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Some US clinics stop doing abortions as ruling takes hold
Abortion bans that were put on the books in some states in the event Roe v. Wade was overturned started automatically taking effect Friday, while clinics elsewhere — including Alabama, Texas and West Virginia — stopped performing abortions for fear of prosecution, sending women away in tears.
“Some patients broke down and could not speak through their sobbing,” said Katie Quinonez, executive director of West Virginia’s lone abortion clinic, whose staff spent the day calling dozens of patients to cancel their appointments. “Some patients were stunned and didn’t know what to say. Some patients did not understand what was happening.”
America was convulsed with anger, joy, fear and confusion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. The canyon-like divide across the U.S. over the right to terminate a pregnancy was on full display, with abortion rights supporters calling it a dark day in history, while abortion foes welcomed the ruling as the answer to their prayers.
Women who traveled across state lines to end a pregnancy found themselves immediately thwarted in some places as abortions were halted as a result of state laws that were triggered by the court decision or confusion over when those laws would take effect.
In eliminating the constitutional right to abortion that has stood for a half-century, the high court left the politically charged issue up to the states, about half of which are now likely to ban the procedure.
Also read: Fighting Texas abortion law could be tough for federal gov’t
Abortions were immediately halted in nine states. Providers in two other states, Oklahoma and South Dakota, had already stopped performing the procedure in the past month. About 73 million people live in the 11 states where the procedure was not available — more than a fifth of the U.S. population.
The reaction across the country largely fell along predictable political lines.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat in a state where abortions are available with few restrictions, called the ruling a “war on women” and vowed to stand as a “brick wall” to help preserve the right. Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vowed to seek a ban on abortions after 15 weeks.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a conservative Republican widely considered a potential candidate for president in 2024, tweeted: “The Supreme Court has answered the prayers of millions upon millions of Americans.”
The issue is certain to intensify the fall election season. Both sides intend to use the issue to energize supporters and get them to vote.
“This country is lurching to the right, taking away rights. The voters are going to have to intervene,” said Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the U.S. House majority whip.
Some states, including Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri, had “trigger law” bans on the books that went into effect as soon as Roe fell.
In Alabama, the state’s three abortion clinics stopped performing the procedure for fear providers would now be prosecuted under a law dating to 1951.
At the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville, the staff had to tell women in the waiting room Friday morning that they could not perform any more abortions that day. Some had come from as far away as Texas for an appointment.
“A lot of them just started breaking down crying. Can you imagine if you had driven 12 hours to receive this care in this state and you are not able to?” clinic owner Dalton Johnson said. Patients were given a list of out-of-state places still doing abortions.
Abortion providers across Arizona likewise stopped doing procedures while they try to determine if a law dating to pre-statehood days — before 1912 — means doctors and nurses will face prison time now.
In Texas, providers wondered which law they had to follow: a 1925 ban, a 2021 law that limits abortions to the first six weeks of pregnancy, or a trigger law that bans the procedure outright, but wouldn’t take effect for a month or more. The confusion led them to suspend abortions while they seek legal advice.
Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton warned they could face immediate prosecution for performing abortions under the Prohibition-era ban, which carries two to five years in prison.
It was the risk of prosecution under a 19th-century abortion ban punishable by prison that led the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia to stop performing the procedure.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, said he will not hesitate to call the Legislature into special session if the ban needs to be clarified.
In Ohio, a federal judge dissolved an injunction, allowing a 2019 state law to take effect banning most abortions at the first detectable fetal heartbeat.
The high court ruling drew strong reactions around the country.
Carol E. Tracy, the executive director of the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia, was “absolutely furious.”
“They want women to be barefoot and pregnant once again,” she said. “But I have no doubt that women and like-minded men, and people in the LGBTQ community, who are also at great risk, ... we’re going to fight back. I think it’s going to be a long, hard fight.”
Garrett Bess, who works with a lobbying arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said his group will continue to press states to restrict abortion.
“We’ll be working with grassroots Americans to ensure the protection of pregnant mothers and babies,” Bess said outside the Supreme Court. “This has been a long time coming, and it’s a welcome decision.”
Opinion polls show that a majority of Americans favor preserving Roe.
They include Alison Dreith, 41, an abortion activist in southern Illinois, where the governor has vowed to keep the procedure accessible. She said she fears for the safety of abortion workers, especially those who help people from states where the procedure is banned.
Dreith works with the Midwest Action Coalition, which offers gas money, child care and other practical support to women seeking abortions.
“I absolutely believe that they will try to come after me. I’m not built for prison, but I’m ready,” she said, “and I say, ‘Let’s do this.’ You want to pick that fight with me? I’m fighting back.”
People on both sides of the emotional issue took to the streets to protest or rejoice, gathering in parks, on steps of state Capitols, on sidewalks outside courthouses and at abortion clinics.
In Omaha, Nebraska, about 50 abortion opponents rallied at a federal courthouse, vowing to pressure lawmakers to outlaw the procedure.
A few miles away, more than 1,000 abortion-rights supporters lined a busy street and a bridge overlooking traffic at rush hour, saying they would try to keep abortion legal in the state despite its heavy conservative leanings. They held up signs and shouted as passing motorists honked.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, a man in a crowd of more than 100 people held up a sign that said “Abort the Supreme Court.”
Outside Planned Parenthood in St. Louis, Missouri, abortion foes held a victory celebration.
“I never thought I would live to see this day,” said Mary McMahan, 64, who has been active in the movement since childhood and has spent many hours on the sidewalk outside the clinic praying. “But here it is. Thank God it is here.”
Emma Garland, 18, of Freeburg, Illinois, showed up to support Planned Parenthood, saying she was scared her rights were being “stripped away.”
“I thought we had more faith in our country as a whole not to overturn it, but we lost that faith today,” Garland said.
Congress sends landmark gun violence compromise to Biden
The House sent President Joe Biden the widest ranging gun violence bill Congress has passed in decades Friday, a measured compromise that at once illustrates progress on the long-intractable issue and the deep-seated partisan divide that persists.
The Democratic-led chamber approved the election-year legislation on a mostly party-line 234-193 vote, capping a spurt of action prompted by voters’ revulsion over last month’s mass shootings in New York and Texas. The Senate approved the measure late Thursday by a bipartisan 65-33 margin.
The White House said Biden would sign the bill and deliver remarks on it Saturday morning.
Every House Democrat and 14 Republicans — six of whom won’t be in Congress next year — voted for the measure. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., underscored its significance to her party by taking the unusual step of presiding over the vote and announcing the result from the podium, to huzzahs from rank-and-file Democrats on the chamber’s floor.
Among Republicans backing the legislation was Rep. Liz Cheney of gun-friendly Wyoming, who has broken sharply with her party’s leaders and is helping lead the House investigation into last year’s Capitol insurrection by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. In a statement, she said that “as a mother and a constitutional conservative,” she believed the bill would curb violence and enhance safety, adding: “Nothing in the bill restricts the rights of responsible gun owners. Period.”
READ: School massacre continues Texas’ grim run of mass shootings
Impossible to ignore was the juxtaposition of the week’s gun votes with a pair of jarring Supreme Court decisions on two of the nation’s most incendiary culture war issues. The justices on Thursday struck down a New York law that has restricted peoples’ ability to carry concealed weapons, and Friday it overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the protection for abortion that case had ensured for a half-century.
The bill, crafted by senators from both parties, would incrementally toughen requirements for young people to buy guns, deny firearms from more domestic abusers and help local authorities temporarily take weapons from people judged to be dangerous. Most of its $13 billion cost would go to bolster mental health programs and for schools, which have been targeted in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida and many other infamous massacres.
It omits far tougher restrictions Democrats have long championed like a ban on assault-type weapons and background checks for all gun transactions, but is the most impactful firearms violence measure Congress has approved since enacting a now-expired assault weapons ban in 1993.
The legislation was a direct result of the slaying of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, exactly one month ago, and the killing of 10 Black shoppers days earlier in Buffalo, New York. Lawmakers returned from their districts after those shootings saying constituents were demanding congressional action, a vehemence many felt could not be ignored.
“This gives our community the sorely needed hope that we have been crying out for, for years and years and years,” Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., whose 17-year-old son was shot dead in 2012 by a man complaining his music was too loud, told supporters outside the Capitol. “Understand and know that this bill does not answer all of our prayers, but this is hope.”
Speaking haltingly, Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., said he was backing the bill for his father, shot to death 30 years ago to the day, the 58 people killed in a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas “and so many other Americans who are victims and survivors of gun violence.”
For conservatives who dominate the House GOP, it came down to the Constitution’s Second Amendment right for people to have firearms, a protection key for many voters who own guns. “Today they’re coming after our Second Amendment liberties, and who knows what it will be tomorrow,” Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the House Judiciary Committee’s top Republican, said of Democrats.
Pelosi said with Thursday’s gun ruling by the justices, “the Trump-McConnell court is implicitly endorsing the tragedy of mass shootings and daily gun deaths plaguing our nation.” That was a reference to the balance-tipping three conservative justices appointed by Trump and confirmed by a Senate that was run by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
But House Republicans used the gun debate to praise both court decisions. “What a great day for the babies, and as the speaker described it, the Trump-McConnell Supreme Court,” said Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis.
Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., said the firearms decision has “electrified the country and left radicals seething — the Constitution means what it says.”
In the Senate, every Democrat and 15 Republicans backed the compromise. Just two of those GOP senators face reelection next year.
But overall, fewer than one-third of GOP senators and just 1-in-15 House Republicans supported the measure. That means the fate of future congressional action on guns seems dubious, even as the GOP is expected to win House and possibly Senate control in the November elections.
McConnell kept careful tabs on the negotiations that produced the bill and voted for it, partly in hopes it would attract moderate suburban voters whose support the GOP will need in its November bid for Senate control. In contrast, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other GOP leaders of the more conservative House opposed it.
The legislation was opposed by firearms groups like the National Rifle Association. But groups backing gun curbs like Brady and Everytown for Gun Safety weren’t the only ones backing it. Support also came from the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
The talks that produced the bill were led by Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
Under the compromise, background checks for gun buyers age 18 to 20 will now include an examination of their local juvenile records. The accused shooters in Uvalde and Buffalo were both 18.
People convicted of domestic abuse who are current or former romantic partners of the victim — not simply spouses or people who lived or had children with the person they abused — will be prohibited from acquiring firearms. That closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole.”
There will be money to help states enforce “red flag” laws that help authorities temporarily take guns from people considered threatening and for other states’ violence prevention programs. More people who sell weapons would have to become federally licensed gun dealers and need to conduct background checks.
Penalties for gun trafficking are strengthened, billions of dollars are provided for behavioral health clinics and school mental health programs and there’s money for school safety initiatives, though not for personnel to use a “dangerous weapon.”
Morocco: 18 migrants dead in stampede to enter Melilla
Eighteen Africans seeking to cross into Spain were killed and scores of migrants and police were injured in what Moroccan authorities called a “stampede” of people surging across Morocco’s border fence with the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla on Friday.
A total of 133 migrants breached the border between the Moroccan city of Nador and Melilla on Friday, the first such mass crossing since Spain and Morocco mended diplomatic relations last month. A spokesperson for the Spanish government’s office in Melilla said about 2,000 people attempted to cross, but many were stopped by Spanish Civil Guard police and Moroccan forces on either side of the border fence.
Morocco’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that the casualties occurred when people tried to climb the iron fence. It said five migrants were killed and 76 injured, and 140 Moroccan security officers were injured.
READ: Nigeria attacks: Hundreds reported killed as bandits target villages
Thirteen of the injured migrants later died in the hospital, raising the death toll to 18, according to Morocco’s official news agency MAP., which cited local authorities. The Moroccan Human Rights Association reported 27 dead but the figure could immediately be confirmed.
Spanish officials said 49 Civil Guards sustained minor injuries. Four police vehicles were damaged by rocks thrown by some migrants.
Those who succeeded in crossing went to a local migrant center, where authorities were evaluating their circumstances.
People fleeing poverty and violence sometimes make mass attempts to reach Melilla and the other Spanish territory on the North African coast, Ceuta, as a springboard to continental Europe.
Spain normally relies on Morocco to keep migrants away from the border.
Over two days at the beginning of March, more than 3,500 people tried to scale the six-meter (20-foot) barrier that surrounds Melilla and nearly 1,000 made it across, according to Spanish authorities.
Friday’s crossings were the first attempt since relations between Spain and Morocco improved in March after a year-long dispute centered on the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1976.
Morocco loosened its controls around Ceuta last year, allowing thousands of migrants to cross into Spain. The move was viewed as retaliation for Spain’s decision to allow the leader of Western Sahara’s pro-independence movement to be treated for COVID-19 at a Spanish hospital.
Tensions between the two countries began to thaw earlier this year after Spain backed Morocco’s plan to grant more autonomy to Western Sahara, where activists are seeking full independence
Internet shutdowns hurt human rights, economy, daily life: UN
The real-life effects of shutdowns of the internet on people's lives and human rights are vastly underestimated, according to the UN human rights office.
When major communication channels and networks are slowed down or blocked, this means thousands, even millions of people are deprived of their only means of reaching loved ones, medical assistance, and participating in political debates or decisions, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) report published Thursday said.
"When you see a shutdown happen, it's time to start worrying about human rights," Peggy Hicks, director of the Thematic Engagement, Special Procedures and Right to Development Division of the OHCHR, said.
Shutdowns deepen digital divides between and within countries and are happening in places where there are deteriorating human rights situations, Peggy added.
At a time when substantial development aid is directed towards enhancing connectivity in less developed countries, some of the beneficiaries of that assistance are themselves deepening the digital divide through shutdowns.
At least 27 of the 46 least developed countries implemented shutdowns between 2016 and 2021 despite receiving support to increase their Internet connectivity, Peggy said.
The first major internet shutdown took place in Egypt in 2011, during the Tahrir Square protests that led to hundreds of arrests and killings.
Shutdowns can mean a complete block on internet connectivity, but governments also increasingly ban access to major communication platforms and limit bandwidth and mobile services to 2G transfer speeds, making it difficult to share and watch videos or live picture broadcasts.
Many states refuse to acknowledge interfering in communications or putting pressure on telecom companies to prevent them from sharing information.
The official justification for the shutdowns was unknown in 228 cases reported by civil society across 55 countries.
When authorities recognise having ordered disruptions, justifications often point to public safety, containing the spread of hostility or violence, or combating disinformation.
Yet, shutdowns often achieve the exact opposite. According to Peggy, "199 shutdowns were justified by public safety concerns, and 150 were based on national security grounds. But many of those shutdowns were followed by spikes in violence."
When a state shuts down the internet, both people and economies suffer. The costs to jobs, education, healthcare, and political participation virtually always exceed any hoped-for benefit.
"We call on states to stop doing this, stop imposing shutdowns. Shutdowns are simply never the best answer. Their costs are simply too great to economies, democracy, and people's daily lives," Peggy said.
Also read: The limits of analog censorship in a digital era
Death toll from Afghanistan’s quake rises to 1,150 people
The death toll from a devastating earthquake in Afghanistan continued to climb days after it turned brick and stone homes into rubble, killing 1,150 people and wounding scores more, according to the latest figures carried in state media on Friday.
The country of 38 million people was already in the midst of a spiraling economic crisis that had plunged millions deep into poverty with over a million children at risk of severe malnutrition.
The magnitude 6 quake has left thousands without shelter. State media reported that close to 3,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged in Wednesday’s earthquake.
Aid organizations like the local Red Crescent and World Food Program have stepped in to assist the most vulnerable families with food and other emergency needs like tents and sleeping mats in Paktika province, the epicenter of the earthquake, and neighboring Khost province.
Still, residents appeared to be largely on their own to deal with the aftermath as their new Taliban-led government and the international aid community struggle to bring in help. Villagers have been burying their dead and digging through the rubble by hand in search of survivors.
The Taliban director of the state-run Bakhtar News Agency said Friday the death toll had risen to 1,150 people from previous reports of 1,000 killed. Abdul Wahid Rayan said at least 1,600 people were injured.
Also Read: India sends team to help with deadly Afghanistan earthquake
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has put the death toll at 770 people.
It’s not clear how death toll counts are being reached, given the difficulties of accessing and communicating with the impacted villages. Either grim toll would make the quake Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades.
In the district of Gayan, at least 1,000 homes were damaged by the earthquake. Another 800 homes in the Spera district of Khost province were also damaged. While modern buildings withstand magnitude 6 earthquakes elsewhere, Afghanistan’s mud-brick homes and landslide-prone mountains make such quakes more dangerous.
In villages across Gayan district, toured by Associated Press journalists for hours Thursday, families who had spent the previous rainy night out in the open lifted pieces of timber of collapsed roofs and pulled away stones by hand, looking for missing loved ones. Taliban fighters circulated in vehicles in the area, but only a few were seen helping dig through the rubble.
There was little sign of heavy equipment — only one bulldozer was spotted being transported. Ambulances circulated, but little other help to the living was evident.
Many international aid agencies withdrew from Afghanistan when the Taliban seized power last August. Those that remain are scrambling to get medical supplies, food and tents to the remote quake-struck area, using shoddy mountain roads made worse by damage and rains. U.N. agencies are also facing a $3 billion funding shortfall for Afghanistan this year.
Germany, Norway and several other countries announced they were sending aid for the quake, but underscored that they would work only through U.N. agencies, not with the Taliban, which no government has officially recognized as of yet.
Trucks of food and other necessities arrived from Pakistan, and planes full of humanitarian aid landed from Iran and Qatar. India humanitarian relief and a technical team to the capital, Kabul, to coordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance. India says its aid will be handed over to a U.N. agency on the ground and the Afghan Red Crescent Society.
In Paktika province, the quake shook a region of deep poverty, where residents scrape out in a living in the few fertile areas among the rough mountains. Roads are so difficult that some villages in Gayan District took a full day to reach from Kabul, though it is only 175 kilometers (110 miles away.)
One 6-year-old boy in Gayan wept as he said his parents, two sisters and a brother were all dead. He had fled the ruins of his own home and took refuge with the neighbors.
India sends team to help with deadly Afghanistan earthquake
India said it sent a technical team to Kabul to coordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance after a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan that state media reported killed 1,000 people.
India’s External Affairs Ministry said the team has been deployed to its embassy in the Afghan capital. The embassy has been vacant since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August.
A ministry statement on Thursday didn’t give details about the technical team or any relief material sent to Afghanistan. It said team was sent to “closely monitor and coordinate the efforts of various stakeholders for the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance” as part of a “continuation of our engagement with the Afghan people.”
Also Read: Afghans bury dead, dig for survivors of devastating quake
Residents in the hardest-hit district appeared to largely be on their own in trying to survive after the quake, with the Taliban-led government and the international aid community struggling to bring in help.
India was left with no diplomatic presence in Kabul after it evacuated its staff ahead of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year. But it has sent 20,000 tons of wheat, 13 tons of medicines, 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines and winter clothing to Afghanistan to help with shortages there since then, according to the External Affairs Ministry.
Indian officials held talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan for the first time early this month to discuss the distribution of humanitarian assistance.
India’s envoys have met previously with Taliban representatives in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where they have an office.
India has said it will follow the lead of the United Nations in deciding whether to recognize the Taliban government.
6 die in crash of Vietnam-era helicopter in West Virginia
A Vietnam-era helicopter showcased in action movies crashed on a rural West Virginia road, killing all six people on board, during an annual reunion for helicopter enthusiasts.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the Bell UH-1B “Huey” helicopter crashed along Route 17 in Logan County about 5 p.m. Wednesday.
All six people on board were killed, said Ray Bryant, chief of operations for the Logan County emergency ambulance service authority. The helicopter crashed in clear weather on a road near the local airport, he said.
“The entire cab of it was on fire,” Bryant said in a phone interview Thursday.
“It was recognized by the first responders as being a helicopter from this area because we see it a lot,” he said.
The crash occurred during an annual reunion for helicopter enthusiasts at MARPAT Aviation in Logan. It was scheduled to begin Tuesday and end Sunday, according to MARPAT's website.
During the event, visitors could sign up to ride or fly the historic helicopter, described by organizers as one of the last of its kind still flying.
Read: Medical helicopter crashes near church; all 4 aboard survive
The helicopter was flown by the 114th Assault Helicopter Company, “The Knights of the Sky,” in Vinh Long, Vietnam, throughout much of the 1960s, according to MARPAT. After the Huey returned to the U.S. in 1971, the website says, it was featured in movies like “Die Hard, “The Rock” and “Under Siege: Dark Territory."
Neither reunion organizers nor MARPAT officials returned requests for comment Thursday.
Patty Belcher, who lives nearby, was driving to the store when she came upon the crash.
“There was smoke so thick that you couldn’t hardly see nothing but smoke and flames," she said by phone Thursday. "It was coming down the ditch line on the righthand side, and I said, ‘My God, I better turn around. It might catch this truck on fire.’ So I turned around and came back.”
The crash was near the Battle of Blair Mountain historic sites, where a deadly clash erupted a century ago as thousands of coal miners marched to unionize in West Virginia.
Read: Pakistan army helicopter crashes in Kashmir; 2 pilots killed
Bobbi Childs saw smoke and flames and got close enough to see a man who was trapped.
“I saw that there was a guy trapped, I guess the captain. I tried to get down to the door where he was at. You could see him plain as day. I tried to get to him, but the fire was too hot. I couldn’t get to him,” Childs told WOWK-TV.
The road was expected to remain closed for at least 24 hours. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. ___
Willingham reported from Charleston, W.Va. Schreiner reported from Frankfort, Ky.
US sending advanced rocket systems, other aid to Ukraine
The United States will send another $450 million in military aid to Ukraine, including some additional medium-range rocket systems, to help push back Russian progress in the war, officials announced Thursday.
The latest package includes four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, which will double the number they have now. All four were prepositioned in Europe, and training on those systems has already begun with the Ukrainian troops who will use them, said Marine Corps Lt. Col. Anton Semelroth, a Pentagon spokesman. The first four HIMARS that the U.S. previously sent have already gone to the battlefield in Ukraine and are in the hands of troops there.
Read:European Union leaders set to grant Ukraine candidate status
According to the Pentagon, the aid also includes 18 tactical vehicles that are used to tow howitzers, so the weapons can be moved around the battlefield, as well as 18 coastal and riverine patrol boats, thousands of machine guns, grenade launchers and rounds of ammunition, and some other equipment and spare parts.
The new aid comes just a week after the U.S. announced it was sending $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and as the Russian military continues to slowly expand its control in the eastern Donbas region. Ukrainian leaders have persistently asked for the more advanced, precision rocket systems in order to better fight back against Russia.
The Russian military captured two villages in eastern Ukraine on Thursday and is fighting for control of a key highway in a campaign to cut supply lines and encircle frontline Ukrainian forces, according to British and Ukrainian military officials.
Russian forces have been bombarding the city of Sievierodonetsk for weeks with artillery and air raids, and fought the Ukrainian army house-to-house. The HIMARS gives Ukraine the ability to strike Russian forces and weapons from further away, making it less risky for Ukrainian troops. The systems are mounted on trucks, which carry a container with six precision-guided rockets that can travel about 45 miles (70 kilometers).
Read:‘It’s just hell there’: Russia still pounds eastern Ukraine
It took about three weeks to train Ukrainian troops on the first four HIMARS, before the systems were moved to the fight.
The aid is part of the $40 billion in security and economic assistance passed last month by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden. And it is the 13th package of military weapons and equipment committed to Ukraine since the war began.
Overall, since the war started in late February, the U.S. has committed about $6.1 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, including this latest package. The $450 million in equipment and weapons will be from drawdown authority, which means the Defense Department will take it all from its own stocks and ship it to Ukraine.
COVID vaccines saved 20M lives in 1st year, scientists say
Nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached, researchers reported Thursday.
On Dec. 8, 2020, a retired shop clerk in England received the first shot in what would become a global vaccination campaign. Over the next 12 months, more than 4.3 billion people around the world lined up for the vaccines.
The effort, though marred by persisting inequities, prevented deaths on an unimaginable scale, said Oliver Watson of Imperial College London, who led the new modeling study.
Read: WTO holds big meeting to tackle vaccines, food shortages
“Catastrophic would be the first word that comes to mind,” Watson said of the outcome if vaccines hadn't been available to fight the coronavirus. The findings “quantify just how much worse the pandemic could have been if we did not have these vaccines."
The researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom.
An additional 600,000 deaths would have been prevented if the World Health Organization target of 40% vaccination coverage by the end of 2021 had been met, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The main finding — 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented — is based on estimates of how many more deaths than usual occurred during the time period. Using only reported COVID-19 deaths, the same model yielded 14.4 million deaths averted by vaccines.
The London scientists excluded China because of uncertainty around the pandemic’s effect on deaths there and its huge population.
The study has other limitations. The researchers did not include how the virus might have mutated differently in the absence of vaccines. And they did not factor in how lockdowns or mask wearing might have changed if vaccines weren’t available.
Another modeling group used a different approach to estimate that 16.3 million COVID-19 deaths were averted by vaccines. That work, by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, has not been published.
Read: COVID-19: Urgent action sought to close vaccine equity gap
In the real world, people wear masks more often when cases are surging, said the institute's Ali Mokdad, and 2021's delta wave without vaccines would have prompted a major policy response.
“We may disagree on the number as scientists, but we all agree that COVID vaccines saved lots of lives," Mokdad said.
The findings underscore both the achievements and the shortcomings of the vaccination campaign, said Adam Finn of Bristol Medical School in England, who like Mokdad was not involved in the study.
“Although we did pretty well this time — we saved millions and millions of lives — we could have done better and we should do better in the future," Finn said.
Funding came from several groups including the WHO; the UK Medical Research Council; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Myanmar says Suu Kyi held alone in new prison quarters
Myanmar’s military government on Thursday confirmed that ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved to a prison compound in quarters separate from other detainees.
Suu Kyi was arrested on Feb. 1, 2021, when the army seized power from her elected government. She was initially held at her residence in Naypyitaw, the capital, but was later moved to at least one other location. For most of the past year, she has been held at an undisclosed location in Naypyitaw, generally believed to be on a military base.
Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesperson for the ruling military council, confirmed in a text message to journalists that Suu Kyi was moved on Wednesday to the main prison in Naypyitaw, where she is being held separately in “well-kept” circumstances. News of her transfer had been reported Wednesday but not officially confirmed.
He said Suu Kyi, having already been convicted in several cases, was transferred to the prison in accordance with the law.
Read:Myanmar's Suu Kyi moved from secret location to prison
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “very concerned” about the latest developments isolating Suu Kyi, which go against U.N. calls for her release and the release of all other political prisoners, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, adding “we are concerned for her state.”
A legal official familiar with Suu Kyi’s court proceedings said she is being held in a newly constructed building with three policewomen, whose duty is to assist her. Her ongoing trials will also be held at the prison, in another newly constructed facility. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to release any information about her cases.
Suu Kyi, who turned 77 on Sunday, spent about 15 years in detention under a previous military government, but virtually all of it was under house arrest at her family home in Yangon, the country’s biggest city.
The secret location where she had been held for most of the past year was a residence. She had nine people to help her there, and was allowed to keep a dog that was a gift arranged by one of her sons, said another legal official, who also asked not to be named for fear or repercussions from the government.
The official said neither her assistants nor the dog accompanied Suu Kyi to her new prison quarters.
Suu Kyi is being tried on multiple charges, including corruption. Her supporters say the charges are politically motivated to discredit her and legitimize the military’s seizure of power.
She has already been sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment on charges of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions, sedition and an initial count of corruption.
Read:Myanmar court sentences Suu Kyi to 5 years for corruption
The prison where Suu Kyi is being held is slightly west of Naypyitaw. It was constructed in 2014 to temporarily hold detainees awaiting trial.
One of the legal officials said Suu Kyi’s first hearing in the new prison courtroom was held Thursday in the case of violating the Official Secrets Act.
Defense lawyers cross examined three prosecution witnesses but details of their testimony was not available. All of Suu Kyi’s cases have been held in closed hearings. Her lawyers are prohibited from discussing the proceedings.
Suu Kyi’s co-defendants in the case are Australian economist Sean Turnell, who had been her advisor, and three former Cabinet members.
Turnell is also being held at the same prison with Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi is also being tried on 11 counts of corruption, each of which carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years, and an election fraud charge, which carries a maximum sentence of three years.
The military’s takeover last year triggered peaceful nationwide protests that security forces quashed with lethal force, triggering armed resistance that some U.N. experts now characterize as civil war.
The ruling military council has said it plans to hold new elections around the middle of next year if circumstances permit. However, critics caution such polls are unlikely to be free and fair.
Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said Thursday that the military has been working hard to “create an impression of legitimacy” after ousting Suu Kyi’s government.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in a November 2020 general election. The army claimed it seized power because the polls were marred by widespread fraud — an allegation was not corroborated by independent election observers.
“Any suggestion that there could be any possibility of a free and fair election in Myanmar in 2023 is frankly preposterous,” Andrews said at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “You can’t have a free and fair election if you locked up your opponents.”