Schools reopen with masks optional in many US classrooms

MCDONOUGH, Ga. (AP) — As Tussahaw Elementary opened this week for a new school year, teary-eyed mothers led in kindergartners dwarfed by backpacks and buses dropped off fifth graders looking forward to ruling their school. The biggest clue to the lingering COVID-19 crisis was the masks worn by students and teachers — but not all of them.

Georgia, like most states, is leaving it up to local schools to decide whether to require face coverings. And 43,000-student Henry County, like many districts worn out by months of conflict over masks, has decided not to insist on them.

Instead, they are “highly recommended.”

Many parents Wednesday in this suburb south of Atlanta had mixed feelings about the policy. Some kept their children home in disagreement with it. Others sent their youngsters to class with face coverings.

Shatavia Dorsey, the mother of a kindergartner and a fifth grader, said her children are going to wear their masks at school regardless of the rules.

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'Nothing's safe' as wildfire tears through California town

GREENVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Shelton Douthit and his team at the Feather River Land Trust in Northern California have been working to restore the lush natural habitat and protect Indigenous artifacts around Lake Almanor. Now, after a ferocious wildfire tore through the area, he knows “nothing's safe."

Driven by fierce winds and bone-dry vegetation, the Dixie Fire destroyed most of downtown and dozens of homes in the gold rush-era community of Greenville, growing to become the third-largest in California history. The museum, medical offices, fire equipment and structures significant to a Native American tribe were lost in the town of about 1,000.

“This fire is so intense that I think we’re learning as a community, as a region, that this is not a normal fire. It’s a beast,” said Douthit, who is the trust's executive director.

The Dixie Fire, named for the road where it started, was still raging Friday and now spans an area of 676 square miles (1,751 square kilometers), greater than the size of New York City. No injuries or deaths have been reported, but the fire continued to threaten more than 10,000 homes Friday. It is just 35% contained.

Fire officials said the gusts were so strong on Thursday they uprooted a tree and knocked it over a garage.

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Tokyo Olympics cost $15.4 billion. What else could that buy?

TOKYO (AP) — The official price tag for the Tokyo Olympics in $15.4 billion, which a University of Oxford study says is the most expensive on record. What else could those billions buy?

The ballpark figure for building a 300-bed hospital in Japan in $55 million. So you could put up almost 300 of these.

The average elementary school in Japan costs about $13 million. For that price, you get 1,200 schools.

A quick search finds a Boeing 747 is priced at roughly $400 million. Voila: 38 jumbo jets for the cost of the Tokyo Olympics.

The point is, Olympic Games are costly and may bump aside other priorities. In fact, several Japanese government audits say the real outlay for the Tokyo Games is even more than the official figure, perhaps twice as much. All but $6.7 billion comes from public money from Japanese taxpayers. According to the latest budget, the IOC's contribution is $1.3 billion. It also chipped in several hundred million more after the pandemic.

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Shots give COVID-19 survivors big immune boost, studies show

Even people who have recovered from COVID-19 are urged to get vaccinated, especially as the extra-contagious delta variant surges — and a new study shows survivors who ignored that advice were more than twice as likely to get reinfected.

Friday's report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adds to growing laboratory evidence that people who had one bout of COVID-19 get a dramatic boost in virus-fighting immune cells — and a bonus of broader protection against new mutants — when they're vaccinated.

“If you have had COVID-19 before, please still get vaccinated,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. “Getting the vaccine is the best way to protect yourself and others around you, especially as the more contagious delta variant spreads around the country.”

According to a new Gallup survey, one of the main reasons Americans cite for not planning to get vaccinated is the belief that they’re protected since they already had COVID-19. From the beginning health authorities have urged survivors to get the broader protection vaccination promises. While the shots aren’t perfect, they are providing strong protection against hospitalization and death even from the delta mutant.

Scientists say infection does generally leave survivors protected against a serious reinfection at least with a similar version of the virus, but blood tests have signaled that protection drops against worrisome variants.

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EXPLAINER: 5 key takeaways from the July jobs report

NEW YORK (AP) — Even in a July jobs report that was nearly universally hailed as a good one, pockets of weakness and concern are still clouding the celebration.

The numbers in the report were certainly strong, with employers adding 943,000 more jobs to their payrolls than they cut, a better hiring performance than economists expected. The unemployment rate also dropped in another encouraging sign, down by half a percentage point from June to 5.4%. And many economists expect further improvements.

The unemployment rate fell for many groups across the country, but not for all the right reasons. Among Black workers, for example, the decline may have been entirely due to people dropping out of the workforce, rather than from more people getting jobs.

There's also growing concern that the broad strength found in July jobs report may prove fleeting. The faster-spreading delta variant of the coronavirus is causing people to mask up and feel more anxious again, threatening the improvements.

“This is a good jobs report, but the delta variant is casting a significant shadow over the outlook at this time,” said Russell Price, chief economist at Ameriprise.

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Tigray forces vow 'warm welcome' in face of new offensive

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia’s spreading Tigray conflict faced a dangerous escalation Friday as an Amhara regional official said Amhara forces will launch an offensive on Saturday against Tigray forces who have entered the region and taken control of a town hosting a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“This is the time for the Amhara people to crush the terrorist group,” Sema Tiruneh, the Amhara region’s head of peace and security, told the regional state-affiliated Amhara Media Corporation. "Everyone should come forward and defend themselves.”

In response, Tigray forces' spokesman Getachew Reda told The Associated Press that “we’ll extend a warm welcome.” The conflict threatens to destabilize Africa’s second most populous country, where thousands of people have already been killed in the nine-month war.

In a phone interview, Getachew said Tigray forces have crossed into the Amhara region, and the Afar region, in recent weeks in an attempt to break the blockade that Ethiopia’s government has imposed on Tigray. Hundreds of thousands of people face famine conditions, and the United Nations and United States this week sent high-level officials to Ethiopia to urge more access for aid.

“We have to deal with anyone who’s still shooting,” Getachew said. “If it takes marching to Addis to silence the guns, we will. But I hope we'll not have to.” Civilians shouldn’t fear, he said in response to allegations by ethnic Amhara that the Tigray forces have carried out attacks.

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Pause on student loan payments extended through January

The Biden administration on Friday issued what it says will be the final extension to a student loan moratorium that has allowed millions of Americans to put off debt payments during the pandemic.

Under the action, payments on federal student loans will remain paused through Jan. 31, 2022. Interest rates will remain at 0% during that period, and debt collection efforts will be suspended. Those measures have been in place since early in the pandemic but were set to expire Sept. 30.

In announcing the decision, President Joe Biden said the economy is recovering “at a record rate." But he said the road to recovery will be longer for some Americans, especially those with student loans.

“This will give the Department of Education and borrowers more time and more certainty as they prepare to restart student loan payments,” Biden said in a statement. “It will also ensure a smoother transition that minimizes loan defaults and delinquencies that hurt families and undermine our economic recovery.”

The policy applies to more than 36 million Americans who have student loans that are held by the federal government. Their collective debt totals more than $1.3 trillion, according to the latest Education Department data.

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Aide who says Cuomo groped her files criminal complaint

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A woman who accused Gov. Andrew Cuomo of groping her breast at the governor's state residence has filed a criminal complaint against him, the Albany County Sheriff's office said Friday.

The complaint, filed Thursday with the sheriff's office, is the first known instance where a woman has made an official report with a law enforcement agency over alleged misconduct by Cuomo. Its filing is a potential first step toward bringing criminal charges.

“We take every complaint seriously,” Albany County Undersheriff William Rice said Friday.

It's possible the Democratic governor could be arrested if investigators or the county district attorney determine he committed a crime, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple told the New York Post.

“The end result could either be it sounds substantiated and an arrest is made and it would be up to the DA to prosecute the arrest,” he told the newspaper, which was the first to report on the complaint. “Just because of who it is we are not going to rush it or delay it,” Apple said.

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Olympics Latest: China's Yuan on track for 4 diving medals

TOKYO (AP) — The Latest on the Tokyo Olympics, which are taking place under heavy restrictions after a year’s delay because of the coronavirus pandemic:

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China’s Cao Yuan is on track to become the second man to win Olympic medals in all four diving events.

Cao and his teammate, Yang Jian, led 12 men into the final of men’s 10-meter platform diving on Saturday.

Cao totaled 513.70 points for six dives. Yang was second at 480.85. The Chinese had some of the highest degree of difficulty in the semifinals.

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Want to pretend to live on Mars? For a whole year? Apply now

Want to find your inner Matt Damon and spend a year pretending you are isolated on Mars? NASA has a job for you.

To prepare for eventually sending astronauts to Mars, NASA began taking applications Friday for four people to live for a year in Mars Dune Alpha. That's a 1,700-square-foot Martian habitat, created by a 3D-printer, and inside a building at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The paid volunteers will work a simulated Martian exploration mission complete with spacewalks, limited communications back home, restricted food and resources and equipment failures.

NASA is planning three of these experiments with the first one starting in the fall next year. Food will all be ready-to-eat space food and at the moment there are no windows planned. Some plants will be grown, but not potatoes like in the movie “The Martian.” Damon played stranded astronaut Mark Watney, who survived on spuds.

“We want to understand how humans perform in them,” said lead scientist Grace Douglas. “We are looking at Mars realistic situations."

News from © The Associated Press, 2021