The suspected Russian hackers behind the worst U.S. cyberattack in years used reseller access to Microsoft Corp. services to penetrate targets that had no compromised network software from SolarWinds Corp., investigators said.Updates to SolarWinds’ Orion software were the only known point of entry until Thursday, when security company CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. said hackers had gained access to the vendor that sold it Office licenses and had used that to try to read CrowdStrike’s email. It did not specifically identify the hackers as being the ones that compromised SolarWinds, but two people familiar with CrowdStrike’s investigation said they were.CrowdStrike uses Office programs for word processing but not email. The failed attempt, made months ago, was pointed out to CrowdStrike by Microsoft on December 15.CrowdStrike, which does not use SolarWinds, said it had found no impact from the intrusion attempt and declined to name the reseller.”They got in through the reseller’s access and tried to enable mail ‘read’ privileges,” one person familiar with the investigation told Reuters. “If it had been using Office 365 for email, it would have been game over.”Many Microsoft software licenses are sold through third parties, and those companies can have near-constant access to clients’ systems as the customers add products or employees.Be on guardMicrosoft said Thursday that those customers need to be vigilant.”Our investigation of recent attacks has found incidents involving abuse of credentials to gain access, which can come in several forms,” said Microsoft senior director Jeff Jones. “We have not identified any vulnerabilities or compromise of Microsoft product or cloud services.”The use of a Microsoft reseller to try to break into a top digital defense company raises new questions about how many avenues the hackers, whom U.S. officials have alleged are operating on behalf of the Russian government, have at their disposal.FILE – This Feb. 11, 2015, photo shows FireEye offices in Milpitas, Calif.The known victims so far include CrowdStrike security rival FireEye Inc. and the U.S. departments of Defense, State, Commerce, Treasury and Homeland Security. Other big companies, including Microsoft and Cisco Systems Inc., said they found tainted SolarWinds software internally but had not found signs that the hackers used it to range widely on their networks.Until now, Texas-based SolarWinds was the only publicly confirmed channel for the initial break-ins, although officials have been warning for days that the hackers had other ways in.Microsoft reportReuters reported a week ago that Microsoft products were used in attacks. But federal officials said they had not seen it as an initial vector, and the software giant said its systems were not utilized in the campaign.
Microsoft then hinted that its customers should still be wary. At the end of a long, technical blog post Tuesday, it mentioned seeing hackers reach Microsoft 365 Cloud “from trusted vendor accounts where the attacker had compromised the vendor environment.”Microsoft requires its vendors to have access to client systems in order to install products and allow new users. But discovering which vendors still have access rights at any given time is so hard that CrowdStrike developed and released an auditing tool to do that.After a series of other breaches through cloud providers, including a major set of attacks attributed to Chinese government-backed hackers and known as CloudHopper, Microsoft this year imposed new controls on its resellers, including requirements for multifactor authentication.The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Security Agency had no immediate comment.Also Thursday, SolarWinds released an update to fix the vulnerabilities in its flagship network management software Orion following the discovery of a second set of hackers who had targeted the company’s products.That followed a separate Microsoft blog post Friday saying that SolarWinds’ software had been targeted by a second and unrelated group of hackers in addition to those linked to Russia.The identity of the second set of hackers, or the degree to which they may have successfully broken in anywhere, remains unclear.Russia has denied having any role in the hacking.
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Month: December 2020
Mexico First Latin American Country With COVID-19 Vaccination Program
Mexico became the first Latin American country Thursday to launch a COVID-19 vaccination initiative, offering hope to a nation that has lost some 120,000 people to the pandemic. Maria Irene Ramirez, the 59-year-old head nurse at the intensive care unit at Mexico City’s Ruben Lenero hospital, was the first to get the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, in keeping with the country’s strategy to focus first on health care workers. “This is the best gift that I could have received in 2020,” Ramirez said after being inoculated in a ceremony broadcast by national media. Chile will immediately start inoculations of health care workers after receiving the first 10,000 doses of a 10-million dose order of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine on Thursday, officials said. Also on Thursday, Costa Rica was preparing to vaccinate two senior citizens in a home near San Jose with the vaccine, while Argentina received about 300,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. The first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine arrives at the Juan Santamaria International Airport, as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak continues, in Alajuela, Costa Rica, Dec. 23, 2020.In the USThe United States is about to complete its second week of vaccinations with about 1 million inoculations, mainly among health care workers and elderly residents of nursing homes. The numbers, however, are far short of the goal set by Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s effort to mass produce millions of doses of vaccines, to inoculate 20 million Americans by the end of the year. U.S. Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Dr. Moncef Slaoui has warned that it would take longer to administer the doses. “The commitment that we can make is to make vaccine doses available,” Slaoui said during a press call. “How fast the ramp-up of immunizations, the shots in arms, is happening is slower than we thought it would be.” The Trump administration has reached a deal worth $2 billion to secure an additional 100 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which would boost the nation’s supply to 200 million doses by mid-July 2021. With surges throughout the U.S. leading to 327,000 COVID-19 deaths and 18.5 million coronavirus infections, according to Johns Hopkins University, the speed with which immunizations can be administered becomes increasingly important.Intensive Care Unit Nurse Merlin Pambuan, 66, is cheered by hospital staff as she walks out of the hospital where she spent eight months with COVID-19, at Dignity Health – St. Mary Medical Center, in Long Beach, California, Dec. 21, 2020. California became the first U.S. state Thursday to record 2 million coronavirus cases. The grim Christmas Eve milestone was reached as the state was under a strict stay-at-home order and hospitals were overwhelmed with the largest number of infections since the pandemic began more than nine months ago. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease. Sinovac vaccineBrazilian researchers said Wednesday the coronavirus vaccine developed by Chinese drug maker Sinovac Biotech was found to be more than 50% effective in a late-stage clinical trial. But officials at the state-run research institute Butantan say they are withholding the results of the trial at Sinovac’s request, raising issues once again about the lack of transparency involving the vaccine’s development. Tests of the Sinovac vaccine, dubbed CoronaVac, were halted last month after an “adverse, serious event” involving a volunteer participant in late October. Sinovac is one of many drug makers around the world that have been racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19, which has killed more than 1.7 million people out of more than 79 million confirmed infections, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center. New variantChina on Thursday became the latest country to suspend all travel with Britain after the discovery of a new and more contagious strain of the novel coronavirus. The new variant has swept through southern Britain in recent weeks, prompting British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose more restrictive lockdown measures in some parts of the country ahead of Christmas Day.
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Brazilian Researchers Say Chinese-Made COVID-19 Vaccine is Effective
Brazilian researchers said Wednesday the coronavirus vaccine developed by Chinese drug maker Sinovac Biotech was found to be more than 50% effective in a late-stage clinical trial. But officials at the state-run research institute Butantan say they are withholding the results of the trial at Sinovac’s request, raising issues once again about the lack of transparency involving the vaccine’s development. Tests of the Sinovac vaccine, dubbed CoronaVac, were halted last month after an “adverse, serious event” involving a volunteer participant in late October. Sinovac is one of many drug makers around the world who have been racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19, which has killed more than 1.7 million people out of more than 78.7 million total confirmed infections, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Latin America received its first doses of COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, with a shipment landing in Mexico City. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 2 MB480p | 3 MB540p | 4 MB720p | 8 MB1080p | 16 MBOriginal | 50 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioMexico Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard was on hand when the flight carrying the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine landed from Belgium. “Today is the beginning of the end of that pandemic,” Ebrard said. Mexico is scheduled to receive 1.4 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Officials on Wednesday did not say how large the shipment was, however, but said they planned to begin Thursday vaccinating health workers in Mexico City and Saltillo, in Mexico’s north. Other Latin American countries are expecting vaccine shipments or, as Argentina did on Wednesday, approving vaccines for use in their countries.The United States is about to complete its second week of vaccinations with about 1 million inoculations, mainly among health care workers and elderly residents of nursing homes. But the numbers are far short of the goal set by Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s effort to mass produce millions of doses of vaccines, to inoculate 20 million Americans by the end of the year. U.S. Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Dr. Moncef Slaoui has warned that it would take longer to administer the doses. “The commitment that we can make is to make vaccine doses available,” Slaoui said during a press call. “How fast the ramp-up of immunizations, the shots in arms, is happening is slower than we thought it would be.”The Trump administration has reached a deal worth $2 billion to secure an additional 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, which would boost the nation’s vaccine supply to 200 million doses by mid-July 2021.New COVID-19 Variant More Infectious Than Other Strains, British Scientists Say Researchers says new strain first detected in southern Britain is also more transmissible in children; discovery has prompted dozens of countries to impose restrictions or temporary bans on travelers from BritainChina on Thursday became the latest country to suspend all travel with Britain after the discovery of a new and more contagious strain of the novel coronavirus. The new variant of the novel coronavirus has swept through southern Britain in recent weeks, prompting British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose more restrictive lockdown measures in some parts of the country ahead of Christmas Day.
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SolarWinds Hackers ‘Impacting’ State, Local Governments, US Cyber Agency Says
The U.S. cybersecurity agency said on Wednesday that a sprawling cyber espionage campaign made public earlier this month is affecting state and local governments, although it released few additional details.The hacking campaign, which used U.S. tech company SolarWinds as a springboard to penetrate federal government networks, was “impacting enterprise networks across federal, state, and local governments, as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a statement posted to its website.The CISA said last week that U.S. government agencies, critical infrastructure entities, and private groups were among those affected but did not specifically mention state or local bodies. So far only a handful of federal government agencies have officially confirmed having been affected, including the U.S. Treasury Department, the Commerce Department, and the Department of Energy.CISA did not identify the state or local agencies affected and did not immediately return an email seeking additional detail on the notice.Reuters has previously reported that Pima County, Arizona, was among the victims of the wave of intrusions.The county did not immediately return a message seeking comment late Wednesday. The county’s chief information officer previously told Reuters his team had taken its SolarWinds software offline immediately after the hack became public and that investigators had not found any evidence of a further compromise.Senior U.S. officials and lawmakers have alleged that Russia is to blame for the hacking spree, a charge the Kremlin denies.
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First COVID-19 Vaccines Arrive in Latin America
Latin America received its first doses of COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, with a shipment landing in Mexico City.Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard was on hand when the flight carrying the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine landed from Belgium.”Today is the beginning of the end of that pandemic,” Ebrard said.Mexico is scheduled to receive 1.4 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Officials on Wednesday did not say how large the shipment was, however, but said they planned to begin vaccinating health workers in Mexico City and Saltillo, in Mexico’s north, on Thursday.Other Latin American countries are expecting vaccine shipments or, as Argentina did on Wednesday, approving vaccines for use in their countries.Also Wednesday, researchers found that people who had contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, were much less likely to test positive again. Those people who developed antibodies were “at much lower risk” to get the disease again, and could remain virus free for up to six months or longer, the two studies found.Dr. Ned Sharpless, director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, which conducted one of the studies, told the Associated Press that people who develop antibodies from natural infections develop “the same kind of protection you’d get from an effective vaccine. … It’s very, very rare” to get reinfected.The National Cancer Institute study involved more than 3 million people who had antibody tests. The NCI study found that only 0.3% of those who had antibodies later tested positive for the coronavirus, compared with 3% who lacked such antibodies, the AP reported.The second study, published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, involved a much smaller group. It followed 12,500 health workers, 1,265 of whom had coronavirus antibodies at the start. The study found that only two health workers tested positive in the following six months, and neither person developed symptoms, AP reported.U.S. Army General Gustave Perna, Operation Warp Speed chief operating officer, said Wednesday that the U.S. government would distribute nearly 4.7 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines next week.By the end of the first week of January, Perna said, about 20 million vaccine doses will have been delivered throughout the United States.U.S. Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Dr. Moncef Slaoui warned, however, that it would take longer to administer the doses.”The commitment that we can make is to make vaccine doses available,” Slaoui said during a press call. “How fast the ramp-up of immunizations, the shots in arms, is happening is slower than we thought it would be.”Public data show that health care workers in the United States have received about 1 million shots so far, a small fraction of the total shipped. U.S. officials said there was a lag in vaccination data of several days, however.Chile’s Santiago international airport is employing sniffer dogs in detecting travelers with COVID-19.A team of golden retrievers and Labradors wear green “biodector” jackets adorned with red crosses.Passengers will be required to wipe their necks and wrists with gauze pads. Once placed in glass containers, the dogs, who have been trained to detect the coronavirus, will give a sniff.Dogs are being used in airports in the United Arab Emirates and Finland. A recent study found dogs can identify individuals who have COVID-19 with 85% to 100% accuracy.Chile’s Carabinero police trained the dogs.
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US to Distribute Additional 100M Doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine
Pfizer-BioNTech said Wednesday they will supply the United States with an additional 100 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine as the country struggles to contain surges in infections.The drug makers said they expect to complete the delivery by the end of July in a nearly $2 billion deal with the federal government.“Securing more doses from Pfizer and BioNTech for delivery in the second quarter of 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. “This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021.”On December 11, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use, clearing the way for the drug makers to supply the government with an initial 100 million doses.The agreement announced Wednesday stipulates the companies will deliver at least 70 million of the additional doses by June 30, with the remaining 30 million doses being delivered by July 31. The government can also purchase up to an additional 400 million doses.The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first of two to be approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration, the other developed by rival Moderna, Inc. The first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine throughout the U.S. began December 13.The U.S. continues to lead the world in COVID-19 deaths, with nearly 323,000, and in infections, with more than 18.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease.Health care workers and nursing home residents have been among the first to be vaccinated. More than 600,000 people in the U.S. received their first doses as of Monday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two shots to be fully effective.
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Biden Introduces Connecticut Educator as his Education Secretary
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden introduced Connecticut education commissioner Miguel Cardona as his education secretary nominee on Wednesday, touting him as a strong advocate of public schools who can lead the agency through struggles to educate students safely during the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
“We can do it if we give school districts, communities and states the clear guidance and resources that aren’t already in their tight budgets,” Biden said Wednesday in Wilmington, Delaware.
Biden said educating students safely “requires someone who understands the need to prevent the pandemic from further exacerbating the inequities in our education system.”
The 45-year-old Cardona, who would be the first Latino to serve as education secretary if confirmed by the Senate, was appointed as Connecticut’s education chief just months before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March.
Cardona embraced remote learning by quickly delivering more than 100,000 laptops to students across the state, but has since increasingly pushed for schools to reopen, saying continued remote learning was harmful to students.
Biden’s choice of Cardona delivers on his commitment to nominate someone with public education experience who contrasts sharply with current Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
Unlike DeVos, a school choice proponent whom Biden maintains is an opponent of public schools, Cardona is a product of them, beginning in kindergarten when he was unable to speak English.
The grandson of immigrants, Cardona was raised in a housing project in Meriden, Connecticut, and was educated in the city’s public schools before returning to work as an elementary school teacher in the district in 1998. He eventually worked his way up to assistant superintendent of the district.
Speaking to reporters, sometimes in Spanish, Cardona said his bicultural upbringing gives him keen insight into how to resolve the nation’s education inequalities.
“I, being bilingual and bicultural, am as American as apple pie and rice and beans,” Cardona said.
“I know how challenging this year has been for students, for educators and for parents. I’ve lived those challenges alongside millions of American families,” Cardona added. “It’s taken some of our most painful longstanding disparities and wrenched them open even wider.”
Cardona said his first priority will be to expand in-person learning nationwide. Biden has vowed to have most U.S. schools reopened within his first 100 days in office.
Biden said his administration will develop new federal guidelines on school opening decisions and launch a “large-scale” effort to identify and share the best methods to teach students during a pandemic.
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Additional 100 Million Doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine to be Distributed in US
Pfizer-BioNTech said Wednesday they will supply the United States with an additional 100 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine as the country struggles to contain surges in infections.The drug makers said they expect to complete the delivery by the end of July in a nearly $2 billion deal with the federal government.“Securing more doses from Pfizer and BioNTech for delivery in the second quarter of 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. “This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021.”On December 11, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use, clearing the way for the drug makers to supply the government with an initial 100 million doses.The agreement announced Wednesday stipulates the companies will deliver at least 70 million of the additional doses by June 30, with the remaining 30 million doses being delivered by July 31. The government can also purchase up to an additional 400 million doses.The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first of two to be approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration, the other developed by rival Moderna, Inc. The first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine throughout the U.S. began December 13.The U.S. continues to lead the world in COVID-19 deaths, with nearly 323,000, and in infections, with more than 18.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease.Health care workers and nursing home residents have been among the first to be vaccinated. More than 600,000 people in the U.S. received their first doses as of Monday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two shots to be fully effective.
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Vaccine Apathy Fuels Yellow Fever Outbreak in Nigeria
More than 170 people have died from yellow fever outbreaks in Nigeria this year, despite vaccines being available since 2004. A preference among some Nigerians for traditional, herbal medicine is part of the problem. But experts say apathy to vaccines in rural areas is the biggest challenge, as Ifiok Ettang reports from Bauchi, Nigeria.Producer: Marcus Harton
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Britain copes with multiple travel bans
Over 40 countries have imposed travel bans on people arriving from Britain, after the government announced last week it had detected a new, more contagious strain of the coronavirus. Plus, Scientists say a second, more serious, wave of COVID-19 in South Africa is being driven, in part, by a new variant of the virus. and One Hong Kong family prepares to say goodbye.
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Britain copes with multiple travel bans
Over 40 countries have imposed travel bans on people arriving from Britain, after the government announced last week it had detected a new, more contagious strain of the coronavirus. Plus, Scientists say a second, more serious, wave of COVID-19 in South Africa is being driven, in part, by a new variant of the virus. and One Hong Kong family prepares to say goodbye.
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Twitter Followers of US Government Accounts Won’t Transfer to Biden
Twitter said Tuesday it would not automatically transfer the millions of followers of official Trump administration accounts to the incoming Biden administration but instead would give users the option to continue or not. The move affects followers of government-led accounts such as @WhiteHouse and @POTUS, which will be transferred to Joe Biden when he takes over the presidency in January. Twitter’s decision won’t affect the personal account @realDonaldTrump, which is frequently used by President Donald Trump and has some 88 million followers. FILE – President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed is photographed on an Apple iPad in New York, June 27, 2019.The official government accounts “will not automatically retain their existing followers. Instead, Twitter will notify followers of these accounts to provide context that the content will be archived and allow them the choice to follow the Biden administration’s new accounts,” a Twitter statement said. “For example, people who follow @WhiteHouse will be notified that the account has been archived as @WhiteHouse45 and given the option to follow the new @WhiteHouse account.” Twitter has been working on the transition for the platform widely used by Trump since the election results were finalized and has indicated that as a private citizen Trump may not have as much leeway in stretching the rules for newsworthy comments. While not as widely followed as Trump’s personal account, @POTUS has some 33 million followers and @WhiteHouse 26 million. The transfer will affect other institutional accounts such as @VP, @FLOTUS, @PressSec, @Cabinet, and @LaCasaBlanca, according to Twitter. Last month, Twitter indicated any special treatment that Trump has enjoyed ends with his presidency. “Twitter’s approach to world leaders, candidates and public officials is based on the principle that people should be able to choose to see what their leaders are saying with clear context,” the San Francisco company said. “This policy framework applies to current world leaders and candidates for office, and not private citizens when they no longer hold these positions.”
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Vaccine Apathy in Nigeria Fuels Yellow Fever Outbreak
More than 170 people have died from yellow fever outbreaks in Nigeria this year, despite vaccines being available since 2004. A preference among some Nigerians for traditional, herbal medicine is part of the problem. But experts said apathy to vaccines in rural areas is the biggest challenge.Nigerian car washer Jonathan Sale caught yellow fever from mosquito bites while in secondary school, 23 years ago, before a vaccine was available to treat the viral disease.“When I had that sickness, my lips turned yellow, and my tongue, my eyeball became yellowish. And I was vomiting yellow, yellow, yellow,” Sale said. “I was thinking I was going to die, and God saved me. I went to the hospital and they gave me drips and some drugs.” Nigeria has had the yellow fever vaccine since 2004 and offers it free for children.But since 2017, outbreaks of yellow fever have left scores dead and many others suffering.Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed, the executive chairman of the Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency, said many parents fail to get their children vaccinated.“We now did a small survey and found out that out of the people we sampled, half had not taken the vaccination,” Rilwanu Mohammed said. “The children sampled were under the age of five, and half had not taken the vaccination.”Traditional medicineWhile apathy among parents is the main challenge to vaccines, some Nigerians also opt for traditional medicine instead, like Ahmadu Mohammad, who claims he was cured from yellow fever by visiting the community traditional healer.Mohammad said that people use with herbal medicine and don’t often go to a hospital. He said the treatment is a syringe placed in fire, and once the needle turns red, the herbal doctor prays on the syringe before piercing it into the chest. He said that is the gift God has given the herbal doctor.Aisha Rufai is an immunologist in the city of Jos. He believes more Nigerians are willing to get the yellow fever vaccine, which lasts a lifetime.“There is great awareness now, almost everybody is aware of immunization now, so that of traditional, you’ll find out that it is a very minute number of people that go for traditional,” Rufai said. The Nigerian federal government plans to carry out a massive yellow fever immunization campaign across five high-risk yellow fever states starting mid-January.
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In Lawsuit, DOJ Accuses Walmart of Fueling Opioid Crisis
Retail giant Walmart Inc. is facing a civil lawsuit from the Department of Justice alleging the company “unlawfully dispensed” controlled substances, including opioids “throughout the height of the prescription opioid crisis.” Walmart has pledged to fight the lawsuit. According to a news release, the DOJ alleges Walmart, which operates over 5,000 pharmacies nationwide, violated the Controlled Substances Act “hundreds of thousands” of times. The DOJ says Walmart “knowingly filled thousands of controlled substance prescriptions that were not issued for legitimate medical purposes or in the usual course of medical practice, and that it filled prescriptions outside the ordinary course of pharmacy practice.” The complaint further alleges that “as the operator of its distribution centers, which ceased distributing controlled substances in 2018, Walmart received hundreds of thousands of suspicious orders that it failed to report as required to by the DEA.” In combination, these failures “helped to fuel the prescription opioid crisis,” according to the DOJ. Penalties could be billions of dollarsIf found liable, Walmart could end up paying billions of dollars in civil penalties, with a maximum of $67,000 per unlawful prescription filled and $15,000 for each suspicious prescription it failed to report. “It has been a priority of this administration to hold accountable those responsible for the prescription opioid crisis. As one of the largest pharmacy chains and wholesale drug distributors in the country, Walmart had the responsibility and the means to help prevent the diversion of prescription opioids,” said Jeffrey Bossert Clark, acting assistant attorney general of the Civil Division, in a news release. “Instead, for years, it did the opposite — filling thousands of invalid prescriptions at its pharmacies and failing to report suspicious orders of opioids and other drugs placed by those pharmacies,” Clark said. “This unlawful conduct contributed to the epidemic of opioid abuse throughout the United States. Today’s filing represents an important step in the effort to hold Walmart accountable for such conduct.” In a statement, Walmart said the lawsuit “is riddled with factual inaccuracies and cherry-picked documents taken out of context” and that the DOJ is attempting “to shift blame from DEA’s well-documented failures in keeping bad doctors from prescribing opioids in the first place.” According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 2018 an average of 128 people in the U.S. died daily from opioid overdose. The cost of the crisis was estimated to be $78.5 billion per year.
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Mega Coronavirus and Government Spending Bill Tackles Climate Change
Major climate and clean energy measures are tucked inside the package of $1.4 trillion in annual spending to fund the government and $900 billion to provide COVID-19 relief approved by Congress late Monday. It’s a rare bit of bipartisan agreement on an issue that has been mostly stalled in Congress while global temperatures rise and climate change-driven disasters pile up. Environmental groups said the initiative is a start, but much more needs to be done. FILE – A worker installs solar panels on a roof at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles, California, Aug. 8, 2019.The measure provides short-term tax breaks for solar and wind power and for technology to remove planet-warming carbon dioxide from power plant and industrial emissions, known as carbon capture and sequestration. It phases down the use of extremely powerful greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in cooling systems. Clean-energy research and development get a funding boost as well. In all there is roughly $35 billion of new funding for renewable technology and energy efficiency in the legislation, according to advocate groups. “Over the last few years, we found a great deal of cynicism that a bill like this could actually get done,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce senior vice president of policy Marty Durbin said in a statement. “But passage of this bill will prove that there is common ground on which all sides of the debate can come together.” Durbin described the bill as “truly historic — setting up the biggest action Congress has ever taken to address climate change, and the first energy bill in 13 years.” Greenpeace USA Democracy Campaign Director Folabi Olagbaju called it “a step in the right direction but simply not good enough to meet the magnitude of the moment.” Bruce McDougal prepares to defend his home as the Bond Fire burns though the Silverado community in Orange County, California, Dec. 3, 2020.2020 is on track to be the warmest or second-warmest year on record. Scientists say dramatic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions need to happen worldwide, and soon, to avoid catastrophic global warming. Congress has done little to address the problem since 2010, when a bill aiming to charge polluters for emissions failed in the Senate. The new spending bill extends an existing tax credit that benefits solar power by two years. It extends a tax credit for land-based wind power by one year and creates a new credit for offshore wind. A credit for carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that is only deployed on commercial scale at a handful of facilities, gets a two-year extension. The hydrofluorcarbon chemical phase-down brings the United States in line with a United Nations treaty signed by 197 other countries. Business groups supported it, but the measure faced opposition from a few key Republicans concerned about stricter state and local measures creating a patchwork of regulations. The new measure bars them from regulating HFCs for five years. The wide-ranging spending bill includes a potluck of other measures environmentalists back, including programs to reduce diesel pollution, transition to electric school buses and weatherize low-income homes. It also reverses Trump administration cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and climate change programs at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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Senegalese Women Equip Remote Clinics with Solar Power
An organization run by women in Senegal, ElleSolaire, was supplying solar panels to light up country homes that are off the power grid. But with the outbreak of the coronavirus, and health care stretched, ElleSolaire has switched to providing the panels to underequipped, remote health clinics, where women are often forced to give birth in the dark. Senegalese women adorned in colorful wax fabric clothes laugh and dance around in the village of Tiamene Diogo. They are celebrating because the local clinic that provides prenatal care will soon have electric lights and fans. Head nurse Issaka Dia says with more than 2,500 people from six villages, there are about eight births each month, many of which he attends to at night using only the light from his mobile phone. He says he’s so happy. He feels like they can now work day and night, even in the heat. The remote region in western Senegal is off the electric grid, so the clinic will be powered by the sun. Since 2018, the woman-run ElleSolaire has been installing solar power in rural households. With the coronavirus pandemic stretching health care, the company began equipping remote clinics. Kelly Lavelle is the founder and executive director. “We’ve been just amazed at the reception,” said Lavelle. “The reception we’ve seen today is a point in case. It’s sad in a way that we’ve had to wait for COVID to hit for us to stop and think about the health clinics. But I’m really pleased that we’ve managed to pivot this into an opportunity.” The organization also provides new skills for women like Jeanne Thiaw, ElleSolaire’s women’s coordinator. She used to scrape by with child care and cleaning jobs. She says that although she could pay the rent before, she could not feed her family because she didn’t have the means. Since the onset of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, Thiaw and her co-workers have installed solar-powered lights, fans, and mobile phone chargers at 23 remote clinics. More than one million Senegalese lack access to power, according to USAID, and the World Health Organization says rates of maternal mortality are high. Oumar Samb is a project evaluator with Senegal’s Ministry of Women, Family and Child Protection. He says when women arrive to give birth in the night or in the day and all the machines are down, it’s obviously a danger for the woman in labor and for the newborn. Access to solar energy for these rural women can be lifesaving, he says. And that, say the women, is progress worth celebrating.
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South Africa Identifies New, Virulent Strain of COVID-19
South African scientists say new variant of COVID-19 virus is causing resurgence of cases
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US Considers Requiring Travelers from Britain to Prove They Tested Negative for COVID-19
U.S. officials are considering a requirement for all travelers from Britain to offer proof they have tested negative for COVID-19.News outlets say the White House coronavirus task force met Monday and discussed crafting a rule that passengers prove they have taken a negative test within 48 or 72 hours before leaving Britain.The proposed rule comes as more than 40 countries have suspended travelers from Britain in response to a dramatic rise of infections because of a new strain of COVID-19 sweeping across southern Britain.Britain Blockaded: Dozens of Countries Impose Travel Ban Over Coronavirus Mutation France bans all passenger and accompanied freight from Britain, raising fears of supply shortages ahead of Brexit The U.S. has not restricted flights from Britain, however, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he has asked airlines flying into the state from Britain to make all passengers take a COVID-19 test before they get on the plane. Three airlines, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and Delta Airlines, have agreed to Gov. Cuomo’s request.In the western U.S., Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state Monday ordered a 14-day quarantine for all travelers entering the state from Britain and South Africa, where a similar mutation of COVID-19 has been identified.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday it is possible the new variant of the novel coronavirus is already in the United States.The head of German-based pharmaceutical company BioNTech says the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with U.S.-based counterpart Pfizer is “highly likely” to work against the new strain. But Ugur Sahin told reporters in Berlin if necessary, the vaccine could be modified and distributed within six weeks. The European Union authorized use of the Pfizer-BioNTech cross the 27-nation bloc vaccine on Monday, with the first inoculations to begin on December 27. Hans Kluge, the European chief of the World Health Organization, says the agency will convene a meeting of members to discuss strategies to counter the new COVID-19 variant, but did not give a date. WHO cautioned Monday against raising a major alarm over the new strain, saying there is no evidence it is more lethal than any known existing strains, and that such mutations are a normal part of a pandemic’s evolution. Meanwhile, the world’s longest streak without a local coronavirus infection has been broken. Taiwanese health authorities say a woman in her thirties has tested positive after coming into contact earlier this month with a New Zealand-born pilot who was infected while traveling overseas. The woman is Taiwan’s first locally transmitted COVID-19 case since April 12 — a stretch of 253 days. Taiwan has been pointed to as a success story in how to respond to the pandemic, with just 766 total cases and just seven deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The island began checking on passengers on flights from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pandemic began, in the early days of the outbreak for fever and pneumonia symptoms. And Antarctica has lost its designation as the last continent on Earth without a COVID-19 infection. At least 36 people stationed at a Chilean research base in the icy continent recently tested positive for the novel coronavirus, including 26 members of the Chilean army and 10 civilian contractors. The Vatican says it is “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive vaccines developed using tissue from aborted fetuses. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church’s doctrinal oversight office, issued a statement Monday granting permission for Catholics to take such vaccines because it does not “constitute formal cooperation” with the means in which the tissue was obtained. The office also said it is not always possible to obtain vaccines that do not pose an ethical dilemma.
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Biden Receives COVID-19 Vaccination
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden received a COVID-19 vaccination on live television Monday to convince Americans that the inoculation is safe. “I’m ready,” Biden told a nurse at a hospital in Newark, Delaware, before being injected Monday with a vaccine developed by drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech. “I’m doing this to demonstrate that people should be prepared when it’s available to take the vaccine. There’s nothing to worry about,” he said. His wife, Jill Biden, was administered a dose of the vaccine hours earlier at the same hospital, which is near the couple’s Delaware home. Other U.S. leaders received their vaccinations last week, including Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. U.S. President Donald Trump, who was hospitalized with the coronavirus in October, has not said when he intends to get the vaccination. Monday also brought the arrival of a vaccine produced by Moderna to sites across the country. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave the Moderna vaccine emergency use authorization Friday. The development significantly boosts U.S. vaccination efforts, with the Moderna vaccine joining the Pfizer-BioNTech one that was approved earlier this month. The priority for the mass vaccination campaign is front-line health workers and those in nursing homes, addressing some of the most vulnerable populations before expanding to others. A federal advisory board said Sunday the next group should be people older than age 75, as well as those working in essential fields such as firefighters, teachers and grocery store employees. The United States has seen a surge in infections during the past two months, and in the past week has added an average of more than 215,000 new cases each day. The U.S. leads the world with more than 318,000 COVID-19 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the global outbreak.
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WHO Says No Evidence Coronavirus Variant is Deadlier, More Severe
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is studying variants of the coronavirus found in Britain and South Africa, adding there is no evidence they are deadlier or more severe than any more common strains, and the best thing people can do is work to suppress transmission.During the agency’s regular briefing at its Geneva headquarters, officials said they continue to receive data about the variants and there are reports from Britain the new strain there can be transmitted more easily.WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters they are working with scientists to understand how these genetic changes affect the way the virus behaves. He stressed this is nothing new, saying, “Viruses mutate over time; that’s natural and expected.”Tedros said suppressing the spread of the virus as quickly as possible can help the most.“The more we allow it to spread, the more opportunity it has to change,” he said, adding that all governments and citizens should take all necessary precautions to limit transmission.WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove attends a news conference at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, July 3, 2020.WHO technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove was quick to add there is no link between the variant in South Africa and the one in Britain and that they are different. She said they have just shown up at the same time.What has not changed, Van Kerkhove said, is the method by which the virus spreads, and social distancing is still the best way to avoid it.“The virus spreads between people who are in close contact with another,” she said. “That’s still the same. There are detailed investigations that are under way, and we will let you know if anything in that space changes. But the virus likes people who are in close contact with one another.”Meanwhile, Michael Ryan, the WHO’s health emergencies program executive director, said that at this stage, there’s no evidence that “this virus will change the severity, the diagnostics or the value of vaccines going forward.”
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