Day: August 26, 2023

Mystery hunters converged on a Scottish lake on Saturday to look for signs of the mythical Loch Ness Monster.

The Loch Ness Center said researchers would seek evidence of Nessie using thermal-imaging drones, infrared cameras and a hydrophone to detect underwater sounds in the lake’s murky waters. The two-day event is being billed as the biggest survey of the lake in 50 years and includes volunteers scanning the water from boats and the lakeshore, with others around the world joining in with webcams.

Alan McKenna of the Loch Ness Center said the aim was “to inspire a new generation of Loch Ness enthusiasts.”

McKenna told BBC radio the searchers were “looking for breaks in the surface and asking volunteers to record all manner of natural behavior on the loch.”

“Not every ripple or wave is a beastie. Some of those can be explained, but there are a handful that cannot,” he said.

The Loch Ness Center is at the former Drumnadrochit Hotel, where the modern-day Nessie legend began. In 1933, manager Aldie Mackay reported spotting a “water beast” in the mountain-fringed loch, the largest body of freshwater by volume in the United Kingdom and at up to 750 feet (230 meters) one of the deepest.

The story kicked off an enduring worldwide fascination with finding the elusive monster, spawning hoaxes and hundreds of eyewitness accounts. Numerous theories have been put forward over the years, including that the creature may have been a prehistoric marine reptile, giant eels, a sturgeon or even an escaped circus elephant.

Many believe the sightings are pranks or can be explained by floating logs or strong winds, but the legend is a boon for tourism in the picturesque Scottish Highlands region.

Such skepticism did not deter volunteers like Craig Gallifrey.

“I believe there is something in the loch,” he said, though he is open-minded about what it is. “I do think that there’s got to be something that’s fueling the speculation.”

He said that whatever the outcome of the weekend search, “the legend will continue.”

“I think it’s just the imagination of something being in the largest body of water in the U.K.. … There’s a lot more stories,” he said. “There’s still other things, although they’ve not been proven. There’s still something quite special about the loch.”
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In a desperate measure to stop students from taking their own lives, authorities in the western Indian city of Kota — the country’s famous academic coaching hub — have directed all local hostels, guest houses and other accommodation facilities to install specially designed spring-fitted ceiling fans in rooms.

The directive from the authorities came on Aug. 16, a day after an 18-year-old student at a test training school in Kota hanged himself from a ceiling fan in his room. It was the 22nd such suicide by a student in the city this year — the highest yearly toll since 2015.

The chief minister of Rajasthan, where Kota is located, held an emergency meeting this week and set up a committee comprising senior government officials, representatives from coaching schools, parents and doctors to address the issue of suicide by the students in Kota.

“We cannot allow the suicide cases to spike further. We do not want to see young students commit suicide,” said Ashok Gehlot, the chief minister. “The committee will investigate why the suicides are taking place and suggest ways to put a halt to these suicides.”

In the past decade in Kota, more than 150 students who were preparing to sit for entrance exams for engineering and medical colleges died by suicide. In most cases, they hanged themselves from the ceiling fans.

The spring-fitted fans that authorities have ordered to be fitted in the accommodations of students are designed to uncoil and lower the moment a load of more than 20 kilograms (44 pounds) is attached to them, making it impossible for someone to commit suicide by hanging from them.

When the spring uncoils, a sensor activates an alarm to alert people in the surroundings.

Spring-fitted fans

The police chief of Kota said the civil administration and the police have been jointly trying their best to curb student suicides in the city. 

“After the [chief minister] held the meeting with senior officials on the issue, we have directed all hostels, guest houses and other places, where the coaching-school students stay in Kota, to attach the special spring and alarm-fitted devices to all ceiling fans,” Sharad Chaudhary, the Kota police superintendent, told VOA. “We have also directed our police forces to visit all accommodation facilities of the students and make sure that devices have been installed.

“With the help of these spring- and alarm-fitted devices, we are aiming to put a halt at least to those suicides taking place by hanging from the ceiling fans,” he said.  

There are about 6,075 engineering and upwards of 600 medical colleges in India, where millions of students seek admission annually, usually after taking entrance tests such as the Joint Entrance Examination and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.

Competition among the students to do well on the exams is tough. Kota is known for its 150 coaching centers, where over 200,000 students from across the country come every year, sign up for different courses and prepare for the entrance exams.

These students, mostly from middle-class families, stay in hostels and guest houses.

Over the past decade, Kota has often been in the news for suicides by coaching-school students.

‘Improper parenting’

Experts say that some students take extreme steps, such as attempting suicide, after being unable to cope with the pressure.

Dr. Neena Vijayvargiya, a Kota-based psychiatrist dealing with the mental health issues of many Kota coaching schools’ students, told VOA that in “99% of these suicide cases,” improper parenting was found to be the main factor driving the students to take the extreme step.

“Parents continue to pressure the students that they have to enter the top colleges, and that is the only goal for them,” she said. “The students fear facing their parents and society should they not get admission to top colleges.”

According to Vijayvargiya, every student, while depressed, may provide hints to their parents over the course of weeks or months.

Police chief Chaudhary said that parents can play a key role in checking the crisis.

“We are in the process of setting up a separate committee involving mostly the parents of the students to monitor the issue,” he said. “Also, we have decided to conduct a mandatory psychological assessment process for all students enrolled at the coaching schools, at regular intervals.”

Vijayvargiya urged parents not to pressure students to gain admission into the top colleges and to teach their children that “the failure to meet such targets does not mean the end of the world.”
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Four astronauts from four countries rocketed toward the International Space Station on Saturday.

They should reach the orbiting lab in their SpaceX capsule Sunday, replacing four astronauts who have been living up there since March.

A NASA astronaut was joined on the predawn liftoff from Kennedy Space Center by fliers from Denmark, Japan and Russia. They clasped one another’s gloved hands upon reaching orbit.

It was the first U.S. launch in which every spacecraft seat was occupied by a different country — until now, NASA had always included two or three of its own on its SpaceX taxi flights. A fluke in timing led to the assignments, officials said.

“We’re a united team with a common mission,” NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli radioed from orbit. Added NASA’s Ken Bowersox, space operations mission chief: “Boy, what a beautiful launch … and with four international crew members, really an exciting thing to see.”

Moghbeli, a Marine pilot serving as commander, is joined on the six-month mission by the European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa and Russia’s Konstantin Borisov.

“To explore space, we need to do it together,” the European Space Agency’s director general, Josef Aschbacher, said minutes before liftoff. “Space is really global, and international cooperation is key.”

The astronauts’ paths to space couldn’t be more different.

Moghbeli’s parents fled Iran during the 1979 revolution. Born in Germany and raised on New York’s Long Island, she joined the Marines and flew attack helicopters in Afghanistan. The first-time space traveler hopes to show Iranian girls that they, too, can aim high. “Belief in yourself is something really powerful,” she said before the flight.

Mogensen worked on oil rigs off the West African coast after getting an engineering degree. He told people puzzled by his job choice that “in the future we would need drillers in space” like Bruce Willis’ character in the killer asteroid film “Armageddon.” He’s convinced the rig experience led to his selection as Denmark’s first astronaut.

Furukawa spent a decade as a surgeon before making Japan’s astronaut cut. Like Mogensen, he has visited the station before.

Borisov, a space rookie, turned to engineering after studying business. He runs a freediving school in Moscow and judges the sport, in which divers shun oxygen tanks and hold their breath underwater.

One of the perks of an international crew, they noted, is the food. Among the delicacies soaring with them: Persian herbed stew, Danish chocolate and Japanese mackerel.

SpaceX’s first-stage booster returned to Cape Canaveral several minutes after liftoff, an extra treat for the thousands of spectators gathered in the early-morning darkness.

Liftoff was delayed a day for additional data reviews of valves in the capsule’s life-support system. The countdown almost was halted again Saturday after a tiny fuel leak cropped up in the capsule’s thruster system. SpaceX engineers managed to verify the leak would pose no threat with barely two minutes remaining on the clock, said Benji Reed, the company’s senior director for human spaceflight.

Another NASA astronaut will launch to the station from Kazakhstan in mid-September under a barter agreement, along with two Russians.

SpaceX has now launched eight crews for NASA. Boeing was hired at the same time nearly a decade ago but has yet to fly astronauts. Its crew capsule is grounded until 2024 by parachute and other issues.
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Thailand said this week it is preparing to sue Facebook in a move that could see the platform shut down nationwide over scammers allegedly exploiting the social networking site to cheat local users out of tens of millions of dollars a year.

The country’s minister of digital economy and society, Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn, announced the planned lawsuit after a ministry meeting on Monday.

Ministry spokesperson Wetang Phuangsup told VOA on Thursday the case would be filed in one to two weeks, possibly by the end of the month.

“We are in the stage of gathering information, gathering evidence, and we will file to the court to issue the final judgment on how to deal with Facebook since they are a part of the scamming,” he said.

Some of the most common scams, Wetang said, involve paid advertisements on the site urging people to invest in fake companies, often using the logo of Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission or sham endorsements from local celebrities to lure them in.

Of the roughly 16,000 online scamming complaints filed in Thailand last year, he said, 70% to 80% involved Facebook and cost users upwards of $100 million.

“We believe that Facebook has a responsibility,” Wetang said. “Facebook is taking money from advertising a lot, and basically even taking money from Thai society as a whole. Facebook should be more responsible to society, should screen the advertising. … We believe that by doing so it would definitely decrease the investment scam in Thailand on the Facebook.”

Wetang said the ministry had been urging the company to do more to screen and vet paid ads for the past year and was now turning to the courts to possibly shut the site down as a last resort.

“If you are supporting the crime, especially on the internet, you will be liable [for] the crime, and by the law, it’s possible the court can issue the shutdown of Facebook,” he said. “By law, we can ask the court to suspend or punish all the people who support the crime, of course with evidence.”

Neither Facebook nor its parent company, Meta, replied to VOA’s repeated requests for comment or interviews.

The Asia Internet Coalition, an industry association that counts Meta among its members, acknowledged that online scamming was a growing problem across the region. Other members include Google, Amazon, Apple and X, formerly known as Twitter.

“While it’s getting challenging from the scale perspective, it’s also getting complicated and sophisticated because of the technology that has been used when it comes to application on the platforms but also how this technology can be misused,” the coalition’s secretariat, Sarthak Luthra, told VOA.

Luthra would not speak for Meta or address Thailand’s specific complaints against Facebook but said tech companies were taking steps to thwart scammers, including teaching users how to spot them.

Last year, for example, Meta launched a #StayingSafeOnline campaign in Thailand “to raise awareness about some of the most common kinds of online scams, including helping people understand the different kinds of scamsters, their tricks, and tips to stay safe online,” according to the company’s website.

Luthra said tech companies have been facing a growing number of criminal and civil penalties for their content across the region while urging governments to give them more room to regulate themselves and to apply “safe harbor” rules that shield the companies from legal liability for content created by users.

Shutting down any platform on a nationwide scale is not the answer, he said, and he warned of the unintended consequences.

“It really, first, impacts the ease of doing business and also the perception around the digital economy development of a country, so shutting down a platform is of course not a solution to a challenge in this case,” Luthra said.

“A government really needs to think of how do we promote online safety while maintaining an open internet environment,” he said. “From the economic perspective, it does impact investment sentiment, business sentiment and the ability to operate in that particular country.”

At a recent company event in Thailand, Meta said there were some 65 million Facebook users in the country, which also has the second-largest economy in Southeast Asia.

Shutting down the platform would have a “huge” impact on the vast majority of people using the site to make money legally and honestly, said Sutawan Chanprasert, executive director of DigitalReach, a digital rights group based in Thailand.

She said a shutdown would cut off a vital channel for free speech in Thailand and an important tool for independent local media outlets.

“Some of them rely predominantly on Facebook because it’s the most popular social media platform in Thailand, so they publish their content on Facebook in order to reach out to audiences because they don’t have a means to set up … a full-fledged media channel,” she said.

Taking all that away to foil scammers would be “too extreme,” Sutawan said, suggesting the government focus instead on strengthening the country’s cybercrime and security laws and enforcing them.

Ministry spokesperson Wetang said the government was aware of the collateral damage a shutdown could cause but had to risk a lawsuit that could bring it on.

“Definitely we are really concerned about the people on Facebook,” he said. “But since this is a crime that already happened, the evidence is so clear … it is impossible that we don’t take action.”
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Meta is being accused of endangering lives by blocking news links in Canada at a crucial moment, when thousands have fled their homes and are desperate for wildfire updates that once would have been shared widely on Facebook.

The situation “is dangerous,” said Kelsey Worth, 35, one of nearly 20,000 residents of Yellowknife and thousands more in small towns ordered to evacuate the Northwest Territories as wildfires advanced.

She described to AFP how “insanely difficult” it has been for herself and other evacuees to find verifiable information about the fires blazing across the near-Arctic territory and other parts of Canada.

“Nobody’s able to know what’s true or not,” she said.

“And when you’re in an emergency situation, time is of the essence,” she said, explaining that many Canadians until now have relied on social media for news.

Meta on Aug. 1 started blocking the distribution of news links and articles on its Facebook and Instagram platforms in response to a recent law requiring digital giants to pay publishers for news content.

The company has been in a virtual showdown with Ottawa over the bill passed in June, but which only takes effect next year.

Building on similar legislation introduced in Australia, the bill aims to support a struggling Canadian news sector that has seen a flight of advertising dollars and hundreds of publications closed in the last decade.

It requires companies like Meta and Google to make fair commercial deals with Canadian outlets for the news and information — estimated in a report to parliament to be worth US$250 million per year — that is shared on their platforms or face binding arbitration.

But Meta has said the bill is flawed and insisted that news outlets share content on its Facebook and Instagram platforms to attract readers, benefiting them and not the Silicon Valley firm.

Profits over safety

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week assailed Meta, telling reporters it was “inconceivable that a company like Facebook is choosing to put corporate profits ahead of (safety)… and keeping Canadians informed about things like wildfires.”

Almost 80% of all online advertising revenues in Canada go to Meta and Google, which has expressed its own reservations about the new law.

Ollie Williams, director of Cabin Radio in the far north, called Meta’s move to block news sharing “stupid and dangerous.”

He suggested in an interview with AFP that “Meta could lift the ban temporarily in the interests of preservation of life and suffer no financial penalty because the legislation has not taken effect yet.”

Nicolas Servel, over at Radio Taiga, a French-language station in Yellowknife, noted that some had found ways of circumventing Meta’s block.

They “found other ways to share” information, he said, such as taking screen shots of news articles and sharing them from personal — rather than corporate — social media accounts.

‘Life and death’

Several large newspapers in Canada such as The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star have launched campaigns to try to attract readers directly to their sites.

But for many smaller news outlets, workarounds have proven challenging as social media platforms have become entrenched.

Public broadcaster CBC in a letter this week pressed Meta to reverse course.

“Time is of the essence,” wrote CBC president Catherine Tait. “I urge you to consider taking the much-needed humanitarian action and immediately lift your ban on vital Canadian news and information to communities dealing with this wildfire emergency.”

As more than 1,000 wildfires burn across Canada, she said, “The need for reliable, trusted, and up-to-date information can literally be the difference between life and death.”

Meta — which did not respond to AFP requests for comment — rejected CBC’s suggestion. Instead, it urged Canadians to use the “Safety Check” function on Facebook to let others know if they are safe or not.

Patrick White, a professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal, said Meta has shown itself to be a “bad corporate citizen.”

“It’s a matter of public safety,” he said, adding that he remains optimistic Ottawa will eventually reach a deal with Meta and other digital giants that addresses their concerns.
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When members of the marine mammal team from the International Fund for Animal Welfare rush to a Cape Cod beach to help a stranded dolphin or porpoise, they have no choice but to treat the endangered animal on site and then immediately release it.

That is about to change.

The organization, which protects animals worldwide, is opening a first-of-its-kind short-term dolphin hospital on Cape Cod this month that it hopes will not only improve survivability rates, but also enhance the research it has developed over 25 years.

Stranded marine mammals are stressed, in shock and dehydrated, said Brian Sharp, director of the rescue team. Simply caring for them at the scene is often not enough. They need additional diagnostics, treatment and recovery time.

“With this ICU for dolphins, we’ll be able to get them treatment that’s needed, then be able to release them quickly,” he said.

While there are marine mammal rehabilitation centers that can take care of animals for months or even years, the goal of this facility is to release them back into the ocean within four days, he said.

“This is the first time that this has been attempted before,” Sharp said.

There are more live marine mammal strandings on Cape Cod than anywhere else in the world, Sharp said. The welfare fund has responded to more than 400 live stranded dolphins, whales and porpoises in the region in the past five years alone, the organization said in a news release.

Cape Cod is a good habitat for dolphins, but a risky one. Its geography — it is basically a hook-shaped spit of sand jutting into the ocean — can make dolphin navigation difficult, and 12-foot tides can quickly expose a mile of beach.

The 4,200-square-foot (390-square-meter) Dolphin Rescue Center is in a renovated retail space in downtown Orleans.

It includes an 1,800-square-foot (167-square-meter) rehabilitation area with two treatment pools 15 feet (4.3 meters) across and a veterinary laboratory. The public will not be permitted to have direct contact with the animals being a cared for, but there is also an education center where visitors will be able to watch the recovering animals on a monitor.

Staffed by four full-time workers, it is equipped to provide round-the-clock care. It will start by treating one animal at a time, but the goal is to eventually treat multiple animals simultaneously.

The privately funded center has been federally inspected and expects to open by the end of the month, Sharp said.

“We want to take what we learn here and share it nationally, internationally,” he said.
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Health authorities in Bangladesh are wrestling with a surge in dengue fever cases as monsoon rains batter the densely populated country.

According to a World Health Organization report issued this month, “The higher incidence of dengue is taking place in the context of an unusual episodic amount of rainfall, combined with high temperatures and high humidity, which have resulted in an increased mosquito population throughout Bangladesh.”

Almost 90,000 cases of the mosquito-borne viral illness had been reported his year through Aug. 15, according to government figures.

Researchers and public health experts say  the true numbers are much higher. By mid-August, at least 426 people – 81 of whom were age 18 or younger – had died of the fever, according to the Directorate General of Health Services, making this the deadliest year since the first recorded epidemic in 2000.

There are four strains of dengue, including the most life-threatening, hemorrhagic dengue. However, only patients with severe symptoms end up in hospitals, where the government collects data.

Last year, 62,098 dengue cases were recorded in Bangladesh, with 281 deaths.

The dengue virus is transmitted through the bite of infected female Aedes mosquitoes, which also transmit chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika infection and is a recurring problem in Bangladesh during the monsoon season. However, this year’s outbreak has been particularly severe, with the number of cases skyrocketing across urban and rural areas alike.

“We have noticed the disease has changed its characteristics, and so do the mosquitos too. They’ve adapted and become more stronger and prevalent. And now we see that dengue is not an ‘urban,’ problem anymore, the government database now records cases from every corner of the country,” Dr. M.H. Chowdhury Lenin, a physician and public health expert told VOA.

According to Lenin, “Dengue has been present in Bangladesh for over two decades now, and as we now know, dengue mosquitoes had mutations and they are now resistant to the usual insecticide or repellents that we use. So our existing measures are unable to curb the spread of the Aedes mosquitoes.”

Lenin warned the situation could get worse in the coming weeks, as monsoons are likely to intensify, with more rainfall and dengue hospitalizations and deaths. Monsoons in Bangladesh usually surge in August and September, continuing through early October.

“We need to have orchestrated efforts to minimize the fatalities. Dengue is not new in Bangladesh, and as a tropical country, we have to live with such diseases. However, we failed to build a multisectoral approach to prevent this disease from becoming a big public health nightmare,” Lenin added.

This year’s surge in cases has significantly strained Bangladesh’s already fragile health care system, which is plagued by mismanagement and corruption. Hospitals are grappling with the influx of patients, many of whom are suffering severe symptoms of dengue, such as high fever, intense headache, joint and muscle pain, and in severe cases, internal bleeding.

“Health sector in Bangladesh is inundated under corruption and mismanagement. It was nakedly visible during the COVID-19 outbreak. Politicization and commercial interests are the most important causes behind the destruction to this sector,” Sharif Jamil, a prominent Dhaka-based social and environmental activist, wrote in a WhatsApp message.

“The failure to manage dengue spreading across the country is evident now that it is causing casualties in the urban areas in the periphery beyond the city areas.”

Government officials aim to apply the lessons learned from managing the COVID-19 pandemic, when state-run and private hospitals nationwide increased bed capacity, provision of intensive care, and emergency medical preparations.

Dr. Robed Amin, the Directorate General of Health Services line director in the noncommunicable disease control program, said the directorate is hopeful the COVID-era measures will improve the fight against dengue.

“As we have noticed, dengue isn’t just an urban problem anymore. It’s rampant in the entire country. And with the monsoon rain of August and September, the cases will likely to go up. During the COVID pandemic, we strengthened our entire health care network across the country, so I am hopeful most of the severe cases will be able to be managed locally, and not everyone will have to flock to Dhaka or other big cities with better hospitals,” Amin told VOA.

As most of the cases are reported from urban and suburban areas, experts and activists also blame unplanned urbanization and lackluster response from the authorities for the dengue outbreak.

Kabirul Bashar, an entomologist at Dhaka’s Jahangirnagar University, told VOA unplanned construction and lack of awareness helped dengue to become widespread in every corner of the country.

“Climate change is definitely a factor, but there are other man-made factors that are driving the disease. Not only in Dhaka, but even outside the capital, city-centric economic developments drive the rapid construction of high-rise business centers, hotels, and apartments in the urban areas,” he said.

“The entire country has become big construction zones marked by stagnant water on concrete surfaces after rainfall, and potentially breeding Aedes mosquito.”

Bashar said official “anti-mosquito drives” during the monsoon are inadequate to fight the current dengue outbreak, especially because over time and with climate change the mosquitoes have evolved and adapted and have become immune to the repellents used against them.

Activist Jamil said he believes future dengue outbreaks are preventable with a timely and coordinated approach and proper urban planning, among other things.

“A proper urban planning will include people and experts in the planning and implementation processes. If we can engage and empower people meaningfully, community leaders will come forward to work with the local government representatives and administrators to make their own areas safe from dengue outbreaks,” Jamil told VOA.

Bangladesh’s best hope could be a cost-effective vaccine. The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, is leading a clinical trial in Bangladesh for a promising single-dose vaccine created by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, University of Vermont Vaccine Testing Center, and Johns Hopkins University, according to a recent article in the medical journal The Lancet.

Meanwhile, the suffering of the people affected by the disease is mounting.

Saleha, whose name was provided to VOA by her husband, is a 43-year-old patient in the dengue ward of the state-run Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital and was diagnosed with dengue fever almost a week ago. Her husband said the conditions require her to be put in intensive care, but the hospital is already at capacity, and the family is not able to afford private hospital expenses.

“Her platelets count dropped as low as 13,000,” said the husband, who did not give his name. A normal platelet count ranges from 150,000 to 450,000 platelets per microliter of blood. In addition, he said, her blood pressure fell to critically low levels.

“At this stage, doctors said she needs intensive care support, but there are no beds available in ICU,” he said. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden said Friday that he is planning to request more money from Congress to develop another new coronavirus vaccine, as scientists track new waves and hospitalizations rise, though not like before. 

Officials are already expecting updated COVID-19 vaccines that contain one version of the omicron strain, called XBB.1.5. It’s an important change from today’s combination shots, which mix the original coronavirus strain with last year’s most common omicron variants. But there will always be a need for updated vaccines as the virus continues to mutate. 

People should be able to start rolling up their sleeves next month for what officials hope is an annual fall COVID-19 shot. Pfizer, Moderna and smaller manufacturer Novavax all are brewing doses of the XBB update but the Food and Drug Administration will have to sign off on each, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must then issue recommendations for their use. 

“I signed off this morning on a proposal we have to present to the Congress, a request for additional funding for a new vaccine that is necessary, that works,” Biden, who is vacationing in the Lake Tahoe area, told reporters on Friday. 

He added that it’s “tentatively” recommended “that everybody get it,” once the shots are ready. 

The White House’s $40 billion funding request to Congress on August 11 did not mention COVID-19. It included funding requests for Ukraine, to replenish U.S. federal disaster funds at home after a deadly climate season of heat and storms, and funds to bolster the enforcement at the Southern border with Mexico, including money to curb the flow of deadly fentanyl. Last fall, the administration asked for $9.25 billion in funding to combat the virus, but Congress refused the request. 

For the week ending July 29, COVID-19 hospital admissions were at 9,056. That’s an increase of about 12% from the previous week. But it’s a far cry from past peaks, like the 44,000 weekly hospital admissions in early January, the nearly 45,000 in late July 2022, or the 150,000 admissions during the omicron surge of January 2022. 
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Operators of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant said Friday that initial ocean water samples taken since the discharge of wastewater from the plant were well within the acceptable range for radioactive material. 

At a news conference near the plant in Fukushima prefecture, officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company — TEPCO — told reporters they took samples Thursday of water from 10 locations within three kilometers of the power plant.  

They reported all the samples showed the concentration of tritium — a radioactive material that is the biproduct of nuclear reactors — was below TEPCO’s self-imposed limit of 700 becquerels per liter. The World Health Organization has set a limit of 10,000 becquerels for drinking water. A becquerel is an internationally recognized unit of measure for radioactivity. 

The testing and reports are part of Japan’s efforts to be transparent about the discharge of the treated radioactive water. TEPCO officials say the discharge is necessary to continue with the cleanup and decommissioning of the plant, which was damaged by a powerful earthquake and resulting tsunami in 2011. 

Earlier Friday, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi held an online meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Chief Rafael Grossi to discuss the discharge of the water. The United Nations agency last month approved the planned discharge and Grossi reiterated on Friday that it was safe. 

Nonetheless, the plan has been met with protests in Japan and abroad. China customs officials announced a ban on Japanese seafood, and South Korean political and civic groups held protests. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department Friday issued a statement in support of Japan, saying, as the IAEA has concluded, Japan’s process is safe and consistent with internationally accepted nuclear safety standards. 

“The United States is satisfied with Japan’s safe, transparent, and science-based process,” it said. 

The statement concluded by saying, “We welcome Japan’s continued transparency and engagement with the IAEA as well as with regional stakeholders.” 

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.
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