United News of Bangladesh

The British Columbia Coroners Service has confirmed the discovery of three more bodies near the village of Pemberton, bringing to four the number of people who died in a landslide caused by heavy rains that swept vehicles off the road. The search continues for a fifth body, chief coroner Lisa Lapointe said in a statement Saturday. The mudslide occurred Monday when a wave of rock and debris covered a section of the highway between Lillooet and Pemberton. Read:10 bodies, 9 hanging from overpass, found in central Mexico The body of a woman was recovered Monday. Lapointe said another body was recovered Wednesday and two additional bodies were found on Thursday. “Efforts continued Friday to locate a fifth person reported as missing, but unfortunately those attempts were unsuccessful,” she said. The British Columbia government announced Friday it is limiting the amount of fuel people can purchase at gas stations in some parts of the province and is restricting nonessential travel as highways begin to reopen following the storms. Read:State of emergency in British Columbia; more deaths expected Provincial Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said nonessential vehicles will be limited to about eight gallons (30 liters) per trip to the gas station. The order is expected to last until Dec. 1. Environment Canada says 24 B.C. communities received close to 4 inches (100 millimeters) of rain from Saturday to Monday. The precautionary closure of the Trans Mountain Pipeline during the flooding has raised concerns about a fuel shortage in province’s Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.

Over 2,000 migrants, mainly Central Americans, began walking out of a city in southern Mexico on Saturday where they have essentially been trapped. The migrants walked along a highway leading west and north toward the U.S. border, and pushed past a line of state police who were trying to stop them. There were minor scuffles and a small child suffered a slight head wound, but the migrants continued on their way. Read: Ransomed and beaten: Migrants face abuse in Libyan detention They made it only a few miles (kilometers) to the nearby village of Alvaro Obregon before stopping to rest for the night at a baseball field. José Antonio, a migrant from Honduras who did not want to give his last name because he fears it could affect his case, said he had been waiting in Tapachula for two months for an answer on his request for some sort of visa. “They told me I had to wait because the appointments were full,” said the construction worker. “There is no work there (in Tapachula), so out of necessity I joined this group.” He said he hopes to make it to the northern city of Monterrey to find work, adding “We'll go on, day by day, to get as far as we can.” Police, immigration agents and National Guard have broken up smaller attempts at similar breakouts earlier this year. Tens of thousands of migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Haiti have been waiting in the southern city of Tapachula for refugee or asylum papers that might allow them to travel, but have grown tired of delays in the process. Unlike previous marches, the one that started Saturday from Tapachula did not include as many Haitian migrants, thousands of whom reached the U.S. border around Del Rio, Texas in September. In August, National Guard troops in riot gear blocked several hundred Haitians, Cubans and Central Americans who set out walking on a highway from Tapachula. Read:Many migrants staying in US even as expulsion flights rise Mexico requires migrants applying for humanitarian visas or asylum to remain in the border state of Chiapas, next to Guatemala, for their cases to be processed. In January, a larger caravan of migrants tried to leave Honduras but was blocked from crossing Guatemala. The marches are reminiscent, but nowhere near as large, as the migrant caravans that crossed Mexico in 2018 and 2019.

Tropical Storm Pamela is picking up momentum in the Pacific off Mexico and forecasters say it should be back to hurricane strength again before striking the coast north of the port of Mazatlan on Wednesday. After weakening to a tropical storm Tuesday afternoon, Pamela was centered about 170 miles (275 kilometers) west-southwest of Mazatlan late Tuesday and was moving north-northeast at about 12 mph (19 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm had maximum winds of about 70 mph (110 kph). Read: Hurricane battered Louisiana braces for Nicholas drenching Pamela was forecast to pass well to the south of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula during the night while accelerating its forward movement toward the coast and regaining wind strength. The hurricane center warned of the possibility of life-threatening storm surges, flash floods and dangerous winds around the impact area. Pamela was then forecast to weaken while crossing over northern Mexico and could approach the Texas border as a tropical depression by Thursday. The center said remnants of the storm could carry heavy rain to central Texas and southeast Oklahoma.

A team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board was at the site of an Amtrak derailment in north-central Montana that killed three people and left seven hospitalized Sunday, officials said. The westbound Empire Builder was en route from Chicago to Seattle when it left the tracks about 4 p.m. Saturday near Joplin, a town of about 200. Trevor Fossen was first on the scene. The Joplin resident was on a dirt road nearing the tracks Saturday when he saw “a wall of dust” about 300 feet high. “I started looking at that, wondering what it was and then I saw the train had tipped over and derailed,” said Fossen, who called 911 and started trying to get people out. He called his brother to bring ladders for people who couldn’t get down after exiting through the windows of cars resting on their sides. The train was carrying about 141 passengers and 16 crew members and had two locomotives and 10 cars, eight of which derailed, Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams said. A 14-member team including investigators and specialists in railroad signals would look into the cause of the derailment on a BNSF Railway main track that involved no other trains or equipment, said NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss. Read:Sheriff’s office: At least 3 killed in Amtrak derailment Law enforcement said the officials from the NTSB, Amtrak and BNSF had arrived at the accident scene just west of Joplin, where the tracks cut through vast, golden brown wheat fields that were recently harvested. Several large cranes were brought to the tracks that run roughly parallel to U.S. Highway 2, along with a truckload of gravel and new railroad ties. Several rail cars could still be seen on their sides. The accident scene is about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northeast of Helena and about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the Canadian border. Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn expressed condolences to those who lost loved ones and said the company is working with the NTSB, Federal Railroad Administration and local law enforcement, sharing their “sense of urgency” to determine what happened. “The NTSB will identify the cause or causes of this accident, and Amtrak commits to taking appropriate actions to prevent a similar accident in the future,” Flynn said in the statement. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said BNSF was readying replacement track for when the NTSB gives the go-head. “BNSF has assured me they can get the line up and running in short order,” he said. Railroad safety expert David Clarke, director of the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee, said accident scene photos show the derailment occurred at or near a switch, which is where the railway goes from a single track to a double track. Clarke said the two locomotives and two cars at the front of the train reached the split and continued on the main track, but the remaining eight cars derailed. He said it was unclear if some of the last cars moved onto the second track. “Did the switch play some role? It might have been that the front of the train hit the switch and it started fish-tailing and that flipped the back part of the train,” Clarke said. Another possibility was a defect in the rail, Clarke said, noting that regular testing doesn’t always catch such problems. He said speed was not a likely factor because trains on that line have systems that prevent excessive speeds and collisions. Read:Trudeau's Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority Matt Jones, a BNSF Railway spokesman said at a news conference that the track where the accident occurred was last inspected Thursday. Because of the derailment, Sunday’s westbound Empire Builder from Chicago will terminate in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the eastbound train will originate in Minnesota. Most of those on the train were treated and released for their injuries, but five who were more seriously hurt remained at the Benefis Health System hospital in Great Falls, Montana, said Sarah Robbin, Liberty County emergency services coordinator. Two were in the intensive care unit, a hospital spokeswoman said. Another two people were at Logan Health, a hospital in Kalispell, Montana, spokeswoman Melody Sharpton said. Robbin said emergency crews struggled without success to cut open cars with special tools, “so they did have to manually carry out many of the passengers that could not walk.” Liberty County Sheriff Nick Erickson said the names of the dead would not be released until relatives are notified. Robbin said nearby residents rushed to offer help when the derailment occurred. “We are so fortunate to live where we do, where neighbors help neighbors,” she said. “The locals have been so amazing and accommodating,” passenger Jacob Cordeiro said on Twitter. “They provided us with food, drinks, and wonderful hospitality. Nothing like it when the best comes together after a tragedy.” Cordeiro, who is from Rhode Island, just graduated from college and was traveling with his father to Seattle to celebrate. Read:Canada begins allowing vaccinated US citizens to visit again “I was in one of the front cars and we got badly jostled, thrown from one side of the train to the other,” he told MSNBC. He said the car left the tracks, but did not fall over. “I’m a pretty big guy and it picked me up from my chair and threw me into one wall and then threw me into the other wall,” Cordeiro said. Chester Councilwoman Rachel Ghekiere said she and others helped about 50 to 60 passengers who were brought to a school..” A grocery store in Chester, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the derailment, and a nearby religious community provided food, she said. Allan Zarembski, director of the University of Delaware’s Railway Engineering and Safety Program, said he didn’t want to speculate but suspected the derailment stemmed from an issue with the train track, equipment, or both. Railways have “virtually eliminated” major derailments by human error after the implementation of positive train control nationwide, Zarembski said. He said NTSB findings could take months. Bob Chipkevich, who oversaw railroad crash investigations for several years at the NTSB, said the agency won’t rule out human error or any other potential causes for now. “There are still human performance issues examined by NTSB to be sure that people doing the work are qualified and rested and doing it properly,” Chipkevich said. Chipkevich said track conditions have historically been a significant cause of train accidents and noted most of the track Amtrak uses is owned by freight railroads and must depend on those companies for safety maintenance.

At least three people were killed Saturday afternoon when an Amtrak train that runs between Seattle and Chicago derailed in north-central Montana, an official with the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office said. Dispatcher Starr Tyler told The Associated Press that three people died in the derailment. She did not have more details. Amtrak said in a statement that there were multiple injuries. The Empire Builder train derailed about 4 p.m. near Joplin, a town of about 200, Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams said in a statement. The accident scene is about 150 miles (241 kilometers) north of Helena and about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the border with Canada. The train had about 146 passengers and 16 crew members onboard, Abrams said. Read:Trudeau's Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority The train consisted of two locomotives and 10 cars, with seven of those cars derailing, he said. Megan Vandervest, a passenger on the train who was going to visit a friend in Seattle, told The New York Times that she was awakened by the derailment. “My first thought was that we were derailing because, to be honest, I have anxiety and I had heard stories about trains derailing,” said Vandervest, who is from Minneapolis. “My second thought was that’s crazy. We wouldn’t be derailing. Like, that doesn’t happen.” She told the Times that the car behind hers was tilted over, the one behind that was entirely tipped over, and the three cars behind that “had completely fallen off the tracks and were detached from the train.” Speaking from the Liberty County Senior Center, where passengers were being taken, Vandervest said it felt like “extreme turbulence on a plane.” Read:Canada begins allowing vaccinated US citizens to visit again Amtrak was working with the local authorities to transport injured passengers and safely evacuate all other passengers, Abrams added. The National Transportation Safety Board will send a 14-member team, including investigators and specialists in railroad signals and other disciplines, to investigate the crash, spokesman Eric Weiss said. Five Amtrak cars derailed around 3:55 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time and no other trains or equipment were involved, Weiss said. The train was traveling on a BNSF Railroad main track at the time, he said. Photos posted to social media showed several cars on their sides. Passengers were standing alongside the tracks, some carrying luggage. The images showed sunny skies, and it appeared the accident occurred along a straight section of tracks. Amtrak said that because of the derailment, the Sunday westbound Empire Builder will terminate in Minneapolis, and the Sunday eastbound Empire Builder train will originate in Minneapolis. Read:Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US Other recent Amtrak derailments include: — April 3, 2016: Two maintenance workers were struck and killed by an Amtrak train going more than 100 mph in Chester, Pennsylvania. The lead engine of the train derailed. — March 14, 2016: An Amtrak train traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago derailed in southwest Kansas, sending five cars off the tracks and injuring at least 32 people. Investigators concluded that a cattle feed delivery truck hit the track and shifted it at least a foot before the derailment. — Oct. 5, 2015: A passenger train headed from Vermont to Washington, D.C., derailed when it hit rocks that had fallen onto the track from a ledge. The locomotive and a passenger car spilled down an embankment, derailing three other cars and injuring seven people. — May 12, 2015: Amtrak Train 188 was traveling at twice the 50 mph speed limit as it entered a sharp curve in Philadelphia and derailed. Eight people were killed and more than 200 were injured when the locomotive and four of the train’s seven passenger cars jumped the tracks. Several cars overturned and ripped apart.

Canadians gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party a victory in Monday's parliamentary elections, but his gamble to win a majority of seats failed and nearly mirrored the result of two years ago. The Liberals won the most seats of any party. The 49-year-old Trudeau channeled the star power of his father, the Liberal icon and late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, when he first won election in 2015 and has led his party to the top finish in two elections since. Trudeau’s Liberals were leading or elected in 156 seats — one less than they won 2019, and 14 short of the 170 needed for a majority in the House of Commons. The Conservatives were leading or elected in 121 seats, the same number they won in 2019. The leftist New Democrats were leading or elected in 27, a gain of three seats, while the Quebec-based Bloc Québécois remained unchanged with 32 seats and the Greens were down to two. “You are sending us back to work with a clear mandate to get Canada through this pandemic,” Trudeau said. Read: Trudeau criticized for calling Canadian election in 4th wave “I hear you when you say you just want to get back to the things you love and not worry about this pandemic or an election." Trudeau entered the election leading a stable minority government that wasn’t under threat of being toppled. The opposition was relentless in accusing Trudeau of calling an unnecessary early vote — two years before the deadline — for his own personal ambition. “Trudeau lost his gamble to get a majority so I would say this is a bittersweet victory for him,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. “Basically we are back to square one, as the new minority parliament will look like the previous one. Trudeau and the Liberals saved their skin and will stay in power, but many Canadians who didn’t want this late summer, pandemic election are probably not amused about the whole situation,” he said. Trudeau bet Canadians didn’t want a Conservative government during a pandemic. Canada is now among the most fully vaccinated countries in the world and Trudeau’s government spent hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up the economy amid lockdowns. Trudeau argued that the Conservatives’ approach, which has been skeptical of lockdowns and vaccine mandates, would be dangerous and says Canadians need a government that follows science. Conservative leader Erin O’Toole didn’t require his party’s candidates to be vaccinated and would not say how many were unvaccinated. O’Toole described vaccination as a personal health decision, but a growing number of vaccinated Canadians are increasingly upset with those who refuse to get vaccinated. “The debate on vaccination and Trudeau taking on the anti-vaccination crowd helped the Liberals to salvage a campaign that didn’t start well for the party,” Beland said. Trudeau supports making vaccines mandatory for Canadians to travel by air or rail, something the Conservatives oppose. And Trudeau has pointed out that Alberta, run by a Conservative provincial government, is in crisis. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, an ally of O’Toole, said the province might run out of beds and staff for intensive care units within days. Kenney apologized for the dire situation and is now reluctantly introducing a vaccine passport and imposing a mandatory work-from-home order two months after lifting nearly all restrictions. Read:Trudeau denounces truck attack that targeted Muslim family “Hubris led Trudeau to call the election. He and the Liberals won the election but lost the prize they were seeking. This is only a great night for the Liberals because two weeks ago it appeared they would lose government outright something they could not fathom before they gambled on an election,” said Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto. Wiseman said the Conservatives were hurt by the situation in Alberta. “The explosion of the pandemic in Alberta in the past 10 days undermined O’Toole’s compliments of the Alberta Conservatives on how they had handled the pandemic and reinforced Trudeau’s argument for mandatory vaccinations,” he said. A Conservative win would have represented a rebuke of Trudeau against a politician with a fraction of his name recognition. O’Toole, 47, is a military veteran, former lawyer and a member of Parliament for nine years. “Canadians did not give Mr. Trudeau the majority mandate he wanted,” O’Toole said. O'Toole said he was more determined than ever to continue but his party might dump him after it dumped the previous leader who failed to beat Trudeau in 2019. O’Toole advertised himself a year ago as a “true-blue Conservative.” He became Conservative Party leader with a pledge to “take back Canada,” but immediately started working to push the party toward the political center. O’Toole’s strategy, which included disavowing positions held dear by his party’s base on issues such as climate change, guns and balanced budgets, was designed to appeal to a broader cross section of voters in a country that tends to be far more liberal than its southern neighbor. The son of a long-time politician has faced criticism he will say and do anything to get elected. Whether moderate Canadians believed O’Toole is the progressive conservative he claims to be and whether he alienated traditional Conservatives became central questions of the campaign. Regina Adshade, a 28-year-old Vancouver software developer, said she was bothered that an election was called early, during a pandemic and with wildfires burning in British Columbia. But it didn’t stop her from voting Liberal because the party represents her values. Read: Trudeau looks to Biden for help in dispute with China “I don’t love there was an election right now but it wasn’t going to change my vote,” she said. Trudeau’s legacy includes embracing immigration at a time when the U.S. and other countries closed their doors. He also legalized cannabis nationwide and brought in a carbon tax to fight climate change. And he preserved free trade deal with the U.S. and Mexico amid threats by former U.S. President Donald Trump to scrap the agreement. Former U.S. President Barack Obama and ex-Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton tweeted support for Trudeau. There wasn’t a Trump endorsement of O’Toole. Conservative campaign co-chair Walied Soliman said there is no alignment whatsoever between O’Toole and Trumpism. Soliman said earlier in the day holding Trudeau to a minority government would be a win for O'Toole. Liberals governed Canada for 69 years during the 20th century. Pierre Trudeau called for a “just society” and ran the country with a panache not seen before from a Canadian leader. He is responsible for Canada’s version of the bill of rights and is credited with opening the door wide to immigration. Trudeau's Liberals dominated in Toronto, Canada's largest city and one of the most multicultural cities in the world.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended his decision to call an election during the pandemic in first debate of the campaign for this month’s election. Trudeau is facing a tough re-election battle against his Conservative Party rival, Erin O’Toole. The vote is Sept. 20. “Why did you trigger an election in the middle of a fourth wave?” O’Toole asked Trudeau at the French-language debate in Montreal. Also read: Trudeau announces additional fund for medical research on COVID-19 Trudeau said he needs a mandate from voters. “Almost 80 percent of Canadians have done the right thing, they got vaccinated, twice in fact,” said Trudeau, noting Canada is having a fourth wave because 20 percent are unvaccinated. “And because of them we have to stop democracy from working? No,” Trudeau said. He criticized O’Toole for not requiring his candidates to be vaccinated. O’Toole said he believes the country can find reasonable accommodations for those who are unvaccinated, like rapid testing and social distancing. Four provinces including Quebec and Ontario, Canada’s largest, are bringing in vaccine passports that require citizens to be vaccinated to enter places like restaurants and gyms. Also read: Trudeau says Canada won't retaliate for US mask export ban Trudeau called the election last month seeking to win the majority of seats in Parliament but polls show that is unlikely and that he might even lose power to O’Toole and the Conservative party. Trudeau had wanted to capitalize on the fact that Canada is now one of the most fully vaccinated countries in the world, but the country is now in a fourth wave driven by the delta variant. Daniel Beland, a politics professor at McGill University in Montreal, said Trudeau held his ground. “His combative performance might help stop the bleeding for the Liberals or, at least, reassure his base that he still has fire in his belly,” Beland said. The 49-year-old Trudeau, the son of the late Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, became the second youngest prime minister in Canadian history when he was first elected with a majority of seats in Parliament in 2015. He reasserted liberalism in 2015 after almost 10 years of Conservative Party government in Canada, but scandals combined with high expectations damaged his brand. His father served as prime minister from 1968 to 1984 with a short interruption and remains one of the few Canadian politicians known in other countries.

Canada on Monday is lifting its prohibition on Americans crossing the border to shop, vacation or visit, but the United States is keeping similar restrictions in place for Canadians, part of a bumpy return to normalcy from COVID-19 travel bans. U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents must be both fully vaccinated and test negative for COVID-19 within three days to get across one of the world’s longest and busiest land borders. Travelers also must fill out a detailed on application on the arriveCAN app before crossing. Read:Tribe claims remains of kids who died at assimilation school Even though travelers have to register, the Canada Border Services Agency won’t say how many people they are expecting to enter Canada for the reopening. But travelers should plan for the possibility of additional processing time at the border. “CBSA will not compromise the health and safety of Canadians for the sake of border wait times,” agency spokeswoman Rebecca Purdy said in a statement. While the Canada Border Services Agency won’t say how many people it’s expecting, Garnet Health, an Essex, Vermont-based company that offers same-day COVID-19 testing, has seen the number of tests it performs more than triple in recent weeks. The increase coincides with Canada’s decision last month to drop a two-week quarantine requirement for its citizens when they return home from the U.S. “I imagine once that border opens, we are going to see lots of people,” said Chelsea Sweeney, the company’s director of business development. The U.S.-Canada border has been closed to nonessential travel since March 2020 to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The U.S. has said it will extend its closure to all Canadians making nonessential trips until at least Aug. 21, which also applies to the Mexican border. But the Biden administration is beginning to make plans for a phased reopening. The main requirement would be that nearly all foreign visitors to the U.S. will have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. But Canadians aren’t waiting for reciprocal rules. Joel Villanueva, owner of Primo’s Mexican Grill in White Rock, British Columbia, about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) north of the U.S. border, is more than ready for Americans to return. Read:Canadian Indigenous group says more graves found at new site “Let’s get this thing going,” he said. “A lot of our customers are from the United States, and we are literally minutes from across the border. We welcome our Americans, and we depend on their foot traffic.” Villanueva said he supports people coming who are fully vaccinated and doesn’t think there will be a rush of Americans initially. But if his restaurant and dozens of others along the waterfront could fill some tables with U.S. visitors every day for the rest of the summer, it would be a big financial boost, he said. Near the border in Washington state, Blaine Chamber of Commerce board member Carroll Solomon called the reopening a step in the right direction for businesses. But she also said it was somewhat concerning because of an increase in COVID-19 cases nationwide as the highly contagious delta variant spreads. “For people who need to get up there (to Canada) for family reasons, it’s wonderful,” said Solomon, who also volunteers at the Blaine Visitor Information Center. With all the hoops people need to jump through — being fully vaccinated, getting tested for COVID-19 and uploading that information to an app — she doesn’t think that people will be going to Canada for many day trips. “I have a lot of friends on the Canadian side and would love to go have lunch with somebody, but you can’t just do that; you have to plan days in advance to make sure you can get through,” Solomon said. It’s going to be an event for the Blaine area when Canadians can come down on a regular basis, she said. As far as returning to the United States from Canada, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Jason Givens said there’s no requirement to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test. Read:Unmarked graves found at another Indigenous school in Canada “CBP officers have been processing essential travel throughout the pandemic and remain ready and able to process American citizens and permanent residents returning from Canada,” Givens said by email. Steve Blake, who lives in Stanstead, Quebec, just across the border from Derby Line, Vermont, is hoping his siblings living in the United States will be able to visit Canada soon so they can hold a memorial service for their mother who died in early 2020, just before the pandemic closed the border. But given the requirements, he doesn’t know how quickly that will happen. “I’d like it to be sooner rather than later,” he said.

North, Central and South Americas still bear the global burden of 40% of Covid-19 fatalities and more than 25% of cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Almost 1 million cases were reported in the Americas last week, said Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on Covid-19 for the WHO, Monday. Read:US tops 30 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 In Brazil, around 300,000 cases were recorded last week; in the US, more than 200,000 cases were reported, Maria added. She warned of a peak in the transmission level that has been observed in the region, saying that "they are stuck at a high level of intensity, and cannot quite bring that transmission down." An 11.5% rise in global cases were seen last week, with Europe and the Western Pacific being hit the hardest, Maria said. "The Americas saw a moderate increase of 0.5%, but some countries were plagued by really sharp spikes in transmission possibly due to new variants." Meanwhile, US life expectancy fell by a year and a half in 2020, the largest one-year decline since World War II, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read: Global Covid cases near 190 million The covid-19 pandemic is responsible for around 74% of the overall life expectancy decline. More than 3.3 million Americans died last year, far more than any other year in US history, with Covid-19 accounting for about 11% of those deaths, the health officials said. However, the virus' role varied by race and ethnicity. It was responsible for 90% of the decline in life expectancy among Hispanics, 68% among white people and 59% among Black Americans. For decades, US life expectancy was on the upswing. But that trend stalled in 2015, for several years, before hitting 78 years, 10 months in 2019. Last year, it fell to about 77 years, four months, the CDC said. "South America, Central America and other places around the world need more vaccines if they are going to break this deadly cycle of cases," said Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO's Health Emergencies Program. 

The largest wildfire in the U.S. torched more dry forest landscape in Oregon on Sunday, one of dozens of major blazes burning across the West as critically dangerous fire weather loomed in the coming days. The destructive Bootleg Fire just north of the California border grew to more than 476 square miles (1,210 square kilometers), an area about the size of Los Angeles. Read: Wildfire creates state of emergency in Australian capital Erratic winds fed the blaze, creating dangerous conditions for firefighters, said John Flannigan, an operations section chief on the 2,000-person force battling the flames. “Weather is really against us,” he said. “It’s going to be dry and air is going to be unstable.” Authorities expanded evacuations that now affect some 2,000 residents of a largely rural area of lakes and wildlife refuges. The blaze, which was 22% contained, has burned at least 67 homes and 100 outbuildings while threatening thousands more. At the other end of the state, a fire in the mountains of northeast Oregon grew to more than 17 square miles (44 square kilometers) by Sunday. The Elbow Creek Fire that started Thursday has prompted evacuations in several small, remote communities around the Grande Ronde River about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Walla Walla, Washington. It was 10% contained. Natural features of the area act like a funnel for wind, feeding the flames and making them unpredictable, officials said. In California, a growing wildfire south of Lake Tahoe jumped a highway, prompting more evacuation orders, the closure of the Pacific Crest Trail and the cancellation of an extreme bike ride through the Sierra Nevada. The Tamarack Fire, which was sparked by lightning on July 4, had charred nearly 29 square miles (74 square kilometers) of dry brush and timber as of Sunday morning. The blaze was threatening Markleeville, a small town close to the California-Nevada state line. It has destroyed at least two structures, authorities said. A notice posted Saturday on the 103-mile (165-kilometer) Death Ride’s website said several communities in the area had been evacuated and ordered all bike riders to clear the area. The fire left thousands of bikers and spectators stranded in the small town and racing to get out. Kelli Pennington and her family were camping near the town Friday so her husband could participate in his ninth ride when they were told to leave. They had been watching smoke develop over the course of the day, but were caught off guard by the fire’s quick spread. Read: Western wildfires threatening American Indian tribal lands “It happened so fast,” Pennington said. “We left our tents, hammock and some foods, but we got most of our things, shoved our two kids in the car and left.” About 500 fire personnel were battling the flames Sunday, “focusing on preserving life and property with point protection of structures and putting in containment lines where possible,” the U.S. Forest Service said. Meteorologists predicted critically dangerous fire weather with lightning possible through at least Monday in both California and southern Oregon. “With the very dry fuels, any thunderstorm has the potential to ignite new fire starts,” the National Weather Service in Sacramento, California, said on Twitter. Extremely dry conditions and heat waves tied to climate change have swept the region, making wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. Firefighters said in July they were facing conditions more typical of late summer or fall. Northern California’s Dixie Fire roared to new life Sunday, prompting new evacuation orders in rural communities near the Feather River Canyon. The wildfire, near the 2018 site of the deadliest U.S. blaze in recent memory, was 15% contained and covered 39 square miles. The fire is northeast of the town of Paradise, California, and survivors of that horrific fire that killed 85 people watched warily as the new blaze burned. Officials in Montana identified a firefighter who was seriously burned when flames overtook a crew fighting a small blaze there. Dan Steffensen was flown to a Salt Lake City hospital after the winds shifted suddenly on Friday, engulfing his fire engine near the Wyoming border. A second firefighter escaped without injury and called for help. There were about 70 active large fires and complexes of multiple blazes that have burned nearly 1,659 square miles (4,297 square kilometers) in the U.S., the National Interagency Fire Center said. The U.S. Forest Service said at least 16 major fires were burning in the Pacific Northwest alone.