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  • Nobel Prize season arrives amid war, nuclear fears, hunger

    Nobel Prize season arrives amid war, nuclear fears, hunger

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    This year’s Nobel Prize season approaches as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shattered decades of almost uninterrupted peace in Europe and raised the risks of a nuclear disaster.

    The secretive Nobel committees never hint who will win the prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, economics or peace. It’s anyone’s guess who might win the awards being announced starting Monday.

    Yet there’s no lack of urgent causes deserving the attention that comes with winning the world’s most prestigious prize: Wars in Ukraine and Ethiopia, disruptions to supplies of energy and food, rising inequality, the climate crisis, the ongoing fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The science prizes reward complex achievements beyond the understanding of most. But the recipients of the prizes in peace and literature are often known by a global audience and the choices — or perceived omissions — have sometimes stirred emotional reactions.

    Members of the European Parliament have called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine to be recognized this year by the Nobel Peace Prize committee for their resistance to the Russian invasion.

    While that desire is understandable, that choice is unlikely because the Nobel committee has a history of honoring figures who end conflicts, not wartime leaders, said Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

    Smith believes more likely peace prize candidates would be groups or individuals fighting climate change or the International Atomic Energy Agency, a past recipient.

    Honoring the IAEA again would recognize its efforts to prevent a radioactive catastrophe at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia atomic power plant at the heart of fighting in Ukraine, and its work in fighting nuclear proliferation, Smith said.

    “This is really difficult period in world history and there is not a lot of peace being made,” he said.

    Promoting peace isn’t always rewarded with a Nobel. India’s Mohandas Gandhi, a prominent symbol of non-violence in the 20th century, was never so honored.

    But former President Barack Obama was in 2009, sparking criticism from those who said he had not been president long enough to have an impact worthy of the Nobel.

    In some cases, the winners have not lived out the values enshrined in the peace prize.

    Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won in 2019 for making peace with neighboring Eritrea. A year later a largely ethnic conflict erupted in the country’s Tigray region. Some accuse Abiy of stoking the tensions, which have resulted in widespread atrocities. Critics have called for his Nobel to be revoked.

    The Myanmar activist Aung San Suu Kyi won the peace prize in 1991 while being under house arrest for her opposition to military rule. Decades later, she was seen as failing in a leadership role to stop atrocities committed by the military against the country’s mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.

    The Nobel committee has sometimes not awarded a peace prize at all. It paused them during World War I, except to honor the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1917. It didn’t hand out any from 1939 to 1943 due to World War II. In 1948, the year Gandhi died, the Norwegian Nobel Committee made no award, citing a lack of a suitable living candidate.

    The peace prize also does not always confer protection.

    Last year journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia were awarded “for their courageous fight for freedom of expression” in the face of authoritarian governments.

    Following the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has cracked down even harder on independent media, including Muratov’s Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s most renowned independent newspaper. Muratov himself was attacked on a Russian train by an assailant who poured red paint over him, injuring his eyes.

    The Philippines government this year ordered the shutdown of Ressa’s news organization, Rappler.

    The literature prize, meanwhile, has been notoriously unpredictable.

    Few had bet on last year’s winner, Zanzibar-born, U.K.-based writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose books explore the personal and societal impacts of colonialism and migration.

    Gurnah was only the sixth Nobel literature laureate born in Africa, and the prize has long faced criticism that it is too focused on European and North American writers. It is also male-dominated, with just 16 women among its 118 laureates.

    The list of possible winners includes literary giants from around the world: Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Japan’s Haruki Murakami, Norway’s Jon Fosse, Antigua-born Jamaica Kincaid and France’s Annie Ernaux.

    A clear contender is Salman Rushdie, the India-born writer and free-speech advocate who spent years in hiding after Iran’s clerical rulers called for his death over his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses.” Rushdie, 75, was stabbed and seriously injured at a festival in New York state on Aug. 12.

    The prizes to Gurnah in 2021 and U.S. poet Louise Glück in 2020 have helped the literature prize move on from years of controversy and scandal.

    In 2018, the award was postponed after sex abuse allegations rocked the Swedish Academy, which names the Nobel literature committee, and sparked an exodus of members. The academy revamped itself but faced more criticism for giving the 2019 literature award to Austria’s Peter Handke, who has been called an apologist for Serbian war crimes.

    Some scientists hope the award for physiology or medicine honors colleagues instrumental in the development of the mRNA technology that went into COVID-19 vaccines, which saved millions of lives across the world.

    “When we think of Nobel prizes, we think of things that are paradigm shifting, and in a way I see mRNA vaccines and their success with COVID-19 as a turning point for us,” said Deborah Fuller, a microbiology professor at the University of Washington.

    The Nobel Prize announcements this year kick off Monday with the prize in physiology or medicine, followed by physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and probably, though the date has not been confirmed, literature on Thursday. The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Oct. 7 and the economics award on Oct. 10.

    The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor ($880,000) and will be handed out on Dec. 10.

    ———

    Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, Jill Lawless in London and Laura Ungar in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed.

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  • White House Announces $8 Billion to Combat Hunger in the U.S.

    White House Announces $8 Billion to Combat Hunger in the U.S.

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    Sept. 29, 2022 — The Biden administration has announced $8 billion in public and private commitments toward fighting hunger and improving nutrition in the United States.

    “This goal is within our reach,” President Biden said Wednesday during the first White House summit on hunger in 50 years. “In America, no child should go to bed hungry. No parent should die of disease that can be prevented.”

    The White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health comes as food costs are rising, supply chain issues remain from the pandemic, and food-related ailments continue. The administration announced a “bold goal” of ending hunger by 2030 and increasing healthy eating and physical activity.

    Among the key proposals:

    • Expand free school meals to 9 million more children by 2032
    • Allow more people to get food stamps
    • Help with transportation for people who don’t live near grocery stores and farmers markets
    • Increase money for nutrition programs helping seniors
    • Reduce food waste, since a third of all food in the United States goes to waste, the White House says.

    Many of the efforts need congressional approval. Biden can take some action through executive order.

    The Washington Post reported, “The pervasiveness of diet-related diseases creates broader problems for the country, White House officials said, hampering military readiness, workforce productivity, academic achievement and mental health.”

    The newspaper also reported that the U. S. Department of Agriculture says that 10.2% of U.S. households were “food insecure” in 2021. That means they didn’t have enough food to meet everyone’s needs.

    CNN said that more than 100 organizations have committed to help pay for Biden’s initiatives, including hospitals, health care associations, tech companies, philanthropies, and the food industry. 

    At least $2.5 billion will go to start-up companies focused on finding solutions to hunger and food insecurity, according to the White House. 

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  • Millions of Americans will save on Medicare fees next year

    Millions of Americans will save on Medicare fees next year

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time in a decade, Americans will pay less next year on monthly premiums for Medicare’s Part B plan, which covers routine doctors’ visits and other outpatient care.

    The rare 3% decrease in monthly premiums is likely to be coupled with a historically high cost-of-living increase in Social Security benefits — perhaps 9% or 10% — putting hundreds of dollars directly into the pockets of millions of people.

    “That’s something we may never see again in the rest of our lives,” said Mary Johnson, the Social Security and Medicare policy analyst for The Senior Citizens League. “That can really be used to pay off credit cards, to restock pantries that have gotten low because people can’t afford to buy as much today as they did a year ago and do some long-postponed repairs to homes and cars.”

    The 2023 decrease in monthly Medicare premiums comes after millions of beneficiaries endured a tough year of high inflation and a dramatic increase to premiums this year. Most people on Medicare will pay $164.90 a month for Part B coverage starting next year, a savings of $5.20.

    The decrease helps to offset last year’s $21.60 spike, which was driven in large part by a new Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm, administered intravenously in doctors’ offices and introduced to the market last year with a $56,000 price tag. Medicare set strict limitations on the drug’s use earlier this year and the drugmaker has since cut the medication’s cost in half.

    Medicare paid less for that drug than it expected this year, helping shore up reserves that allowed the agency to set the Part B premiums lower for 2023, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare said in a statement Tuesday. Spending on other Medicare services and items was lower than expected, too. The annual deductible for the Part B program will also decrease $7 to $226.

    President Joe Biden lauded the lower Medicare premiums during a Rose Garden speech Tuesday.

    As the midterm elections near and Biden’s administration struggles to contain the painful side effects of inflation, the White House has increasingly trumpeted its work around curtailing health care costs.

    “(To) millions of seniors and people with disabilities on Medicare, that means more money in their pockets while still getting the care they need,” Biden said.

    Biden pointed to more cost savings on the way for some Medicare recipients starting next year thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, which will require Medicare to cover the cost of recommended vaccines for older Americans and will cap monthly insulin copayments at $35 per month. Other provisions in the legislation, including a rule that allows Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies on the price of some medications, will take a few years to kick in.

    The bill received no support from congressional Republicans, a talking point the White House has frequently pushed in speeches and across its social media accounts in recent weeks.

    Republicans have a different slant on the subject.

    “Desperation is setting in at the White House,” the Republican National Committee said in response to Biden’s speech Tuesday. “Voters have a clear choice in the midterms as they know Biden and the Democrats sent costs for groceries soaring, created a recession and increased taxes.”

    The lower Medicare premiums were announced as 66 million Americans await the announcement of next year’s Social Security cost-of-living increase for 2023. Analysts estimate that it could be historic, roughly between 9% and 10%. The exact amount will be announced next month.

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  • DEA: Fake pills containing fentanyl helping drive OD deaths

    DEA: Fake pills containing fentanyl helping drive OD deaths

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — An increasing number of fake prescription pills that contain potentially deadly fentanyl are helping drive overdose death rates to record levels in the U.S., including some now manufactured in rainbow colors designed to look like candy, federal officials said Tuesday.

    Drug Enforcement Administration agents are working to crack down on violent drug cartels in Mexico believed to be trafficking the drugs into the U.S., Attorney General Merrick Garland said. Between May and September, the DEA and local police around the country seized more than 10 million fentanyl pills and hundreds of pounds of powder, he said.

    Vastly powerful synthetic drugs like fentanyl are behind record overdose deaths in the U.S. Law enforcement officials nationwide have been struggling to combat the surge of drugs in urban and rural communities. The global coronavirus pandemic has overshadowed the American opioid epidemic, but when overdose deaths surpassed 100,000 during the 12-month period ending in April 2021, it rocketed back into the public consciousness.

    “I read too many reports on too many cases, including too many young people who ended up dying after taking just one pill laced with fentanyl, often disguised as something else,” Garland said.

    First reported in February, the rainbow pills have been seized in 21 states now, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said. While fentanyl is still more commonly disguised as oxycodone or another prescription drug, the rainbow pills are on the increase.

    “We believe it is being marketed and aimed at young people,” Milgram said.

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also sounded the alarm this weekend about the rise of the drug in New York City and Long Island as he pushed for new funding to fight its spread.

    Two Mexican drug cartels are responsible for the majority of fentanyl in the U.S., federal authorities said. The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel buy precursor chemicals from China, then traffic them into the U.S., where they are sometimes sold on social media platforms.

    Over the last four months, authorities have investigated nearly 400 cases, 51 of them linked to overdoses and 35 tied directly to the two cartels. In addition to being pressed into fake pills, fentanyl powder is also moved into other drugs like cocaine and heroin, Milgram said.

    “Our top operational priority has been and will continue to be to defeat these two cartels,” she said.

    Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that can be 50 times more potent than heroin, and even a tiny amount can be lethal. Fake prescription pills are especially dangerous because it’s difficult to tell how strong they are.

    About two-thirds of overdose deaths in the U.S. have been linked to fentanyl or other powerful, illicitly made synthetic opioids.

    Jonathan Caulkins, a professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, said containing synthetics with law enforcement is a challenge because the drug can be made in labs anywhere rather than grown in fields like cocaine or heroin — and because it is so potent and is trafficked in smaller amounts.

    “How the heck is law enforcement supposed to find a few metric tons in an economy that trades megatons of raw materials?” Caulkins asked.

    Caulkins said the best ways to deal with the fentanyl crisis is to put money toward treatment and increasing the availability of naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses — but added that using arrests to reduce the supply may be worth trying.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

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  • Progressive Democrats frustrated with 2022 primary losses

    Progressive Democrats frustrated with 2022 primary losses

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    NEW YORK (AP) — With less than two months until the midterm elections, progressive Democrats are facing a test of their power.

    Their party is heading into the final stretch of the campaign with a robust set of legislative accomplishments that include long-term progressive priorities on issues ranging from prescription drug prices to climate change. But the left has also faced a series of disappointments as Democratic voters from Ohio to Illinois to Texas rejected high-profile progressive challengers to moderates or incumbent members of Congress during the primary season.

    The frustration is particularly acute in New York, where Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated one of the highest-ranking congressional Democrats four years ago, injecting fresh energy among the party’s most liberal voters. This year, however, New York City Democrats chose Dan Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who is more of a centrist, over several progressive rivals, including freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones. About 30 miles north in the Hudson River Valley, a powerful establishment candidate, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, defeated a state lawmaker running to his left and backed by Ocasio-Cortez.

    Those setbacks have raised fresh questions about the progressive movement’s standing among Democrats. Progressive leaders urge against reading too much into those losses, particularly in New York, where repeated elections this summer after a redistricting battle left some voters disoriented or disengaged.

    “New York was just a mess,” said Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “It was like the timing of the redistricting maps. I mean, that’s not a situation that’s going to get repeated a lot.”

    Progressives have notched notable victories this year. In Oregon, Jamie McLeod-Skinner ousted moderate Rep. Kurt Schrader. Activist Maxwell Alejandro Frost topped a crowded field of Democrats in Florida and is poised to become the youngest member of Congress. And labor organizer Summer Lee edged out an establishment-backed candidate in Pennsylvania.

    But those wins risk becoming the exception rather than the rule as moderates have repeatedly asserted their strength in recent years. President Joe Biden won his party’s nomination in 2020 after overcoming challenges from more liberal contenders including Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

    In New York City, Eric Adams defeated several rivals from the left for the party’s mayoral nomination last year with an explicit critique of progressives, including Ocasio-Cortez. And New York Gov. Kathy Hochul easily dispatched a more liberal rival during this summer’s primary.

    “Progressive” has long been a squishy label for Democrats. It generally refers to the party’s left flank but has been embraced by rank-and-file liberals as well as those much further left on the spectrum, including self-described democratic socialists like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders.

    The term “progressive” was even the subject of the first 2016 Democratic presidential debate between Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with Sanders suggesting Clinton was not sufficiently progressive and Clinton disputing that and calling him the “self-proclaimed gatekeeper for progressivism.”

    Some candidates championed by progressives have grappled with the label this year.

    “No, I’m just a Democrat,” left-leaning Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman said in a May interview with NBC when he was asked if he is a progressive. He said his positions were considered progressive six years ago but “now there isn’t a single Democrat in this race or any race that I’m aware of that’s running on anything different. So that’s not really progressive. That’s just where the party is.”

    Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who won a Democratic congressional primary in May and was endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told Politico that she’d been labeled a progressive but knows most of the Democratic voters in the Dallas-area seat where she’s running identify as moderates or conservatives.

    Crockett said that means she won’t align with members of the further-left subset of progressives in the House known as the “Squad,” which includes Ocasio-Cortez and has been known for challenging the party’s establishment.

    “I’ve got to be very cognizant. Honestly, I love so many members of the ‘Squad’ and I think that they do right by their districts,” Crockett said. “I think in my district, while they don’t self-identify as progressive, they love a lot of the things that I stand for.”

    New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the chair of the House Democratic caucus and a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said “there’s a difference between the socialist machine and mainstream progressives.”

    Jeffries, speaking to reporters in a roundtable interview a few days before New York’s August primaries, said Democrats whose legislative records are “deeply progressive” still face criticism from “online virtue signalers” because they are not further left.

    “There are some forces on the left that want to define ‘progressive’ as ‘You bend the knee and we tell you what to do, and if you fail to fall in line, you’re a machine Democrat or a corporate sellout.’ That’s a joke,” he said.

    Jeffries said the left had some success taking out more traditional Democrats in 2018 and 2020 as Democratic frustrations with President Donald Trump translated into energy for insurgent campaigns. But Jeffries said that once Biden won the White House and his Democratic-controlled Congress began passing legislation, Democratic voters were no longer looking for insurgency.

    “At a certain point in time, voters want results, particularly when Democrats have been entrusted with majorities,” he said. “And that is what we have been delivering.”

    Bill Neidhardt, a progressive Democratic strategist who worked for liberal former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, said that while there have been noted losses in recent contests, the Democratic Party’s left flank has seen bright spots.

    “It’s not a perfect record, but it never is in elections. I would challenge anyone to show me one of those,” Neidhardt said.

    Neidhardt said progressives in Congress can point to growing political power, such as Biden’s recent student loan debt forgiveness plan or Democrats’ new law, the Inflation Reduction Act, tackling climate change and capping prescription drug costs.

    “That’s got the progressives’ fingerprints all over it,” he said.

    Though Fetterman has shrugged off the progressive label, Neidhardt said the Pennsylvanian opposing Republican Mehmet Oz might help progressives see one of their biggest coups yet. Fetterman and Wisconsin Senate candidate Mandela Barnes are running in two hotly contested U.S. Senate seats that Democrats hope to flip while hanging onto their thin majority in that chamber.

    “Who’s going to defeat Ron Johnson? Who’s going to defeat Dr. Oz? It’s going to be progressives,” he said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Kansas race tests which matters more: Economy or abortion?

    Kansas race tests which matters more: Economy or abortion?

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    KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Republicans redrew Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids ′ suburban Kansas City, Kansas-area district this year to make a third term harder for her to win, adding rural areas where former President Donald Trump did well and removing urban areas that Davids had carried handily.

    But the dynamic changed in June, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Kansas voters responded in August by overwhelmingly rejecting a ballot measure expected to lead to more restrictions or a ban on abortion.

    The magnitude of that vote has left Davids and other Democrats optimistic. That’s why she is spending the final stretch of the campaign focused on abortion, attempting to keep the same abortion-rights supporters who turned out to vote in August energized to do so again in November.

    It’s a delicate task, asking voters who may fault Democrats for rising housing and grocery prices to nonetheless support Davids for Congress.

    “I think this has more to do with control and limiting people’s rights,” said swing voter Tanner Klingzell, a 42-year-old from the suburb of Prairie Village who says he is fiscally conservative but socially progressive. He supports abortion rights and says, “I just don’t feel comfortable voting for Republicans.”

    The Supreme Court’s abortion ruling has rewritten the script in districts around the country, and both Davids and Republican challenger Amanda Adkins must win over independents and GOP moderates to win the one swing congressional district in an otherwise red state.

    Davids became the first lesbian Native American in Congress when she rode suburban anti-Trump sentiment to office in the 2018 election. Her background as a mixed martial arts fighter drew national interest, and Republicans initially tried to group her with “The Squad” of new liberal House members. Those efforts fell flat as she focused on such non-divisive issues as road projects, prescription drug prices and high-speed internet for rural areas.

    Adkins, a former corporate executive and Kansas GOP chair, is hitting Davids hard on pocketbook issues, a tactic Republicans nationally expect to carry them back to a House majority. She’s also started highlighting crime and border security. She held a news conference on those issues Monday, days after House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy released Republicans’ “Commitment to America” agenda, which promises to fight inflation but also to “protect the lives of unborn children.”

    The two have faced off before. Davids defeated Adkins in 2020 by 10 percentage points, but that was before redistricting after the 2020 census. While Democrat Joe Biden would have prevailed in the new district in 2020, his margin would have been roughly half the 10 percentage points he racked up in the old district — and that’s likely true for Davids as well. If Adkins’ percentage of the vote in the suburbs is a few points higher this year than in 2020, she can win.

    In suburban Overland Park, Andrea Calvo, a 33-year-old freight-company accounts manager, is hoping Republicans emerge a little stronger from the November election because, in her view, “they have proven to be able to handle the economy better.”

    While Calvo, a Republican, doesn’t see herself as a moderate, she voted in August against the proposed anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution. She sees Adkins’ support for it as “definitely a problem.” But it’s not a deal-breaker.

    “It’s all about the economy at the end of the day for me,” she said.

    The two campaigns, the parties and political groups are now on track to spend about $8 million on television ads.

    Davids’ ads attack Adkins for her long association with former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, whose nationally notorious 2012-13 experiment in cutting taxes was followed by huge, persistent state budget shortfalls. Davids on Saturday launched an ad attacking Adkins on abortion that follows up on multiple Kansas Democratic Party mailings, including to Republicans.

    Davids and her backers are painting Adkins as an extremist for supporting the proposed amendment that voters rejected in August. It would have removed protections for abortion from the state Constitution, which would have allowed the state Legislature, dominated by abortion opponents, to greatly restrict or ban abortion.

    Davids’ strong, public opposition to the Kansas anti-abortion measure contrasts with three decades of Democratic candidates soft-pedaling their support for abortion rights in most areas of the state. Abortion has been a dominant issue in Kansas politics since the 1991 anti-abortion “Summer of Mercy” protests outside Dr. George Tiller’s clinic in Wichita. Tiller was among the few doctors known to perform abortions late in pregnancy and was shot to death in 2009 by an anti-abortion zealot. Anti-abortion groups have been powerful forces in state politics.

    Even with the 3rd District’s new, more Republican leanings, 67.5% of its voters opposed the Kansas anti-abortion measure in the August abortion referendum.

    “They were very engaged and sent a strong message about us not wanting to have politicians making our decisions for us,” Davids said.

    Adkins describes herself as a Catholic who has “always been pro-life” and “100% committed to protecting life at every stage.” But Adkins said she respects the August vote and opposes federal laws on abortion, saying the issue should be decided at the state level.

    “It should not be a federal issue, and Sharice Davids still is focusing on it as a federal issue,” Adkins said after a recent suburban meet-and-greet. Davids voted last year for a Democratic measure to guarantee abortion rights across the U.S. and override state restrictions.

    Adkins has not been specific about how far she thinks abortion law should go in Kansas, which bans most abortions at the 22nd week, but said Monday that she would favor any new, incremental state measures that would reduce the number of abortions.

    In the new, rural parts of the 3rd District, Democrats say the abortion ruling means volunteers are energized. But Republican state Rep. Samantha Poetter Parshall said that Davids is an “extremely hard sell,” especially with conservative farmers. Even Democrats tend to take more conservative positions on issues such as gun rights, she said.

    “Also, taxes — people are extremely upset with how high their taxes are right now,” she said.

    But about 85% of the district’s voters still live in the suburbs, where centrist and conservative Republicans have feuded for decades, and voters have been electing more Democrats in recent years.

    Former U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, the four-term GOP incumbent ousted by Davids in 2018, praised Adkins as a candidate, but he pointed to the dominance of those suburbs in the district as the reason the race remains challenging for the GOP.

    “It’s still a Biden district,” he said.

    _____

    Hollingsworth reported from multiple cities in Johnson County, Kansas.

    ___

    Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

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  • EPA preparing plan to help fix Jackson’s water system

    EPA preparing plan to help fix Jackson’s water system

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    JACKSON, Miss (AP) — The federal government wants to work with officials in Mississippi’s capital city to reach a legal agreement that ensures Jackson can sustain its water system in the future, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan said Monday.

    Federal attorneys also sent a letter to city officials Monday threatening legal action against the city if it does not agree to negotiations related to its water system.

    Regan returned to Mississippi’s capital city Monday to meet with Jackson officials about the city’s troubled water system. At the meeting with Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and U.S. Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim, Regan said the federal government would work with the city to “deliver long overdue relief for Jackson residents.”

    “The people of Jackson, Mississippi, have lacked access to safe and reliable water for decades. After years of neglect, Jackson’s water system finally reached a breaking point this summer, leaving tens of thousands of people without any running water for weeks,” Regan said. “These conditions are unacceptable in the United States of America.”

    In a Monday letter sent to city officials and obtained by the news station WLBT-TV, Kim and attorneys for DOJ’s Environmental Enforcement Section said they were “prepared to file an action” against the city under the Safe Drinking Water Act, but hoped the matter could be resolved through an “enforceable agreement.” The letter said that state and local officials “had not acted to protect public health.”

    Regan said in a separate statement that he wants to work with the city to reach a “judicially enforceable agreement,” which would avoid a legal dispute. A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to specify what such an agreement could entail. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how the federal government might protect public health in Jackson and address “longstanding environmental justice issues” facing the city, the spokesperson told The Associated Press.

    In a news release, Lumumba’s office said city officials discussed “plans of the federal agencies to immediately engage in negotiations” with Jackson’s leadership to address its water system needs.

    Most of Jackson’s 150,000 residents lost running water for several days in late August and early September after heavy rainfall exacerbated problems in the city’s main treatment plant. The EPA had already issued a notice in January that Jackson’s system violates the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Lumumba said coordination with the federal government represents the best path forward for the city to fix its water system.

    “We believe that it is imperative that we enter into agreements with a team that is solely and sincerely focused on an objective of ensuring safe and reliable drinking water to the residents of Jackson,” Lumumba said in the news release.

    On Sept. 15, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and the state health department told people in Jackson that they no longer had to boil water before drinking it or using it to brush their teeth. But disruptions to clean water in parts of the city continued.

    Lumumba’s office announced new boil-water notices Monday affecting approximately 1,000 water connections in the city. A city spokesperson said a contractor inadvertently severed a water line. This came after multiple major water leaks occurred the previous weekend. Several areas were placed under a precautionary boil-water notice, including the neighborhood home to Millsaps College. The college has asked for donations to help build its own water source.

    The EPA said 300 boil water notices have been issued over the past two years in the city, most of which came before the most recent drinking water crisis. “It’s clear this community has suffered long enough,” Regan said.

    In early September, Regan came to Jackson to meet with residents and elected officials about the water problems. He said the city needs to receive “its fair share” of federal money to repair the system.

    A stopgap funding package Congress is set to consider this week includes disaster assistance for Jackson, a person familiar with the legislation said Monday.

    Before the latest water crisis, Jackson had already been under a boil-water notice since late July because of cloudy water that could make people ill. Tests by the state health department in 2015 found higher-than-acceptable lead levels in some water samples.

    An independent watchdog in the Environmental Protection Agency said in September it was being brought in to investigate Jackson’s troubled water system.

    In September, four Jackson residents filed a class-action lawsuit in federal district court against the city, Lumumba and his immediate predecessor, three former public works directors, an engineering firm and a business that had a city contract to replace water meters. The lawsuit seeks to force Jackson to make specific fixes, including the removal or repair of pipes and equipment contaminated with lead.

    Regan said the EPA has a responsibility to protect the health of Jackson residents.

    “The people of Jackson, like all people in this country, deserve access to clean and safe water,” Regan said. “They also deserve more than words – they need action.”

    ___

    Associated Press Writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report. Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/mikergoldberg.

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  • After rocky start, hopes up in Oregon drug decriminalization

    After rocky start, hopes up in Oregon drug decriminalization

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    SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Two years after Oregon residents voted to decriminalize hard drugs and dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars to treatment, few people have requested the services and the state has been slow to channel the funds.

    When voters passed the state’s pioneering Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act in 2020, the emphasis was on treatment as much as on decriminalizing possession of personal-use amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs.

    But Oregon still has among the highest addiction rates in the country. Fatal overdoses have increased almost 20% over the previous year, with over a thousand dead. Over half of addiction treatment programs in the state lack capacity to meet demand because they don’t have enough staffing and funding, according to testimony before lawmakers.

    Supporters want more states to follow Oregon’s lead, saying decriminalization reduces the stigma of addiction and keeps people who use drugs from going to jail and being saddled with criminal records. How Oregon is faring will almost certainly be taken into account if another state considers decriminalizing.

    Steve Allen, behavioral health director of the Oregon Health Authority, acknowledged the rocky start, even as he announced a “true milestone” has been reached, with more than $302 million being sent to facilities to help people get off drugs, or at least use them more safely.

    “The road to get here has not been easy. Oregon is the first state to try such a bold and transformative approach,” Allen told a state Senate committee Wednesday.

    One expert, though, told the lawmakers the effort is doomed unless people with addictions are nudged into treatment.

    “If there is no formal or informal pressure on addicted people to seek treatment and recovery and thereby stop using drugs, we should expect continuing high rates of drug use, addiction and attendant harm,” said Keith Humphreys, an addiction researcher and professor at Stanford University and former senior adviser in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

    Of 16,000 people who accessed services in the first year of decriminalization, only 0.85% entered treatment, the health authority said. A total of 60% received “harm reduction” like syringe exchanges and overdose medications. An additional 15% got help with housing needs, and 12% obtained peer support.

    The Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, also known as Measure 110, has become a campaign issue this year as Republicans seek to wrest the governorship from Democrats, who have held it since 1987.

    “I voted no on Measure 110 because decriminalizing hard drugs like heroin and meth was and is a terrible idea,” said GOP candidate Christine Drazan, who supports asking voters to repeal it. “As expected, it has made our addiction crisis worse, not better.”

    Unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson, a former veteran lawmaker, said she would work to repeal what she called a “failed experiment.”

    A spokeswoman for Democratic candidate Tina Kotek, a former House speaker, said Drazan and Johnson “want to go against the will of the voters. … Oregonians do not want to go backward.”

    “As governor, Tina will make sure that the state is delivering on what voters demanded: expanded recovery services statewide,” spokeswoman Katie Wertheimer said.

    Under the law, people receive a citation, with the maximum $100 fine waived if they call a hotline for a health assessment. But most of the more than 3,100 tickets issued so far have been ignored, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. Few people have dialed the hotline.

    Tera Hurst, executive director of Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance, which is focused on implementing Measure 110, said coerced treatment is ineffective. Hurst said it’s important to focus on “just building a system of care to make sure that people who need access can get access.”

    Allen called the outlay of million of dollars — which come from taxes on Oregon’s legal marijuana industry — a “pivotal moment.”

    “Measure 110 is launching and will provide critical supports and services for people, families and communities,” he told the Senate committee.

    It will take time, though, to use the funds to build out the services.

    Centro Latino Americano, a nonprofit serving Latino immigrant families, plans to use its $4.5 million share to move treatment services to a bigger space and hire more staff, said manager Basilio Sandoval.

    “Measure 110 makes it possible for us to provide this service free of charge,” Sandoval said. “This allows us to reach people we could not serve previously because of a lack of insurance.”

    Scott Winkels, lobbyist for the League of Oregon Cities, said residents are running out of patience.

    ”People are going to need to see progress,” Winkels said. “If you’re living in a community where you’re finding needles, how many times do you need to see a needle in a park before you lose your cool?”

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  • Apple Inc will manufacture iPhone 14 in India

    Apple Inc will manufacture iPhone 14 in India

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    NEW DELHI (AP) — Apple Inc. will make its iPhone 14 in India, the company said on Monday, as manufacturers shift production from China amid geopolitical tensions and pandemic restrictions that have disrupted supply chains for many industries.

    “The new iPhone 14 lineup introduces groundbreaking new technologies and important safety capabilities. We’re excited to be manufacturing iPhone 14 in India,” Apple said in a statement.

    Apple unveiled its latest line-up of iPhones earlier this month. They will have improved cameras, faster processors and longer lasting batteries at the same prices as last year’s models.

    India is the world’s second-largest smartphone market after China but Apple iPhone sales have struggled to capture a large share of the market against cheaper smartphones from competitors.

    The announcement from the Cupertino, California-based company dovetails with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push for local manufacturing, which has been a key goal for his government ever since he took office in 2014.

    The tech company has bet big on India, where it first began manufacturing its iPhone SE in 2017 and has since continued to assemble a number of iPhone models there. Apple opened its online store for India two years ago, but the pandemic has delayed plans for a flagship store in India, according to local media reports.

    The latest model will be shipped out by Foxconn, a major iPhone assembler, whose facilities are on the outskirts of Chennai, a city in southern India.

    Apple is likely to shift about 5% of its iPhone 14 production to India from later this year, raising it to 25% by 2025, according to a JP Morgan report quoted by the Press Trust of India news agency.

    The analysts expect that nearly a quarter of all Apple products to be manufactured outside China by 2025, compared to about 5% now. Supply chain risks like the stringent COVID-19 lockdowns seen in China are likely the trigger for such relocation efforts that will continue over the next two or three years, the report said.

    “Apple has been trying to diversify its supply chain for a while, but these efforts have grown in the last two years over trade sanctions between the U.S. and China,” said Sanyam Chaurasia, an analyst at Canalys.

    Last year, the tech giant manufactured around 7 million iPhones in India. This news is likely to significantly increase India-made Apple smartphones, he added.

    He said the plan to make more iPhones in India may also lead Apple to drop its prices for the Indian market, making it more competitive. “You can adopt a more aggressive pricing strategy if you manufacture locally,” Chaurasia said.

    Most of Apple Inc.’s smartphones and tablets are assembled by contractors with factories in China, but the company started asking them in 2020 to look at the possibility of moving some production to Southeast Asia or other places after repeated shutdowns to fight COVID-19 disrupted its global flow of products.

    Apple hasn’t released details, but news reports say the company planned to set up assembly of tablet computers and wireless earphones in Vietnam.

    Other companies are keeping or expanding manufacturing in China to serve the domestic market while shifting export-oriented work to other countries due to rising wages and other costs, as well as the difficulty for foreign executives to visit China due to anti-COVID-19 travel restrictions.

    ___

    AP Business Writer Joe McDonald in Beijing contributed.

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  • Inflation, unrest challenge Bangladesh’s ‘miracle economy’

    Inflation, unrest challenge Bangladesh’s ‘miracle economy’

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    DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Standing in line to try to buy food, Rekha Begum is distraught. Like many others in Bangladesh, she is struggling to find affordable daily essentials like rice, lentils and onions.

    “I went to two other places, but they told me they don’t have supplies. Then I came here and stood at the end of the queue,” said Begum, 60, as she waited for nearly two hours to buy what she needed from a truck selling food at subsidized prices in the capital, Dhaka.

    Bangladesh’s economic miracle is under severe strain as fuel price hikes amplify public frustrations over rising costs for food and other necessities. Fierce opposition criticism and small street protests have erupted in recent weeks, adding to pressures on the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which has sought help from the International Monetary Fund to safeguard the country’s finances.

    Experts say Bangladesh’s predicament is nowhere nearly as severe as Sri Lanka’s, where months’ long unrest led its long-time president to flee the country and people are enduring outright shortages of food, fuel and medicines, spending days in queues for essentials. But it faces similar troubles: excessive spending on ambitious development projects, public anger over corruption and cronyism and a weakening trade balance.

    Such trends are undermining Bangladesh’s impressive progress, fueled largely by its success as a garment manufacturing hub, toward becoming a more affluent, middle-income country.

    The government raised fuel prices by more than 50% last month to counter soaring costs due to high oil prices, triggering protests over the rising cost of living. That led authorities to order the subsidized sales of rice and other staples by government-appointed dealers.

    The latest phase of the program, which began Sept. 1, should help about 50 million people, said Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi.

    “The government has taken a number of measures to reduce pressures on low-income earners. That is impacting the market and keeping prices of daily commodities competitive,” he said.

    The policies are a stopgap for bigger global and domestic challenges.

    The war in Ukraine has pushed higher prices of many commodities at a time when they already were surging as demand recovered with a waning of the coronavirus pandemic. In the meantime, countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Laos — among many — have seen their currencies weaken against the dollar, adding to the costs for dollar-denominated imports of oil and other goods.

    To ease the strain on public finances and foreign reserves, the authorities put a moratorium on big, new projects, cut office hours to save energy and imposed limits on imports of luxury goods and non-essential items, such as sedans and SUVs.

    “The Bangladesh economy is facing strong headwinds and turbulence,” said Ahmad Ahsan, an economist and director of the Dhaka-based Policy Research Institute, a thinktank. “Suddenly we are back to the era of rolling power cuts, with the taka and the forex reserves under pressure,” he said.

    Millions of low-income Bangladeshis, like Begum, whose family of five can barely afford to eat fish or meat even once a month, still struggle to put food on the table.

    Bangladesh has made huge strides in the past two decades in growing its economy and fighting poverty. Investments in garment manufacturing have provided jobs for tens of millions of workers, mostly women. Exports of apparel and related products account for more than 80% of its exports.

    But with fuel costs so high, authorities shut diesel-run power plants that produced at least 6% of total production, cutting daily power generation by 1,500 megawatts and disrupting manufacturing.

    Imports in the last fiscal year, ending in June, 2022, rose to $84 billion, while exports have fluctuated, leaving a record current account deficit of $17 billion.

    More challenges are ahead.

    Deadlines are fast approaching for repaying foreign loans related to at least 20 mega infrastructure projects, including the $3.6 billion River Padma bridge built by China and a nuclear power plant mostly funded by Russia. Experts say Bangladesh needs to prepare for when repayment schedules ramp up between 2024 and 2026.

    In July, in a move economists view as a precautionary measure, Bangladesh sought a $4.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, becoming the third country in South Asia to recently seek its help after Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

    Finance Minister A.H.M. Mustafa Kamal said that the government asked the IMF to begin formal negotiations on loans “for balance of payments and budgetary assistance.” The IMF said it was working with Bangladesh to draw up a plan.

    Bangladesh’s foreign reserves have been falling, potentially undermining its ability to meet its loan obligations. By Wednesday they had dropped to $36.9 billion from $45.5 billion a year earlier, according to the central bank.

    Usable foreign reserves would be about $30 billion, said Zahid Hussain, a former chief economist of the World Bank’s Dhaka office.

    “I would not say this is a crisis situation. This is still enough to meet three months of imports, three and half months of imports. But it also means that … you do not have a lot of room for maneuvering on the reserve front,” he said.

    Still, despite what some economists say is excessive spending on some costly projects, Bangladesh is better equipped to weather hard times than some other countries in the region.

    Its farm sector — tea, rice and jute are major exports — is an effective “shock absorber,” and its economy, four to five times larger than Sri Lanka’s, is less vulnerable to outside calamities like a downturn in tourism.

    The economy is forecast to grow at a 6.6% pace this fiscal year, according to the Asia Development Bank’s latest forecast, and the country’s total debt is still relatively small.

    “I think in the current context, the most important difference between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is the debt burden, particularly the external debt,” said Hussain.

    Bangladesh’s external debt is under 20% of its gross domestic product, while Sri Lanka’s was around 126% in the first quarter of 2022.

    “So, we have some space. I mean debt as a source of stress on the macroeconomy is not much of a much problem yet,” he said.

    Waiting in a line to buy subsidized food, 48-year-old Mohammed Jamal said he was not feeling such leeway for his own family.

    “It has become unbearable trying to maintain our standard of living,” Jamal said. “Prices are just out of reach for the common people,” he said. “It’s tough living this way.”

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    IRS special agent job ad misrepresented online

    CLAIM: An online job ad shows that all new employees that the IRS intends to hire after a funding boost in the Inflation Reduction Act will be required to carry a firearm and use deadly force if necessary.

    THE FACTS: The job description does not apply to most potential new employees that the IRS will hire in the coming years, and the vast majority of IRS workers are not armed. A legitimate job ad for special agents within the small law enforcement division of the IRS that works on criminal investigations was misrepresented online following the passage this month of a $740 billion economic package that includes nearly $80 billion for the IRS. Many posts in recent days shared a screenshot that features the IRS logo and the text, “Major Duties.” The listed duties on the image include being able to “carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary.” Social media users claimed that the image was a job ad for thousands of new IRS employees that will be hired as a result of the bill. “The IRS is looking to fill 87,000 positions,” one Facebook user who shared the image wrote. “Requirements include working min ‘50 hours per week, which may include irregular hours, and be on-call 24/7, including holidays and weekends’ and ‘Carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary.’” Another Twitter user wrote: “Want to be one of the new 87,000 IRS agents? Are you willing to carry a firearm and use DEADLY FORCE? This is not at all concerning.” These social media users are falsely depicting a legitimate job ad for a special agent with IRS Criminal Investigation as a generic ad for all new positions. While that language does not currently appear on the IRS web page advertising the special agent role, a search of the Internet Archive shows that the same language can be found on the page as recently as Aug. 11. Justin Cole, a spokesperson for IRS Criminal Investigation, told the AP that the screenshots circulating online appear to show the special agent web page and confirmed that the language had been on the site but was removed. He said it was removed in error amid the spate of misinformation about IRS employees carrying weapons, but the language will be added back to the web page. Special agents with IRS Criminal Investigation, who investigate criminal tax violations and other related financial crimes, are the only IRS employees who carry firearms, according to Anny Pachner, a spokesperson for the division. Special agents compose a small sliver of the IRS workforce. There are about 2,000 special agents within the agency, which has roughly 80,000 total employees. The division dates back to 1919 and has always employed armed agents. The agency is currently hiring 300 special agents, according to the online job posting. Among the agents’ duties are executing search and arrest warrants, as well as seizures, per the posting. This is very different from the work of other IRS employees. For instance, revenue agents work on complex audits of corporations, while customer service representatives answer tax-related questions, according to the IRS. Neither roles are law enforcement positions. The claim that the IRS is going to hire 87,000 new agents in general due to the Inflation Reduction Act is also misleading, as the AP has previously reported. The figure comes from a prior Treasury Department proposal to hire roughly that many IRS employees over the next decade, but there is no explicit mandate for such a workforce in the act, officials and experts say. Many new IRS hires will replace employees who are expected to retire or quit, and not all of them will be auditors, nor will a majority of them be gun-carrying agents.

    — Associated Press writer Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed this report.

    ___

    Post falsely claims NYC tap water contaminated with polio

    CLAIM: Polio has been found in New York City tap water.

    THE FACTS: The virus that causes polio has been detected in New York sewage samples, not tap water. After the New York City and New York state health departments announced last week that poliovirus has been found in city sewage samples, a post claiming that polio had been found in the city’s tap water began spreading on social media. “Under Biden, they are now finding Polio in tap water,” reads the post, which received more than 112,000 likes on Instagram. It includes a screenshot of a tweet featuring a promotional video in which Mayor Eric Adams touts the city’s tap water. The tweet captions the Adams video: “Do you all remember that time when Mayor Adam’s told everyone in New York City to drink the tap water? Anyways, they found Polio in the New York City water.” But poliovirus was found in sewage samples, not tap water, and people cannot contract polio by drinking the city’s tap water, multiple city and state officials said. “New Yorkers should know that wastewater is not the same as drinking water, and it cannot be a source of infection or transmission,” Samantha Fuld, a spokesperson for the New York State Department of Health, told the AP in an email. Wastewater — used water from toilets, sinks, showers and household appliances — does not come in contact with the city’s drinking water, she said, adding there are no plans to test tap water for poliovirus. Edward Timbers, director of communications for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, confirmed to the AP in an email that the city’s wastewater cannot end up in its tap water and that the presence of poliovirus in sewage samples does not imply that the virus is also in drinking water. “There are two separate systems in NYC,” he said. New York City drinking water is treated with purifying agents to ensure that it is safe to consume and free of pathogens, according to the city’s 2021 Drinking Water Supply and Quality Report. Polio can be spread through water contaminated with feces from an infected person, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though it typically spreads through person-to-person contact. The state Department of Health began monitoring wastewater for signs of poliovirus through repeated sampling after a Rockland County, New York, resident developed paralysis as a result of poliovirus earlier this summer, Fuld said. According to the state agency, the CDC has confirmed the presence of poliovirus in sewage samples from New York City, Rockland County and New York’s Orange County. Dr. Kimberly Thompson, a polio expert and president of health nonprofit Kid Risk, Inc., explained that repeated samples of poliovirus found in wastewater are indicators that the virus is spreading, since it can be transmitted through an infected person’s feces. A similar false claim purporting monkeypox was found in Georgia drinking water also spread on social media this month.

    — Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    Posts misrepresent failed attempt to recall Los Angeles District Attorney

    CLAIM: Los Angeles County disqualified nearly 30% of recall ballots or ballot signatures in the attempted recall of the county’s progressive District Attorney George Gascón.

    THE FACTS: The county didn’t disqualify ballots or ballot signatures. It disqualified nearly 200,000 of about 716,000 signatures on petitions calling for a vote to recall Gascón. Los Angeles County election officials on Monday said that a proposal to recall the county’s progressive DA had failed after recall organizers did not gather enough valid petition signatures to schedule an election. Recall organizers needed to gather nearly 570,000 valid petition signatures to schedule an election, but county officials found only about 520,000 were valid after disqualifying nearly 200,000 signatures turned in. That news was misrepresented online this week when Donald Trump Jr. and others falsely claimed that the county had disqualified “ballots” or “ballot signatures.” The former president’s son made both claims, one on Twitter and one on his father’s Truth Social platform. “So in Los Angles they just disqualified almost 30% of ballot signatures BUT they expect you to believe that LESS THAN 1% of Ballots were faulty in the 2020 Presidential Election!” Trump Jr. tweeted Monday, misspelling Los Angeles. The petition signatures that the county deemed invalid were collected in the community to try to demonstrate voter support for scheduling a recall election. A Monday news release from the county said the signatures were found to be invalid for various reasons, including signers not being registered to vote, signing more than once, listing different addresses than their voter registrations, using signatures that didn’t match their voter registration signatures, and living outside the county. The recall committee said it would review rejected signatures and the verification process and “seek to ensure no voter was disenfranchised.” Joshua Spivak, an expert on recall elections and a senior fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute at Wagner College, said the signature rejection rate was “within the range” of past California recalls. He pointed out that most of the rejections happened not because of the signatures themselves, but because the signers were not registered voters or signed multiple times. A representative for the Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.

    — Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed this report. ___

    Denmark didn’t ‘ban’ COVID-19 vaccines for children

    CLAIM: Denmark has banned COVID-19 vaccines for children.

    THE FACTS: Danish residents under the age of 18 will no longer be automatically eligible for COVID-19 vaccines, but there is no overall ban for that age group, as minors who are at high risk will still be able to get the shots after a medical assessment. Social media users are misrepresenting changes to the Danish Health Authority’s fall and winter vaccine program for those under 18 as a “ban.” “Denmark coming clean that kids shouldn’t be vaccinated with a TOTAL BAN on Covid vax for kids,” a Twitter user falsely claimed. But Denmark’s guidance around COVID-19 vaccines for children is only being modified. The agency’s vaccine program states that since children and young people “very rarely become seriously ill” from the COVID-19 omicron variant, those under the age of 18 will no longer receive the first dose beginning July 1. Starting Sept. 1, youths will no longer get the second dose, although those who are at risk of developing serious illness can still get the vaccine after a medical assessment. “The Danish Health Authority does not currently plan on recommending vaccination to persons under the age of 18 as a group,” Lotte Bælum, a spokesperson for the agency, told the AP in an email. “Children and young people who are at increased risk of a serious course of covid-19 will continue to have the option of vaccination after individual assessment.” The country will begin the fall and winter COVID-19 vaccination program in October. Around 81% of Denmark’s population of 5.8 million has received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and nearly 62% have received a booster, according to the Danish Ministry of Health. In April, the AP reported that due to Denmark’s high vaccine coverage, the country was ending broad vaccination efforts, but people over the age of 50 or older will receive invitations to receive a vaccine. The Danish Health Authority still recommends that people who are completely unvaccinated receive primary vaccination.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

    ___

    Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Photo altered to include judge who approved Mar-a-Lago warrant

    CLAIM: A photo shows Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein who was convicted of sex trafficking, with U.S. Magistrate Bruce Reinhart, the judge who approved the FBI search warrant for Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

    THE FACTS: This image has been manipulated by combining two separate, unrelated photos. Social media users are sharing the manipulated image that puts Reinhart and Maxwell together, making it appear she is rubbing his foot as he holds a bottle of bourbon and package of Oreos. “Ghislaine Maxwell and Judge Bruce Reinhart… looking awful cozy!” read one tweet of the image shared by hundreds. But reverse image searches show that the original photo of Maxwell was with Epstein, not Reinhart. That photo was released in 2021 as evidence in her trial and published by various news outlets. Maxwell was sentenced in June to 20 years in prison for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. The AP identified the photo of Reinhart on a Facebook profile under his name. The caption indicates he was watching a football game. The manufactured image is circulating amid attention on Reinhart for approving the FBI search warrant for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Reinhart is a former federal prosecutor and has served as a magistrate in West Palm Beach, Florida, since March 2018. Reinhart did at one point represent associates of Epstein. For example, court records reviewed by the AP show he was an attorney for Sarah Kellen, Epstein’s personal assistant. The search at Mar-a-Lago was part of an investigation into whether Trump took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence, according to people familiar with the matter, the AP reported.

    — Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report.

    ___

    Monkeypox wasn’t found in Georgia drinking water

    CLAIM: A news report shows that monkeypox has been detected in drinking water.

    THE FACTS: The clip comes from an Atlanta-area news broadcast explaining how wastewater — not drinking water — can be tested for evidence of monkeypox’s spread. But the July 26 broadcast is being mischaracterized online to push the false claim that monkeypox has been found in residents’ tap water. The video shows a reporter explaining that the public works department in Fulton County, which encompasses Atlanta, is launching new efforts to try to detect monkeypox in the community. While the news report is playing in the video, a viewer filming their TV screen can be heard in the background saying “there’s monkeypox in the water.” TikTok and Twitter users are sharing the clip out of context to suggest it means that drinking water is contaminated or being intentionally tampered with. But the county’s tests have nothing to do with drinking water, nor did they reveal that the virus had been found in that supply. “The testing that we’re doing in wastewater for monkeypox DNA is completely separate from drinking water,” said Marlene Wolfe, an environmental microbiologist and epidemiologist at Atlanta’s Emory University, who is involved in the testing initiative. “We have not tested drinking water, we are not planning to test drinking water, we don’t have any expectations or concerns about monkeypox spreading through drinking water.” Experts say monkeypox is primarily spread through skin-to-skin contact such as sexual activity, or contact with items that previously touched an infected person’s rash or body fluids. Dr. Mark Slifka, a microbiology and immunology expert and professor at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, confirmed that “there is really no way” that monkeypox can be transmitted through drinking water. “Historically, there has been no evidence of monkeypox spread through drinking water and currently during this global outbreak, there is absolutely no evidence for monkeypox being spread through drinking water,” Slifka wrote in an email. Wolfe said that people infected with monkeypox excrete virus DNA through skin lesions, saliva, feces and urine, which, much like COVID-19, can enter wastewater through sewage that is produced after showering, flushing toilets and more. That water can be tested using PCR technology to determine whether certain viruses are being spread. This method has also been widely used for earlier detection of new COVID-19 waves. Data released after the news report found that wastewater samples from two areas in Fulton County have tested positive for monkeypox. Meanwhile, drinking water comes from separate reservoirs that go through different quality and treatment processes to make it drinkable. “That’s a totally different department. We only handle wastewater,” said Patrick Person, a Fulton County water quality manager. He added that wastewater is also eventually sanitized before being returned to the environment.

    — Associated Press writer Sophia Tulp in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    Tweet misrepresents Kenyan president’s speech

    CLAIM: Video shows outgoing Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta publicly admitting that his deputy president, William Ruto, will win the presidential elections on Aug. 9.

    THE FACTS: A tweet in English gave an incorrect description of the video, where Kenyatta speaks his mother tongue, Kikuyu. Kenyans headed to the polls on Tuesday to select a successor to Kenyatta, who has spent a decade in power. One candidate in the race is Raila Odinga, an opposition leader, who is backed by Kenyatta, his former rival. The other candidate is Ruto, Kenyatta’s deputy who fell out with the president. While Kenyatta was commissioning a dam project last week in Gatundu, a town in Kiambu County, he addressed the crowd from a car’s sunroof on Aug. 1. A Twitter user shared a video of Kenyatta’s speech and provided a false description in English: “President Uhuru Kenyatta publicly admits that DP@WilliamsRuto will WIN the August 9, Elections,” the tweet states. The AP translated the video, confirming that Kenyatta does not mention that Ruto will win. Instead, Kenyatta cautioned people against voting for Ruto. Kenyatta encouraged residents to vote for leaders allied with Odinga, a tweet from Kenya’s State House notes. “You are told to refuse us because they claim they are hustlers and they will bring you this and that,” Kenyatta said in the video. “Ask yourself what you are given. And when someone enters that house they look at you with a mean eye,” he continued, referring to the State House, the official residence of Kenya’s president. Ruto often refers to himself as a “hustler” who rose from humble beginnings, compared to Kenyatta and Odinga, who have elite backgrounds, the AP has reported. Multiple media outlets in Kenya also reported on the speech and made no mention of Kenyatta telling residents Ruto will win.

    ___

    WHO chief is vaccinated against COVID-19, contrary to false claim

    CLAIM: Video shows World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying he isn’t vaccinated against COVID-19.

    THE FACTS: The clip is from a documentary and shows part of an interview, filmed weeks after Ghebreyesus was vaccinated, in which he says at one point that he waited for better global vaccine equity before receiving his own shot. But the clip is circulating on social media without context to falsely claim that it shows the WHO leader expressing that he had not been vaccinated against COVID-19. “Tedros not jabbed?” reads one tweet, which garnered more than 8,000 likes. The 35-second clip shows a portion of a 2021 interview of Tedros by Jon Cohen, a writer for the publication Science. The interview was included in a documentary, “ How to Survive a Pandemic,” which runs more than 100 minutes. The clip shows Cohen asking Ghebreyesus when he was vaccinated, and then cuts to the WHO director-general responding: “You know, still I feel like I know where I belong: in a poor country called Ethiopia, in a poor continent called Africa, and wanted to wait until Africa and other countries, in other regions, low-income countries, start vaccination. So I was protesting, in other words, because we’re failing.” But the documentary never claimed Ghebreyesus was not vaccinated, nor did Ghebreyesus’ response indicate as much. In the full June 12, 2021, interview — which was edited for the documentary — Ghebreyesus in fact did reply that he was vaccinated on May 12, according to the Science article by Cohen that followed. Ghebreyesus also publicly posted a photo on Twitter showing him receiving his vaccine that day, which he followed with a post about vaccine equity. The date was not included in the portion of the response shown in the documentary, Cohen confirmed to the AP. Cohen responded to the erroneous claim about Ghebreyesus’ vaccination status on Twitter, calling it a “lie,” and pointing to his written interview. The filmmaker, David France, said in an interview with the AP that the important part of Ghebreyesus’ answer was his explanation that he had waited for better vaccine equity before getting his own shot. But, he said, Ghebreyesus’ explanation that he had waited was clearly in the past tense. “In the context of the film, it was the wait — and the reason for the wait — that was the core part of his answer, and that’s what we included,” France said.

    — Angelo Fichera

    ___

    Earth spinning faster is no cause for concern, scientists say

    CLAIM: The Earth is spinning faster and days are getting shorter, a change that is noticeable and cause for immediate concern.

    THE FACTS: While the Earth on June 29 did indeed record its shortest-ever day since the adoption of the atomic clock standard in 1970 — at 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours — scientists say this is a normal fluctuation. Still, news of the faster rotation led to misleading posts on social media about the significance of the measurement, leading some to express concern about its implications. “They broke news of earth spinning faster which seems like it should be bigger news,” claimed one tweet that was shared nearly 35,000 times. “We so desensitized to catastrophe at this point it’s like well what’s next.” Some Twitter users responded to these tweets with jokes, as well as skepticism about the magnitude of the measurement. Others, however, voiced worries about how it would affect them. But scientists told the AP that the Earth’s rotational speed fluctuates constantly and that the record-setting measurement is nothing to panic over. “It’s a completely normal thing,” said Stephen Merkowitz, a scientist and project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “There’s nothing magical or special about this. It’s not such an extreme data point that all the scientists are going to wake up and go, what’s going on?” Andrew Ingersoll, an emeritus professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, agreed with this assessment. “The Earth’s rotation varies by milliseconds for many reasons,” he wrote in an email to the AP. “None of them are cause for concern.” The slight increase in rotational speed also does not mean that days are going by noticeably faster. Merkowitz explained that standardized time was once determined by how long it takes the Earth to rotate once on its axis — widely understood to be 24 hours. But because that speed fluctuates slightly, that number can vary by milliseconds. Scientists in the 1960s began working with atomic clocks to measure time more accurately. The official length of a day, scientifically speaking, now compares the speed of one full rotation of the Earth to time taken by atomic clocks, Merkowitz said. If those measurements get too out of sync, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, an organization that maintains global time, may fix the discrepancy by adding a leap second. And despite recent decreases in the length of a day over the last few years, days have actually been getting longer over the course of several centuries, according to Judah Levine, a physicist in the Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He added that the current trend was not predicted, but agreed it’s nothing to worry about. Many variables impact the Earth’s rotation, such as influences from other planets or the moon, as well as how Earth’s mass redistributes itself. For example, ice sheets melting or weather events that create a denser atmosphere, according to Merkowitz. But the kind of event that would move enough mass to affect the Earth’s rotation in a way that is perceptible to humans would be something dire like the planet being hit by a giant meteor, Merkowitz said.

    — Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed this report.

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Congress didn’t exempt its members from IRS audits

    CLAIM: Members of the U.S. Congress recently voted to exempt themselves from IRS audits of their personal finances.

    THE FACTS: Congress has not voted on any such measure, according to spokespeople for the IRS, the Speaker of the House and the House Ways and Means Committee. The unsupported claim that U.S. lawmakers voted to exempt themselves from IRS audits spread online this week after a tweet from an account that has posted numerous bogus claims was interpreted as real. “BREAKING,” read the Aug. 17 tweet, which amassed more than 13,000 shares. “In order to safeguard democracy, Congress has voted to exempt itself and its members from upcoming IRS audits.” Hours later, the same account hinted that it had been a joke, writing that “a shocking number of American adults” can’t spell or recognize the word “satire.” Still, the tweet was not deleted or labeled and the false claim has since circulated as real on Twitter and Instagram. A review of recent legislation passed in Congress found no bills matching this claim. The Inflation Reduction Act, which became law last week and sparked an onslaught of misinformation about the IRS, did not include any such provision. Terry Lemons, communications and liaison chief at the IRS, confirmed to The Associated Press that the claim was false, and that “all tax filers are treated equally under the tax law.” Henry Connelly, spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said the claim was “nonsense.” Dylan Peachey, a spokesperson for the House Ways and Means Committee, also confirmed the claim was false.

    — Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    Posts exaggerate adult fentanyl deaths in the U.S.

    CLAIM: Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for adults in the U.S.

    THE FACTS: Fentanyl overdose deaths, while high, are not the leading cause of deaths among all adults in the U.S., experts say. Heart disease and cancer kill more people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Social media users, including some Republican elected officials, claimed that the synthetic opioid is the No. 1 killer of adults in the U.S. “Fentanyl is the leading cause of death among American adults,” Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, wrote on Twitter. “Until @POTUS secures our southern border, this crisis will only get worse.” The congresswoman’s tweet was also shared by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. This is not the case, according to experts and CDC data. “It absolutely is not the leading cause of death for all adults,” said Kenneth Leonard, director of the University at Buffalo Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions. “I wouldn’t minimize fentanyl as a problem, but it’s certainly hard to say it’s the leading cause of death,” said Lewis Nelson, a professor of pharmacology, physiology and neuroscience at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. That distinction goes to heart disease and cancer, said Dan Ciccarone, a professor of family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. About 71,000 people died from overdosing on synthetic opioids like fentanyl in 2021, up from almost 58,000 in 2020, according to the CDC. In comparison, the CDC estimates that in 2020, almost 700,000 people died from heart disease, roughly 600,000 from cancer and around 350,000 due to COVID-19. Spokespeople for McCarthy did not respond to the AP’s request for comment. Andrea Coker, a spokesperson for Van Duyne, wrote in an email that while heart disease may be the leading killer of older American adults, the “cdc is stating fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans 18-45.” As part of her response, Coker provided a link to an analysis conducted by the Ohio-based nonprofit Families Against Fentanyl that determined fentanyl was the top killer of people ages 18-45 in 2019 and 2020. The group analyzed publicly available CDC data by comparing synthetic opioid deaths to other causes of death over the last few years, according to spokesperson Moira Muntz. The CDC has not verified that fentanyl is the top killer among people in that age group, said Jeff Lancashire, a spokesperson for the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The agency uses death certificates to determine the leading causes of death in the U.S. In its datasets, fentanyl deaths are included as part of a larger category of deaths attributed to synthetic opioids. Synthetic opioids, which include drugs like fentanyl and tramadol, are different from natural opioids, like morphine, and semi-synthetic opioids, such as oxycodone, according to the CDC. While fentanyl accounts for the majority of synthetic opioid deaths, the CDC lacks breakout data on deaths caused by fentanyl specifically, Lancashire said. Drug overdose deaths are spread over four different cause of death categories, though the majority of them land in the “accidental” category. The rest are classified as suicides, homicides or undetermined. According to preliminary 2021 data, accidents were the leading cause of death among 18-45 year-olds, with accidental synthetic opioid overdoses amounting to less than half of those deaths, Lancashire wrote. “It doesn’t appear that fentanyl alone is the leading cause of death among 18-45 year olds and definitely is NOT the leading cause of death among all adults,” he wrote. “However, we don’t break down the leading causes in such a way that we can rank fentanyl anywhere.”

    — Associated Press writer Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed this report.

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    Florida didn’t ban ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ as fake list suggests

    CLAIM: The state of Florida banned “To Kill a Mockingbird” in schools, along with a number of other popular titles on a “Banned Book List.”

    THE FACTS: Florida hasn’t forced schools to stop teaching Harper Lee’s classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” despite misleading posts that amassed thousands of shares on social media. The false claim erupted after various social media users shared a list of book titles and said it showed books banned in Florida, including “To Kill a Mockingbird” and other well-known titles such as “A Wrinkle in Time,” “The Giver,” and “Of Mice and Men.” Bryan Griffin, press secretary for Florida’s Republican governor, confirmed in several tweets that the claim was false. “The State of Florida has not banned To Kill a Mockingbird,” Griffin tweeted. “In fact, Florida RECOMMENDS the book in 8th grade.” The tweet linked to Florida’s state Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking, or BEST, standards, which include the book as a sample text for eighth grade students. Jeremy Redfern, deputy press secretary for the governor, told the AP in an email that there is no banned book list at the state level, and that the “Banned Book List” circulating online was fake. “The state sets guidelines regarding content, and the local school districts are responsible for enforcing them,” Redfern said. The Palm Beach County School District temporarily removed “To Kill a Mockingbird” from classrooms to review it earlier this year, but has since returned it, according to the Florida Freedom to Read Project. The Palm Beach County School District told the AP in an email that it had reviewed 2.5 million books over the summer and was in compliance with Florida’s parental rights legislation. The Florida Freedom to Read Project, which tracks book removals across Florida school districts, said its research did not find any other recent bans of the title in Florida schools, though it relies on documentation from the state’s school districts, which have not all responded in recent months. “There is no way for us to say for sure that the title is still available in every district, but it definitely isn’t banned across the state,” said Stephana Ferrell, cofounder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project. Tasslyn Magnusson, an independent researcher who tracks book banning attempts nationwide, also said she was not aware of any recent bans on “To Kill a Mockingbird” in Florida school districts. She said the widely shared “Banned Book List” also didn’t match up with her own data.

    — Ali Swenson

    ___

    Flawed calculation fuels falsehood on Pfizer vaccine and pregnancies

    CLAIM: Pfizer documents show that 44% of pregnancies reported during its COVID-19 vaccine trial ended with miscarriages.

    THE FACTS: The claim is based on a flawed calculation that, among other issues, twice counted some of the same reported miscarriages — which also were not established to be caused by the vaccine. Thousands of social media users in recent days spread the erroneous claim that newly released documents showed that nearly half of all pregnancies in the Pfizer vaccine trial resulted in miscarriages. “Massacre: Nearly Half of Pregnant Women in Pfizer Trial Miscarried,” one widely shared headline claimed. The claim first appeared Aug. 12 in a blog run by Naomi Wolf, an author who has gained attention in recent years for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. The blog post falsely claimed that documents from the Food and Drug Administration revealed “chilling data showing 44 percent of pregnant women participating in Pfizer’s mRNA COVID vaccine trial suffered miscarriages.” Asked for comment, the Daily Clout noted in a statement to the AP that it had issued a correction. The post was updated to say in a footnote that the 44% figure is “incorrect.” As of Friday, the post was no longer accessible. The original blog post cited a more than 3,600-page document of Pfizer information dated March 2021 and submitted to the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. The blog post pointed to 22 references in the document to spontaneous abortions, or a pregnancy loss without outside intervention before the 20th week of pregnancy. The blog also noted that a table within the same document showed 50 pregnancies that occurred among trial participants after receiving their first dose. Using those numbers, the blog wrongly concluded that nearly half of pregnancies in the trial resulted in miscarriages. But Jeffrey Morris, director of the division of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told the AP in an email that the post’s methodology contained “numerous mistakes.” The blog’s 22 references to miscarriages actually count about half of the same events twice, Morris said. That’s evident by comparing the unique ID numbers of the clinical trial participants for each of the reports. For example, a single miscarriage reported by one participant in October 2020 was recorded in a “Listing of Adverse Events” as well as a subsequent “Listing of Serious Adverse Events,” though they refer to the same instance. Such reported adverse events are also not confirmed to be caused by the vaccine, but are simply events that occurred after a participant received a shot. Beyond that, Morris pointed out that, of the unique miscarriage events in the document, only three of the subjects appear in the table that lists 50 pregnancies that occurred after participants received their first dose. That means the table is not a listing of all participants who were pregnant during the clinical trial, and therefore can’t be used to calculate the miscarriage rate as the website did. Miscarriages are not uncommon: It’s estimated that about 10% to 20% of known pregnancies result in miscarriage. The AP has previously debunked similar claims that misrepresented Pfizer data to assert that the vaccine was dangerous to pregnancies. In reality, a 2021 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that COVID-19 vaccine exposure did not increase the odds of a spontaneous abortion. And a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine the same year found that the risk of spontaneous abortion after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination was consistent with the expected risk of spontaneous abortion. A Pfizer spokesperson declined to comment on the specific claim. The FDA did not return a request for comment.

    — Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report.

    ___

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    ___

    This story was first published on August 26, 2022. It was updated on August 29, 2022, to make clear that the Palm Beach County School District responded on Aug. 25, 2022, that it had reviewed 2.5 million books over the summer and was in compliance with Florida’s parental rights legislation.

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Posts misrepresent Biden 2020 campaign committee filing

    CLAIM: President Joe Biden has officially filed for reelection with the Federal Election Commission.

    THE FACTS: Biden has not formally filed for reelection, social media users are misrepresenting an updated administrative document that was recently filed with the FEC by his principal 2020 presidential campaign committee. “BREAKING REPORT: (NOT PARODY) Joe Biden Has Officially Filed to RUN FOR RE-ELECTION in 2024,” one Twitter user wrote on Tuesday. The tweet was shared over 1,900 times. “Joe Robinette Biden has just officially filed for Reelection with the Federal Election Committee today – running again with Kamala Harris as his Vice President,” an Instagram user wrote, also on Tuesday. But Biden has not officially declared his candidacy for reelection, according to FEC filings. Biden’s principal campaign committee for the 2020 general election, titled Biden for President, filed a statement of organization form on Tuesday. But this form is different from a statement of candidacy form, which would indicate a candidate is officially running. “These claims that he’s declared for 2024 are flatly untrue based on these filings,” said Kenneth Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The new filing amended the committee’s statement of organization to “reflect new treasurer information,” said Judith Ingram, a spokesperson for the FEC. Presidential candidates file statements of candidacy for election cycles that they are participating in, and Biden has not filed such a form for the 2024 election cycle, she said. A Democratic National Committee official confirmed that the campaign committee’s filing is “not a re-election filing.” “This is just updating the form to change the treasurer name because the former treasurer is taking a government job,” the official said in an email. A candidate filing by the Biden campaign on the FEC website would be the “clearest indicator that Biden has ‘officially’ launched a reelection campaign,” Barry Burden, founding director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center, wrote in an email to the AP. But this hasn’t happened yet. Candidates can also become official candidates in the eyes of the FEC if they raise or spend more than $5,000, according to the agency. The 2020 Biden campaign committee is still active to process minor financial transactions, which is similar to what other presidential campaigns have done, according to Burden.

    — Associated Press writer Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed this report.

    ___

    UK didn’t change guidance on COVID vaccines and pregnancies

    CLAIM: The U.K. government recently changed its COVID-19 vaccine guidance to advise against Pfizer’s shot for pregnant and breastfeeding people.

    THE FACTS: The guidance has not changed. Social media users are misrepresenting a section of a summary report about Pfizer’s shot that was published by the U.K.’s medical regulatory agency in 2020. Posts circulating widely in recent days spread the false assertion that Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot isn’t safe for pregnancies and wrongly claimed that the U.K. government has conceded as much. “The UK now admits it’s not safe for pregnant women to get the vaccine,” reads a tweet that garnered more than 1,300 likes. But the U.K. government is in support of, not against, vaccinating pregnant people, health officials confirmed. The social media posts pointed to a screenshot of a “Toxicity conclusions” section from an online report titled, “Summary of the Public Assessment Report for COVID-19 Vaccine Pfizer/BioNTech.” That report was published by the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in 2020 as part of the vaccine’s initial authorization process and was last updated on Aug. 16. The “Toxicity conclusions” section suggested that those who were pregnant or breastfeeding not be vaccinated, but also said that the recommendations “reflect the absence of data at the present time and do not reflect a specific finding of concern.” However, that specific section was reflective of what was known nearly two years ago when the vaccine was first rolling out — and before additional data became available. “The text referred to in social media posts comes from the Public Assessment Report (PAR) which reflects our assessment at the time of approval for the vaccine (2 December 2020),” the MHRA said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “Since then new data has come to light (both non-clinical and post-authorisation ‘real world’ data) which supports the updated advice on vaccinating those who are pregnant and breastfeeding.” An archived version of the same page from December 2020 also confirms that the “Toxicity conclusions” section has remained the same. The MHRA specifically notes elsewhere online that the COVID-19 vaccines, including Pfizer’s, are safe for those who are pregnant and breastfeeding. Dr. Victoria Male, a lecturer in reproductive immunology at Imperial College London, told the AP that the confusion appeared to stem from the Aug. 16 update to the Pfizer documents. But that change dealt with information on booster shots, she said, as a note on a connected page indicates. Male also said that the U.K. government’s advice on COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancies hasn’t changed. “Since April 2021, the UK government has offered the COVID vaccine during pregnancy,” Male said in an email. “Since December 2021, pregnancy has been considered a priority condition for vaccination, because we know that COVID infection in pregnancy can cause stillbirth and preterm birth, and that vaccination protects against these and is safe in pregnancy.” An independent advisory group, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, recommended in July that pregnant people who have been previously vaccinated be offered an autumn booster.

    — Associated Press writers Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia and Sophia Tulp in New York contributed this report. ___

    Video shows water tanker for bank, not Mississippi governor’s mansion

    CLAIM: A video shows a tanker truck outside the governor’s mansion in Jackson, Mississippi, supplying the residence with water amid the city’s water crisis.

    THE FACTS: The tanker, which is parked across the street from the governor’s mansion, is there as a standby solution for the headquarters of a bank at that location. In the six-second video, the tanker can be seen parked on North West Street in downtown Jackson before the camera pans across the street to the governor’s mansion. The widely-shared clip has sparked outrage among social media users as the city works to restore water pressure, while many residents remain reliant on water distribution centers. “There is currently no running water in Jackson, Mississippi,” one Twitter user wrote. “The heat index is over 100 degrees. Schools are closed. People can’t cook, clean, drink, or bathe. But at least @tatereeves has a giant water truck providing him with clean water at the governor’s mansion.” The tweet garnered nearly 8,000 shares and nearly 18,000 likes. But the water tanker is for the headquarters of Trustmark Bank, located across the street from the governor’s mansion, according to Danny Shows, president and CEO of 4D Solutions, the emergency preparedness company that provided the vehicle. He told the AP that “by no means” was the tanker delivering water to the governor’s mansion. Shows explained that the water tanker is a back-up solution for the building, in case Jackson’s downtown area completely loses water pressure. Melanie Morgan, director of corporate communications and marketing for Trustmark, confirmed that the bank brought in the water tanker for its building “out of abundance of caution.” She told the AP that the tanker does not contain potable drinking water and is intended for building services such as air conditioning and restroom facilities. “We’ve engaged a contractor to bring in the tanker for us in order to keep our building operational,” Morgan said, adding that the bank wants to be able to relieve pressure on the city’s water system if necessary. She confirmed that the water tanker remains at the bank’s headquarters next to the governor’s mansion, but said that because the building still has “more than adequate water pressure,” the tanker has not yet been used. Shelby Wilcher, Tates’ press secretary, wrote in an email to the AP that the water tanker “is not supporting the Governor’s Mansion or any other state assets.” She added that the residence gets its water from the Jackson water system and that many businesses have brought in their own tankers. Jackson’s water system partially failed early this week due to flooding that exacerbated long-standing problems in one of the city’s two water-treatment plants, the AP reported. Reeves declared a state of emergency in Jackson on Tuesday, while President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Mississippi as a whole the same day.

    — Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed this report. ___

    New York law doesn’t ban minors from buying whipped cream

    CLAIM: A New York law that aims to crack down on nitrous oxide abuse makes it illegal for anyone under age 21 to purchase a can of whipped cream.

    THE FACTS: The law doesn’t apply to store-bought, disposable whipped cream cans, meaning customers of any age can still legally purchase canned whipped cream in New York stores without having to show identification. Social media users, news outlets and operators of grocery and convenience stores have in recent days misinterpreted a year-old New York law aimed at cracking down on recreational use of the gas nitrous oxide. Commonly called laughing gas, nitrous oxide is used as a sedative in some medical situations and can also be used as a whipping agent for culinary purposes. However, the gas is also often inhaled from metal cartridges — so-called “whippits” — to induce a euphoric effect, despite serious health risks. The New York law, which went into effect in November, attempted to make it harder for minors to access such cartridges by prohibiting New York businesses from selling the small, gas-containing metal capsules to anyone under 21. But language in the bill describing the cartridges as “whipped cream chargers” led to widespread confusion. “New York recently passed a state law that prohibits anyone under age 21 to purchase a can of whipped cream,” wrote one popular Twitter account. The post linked to a news article making the same claim, and was shared nearly 5,000 times. The claim was further spread through headlines and stories in dozens of news outlets as some grocery store operators recently began enforcing what they believed was language that required them to ask for identification before selling whipped cream canisters, such as Reddi-wip, to customers. However, the law doesn’t apply to these types of canisters, Sen. Joseph Addabbo, the Democrat who sponsored the bill, confirmed to the AP. “Anyone can buy, without being carded or ID’d, a can of Reddi-wip or any other canister of whipped cream,” Addabbo told the AP. “What a minor can’t buy is the two-inch whipped cream charger, or cartridge that is filled with nitrous oxide.” The bill amends New York general business law, and adds a new section that defines the term “whipped cream charger” as “a steel cylinder or cartridge filled with nitrous oxide, that is commonly used in a whipped cream dispenser.” Reusable whipped cream dispensers, like the ones found in restaurants or coffee shops, are powered by such metal cartridges. But those chargers are not found inside the disposable whipped cream cans that are sold in most grocery stores. Disposable whipped cream cans contain a combination of cream and nitrous oxide that’s expelled under pressure through the bottle’s nozzle.

    — Sophia Tulp

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    [ad_1]

    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Judge’s order doesn’t show Biden ordered FBI search

    CLAIM: A federal court order in the legal dispute over government documents held by former President Donald Trump shows President Joe Biden ordered the FBI search at Trump’s Florida home.

    THE FACTS: While Monday’s court order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon does include the phrase “as requested by the incumbent president” it’s not related to last month’s search at Mar-a-Lago. The phrase comes from a May letter from the National Archives denying Trump’s request to delay turning over documents to the FBI. Cannon granted Trump’s request for a special master to review documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8. Her 24-page order notes that the National Archives and Records Administration informed Trump on May 10 that it would proceed with “provid(ing) the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President, beginning as early as Thursday, May 12, 2022.” Conservative outlets and social media users quickly seized on that phrasing as evidence that Biden had been aware of the FBI’s plans to raid Trump’s Palm Beach resort, and in fact had ordered it — something he and his administration have steadfastly denied. “‘As requested by the incumbent president,’” Rasmussen Reports tweeted. “Joe Biden initiated the Mar-a-Lago raid, then lied about doing so to Americans repeatedly. Let that sink in.” But the phrase in question is only a partial quote from the May 10 letter from the National Archives to Trump’s lawyer. In it, Debra Steidel Wall, acting head of the National Archives, rejects Trump’s request to delay turning over some 15 boxes of records to the FBI and lays out the timeline of her agency’s lengthy quest to gather government documents held by the former president. Wall notes that the 15 boxes provided by Trump in January 2022 included “classified national security information.” That prompted her agency to inform the U.S. Department of Justice, which then sought and was granted access to the documents from the White House on April 11, she said. Under the Presidential Records Act, any requests for presidential records held by the National Archives must be approved by the current president, not archive officials. “Accordingly, NARA will provide the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President, beginning as early as Thursday, May 12, 2022,” Wall’s letter concludes. The Biden administration declined to comment on the record Tuesday but pointed to its prior statements on the May letter. Spokesperson Karine Jean Pierre has argued that the missive illustrates how removed the White House has been from the Department of Justice investigation. “It shows that DOJ made a request for access to an older set of documents independently and the White House affirmed it, which is standard,” she said at an Aug. 29 press briefing. “And when former President Trump attempted to assert executive privilege to block the FBI from assessing the document, President Biden deferred to the National Archives and the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel on the issue.”

    — Associated Press writer Philip Marcelo in New York contributed this report.

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    Posts mislead on NIH COVID-19 guidelines for ivermectin

    CLAIM: The National Institutes of Health recently added ivermectin to a list of COVID-19 treatments.

    THE FACTS: The NIH COVID-19 treatment guidelines website says the agency recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, except in clinical trials. The page outlining data on antiviral medications has included an entry for ivermectin since at least June 2021. Social media users in recent days shared the false claim that the NIH just added ivermectin to the website, with many suggesting that the agency was now endorsing the anti-parasitic drug for use against the virus. “Yesterday the National institute of health added Ivermectin to the list of covid treatment,” reads one Twitter post with more than 44,000 likes. “Looks like the conspiracy theorist were right and the ‘experts’ wrong once again.” Many of the tweets point to an NIH webpage on the agency’s COVID-19 treatment guidelines that provides information on antiviral therapies that are being evaluated, or have been evaluated, as possible treatments for COVID-19. However, the page does not say the NIH recommends using ivermectin for treating COVID. Clicking the entry for ivermectin leads to a page that says: “The Panel recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, except in clinical trials.” The entry for ivermectin is also not new. Caches stored by the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine shows the data for ivermectin studies has been listed on the antiviral therapies page as early as June 2021. The specific ivermectin page at the time said: “There are insufficient data for the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19.” The page was updated on April 29, 2022, to add the current language recommending against treating COVID with ivermectin. Dr. H. Clifford Lane, clinical director at the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, confirmed to the AP that the panel that oversees the COVID-19 treatment guidelines does not recommend ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, except in clinical trials. “The body of evidence suggests it does not work,” Lane wrote in an email to the AP. “There are other medications that have strong evidence of efficacy. The concerns are not about safety but lack of efficacy.” Lane is also one of three co-chairs of a panel that oversees those guidelines. Ivermectin is not authorized or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use against COVID-19, and most health experts and agencies recommend against prescribing the anti-parasite drug for this purpose. Significant misinformation about ivermectin has spread throughout the pandemic.

    — Associated Press writer Karena Phan in Los Angeles contributed this report.

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    Experts agree sun exposure is a cancer risk

    CLAIM: The sun does not cause cancer and people should stop wearing sunscreen because it is poisonous.

    THE FACTS: Ultraviolet radiation from the sun is a major risk factor in developing skin cancer, and while some researchers have raised concerns that certain chemicals found in sunscreen may be harmful, its benefits outweigh any potential risks, experts and federal health authorities agree. A popular post circulating on Instagram this week featured a picture of a person lying in the sand overlaid with the text, “the sun doesn’t cause cancer.” A caption on the post, which received more than 18,000 likes, implored people to “PLEASE stop wearing poisonous SUNSCREEN!” But cancer experts widely agree that solar radiation plays a role in the development of skin cancer. “Most cases of skin cancer are caused by overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun, tanning beds, or sunlamps,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states on its website. The National Cancer Institute, which is part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, similarly advises that “exposure to UV radiation causes early aging of the skin and damage that can lead to skin cancer.” Dr. Philip Friedlander, a medical oncologist specializing in skin cancer at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, told the AP that the sun is a clear risk factor in developing skin cancer, because UV rays can create mutations in skin cells. “The sun is a trigger for, mechanistically, causing damage to skin cells of various types that lead to different types of skin cancer,” he said. Health authorities such as the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration include sunscreen among their recommendations for protecting skin from the sun, despite claims that sunscreen is poisonous. Some researchers have raised concerns about certain chemicals found in sunscreen. In May 2021, an independent research lab called Valisure announced that it had found traces of benzene, a chemical that can cause cancer with repeated exposure at high levels, in 78 sunscreen and sun-related products. But benzene is not listed as an acceptable active ingredient in sunscreen by the FDA, which regulates sunscreen in the U.S. The FDA has acknowledged the Valisure findings and said that it is conducting its own evaluation to assess the data. Valisure’s findings led to voluntary recalls later in 2021 by Coppertone and Johnson & Johnson, whose products were among those tested. Edgewell Personal Care voluntarily recalled three batches of one of its sunscreen products in July 2022 following an internal review that found trace levels of benzene in those batches. A 2019 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that repeated sunscreen use resulted in the absorption of the products’ active ingredients in participants’ bloodstream. It noted though that its findings did not mean that people should stop using sunscreen, and recommended further studies to determine the findings’ clinical significance. Still, multiple studies have shown that sunscreen reduces one’s chance of developing skin cancer. A 2020 review on the efficacy and safety of sunscreen published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal states that high-quality evidence has shown that sunscreen reduces the risk of developing skin cancer. It further advises that although “low-quality evidence has shown that some chemical sunscreen ingredients are systemically absorbed,” physicians should recommend the use of sunscreen. According to Friedlander, the protection afforded by sunscreen eclipses any possible harm. “We know that limiting sun exposure using sunscreen decreases the skin cancer risk in people who already have skin cancer,” he said. “Any benefits outweigh any potential, theoretical risks from the sunscreen.”

    — Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed this report.

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Germany hasn’t stopped using COVID-19 vaccines

    CLAIM: Germany has halted the use of all COVID-19 vaccines because they are unsafe.

    THE FACTS: Germany continues to use COVID-19 vaccines and is expected to receive updated booster shots that also target omicron strains, according to health officials. Social media users in recent days have amplified a false claim that Germany has discontinued all COVID-19 vaccines. “BREAKING NEWS — GERMANY HALTS ALL C19 VACCINES, THEY ARE UNSAFE AND NO LONGER RECOMMENDED !!” reads one tweet shared more than 6,000 times. “NO ONE CAN GET IT & the vaccine license has been put on pause!!” On Telegram, posts advancing the erroneous claim included a news broadcast-style video in which a man identified as Stephan Kohn, a political scientist, pretends to be the new president of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s disease control agency. Kohn claims in the video that the government passed a “moratorium” and that COVID-19 vaccines are “not recommended any longer.” But that video was part of an event called “BasisCamp.live,” a fictional exercise that took place in Berlin in August. The Robert Koch Institute has actually been headed by Lothar Wieler since 2015. The suggestion that Germany has halted immunizations is false, a representative for the Federal Ministry of Health told the AP. “Germany has not banned or paused the COVID-19 vaccinations in Germany,” Kira Nübel said in an email. Nübel noted that Germany is currently slated to receive millions of more doses of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. The country will also receive deliveries of new combination or “bivalent” booster shots from Pfizer, which the European Commission authorized this week. The updated shots contain half the original vaccine that’s been used since December 2020 and half a formulation that targets today’s dominant omicron versions, BA.4 and BA.5, as the AP has reported.

    — Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report. ___

    Illinois law doesn’t make murder, other crimes ‘non-detainable’ offenses

    CLAIM: Suspects facing serious charges including second-degree murder, kidnapping, robbery, burglary and arson will no longer be held in custody until trial under a new, first-in-the-nation Illinois law abolishing cash bail statewide.

    THE FACTS: Judges in Illinois will still have discretion to order suspects for these and other serious crimes held in jail pending trial if they are deemed a threat to public safety or a flight risk, but the new law does impose higher standards to meet those conditions. Social media posts and conservative news outlets have been distorting how Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act, which is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, will work. The posts list a range of violent crimes that they say will be considered “non-detainable,” including second-degree murder, kidnapping, robbery, burglary and arson. The posts also include dire warnings that Illinois communities will soon devolve into a real life version of “The Purge,” a horror movie where all crime is allowed on one night a year. “On January 1, 2023, Illinois will take its place in history when they become the first state to test out ‘The Purge’; in real life,” an Instagram user wrote on Monday. “The ironically named ‘SAFE-T’ act will charge and release criminals without cash bail for 12 now non-detainable offenses.” Illinois’ new law ends cash bail, or payments imposed by a judge, as a condition of a person’s release pending trial. It’s among the most contentious parts of the “Safe-T Act,” a wide-ranging criminal justice bill Illinois lawmakers passed in 2021 in response to the nationwide reckoning on racism and police brutality. But the law doesn’t create a new classification of “non-detainable” offenses, as critics claim. Suspects can still be jailed pretrial if they are considered a public safety risk or likely to flee to avoid criminal prosecution, said Lauryn Gouldin, a criminal law professor at Syracuse University in New York who studies pretrial detention and bail. The new law states: “Detention only shall be imposed when it is determined that the defendant poses a specific, real and present threat to a person, or has a high likelihood of willful flight.” Additionally, those charged with “forcible felonies,” ones in which probation isn’t an option if convicted, can also be detained pretrial under the law following a required court hearing, said Benjamin Ruddell, director of criminal justice policy at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which was among the local advocacy groups that supported the measure. That includes serious crimes such as first-degree murder and criminal sexual assault. Those arrested for forcible felonies such as second-degree murder, robbery, burglary, arson, kidnapping and aggravated battery — the crimes often cited by opponents of the bill on social media — are not required to have a detention hearing since they are offenses subject to probation. The suspects could, however, still be held in custody until trial if a judge determines they are a threat or flight risk. “Contrary to the false arguments advanced by opponents, the new pretrial system will not simply release every person arrested for a crime,” Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, wrote in an email. Still, the new law does impose higher standards for determining who is considered a public threat or a flight risk, and critics are concerned it will make it nearly impossible to detain a suspect ahead of trial. Prosecutors will now have to show a defendant poses a threat to a “specific, identifiable person or persons,” rather than a more general threat to the community, or they’d have to show that the person has a “high likelihood of willful flight.” “This is a much higher burden than commonly used today in courts throughout the country,” says Jon Walters, an assistant state’s attorney in the office of Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow, who has been a vocal critic of the new law. “The new standards could potentially be insurmountable.”

    — Associated Press writer Philip Marcelo in New York contributed this report.

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    UK didn’t cancel all funerals on same day as queen’s service

    CLAIM: All funeral services in the U.K. have been canceled on Sept. 19, the day Queen Elizabeth II is set to be buried.

    THE FACTS: While some families are opting to postpone or reschedule services set for the day of the queen’s funeral, Sept. 19, there has been no countrywide cancellation order for private funerals on that day. Following the announcement that Monday would be observed as a public holiday in the U.K. to commemorate the queen’s burial, some social media users shared the inaccurate claim that all coinciding funerals would be canceled in deference to Britain’s longest-serving monarch. “Omg so all funerals due on the 19 th have been cancelled !My heartfelt sympathy with all those bereft families involved,” one Twitter user declared, receiving more than 22,000 likes and nearly 4,000 shares. But this isn’t the case. No blanket cancellation orders have been issued to cover funerals scheduled for the day, according to representatives from three of England’s funeral and crematorial industry groups. “There is no truth in this coverage,” Brendan Day,​ secretary of the U.K.’s Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities, wrote in an email to the AP. “The advice being circulated is that all funerals booked for the 19th September proceed as arranged.” Terry Tennens, chief executive of the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors, and Deborah Smith, a spokesperson for the National Association of Funeral Directors, both confirmed that there was no countrywide call for cancellations. Tennens called the situation a “mixed picture” and added that he knew of two local authorities that opted to close their crematoriums that day, but also noted that crematoriums operated by authorities in at least five other localities would remain open, as would cemeteries and crematoriums run by private operators. “Some funerals will go ahead, others are moving to a different date – led by the needs & wishes of the bereaved families involved and in consultation with their chosen funeral venue,” Smith wrote in an email. The government on Saturday announced that Sept. 19 would be deemed a national bank holiday “to allow individuals, businesses and other organisations to pay their respects to Her Majesty and commemorate Her reign” on the day of her state funeral. Time off is not mandated for bank holidays and “the government cannot interfere in existing contractual arrangements between employers and workers,” according to the guidance. Tanya Khan, a spokesperson for the U.K. government’s Cabinet Office, confirmed that organizations and businesses are “under no obligation” to close offices or otherwise cancel or postpone events, and that those decisions were at the discretion of employers. The queen died at Balmoral Estate, her summer residence in Scotland, on Thursday at age 96, ending her 70-year reign.

    — Associated Press writer Sophia Tulp in New York contributed this report.

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    Mourning period for queen doesn’t affect tech devices

    CLAIM: Nintendo and Apple devices as well as the Roblox gaming platform are displaying on-screen messages explaining that they are disabled during the national period of mourning for the late Queen Elizabeth II.

    THE FACTS: These messages aren’t real, and there are no such interruptions. As the U.K. mourns the death of Elizabeth, some social media users are spreading baseless claims that its national period of mourning is hobbling tech devices and gaming platforms. “Don’t play Roblox in the UK,” read one widely shared tweet, which featured an image designed to look like an alert message on the gaming platform. The image featured a photo of the late queen and the text, “Disconnected: Queen Elizabeth II 1926-2022. This experience is unavailable for the Royal period of Mourning and will continue to be until Monday 19 September.” An Instagram post made the same claim about Nintendo, featuring an image of a handheld game console from the brand with a similar message on its screen. Meanwhile, Twitter users falsely claimed Apple iPads would display the message for any users who selected British English in their language settings. “Friendly warning, DO NOT set your iPad’s language to British English or it will go into mourning mode for the next couple of days,” read the tweet, which was shared more than 8,000 times. While some posters shared the images in jest, others seemed to believe the false claims, asking if there were exceptions for emergencies or expressing gratitude that they used Android devices. However, the claims are unfounded. “There’s no truth to the rumor,” a Nintendo representative confirmed to the AP in an email. “There have been no changes to where Roblox is available globally,” said Roblox spokesperson William Nevius. Apple did not respond to a request for comment, but an AP journalist’s iPhone displayed no such message when its language settings were changed to U.K. English. Apple’s tracking page for system issues reported no ongoing issues on Wednesday. The mourning period for the queen extends beyond the date of Sept. 19 mentioned in the false posts. Elizabeth’s funeral is scheduled for that day, and the mourning period will extend for a week after that, according to the royal family.

    — Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed this report.

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    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

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  • AdventHealth Training Center, Home to the Orlando Magic, to Feature Violet Defense’s UV Disinfection Technology

    AdventHealth Training Center, Home to the Orlando Magic, to Feature Violet Defense’s UV Disinfection Technology

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    New state-of-the-art facility will be the first in the nation to fully integrate Violet Defense’s UV technology with building automation system via BACnet standards.

    Press Release
    –


    updated: Sep 6, 2022


    ORLANDO, Fla., September 6, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    The Orlando Magic’s new training home, the AdventHealth Training Center, will have UV disinfection technology from Violet Defense installed throughout the facility to help keep players and other visitors safe from illnesses.

    The AdventHealth Training Center will be the practice and training home for the Magic and a sports medicine hub for all of Central Florida, the Magic and AdventHealth announced. On August 31, the ribbon was cut on the $70 million, 130,000-square-foot facility in the heart of Orlando.

    Violet Defense is the developer of patented Pulsed Xenon UV disinfection technology, proven in independent lab testing to kill pathogens including E. coli, Salmonella, S. aureus, C. diff, MRSA, norovirus, coronavirus and SARS-CoV-2. 

    The Magic’s facility will be the first in the country to fully integrate Violet Defense’s UV technology with a building automation system via the international BACnet standard. This will provide the team with enhanced control over their system, including scheduling functionality and reporting and metrics on system usage.

    “We’re extremely proud to partner with the Orlando Magic and protect the health of the athletes at all levels – from the NBA to youth sports – who use this facility,” said Bruce Mosley, President of Violet Defense. “With the advanced control features of this deployment, we are making it incredibly easy to disinfect spaces throughout their facility automatically.”

    Violet Defense’s UV technology utilizes powerful, broad-spectrum light, including germicidal UV-C, UV-B, UV-A, and violet-blue that enhances their germ-killing efficiency. By combining those wavelengths, Violet Defense’s UV advantage optimizes the efficacy of the UV light it delivers. The company strives to provide products that will lead to a brighter, healthier, more sustainable future for everyone.

    The AdventHealth Training Center will provide the Magic with two state-of-the-art basketball courts for practice; expanded strength and conditioning, training and recovery facilities; aquatic spaces, including for physical therapy and hydrotherapy; sports science and nutrition facilities; and cutting-edge audio-video and imaging technology, the team said. 

    “Through our collaboration with Violet Defense over the last several of years, we have been able to easily incorporate their technology throughout all of our spaces as part of our ongoing efforts to keep our facilities safe and healthy for our team,” said Magic President of Basketball Operations Jeff Weltman. “When we started planning the state-of-the-art AdventHealth Training Center, we knew right away that Violet Defense needed to be an integral part of our plans. We are thrilled to have them join us in our continuing commitment to health and wellness.”

    AdventHealth is a multi-state health care system, and the Magic’s partner for three decades, and brings to the facility a 33,300-square-foot medical hub designed for elite athletes, youth athletes and recreational athletes with a focus on whole-person health and sports science. 

    Violet Defense’s industrial UV sanitizer system will be installed throughout the facility, covering areas including:

    • Weight and cardio room
    • Hydrotherapy
    • Recovery
    • Player locker rooms and showers
    • Dining and kitchen area
    • Staff locker rooms and showers
    • Restrooms

    To learn more about Violet Defense and its offerings, visit www.violetdefense.com.

    About Violet Defense

    Violet Defense is dedicated to UV disinfection solutions for a brighter, healthier, more sustainable future. Violet Defense provides trusted and efficient UV disinfection solutions that are sustainable, cost-effective, and protect the places you live, learn, work, and play. We are committed to your well-being and strive to give you confidence and peace of mind wherever you go. To learn more about Violet Defense and its initiatives, visit www.violetdefense.com. 

    Media Contact:

    Maria Penaloza
    Maria.penaloza@newswire.com
    www.Newswire.com

    Source: Violet Defense

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  • Rythmia Life Advancement Center Announces Appointment of Cesar Millan to Its Board of Directors

    Rythmia Life Advancement Center Announces Appointment of Cesar Millan to Its Board of Directors

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    Press Release
    –

    Sep 1, 2022


    LOS ANGELES, September 1, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Rythmia Life Advancement Center today announced that Cesar Millan will be appointed to its Board of Directors, effective as of Sept. 1, 2022. Mr. Millan joins Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith, Martin Luther King III, Toni Ko, Kelly Slater, Gerard Armond Powell, Dr. Jeff McNairy, Brandee Sabella, Gerard Powell II, and Patrick Powell as a member of the Board. 

    “I am so excited for Cesar to join our Board of Directors,” said Gerard Armond Powell, CEO, Rythmia Life Advancement Center. “His capacity for love is immeasurable, and I know that our clients are going to benefit greatly from his presence on the Board!” 

    ABOUT CESAR MILLAN 

    With more than 25 years of experience and with his brand-new TV show, “Better Human, Better Dog” now on National Geographic Title & Disney+; Cesar Millan is a household name and 3x Emmy-nominated, internationally acclaimed star of several hit TV series broadcasted and streamed in over 120 countries. A New York Times #1 best-selling author, and accomplished global public speaker, Millan is also an entrepreneur with an innovative product line, including his widely popular and exclusive training courses under his Training Cesar’s Way brand. Cesar Millan is one of the most sought-after authorities in the field of dog behavior and rehabilitation. He is the only world-renowned celebrity dog behaviorist and has taken it to another level with his mission through the Cesar Millan Foundation for better humans, better planet. 

    ABOUT RYTHMIA LIFE ADVANCEMENT CENTER 

    Rythmia Life Advancement Center is focused on incorporating plant medicine into metaphysical teachings. The results of its program are spectacular with over 95% of its 12,000+ clients reporting a life-changing miracle during their stay. Furthermore, the company is a model of diversity. 82% of Rythmia’s staff are members of a minority community and/or identify as LGBTQ+. And the company prides itself on its management team, 70% of whom are members of a minority community and/or identify as LGBTQ+. For further information and/or reservations, call (888) 443-5566 or visit https://rythmia.link/press.

    Media Contact 

    Maria Penaloza
    maria.penaloza@newswire.com 

    Source: Rythmia Life Advancement Center

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  • Rythmia Life Advancement Center Praises Pro Athletes’ Statements on the Benefits of Psychedelics

    Rythmia Life Advancement Center Praises Pro Athletes’ Statements on the Benefits of Psychedelics

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    Green Bay Packers Quarterback Aaron Rodgers and other professional athletes share thoughts on reducing stigma and encourage others to pursue healing with plant-based medicine.

    Press Release
    –

    Aug 29, 2022


    LOS ANGELES, August 29, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and several other prominent professional athletes are speaking publicly about the benefits of psychedelics for mental health and sports performance. Experts at Rythmia Life Advancement Center, a medically licensed resort in Costa Rica that conducts ceremonies with ayahuasca, say the athletes’ openness is reducing a long-held stigma and paving the way for more people to improve their health through plant medicines.

    Ayahuasca is an increasingly popular plant medicine known for its psychedelic effects that can help users experience transformational journeys of self-discovery and reflection. Plant medicines have become more accepted and widely used in the wake of clinical studies that show ayahuasca, psilocybin and iboga have huge promise in treating conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), opiate addiction, nicotine addiction, alcoholism, anxiety and depression.

    In interviews published in early August, Rodgers said he consumed ayahuasca in ceremonies in 2020 and 2022. Rodgers went on to win the National Football League’s Most Valuable Player award in 2020 and 2021.       

    “When Aaron Rodgers spoke out, I thought it was incredible because I’m an advocate for people in the public eye sharing their psychedelic experiences, especially those who don’t fall into the standard box of a ‘psychedelic user’ as it helps alleviate a lot of the stigmas,” said Isaac Mackie, Director of New Business Development & Operations at Rythmia. “I also think there’s a potentially fascinating correlation that he used ayahuasca before winning the league’s most valuable player recognition in 2020 and 2021.” 

    Rodgers is one of several athletes who say they have benefitted from psychedelics. Daniel Carcillo, a former National Hockey League player, suffered at least seven concussions throughout his career, leaving him with mental illness, headaches, impaired memory, slurred speech, and insomnia- symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. After using ayahuasca, his depression and anxiety vanished, as did the other symptoms, he said in 2020.

    Former UFC fighter Dean Lister said he was struggling with the use of alcohol and prescription medicine until he decided to try psilocybin, which has helped him stop using the substances. NFL player Kenny Stills said using ketamine, a legal anesthetic with hallucinogenic effects, helped treat his depression. And like Rodgers, former NFL player Kerry Rhodes said an ayahuasca ceremony changed him and, like Carcillo, relieved his CTE-related symptoms and improved his quality of life.

    According to Kelly Slater, an American professional surfer, 11-time World Surf League Champion, and member of Rythmia’s board of directors, “This work has truly changed my life, and the lives of people around me, for the better. Many thanks to Gerry and the Rythmia team.”

    As more people share their experiences with ayahuasca and other plant medicines, organizations like Rythmia can reach more people whose lives could benefit from the ancient healing powers of plant medicine. Rythmia specializes in helping guests use plant medicines safely and effectively through various methods, like ayahuasca ceremonies.

    “We’re seeing more and more people are beginning to accept plant medicine and ayahuasca as valuable tools in their healing journey,” adds Mackie.

    Retreats, like Rythmia Life Advancement Center, are a valuable resource for anyone interested in pursuing the powers of plant medicine. To learn more, visit https://rythmia.link/press.

    About Rythmia Life Advancement Center

    Rythmia Life Advancement Center is focused on incorporating plant medicine into metaphysical teachings. The results of its program are spectacular, with over 95% of its 12,000+ clients reporting a life-changing miracle during their stay. Furthermore, the company is a model of diversity. Eighty-two percent of Rythmia’s staff are members of a minority community and/or identify as LGBTQ+. And the company prides itself on its management team, 70% of whom are members of a minority community and/or identify as LGBTQ+. For further information and/or reservations, call (888) 443-5566 or visit https://rythmia.link/press. 

    Media Contact

    Maria Penaloza
    maria.penaloza@newswire.com 

    Source: Rythmia Life Advancement Center

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  • Tritan Software Expands With New Office in Cyprus

    Tritan Software Expands With New Office in Cyprus

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    Press Release
    –

    Aug 1, 2022


    MIAMI, August 1, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Tritan Software, the leading provider of maritime health and safety software platforms, has officially opened a new office location in Limassol, Cyprus, to further expand its operations within the commercial maritime segment. 

    The new office will serve as a primary service and business development location for the shipping industry and the greater Mediterranean region. “Given its strategic location and presence to some of the world’s most prominent ship management companies, it was a natural choice to be closer to our clients and provide the best support for their needs,” stated Nedko Panayotov, Head of Strategic Partnerships. 

    The office is located at the recently constructed new port building directly in front of the Port of Limassol with the Tritan logo prominently on display. Tritan Software has expanded rapidly into the commercial segment and is currently servicing some of the industry’s largest ship management companies, along with over 97% of the cruise industry. “We’re bringing much-needed innovation and new services into a segment of the industry that has been largely underserved for many years,” stated Andrew L. Carricarte, President and CEO. “We’re genuinely excited to grow our success with more vessel operators and to improve the safety and wellbeing of seafarers worldwide.” 

    About Tritan Software

    Tritan Software is the industry’s #1 provider of Health and Safety software and services currently supporting more than 97% of cruise lines and some of the world’s largest ship management companies. Tritan’s extensive experience and specialized product suites specifically address the unique needs of the industry while achieving the highest value for our Clients with a proven return on investment. Our focus on technology innovation and 24/7 service excellence has been the catalyst for our global success.

    To learn more about Tritan Software, please visit www.tritansoft.com. 

    Contact: Mr. Nedko Panayotov, Ext. 8102

    Phone: +1-877-299-1000

    Email: info@tritansoft.com

    Source: Tritan Software Corporation

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