Biden Positive for COVID-19, ‘Fully Carrying Out His Duties’
The White House says President Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing “very mild symptoms.” The president’s diagnosis comes amid another wave of the coronavirus in the United States, driven this time by the BA.5 variant. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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New York State Reports First US Polio Case in Nearly a Decade
An unvaccinated young adult from New York recently contracted polio, the first U.S. case in nearly a decade, health officials said Thursday.
Officials said the patient, who lives in Rockland County, had developed paralysis. The person developed symptoms a month ago and did not recently travel outside the country, county health officials said.
It appears the patient had a vaccine-derived strain of the virus, perhaps from someone who got live vaccine — available in other countries, but not the U.S. — and spread it, officials said.
The person is no longer deemed contagious, but investigators are trying to figure out how the infection occurred and whether other people may have been exposed to the virus.
Most Americans are vaccinated against polio, but unvaccinated people may be at risk, said Rockland County Health Commissioner Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert. Health officials scheduled vaccination clinics nearby soon and encouraged anyone who has not been vaccinated to get the shots.
“We want shots in the arms of those who need it,” she said at a Thursday press conference announcing the case.
Feared disease
Polio was once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, with annual outbreaks causing thousands of cases of paralysis, many of them in children.
Vaccines became available starting in 1955, and a national vaccination campaign cut the annual number of U.S. cases to fewer than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 1979, polio was declared eliminated in the U.S., meaning there was no longer routine spread.
Rarely, travelers have brought polio infections into the U.S. The last such case was in 2013, when a 7-month-old who had recently moved to the U.S. from India was diagnosed in San Antonio, Texas, according to federal health officials. That child also had the type of polio found in the live form of vaccine used in other countries.
There are two types of polio vaccines. The U.S. and many other countries use shots made with an inactivated version of the virus. But some countries where polio has been more of a recent threat use a weakened live virus that is given to children as drops in the mouth. In rare instances, the weakened virus can mutate into a form capable of sparking new outbreaks.
U.S. children are still routinely vaccinated against polio with the inactivated vaccine. Federal officials recommend four doses: to be given at 2 months of age; 4 months; at 6 to 18 months; and at age 4 through 6 years. Some states require only three doses.
According to the CDC’s most recent childhood vaccination data, about 93% of 2-year-olds had received at least three doses of polio vaccine.
How it spreads
Polio spreads mostly from person to person or through contaminated water. It can infect a person’s spinal cord, causing paralysis and possibly permanent disability and death. The disease mostly affects children.
Polio is endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, although numerous countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia have also reported cases in recent years.
Rockland County, in New York City’s northern suburbs, has been a center of vaccine resistance in recent years. A 2018-19 measles outbreak there infected 312 people.
Last month, health officials in Britain warned parents to make sure children have been vaccinated because the polio virus had been found in London sewage samples. No cases of paralysis were reported.
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Juggernaut SpaceX Poised to Shatter Launch Record
A private spaceflight company launches its way into history. Plus, a look back at the start of what is now a tenuous stellar partnership, and we remember the first manned mission to the moon. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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US Congress Moves Toward $52 Billion in Subsidies for Semiconductor Firms
The Senate this week took a key step toward passing a bill meant to provide $52 billion in subsidies to the semiconductor industry in the United States, part of an effort that lawmakers have characterized as protecting the country from supply shortages such as those that struck during the coronavirus pandemic.
The bill, called the CHIPS for America Act, also seeks to make the U.S. more competitive with China.
Semiconductors, commonly known as chips, are essential elements of modern manufacturing. They are used in computers, cellphones and automobiles as well as in various other capacities. During the pandemic, chip shortages slowed manufacturing in multiple industries to a crawl.
The legislation would create incentives for semiconductor manufacturers to build chip fabrication plants in the U.S. to bring back domestic production levels, which have fallen from more than one-third of total global capacity three decades ago to less than 12% now.
Discussing the legislation on the Senate floor, Senator Rob Portman, a Republican, said, “It is a plan to make America more competitive with China, and a plan to bring good jobs back to America.”
In a 64-34 procedural vote Tuesday, with more than a dozen Republicans voting with the overwhelming majority of Democrats, the Senate cleared the way for the legislation to come to a vote as soon as this week. The House of Representatives would need to pass the bill — which is still not in its final form — before President Joe Biden could sign it into law.
Making the case
Before the vote Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told his colleagues that the bill “will fight inflation, boost American manufacturing, ease our supply chains and protect American security interests.”
He added: “America will fall behind in so many areas if we don’t pass this bill, and we could very well lose our ranking as the No. 1 economy and innovator in the world if we can’t pass this.”
Senator John Cornyn, the most senior Republican to vote in favor of advancing the bill, used Twitter to make his case ahead of the vote.
“If the US lost access to advanced semiconductors (none made in US) in the first year, GDP could shrink by 3.2 percent and we could lose 2.4 million jobs,” he tweeted. “The GDP loss would 3X larger ($718 B) than the estimated $240 B of US GDP lost in 2021 due to the ongoing chip shortage.”
The money in the bill comes with significant strings attached. Companies accepting the subsidies must agree not to use the funds for to buy back stock, pay shareholder dividends, or expand manufacturing in certain countries identified in the bill. Provisions allow the government to “claw back” the funds if a recipient violates any of the bill’s conditions.
Second try
If the bill advances to the House, it would mark the second time a bipartisan group of senators tried to secure money for the semiconductor industry. Last year, the Senate passed a $250 billion package that included broader research and development funding.
When the House received the bill, it waited nearly a year to pass its own version and made a number of additions that Senate Republicans would not agree to. The bill never advanced.
Now, however, things might be different. In a letter circulated to members of the House Democratic caucus on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in favor of the bill.
“With this package, the United States returns to its status as a world leader in the manufacturing of semiconductor chips,” Pelosi wrote, noting that the bill would create an estimated 100,000 well-paid government contracting jobs in the industry.
“Doing so is an economic necessity to lower costs for consumers and to win in the 21st Century Economy, as well as a national security imperative as we seek to reduce our dependence on foreign manufacturers,” Pelosi wrote.
Industry reacts
In an email exchange with VOA, Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of Semi, a global industry trade group, said, “We are pleased to see action to reverse the decline in the U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity, which has fallen by 50 percent in the last 20 years and is forecast to shrink further.”
“The availability of robust incentives in other countries and the lack of a federal U.S. incentive have been key factors driving the location of more overseas manufacturing facilities,” Manocha added. “If the United States wants to maintain or increase its share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity, the federal government absolutely needs to get in the game.”
Semiconductor Industry Association President and CEO John Neuffer said in a statement, “The Senate CHIPS Act would greatly strengthen America’s economy, national security, and leadership in the technologies that will determine our future.”
He added, “This is America’s window of opportunity to re-invigorate chip manufacturing, design, and research on U.S. shores, and Congress should seize it before the window slams shut.”
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WHO: Millions of Refugees, Migrants Suffer Ill Health for Lack of Care
A new study shines a light on the health risks, challenges, and barriers faced daily by millions of refugees and migrants who suffer from poor health because they lack access to the health care available to others in their host countries.
The World Health Organization has just published its first world report on the health of refugees and migrants. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it a landmark report and an alarm bell.
He said the report reveals the wide disparities between the health of refugees and migrants and the wider populations in their host countries.
“For example, many migrant workers are engaged in the so-called 3-D jobs—dirty, dangerous, and demanding—without adequate social and health protection or sufficient occupational health measures,” he said. “Refugees and migrants are virtually absent from global surveys and health data, making these vulnerable groups almost invisible in the design of health systems and services.”
Tedros noted that one billion people or one in every eight people on Earth is a refugee or migrant. He said the numbers were growing. Tedros added that more and more people will be on the move in response to burgeoning conflicts, climate change, rising inequality, and global emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said the health needs of refugees and migrants often are neglected or unaddressed in the countries they pass through or settle in.
“They face multiple barriers, including out of pocket costs, discrimination and fear of detention and deportation,” Tedros said. “Many countries do have health policies that include health services for refugees and migrants. But too many are either ineffective or are yet to be implemented effectively.”
Waheed Arian, an Afghan refugee and a medical doctor in Britain, recalls the conditions under which he and his family lived in a refugee camp in Pakistan during the late 1980s. He said they were exposed to many diseases, including malaria and tuberculosis.
“The conditions that we see in refugee camps now in various parts of the world – they are not too dissimilar to the conditions that I experienced firsthand,” he said. “Although we were safe from bombs, we were not physically safe. We were not socially safe, and we were not mentally safe.”
WHO chief Tedros is calling on governments and organizations that work with refugees and migrants to come together to protect and promote the health of people on the move. He said the report sets forth strategies for achieving more equitable, inclusive health systems that prioritize the well-being of all people.
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Drought Could Raise Risk of Diarrheal Disease in Children
Drought can slightly increase developing world children’s risk of diarrheal disease, researchers have found, adding that wetter regions seem to be affected differently than drier ones.
Diarrhea is the second-leading cause of death among children worldwide, and climate change is making droughts longer, more frequent and more severe, the new study published in the journal Nature Communications found.
The study, based on data from 51 low- and middle-income countries, found that children were more likely to recently have had diarrhea following six months to two years of drought conditions, although the effect of drought differed across dry, temperate and tropical climate zones.
Previous studies found links between diarrheal disease and rainfall, flooding and seasonality, but little was known before about the effects of drought.
The new study “fills that void of understanding the impacts associated with drought specifically, as opposed to flooding, extreme rains and seasonality,” said epidemiologist Joseph Eisenberg of the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the study.
“Water plays an essential role both in helping address the problem as well as increasing the risk of being exposed,” he said.
Water essential for good hygiene
Water is central to the spread and prevention of diarrheal disease. Germs that cause diarrhea survive and spread in water, but water is also important for hygienic practices, such as hand-washing, that prevent infections.
Study author Pin Wang, an environmental epidemiologist at Yale University, and his colleagues thought drought could force families to prioritize scarce water for drinking rather than washing, leaving children more vulnerable to diarrhea.
“Drought can directly impact the WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) practices,” Wang said. “Because of the insufficient water supply, people might prioritize the water for other necessary uses, such as drinking, but not for washing hands and also flushing [the] toilet.”
Wang and his colleagues combined weather records with data on diarrhea in over 1.3 million children under the age of 5 from the Demographic and Health Surveys Program, which surveys representative families to collect data on health and demographics in the developing world. The Demographic and Health Surveys data also included information on each child, household wealth and WASH practices.
Using this data, the researchers then determined whether the children in the dataset had experienced drought, how long the drought had lasted, and how severe it had been relative to normal conditions.
Correcting for differences among households and individual children, the researchers found that exposure to a six-month drought slightly increased the risk of diarrhea in children under age 5. Risk was 5% higher after mild drought and 8% higher after severe drought, though the strength of drought’s effect on diarrhea depended on other factors, such as local climate, hygiene and water access.
In dry regions, droughts lasting six months did not affect diarrhea rates significantly, but droughts lasting two years did.
The authors speculate that it may be because these dry regions are already prepared for short periods of water scarcity but can’t cope with very long droughts. On the other hand, tropical and temperate regions saw worse effects in six-month droughts than in longer ones, perhaps because they are less prepared for water shortages in the short term but have more water available in general to help adapt in the long term.
The researchers found that families in a drought washed their hands and performed other WASH practices less often than those who were not experiencing drought. That accounted for about 10% of the increase in diarrhea rates in mild drought and about 20% in severe conditions.
Children whose families need to walk more than 30 minutes to collect water also had a higher risk of diarrhea associated with severe drought than those whose families had water nearby.
More studies needed
Eisenberg said that the study was a good first step, but that more studies would be needed to confirm the results.
“I think the biggest implication … as a hypothesis-generating result is that it will promote and motivate people to conduct some more sophisticated studies to sort of back up the findings,” he said.
Wang also said that future studies would be needed to back up his findings. And as climate change is expected to shake up rainfall patterns around the world, he said he hopes his result will translate into policy that would protect children from diarrheal disease brought on by drought.
“We obviously think that with climate change, there will be higher incidence of drought events in the future, particularly … in the places where it’s already having less rainfall right now,” Wang said. “We need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, that’s the first thing. The second is that the WASH variables should be emphasized or prioritized — particularly in these low- and middle-income countries. People need better WASH practices to reduce their diarrhea risks.”
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Cities Unprepared for More Intense and Frequent Heat Waves
The world is bracing for more intense heat waves fueled by climate change this summer, and urban centers across the world are unprepared to face these brutal natural disasters.
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US Overdose Deaths Jumped for Blacks, Native Americans During Pandemic
Overdose deaths increased 44% for Blacks and 39% for Native Americans in 2020 compared with 2019, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted access to care and exacerbated racial inequality, an official report showed Tuesday.
“Racism, a root cause of health disparities, continues to be a serious public health threat that directly affects the well-being of millions of Americans,” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acting Principal Deputy Director Debra Houry said in a briefing.
“The disproportionate increase in overdose death rates among Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native people may partly be due to health inequities, like unequal access to substance use treatment and treatment biases.”
Recent increases in deaths were largely driven by illegally manufactured fentanyl and fentanyl analogs, according to the report from the CDC.
Before the pandemic, the overdose death rate was similar for Black, Native and white people, at 27, 26 and 25 per 100,000 people in 2019.
But that changed dramatically in 2020, when the respective figures were 39, 36 and 31 per 100,000 people.
Though the increase among white people was not as great as for Blacks and Native Americans, the new rate is still a historic high.
Among key findings: The overdose death rate among Black males 65 years and older was nearly seven times that of their white counterparts.
Black people 15-24 years old experienced the largest rate increase, 86%, compared with changes seen in other groups.
“There was a substantially lower percentage of people in racial and ethnic minority groups showing evidence of ever receiving treatment for substance use, compared to white people,” CDC health scientist Mbabazi Kariisa said during the briefing.
In fact, most people who died by overdose had no evidence of getting prior substance use treatment before their death.
Areas with a wider income gap between rich and poor had the highest death rates.
Being impoverished “can lead to lack of stable housing, reliable transportation and health insurance, making it even more difficult for people to access treatment and other support services,” Kariisa said.
In terms of recommendations, Houry said it was vital to raise awareness about the lethality of the illicit drug supply, particularly fentanyl, and encourage people to carry the life-saving treatment Naloxone.
Improving access to treatment and offering structural support, such as transport assistance and child care, can improve care access.
“Combining culturally appropriate traditional practices, spirituality and religion with evidence-based substance use disorder treatment also helps raise awareness and reduce stigma,” she said.
“While we have made so much progress in treating substance use disorders as chronic conditions, rather than moral failings, there is still so much more work to do, including making sure that all people who need these services can get them,” Houry concluded.
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Judge Sets October Trial For Musk-Twitter Takeover Dispute
Elon Musk lost a fight to delay Twitter’s lawsuit against him as a Delaware judge on Tuesday set an October trial, citing the “cloud of uncertainty” over the social media company after the billionaire backed out of a deal to buy it.
“Delay threatens irreparable harm,” said Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, the head judge of Delaware’s Court of Chancery, which handles many high-profile business disputes. “The longer the delay, the greater the risk.”
Twitter had asked for an expedited trial in September, while Musk’s team called for waiting until early next year because of the complexity of the case. McCormick said Musk’s team underestimated the Delaware court’s ability to “quickly process complex litigation.”
Twitter is trying to force the billionaire to make good on his April promise to buy the social media giant for $44 billion — and the company wants it to happen quickly because it says the ongoing dispute is harming its business.
Musk, the world’s richest man, pledged to pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, but now wants to back out of the agreement.
“It’s attempted sabotage. He’s doing his best to run Twitter down,” said attorney William Savitt, representing Twitter in Delaware’s Court of Chancery before the court’s Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick. The hearing was held virtually after McCormick said she tested positive for COVID-19.
Musk has claimed the company has failed to provide adequate information about the number of fake, or “spam bot,” Twitter accounts, and that it has breached its obligations under the deal by firing top managers and laying off a significant number of employees.
But the idea the Tesla CEO is trying to damage Twitter is “preposterous. He has no interest in damaging the company,” said Musk’s attorney Andrew Rossman, noting he is Twitter’s second largest shareholder with a far larger stake than the entire board.
Savitt emphasized the importance of an expedited trial starting in September for Twitter to be able to make important business decisions affecting everything from employee retention to relationships with suppliers and customers.
Rossman said more time is needed because it is “one of the largest take-private deals in history” involving a “company that has a massive amount of data that has to be analyzed. Billions of actions on their platform have to be analyzed.”
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Ghana Allays Fears Over Marburg Outbreak
Ghana’s Health Service says more than a third of the people quarantined after an outbreak of the Marburg virus, a relative of Ebola, have been cleared to leave isolation. Authorities quarantined 98 people this week following two deadly cases of the virus in Ghana.
It is the first time ever the disease has been confirmed in the West African country, although nearby Guinea recorded a single case last year.
The director-general of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Patrick Kumah-Aboagye, told VOA that 39 out of the 98 contacts have completed their quarantine.
He said there is no cause for alarm.
“We’ve had 98 contacts; health workers, mortuary workers, family members,” he said. “We’ve randomly tested 13 of them and they have all been negative so far. There is nothing to worry (about) except to know what to look out for and what to avoid.”
Kumah-Aboagye said Ghana’s surveillance mechanism has been on red alert to catch suspected cases of Marburg.
“We have general surveillance for all conditions including Marburg,” he said. “That’s why the system was able to pick it that early. If we didn’t pick it early, it would have spread to other places and it becomes difficult to contain it.
“We have a response team in the regions who are responsible for all these. We also have community volunteers who have been trained to identify any strange disease and report it for immediate response.”
The World Health Organizations said fatality rates for past Marburg outbreaks have ranged from 24 to 88 percent, and there are no vaccines or antiviral treatments.
The WHO, in a statement to VOA, commended local health officials for being proactive in detecting the disease and said it is mobilizing resources to help Ghana control the virus.
“Health authorities have responded swiftly, getting a head start preparing for a possible outbreak,” the country’s WHO representative, Dr. Francis Kasolo, said. “This is good because, without immediate and decisive action, Marburg can easily get out of hand.”
Anita Asamoah, an independent public health advocate, said more must be done to educate the public about the symptoms of Marburg and safety measures.
“Awareness should be more in the rural communities,” she said, adding that strictly following precautionary measures will be the best approach against Marburg until there is a vaccine, as well as reporting suspected cases.
Symptoms, Asamoah said, include fever, bleeding, coughing blood and blood in the urine.
Apart from Guinea and Ghana, Marburg has also appeared in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.
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The Universe as Never Before Seen
The James Webb telescope is giving the world the clearest ever images of our universe. For VOA News Antoni Belchi has the story.
your ad hereUS Abortion Rights Reversal to Impact Africa, Campaigners Worry
The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning the right to abortion has raised concerns among activists about a domino effect in developing countries, including in Africa. In Kenya, anti-abortion groups have welcomed the ruling while abortion rights supporters fear it could further restrict the reproductive health of girls and women. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo
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Artist Claes Oldenburg, Maker of Huge Urban Sculptures, Dies
Pop artist Claes Oldenburg, who turned the mundane into the monumental through his outsized sculptures of a baseball bat, a clothespin and other objects, has died at age 93.
Oldenburg died Monday morning in Manhattan, according to his daughter, Maartje Oldenburg. He had been in poor health since falling and breaking his hip a month ago.
The Swedish-born Oldenburg drew on the sculptor’s eternal interest in form, the dadaist’s breakthrough notion of bringing readymade objects into the realm of art, and the pop artist’s ironic, outlaw fascination with lowbrow culture — by reimagining ordinary items in fantastic contexts.
“I want your senses to become very keen to their surroundings,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1963.
“When I am served a plate of food, I see shapes and forms, and I sometimes don’t know whether to eat the food or look at it,” he said. In May 2009, a 1976 Oldenburg sculpture, “Typewriter Eraser,” sold for a record $2.2 million at an auction of postwar and contemporary art in New York.
Early in his career, he was a key developer of “soft sculpture” made out of vinyl — another way of transforming ordinary objects — and also helped invent the quintessential 1960s art event, the “Happening.”
Among his most famous large sculptures are “Clothespin,” a 45-foot steel clothespin installed near Philadelphia’s City Hall in 1976, and “Batcolumn,” a 100-foot lattice-work steel baseball bat installed the following year in front of a federal office building in Chicago.
“It’s always a matter of interpretation, but I tend to look at all my works as being completely pure,” Oldenburg told the Chicago Tribune in 1977, shortly before “Batcolumn” was dedicated. “That’s the adventure of it: to take an object that’s highly impure and see it as pure. That’s the fun.”
The placement of those sculptures showed how his monument-sized items — though still provoking much controversy — took their place in front of public and corporate buildings as the establishment ironically championed the once-outsider art.
Many of Oldenburg’s later works were produced in collaboration with his second wife, Coosje van Bruggen, a Dutch-born art historian, artist and critic whom he married in 1977. The previous year, she had helped him install his 41-foot “Trowel I” on the grounds of the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands.
Van Bruggen died in January 2009.
Oldenburg’s first wife, Pat, also an artist, helped him out during their marriage in the 1960s, doing the sewing on his soft sculptures.
Oldenburg’s first blaze of publicity came in the early ’60s, when a type of performance art called the “Happening” began to crop up in the artier precincts of Manhattan.
A 1962 New York Times article described it as “a far-out entertainment more sophisticated than the twist, more psychological than a séance and twice as exasperating as a game of charades.”
One Oldenburg concoction, cited in the 1965 book “Happenings” by Michael Kirby, juxtaposed a man in flippers soundlessly reciting Shakespeare, a trombonist playing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” a young woman laden with tools climbing a ladder, a man shoveling sand from a cot and other oddities, all in one six-minute segment.
“There is no story and the events are seemingly meaningless,” Oldenburg told the Times. “But there is a disorganized pattern that acquires definition during a performance.” He said the sessions — unscripted but loosely planned in advance — should be a “cathartic experience for us as well as the audience.”
Oldenburg’s sculpture was also becoming known during this period, particularly ones in which objects such as a telephone or electric mixer were rendered in soft, pliable vinyl. “The telephone is a very sexy shape,” Oldenburg told the Los Angeles Times.
One of his early large-scale works was “Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks,” which juxtaposed a large lipstick on tracks resembling those that propel Army tanks. The original — with its undertone suggestion to “make love (lipstick) not war (tanks)” — was commissioned by students and faculty and installed at Yale University in 1969.
The original version deteriorated and was replaced by a steel, aluminum and fiberglass version in another spot on the Yale campus in 1974.
Oldenburg’s 45-foot steel “Clothespin” was installed in 1976 outside Philadelphia’s City Hall. It evokes Constantin Brancusi’s 1908 “The Kiss,” a semi-abstract depiction of a nearly identical man and woman embracing eyeball to eyeball. “Clothespin” resembles the ordinary household object, but its two halves face each other in the same way as Brancusi’s lovers.
The Chicago “Batcolumn” was funded by the federal government as part of a program to include a budget for artworks whenever a big federal building was put up. It took its place not far from Chicago’s famed Picasso sculpture, dedicated in 1967.
“Batcolumn,” Oldenburg told the Tribune, “attempts to be as nondecorative as possible — straightforward, structural and direct. This, I think, is also a part of Chicago: a very factual and realistic object. The final thing, though, was to have it against the sky, that’s what it was made for.”
He had considered making it red, but “color would have simply distracted from the linear effect. Now, the more buildings they tear down around here, the better it will get.”
Chicagoans weren’t uniformly pleased. At around the same time as the Tribune interview, another Tribune writer, architecture critic Paul Gapp, decried the trend toward “idiotic public sculpture” and called Oldenburg “a veteran put-on man and poseur who long ago convinced the Art Establishment that he was to be taken seriously.”
Among Oldenburg’s other monumental projects: “Crusoe Umbrella,” for the Civic Center in Des Moines, Iowa, completed in 1979; “Flashlight,” 1981, University of Las Vegas; and “Tumbling Tacks,” Oslo, 2009.
Oldenburg was born in 1929 in Stockholm, Sweden, son of a diplomat. But young Claes (pronounced klahs) spent much of his childhood in Chicago, where his father served as Swedish consul general for many years. Oldenburg eventually became a U.S. citizen.
As a young man, he studied at Yale and the Art Institute of Chicago and worked for a time at Chicago’s City News Bureau. He settled in New York by the late 1950s, but at times had also lived in France and California.
your ad hereJennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck Wed in Las Vegas Drive-Through
U.S. actors Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck were wed Saturday in a late-night Las Vegas drive-through chapel, culminating a relationship that stretched over two decades in two separate romances and headlined countless tabloid covers.
Lopez announced their marriage Sunday in her newsletter for fans with the heading “We did it.” Lopez initially made their engagement public in April in the same newsletter, “On the J Lo.”
“Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient,” wrote Lopez in a message signed Jennifer Lynn Affleck.
Lopez wrote that the couple flew to Las Vegas on Saturday, stood in line for their license with four other couples and were wed just after midnight at A Little White Wedding Chapel, a chapel boasting a drive-through “tunnel of love.” Lopez said a Bluetooth speaker played their brief march down the aisle. She called it the best night of their lives.
“Stick around long enough and maybe you’ll find the best moment of your life in a drive through in Las Vegas at 12:30 in the morning in the tunnel of love drive through with your kids and the one you’ll spend forever with,” said Lopez.
News of their nuptials first spread Sunday after the Clark County clerk’s office in Nevada showed that the pair obtained a marriage license that was processed Saturday.
The marriage license filing showed that Lopez plans to take the name Jennifer Affleck.
Representatives for Lopez and Affleck declined to comment.
Lopez, 52, and Affleck, 49, famously dated in the early 2000s, spawning the nickname “Bennifer,” before rekindling their romance last year. They earlier starred together in 2003′s “Gigli” and 2004′s “Jersey Girl.” Around that time, they became engaged but never wed.
Affleck married Jennifer Garner in 2005, with whom he shares three children. They divorced in 2018.
Lopez has been married three times before. She was briefly married to Ojani Noa from 1997-1998 and to Cris Judd from 2001-2003. She and singer Marc Anthony were married for a decade after wedding in 2004 and share 14-year-old twins together.
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‘Raging Fire’ Wins Best Film at Hong Kong Film Awards
Action-packed police thriller “Raging Fire” won best film and three other awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards Sunday, beating out a crowd favorite film about late Cantopop singer Anita Mui.
The 40th Hong Kong Film Awards took place Sunday, after it was postponed thrice from April following the city’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak. It was also the first time that the awards were held in person since 2019.
“Raging Fire” sees action star Donnie Yen play an incorruptible policeman who ends up going head-to-head with a former mentee played by Nicholas Tse, who wants revenge after Yen’s character put him in prison.
The movie is a swansong by director Benny Chan, who died of cancer in August 2020 while the movie was still in post-production.
Chan posthumously won the Best Director Award on Sunday. “Raging Fire” also won for Best Editing as well as Best Action Choreography.
The film that took home the most awards for the night was “Anita,” a biographical drama film about Mui.
“Anita,” which was the highest-grossing Hong Kong film in 2021, bagged a total of five awards for Best Costume and Design, Best Visual Effects as well as Best Sound Design.
The film topped the box office in Hong Kong upon release, eventually grossing $18.5 million in total box office sales. It topped the Hong Kong box office upon debut, grossing some 61 million Hong Kong dollars ($7.8 million) in about seven weeks.
“Anita” also earned more than 10 million yuan ($1.48 million) on its opening day at the Chinese box office.
Louise Wong, who played Mui in the film, won Best New Performer.
“Honestly, it wasn’t a day (or) overnight that I could play the role Anita,” said Wong. “I’m grateful for the team’s support and encouragement.”
“They helped me gradually understand Anita and the role,” she said. “I’m very grateful that I could experience her life.”
Malaysian actor Fish Liew, who played Mui’s sister Ann Mui, won Best Supporting Actress.
Another big winner at Sunday’s awards was crime thriller film “Limbo” which is based on the novel “Wisdom Tooth” by Chinese author Lei Mi. The film follows two policemen in their efforts to hunt down a serial killer.
The film won Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography.
Cya Liu, who played a drug addict who becomes a target for the serial killer, won Best Actress for her portrayal of the role.
“I’m grateful for the chance to perform in this movie and for director Soi Cheang’s trust and recognition,” said Liu.
“With his encouragement, I could completely engage in playing the role and act. Today is the first time in my life … that I feel the recognition as an actress.”
Meanwhile, 85-year-old Patrick Tse took home the award for best actor for his performance in the film “Time,” which centers on the city’s neglected elderly population. He was given a standing ovation while receiving his award.
Comedian and actor Michael Hui was also presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the comedy genre in Hong Kong’s film industry.
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US Soprano, Offended by Blackface, Pulls Out of Italy Opera
Soprano Angel Blue says she won’t perform in an opera in Italy this month because blackface was used in the staging of a different work this summer on the same stage.
The U.S. singer posted a note on her angeljoyblue Instagram page saying she will be bowing out of “La Traviata” at Verona’s Arena this month because the theater recently mounted another Giuseppe Verdi opera, “Aida,” that had performers in blackface.
She blasted such use of “archaic” theatrical practices as “offensive, humiliating, and outright racist.”
Angel Blue, however, was still listed Saturday on the Arena’s website as singing the role of Violetta in “La Traviata” on July 22 and 30.
The theater said it was hoping that Blue, who is Black, would accept an invitation to meet with Arena officials in a “dialogue” over the issue. The Arena, in a statement Friday, said it had “no reason nor intent whatsoever to offend and disturb anyone’s sensibility.”
For decades, U.S. civil rights organizations for decades have publicly condemned blackface — in which white performers blacken their faces — as dehumanizing Blacks by introducing and reinforcing racial stereotypes.
The Arena this summer has mounted performances of “Aida” based on a 2002 staging of the opera “Dear Friends, Family, and Opera Lovers,” began the soprano’s Instagram post. “I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that I will not be singing La Traviata at Arena di Verona this summer as planned.”
Referring to Arena’s decision to use blackface makeup in “Aida,″ the singer wrote: “Let me be perfectly clear: the use of blackface under any circumstances, artistic or otherwise, is a deeply misguided practice based on archaic theatrical traditions which have no place in modern society. It is offensive, humiliating and outright racist.”
She wrote that she couldn’t “in good conscience associate myself with an institution which continues this practice.”
The theater’s statement said “Angel Blue knowingly committed herself to sing at the Arena” even though the “characteristics” of the 2002 Zeffirelli staging were “well known.”
Still, the theater stressed its hope that her protest would ultimately improve understanding between cultures as well as educate Italian audiences.
“Every country has different roots, and their cultural and social structures developed along different historical and cultural paths,” said the statement by the Arena of Verona Foundation. “Common convictions have often been reached only after years of dialogue and mutual understanding.”
The Arena statement stressed dialogue, “in effort to understand others’ point of view, in respect of consciously assumed artistic obligations.”
“Contraposition, judgments, labeling, lack of dialogue only feed the culture of contrasts, which we totally reject,” said the statement, appealing for cooperation “to avoid divisions.”
It’s not the first time that the use of blackface makeup for a staging of “Aida” in Verona has sparked a soprano’s protest. In 2019, opera singer Tamara Wilson, who is white, protested darkening her face to sing the title character of an Ethiopian woman in the opera at the Arena.
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India’s COVID Vaccinations Hit 2 Billion, New Cases at Four-Month High
The Indian government’s COVID-19 vaccinations hit 2 billion on Sunday, with booster doses underway for all adults, as daily infections hit four-month high, official data showed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi extolled the vaccination milestone, celebrating the world’s largest and longest-running inoculation campaign, which began last year.
“India creates history again!” Modi said in a tweet. The prime minister has faced allegations from the opposition of mishandling the pandemic that experts claim killed millions. The government rejects the claims.
Health ministry data shows the COVID death toll at 525,709, with 49 deaths recorded overnight.
New cases rose 20,528 over the past 24 hours, the highest since Feb. 20, according to data compiled by Reuters.
The country of 1.35 billion people has lifted most COVID-related restrictions, and international travel has recovered robustly.
Some 80% of the inoculations have been the AstraZeneca AZN.L vaccine made domestically, called Covishield. Others include domestically developed Covaxin and Corbevax, and Russia’s Sputnik V.
The federal government has been accelerating its booster campaign to avert the spread of infections, edging higher in the eastern states of Assam, West Bengal and Karnataka in the south.
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Macao to Extend City Lockdown, Casino Closure
Macao’s government will extend a lockdown of casinos and other businesses until Friday, as authorities work to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the world’s biggest gambling hub, according to a statement on its website.
The lockdown in the Chinese special administrative region had been set to end Monday.
Macao imposed the shutdown last Monday, shuttering the city’s economic engine — its casinos — and forbidding residents from leaving their apartments, except for essential activities such as grocery shopping.
Macao has recorded around 1,700 coronavirus infections since mid-June. More than 20,000 people are in mandatory quarantine as the government adheres to China’s zero-COVID policy, which aims to stamp out all outbreaks, running counter to a global trend of trying to coexist with the virus.
More than 90% of Macao’s 600,000 residents are fully vaccinated against COVID but this is the first time the city has had to grapple with the fast-spreading omicron variant.
The former Portuguese colony has only one public hospital for its more than 600,000 residents, and its medical system was stretched before the coronavirus outbreak.
Authorities have set up a makeshift hospital in a sports dome near the city’s Las Vegas-style Cotai strip and have about 600 medical workers from the mainland assisting them.
In neighboring Hong Kong, authorities are starting to loosen draconian coronavirus restrictions even as daily cases top 3,000, in a push to reboot the financial hub and its economy.
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China’s Hopes High as Space Station Nears Completion
Chinese astronauts, known as taikonauts, and a ground crew are working to finish their country’s first permanent orbiting space station and the world’s second by year’s end, official media outlets say.
That milestone will boost China’s national pride and provide it with new channels for economic development and a possible new tool for military use on the ground, analysts say.
The space program advances China’s goal of being “strong and prosperous” by 2049, said Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Asia Security Initiative and author of “The Myth of Chinese Capitalism.” That year marks the 100th anniversary of Communist Party rule in China.
“Developing the economy, becoming wealthier and raising national prestige globally and becoming stronger geopolitically are all very, very clear goals of the party,” he said.
A crew aboard the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft last month kicked off six months of work on the Tiangong space station, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Personnel in space and on the ground will finish building the space station, expanding it from a single-module structure to triple-module national space laboratory, Xinhua said.
The U.S. space agency, NASA, bars China from using the International Space Station on military security grounds, prompting China to embark on its own 10 years ago. China launched its broader space program in the 1960s.
Pride and power projection
China’s space station has been designed to be a “versatile space lab” that can hold 25 “cabinets” for experiments such as comparing the biological growth mechanism in varying at different gravitational levels, Xinhua said.
As conducted at the space station and on other space platforms, research into biology, life systems, medicine and materials is expected “to expand humanity’s understanding of basic science,” the State Council Information Office said in a January outlook for the program.
Other countries have already used China’s satellite services, including the BeiDou satellite navigation system, which was made available two years ago to Pakistan. Those systems can survey the aftermath of disasters and help launch satellites.
Officials in Beijing have not said whether the space station will help the People’s Liberation Army.
Space programs, including BeiDou, have a military and security side, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.
“The Chinese will argue that while using (the) BeiDou system, you can navigate the weather, you can forecast the natural disasters, and you can also use the satellites to investigate and explore the terrains,” she said.
“I think that’s one example of how Chinese space technology is having a real impact over countries on Earth,” Yun said. But, she said, “we all know that’s just one narrative.”
The People’s Liberation Army could technically dock military equipment systems in space or use satellites to survey the ground, experts have told VOA. China has the world’s third-strongest armed forces, a source of alarm for the West and smaller Asian countries.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will probably note the space station as an achievement during the national party congress expected before year’s end, Yun said. Experts say Xi is likely to seek appointment at the congress to a third five-year term as party general secretary.
“National prestige and security” are top concerns for Chinese leaders as they finish their space station, said the Roberts, of the Atlantic Council.
The Chinese government is probably pushing the commercial side of its space program because it wants to catch up to the scale of NASA, he said.
Chinese leaders may hope to develop their own aerospace technology through the space station, said Yan Liang, professor and chair of economics at Willamette University in the U.S. state of Oregon. Some of today’s components could be imports, she said.
“Definitely I do think that with the communication aspect that is about big data and all these other high-tech industries, it’s definitely in the interest for China to be able to do that and maybe later to export to other countries,” Liang said.
Tiangong’s first module was christened last year. It operates 340 miles above the Earth’s surface, farther away than the International Space Station.
After a Chinese Shenzhou-14 crew reaches gets to the space station, it will begin research projects and perform spacewalks from the lab module, Xinhua reported.
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Bogota Artists Rediscover Value of Almost Worthless Venezuelan Bolivars
Venezuela’s national currency, the Bolivar, has lost almost all its value over the past 10 years. That has prompted artists in neighboring Colombia to use the almost worthless bills as a canvas. For VOA News, Jair Diaz has the story from Bogota.
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Why People Worldwide Are Unhappier, More Stressed Than Ever
The world was sadder and more stressed out in 2021 than ever before, according to a recent Gallup poll, which found that four in 10 adults worldwide said they experienced a lot of worry or stress.
Experts say the most obvious culprit, the pandemic — and the isolation and uncertainty that came with it — is a factor but not entirely to blame.
Carol Graham, a Gallup senior scientist, says the culprit for declining mental health includes the economic uncertainty faced by low-skilled workers.
“There are some structural negative changes that make some people in particular more vulnerable. And in the end, mental health just reflects that,” says Graham, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland.
“For young people who do not have good higher levels of education, what they’re going to do in the future is very unknown. What their stability will be like, what their workforce participation will be like. … Rising levels of inequality between skilled and unskilled workers is another part of it, having to do with technology-driven growth.”
Gallup spoke to adults in 122 countries and areas for its latest Global Emotions Report. Afghanistan is the unhappiest country, with Afghans leading the world when it comes to negative experiences.
Overall, the survey results were not surprising to psychologist Josh Briley, a fellow at The American Institute of Stress.
“Things are moving faster. There’s so much information being thrown at us all the time,” he says. “And of course, media thrives on the bad stuff. So, we are constantly being bombarded with crisis after crisis in the news, on social media, on the radio and on our podcasts. And all that is drowning out the good things that are happening.”
Psychologist Mary Karapetian Alvord says being more connected online means people in one country can feel profoundly affected by what happens in another country, which wasn’t always the case in the past. For her U.S. clients, uncertainty is the biggest stressor.
“Uncertainty of life and how it’s going to impact them on a daily basis. Prices going up and gas going up. And then the supply chain issues that are impacting people in their daily lives,” Alvord says. “But I think the bigger issue is that uncertainty and so much suffering. Of course, the shootings have come up. A lot of people are really stressed out and feeling like, ‘Where is it safe?’”
There have been more than 300 shootings involving multiple victims in the United States so far in 2022.
Happiness worldwide has been trending downward for a decade, according to Gallup. All three psychologists who spoke with VOA point to social media and the flood of unfiltered information as contributors to declining mental health and happiness.
“We’ve seen this explosion worldwide, and I think that’s a big sort of tectonic shift in how humans interact and experience emotions and all sorts of things. And we’re seeing that there’s some real downsides to it,” Graham says.
Briley says part of the problem is that although people are more connected online, they’re often less connected in real life.
“The connection that we have with people, the physical connection has changed. We’re more connected than ever before with people all the way around the world, but we may not know our neighbors’ names anymore,” he says. “So, we don’t necessarily have that person where if my car breaks down, who do I call for a ride to work?”
More optimism, despite frowns
On the upside, the survey found that the percentage of people who reported laughing or smiling a lot was up two points in 2021, while the number of people who say they learned something interesting increased one point. Alvord says looking beyond the negative is critical to maintaining mental health.
“It’s important for people to also find moments of, if not joy, at least satisfaction in life,” she says. “I think sometimes we reach for happiness and that’s just not attainable … and so, our expectations need to be realistic.”
Minorities in the United States might already be doing that. The survey found that people from marginalized groups are among the most resilient.
“Their anxiety may have increased but their optimism, particularly for low-income African Americans, remains very high,” Graham says. “It was a finding I’ve seen for many years, but it surprised me that even during COVID, it held. I think that’s more due to the kind of community ties and other ties that minority communities have built, almost informal safety nets, that have been very protective many, many times in history.”
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US Officials: States Getting More Monkeypox Vaccine Soon
More than 100,000 monkeypox vaccine doses are being sent to states in the next few days, and several million more are on order in the months ahead, U.S. health officials said Friday.
They also acknowledged that the vaccine supply hasn’t kept up with the demand seen in New York, California and other places.
Officials predicted that cases would keep rising for at least a few more weeks as the government tries to keep up with a surprising international outbreak accounting for hundreds of newly reported cases every day.
Some public health experts have begun to wonder if the outbreak is becoming widespread enough that monkeypox will become an entrenched sexually transmitted disease.
“All of our work right now is to prevent that from happening,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals. It does not usually spread easily among people.
But this year more than 12,000 cases have been reported in countries that historically don’t see the disease. The infections emerged in men who had sex with men at gatherings in Europe, though health officials have stressed that anyone can catch the virus.
As of Friday, more than 1,800 U.S. cases had been reported, with hundreds of cases being added to the tally each day. Nearly all are men, and the vast majority had same-sex encounters, according to the CDC.
Experts believe the case numbers are undercounts.
Lag between infection, symptoms
Walensky said she expected cases to rise at least into August, in part because it can take three weeks from the time someone is infected until that person develops symptoms and is diagnosed.
The virus mainly spreads through skin-on-skin contact, but it can also be transmitted through touching linens used by someone with monkeypox.
People with monkeypox may experience fever, body aches, chills and fatigue. Many in the outbreak have developed pimple-like bumps on many parts of the body.
No one has died, and the illness has been relatively mild in many men. But for some, the lesions can be “exquisitely painful” and there is a risk of scarring, said Dr. Mary Foote, medical director of the New York City health department’s Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response.
When the outbreak was first identified in May, U.S. officials had only about 2,000 doses of a new two-dose monkeypox vaccine available.
Officials have recommended the shots be given to people who know or suspect they were exposed to monkeypox in the previous two weeks, and vaccination clinics in some cities have been overwhelmed by demand. The government distributed 156,000 doses nationally as of Thursday, including 100,000 this week. And it expects to start delivering 131,000 more doses by Monday, said Dawn O’Connell of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
There also are about 800,000 doses in Denmark that will come to the U.S. soon. And the government this month announced orders of 5 million more doses, though most of those are not expected to arrive until next year.
The vaccine, Jynneos, has never been widely used in response to an outbreak like this, and the government will track how well it’s working, Walensky said.
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Ukraine’s Cultural Heritage Under Attack, Official Says
Ukraine’s deputy minister of culture said Friday that her country’s heritage is under attack by Russia and must be protected.
“The president of Russia, Mr. Putin, announced that Ukrainian culture and identity is a target of this war,” Kateryna Chueva, deputy minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, reminded an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
She said the Russian bombs and missiles that have damaged and destroyed Ukrainian cities also have hit scores of important cultural sites.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has verified damage to 163 cultural sites since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. They include religious sites, a dozen museums, 30 historic buildings, 17 monuments and seven libraries. More than half are in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. UNESCO says cultural sites in the capital, Kyiv, have also sustained considerable damage.
Chueva says the figure is much higher. She told the council her ministry has verified damage and destruction to at least 423 objects and institutions of cultural heritage.
Destruction of cultural heritage is a potential war crime and a violation of the 1954 Hague convention for the protection of cultural property in conflict, of which Russia is a signatory.
Chueva noted that destruction of cultural heritage is not limited to structures and objects.
“Every single person is a bearer of culture, of knowledge and traditions,” she said.
The director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Center, Lazare Eloundou Assomo, urged Russia to take precautions to protect cultural heritage sites. He said from Paris that the agency has also worked with Kyiv to take steps to clearly mark protected sites and is verifying reports of damage, including through satellite imagery.
“The verification on the ground will enable UNESCO to unveil the scale of damage to cultural sites, as well as to verify the impact of the war on movable cultural property and to prepare for future recovery,” he said.
UNESCO is also providing technical and financial support to the cultural sector and plans to help Ukraine train law enforcement officials in the prevention of trafficking of cultural heritage.
Russia’s representative at the meeting, Sergey Leonidchenko, denied that Moscow targets heritage sites and says coordinates are provided to their military in advance in order take precautions.
He accused Kyiv of targeting Russian culture and language even before the February invasion.
“Demolition of monuments to Russian writers, poets, musicians and World War II heroes, renaming streets devoted to them, confiscation of school textbooks, Russian language and Russian literature in general,” Leonidchenko said. He said the Kyiv regime wants to “rewire people” to forget who they are.
Several Ukrainian cities did rename some streets and squares associated with Russia following the invasion, and a Soviet-era monument symbolizing friendship between Russia and Ukraine was dismantled in Kyiv.
The U.S. representative said Moscow has been destroying parts of Ukraine’s heritage in an effort to rewrite history, dating back to its invasion of eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“This campaign has been in motion since 2014, when Russia began to remove artifacts, demolish grave sites, and shutter churches and other houses of worship in the Donbas region and Crimea,” Lisa Carty said. “Even before Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia reportedly illegally exported artifacts from Crimea, conducted unauthorized archaeological expeditions, demolished Muslim burial sites, and damaged cultural heritage sites.”
Ireland’s deputy ambassador underscored the importance of accountability.
“When protection cannot be insured, it is necessary to build an evidence base so that accountability can be pursued when conditions allow,” Cait Moran said.
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Record Busting Heat Waves Spread Across Europe
The World Meteorological Organization says scorching heat waves and wildfires raging in Portugal, Spain and France are forecast to worsen and spread to other parts of Europe in coming days.
The United Kingdom already is wilting under record high temperatures. The UK weather service has issued an amber extreme heat warning for much of England and Wales. It forecasts exceptionally high temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius Sunday and Monday.
In Portugal, where temperatures have reached highs of 46 degrees Celsius, red heat alerts, which warn people of life-threatening conditions, are in effect. Similar warnings are being issued in Spain and France. More than 20 wildfires have been reported in Portugal, western Spain, and southwest France.
Lorenzo Labrador is a scientific officer in the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Atmosphere Watch Program. He says the journal Nature Geoscience published a recent modeling study of the likely impact of the expansion of a high-pressure system over the Atlantic. He says the system, known as the Azores high, is leading to the driest conditions on the Iberian Peninsula in the last 1,000 years.
“It is worth pointing [out] that the high temperatures is not the only adverse consequence of heat waves. The stable and stagnant atmosphere acts as a lid to trap atmospheric pollutants, including particulate matter, increasing their concentration closer to the surface. These result in a degradation of air quality and adverse health effects, particularly for vulnerable people.”
He notes more heat, abundant sunshine, and concentrations of certain atmospheric pollutants can lead to an increase of ozone near the Earth’s surface. That, he says, has detrimental effects on people and plants.
The World Health Organization reports air pollution is a major cause of premature death and disease and the single largest environmental health risk in Europe. It notes more than 300,000 people die prematurely from air pollution in Europe every year, with that number jumping to seven million premature deaths globally.
Labrador says heat waves are a natural phenomenon. As such, he says it is not easy to attribute any single high-pressure condition and heat wave event directly to climate change. “However, what we know and what we have seen is that heat waves are becoming more frequent, more prevalent, and their temperatures are becoming more extreme as well. So, that kind of link over an extended period of time—years—we can attribute to climate change,” he points out.
Labrador says scientists cannot say the current heat waves are a product of climate change. But, he adds, the evidence points toward scorching, record-busting temperatures becoming more frequent and more devastating in the coming years.
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