Month: August 2021

The U.S. National Hurricane Center says a tropical depression in the Caribbean Sea is likely to strengthen into a major hurricane that could threaten southern parts the United States on Sunday.
 
In its latest advisory, the center says the tropical depression about 180 kilometers south-southwest of Jamaica is moving to the northwest and is expected to continue in that direction over the next few days.  
 
The storm system has maximum sustained winds of about 55 km/h but forecasters expect it to strengthen into what will be known as Tropical Storm Ida (and then a hurricane) as it moves to the west of Cuba and into the southern Gulf of Mexico.  
 
Forecasters fear dramatic strengthening as the storm moves over the Gulf of Mexico. On her Twitter account, Mississippi State University atmospheric scientist Kim Wood said the storm track will take it over the warmest waters in the gulf.
 
She said the water in the area is about 30 degrees Celsius to a depth of 40 meters. “I don’t have words for that,” she said in the tweet.
 
Such extremely warm waters favor rapid strengthening after Ida enters the gulf Friday.  
 
Forecasters say that while there is still a great deal of uncertainty, the forecast track would take the storm into Louisiana, which was hit hard by three major hurricanes last year. The hurricane center is already warning of a “life-threatening” storm surge when the storm makes landfall and the potential for damaging winds and flooding rain.  
 
Forecasters say the storm track is still coming into focus and could shift in the next several days. They urged concerned citizens in the potential path to continue to watch the storm’s movement.
 
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that 364,842,701 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the U.S., with 202,500,853 people having received at least one dose and 171,773,370 people now fully vaccinated.The data show 61% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine, with 51.7% completely vaccinated; 71.3% of U.S. residents 12 and older have received at least one shot, while 60.5% are fully vaccinated. Among adults 18 and older, 73.4% have received one shot, while 62.7% are fully vaccinated.U.S. residents over 65 represent the largest vaccinated demographic, with 91.6% having had one shot, while 81.3% are fully vaccinated. The CDC says that, in total, 430,118,615 doses of COVID vaccines have been distributed throughout the country.Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
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A wildfire that burned several homes near Los Angeles may signal that the region is facing the same dangers that have scorched Northern California this summer.The fire in San Bernardino County erupted Wednesday afternoon, quickly burned several hundred acres and damaged or destroyed at least a dozen homes and outbuildings in the foothills northeast of Los Angeles, fire officials said. Crews used shovels and bulldozers and mounted an air attack to keep the South Fire from the tiny communities of Lytle Creek and Scotland.About 600 homes and other buildings were threatened by the blaze along with power transmission lines and 1,000 residents were under evacuation orders.By nightfall, firefighters appeared to have gained the upper hand and few flames were seen. But the blaze was worrying because Southern California’s high fire season typically comes later in the year when strong, dry Santa Ana winds blast out of the interior and flow toward the coast.After a few cooler days, California’s southern region was expected to experience a return of hot weather into the weekend that could boost wildfire risks. In addition to dangerously dry conditions, the region faces firefighting staffing that is increasingly stretched thin, said Lyn Sieliet, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino National Forest.“Some of our firefighters that we normally have on our forests are working on fires in Northern California, or Idaho and Washington,” she told KTLA-TV. “We don’t have the full staff that we normally do.”The largest fires in the state and in the nation were in Northern California, where they have burned down small mountain towns and destroyed huge swaths of tinder-dry forest.Crews Struggle to Stop Fire Bearing Down on Lake TahoeBlaze ‘knocking on the door’ of the basin that straddles the California-Nevada state lineThe Caldor Fire has destroyed 500 homes since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada southwest of Lake Tahoe, including much of the tiny hamlet of Grizzly Flats. It was 12% contained and threatened more than 17,000 structures.Buck Minitch, a firefighter with the Pioneer Fire Protection District, was called to the fire lines last week while his wife fled their Grizzly Flats home with their two daughters, three dogs, a kitten and duffel bag of clothes, the San Jose Mercury News reported.Hannah Minitch evacuated to her parents’ property and the next morning received a text from her husband showing only a chimney where their house once stood. The two wept briefly during a telephone call before he got back to work.“‘We’ve got nothing left here,’” she recalled him saying. “’I’ve got to go protect what’s left for other people.’”At times the wind-driven fire was burning 1,000 acres (405 hectares) of land per hour and on Wednesday it was less than two dozen miles (37 kilometers) from Lake Tahoe, an alpine vacation and tourist spot that straddles the California-Nevada state line.There weren’t any evacuations in Tahoe but the fire continued to cast a sickly yellow pall of smoke over the scenic region.The communities of South Lake Tahoe and Tahoe City on the lake’s west shore had the nation’s worst air pollution at midmorning Wednesday, according to AirNow, a partnership of federal, state and local air agencies.Meanwhile, California’s Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history at 1,160 square miles (3,004 square kilometers), was burning only about 65 miles (104 kilometers) to the north. It was 45% contained. Some 700 homes were among nearly 1,300 buildings that have been destroyed.In the southern Sierra Nevada, there was growing concern as the French Fire expanded near Lake Isabella, a popular fishing and boating destination. About 10 communities were under evacuation orders. The fire has blackened 32 square miles (83 square kilometers) since Aug. 18.Smoke from the fires had fouled air farther south. The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued an advisory through Thursday morning for large portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.Nationally, 92 large fires were burning in 13 mainly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.
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The popular black-and-gray T-shirt featuring the mantra of blind long jumper Lex Gillette currently remains sold out on his website.   Just temporarily, though. After the Paralympic Games in Tokyo, the 36-year-old from North Carolina vowed to make a new batch with his trademark slogan emblazoned across the front: “No need for sight when you have a vision.”   Maybe even in a new color option — gold.   Because that’s one color he’s definitely envisioning. In four previous trips to the Paralympics, he’s taken home a silver medal each time.   “Basically the only box I haven’t checked yet,” said Gillette, who competes Friday in Japan. “So it would definitely mean a lot [to win].”   On the eve of his fifth Paralympics appearance, Gillette took a moment to reflect: On being blind by around 10 years old. On discovering the long jump through a gym class. On traveling the world thanks to track. On winning numerous awards. On setting the world record in the visually impaired classification of his signature event.   “I’ve been able to do a lot of awesome things,” he said.   Recurrent retinal detachments. That’s how his blurriness at 8 was explained. Just random, too. No trauma. No sickness. No accident.   He went through 10 operations in an effort to save his vision. After the final one, the doctors broke the news: His sight wasn’t going to be saved.   It was almost by coincidence he discovered track. He went to school with sighted kids and one of the activities in a gym class happened to be the standing long jump. He took his first leap and had no idea how far he jumped.   This should’ve been clue No. 1 it was far: The cheers of his classmates.   “The place was literally going bonkers,” Gillette recalled. “I just jumped through the roof.”   One of his teachers, Brian Whitmer, took him to the track and taught him the mechanics of the long jump. He also planted a thought in his mind — the Paralympics.   “He was like, ‘You could travel the world. You can break records. You can win medals,'” said Gillette, who’s sang the national anthem at various events, including a San Diego Padres game. “He helped me to see my potential.”   A potential that’s included setting the world mark in the T11 category with a leap of 6.73 meters (22 feet, 1 inch). He’s earned medals upon medals, including silver at the 2004 Paralympic Games, silver again four years later in Beijing, silver once again in London and silver for a fourth time in Rio de Janeiro.   That runner-up finish in Rio, though, stuck with him because he was in gold-medal shape. But he struggled to hear the clapping of his guide/coach/friend Wesley Williams down the runway over the crowd noise.   That won’t be a factor in Tokyo, where there are no fans due to the coronavirus pandemic. Still, he and Williams developed a 15-stride approach so that Gillette would be a little closer.   They’ve been a team for the last 14 years. They train together five times a week just to be on the same page for a competition.   This is how it works: Before a jump, Williams walks with Gillette to the starting point. Then, Williams heads back near the sand pit and waits. Once Gillette takes off down the runway, Williams claps to guide him along, screaming “fly, fly, fly, fly,” as Gillette approaches the takeoff point to let him know he’s on the right path. He’ll also holler “stop” if Gillette veers off course.   Gillette knows immediately if it’s a good leap, too, simply by walking to the back of the pit.   “If it only takes a stride to get to the back of the pit, you have an idea, ‘All right, I think that this was something good,'” said Gillette, who trains at the Elite Athlete Training Center in Chula Vista, California.   Williams has become a little bit of everything to Gillette — teammate, coach and friend. Gillette’s success is his success, even if Williams hasn’t received a Paralympic medal as a long-jump caller.   “I got into this game understanding the role and we didn’t start out getting medals. Lex and I have went on to win a ton of competitions and I feel just as awarded as he does!” Williams wrote in an email. “We are aiming to let the powers that be know that it’s just not what you see at championships in regards to the guides. We are literally apart of the process from beginning to end, putting in the sweat equity and fitness standards to propel the athlete/s to personal bests, world records, and the medal stand!”   Added Gillette: “I would love for Wesley to be able to look back on a medal and say, ‘Hey, we did this together.’ Because as it stands right now, he only has the memories — and memories are fantastic, but to accompany those memories with a medal, that would be amazing.”   Away from the track, Gillette’s a diehard Carolina Panthers fan. He listens to the broadcasts and then postgame shows ( Christian McCaffrey even sent him a jersey, with the message, “Keep inspiring!” written on the back). Gillette also knows the different voices, which is why he instantly recognized the caller who dialed him just before the U.S. Paralympic trials to wish him luck — former Panthers coach Ron Rivera (now with Washington).   “That was some really great motivation for me,” Gillette said. “That might be some of the wings that I need to fly to the gold in Tokyo.”   About his mantra — “No need for sight when you have a vision” — Gillette came up with it in 2008 simply as a way to inspire.   “It was a perfect illustration of what I believed my life to be,” Gillette explained. “It doesn’t matter if I have eyesight, I just have to see something greater, see something bigger, and then do everything in my power to bring that into reality.” 
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Five months after the Biden administration declared an emergency and raced to set up shelters to house a record number of children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone, kids continue to languish at the sites, while more keep coming, child welfare advocates say.More than 700 children spent three weeks or longer at the government’s unlicensed sites in mid-July, according to declarations filed with a federal court overseeing custody conditions for immigrant youth. Advocates say children should be released quickly to their relatives in the U.S. or sent to a licensed facility.In one of the filings, a 16-year-old Salvadoran boy said children were served raw meat. It took more than a month for the boy, who said he speaks with both his parents each week, to be released to his father in Georgia.“When I wake up every day, I feel really frustrated. Of the youth that I arrived with, I am the last one here,” the boy said in his declaration. “I would like to be home with my dad right now.”When the Biden administration erected the emergency sites in March to ease dangerous overcrowding at border stations, they were meant to be a temporary fix. But months later, some wonder whether that’s still the case.Border crossings by children without an adult in July neared the same levels they did in March despite the summer heat.Children Stopped at Border Likely Reached Record High in July US authorities likely picked up more than 19,000 unaccompanied children in July, exceeding the previous high of 18,877 in March“If you have a dinner party that you plan to have for three people, and 30,000 people show up, you’re going to have a problem,” U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee, who oversees the decades-old settlement agreement that governs custody conditions for the children, said at a recent hearing.“The infrastructure is not set up for tens of thousands of people coming in at one time, and somehow the paradigm has to shift to figure out how to deal with these types of numbers.”U.S. border authorities reported more than 18,000 encounters with unaccompanied immigrant children in July, up 24% from a month earlier. The rise comes in the busiest month yet for the Biden administration on the border, with a total of nearly 200,000 encounters even though crossings are typically expected to slow during the summer.According to a government report in early August, the Department of Health and Human Services had nearly 15,000 children in its care but only 11,000 licensed shelter beds for the immigrant children. Using large-scale facilities can fill this gap, though advocates said the government would do better by expanding licensed shelters where children are given case workers, recreation and six hours of education on each weekday.The Department of Health and Human Services is tasked with caring for the children until they can be sent to live with relatives or other sponsors in the United States while they wait for an immigration judge to decide whether they can stay in the country legally. While the agency has a broad network of state-licensed shelters that could be expanded, ample space in foster care programs and large, so-called influx care facilities that adhere to specific standards for staffing and conditions, it continues to turn to these emergency sites.Advocates say the emergency intake sites adhere to none of the agency’s existing standards and are an inadequate and expensive option, especially for young, vulnerable children already coping with the trauma of leaving home and making the dangerous trip north.“There are other ways to do this. They kind of stick their head in the sand and act like the emergency intake sites are the only game in town, and it’s just so far from the truth,” said Leecia Welch, senior director of legal advocacy and child welfare at the National Center for Youth Law and one of the attorneys representing children in the federal court case. “When you start at horrifying, and better is still awful, that’s just not OK.”Advocates have asked Gee to order the administration to follow standards at emergency sites like it does for its influx care facilities, which also aim to offset an increase in arrivals. For example, a Carrizo Springs, Texas, facility for up to 1,000 children must provide a care worker for every eight children while they’re awake and at least one individual counseling session each week for each child. A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Oct. 1.Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services did not answer questions from The Associated Press.The Obama and Trump administrations also opened temporary facilities when there was a jump in children crossing the border alone, but the numbers were not near what the Biden administration has seen.US Supreme Court Orders ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy Reinstated With three liberal justices in dissent, the high court refused to block a lower court ruling ordering the administration to reinstate the program informally known as Remain in MexicoOnce the coronavirus appeared, the Trump administration largely shut down the Southwest border to asylum seekers under a pandemic-related measure, turning away many immigrants. Then, in November, a federal judge ordered the administration to stop expelling unaccompanied children under the policy.Two months later, President Joe Biden took office and the number of immigrant children seeking to cross began to rise. Shelters for immigrant youth were still running at reduced capacity due to coronavirus concerns, and the Department of Health and Human Services was suddenly strapped for space to house them.In recent months, the average length of stay at the emergency intake sites has declined and the Department of Health and Human Services has shut down some sites and worked to improve conditions in others. But at one point, some children were so desperate to get out of the government’s largest emergency facility at Fort Bliss Army Base, in Texas, that they tried to escape, according to declarations filed with the court.After getting caught, some children were sent to a more restrictive youth shelter in New York. A 16-year-old from Honduras said that was an improvement since they received pizza and other good food instead of the raw, bloody chicken served at the Army base. They also had teachers, while there was no class before.“If anything, it paid off to misbehave,” the teen, who would spend the day in bed at Fort Bliss feeling like a hostage, said in a declaration. “I am so grateful that I tried to escape from that hellhole. It was horrible, and I could never sleep.”Alex Nowrasteh, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said U.S. policies are making the problem worse. He believes parents are sending their children to the border knowing they have a better chance of getting in alone than with a relative.Biden has maintained public health rules implemented by the Trump administration that have barred people from seeking asylum at the border, but he exempted children who cross alone.If the U.S. let families apply to enter the country legally, authorities could manage the flows, eliminating the need for these emergency shelters, he said.“We are still in an emergency — the numbers are still high — but this absolutely is not the way to deal with it,” Nowrasteh said. “We have the capacity to process enormous numbers of asylum claims if we want to. It is only whether the government wants to.”
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Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is set to visit the White House on Thursday for talks with U.S. President Joe Biden about Iran, security issues and the coronavirus pandemic.The meeting will be the first time the two leaders speak in person since Bennett became prime minister in June.“It’s a chance for the prime minister to hear directly from the president his ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and self-defense, and supporting Israel’s defense needs,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters ahead of the meeting.The official said the impending end of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan will free more resources and attention for other priorities, including relations with Israel.A major focus of the talks will be Iran, both its nuclear program and what the official called the country’s “destabilizing activities in the region.”“Iran’s nuclear program has just dramatically broken out of the box, and it’s accelerating from week to week. This is a very serious problem, and the two leaders, I think, will have the opportunity to sit together and discuss what to do about it,” the U.S. official said.The United States and Iran have held several rounds of indirect talks about rejoining the 2015 international agreement that limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. That agreement came about amid concerns Iran was working to develop nuclear weapons, which it has denied.Former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018, and Iran subsequently took steps away from its commitments, including boosting its stockpiles of enriched uranium and enriching the material to higher levels of purity.”I will tell President Biden that it is time to stop the Iranians … not to give them a lifeline in the form of reentering into an expired nuclear deal,” Bennett said Sunday.
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A U.S. federal judge imposed financial penalties and other sanctions Wednesday against nine lawyers with ties to former U.S. President Donald Trump after ruling that their lawsuit challenging 2020 election results in the state of Michigan was a “historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.”“It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election,” U.S. District Court judge Linda Parker wrote. “It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated.”The lawyers involved include Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, Emily Newman, Julia Haller, Brandon Johnson, Scott Hagerstrom, Howard Kleinhendler, Gregory Rohl and Stefanie Lynn Junttila.Parker ordered that the lawyers attend 12 hours of legal education and reimburse local officials in Michigan for the costs of defending the lawsuit.The judge also said her ruling would be sent to every state bar and federal court where each lawyer practices for possible disciplinary action.Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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U.S. lawmakers pushed President Joe Biden on Wednesday to evacuate hundreds of people affiliated with the U.S. Agency for Global Media from Afghanistan as Washington rushes to meet a troop withdrawal deadline of August 31. In a letter sent to Biden on Wednesday, Senator Ben Cardin and Representative William Keating said about 550 people — employees of USAGM and their families — are still trying to leave Afghanistan. USAGM is an independent federal agency that encompasses several news networks, including the Voice of America and Radio Azadi. “We stress to you that the 550 USAGM employees and their families are no different from journalists you have already doggedly worked to evacuate,” the letter read, noting that the administration has worked with multiple American publications to evacuate their employees. New: Bipartisan letter pushing the Administration to evacuate VOA and Radio Azadi journalists —  US Government employees, still stuck there. (7 more pages of signatures after this one) pic.twitter.com/hNZdCdlqJx— Ben Smith (@benyt) August 25, 2021″They have been and continue to be a target for the Taliban due to their association with the United States government,” the letter stated. USAGM did not respond to a request for comment. Evacuation efforts for Afghan journalists have increased this week amid reports that Taliban fighters have been searching the homes of some media workers.  In the past week, the Taliban searched properties belonging to at least five journalists, media rights organizations said.The reports of harassment and searches come a week after the Taliban held its first news conference in Kabul. The White House said Wednesday that since August 14, the U.S. has evacuated or helped evacuate about 82,300 people on U.S. military and coalition flights in one of the largest airlifts in history. Since the end of July, the U.S. has relocated about 88,000 people.
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Newly installed New York Governor Kathy Hochul acknowledged nearly 12,000 more deaths in the state from COVID-19 than had been publicized by her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo.In a release posted to its official website late Tuesday, the governor’s office reported that 55,395 people had died of COVID-19 in New York based on death certificate data submitted to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), up from the 43,415 that Cuomo reported to the public as of Monday, his final day in office. Both numbers are posted. An explanation follows the larger number, saying it “includes those who died in any location, including hospitals, nursing homes, adult care facilities, at home, in hospice and other settings.””We’re now releasing more data than had been released before publicly so people know the nursing home deaths and the hospital deaths are consistent with what’s being displayed by the CDC,” Hochul explained during a televised interview with the U.S. cable news channel MSNBC earlier Wednesday.Hochul also implemented a mandatory mask policy Monday for all New York schools, public and private.Hochul was sworn in early Tuesday after Cuomo left office, effective midnight on Monday. He resigned rather than face what was likely to be a drawn-out impeachment process because of sexual harassment allegations.
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With less than a week remaining before it pulls its last troops out of Afghanistan, the United States in the last 24 hours evacuated another 19,000 Americans and Afghans who want to leave their homeland, the Defense Department said Wednesday.Even so, officials said another 10,000 people have crammed into the international airport in Kabul hoping to escape the country controlled by Taliban insurgents.Kabul Evacuations Ramp Up as G-7 Leaders Fail to Shift US DeadlineUS allies say they cannot operate evacuation flights without US firepower, raising fears that many citizens and eligible Afghans may be left behindA total of 90 U.S. military and international flights flew from Kabul in the last day, one every 39 minutes during some periods. In all, about 88,000 people have been evacuated since the operation began a few weeks ago.The scene at Hamid Karzai International Airport remains tense and chaotic, but Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said it “will not be an American responsibility” to control airport security there after August 31, the date U.S. President Joe Biden set for ending U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. Officials said they know there “are a lot of desperate people who want to leave.”For Some Afghan Women, Evacuation a Matter of Life or Death Esin, like other female students, especially those who also worked with Western embassies, missions and NGOs in Kabul, as she did, is desperate to get out of AfghanistanThe Pentagon said that all Afghans who supported U.S. operations over the last two decades and secured visas to enter the U.S. and have reached the airport will be evacuated. That could leave many others behind, unable to reach the airport past Taliban checkpoints.The U.S. military said it plans to continue its evacuation effort from the airport until the Tuesday deadline if needed, but toward the end will prioritize the removal of U.S. troops and military equipment. Kirby said there are currently 5,400 U.S. troops at the Kabul airport.Pentagon officials urged U.S. lawmakers to not travel to Kabul to witness the evacuation after Representatives Seth Moulton, a Democrat, and Peter Meijer, a Republican — both of whom served military tours of duty in the Mideast — made an unannounced trip to the Afghan capital this week to assess the situation.US Congressmen Visit Kabul Airport Amid Evacuation Effort Officials said such trips could be a distraction for military and diplomats“We conducted this visit in secret, speaking about it only after our departure, to minimize the risk and disruption to the people on the ground, and because we were there to gather information, not to grandstand,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. The lawmakers released their statement after flying out of Kabul on a chartered plane. They said that in their view, after seeing the situation firsthand and speaking to commanders on the ground, “we won’t get everyone out” before Biden’s Tuesday deadline. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement Tuesday saying travel to the region by members of the House of Representatives would divert resources from the evacuation operation. “Given the urgency of this situation, the desire of some (lawmakers) to travel to Afghanistan and the surrounding areas is understandable and reflective of the high priority that we place on the lives of those on the ground,” Pelosi said.“However, I write to reiterate that the Departments of Defense and State have requested that (lawmakers) not travel to Afghanistan and the region during this time of danger. Ensuring the safe and timely evacuation of individuals at risk requires the full focus and attention of the U.S. military and diplomatic teams on the ground in Afghanistan.” The Associated Press cited a senior U.S. official saying the Biden administration viewed the visit by Moulton and Meijer as unhelpful, and other officials said it was seen as a distraction to the troops who have been tasked with securing the airport to facilitate evacuation flights. South Korea announced Wednesday it planned to evacuate around 380 people who supported the country’s official activities in Afghanistan. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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U.S. military troops have been ordered to get vaccinated for COVID-19 immediately, according to a memo released Wednesday by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The order came two days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave final approval to Pfizer’s vaccine, paving the way for more than 800,000 unvaccinated service members to get inoculated.The memo does not indicate when the vaccinations should be completed, but it requires the military branches to provide regular updates on how they are progressing. “To defend this Nation, we need a healthy and ready force,” Austin said in the memo. “After careful consultation with medical experts and military leadership, and with the support of the President, I have determined that mandatory vaccination against coronavirus disease … is necessary to protect the Force and defend the American people.”
 
The U.S. military will administer the shots to troops stationed in the U.S. and around the world. Service members also can choose to get vaccinated on their own.Vaccinating National Guard troops might pose more of a challenge because they are scattered throughout the U.S. and gather for training just once a month.The order only applies to Pfizer’s vaccine. Moderna has applied to the FDA for full approval of its vaccine. Johnson and Johnson said it hopes to apply later this year.As of August 18, the Pentagon said more than 1 million active-duty National Guard and Reserve troops had been fully vaccinated and that nearly a quarter of a million more received at least one dose.There are more than 1.3 million active-duty troops and nearly 800,000 others serving in the National Guard and the Reserves.
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U.S. pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson announced Wednesday that clinical trials it has conducted show a second shot of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine produced an antibody response nine times higher than the original single dose. In a news release, the company said it conducted two Phase 1/2a studies in individuals previously vaccinated with its single-shot vaccine. The interim data from those studies showed a booster dose of the vaccine generated “a rapid and robust increase in spike-binding antibodies, which bind to and neutralize an invading virus.”The company said the boost in antibodies was “nine-fold higher than 28 days after the primary single-dose vaccination.” It said significant increases in binding antibody responses were observed in participants between the ages of 18 and 55, and in those 65 years and older, who received a lower booster dose.“Phase 1/2a clinical trials are smaller than the Phase 3 trials designed to show the efficacy of a vaccine,” the company’s statement said. Johnson & Johnson is also studying a two-dose vaccine in as many as 30,000 people in a Phase 3 trial, the results of which have not yet been released.Mathai Mammen, global head of research for Johnson & Johnson, said the company is submitting the results of its studies to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and other health authorities for potential use of the vaccine as a booster eight months or later after the primary single-dose vaccination.The Johnson & Johnson Phase 1/2a studies have been submitted to the medRxiv online medical and health science archive and distribution server ahead of peer review.Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said the international community needs to “raise the pressure” on China over its widespread territorial claims over the South China Sea Wednesday, during a speech on her first day in Hanoi. Harris made the remarks in the Vietnamese capital ahead of a bilateral meeting with President Nguyen Xuan Phuc. “We need to find ways to pressure and raise the pressure on Beijing to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” — a reference to the U.N. treaty that establishes all maritime activities around the world — “and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims.” Harris’ use of the word “bullying” builds on accusations made earlier during a visit to Singapore Monday that China “continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea.” Harris Says China Coercing, Intimidating in South China Sea  US vice president cited Chinese intimidation in the South China Sea along with need for freedom of navigation and commerce Beijing has aggressively expanded its military presence in the region, establishing scores of outposts on artificial islands while claiming ownership of other islands despite competing claims by Vietnam and other East Asian Pacific nations. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has made countering Chinese influence a key part of its foreign policy.  Harris also announced that the United States will provide an additional 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam and open a new regional branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Hanoi. Harris is the first U.S. vice president to visit Vietnam. Her flight from Singapore to Hanoi Tuesday was delayed because of “a report of a recent possible anomalous health incident,” in the city, according to the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi. The U.S. State Department has often used “anomalous health incidents” to refer to an illness that has stricken dozens of U.S. diplomats, commonly known as the Havana Syndrome.  Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters. 
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Biden administration likely violated federal law in trying to end a Trump-era program that forces people to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S.With three liberal justices in dissent, the high court refused to block a lower court ruling ordering the administration to reinstate the program informally known as Remain in Mexico.It’s not clear how many people will be affected and how quickly. Under the lower court ruling, the administration must make a “good faith effort” to restart the program.There also is nothing preventing the administration from trying again to end the program, formally called Migrant Protection Protocols.A federal judge in Texas had previously ordered that the program be reinstated last week. Both he and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused the administration’s request to put the ruling on hold.Justice Samuel Alito ordered a brief delay to allow the full court time to consider the administration’s appeal to keep the ruling on hold while the case continues to make its way through the courts.The 5th Circuit ordered expedited consideration of the administration’s appeal.The court offered little explanation for its action, although it cited its opinion from last year rejecting the Trump administration’s effort to end another immigration program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. In that case, the court held that the decision to end DACA was “arbitrary and capricious,” in violation of federal law.The administration has “failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious,” the court wrote Tuesday in an unsigned order.The three dissenting justices, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, did not write an opinion expressing their views of the case.In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said it regrets that the high court declined to issue a stay. The department said it would continue to challenge the district court’s order.The American Civil Liberties Union called on the administration to present a fuller rationale for ending Remain in Mexico that could withstand court scrutiny.“The government must take all steps available to fully end this illegal program, including by re-terminating it with a fuller explanation. What it must not do is use this decision as cover for abandoning its commitment to restore a fair asylum system,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s immigrant rights project.During Donald Trump’s presidency, the policy required tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to turn back to Mexico. It was meant to discourage asylum seekers but critics said it denied people the legal right to seek protection in the U.S. and forced them to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities.The judge, U.S. District Judge Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, ordered that the program be reinstated in response to a lawsuit filed by the states of Texas and Missouri, whose governors have been seeking to reinstate some of the hard-line anti-immigration policies of the Trump administration.The Biden administration argued in briefs that the president has “clear authority to determine immigration policy” and that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had discretion in deciding whether to return asylum seekers to Mexico.The policy has been dormant for more than a year and the administration argued that abruptly reinstating it “would prejudice the United States’ relations with vital regional partners, severely disrupt its operations at the southern border, and threaten to create a diplomatic and humanitarian crisis.”The Trump administration largely stopped using the “Remain in Mexico” policy at the start of the pandemic, at which point it began turning back virtually everyone crossing the Southwest border under a different protocol — a public health order that remains in effect.President Joe Biden suspended the program on his first day of office and the Homeland Security Department ended it in June.Kacsmaryk was nominated to the federal bench by Trump. The 5th Circuit panel that ruled Thursday night included two Trump appointees, Andrew Oldham and Cory Wilson, along with Jennifer Walker Elrod, nominated to the appeals court by President George W. Bush.At the high court, at least five of the six conservative justices, including three Trump appointees, voted for the restart of the program. Under the court’s opaque treatment of emergency appeals, the justices don’t always say publicly how they voted.
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U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday the United States will complete its mission of evacuating Americans and Afghans from Afghanistan by the August 31 deadline. While the pace of evacuations has accelerated, U.S. lawmakers remain concerned about the threat posed by the Taliban and Islamic State in Khorasan, and by the lack of U.S. preparation for the chaos unfolding in Kabul. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.Produced by: Katherine Gypson, Mary Cieslak   
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Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is expected to urge his American counterpart to take a hard-line stance on Iran in the first meeting between the two leaders Thursday. Bennett, elected to office two months ago, is making his first visit to Washington this week. Before he left Israel, he reiterated that he would push President Joe Biden on his stance on Iran. “I will tell President Biden that it is time to stop the Iranians … not to give them a lifeline in the form of reentering into an expired nuclear deal,” Bennett said Sunday. The 2015 agreement lifted sanctions on Iran in return for Tehran strictly observing limits on its nuclear program. Biden has offered to rejoin the deal if Iran returns to full compliance with its nuclear provisions. But negotiations in Vienna, Austria, two months ago stalled without much resolution. Still, both Bennett and Biden have said they are looking forward to resetting a balance between the two governments. Bennett’s predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, was publicly supportive of former President Donald Trump. Shortly before his departure for the U.S. on Tuesday, Bennett told reporters he hoped to bring “a new spirit of cooperation” from Israel to the U.S. FILE – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in Rome, Italy, June 27, 2021.Earlier this year, just weeks after Bennett took office, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Rome. Before their meeting, Lapid acknowledged that “in the past few years, mistakes were made” in relations between the two countries, with Netanyahu closely aligning himself with Trump and Republicans in the U.S. Congress, at times to the exclusion of close ties with Democratic officials. “Israel’s bipartisan standing was hurt,” Lapid said. “We will fix those mistakes together.”Israel Voices Opposition to Revamped Iran Nuclear DealTop Israeli, US diplomats meet in RomeTrump’s administration most notably moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — a move Biden criticized but has not said he will reverse. In the past, he proposed opening a U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem to engage with the Palestinians. Some information for this report came from Reuters and AFP. 
 
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