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What Record-Shattering Heat Is Doing To US Cities

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="What Record-Shattering Heat Is Doing To US Cities" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-06/n0af8qto_water-fountain-portland-bloomberg_625x300_29_June_21.jpg" title="What Record-Shattering Heat Is Doing To US Cities" /></div>
Children play in a riverfront water fountain during a heatwave in Portland, Oregon.
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The brutally hot weather that's already pushed U.S. Northwest temperatures to record highs worsened Monday and is set to smother the region all week.
Portland hit a record of 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 Celsius) Monday, as locations across the region notched new all-time highs. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport touched 108 degrees, while in Canada, Lytton in British Columbia set a new national record a day after shattering a previous high that had stood since 1937.
Avista Corp., which operates a unit providing electricity to about 340,000 customers across four northwestern states, said late Monday that it was taking the unusual step of temporarily shutting off power to some customers. Others were suffering from unplanned blackouts due to "heat overload," the utility said.
The extended heat wave gripping a region usually defined by cool and rain is the latest example of searing weather around the globe as climate change drives temperatures to records. Moscow last week was its hottest since 1901, and the United Arab Emirates recently hit 125.
The Pacific Northwest warmth is building under a so-called heat dome. Kinks in the jet stream have pinned summer weather in place, leading to heat waves and drought, plus storms and flooding elsewhere -- all underscoring the risks authorities expect to intensify through the season.
"It is unprecedented" to have temperature records in Portland and Seattle repeatedly broken on successive days, said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster with the U.S. Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. "That just doesn't occur."
The relentless heat is already taking a toll on some infrastructure in the Northwest. Portland's streetcar system was suspended after high temperatures strained wires. Seattle's Sound Transit system said trains may operate at reduced speeds. And on the electric grid, transformers, the metal cylinders often atop utility poles, can malfunction and catch fire if they don't cool at night.
"Our infrastructure is not prepared for temperatures over 110 degrees," said Andrew Plambeck, public affairs manager at Portland Streetcar.
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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="54a3ukb" class="lozad" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-06/54a3ukb_cooling-center-portland-bloomberg_625x300_29_June_21.jpg" /></div>
Residents at a cooling center during a heatwave in Portland, Oregon on June 28.
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Alison Eisinger, director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, said aid groups are giving out frozen water bottles, setting up misting stations and trying to help homeless people find ways to avoid the sun as heat hits them especially hard.
"People who are surviving outside may not have a safe place to be in the shade, to get access to water," she said. "Dehydration is a huge, huge risk."
An excessive heat warning is also in effect for Northern California, which is forecast to climb as high as 113 degrees. The state's power grid operator has warned that it may need to ask for conservation to avoid rolling outages.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Hot weather 🥵 will persist over much of interior <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NorCal?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NorCal</a> this week. The Delta Breeze will provide relief for the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Sacramento?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Sacramento</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Stockton?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Stockton</a> areas for most of the week. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CAwx?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CAwx</a><a href="https://t.co/Rssb2VfyZR">pic.twitter.com/Rssb2VfyZR</a>
— NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) <a href="https://twitter.com/NWSSacramento/status/1409500580800827392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 28, 2021</a></blockquote>
The weather frying the Northwest also poured heavy rain across central states and will bring a heat wave to New York and the Northeast, with coming days in the 90s. Heat advisories stretch from Bangor, Maine, where humidity will make temperatures feel more like 100 or higher, down to Philadelphia.
The heat has triggered power grid warnings in the East. The operator of the largest U.S. grid, which stretches from Washington to Chicago, asked transmission and generation owners to suspend maintenance Monday across most areas. The neighboring Midcontinent Independent System Operator did the same.
Power and gas prices climbed across the U.S. Electricity prices at a Pacific Northwest hub for delivery over the weekend and Monday jumped 435% to $334.22 a megawatt-hour, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Some Southern California prices doubled from a day before. Even spot power prices in New England, Ohio and Pennsylvania jumped on Monday afternoon.
Meanwhile, U.S. natural gas futures rose for a sixth day as the heat wave in the Northwest raises power demand and depletes inventories.
Flood warnings cover parts of eastern New Mexico and west Texas, as well as Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan as cooler air and rain soak those regions.
Overnight lows in Oregon and Washington are topping highs elsewhere. Overnight temperatures will fall to 81 degrees in Yakima, Washington, while Houston will only reach 79 at the hottest point in the day, according to the weather service.
--With assistance from Cameron Minnard, Naureen S. Malik and Natalie Obiko Pearson.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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news world What Record-Shattering Heat Is Doing To US Cities

Children play in a riverfront water fountain during a heatwave in Portland, Oregon. The brutally hot weather that's already pushed U...

Astra Jab Followed By Pfizer, 4 Weeks Apart, Gives Strong Immunity: Study

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Astra Jab Followed By Pfizer, 4 Weeks Apart, Gives Strong Immunity: Study" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-06/hm2d2fj_coronavirus-vaccine-650_625x300_29_June_21.jpeg" title="Astra Jab Followed By Pfizer, 4 Weeks Apart, Gives Strong Immunity: Study" /></div>
A woman receives an injection at a vaccination center in Taipei.
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Mixing doses of Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc creates a strong immune response, according to results from a University of Oxford study, a finding that could enable greater flexibility in the use of scarce supplies.
A mixed schedule of the Pfizer shot followed by the Astra vaccine, and vice versa, resulted in high concentrations of antibodies against Covid-19 when given four weeks apart, researchers reported Monday in the Lancet medical journal.
Doctors and public health officials have been analyzing various ways to extend vaccine supplies -- by delaying the time between first and second doses, for example -- as many low- and middle-income nations try to figure out how to cope with vaccine scarcity. The ability to mix doses might help countries with supplies of different vaccines assist one another.
The order in which people got the vaccines affected the results. Astra followed by Pfizer produced higher levels of immune antibodies and T-cells than Pfizer followed by Astra.
Flexible Schedules
Both of the mixed vaccine schedules summoned more antibodies than two doses of Astra, the study found. The best T-cell response came from Astra followed by Pfizer, and the highest antibody response was seen from two doses of Pfizer.
"This argues for flexibility in use of these schedules, where local circumstances require it," Matthew Snape, an Oxford professor who led the trial, said in a press briefing. "This is giving everybody options."
Shots of AstraZeneca's vaccine are currently spaced out by 12 weeks in the U.K., which broadens accessibility and appears to boost vaccine effectiveness. Also, a study from Oxford released Monday showed that gapping shots by as long as 10 months improved responses even further. Results from a test of the mixed doses at 12-week intervals will be available "within the next month or so," Snape said at the briefing.
The trial involved 830 volunteers age 50 and over and tested the vaccines only against the variant first identified in Wuhan. Further testing against additional coronavirus strains could be useful for informing which vaccines and combinations to use in potential winter booster shots, Snape said. Further research from the program will look at combining vaccines from Moderna Inc. and Novavax Inc.
Last month, early research from the study found that mixing doses of Pfizer and Astra increased side effects, such as fatigue and headaches. However, the findings from the Lancet study said that these were short-lived.
(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/astrazeneca-jab-followed-by-pfizer-4-weeks-apart-gives-strong-immunity-study-2474753">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/astrazeneca-jab-followed-by-pfizer-4-weeks-apart-gives-strong-immunity-study-2474753</a>

news world Astra Jab Followed By Pfizer, 4 Weeks Apart, Gives Strong Immunity: Study

A woman receives an injection at a vaccination center in Taipei. Mixing doses of Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc ...

10 Million Australians In Virus Lockdown After Brisbane Added To The List

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Australia has recorded a total of just over 30,000 cases and 910 deaths.
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Brisbane, Australia:
About 10 million Australians have been ordered into lockdown as Covid-19 spreads across the country, after Brisbane on Tuesday became the fourth major city to issue stay-at-home orders.
The three-day snap lockdown for Brisbane, starting on Tuesday evening, comes on top of similar orders imposed in Sydney, Perth and Darwin residents in recent days.
"These are tough decisions," Queensland state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said. 
"We are having lockdowns in major cities because the overseas arrivals are bringing the virus here."
Brisbane's surrounding coastal regions and the small northern city of Townsville are also subject to the latest order, after an unvaccinated hospital worker spent up to 10 days travelling around Queensland while infectious.
Australia has been broadly successful in containing virus clusters, but is now battling flare-ups of the highly contagious Delta variant, which first emerged in India, across the vast continent nation.
Perth woke to a four-day snap lockdown Tuesday morning, with the rules applying from midnight Monday into Tuesday and lasting a minimum of four days.
Just three positive cases have been diagnosed in Perth since the outbreak was detected but local health officials have long taken a highly cautious approach to any coronavirus clusters.
"We know the risk Covid presents and we know from around the world that the Delta strain is another new beast that we can't take any chances with," Western Australia state Premier Mark McGowan said in a late-night press conference Monday.
Cluster concern
The announcements come amid school holidays for large parts of the country and are expected to cause a wave of travel cancellations, with unaffected states warning people not to visit impacted areas.
New Zealand said Tuesday it would partially reopen its travel bubble from July 5, but only with states that have not recorded any cases.
Under pressure over his government's response, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced vaccines will become mandatory for aged care and quarantine hotel workers, while the AstraZeneca jab will be available to people aged under 60 who sign an indemnity form.
The conservative government has been criticised over a sluggish vaccine rollout and failing to improve the leaky hotel quarantine system, while refusing to release data on how many Australians have been fully vaccinated.
Almost 7.4 million vaccine doses have been administered to date, with less than five percent of adults reported to have received both jabs.
Morrison acknowledged growing frustrations but placed the blame on disruptions caused to Australians' lives by the pandemic. 
"We've got to hang in there. We don't have a choice. The pandemic is still upon us," he said late Monday.
His newly appointed deputy prime minister has been fined for not wearing a mask, in breach of Covid-19 rules.
Barnaby Joyce was spotted maskless while paying for petrol and reported by a member of the public.
New South Wales police said they had fined a 54-year-old man Aus$200 (US$150) for failing to wear a mask in a petrol station on Monday morning.
Australia has recorded a total of just over 30,000 cases and 910 deaths in a population of about 25 million since the pandemic began. 
The largest current outbreak is in Sydney, where 150 people have tested positive for Covid-19 since a driver for an international flight crew was diagnosed in mid-June, with the city's residents now under stay-at-home orders for two weeks.
A small cluster linked to an outback gold mine sent Darwin into lockdown after exposure sites were found for the first time in the city, which is home to a large Indigenous population feared to be more vulnerable to Covid-19.
In all locked-down areas, people are generally required to stay at home except for essential work, exercise, to buy groceries or for medical reasons.
(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/coronavirus-10-million-australians-in-virus-lockdown-after-brisbane-added-to-the-list-2474739">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-10-million-australians-in-virus-lockdown-after-brisbane-added-to-the-list-2474739</a>

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Australia has recorded a total of just over 30,000 cases and 910 deaths. Brisbane, Australia: About 10 million Australians have been or...

US House Republicans Oppose Democratic-Led China Bill

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="US House Republicans Oppose Democratic-Led China Bill" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2019-07/kjkgh1n_us-china-trade-war-reuters_625x300_16_July_19.jpg" title="US House Republicans Oppose Democratic-Led China Bill" /></div>
China and US flags flutter outside a company building in Shanghai, China.
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Washington:
U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans said on Monday they opposed Democratic-led legislation intended to boost competitiveness with China and push Beijing on human rights, meaning the panel will likely advance the bill this week with only Democratic support.
A spokesperson for Representative Michael McCaul, the top committee Republican, said he opposed the "Ensuring American Global Leadership and Engagement Act," or Eagle Act, which the committee will consider on Wednesday.
The desire for a hard line in dealings with China is one of the few truly bipartisan sentiments in the deeply divided U.S. Congress, which is narrowly controlled by President Joe Biden's fellow Democrats.
However, the two parties disagree on how best to deal with China. For example, Republicans object to provisions in the Eagle Act that would authorize funding for climate initiatives.
But Republicans also said they felt the Eagle Act calls for too many studies and would be a missed opportunity to take meaningful action like tightening control of technology exports and regulating access to some types of sensitive personal data, such as Americans' health information.
"It's largely just a messaging bill," a Republican aide said.
The Eagle Act was introduced in May by Democratic Foreign Affairs Chairman Gregory Meeks.
The Senate on June 8 passed by a strong bipartisan 68-32 majority its own sweeping China bill, the "U.S. Innovation and Competition Act," or USICA, which authorizes about $190 billion for provisions to strengthen U.S. technology and research, and approved $54 billion to increase U.S. production and research into semiconductors and telecommunications equipment.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-house-republicans-oppose-democratic-led-china-bill-2474728">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-house-republicans-oppose-democratic-led-china-bill-2474728</a>

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China and US flags flutter outside a company building in Shanghai, China. Washington: U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Com...

New Zealand To Partially Restart "Travel Bubble" With Australia

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="New Zealand To Partially Restart 'Travel Bubble' With Australia" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-06/lkit0968_new-zealand-to-partially-restart-travel-bubble-with-australia-650_625x300_29_June_21.jpeg" title="New Zealand To Partially Restart 'Travel Bubble' With Australia" /></div>
Passengers arrive from New Zealand after the Trans-Tasman travel bubble opened overnight. (File)
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The New Zealand government said it will resume quarantine-free travel with parts of Australia next week as it lifted COVID-19 curbs in Wellington on Tuesday.
New Zealand halted its "travel bubble" with Australia on Saturday as an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant took root in Sydney and several other Australian cities.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said quarantine-free travel will resume with South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria states and the Australian Capital Territory from Monday, although authorities would continue to review the situation until then.
"The cabinet agreed that partially lifting the pause was the appropriate course of action," Hipkins told a news conferene. said. "The health advice is that the spread of COVID-19 in these parts of Australia has been contained at this point," he said.
Travellers will be required to provide a negative COVID-19 test pre-departure and must not have visited the blocked states and territories in recent days, Hipkins said.
The pause in travel with Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland states and the Northern Territory will be reviewed on Tuesday, he added, to allow test results to be returned and a further assessment of the situation.
The Sydney outbreak also led officials to impose social distancing restrictions in Wellington a week ago after an Australian tourist who visited the city tested positive for COVID-19 after returning home.
Hipkins said those measures will be eased from midnight on Tuesday.
New Zealand is among only a handful of countries that has contained the spread of COVID-19 within its borders. Its last community case was in February.
No new cases were reported on Tuesday. New Zealand has so far had 2,385 confirmed cases and 26 deaths linked to the virus.
(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/coronavirus-new-zealand-to-partially-restart-travel-bubble-with-australia-2474714">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-new-zealand-to-partially-restart-travel-bubble-with-australia-2474714</a>

news world New Zealand To Partially Restart "Travel Bubble" With Australia

Passengers arrive from New Zealand after the Trans-Tasman travel bubble opened overnight. (File) The New Zealand government said it will...

WHO Says Even Vaccinated People Should “Play it Safe” and Continue to Wear Masks

As the <a href="https://summit.news/2021/06/25/another-new-scientific-study-concludes-covid-originated-in-november-2019-before-wet-market-cases-and-exact-same-day-lab-workers-got-sick/">evidence</a> <a href="https://summit.news/2021/06/24/scientist-has-recovered-deleted-genetic-data-proving-covid-virus-was-circulating-in-wuhan-before-wet-market-cases/">continues</a> to pile up that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the epicentre of the COVID pandemic, and that a cover up was orchestrated, China’s government run Academy of Sciences has shortlisted the bio-lab for its ‘Outstanding Science Achievement’ prize for work with coronaviruses.
Talk about rubbing it in.
The very scientists who were manipulating coronaviruses to make them more deadly to humans are set to be rewarded.
The <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/covid-19-coronavirus-wuhan-institute-of-virology-shortlisted-for-outstanding-science-achievement-prize/ECC7VHFVXB7C2UHSA65Q246F4Y/">New Zealand Herald reports</a>:
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote" readability="20">
China’s Academy of Sciences (CAS) published the list of candidates for the 2021 prize, with the lab’s director, “bat woman” Dr Shi Zhengli, and deputy director Dr Yuan Zhiming named as outstanding contributors.
Shi was lauded for her “achievement in identifying the Covid-19 pathogen and completing the coronavirus gene sequencing, virus isolation, receptor verification, mouse model establishment and other studies on pathogen identification”.
Yaun was selected for his “outstanding contribution in establishing a coronavirus non-human primate infection model”.
</blockquote>
Both Shi and Yaun have claimed that their lab is being made a scapegoat by Western media, intelligence and governments in the wake of the outbreak.
Shi was interviewed by The New York Times last week, and when questioned about the lab leak theory proclaimed “How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?” adding “I don’t know how the world has come to this, constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist.”
Chinese State propaganda newspaper The Global Times notes that the CAS identifies the WIV as having “quickly carried out pathogen identification after the outbreak of Covid-19, completed the entire virus genome sequencing and virus isolation within a short time, confirmed that the Covid-19 virus shares the same functional receptor as the SARS virus, systematically analysed the basic biological characteristics of the virus, and revealed that coronavirus carried by bats may be the evolutionary ancestor of the Covid-19 coronavirus.”
Of course they did. Perhaps because they already had all of that information and research beforehand?
The CAS further claims that “The research group has completed the most comprehensive and systematic pathogenic identification research into Covid-19, which laid an important foundation and technology platform for follow-up research into tracing origins, epidemiology and pathogenic mechanism of the coronavirus…”
Shouldn’t that read ‘deflecting research into tracing origins’?
The report notes that China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Wuhan scientists “should be awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for their research on Covid-19, instead of being criticised”.
Of course, as is the case with almost all large institutions in China, the CAS is an arm of the Communist government.
It’s parent body is the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, one of the three branches of power in the country along with the CCP and the Military.
The State Council directly oversees the various subordinate ‘People’s Governments’ in the Chinese provinces, and in practice maintains membership with the top levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
So essentially, the communist Chinese government wants to reward the Wuhan lab that most probably inflicted this virus, and its accompanying lockdown mask freedom busting crack down vaccine passport economy ruination hell on the entire globe.
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source <a href="https://summit.news/2021/06/28/who-says-even-vaccinated-people-should-play-it-safe-and-continue-to-wear-masks/">https://summit.news/2021/06/28/who-says-even-vaccinated-people-should-play-it-safe-and-continue-to-wear-masks/</a>

revolution summit WHO Says Even Vaccinated People Should “Play it Safe” and Continue to Wear Masks

As the evidence continues to pile up that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the epicentre of the COVID pandemic, and that a cover up was...