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‘They’re eating pets’ – another example of US politicians smearing Haiti and Haitian immigrants

Ohio Capitol Journal

‘They’re eating pets’ – another example of US politicians smearing Haiti and Haitian immigrants

Nathan Dize – September 19, 2024

Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. JD Vance. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.)

Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance continues to defend the false claim that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been abducting and eating area cats and dogs.

That outlandish idea has been thoroughly debunked since former President Donald Trump repeatedly raised it as an anti-immigrant talking point in the Sept. 12, 2024, presidential debate. Trump never mentioned where the migrants allegedly “eating the pets” came from, but many viewers understood it as a reference to Haitians, a population that Trump has previously degraded.

As debate moderator David Muir stated in his real-time fact check, there is no evidence that any pets in Springfield have been taken or consumed. NPR and other media outlets have also declared the rumor, which began with local right-wing advocates and officials in Springfield decrying the city’s disorganized response to an influx of Haitian migrants in recent years, to be false.

The Republican ticket’s untrue rumors about Haitians in Springfield reflects a long history of prejudice toward Haitians in the United States. As a scholar of Haitian history and literature, I have identified three anti-Haitian ideas prevalent in the United States that will help put the Springfield story into context.

The unfitness of Haitians ‘to govern themselves’

In July 1915, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson invaded Haiti under the guise of restoring order and economic stability following the assassination of Haitian President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam.

Five years into what would become a 19-year military occupation, the American diplomat and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson was sent by the NAACP to investigate the supposed benefits of the occupation. His resounding takeaway: “The United States has failed Haiti.”

In related pieces for The Nation and The Crisis, Johnson chronicled abuses ranging from extra-judicial killings of Haitian citizens – U.S forces killed 15,000 Haitians between 1915 and 1934 – to the harassment and rape of Haitian women. Johnson said the U.S. occupation amounted to nothing more than a belief in the “unfitness of the Haitian people to govern themselves.”

By undermining Haitian sovereignty, Wilson’s administration had successfully created a justification for seizing control of Haitian banks, rewriting its constitution and importing American Jim Crow-style segregation into the capital city of Port-au-Prince. This was a clearly racist presidential administration that hosted White House screenings of D.W. Griffiths’ anti-Black film “Birth of a Nation,” as historian Yveline Alexis demonstrates in her book “Haiti Fights Back: The Life and Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte.”

“Racism,” Alexis writes, “was at the core of the seizure of Haiti and all interactions with Haitians.”

The ‘4H disease’

In June 2017, Trump reportedly “stormed into a meeting” on immigration from Haiti and repeated a slanderous anti-Haitian claim: “They all have AIDS,” he said.

The account, from author Jake Johnston, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, shows the then-president repeating a falsehood that has circulated since HIV erupted in the 1980s.

Ever since a number of Haitians fell ill while at a Florida immigrant detention center in June 1982, Haitians became part of what the late public health expert Paul Farmer called the “geography of blame” that linked this highly communicable disease to certain places and people.

The federal government turned a small disease cluster into a migration policy designed to keep Haitians out of the U.S.

Betweeen 1981 and 1991, more than 27,000 Haitian asylum-seekers fleeing Jean-Claude Duvalier’s dictatorship were intercepted off the coast of Florida and detained. The vast majority were repatriated, in part because of a deportation agreement with Duvalier and in part because stopping Haitians at sea was a “screening strategy” to prevent HIV/AIDS from spreading in the U.S.

The Reagan administration called the virus the “4H disease,” referring to Haitians, hemophiliacs, homosexuals and heroin users. This designation spread harmful lies about four groups, but Haitians were the only nationality singled out as an “at-risk” population for contracting HIV/AIDS.

By the time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed Haitians from its list of highest-risk groups in 1985, the damage had been done. Haitians in the U.S. were effectively vilified as vectors of a deadly virus.

As a young Haitian man in Port-au-Prince remarked to writer Martha Cooley in 1983, “This 4H thing is just one more way to keep us out.”

Haiti’s problems are homegrown

Haiti’s occupation by foreign forces has continued on and off in different forms since the U.S. invasion of 1915.

United Nations troops were stationed there for nearly two decades following the the 2004 ouster of President Jean Bertrand Aristide. After the devastating 2010 earthquake, they were joined by the Red Cross and Oxfam. As all three organizations have since acknowledged, their humanitarian interventions left numerous crises in their wake, including cholera, chronic corruption in rebuilding projects and a market for sexually exploiting young girls.

Still, Haiti has long faced the accusation that its instability is homegrown. It is widely portrayed in the U.S. as a basket-case nation incapable of managing its own affairs. Trump, as president, once dismissed the entire country as a “shithole.”

At present, Haitians are coping with overlapping crises that have U.S. fingerprints.

After President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July 2021, the Biden administration hand-picked Haiti’s interim prime minister, Ariel Henry, as its new leader. This undemocratic decision was such a resounding failure that in March 2024, Haitian gangs revolted against Henry’s administration, unleashing a wave of gruesome violence that ultimately forced Henry out of office.

So many catastrophes in Haiti over the past four decades have created an overwhelming sense of insecurity among its people. Many hundreds of thousands have fled the country for the U.S., Dominican Republic, Brazil and beyond.

In July 2024, the Biden administration granted temporary protected status to 500,000 Haitian migrants in the U.S., allowing them to stay in the country, in recognition of the life-threatening conditions back home.

The people Trump insists are “illegal aliens” are in fact authorized U.S. residents from a country buffeted by American meddling in its politics.

A very old pattern

In barking about cats and dogs in Springfield, Trump, Vance and their right-wing supporters are spreading the same kind of anti-Haitian rhetoric that has sown a harmful distrust of Haitian migrants for over a century.

“This is not the first time that we [Haitians] have been the victims of ‘yon kanpay manti,’” said the Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad in a press release following the debate, using the Haitian Creole phrase for “a campaign of lies.”

The result of such misinformation, it added, is “mistreatment, hatred, and misunderstanding in the interest of politics.”

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

America is a land of immigrants. Stop weaponizing false language about them.

The Oklahoman – Opinion

America is a land of immigrants. Stop weaponizing false language about them.

Alex Seojoon Kim – September 19, 2024

In the recent presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, both sides traded jabs without much regard for the opposition. It made sense, as pulling punches now could spell disaster for the presidential hopefuls. With election day less than two months away, the national stage in Pennsylvania was the perfect opportunity to sway middle ground voters that often determine the result of an election. Yet, in the heat of lax factual statements, one claim made by Trump sparked immense outrage in a large community.

Trump claimed that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets, cats and dogs, in Springfield, Ohio. Not only are these comments harmful, but they are insensitive and dangerous. Assuming these stereotypes about immigrants, specifically those of Haitian descent, can be immensely damaging in the face of the plight and challenges these people face.

Springfield, Ohio, is reported to have “approximately 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants” from Haiti in their county. They are “legally [there] as part of a parole program” in the hopes that they can bring family members from Haiti into the United States. And yet Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have both been targeting this minority community with a lack of reasonable decency behind their claims.

Several reputable leaders from the city, including Springfield’s mayor, police chief and even the state’s governor, have said that these claims are far from true. Troubled by bomb threats at schools since the Trump-Vance pet-eating allegations, at least one with anti-Haitian sentiment, Springfield continues to battle this antilogic.

A cat sits on the porch on a tree-lined street in Springfield, Ohio, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. The area has attracted national scrutiny after conservative figures, including former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance, spread debunked claims that Haitians in the community were stealing and eating people’s pets.More

“We do not have any evidence that [this incident] has happened, and I’ve made it known in multiple interviews that this is absolutely not true,” Springfield Mayor Bob Rue said on BBC Newshour, wanting to make clear that “the weight of [politicians’] words … can negatively affect communities.”

Harsh rhetoric is not new in American politics. Immigrants have been falsely accused of bringing a multitude of undesirable ideas and practices into the United States for a long time ― from disease to overpopulation. For centuries, millions flocked from Europe at first, and later Asia, to the United States to escape harsh living conditions and in pursuit of a fair chance of achieving the “American Dream.” Yet nativist ideology spread rapidly through the states time and time again, leading to limitations such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924. Demoralizing language and actions were key in spurring these laws.

Now, both Trump’s and Vance’s incendiary comments about Haitian immigrants seem to be nothing more than a weaponization of rumors for political gain. Similar tactics have been used by politicians in scapegoating other marginalized groups, such as Asians and Hispanics, as well. When prominent figures use their elevated platforms for statements viciously attacking minority groups, it only adds fuel to the fire by instigating hate crimes. Not only are the Haitians in Springfield at risk, but physical and verbal threats can harm all residents in the area.

More: JD Vance repeats baseless claims that Haitians in Ohio are eating pets: What we know

It’s important to remember that immigrants make up an important sector of this country’s workforce and contribute to their local communities. According to news reports, before Haitian immigrants arrived on the scene, Springfield had lost a quarter of its population over the past few decades, a startling decline for a once-booming agricultural economy. Now, Haitians are essential to the workforce, especially at Springfield’s Dole Fresh Vegetables, where they’re “hired to clean and package produce” and to work at automotive machining plants. Their businesses, cultural foods and identities have merged into the Ohio city, transforming it into a bustling place of diversity. And this is the main reason Trump’s and Vance’s threats of deporting these civilians is so detrimental.

A nation founded, in part, on the backs of immigrants should not use improper, falsified accusations as political leverage. This is not only offensive to Haitians but to all immigrants in the United States. The speeches talking about eating pets in Ohio are not just wrong but a sad distraction from more authentic issues at hand, such as the reformation of immigration laws. Empathy must come first to create a nation that includes and values its citizens and residents, regardless of their origin.

Alex Seojoon Kim is a high school student in Stillwater.

Superbug crisis could get worse, killing nearly 40 million people by 2050, study estimates

CNN

Superbug crisis could get worse, killing nearly 40 million people by 2050, study estimates

Jacqueline Howard – September 16, 2024

The number of lives lost around the world due to infections that are resistant to the medications intended to treat them could increase nearly 70% by 2050, a new study projects, further showing the burden of theongoing superbug crisis.

Cumulatively, from 2025 to 2050, the world could see more than 39 million deaths that are directly attributable to antimicrobial resistance or AMR, according to the study, which was published Monday in the journal The Lancet.

Antimicrobial resistance happens when pathogens like bacteria and fungi develop the ability to evade the medications used to kill them.

The World Health Organization has called AMR “one of the top global public health and development threats,” driven by the misuse and overuse of antimicrobial medications in humans, animals and plants, which can help pathogens develop a resistance to them.

The new study reveals that when it comes to the prevalence of AMR and its effects, “we expect it to get worse,” said lead author Dr. Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

“We need appropriate attention on new antibiotics and antibiotic stewardship so that we can address what is really quite a large problem,” he said.

Older adults bear the burden

The researchers – from the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance Project, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and other institutions – estimated deaths and illnesses attributable to versus associated with antimicrobial resistance for 22 pathogens, 84 pathogen-drug combinations and 11 infections across 204 countries and territories from 1990 through 2021. A death attributable to antimicrobial resistance was directly caused by it, while a death associated with AMR may have another cause that was exacerbated by the antimicrobial resistance.

About 520 million individual records were part of the data to make those estimates.

The researchers found that from 1990 to 2021, deaths from AMR fell more than 50% among children younger than 5 but increased more than 80% among adults 70 and older – trends that are forecast to continue.

It was surprising to see those patterns emerge, Murray said.

“We had these two opposite trends going on: a decline in AMR deaths under age 15, mostly due to vaccination, water and sanitation programs, some treatment programs, and the success of those,” Murray said.

“And at the same time, there’s this steady increase in the number of deaths over age 50,” he said, as the world ages; older adults can be more susceptible to severe infection.

The researchers found that the pathogen-drug combination that had the largest increase in causing the most burden among all age groups was methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. For this combination – the antibiotic methicillin and the bacteria S. aureus – the number of attributable deaths nearly doubled from 57,200 in 1990 to 130,000 in 2021.

Using statistical modeling, the researchers also produced estimates of deaths and illnesses attributable to AMR by 2050 in three scenarios: if the current climate continues, if new potent antibiotic drugs are developed to target resistant pathogens, and if the world has improved quality of health care for infections and better access to antibiotics.

The forecasts show that deaths from antimicrobial resistance will increase by 2050 if measures are not in place to improve access to quality care, powerful antibiotics and other resources to reduce and treat infections.

The researchers estimated that, in 2050, the number of global deaths attributable to antimicrobial resistance could reach 1.9 million, and those associated with antimicrobial resistance could reach 8.2 million.

According to the data, the regions of the world most affected by AMR and attributable deaths are South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa – and many of these regions don’t have equitable access to quality care, Murray said.

“There are still, unfortunately, a lot of places in low-resource settings where people who need antibiotics are just not getting them, and so that’s a big part of it. But it’s not just the antibiotics. It’s when you’re sick, either as a kid or an adult, and you get sent to hospital, and you get a package of care, essentially, that includes things like oxygen,” Murray said.

“In low-resource settings, even basics like oxygen are often not available. And then, if you are very sick and you need an intensive care unit, well, there’s big parts of the low-resource world – most of them, actually – where you wouldn’t get access to that sort of care,” he said. “So there’s a spectrum of supportive care, plus the antibiotics, that really make a difference.”

But in a scenario where the world has better health care, 92 million cumulative deaths could be averted between 2025 and 2050, the researchers forecast. And in a scenario where the world has new, more potent drugs, about 11 million cumulative deaths could be avoided.

‘There is possible hope on the horizon’

The “innovative and collaborative” approach to this study provides a “comprehensive assessment” of antimicrobial resistance and its potential burden on the world, Samuel Kariuki, of the Kenya Medical Research Institute, wrote in a commentary that accompanied the new study in The Lancet.

Yet he warned that the forecast models do not consider the emergence of new superbugs “and might lead to underestimation if new pathogens arise.”

Overall, “these data should drive investments and targeted action” toward addressing the growing challenge of antimicrobial resistance in all regions of the world, Kariuki wrote.

The new paper represents decades of research on the global burden of antimicrobial resistance, said Dr. Steffanie Strathdee, associate dean of global health sciences and distinguished professor at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

Strathdee saw firsthand the effects that antimicrobial resistance can have on health when her husband nearly died from a superbug infection.

“I’m somebody who’s lived with antimicrobial resistance affecting my family for the last eight years. My husband nearly died from a superbug infection. It’s actually one of the infections that’s highlighted in this paper,” said Strathdee, who serves as co-director of the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics at UC San Diego.

During a Thanksgiving cruise on the Nile in 2015, Strathdee’s husband, Tom Patterson, suddenly developed severe stomach cramps. When a clinic in Egypt failed to help his worsening symptoms, Patterson was flown to Germany, where doctors discovered a grapefruit-size abdominal abscess filled with Acinetobacter baumannii, a virulent bacterium resistant to nearly all antibiotics.

The annual number of people dying from gram-negative bacteria, like A. baumannii, that are resistant to carbapenem – a class of last-resort antibiotics used to treat severe bacterial infections – rose 89,200 from 1990 to 2021, more than any antibiotic class over that period, according to the new study.

“That’s one of the urgent priority pathogens, which is one of these gram-negative bacteria,” Strathdee said. “And my husband, when he fell ill from this, he was 69. So he’s exactly at the age that this paper is highlighting, that older people are going to be affected by this more in the future, because our population is aging and people have comorbidities, like diabetes, like my husband has.”

Strathdee’s husband recovered after treatment with phages, viruses that selectively target and kill bacteria and that can be used as a treatment approach for antimicrobial-resistant bacterial infections.

“The most important alternative to antibiotics is phage therapy, or bacteriophage therapy, and that’s what saved my husband’s life,” Strathdee said. “Phage can be used very effectively with antibiotics, to reduce the amount of antibiotics that are needed, and they can even be used potentially in livestock and in farming.”

The new study gives Strathdee hope that the world can reduce the potential burden of antimicrobial resistance. That would require improving access to antibiotics and newer antimicrobial medications, vaccines, clean water and other aspects of quality health care around the world, she said, while reducing the use of antibiotics in livestock, food production and the environment, which can breed more resistance.

“There is possible hope on the horizon,” Strathdee said. “If we were to scale up these interventions, we could dramatically reduce the number of deaths in the future.”

CNN’s Sandee LaMotte contributed to this report.

Officials confirm first fatal case of mosquito-borne virus in nearly two decades: ‘A stark reminder’

The Cool Down

Officials confirm first fatal case of mosquito-borne virus in nearly two decades: ‘A stark reminder’

Juliana Marino – September 3, 2024

County officials in the Bay Area confirmed a death related to a mosquito-borne disease for the first time in nearly 20 years, according to a report published by the San Francisco Chronicle.

What’s happening?

Officials in Contra Costa County announced that a resident died from West Nile virus in July. It was the first death from West Nile in Contra Costa since 2006.

Mosquitoes can carry West Nile virus after feeding on an infected bird. Though many cases of West Nile virus do not lead to any symptoms, some patients experience a fever, headache, body aches, and vomiting.

“West Nile virus is the leading cause of mosquito-borne disease in the continental United States,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While most cases of West Nile virus are not fatal, officials in Contra Costa viewed the death as a wake-up call.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of a Contra Costa County resident to West Nile virus,” Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District general manager Paula Macedo told the Chronicle. “This tragic event serves as a stark reminder of the importance of protecting ourselves from mosquito bites and supporting community efforts to control mosquito populations.”

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Why is this concerning?

Increasing global temperatures have created more ideal conditions for disease-spreading mosquitoes. The tragic death of the Contra Costa resident is a reminder to take necessary precautions to prevent mosquito bites, especially during summer months.

Using insect repellent and wearing loose-fitting clothing that covers your arms and legs are ways you can protect yourself from bug bites.

What’s being done about West Nile in the Bay Area?

Moving toward a more sustainable future to keep the planet’s temperatures in balance not only helps protect the environment but also global health. Simple actions to reduce pollution causing Earth to warm at an accelerated rate include switching to LED light bulbs and unplugging appliances when they aren’t in use.

In Contra Costa, officials are still investigating the cause of the disease, per the Chronicle. While they have not provided updates on where the infection happened, they have detected additional cases of West Nile virus in a bird and five chickens, according to district spokesperson Nola Woods.

NH man fights for life with 3 mosquito viruses, including EEE

CBS News

NH man fights for life with 3 mosquito viruses, including EEE

Paul Burton – September 3, 2024

KENSINGTON, N.H. – A New Hampshire man is fighting for his life because of a mosquito bite. Fifty-four-year-old Joe Casey of Kensington has tested positive for three mosquito-borne viruses, including eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) and West Nile Virus.

“He’s my brother. It’s very difficult, especially because it’s from a mosquito,” his sister-in-law Angela Barker told WBZ-TV, fighting back tears. “He was positive for EEE, for West Nile, and St. Louis Encephalitis, but the CDC, the infectious disease doctors, they don’t know which one is making him this sick.”

Barker said Casey started to feel sick back in early August. He now has swelling in the brain and is barely able to communicate at Exeter Hospital.National & World NewsLatest U.S. and global stories

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“Terrifying and gut-wrenching”

“My brother-in-law is not a small man, and to see someone that you love be as sick as he is and not be able to talk, to move, to communicate for over three weeks is terrifying and gut-wrenching,” Barker said.

Casey and his wife Kim have four children. They believe he will have a long road to recovery ahead of him. His family has set up an online fundraising page and they’ve received an outpouring of support from the community.

“It could happen to anybody”

“Joe is going to have to go a long-term care and patient rehabilitation, that’s going to be 24-hour care, and really want to get the word out to help this incredible family,” Barker said. “He just got bit by a mosquito and it could happen to anybody.”

Last week, 41-year-old Steven Perry of Hampstead, N.H., died after contracting EEE.

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services said Kensington has had at least one mosquito pool test positive for EEE. The town has sent out postcards notifying residents and the threat level has been raised to high.

Casey’s family wants people to be careful.

“Be safe, cover up, wear bug spray. It can happen to anybody, and that’s the scariest thing. Be careful and take proper precautions,” Barker said.

How long do we have until sea level rise swallows coastal cities? This fleet of ocean robots will help find out

CNN

How long do we have until sea level rise swallows coastal cities? This fleet of ocean robots will help find out

Laura Paddison, CNN – September 3, 2024

A team of NASA rocket scientists is developing autonomous underwater robots able to go where humans cannot, deep beneath Antarctica’s giant ice shelves. The robots’ task is to better understand how rapidly ice is melting — and how quickly that could cause catastrophic sea level rise.

In March, scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory lowered a cylindrical robot into the icy waters of the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska to gather data at 100 feet deep. It was the first step in the “IceNode” project.

The ultimate aim is to release a fleet of these robots in Antarctica, which will latch on to the ice and capture data over long periods in one of the most inaccessible places on Earth.

There is an urgent need to better understand this remote, isolated continent; what happens here has global implications.

A slew of recent research suggests Antarctica’s ice may be melting in alarming new ways, meaning the sea level rise forecast might be vastly underestimated. If Antarctica’s ice sheet were to melt entirely, it would cause global sea level rise of around 200 feet — spelling complete catastrophe for coastal communities.

Scientists are particularly keen to understand what’s happening to Antarctica’s ice shelves, huge slabs of floating ice which jut out into the ocean and are an important defense against sea level rise, acting as a cork to hold back glaciers on land.

The “grounding line” — the point at which the glacier rises from the seabed and becomes an ice shelf — is where the most rapid melting may be happening, as warm ocean water eats away at the ice from underneath.

But getting a detailed look at the grounding line in the treacherous Antarctic landscape has been exceptionally difficult.

“We’ve been pondering how to surmount these technological and logistical challenges for years, and we think we’ve found a way,” said Ian Fenty, a climate scientist at JPL and IceNode’s science lead.

NASA’s plan to release around 10 IceNode robots, each around 8 feet long and 10 inches in diameter, into the water from a borehole in the ice or a ship off the coast. They have no propulsion but will ride ocean currents, directed by special software, to their Antarctic destination where they will activate their “landing gear” — three legs which spring out and attach to the ice.

Once in place, their sensors will monitor how fast the warmer, salty ocean water is melting the ice, as well as how quickly the cold meltwater is sinking.

The fleet could operate for up to a year, capturing data across the seasons, NASA said.

Once they have finished monitoring, the robots will detach themselves from the ice, drift to the surface of the ocean and transmit data by satellite. This data can then be fed into computer models to improve the accuracy of sea level rise projections.

“These robots are a platform to bring science instruments to the hardest-to-reach locations on Earth,” said Paul Glick, JPL robotics mechanical engineer and IceNode principal investigator.

The team is currently focused on developing the robots’ technical capabilities and there are more tests planned. There is currently no exact timeline for when they will be deployed in Antarctica, Glick told CNN, “but we’d ideally like it to be as soon as possible.”

An IceNode prototype beneath the frozen surface of Lake Superior, off Michigan's Upper Peninsula, during a field test in 2022. - NASA — An IceNode prototype beneath the frozen surface of Lake Superior, off Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, during a field test in 2022. – NASA

Robots have been used to look beneath Antarctica’s ice before. A recent research project used a torpedo-like robot called Icefin, a remotely operated vehicle which recorded information about ocean heat, saltiness and currents.

But where Icefin included a propulsion system and remained attached to a tether, through which it was controlled and could send back data, the IceNodes will be entirely autonomous.

Both systems complement each other, said Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey, which was part of the research project using Icefin.

Where Icefin can release data in real time, deployments are limited by how long a borehole can be kept open before freezing over, usually a matter of days. IceNodes will be able to collect data over much longer periods but won’t transmit until its mission is over.

Deployment of both machines is challenging and involves substantial risk to sophisticated equipment, Larter told CNN, “but such innovative approaches and risk taking are necessary to find out more about the critical hidden world beneath ice shelves.”

On the COVID ‘Off-Ramp’: No Tests, Isolation or Masks

The New York Times

On the COVID ‘Off-Ramp’: No Tests, Isolation or Masks

Emily Baumgaertner – August 27, 2024

Visitors on the Coney Island boardwalk on the Friday ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, May 24, 2024. (Karsten Moran/The New York Times)

Jason Moyer was days away from a family road trip to visit his parents when his 10-year-old son woke up with a fever and cough.

COVID-19?

The prospect threatened to upend the family’s plans.

“Six months ago, we would have tested for COVID,” said Moyer, 41, of Ohio. This time they did not.

Instead, they checked to make sure the boy’s cough was improving and his fever was gone — and then set off for New Jersey, not bothering to tell the grandparents about the incident.

In the fifth summer of COVID, cases are surging, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported “high” or “very high” levels of the virus in wastewater in almost every state. The rate of hospitalizations with COVID is nearly twice what it was at this time last summer, and deaths — despite being down almost 75% from what they were at the worst of the pandemic — are still double what they were this spring.

As children return to schools and Labor Day weekend travel swells, the potential for further spread abounds. But for many like Moyer, COVID has become so normalized that they no longer see it as a reason to disrupt social, work or travel routines. Test kit sales have plummeted. Isolation after an exposure is increasingly rare. Masks — once a ubiquitous symbol of a COVID surge — are sparse, even in crowded airports, train stations and subways.

Human behavior is, of course, the reason that infections are soaring. But at some point, many reason, we need to live.

“I no longer even know what the rules and recommendations are,” said Andrew Hoffman, 68, of Mission Viejo, California, who came down with respiratory symptoms a few weeks ago after his wife had tested positive for COVID. He skipped synagogue, but still went to the grocery store.

“And since I don’t test, I can’t follow them,” he said.

Epidemiologists said in interviews that they do not endorse a lackadaisical approach, particularly for those spending time around older people and those who are immunocompromised. They still recommend staying home for a couple of days after an exposure and getting the newly authorized boosters soon to become available (despite the poor turnout during last year’s round).

But they said that some elements of this newfound laissez faire attitude were warranted. While COVID cases are high, fewer hospitalizations and deaths during the surges are signs of increasing immunity — evidence that a combination of mild infections and vaccine boosters are ushering in a new era: not a post-COVID world, but a postcrisis one.

Epidemiologists have long predicted that COVID would eventually become an endemic disease, rather than a pandemic. “If you ask six epidemiologists what ‘endemic’ means, exactly, you’ll probably get about 12 answers,” said Bill Hanage, associate director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “But it certainly has a sort of social definition — a virus that’s around us all the time — and if you want to take that one, then we’re definitely there.”

Certain threats remain clear. For vulnerable groups, the coronavirus will always present a heightened risk of serious infection and even death. Long COVID, a multifaceted syndrome, has afflicted at least 400 million people worldwide, researchers recently estimated, and most of those who have suffered from it have said they still have not recovered.

But the CDC director, Dr. Mandy Cohen, called the disease endemic last week, and the agency decided this year to retire its five-day COVID isolation guidelines and instead include COVID in its guidance for other respiratory infections, instructing people with symptoms of COVID, RSV or the flu to stay home for 24 hours after their fever lifts. The updated guidelines were an indicator that, for most people, the landscape had changed.

Hanage defended the hard-line mandates from the early years of the pandemic as “not just appropriate, but absolutely necessary.”

“But,” he said, “it is just as important to help people onto an off-ramp — to be clear when we are no longer tied to the train tracks, staring at the headlights barreling down.”

The absence of stringent guidelines has left people to manage their own risks.

“I don’t bother testing myself or our kids for COVID,” said Sarah Bernath, 46, a librarian on Prince Edward Island in Canada. “My husband doesn’t test himself either. Knowing if it’s COVID wouldn’t change whether I stay home or not.”

In some social circles, diverging choices can make for uncomfortable dynamics.

Debra Cornelius, 73, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, stayed home from a recent indoor party because she learned that several other guests — a family of five — had returned from vacation and tested positive for COVID three days before the gathering, but still planned to attend.

“They said, ‘Oh, it’s like a bad cold, we wouldn’t stay home for a cold,’” she said. “I think people’s attitudes have changed considerably.”

But for countless others, attitudes haven’t changed at all. Diane Deacon, 71, of Saginaw, Michigan, said she tested positive for COVID three days into a trip to Portugal with her two adult daughters. She isolated herself for five days before flying home wearing a mask.

“A number of people asked me, ‘Why did you test? You could have carried on with your vacation,’” she said.

For Deacon, it was about remembering the refrigerated morgue trucks of 2020 and anticipating the vulnerable people she might see on her flight home — people in wheelchairs, or people on oxygen, she said.

“I’m trying to avoid a moral judgment of people who make other choices,” she said. “To me, it was inconvenient and it was unfortunate, but it was not a tragedy.”

In a Gallup poll this spring, about 59% of respondents said they believed the pandemic was “over” in the United States, and the proportion of people who said they felt concerned about catching COVID has been generally declining for two years. Among people who rated their own health positively, almost 9 in 10 said they were not worried about getting infected.

That could be, at least partly, a result of personal experience: About 70% of people said they had been through a COVID infection already, suggesting that they believed they had some immunity or at least that they could muscle through it again if need be.

If the Olympics were any barometer, the rest of the world seems to have exhaled as well. In Tokyo in 2021, there were daily saliva samples, plexiglass dividers between cafeteria seats and absolutely no live spectators; the arenas were so empty that coaches’ voices echoed. In Beijing in 2022, under China’s zero-tolerance policy, conditions were much the same.

But in Paris last month, the organizing committee for the 2024 Olympics offered no testing requirements or processes for reporting infections, and so few countries issued rules to their athletes that the ones that did made news.

There were high-fives, group hugs, throngs of crowds and plenty of transmission to show for it. At least 40 athletes tested positive for the virus, including several who earned medals despite it — as well as an unknowable number of spectators, since French health officials (who had once enforced an eight-month-long nightly COVID curfew) did not even count.

In the United States, about 57% of people said their lives had not returned to prepandemic “normal” — and the majority said they believed it never would. But the current backdrop of American life tells a different story.

The years-old social-distancing signage is faded and peeling from the floors of an indoor market in Los Angeles. Hand-sanitizer dispensers at amusement parks have dried up. The summer camp hosted by Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo requires children to bring a face covering — not to protect other children, but the animals.

Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the newfound complacency can as much be attributed to confusion as to fatigue. The virus remains remarkably unpredictable: COVID variants are still evolving much faster than influenza variants, and officials who want to “pigeonhole” COVID into having a well-defined seasonality will be unnerved to discover that the 10 surges in the United States so far have been evenly distributed throughout all four seasons, he said.

Those factors, combined with waning immunity, point to a virus that still evades our collective understanding — in the context of a collective psychology that is ready to move on. Even at a meeting of 200 infectious disease experts in Washington this month — a number of whom were older than 65 and had not been vaccinated in four to six months — hardly anybody donned a mask.

“We’ve decided, ‘Well, the risk is OK.’ But nobody has defined ‘risk,’ and nobody has defined ‘OK,’” Osterholm said. “You can’t get much more informed than this group.”

Asked about how the perception of risk has evolved over time, Osterholm laughed.

The ideas in Project 2025? Reagan tried them, and the nation suffered

Los Angeles Times – Opinion

Opinion: The ideas in Project 2025? Reagan tried them, and the nation suffered

Joel Edward Goza – August 25, 2024

FILE - In this March 30, 1981 file photo, President Ronald Reagan acknowledges applause before speaking to the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO at a Washington hotel. In 1981, Reagan signed an executive order that extended the power of U.S. intelligence agencies overseas, allowing broader surveillance of non-U.S. suspects. Recent reports that the National Security Agency secretly broke into communications on Yahoo and Google overseas have technology companies, privacy advocates and even national security proponents calling for a re-examination of Reagan's order and other intelligence laws. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File) — President Reagan, shown in 1981, based many of his policies on ideas from the Heritage Foundation publication “The Mandate for Leadership.” Project 2025 makes up a majority of the latest edition of this title and recommends many of the same extreme policies. (Ron Edmonds / Associated Press)More

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative playbook that would overhaul much of the federal government under a second Trump administration, has sparked fear and concern from voters despite the former president’s attempt to distance his campaign from the plan. But while Project 2025 might seem radical, most of it is not new. Instead, the now-famous document seeks to reanimate many of the worst racial, economic and political instincts of the Reagan Revolution.

Project 2025 begins with its authors (one of whom stepped down last month) boasting of the Heritage Foundation’s 1981 publication “The Mandate for Leadership,” which helped shape the Reagan administration’s policy framework. It hit its mark: Reagan wrote 60% of its recommendations into public policy in his first year in office, according to the Heritage Foundation. Yet the 900-plus-page Project 2025, itself a major component of a new edition of “The Mandate for Leadership,” does not contain any analysis of the economic and social price Americans paid for the revolution the Heritage Foundation and Reagan inspired.

If today’s economic inequality, racial unrest and environmental degradation represent some of our greatest political challenges, we would do well to remember that Reagan and the Heritage Foundation were the preeminent engineers of these catastrophes. Perhaps no day in Reagan’s presidency better embodied his policy transformations or the political ambitions of the Heritage Foundation than Aug. 13, 1981, when Reagan signed his first budget.

This budget dramatically transformed governmental priorities and hollowed out the nation’s 50-year pursuit of government for the common good that began during the New Deal. Once passed, it stripped 400,000 poor working families of their welfare benefits, while removing significant provisions from another 300,000. Radical cuts in education affected 26 million students. The number of poor Americans increased by 2.2 million, and the percentage of Black Americans living in poverty rose to a staggering 34.2%.

Of course, this was just the beginning of Reagan’s war on the poor, the environment and education. Following a Heritage Foundation plan, the Environmental Protection Agency’s operating budget would fall by 27%, and its science budget decreased by more than 50%. Funding for programs by the Department of Housing and Urban Development that provided housing assistance would be cut by 70%, according to Matthew Desmond’s “Poverty, By America.” Homelessness skyrocketed. And, as Project 2025 proposes, Reagan attempted to eliminate the Department of Education but settled for gutting its funding in a manner that set public education, in the words of author Jonathan Kozol, “back almost 100 years.” As funding for these issues nosedived under Reagan, financial support for the “war on drugs” skyrocketed and the prison population nearly doubled.

All the while, protections provided to the wealthy ballooned. Tax rates on personal income, corporate revenue and capital gains plummeted. For example, the highest income tax rate when Reagan took office was 70%. He would eventually lower it to 33%.

To ensure that wealth would be a long-lived family entitlement, Reagan instituted a 300% increase in inheritance tax protections through estate tax exemptions in his first budget. In 1980, the exemption stood at $161,000. By the time Reagan left office in 1989 it was $600,000. Today it is $13,610,000. This means that today nearly all wealthy children enjoy tax-free access to generational wealth.

And beginning during Reagan’s presidency, the number of millionaires and billionaires multiplied, increasing 225% and 400%, respectively, while the poverty of Americans across racial lines intensified. Even white males were more likely to be poor following Reagan’s presidency. Today poverty is the fourth-leading cause of death in the U.S., even though this is the wealthiest nation in the world.

If we feel like we live in a country that isn’t working for anyone who isn’t wealthy, these are some of the core reasons why. Looking back at the Reagan era and the Heritage Foundation’s original “Mandate for Leadership,” we must remember that our domestic wounds are largely self-inflicted, results of buying into racial, economic and environmental lies that continue to be sold. It is precisely the types of policies that devastated the nation during the Reagan administration that Project 2025 now seeks to resuscitate. Perhaps the only truly new thing Project 2025 suggests is using more authoritarian means to enact its agenda.

History has hinges, moments that change the trajectory of nations. The greatest progress in our country has almost always emerged during turbulent times. It is up to the United States’ most committed believers to close the door on terror and trauma and open one that leads to new democratic possibilities.

Our current moment represents more than an election. It is a turning point that has the potential to transform the United States for generations to come. We don’t need the version of the past that Project 2025 is trying to sell us. It didn’t work for most Americans then, and it won’t work for most of us now. But perhaps Project 2025 is the push the Democratic Party needed. While the Republican Party veers further into authoritarianism, Democrats must be equally determined to develop a truly equitable democracy and bind the wounds of a deeply divided nation.

Joel Edward Goza, a professor of ethics at Simmons College of Kentucky, is the author of the forthcoming book “Rebirth of a Nation: Reparations and Remaking America.”

Fed’s Powell says ‘time has come’ for interest rate cuts

Yahoo! Finance

Fed’s Powell says ‘time has come’ for interest rate cuts

Myles Udland and Jennifer Schonberger – August 23, 2024

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell sent a straightforward message to markets in a key speech on Friday, saying “the time has come” for the central bank to begin lowering interest rates.

Speaking at the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Powell said: “The time has come for policy to adjust.”

“The direction of travel is clear,” Powell added, “and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”

Powell’s speech comes just over three weeks out from the Fed’s Sept. 17-18 meeting, which should see the central bank announce its first interest rate cut since 2020.

Powell acknowledged recent softness in the labor market in his speech and said the Fed does not “seek or welcome further cooling in labor market conditions.”

The July jobs report rattled markets earlier this month, revealing that there were just 114,000 jobs added to the economy last month while the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, the highest since October 2021. Data earlier this week also showed that 818,000 fewer people were employed in the US economy as of March, suggesting reports have been overstating the strength of the job market over the last year.

“It seems unlikely that the labor market will be a source of elevated inflationary pressures anytime soon,” Powell said.

Ahead of Powell’s speech, investors had priced in nearly 100% odds the Fed would lower rates next month, with odds on a cut of 0.25% vs. 0.50% standing at roughly two to one.

“Four and a half years after COVID-19’s arrival, the worst of the pandemic-related economic distortions are fading,” Powell said.

“Inflation has declined significantly … Our objective has been to restore price stability while maintaining a strong labor market, avoiding the sharp increases in unemployment that characterized earlier disinflationary episodes when inflation expectations were less well anchored. While the task is not complete, we have made a good deal of progress toward that outcome.”

Powell’s remarks on Friday were reminiscent of those he delivered at Jackson Hole in 2022, in which the Fed chair offered a direct assessment of the economic outlook and, at the time, the need for additional rate increases.

FILE PHOTO: Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve walks in Teton National Park where financial leaders from around the world gathered for the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium outside Jackson, Wyoming, U.S., August 26, 2022. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart — Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, walks in Teton National Park, where financial leaders from around the world gathered for the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on Aug. 26, 2022. (REUTERS/Jim Urquhart) (Reuters / Reuters)

“At this podium two years ago, I discussed the possibility that addressing inflation could bring some pain in the form of higher unemployment and slower growth,” Powell said.

“Some argued that getting inflation under control would require a recession and a lengthy period of high unemployment. I expressed our unconditional commitment to fully restoring price stability and to keeping at it until the job is done.”

Friday’s speech more or less suggests that the job is indeed done.

“All told, the healing from pandemic distortions, our efforts to moderate aggregate demand, and the anchoring of expectations have worked together to put inflation on what increasingly appears to be a sustainable path to our 2% objective,” Powell said.

Wet Winter Whirlwind; What Farmers’ Almanac Predicts for the 2024-2025 Winter

WJET Erie

Wet Winter Whirlwind; What Farmers’ Almanac Predicts for the 2024-2025 Winter

Joshua Hallenbeck – August 23, 2024

(WJET/WFXP) — Farmers’ Almanac has released its 2024-25 Winter Outlook, describing this winter as a “Wet, Winter, Whirlwind.”

Overall, this description perfectly fits the general trend predicted in the outlook, no region is expected to see higher-than-normal snowfall. This, however, is just a general prediction broken down by regions. A more area-specific list will be released alongside the release of the 2025 edition of the Farmers’ Almanac on August 27th.

It is important to look at the accuracy, or inaccuracy, of these predictions. A study conducted by John E. Walsh and David Allen, published in the 1981 edition of Weatherwise, showed that only 50.7 percent of the monthly temperature forecasts and 51.9 percent of the precipitation forecasts were verified with the correct sign. This is essentially the same as flipping a coin for each day.

Why are the tropics eerily quiet right now? | Tracking the Tropics

This year’s winter outlook is largely affected by a major climate pattern known as La Niña which can cause a major shift in winter weather. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), La Niña is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific, compared to El Niño, which is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific.

La Niña [Click to Expand] || Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

El Niño [Click to Expand] || Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

During a La Niña year, winter temperatures are warmer in the Southeast and cooler in the Northwest. La Niña brings cooler waters off the West Coast, which brings cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface. These cold waters push the Polar Jet Stream northward, increasing the chance of drought in the Southern U.S., and heavy rain and flooding in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. According to the National Weather Service, El Niño and La Niña are typically strongest during the period from December to April because the equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperatures are normally warmest at this time of the year

NOAA data reveals July 2024 ranked hottest on record

A La Niña year is also associated with a more severe hurricane season, which is a concern this hurricane season. NOAA previously predicted an 85% chance for an above-normal hurricane season. However, some of the strongest recorded hurricanes occurred during a period known as the neutral phase. Neutral indicates that conditions are near their long-term average.

Despite the atmospheric cooling this pattern presents, the Earth’s average temperatures continue to rise with 2024 on track to be one of the warmest years ever recorded.