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Islamic Terrorists Kidnap And Murder Elderly Christian Man. Soldiers Ambush The Terrorists And Kill Them All

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(Left) The execution of Nabil Habashi Salama. Islamic terrorists who were involved in his murder were killed by Egyptian security forces
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By Theodore Shoebat
Islamic terrorists in Egypt captured and murdered an elderly Christian man named Nabil Habashi Salama who lived in North Sinai. Just recently Egyptian security forces killed three of the terrorists involved. As we read in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/egypt-targets-cell-suspected-killing-christian-sinai-2021-04-19/">Reuters</a>:
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Egyptian security forces have shot dead three suspected Islamist militants accused of targeting Coptic Christians and involvement in the execution-style killing of a 62-year-old man in North Sinai, the interior ministry said on Monday.
The suspected militants died in an exchange of fire and were part of a cell that was plotting to attack Copts, their property and places of worship, as well as the security forces, the ministry said in a statement. It did not say when the clash took place.
An Islamist insurgency spread in the north of the Sinai Peninsula after Egypt’s military overthrew Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Mursi in 2013.
Large-scale attacks have subsided, but militants aligned with Islamic State have shifted tactics in the face of a military campaign against them. They temporarily overran villages near Bir al-Abd last summer.
</blockquote>
 
 
source <a href="https://shoebat.com/2021/05/07/islamic-terrorists-kidnap-and-murder-elderly-christian-man-soldiers-ambush-the-terrorists-and-kill-them-all/">https://shoebat.com/2021/05/07/islamic-terrorists-kidnap-and-murder-elderly-christian-man-soldiers-ambush-the-terrorists-and-kill-them-all/</a>

armageddon Islamic Terrorists Kidnap And Murder Elderly Christian Man. Soldiers Ambush The Terrorists And Kill Them All

(Left) The execution of Nabil Habashi Salama. Islamic terrorists who were involved in his murder were killed by Egyptian security forces ...

A leaked Walmart memo highlights the daunting challenges facing the world’s largest retailer

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Walmart is still the world’s largest retailer, but a recent company memo highlights its struggles to overcome competitors like Amazon, Instacart, and Target. The document also hints at challenges the company’s new subscription service Walmart+ is facing in retaining new members.
The 100-page document from February, which was viewed by Recode, was created for advertising agencies that Walmart invited to compete to handle the planning and buying of ad placements for the retail giant. The memo makes several blunt assessments about the uphill battle Walmart faces to hold onto its once-dominant retail market position, including in the US grocery industry, where the company has long been No. 1 in sales.
“Grocery, the growth engine of the business, is losing share rapidly,” one slide reads. “More than ever, Walmart shopper[s] are choosing the competition,” the slide continues, alongside logos of competitors like Publix, Target, and Albertsons as well as stats showing increasing customer traffic at those chains and a decline at Walmart.
“Walmart is not first and preferred,” another slide about the grocery business says. “Must elevate quality assortment + value!”
Even in the online grocery market, where Walmart has held the No. 1 position thanks in large part to its popular curbside pickup service at its supercenter stores, the memo reports that the company is barely holding on to the lead position. Delivery company Instacart gained popularity at Walmart’s expense early in the pandemic, when the retail chain could not keep up with the rush of customer demand, the memo states, and is seen on an enclosed chart as being nearly even with the retail giant for the top position in the US online grocery market.
Walmart spokesperson Molly Blakeman declined to comment on the memo and its contents.
While executives at the $400 billion retail giant are known to be self-critical internally, the memo is notable in the stark picture it paints of how competitors are chipping away at Walmart’s strengths, and the challenges the company is encountering in trying to build a viable alternative to Amazon Prime. Walmart has indeed benefited from the pandemic, with revenue and profits increasing in the company’s last fiscal year, and e-commerce sales soaring nearly 80 percent. But many of Walmart’s competitors have benefited too, from Amazon and Instacart to Target and regional grocery chains like Texas giant HEB — and the memo makes that fact clear.
One of Walmart’s biggest new bets is Walmart+, a subscription service that <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/27/21154357/walmart-plus-walmart-grocery-delivery-unlimited-membership-amazon-prime">Recode first reported on</a> and which <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/9/1/21409628/walmart-plus-benefits-free-grocery-delivery-amazon-prime-comparison">launched in September</a> at $98 a year or $12.95 a month. The main perk of the service is unlimited delivery of groceries and other general merchandise from Walmart stores that, for orders more than $35, will be delivered as soon as the same day. The service also offers next-day delivery on some items from Walmart.com, fuel discounts at Walmart gas stations and those of partners, as well as access to “Scan & Go” technology, which allows shoppers to use smartphones to scan and purchase goods at Walmart stores.
The Walmart memo from February says the company is seeing improvements when it comes to the percentage of members who renew when their membership lapses. But Walmart says the service still needs to improve renewal rates, as well as the rate at which free-trial participants convert to paying members and the number of members who purchase general merchandise alongside low-profit groceries.
A source familiar with Walmart+ told Recode that retaining members has indeed been an issue for the new subscription service in its short existence and that retention is strongest among members who use the gas-discount perk of the program. Walmart+ is still less than a year old, though, and the memo says that the company will add more perks to the service in 2021 and might offer longer free trials as well as discounted memberships. Ahead of the Walmart+ launch, Recode reported that the retailer had considered other perks such as a branded credit card, early availability on product deals, and member access to another company’s popular streaming video service. Walmart felt pressure to create its own membership and loyalty program in part because more than half of Walmart’s top-spending families also have Amazon Prime memberships, Recode reported in 2020.
Amazon, of course, is not the only threat mentioned. The memo also reveals a shrinking lead for Walmart over Instacart, the online grocery company whose contractors shop for orders at partner grocery chain stores and deliver them to customer doors that same day. An enclosed chart shows Walmart owning almost a 40 percent share of the online pickup and delivery grocery market prior to the pandemic, compared to just around 20 percent for Instacart. But the graphic shows Walmart’s share shrinking to 31 percent by February of this year, and Instacart nipping at its heels with about 30 percent share (Amazon is listed as an online grocery competitor on the slide, but its market share is not plotted on the chart.) Walmart states in the memo that it hopes to maintain its No. 1 position, in part, by investing in innovations like drone deliveries and the creation of mini-warehouses attached to stores that can more quickly fulfill online orders.
Additionally, the memo states that Amazon and Target earned a larger portion of the average Walmart shopper’s spending in general merchandise categories during the pandemic. Among a competitor set that included Amazon, J.C. Penney, Target, and several other retailers, the document shows Walmart and Walmart.com sporting some of the lowest satisfaction shopper scores for quality and selection in the apparel category. Still, a company mission is to “establish Walmart as a credible apparel destination,” the document says.
Despite all the hurdles and competition on many fronts, Walmart is today valued $20 billion higher than it was a year ago. But as the pandemic subsides in the US, Walmart seems well aware that continued growth is not guaranteed — and that its response to the array of competitive threats it now faces will determine its future.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22423706/walmart-memo-retail-amazon-target-instacart">https://www.vox.com/recode/22423706/walmart-memo-retail-amazon-target-instacart</a>

vox A leaked Walmart memo highlights the daunting challenges facing the world’s largest retailer

Walmart is still the world’s largest retailer, but a recent company memo highlights its struggles to overcome competitors like Amazon, Inst...

A Canadian study gave $7,500 to homeless people. Here’s how they spent it.

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Ray is a 55-year-old man in Vancouver, Canada. He used to live in an emergency homeless shelter. But over the past couple years, he’s been able to pay for a place to live and courses to prepare him for his dream job — in part because he participated in a study called the <a href="https://forsocialchange.org/new-leaf-project-overview">New Leaf Project</a>.
The study, conducted by the charity <a href="https://forsocialchange.org/">Foundations for Social Change</a> in partnership with the University of British Columbia, was fairly simple. It identified 50 people in the Vancouver area who had become homeless in the past two years. In spring 2018, it gave them each one lump sum of $7,500 (in Canadian dollars). And it told them to do whatever they wanted with the cash.
“At first, I thought it was a little far-fetched — too good to be true,” Ray said. “I went with one of the program representatives to a bank and we opened up a bank account for me. Even after the money was there, it took me a week for it to sink in.”
Over the next year, the study followed up with the recipients periodically, asking how they were spending the money and what was happening in their lives. Because they were participating in a randomized controlled trial, their outcomes were compared to those of a control group: 65 homeless people who didn’t receive any cash. Both cash recipients and people in the control group got access to workshops and coaching focused on developing life skills and plans.
The <a href="https://forsocialchange.org/impact">results</a>? The people who received cash transfers moved into stable housing faster and saved enough money to maintain financial security over the year of follow-up. They decreased spending on drugs, tobacco, and alcohol by 39 percent on average, and increased spending on food, clothes, and rent, according to self-reports.
“Counter to really harmful stereotypes, we saw that people made wise financial choices,” Claire Williams, the CEO of Foundations for Social Change, told me.
The study, though small, offers a counter to the myths that people who become poor get that way because they’re bad at rational decision-making and self-control, and are thus intrinsically to blame for their situation, and that people getting free money will blow it on frivolous things or addictive substances. <a href="https://www.givedirectly.org/research-on-cash-transfers/">Studies have</a> <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/dime/brief/Cash-Transfers-and-Temptation-Goods">consistently shown</a> that cash transfers don’t increase the consumption of “temptation goods”; they either decrease it or have no effect on it.
“I have been working with people experiencing homelessness as a family physician for 16 years and I am in no way surprised that the people who received this cash used it wisely,” Gary Bloch, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/3/18524482/canada-health-doctor-prescribing-money-income-poverty">a Canadian doctor who prescribes money to low-income patients</a>, told me.
“It should be fairly self-evident by now that providing cash to people who are very low-income will have a positive effect,” he added. “We have seen that in other work (conditional cash transfer programs in Latin America, guaranteed annual income studies in Manitoba), and I would expect a similar outcome here.”
What’s more, according to Foundations for Social Change, giving out the cash transfers in the Vancouver area actually saved the broader society money. Enabling 50 people to move into housing faster saved the shelter system $8,100 per person over the year, for a total savings of $405,000. That’s more than the value of the cash transfers, which means the transfers pay for themselves.
“People think that the status quo is cheap, but it’s actually incredibly expensive,” Williams said. “So why don’t we just give people the cash they need to transform their lives?”
Williams developed the idea for the New Leaf Project when her co-founder sent her a link to a 2014 TED talk by the historian <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/26/8909436/rutger-bregman-utopia-for-realists-ubi-open-borders">Rutger Bregman</a> titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIL_Y9g7Tg0">“Why we should give everyone a basic income.”</a> It argued that the most effective way to help people is to simply give them cash.
The general idea behind basic income — that the government should give every citizen a monthly infusion of free money with no strings attached — has gained momentum in the past few years, with <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/19/21112570/universal-basic-income-ubi-map">several countries running pilot programs to test it</a>.
And the evidence so far shows that getting a basic income tends to boost <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/9/18217566/finland-basic-income">happiness</a>, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nze99z/the-mincome-experiment-dauphin">health</a>, <a href="https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/basic-income-grant-big-namibia/">school attendance</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/6/18297452/finland-basic-income-free-money-canada">trust in social institutions</a>, while <a href="https://publicpolicy.wharton.upenn.edu/live/files/308-summary-universal-basic-income">reducing crime</a>. Recipients generally spend the money on <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/10/8/20902839/universal-basic-income-stockton-trial">necessities like food, clothes, and utility bills</a>.
But Williams and her collaborators decided that rather than give people monthly payments, they’d give one big lump sum. “The <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/haushofer/publications/Haushofer_Shapiro_UCT_QJE_2016.pdf">research</a> shows that if you give people a larger sum of cash upfront, it triggers long-term thinking,” as opposed to just keeping people in survival mode, Williams explained. “You can’t think about maybe registering for a course to advance your life when you don’t have enough money to put food on the table. The big lump sum at the front end gives people a lot more agency.”
That’s what it did for Ray. In addition to getting housing, he used the cash transfer to take the courses he needed to become a front-line worker serving people with addictions. “Now I can work in any of the shelters and community centers in the area,” he told me, adding that receiving a cash transfer had felt like a vote of confidence. “It gives the person their own self-esteem, that they were trusted.”
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Not everyone was eligible for a cash transfer, however. The study only enrolled participants who’d been homeless for under two years, with the idea that early intervention most effectively reduces the risk of people incurring trauma as a result of living without a home. And people with severe mental health or substance use issues were screened out of the initiative. Williams said this was not out of a belief that there are “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor” — a woefully <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/the-undeserving-poor/266507/">persistent frame on poverty</a> — but out of a desire to avoid creating a risk of harm and to ensure the highest likelihood of success.
“If there was null effect from people receiving the cash, from an investor perspective it could be seen as a ‘waste of money’ because it didn’t actually demonstrate impact in somebody’s life,” Williams said. “We just wanted to start small, and the idea is that with subsequent iterations we’ll start relaxing those parameters.”
She also said it was a difficult decision to include a control group of people who wouldn’t receive any cash, but ultimately, the control group was deemed necessary to prove impact. “We knew that we needed the rigor, because people would be skeptical about giving people cash. We wanted that evidence base that can assuage some of people’s concerns when they want to see the hard facts,” she told me.
Going forward, Foundations for Social Change is trying to raise $10 million to scale up its cash transfer approach to multiple cities across Canada. It plans to give out 200 cash transfers in the next iteration, which will also be run as a randomized controlled trial. Based on feedback from study participants and a Lived Experience Advisory Panel — a group of people who’ve experienced homelessness — the charity will offer a new array of non-cash supports to both the cash recipients and the control group, including a free smartphone.
The charity also hopes to work with other populations, like people exiting prison and people exiting sex work. To Williams, the time feels ripe.
“I think the pandemic has really softened people’s attitudes to the need for an emergency cash payment when people fall upon hard times,” she said.
Although the study’s findings seem promising, they have not yet undergone peer review. Plus, it’s worth noting that cash on its own probably isn’t enough to end homelessness.
“While I have no problem with providing cash to people who need money, the solution to homelessness is housing,” Bloch told me. “Especially in a city like Vancouver where housing supply is low and rents are astronomical, it will be very hard to sustain a homelessness intervention without offering long-term affordable housing. I would not want to see these findings used to take pressure off the critical need to provide both long-term affordable housing and long-term income security.”
That said, Bloch added, “If this study serves to counteract some people’s perception that people who are homeless and/or low-income can’t be trusted with extra income, that’s great. It’s a myth we need to bury once and for all.”
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source <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21528569/homeless-poverty-cash-transfer-canada-new-leaf-project">https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21528569/homeless-poverty-cash-transfer-canada-new-leaf-project</a>

vox A Canadian study gave $7,500 to homeless people. Here’s how they spent it.

Ray is a 55-year-old man in Vancouver, Canada. He used to live in an emergency homeless shelter. But over the past couple years, he’s been ...

Why researchers think Covid-19 deaths may be more than double the official total

The world may have undercounted Covid-19 deaths by a staggering margin, according to an analysis released Thursday by the <a href="http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/covid-19-has-caused-69-million-deaths-globally-more-double-what-official-reports-show">Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation</a> (IHME) at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The actual count may actually be 6.9 million deaths, more than double official tolls.
The United States alone is estimated to have had 905,000 Covid-19 fatalities, vastly more than the <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map">579,000 deaths</a> officially reported, and more than any other country. The calculation is based on modeling of excess mortality that has occurred during the pandemic.
The drastic difference highlights how difficult it is to keep track of even basic metrics like deaths when a deadly disease is raging. The higher toll also means the ripples of the pandemic have spread wider than realized, particularly for health workers on the front lines who have repeatedly faced the onslaught with limited medical resources and personal protection. And the undercounts have important consequences for how countries allocate resources, anticipate future hotspots, and address health inequities.
Researchers who weren’t involved with the analysis say it confirms what many already presumed: that official death counts were far off the mark.
“Big picture, it’s not really surprising,” said <a href="https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-people/nuzzo/">Jennifer Nuzzo</a>, an epidemiologist and a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “We’ve long suspected that the tolls of Covid are undercounted for a number of reasons, but probably a big part is having capacity to diagnose infections and count them.”
Now, with the number of reported cases around the world reaching new highs, the findings should serve as a stark reminder that disease surveillance and tracking remain dangerously inadequate, and that the world may have already overlooked some of the greatest tragedies of the pandemic. Preventing deaths going forward demands a coordinated international effort to contain Covid-19, vaccinate as many people as possible, and monitor the spread of the virus, led by countries with the most resources helping those with the fewest.
Otherwise, an even greater toll may lie ahead.
To come up with the new estimate of 6.9 million total Covid-19 deaths so far around the world, the IHME team constructed a model that incorporated observations about the pandemic. They also constructed a baseline estimate of how many deaths there would have been in a world without Covid-19. The team drew on weekly and monthly death records from 56 countries and 198 sub-national locations — city, state, and provincial records — from places like the US and Brazil.
Researchers also drew on previously published death estimates. They then subtracted the anticipated deaths from the actual number of deaths to find the excess mortality stemming specifically from the disease.
Excess mortality is mostly due to deaths directly from Covid-19, but it also includes deaths indirectly caused by the pandemic like people unable or unwilling to receive medical care, a decline in vaccination rates for other diseases, an increase in drug use, and a rise in depression. So researchers tried to correct for these factors to get their Covid-19 death estimate.
It’s a well-worn approach in public health circles and has been used to calculate other health indicators like the <a href="http://www.healthdata.org/gbd/2019">global burden of disease</a>.
<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1620405096_3976_353306" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22497399,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WHpcOm7xPSbXiemsInWj5qQYSuM=/0x0:704x385/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Z_2MsfykD0FCPul-1pNFan8g2SM=/0x0:704x385/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XW8DGv9kU56Y-nxyxBTC_FnxDhc=/0x0:704x385/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Xa7IP4rOO3qW2frjQ7x_BomS2Ls=/0x0:704x385/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CxSfUERwXvZrThIgeYWLOgrk4EY=/0x0:704x385/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XyS6rL8kAbdVGpB9xl6zsoqIq1E=/0x0:704x385/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Dz3axghvRSwsa9ysTJig-FttmpE=/0x0:704x385/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1EZAuCLMAlKFERckb0NlwGyqkKA=/0x0:704x385/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dTdlFY53W47RVBl-ShUSCi8Pb9s=/0x0:704x385/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="Chart showing methodology of IHME’s Covid-19 death estimate." data-upload-width="704" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/m6eZAcUyyJ7U2nrs0TTOxCh1rok=/0x0:704x385/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tZVKiswDb0uTjEIziCiN4_aRSGU=/0x0:704x385/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/o7BjRbL09Ufomx373cCWxhOMeJs=/0x0:704x385/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LPAwX-W0JJqJZPrDzS2daiKg6kE=/0x0:704x385/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/H-1OUuJrC-W_mfA3td32SsPMLwk=/0x0:704x385/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JGDz7ZO1dHm3yCI6M0zc8Rwhjyg=/0x0:704x385/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UWabbW10k1Cn-awNdrKCEQwOUTI=/0x0:704x385/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Vatk9wDO9WFaEk6vzAPdK8aFOUg=/0x0:704x385/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IkCRunczS414J2DXimDtJgQ9MQo=/0x0:704x385/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CRojhK6EZoxOYbLZy7Fk1UOh1IY=/0x0:704x385/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:704x385):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497399/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.07.41_AM.png 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>The IHME team subtracted the projected deaths under pre-pandemic trends from the observed number of deaths to estimate Covid-19 mortality.</figcaption>
<cite>IHME</cite></figure>
The model showed that around the world, more than half of Covid-19-related deaths are not labeled in the official tallies. And the actual number could still be higher.
According to <a href="http://www.healthdata.org/about/christopher-jl-murray">Christopher Murray</a>, the director of IHME, while just about every part of the world missed cases many cases of Covid-19, some countries missed more than others.
“In many parts of the world — sub-Saharan Africa, India, Latin America, differences by state in Brazil and Mexico — you can account for much of the under-reporting because of lower testing rates,” Murray said during a press conference. “But there is this phenomenon — Egypt stands out, as do a number of different countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia — where these excess mortality rate numbers suggest dramatically larger epidemics than have been reported that cannot be accounted for through testing.”
Egypt has officially reported just over 13,000 Covid-19 deaths, but IHME found its estimated death toll was more than 170,000. It’s not clear why the discrepancy is so large, but it shows Covid-19 epidemics can be far worse than the death reports reveal.
<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1620405096_6394_353307" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22497970,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VGrR7IwuD7w0-C2qKgXrOBzeRek=/0x0:1046x591/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mxV5u21pBPUTc86DBptTBxAoC64=/0x0:1046x591/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MwmXNJ-32bULQRisyolFdIMjVmA=/0x0:1046x591/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XTBoIKAU6u3sRmlxJehXLQguhI8=/0x0:1046x591/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9Fm4zNHlTYVraXSXwj-s4sNKDdQ=/0x0:1046x591/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/a3MfXUfVNZiA2BOjvSo20KvFzXM=/0x0:1046x591/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/C5wEJtE-BILMChF2yT01NO2JbKk=/0x0:1046x591/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Wd-Zfq58b6e8SeW435FTc2C-j8s=/0x0:1046x591/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/en05_zJzbXpbRzqud918AS7ut1Y=/0x0:1046x591/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="Chart showing reported and estimated total Covid-19 deaths by country." data-upload-width="1046" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gKpy2HQYVQl7TcVCemQFlmaBO5E=/0x0:1046x591/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4aEU4zVQMwpqCfr1tLJI18pGQf8=/0x0:1046x591/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bqNjXjqXXnTaw6bR1xkj6jE_uNc=/0x0:1046x591/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uLcBhz0LQgFnBz1JnPGhNJrCHEU=/0x0:1046x591/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GLG0PZU-r6bI4B6BvuYm0PM0L2Q=/0x0:1046x591/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wOtPrmRIO1ZN_HyXKREHkqHtIRU=/0x0:1046x591/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/55FwtSLA4LB78mUltScQY4fGHTw=/0x0:1046x591/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/C8C1_i0UIN-BqCBNF7vO84i0gN4=/0x0:1046x591/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PM8Yds3Ug14CsBsqxnvzMOwNlcM=/0x0:1046x591/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mHG5ZqKDJUTiC9cci1RQACoStkE=/0x0:1046x591/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1046x591):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22497970/Screen_Shot_2021_05_06_at_7.04.32_AM.png 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>The IHME’s estimates of actual Covid-19 deaths were tenfold higher than reported counts for some countries.</figcaption>
<cite>IHME</cite></figure>
“We are absolutely, absolutely undercounting deaths,” said <a href="https://www.fredhutch.org/en/faculty-lab-directory/etzioni-ruth.html">Ruth Etzioni</a>, a professor and biostatistician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who was not involved in the study.
Scientists have also been <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/17/influential-covid-19-model-uses-flawed-methods-shouldnt-guide-policies-critics-say/">critical of IHME’s past modeling</a> work during the Covid-19 pandemic.
IHME’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/5/2/21241261/coronavirus-modeling-us-deaths-ihme-pandemic">forecasts last spring were criticized</a> for missing the mark and projecting many fewer deaths than actually occurred. In March 2020, the organization projected fewer than 161,000 deaths total in the US. Then in April 2020, the group revised their death toll projections through August to be 60,415, with an uncertainty range between between 31,221 and 126,703 deaths. The projections were out of step with other epidemiological models, which were anticipating far more casualties from Covid-19.
The Trump White House, however, was eager to use the rosy IHME projections as the basis for planning for the pandemic and lifting public health restrictions, as well as a political tool to downplay the severity of Covid-19. “I was furious with [IHME], and I’m still kind of getting over it,” Etzioni said. “In the beginning, it was unacceptably un-rigorous.”
By the end of August 2020, more than 180,000 Americans had died of the disease.
“So far as I can tell, IHME has substantially improved their modeling from the early days of the pandemic,” said <a href="https://sites.uw.edu/biochemistry/faculty/alexey-merz/">Alexey J. Merz</a>, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington, in an email. “My major criticisms pertain to those early efforts, and IHME’s ongoing failure to address what went wrong, or to assess the (in my opinion, considerable) damage arising from those flawed estimates.”
Asked about IHME’s track record, Murray explained how his team’s Covid-19 forecasting improved and even outperformed other models. “For example, if you go back to August last year, we were <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/resilience/natural-disasters/510934-model-projects-nearly-300000-coronavirus-deaths">forecasting the winter surge</a>, and nobody else thought there was going to be a winter surge in the United States,” he said. “We spend a lot of time on our model trying to look at what are the long-term drivers so we have been able to pick up these long-term trends quite a bit sooner than others.”
It makes sense that countries with less robust health care systems and fewer resources would struggle to keep track of how many people are dying of Covid-19. But the US, a wealthy country that has a national Covid-19 death reporting system, also missed almost 40 percent of Covid-19 deaths, according to the IHME model.
That’s because while death can seem like a pretty obvious health indicator, the causes of death can be mercurial.
The problems start with the death certificate. <a href="https://profiles.ucdenver.edu/display/225653">Ivor Douglas</a>, chief of the Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Medicine division at the Denver Health Medical Center, explained that death certificates emphasize the primary cause of death, which is the most immediate condition leading to the fatality. Death certificates also have space for secondary and indirect causes.
As the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed, the disease can <a href="https://www.vox.com/22307256/covid-19-symptoms-tongue-variant-vaccine-long-haulers">manifest in myriad ways</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/22298751/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-hauler-symptoms">leave lasting damage</a>, even in people who had a mild illness.
So a Covid-19 death certificate could list something like a blood clot in the lungs as the primary cause of death, with Covid-19 as a secondary or indirect cause. Whether that specific death is then coded as a Covid-19 fatality could differ depending on the state. That local-level reporting has sometimes <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/25/undercounting-covid-19-deaths-greatest-in-pro-trump-areas-analysis-shows/">become politicized</a> and led to discrepancies in death tolls.
And when Covid-19 first arrived in the US, many health workers didn’t realize what they were dealing with and thus didn’t include it in their paperwork. “I think the preponderance of missed cases were early on in the pandemic,” Douglas said. “Often, certainly early in the pandemic, there was the primary diagnosis without Covid-19 attribution.”
The missing Covid-19 deaths are also another manifestation of the inequities in US society. “If you’re poor, don’t have access [to health care], and die at home you’re much less likely to have an attribution of Covid pneumonia as a cause of your death than ‘oh, you’re a sad old person with diabetes’ and that was the cause of death,” Douglas said.
That means that the groups that are being most severely harmed by Covid-19 may also be underrepresented in the official numbers. That makes it harder to properly allocate resources like tests, vaccines, and treatment to the most vulnerable people, forcing them to bear an even greater health burden.
“There’s real policy implications, it has political implications, and social justice implications, in my mind,” Douglas said. On the other hand, accurate monitoring could help mitigate the harms of the Covid-19 pandemic, helping health officials figure out not just where to deploy vaccines and treatments, but other factors driving transmission, like crowded living conditions. Intervening before infections begin to spread is what will yield the greatest dividends in containing the disease. “You cannot simply vaccinate your way out of this problem,” Douglas said.
Regardless of how high the actual number of deaths is, the devastation of Covid-19 is clear. “Even the reported numbers are so utterly staggering that I’m not even sure doubling it should make us even more horrified,” Nuzzo said.
Still, the fact that Covid-19 deaths appear so vastly underreported should be a warning that the virus can still take millions more lives, and why containing Covid-19 is imperative for every country in the world. “We should feel more personally threatened by these numbers. And we should recognize it as a societal threat,” Etzioni said.
The devastating <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/22403722/india-covid-19-vaccine-variant-cases-coronavirus">Covid-19 outbreak in India</a> is all the more urgent now that multiple <a href="https://www.vox.com/22385588/covid-19-vaccine-variant-mutation-n440k-india-moderna-pfizer-b1617">variants of Covid-19</a> that are more transmissible and better able to evade immunity are spreading around the world. As the virus continues to spread the likelihood of even more dangerous variants arising will grow.
What’s more, the countries that have been reporting lower deaths so far deserve more attention. “Many of us contend that sub-Saharan Africa has been extensively devastated by the pandemic but because of lack of testing medical reporting it appears as if there has been a relatively minor event there,” Douglas said.
As for countries that have so far been genuinely spared from Covid-19 so far, they must remain vigilant and take active measures to keep the disease at bay. “It maybe that they haven’t yet been hit or it could be that we don’t fully understand how they’ve been hit, but I want to put to bed this idea that any country has simply escaped the worst of it,” Nuzzo said. “The countries that have done the best are ones that have been very, very aggressive in responding to it.”
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22422794/covid-19-death-numbers-total-us-vaccine-ihme">https://www.vox.com/22422794/covid-19-death-numbers-total-us-vaccine-ihme</a>

vox Why researchers think Covid-19 deaths may be more than double the official total

The world may have undercounted Covid-19 deaths by a staggering margin, according to an analysis released Thursday by the Institute for Heal...

5 reasons why Biden’s new conservation plan is such a big deal

This story is part of <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth">Down to Earth</a>, a new Vox reporting initiative on the science, politics, and economics of the biodiversity crisis.
The Biden administration is about to embark on a historic mission: to conserve 30 percent of the nation’s land and water by 2030.
Since President Joe Biden announced the target, known as “<a href="https://www.vox.com/22251851/joe-biden-executive-orders-climate-change-conservation-30-by-2030">30 by 30</a>,” in January, there’s been a mix of hope, especially from environmental groups, and apprehension, largely from people who earn a living off of the land. On both sides, there’s a heightened focus on the fact that just 12 percent of American land is within permanently protected areas today. The question is: Where will the rest come from?
On Thursday, the Interior Department <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/biden-harris-administration-outlines-america-beautiful-initiative">released a report</a> that starts to answer that question — and it shows the government is trying to overhaul how the country thinks about conservation altogether.
The initiative to reach 30 percent, called “America the Beautiful,” aims to redefine what constitutes “conserved” land, to make that new definition distinct from “protected” land, and to cede power to local communities and tribal nations to reach that target. At the same time, it promises to provide disadvantaged communities with more access to parks and the benefits of nature.
Though details are sparse, the report also suggests the US government is trying to iron out tensions that stem from past conservation programs from national parks, some of which were established at the expense of Native Americans, to regulations on ranch lands.
“We know we have to work across public, tribal, and working lands to be successful,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in a press call Thursday morning. “Conservation works best when it’s about partnership and collaboration.”
The US is among more than 50 countries that have committed to 30 by 30. The target has become a <a href="https://www.vox.com/22369705/biden-conservation-biodiversity-collapse-30-by-30">rallying cry</a> for the global conservation movement as it seeks to thwart an ever-increasing crisis of biodiversity loss.
While the US has some of the world’s strongest environmental policies, its species, ecosystems, and natural spaces are in rapid decline. About 12,000 wildlife species are in need of protection to avoid the threat of extinction, the report says. “We are witnessing staggering declines in wildlife populations,” Brenda Mallory, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, said on the press call. “Nature in America is in trouble and Americans across the country are seeing and feeling the impacts.”
Many details remain to be seen, such as how the government will fund the campaign and, specifically, what kind of land will be considered as part of the 30 percent. Yet it’s clear that the plan is monumental — and here’s why.
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<figcaption>A working cattle ranch along the Buffalo Fork River in Wyoming.</figcaption>
<cite>Jon G. Fuller/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite></figure>
In the US, about <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/fact-sheet-president-biden-take-action-uphold-commitment-restore-balance-public-lands">12 percent</a> of land and one-quarter of the oceans are within permanently protected areas, including national parks, wildlife refuges, and marine protected areas. What that figure doesn’t include is other areas managed with sustainability in mind, such as farmland enrolled in conservation programs or tribal lands.
According to the report, those managed lands — though not formally protected — could contribute to the 30 percent target under a new and much broader definition of conservation. (When the Biden administration wrote the 30 by 30 pledge into an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/27/executive-order-on-tackling-the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad/">executive order</a>, it notably said “conserved” and not “protected.”)
“We want to make sure that we understand and take advantage of working lands,” Gina McCarthy, the White House national climate adviser, said on the press call.
How much US land and water will fall under that new definition? No one knows yet.
“Currently, the US government doesn’t have an answer to that question that adequately captures the conservation contributions of tribal nations, farmers, ranchers, forest owners, fishing communities, and others,” Mallory said.
In the coming months, the administration will come up with a system to map and track the area in the country considered “conserved,” called the American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas. It will likely show that conserved areas in the US today already amount to well over 12 percent.
In a major departure from conservation efforts of centuries past, the new “America the Beautiful” initiative makes the sovereignty and rights of tribal nations a core part of the 30 by 30 campaign. (Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland is a Native American and a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe whose territory is in New Mexico.)
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<figcaption>Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, is the first Native American to hold a Cabinet position.</figcaption>
<cite>Alex Wong/Getty Images</cite></figure>
Native American communities have inhabited the US for millennia, and they have more experience than anyone in land management. Research has also shown that biodiversity tends to decline <a href="https://ipbes.net/global-assessment">more slowly</a> on land managed by Indigenous people.
Plus, the US conservation movement is increasingly aware it needs to right past wrongs — when tribes were removed from their lands in the name of protecting “pristine” landscapes, such as when the government created Yellowstone and Yosemite National Park.
Over the next decade, the government will support tribal-led conservation efforts and make restoring Indigenous homeland a priority, the report said. It also calls on federal agencies to help tribal nations access programs that offer funding for conservation projects and to engage with Indigenous people in the management of public land and water. “Tribal nations have been serving as stewards of their land since time immemorial,” McCarthy said.
Biden’s 30 by 30 pledge initially sparked concern among some farming, ranching, and hunting groups, which rely on large swaths of land for revenue. They worried that the goal might add restrictions to the land they use.
“The concerns of farmers and ranchers are escalating regarding the intent of the 30x30 goal, the definition of conservation, and the metrics for defining success,” Zippy Duvall, the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, <a href="https://www.fb.org/files/Public_Lands.30X30_Letter_to_White_House.AFBFLTR.04.22.21.pdf">wrote in a letter</a> to Biden in late April.
US farmers and ranchers have enrolled more than 140 million acres of private land in conservation programs, and they should be recognized for their contribution to conservation, Duvall wrote in the letter. A <a href="https://www.huntfish3030.com/">large number of hunting and fishing organizations</a> have also urged the administration to recognize their contributions toward protecting wildlife and ecosystems.
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<figcaption>A man fishing in Kaercher Creek Park in Windsor Township, Pennsylvania.</figcaption>
<cite>Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images</cite></figure>
The report suggests the government acknowledged those concerns and will consider many farming, ranching, and hunting lands as part of the 30 percent goal — if they’re managed sustainably. It will also work to expand them through voluntary conservation programs on working lands and by opening up more public land to hunting and fishing.
”The vision we lay out today in this first national conservation goal and report is a win for voluntary conservation practices on working lands,” Vilsack said. “We know that they will help to restore habitat, enhance soil health, and sequester carbon.”
There are already examples of this: Last month, the Department of Agriculture expanded its <a href="https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-programs/conservation-reserve-program/">Conservation Reserve Program</a>, which pays farmers to plant beneficial species and take environmentally sensitive land out of production. Also that month, the Interior Department <a href="https://www.fws.gov/news/ShowNews.cfm?ref=u.s.-fish-and-wildlife-service-promotes-public-access-to-hunting-and-&_ID=36898">announced a proposal</a> for the largest expansion of hunting and fishing opportunities in US history.
This is a big deal. In the past, some ranchers and hunters — especially in the West — strongly opposed government efforts to conserve land, which they considered exclusionary. Now, many of them appear ready to get on board. “The report goes out of its way to recognize the concerns raised by Farm Bureau and agriculture, in general,” said Sam Kieffer, an American Farm Bureau Federation spokesperson, <a href="https://www.fb.org/news/farm-bureau-responds-to-30x30-report">in a radio interview</a> Thursday. “It also recognized the contributions that farmers and ranchers have made in conservation.”
Access to nature isn’t distributed evenly. People of color and low-income communities generally <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2020/07/21/487787/the-nature-gap/">have been relegated to live in places with fewer green spaces and natural areas</a>. As just one example, 74 percent of nonwhite Americans live in regions with less natural land, such as forests and wetlands, than the state median, compared to 23 percent of white people, according to <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2020/07/21/487787/the-nature-gap/">a report</a> by the Center for American Progress.
Not only do those communities lose out on the many benefits of nature, from clean air to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6121609/heat-waves-are-americas-deadliest-weather-disaster-they-dont-have-to">less extreme heat</a>, but they “shoulder a disproportionate share of the costs of nature’s decline,” the authors write. These include the loss of resources for subsistence fishing and hunting, the spread of industrial development, and pollution.
With this in mind, the US government said it will prioritize access to nature in disadvantaged communities as it aims for the 30 percent target. The commitment is in line with a broader goal of the Biden administration to restore environmental justice and channel 40 percent of benefits from government investments to disadvantaged communities.
It’s not entirely clear what steps the administration will take, but Haaland said the National Park Service will soon announce that it’s pouring $150 million into the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Program to help underserved communities build more parks.
The pandemic made economic growth and slashing unemployment a huge priority and talking point for the Biden campaign. It’s no surprise to see his team tie job creation to 30 by 30.
The big opportunity is in restoration, another key objective of the initiative. “Restoring forests to a more resilient condition creates jobs and reduces the threat of catastrophic wildfire,” the report says. Many of those jobs will be in rural communities, the authors added.
Biden’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/3/31/22357179/biden-two-trillion-infrastructure-jobs-plan-explained">American Jobs Plan</a> plans to create a $10 billion Civilian Climate Corps. The corps would, among other things, employ people to restore lands and waters, which advocates call a win-win.
“Some of the earliest job wins you’re going to see are going to be in the restoration space,” Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/3/31/22357179/biden-two-trillion-infrastructure-jobs-plan-explained">told Vox’s Ella Nilsen in March</a>. “They don’t require materials or construction, new fabrication of different goods and materials. The only thing that’s needed is money.”
A range of groups applauded the report, including environmental organizations and tribal leaders, but there’s still a lot left to hash out. More about setting guiding principles than offering concrete details, the report was a starting point — and so is the 30 percent target.
“30 percent isn’t the end,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo during the press call. “30 percent is the beginning. It’s setting a very strong foundation and we hope [it] will build the momentum for longer-term conservation to benefit current and future generations.”
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/5/7/22423139/biden-30-by-30-conservation-initiative-historic">https://www.vox.com/2021/5/7/22423139/biden-30-by-30-conservation-initiative-historic</a>

vox 5 reasons why Biden’s new conservation plan is such a big deal

This story is part of Down to Earth , a new Vox reporting initiative on the science, politics, and economics of the biodiversity crisis. T...

Maldives Former President "Critical" After Blast: Hospital

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Maldives Former President 'Critical' After Blast: Hospital" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2019-04/3v45k9bo_mohamed-nasheed-afp_625x300_07_April_19.jpg" title="Maldives Former President 'Critical' After Blast: Hospital" /></div>
Maldives former president Mohamed Nasheed was in a "critical condition" after an assassination attempt
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Male:
Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed was in a "critical" condition on Friday following an assassination attempt, doctors said.
Nasheed, 53, the Maldives' first democratically elected president and still an important figure in the island nation's murky politics, was rushed to hospital after an explosion late Thursday.
Since then he has undergone 16 hours of life-saving operations in the capital Male for injuries to his head, chest, abdomen and limbs.
The private ADK hospital said Friday evening that Nasheed was "in a critical condition in intensive care".
In a televised address to the nation, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih announced that a team from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) would arrive Saturday to help with the investigation into the blast.
Solih described the attack as an assault on the fledgling democracy, promising the perpetrators "would face the full force of the law".
Police said officials from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime have also been asked to assist in the investigation.
Maldivian police said they were treating Thursday's bomb attack as a "deliberate act of terror" and urged the public to provide any information that could identify the perpetrators.
Police said a device attached to a motorcycle was detonated as Nasheed got into a car in the capital.
The hospital said earlier that shrapnel had been removed from one of his lungs and from his liver but that another piece was still in the same organ.
"We are hopeful of a full recovery," said a family member who did not want to be named, adding that Nasheed was responsive and spoke with doctors when he was admitted.
One of his bodyguards as well as a British national were also wounded and taken to hospital.
Underwater cabinet
The Indian Ocean nation of 340,000 Sunni Muslims is best known for its luxury holiday resorts popular with honeymooners, but it suffers from regular political turmoil.
There was no claim of responsibility for Thursday's bomb attack, but officials close to Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said they suspected vested political interests opposed to his anti-corruption drive.
Nasheed had vowed to investigate a $90-million theft from the state's tourism promotion authority during the tenure of former president Abdulla Yameen.
"There are some dormant Islamists who could have collaborated with political elements threatened by Nasheed's anti-corruption drive," an MDP source told AFP.
The government has cracked down on extremism and foreign preachers are banned.
Violent attacks have been rare, though a dozen foreign tourists were wounded by a bomb blast in Male in 2007.
The Islamic State claimed a boat arson attack last year, but there is little evidence the group has a presence in the archipelago.
Nasheed, a liberal, is maybe best known internationally for holding a 2009 underwater cabinet meeting to highlight the threat of global warming, signing documents as officials wore scuba gear against a backdrop of coral reefs.
He was toppled in a military-backed coup in February 2012, convicted on a charge of terrorism and jailed for 13 years.
He left the country on prison leave for medical treatment and sought refuge in Britain.
He returned after his nominee Solih won the presidency in 2018, winning parliamentary elections the next year to become speaker.
Messages of support for Nasheed poured in on Friday from neighbouring India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as Western nations, which have strongly backed his pro-democracy and environmental activism.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/maldives-former-president-mohamed-nasheed-critical-after-blast-hospital-2437224">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/maldives-former-president-mohamed-nasheed-critical-after-blast-hospital-2437224</a>

news world Maldives Former President "Critical" After Blast: Hospital

Maldives former president Mohamed Nasheed was in a "critical condition" after an assassination attempt Male: Former Maldives ...