Magazine
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court took up an e-cigarette case Tuesday, weighing whether the Food and Drug Administration wrongly blocked the marketing of sweet, flavored products amid a surge in vaping by young people.
Vaping companies argue the FDA unfairly denied more than a million applications to market fruit or candy flavored versions of nicotine-laced liquid that’s heated by the e-cigarette to create an inhalable aerosol.
The case comes as the FDA undertakes a sweeping review after years of regulatory delays intended to bring scientific scrutiny to the multibillion-dollar vaping market, which includes thousands of flavored vapes that are technically illegal but are widely available in convenience stores, gas stations and vape shops. The FDA recently approved its first menthol-flavored electronic cigarettes for adult smokers.
The agency says the sweet, flavored e-liquids pose a “serious, well-documented risk” of enticing more young people to pick up a nicotine habit. In 2020, nearly 20% of high school students and almost 5% of middle school students used e-cigarettes, and almost all of those kids used flavored products, the agency said in court documents.
The agency says companies were blocked because they couldn’t show the possible benefits for adult smokers outweighed the risk of underage use. The companies say they had prepared detailed plans to avoid appealing to young people.
The companies scored a victory when the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with vaping companies and tossed out orders denying the marketing of e-liquids with names like “Jimmy The Juice Man in Peachy Strawberry.”
The 5th Circuit found the agency was unfair because it required the companies, without warning, to present studies showing that flavored products would help with smoking cessation.
The FDA appealed that finding to the Supreme Court. The justices are expecting to hear the case in the fall.
Other appeals courts have sided with the FDA, which regulates new tobacco products under a 2009 law aimed at curbing youth tobacco use.
Vaping companies have long claimed their products can help blunt the toll of smoking, which is blamed for 480,000 U.S. deaths annually due to cancer, lung disease and heart disease.
Youth vaping has declined from all-time highs in recent years, but about 10% of high schoolers still reported e-cigarette use last year.
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UCLA molecular bioengineer Mireille Kamariza has developed a new tuberculosis test that tackles shortcomings of existing TB diagnostics. VOA’s Genia Dulot reports for this week’s episode of LogOn.
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The U.S. government’s representative to the Minerals Security Partnership, an alliance of mostly Western countries that aims to speed the development of energy mineral supply chains, said last month that a Chinese company was using “predatory” tactics to hold down the price of cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Henry Wilkins looks at what this means for Africa.
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Panama’s pollera is the country’s beautiful, elaborate and very expensive national dress, and one of the most recognized Latin American traditional costumes. But production of the gorgeous garment faces an uncertain future. Oscar Sulbarán explains why in this story narrated by Veronica Villafañe. (Camera: Oscar Sulbarán; Produced by: Veronica Villafañe)
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Washington, D.C., home to the world’s largest collection of William Shakespeare’s works, has unveiled a treasure trove that most have never seen. The Folger Shakespeare Library reopened its doors after a four-year long renovation, revealing the most valuable part of its collection to the public for the first time. Maxim Adams visited the library.
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Phoenix — Alfred Handley leaned back in his wheelchair alongside a major Phoenix freeway as a street medicine team helped him get rehydrated with an intravenous saline solution dripping from a bag hanging on a pole.
Cars whooshed by under the blazing 96-degree morning sun as the 59-year-old homeless man with a nearly toothless smile got the help he needed through a new program run by the nonprofit Circle the City.
“It’s a lot better than going to the hospital,” Handley said of the team that provides health care to homeless people. He’s been treated poorly at traditional clinics and hospitals, he said, more than six years after being struck by a car while he sat on a wall, leaving him in a wheelchair.
Circle the City introduced its IV rehydration program as a way to protect homeless people from life-threatening heat illness as temperatures regularly hit the triple-digits in America’s hottest metro. Homeless people accounted for nearly half of the record 645 heat-related deaths last year in Maricopa County, which encompasses metro Phoenix.
Dr. Liz Frye, vice chair of the Street Medicine Institute that provides training to hundreds of health care teams worldwide, said she didn’t know of groups other than Circle the City administering IVs on the street.
“But if that’s what needs to happen to keep somebody from dying, I’m all about it,” Frye said.
As summers grow warmer, health providers from San Diego to New York are being challenged to better protect homeless patients.
Even the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, featured in last year’s book, “Rough Sleepers,” now sees patients with mild heat exhaustion in the summer after decades of treating people with frostbite and hypothermia during the winter, said Dr. Dave Munson, the street team’s medical director.
“It’s certainly something to worry about,” said Munson, noting that temperatures in Boston hit 100 degrees with 70% humidity during June’s heat wave. Homeless people, he said, are vulnerable to very hot and very cold weather not only because they live outside, but they often can’t regulate body temperature due to medication for mental illness or high blood pressure, or because of street substance use.
The Phoenix team searches for patients in homeless encampments in dry riverbeds, sweltering alleys and along the canals that bring water to the Phoenix area. About 15% are dehydrated enough for a saline drip.
“We go out every day and find them,” said nurse practitioner Perla Puebla. “We do their wound care, medication refills for diabetes, antibiotics, high blood pressure.”
Puebla’s street team ran across Handley and 36-year-old Phoenix native Phillip Enriquez near an overpass in an area frequented by homeless people because it’s near a facility offering free meals. Across the road was an encampment of tents and lean-tos along a chain-link fence.
Enriquez sat on a patch of dirt as Puebla started a drip for him. She also gave him a prescription for antibiotics and a referral to a dentist for his dental infection.
Living outside in Arizona’s broiling sun is hard, especially for people who may be mentally ill or use sedating drugs like fentanyl that make them less aware of surroundings. Stimulants like methamphetamine contribute to dehydration, which can be fatal.
Temperatures this year have reached 115 degrees (45 Celsius) in metro Phoenix, where six heat-related deaths have been confirmed through June 22. Another 111 are under investigation.
“The number of patients with heat illnesses is increasing every year,” said Dr. Aneesh Narang, assistant medical director of emergency medicine at Banner Medical Center-Phoenix, which treats many homeless people with heat stroke.
Narang’s staff works frequently with Circle the City, whose core mission is providing respite care, with 100 beds for homeless people not well enough to return to the streets after a hospital stay.
Extreme heat worldwide requires a dramatic response, said physician assistant Lindsay Fox, who cares for homeless people in Albuquerque, New Mexico, through an initiative run by the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine.
Three times weekly, Fox treats infections, cleans wounds and manages chronic conditions in consultation with hospital colleagues. She said the prospect of more heat illness worries her.
Highs in Albuquerque can hit the 90s and don’t fall enough for people living outside to cool off overnight, she said.
“If you’re in an urban area that’s primarily concrete, you’re retaining heat,” she said. “We’re seeing heat exposure that very quickly could go to heat stroke.”
Serious heat stroke is far more common in metro Phoenix, where Circle the City is now among scores of health programs for the homeless in cities like New York, San Diego and Spokane, Washington.
Circle the City, founded in 2012 by Sister Adele O’Sullivan, a physician and member of the Sisters of St. Joseph Carondelet, now has 260 employees, including 15 doctors, 13 physician assistants and 11 nurse practitioners. It annually sees 9,000 patients.
Grants, donations and other gifts account for about 20% of the funding. Most of the rest comes from insurance payments for services provided through Medicaid and Medicare.
Circle the City works with medical staff in seven Phoenix hospitals to help homeless patients get after-care when they no longer need hospitalization. It also staffs two outpatient clinics for follow-up.
“This partnership allows us to offer the best outcomes for our patients,” said Craig Orsini, social work manager at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix.
Often that’s a few weeks in respite care or, for less acute needs, a stay in one of a handful of medical beds at the downtown shelter for things like dressing changes for wounds. Someone who needs months to heal might go to a skilled nursing facility.
While patients recover, Circle the City works to find longer-term transitional shelter such as those for people 55 and older, or in permanent housing. About 77% of respite patients are sent somewhere other than the street or an emergency shelter.
“We try to find the best fit for people,” said Wendy Adams, Circle the City’s community outreach supervisor.
Circle the City medical staff distributes tens of thousands of water bottles each summer and tries to educate people about hot weather dangers, said Dr. Matt Essary, who works at one of five mobile clinics that stop outside soup kitchens and other services for homeless people.
Essary said Circle the City is also considering a blood analysis tool to detect electrolyte imbalances caused by dehydration.
“You can see right away how dehydrated they have become because it’s so hard to draw their blood,” he said. Other possible symptoms include headache, extreme thirst, dizziness and dry mouth.
“We also see a lot of people with surface burns,” Essary said of the wounds common in broiling Phoenix, where a medical emergency or intoxication can cause someone to fall on a sizzling sidewalk.
Rachel Belgrade waited outside Circle the City’s retrofitted truck with her black-and-white puppy, Bo, for Essary to write a prescription for the blood pressure medicine she lost when a man stole her bicycle. She accepted two bottles of water to cool off as the morning heat rose.
“They make all of this easier,” said Belgrade, a Native American from the Gila River tribe. “They don’t give you a hard time.”
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Brussels, Belgium — The EU accused Facebook owner Meta on Monday of breaching the bloc’s digital rules, paving the way for potential fines worth billions of euros.
The charges against the US tech titan follow a finding last week against Apple that marked the first time Brussels had levelled formal accusations under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The latest case focuses on Meta’s new ad-free subscription model for Facebook and Instagram, which has sparked multiple complaints over privacy concerns.
Meta’s “pay or consent” system means users have to pay to avoid data collection, or agree to share their data with Facebook and Instagram to keep using the platforms for free.
The European Commission said it informed Meta of its “preliminary view” that the model the company launched last year “fails to comply” with the DMA.
“This binary choice forces users to consent to the combination of their personal data and fails to provide them a less personalized but equivalent version of Meta’s social networks,” the EU’s powerful antitrust regulator said in a statement.
The findings come after the commission kickstarted a probe into Meta in March under the DMA, which forces the world’s biggest tech companies to comply with EU rules designed to give European users more choice online.
Meta insisted its model “complies with the DMA.”
“We look forward to further constructive dialogue with the European Commission to bring this investigation to a close,” a Meta spokesperson said.
Meta can now reply to the findings and avoid a fine if it changes the model to address the EU’s concerns.
If the commission’s view is confirmed however, it can slap fines of up to 10 percent of Meta’s total global turnover under the DMA. This can rise to up to 20 percent for repeat offenders.
Meta’s total revenue last year stood at around $135 billion (125 billion euros).
The EU also has the right to break up firms, but only as a last resort.
In EU’s crosshairs
Under the DMA, the EU labels Meta and other companies, including Apple, as “gatekeepers” and prevents them forcing users in the bloc to consent to have access to a service or certain functionalities.
The commission said Meta’s model did not allow users to “freely consent” to their data being shared between Facebook and Instagram with Meta’s ads services.
“The DMA is there to give back to the users the power to decide how their data is used and ensure innovative companies can compete on equal footing with tech giants on data access,” the EU’s top tech enforcer, commissioner Thierry Breton, said.
The commission will adopt a decision on whether Meta’s model is DMA compliant or not by late March 2025.
The EU has shown it is serious about making big online companies change their ways.
The commission told Apple last week its App Store rules were hindering developers from freely pointing consumers to alternative channels for offers.
The EU is also probing Google over similar concerns on its Google Play marketplace.
Apple and Meta are not the only companies coming under the scope of the DMA. Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and TikTok owner ByteDance must also comply.
Online travel giant Booking.com will need to adhere to the rules later this year.
Privacy complaints
Meta has made billions from harvesting users’ data to serve up highly targeted ads. But it has faced an avalanche of complaints over its data processing in recent years.
The European data regulator in April has also said the ‘pay or consent’ model is at odds with the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which upholds the privacy of users’ information.
Ireland — a major hub for online tech giants operating in the 27-nation bloc — has slapped Meta with massive fines for violating the GDPR.
The latest complaint by privacy groups forced Meta last month to pause its plans to use personal data to train its artificial intelligence technology in Europe.
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Beijing — Beijing Tianbing Technology Company said Sunday that the first stage of its Tianlong-3 rocket under development had detached from its launch pad during a test due to structural failure and landed in a hilly area of the city of Gongyi in central China.
There were no reports of casualties after an initial investigation, Beijing Tianbing, also known as Space Pioneer, said in a statement on its official WeChat account.
Parts of the rocket stage were scattered within a “safe area” but caused a local fire, according to a separate statement by the Gongyi emergency management bureau.
The fire has since been extinguished and no one has been hurt, the bureau said.
The two-stage Tianlong-3 (“Sky Dragon 3”) is a partly reusable rocket under development by Space Pioneer, one of a small group of private-sector rocket makers that have grown rapidly over the past five years.
Falling rocket debris in China after launches is not unheard of, but it is very rare for part of a rocket under development to make an unplanned flight out of its test site and crash.
According to Space Pioneer, the first stage of the Tianlong-3 ignited normally during a hot test but later detached from the test bench due to structural failure and landed in hilly areas 1.5 km (0.9 mile) away.
A rocket can consist of several stages, with the first, or lowest, stage igniting and propelling the rocket upward upon its launch.
When the fuel is exhausted, the first stage falls off, and the second stage ignites, keeping the rocket in propulsion. Some rockets have third stages.
Space Pioneer says the performance of Tianlong-3 is comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, which is also a two-stage rocket.
In April 2023, Space Pioneer launched a kerosene-oxygen rocket, the Tianlong-2, becoming the first private Chinese firm to send a liquid-propellant rocket into space.
Chinese commercial space companies have rushed into the sector since 2014 when private investment in the industry was allowed by the state.
Many started making satellites while others including Space Pioneer, focused on developing reusable rockets that can significantly cut mission costs.
The test sites of such companies can be found along China’s coastal areas, located by the sea due to safety reasons.
But some are also sited deep in the country’s interior such as Space Pioneer’s test center in Gongyi, a city of 800,000 people in the central province of Henan.
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New York — The monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride reached its exuberant grand finale on Sunday, bringing rainbow-laden revelers to the streets for marquee parades in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere across the globe.
The wide-ranging festivities functioned as both jubilant parties and political protests, as participants recognize the community’s gains while also calling attention to recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, such as bans on transgender health care, passed by Republican-led states.
“We’re at a time where there’s a ton of legislation, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation,” Zach Overton, 47, said at the New York parade. “It feels like we’re taking a step backwards in the fight for equality and so it’s a great moment to come out and be with our community and see all the different colors of the spectrum of our community and remind ourselves what we’re all fighting for.”
Thousands of people gathered along New York’s Fifth Avenue to celebrate Pride. Floats cruised the street as Diane Ross’ “I’m Coming Out” played from loudspeakers. Pride flags filled the horizon, and signs in support of Puerto Rico, Ukraine and Gaza were visible in the crowd.
This year, tensions over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza are also seeped into the celebrations, exposing divisions within a community that is often aligned on political issues.
Protesters temporarily blocked the New York parade on Sunday, chanting: “Free, free, free Palestine!” Police eventually took some of them away.
Pro-Palestinian activists disrupted pride parades earlier in June in Boston, Denver, and Philadelphia. Several groups participating in marches Sunday said they would seek to center the victims of the war in Gaza, spurring pushback from supporters of Israel.
“It is certainly a more active presence this year in terms of protest at Pride events,” said Sandra Perez, the executive director of NYC Pride. “But we were born out of a protest.”
The first pride march was held in New York City in 1970 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising, a riot that began with a police raid on a Manhattan gay bar.
Nick Taricco, 47, who was at the New York parade with Overton, said he attended Friday’s opening of the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, where President Joe Biden spoke. Taricco said he has concerns about politics in the U.S., including the presidential election.
“Even given how old he is, I still think that’s the direction we need to go in,” Taricco said of Biden. “But it’s a very uncertain time in general in this country.”
Ireland Fernandez-Cosgrove, 23, celebrated at the New York parade.
“New York City is a great place to live, but this is one of the only days where you can come out and be openly queer and you know you’re going to be OK and safe about it,” she said. “I came out here today with my partner to be able to be ourselves in public and know that other people are going to be supporting us.”
In addition to the NYC Pride March, the nation’s largest, the city also played host Sunday to the Queer Liberation March, an activism-centered event launched five years ago amid concerns that the more mainstream parade had become too corporate.
Another one of the world’s largest Pride celebrations also took place Sunday in San Francisco.
Tens of thousands of revelers packed sidewalks along Chicago’s parade, a scaled-back event from previous years. City officials shortened the North Side route and the number of floats this year from 199 to about 150 over safety and logistical concerns, including to better deploy police into evening hours as post-parade parties have become more disruptive in recent years. Chicago’s parade, one of the largest in the U.S., routinely draws about 1 million people, according to the city. Sunday’s crowd estimates were not immediately available.
Additional parades were scheduled in Minneapolis and Seattle.
On top of concerns about protests, federal agencies have warned that foreign terrorist organizations and their supporters could target the parades and adjacent venues. A heavy security presence was expected at all of the events.
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Beryl strengthened into what experts called an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm as it approaches the southeast Caribbean, which began shutting down Sunday amid urgent pleas from government officials for people to take shelter.
Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Beryl’s center is expected to pass about 112 kilometers south of Barbados on Monday morning, said Sabu Best, director of Barbados’ meteorological service.
“This is a very serious situation developing for the Windward Islands,” warned the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which said that Beryl was “forecast to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge.”
Beryl was located about 570 kilometers east-southeast of Barbados. It had maximum sustained winds of 215 kph and was moving west at 33 kph. It is a compact storm, with hurricane-force winds extending 30 kilometers from its center.
Beryl is expected to pass just south of Barbados early Monday and then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path toward Jamaica. It is expected to weaken by midweek, but still remain a hurricane as it heads toward Mexico.
Historic hurricane
Beryl had strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane on Sunday morning, becoming the first major hurricane east of the Lesser Antilles on record for June, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher.
It took Beryl only 42 hours to strengthen from a tropical depression to a major hurricane — a feat accomplished only six other times in Atlantic hurricane history, and with Sept. 1 as the earliest date, according to hurricane expert Sam Lillo.
Beryl is now the earliest Category 4 Atlantic hurricane on record, besting Hurricane Dennis, which became a Category 4 storm on July 8, 2005, hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry said.
“Beryl is an extremely dangerous and rare hurricane for this time of year in this area,” he said in a phone interview. “Unusual is an understatement. Beryl is already a historic hurricane and it hasn’t struck yet.”
Hurricane Ivan in 2004 was the last strongest hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage in Grenada as a Category 3 storm.
“So this is a serious threat, a very serious threat,” Lowry said of Beryl.
Reecia Marshall, who lives in Grenada, was working a Sunday shift at a local hotel, preparing guests and urging them to stay away from windows as she stored enough food and water for everyone.
She said she was a child when Hurricane Ivan struck, and that she doesn’t fear Beryl.
“I know it’s part of nature. I’m OK with it,” she said. “We just have to live with it.”
Forecasters warned of a life-threatening storm surge of up to 3 meters in areas where Beryl will make landfall, with up to 15 centimeters of rain for Barbados and nearby islands.
Long lines formed at gas stations and grocery stores in Barbados and other islands as people rushed to prepare for a storm that has broken records and rapidly intensified from a tropical storm with 35 mph (56 kph) winds on Friday to a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday.
Warm waters were fueling Beryl, with ocean heat content in the deep Atlantic the highest on record for this time of year, according to Brian McNoldy, University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher. Lowry said the waters are now warmer than they would be at the peak of the hurricane season in September.
Beryl marks the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933, according to Klotzbach.
“Please take this very seriously and prepare yourselves,” said Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. “This is a terrible hurricane.”
Bracing for the storm
Thousands of people were in Barbados for Saturday’s Twenty20 World Cup final, cricket’s biggest event, with Prime Minister Mia Mottley noting that not all fans were able to leave Sunday despite many rushing to change their flights.
“Some of them have never gone through a storm before,” she said. “We have plans to take care of them.”
Mottley said that all businesses should close by Sunday evening and warned the airport would close by nighttime.
Kemar Saffrey, president of a Barbadian group that aims to end homelessness, said in a video posted on social media Saturday night that those without homes tend to think they can ride out storms because they’ve done it before.
“I don’t want that to be the approach that they take,” he said, warning that Beryl is a dangerous storm and urging Barbadians to direct homeless people to a shelter.
Echoing his comments was Wilfred Abrahams, minister of home affairs and information.
“I need Barbadians at this point to be their brother’s keeper,” he said. “Some people are vulnerable.”
Meanwhile, St. Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre announced a national shutdown for Sunday evening and said that schools and businesses would remain closed on Monday.
“Preservation and protection of life is a priority,” he said.
Looking ahead
Caribbean leaders were preparing not only for Beryl, but for a cluster of thunderstorms trailing the hurricane that have a 70% chance of becoming a tropical depression.
“Do not let your guard down,” Mottley said.
Beryl is the second named storm in what is forecast to be an above-average hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto came ashore in northeastern Mexico with heavy rains that resulted in four deaths.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the 2024 hurricane season is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
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TOKYO — The Paris Olympics open next month and the agency that oversees doping enforcement is under scrutiny following allegations it failed to pursue positive tests of Chinese swimmers who subsequently won medals — including three gold — at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
The focus on the World Anti-Doping Agency and China’s swimmers raises questions for athletes about the fairness of the competitions and the effectiveness of doping control at the Olympics.
“It’s hard going into Paris knowing that we’re going to be racing some of these athletes,” American swimmer Katie Ledecky, a seven-time Olympic champion, said in a television interview. “I think our faith in the system is at an all-time low.”
Rob Koehler, who worked as a deputy director of WADA until 2018, offered a similar tone.
“Athletes have zero confidence in the global regulator and World Aquatics,” Koehler, the director general of athletes’ advocacy body Global Athlete, told The Associated Press. “Transparency is needed more than ever. Without it, the anti-doping movement will crumble and athletes will never feel they have a level playing field.”
The background
From January 1-3, 2021, 23 elite Chinese swimmers tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine — a heart medication known as TMZ — while competing in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang and staying in a local hotel.
Chinese authorities investigated but did not sanction the swimmers and said they had unwittingly ingested the banned substance. They blamed food/environmental contamination and said the drug had gotten into spice containers in the hotel kitchen.
The investigation was carried out by the Chinese Minister of Public Security, China’s national police force.
WADA accepted the explanation and argued, in part, it was not possible to send its own investigators to China during what officials said was a “local COVID outbreak.”
Several of those athletes later won medals at the Tokyo Olympics, including gold medals in three events.
Eleven of the 23 Chinese swimmers were named this month on the country’s national team to compete in Paris, including Zhang Yufei, who won gold in the 200-meter butterfly and the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay. She also won two silver medals in Tokyo.
Also on the list for Paris is 200 individual medley Olympic gold-medalist Wang Shun, and 200 breaststroke world-record holder Qin Haiyang.
The criticism of WADA
WADA has been criticized for seeming to look the other way at aspects of the Chinese anti-doping agency’s investigation and reporting. It has also not published any of the science behind its decision.
The Chinese agency, known as CHINADA, did not report the positive tests to WADA until mid-March. And in early April 2021 it told WADA it had begun an investigation. On June 15 of that year, it told WADA that environmental contamination was the cause and said it was not pursing an ADRV — an anti-doping rules violation.
Had an anti-doping rules violation been found, CHINADA should have filed a mandatory provisional suspension with a public disclosure forthcoming.
Many questions have been asked since the case became public this year, including by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators. Why did it take 2 1/2 months to report the findings, and why was the investigation begun even later? WADA attributes the “certain delays” to COVID restrictions.
Why was there an apparent delay in inspecting the hotel kitchen? Why was the residue still around, particularly in light of China’s tough sanitation rules during the pandemic? And where did the TMZ come from and how did it land in a spice container? Why were the national police involved in a sports doping case?
The New York Times and German broadcaster ARD broke the story in April of this year.
WADA’s defense
Basically, WADA says it had no grounds to challenge the findings of CHINADA. WADA did say, however, it did not agree with all of CHINADA’s investigation “for largely technical reasons.”
WADA says it accepted the contamination theory because: the levels of TMZ were very low; the swimmers were from different regions of China; and the swimmers were in the same place when the positive tests occurred. Also, competing swimmers stayed in another hotel. Three were tested and none tested positive.
Legally, WADA argued that it could have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but was advised not to by external lawyers. It would have been a narrow appeal that would not have kept the athletes from competing at the Tokyo Olympics.
WADA has appointed retired Swiss prosecutor Eric Cottier to review the handling of the case. Fairly or not, his impartiality has been questioned.
The banned medication
Trimetazidine is listed as a “metabolic modulator” and is banned by WADA — in competition and out of competition. It is believed to help endurance and recovery time after training. One of the best-known TMZ cases involved Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, who was suspended for three months in 2014 after testing positive for the substance. He also served a four-year suspension for a separate doping violation.
Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva tested positive for TMZ weeks before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. She said the substance had belonged to her grandfather and had accidentally contaminated her food. She was allowed to skate in Beijing, but was was eventually handed a four-year suspension.
WADA said Valieva’s contamination scenario “was not compatible with the analytical results.” In the case of the Chinese swimmers, WADA said “the contamination scenario was plausible and that there was no concrete scientific element to challenge it.”
Strict Liability
The principle of “Strict Liability” — athletes are responsible for what they ingest — is at the heart of the WADA code, and is there to ensure all athletes are treated equally. Some question if the principle was followed in this case.
WADA’s rules specify that a “mandatory provisional suspension” should have taken place after the positive tests, which were carried out at a WADA-approved laboratory in Beijing. The local anti-doping agency — in this case, CHINADA — should have issued the suspension.
“CHINADA’s handling of the case, and WADA’s subsequent response, did not adhere to the most essential rule in the code — the principle of Strict Liability,” Steven Teitler, the legal director of the Netherlands doping agency, wrote in a white paper examining the case.
WADA further muddied the water in a fact sheet it published. It said “even for mandatory provisional suspensions there are exceptions.” It said there were multiple precedents for the decision to exonerate the Chinese athletes, precedents that did not seem to have been widely known.
This has raised more questions about how the agency follows its own rules.
The anti-doping system relies on national agencies like CHINADA to enforce the rules, which can clash with the wishes of high-profile athletes and the prestige they might bring to a country and its government.
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NEW YORK — The monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride reaches its exuberant grand finale on Sunday, bringing rainbow-laden revelers to the streets for marquee parades in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere across the globe.
The wide-ranging festivities will function as both jubilant parties and political protests, as participants recognize the community’s gains while also calling attention to recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, such as bans on transgender health care, passed by Republican-led states.
This year, tensions over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza are also seeping into the celebrations, exposing divisions within a community that is often aligned on political issues.
Already this month, pro-Palestinian activists have disrupted pride parades held in Boston, Denver, and Philadelphia. Several groups participating in marches Sunday said they would seek to center the victims of the war in Gaza, spurring pushback from supporters of Israel.
“It is certainly a more active presence this year in terms of protest at Pride events,” said Sandra Pérez, the executive director of NYC Pride. “But we were born out of a protest.”
The first pride march was held in New York City in 1970 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising, a riot that began with a police raid on a Manhattan gay bar.
In addition to the NYC Pride March, the nation’s largest, the city will also play host Sunday to the Queer Liberation March, an activism-centered event launched five years ago amid concerns that the more mainstream parade had become too corporate.
Another one of the world’s largest Pride celebrations will also kick off Sunday in San Francisco. Additional parades are scheduled in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Seattle.
On top of concerns about protests, federal agencies have warned that foreign terrorist organizations and their supporters could target the parades and adjacent venues. A heavy security presence is expected at all of the events.
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SAN FRANCISCO — In an increasingly divisive political sphere, Becka Robbins focuses on what she knows best — books.
Operating out of a tiny room in Fabulosa Books in San Francisco’s Castro District, one of the oldest gay neighborhoods in the United States, Robbins uses donations from customers to ship boxes of books across the country to groups that want them.
In an effort she calls “Books Not Bans,” she sends titles about queer history, sexuality, romance and more — many of which are increasingly hard to come by in the face of a rapidly growing movement by conservative advocacy groups and lawmakers to ban them from public schools and libraries.
“The book bans are awful, the attempt at erasure,” Robbins said. She asked herself how she could get these books into the hands of the people who need them the most.
Beginning last May, she started raising money and looking for recipients. Her books have gone to places like a pride center in west Texas and an LGBTQ-friendly high school in Alabama.
Customers are especially enthusiastic about helping Robbins send books to places in states like Florida, Texas and Oklahoma, often writing notes of support to include in the packages. Over 40% of all book bans from July 2022 to June 2023 were in Florida, more than any other state. Behind Florida are Texas and Missouri, according to a report by PEN America, a nonprofit literature advocacy group.
Book bans and attempted bans have been hitting record highs, according to the American Library Association. And the efforts now extend as much to public libraries as school libraries. Because the totals are based on media accounts and reports submitted by librarians, the association regards its numbers as snapshots, with many bans left unrecorded.
PEN America’s report said 30% of the bans include characters of color or discuss race and racism, and 30% have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.
The most sweeping challenges often originate with conservative organizations, such as Moms for Liberty, which has organized banning efforts nationwide and called for more parental control over books available to children.
Moms for Liberty is not anti-LGBTQ+, co-founder Tiffany Justice has told The Associated Press. But about 38% of book challenges that “directly originated” from the group have LGBTQ+ themes, according to the library association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Justice said Moms for Liberty challenges books that are sexually explicit, not because they cover LGBTQ+ topics.
Among those topping banned lists have been Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, George Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.
Robbins said it’s more important than ever to makes these kinds of books available to everyone.
“Fiction teaches us how to dream,” Robbins said. “It teaches us how to connect with people who are not like ourselves, it teaches us how to listen and emphasize.”
She’s sent 740 books so far, with each box worth $300 to $400, depending on the titles.
At the new Rose Dynasty Center in Lakeland, Florida, the books donated by Fabulosa are already on the shelves, said Jason DeShazo, a drag queen known as Momma Ashley Rose who runs the LGBTQ+ community center.
DeShazo is a family-friendly drag performer and has long hosted drag story times to promote literacy. He uses puppets to address themes of being kind, dealing with bullies and giving back to the community.
DeShazo hopes to provide a safe space for events, support groups and health clinics, and to build a library of banned books.
“I don’t think a person of color should have to search so hard for an amazing book about history of what our Black community has gone through,” DeShazo said. “Or for someone who is queer to find a book that represents them.”
Robbins’ favorite books to send are youth adult queer romances, a rapidly growing genre as conversations about LGBTQ+ issues have become much more mainstream than a decade ago.
“The characters are just like regular kids — regular people who are also queer, but they also get to fall in love and be happy,” Robbins said.
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