Month: July 2021

The U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday that the United States imposed new sanctions on Cuban officials accused of “serious human rights abuse and corruption” amid ongoing protests calling for economic reform and COVID-19 relief.

The sanctions target Cuba’s Interior Ministry and Alvaro Lopez Miera, head of Cuba’s Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. The financial penalties come under the Global Magnitsky Act, which seek to fight human rights abuses. The Treasury Department said Lopez Miera and the MINFAR “have attacked protesters and arrested or disappeared over 100 protesters in an attempt to suppress those protests.”

The anti-government protests are the largest seen in decades in the communist country, as people took to the streets earlier this month in the capital of Havana and other locations as Cuba continued to suffer from a deepening economic crisis and the pandemic.

President Joe Biden released a statement Thursday said the Cuban people have the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, just as Americans do: “I unequivocally condemn the mass detentions and sham trials that are unjustly sentencing to prison those who dared to speak out in an effort to intimidate and threaten the Cuban people into silence,” he said.

Editorial credit: Eli Wilson / Shutterstock.com

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters on Thursday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is standing firm for now with its guidance  that only unvaccinated people need to wear masks to be safe, and vaccinated people are able to go without. Last May, the CDC said that vaccinated people could safely go without masks indoors, citing evidence that people who are fully immunized are unlikely to get sick and unlikely to spread the virus. However since then, the new “Delta” variant of the virus has spread rapidly across unvaccinated pockets of the U.S., once again overwhelming health care workers who say victims of the delta variant are younger and have become sicker. On July 9 the CDC issued guidance for schools, which calls on any unvaccinated staff and students to wear masks. Kids under 12 don’t yet qualify for the vaccine.

Walensky said “we are always looking at the data as the data come in. But CDC mask guidance hasn’t changed and that — for now — there’s no need. Fully vaccinated people are protected from severe illness, and we’ve always said that communities and individuals to make the decisions that are right for them based on what’s going on in their local areas.”  She later added: “In areas that have high and low amounts of vaccination … if you’re unvaccinated, you should absolutely be wearing a mask. If you’re vaccinated, you have exceptional levels of protection from that vaccine, and you may choose to add an extra layer of protection by putting on your mask and that’s a very individual choice.”

Later on Thursday, President Joe Biden said:“We follow the science. What’s happening now is all the major scientific operations … are looking at all the possibilities of what’s happening now,” he said. “We have a pandemic among the non-vaccinated — those who are not vaccinated.”

Editorial credit: bear_productions / Shutterstock.com

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked a procedural vote to advance a massive bipartisan infrastructure bill, saying it is premature to do so while negotiators are still ironing out its details. The infrastructure bill, ultimately expected to be worth $600 billion, has been a key priority of President Joe Biden.

GOP senators blocked consideration of the measure with 49 votes, voting down Sen. Chuck Schumer’s bid to move debate forward while negotiators from both parties have yet to find common ground over issues such as funding for transit and how to pay for the package. The bipartisan bill focuses on brick-and-mortar projects while Democrats prefer a version that seeks $3.5 trillion for wider related issues like climate change initiatives and “human infrastructure” such as childcare.

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who is part of that bipartisan group that worked on the framework of the bill, called on Schumer to delay Wednesday’s vote until Monday because negotiators are close to reaching a full agreement. Romney said: “Until we’ve ironed out all of the remaining issues, Wednesday is premature, but I think Monday would be sufficient time for us to get all the remaining issues solved, and socialize the legislation with our colleagues so they know how they want to vote.”

Editorial credit: Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com

On Wednesday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi vetoed two choices to serve on the committee set to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Reps. Jim Banks on Indiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio, chosen by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, were rejected by Pelosi to sit on the panel, which will investigate the riot at the U.S. Capitol. Banks and Jordan both voted against certifying the election results.

Pelosi said that the unprecedented decision was driven by the unprecedented nature of the Jan. 6 attack:
“We need a comprehensive investigation as to who organized this attack, who paid for it, how they nearly succeeded in overthrowing a presidential election, why they did it and how we must organize ourselves to prevent anything like it from ever happening again,” reads Pelosi’s statement.

Pelosi said she’s prepared to appoint Reps. Rodney Davis, Kelly Armstrong and Troy Nehls, and requested McCarthy to appoint two other members. The committee will have a total of 13 members, eight of those being appointed by Democrats and five appointed by Republican leader McCarthy. The panel is expected to hold its first hearing next week.

Editorial credit: Sheila Fitzgerald / Shutterstock.com

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director, said on Tuesday that the more contagious delta variant of COVID-19 now makes up 83% of sequenced samples in the United States. Walensky said in a Senate committee hearing: “This is a dramatic increase, up from 50% for the week of July 3.”

Health experts confirm that the delta variant is more transmissible than any other identified COVID-19 variant so far.  Recent data from Israel, evaluating effectiveness of the Pfizer/BionTech mRNA vaccine against the delta variant, found the vaccine to be 64% protective against infection, and that the vaccine is 93% effective in preventing severe disease and hospitalizations. Other studies indicate that the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are also effective against the delta variant.

However according to the CDC, more than half of the U.S. is not yet fully vaccinated, which is becoming increasingly worrisome to health experts. If many of these people do not get inoculated, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the U.S. can expect a “smoldering” outbreak for “a considerable period of time.”

The rise of the delta variant comes as the U.S. sees a new uptick in COVID-19 cases and an increase in hospitalizations and deaths. The average of new daily cases this week is up 66% from last week and 145% from two weeks ago, as cases surge in 44 states, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. In addition, hospitalizations are up 26% from last week. 99.5% of deaths are among the unvaccinated.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and three crewmates soared into space aboard a Blue Origin rocket from Texas, landing safely in the desert about 10 minutes later.  The New Shepard suborbital rocket lifted off about 9:12 a.m. EDT from the company’s Corn Ranch launch site 160 miles east of El Paso.

Bezos’ brother, Mark Bezos, rode into space with crewmates Wally Funk, an 82-year-old aviation pioneer from Texas, and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen — the youngest and oldest to ever fly in space. Daemen also became the first paying customer on a private company’s spacecraft, after a Blue Origin auction June 12.  The four crew members ascended the launch tower and reached the capsule via a walkway about 30 minutes before liftoff, where they were strapped into seats in the capsule for the countdown. The rocket, about five stories tall, accelerated to about 2,200 mph emitting 110,000 pounds of thrust, creating gravity forces of about three times the normal pull on Earth. After reaching space, the crew experience a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth.

Bezos became the second person to reach space aboard his own company’s private spacecraft, the Blue Origin capsule. Just nine days earlier, Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, launched from the public Spaceport America, which is owned by the state of New Mexico. Bezos said he chose July 20 for the launch because it is the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Bezos said at a news conference that his company plans two more flights this year with people on board, and that he hopes Blue Origin can eventually build orbital rockets and facilities on the moon — and even asteroids or Mars.

Editorial credit: JennLShoots / Shutterstock.com