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Published by Reuters By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday is set to discuss the Justice Department’s investigation into the deadly Capitol attack by former President Donald Trump’s supporters a day before the one-year anniversary of the violence https://www.reuters.com/world/us/democracy-under-siege-an-hour-by-hour-look-assault-us-capitol-2022-01-04. The department, headed by Garland, has charged https://tmsnrt.rs/3HyfyEg more than 725 people with crimes arising from the riot ranging from disorderly conduct to assaulting police to conspiracy. Of those people, about 165 have pleaded guilty and at least 70 have been sentenced. Garland, the top U.S. law enforcement official, is not expected to speak in detail about specific charges or identify new suspects during his speech, scheduled for 2:30 p.m. ET (1930 GMT). “The attorney general will also reaffirm the department’s unwavering commitment to defend Americans and American democracy from violence and threats of violence,” a department official said on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity. A mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed bid to derail the formal congressional https://www.reuters.com/world/us/riot-shields-metal-detectors-are-reminder-deadly-us-capitol-assault-2022-01-05 certification of his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. High-profile criminal cases brought so far include several against members or associates of far-right groups such as the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. A Democratic-led House of Representatives select committee separately is investigating the attack. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, has been charged https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-justice-department-indicts-bannon-not-complying-with-jan-6-subpoena-2021-11-12 with contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a deposition and refusing to produce documents sought by the House committee. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Maria Chutchian (Reuters) – The Boy Scouts of America fell short of winning the support it sought from sex-abuse victims for a nearly $2.7 billion settlement that could bring the organization out of bankruptcy, according to court papers. The proposed settlement of more than 82,000 claims of childhood sexual abuse earned the support of just over 73% of those who cast votes, below the 75% the Boy Scouts sought. Nearly 54,000 survivors cast ballots, according to preliminary results released in a Tuesday court filing. The current tally is not final and marks the first of several steps along a possible path out of bankruptcy for the Boy Scouts. The nonprofit organization said in a statement on Wednesday that it is still negotiating with key parties to garner more support for the deal. “We are encouraged by these preliminary results,” the Boy Scouts said. The 111-year-old youth group based in Irving, Texas, filed https://reut.rs/3JID2bO for bankruptcy in February 2020, after being hit by a flood of sexual abuse lawsuits when several U.S. states passed laws allowing accusers to sue over allegations dating back several decades. Those claimants are now designated creditors of the organization, so they must sign off on any plans to restructure and exit bankruptcy. Representatives of some of the victims have pushed for larger settlements. “We hope the BSA and the lawyers who supported this plan will take this result as sending a message that the plan they proposed was fundamentally unacceptable to a large bloc of survivors,” Irwin Zalkin of Zalkin Law Firm, who represents more than 150 victims, said in a statement. John Humphrey, the co-chair of the committee representing abuse claimants in the bankruptcy, called the settlement “historically low” from the perspective of individual victims. The Boy Scouts https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/boy-scouts-bankruptcy-judge-rule-850-million-sex-abuse-deal-2021-08-19 has apologized and says the organization is committed to fulfilling their “social and moral responsibility to equitably compensate survivors.” As negotiations over a deal have dragged on, the Boy Scouts’ lawyers had warned it would have to begin selling off assets, which would otherwise be used to compensate abuse claimants, to pay legal fees. (Reporting by Jahnavi Nidumolu in Bengaluru and Maria Chutchian in New York; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Frank Jack Daniel, Alexia Garamfalvi and Jonathan Oatis) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Alistair Smout and Maayan Lubell LONDON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Britain and Israel are overhauling their COVID-19 testing policies as governments seek to reduce the burden on laboratories and struggle with tight supplies of kits amid soaring infection rates fuelled by the Omicron variant. This time last year, vaccines offered hope that the pandemic could be over by now. But Omicron has brought new challenges, including overloading public health systems, even if – as many scientists say – it leads to less severe illness than the earlier Delta variant. Demand for testing kits has squeezed supply. Last week, queues formed outside pharmacies in Spain’s capital Madrid in what has become a common scene since Omicron began driving up infections. Madrid, whose conservative government has put supporting the hospitality sector at the top of its agenda, is opting for increased testing and no restrictions on socialising. A surge in demand for tests has led to issues in Italy and Britain. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said that 100,000 more PCR booking slots per day had been made available since mid-December and that capacity had been doubled to 900,000 PCR and LFD test kits a day. People in England https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/england-suspend-pcr-confirmation-positive-rapid-covid-test-results-2022-01-05 who test positive for COVID-19 on rapid lateral flow device (LFD) tests will not need to confirm their results with a follow-up PCR test if they are not showing symptoms, the UKHSA said on Wednesday. A record-high one in 15 people had COVID-19 in England in the week ending Dec. 31, estimates published by the Office for National Statistics showed on Wednesday. “While cases of COVID continue to rise, this tried-and-tested approach means that LFDs can be used confidently to indicate COVID-19 infection without the need for PCR confirmation,” said agency Chief Executive Dr Jenny Harries. PCR tests are processed in a lab and can be used to determine which variant a person has, while a LFD can be used at home and gives an indication of infectivity within half an hour. Virologists and experts said the move was logical given the incredibly high infection rates as long as LFD supplies were sufficient as they identify the majority of people who are at their most infectious and need to isolate. “There is really no need to confirm (a positive LFD test) with a PCR, a step that not only wastes time but costs a lot of money and uses up laboratory resources that could be better used elsewhere,” said John Edmunds, a professor of mathematical modelling of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. But the authorities will have less data about the spread of different variants as PCR swabs are used for genotyping and sequencing. ‘SUPERSONIC’ RISE IN INFECTIONS Israel changed its quarantine and testing policy as part of efforts to save resources and ensure continued protection for vulnerable people. PCR tests will be earmarked for people aged 60 and over or with weak immune systems, while those at lower risk will be checked with rapid antigen tests, the health ministry said. “This is a significant change intended to identify risk populations sooner, intervene and prevent severe disease,” ministry director-general Nachman Ash told a news conference. Until now, those exposed to confirmed COVID-19 carriers have been required to take official tests. If found to be positive, they must submit to police-enforced quarantine rules. The United States reported nearly a million new coronavirus infections on Monday, the highest daily tally of any country in the world and nearly double the previous U.S. peak set a week earlier. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday backed its week-old guidance for people seeking to end their COVID-19 isolation at five days, adding they could take a rapid antigen test if they want to and can access one, but it is not a requirement. The agency had been pressured by health experts to institute a test requirement after it cut in half its guidance last week for people to isolate after a COVID-19 infection to five days from 10. Spain, Portugal and Britain have also slashed the mandatory isolation period for people who test positive for COVID-19 amid fears that lengthy quarantines could paralyse economies. Ireland will drop its requirement for vaccinated arrivals to have proof of a negative COVID-19 test and return to seeking proof of vaccination or recent infection upon entry, Prime Minister Micheál Martin said. Nearly 294 million people have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus globally and more than 5.8 million have died, according to a Reuters tally. Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in central China in December 2019. A “supersonic” rise https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/supersonic-rise-french-covid-cases-continue-coming-days-government-2022-01-05 in French COVID-19 infections is set to continue in the coming days and there are no signs of the trend reversing, a government spokesman said on Wednesday. Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open https://tmsnrt.rs/2FThSv7 in an external browser. Eikon users can click https://apac1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/cms/?navid=1063154666 for a case tracker. (Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Josephine Mason and Nick Macfie; Editing by Catherine Evans and Alexandra Hudson) View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega A juror in Ghislaine Maxwell’s federal sex trafficking trial has spoken out and is insisting the former British socialite’s guilty conviction was the right verdict because the evidence presented proved she was a “predator.” Scotty David, one of the 12 jurors who convicted Maxwell on five out of six counts of sex trafficking in a Manhattan federal court last week, spoke to The Daily Mail regarding the 60-year-old’s guilty verdict. “After all I’ve learned, she’s just as guilty as Epstein. I don’t want to call her a monster, but a predator is the right word,” Scotty told the outlet after emphasizing how he initially believed Maxwell to be innocent until proven guilty before he heard all the damning evidence against her. Mega “She knew what was happening. She knew what Epstein was doing and she allowed it to happen. She participated in getting these girls comfortable so that he could have his way with them.” “And, to me, them returning repeatedly for the money has nothing to do with anything because these girls were minors, and it doesn’t matter what incentivized them,” he continued. “It matters what happened to them.” Scotty also revealed how Maxwell and her team’s decision to have her not testify, even though she reportedly wanted to, may have played a part in why the jury viewed her as a predator. “It would have shown maybe that she was a little more human,” he said, speculating a scenario in which Maxwell actually did testify on the stand. “Maybe if she gave her version of the story, who knows, maybe if she gave us a story of how she was manipulated. I don’t know,” Scotty continued. “But then that would have been an admission I feel like of guilt.” Mega As Radar previously reported, Scotty David – who is using only his first and middle name – also spoke out recently to reveal that he was a victim of sexual abuse as a minor. But while some are arguing this revelation could be grounds for a mistrial, others are arguing that this information would already be known prior to Scotty’s selection for the jury because of a 50-question survey taken asking whether a potential juror was a victim of sexual abuse. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Sheila Dang (Reuters) -Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the storming of the U.S. Capitol, Twitter Inc created a new team to review the social networking site for harmful content associated with the event, the company told Reuters on Tuesday. Social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook were accused of enabling extremists to organize the siege on Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of Republican then-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. Twitter said it “convened a cross-functional working group” comprised of members across its site integrity and trust and safety teams, which is specific to the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol and will watch for risks such as tweets and accounts that incite violence. The company did not say how many people were on the monitoring team. The company said the effort expands upon its work to monitor the platform around major global events, and added it will continue to monitor trending topics and search results for harmful content. A spokesperson for Meta Platforms Inc, the company previously known as Facebook, said in a statement on Wednesday: “We’re continuing to actively monitor threats on our platform and will respond accordingly.” A spokesperson for YouTube, which is owned by Google, said Wednesday the online video platform had removed tens of thousands of videos for violating its U.S. elections-related policies over the past year, and said it continued to closely monitor for election misinformation on the site. In March, the chief executives of Twitter, Google and Facebook, testified in a hearing before Congress and were asked https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-tech/yes-or-no-u-s-lawmakers-fume-over-big-techs-answers-on-misinformation-idUSKBN2BH1B0 by U.S. lawmakers whether their platforms bore some responsibility for the riot. Then-Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey was the only executive who answered “yes,” but said the “broader ecosystem” had to be taken into account. Days after the Capitol riot, Twitter announced a permanent suspension https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-twitter/twitter-permanently-suspends-trumps-account-cites-incitement-of-violence-risk-idUSKBN29D355 of Trump’s account, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” “Our approach both before and after January 6 has been to take strong enforcement action against accounts and Tweets that incite violence or have the potential to lead to offline harm,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday. (Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; editing by Jonathan Oatis) View the full article

Published by Chicago Tribune CHICAGO — Owen Keehnen remembers when the AIDS epidemic, which disproportionately affected the LGBTQ community, was at its height in the late 1980s. The gay community in the United States was still largely in the shadows, said Keehnen, a writer and historian of LGBTQ history in Chicago. Gay bars and gathering spaces had blackened or tinted windows so passersby couldn’t see in. But, Keehnen said, there was a place in Chicago were the LGBTQ community could feel safe while in the open, and that was the Belmont Rocks. A stretch of stone and grass on the lakefront from Belmont to Diversey harbors,… Read More View the full article

Published by Reuters By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Democrats’ efforts to pass voting rights legislation in Congress appeared in jeopardy on Tuesday, as a centrist Democratic senator said he had little interest in a strategy that would allow the party to bypass Republican opposition. Senator Joe Manchin told reporters that it was his “preference” to line up Republican support for a rule change that would allow Democrats to pass a voting rights bill on a party-line vote. That could spell doom for the legislation, which Republicans oppose. “For us to go it alone, no matter what side does it, it just ends up coming back at you pretty hard,” Manchin told reporters. His remarks came a day after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate would vote to change chamber’s rule known as the filibuster by Jan. 17 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-vote-changing-rules-if-republicans-obstruct-voting-rights-law-schumer-2022-01-03, the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, in order to enact voting rights legislation. Without Manchin’s support, Senate Democrats would not be able to muster the votes necessary to alter the filibuster, which requires a 60-vote majority to pass most bills. The 100-seat Senate is split 50-50, with Democrats in charge only because Vice President Kamala Harris casts a tie-breaking vote. Manchin’s objections have also complicated Democratic efforts to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion climate and social policy legislation. Democrats would need 10 Republicans to support voting rights legislation if Senate rules went unchanged. But Republicans have repeatedly used the filibuster to block the measures. Manchin and another centrist holdout, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, were due to meet later on Tuesday with fellow Democrats, according to Schumer. Most Democrats want the filibuster changed to accommodate voting rights legislation after a wave of Republican-led states last year passed new restrictions on voting. The state laws were inspired by Republican former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election that he lost to Biden by a substantial margin. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu and David Morgan;Editing by Andy Sullivan, Tomasz Janowski and Cynthia Osterman) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Cher thinks women in the music industry need to “push the envelope”. The 75-year-old singer is one of the best-selling artists of all time, and she’s now encouraged up-and-coming female stars to keep fighting in what is still a male-dominated industry. She said: “Through history, we’ve had to fight for everything that we have gotten and it never came easy. There were no women executives in music. You were supposed to sing and then someone patted you on the head and then you went and sat down.” Cher believes women in the music industry are held to a different standard compared to their male counterparts. But the ‘Believe’ hitmaker has also urged female artists to stand their ground. She told E! News: “You have to push the envelope and that’s so cliche, but you have to. When men are forceful or know what they want, they’re respected and viewed as ‘tough.’ When women are not even pushing it, but just say ‘I can’t do this. I’m not comfortable with that,’ then they’re thought of as a ‘b****,’ when that isn’t the case.” Cher also explained that she’s taken inspiration from her mother, and she wants younger female artists to follow suit. The singer explained: “Women went through that before I did and just passed it on. We have to just keep going because we’re making strides. When my mom was young, my mom was tough. “My mom is still tough, but there were these silly laws and rules she and her friends were expected to follow, like this notion that you have to cut your hair when you became a certain age. And, I kept thinking, when will the age come that I will have to cut my hair? I finally thought this is such ‘bull****. I’m not gonna do any of these things.'” View the full article

Published by Radar Online mega Andy Cohen revealed that he “really” regrets slamming Ryan Seacrest and his viewers on ABC, however, the damage is done and now Kelly Ripa, ABC’s biggest star is caught between her two friends. “Kelly likes Andy, but she adores Ryan. Andy is her friend, but Ryan is her work husband, he is family. When you attack Ryan you also attack Kelly, that is how close they are,” sources tell Radar. “What makes matters worse is that Kelly works for ABC. She is very loyal. She is a class act. Calling ABC viewers “losers” (as Cohen did while co-hosting CNN’s New year’s countdown) isn’t cool. One thing is for sure, it’s going to be very to ever ask Andy to fill in on ABC next to Kelly the next time Ryan is off.” Andy Cohen ‘Deeply Regrets’ Trashing Ryan Seacrest During Drunken New Year’s Eve Rant After It’s Revealed He Won’t Be Asked Back Next Year Friends add that Anderson Cooper is also in a difficult position as he is also very close to Kelly. “Anderson did nothing when Andy went on his rant. He should have stuck up for Kelly and ABC. This circle of friends is so incestuous. It makes everything really awkward. Andy Cohen Won’t Be Invited Back To CNN New Year’s Special Next Year CNN Cohen revealed on SiriusXM’sAndy Cohen Live show on Monday, Jan. 3, that he really likes Seacrest and what he said was “just stupid and drunk and feeling it.” Sources tell Radar that Andy also reached out to Ryan privately to apologize. “It all comes from a place of jealousy. Andy desperately wanted the job on ABC sitting next to Kelly. He is pee-green that Ryan has a super successful radio show and hosts “American Idol.” At the end of the day, Andy created Real Housewives. Yes, his Bravo late-night show is successful, but usually the only time anyone watches is when he has The Housewives’ on,” adds an insider. “Ryan’s name triggers Andy, but without the alcohol, he can pretend it doesn’t.” mega As Radar first reported, CNN sources tell us senior staffers are “embarrassed” following Cohen’s drunken appearance. “We claim to be the most trusted network in news and yet CNN hires Andy Cohen to make a fool out of all of us with his New Year’s performance?” a source dished to Radar. “Andy doesn’t even work for CNN and yet he has been the face of our network for the past 48 hours. It is embarrassing and real CNN staffers are very angry.” mega;cnn View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Andy Cohen “really regrets” criticising Ryan Seacrest’s New Year’s Eve show on live TV. The 53-year-old star caused a stir with his drunken comments while co-hosting CNN’s ‘New Year’s Eve Live’ special on Friday (31.12.21) with his friend Anderson Cooper and although it was his rant against New York City’s outgoing mayor, Bill de Blasio, that attracted the most attention, the ‘Watch What Happens Live’ star admitted the only thing he wishes he hadn’t done was launch a barrage of negative remarks about ABC’s rival programme ‘Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’ and its host. He said on his SiriusXM show ‘Andy Cohen Live’: “The only thing that I regret saying, the only thing is that I slammed the ABC broadcast and I really like Ryan Seacrest and he’s a great guy. And I really regret saying that, and I was just stupid and drunk and feeling it.” During the broadcast, Andy criticised the “group of losers” performing on ABC’s show, including Journey, Ashanti and Ja Rule. He said: “There’s lots of smoke coming from Ryan Seacrest’s group of losers that are performing behind us. I mean, with all due [respect] if you’ve been watching ABC tonight, you’ve seen nothing. I’m sorry. It’s true. “I just got doused in confetti from the fake Journey appearing on ABC. If it’s not Steve Perry, it doesn’t count! You get it? It’s not Journey! It’s propaganda! It’s propaganda! It’s not Journey! It’s not Journey! No, that was not Journey. Steve Perry is Journey. No!” And on reflection, the Bravo star admitted he got carried away. He said on his radio programme: “I was continuing the Journey rant and I just kept talking and I shouldn’t have. I felt bad about that. So that is the only thing. It’s the only thing… That is what I really regret. I really do.” Andy’s co-host, John Hill, noted the “headline was what sucked” in the subsequent coverage of his pal’s rant because it appeared he was taking aim at Ryan himself. He noted: “I thought in the moment you understood the context.” Andy agreed: “Exactly, that’s the problem. Yeah. The headlines about Ryan Seacrest are all like I trash Ryan Seacrest. I hope he hears the clip.” Throughout the New Year’s Eve broadcast, Andy and Anderson sank tequila shots and he joked afterwards he had been “over-served”, even though he was helping himself. He wrote on Instagram on Saturday (01.01.22): “I was a hair over-served last night, but man, did I have fun! I hope you did too. Happy New Year everybody.” Meanwhile, a CNN spokesperson has dismissed speculation Andy won’t be covering the occasion for them next year following his performance. The representative said: “I can confirm that Andy Cohen will be back to co-host NYE on CNN next year.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Jan Wolfe WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Almost a year has passed since supporters of Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn his election defeat, the worst assault on the seat of the federal government since the War of 1812. Four people died on the day of the riot. About 140 police were injured during the multi-hour onslaught by Trump supporters and four officers have since taken their own lives. What follows is a look at the key events of the day: THE RALLY BEGINS 10:50 a.m.: Supporters of then-President Trump converge on a park near the White House for his “Save America” rally, where lawyer Rudy Giuliani urges the crowd to engage in “trial by combat.” ‘FIGHT LIKE HELL’ 12 p.m.: Trump begins a 70-minute speech at the rally, repeating false claims about a stolen election and telling supporters to “fight like hell.” CONGRESS CONVENES 12:53 p.m.: Lawmakers gather for a joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s election win over the objections of some Republicans, as an initial wave of Trump supporters topples barricades on the west side of the Capitol and harasses police officers. PENCE REJECTS TRUMP’S PLEA 1:02 p.m.: Vice President Mike Pence, who had a legal duty to preside over the certification of Biden’s win, releases a letter making clear he will not overturn the election results as Trump had urged. POLICE OVERPOWERED 1:30 p.m.: Thousands of demonstrators descend on the Capitol after Trump’s speech. A mob overtakes police officers on the Capitol steps. Officers are forced to retreat. THE CAPITOL BREACHED 2:12 p.m.: Rioters enter the Capitol building through smashed windows a floor below where the Senate is in session. HURRIED EVACUATION 2:13 p.m.: Security agents evacuate Pence from the Senate floor to a nearby office. Senator Charles Grassley pauses the certification of the election. EUGENE GOODMAN’S STANDOFF 2:14 p.m.: A lone Capitol Police officer, Eugene Goodman, confronts rioters ascending a staircase where there are doors to the Senate chamber in both directions. Goodman lures the mob away from the chamber, allowing lawmakers to shelter and other officers to seal the doors. TRUMP ERUPTS 2:24 p.m.: Trump blasts Pence on Twitter, saying he “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” FATAL MOMENT 2:44 p.m.: A rioter, Ashli Babbitt, attempts to climb through the broken part of a door leading into an area known as the Speaker’s Lobby. A Capitol Police officer fatally shoots her. ‘REMAIN PEACEFUL’ 3:13 p.m. Trump tells his supporters to relent, writing on Twitter as live television is showing the unprecedented assault, “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence!” ‘YOU’RE VERY SPECIAL’ 4:17 p.m. After hours of violence, Trump releases a video online in which he tells the rioters to go home but also says “we love you, you’re very special” and repeats his false claims of election fraud. THE NATIONAL GUARD ARRIVES 5:30 p.m.: The first National Guard personnel arrive at the Capitol. By then, most of the violence had ended. CAPITOL SECURED 8 p.m.: Capitol Police declare the building secure, and a few minutes later Pence reopens the Senate proceeding. DEMOCRACY PREVAILS 3:40 a.m., Jan. 7: Pence concludes the certification of electoral votes, confirming that Biden won the presidency. (Reporting by Jan Wolfe in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Matthew Lewis) View the full article

Published by AFP The US man who appeared as a baby on the cover of Nirvana's Los Angeles (AFP) – Earlier this year the man who as a baby was photographed naked for the cover of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album sued the band for sexual exploitation — and now a California judge has dismissed the case on procedural grounds. The federal judge dismissed the case Monday as Spencer Elden’s legal team had missed a deadline to file an opposition to Nirvana lawyers’ December motion to drop the case. Elden’s team has until January 13 to refile. In a statement to AFP on Tuesday his lawyer Robert Lewis said they would do so “very soon.” “We are confident that Spencer will be allowed to move forward with his case,” Lewis said. In 1991, when he was four months old, Elden was photographed naked in a swimming pool reaching for a dollar bill on a fish hook, an image that become one of the most iconic album covers of all time. The album went on to sell 30 million copies, with songs such as “Smells Like Teen Spirit” becoming American pop cultural touchstones. But neither Elden nor his legal guardians “ever signed a release authorizing the use of any images of Spencer or of his likeness, and certainly not of commercial child pornography depicting him,” the original lawsuit said. According to court documents Elden had never received any compensation for the image, and asked for $150,000 in damages from each of the 15 defendants — including the surviving former members of the band, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, as well as the estate of the late lead singer Kurt Cobain, and the photographer, Kirk Weddle. The lawsuit said Elden had suffered “extreme and permanent emotional distress,” as well as “lifelong loss of income earning capacity.” In their December motion Nirvana lawyers argued the statute of limitations had expired more than a decade ago, and that Elden’s claim that the photo constituted child pornography was “not serious.” Elden recreated the album cover multiple times, including for its 25th anniversaries. Weddle, the original photographer, was a friend of his father’s, the family told NPR in 2008. They held a pool party during which Elden was photographed underwater for the then-unknown band. Elden’s parents were paid $200 for the original shoot. View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Ghislaine Maxwell is reportedly demanding that the estate of late billionaire and fellow convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein pay her multi-million-dollar legal fees following her guilty conviction in a Manhattan federal court last month for grooming and trafficking underage girls. According to The Sun, the 60-year-old disgraced British socialite claims Epstein promised to support her financially before he committed suicide in a Metropolitan Correctional Center jail cell two years ago. Now, a source close to Maxwell and familiar with the situation spilled to the outlet, alleging she's demanding payment for the nearly $6.75 million legal fees she now owes following her federal trial. Mega “It is pretty unbelievable – that money should go to survivors, not Ghislaine Maxwell,” Spencer Kuvin, a United States attorney representing victims of Epstein, told the outlet. “Even after being convicted of being a criminal conspiracy, she wants to try and get money from a dead sexual pervert’s estate.” “One hundred per cent [sic] of that money should have gone to the victims,” he emphasized. But this isn't the first time Maxwell wants Epstein’s estate to pay her legal fees. The ex-socialite reportedly sued Epstein’s estate in the US Virgin Islands in 2020 claiming that it “failed to uphold Epstein’s promise to indemnify and advance expenses incurred” from both lawsuits and investigations relating directly to the late businessman and billionaire. As Radar previously reported, Maxwell was convicted on December 29, 2021, of recruiting, grooming, and trafficking underage girls over a 10-year span in a New York federal court. Although Maxwell insisted she “had no involvement in or knowledge of Epstein’s alleged misconduct,” the jury found the evidence against her too damning to say otherwise and found her guilty of five out of the six charges. The former lover, confidante, and “partner-in-crime” of Epstein was ultimately found guilty of conspiracy to entice a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors, and the sex trafficking of minors. She faces up to 65 years in prison, meaning she will most likely be spending the rest of her life behind bars. Mega View the full article

Published by Reuters By Joseph Ax and Lisa Shumaker (Reuters) – The United States set a global record of almost 1 million new coronavirus infections reported on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, nearly double the country’s peak of 505,109 hit just a week ago as the highly contagious Omicron variant shows no sign of slowing. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has risen nearly 50% in the last week and now exceeds 100,000, a Reuters analysis showed, the first time that threshold has been reached since the winter surge a year ago. Overall, the United States has seen a daily average of 486,000 cases over the last week, a rate that has doubled in seven days and far outstrips that of any other country. The 978,856 new infections on Monday includes some cases from Saturday and Sunday, when many states do not report. The average number of U.S. deaths per day has remained fairly steady throughout December and into early January at about 1,300, according to a Reuters tally, though deaths typically lag behind cases and hospitalizations. Omicron appears to be far more easily transmitted than previous iterations of the virus. The variant was estimated to account for 95.4% of the coronavirus cases identified in the United States as of Jan. 1, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Tuesday. The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that evidence thus far suggests Omicron is causing less severe illness. Nevertheless, public health officials have warned that the sheer volume of Omicron cases threatens to overwhelm hospitals, some of which are already struggling to handle a wave of COVID-19 patients, primarily among the unvaccinated. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan declared a 30-day state of emergency on Tuesday and mobilized 1,000 National Guard members to pandemic response operations as COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state hit a record high of more than 3,000. That is an increase of more than 500% in the last seven weeks, Hogan said. “The truth is that the next four to six weeks will be the most challenging time of the entire pandemic,” Hogan told reporters. “Our newest projections as of today show that COVID hospitalizations could reach more than 5,000, which would be more than 250% higher than our previous peak of 1,952 last year.” Delaware, Illinois, Ohio and Washington, D.C., also have reported record numbers of hospitalized COVID patients in recent days. The unrelenting surge has prompted more than 3,200 schools to close their buildings this week, according to Burbio, a site that tracks school disruptions. Schools that have remained open are facing staff shortages and renewed concerns about virus spread. In Boston, where more than 54,000 students returned to class on Tuesday following the holiday break, Superintendent of Schools Brenda Cassellius told reporters there were 1,000 staff members out, including 461 teachers and 52 bus drivers. “It does make for a difficult start to the day,” she said. In Chicago, the teachers union objected to Monday’s return to schools, saying the district needs stricter protocols such as required testing. Teachers were expected to vote on Tuesday on whether they support working remotely starting on Wednesday. The Biden administration has continued to emphasize widespread vaccinations and boosters as the best way to protect against severe illness. The CDC on Tuesday recommended shortening the interval between Pfizer-BioNTech’s second COVID-19 vaccine dose and the booster shot to five months from six, a day after the Food and Drug Administration made a similar move. (Reporting by Joseph Ax, Lisa Shumaker and Maria Caspani; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Bill Berkrot) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Hyunjoo Jin San Francisco (Reuters) -Tesla Inc’s ability to design components in-house gave the automaker agility in making tweaks to parts and coping with supply chain issues that hit other automakers much harder, sources and experts said. Tesla boosted its deliveries by 87% to a record high in 2021, pushing its shares up over 13% on Monday. Here are some of the ways Tesla navigated supply chain challenges. HOW TESLA COPED WITH THE GLOBAL CHIP SHORTAGE Tesla told some customers they could take vehicle delivery with some missing parts, such as Bluetooth chips and USB ports. Tesla also removed some features such as radar sensors and lumbar support for front passenger seats, which made the car less complicated to build. Tesla did not respond to Reuters’ request for comments. Tesla also increased vehicle prices to address higher costs, including “expedite costs” for parts. American consumers have to wait for seven months if they order a Model Y version, whose prices went up 18% last year. Chief Executive Elon Musk said Tesla was also able to substitute alternative chips for some that were in short supply. Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess said Tesla’s ability to rewrite software to support the new chips in 2-3 weeks was impressive. HOW TESLA IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER AUTOMAKERS Tesla designs more hardware and writes more software than many rivals, which rely on auto suppliers. Musk has called the company “absurdly vertically integrated compared to other auto companies.” “We design circuit boards by ourselves, which allow us to modify their design quickly to accommodate alternative chips like powerchips,” a Tesla insider said. In-house engineers design the bulk of the complex software that runs the Tesla vehicles, which Musk has described as a “computer on wheels”. Some traditional automakers are also conservative about modifying chips or using different chip factories, because of a risk associated with the change, Kevin Anderson, Principal Consultant at Write-Tek, said. “They have been burned many times in the past and unintended consequences of those changes. A company like Tesla doesn’t have that long experience,” he said. HOW MUCH IS TESLA VERTICALLY INTEGRATED? Tesla also designs the chips used in its driver assistant systems and makes parts ranging from seats to battery cells in-house. It also owns its own direct sales, service and charging networks. “We’re designing and building https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-batteryday-technology-insight/the-musk-method-learn-from-partners-then-go-it-alone-idUSKBN2680K4 so much more of the car than other OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) who will largely go to the traditional supply base and like I call it, catalog engineering. So it is not very adventurous,” Musk said. Ambrose Conroy, CEO of Seraph Consulting, said: “They control what’s going on in that vehicle at a level that no other automaker wants to do it. It is much more aligned to the integration that Henry Ford had originally with the Model T.” HOW TESLA SECURED CHIP ORDERS In 2020, many automakers cut chip orders as the pandemic and lockdown measures hit demand. But Tesla never reduced its production forecast with suppliers, since it expected rapid growth, which helped it weather the chip shortage, Tesla chief financial officer Zach Kirkhorn has said. “They’ve just been smarter about it than other companies in terms of making sure there’s buffer stock,” a Tesla supplier executive said. Tesla’s direct ties with chip suppliers allowed it to move faster than traditional automakers, which rely on first-tier suppliers who have relationships with chipmakers, Anderson said. (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin Editing by Richard Pullin and Mark Potter) View the full article

Tom DaleyTom Daley OBE, Master Knitter, Entrepreneur, Diver, Dad After a golden 2021, Olympic diver Tom Daley rang in 2022 receiving one of the highest honors handed out by the United Kingdom. Daley was recognized as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), the second-highest rank in the nation’s order of chivalry, on the Queen’s New Year Honors List. Daley’s honor came as he closed the book on his best professional years to date. He won a gold medal alongside diving partner and now fellow OBE Matty Lee at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and turned his viral poolside knitting activities into a new business venture as well, Made With Love By Tom Daley Knitting Kits. His gold medal performance added to his array of athletic awards, including multiple World and European diving championships and three Olympic bronze medals. Order of Orders; Arc of the ArcaneryWhat is the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)? Uh, WTF?1. King George V founded to honor non-combatants in First World War. 2. 5 levels within order– Knight/Dame Grand Cross, Knight/Dame Commander, Commander, Officer, Member. 3. No more than 858 Officers named in a year. 4. Order’s motto is “For God and the Empire.” 5. In 2004, a report recommended phasing out the Order of the British Empire, as its title was “now considered to be unacceptable, being thought to embody values that are no longer shared by many of the country’s population”. 6. In 2012, the committee however decided not to recommend any changes ahead of the Order’s centenary in 2017, to “recognize the Order’s proud history and the service of its members”, although “the title may need to change in the future”. Source: Wikipedia Recognized for Athletics and Advocacy for Under-represented Communities Daley’s athletic accomplishments and his advocacy for LGBTQ and other excluded and poorly represented communities factored into his OBE designation. The diver indicated his focus and efforts will continue to be on LGBTQ equality in his decision to focus on it for his first public comments following the news. “I feel like it’s almost like a responsibility to make the whole Commonwealth a better place for LGBT people, for women, for people of color, to make it a more inclusive and more accepting environment,” he said in an interview with BBC Breakfast. “It is now my responsibility to try and help create change and help create this environment where everybody can be anything they want, no matter where they came from.” “I think it’s really important to be able to lift up all people that feel like they’re outsiders, feel like they don’t fit in, and feel like they have been ‘less than’ for so many years, to support them in being whatever they want to be,” he added. “If you can’t see it, you can’t be it.” Pushing for Policies To Forbid Hosting Competitions In Countries That Criminalize Human Rights. Daley has used his position in the sports world to call attention of governing bodies to nations that threaten the safety of LGBTQ people. The olympian said at the 2021 Attitude Awards that it was his “mission” to push the International Olympic Committee to exclude countries that criminalize and punish LGBTQ people by death from Olympic competition. Calls Out FIFA for Allowing Qatar to Host 2022 World Cup He has also been vocal in his opposition of soccer governing body FIFA’s decision to host the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, saying “I think it should not be allowed for a sporting event to host in a country that criminalizes against basic human rights.” World Cup organizers in Qatar promised LGBTQ fans and players would be able to express themselves freely during the tournament, raising some eyebrows as the nation still criminalizes homosexuality. Since then Qatar officials recently confiscated a number of rainbow-colored toys because they promoted “slogans that go against Islamic values.” Daley pushed the World Cup issue out further in a Christmas message on British TV channel Channel 4. “In 2022 the World Cup is being held in the second most dangerous country for queer people, Qatar. Why are we allowing places that aren’t safe for all fans and all players to host our most prestigious sporting events,” Daley said while knitting. “Hosting a World Cup is an honor. Why are we honoring them?” Also in that message, Daley specifically called for support of transgender individuals, including trans athletes, at a time when there is perhaps the most vocal and animated effort to de-couple Trans equality movement from the rest. Clearly addressing this wrenching issue, Daley states “There is no LGB without the T. We can make this country the most accepting, the most inclusive, the most progressive country on Earth.” He went on, “What If in Britain anybody can be anything regardless of where they started? What if we all started from the same place? Now wouldn’t that be something to be proud of?” Tom Daley: Previously on Towleroad Queen Honors Olympian Tom Daley for His Athletics and Advocacy; Diver, Knitting Entrepreneur Now ‘Officer of the Order of the British Empire’ Brian Bell January 4, 2022 Read More Tom Daley Diving into Career as Children’s Author After Gold Medal Win in Tokyo 2020 Towleroad August 23, 2021 Read More Raven Saunders’ ‘X’ Protest Gesture Did Not Violate Rules, Says USOPC Towleroad August 10, 2021 Read More Soccer Star Quinn is First Out Trans Nonbinary Olympic Gold Medalist as Canada Tops Sweden in 3-2 Shootout Brian Bell August 6, 2021 Read More LGBTQ Olympics: Raven Sunders Challenges All; First Ever Trans Woman, Non Binary Athletes Compete. LGBTQ Medal Count Hits 20 Brian Bell August 3, 2021 Read More Olympic Rankings If All The LGBTQ Athletes Were A Team They Would Be 7th in Gold Medals, 8th Overall. Plus 6 Pages of Photos in Tokyo And At Home Michael Goff August 2, 2021 Read More Screenshot courtesy of YouTube/Channel 4 PrefixInfo BoxClick here to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. View the full article

Published by Reuters NAIROBI (Reuters) – Richard Leakey, a Kenyan conservationist and paleoanthropologist who spearheaded campaigns against the ivory trade to save the dwindling African elephant population, has died, the Kenyan presidency said on Sunday. He was 77. For years Leakey served in various roles in the government including as director of the state-run National Museums of Kenya and twice as board chairman at the Kenya Wildlife Service. President Uhuru Kenyatta said Leakey had “served our country with distinction”. “Besides his distinguished career in the public service, Dr. Leakey is celebrated for his prominent role in Kenya’s vibrant civil society where he founded and successfully ran a number of institutions.” Leakey was the son of palaeontologists Louis and Mary Leakey, whose work helped demonstrate that human evolution began in Africa. He was celebrated for his work to save wildlife from poachers and for leading campaigns against the ivory trade. Paula Kahumbu, a wildlife conservationist who heads WildlifeDirect, told Reuters she had been mentored by Leakey, as had many other young Kenyans. “Very courageous, he was a person who stood for integrity whether it was in wildlife conservation, whether it was related to archaeological and paleoanthropological research at museums or whether it was related to politics,” she said. Leakey also served Kenya’s head of civil service from July 1999 to March 2001, at a time when then president Daniel Arap Moi was under pressure from donors to tackle corruption and other inefficiencies in government. He was a co-founder of the Safina Party in 1995. At the time of his death, he was serving as chairman of the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University in the United States, which works to facilitate research and education in palaeontology and archaeology in northern Kenya. Leakey was also a fellow of the UK-based Royal Society and an honorary fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. (Writing by Elias Biryabarema and George Obulutsa; Editing by Alison Williams) View the full article

Published by Radar Online MEGA Donald Trump is gaining a daughter-in-law. His oldest child Donald Trump Jr. has secretly been engaged to Kimberly Guilfoyle for one year. The 44-year-old reportedly popped the question to the controversial former Fox News host last year, entering 2021 as the future Mr. and Mrs. Trump Jr. Daily Mail broke the story on Monday, posting photo evidence after their 2020 engagement. Somehow the duo has been keeping their wedding plans under wraps for a whole year, despite Donald Jr. giving Kimberly an almost 8-carat diamond ring. “Don and Kim got engaged on New Year's Eve 2020 – which is Don's birthday. They've been together for almost four years now and have been friends for 15 years,” a pal told the outlet. “They've kept it private for the past year as they settled into life in Florida after moving from New York,” the insider continued. “Both are focused on their children – they have six between them – and their work.” And while Trump, his son, and his future daughter-in-law have been holding onto this secret, their engagement is widely known among friends and family. “It's been an open secret for the past 12 months with everyone Kim runs into admiring her almost 8 carat diamond engagement ring,” the source added. In a photo of the couple from Donald Jr.'s 44th birthday last month, Kimberly is seen sporting the attention-grabbing diamond — and being almost 10-carats, it's hard to miss in the snap. She's not trying to hide it either. Posting her ring-baring hand on her hip, the controversial news personality clung to her fiancé for the festive photo. Showing the oversized rock is square-shaped without a halo or any other diamonds around it, Donald Jr. went for classic chic when he shopped for the perfect sparkler. Donald Trump's Children Ivanka & Donald Jr. Subpoenaed By New York AG As Part Of Ongoing Civil Investigation Against Father Their engagement news comes just hours after it was revealed Donald Jr. has been subpoenaed as part of the New York Attorney General Office's ongoing civil investigation into his father. He's not Trump's only child who has been called to testify either. Ivanka Trump has also been subpoenaed as part of the investigation to determine if the former president inflated the value of some of his organization's assets. The attorney general already subpoenaed Trump for testimony. The deadline is supposed to be January 7, but #45's legal team is attempting to crush his subpoena altogether. View the full article

Published by Radar Online MEGA Prince Andrew might lose royal privileges if he fails to win his fight in the sexual assault lawsuit brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. The report comes just days after his former associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was found guilty of grooming and trafficking underage girls for her former boyfriend, convicted sex offenderJeffrey Epstein. MEGA According to the Sunday Times, royal advisers have discussed potential actions to be taken upon the prince if he loses his battle concerning Giuffre’s case. One of their plans was to ask the Duke of York to stop using his title as a British royal. An insider reportedly told the outlet, “If [Prince Andrew] loses the case, the question is what do you do with him? You can’t make him resign like you would a normal person, but he would be asked to put his dukedom into abeyance.” In addition, the courtiers would allegedly request Andrew to give up his remaining links to charities and cast him into a form of “internal exile” by the royal institution. MEGA As Radar previously reported, the prince faces legal troubles after Giuffre filed a lawsuit against him, claiming she was forced to have sex with the royal three times when she was only 17 years old. Andrew had maintained his innocence and denied the allegations despite some damning evidence, including a picture of them taken from inside Maxwell’s London house in 2001. However, the source from the palace also revealed it would be difficult to convince the Queen to strip Andrew of the Duke of York title as “it was held by her father, George VI, before he became king and she bestowed it on her favourite son. But he has disgraced that title.” The outlet also reported the prince is under pressure to surrender his nine military roles. The military chiefs allegedly believe it is no longer appropriate for Andrew to carry his honorary titles if he loses the suit. A spokesman from Buckingham Palace later responded to the claims regarding the title drop, stating, “This is speculation and the comments are without foundation. We would not comment on an ongoing legal matter.” MEGA Following Maxwell’s guilty verdict last week, Andrew’s legal team reportedly has been in crisis mode and “locked in emergency talks.” They were allegedly considering reaching out to one of Maxwell’s victims to aid him in his civil case with Giuffre. “Andrew’s US team immediately seized upon Carolyn‘s testimony,” a legal source claimed. “They believe she holds a smoking gun to any possible role Virginia played in Epstein’s pyramid scheme of abuse.” View the full article

=Buck Slip“Yes queen, go queen; Dip it like a Dairy Queen; Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul; Goodwill Gucci; Where my Chattahoochies,”Told you this was coming a while back: And It’s kind of fun and certainly needed and timed well for the souther regions. “You’ve been living in black and white; All you need is a smoke and a rainbow” It’s hard not to run the chorus over with your tongue: “Yes queen, go queen; Dip it like a Dairy Queen; Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul; Goodwill Gucci; Where my Chattahoochies,” And that seems to hit all the self-deprecating stereotypes for now. And delivered in a message of silliness and inclusion. And we all need a bit more of both at this point. [This post contains video, click to play] Y’all Means All by Miranda Lambert for Season 6 of Queer Eye [Verse 1] If your life is like a tornado You’ve been living in black and white All you need is a smoke and a rainbow Honey, let me give you a light Alright Let me give you a light [Chorus] Yes queen, go queen Dip it like a Dairy Queen Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul Goodwill Gucci Where my Chattahoochies? Out in the country honey, y’all means all Y’all means all Mmm, y’all means all Hey [Verse 2] Maybe there’s a little scratch in your reflection Maybe your rhinestone lost its shine Just count on love and count your blessings Count on me, come on let’s ride Mmm I got a big ol’ bus so jump on and ride https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html Chorus] Yes queen, go queen Dip it like a dairy queen Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul Goodwill Gucci Whеre my Chattahoochies? Out in the country honеy, y’all means all Y’all means all [Bridge] You can be born in Tyler, TX Raised with the Bible Belt If you’re torn between the why’s and exes You ain’t gotta play with the hand you’re dealt [Chorus] Yes queen, go queen Dip it like a Dairy Queen Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul Goodwill Gucci Where my Chattahoochies? Out in the country honey, y’all means all Honey, y’all means all Yes queen, go queen Dip it like a Dairy Queen Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul Goodwill Gucci Where my Chattahoochies? Out in the country honey, y’all means all Honey, y’all means all Honey, y’all means all Hey Published by The Boot After teasing a partnership with the new season of Queer Eye earlier in the week, Miranda Lambert dropped the full song, “Y’all Means All,” on Friday (Dec. 31), in tandem with the show’s season premiere. It’s a spunky, joyful anthem of acceptance and solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, which Lambert says she co-wrote with frequent collaborators Shane McAnally and Luke Dick. McAnally has a special connection to the song’s subject matter, as he’s one of the few members of the mainstream country music industry who is openly gay. Lambert’s relationship to the song is a personal one, too: She got… Read More View the full article

Published by DPA Patients sick with Spanish flu in 1918 lie in beds at an emergency hospital at Camp Funston at Fort Riley military base in Kansas, US. The Spanish flu developed into the worst flu pandemic in history with three waves by 1920. Between 25 to 40 million people died worldwide. National Museum of Health and Medicine/dpa This started as a story about what happens after a pandemic ends. I pitched my editor on the idea in early May. Every adult in America could get a vaccine. Covid-19 numbers started to fall. If the Roaring ’20s came after the Spanish flu a century ago, did that mean we were on track for another Roaring ’20s now? Would “Hot Vax Summer give way to Decadent Gatsby Party Autumn? I started to dig in. A number of compelling parallels emerged: America 100 years ago had staggering income inequality. A booming stock market. Racial uprisings. Anti-immigrant sentiment. A one-term president plagued by scandals after he left office. Plenty of material for a story. Then the pandemic didn’t end. Vaccinations stalled. The delta variant fuelled new waves of infections, hospitalizations and deaths By September, some states had more hospitalized Covid-19 patients than they did during the winter surge. The economic outlook for this decade has gone from “champagne-soaked” to “room temperature.” In late November, the World Health Organization announced a new “variant of concern: omicron I called a meeting with my editor. I said I didn’t think it was a good time to write a story in which the premise was “this pandemic is over, now what?” The pandemic wasn’t ending. Would it ever? This is not humanity’s first time staring down a seemingly unstoppable disease. Pandemics (a disease affecting a large number of people in multiple countries or regions around the world, per the World Health Organization, epidemics (a disease affecting people in a country or region) and outbreaks (a sudden occurrence of an infectious disease) have plagued us throughout history. Just in the past century, we’ve survived a few. How did those end? And how might we get ourselves out of this one? Spanish flu How it started: Unclear, but probably not in Spain. It was a particularly deadly strain of H1N1 influenza and first took root in the U.S. in Kansas. The disease was so virulent and killed so many young people that if you heard “‘This is just ordinary influenza by another name,’ you knew that was a lie,” said John Barry, the author of “The Great Influenza.” There was “zero partisanship” over the virus, Barry said. If the flu did hit your town, it hit hard: A young person could wake up in the morning feeling well and be dead 24 hours later. Half the people who died of the flu in 1918 were in their 20s and 30s. “It was a spooky time,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. So how did we, as a species, beat the Spanish flu? We didn’t. We survived it. It torched through individual communities until it ran out of people to infect. A third of the world’s population was believed to have contracted the Spanish flu during that pandemic, and it had a case-fatality rate of as high as 10-20 per cent globally. Roughly 675,000 people in America died out of a population of 103.2 million, a number recently surpassed by Covid-19 victims of a 2020 US population of 329.5 million. Flu vaccines wouldn’t be developed until the 1930s and wouldn’t become widely available for another decade. Ultimately, the virus went through a process called attenuation. Basically, it got less bad. We still have descendent strains of the Spanish flu floating around today. It’s endemic, not a pandemic. As a society, we accept a certain amount of death from known diseases. The normal seasonal flu usually kills less than 0.1 per cent of people who contract it. Deaths have been between 12,000 and 52,000 people in the US annually for the past decade. The regular seasonal flu is both less contagious and less deadly than Covid-19. That people were washing hands, working from home and socially distancing in the winter 2020 flu season likely contributed to the fact that it was a comparably light flu season Though business and school closures weren’t enough to stave off the devastating winter surge of Covid-19, the measures were sufficient to keep the flu at bay. One strain may have been completely extinguished As places reopen and people feel more confident about socializing and traveling again, the flu could make a calamitous comeback. (By the way, have you gotten your flu shot yet?) How it ended: Endemic Polio How it started:The first documented polio epidemic in the United States was in 1894. Outbreaks occurred throughout the first half of the 20th century, primarily killing children and leaving many more paralyzed. Polio reached pandemic levels by the 1940s. There were more than 600,000 cases of polio in the United States in the 20th century, and nearly 60,000 deaths — a case fatality rate of 9.8 per cent. In 1952 alone, there were 57,628 reported cases of polio resulting in 3,145 deaths. “Polio was every mother’s scourge,” Benjamin said. “People were afraid to death of polio.” Polio was highly contagious: In a household with an infected adult or child, 90 per cent to 100 per cent of susceptible people would develop evidence in their blood of also having been infected. Polio is not spread through the air — transmission occurs from oral-oral infection (say, sharing a drinking glass), or by “what’s nicely called hand-fecal,” Paula Cannon, a virology professor at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, told me. “People poop it out, and people get it on their hands and they make you a sandwich.” Polio, like Covid-19, could have devastating long-term effects even if you survived the initial infection. President Franklin Roosevelt was among the thousands of people who lived with permanent paralysis from polio. Others spent weeks, years, or the rest of their lives in iron lungs. Precautions were taken during the polio pandemic. Schools and public pools closed. Then, in 1955, a miracle: a vaccine. A two-dose course of the polio vaccine proved to be about 90 per cent effective — similar to the effectiveness of our current Covid-19 vaccines. Vaccine technology was still relatively new, and the polio vaccine was not without side effects. A small number of people who got that vaccine got polio from it. Another subset of recipients developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, a noncontagious autoimmune disorder that can cause paralysis or nerve damage. A botched batch killed some of the people who received it. But there were no masses of polio anti-vaxxers. It was a “whole sense of the greater good, that this was the only way out of this terrible scourge,” Cannon said. “You would have had to have been a psychopathic monster to not want to be part of the solution.” Benjamin said the polio vaccine campaign became a moment of national unity: “Jonas Salk and the folks that solved the polio problem were national heroes.” By 1979, polio was eradicated in the United States. How it ended: Vaccination Smallpox How it started:The disease had been observed in the Eastern Hemisphere dating to as early as 1157 B.C., and European colonizers first brought smallpox to North America’s previously unexposed Native population in the early 1500s. A 2019 study suggested smallpox and other viruses introduced by colonizers killed as much as 90 per cent of the indigenous population in some areas. Globally, smallpox is estimated to have killed more than 300 million people just in the 20th century. The case fatality rate of variola major, which caused the majority of smallpox infections, is around 30 per cent. Outbreaks continued in North America through the centuries after it arrived here, at one point infecting half the population of the city of Boston. We fought back by trying to infect people with a weakened version of it, long before vaccines existed. An enslaved man named Onesimus is believed to have introduced the concept of smallpox inoculation to North America in 1721 when he told slave owner Cotton Mather that he had undergone it in West Africa. Mather tried to convince Boston doctors to consider inoculating residents during that outbreak, to limited success. One doctor who inoculated 287 patients reported only 2 per cent of them died of smallpox, compared with a 14.8 per cent death rate among the general population. In 1777, George Washington ordered troops who had not already had the disease to undergo a version of inoculation in which pus from a smallpox sore was introduced into an open cut. Most people who were inoculated developed a mild case of smallpox, then developed natural immunity. Some died, though at a far lower rate compared with other ways of contracting the disease. The practice of inoculation was controversial enough — some skeptics said it was not sufficiently tested, some argued it was doctors “playing God,” others theorized that it was a conspiracy from slaves to trick white slave owners into killing themselves — that it was banned in several colonies. Edward Jenner first demonstrated the effectiveness of his newly created smallpox vaccine in England in 1796. Vaccination spread throughout the world, and deaths from smallpox became rarer over time: In a century, smallpox went from being responsible for 1 in 13 deaths in London to about 1 in 100. But while early vaccines reduced smallpox’s power, it still existed: An outbreak hit New York City in 1947. It demonstrated that the vaccines were not 100 per cent effective in everyone forever: 47-year-old Eugene Le Bar, the first fatality, had a smallpox vaccine scar. Israel Weinstein, the city’s health commissioner, held a news conference urging all New Yorkers to get vaccinated against smallpox, whether for the first time or what we would now call a “booster shot.” The mayor and President Harry Truman got vaccinated on camera. In less than one month, 6.35 million New Yorkers were vaccinated, in a city of 7.8 million. The final toll of the New York outbreak: 12 cases of smallpox, resulting in 2 deaths. Our country’s final outbreak affected eight people in the Rio Grande Valley in 1949. In 1959, the World Health Organization announced a plan to eradicate smallpox globally with vaccinations. The disease was declared eradicated in 1980. Of all the diseases our species has tackled, “the only one we’ve ever been really successful to totally eradicating is smallpox,” Benjamin said. The only remaining smallpox pathogens exist in laboratories. How it ended: Vaccination HIV/AIDS How it started:In 1981, the CDC announced the first cases of what we would later call AIDS. Roughly half of Americans who contracted HIV in the early 1980s died of an HIV/AIDS-related condition within two years. Deaths from HIV peaked in the 1990s, with roughly 50,000 in 1995, and have decreased steadily since then: As of 2019, roughly 1.2 million Americans are HIV-positive; there were 5,044 deaths attributed to HIV that year. The Reagan administration did not take HIV seriously for years. Unlike Covid-19, which was quickly identified as a respiratory disease, HIV spread for years before scientists knew for sure how it was transmitted. Gay activists who encouraged their community to use condoms in the early 1980s were criticized as “sex-negative.” Today, we know how to prevent the spread of HIV, and treatments for it have progressed to the point where early intervention can make the virus completely undetectable. “If you’re HIV positive, the HIV pandemic never went away for you,” said Cannon, who’s spent much of her career studying the virus. She described it as a “great irony” that we identified the cause of Covid-19 and developed a vaccine within a year, only to have people refuse it: “Anybody with HIV would tell you that the opposite is true for HIV, where despite decades now of research, we have not been able to come up with vaccines that work against this shapeshifter of a virus that is HIV, and people would be desperately pleased if there were vaccines.” Around 700,000 people in the U.S. have died of HIV-related illnesses in the 40 years since the disease appeared. In less than two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve surpassed 820,000 Covid-19 deaths. How it ended: Endemic SARS How it started:SARS first appeared in China in 2002 before making its way to the United States and 28 other countries. Severe acute respiratory syndrome — quickly shortened to SARS in headlines and news coverage — is caused by a coronavirus named SARS-CoV, or SARS-associated coronavirus. Covid-19 is caused by a virus so similar that it’s called SARS-CoV-2. Globally, more than 8,000 people contracted SARS during the outbreak, and 916 died. (By comparison, there were 10 times more cases of Covid-19 than that registered globally by the end of February 2020.) One hundred fifteen cases of SARS were suspected in the United States; only eight people had laboratory-confirmed cases of the disease, and none of them died. Like Covid-19, fatality rates from SARS were very low for young people — less than 1 per cent for people under 25 — up to a more than 50 per cent rate for people over 65. Overall, the case fatality rate was 11 per cent. Public anxiety was widespread, including in areas unaffected by SARS. SARS and Covid-19 have a lot in common. But the diseases — and the way the government responded to them — weren’t exactly the same, said Benjamin, who worked for the CDC during the SARS epidemic. “There wasn’t asymptomatic spread. Early on we had a functional test. We had a public health system that was in much better shape than it is today. All those things went wrong this time,” he said. “And [Covid-19] turned out to be much more infectious, it turned out to have asymptomatic spread. … [In 2020] you had a public health system which wasn’t ready for prime time because it hadn’t been invested in.” Conversely, he said, the response to SARS was robust and immediate. The WHO issued a global alert about an unknown and severe form of pneumonia in Asia on March 12, 2003. The CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center by March 14, and issued an alert for travelers entering the U.S. from Hong Kong and parts of China the next day. Pandemic planning and guidance went into effect by the end of that month. “When [public health organizations] had the actual genetic sequence mapped out and then they made a test for it, they rapidly got that test out to state and local health departments, they began screening, doing surveillance, we contained it very quickly, we communicated effectively to the public, and it worked,” he said. In the case of SARS, the disease stopped spreading before a vaccine or cure could be created. Scientists knew another coronavirus could emerge that was more contagious. They laid the groundwork for developing the Covid-19 vaccines we have now. How it ended: Died out after being controlled by public health measures Swine flu How it started:Both the Spanish flu and swine flu were caused by the same type of virus: influenza A H1N1. Ultimately, according to the CDC, there were about 60.8 million cases of swine flu in the U.S. from April 2009 to April 2010, with 274,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths — a case fatality rate of about 0.02 per cent. So there were millions more cases of swine flu than there were of Covid-19 in the same time period, but a fraction of the fatalities. Eighty percent of swine flu deaths were in people younger than 65. It was first detected in California on April 15, 2009, and the CDC and the Obama administration declared public health emergencies before the end of that month. As with Covid-19, hospital visits spiked. Hundreds of schools closed down temporarily. In Texas, a children’s hospital set up tents in the parking lot to handle emergency room overflow; several hospitals in North Carolina banned children from visiting. Hospitals near Colorado Springs, Colorado, reported a 30 per cent increase in flu visits. Some 300,000 doses of liquid Tamiflu for children were released from the national pandemic stockpile. In the same month cases were first detected, the CDC started identifying the virus strain for a potential vaccine. The first flu shots with H1N1 protections went into arms in October 2009. WHO declared the swine flu pandemic over in August 2010. But like Spanish flu, swine flu never completely went away. How it ended: Endemic Ebola How it started: From 2014 to 2016, 28,616 people in West Africa had Ebola, and 11,310 died — a 39.5 per cent case fatality rate. Despite widespread fears about it spreading here — including close to 100 tweets from the man who would be president when the Covid-19 pandemic began — only two people contracted Ebola on U.S. soil, and neither died. So how did we escape Ebola? Unlike Covid-19, Ebola isn’t transmitted in the air, and there’s no asymptomatic spread. It spreads through the bodily fluids of people actively experiencing symptoms, either directly or through bedding and other objects they’ve touched. If you haven’t been within 3 feet of a person with Ebola, you have almost no risk of getting it. Part of the problem in Africa, Benjamin said, was that families traditionally washed the bodies of the deceased, exposing themselves to infected fluids. And health care workers who treated patients without proper protective equipment or awareness of heightened safety procedures were at risk. Once adequate equipment was delivered to affected areas and precautions were taken by health care workers and families of the victims, the disease could be controlled. People needed to temporarily change their behavior to respond to the public health crisis, and they did. While this particular outbreak ended in 2016, it’s very possible we will see another Ebola event in the future. An Ebola vaccine was approved by the FDA in 2019. How it ended: Subsided after being controlled by public health measures How will Covid end? Big picture, “pandemics end because the disease is unable to transmit itself through people or other vectors that allow the transmission of the disease,” Benjamin said. The most likely outcome at this point is that Covid-19 is here to stay, he said: “I think most people now think that it will be endemic for a while.” On Twitter, his colleagues in epidemiology and public health seem to agree. Covid-19 has a lot going for it, as far as viruses go: Unlike Ebola and SARS, it can be spread by people who don’t realize they have it. Unlike smallpox, it can jump species, infecting animals and then potentially reinfecting us. Unlike polio, one person can unwittingly spread it to a room full of people, and not enough people are willing to get vaccinated at once to stop it in its tracks. It’s less contagious than swine flu, and less deadly than Ebola, landing it in a sort of perverse sweet spot where it infects a lot of people but doesn’t kill enough of them to run out of victims. For many people, it’s mild enough that it convinces others they don’t have to take the disease or precautions against it seriously. No one thought that about smallpox or Ebola. In a conversation I had with Cannon for a different story in May 2020, she told me if someone were designing a virus with the maximum capacity to succeed, it would look a lot like this coronavirus. “One of the really superpower things about this virus is its stealthiness,” she told me then. “So you can feel fine, you can go hang out with friends and not obey the 6-foot rule and the next morning you feel like death and you’re like, ‘oh crap.'” Back then, she contrasted it with the way we shut down SARS: “The reason we could stop it is everybody who had SARS, you were only infectious while you were sick. You woke up one day feeling like death and that was the day you were infectious. Infected people couldn’t walk among us. … With this coronavirus, they walk amongst us.” So what happens next? In some populations, enough people will get vaccinated to achieve something like herd immunity. In others, it will burn through the population until everyone’s had it, and either achieves naturally gained immunity (which confers less long-term protection than vaccination) or dies. People still die from influenza and HIV in the United States; a disease becoming endemic isn’t exactly a happy ending. “We tolerate the tragedy a lot better when it’s a disease that we’ve seen before,” Benjamin said. “It is less scary to us.” Based on where we are now, “I don’t think Covid-19 will ever go away,” Cannon said. We’re still learning about the omicron variant. Early reports out of South Africa suggest it may be a more contagious but milder version of the disease, though it’s too early to say for sure. In a perfect world, Covid-19 would go away entirely; with that possibility almost certainly off the table, an attenuated strain that displaces the delta variant and turns Covid-19 into an illness that rarely requires hospitalization is perhaps the best we can hope for at this point. How it ends: A combination of vaccine– and naturally gained immunity, attenuation, availability of rapid testing, and improvements in treatment for active cases could turn it into what skeptics wrongly called it to begin with: a bad cold or flu. Experts assume the current pandemic won’t end suddenly, but will linger on before the virus finally becomes endemic. Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/dpa View the full article