Health News

NEW YORK (AP) — Mister Rogers’ neighborhood is expanding.

In rare welcome news of sprawl, PBS Kids is releasing a new puppet-led series called “Donkey Hodie,” inspired from characters in the original Fred Rogers TV show.

“Every part of it seems to be infused with joy and heart and humor,” says Adam Rudman, who co-created and co-produced the show with his brother, David. “And I think that’s something that Fred Rogers would appreciate.”

The whimsical series for children ages 3-5 starts airing Monday and centers on the adventures of Donkey Hodie, an enthusiastic yellow donkey with a bright magenta mane. She’s the granddaughter of the donkey puppet Rogers created back when TV shows were in black and white.

“This is a show about a little donkey with big dreams. It’s about persistence, it’s about resilience and it’s about frustration and things going wrong,” says Ellen Doherty, chief creative officer of Fred Rogers Productions.

During each 15-minute episode, Donkey Hodie learns lessons, like why following a recipe step-by-step makes sense and the importance of making a plan before tackling a big project.

She’s helped by a colorful gang of friends — Purple Panda, Bob Dog and Duck Duck, each of whom brings something to the table.

If Donkey is the one who comes up with an idea, Panda is the supportive friend, telling her she can do it. Bob Dog is the enthusiastic helper and Duck Duck is the practical pal, asking how they’re going to succeed.

“We really worked hard on the character blend,” says David Rudman, who performs Bob Dog and Donkey’s grandfather and also directs the episodes. “They all bring something interesting and they work really well together.”

The song-filled series is set in land of Someplace Else, named after the place where parents are always asking noisy kids to go. It has a windmill — an original Don Quixote joke by Rogers — but the creators have built a wonky land with rolling hills and no straight lines.

“All the little details — every flower, every bush, every tree — everything on there is made by somebody. It’s made by hand. So nothing is built in a computer,” says David Rudman.

The new series is metaphorically connected by cobblestone path to both the animated “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” and the mother ship, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

“We are proud that once again we’ll be sharing the ideas and teachings of Fred Rogers with kids and families, just as we did with ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,’” says Linda Simensky, head of content for PBS Kids.

Doherty notes there are lots of Easter eggs hidden throughout the new world, including nods to familiar sights on “Mister Rogers” like Trolley, the fish tank and a porch swing.

The creators chose to go with puppets instead of animation because of their expressive nature. “Young children have very big emotions and it just felt like puppets were the best way to express that for this world,” says Doherty.

The project started when the Rudmans, who founded Spiffy Pictures and whose projects include “Nature Cat,” were tapped to breathe new life into minor characters from the “Mister Rogers Neighborhood.” They pored over old footage of the show and dug into the history.

“We started to discover these really funny, quirky, obscure characters that a lot of people didn’t know,” says David Rudman. The brothers added new characters and edited old ones.

“We redesigned them. We gave them new personalities in most cases and updated them to fit how the show was going,” says Adam Rudman, who is head writer and while not a performer, can occasionally can be heard as a background voice.

He was recently watching “The Mandalorian,” a spin-off series form the “Star Wars” universe that follows a lone bounty hunter and a mysterious alien child.

“I was watching it and thought, ‘Oh man. They took this second-tier character and they created this show about him’. I was like, ‘Man, I wish we could do that.’ And then I was like, ‘Oh wait, we are doing that. It’s exactly what we’re doing,’” he says, laughing.

The Rudmans worked on the show during the pandemic. They stopped shooting for several months but returned with mask policies and COVID-19 tests. They simplified some scripts and scaled down the crew.

“It was really a blessing in disguise because it really helped make everything really concise and it helped our performers really get to know their characters,” says David Rudman, who voiced his critters through a mask.

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Online: https://pbskids.org/donkeyhodie

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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CHICAGO (AP) — The leader of Chicago Public Schools announced Monday that she is leaving the post later this year because it’s time to “pass the torch to new leadership” of the nation’s third-largest school district.

The move follows a tumultuous tenure for longtime district educator Janice Jackson, who became CEO in 2018 after twice serving in the post temporarily following scandals involving two predecessors.

Among other things, Jackson oversaw schools during an 11-day teachers strike in 2019, community uproar over plans to remake high schools in a low-income pocket of the city and bitter fights with the Chicago Teachers Union over reopening plans following coronavirus pandemic restrictions. The battles nearly resulted in a strike this year as students prepared to return to classrooms since going remote in March 2020.

In a letter to CPS families, Jackson acknowledged the difficult parts of her term but said it was an honor to serve Chicago’s children for more than two decades. Roughly 355,000 students attend the city’s public schools.

“While I feel there is still more work to be done in CPS, I also believe it is time to pass the torch to new leadership for the next chapter,” Jackson wrote in a letter.

Jackson said she won’t renew her contract, which expires June 30.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters that the district will conduct a nationwide search for the next schools chief.

Jackson, who grew up in Chicago and attended city schools, first took a teaching job with the district in 1999. She then became a principal and held several leadership roles, including chief education officer.

She was chosen as interim CEO in 2015 when Barbara Byrd-Bennett left in a kickbacks scandal that led to prison time. Two years later, she was again named interim schools chief when then-CEO Forrest Claypool suddenly resigned amid an ethics probe. In 2018, she became CEO full time, which she called a dream job.

Jackson said one of her top accomplishments was creating an equity office. She said that led to the district making more admission offers this year to Black and disabled students applying to the most selective schools.

Her tenure also saw the results of historic school funding reform, which was signed into law in 2017. Jackson said she remains committed to making sure schools reopen full time in the fall.

“Despite a disruptive year, CPS is emerging stronger than ever,” she said in the letter. “Fiscally we have made great improvements including increasing school funding equity and making significant investments in schools and students with a focus on underserved communities.”

Jackson told reporters she wasn’t interest in leading another school district or seeking elected office. She said she has accepted a fellowship at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, but didn’t have plans beyond that and looked forward to having a break.

“As I look back on what we’ve done, I have felt proud and humbled, and also a little tired,” she joked at a news conference.

Her announcement comes as the district’s second-highest ranking administrator, LaTanya McDade, has said she is leaving at the end of the school year for a job as superintendent of a Virginia school district.

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Follow Sophia Tareen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiatareen

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka has received its first batch of the Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.

The 15,000 doses were flown in early hours of Tuesday to the Indian ocean island nation which is struggling to obtain COVID-19 vaccines because of the delay in getting them from the neighboring India.

Sri Lanka has ordered 13 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine from the Russia’s Gamaleya Institute.

State Minister of Pharmaceutical Production, Supply and Regulation Channa Jayasuma, and officials from the Russian embassy were present at the country’s main airport to receive the vaccines.

Jayasumana said he was hopeful that Sri Lanka would receive the total of 13 million doses of the Sputnik V from Russia in the future.

Sri Lanka is facing a shortage of 600,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in order to complete the 2nd round of the vaccine program.

Under the first round, 925,242 persons were vaccinated and at present, Sri Lankan health ministry has about 350,000 doses and as a result, there is a shortage of 600,000 doses as the island nation so far did not get it’s vaccines ordered from India.

The number of COVID patients is rapidly rising across the country over the last week. Sri Lanka’s total number of positive cases have reached 111,753 with 696 fatalities.

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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— Russia lags behind others in its COVID-19 vaccination drive

— Russia is turning to multiple Chinese firms to manufacture Sputnik vaccine as demand soars

— Residents in Madrid vote Tuesday for a new regional assembly in an election that tests people’s resistance to lockdown measures

— Nurses wearied by pandemic duty incensed by request to help at Tokyo Olympics

— Follow more of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

SEOUL, South Korea — Isolated North Korea is warning its people to brace for a prolonged struggle against the coronavirus, claiming that broadening outbreaks and muddled immunization programs in other countries show vaccines aren’t the ultimate solution.

The column published on Pyongyang’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper came amid questions on when and how vaccines would arrive in North Korea.

The U.N.-backed program to ship COVID-19 vaccines worldwide said in February that North Korea could receive 1.9 million vaccine doses in the first half of this year. However, COVAX has since warned of global shortages because the Serum Institute of India, which is licensed to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine, is putting its supplies into domestic demand while India’s virus caseload is surging.

The North has claimed a perfect record in keeping out COVID-19, but outside experts have doubted the claim, given its poor health infrastructure and a porous border it shares with China, its economic lifeline.

Rodong took an apparent shot at India’s anti-virus campaign without naming the country. It said a certain nation that had “exported vaccines it produced while publicly insisting that it considers the evil virus as defeated,” was now experiencing an explosive growth in infections driven by more contagious virus variants after it had eased social distancing.

“The cases of other countries provide further proof that vaccines aren’t an all-around solution,” the newspaper wrote.

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CANBERRA, Australia — The Australian prime minister said on Tuesday he is confident that flights from India will resume after May 15 following a temporary ban on air traffic due to the COVID-19 risk.

Australians who have been in India within 14 days face a potential five-year prison sentence and 66,000 Australian dollar ($51,000) fine under the Biosecurity Act if they return home during the travel pause that was announced a week ago.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison told Nine Network television: “I’m confident we’ll be in a position to start resuming those repatriation flights and getting people home safely” by May 15.

Former Australian cricketer and commentator Michael Slater told Morrison through social media that the prime minister had “blood on your hands” because of the pause in travel from India.

Morrison dismissed Slater’s post as “obviously absurd.” The pause was to reduce pressure on Australia’s system of hotel quarantine for returned travelers, Morrison said.

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OLYMPIA, Wash. – More people will be allowed at indoor and outdoor spectator events and indoor religious services if there are designated COVID-19 vaccination sections, under new guidance issued by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee Monday.

The change — which takes effect immediately — affects capacity at sporting events, graduations and other events for counties in the second and third phases of the state’s economic reopening plan.

A vaccination card or other documentation that proves vaccination status will be needed for access to vaccination sections.

While previously there were only limited circumstances where spectator events were allowed to reach 50% capacity, under the new guidance, outdoor facilities may add vaccinated sections until their total capacity —including vaccinated and unvaccinated sections — is at 50% or 22,000 people, whichever is lower. There can be no more than 9,000 unvaccinated people at the outdoor event.

For indoor facilities, vaccinated sections can also be added until their total capacity is 50% maximum, though the maximum number must not exceed 2,000 people, and the number indoor unvaccinated spectators varies depending on the size of the room and what phase of the state’s economic opening plan a county is in.

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Declaring the COVID-19 pandemic “absolutely” managed despite lagging vaccinations, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said Monday she will end a state health order meant to guard against the spread of an illness that has killed nearly 11,000 people statewide.

Citing improved infection rates, fewer hospitalizations and more widespread immunizations, Ivey said the current health order recommending that people follow health recommendations and requiring some precautions for senior citizens and long-term care facilities will end on May 31.

A state of emergency declared because of the health threat will end July 6, she said in a statement.

“For over a year now, Alabamians, like people around the globe, have made sacrifices and adjusted to a temporary ‘new normal.’ We have learned much since last year, and this is absolutely now a managed pandemic. Our infection rates and hospitalizations are in better shape, and over 1.5 million Alabamians have had at least one shot of the COVID-19 vaccine,” Ivey said.

Deaths have declined sharply across the United States in recent weeks, and Alabama has followed the trend. Hospitalizations across the state are roughly 10% of what they were in mid-January when the situation was at its most dire.

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LOS ANGELES — No coronavirus-related deaths were reported to the Los Angeles County public health department on Sunday and Monday – a hopeful but artificial marker in the pandemic that ravaged the nation’s largest county.

Barbara Ferrer, the county’s public health director, said the figures reflect a delay in reporting over the weekend. Sundays and Mondays traditionally have the lowest number of reported deaths but officials need to look back at the exact dates of death to determine if the county actually hit zero fatalities. Ferrer said the county has been averaging four to five deaths daily. She said Monday during a briefing that she hopes the county will soon hit an actual day of zero deaths.

“I think we’re close to getting there,” she said. “I hope we’re close to getting there.”

There have been 23,914 total deaths in LA County throughout the pandemic.

Ferrer said that vaccinations dropped about 24% last week from the week before. Between April 17 and April 23, there were more than 611,000 doses administered. Last week, only 467,000 shots were given out. About 37% of the county’s eligible population has had a shot.

Ferrer said she expects the county to move into the yellow tier on Wednesday and a new health order could go into effect on Thursday, increasing capacity at events and venues county-wide. Bars would also be allowed to open indoors and provide services at a 25% capacity under the yellow tier.

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PHOENIX — Jobless people in Arizona will again be required to show they’re looking for work in order to receive unemployment benefits after Gov. Doug Ducey announced Monday he will stop waiving the job-seeking requirements.

He waived the mandate in March 2020 when some businesses were ordered to close to slow the spread of COVID-19. Ducey says it’s time to reinstate the job-seeking mandate because all adults now have access to the COVID-19 vaccine and there are plenty of jobs available.

Authorities on Monday reported 652 additional COVID-19 cases in Arizona and no additional deaths from the virus.

Over 2.9 million residents have received at least one shot with almost 2.3 million people fully vaccinated.

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Authorities in Sri Lanka have imposed tough restrictions including banning public gatherings, weddings, parties and limiting the number of attendees at funerals and restaurants as the latest move to contain the spreading of the COVID-19.

Health officials have warned that the next three weeks are crucial for Sri Lanka as the number of positive cases are rapidly increasing.

Additionally, authorities have closed schools until further notice — and supermarkets and shopping complexes will allow only a maximum of 25% of the total number of customers that could be accommodated in the space available at a given time.

Health officials have warned that the confirmed cases could go up rapidly in the next three weeks because of the celebrations and shopping by people during the traditional new year festival that fell on April 14.

Sri Lanka’s total number of positive cases has reached 111,753 with 696 fatalities.

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PRAGUE — The Czechs will be able to breathe freely as the government is further easing coronavirus restrictions amid new infections’ decline in one of the hardest-hit European countries.

Starting next Monday, people in the Czech Republic will be allowed to remove face coverings at all outdoor spaces if they stay at least two meters from other people.

At the same time, car dealerships, tanning salons, shooting ranges, travel agencies, shoe repairs, tattoo parlors and many other services will get back to business the same day.

The government previously decided to reopen all stores that date.

The nation of 10.7 million had 1.63 million confirmed cases with 29,365 deaths.

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GENEVA — The World Health Organization is set to decide this week whether to approve two Chinese vaccines for emergency use against COVID-19, a top WHO official says.

Such an approval would mark the first time that a Chinese vaccine had ever been granted a so-called emergency use listing from the U.N. health agency, and would trigger a broader rollout of Chinese vaccines that are already being used in some countries other than China.

Mariangela Simao, assistant director-general for access to medicines, vaccines and pharmaceuticals, says some “final arrangements” remain to be made before the crucial word from a WHO technical advisory group comes on the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines.

“We expect that we’ll have both decisions by the end of this week,” she said.

WHO has said it expects a decision on the Sinopharm vaccine to come first, and Sinovac afterward.

“We know that some countries depend on this decision to proceed with their vaccination,” Simao said.

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NEW YORK — Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New York City’s subway will begin rolling all night again and capacity restrictions for most types of businesses will end statewide in mid-May as COVID-19 infection rates continues to decline.

Cuomo announced last week that the subways would close from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. so trains and stations could be disinfected. The change was also intended to make it easier to remove homeless people from trains where many had been spending the night.

The overnight closure was scaled back to 2 to 4 a.m. in February.

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BOSTON — Massachusetts plans on closing four of its seven mass vaccination sites by the end of June in favor of a more targeted approach to reach the roughly 30% of the state’s eligible population that has not yet received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, Gov. Charlie Baker said Monday.

The state will instead send more doses to 22 smaller regional sites, expand mobile vaccination efforts, and bring vaccine clinics to senior centers, YMCAs, houses of worship and other community sites, the Republican governor said.

While there has been some hesitancy among people who have not yet been vaccinated, more often that not, it’s a matter of convenience, Baker said, and he wants to make it as easy as possible to get a shot. The state can change it focus because it is on target to reach its goal of getting more than 4 million people vaccinated by the end of May.

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GENEVA — Top scientists at the World Health Organization are highlighting signs that vaccination against COVID-19 is reducing transmission, and that vaccination of about half of a country’s population is followed by “significant reductions” in cases.

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO’s chief scientist, said such evidence about coverage rates has turned up even as a colleague bemoaned how countries that have not had access to vaccines are trailing behind — and are facing growing rates of hospitalization.

WHO has repeatedly expressed concerns about a lack of equity in access to vaccines — with many rich countries able to obtain them, and many poorer countries getting few doses or none.

Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on COVID-19 at WHO, also pointed to some “hopeful signs that vaccination is also reducing transmission” — even if studies into the matter are not completed.

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JOHANNESBURG — South Africa received its first batch of the Pfizer vaccine when 325,260 doses arrived at the O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, officials confirmed Monday.

A sample of the doses will be tested for quality control before they are distributed around the country. Several more deliveries of the Pfizer vaccine are expected to arrive in the coming weeks as South Africa expects nearly 4.5 million doses of the vaccine by the end of June and it expects 30 million doses by the end of the year.

South Africa is also expecting delivery of 31 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for its mass vaccination campaign which aims to inoculate 40 million of South Africa’s population of 60 million people by February 2022.

So far South Africa has inoculated just over 317,000 of its 1.2 million health care workers. South Africa has by far the most cases and deaths of COVID-19 in all of Africa. South Africa has a cumulative total of more than 1.58 million confirmed cases, including more than 54,000 deaths, representing more than Africa’s 4.5 million reported cases, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention South Africa.

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LONDON (AP) — Northern Ireland marked what is widely considered to be its centenary on Monday, with Queen Elizabeth II stressing the need for “reconciliation, equality and mutual understanding” as she sent her “warmest good wishes” to its people.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a visit to London, said the U.S. will continue to encourage the U.K. and the European Union “to prioritize political and economic stability in Northern Ireland” as they work through their post-Brexit relationship.

Northern Ireland was created on May 3, 1921, when the Government of Ireland Act came into effect and partitioned the island of Ireland into two separate entities. Northern Ireland became part of the U.K. alongside England, Scotland and Wales, while Ireland would later that year become what was then known as the Irish Free State.

Much like the day that Northern Ireland was founded 100 years ago, there were no huge celebrations or grand ceremonies Monday, given the sharply differing views on its creation and subsequent history. Restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic have also led to all commemorations this year being scaled back.

Since its creation, Northern Ireland society has been split between those who want to remain in the U.K. and those who wish to see Northern Ireland become part of the Republic of Ireland. For decades, that fissure fueled sectarian violence: the so-called Troubles, which resulted in around 3,500 deaths.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 formalized power-sharing arrangements between unionists and nationalists. It’s not always been a smooth process politically, with the two sides often unable to reach agreement on how to govern, and there’s been sporadic outbreaks of violence.

“This anniversary reminds us of our complex history, and provides an opportunity to reflect on our togetherness and our diversity,” the queen said in a statement.

“It is clear that reconciliation, equality and mutual understanding cannot be taken for granted, and will require sustained fortitude and commitment,” she added.

The queen also referred to “treasured” memories she shared in Northern Ireland with her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last month at 99.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also marked the date, describing it as a “very significant” anniversary and stressed the importance of reflecting on the “complex history” of the past 100 years.

“People from all parts of Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and across the globe, will approach this anniversary in different ways, with differing perspectives,” he said.

In recent weeks, there have been outbreaks of violence across Northern Ireland, with the unionist community particularly aghast at post-Brexit trade rules that took effect this year. These imposed customs checks on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K., which did not exist when the U.K. was part of the EU.

Blinken urged all politicians and parties to prioritize peace and stability.

“The United States remains a steadfast supporter of a secure and prosperous Northern Ireland, in which all communities have a voice and can enjoy the gains of the hard-won peace,” he told reporters on Monday.

Although no major celebrations were held, plans to mark the centenary this year included tree-planting projects. Every school was given a native tree to plant in their grounds and many will explore what the future will look like in the next 100 years.

“Across generations, the people of Northern Ireland are choosing to build an inclusive, prosperous, and hopeful society, strengthened by the gains of the peace process,” the queen said. “May this be our guiding thread in the coming years.”

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