-, refill-centered systems.”

But Stewart Prest, a political scientist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, said some Canadians would be upset by the new initiatives, seeing them as examples of over-regulation and the extension of a so-called “nanny state.”

“I think reactions will be divided,” he said. “I think this is the kind of issue that’s going to fit very well within the existing political dynamic polarization that we see in Canada, where any attempt by the government to regulate — to try to nudge Canadians in a particular direction — is going to be met with great, extreme skepticism in some quarters.”

The next general election is expected to occur in October 2025, which is well after the new regulations take effect.
…

Ghana’s health authorities say they have, for the first time, confirmed two fatal cases of the Marburg virus, a relative of the Ebola virus.

In a statement on Thursday, the Ghana Health Service said the two cases of Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) were detected in the Ashanti region – about 250 kilometers from the capital, Accra.

“Blood samples were sent to the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research,” the statement said, adding, “Preliminary results suggest the infection is due to the Marburg virus.”

Applying standard procedure, the samples have been sent to the Institut Pasteur in Senegal, a World Health Organization (WHO) collaborating center, for confirmation, the statement added.

The two patients from the southern Ashanti region – both deceased and unrelated – showed symptoms that included diarrhea, fever, nausea and vomiting, the WHO said on its website.

So far, 34 persons have since been quarantined and are being monitored for coming in contact with the two infected persons.

The health directorate in the region, according to the statement, is “currently conducting further investigations on the cases and contacts.”

It would be the second time Marburg is being detected in West Africa, if Ghana’s case is confirmed by the WHO. Guinea confirmed a single case in September 2021.

Marburg virus is transmitted by infected persons or animals from direct contact with body fluids, blood and other discharges from the affected person or animal. The incubation period for the disease is two to 21 days.

The WHO said Marburg is a disease with a case fatality rate of up to 88%.

Prospective patients may suffer from fever, bloody diarrhea, bleeding from gums, bleeding of the skin, bleeding of the eyes and bloody urine.
…

In a former gold mine a mile underground, inside a titanium tank filled with a rare, liquefied gas, scientists have begun the search for what so far has been unfindable: dark matter.

Scientists are pretty sure the invisible stuff makes up most of the universe’s mass and say we wouldn’t be here without it — but they don’t know what it is. The race to solve this enormous mystery has brought one team to the depths under Lead, South Dakota.

The question for scientists is basic, says Kevin Lesko, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: “What is this great place I live in? Right now, 95% of it is a mystery.”

The idea is that a mile of dirt and rock, a giant tank, a second tank and the purest titanium in the world will block nearly all the cosmic rays and particles that zip around — and through — all of us every day. But dark matter particles, scientists think, can avoid all those obstacles. They hope one will fly into the vat of liquid xenon in the inner tank and smash into a xenon nucleus like two balls in a game of pool, revealing its existence in a flash of light seen by a device called “the time projection chamber.”

Scientists announced Thursday that the five-year, $60 million search finally got underway two months ago after a delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, the device has found nothing. At least no dark matter.

That’s OK, they say. The equipment appears to be working to filter out most of the background radiation they hoped to block.

“To search for this very rare type of interaction, job number one is to first get rid of all of the ordinary sources of radiation, which would overwhelm the experiment,” said University of Maryland physicist Carter Hall.

And if all their calculations and theories are right, they figure they’ll see only a couple fleeting signs of dark matter a year. The team of 250 scientists estimates they’ll get 20 times more data over the next couple of years.

By the time the experiment finishes, the chance of finding dark matter with this device is “probably less than 50% but more than 10%,” said Hugh Lippincott, a physicist and spokesman for the experiment in a Thursday news conference.

While that’s far from a sure thing, “you need a little enthusiasm,” Lawrence Berkeley’s Lesko said. “You don’t go into rare search physics without some hope of finding something.”

Two hulking Depression-era hoists run an elevator that brings scientists to what’s called the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment in the Sanford Underground Research Facility. A 10-minute descent ends in a tunnel with cool-to-the-touch walls lined with netting. But the old, musty mine soon leads to a high-tech lab where dirt and contamination is the enemy. Helmets are exchanged for new, cleaner ones and a double layer of baby blue booties go over steel-toed safety boots.

The heart of the experiment is the giant tank called the cryostat, lead engineer Jeff Cherwinka said in a December 2019 tour before the device was closed and filled. He described it as “like a thermos” made of “perhaps the purest titanium in the world” designed to keep the liquid xenon cold and keep background radiation at a minimum.

Xenon is special, explained Aaron Manalaysay, experiment physics coordinator, because it allows researchers to see if a collision is with one of its electrons or with its nucleus. If something hits the nucleus, it is more likely to be the dark matter that everyone is looking for, he said.

These scientists tried a similar, smaller experiment here years ago. After coming up empty, they figured they had to go much bigger. Another large-scale experiment is underway in Italy run by a rival team, but no results have been announced so far.

The scientists are trying to understand why the universe is not what it seems.

One part of the mystery is dark matter, which has by far most of the mass in the cosmos. Astronomers know it’s there because when they measure the stars and other regular matter in galaxies, they find that there is not nearly enough gravity to hold these clusters together. If nothing else was out there, galaxies would be “quickly flying apart,” Manalaysay said.

“It is essentially impossible to understand our observation of history, of the evolutionary cosmos without dark matter,” Manalaysay said.

Lippincott, a University of California, Santa Barbara, physicist, said “we would not be here without dark matter.”

So while there’s little doubt that dark matter exists, there’s lots of doubt about what it is. The leading theory is that it involves things called WIMPs — weakly interacting massive particles.

If that’s the case, LUX-ZEPLIN could be able to detect them. And scientists want to find “where the WIMPs can be hiding,” Lippincott said.
…

Cases of COVID-19 are surging again globally, due in large part to the rise of virus variant Omicron BA.5, which is much more contagious than its predecessors and is able to circumvent existing immunity in many people.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week released data indicating that the BA.5 variant is now responsible for more than half of new cases and is poised to continue outcompeting older versions of the Omicron variant that remain in circulation.

The new variant is also carving its path across other countries. In the Americas, Brazil and Mexico are both experiencing upticks. In Europe, cases are on the rise across the continent, including in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Greece, among others. The United Kingdom is experiencing a rise as well.

In Asia, cases are rising in Japan, South Korea and India, among others. Cases are also climbing in Australia and New Zealand.

‘Worst’ variant yet

Public health experts are warning that despite the fact that death rates from COVID-19 remain low in the U.S., the Omicron BA.5 variant remains a major concern. Evidence suggests that a recent prior infection with COVID-19 offers little or no protection against reinfection with the new variant.

During past waves, it has typically been assumed that an individual who had recovered from a bout of COVID-19 would have enhanced immune protection against reinfection for a significant period of time.

“The Omicron subvariant BA.5 is the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen,” Dr. Eric Topol, a member of the Department of Molecular Medicine at Scripps Research, wrote in his popular Substack newsletter. “It takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility, well beyond Omicron (BA.1) and other Omicron family variants that we’ve seen.”

Even though people appear to be less likely to get extremely sick from the new variant, public health experts say that they are concerned about the possibility that as infections increase, more people will come down with lingering symptoms. So-called long COVID, which can include fatigue, shortness of breath, cognitive dysfunction and other adverse health events, has been detected in as many as one in five people who survive an infection.

Public health challenge

Rising case counts have public health experts deeply concerned about what will take place in the coming months.

“Right now, the public health stance should be maximizing vaccination, including boosters for those who are eligible and primary vaccination and boosters for children,” David Blumenthal, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a public health foundation, told VOA. “That’s the absolutely critical, essential first step in a public health campaign to reduce the impact of COVID. That also should include planning for, we hope, a more specific vaccine in the fall against the Omicron variants.”

Blumenthal said he believed that the threat of long COVID meant that it also makes sense for people to continue wearing masks in public during surges in infection. However, he said he recognized that calling for more restrictions presented a serious challenge to public health officials, who will find themselves trying to persuade a pandemic-weary public to embrace masking again.

“I think that civic leaders — respected, nonmedical leaders, as well as personal physicians — are probably the best communicators at this point,” he said.

US in detail

According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, in the 90 days ending on July 6, the average number of daily cases over the previous seven days in the U.S. rose to 106,193, from 34,795. However, the actual number of cases is believed to be far higher, because the prevalence of at-home testing means that the majority of cases are not reported to public health agencies.

The same data set shows that over the same 90-day period, the seven-day average of people hospitalized for COVID-19 rose to 35,637, from 14,904. While that marked a significant upward move in percentage terms, the absolute number of people currently hospitalized for the disease remains far below the more than 807,000 recorded at the peak in January.

Deaths from COVID-19 have actually fallen over the past 90 days, with a seven-day average of 309 recorded on July 6, compared with 507 recorded 90 days earlier. The current death rate remains near all-time lows since the beginning of the pandemic.

China changes direction

In China this week, Beijing became the first major city in the mainland to adopt a vaccination requirement for people to enter public spaces. Starting Monday, individuals will have to provide proof of vaccination to enter a broad range of public buildings in the city.

As recently as September of last year, the Chinese government had been explicitly against mandatory vaccination.

Wu Liangyou, a senior official with the National Health Commission, criticized municipalities that had instituted requirements like those coming into force in the capital, and said that all vaccination programs ought to remain voluntary.

Unlike many other countries, China has pursued what has been called a zero-COVID approach to managing the pandemic. The government has implemented major lockdowns across the country in efforts to slow or stop the spread of the disease.

The city of Xian, in the northwest of the country, is currently locked down because of a major outbreak of the disease caused by the new variant.

China was initially slow to roll out vaccines, even to older members of the population, who remain the most vulnerable to the disease. Now, however, Johns Hopkins data indicate that nearly 90% of the population is fully vaccinated.

Whether Beijing’s decision to mandate vaccination for access to public spaces marks the beginning of a turn away from the lockdown-focused, zero-COVID policy is unclear.
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NASA sees success on a pair of launches from the Southern Hemisphere. Plus, prospective lunar rovers run the gauntlet on Earth, and an Independence Day anniversary for the American space program. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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African and European researchers are meeting in France to give fresh impetus to Africa’s ambitious Great Green Wall project, intended to fight climate change and support communities across the Sahel region. Much of the area is plagued by conflict and hunger, but scientists are looking at new ways to move ahead.

It’s been slow-going building Africa’s so-called Great Green Wall of trees and bushes intended to stretch nearly 8,000 kilometers from Mauritania in the west to tiny Djibouti in the east. Fifteen years into the project set to be complete in 2030, only a fraction of the reforestation has been realized. Eight of the 11 countries involved are grappling with unrest. Funding hasn’t matched the development challenge.

Still, environment professor Aliou Guissé points to tangible successes. In the Sahel area of his native Senegal, reforested areas are gaining ground. He said they’re home to larger and more diverse populations of animals, birds and insects than areas where trees haven’t been planted. Scientists are finding health and other benefits of local plants like desert date palms, which are valued by communities, might be commercialized and generate revenue.  

Guissé is co-director of the Tessekere Observatory in northern Senegal, which seeks a holistic approach to Green Wall development spanning areas like health, agriculture, the economy — and of course, the environment.

He and other experts meeting this week in the western French city of Poitiers want to widen their collaboration, currently happening in Burkina Faso and Senegal, to include researchers from other Sahel countries like Niger, Chad and possibly Mali. Despite unrest in those countries, they say progress — like building baseline data — can happen.  

The Tessekere Observatory’s other co-director, French anthropologist Gilles Boëtsch, said another goal is building partnerships between researchers and government agencies managing Green Wall development. The group is diving into new areas, like exploring the impact of animal-to-human-transmitted diseases, such as Ebola and COVID-19.  

Boetsch says their research doesn’t just benefit Africa’s Sahel, but also countries like France — already facing the fallout of a warming and changing climate.
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The World Health Organization warns new variants of COVID-19 are spreading and people must remain vigilant and employ public health measures to protect themselves from contracting and transmitting the deadly disease. 

The latest WHO figures show reported cases of COVID-19 have increased nearly 30 percent globally over the past two weeks. Current figures stand at nearly 558 million, including more than 6.3 million deaths. 

Data show BA.4 and BA.5 variants are driving new waves of the disease in Europe and the United States, while a different variant has been found in countries like India. 

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said testing for COVID-19 has gone down dramatically, obscuring the true extent of the current disease surge. That, he warned, means too many people are not getting the treatments needed to prevent serious illness or death. 

“As the virus evolves, vaccine’s protection, while it still is really effective at preventing serious diseases and death, does wane. Decreasing immunity underscores the importance of boosters, especially for the most at risk,” Tedros said.

Tedros said the dangers posed by the new variants are high in developed countries, but are even greater in poorer countries, where people do not have access to new treatments and oral antivirals. 

The WHO executive director for health emergencies, Mike Ryan, said every country has gaps in its national readiness, preparedness, and surveillance plans. He said countries can and must do more to boost their pandemic response in tackling the new surge in COVID-19 cases. 

“We will see differential impacts in countries. So, depending on how strong that wall of immunity is in your community, depending on how well you deal with the vulnerabilities that people have, and depending on how well you are prepared to deal with that, I think we are going to see further waves of disease. And I think we will see them have a very differential impact between countries,” Ryan said. 

The World Health Organization urges people to implement tried and tested public health measures, such as testing, masking and vaccinating to protect themselves. 

Additionally, the WHO says it is crucial to accelerate research and development into next generation vaccines, tests and treatments to keep pace with the evolution of the coronavirus. 

 
…

 Mississippi’s only abortion clinic has been buzzing with activity in the chaotic days since the U.S. Supreme Court upended abortion rights nationwide — a case that originated in this conservative Deep South state — with this bright-pink medical facility closing its doors Wednesday. 

Physicians at Jackson Women’s Health Organization have been trying to see as many patients as possible before Thursday, when, barring an unlikely intervention by the state’s conservative Supreme Court, Mississippi will enact a law to ban most abortions. 

Amid stifling summer heat and humidity, clashes intensified Wednesday between anti-abortion protesters and volunteers escorting patients into the clinic, best known as the Pink House. 

When Dr. Cheryl Hamlin, who has traveled from Boston for five years to perform abortions, walked outside the Pink House, an abortion opponent used a bullhorn to yell at her. 

“Repent! Repent!” Doug Lane shouted at her. 

His words were drowned out by abortion rights supporter Beau Black, who repeatedly screamed at Lane: “Hypocrites and Pharisees! Hypocrites and Pharisees!” 

Abortion access has become increasingly limited across wide swaths of the U.S. as conservative states enact restrictions or bans that took effect when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. 

The court, reshaped by three conservative justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, issued the ruling June 24. But the Mississippi clinic has been inundated with patients since September, when Texas enacted a ban on abortion early in pregnancy. 

Cars with license plates from Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas have been driving through Jackson’s Fondren neighborhood to bring women and girls — some of whom appeared to be teenagers — to the Pink House. Drivers parked on side streets near the clinic in the shade of pink and purple crepe myrtles, their car air-conditioners blasting as they waited. 

Diane Derzis, who has owned the Mississippi clinic since 2010, drove to Jackson to speak at the Pink House hours after the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. 

“It’s been such an honor and a privilege to be in Mississippi. I’ve come to love this state and the people in it,” Derzis told those gathered in the sweltering heat. 

The Supreme Court ruling was in a case called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — the clinic’s challenge of a 2018 Mississippi law to ban most abortions after 15 weeks. The Pink House had been doing abortions through 16 weeks, but under previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, abortion was allowed to the point of fetal viability, about 24 weeks. 

Mississippi’s top public health official, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, was named in the lawsuit, but has not taken a public position on the case. The state’s Republican attorney general urged justices to use the case to overturn Roe v. Wade and give states more power to regulate or ban abortion. 

Derzis told The Associated Press after the ruling that she didn’t regret filing the lawsuit that eventually undercut nearly five decades of abortion case law. 

“We didn’t have a choice. And if it hadn’t been this lawsuit, it would have been another one,” said Derzis, who also owns abortion clinics in Georgia and Virginia, and lives in Alabama. 

The Mississippi clinic uses out-of-state physicians like Dr. Hamlin because no in-state doctors will work there. 

As the Pink House prepared to close, Dr. Hamlin said she worries about women living in deep poverty in parts of the state with little access to health care. 

“People say, ‘Oh, what am I supposed to do?'” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Vote.'” 

Shannon Brewer, the Pink House director, agrees low-income women will be most affected because they will be unable to get abortions in-state. 

Some staffers were expected to be in the Pink House on Thursday for paperwork ahead of its closure, but no procedures. 

Derzis and Brewer will soon open an abortion clinic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, about an hour’s drive from El Paso, Texas, — calling it Pink House West. Hamlin said she is getting licensed in New Mexico so she can work there. 

Mississippi and New Mexico are two of the poorest states in the U.S. but have vastly different positions on abortion politics and access. 

Home to a Democratic-led legislature and governor, New Mexico recently took an extra step to protect providers and patients from out-of-state prosecutions. It’s likely to continue to see a steady influx of people seeking abortions from neighboring states with more restrictive abortion laws. 

One of the largest abortion providers in Texas, Whole Woman’s Health, announced Wednesday that it is also planning to reopen in New Mexico in a city near the state line, to provide first- and second-trimester abortions. It began winding down operations in Texas after a ruling Friday by the state Supreme Court that forced an end to abortions at its four clinics.
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Tens of millions of people were under lockdown across China on Wednesday and businesses in a major tourist city were forced to close as fresh COVID-19 clusters sparked fears of wider restrictions. 

Chinese health authorities have reported more than 300 infections in the historic northern city of Xian, home to the Terracotta Army, with new clusters found in Shanghai, Beijing and elsewhere. 

The outbreaks and official response have dashed hopes that China would move away from the strict virus curbs seen earlier this year, when its hardline zero-COVID policy saw tens of millions forced to stay home for weeks. 

In Shanghai, some social media users reported receiving government food rations, a throwback to the monthslong confinement forced on the city’s residents earlier this year. 

“I’m so nervous, the epidemic has destroyed my youth,” posted a Shanghai-based user on Weibo. 

Mass testing

Officials launched a new round of mass testing in more than half of the city’s districts after a rebound in cases since the weekend.  

All karaoke bars were closed Wednesday after some infections were linked to six venues. 

“I think this is unnecessary, and I don’t really want to do it,” Shanghai resident Alice Chan told AFP. 

She said she took part in the latest testing round over fears that her smartphone-stored health code, which is used to access public spaces, might otherwise flag her as a COVID risk. 

“I think the situation won’t improve in the short term,” said another resident, who gave his name as Yao. “People now aren’t really scared of COVID anymore, they’re scared of being locked down in their homes.” 

‘Temporary control’

Japanese bank Nomura has estimated that at least 114 million people were under full or partial lockdowns nationwide in China as of Monday, a sharp jump from last week’s 66.7 million. 

The recent resurgences pose a fresh challenge for President Xi Jinping, who last week reaffirmed his commitment to the zero-COVID strategy despite the mounting economic cost. 

In Xian,  a city of 13 million that endured a monthlong lockdown last year, the population was placed under “temporary control measures” after 29 infections were found since Saturday, mostly among recycling workers. 

The city government said it would close entertainment venues including pubs, internet cafes and karaoke bars starting at midnight on Wednesday. 

State media showed Xian residents queuing up for tests past midnight Tuesday but said the city was not under lockdown. 

Officials have blamed the outbreak on a subvariant of omicron, which is more transmissible and immune evasive. 

“The positive infections are all the BA.5.2 branch of the omicron variant, and epidemiological tracing work is still in full swing,” Xian health official Ma Chaofeng said at a briefing. 

Tighter vaccination requirements

In Beijing, officials said Wednesday that the BA.5.2 branch has also been detected in the capital, but stressed the outbreak remains controllable. 

But the city will tighten vaccination requirements starting Monday, health official Li Ang told reporters. 

Visitors to places including museums, sports centers, libraries and cinemas must be vaccinated unless exempt, Li said. 

The city is also pushing to get more retirees vaccinated, saying those who visit centers for the elderly must be jabbed as soon as possible. 

China’s biggest cluster is in the central province of Anhui, where more than 1,000 infections have been reported since last week. 

Dozens of cases have also been recorded in Jiangsu province, neighboring Shanghai, threatening the Yangtze Delta manufacturing region. 

“A resurgence of omicron is not an issue in most other countries, but it remains a predominant issue for the Chinese economy,” warned Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura. 
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The World Health Organization says more than 6,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 58 countries, with over 80% of the cases in Europe.

The WHO was expected to determine whether to declare the outbreak a global health emergency, the highest level of alert, later this month, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference from Geneva Wednesday.

“I continue to be concerned by the scale and spread of the virus across the world,” Tedros said, adding that because of a lack of testing, many cases are being unreported.

The viral infection, which is endemic in Africa, is normally mild and similar to the flu, but can cause skin lesions. The current outbreak began in May. It is unclear what the fatality rate of the current strain is, but previous strains have been about 1%.

Most cases of the virus have been in 21- to 40-year-old males, many of whom have sex with other men, said Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe in a Friday statement.

But he added that “small numbers of cases have also now been reported among household members, heterosexual contacts, and nonsexual contacts, as well as among children.”

There have been no reported deaths from monkeypox in the U.S., The Associated Press reported.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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Members of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional bloc that includes Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda, met Tuesday in Nairobi to discuss humanitarian, political, and security issues in the region.

The humanitarian situation that has made more than 23 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia food insecure took center stage at IGAD’s 39th head of state and government meeting. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said the countries in the region need to combat the drought situation.

“The drought, the worst in 40 years, has intensified food insecurity, dried up water resources and forced displacement of people, raising tensions that could trigger new conflicts,” said Kenyatta. “We urgently need to manage the drought before it becomes a threat multiplier.”

Some parts of the region have had four consecutive seasons without rain, forcing millions to move in search of food, water and pasture. Sudan’s leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said the drought greatly affects the region and people’s lives.

“If we do not handle the drought situation, it’s going to be the worst we have seen in 40 years,” said the leader. “Drought is killing our people and livestock. The drought has also become a reason for our under development.”

Experts predict the region may fail to get any rain between October and December. Amina Abdulla is the regional director for the Horn of Africa at Concern Worldwide, an Irish humanitarian agency. She recently warned that without urgent humanitarian assistance to millions, the region risks losing 350,000 children to hunger. In Somalia, eight areas are at risk of famine and at least 200,000 children have died due to malnutrition since January.

Climate change and conflict are also blamed on the region’s food insecurity. Bankole Adeoye, the African Union’s commissioner for political affairs, peace and security, assured the IGAD members of the bloc’s support to mitigate the effects of the drought.

“The humanitarian situation, which has been further complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and by the drought being experienced in many parts of the region, is concerning and the African Union herewith pledges African solidarity and collective responsibility,” said Adeoye. “It’s for us all to continue to fight the glaring effect of climate change in the world today. The African Union is ready to mobilize African and international partners to fight this scourge and to promote sustainable growth and development.”

Humanitarian agencies estimate 5 million children in the Horn of Africa region are malnourished, with 30 percent experiencing severe malnutrition. The European Union ambassador to Kenya, Henriette Geiger, told IGAD leaders that efforts are being made to get much-needed food from Ukraine.

“The security situation in the region is aggravated by unprecedented drought in the Horn and by Russian aggression, which caused the global food crisis,” said Geiger. “In Europe, we are working with the U.N. to transport grain out of Ukraine and the European Union, and its member states pledged over 630 million euros [$648 million] recently to strengthen food systems and resilience here in the Horn of Africa.”

The United Nations says it needs at least $4.4 billion to provide assistance until next month. But the donor support has fallen short of the targets.
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A small new study published Tuesday by scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health suggests that the immune response triggered by coronavirus infections damages the brain’s blood vessels and could be responsible for long COVID symptoms.

The paper, published in the journal Brain, was based on brain autopsies from nine people who died suddenly after contracting the virus.

Rather than detecting evidence of COVID in the brain, the team found it was the people’s own antibodies that attacked the cells lining the brain’s blood vessels, causing inflammation and damage.

This discovery could explain why some people have lingering effects from infection including headache, fatigue, loss of taste and smell, and inability to sleep as well as “brain fog” — and may also help devise new treatments for long COVID.

NIH scientist Avindra Nath, the paper’s senior author, said in a statement: “Patients often develop neurological complications with COVID-19, but the underlying pathophysiological process is not well understood.

“We had previously shown blood vessel damage and inflammation in patients’ brains at autopsy, but we didn’t understand the cause of the damage. I think in this paper we’ve gained important insight into the cascade of events.”

The nine individuals, ages 24 to 73, were selected from the team’s earlier study because they showed evidence of blood vessel damage in their brains based on scans.

Their brains were compared to those from 10 control individuals.

The scientists discovered that antibodies produced against COVID-19 mistakenly targeted cells that form the blood-brain barrier, a structure designed to keep harmful invaders out of the brain while allowing necessary substances to pass.

Damage to these cells can cause leakage of proteins, bleeding and clots, which elevates the risk of stroke.

The leaks also trigger immune cells called macrophages to rush to the site to repair damage, causing inflammation.

The team found that normal cellular processes in the areas targeted by the attack were severely disrupted, which had implications for things such as their ability to detoxify and to regulate metabolism.

The findings offer clues about the biology at play in patients with long-term neurological symptoms, and can inform new treatments, for example, a drug that targets the buildup of antibodies on the blood-brain barrier.

“It is quite possible that this same immune response persists in long COVID patients resulting in neuronal injury,” Nath said.

This would mean that a drug that dials down that immune response could help those patients, he added. “So these findings have very important therapeutic implications.”
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There is growing alarm among European and other environmentalists over what they say is governments’ failure to ensure healthy oceans, which are vital for food, jobs, biodiversity and clean air.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls it an “ocean emergency.”

“Global heating is pushing ocean temperature to record levels, creating fiercer and more frequent storms,” he said. “Sea levels are rising, low-lying island nations face inundation, and some 8 million tons of plastic waste enter the oceans every year.”

Those are just some of the threats facing the oceans, which cover 70% of the Earth’s surface. Overfishing, shipping and ocean wind turbines also pressure marine ecosystems.

At an ocean conference in Lisbon last week, Guterres and others called for faster, stronger protection measures. But green groups claim the meeting failed to deliver real progress.

Environmentalists hope for better results next month, when countries resume discussions on a global agreement to protect critical ocean ecosystems.

For some, that includes a ban on deep sea mining, which could start as early as 2023.

While countries like China are exploring mining opportunities, critics claim the practice could destroy fragile seabeds and ecosystems. Those critics include President Emmanuel Macron of France.

“I think we have to create the legal framework to stop the high sea mining, and to not allow new activities putting in danger these ecosystems,” Macron said. “We know almost nothing about the deep sea. We don’t know a lot about the ecosystem. It’s a very complex and slow ecosystem. It takes decades or even more for animals to grow.”

Tobias Troll, marine policy director for Seas at Risk, an umbrella group of more than 30 European environmental associations, said: “Imagine you put these robots down there — it can trigger all kinds of effects on this ecosystem which can trigger up into the food chain.”

In Europe and elsewhere, green groups are pushing countries to meet the ocean promises they’ve already made. That includes the European Union’s 2030 healthy oceans goals. A new environmental report card by six EU nonprofits finds the bloc met just one of eight progress markers last year.

“I think the underlying problem of the situation … is that there is a significant lack of policy coherence around EU legislation around the ocean,” Troll said. “For example, we have the marine strategy framework or the fisheries policy, but they don’t really work together.”

Troll said EU countries are also overselling the progress they’ve made. Marine protection is a case in point, he said, with only a tiny fraction of Europe’s marine habitat truly protected, contrary to official claims.
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