United News of Bangladesh

Hundreds of blue, green and grey tents are pitched under the sun’s searing rays in downtown Phoenix, a jumble of flimsy canvas and plastic along dusty sidewalks. Here, in the hottest big city in America, thousands of homeless people swelter as the summer’s triple digit temperatures arrive. The stifling tent city has ballooned amid pandemic-era evictions and surging rents that have dumped hundreds more people onto the sizzling streets that grow eerily quiet when temperatures peak in the midafternoon. A heat wave earlier this month brought temperatures of up to 114 degrees (45.5 Celsius) - and it’s only June. Highs reached 118 degrees (47.7 Celsius) last year. “During the summer, it’s pretty hard to find a place at night that’s cool enough to sleep without the police running you off,” said Chris Medlock, a homeless Phoenix man known on the streets as “T-Bone” who carries everything he owns in a small backpack and often beds down in a park or a nearby desert preserve to avoid the crowds. “If a kind soul could just offer a place on their couch indoors maybe more people would live,” Medlock said at a dining room where homeless people can get some shade and a free meal. Excessive heat causes more weather-related deaths in the United States than hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes combined. Around the country, heat contributes to some 1,500 deaths annually, and advocates estimate about half of those people are homeless. Temperatures are rising nearly everywhere because of global warming, combining with brutal drought in some places to create more intense, frequent and longer heat waves. The past few summers have been some of the hottest on record. Just in the county that includes Phoenix, at least 130 homeless people were among the 339 individuals who died from heat-associated causes in 2021. “If 130 homeless people were dying in any other way it would be considered a mass casualty event,” said Kristie L. Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington. It’s a problem that stretches across the United States, and now, with rising global temperatures, heat is no longer a danger just in places like Phoenix. This summer will likely bring above-normal temperatures over most land areas worldwide, according to a seasonal map that volunteer climatologists created for the International Research Institute at Columbia University. Read: 1 billion people have mental disorders: WHO Last summer, a heat wave blasted the normally temperate U.S. Northwest and had Seattle residents sleeping in their yards and on roofs, or fleeing to hotels with air conditioning. Across the state, several people presumed to be homeless died outdoors, including a man slumped behind a gas station. In Oregon, officials opened 24-hour cooling centers for the first time. Volunteer teams fanned out with water and popsicles to homeless encampments on Portland’s outskirts. A quick scientific analysis concluded last year’s Pacific Northwest heat wave was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change adding several degrees and toppling previous records. Even Boston is exploring ways to protect diverse neighborhoods like its Chinatown, where population density and few shade trees help drive temperatures up to 106 degrees (41 Celsius) some summer days. The city plans strategies like increasing tree canopy and other kinds of shade, using cooler materials for roofs, and expanding its network of cooling centers during heat waves. It’s not just a U.S. problem. An Associated Press analysis last year of a dataset published by the Columbia University’s climate school found exposure to extreme heat has tripled and now affects about a quarter of the world’s population. This spring, an extreme heat wave gripped much of Pakistan and India, where homelessness is widespread due to discrimination and insufficient housing. The high in Jacobabad, Pakistan near the border with India hit 122 degrees (50 Celsius) in May. Dr. Dileep Mavalankar, who heads the Indian Institute of Public Health in the western Indian city Gandhinagar, said because of poor reporting it’s unknown how many die in the country from heat exposure. Summertime cooling centers for homeless, elderly and other vulnerable populations have opened in several European countries each summer since a heat wave killed 70,000 people across Europe in 2003. Emergency service workers on bicycles patrol Madrid’s streets, distributing ice packs and water in the hot months. Still, some 1,300 people, most of them elderly, continue to die in Spain each summer because of health complications exacerbated by excess heat. Spain and southern France last week sweltered through unusually hot weather for mid-June, with temperatures hitting 104 degrees (40 Celsius) in some areas. Climate scientist David Hondula, who heads Phoenix’s new office for heat mitigation, says that with such extreme weather now seen around the world, more solutions are needed to protect the vulnerable, especially homeless people who are about 200 times more likely than sheltered individuals to die from heat-associated causes. “As temperatures continue to rise across the U.S. and the world, cities like Seattle, Minneapolis, New York or Kansas City that don’t have the experience or infrastructure for dealing with heat have to adjust as well.” In Phoenix, officials and advocates hope a vacant building recently converted into a 200-bed shelter for homeless people will help save lives this summer. Mac Mais, 34, was among the first to move in. “It can be rough. I stay in the shelters or anywhere I can find,” said Mais who has been homeless on and off since he was a teen. “Here, I can stay out actually rest, work on job applications, stay out of the heat.” Read: Russia frees captive medic who filmed Mariupol’s horror In Las Vegas, teams deliver bottled water to homeless people living in encampments around the county and inside a network of underground storm drains under the Las Vegas strip. Ahmedabad, India, population 8.4 million, was the first South Asian city to design a heat action plan in 2013. Through its warning system, nongovernmental groups reach out to vulnerable people and send text messages to mobile phones. Water tankers are dispatched to slums, while bus stops, temples and libraries become shelters for people to escape the blistering rays. Still, the deaths pile up. Kimberly Rae Haws, a 62-year-old homeless woman, was severely burned in October 2020 while sprawled for an unknown amount of time on a sizzling Phoenix blacktop. The cause of her subsequent death was never investigated.   A young man nicknamed Twitch died from heat exposure as he sat on a curb near a Phoenix soup kitchen in the hours before it opened one weekend in 2018. “He was supposed to move into permanent housing the next Monday,” said Jim Baker, who oversees that dining room for the St. Vincent de Paul charity. “His mother was devastated.” Many such deaths are never confirmed as heat related and aren’t always noticed because of the stigma of homelessness and lack of connection to family. When a 62-year-old mentally ill woman named Shawna Wright died last summer in a hot alley in Salt Lake City, her death only became known when her family published an obituary saying the system failed to protect her during the hottest July on record, when temperatures reached the triple digits. Her sister, Tricia Wright, said making it easier for homeless people to get permanent housing would go a long way toward protecting them from extreme summertime temperatures. “We always thought she was tough, that she could get through it,” Tricia Wright said of her sister. “But no one is tough enough for that kind of heat.”  

Nearly one billion people, including around one in seven teenagers, worldwide suffer from some form of mental disorder, according to the UN. To make matters worse, in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, rates of common conditions such as depression and anxiety went up by more than 25 percent, the UN health agency said Friday. In its largest review of mental health since the turn of the century, the World Health Organization urged more countries to get to grips with worsening conditions. It offered examples of good practices that should be implemented as quickly as possible, in recognition of the important role that mental health plays in positive and sustainable development, at all levels. Even before Covid hit, only a small fraction of people in need of help had access to effective, affordable and quality mental health treatment, the WHO said, citing the latest available global data from 2019. More than 70 percent of those suffering from psychosis worldwide do not get the help they need, the UN agency said. Read: Mental Health: Types of Mental Illness and supporting someone with a mental health problem The gap between rich and poor nations highlights unequal access to healthcare, as seven in 10 people with psychosis receive treatment in high-income countries, compared to only 12 percent in low-income countries. The situation is more dramatic for cases of depression, the WHO said, pointing to gaps in assistance across all countries – including high-income ones – where only one-third of people who suffer from depression receive formal mental health care. And although high-income countries offer "minimally adequate" treatment for depression in 23 percent of cases, this drops to just three percent in low and lower-middle-income countries.

U.S. regulators on Friday authorized the first COVID-19 shots for infants and preschoolers, paving the way for vaccinations to begin next week. The Food and Drug Administration’s action follows its advisory panel’s unanimous recommendation for the shots from Moderna and Pfizer. That means U.S. kids under 5 — roughly 18 million youngsters — are eligible for the shots. The nation’s vaccination campaign began about 1 1/2 years ago with older adults, the hardest hit during the coronavirus pandemic. There’s one step left: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends how to use vaccines. Its independent advisers began debating the two-dose Moderna and the three-dose Pfizer vaccines on Friday and will make its recommendation Saturday. A final signoff is expected soon after from CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. At a Senate hearing Thursday, Walensky said her staff was working over the Juneteenth federal holiday weekend “because we understand the urgency of this for American parents.” She said pediatric deaths from COVID-19 have been higher than what is generally seen from the flu each year. “So I actually think we need to protect young children, as well as protect everyone with the vaccine and especially protect elders,” she said. The FDA also authorized Moderna’s vaccines for school-aged children and teens; CDC’s review is next week. Pfizer’s shots had been the only option for those age groups. For weeks, the Biden administration has been preparing to roll out the vaccines for little kids, with states, tribes, community health centers and pharmacies preordering millions of doses. With FDA’s emergency use authorization, manufacturers can begin shipping vaccine across the country. The shots are expected to start early next week but it’s not clear how popular they will be. Without protection for their tots, some families had put off birthday parties, vacations and visits with grandparents. “Today is a day of huge relief for parents and families across America,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. While young children generally don’t get as sick from COVID-19 as older kids and adults, their hospitalizations surged during the omicron wave and FDA’s advisers determined that benefits from vaccination outweighed the minimal risks. Studies from Moderna and Pfizer showed side effects, including fever and fatigue, were mostly minor. White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha predicted the pace of vaccinations for kids under 5 to be far slower than it was for older populations and said the administration doesn’t have any internal targets for the pace of vaccinations. “At the end of the day, our goal is very clear: We want to get as many kids vaccinated as possible,” Jha told The Associated Press. In testing, the littlest children developed high levels of virus-fighting antibodies, comparable to what is seen in young adults, the FDA said. Moderna’s vaccine was about 40% to 50% effective at preventing infections but there were too few cases during Pfizer’s study to give a reliable, exact estimate of effectiveness, the agency said. “Both of these vaccines have been authorized with science and safety at the forefront of our minds,” Dr. Peter Marks, FDA’s vaccine chief, said at a news briefing. Marks said parents should feel comfortable with either vaccine, and should get their kids vaccinated as soon as possible, rather than waiting until fall, when a different virus variant might be circulating. He said adjustments in the vaccines would be made to account for that. “Whatever vaccine your health care provider, pediatrician has, that’s what I would give my child,” Marks said. The two brands use the same technology but there are differences. Pfizer’s vaccine for kids younger than 5 is one-tenth of the adult dose. Three shots are needed: the first two given three weeks apart and the last at least two months later. Moderna’s is two shots, each a quarter of its adult dose, given about four weeks apart for kids under 6. The FDA also authorized a third dose, at least a month after the second shot, for children who have immune conditions that make them more vulnerable to serious illness. Both vaccines are for children as young as 6 months. Moderna next plans to study its shots for babies as young as 3 months. Pfizer has not finalized plans for shots in younger infants. A dozen countries, including China, already vaccinate kids under 5, with other brands. Immediately upon hearing of the FDA’s decision, Dr. Toma Omofoye, a Houston radiologist, made appointments for her 4-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. Without the shots, her family has missed out on family gatherings, indoor concerts, even trips to the grocery store, she said. During a recent pharmacy stop, Omofoye said her daughter stared and walked around like it was Disneyland, and thanked her. “My heart broke in that moment, which is why my heart is so elated now,” Omofoye said. But will other parents be as eager to get their youngest vaccinated? By some estimates, three-quarters of all U.S. children have already been infected. And only about 30% of children aged 5 to 11 have gotten vaccinated since Pfizer’s shots opened to them last November. The FDA officials acknowledged those low rates and said the government is committed to getting more older kids vaccinated and having better success with younger kids. “It’s a real tragedy, when you have something free with so few side effects that prevents deaths and hospitalization,” said FDA Commissioner Robert Califf. Roughly 440 children under age 5 have died from COVID-19, federal data show. Read: UNICEF finds Bangladesh as Covid-19 vaccine success story Dr. Beth Ebel of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, said the tot-sized vaccines would be especially welcomed by parents with children in day care where outbreaks can sideline parents from jobs, adding to financial strain. “A lot of people are going to be happy and a lot of grandparents are going to be happy, too, because we’ve missed those babies who grew up when you weren’t able to see them,” Ebel said.

A celebrated Ukrainian medic whose footage was smuggled out of the besieged city of Mariupol by an Associated Press team was freed by Russian forces on Friday, three months after she was taken captive on the streets of the city. Yuliia Paievska is known in Ukraine as Taira, a nickname she chose in the World of Warcraft video game. Using a body camera, she recorded 256 gigabytes of her team’s efforts over two weeks to save the wounded, including both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. She transferred the clips to an Associated Press team, the last international journalists in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, one of whom fled with it embedded in a tampon on March 15. Taira and a colleague were taken prisoner by Russian forces on March 16, the same day a Russian airstrike hit a theater in the city center, killing around 600 people, according to an Associated Press investigation. Also Read: Moscow-backed officials try to solidify rule in Ukraine “It was such a great sense of relief. Those sound like such ordinary words, and I don’t even know what to say,” her husband, Vadim Puzanov, told The Associated Press late Friday, breathing deeply to contain his emotion. Puzanov said he spoke by phone with Taira, who was en route to a Kyiv hospital, and feared for her health. Initially the family had kept quiet, hoping negotiations would take their course. But The Associated Press spoke with him before releasing the smuggled videos, which ultimately had millions of viewers around the world, including on some of the biggest networks in Europe and the United States. Puzanov expressed gratitude for the coverage, which showed Taira was trying to save Russian soldiers as well as Ukrainian civilians. Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy announced Taira’s release in a national address. “I’m grateful to everyone who worked for this result. Taira is already home. We will keep working to free everyone,” he said. Hundreds of prominent Ukrainians have been kidnapped or captured, including local officials, journalists, activists and human rights defenders. Russia portrayed Taira as working for the nationalist Azov Battalion, in line with Moscow’s narrative that it is attempting to “denazify” Ukraine. But the AP found no such evidence, and friends and colleagues said she had no links to Azov, which made a last stand in a Mariupol steel plant before hundreds of its fighters were captured or killed. The footage itself is a visceral testament to her efforts to save the wounded on both sides. A clip recorded on March 10 shows two Russian soldiers taken roughly out of an ambulance by a Ukrainian soldier. One is in a wheelchair. The other is on his knees, hands bound behind his back, with an obvious leg injury. Their eyes are covered by winter hats, and they wear white armbands. A Ukrainian soldier curses at one of them. “Calm down, calm down,” Taira tells him. A woman asks her, “Are you going to treat the Russians?” “They will not be as kind to us,” she replies. “But I couldn’t do otherwise. They are prisoners of war.” Taira was a member of the Ukraine Invictus Games for military veterans, where she was set to compete in archery and swimming. Invictus said she was a military medic from 2018 to 2020 but had since been demobilized. She received the body camera in 2021 to film for a Netflix documentary series on inspirational figures being produced by Britain’s Prince Harry, who founded the Invictus Games. But when Russian forces invaded, she used it to shoot scenes of injured civilians and soldiers instead.

The 70-year-old visitor had previously attended some services at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church before police say he showed up for a potluck dinner, pulled out a handgun and fatally shot three of the elderly participants, one of whom died in his wife’s arms as she whispered words of love in his ear. Church members were spared further violence Thursday evening when one of them rushed the gunman, struck him with a chair and held him until police arrived, a former pastor said. The suspect, Robert Findlay Smith, was charged with capital murder Friday, the Jefferson County district attorney announced. The baffling violence in a wealthy suburb of Birmingham stunned a community known for its family-centered lifestyle. It also deepened the unease in a nation still reeling from recent slaughter wrought by gunmen who attacked a Texas school, a New York grocery store and another church in California. “Why would a guy who’s been around for a while suddenly decide he would go to a supper and kill somebody?” said the Rev. Doug Carpenter, St. Stephen’s pastor for three decades before he retired in 2005. “It doesn’t make sense.” All three shooting victims were members attending a monthly dinner at the church, said Carpenter, who still attends Sunday services there but wasn’t present Thursday night. A Facebook post referred to the gathering as a “Boomers Potluck.” Carpenter said one victim’s wife and other witnesses recounted what had happened. They said a man who introduced himself only as “Mr. Smith” sat at a table by himself — as he’d done while visiting a previous church dinner. “People tried to speak to him and he was kind of distant and very much a loner,” Carpenter told The Associated Press by telephone. At Thursday’s dinner, church member Walter Bartlett Rainey invited the visitor to join his table, Carpenter said, but the man declined. He said Rainey’s wife noticed the visitor wasn’t eating. “Linda Rainey said he didn’t have any food and she offered to fix a plate for him, and he turned that down,” said Carpenter. Soon afterward, Carpenter said, the man drew his gun and opened fire — shooting Walter Rainey and two other church members. Carpenter said another member, a man in his 70s, grabbed a chair and charged the gunman. “He hit him with a folding chair, wrestling him to the ground, took the gun from him and hit him in the head with his own gun,” Carpenter said. Church members held the suspect until police arrived, police Capt. Shane Ware said. A police mugshot showed Smith with a blackened left eye and cuts to his nose and forehead. “The person that subdued the suspect, in my opinion, was a hero,” Ware told a news conference Friday, saying that act was “extremely critical in saving lives.” Rainey, 84, died at the scene. His wife of six decades wasn’t harmed. “We are all grateful that she was spared and that he died in her arms while she murmured words of comfort and love into his ears,” Rainey’s family said in a statement. Police said Sarah Yeager, 75, of Pelham, died soon afterward at a hospital, and an 84-year-old woman died Friday. Police didn’t release her name, citing the family’s request for privacy. Ware said Smith and the three victims were all white. He said police are investigating what motivated the suspect, who occasionally attended services at the church. Authorities executed a search warrant Friday at Smith’s home, less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) away. Also read: Gunmen kill at least 27 at memorial for Afghan Shiite leader Records from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives show Smith is a licensed gun dealer whose business is listed at his home address. Court records show Smith filed a lawsuit in 2008 against Samford University, a private university in metro Birmingham, alleging campus security wrongly detained him and accused him of impersonating a police officer. Vestavia Hills Mayor Ashley Curry told reporters his “close-knit, resilient, loving community” was rocked by “this senseless act of violence.” It’s home to nearly 40,000 residents, most of them white, including many businesspeople, doctors and lawyers who work in Birmingham. The church’s pastor, the Rev. John Burruss, said in a Facebook post that he was in Greece on a pilgrimage and trying to get back. The Rev. Rebecca Bridges, the associate rector, led an online prayer service on the church’s Facebook page Friday morning. She prayed not only for the victims and church members who witnessed the shooting, but also “for the person who perpetrated the shooting.” “We pray that you will work in that person’s heart,” Bridges said. “And we pray that you will help us to forgive.” Bridges, currently in London, alluded to other recent mass shootings as she prayed that “our culture will change and that our laws will change in ways that will protect all of us.” Thursday’s shooting happened just over a month after one person was killed and five injured when a man opened fire on Taiwanese parishioners at a Southern California church. It also came nearly seven years to the day after an avowed white supremacist killed nine people during Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Read:Gunmen abduct 30 students from school in northwest Nigeria A message posted by St. Stephens said it would hold Sunday services, adding: “We will gather at the Table that has taught so many that love is always breaking through in this world, no matter what we experience, whether it be doubt, anger, loss, grief, or death — but yet also joy and life.”

Worldwide food insecurity, climate crisis, the war in Ukraine and other emergencies from Africa to Afghanistan, forced around 100 million people to flee their homes, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said Thursday. Today, one in every 78 people on earth is displaced; it is a "dramatic milestone" that few would have expected a decade ago, the agency added. By the end of 2021, the number displaced by war, violence, persecution and human rights abuses stood at 89.3 million, according to the UNHCR's annual Global Trends report. That was up eight percent from 2020 and "well over double the figure of 10 years ago," the report's authors said, attributing last year's increase to numerous escalating conflicts "and new ones that flared." "Every year of the last decade, the numbers climbed," said UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi. "Either the international community comes together to take action to address this human tragedy, resolve conflicts and find lasting solutions, or this terrible trend will continue." The 100 million displaced figure was reached in May, 10 weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine prompted a global cereal and fertiliser shortage from these major exporters. In all, 23 countries with a combined population of 850 million faced "medium or high-intensity conflicts," the UN agency said, citing World Bank data. Among the 89.3 million globally displaced last year, 27.1 million were refugees – 21.3 million under the UNHCR's mandate, and 5.8 million Palestinians under the care of the UN Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA. Another 53.2 million were internally displaced people, 4.6 million asylum seekers, and 4.4 million Venezuelans left with little option but to flee their country's economic and political crisis. Data from the UNHCR report underscored the crucial role played by the world's developing nations in sheltering displaced people, with low and middle-income nations hosting more than four in five of the world's refugees. With 3.8 million refugees within its borders, Türkiye hosts the largest number of refugees, followed by Colombia, with 1.8 million (including Venezuelan nationals), Uganda and Pakistan (1.5 million each) and Germany (1.3 million). Also read: Nearly 37 million children displaced worldwide: UNICEF

The head of the U.N. refugee agency says “Europe should be much more worried” that more people from Africa’s Sahel region could seek to move north to escape violence, climate crises like droughts and floods and the impact of growing food shortages caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, called for more efforts to build peace in the world as conflicts and crises like those in Ukraine, Venezuela, Myanmar, Syria and beyond have driven over 100 million people to leave their homes — both within their own countries and abroad. UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, on Thursday issued its latest “Global Trends” report, which found over 89 million people had been displaced by conflict, climate change, violence and human rights abuses by 2021. The figure has since swelled after at least 12 million people fled their homes in Ukraine to other parts of the country or abroad following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. READ: Myanmar military killed at least 142 children in past 16 months: UN expert This year, the world is also facing growing food insecurity — Ukraine is a key European breadbasket and the war has greatly hurt grain exports  The African Union, whose continent relies on imports of wheat and other food from Ukraine, has appealed for help to access grain that is blocked in Ukrainian silos and unable to leave Ukrainian ports amid a Russian naval blockade in the Black Sea. UNHCR said 2021 marked the 15th straight year of annual increase in the number of people displaced within their own countries – to more than 53 million. Among the reasons: Rising violence in places like Myanmar, war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and extremist insurgencies in the Sahel, particularly in Burkina Faso and Mali. Grandi said the Sahel has already faced years of droughts and floods; inequality in wealth, education and access to healthcare; and poor governance. Growing food insecurity and conflict have added to the pressures.  “People are still suffering — they do not have food, do not have water, do not have shelter and have to flee,” Grandi said. “I’m very worried about Sahel. And I don’t think that we talk enough about this region that is, by the way, so close to Europe. And I think Europe should be much more worried.”  He noted that the world was facing events that forced refugees to flee even before the war in Ukraine.  “We are now all focused on Ukraine very much, but Ukraine comes after a line of other emergencies,” he said.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has pledged to do whatever it takes to curb inflation, now raging at a four-decade high and defying the Fed’s efforts so far to tame it. Increasingly, it seems, doing so might require the one painful thing the Fed has sought to avoid: A recession. A worse-than-expected inflation report for May — consumer prices rocketed up 8.6% from a year earlier, the biggest jump since 1981 — helped spur the Fed to raise its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of point Wednesday. Not since 1994 has the central bank raised its key rate by that much all at once. And until Friday’s nasty inflation report, traders and economists had expected a rate hike of just half a percentage point Wednesday. What’s more, several more hikes are coming. The “soft landing” the Fed has hoped to achieve — slowing inflation to its 2% goal without derailing the economy — is becoming both trickier and riskier than Powell had bargained for. Each rate hike means higher borrowing costs for consumers and businesses. And each time would-be borrowers find loan rates prohibitively expensive, the resulting drop in spending weakens confidence, job growth and overall economic vigor. Also read: Biden vows to battle inflation as prices keep climbing “There’s a path for us to get there,” Powell said Wednesday, referring to a soft landing. “It’s not getting easier. It’s getting more challenging” It was always going to tough: The Fed hasn’t managed to engineer a soft landing since the mid-1990s. And Powell’s Fed, which was slow to recognize the depth of the inflation threat, is now having to play catch-up with an aggressive series of rate increases. “They are telling you: ‘We will do whatever it takes to bring inflation to 2%,’ ” said Simona Mocuta, chief economist at State Street Global Advisors. “I hope the (inflation) data won’t require them to do whatever they’re willing to do. There will be a cost.” In Mocuta’s view, the risk of a recession is now probably 50-50. “It’s not like there’s no way you can avoid it,” she said. “But it’s going to be hard to avoid it.’’ The Fed itself acknowledges that higher rates will inflict some damage, though it doesn’t foresee a recession: On Wednesday, the Fed predicted that the economy will grow about 1.7% this year, a sharp downgrade from the 2.8% growth it had forecast in March. And it expects unemployment to average a still-low 3.7% at year’s end. But speaking at a news conference Wednesday, Powell rejected any notion that the Fed must inevitably cause a recession as the price of taming inflation. “We’re not trying to induce a recession,” he said. “Let’s be clear about that.” Economic history suggests, though, that aggressive, growth-killing rate hikes could be necessary to finally control inflation. And typically, that is a prescription for a recession. Indeed, since 1955 every time inflation ran hotter than 4% and unemployment fell below 5%, the economy has tumbled into recession within two years, according to a paper published this year by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and his Harvard University colleague Alex Domash. The U.S. jobless rate is now 3.6%, and inflation has topped 8% every month since March. Inflation in the United States, which had been under control since the early 1980s, resurged with a vengeance just over a year ago, largely a consequence of the economy’s unexpectedly robust recovery from the pandemic recession. The rebound caught businesses by surprise and led to shortages, delayed shipments — and higher prices. President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus program added heat in March 2021 to an economy that was already warmed up. So did the Fed’s decision to continue the easy-money policies — keeping short-term rates at zero and pumping money into the economy by buying bonds — it had adopted two years ago to guide the economy through the pandemic. Only three months ago did the Fed start raising rates. By May, Powell was promising to keep raising rates until the Fed sees “clear and convincing evidence that inflation is coming down.” Some of the factors that drove the economy’s recovery have meanwhile vanished. Federal relief payments are long gone. Americans’ savings, swelled by government stimulus checks, are back below pre-pandemic levels. And inflation itself has been devouring Americans’ purchasing power, leaving them less to spend in shops and online: After adjusting for higher prices, average hourly wages fell 3% last month from a year earlier, the 14th straight drop. On Wednesday, the government reported that retail sales fell 0.3% in May, the first drop since December. Now, rising rates will squeeze the economy even harder. Buyers or homes and autos will absorb higher borrowing costs, and some will delay or scale back their purchases. Businesses will pay more to borrow, too. And there’s another byproduct of Fed rate hikes: The dollar will likely rise as investors buy U.S. Treasurys to capitalize on higher yields. A rising dollar hurts U.S. companies and the economy by making American products costlier and harder to sell overseas. On the other hand, it makes imports cheaper in the United States, thereby helping ease some inflationary pressures. The U.S. economy still has strength. The job market is booming. Employers have added an average 545,000 jobs a month over the past year. Unemployment is near a 50-year low. And there are now roughly two job openings for every jobless American. Families aren’t buried in debts as they were before the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Nor have banks and other lenders piled up risky loans as they had back then. Still, Robert Tipp, chief investment strategist at PGIM Fixed Income, said that recession risks are rising, and not only because of the Fed’s rate hikes. The growing fear is that inflation is so intractable that it might be conquered only through aggressive rate hikes that imperil the economy. “The risk is up,” Tipp said, “because the inflation numbers came in so high, so strong.” All of which makes the Fed’s inflation-taming, recession-avoiding act even more treacherous. “It’s going to be a tightrope walk,” said Thomas Garretson, senior portfolio strategist at RBC Wealth Management. “It’s not going to be easy.’’

A federal police investigator said Wednesday night a suspect confessed to fatally shooting an Indigenous expert and a journalist in a remote part of the Amazon and took officers to where the bodies were buried. Police said at a news conference in the Amazon city of Manaus that the prime suspect in the case confessed Tuesday night and detailed what happened to the pair who went missing June 5. They said other arrests would be made soon in the case, but gave no details. The federal investigator, Eduardo Alexandre Fontes, said Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, 41, nicknamed Pelado, told officers he used a firearm to kill Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira of Brazil and freelance reporter Dom Phillips of Britain. “We would have no way of getting to that spot quickly without the confession,” Torres said of the place where police recovered human remains Wednesday after being led there by Pelado. Torres said the remains are expected to be identified within days, and if confirmed as the missing men, “will be returned to the families of the two.” “We found the bodies three kilometers (nearly two miles) into the woods,” the investigator said, adding that rescue teams traveled about one hour and forty minutes on the river and 25 more into the woods to reach the burial spot. Pelado’s family had said previously that he denied any wrongdoing and claimed police tortured him to try to get a confession. Also read: At COP26, over 100 countries pledge to end deforestation Another officer, Guilherme Torres of the Amazonas state police, said the missing men’s boat had not been found yet but police knew the area where it purportedly was hidden by those involved in the crime. “They put bags of dirt on the boat so it would sink,” he said. The engine of the boat was removed, according to investigators. The news conference at Brazil’s federal police headquarters in Manaus also included military leaders, who joined the effort to find Phillips and Pereira a few days after their disappearance was reported. President Jair Bolsonaro, a frequent critic of journalists and Indigenous experts, has drawn criticism that the government didn’t get involved fast enough. Earlier on Wednesday, he criticized Phillips in an interview, saying without evidence that locals in the area where he went missing didn’t like him and that he should have been more careful in the region. Also read: Amazon deforestation accelerates by 34.5 pct by July The efforts to find the two were started by Indigenous peoples in the region. UNIVAJA, an association of Indigenous peoples of the Javari Valley, mourned the loss of “two partners” in a statement Wednesday, adding they only had help and protection from local police. As federal police announced they would hold a news conference, colleagues of Pereira called a vigil outside the headquarters of the Brazilian government’s Indigenous affairs agency in Brasilia. Pereira was on leave from the agency. Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen on their boat in a river near the entrance of the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, which borders Peru and Colombia. That area has seen violent conflicts between fishermen, poachers and government agents. Developments began moving Wednesday when federal police officers took a suspect they didn’t identify at the time out on the river toward search parties looking for Phillips and Pereira. An Associated Press photographer in Atalaia do Norte, the city closest to the search zone, witnessed police taking the suspect, who was in a hood. On Tuesday, police said they had arrested a second suspect in connection with the disappearance. He was identified as Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, 41, a fisherman and a brother of Pelado, who police already had characterized as their main suspect. Police investigators said Wednesday that de Oliveira had not confessed to any participation in the crime, but added they had evidence against him. Indigenous people who were with Pereira and Phillips have said that Pelado brandished a rifle at them on the day before the pair disappeared. Official search teams concentrated their efforts around a spot in the Itaquai river where a tarp from the boat used by the missing men was found Saturday by volunteers from the Matis Indigenous group. Authorities began scouring the area and discovered a backpack, laptop and other personal belongings submerged underwater Sunday. Police said that evening that they had identified the items as the belongings of both missing men, including a health card and clothes of Pereira. The backpack was said to belong to Phillips. Police previously reported finding traces of blood in Pelado’s boat. Officers also found organic matter of apparent human origin in the river that was sent for analysis. Authorities have said a main line of the police investigation into the disappearance has pointed to an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in the Javari Valley reserve, which is Brazil’s second-largest Indigenous territory. Pereira, who previously led the local bureau of the federal Indigenous agency, known as FUNAI, took part in several operations against illegal fishing. In such operations, as a rule the fishing gear is seized or destroyed, while the fishermen are fined and briefly detained. Only the Indigenous can legally fish in their territories. “The crime’s motive is some personal feud over fishing inspection,” Atalaia do Norte’s Mayor Denis Paiva speculated last week to reporters without providing more details. While some police, the mayor and others in the region link the pair’s disappearances to the “fish mafia,” federal police have not ruled out other lines of investigation, such as narco trafficking. Torres, the federal police officer, reiterated that point Wednesday night, saying he could not discuss specifics of the investigation. “We are working with several lines of investigation,” he said. After the news of the recovery of human remains, Phillips’ wife, Alessandra Sampaio, said the find “puts an end to the anguish of not knowing Dom and Bruno’s whereabouts.” “Now we can bring them home and say goodbye with love,” Sampaio said in a statement. ”Today, we also begin our quest for justice.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of America’s pandemic response through two White House administrations, has tested positive for the coronavirus. The 81-year-old Fauci, who is fully vaccinated and has received two booster shots, was experiencing mild COVID-19 symptoms, according to a statement Wednesday from the National Institutes of Health. Fauci has not recently been in close contact with President Joe Biden or other senior government officials. He tested positive on a rapid antigen test. He is following public health guidelines and his doctor’s advice, and will return to work at the NIH when he tests negative, according to the statement. Fauci is Biden’s chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He was a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force under former President Donald Trump. Read:US officials recommend shorter COVID isolation, quarantine Earlier this week, U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra tested positive for the virus. It was the second time Becerra had come down with symptoms and tested positive.