Republished December 10, 2021 - 8:05 PM
Original Publication Date December 09, 2021 - 9:11 PM
Pandemic mystery: Scientists focus on COVID's animal origins
Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the origin of the virus tormenting the world remains shrouded in mystery.
Most scientists believe it emerged in the wild and jumped from bats to humans, either directly or through another animal. Others theorize it escaped from a Chinese lab.
Now, with the global COVID-19 death toll surpassing 5.2 million on the second anniversary of the earliest human cases, a growing chorus of scientists is trying to keep the focus on what they regard as the more plausible “zoonotic,” or animal-to-human, theory, in the hope that what's learned will help humankind fend off new viruses and variants.
“The lab-leak scenario gets a lot of attention, you know, on places like Twitter,” but “there’s no evidence that this virus was in a lab,” said University of Utah scientist Stephen Goldstein, who with 20 others wrote an article in the journal Cell in August laying out evidence for animal origin.
Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who contributed to the article, said he always thought zoonotic transmission was more likely than a lab leak but had signed a letter with other scientists last spring saying both theories were viable. Since then, he said, his own and others’ research has made him even more confident about the animal hypothesis, which is “just way more supported by the data.”
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National Guard helping virus-sapped states, hospitals
More U.S. states desperate to defend against COVID-19 are calling on the National Guard and other military personnel to assist virus-weary medical staffs at hospitals and other care centers.
People who became sick after refusing to get vaccinated are overwhelming hospitals in certain states, especially in the Northeast and the Upper Midwest. New York, meanwhile, announced a statewide indoor mask order, effective Monday and lasting five weeks through the holiday season.
“We’re entering a time of uncertainty, and we could either plateau here or our cases could get out of control,” Gov. Kathy Hochul warned Friday.
In Michigan, health director Elizabeth Hertel was equally blunt: "I want to be absolutely clear: You are risking serious illness, hospitalization and even death” without a vaccination.
The seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. rose over the past two weeks to 117,677 by Thursday, compared to 84,756 on Nov. 25, Thanksgiving Day, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has soared to about 54,000 on average, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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'The internet's on fire' as techs race to fix software flaw
BOSTON (AP) — A critical vulnerability in a widely used software tool — one quickly exploited in the online game Minecraft — is rapidly emerging as a major threat to organizations around the world.
“The internet’s on fire right now," said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. “People are scrambling to patch,” he said, "and all kinds of people scrambling to exploit it." He said Friday morning that in the 12 hours since the bug's existence was disclosed that it had been "fully weaponized,” meaning malefactors had developed and distributed tools to exploit it.
The flaw may be the worst computer vulnerability discovered in years. It was uncovered in an open-source logging tool that is ubiquitous in cloud servers and enterprise software used across industry and government. Unless it is fixed, it grants criminals, spies and programming novices alike easy access to internal networks where they can loot valuable data, plant malware, erase crucial information and much more.
“I’d be hard-pressed to think of a company that’s not at risk,” said Joe Sullivan, chief security officer for Cloudflare, whose online infrastructure protects websites from malicious actors. Untold millions of servers have it installed, and experts said the fallout would not be known for several days.
Amit Yoran, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Tenable, called it “the single biggest, most critical vulnerability of the last decade” — and possibly the biggest in the history of modern computing.
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Prosecution rests in sex-abuse trial of Ghislaine Maxwell
NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors completed presenting their case against Ghislaine Maxwell on Friday, after a key accuser at the British socialite's sex-abuse trial testified that Maxwell and her companion, Jeffrey Epstein, forced themselves on her when she was just 16.
Annie Farmer told jurors she accepted an invitation to the financier’s sprawling New Mexico ranch in 1996 hoping that Maxwell and Epstein would help her with academic endeavors. Instead, she said, Maxwell ended up massaging her breasts and Epstein climbed into bed without her permission.
Three others have asserted at the trial that began two weeks ago that Maxwell recruited them to give Epstein massages meant as a ruse for sexual abuse.
Maxwell, 59, has denied charges she groomed underage girls for Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019. Her lawyers say the government is making her a scapegoat for alleged sex crimes committed by her onetime boyfriend and moved immediately for a judgment of acquittal after prosecutors rested Friday afternoon.
U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan heard brief arguments and rejected the request that she acquit Maxwell without the jury ever getting the case.
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EXPLAINER: Why US inflation is so high, and when it may ease
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation is starting to look like that unexpected — and unwanted — houseguest who just won’t leave.
For months, many economists had sounded a reassuring message that a spike in consumer prices, something that had been missing in action in the U.S. for a generation, wouldn’t stay long. It would prove “transitory,’’ in the soothing words of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and White House officials, as the economy shifted from virus-related chaos to something closer to normalcy.
Yet as any American who has bought a carton of milk, a gallon of gas or a used car could tell you, inflation has settled in. And economists are now voicing a more discouraging message: Higher prices will likely last well into next year, if not beyond.
On Friday, the government reinforced that message with its report that the consumer price index soared 6.8% last month from a year earlier — the biggest 12-month jump since 1982.
And the sticker shock is hitting where families tend to feel it most. At the breakfast table, for instance: Bacon prices are up 21% over the past year, egg prices 8%. Gasoline has surged 58%. Furnishing your living room, dining room or kitchen will set you back 14% more than it would have a year ago. Used cars? Up 31%.
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Navy blames Hawaii water contamination on jet fuel spill
HONOLULU (AP) — The Navy believes that contaminated tap water that went to Hawaii military households came from a one-time spill of jet fuel last month and was not caused by a leak from aging underground fuel storage tanks above an aquifer, a top Navy official told state lawmakers on Friday.
Rear Adm. Blake Converse said Navy officials are very confident that the contamination happened on Nov. 20, when 14,000 gallons (52,995 liters) of jet fuel spilled at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility inside an access tunnel that provides fire suppression and service lines for the complex. The complex supplies fuel for many military planes and ships that operate in the Pacific and its use has been suspended.
The spill was cleaned up, Converse said, but people have complained for weeks of foul-smelling water and some have said they have gone to hospitals because of cramps or vomiting after they drank the water.
Converse said it appears that some of the jet fuel was sent through the Navy’s water distribution system that serves about 93,000 people, including those in military housing.
Converse also told state lawmakers that Navy officials have moved more than 3,000 families to hotels on the island of Oahu and that they will stay there until the problem is solved.
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Survivors recall horror of Mexico truck crash that killed 55
TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico (AP) — Survivors of the horrific truck crash in Mexico that killed 55 migrants and injured more than a hundred recounted from their hospital beds how their location inside the truck determined who lived and who died.
Those unlucky enough to be riding jammed against the fragile walls of the freight container almost certainly died, survivors said. Those in the middle of the packed group survived, cushioned by their fellow migrants as the container flipped onto the road.
“The ones who died were the ones who were up against the walls of the trailer,” said one young migrant from Guatemala, who was being treated for a broken arm at a local hospital. “Thank God, we were in the middle, but the ones on the sides, they died.”
The migrant, who did not want to give his name because he did not have proper documents in Mexico, described a gruesome scene of screaming and blood in the moments after the truck crashed into the base of a steel pedestrian bridge Thursday evening. He said about 250 migrants were on board.
First, the living had to extricate themselves from the tangled pile of dead and dying bodies.
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Court won't stop Texas abortion ban, but lets clinics sue
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday left in place Texas’ ban on most abortions, offering only a glimmer of daylight for clinics in the state to challenge the nation’s most restrictive abortion law.
The decision, little more than a week after the court signaled it would roll back abortion rights and possibly overturn its landmark Roe v. Wade decision, was greeted with dismay by abortion rights supporters but praise by opponents.
Five conservative justices, including three appointed by former President Donald Trump, formed a majority to limit who can be sued by the clinics, a result that both sides said probably will prevent federal courts from effectively blocking the law.
Texas licensing officials may be sued, but not state court judges, court clerks or state Attorney General Ken Paxton, the court ruled. That seems to leave people free, under the unusual structure of the Texas law, to sue abortion clinics and anyone else who “aids or abets” an abortion performed after cardiac activity is detected in an embryo, around six weeks and before some women know they're pregnant.
“The Supreme Court has essentially greenlit Texas’s cynical scheme and prevented federal courts from blocking an unconstitutional law," the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents the Texas clinics, said on Twitter.
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New York's COVID surge is back — and so is its mask mandate
NEW YORK (AP) — Facing a cold-weather surge in COVID-19 infections, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Friday that masks will be required in all indoor public places unless the businesses or venues implement a vaccine requirement.
Hochul said the decision to reinstitute a mask mandate was based on a rising number of cases and hospitalizations, which has been especially pronounced in parts of upstate New York.
New York enacted a mask mandate at the beginning of the pandemic in April 2020 that ended in June 2021 for vaccinated individuals. The new mask mandate applies to both patrons and staff and will be in effect from Monday to Jan. 15, after which the state will reevaluate.
“We’re entering a time of uncertainty and we could either plateau here or our cases could get out of control,” Hochul warned at a public appearance in New York City.
New York joins several states with similar indoor mask mandates, including Washington, Oregon, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada and Hawaii.
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Final goodbye: Recalling influential people who died in 2021
They both carved out sterling reputations as military and political leaders over years of public service. But both also saw their legacies tarnished by their actions in the long, bloody war in Iraq.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are among the many noteworthy people who died in 2021.
Powell, who died in October, was a trailblazing soldier and diplomat. He rose to the rank of four-star general in the Army before becoming the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And under former President George W. Bush, he became the nation's first Black secretary of state.
Rumsfeld, who died in June, had a storied career in government under four U.S. presidents and was seen as a visionary of a modern military.
Rumsfeld was secretary of defense and shouldered some of the blame as Iraq sank into chaos after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime. In the leadup to the war, Powell cited faulty information during a United Nations Security Council address while claiming Hussein had secretly stashed weapons of mass destruction.
News from © The Associated Press, 2021