Month: January 2024
FRESNO, Calif. — David Rasavong’s cultural pride is evident all throughout his restaurant.
It’s on the wall of family portraits and where a stunning mural depicts his family’s journey from Laos to California. It’s on the menu filled with Lao and Thai dishes like the crispy coconut rice salad of Nam Khao and the stir-fried rice noodles of Pad See Ew.
And it’s in the fact that Love & Thai in Fresno, California, restaurant is open at all. A baseless accusation grounded in a racist stereotype about Asian food using dog meat brought a six-month barrage of harassment so heated that Rasavong, 41, closed down its previous location over fears for his family’s safety.
His earlier restaurant had itself only been open for seven months when a so-called animal welfare crusader in May implied on social media that a pitbull tied up at an unconnected home next door was going to be served on the menu.
A day after the initial commentary, vitriolic statements, voicemails and calls rained down. Rasavong’s body still tenses up when recounting, in particular, a call from an elderly woman.
“She was so disgusted by me and yelling and screaming, and the only thing I can remember hearing her say at the end was ‘Go back to the country you came from you dog-eating mother-effer,'” Rasavong recently told The Associated Press.
Within days, he closed that restaurant because it no longer felt safe between the harassment and people loitering in the parking lot outside of business hours.
The false accusation tapped into a longstanding slur against Asian cuisines and cultures that has persisted in the U.S. for over 150 years, dating back to the xenophobia that grew in the U.S. after Chinese immigrants started arriving in more visible numbers in the 1800s and other Asian communities followed. It’s also one that Asian American communities are fighting against.
It may be astonishing to some that a claim rooted in a racist stereotype took down a family’s restaurant three years after “Stop Asian Hate” became a rallying cry. But for many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, it’s something they’ve heard before as an insult or under the guise of a “joke,” along with other negative reactions to the actual foods of their cultures. In December, a comedian received some backlash for dressing like a UPS delivery driver and walking into an Asian restaurant with caged puppies for a social media video.
There is hope though that more people will learn to tell truth from trope. Since the pandemic first fueled anti-Asian hostilities, AAPI communities themselves have tried to take control of the narrative that Asian food is “dirty,” “weird” yet “exotic.” Furthermore, the appetite to learn about food from the Asian diaspora has only grown across traditional and new media.
Still, there were moments where Rasavong felt like nobody, even media, was on his side. He said a few reporters approached him assuming the claims were true.
But he soon received tons of community support, and the closure ended up being a new beginning.
A shopping center property manager offered him the chance to take over a suite vacated by another restaurant. Nkundwe P. van Wort-Kasyanju, a graphic designer in the Netherlands, and Los Angeles-based interior designer Danny Gonzales proffered their services for free. Hana Luna Her, a local artist, painted the mural. By the Nov. 3 grand opening of the new space, Love & Thai definitely felt the love. The place was bustling all day, Rasavong said, and the city presented a proclamation.
Rasavong is holding onto the belief that he went through this whole saga for a reason.
“There’s a journey that we’re supposed to go on,” said Rasavong, who declined to say if he’ll pursue legal action. “Don’t get me wrong. People need to realize this business is not easy … But you know, we believe in what we’re doing and so far so good.”
In actuality, consuming dog meat is something that has happened in various parts of the world for centuries, where they weren’t seen as domesticated family pets, said Robert Ku, author of Dubious Gastronomy: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA. Greeks and Romans referenced it. The French also ate dog meat during World War II.
But when Chinese immigrants came to the U.S., it was linked to them as part of “the myths that the Chinese were these bizarre people who had bizarre diets,” Ku said. “It was one of the attractions of actually going to Chinese restaurants back in the day because it came with ‘danger.'”
As other Asian immigrant groups came, the stereotype spread to include them.
“This is a real just blurring of the Asian identity where it doesn’t matter if you’re Thai or Korean or Vietnamese or Cambodian. You’re all the same,” Ku said.
Along with the false allegation of eating dog meat, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders over the generations have often faced disgust and worse from others when they’ve brought their cultures’ foods from home to public spaces like school or work.
They’re taking steps to fight back, like in 2021, when San Francisco-Bay Area-based writers Diann Leo-Omine. Anthony Shu and Shirley Huey self-published Lunchbox Moments, a compilation of over two dozen personal essays and illustrations that raised $6,000 for charity.
The project became “a powerful thing for all of us,” Leo-Omine said.
“We tried to show it’s not always about being in relation to being American or being white or assimilated,” she said. “You can have moments of joy, too…I hope that it opened people’s minds a little bit more — or made them want to try new foods.”
It’s actually been a big year in publishing and food media for Asian cuisine. Publishers Weekly dedicated a feature in August entirely to Chinese and Taiwanese food after observing nine new cookbooks on the subjects were coming out this year. Several of the authors grew up outside of Asia. The titles range from Vegan Chinese Food, to Kung Food and A Very Chinese Cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen. Also, children’s book author Grace Lin released Chinese Menu, which relays folklore behind favorite Chinese American dishes. They all share personal anecdotes and readers often seem drawn to “personality-driven” cookbooks, said Carolyn Juris, features editor.
“It’s not just about the recipes. It’s about the stories behind them and I think people respond to that,” Juris said.
Like any other culture, Asian cultures encompass many different regional cuisines and nuances. With the growing Asian diaspora, it’s not strange that so many cookbooks can be mined and “publishers are savvy enough to know that there is a market for these books,” Juris added.
Back at Love & Thai, Rasavong is busy filling online orders for a waiting third-party delivery driver. He is optimistic about keeping up business now that the initial hoopla around his restaurant renaissance has calmed down. Rasavong also hopes his situation will remind others to think before they speak.
“People say these jokes and they think it’s just fun and just light-hearted,” he said. “There are certain things that you shouldn’t say that really do cross a line.”
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BISMARCK, ND — The first person to spot it was a shovel operator working the overnight shift, eyeing a glint of white as he scooped up a giant mound of dirt and dropped it into a dump truck.
Later, after the truck driver dumped the load, a dozer driver was ready to flatten the dirt but stopped for a closer look when he, too, spotted that bit of white.
Only then did the miners realize they had unearthed something special: a 2-meter-long mammoth tusk that had been buried for thousands of years.
“We were very fortunate, lucky to find what we found,” said David Straley, an executive of North American Coal, which owns the mine.
The miners unearthed the tusk from an old streambed, about 12.1 meters deep, at the Freedom Mine near Beulah, North Dakota. The 18,210-hectare surface mine produces up to 14.5 million metric tons of lignite coal per year.
After spotting the tusk, the crews stopped digging in the area and called in experts, who estimated it to be 10,000 to 100,000 years old.
Jeff Person, a paleontologist with the North Dakota Geologic Survey, was among those to respond. He expressed surprise that the mammoth tusk hadn’t suffered more damage, considering the massive equipment used at the site.
“It’s miraculous that it came out pretty much unscathed,” Person said.
A subsequent dig at the discovery site found more bones. Person described it as a “trickle of finds,” totaling more than 20 bones, including a shoulder blade, ribs, a tooth and parts of hips, but it’s likely to be the most complete mammoth found in North Dakota, where it’s much more common to dig up an isolated mammoth bone, tooth or piece of a tusk.
“It’s not a lot of bones compared to how many are in the skeleton, but it’s enough that we know that this is all associated, and it’s a lot more than we’ve ever found of one animal together, so that’s really given us some significance,” Person said.
Mammoths once roamed across parts of Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Specimens have been found throughout the United States and Canada, said Paul Ullmann, a University of North Dakota vertebrate paleontologist.
The mine’s discovery is fairly rare in North Dakota and the region, as many remains of animals alive during the last Ice Age were destroyed by glaciations and movements of ice sheets, Ullmann said.
Other areas have yielded more mammoth remains, such as bonebeds of skeletons in Texas and South Dakota. People even have found frozen carcasses in the permafrost of Canada and Siberia, he said.
Mammoths went extinct about 10,000 years ago in what is now North Dakota, according to the Geologic Survey. They were larger than elephants today and were covered in thick wool. Cave paintings dating back 13,000 years depict mammoths.
Ullmann calls mammoths “media superstars almost as much as dinosaurs,” citing the Ice Age film franchise.
This ivory tusk, weighing more than 22.6 kilograms, is considered fragile. It has been wrapped in plastic as paleontologists try to control how fast it dehydrates. Too quickly, and the bone could break apart and be destroyed, Person said.
Other bones also have been wrapped in plastic and placed in drawers. The bones will remain in plastic for at least several months until the scientists can figure how to get the water out safely. The paleontologists will identify the mammoth species later, Person said.
The mining company plans to donate the bones to the state for educational purposes.
“Our goal is to give it to the kids,” Straley said.
North Dakota has a landscape primed for bones and fossils, including dinosaurs. Perhaps the best-known fossil from the state is that of Dakota, a mummified duckbilled dinosaur with fossilized skin, Ullmann said.
The state’s rich fossil record is largely due to the landscape’s “low-elevation, lush, ecologically productive environments in the past,” Ullmann said.
North Dakota’s location adjacent to the Rocky Mountains puts it in the path of eroding sediments and rivers, which have buried animal remains for 80 million years or more, he said.
“It’s been a perfect scenario that we have really productive environments with a lot of life, but we also had the perfect scenario, geologically, to bury the remains,” Ullmann said.
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LONDON — U.K. police have opened a fraud investigation into Britain’s Post Office over a miscarriage of justice that saw hundreds of postmasters wrongfully accused of stealing money when a faulty computer system was to blame.
The Metropolitan Police force said late Friday that it is investigating “potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions,” relating to money the Post Office received “as a result of prosecutions or civil actions” against accused postal workers.
Police also are investigating potential offenses of perjury and perverting the course of justice over investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 post office branch managers were accused of theft or fraud because computers wrongly showed that money was missing. Many were financially ruined after being forced to pay large sums to the company, and some were convicted and sent to prison. Several killed themselves.
The real culprit was a defective computer accounting system called Horizon, supplied by the Japanese technology firm Fujitsu, that was installed in local Post Office branches in 1999.
The Post Office maintained for years that data from Horizon was reliable and accused branch managers of dishonesty when the system showed money was missing.
After years of campaigning by victims and their lawyers, the Court of Appeal quashed 39 of the convictions in 2021. A judge said the Post Office “knew there were serious issues about the reliability” of Horizon and had committed “egregious” failures of investigation and disclosure.
A total of 93 of the postal workers have now had their convictions overturned, according to the Post Office. But many others have yet to be exonerated, and only 30 have agreed to “full and final” compensation payments. A public inquiry into the scandal has been underway since 2022.
So far, no one from the publicly owned Post Office or other companies involved has been arrested or faced criminal charges.
Lee Castleton, a former branch manager who went bankrupt after being pursued by the Post Office for missing funds, said his family was ostracized in their hometown of Bridlington in northern England. He said his daughter was bullied because people thought “her father was a thief, and he’d take money from old people.”
He said victims wanted those responsible to be named.
“It’s about accountability,” Castleton told Times Radio on Saturday. “Let’s see who made those decisions and made this happen.”
The long-simmering scandal stirred new outrage with the broadcast this week of a TV docudrama, Mr. Bates vs the Post Office. It charted a two-decade battle by branch manager Alan Bates, played by Toby Jones, to expose the truth and clear the wronged postal workers.
Post Office Chief Executive Nick Read, appointed after the scandal, welcomed the TV series and said he hoped it would “raise further awareness and encourage anyone affected who has not yet come forward to seek the redress and compensation they deserve.”
A lawyer for some of the postal workers said 50 new potential victims had approached lawyers since the show aired on the ITV network.
“The drama has elevated public awareness to a whole new level,” attorney Neil Hudgell said. “The British public and their overwhelming sympathy for the plight of these poor people has given some the strength to finally come forward. Those numbers increase by the day, but there are so many more out there.”
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VATICAN CITY — Amid resistance to some Vatican policy by more conservative factions of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis on Saturday cautioned the faithful against fracturing into groups “based on our own ideas.”
He issued the call to abandon “ecclesiastical ideologies” in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica during Epiphany Day Mass, the last major Christmas season holiday.
Francis also warned against “basking in some elegant religious theory” instead of finding God in the faces of the poor.
Last month, Francis gave permission for priests to bless couples outside of marriage, including same-sex relationships, if the blessing was pastoral and not liturgical or part of some religious rite.
Some bishops who view Francis as a dangerous progressive immediately rejected such blessings. That prompted the Vatican earlier this week to issue a statement stressing that the blessings don’t constitute heresy and there were no doctrinal grounds to reject the practice.
Francis in his Epiphany homily didn’t cite the pushback against his same-sex blessings policy. But he deviated from the written text of the homily to cite the “need to abandon ecclesiastical ideologies.”
Francis said the church needed to ensure that “our faith will not be reduced to an assemblage of religious devotions or mere outward appearance.”
“We find the God who comes down to visit us, not by basking in some elegant religious theory, but by setting out on a journey, seeking the signs of his presence in everyday life,” especially in the faces of the poor, the pontiff said.
The pontiff, who turned 87 last month and who battled health problems last year, held up well during the Epiphany ceremony, which included singing of Christmas hymns. At the end of the 90-minute service, an aide wheeled Francis down the basilica’s center aisle. The pope has a chronic knee problem and uses a wheelchair to navigate longer distances.
He has dedicated much of his nearly 11-year-old papacy to encouraging attention to marginalized people, including the poor. While the church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful, Francis has made efforts to make LGBTQ+ Catholics feel welcome.
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sydney — With fangs that could pierce a human fingernail, the largest male specimen of the world’s most venomous arachnid has found a new home at the Australian Reptile Park where it will help save lives after a member of the public discovered it by chance.
The deadly Sydney funnel-web spider dubbed Hercules was found on the Central Coast, about 50 miles north of Sydney, and was initially given to a local hospital, the Australian Reptile Park said in a statement Thursday.
Spider experts from the nearby park retrieved it and soon realized it was the largest male specimen ever received from the public in Australia.
The spider measured 7.9 centimeters from foot to foot, surpassing the park’s previous record-holder from 2018, the male funnel-web named Colossus.
Sydney funnel-web spiders usually range in length from 1 to 5 centimeters, with females being generally larger than their male counterparts but not as deadly. They are predominantly found in forested areas and suburban gardens from Sydney, Australia’s most populous city, to the coastal city of Newcastle in the north and the Blue Mountains to the west.
Hercules will contribute to the reptile park’s anti-venom program. Safely captured spiders handed in by the public undergo “milking” to extract venom, essential for producing life-saving anti-venom.
“We’re used to having pretty big funnel-web spiders donated to the park, however receiving a male funnel-web this big is like hitting the jackpot,” said Emma Teni, a spider keeper at Australian Reptile Park. “Whilst female funnel-web spiders are venomous, males have proven to be more lethal. With having a male funnel-web this size in our collection, his venom output could be enormous, proving incredibly valuable for the park’s venom program.”
Since the inception of the program in 1981, there has not been a fatality in Australia from a funnel-web spider bite.
Recent rainy, humid weather along Australia’s east coast has provided the ideal conditions for funnel-web spiders to thrive.
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NEW YORK — The flu season in the U.S. is getting worse but it’s too soon to tell how much holiday gatherings contributed to a likely spike in illnesses.
New government data posted Friday for last week — the holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s — show 38 states with high or very high levels for respiratory illnesses with fever, cough and other symptoms. That’s up from 31 states the week before.
The measure likely includes people with COVID-19, RSV and other winter viruses, and not just flu. But flu seems to be increasing most dramatically, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We expect it to be elevated for several more weeks,” said the CDC’s Alicia Budd. So far, though, this is a moderate flu season, she said.
Interpreting flu reports during and after the holidays can be tricky, she noted. Schools are closed. More people are traveling. Some people may be less likely to go see a doctor, deciding to just suffer at home. Others may be more likely to go.
The flu season generally peaks between December and February; CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said she expects it to peak by the end of this month. Officials say this season’s flu shots are well-matched to the strain that is spreading the most.
According to CDC estimates, since the beginning of October, there have been at least 10 million illnesses, 110,000 hospitalizations, and 6,500 deaths from flu so far this season. The agency said 27 children have died of flu.
COVID-19 illnesses may not be escalating as quickly as flu this winter. CDC data indicates coronavirus-caused hospitalizations haven’t hit the same levels they did at the same point during the last three winters. Still, COVID-19 is putting more people in the hospital than flu, CDC data shows.
Lauren Ancel Meyers of the University of Texas said the nation is seeing a second rise in COVID-19 after a smaller peak in September.
“There is a lot of uncertainty about when and how high this current surge will peak,” said Meyers, who runs a team that forecasts COVID-19, flu and RSV trends.
A new version of the coronavirus, called JN.1, is accounting for nearly two-thirds of U.S. cases, according to a CDC estimate. But health officials say there’s no evidence that it causes more severe disease than other recent variants.
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The Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES, is back in Las Vegas [January 9 – 12] with more than 3,500 companies from around the globe showcasing the latest developments in artificial intelligence, health care, transportation and much more. VOA’s Julie Taboh gives us a preview. Video edit: Adam Greenbaum. Tina Trinh contributed to this report
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NEW YORK — Glynis Johns, a Tony Award-winning stage and screen star who played the mother opposite Julie Andrews in the classic movie Mary Poppins and introduced the world to the bittersweet standard-to-be Send in the Clowns by Stephen Sondheim, has died. She was 100.
Mitch Clem, her manager, said she died Thursday at an assisted living home in Los Angeles of natural causes. “Today’s a sad day for Hollywood,” Clem said. “She is the last of the last of old Hollywood.”
Johns was known to be a perfectionist about her profession — precise, analytical and opinionated. The roles she took had to be multifaceted. Anything less was giving less than her all.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m not interested in playing the role on only one level,” she told The Associated Press in 1990. “The whole point of first-class acting is to make a reality of it. To be real. And I have to make sense of it in my own mind in order to be real.”
Johns’ greatest triumph was playing Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, for which she won a Tony in 1973. Sondheim wrote the show’s hit song Send in the Clowns to suit her distinctive husky voice, but she lost the part in the 1977 film version to Elizabeth Taylor.
“I’ve had other songs written for me, but nothing like that,” Johns told the AP in 1990. “It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever been given in the theater.”
Others who followed Johns in singing Sondheim’s most popular song include Frank Sinatra, Judy Collins, Barbra Streisand, Sarah Vaughan and Olivia Newton-John. It also appeared in season two of Yellowjackets in 2023, sung by Elijah Wood.
Back when it was being conceived, A Little Night Music had gone into rehearsal with some of the book and score unfinished, including a solo song for Johns. Director Hal Prince suggested she and co-star Len Cariou improvise a scene or two to give book writer Hugh Wheeler some ideas.
“Hal said ‘Why don’t you just say what you feel,'” she recalled to the AP. “When Len and I did that, Hal got on the phone to Steve Sondheim and said, ‘I think you’d better get in a cab and get round here and watch what they’re doing because you are going to get the idea for Glynis’ solo.'”
Johns was the fourth generation of an English theatrical family. Her father, Mervyn Johns, had a long career as a character actor, and her mother was a pianist. She was born in Pretoria, South Africa, because her parents were visiting the area on tour at the time of her birth.
Johns was a dancer at 12 and an actor at 14 in London’s West End. Her breakthrough role was as the amorous mermaid in the title of the 1948 hit comedy Miranda.
“I was quite an athlete, my muscles were strong from dancing, so the tail was just fine; I swam like a porpoise,” she told Newsday in 1998. In 1960’s The Sundowners, with Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum, she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar. (She lost out to Shirley Jones in Elmer Gantry.)
Other highlights include playing the mother in Mary Poppins, the movie that introduced Julie Andrews and where she sang the rousing tune Sister Suffragette. She also starred in the 1989 Broadway revival of The Circle, W. Somerset Maugham’s romantic comedy about love, marriage and fidelity, opposite Rex Harrison and Stewart Granger.
“I’ve retired many times. My personal life has come before my work. The theater is just part of my life. It probably uses my highest sense of intelligence, so therefore I have to come back to it, to realize that I’ve got the talent. I’m not as good doing anything else,” she told the AP.
To prepare for A Coffin in Egypt, Horton Foote’s 1998 play about a grand dame reminiscing about her life on and off a ranch on the Texas prairie, she asked the Texas-born Foote to record a short tape of himself reading some lines and used it as her coach.
In a 1991 revival of A Little Night Music in Los Angeles, she played Madame Armfeldt, the mother of Desiree, the part she had created. In 1963, she starred in her own TV sitcom, Glynis.
Johns lived all around the world and had four husbands. The first was the father of her only child, the late Gareth Forwood, an actor who died in 2007.
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PRETORIA, South Africa — Officials say South African athlete Oscar Pistorius has been released from prison on parole and is now at home.
The Department of Corrections gave no more details of Pistorius’ release.
The announcement came at around 8:30 a.m., indicating officials released the world-famous double-amputee Olympic runner in the early hours. Pistorius has served nearly nine years for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013. He’d been sentenced to 13 years and five months.
He was approved for parole in November. Serious offenders in South Africa are eligible for parole after serving at least half their sentence.
Steenkamp’s mother, June Steenkamp, said in a statement that she had accepted Pistorius’ parole as part of South African law.
“Has there been justice for Reeva? Has Oscar served enough time? There can never be justice if your loved one is never coming back, and no amount of time served will bring Reeva back,” June Steenkamp said. “We who remain behind are the ones serving a life sentence.”
“With the release of Oscar Pistorius on parole, my only desire is that I will be allowed to live my last years in peace with my focus remaining on the Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation, to continue Reeva’s legacy.”
Pistorius will live under strict conditions until the remainder of his sentence expires in December 2029, the Department of Corrections said. It emphasized that the multiple Paralympic champion’s release — like every other offender on parole — does not mean that he has served his time.
Some of Pistorius’ parole conditions include restrictions on when he’s allowed to leave his home, a ban on consuming alcohol, and orders that he must attend programs on anger management and on violence against women. He will have to perform community service.
Pistorius will also have to regularly meet with parole officials at his home and at correctional services offices and will be subjected to unannounced visits by authorities. He is not allowed to leave the Waterkloof district without permission and is banned from speaking to the media until the end of his sentence. He could be sent back to jail if he is in breach of any of his parole conditions.
South Africa does not use tags or bracelets on paroled offenders, so Pistorius will not wear any monitoring device, Department of Corrections officials said. But he will be constantly monitored by a department official and will have to inform the official of any major changes in his life, such as if he wants to get a job or move to another house.
Pistorius has maintained that he shot Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law graduate, by mistake. He testified that he believed Steenkamp was a dangerous intruder hiding in his bathroom and shot through the door with his licensed 9 mm pistol in self-defense.
Prosecutors said he killed his girlfriend intentionally during a late-night argument.
Steenkamp’s family did not oppose his parole application in November, although June Steenkamp said in a victim statement submitted to the parole board that she didn’t believe Pistorius had been fully rehabilitated and was still lying about the killing.
Before the killing, Pistorius was held up as an inspiring role model after having had both of his legs amputated below the knee as a baby because of a congenital condition. He became a champion sprinter on his carbon-fiber running blades and made history by competing at the 2012 London Olympics.
But his murder trial destroyed his image. He was accused of being prone to angry outbursts and acting recklessly with guns, while witnesses testified about various altercations he had with others, including an argument in which he allegedly threatened to break a man’s legs.
Pistorius was first convicted of culpable homicide — a charge comparable to manslaughter — and sentenced to five years in prison for killing Steenkamp. After appeals by prosecutors, he was ultimately found guilty of murder and had his sentence increased, although that judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal still didn’t definitively rule that he knew it was Steenkamp behind the toilet door.
Pistorius was first sent to prison in 2014, was released on house arrest in 2015 during an appeal and was sent back to prison in 2016. He was initially incarcerated at the maximum security Kgosi Mampuru II Prison in Pretoria but was moved to Atteridgeville early in his sentence because it is better suited to holding disabled prisoners.
Reaction to Pistorius’ parole has been muted in South Africa, a stark contrast to the first days and months after Steenkamp’s killing, which sparked angry protests outside of Pistorius’ court hearings calling for him to receive a long prison sentence. There is no death penalty in South Africa.
“He has ticked all the necessary boxes,” said Themba Masango, secretary general of Not In My Name International, a group that campaigns against violence against women. “And we can only wish and hope Oscar Pistorius will come out a better human being.”
“We tend to forget that there is a possibility where somebody can be rehabilitated.”
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NEW YORK — It’s small in stature, big on activity and known for a “smile,” and it’s ready to compete with 200 other dog breeds.
Say hello to the Lancashire heeler, the latest breed recognized by the American Kennel Club. The organization announced Wednesday that the rare herding breed is now eligible for thousands of U.S. dog shows, including the prominent Westminster Kennel Club show.
With long bodies and short coats that are often black and tan, the solidly built dogs are shaped a bit like a downsized corgi, standing around 30 centimeters at the shoulder and weighing up to about 7.7 kilograms. Historically, they were farm helpers that could both drive cattle and rout rats, and today they participate in an array of canine sports and pursuits.
“They’re gritty little dogs, and they’re very intelligent little dogs,” says Patricia Blankenship of Flora, Mississippi, who has bred them for over a decade. “It’s an enjoyable little breed to be around.”
Their official description — or breed standard, in dog-world parlance — calls for them to be “courageous, happy, affectionate to owner,” and owners say contented heelers sometimes pull back their lips in a “smile.”
They’re “extremely versatile,” participating in everything from scent work to dock diving contests, says United States Lancashire Heeler Club President Sheryl Bradbury. But she advises that a Lancashire heeler “has to have a job,” whether it’s an organized dog sport or simply walks and fetch with its owners.
The dogs benefit from meeting various different people and canines, added Bradbury, who breeds them in Plattsmouth, Nebraska.
Lancashire heelers go back centuries in the United Kingdom, where they’re now deemed a “vulnerable native breed” at risk of dying out in their homeland. Britain’s Kennel Club has added an average of just 121 Lancashire heelers annually to its registry in recent years, and the American Kennel Club says only about 5,000 exist worldwide.
Founded in 1884, the AKC is the United States’ oldest purebred dog registry and functions like a league for many canine competitions, including sports open to mixed-breeds and purebreds. But only the 201 recognized breeds vie for the traditional “best in show” trophies at Westminster and elsewhere.
To get recognized, a breed must count at least 300 pedigreed dogs, distributed through at least 20 states, and fanciers must agree on a breed standard. Recognition is voluntary, and some breeds’ aficionados approach other kennel clubs or none at all.
Adding breeds, or even perpetuating them, bothers animal rights activists. They argue that dog breeding powers puppy mills, reduces pet adoptions and accentuates canine health problems by compressing genetic diversity.
The AKC says it promotes responsibly “breeding for type and function” to produce dogs with special skills, such as tracking lost people, as well as pets with characteristics that owners can somewhat predict and prepare for. The club has given over $32 million since 1995 to a foundation that underwrites canine health research.
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WASHINGTON — At a time when growing numbers of young Americans are diagnosed with mental health conditions, media are looking at ways to cover the issue more responsibly.
Data shows a rise in young adults being diagnosed with conditions such as depression or anxiety. But media reports of public incidents involving mental health sometimes use damaging language, experts say.
Terms such as “unhinged” or “erratic” — language used to describe a homeless man killed on the New York subway last year — are held up as poor examples of coverage.
Reporters on the health beat and experts who specialize in mental health say that such terms are damaging for those who have a medical condition and that they can be misleading.
“Media plays an important role in shaping public perception of many things, including mental illness,” said Christine Herman, a freelancer journalist.
Coverage can make it appear as if the illness is a moral failing or lack of character, Herman told VOA.
“Sometimes mental health issues are criminalized in our society,” she said, citing how some news outlets still use terms such as “commit suicide” when reporting on someone who has taken their own life.
The term dates to when suicide was still criminalized in the United States.
“The language we use and the way we describe and talk about mental health conditions can really contribute and shape perception,” Herman said.
Rebecca Brendel, a medical doctor and former president of the American Psychiatric Association, said she believes media plays an important role in explaining health conditions.
“We know that to get treatment and to be healthy, we need to have health literacy,” she told VOA. “We need to have an awareness. We need to have reliable information as consumers of health care and mental health care.”
The late first lady Rosalynn Carter was an early advocate for responsible reporting on mental health. Through the Carter Center, she created a fellowship that offers training to journalists on how to better cover the issue.
“Informed journalists can have a significant impact on public understanding of mental health issues as they shape debate and trends with the words and pictures they convey,” Carter said, as cited by the Center.
When Carter died in November, staff at the Center paid tribute to her legacy.
“She taught generations of journalists how to report about behavioral health in a way that reduces stigma and stimulates understanding and equitable treatment,” a statement read.
Since the fellowship started in 1996, more than 250 journalists have benefited from the program — including Herman.
“It’s important because the type of coverage we do … people in our communities read it, or people across the country read this coverage,” said Herman, who started her career in public radio.
Based in Champaign, Illinois, Herman said that as she started to cover health issues more regularly, her interest in mental health grew.
Her reporting on the obstacles for families trying to access mental health care was recognized with an award last year.
Herman, who serves on the board of the Association of Health Care Journalists, said the most effective reporting is accurate, based on science and puts a focus on the person not the condition.
She advocates for compassionate coverage that includes the voices and perspectives of the people affected.
“These are all things that can help contribute to dismantling stigma and ending discrimination toward people who have mental health conditions in our society,” she said.
Data from the American Psychiatric Association shows 1 in 5 Americans experiences a mental health disorder.
“We know that Americans are struggling with their mental health now more than ever before, following the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Brendel of the American Psychiatric Association. “In fact, in mental health circles, we’ve even called it a twin pandemic, a pandemic of mental health.”
She and Herman say they have seen an improvement in how media reports on mental illness, due in part to the Carter fellowship program.
Having the skills to report in a way “that is both accurate and actionable,” Herman said, ensures coverage that contributes to “better public understanding of these issues and ideally to dismantling stigma.”
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A busy week for SpaceX launches. NASA eyes an upcoming moon mission. And Australian buffaloes get a high-tech upgrade. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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NEW YORK — More U.S. hospitals are requiring masks and limiting visitors as health officials face an expected but still nasty post-holiday spike in flu, COVID-19 and other illnesses.
While many experts say this season likely won’t prove to be as deadly as some other recent winters, it still could mean hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and many thousands of deaths across the country.
New York City last week instituted a mask mandate for the city’s 11 public hospitals. Similar measures were ordered last week at some hospitals in Los Angeles and Massachusetts. Some hospitals reinstated masking rules for employees months ago, in anticipation of a seasonal rush of sick people.
Flu and COVID-19 infections have been increasing for weeks, with high levels of flu-like illness reported in 31 states just before Christmas. Updated national numbers are to be released Friday, but health officials predict infections will grow in many states well into January.
“What we’re seeing right now, in the first week of January, is really an acceleration — of flu cases, in particular,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There is some good news. Flu and COVID-19 cases may peak by the end of the month and then drop, Cohen said. Though the flu has been skyrocketing, this year’s cases are being caused by a strain that usually doesn’t cause as many deaths and hospitalizations as some other versions. What’s more, signs suggest current flu vaccines are well-matched to the strain.
“I don’t think it’s going to be overwhelming,” said Dr. William Schaffner, Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert. He deemed the current season “moderately severe.”
The CDC is pointing the public to an agency website where people can look up their county, which can help them make decisions about whether to wear masks or take other precautions. Cohen urged people to get vaccinated and to seek treatment for flu and COVID-19.
Vaccinations are down this year, officials say. About 44% of U.S. adults had gotten flu shots by Dec. 23, according to the most recently available CDC vaccination survey data. Only about 19% of U.S. adults were reported to have received an updated COVID-19 shot as of early December.
COVID-19 cases are causing more severe disease than the flu but have been rising less dramatically. Health officials are keeping an eye on JN.1, a new version of the ever-evolving coronavirus. The omicron variant was first detected in the U.S. in September and just before Christmas accounted for an estimated 44% of COVID-19 cases.
The JN.1 variant may spread easier or be better at evading our immune systems, but there is no evidence that it causes more severe disease than other recent variants, health officials say. Current evidence indicates vaccines and antiviral medications work against it.
The CDC also has reported disappointing vaccination rates against another seasonal bug, respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. That is a common cause of mild cold-like symptoms, but it can be dangerous for infants and older people. RSV cases rose in the fall but appear to have plateaued and are even going down in some places, according to the latest data.
At Hillsdale Hospital in southern Michigan, a 65% increase in respiratory illness activity in late December triggered a limitation to visitors in the birthing center. Only a spouse, a support person and grandparents can visit. They all must wear a mask and not show symptoms of sickness.
The restriction is common for the hospital around this time of year, said Dr. Nichole Ellis, a pediatrician who is the hospital’s medical chief of staff. But it’s more difficult this season, she added.
“In the past, we would have one … disease that we were tracking or monitoring at one time,” Ellis said. “But now, babies and children will have multiple diseases at the same time. It’s not that they just have RSV … but they’re getting RSV and COVID at the same time, or influenza and RSV at the same time because all of the diseases are prevalent in our community.”
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