Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

White House lays out plan to vaccinate kids ages 5 to 11

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Biden administration on Wednesday outlined its plan to vaccinate millions of kids ages 5 to 11 as soon as the COVID-19 shot is approved for younger children, readying doses and preparing locations ahead of the busy holiday season.

It is working to set up vaccination clinics in more than 100 children’s hospital systems nationwide as well as doctor’s offices, pharmacies and potentially schools, it said.

If Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE’s vaccine wins wider approval, the plan would ensure “it is quickly distributed and made conveniently and equitably available to families across the country,” the White House said in a statement, noting regulators will independently weigh approval.

Food and Drug Administration officials are reviewing the Pfizer/BioNTech application seeking approval of its 2-dose vaccine for younger children, with its panel of outside advisers scheduled to weigh in on Oct. 26. The FDA typically follows the advice of its panel but is not required to do so.

Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will next weigh in on recommendations for the vaccine at a Nov. 2 and 3 meeting, which its director will use in making her own recommendation.

“We will be ready to begin getting shots in arms in the days following a final CDC recommendation,” the White House said ahead of an 8:45 a.m. (1345 GMT) news briefing with U.S. President Joe Biden’s White House COVID-19 response team.

Once approved, roughly 28 million more children in the United States would be eligible to receive what would be the first U.S.-approved vaccine to ward off the novel coronavirus in younger kids. The Pfizer/BioNTech shot is already approved for those ages 12-17, and the companies are still studying it for those younger than 5.

“We have to be prepared to ensure that we can get vaccines to families as soon as the FDA and the CDC issue their decision,” U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told NBC News’ “Today” program.

Murthy said the administration was not looking to get ahead of health regulators but wanted to lay the groundwork to ease distribution to ensure there is ample supply and access to vaccination locations.

While children have a lower rate of death from COVID-19, many still face illness and long-term symptoms that are still being studied. Many adults who have been hesitant or opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine, and even some who did not oppose the vaccine for themselves, are expected to resist giving the shot to their children.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Editing by Nick Zieminski and Philippa Fletcher)

New York City to require COVID-19 vaccinations for all public employees

(Reuters) -New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday he was expanding the city’s vaccine mandate to include all public employees, requiring them to show proof of inoculation against COVID-19 or be placed on unpaid leave.

As a sweetener, city employees will receive a $500 bonus for receiving their first shot at a city-run vaccination site by 5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 29, the deadline for showing proof of vaccination to a supervisor, de Blasio said in a statement.

“There is no greater privilege than serving the people of New York City, and that privilege comes with a responsibility to keep yourself and your community safe,” he said.

The policy in the most populous U.S. city comes as numerous other municipalities, school districts and other governments across the nation grapple with masking and vaccination requirements. The number of new COVID-19 cases has steadily declined since a surge caused by the Delta variant of the virus during the summer.

Seventy-one percent of all 160,000 New York City workers have already received at least one vaccine dose, the mayor said.

De Blasio said employees will no longer have the option to be regularly tested instead of getting the vaccine, but added that the city will still grant medical and religious exemptions.

The rate of vaccination in the New York Police Department has lagged the overall rate among city workers.

More than 460 New York City police officers have died of COVID-19. Officials with the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, which represents the city’s 50,000 active and retired police officers, were not immediately available for comment.

Workers at the city’s Department of Education and New York City Health and Hospitals agency have been subject to vaccination mandates since September. The vaccine rate in those departments is at least 95%, de Blasio said.

Civilian employees of the city’s Department of Correction (DOC) and uniformed members of the DOC assigned to healthcare settings are also immediately subject to the mandate. But for other uniformed correction officers, the deadline for vaccination is Dec. 1, as the city works to address severe staffing issues at the Rikers Island jail complex, de Blasio said.

(Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru and Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Steve Orlofsky)

U.S. needs more mines to boost rare earths supply chain, Pentagon says

By Ernest Scheyder

(Reuters) – The United States and ally nations should mine and process more rare earths to ensure adequate global supply of the strategic minerals for military and commercial uses, a U.S. Department of Defense official said on Tuesday.

The remarks underscore the Pentagon’s rising interest in public-private mining partnerships to counter China’s status as the top global producer of rare earths, the 17 minerals used to make specialized magnets for weaponry and electric vehicles (EVs).

“We know we cannot resolve our shared exposure to supply chain risk without a close partnership with industry,” Danielle Miller of the Pentagon’s Office of Industrial Policy told the Adamas Intelligence North American Critical Minerals Days conference.

“New primary production of strategic and critical minerals – in a word, mining – is a necessity to increase resilience in global supply chains.”

Miller cited recent investments in U.S. rare earth projects under development by MP Materials Corp, Urban Mining Co, and a joint venture of Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths Ltd and Blue Line Corp as evidence of the Pentagon’s desire to be a “patient, strategic investor” in private industry.

“Domestic production of strategic and critical materials is the ultimate hedge against the risk of deliberate non-market interference in extended overseas supply chains,” Miller said, a likely reference to China’s hints it could curtail rare earth exports to the United States.

“We are under no illusions about the competing pressures facing” the U.S. mining industry.

Miller also said the Pentagon wants to help mining companies in ally nations “create a common understanding of sustainability.” U.S. environmental standards for mining are among the tightest in the world.

“We want to work with (miners) to accelerate the transition from the lowest cost, technically acceptable sourcing, to one that reflects our values,” Miller said.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Richard Chang)

U.S. workers face layoffs as U.S COVID-19 vaccine mandates kick in

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Thousands of unvaccinated workers across the United States are facing potential job losses as a growing number of states, cities and private companies start to enforce mandates for inoculation against COVID-19.

In the latest high-profile example, Washington State University (WSU) fired its head football coach and four of his assistants on Monday for failing to comply with the state’s vaccine requirement. The coach, Nick Rolovich, had applied for a religious exemption from the mandate earlier this month.

Thousands of police officers and firefighters in cities like Chicago and Baltimore are also at risk of losing their jobs in the coming days under mandates that require them to report their vaccination status or submit to regular coronavirus testing.

While controversial, the mandates have been effective at convincing many hesitant workers to get vaccinated against the virus, which has killed more than 700,000 people in the United States. Some 77% of eligible Americans have received at least one shot of a vaccine, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters last week.

In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been battling with the police union, which came out against the vaccine mandate for city workers. About a third of the city’s 12,770 police employees missed a Friday deadline to report their vaccination status, and some officers have been put on no-pay status.

“Fundamentally, what this all is about is about saving lives. It’s about maximizing the opportunity to create a safe workplace,” Lightfoot said on Monday, accusing the union of tying to “induce an insurrection” by opposing the mandate.

Chicago Fraternal Order of Police union president John Catanzara did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House, which announced sweeping vaccine requirements in a bid to reduce hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 in the wake of a surge driven by the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, has been a major catalyst behind the inoculation push.

On Friday, some 200 Boeing Co employees and others staged a protest over the plane maker’s requirement that 125,000 workers be vaccinated by Dec. 8, under an executive order issued by President Joe Biden for federal contractors.

The rules for another order applying to private businesses with 100 or more employees are expected to be finalized soon.

Along with the mandate for federal workers and contractors, Biden’s vaccine requirements will cover roughly 100 million people, about two-thirds of the U.S. workforce.

The White House has been meeting with executives of several major companies to discuss Biden’s private-sector vaccination plan.

A wave of layoffs has already swept through the healthcare industry, which moved more quickly than others to impose vaccine mandates given the heightened COVID-19 exposure risk for patients and staff.

Nurses and other healthcare workers who chose to leave their jobs rather than be immunized recently told Reuters they could not get past their concern over a lack of long-term data on the three vaccines available in the United States.

While the vaccines received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in less than a year, medical experts have widely vouched for their safety, citing years of research, large clinical trials and real world data after hundreds of millions have been vaccinated worldwide.

Like WSU’s Rolovich, many unvaccinated workers seeking an exemption have done so on religious grounds. It was not clear how a university committee in charge of weighing such exemptions ruled in his case.

School leaders said the mandate was aimed at ensuring the safety of its faculty and staff.

“Experience is showing that vaccine mandates help motivate people to complete the vaccination process,” Marty Dickinson, WSU Board of Regents Chair, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Poland almost doubles troop numbers on Belarus border

WARSAW (Reuters) – Almost 6,000 Polish soldiers are now guarding the country’s border with Belarus in stepped up security measures in the face of a surge in migration, the defense minister said on Tuesday.

The deployment of fresh troops marks a significant expansion of the military presence on the border as only on Saturday Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak had put the number of soldiers at more than 3,000.

“Almost 6,000 soldiers from the 16th, 18th and 12th divisions are serving on the Polish-Belarusian border,” Blaszczak said in a tweet.

“The soldiers provide support to the Border Guard by protecting the country’s border and not allowing it to be illegally crossed.”

The Border Guard said that on Monday there were 612 attempts to cross the border illegally.

The European Commission and Warsaw say the flow of migrants has been orchestrated by Belarus as a form of hybrid warfare designed to put pressure on the European Union over sanctions it imposed on Minsk. Belarus has denied this.

Poland has declared a state of emergency in the region and plans to build a wall on the border.

Parliament has also passed legislation that human rights advocates say aims to legalize pushbacks of migrants across its borders in breach of the country’s commitments under international law.

As of Sunday, there had been around 9,600 attempts to illegally cross the border in October, the Border Guard said.

An increasing number of migrants have also been arriving in Germany and Polish media reported that the head of the German Police trade union has asked the interior minister to temporarily restore border controls with Poland to stop the flow of migrants.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer offered to send border control officers to Poland to help the country manage the influx of migrants along the border between the two EU countries, adding that Germany could also offer logistical support in a letter to his Polish counterpart.

Authorities in Brandenburg, the eastern German state that is housing most of the new arrivals, are calling for tougher action against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s government.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Joanna Plucinska in Warsaw, Thomas Escritt in Berlin; Editing by Angus MacSwan, William Maclean)

Diapers to yogurt, global firms face higher costs amid supply-chain woes

(Reuters) – Results from companies Procter & Gamble Co and Danone SA as well as phone maker Ericsson on Tuesday show higher costs and supply chain disruptions, signaling more margin pressure for global firms and higher prices for shoppers.

Panic-buying at the start of the pandemic led to mass shortages of everything from toilet paper to packaged foods. Global lockdowns and labor shortages crimped supply chain movement and caused lasting log-jams at ports from China to California.

Many companies have leaned on price increases to offset higher prices for materials needed to make and ship essential necessities like diapers and bottled water. Executives and analysts have said price increases will linger into next year.

Procter & Gamble, which noted its first-quarter operating margins were squeezed, now expects a hit of about $2.3 billion in expenses this fiscal year, compared with a prior forecast of about $1.9 billion.

The company is blaming higher raw material costs as well as diesel and energy prices, and said it does not expect those issues to ease up anytime soon.

Danone, which sells Activa yogurt and Evian bottled water, warned of growing inflationary pressures next year after sticking by its 2021 outlook on Tuesday, pledging its operating margins will be protected by productivity gains and price increases.

“Like just about everyone across the sector and beyond, we see inflationary pressures across the board. What started as increased inflation on material costs evolved into widespread constraints impacting our supply chain in many parts of the world,” said Danone’s finance chief Juergen Esser.

Sweden’s Ericsson told investors on Tuesday global supply chain issues will still be a major hurdle.

“Late in Q3 we experienced some impact on sales from disturbances in the supply chain, and such issues will continue to pose a risk,” Chief Executive Officer Börje Ekholm said in a statement.

The company was not able to deliver certain hardware to its customers due to a chip shortage at suppliers, coupled with logistics problems, it said.

Electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc is due to report results on Wednesday. Investors are closely watching the car maker’s margins. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has previously said the company is spending heavily to fly car parts around the world to meet demand, while at the same time working to cut costs at its factory in China by sourcing more local parts.

Some investors want to see how those costs add up.

“I think that there is probably a headwind to margins. They’re paying more for components,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at venture capital firm Loup Ventures, an investor in Tesla. “I think that would be a huge positive if they can raise auto gross margin in this environment.”

(Writing by Bernard Orr and Anna Driver; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Myanmar frees political prisoners after ASEAN pressure, then re-arrests some

(Reuters) – Myanmar’s military rulers have freed hundreds of political prisoners in recent days, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s party spokesman and a famous comedian, although several were swiftly re-arrested, local media and a rights group said.

State television announced late on Monday more than 5,600 people arrested or wanted over anti-coup protests would be granted amnesty following a speech from Myanmar’s junta chief saying his government was committed to peace and democracy.

The release was described by some activists as a ploy by the ruling military to try to rebuild its international reputation after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) took the rare step of excluding the junta chief from its summit.

Shortly after local media began late on Monday documenting the release of parliamentarians, journalists and others from Yangon’s Insein prison and facilities in Mandalay, Lashio, Meiktila and Myeik, reports followed of re-arrests.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports and Myanmar’s prison department spokesman and junta spokesman were not immediately available for comment.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a non-profit group which has documented killings and arrests since the coup in February, told Reuters that as of Tuesday evening around 40 people had been detained immediately after their release.

Local media, including Democratic Voice of Burma and Khit Thit Media, also reported several people were re-arrested.

PRESSURE

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the coup, which ended a decade of tentative democracy and economic reform.

Security forces have killed more than 1,100 people according to activists and the United Nations, and arrested over 9,000 people including Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s most prominent civilian political figure, according to AAPP.

ASEAN decided to invite a non-political representative to its Oct. 26-28 summit in an unprecedented snub to the military leaders behind the coup against Suu Kyi’s elected government.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews welcomed the release but said it was “outrageous” that they were detained in the first place.

“The junta is releasing political prisoners in Myanmar not because of a change of heart, but because of pressure,” he said on Twitter.

The junta has released prisoners several times since the coup, which triggered a wave of protests that were quelled by the security forces.

“They came to me today and said they will take me home, that’s all,” Monywa Aung Shin, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, told Democratic Voice of Burma late on Monday on his way home from prison.

Monywa Aung Shin was arrested on February 1 and had spent eight months in prison.

Burmese comedian Zarganar, a well-known critic of Myanmar’s past military governments, was also released late Monday, according to local media reports and a social media post by a close friend.

Photos and videos on social media showed detainees reunited with weeping family members.

Other images showed a succession of buses leaving the rear entrance of the jail, with passengers leaning from windows and waving at crowds gathered outside.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Angus MacSwan)

La Palma evacuees see no end to ordeal after month of volcanic eruption

By Guillermo Martinez

LA PALMA, Spain (Reuters) -One month after the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on the Spanish island of La Palma spewing red-hot lava and ash, Culberta Cruz, her husband and their dog are living in a tiny caravan on a parking lot and see no end of the ordeal in sight.

“I’m tired, so tired … but who are we to fight against nature?,” the 56-year-old hospital kitchen worker said, sitting on a camping chair.

Her husband, banana grower Tono Gonzalez, was pulling electric cables and water hoses to connect to the vehicle, with their French bulldog looking on. The couple have been living in the small camping car for a month, constantly brushing off volcanic ash from the vehicle.

“One day it’s exploding there, the other a vent opens here, it’s just anguish and living in fear, waiting and praying for it to stop erupting,” Cruz said. “And it’s a lot of sadness for those who lost their homes.”

Streams of red-hot lava have engulfed almost 800 hectares (2000 acres) of land, destroying about 2,000 buildings and many banana plantations since the eruption started on Sept. 19. More than 6,000 people have had to leave their homes.

Carmen del Fresno, from the National Geographic Institute’s volcano monitoring department, told Reuters the eruption was unlikely to stop for at least another week, but there was no way to predict how long it would last.

“Historical records show eruptions lasting 24 to 84 days … It would be logical to assume something within those bounds, but we cannot risk (predicting) anything.”

After being ordered to evacuate, Cruz and Gonzalez first stayed at a relative’s farm and then took the caravan to the parking lot where they could get fresh water and a bit of electricity. They are now looking into renting an apartment that accepts pets.

“We don’t know when it’s going to stop, that’s the problem. This is nature and we have to deal with it, it’s bigger than us,” said Gonzalez.

Added Cruz: “The future is to try to remove what (belongings) we had and to wait for it to end, then get back to the lives we had before, even if it will be more difficult.”

(Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo in Madrid, writing by Inti Landauro and Andrei Khalip; Editing by Peter Graff)

FDA proposes rule to make many hearing aids cheaper

(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday proposed creation of a new category of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids to be sold directly to millions of Americans in an effort to make the devices more affordable.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the proposed rules should be finalized next year and should increase competition to drive down prices, so the devices cost “hundreds instead of thousands of dollars.”

The changes “will help millions of Americans with mild to moderate healing loss get access to cheaper and more convenient access to hearing aids,” she told reporters, adding just one-fifth of the estimated 37.5 million Americans who have trouble hearing use such aids.

The rule allows greater reach to communities of color that have been typically lacked access to hearing aids, said Xavier Becerra, secretary of Health and Human Services.

Under the proposal, hearing aids for severe hearing loss or for users younger than 18 would remain as prescription devices.

The department will take comments on the proposed rule for 90 days and plan to implement the rule 60 days after finalizing it.

“Finalizing this remains a top priority for the agency,” said Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said during a press call.

Representative Debbie Dingell called the announcement “a major step forward for hearing health and will increase the accessibility of affordable hearing aid options for those who need them.”

The proposed rule follows an instruction in President Joe Biden’s broad competition executive order, which had told the Department of Health and Human Services to “promote the wide availability of low-cost hearing aids,” among many other instructions aimed at a wide variety of industries.

(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru and Diane Bartz and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Nick Zieminski)

Ecuador’s president declares 60-day state of emergency over rising crime

By Alexandra Valencia

QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuadorean President Guillermo Lasso late on Monday declared a state of emergency in the Andean country as part of a crackdown on the consumption and trafficking of drugs.

Lasso, a conservative who took office in May, said the move was a response to rising homicide figures nationwide and other crimes related to narcotic seizures, which total 147 tonnes so far this year.

“In the streets of Ecuador there is only one enemy: drug trafficking,” Lasso said in a television broadcast. “When drug trafficking grows so do assassinations and homicides, robberies of homes, vehicles, goods and people.”

“Our military and police forces will be felt strongly in the streets,” he said.

The 60-day state of emergency will allow the military to join drug and arms confiscation operations in nine of the country’s 24 provinces, including Guayas, home to major city Guayaquil, Lasso said. Patrols will take place 24 hours a day.

In the rest of the country, police will increase patrols and control efforts in public places.

More than 70% of violent deaths in the province of Guayas are “in some way” related to drug trafficking, Lasso said.

Violent deaths have also risen within prisons. Last month 119 people were killed in disturbances in a prison in Guayaquil, which the government has blamed on fighting between drug gangs.

Lasso said he would sponsor legislation to support security forces in efforts to combat crime and create an entity to defend officers prosecuted for “simply doing their duty.”

“This government will pardon all those who have been unjustly convicted for doing their job,” the president said, asking judges to “guarantee peace and order, not impunity and crime.”

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia,; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb, Editing by Steve Orlofsky)