Archives for February 2021

Education nominee vows to tackle problems worsened by virus

President Joe Biden’s nominee for education secretary is promising to help reopen schools but says much of the hardest work will come after that as schools try to address long-standing disparities worsened by the pandemic.

“These inequities will endure, and prevent the potential of this great country, unless tackled head-on,” Miguel Cardona said in testimony prepared for a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing Wednesday. “And so it is our responsibility, and it would be my greatest privilege, if confirmed, to forge opportunity out of this crisis.”

Cardona, 45, became Connecticut’s state education chief in 2019 after spending years as a teacher and administrator in the public school district in Meriden, Connecticut, which he also attended as a child. If confirmed, he is expected to play a pivotal role in supporting schools as they recover from a crisis that has laid bare many of their shortcomings.

In his testimony, Cardona called this school year one of the most challenging in American history and said it has taken a tremendous toll on students, parents and educators. The father of two high school students added that he has “lived those challenges alongside millions of families.”

On his list of priorities, reopening schools is only the start. He promised to “remove silos” in education and promote innovation, make college accessible to any student and strengthen community colleges.

“Investing in public education changes lives and saves lives,” he said. “I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. And I know that our challenges ahead are problems we can overcome together.”

He is a lifelong champion of public schools, while Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration’s education secretary, spent her career promoting school choice policies that help students attend private schools or other alternatives to traditional public schools.

Cardona furthered that contrast while describing his modest upbringing, saying he felt rich even though he “didn’t always have a lot of material possessions.” DeVos’ father was a Michigan industrialist who become a billionaire, and she is married to Dick DeVos, the heir to the Amway marketing fortune.

Cardona was raised in a housing project by parents who came to Connecticut from Puerto Rico as children. He has recounted the challenges he faced when he entered kindergarten speaking only Spanish. He later went on to earn a master’s degree in bilingual education before receiving a doctorate in education from the University of Connecticut.

His deep roots in public education are partly what made him a contender to lead the Education Department. During his presidential campaign, Biden promised to nominate someone with experience in public education, saying it would mark a reversal from DeVos.

If confirmed, Cardona would quickly face several key policy questions about the pandemic, including whether to allow states to cancel standardized testing this spring. Some states have requested permission to forgo their annual tests, but some advocates say testing is needed to help schools identify learning gaps and address them.

The Education Department’s acting secretary has already accepted Biden’s recommendation to pause federal student loan payments and to keep interest rates at zero percent through at least Sept. 30.

Beyond reopening schools, Cardona would be tasked with carrying out a Biden education agenda that includes universal preschool and a plan to make public colleges free for families with incomes below $125,000.

Fauci warns against Super Bowl parties to avoid virus spread

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s top infectious disease expert doesn’t want the Super Bowl to turn into a super spreader.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, says when it comes to Super Bowl parties during the pandemic, people should “just lay low and cool it.”

He said during TV interviews Wednesday that now isn’t the time to invite people over for watch parties because of the possibility that they’re infected with the coronavirus and could sicken others.

Big events like Sunday’s game in Tampa, Florida, between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are always a cause for concern over the potential for virus spread, Fauci said.

“You don’t want parties with people that you haven’t had much contact with,” he told NBC’s “Today” show. “You just don’t know if they’re infected, so, as difficult as that is, at least this time around, just lay low and cool it.”

The NFL has capped game attendance at 22,000 people because of the pandemic and citywide coronavirus mandates.

So many events in Melbourne, until COVID disrupted the plan

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Erima Nishimura sure picked a decent day to bring her 9-year-old son, Yoshiharu, to Melbourne Park for the first time to see some tennis.

So much tennis: There were 89 matches on the schedule Wednesday, featuring Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Stan Wawrinka and eight other Grand Slam singles champions.

It’s all part of a six-tournament setup meant to help players who had to spend 14 days in hotel quarantine prepare in short order amid a pandemic for the Australian Open — yes, a half-dozen tournaments, and all held at one site, the venue where the year’s first Grand Slam event begins on Monday.

“I feel like things are coming back to somewhat normal,” said Sofia Kenin, the defending Australian Open champion, who won a three-setter Wednesday that was part of the Yarra Valley Classic. “It’s obviously nice to see a lot of matches.”

Things got more complicated later Wednesday, when the state government announced that a worker at one of the tournament’s three Melbourne quarantine hotels had tested positive for COVID-19. That meant any players, coaches or officials who quarantined at the Grand Hyatt would have to isolate until they returned a negative test for the virus.

Tennis Australia responded by calling off all play at the tuneup tournaments scheduled for Thursday.

Things had been going smoothly, with health authorities reporting earlier Wednesday that Melbourne hadn’t had any locally transmitted COVID-19 cases for weeks.

Nishimura, who is from Tokyo and moved to Melbourne 18 months ago, and Yoshiharu got to see Osaka, who collected one of her three Grand Slam trophies at Melbourne in 2019, beat Katie Boulter 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 on Margaret Court Arena.

“This Australian Open is very happy for all people living in Melbourne, I think,” said Nishimura, who bought tickets especially to see Osaka play and then waited in a small group of fans above the player exit to collect a special memento. “This is the first time I’ve seen her play — have only seen her on television. Now we’ve got her autograph.”

Even Osaka herself said she planned to head out to the courts to sit in the stands and watch others play.

“I just feel like this whole situation is a bit unusual,” Osaka said, “because we’re at the Australian Open — like, where it’s being held, but we’re not playing it quite yet.”

As well as three WTA tournaments, there’s the 12-team ATP Cup, featuring top-ranked Novak Djokovic, No. 2 Rafael Nadal and most of the top 10 players, and two other ATP events going on this week.

That’s a lot of tennis players and their entourage to transport, feed and to ensure adequate social distancing.

For some, the glut of tennis at Melbourne Park has the vibe of majors in times gone by — before a Grand Slam stadium had a retractable roof — when rain washed out play and those matches had to be crammed onto different days. For others, like British player Dan Evans, it felt like going back to junior tournaments, when it was the norm for multiple competitions to run concurrently.

“They have obviously done a great job to get so many playing opportunities out there. The beauty of this is, if you lose … you can just go straight back out and prepare — you’ve not going to travel anywhere,” he said. “Obviously practice courts are not ideal right now, but there’s plenty off-site.”

And there’s fans — something fresh to the mix for players who’ve become used to playing to empty stands in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Capacity has been capped at 25% this week, allowing some extra space for the players to play and practice, something they’ve sorely missed while spending two weeks in hotel quarantine. It’s expected to rise to 50% for the Australian Open.

Usually, the lead-up tournaments for the Australian Open are held in other state capitals and the top players tend to have the week off before the first major of the season. Not this time. The ATP Cup, which was played in Perth, Brisbane and Sydney last year, is now confined to two show courts at Melbourne Park.

Djokovic’s team won the inaugural title last year, and was followed from one venue to the next by a large group of Serbian fans.

They were back again for Serbia’s opening match against Canada, waving flags and chanting, but that kind of revelry was missing on Wednesday when the Canadians lost to Germany in the morning group match.

The crowd numbers on some courts were only in the hundreds or sometimes dozens in the middle of a week when local children have just returned to school. The Australian Open is usually held in the southern summer holidays, but is being held three weeks late.

Still, organizers were expecting about 30,000 fans in Melbourne Park each day next week.

“It makes a difference. It’s fun to play when people come and watch, support,” Elise Mertens said after her win over Caroline Garcia. “We’re in Melbourne playing in this beautiful event, beautiful site. There’s nothing to complain about.”

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AP Tennis Writer Howard Fendrich contributed to this report.

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More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Twitter limits access to Turkish minister’s LGBT tweet

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Twitter on Tuesday limited access to a tweet by Turkey’s interior minister, who referred to students protesting the appointment of a government loyalist to head their university, as “LGBT perverts.”

For weeks, students and faculty at Istanbul’s prestigious Bogazici University have been protesting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s appointment of Melih Bulu, a figure who has links to his ruling party, as the university’s rector. They have been calling for Bulu’s resignation and for the university to be allowed to elect its own president.

Late on Monday, police clashed with demonstrators who staged protests demanding the release of a group of students who were arrested over the weekend on charges of inciting hatred and insulting religious values for a poster displayed at Bogazici University, that depicted Islam’s most sacred site with LGBT flags. Authorities said 159 people were detained in the clashes, although several were later released.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu tweeted on Sunday that “LGBT perverts” had been detained for “disrespecting the Great Kaaba.” On Tuesday, he repeated the slur, saying on Twitter that the Turkish government would not tolerate “LGBT perverts who attempted to occupy the rector’s office.”

That prompted Twitter to place Soylu’s tweet behind a notice warning that his message violated the social media platform’s rules about “hateful conduct.” Twitter said, however, it had decided to allow people to click to view Soylu’s tweet on grounds that it was in the public’s interest to have access to a tweet by the elected politician.

Erdogan himself leveled criticism at the protesters during a speech on Monday, by praising the youth wing of his conservative and Islam-oriented party for not being like the “LGBT youth.”

Meanwhile, police in Istanbul used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up a new demonstration to denounce Bulu’s appointment, Halk TV television reported. The station’s reporter was slightly hurt in the melee.

Police in the capital, Ankara, also dispersed a demonstration by students who gathered near the city’s main square in a show of solidarity with the Bogazici students. At least 69 demonstrators were detained, Halk TV television reported.

China to send 10 million coronavirus vaccine doses abroad

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China on Wednesday announced a plan to provide 10 million coronavirus vaccine doses to developing nations through the global COVAX initiative as part of its ambitious diplomatic and business efforts to distribute Chinese vaccines around the world.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said China is responding to a request from the World Health Organization as developing countries seek to fill shortages predicted to run through March. He did not offer details on which vaccine China was providing to COVAX, or whether it was a donation.

China has already shipped large numbers of doses of its own vaccines, mainly to developing countries. It has pursued deals or donations with more than 30 nations far exceeding the 10 million doses it is providing to COVAX. In Turkey alone, Chinese company Sinovac Biotech Ltd. has struck a deal to sell 50 million doses.

Its global efforts are seen by many as an attempt to boost China’s reputation as it seeks to repair its image after the first cases of the coronavirus were detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. Earlier on during the pandemic, China donated face masks and protective gear to countries around the world as part of a diplomatic push. It has called the virus a mutual challenge facing humanity and even suggested it may have been brought from outside the country.

It agreed to join COVAX, coordinated by the World Health Organization and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, last October, notably when the U.S. under then President Donald Trump had declined to join.

COVAX seeks to ensure that low- and middle-income countries have enough vaccines as wealthy nations have snapped up a large part of the billions of upcoming doses from mostly Western vaccine makers.

“We hope countries in the international community with the capability will swing into action, support COVAX through practical actions, support the work of the World Health Organization, assist developing countries in obtaining vaccines in a timely manner and contribute to … conquering the pandemic at an early date,” Wang said a daily briefing.

WHO is in the process of approving Chinese vaccines for emergency use, he added.

So far, COVAX has secured only a fraction of the 2 billion doses it hoped to buy in 2021. Pfizer last month committed to supply up to 40 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine this year through COVAX. The facility also has 150 million doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

Two Chinese companies, state-owned Sinopharm and Sinovac, have been behind a large part of the effort to take Chinese vaccines abroad, which has largely happened outside the COVAX framework. Both companies’ vaccines are inactivated, relying on a traditional technology of growing and killing a live virus. The virus is then purified before it is given as an injection.

The inactivated vaccines appear to be less effective than more modern mRNA vaccines. However, they are easier to transport than Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine, which requires ultracold storage, a challenge for many lower-income countries.

Only one of the vaccines, made by Sinopharm, has been approved for general use within China. Both, however, have won either emergency or broader approvals in other countries, and are actively being used in mass vaccination campaigns from the United Arab Emirates to Indonesia.

The vaccines have been criticized for a lack of transparency in data from the final stage of clinical trials. Sinopharm said its vaccine is 79.3% effective. Sinovac’s shot in particular has raised concerns after it initially announced an efficacy rate of 78% at protecting against symptomatic illness, but after counting mild cases announced that effectiveness is just over 50%, based on its trial in Brazil.

Archives for February 2021

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