Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said he has canceled a deal to buy a Chinese-developed vaccine against the coronavirus, a day after his health minister announced Brazil would purchase millions of doses of CoronaVac.Bolsonaro said Wednesday that the intentions of Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, one of his leading opponents, were distorted, saying he already canceled the deal before Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello signed it.Pazuello said in a statement that there was “no commitment” to buy the vaccine, only a “non-binding memorandum of understanding between the health ministry and the Butantan Institute” to test and produce the vaccine.Bolsonaro, who said he would not let Brazilians be guinea pigs for the Sinovac drug, is promoting the purchase of another vaccine developed by Oxford University in Britain.Brazil is helping to test both of vaccines in the final stage of clinical trials.Meantime, The Wall Street Journal reports, a Brazilian health regulator says the clinical trials of the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca PLC will continue although a volunteer died.Both Oxford University and AstraZeneca reportedly found no safety issues which warranted the trial being stopped.
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Month: October 2020
7 Nations Now Have More Than 1 Million COVID-19 Cases
The number of nations with more than 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases has risen to seven.Spain and France are the latest nations to reach the unfortunate mark, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. The United States tops the list with more than 8.3 million total cases, followed by India (7.6 million), Brazil (5.3 million), Russia (1.4 million) and Argentina, which has 1,037,325. Spain is in sixth place with 1,005,325 cases, followed by France with 1,000,369.Spain and France are also the first nations in Western Europe to record more than 1 million COVID-19 infections.Scores of researchers around the world are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19, which has killed more than 1.1 million people around the globe and sickened more than 41.1 million.Brazil’s health authority Anvisa said Wednesday that a volunteer in a late-stage clinical trial of a vaccine developed by British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca had died but gave no further details about the circumstances.The volunteer was one of the 8,000 who either received the actual vaccine or a false drug known as a placebo. Because the testing has not been suspended, sources say the volunteer was likely a part of the control group that received the placebo.The AstraZeneca vaccine, developed in cooperation with Britain’s University of Oxford, is being tested in large-scale Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials in several nations, including the United States, Britain, South Africa and India. The drug maker temporarily put the trial on hold last month after a volunteer in Britain was diagnosed with a form of spinal inflammation after receiving a second dose of the vaccine.The trial has since resumed in Britain, Brazil, India and South Africa but remains on hold in the United States.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revised its definition about “close contact” with a person infected with COVID-19.The agency had previously determined that close contact was spending 15 consecutive minutes within 2 meters of an infected individual. The revised changes announced Wednesday now defines a close contact as someone who spent a total of 15 minutes accumulated over a 24-hour period.The change by the CDC was prompted by a report of a prison officer in the northeastern U.S. state of Vermont who became infected with COVID-19 after more than 20 brief interactions with inmates who later tested positive for the virus. The brief visits added up to about 17 total minutes of exposure.
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Who’s In Line for COVID-19 Vaccines?
The COVID-19 vaccines are coming.The question is, who gets them first? And who is next in line?Two companies say that by late November, they expect to have initial results from clinical trials showing whether their vaccines are safe and effective. Several others are not far behind.But there won’t be enough for everyone at first. Hard decisions have to be made about who gets it and who doesn’t. So, public health experts are laying out guidelines that aim to do the most good with a limited resource.Two expert panels have made recommendations already — the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and Johns Hopkins University.But things get complicated quickly.”When you see these kinds of simple frameworks, they’re very important. But the devil’s in the details here,” said William Moss, executive director of the Johns Hopkins University International Vaccine Access Center.Front line, front of the lineFirst in line, experts agree, should be health care workers directly dealing with COVID-19 patients. They’re at high risk of infection and they are also critical to keeping society running.But who, exactly, counts as a health care worker? Doctors and nurses treating COVID-19 patients, clearly. Maintenance workers on the COVID wards, almost certainly. Cooks in nursing homes, possibly. But the farther you get from the bedside, the murkier it gets.”If you are someone who is an administrator, it depends,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.For example, maybe office personnel who have patients sign forms should be vaccinated, he said.It may be up to individual facilities to make the decision.”We’re going to have a committee right here in our own institution to create a staggered system of who should be first, second and third,” said Vanderbilt University Medical Center infectious disease professor William Schaffner, “because we are unlikely to get enough doses right on Day 2.”At-risk groupsThe other group that experts agree should be top priority are patients with health problems that put them at high risk for serious illness and death from COVID-19. That includes people with heart, lung or kidney disease, as well as diabetes and obesity.But that adds up to more than 100 million people, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The list will likely need to be narrowed further. The National Academies report suggests focusing on people with two or more underlying health conditions.Next up are workers whose jobs are critical to the functioning of society.Who is that?”If you get four people together, you get five opinions,” Schaffner said. “There isn’t a single correct answer.”Recommendations include teachers, transit workers and people working in the food supply chain. But there is no definitive list.”It’s really hard to know who’s in the definition until one is made,” said Adriane Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs at the National Association of County and City Health Officers. She said even local health department staff were not automatically considered essential workers.Coming soonAn expert panel convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to provide guidance on all the big questions following a meeting next week.”It will be interesting to see … how granular they get,” Casalotti said.It is important to have a national framework so everyone feels “that we’re all in this together, because it’s the only way we’re going to make it through the pandemic,” she said. Plus, it will help avoid a situation where “you’re a local health official who’s going to be picking winners and losers.”But there also needs to be flexibility to account for local conditions. The panel has to walk a fine line.”You run the risk of being too prescriptive and then not prescriptive enough,” Casalotti said.Is my name on the list?It is one thing to lay out priorities for who should be vaccinated. But how will officials identify the individuals who are eligible and make sure they can get their shots?”This is really a great question, and this is where I have more concern,” Moss said. “We don’t have a mechanism for generating a list of people who should get it.”And health officials already struggle to get adults vaccinated for other illnesses. Influenza vaccines rarely reach half the population.”In a good year, with an established vaccine, it’s tough to get shots in the arm,” Benjamin said.But it is doable, he added. Health departments set up drive-thru vaccination centers during the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, for example. And there are plenty of mobile clinics across the country.”To give someone a vaccination, all you really need is a van and a cooler,” he said.It’s not a surprise that so many questions remain, Casalotti said.”That’s, in some ways, the nature of the beast in dealing with this pandemic,” she noted. “So much is being done in crisis mode that it takes a lot to work through a lot of these genuine, complicated questions.”
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COVID-19 ‘Right Under Control’ in Australia, Experts Say
As Australia’s most populous state eases more COVID-19 restrictions, experts say the nation has brought the epidemic “right under control.” One leading commentator says he “can’t find another country that has smashed the virus” as well as Australia.Life in much of Australia is beginning to resemble what it was before COVID-19.On Friday, more restrictions will be relaxed in the state of New South Wales. Places of worship will be allowed to have up to 300 people, while the capacity of gyms will also increase. Some 40,000 sports fans are expected to attend the final of the National Rugby League competition in Sydney on Sunday.Across Australia, a nation of 25 million people, there is cautious optimism that, for now, at least, the coronavirus is being contained. More than 27,400 COVID-19 cases and 900 deaths have been recorded since it was first detected in Australia in late January; 8.3 million tests have been carried out.Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said that the closure of Australia’s borders to foreign travelers in March has also been critical.“What we have seen is that around the country, we have done incredibly well and there are four defenses; our international borders, testing, which has been uniformly good around all of the states and territories, tracing, which has overwhelmingly been outstanding, with New South Wales the gold standard,” he said. “Victoria had real challenges, but it is improving, and I think that is a very important message, and the distancing.”International travel into and out of Australia is expected to remain restricted well into next year, although a so-called safe travel bubble is allowing New Zealanders to fly into New South Wales and the Northern Territory.Many Australians have watched on in disbelief and concern for family and friends as coronavirus cases surge again in other parts of the world.Raina McIntyre, a professor of biosecurity at the University of New South Wales’ Kirby Institute, said the situation in the United States and United Kingdom is horrifying.“It is just thoroughly shocking,” McIntyre said. “When we think of pandemics, we don’t think that well-resourced, high-income countries are going to fall apart at the seams, but that is exactly what we have seen.”Some of the world’s toughest lockdown measures in the city of Melbourne could be eased next week as reported infections continue to fall. The Victorian state capital has been at the center of Australia’s COVID-19 emergency, but authorities are hopeful strict stay-at-home orders and other measures imposed for more than 100 days have worked.However, clusters of the disease continue to cause alarm. Health officials have sent text messages to about 140,000 people living in three Melbourne suburbs urging them to be tested after a student attended school while infectious with COVID-19.Australian officials concede that while the virus is mostly contained, success will only be celebrated when a safe and reliable global vaccine is available.
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Facebook Launches Dating Service in Europe
Facebook Inc said on Wednesday it is launching its dating service in 32 European countries after the rollout was delayed earlier this year due to regulatory concerns.The social media company had postponed the rollout of Facebook Dating in Europe in February after concerns were raised by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), the main regulator in the European Union for a number of the world’s biggest technology firms, including Facebook.The DPC had said it was told about the Feb. 13 launch date on Feb. 3 and was very concerned about being given such short notice.It also said it was not given documentation regarding data protection impact assessments or decision-making processes that had been undertaken by Facebook.Facebook Dating, a dedicated, opt-in space within the Facebook app, was launched in the United States in September last year. It is currently available in 20 other countries.In a blog post on Wednesday, Kate Orseth, Facebook Dating’s product manager, said users can choose to create a dating profile, and can delete it at any time without deleting their Facebook accounts.The first names and ages of users in their dating profiles will be taken from their Facebook profiles and cannot be edited in the dating service, Orseth said, adding that users’ last names will not be displayed and that they can choose whether to share other personal information on their profiles.
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US to Sell Air-to-Ground Missiles to Taiwan
The U.S. government announced approval Wednesday to sell $1 billion worth of advanced air-to-ground missiles to Taiwan as the island shores up its defenses against the threat from China. The State Department said it had agreed to sell 135 of the AGM-84H SLAM-ER missiles – precision-guided, air-launched cruise missiles – and related equipment. Also approved was the sale of six MS-110 reconnaissance pods for air reconnaissance, and 11 M142 mobile light rocket launchers, taking the value of three arms packages to $1.8 billion. The SLAM-ER missiles will help Taiwan “meet current and future threats as it provides all-weather, day and night, precision attack capabilities against both moving and stationary targets” on the ground or ocean surface, a statement said.China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, has stepped up pressure toward the island over the past year, sending attack and surveillance aircraft into its airspace and ships near its waters.Last week, Beijing released video of a military exercise simulating an invasion of a Taiwan-like territory featuring missile strikes and amphibious landings. While Taiwan has for decades fallen back on an implicit U.S. security guarantee, Washington has urged it to strengthen its own capabilities to resist an attack. But Washington also wants Taiwan to upgrade its armaments. “Whether there’s an amphibious landing, a missile attack, a grey zone-type operation, they really need to fortify themselves,” national security adviser Robert O’Brien said last week. “Taiwan needs to start looking at some asymmetric and anti-access area denial strategies … and really fortify itself in a manner that would deter the Chinese from any sort of amphibious invasion or even a grey zone operation against them,” O’Brien said. The sales announced Wednesday did not include the MQ9 Reaper combat drones, which Taiwan has reportedly requested.
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Trump, Harris Campaign in North Carolina 13 Days Ahead of the Election
With the U.S. presidential election less than two weeks away and the focus on a handful of states expected to determine the outcome, incumbent Republican Donald Trump was back in North Carolina on Wednesday, where Democratic challenger Joe Biden’s running mate, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, also made appearances earlier in the day.“We’re going to win this state,” Trump predicted at an evening rally in Gastonia. Later at the event, he told the crowd of thousands, “I’ve been all over your state. You better let me win.”North Carolina is a key prize in the election as the victor gets 15 of the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the presidency.Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the state four years ago by fewer than 200,000 votes, capturing just under 50% of ballots cast.“We need North Carolina and that’s why I’m here, that’s why he’s (Trump) been here,” Harris told reporters at the airport in Asheville after a campaign event on a nearby college campus. “The people of North Carolina are very much going to be a very big part of deciding this election, so we’re here to encourage the vote.”Three polls in the past week have shown Biden ahead of Trump by 3 points, within the margin of error of those surveys of voters.North Carolina is often characterized as a swing state, but some there suggest it is better to list it as battleground state because prior to Barack Obama in 2008, the last time the state voted for a Democrat for president was Jimmy Carter in 1976.“The historic 1929 textile mill strikes had its epicenter in Gastonia. As the textile industry has faded in North Carolina, Gastonia has retained some of its blue-collar heritage while also moving into the metropolitan orbit of Charlotte. The Trump campaign would have to run strongly in Gaston County to match its 2016 victory in North Carolina,” said professor Ferrel Guillory, who directs the Program on Public Life at the journalism and media school at the University of North Carolina.Professor Mac McCorkle at Duke University’s public policy school, where he directs its POLIS politics center, told VOA, “Gastonia is exactly the kind of place Trump needs to be or has to be at this juncture, if being in a particular place matters. It’s one those at least partly Charlotte exurban or ‘countrypolitan’ counties where Republicans have been getting and need to get more than 60% support.”Over the years, North Carolina has seen its furniture and textile industries wither while growth in the Research Triangle and Charlotte attracts a more diverse population.“North Carolina is not as simple as partisan breakdown,” with more than 40% of its residents born outside the state, said Susan Roberts, a political science professor at Davidson College.In a statement released Wednesday, Biden said, “Trump isn’t focused on caring for working families in North Carolina who cannot make their rent or mortgage payments, parents and educators struggling to educate their kids, or small-business owners losing everything they worked so hard to build. He has given up on his responsibility to get this virus under control.”Trump at his Gastonia rally, where he spent more than 75 minutes on stage, accused the media and the Democrats of focusing too much on the pandemic.“All you hear is COVID, COVID,” said the president, who has recovered from the virus after testing positive earlier this month. “That’s all they put on because they want to scare the hell out of everyone.”This year, COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has killed about 222,000 people in the United States out of a total of 8.3 million confirmed to have been infected. It has killed more than 4,000 people in North Carolina where new coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and the percentage of COVID-19 tests that are positive are increasing statewide.Perhaps the chief issue for North Carolina voters is health care. Roberts, of Davidson College, notes that North Carolina is one of only 12 states that have opted not to adopt the expanded Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act.Trump has repeatedly railed against the act, known as Obamacare. Biden’s campaign pledges to bolster the plan with a variety of adds-on that will “insure more than an estimated 97% of Americans.”
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Maryland Man Arrested Over Biden Death Threat
A Maryland man was arrested and accused of making death threats against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday.
The suspect was identified as James Dale Reed, 42, who was also charged with threatening sexual violence against Sen. Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate, in a letter he left at a neighbor’s house that bore a sign supporting the Democratic ticket.
The resident of Frederick, Maryland, who initially denied threatening violence against the candidates, was captured on the neighbor’s video doorbell on October 4 delivering the letter at their doorstep.
Prosecutors said Reed was questioned at home and later arrested after he admitted to the offense.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert Hur said the threats were illegal, and his office takes them seriously. Hur added that his office will “hold accountable those who make them.”
The Secret Service has since filed a criminal complaint in federal court against Reed, who said he wrote the threatening letter because he was troubled by the political situation, according to an affidavit.
Reed’s action comes days after over a dozen men were charged with plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and at a time when civil rights groups warn of election-related violence.
This is not the first time Reed has been charged with making threatening statements. In 2014, he made similar threats to an unidentified person who was under Secret Service protection.
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Trump Campaign Warns Biden Will Undermine American Democracy
With Democratic candidate Joe Biden holding a substantial lead in presidential election polls, President Donald Trump’s campaign is trying to appeal to independent and disaffected Republican voters. Trump is warning that if Democrats win, they will enact radical changes to the American system of democracy. VOA’s Brian Padden reports on concerns the Democrats might change the filibuster rule in the Senate to pack the Supreme Court, abolish the Electoral College or admit new Democratic majority states into the union.
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Common Cold Could Protect Against COVID-19, Research Shows
Having a cold might protect sufferers from a severe case of COVID-19, new research shows.COVID-19 patients who had recently been infected with a common cold virus were less likely to die or require intensive care compared with those who did not have a recent cold, according to the study published recently in the Medical staff of the intensive care unit of the Casalpalocco COVID-19 Clinic in the outskirts of Rome tend to patients, Oct. 21, 2020. (Associated Press)Sagar and his colleagues compared people who’d had a recent common cold infection with those who had not. They found that both groups contracted COVID-19 at the same rate, but people who had recently beaten a common cold experienced less severe COVID-19 symptoms.“They were much less likely to require admission to the intensive care unit. And they were much less likely to die from the infection,” said Sagar.For many adults and most children, COVID-19 causes only minor coldlike symptoms or no symptoms at all. In these people, the immune system effectively clears away virus particles and destroys infected cells, preventing serious disease.But the “immune system is a double-edged sword,” said Andrea Cox, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Exaggerated or poorly regulated immune responses can cause inflammation that leads to breathing troubles, organ failure and death. These severe outcomes usually occur in the elderly or people with other conditions, such as obesity and diabetes.Such vastly different responses to the COVID-19 virus could be explained, in part, by the immune system’s past experiences, experts say. Recognition of SARS-CoV-2 by preexisting T cells could enable a faster and stronger immune response and milder COVID-19 symptoms.Common colds could worsen COVID-19It is also possible that T cells produced from past common colds could impair the immune system’s response to COVID-19.“We have this preexisting standing force of fighters against [disease-causing viruses], and when we encounter those [viruses], there’s expansion of that force that preexists,” said Cox. “The concern is that you might expand [a force] designed to fight something else, not designed perfectly to fight SARS-CoV-2, and that could sort of skew you down this pathway that isn’t the right path to go down.”Prior immune experiences can be harmful in some diseases such as dengue fever. Antibodies and T cells produced in response to one version of the dengue virus can worsen the disease if they encounter a different version of the virus.Currently, there is little evidence that T cells produced in response to common cold coronaviruses worsen COVID-19 disease, but researchers say it is too early to say that they provide protection either.Immunity may also depend on the individual.“Not everyone who gets infected with the virus makes exactly the same immune response. In fact, even identical twins do not make the same exact immune responses to a virus when they get exposed,” said Cox. “So, it may depend on who is being infected. And it may depend on where you are in the world, where different seasonal cold coronaviruses come in different times, and also where you have different genetic backgrounds of people being exposed.”
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Nigerians in Ghana Protest in Support of End SARS Movement
Nigerians in Ghana are joining growing diaspora protests against police brutality in the West African nation, spurred on by events on Tuesday night in Lagos where soldiers allegedly opened fire on protesters.Across the world, people are expressing outrage over the events in Lagos late Tuesday.On Tuesday, after Lagos state authorities announced a 24-hour curfew, eyewitnesses said soldiers opened fire on demonstrators at Lekki Toll Plaza, with casualties reported.Nigeria’s army denied it was responsible for deaths at the scene, branding stories that blame soldiers for the casualties as “fake news.”Meanwhile, what started out as a movement to end a notorious police unit has now evolved into demands for widespread reform in Nigeria.Lagos State Goveror Babajide Sanwo-Olu visits injured people at a hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, Oct. 21, 2020. (Lagos State Government/
Handout)In Accra, on Wednesday about 150 people gathered outside the Nigerian High Commission. Most were from Nigeria but they were supported by a handful of Ghanaian compatriots.Franklin Digber, a Ghanaian DJ, said he was there because the two nations were intertwined in many aspects, especially with entertainment. He said what was happening in Nigeria was “atrocious” and called for solidarity.“It’s very necessary we are here. When we saw the George Floyd thing happen and it was like “yes okay, Black lives matter.” This is something that we saw and have solidarity across the world for. So if you are in Ghana and you saw this happening in Nigeria, then we should all come together as people,” said Digber.Also at the protest was Nigerian citizen Aondohemba Orya. He said he hoped the protests would lead to real change in his country.“If I was in Lagos yesterday, I would have been at the protest ground because I am passionate about my country. I hate it when people talk bad about Nigeria, if the Nigerian government is good, 50 per cent of Nigerians across the world would go back home – settle back home – and do legitimate business,” said Orya. There have also been protests and candlelight vigils across the world in the past week, including in Canada, the United Kingdom, the U.S., Egypt, Australia and South Africa.Damilola Odufuwa in Lagos said it is more important than ever to see global solidarity as Nigeria’s largest city is now under curfew. The activist is one of the founding members of the Feminist Coalition, a Nigerian organization working to get legal help, funding and supplies to protesters across Nigeria.Armed men are seen near burning tires on a street in Lagos, Nigeria Oct. 21, 2020, in this image obtained from social media. (Credit: UnEarthical)She wanted global bodies to also speak out for Nigerian protesters and believed international pressure would help Nigerians “exercise our constitutional rights.”“We are united in this fight against police brutality, and against bad governance. All we want is good leadership and that is what is really touching, to see people come out and stand up for us, and we pray that tomorrow, while we are under some form of curfew where our internet is kind of slowing down, that people speak up for us,” said Odufuwa.As the protest has evolved, the hashtag #EndBadGovernance has also trended on social media. The protests are also backed by global celebrities such as Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, singing star Beyonce and Nigerian entertainers Davido and Wizkid.U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the state response to the demonstration on Tuesday, with Clinton tweeting that Nigeria’s president and army should “stop killing young #EndSARS protesters.”
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Purdue Pharma Pleads Guilty to US Federal Criminal Charges
The U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday that Purdue Pharma, maker of the powerful opioid painkiller OxyContin, pleaded guilty to three federal criminal charges and agreed to pay more than $8 billion in fines.
OxyContin is a prescription drug that many experts said helped spark a nationwide opioid epidemic in the U.S. that is responsible for more than 470,000 overdose deaths since 2000.
As part of the settlement, Purdue Pharma admitted that it misled the federal government by falsely stating it maintained a program to avoid the transfer of controlled substances from individuals for whom they were prescribed to other people for illicit use.
Purdue Pharma also admitted it violated federal laws by paying physicians to write more prescriptions for its opioids and to use electronic health records software to influence the prescription of pain medication.
The company also admitted to violating federal law by “knowingly and intentionally” conspiring to “aid and abet” the dispensing of medication from doctors “without a legitimate medical purpose.”
The plea agreement does not protect the company’s executives or members of the Sackler family, which owns the company, from criminal liability.
When announcing the settlement in Washington, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said, “Just as the department prosecutes illicit drug traffickers, the department is committed to doing the same with respect to abuse and diversion of prescription opioids.”
Rosen added, “Today’s announcement focuses on the problems from wrongful activities in the prescription opioids realm, so let me note that our efforts there appear to be making a difference.”
Before the agreement was reached, there was opposition from state attorneys general, Democratic lawmakers and advocates who asked Attorney General William Barr in a letter not to negotiate with the company and the Sackler family because the proposed deal did not hold them fully accountable.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement that the Justice Department “failed” by not “exposing the truth and holding perpetrators accountable, not rushing a settlement to beat an election.” The announcement comes less than two weeks before President Donald Trump stands for re-election on Nov. 3.
In their letter to Barr, 38 Democratic legislators said, “If the only practical consequence of your Department’s investigation is that a handful of billionaires are made slightly less rich, we fear that the American people will lose faith in the ability of the Department to provide accountability and equal justice under the law.”
The settlement requires Purdue to make a direct payment of $225 million to the federal government, which is part of a $2 billion forfeiture. The company also faces a more than $3.5 billion criminal fine, which it may not have to fully pay because it will likely be taken through a bankruptcy.
In addition to paying $2.8 billion in damages to resolve its civil liability, the U.S. company will be required to transform into a public benefit company that would be managed by a trust without the involvement of the Sackler family.
The settlement, which mirrors a part of the company’s proposal to settle about 3,000 lawsuits filed by state, local and Native American governments, also requires some of the settlement money to be spent on medically assisted treatments and other programs to combat the opioid epidemic.
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Senegal Campaigners Urge Breast Cancer Screening Despite COVID-19 Fears
A Senegalese anti-cancer group is encouraging women to get mammograms after a drop in the number of women getting screened because of coronavirus concerns, as Estelle Ndjandjo reports from Dakar.Camera: Estelle NdjandjoProduced by: Barry Unger
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Caught in America’s Election Battle, Ukraine Hopes for Further US Military Support
People in Ukraine are closely following the U.S. presidential election given America’s strategic importance to the country and campaign allegations of corruption linked to Ukraine. Henry Ridgwell reports.Videographer: Eugene Risunkov
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Pope Reverts to Mask-Less Old Ways Amid Growing Criticism
A day after donning a face mask for the first time during a liturgical service, Pope Francis was back to his mask-less old ways Wednesday despite surging coronavirus infections across Europe and growing criticism of his behavior and the example he is setting.
Francis shunned a face mask again during his Wednesday general audience in the Vatican auditorium, and didn’t wear one when he greeted a half-dozen mask-less bishops at the end. He shook hands and leaned in to chat privately with each one.
While the clerics wore masks while seated during the audience, all but one took his mask off to speak to the pope. Only one kept it on, and by the end of his tete-a-tete with Francis, had lowered it under his chin.
Vatican regulations now require facemasks to be worn indoors and out where distancing can’t be “always guaranteed.” The Vatican hasn’t responded to questions about why the pope wasn’t following either Vatican regulations or basic public health measures to prevent COVID-19.
Francis has faced sharp criticism even from his most ardent supporters and incredulousness from some within the Vatican for refusing to wear a mask.
Just this week, the Vatican expert and columnist, the Rev. Thomas Reese, wrote a blistering, tough-love open letter to the pope offering him six reasons he should wear a mask and urging like-minded faithful to troll the pope’s @Pontifex Twitter feed to shame him into setting a better example.
“You’re the boss; you should follow your own rules,” Reese wrote. “When the clergy hold themselves above the rules, we call that clericalism, a sin that you have loudly denounced.”
At the start of his audience Wednesday, Francis explained to the faithful why he didn’t plunge into the crowd as he usually would do. But he said his distance from them was for their own well-being, to prevent crowds from forming around him.
“I’m sorry for this, but it’s for your own safety,” he said. “Rather than get close to you, shake your hands and greet you, I greet you from far away. But know that I’m close to you with my heart.”
He didn’t address his decision to forego wearing a mask.
Francis did, however, wear a white face mask throughout an interreligious prayer service in downtown Rome on Tuesday, removing it only to speak. He had previously only been seen wearing one once before as he entered and exited his car in a Vatican courtyard on Sept. 9. Italian law requires masks indoors and out.
At 83 and with part of a lung removed when he was in his 20s due to illness, the pope would be at high risk for COVID-19 complications. He has urged the faithful to comply with government mandates to protect public health.
In the past week, 11 Swiss Guards and a resident of the hotel where Francis lives have tested positive. All told, the Vatican City State has had 27 cases, according to the Johns Hopkins University running tally.
In Italy, the onetime European epicenter of COVID-19, coronavirus cases are surging, with the Lazio region around Vatican City among the hardest hit. Lazio has more people hospitalized and in intensive care than any other region except Italy’s most populous and hardest-hit region, Lombardy.
Inside the Vatican auditorium Wednesday, the crowd wore masks as did the Swiss Guards. But Francis, his two aides and some of the protocol officials didn’t.
In his open letter to Francis, which Reese said was a “fraternal correction” from a fellow Jesuit, the American noted that Francis was trained as a scientist, and should know to trust the science on virus protection. He urged Francis to be a good Jesuit and obey doctors and the Vatican’s own mask mandates.
Saying Francis’ decision to forego a mask was a sin, Reese urged Francis to set a better example to others and avoid being lumped in the same camp as COVID-19 negationists and mask-averse U.S. President Donald Trump, with whom Francis has clashed.
“Do you really want to be in company with a man who builds walls rather than bridges, who demonizes refugees and immigrants, who turns his back to the marginalized?” Reese asked. “I don’t think so, but that is where you are as long as, like Trump, you do not wear a mask.”
Reese’s campaign was having an effect. Dutch Catholic theologian Hendro Munsterman tweeted his anger at @Pontifex, writing: “How do we tell our kids to protect themselves and others if you cannot even give an example?”
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COVID-19 Affects Pregnant Women, Fetuses Differently, Researchers Say
Doctors know that viruses can affect pregnant women and their developing fetuses. They are scrambling now to understand the effects of COVID-19 on pregnancies. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more.Producer: Bronwyn Benito
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Asian Markets Rise Wednesday as Talks on New US Stimulus Bill Continue
Asian markets rose Wednesday with renewed hopes that the Trump administration and House Democrats were close to a deal on a new coronavirus relief measure. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index finished 0.3% higher. The S&P/ASX index in Australia closed 0.1% higher. South Korea’s KOSPI index gained 0.5%, and the TSEC index in Taiwan rose 0.1%. The Shanghai Composite lost three points, but was unchanged percentage-wise. In late afternoon trading, both the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong and the Sensex in Mumbai are up 0.8%. In commodities trading, gold is selling at $1,922.30 an ounce, up 0.3%. U.S. crude oil is selling at $41.26 per barrel, down one percent, and Brent crude is selling at $42.68 per barrel, down 1.1%. All three major U.S. indices are trending positively in futures trading.
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US Court Upholds Extension of North Carolina Mail-In Voting Deadline
A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled that as long as a voter in the state of North Carolina has mailed their absentee ballot no later than Election Day, election officials can count it even if it arrives after Election Day. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday denied a challenge to a North Carolina State Board of Elections rule that said it will accept mail-in ballots as late as November 12. The original regulations would have made the cutoff November 6. The 12-3 ruling involved all of the court’s active judges, instead of a more typical three-judge panel, signaling the importance of the case. The issue is playing out in courts all over the country as election officials, political parties and rights groups battle on the question of to what extent rules in each state should be changed as more people seek to avoid having to go to a polling place on November 3 due to the coronavirus pandemic. “Everyone must submit their ballot by the same date,” said the 4th Circuit ruling. “The extension merely allows more lawfully cast ballots to be counted, in the event there are any delays precipitated by an avalanche of mail-in ballots.”FILE – An election worker enters a polling station in Charlotte, North Carolina, April 24, 2019, as the station prepares for early voting.The courts have generally sided with the rules put in place by state legislatures and election officials while denying challenges from political parties and outside groups. The legal challenges have included many of the states considered key to deciding which candidate will win the presidential election, such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ruling by Pennsylvania’s top court allowing mail-in ballots to be counted if they arrive by November 6. Various courts gave voters in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin similar extensions, but in each of those cases a higher court overturned the ruling. Voters in all three states must now make sure their ballots are received by Election Day in order to be counted. Overall, about 20 U.S. states currently allow ballots to come in after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by November 3. Many states are also allowing people to cast ballots in person ahead of Election Day. Combined with the mail-in votes, about 38 million people had already cast a ballot by Tuesday night, according to the U.S. Election Project.
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Trump Makes Appeals to Pennsylvania Voters Two Weeks Before Election Day
U.S. President Donald Trump is demanding Pennsylvania get back to normal business operations at a time the state is seeing a spike in coronavirus cases. “What the hell is happening in Pennsylvania?” Trump asked the crowd at his Tuesday evening campaign rally at Erie International Airport, in the western part of the crucial swing state for the November 3 general election. Expressing frustration with pandemic restrictions imposed by Governor Tom Wolf, a member of the Democratic Party, the president said “Pennsylvania has been shut down long enough. Get your governor to open up Pennsylvania.” Wolfe issued a renewed plea on Monday to Pennsylvanians to work together to stop the spread of the virus. Every part of the state is seeing community spread of COVID-19, partly due to “relatively small gatherings of families and friends,” said Dr. Rachel Levine, Pennsylvania’s top health official. The number of people hospitalized from COVID-19 in the state has doubled in the past four weeks, but it is still more than three times lower than at its peak in late April. Trump, along with Vice President Mike Pence, has been making frequent campaign appearances in the state, seen as critical for their re-election chances in two weeks. Wolf has criticized the Trump campaign for holding “unsafe rallies that will put Pennsylvania communities at risk” of COVID-19 outbreaks. A letter signed by more than 75 physicians in Pennsylvania urged people not to attend Tuesday’s rally, saying such campaign events endanger public health and give a false impression that the coronavirus is “no longer with us.” Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden, a native of Pennsylvania, has also frequently been in the state but has followed social-distancing guidelines, minimizing the number of attendees and requiring all in attendance to wear masks.President Donald Trump points at the crowd after a campaign rally at Erie International Airport, Tom Ridge Field, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020, in Erie, Pa.Former President Barack Obama is to campaign for his former vice president in Philadelphia on Wednesday at what is being called a “drive-in rally.” Polls taken in Pennsylvania this month show Biden leading Trump by just a few points and the race further narrowing. Trump acknowledged to the tightly packed crowd of thousands in Erie that he had not expected to have to campaign in their city this year. “I have to be honest. There was no way I was coming,” said the president. “And then we got hit with the plague and I had to go back to work.” During his 56-minute speech in Erie, the president said the U.S. government is “crushing the virus,” the country is doing much better than Europe, and the pandemic “is ending.” Biden did not make any campaign appearances on Tuesday, remaining in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was said to be preparing for Thursday evening’s second debate with Trump, which is to take place in Nashville, Tennessee. Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, out of the 270 needed to capture the presidency, is a crucial prize. In 2016, Trump edged Hillary Clinton by only 45,000 popular votes in the state with the help of white, working-class voters in Erie, who had long been loyal to the Democrats. First lady Melania Trump had been scheduled to join her husband on stage in Erie on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, her office announced she was canceling her appearance due to a lingering cough following her coronavirus infection. President Trump spent three days in the hospital being treated for COVID-19. He has declared himself cured and now immune to the virus that has killed more than 220,000 people in the United States. Surveys show his administration’s handling of the pandemic has hurt him among voters. According to a New York Times/Sienna poll released Tuesday, Biden is favored over Trump to lead on the coronavirus pandemic by 12 points. Biden has repeatedly accused the president of deliberately downplaying the deadliness of the disease, calling Trump’s behavior “close to criminal.”
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US Backs Release of ‘Low-Level’ Islamic State Prisoners in Syria
An effort to reduce growing strains on overcrowded prisons in Syria, some holding thousands of captured Islamic State fighters, is being met with cautious optimism in Washington, even though it involves letting hundreds of the terror group’s adherents walk free.The plan put into motion last week by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political arm of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), calls for the release of so-called “low-level” Islamic State members under a general amnesty.Already, 631 such Syrian nationals have been freed, allowed to return to their homes, while another 253 have seen their sentences cut in half, and Kurdish officials say more releases are expected in the coming months.So far, the United States is on board.“We see these return and reintegration initiatives as positive,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA, noting the release “focused on nonviolent offenders who are not assessed to pose a radicalization risk to their communities.”The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter, also suggested aid could be available to help the process go smoothly.“We, along with our coalition partners, are prepared to support receiving communities as part of ongoing stabilization initiatives,” the spokesperson said.Concerns about what to do with captured IS fighters and IS supporters have only grown since the collapse of the terror group’s caliphate in March 2019.Within months, key Pentagon officials were warning that the more than a dozen makeshift prisons set up by the SDF to hold, at the time, more than 10,000 captured IS fighters, including 2,000 foreign fighters, were simply not sustainable.US officials have long warned the A man, suspected of having collaborated with the Islamic State (IS) group, is greeted by a family member upon his release from the Kurdish-run Alaya prison in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, on Oct. 15, 2020.Not everyone is as optimistic, though.“ISIS likely recruited aggressively within detention centers due to the SDF’s failure to isolate radical elements of the population,” Eva Kahan, a researcher at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, told VOA, using an acronym for the terror group.“This initial release will supply tens to low hundreds of potential ISIS fighters or supporters to active insurgent cells in the Middle Euphrates River Valley and could add fuel to that insurgency’s flames,” Kahan said.Other experts who have studied the region, while not ready to rule out possible blowback, argue the success or failure of the prisoner releases may hinge more on what happens next.“Much is going to depend on the conditions that they encounter back in their communities and whether or not conditions are conducive to their reintegration,” said Mona Yacoubian, a senior adviser at the Washington-based U.S. Institute of Peace.“The extent to which people are released into conditions that are the kinds of conditions that feed the grievances that often can lead to recruitment into groups like ISIS, it’s certainly a concern,” she said. “There’s no 100% certainty on this.”
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