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People hospitalized for flu should be tested for bird flu within 24 hours, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday, in an expansion of the agency’s efforts to tackle increasing infections in humans. 

The advisory is intended to prevent delays in identifying human cases of avian influenza A (H5N1) viruses amid high levels of seasonal influenza. 

The risk to the general public from bird flu is low, and there has been no further evidence of person to person spread, the agency said. 

Still, influenza A-positive patients, particularly those in an intensive care unit, should be tested ideally within 24 hours of hospitalization to identify the viral subtype and determine whether they have bird flu, the agency said. 

Prior to Thursday’s guidance, hospitals generally sent batches of samples to labs for subtyping every few days. 

Faster testing also aims to help doctors identify how people became infected and provide their close contacts with testing and medicine more quickly, if needed, said Nirav Shah, the agency’s principal deputy director, on a call with reporters. 

The CDC does not believe it has been missing bird flu infections in people, Shah said. No surveillance system detects 100% of cases, he added later. 

“The system is working as it should,” said Shah, adding that health officials want results sooner in case any public health action is needed. “What we need is to shift to a system that tells us what’s happening in the moment.” 

Nearly 70 people in the United States, most of them farmworkers, have contracted bird flu since April, as the virus has circulated among poultry flocks and dairy herds. Three people have tested positive without a clear source of exposure to the virus, according to CDC. 

Most infections in humans have been mild, but one fatality was reported in Louisiana last week. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has more than 300 personnel working on its bird flu response and has spent $1.5 billion on its efforts to curb the spread among poultry and dairy cattle, said Eric Deeble, a deputy undersecretary at the agency. 

The USDA last week said it would rebuild a bird flu vaccine stockpile for poultry. 

USDA officials have met several times with the transition team of the incoming Donald Trump administration to try to ensure a smooth handoff on agency actions to curb the spread of the virus, including a tabletop exercise at the White House on Wednesday, Deeble said. 

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, which encompasses CDC, also have repeatedly met with the transition team on Zoom calls and have shared their bird flu playbook, officials said on the press call.  

HHS said on Thursday it plans to put $211 million toward mRNA-based vaccine technology to better respond to emerging infectious diseases such as bird flu.  
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SPARROWS POINT, MARYLAND — Most Americans and visitors to the United States encounter Customs and Border Protection agents when they enter or return to the country at land crossings or airports. But CBP also is responsible for inspecting goods leaving the country, which creates a nearly impossible assignment of trying to intercept all stolen automobiles being shipped out of the U.S.

At the Port of Baltimore, CBP scrutinizes several hundred vehicles every day, and on average will find one illegal export — nearly all headed to a particular region of the world, says Adam Rottman, CBP’s director at the Port of Baltimore. He acknowledges that CBP has neither the time nor manpower to inspect every shipping container.

“I’d say 90 to 95% of every one of our stolen automobiles is headed to West Africa,” he tells VOA.

Alex Piquero, a professor of criminology at the University of Miami, said, “There are people who are stealing cars and car parts to sell them very quickly in the local markets. And then there are people literally stealing cars and putting them on containers and selling them, shipping them all over the world, not just to Africa, but also to the Middle East and to Asia.”

On any given day at the Port of Baltimore, CBP’s manifest of seized vehicles resembles the inventory of a small used car lot: a Kia purchased fraudulently at auction in New Jersey is bound for Ghana; a Mercedes-Benz valued at $48,000, purchased with a stolen identity in Ohio, is slated for shipment to Togo; a $75,000 Ford Raptor inside a container with one or two additional stolen vehicles and boxes of new power tools is headed for West Africa.

Rottman peeks inside one container for which no vehicles are listed.

“It’s supposed to be only household goods in there,” he says. “In this example, there’s at least three, probably four cars in that container.”

Rottman walks to another container opened for inspection.

“This container, we just opened today. The vehicle on the top there, that Honda, we’ve already verified through the VIN (vehicle identification number) that the car is stolen. There’s two [vehicles], more in the back,” he says.

CBP operates giant mobile X-ray trucks, the VACIS M6500s, which in minutes can scan shipping containers and determine if they should be opened for a closer inspection.

A growing problem

Auto theft is a problem accelerating across the United States. While the early part of the 2010s saw a decline in vehicle thefts, there has been a notable increase since 2020, influenced by factors that include the coronavirus pandemic and social media videos demonstrating how certain car models can easily be stolen.

The criminals frequently rent cars for a 30-day period and immediately drive them into a nearby container and paste a fake VIN over the real one. The car will not be reported stolen by the rental agency for a month. By then, it may already be on a ship.

Rottman stands in front of the container that has the expensive Ford Raptor inside.

“They’ll take the VIN number on the dashboard on your windshield. They’ll make a fake VIN. They’ll put it over the top, glue it on, so it would come up [on computer databases] clean, or it’s not on file when we look it up,” he explains. “But right away, we noticed the checked digit on the VIN doesn’t match what’s supposed to be on a Ford truck.”

For some buyers in Africa or on other continents, unwittingly acquiring a car stolen in the U.S. may seem like a good deal, but some of the vehicles are known to have been in accidents and could be unsafe, including airbags that no longer work.

“You could be putting your family members in danger by driving some of these stolen cars,” says Rottman.

There is also a moral hazard.

“When they purchase a car like this that’s been stolen, they’re funding these transnational criminal organizations. And criminal organizations are willing to do anything to make money,” Rottman says, noting that such activities by car theft gangs include human trafficking, drug smuggling and even terrorism.

Authorities in some African countries are working with Interpol and other transnational law enforcement agencies to seize some of the stolen vehicles that slip through American ports.

Cooperation is not consistent because of government corruption in some countries.

“Some governments will play nicer, and other governments won’t, and you can’t search every container. And that’s why the security at the port is so critically important,” Piquero of the University of Miami told VOA.

With so many buyers seeking a deal on a used car — often with no questions asked — there is unlikely to be a slowdown anytime soon in the global traffic of stolen vehicles.
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SAO PAULO — Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday denied a request by former President Jair Bolsonaro to temporarily restore his passport so that he could attend the inauguration in Washington of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump next week.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who Bolsonaro frequently has called his personal foe, said in the ruling that Bolsonaro currently holds no position that would allow him to represent Brazil at the event and that the former president did not adequately prove to the court that he had been invited.

Federal police seized Bolsonaro’s passport last February because he was considered a flight risk. He is the subject of several wide-ranging investigations, including over an alleged attempt to stay in office despite his electoral defeat. He denies the allegations against him.

The former Brazilian president requested permission to leave the country from Jan. 17 to 22 to attend the inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20 and a Hispanic inaugural ball. Bolsonaro, an outspoken admirer of Trump, said on his social media channels on Jan. 8 that he was “very happy with this invitation.”

“I’ll be representing the conservative, the right-wing, the good, the Brazilian people there in the United States, God willing,” Bolsonaro said.

His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press after the court ruling.

When de Moraes asked Bolsonaro’s lawyers for evidence of his invitation on Saturday, they forwarded an invitation letter signed by inauguration committee co-chairs Steve Witkoff and Kelly Loeffler.

Still, de Moraes argued that Bolsonaro had not adequately proven that he was invited to the inauguration. In the ruling, de Moraes followed the recommendation of Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet, who said Wednesday that Bolsonaro’s private interest in the trip did not outweigh the public interest in prohibiting from traveling abroad.

De Moraes said Bolsonaro remains a flight risk and added that he has advocated that his supporters who face legal troubles in cases involving their political allegiance should leave the country and seek asylum. Hundreds of Bolsonaro’s supporters involved in the Jan. 8, 2023, riots in capital Brasilia have left Brazil to avoid prosecution.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will not attend Trump’s inauguration.

Federal police seized Bolsonaro’s passport during a raid related to the investigation into whether he and top aides plotted to ignore the 2022 election results and stage an uprising to keep the defeated right-wing leader in power.

Brazil’s Supreme Court previously has denied a Bolsonaro request to retrieve his passport, in March 2024, following an invitation from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In November, federal police formally accused Bolsonaro and 36 others, including high-ranking military officers, of attempting a coup. Gonet, the prosecutor-general, will decide whether to charge Bolsonaro or toss the investigation.

Legal experts believe Bolsonaro could be charged and stand trial in the second half of 2025 at the Supreme Court for allegedly falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination status. Analysts also say there’s a reasonable chance he stands trial before 2026 over allegedly embezzling jewels gifted by Saudi Arabian authorities.

The former president denies that he tried to stay in office after his narrow electoral defeat in 2022 to his leftist opponent, Lula.

The Brazilian ambassador to the United States, Maria Luiza Viotti, will attend Trump’s inauguration, the government told The Associated Press on Thursday. President Lula was not officially invited to the ceremony.

Trump has invited some global leaders to his inauguration, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Argentinian President Javier Milei.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury nominee Scott Bessent on Thursday faced sharp questions from Democrats on tax policy, tariffs, China, Russia sanctions and the future of an IRS tax filing system that Republicans have called to be cut. 

Bessent sat in front of the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation hearing, where he told lawmakers that President-elect Donald Trump has an opportunity to unleash “a new economic golden age.” 

He was introduced by a fellow South Carolinian, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who said the U.S. needs a treasury secretary “who knows what he’s doing, has the trust of the president and loves his country.” Graham added: “Your ship came in with this guy.” 

But Democrats, including senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Michael Bennet of Colorado, expressed frustration that Trump’s promise to extend provisions of his 2017 tax cuts would benefit the wealthiest taxpayers and add to the growing national debt that has surpassed $36 trillion. 

Bennet assailed Bessent for shedding “crocodile tears” over the debt and spending, while the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act drove up the debt. “There’s so many things I think you owe the American people after we have seen the catastrophe” from the tax cuts. 

Bessent is a billionaire who, before becoming a Trump donor and adviser, donated to various Democratic causes in the early 2000s, notably Al Gore’s presidential run. He also worked for George Soros, a major supporter of Democrats. 

In his testimony, Bessent committed to maintaining the IRS’s Direct File program — which allows taxpayers to file their returns directly to the IRS for free — at least for the 2025 tax season, which begins Jan. 27. Republican lawmakers say the program is a waste of money because free filing programs already exist, although they are not popular. 

Bessent was one of several people Trump considered for the position. Trump took his time before settling on Bessent as his nominee. He also mulled over billionaire investor John Paulson and Howard Lutnick, whom Trump tapped as his nominee for commerce secretary. 

The treasury secretary is responsible for serving as the president’s fiscal policy adviser and managing the public debt. He would also be a member of the president’s National Economic Council. 

If confirmed, Bessent will oversee massive agencies within the Treasury Department, including the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS received a massive boost in funding from Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, though that money has been in constant threat of being cut. 

Trump expects him to help reset the global trade order, enable trillions of dollars in tax cuts, ensure inflation stays in check, manage a ballooning national debt and still keep the financial markets confident. 

“Productive investment that grows the economy must be prioritized over wasteful spending that drives inflation,” Bessent testified. 

Senators were expected to question the money manager for hours on his views on cryptocurrency, the Trump-era tax cuts and potential conflicts of interest. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, a member of the finance committee, sent Bessent more than 100 written questions in advance, interrogating him on such topics as agency independence, housing, treasury workforce issues and financial stability oversight. 

In addition, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee are circulating a document that alleges Bessent has avoided paying roughly $1 million in taxes related to his hedge fund. He will be asked about this during his hearing. 

Bessent has backed extending provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed into law in his first year in office. Estimates from various economic analyses of the costs of the various tax cuts range from nearly $6 trillion to $10 trillion over 10 years. 

He calls for spending cuts and shifts in existing taxes to offset the costs that extending the tax cuts would add to the federal deficit.
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Лише в Польщі йдеться про понад 80 тисяч громадян, які чекають свої документи
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Також Україна просить Росію створити медичні змішані комісії з метою верифікації тяжкопоранених і тяжкохворих
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Чоловіку інкримінують поширення інформації про розташування Збройних сил України та шахрайство
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У Повітряних силах зазначили, що ухвалили рішення щодо недопущення переведення військовослужбовців дефіцитних спеціальностей в інші роди та види ЗСУ
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In California, qualifying inmates volunteer as firefighters to assist in combating wildfires in Los Angeles. China uses forced labor involving arbitrarily detained Muslims in Xinjiang.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Blue Origin’s giant New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida early Thursday morning on its first mission to space, an inaugural step into Earth’s orbit for Jeff Bezos’ space company as it aims to rival SpaceX in the satellite launch business.

Thirty stories tall with a reusable first stage, New Glenn launched around 2 a.m. ET (0700 GMT) from Blue Origin’s launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, its seven engines thundering for miles under cloudy skies on its second liftoff attempt this week.

Hundreds of employees at the company’s Kent, Washington headquarters and its Cape Canaveral, Florida rocket factory roared in applause as Blue Origin VP Ariane Cornell announced the rocket’s second stage made it to orbit, achieving a long-awaited milestone.

“We hit our key, critical, number-one objective, we got to orbit safely,” Cornell said on a company live stream. “And y’all we did it on our first go.”

The rocket’s reusable first stage booster was due to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean after separating from its second stage, but failed to make that landing, Cornell confirmed. Telemetry from the booster blacked out minutes after liftoff.

“We did in fact lose the booster,” Cornell said.

The culmination of a decade-long, multi-billion-dollar development journey, the mission marks Blue Origin’s first trek to Earth’s orbit in the 25 years since Bezos founded the company.

Bezos told Reuters on Sunday, before Blue Origin’s first launch attempt, that he was most nervous about landing the booster.

But he added that sticking the landing would be the “icing on the cake” if they could achieve the milestone of getting the payload to its intended orbit.

Secured inside New Glenn’s payload bay for the mission is the first prototype of Blue Origin’s Blue Ring vehicle, a maneuverable spacecraft the company plans to sell to the Pentagon and commercial customers for national security and satellite servicing missions.

The rocket’s first attempt to launch on Monday was scrubbed around 3 a.m. ET because ice had accumulated on a propellant line. On Thursday, the company cited no issues ahead of launch.

Bezos monitored the launch from a few miles away in Blue Origin’s mission control room, wearing a large headset and flanked by dozens of launch staff. The company’s CEO, Dave Limp, was next to him.

New Glenn is expected to press ahead with a backlog of dozens of missions worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including up to 27 launches for Amazon’s Kuiper satellite internet network that will rival SpaceX’s Starlink service.

New Glenn is the latest U.S. rocket to debut in recent years as governments and private companies beef up their space programs and race to challenge Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its workhorse Falcon 9.

NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket had a successful debut in 2022, as did the Vulcan rocket last year from United Launch Alliance, Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s joint launch venture.

New Glenn is roughly twice as powerful as Falcon 9, the world’s most active rocket, with a payload bay diameter two times larger to fit bigger batches of satellites. Blue Origin has not disclosed the rocket’s launch pricing. Falcon 9 starts at around $62 million.

The development of New Glenn has spanned three Blue Origin CEOs and faced numerous delays as SpaceX grew into an industry juggernaut.

SpaceX’s giant, next-generation Starship rocket in development, which New Glenn will also compete with, is expected to further rattle the industry with cheap rides to space and full reusability.

Bezos in late 2023 moved to speed things up at Blue Origin, prioritizing the development of New Glenn and its BE-4 engines. He named Limp, an Amazon veteran, as CEO, who employees say introduced a sense of urgency to compete with SpaceX.
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Southern California firefighters made some progress in containing two major wildfires, while forecasters said weather conditions in the coming days could bring welcome relief from the days of dry air and high winds that have plagued the region.

The relief will give firefighters a key window to battle the Palisades Fire on the west edge of Los Angeles and the Eaton Fire in the foothills east of the city before another potential turn to dangerous conditions next week.

“Good news: We are expecting a much-needed break from the fire weather concerns to close this week,” the National Weather Service said Wednesday. “Bad News: Next week is a concern. While confident that we will NOT see a repeat of last week, dangerous fire weather conditions are expected.”

The Palisades Fire was 21% contained late Wednesday after burning 96 square kilometers, according to the California Department of Foresty and Fire Protection. The agency said the Eaton Fire was 45% contained and had burned 57 square kilometers.

More than 82,000 people were under evacuation orders, while 8,500 firefighters from the United States, Canada and Mexico were battling the two fires and several smaller ones in the region.

The fires have killed at least 25 people and burned 12,000 homes and other structures, according to authorities.

The wildfires ignited Jan. 7, fueled by strong Santa Ana winds in a region that has been largely without rain for eight months. Weather forecasts show little to no chance of rain in the next week.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, will be among several billionaires attending Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration. Tesla CEO Musk was instrumental in Trump’s reelection with his contribution of over a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump’s campaign coffers, according to Forbes. Musk is set to head Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur.

Reports say that Musk is slated to be seated at the inauguration with fellow billionaires Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

While it is not customary to invite foreign leaders, Trump has invited several. Argentinian President Javier Milei is expected to attend, according to Bloomberg. Milei was the first foreign leader to meet with Trump after he won November’s election. Trump has also invited Chinese President Xi Jinping who is sending an envoy. Far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has also received an invitation, but she has said she is not sure her schedule will allow her to attend.

It is customary for all the living presidents to attend the inauguration. Outgoing President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will attend Monday’s ceremony. When Biden was sworn in four years ago, following Trump’s losing reelection bid, Trump did not attend because he held on to the belief that he had won the election.

Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will also attend Trump’s inauguration. Bush and Clinton are set to be there with their wives, Laura Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“Former first lady Michelle Obama will not attend the upcoming inauguration,” the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama said in a statement. It will be the second time in recent weeks, following her absence at President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, that she has not attended a public ceremony with other former presidents and their wives.

Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, are also expected to be at the ceremony Monday. Harris was the Democratic candidate in last year’s presidential election.
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За даними слідства, лікарська комісія виключила чоловіка з військового обліку через нібито наявну невиліковну хворобу
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Кілька безпілотників влучили у фермерське господарство на Чернігівщині. Також уламки пошкодили приватні будинки на Харківщині та Полтавщині
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HAVANA — Cuba started releasing some prisoners Wednesday as part of talks with the Vatican, a day after President Joe Biden’s administration announced his intent to lift the U.S. designation of the island nation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

More than a dozen people who were convicted of different crimes — and some of them were arrested after taking part in historic 2021 protests — were released during the day, according to Cuban civil groups following the cases of detainees in the island.

Among those freed was tattooist Reyna Yacnara Barreto Batista, 24, who was detained in the 2021 protests and convicted to four years in prison for attacks and public disorder. She was released from a prison in the province of Camagüey and told The Associated Press that eight men were freed along with her.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration said it notified Congress of its intent to lift the designation of Cuba as part of a deal facilitated by the Vatican. Cuban authorities would release some of them before Biden’s administration ends on Jan. 20, officials said.

Hours later, the Cuban foreign ministry said the government informed Pope Francis it would gradually release 553 convicts as authorities explore legal and humanitarian ways to make it happen.

Havana did not link the prisoners’ release to the U.S. decision on lifting the designation but said it was “in the spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of the year 2025 declared by His Holiness,” referring to the Vatican’s once-every-25-year tradition of a Jubilee, in which the Catholic faithful make pilgrimages to Rome.

The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, one of the civil groups, said that by 4 p.m. EST, 18 people had been released, including Barreto Batista.

“At three in the morning they knocked,” Barreto Batista told the AP over the phone. “I was sleeping (in the cell) and they told me to gather all my things, that I was free.”

She said that she and the eight men were warned it was not a pardon or a forgiveness and that they had to be on good behavior or they could be sent back to prison.

“I am at home with my mother,” she said. “The whole family is celebrating.”

In July 2021, thousands of Cubans took to the streets to protest widespread power outages and shortages amid a severe economic crisis. The government’s crackdown on the demonstrators, which included arrests and detentions, sparked international criticism, while Cuban officials blamed U.S. sanctions and a media campaign for the unrest.

In November, another Cuban nongovernmental organization, Justice 11J, said that 554 people remained in custody in connection with the protests.

Biden’s intention to lift the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism is likely to be reversed as early as next week after President-elect Donald Trump takes office and Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio assumes the position of America’s top diplomat.

Rubio, whose family left Cuba in the 1950s before the communist revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, has long been a proponent of sanctions on the communist island. 
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President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to serve as secretary of state faced questioning from lawmakers Wednesday. Republican Marco Rubio told senators that if confirmed he would make U.S. national interest a priority. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reportss from Capitol Hill.
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On Wednesday the U.S. Department of Commerce announced it would implement new export controls on certain biotechnology equipment, citing national security concerns relating to artificial intelligence and data science.

The Commerce Department warned that China could use the biotech equipment’s technology to bolster its military capabilities and help design new weapons using artificial intelligence.

The department said the technology has many applications, including its ability to be used for “human performance enhancement, brain-machine interfaces, biologically inspired synthetic materials and possibly biological weapons.”

The sanctions effectively restrict shipments of the technology to countries without a U.S. license, such as China.

The controls apply to parameter flow cytometers and certain mass spectrometry equipment, which according to the Commerce Department, can “generate high-quality, high-content biological data, including that which is suitable for use to facilitate the development of AI and biological design tools.”

Last week, the Chinese Embassy in Washington said Beijing “firmly opposes any country’s development, possession or use of biological weapons.”

This latest move by the United States follows recent policy decisions that reflect Washington’s broad aim to limit Beijing’s access to U.S. technology and data.

Washington announced on Monday that it would tighten Beijing’s access to AI chip and technology exports by implementing new regulations that cap the number of chips that can be exported to certain countries, including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

This month, the ban on popular Chinese-owned social media TikTok is planned to go into effect due to U.S. concerns over its potential to share sensitive data with China’s government.
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