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At age 46, the second-oldest skateboarder at the Tokyo Games is hoping to not have a heart attack and have mounds of fun. Should be no problem. Fun has been a life’s work for Dallas Oberholzer.”I have never had a real job. I have never applied for a job,” he says. “My whole life has just been skateboarding. I am just hooked.”Skateboarding’s young guns, with their endorsements and boards bearing their names, have bigger tricks and bigger Instagram followings than the grizzled South African with a salt-and-pepper beard. Oberholzer isn’t expecting to beat them when they go wheel-to-wheel this week in Tokyo’s huge purpose-built Olympic skate bowl.But Oberholzer has big tales, woven from a nomadic existence on four squeaky polyurethane wheels. If skateboarding is the punk rock sport of the Games, disruptive and not taking itself too seriously, then Oberholzer is its Iggy Pop — raw, wild and worn, someone who can talk and talk and talk.About, say, when he worked as a concert chauffeur, ferrying around Janet Jackson’s dancers. Or his 16-month road trip, from Canada all the way to Argentina, after he graduated from university with a degree in marketing that he quickly realized he had no use for.”Just a collection of experiences” is how he describes himself. Another description could be: A mascot for middle-aged people everywhere, flying the flag for Generation X against Gens Y and Z.”I’m not going to win. I am not going to get a medal,” he said. “But, like, I am legitimately the best guy in Africa. By default, the best guy in Africa goes to the Olympics.””It’s just unbelievably epic,” he added. “It’s all expenses paid and it’s going to be the best course I would have ever skated in my life.”Only Rune Glifberg, aka “the Danish Destroyer” and also 46, is older (by eight months) than Oberholzer among the 80 men and women competing in skateboarding’s Olympic debut in Tokyo.In the men’s park competition on Thursday, Oberholzer and Glifberg — with their spiky shocks of grey-flecked hair — will face skaters less than half their age.The women’s event on Wednesday has even younger skaters: Kokona Hiraki of Japan is just 12. In the women’s street event in Week 1, three young teens — 13, 13 and 16 — won gold, silver and bronze.Dallas Oberholzer, 46, from South Africa, takes part in a men’s park skateboarding training session at the 2020 Summer Olympics, July 31, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan.”I have got nothing to lose, nothing to prove. I know I am 46 and all I need to do is keep my cardio up so I can stay on my skateboard for 45 seconds,” Oberholzer said. “I’m going to be the one smiling, bro. I hope. Or I will be having a mild heart attack.”Skating’s age range is remarkably broad for an Olympic event and testifies to the sport’s inclusivity. In July, skating pioneer Tony Hawk competed at the X Games at age 53, and was beaten by a 12-year-old, Gui Khury.The sport’s coffee mug could read: “Skaters don’t grow old, they just get new wheels.””Skateboarding definitely makes you feel younger,” Glifberg said. “It’s not just a physical thing. It’s a lot to do with style and grace and just the way that you present yourself on the board.”Whereas Gens Y and Z have had “how-to” videos on YouTube and Instagram to teach them tricks, Oberholzer and Glifberg had to find their own way.Glifberg started right around the time that Back to the Future turned kids onto skating in 1985. For Oberholzer, it was a rented VHS copy of the 1986 movie Thrashin’, about skateboarding gangs, that “made all our eyeballs pop out.”Until then, his sport had been tennis.”I remember just thinking to myself, ‘I could play tennis and let the ball have all the fun or I could be the ball,'” he recalled. “And I’m like, ‘I want to be the ball. I want to be the one flying around.'”Anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was still in prison when Oberholzer started riding buses into central Johannesburg in search of places to skate. Schooled, like other white South Africans, separately from Black kids, it was on his board that Oberholzer first started to meet and mingle with Black peers who also skated.”It really helped me get over my apartheid upbringing,” he said.In turn, Oberholzer is giving back. He uses skateboarding to reach out to kids in tough neighborhoods, to keep them from drugs and gangs and help them develop skills. The Indigo Youth Movement he founded has built multiple skate parks and ramps.But none of that has impressed his mum, Linda, quite like qualifying for the Olympics.”My mom is finally happy with my life choices, bro. You know what a good feeling that is? It’s taken that long for my mom to acknowledge what I do with my life,” he said. “That’s probably the best thing I’m taking out of this, is that my mom finally goes, ‘Wow.'” 
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Tokyo’s metropolitan government said new coronavirus infections surged to a record high Saturday as the city hosts the Olympic Games.The government reported 4,058 new cases, topping 4,000 for the first time.The new record was set one day after Japan extended a state of emergency for Tokyo through the end of August to contain the spread. The extension also applies to three prefectures near Tokyo and the western prefecture of Osaka.A new record for infections also was set nationwide Saturday. Public broadcaster NKH reported 12,341 new cases, 15% higher than the day before.“The pandemic will end when the world chooses to end it,” World Health Organization Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday in Geneva about the global COVID-19 outbreak that is now being driven by the delta variant of the coronavirus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the delta variant is as contagious as chicken pox and that infections in vaccinated people may be as transmissible as those in the unvaccinated.COVID-19 Spreads in China, Australia as WHO Sounds Alarm on Delta Worldwide, coronavirus infections are once again on the upswing“WHO’s goal remains to support every country to vaccinate at least 10% of its population by the end of September, at least 40% by the end of this year, and 70% by the middle of next year,” the WHO chief said, but added that the realization of the goals is “a long way off.”“So far, just over half of countries have fully vaccinated 10% of their population, less than a quarter of countries have vaccinated 40%, and only three countries have vaccinated 70%,” Tedros said. He recalled that WHO had earlier “warned of the risk that the world’s poor would be trampled in the stampede for vaccines” and that “the world was on the verge of a catastrophic moral failure” because of vaccine inequity.  “And yet the global distribution of vaccines remains unjust,” Tedros said.  “All regions are at risk, but none more so than Africa.”“Many African countries have prepared well to roll out vaccines, but the vaccines have not arrived,” he said. “Less than 2% of all doses administered globally have been in Africa,” with only 1.5% of the continent’s population fully vaccinated.  The WHO chief said his organization was “issuing an urgent call” for $7.7 billion for the launching of the Rapid ACT-Accelerator Delta Response, or RADAR, a response to the delta surge that would provide tests, treatments and vaccines.  CDC: COVID Delta Variant May Spread as Easily in Vaccinated as UnvaccinatedInternal CDC report urged staff to “acknowledge the war has changed” in light of the delta variant He also said COVAX; which provides vaccines to lower-income countries, needs additional funding.“The question is not whether the world can afford to make these investments,” Tedros said,” it’s whether it can afford not to.”U.S. President Joe Biden announced Thursday that civilian federal government employees must be vaccinated or submit to regular testing and wear masks. On Friday, a reporter asked Biden as he was leaving the White House whether Americans should expect more guidelines and restrictions related to the coronavirus. “In all probability,” he said.Biden also noted that on Thursday almost a million Americans received COVID-19 vaccinations and said, “I am hopeful that people are beginning to realize how essential it is to move” in response to the coronavirus threat.The White House said the average number of people getting their first shot of the coronavirus vaccines this week was up 30% over last week.  Also Friday, Walmart joined a growing number of U.S. companies issuing mandates for its workers to be vaccinated, saying the policy would apply to all employees at its headquarters along with managers who travel within the United States.    The Broadway League said Friday that audiences will be required to show proof of vaccination to watch Broadway performances and will be required to wear masks.Vietnam said Saturday it would extend travel restrictions in Ho Chi Minh City and 18 other southern cities and provinces for another two weeks to contain its worst outbreak to date, according to Reuters. The extension begins Monday in a country that contained the virus for much of the pandemic but reports a total of 145,000 cases and more than 1,300 deaths, 85% of which were reported in the last month.A weekend lockdown has been imposed in India’s southern state of Kerala as it grapples with some 20,000 new cases daily, Reuters reported. Federal authorities sent experts to the area to monitor developments in the state that accounts for more than 37% of the nearly 32 million cases reported by India’s health ministry.Australia’s third-largest city of Brisbane said it would begin a COVID lockdown on Saturday amid rising case numbers. Neighboring areas will also be subject to the stay-at-home orders.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that 80% of adults must be vaccinated before the country will consider reopening its border.     In Israel, health officials began administering coronavirus booster shots Friday to people older than 60 who have been fully vaccinated in an effort to stop a recent spike in cases. Italy’s Health Institute announced Friday that the delta variant accounted for almost all new COVID-19 cases in the country at nearly 95% of cases as of July 20.  German officials announced Friday that unvaccinated travelers arriving in the country will need to present a negative COVID-19 test result.     The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center Saturday reported there have been more than 197 million global COVID infections.
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Katie Ledecky is now the first swimmer to win a gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle in three consecutive Olympics.  The 24-year-old U.S. swimming phenom says she is looking forward to competing in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.  She’s leaving Tokyo with a bundle of medals — gold in the 800- and the 1,500-meter race, in addition to silver in the 400 and the 4×200 relay.U.S. Swimmer Caleb Dressel set a world record and won his third gold medal of the Tokyo Games in his 49.45-second triumph in the 100-meter butterfly.Simone Biles Makes Mental Health the Talk of the Tokyo GamesOlympians in many sports have spent the past two days coming forward to recount their own battles while offering support to BilesAmerican gymnast Simone Biles will not compete Sunday in the finals for the uneven bars and the vault.  USA Gymnastics did not say whether Biles will compete in next week’s floor exercise and balance beam finals.  Biles withdrew from the team and individual all-round competitions earlier this week, saying she had mental health issues and trouble maneuvering in the air.  She posted on Instagram, “Literally can not tell up from down.”  Ivan Litvinovich won the gold in the men’s trampoline final.  The score for the 20-year-old from Belarus was 61.715, while China’s Dong Dong won the silver with 61.235.  New Zealand’s Dylan Schmidt took home the bronze.  On Saturday, the Olympic Games announced 21 new COVID-19 cases among people connected with the Olympics, bringing the total number to 246, including 26 athletes.  Olympic Swimming: More Gold for Dressel, Ledecky and McKeownBritain wins the inaugural mixed medley relay
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The post-Usain Bolt era in the men’s Olympic 100 meters began on Saturday in Tokyo with Dorian Keletela, who is competing as part of the Olympic Refugee team, advancing to the next round with a personal best 10.33 seconds.Bolt won three straight titles from Beijing in 2008 and his retirement in 2017 has left something of a vacuum in the showpiece athletics event, with no one stepping up to fill the Jamaican’s shoes.On Saturday, amid stifling temperatures that hovered above 30 degrees Celsius, sprinters took the track as they began their attempts to succeed world-record holder Bolt.Keletela, 22, is one of those athletes.Originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he moved to Portugal in 2016 following the death of his parents due to conflict in his homeland and ran a personal best 10.33 to advance to the next round later on Saturday.”I am very, very proud of this and I am very, very proud of this team. It gives me a lot of strength to go on,” Keletela said after the race. “You can do … anything, whether you are a refugee or not.”Others who progressed from the preliminary heats include Zimbabwe’s Ngoni Makusha, who got off the block fast to win his heat in 10.32, and Oman’s Barakat Al Harthi, who posted 10.27s to win his race.There were three preliminary heats overall and the first three in each heat qualify to round one, along with the athlete who posts the next fastest time.The world’s top sprinters enter the equation later Saturday, with the United States, who have won more golds in the event than all other nations combined, determined to take Bolt’s mantle and regain their supremacy.Their last gold medal win in the event came via Justin Gatlin in 2004.Contenders include Trayvon Bromell, whose 9.77 second run in Florida last month is the fastest of the year and propels him into the top tier of favorites in the race.His compatriot Ronnie Baker is probably his closest rival for podium positions and finished second to him at the U.S. trials with a time of 9.85.Canada’s Andre De Grasse, who won bronze in the 100m in Rio five years ago, will be looking to go for the title this time around while South African sprinter Akani Simbine, fifth in Brazil and boasting the second-fastest time of the year, will also be in the running.Bolt’s former training partner, 2012 silver medalist Yohan Blake, the second-fastest man in history, will carry his nation’s hopes on his shoulders.  
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Swimming is nothing if not orderly.Get ready for a little chaos.Here comes the 4×100-meter mixed medley relay making its Olympic debut in Tokyo on Saturday: Two men and two women per country doing backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle. The teams get to decide who swims each stroke, so a woman from one team and a man from the other could be doing the butterfly, say, at the same time.”I was probably a bit skeptical when it first came on the program, but I’m so thrilled that it’s now an Olympic event,” Australian sprinter Cate Campbell said. “It keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very last moment.”FINA, the sport’s world governing body, added two mixed relays to its program at the 2015 world championships in Kazan, Russia, where the 4×100 mixed freestyle relay also debuted.While there are no restrictions on whether a man or woman swims which stroke, there are some general strategies that teams follow at the highest levels for the mixed relay.Most teams put a woman on the final freestyle leg because the time difference between women and men is generally less on that stroke than the other three. All 16 teams anchored with a female in the Olympic preliminaries.Likewise, a man generally swims the breaststroke, where there’s a larger gap between the fastest men’s and women’s times — roughly 7 1/2 seconds for the gold medalists in Tokyo. All but one team in the preliminaries went with a male on the third leg.There’s more wiggle room on the backstroke and butterfly legs. In the preliminaries, 10 of 16 teams used a man on the backstroke, while the butterfly leg featured nine females and seven men.”Different nations have different strengths on different legs and that brings in so many different strategies,” Britain’s Duncan Scott said. “You can be so far behind and claw it back.”Led by a blistering breaststroke leg from Adam Peaty, Britain topped the qualifying with an Olympic-record time. The United States advanced in second, followed by China and Australia for Saturday’s final.”There’s no pressure on us,” Peaty said. “If China wants to bring it, they can bring it. If America wants to bring it, they can bring it.”Coaches are looking for the fastest combination of swimmers in the four strokes. Swimmers negotiate extremely choppy water throughout the eight-lap race. A team that leads off with two men can build a big lead if others go with a different lineup. Things get so hectic, it’s often hard to tell who’s ahead.”You might be leading by a lot at 100, but then someone else might take over,” Peaty said, “and that’s just the fun of it.”In a sport known for its traditionalism, adding a mixed event to the Olympics initially had its critics. But Peaty views it as a chance to modernize and raise swimming’s entertainment value.”It’s good to have some fun out there,” he said. “I love the scrap.”
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Noor Mukadam’s last hours were terror-filled. Beaten repeatedly, the 27-year-old jumped from a window but was dragged back, beaten again and finally beheaded. A childhood friend has been charged with her killing.The gruesome death last week in an upscale neighborhood of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, is the latest in a series of attacks on women in Pakistan, where rights activists say such gender-based assaults are on the rise as the country barrels toward greater religious extremism.Mukadam was the daughter of a diplomat, and her status as a member of the country’s elite has shone a spotlight on the relentless and growing violence against women in Pakistan, said prominent rights activist Tahira Abdullah. But the majority of women who are victims of such violence are among the country’s poor and middle classes, and their deaths are often not reported or, when they are, often ignored.”I could give you a list longer than my arm, only in one week” of attacks against women, said Abdullah. “The epidemic of sexual crimes and violence against women in Pakistan is a silent epidemic. No one sees it. No one is talking about it.”A women’s rights activist places a candle beside a poster with the pictures of Noor Mukadam, who was recently beheaded, during a candle light vigil to pay tribute to Noor and other domestic violence victims, in Islamabad, Pakistan, July 25, 2021.Still, Pakistan’s Parliament this month failed to pass a bill that seeks to protect women from violence in the home, including attacks by a husband. Instead, it asked an Islamic ideology council to weigh in on the measure — the same council that previously said it was OK for a husband to beat his wife.Data collected from domestic violence hotlines across the country showed a 200% increase in domestic violence between January and March last year, according to a Human Rights Watch report released earlier this year. The numbers were even worse after March, when COVID-19 lockdowns began, according to the report.In 2020, Pakistan was near the bottom of the World Economic Forum’s global gender index, coming in at 153 of 156 countries, ahead of only Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan, which held the last spot despite billions of dollars spent and 20 years of international attention on gender issues there.Many of the attacks in Pakistan are so-called honor killings, where the perpetrator is a brother, father or other male relative. Each year, more than 1,000 women are killed in this way, many of them unreported, say human rights workers.”The authorities have failed to establish adequate protection or accountability for abuses against women and girls, including so-called ‘honor killings’ and forced marriage,” according to the HRW report.Rights groups have been sharply critical of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government, saying he panders to the religious right and excuses the perpetrators of attacks on women.A former cricket star who has married three times, Khan once had a reputation as a womanizer but has now embraced a conservative Islam. He keeps close ties with a religious ceric who blamed COVID-19 on “the wrongdoing of women.” He once appeared to blame women for attacks by men saying, “if you raise temptation in society … all these young guys have nowhere to go, it has consequences in the society.”Women’s rights activists demonstrate to condemn the violence against women in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, July 24, 2021.His information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, says Khan’s statements have been taken out of context and denied violence against women is on the rise, without offering evidence. He said his government encourages women in politics and sports and in provinces where Khan’s party dominates human rights legislation has been strengthened.”I think this perception is not really close to reality, that in Pakistan women are not safe or maybe that there’s a misogyny in practice in Pakistan,” Chaudhry said in an interview.Yet last week, one of Khan’s Cabinet ministers, Ali Amin Gandapur, told a rally of thousands of mostly male supporters, that he would “slap and slap” a female opposition political leader.Last September, a senior police officer blamed a woman who was ambushed and gang raped in front of her two children, saying she should not have been traveling at night and without a man.Such remarks reflect an increase in ultraconservative and even extremist religious values in Pakistan, said Amir Rana of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies.The country has seen an explosion of religious organizations and religious political parties, many with extreme beliefs, said Rana, whose organization tracks and documents extremism in Pakistan.These organizations have tremendous reach in most cities and towns, where they provide services from education to health care, and thus have extensive ability to influence social values, said Rana.The history of religious extremism in Pakistan is complicated, and Chaudhry, the information minister, argued that America shares responsibility for the role it played in the region in the 1980s. At that time, Pakistan’s military dictator aided by the U.S. used religious fervor to inspire Afghans to fight an invading Soviet Union. Many of those Afghans ended up in Pakistan as refugees.”And very conveniently now, the U.S. media and U.S. authorities … blame everything on Pakistan and have left the region,” he said.Pakistan’s prominent rights activist Tahira Abdullah speaks about violence against women during an interview with The Associated Press in Islamabad, Pakistan, July 27, 2021.But Abdullah, the rights activist, said Pakistan cannot shirk its own responsibility, noting that same dictator, Gen. Mohammad Zia-ul Haq, introduced Islamic laws that, among other things, reduced women’s rights to inheritance, limited the value of their testimony in court and made reporting a rape almost impossible by requiring four male witnesses.In Mukadam’s assault, police have charged Zahir Jaffar, the son of a wealthy industrialist, with murder. Initial reports say she was killed after spurning his marriage proposal. It’s not clear whether Jaffar has a lawyer.The brutality of the assault — the attacker used so-called brass knuckles — and the fear that his high social status means he could be freed, galvanized many in Pakistan to speak out. They have held protests and a candlelight vigil and launched a social media campaign #justicefornoor to preempt attempts to use influence and money to whisk the accused out of the country.In one petition circulating online, the author demanded the country’s judicial system “hold perpetrators of violence responsible. We demand justice. We demand it swiftly. We demand it for Noor. We demand it for all women.”Zarqa Khan, a student who attended a candlelight vigil for Mukadam, bemoaned how religion now pervades so much of life in Pakistan and how today she fears walking alone on the streets.”I just didn’t feel safe outside anymore,” said Khan. “And that shouldn’t be the scenario.”
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Face mask requirements are returning to the United States in some communities and workplaces, along with directives for mandatory coronavirus vaccinations, in a new push to curb the easily transmissible delta variant of the infection that has already killed more than 611,000 Americans.

On the Independence Day holiday earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden heralded the strides the country had made in combating the coronavirus. But now he said he was seriously considering requiring that the more than 2.1 million federal workers be vaccinated, and that he would adhere to face mask rules when he visited parts of the country where the virus was surging.

The U.S. is now recording more than 60,000 new coronavirus cases each day, the government said, up from fewer than 12,000 a day in late June.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, has reimposed a mask requirement in the chamber.

The western state of Nevada, where the popular Las Vegas gambling mecca is located, is reimposing mask rules for indoor gatherings, as is the Midwestern city of Kansas City, Missouri. A major newspaper, The Washington Post, said it would require that all its journalists be vaccinated before returning to the office in mid-September.

The requirements follow new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said Tuesday that new data suggested even vaccinated people could pass on the virus if they became infected. The CDC said masks should be worn inside public places in communities that have seen a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“I know this is not a message America wants to hear,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told CNN on Wednesday. “With prior variants, when people had these rare breakthrough infections, we didn’t see the capacity of them to spread the virus to others, but with the delta variant, we now see that you can actually now pass it to somebody else.”

She stressed that vaccines against the coronavirus were preventing greater levels of hospitalization and death. But millions of Americans remain skeptical of the vaccines and are refusing to get inoculated, or are saying  they are unlikely to do so.

Walensky said unvaccinated people were accounting for “a vast majority” of new infections. Two-thirds of the vaccine-eligible population of people 12 years and older in the U.S. have received at least one dose. Still, the government said slightly less than half of the U.S. population of more than 328 million people had been fully vaccinated.

“We can halt the chain of transmission,” Walensky said Wednesday on “CBS This Morning.” “We can do something if we unify together, if we get people vaccinated who are not yet vaccinated. If we mask in the interim, we can halt this in just a matter of a couple of weeks.”

With the new federal guidance, numerous state and municipal governments across the U.S. are reconsidering or rescinding their earlier easing of mask rules.

The CDC also called on school systems across the country to require masks for students, teachers and visitors as they start the new school year in August and September. But some states in the South have passed laws banning masks in schools, leaving it unclear as to how they may react to the new CDC guidance.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
 
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As the U.S economic recovery continues, many Americans want to buy new cars and trucks. But finding them is hard amid a global semiconductor shortage. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more on how COVID-19 continues to affect supply and demand in the automotive industry.

Producers: Kane Farabaugh, Adam Greenbaum. Videographer: Kane Farabaugh.
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The White House is strongly considering requiring federal employees to show proof they’ve been vaccinated against the coronavirus or otherwise submit to regular testing and wear a mask — a potentially major shift in policy that reflects growing concerns about the spread of the more infectious delta variant. 

The possible vaccine mandate for federal employees — regardless of the rate of transmission in their area — is one option under consideration by the Biden administration, according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss deliberations that have yet to be made public. The White House is expected to announce its final decision after completing a policy review this week. 

According to an analysis from the federal Office of Management and Budget, in 2020 there were more than 4.2 million federal workers nationwide, including those in the military. 

President Joe Biden suggested Tuesday that expanding that mandate to the entire federal workforce was “under consideration,” but offered no further details. The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday became the first federal agency to require vaccinations for its health workers. 

The broader requirement under consideration would be the most significant shift by the Biden administration this week as the White House grapples with a surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations nationwide driven by the spread of the delta variant and breakthrough infections among vaccinated Americans. 

On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed its masking guidelines and said that all Americans living in areas with substantial or high coronavirus transmission rates should wear masks indoors, regardless of their vaccination status. 

And just like that, masks were back at the White House. 

By Tuesday afternoon, when the latest CDC data found that Washington, D.C., is facing substantial rates of transmission, White House staff were asked to begin wearing masks indoors starting Wednesday. Members of the press were asked to follow suit, and those staff and reporters remaining in the White House were masking up. 

An aide for Vice President Kamala Harris passed out masks to the reporters covering her events earlier that day, asking them to put them on before walking into her meeting with Native American leaders on voting rights. 

Masks will also be required again at the U.S. House. 

Citing the new CDC guidance, the Capitol’s Attending Physician Brian P. Monahan issued a memo late Tuesday reinstating the mask requirement for all individuals, vaccinated and not, when entering the House chamber or other interior spaces in the complex when others are present. Fines that had been established under previous House rules can be imposed for offenders, though exceptions will be allowed when lawmakers are recognized to speak during proceedings. 

For the Senate, with far fewer members, the masks are being recommended but not required for the chamber and other indoor spaces. 

“All individuals should wear a well-fitted, medical-grade filtration mask,” Monahan wrote in a similar letter obtained by The Associated Press. 

Biden dismissed concerns that the new masking guidance from the CDC could create confusion among Americans, saying those who remain unvaccinated are the ones who are “sowing enormous confusion.” 

“The more we learn, the more we learn about this virus and the delta variation, the more we have to be worried and concerned. And there’s only one thing we know for sure — if those other 100 million people got vaccinated, we’d be in a very different world,” he told reporters after speaking to intelligence community employees at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Tuesday. 

But the whiplash on masking and vaccinations — just the day before, White House press secretary Jen Psaki had avoided questions over why the administration had yet to require vaccines for federal workers — reflects the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus. 

Various state and local governments, private companies, hospital administrators and universities across the nation have reverted to indoor mask mandates and instituted vaccine mandates in recent months, but just 60% of American adults have been completely vaccinated, and the latest wave of the coronavirus is hitting those communities with low vaccination rates particularly hard. The nation is averaging more than 57,000 cases a day and 24,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. 

But the Biden administration had thus far avoided embracing a vaccine mandate for its own employees — in part because officials are wary of further politicizing an already fraught issue by coming down too hard on the side of vaccine mandates. 

Psaki acknowledged Tuesday that administration officials are aware of the risk that Biden’s support for vaccine mandates could harden opposition to vaccines among his detractors. 

“The president certainly recognizes that he is not always the right voice to every community about the benefits of getting vaccinated, which is why we have invested as much as we have in local voices and empowering local, trusted voices,” she said. 
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Celal Baslangic was at his Cologne home on July 16 when two German police officers knocked on his door and warned the veteran Turkish journalist that his name was on an apparent “hit list” of those allegedly to be targeted for violence. 

The police provided Baslangic with contact details for an officer overseeing an investigation into a list of about 50 outspoken critics of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, some of whom live in Germany.  

Rumors of such a list already were circulating among the exile community. But as police investigate the veracity of the list, attention has turned to whether Ankara has the ability to reach dissidents who have left the country to avoid persecution.  

Journalists named on the list and experts say nationalist groups with links to violent crimes operate in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and that exiles who fled persecution in Turkey no longer feel safe. 

Baslangic, a veteran journalist with 47 years’ experience, left Turkey in early 2017 as authorities arrested dozens of reporters and others accused of supporting or promoting a failed attempted coup the year before.  

The former Cumhuriyet and T24 journalist was charged with terrorist propaganda for taking part in a solidarity campaign with the pro-Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem. 

Baslangic told VOA he believes the apparent hit list is an attempt to intimidate journalists and media outlets like Arti TV, the Turkish news network he founded when he moved to Cologne.  

“I do not think that this is only because of Erdogan. It is possible to view it as an effort of the coalition partners that will prevent Erdogan from getting closer to both the European Union and NATO,” Baslangic said. 

Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has a parliamentary alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).  

The Turkish Embassy in Berlin did not return VOA’s emailed requests for comment.  

Cologne police confirmed they have been aware of this apparent hit list since mid-July but declined to provide further information about the number of individuals and the identities of those on the list. 

“Those affected are journalists, writers, and artists close to the Turkish opposition,” a spokesperson told VOA.  

But Baslangic said he wants more transparency about the list. 

“We want to know the source of this list so that we can take it seriously, or [know if] it’s just to intimidate us, so that we can tell the difference,” Baslangic said. “No one can distinguish it better than us, because we know the Turkish state, and we know what this state can do.”

Physical attacks

For some journalists, like Erk Acarer, the warning he was on the list came as little surprise. 

On July 7, three assailants attacked the columnist for daily BirGun, in the courtyard of his Berlin apartment complex. The assailants — who spoke Turkish — warned Acarer to stop writing.  

Acarer needed hospital treatment for a head injury, and German police are investigating, the journalist told VOA. He added that police have provided protection for him and his family.  

On July 20, however, Berlin police found a threatening note wrapped around a hard-boiled egg in the courtyard to his home. 

Acarer says he thinks the Turkish government has a long reach in Europe and beyond.  

“Polarization and conflict in Turkey are being carried to Europe and other parts of the world by the AKP and MHP government. … So, I think the assailants are the gangs who have been consolidated by [the Turkish government] and live in Germany,” Acarer told VOA.  

Acarer didn’t specify a group, though networks that include the Grey Wolves and Osmanen Germania reportedly are operating outside of Turkey. 

In a 2020 report, Berlin estimated that in Germany, 11,000 people are affiliated with the ultra-nationalist movement of which the Grey Wolves are a part. The far-right Turkish group has been accused of politically motivated violence in Turkey and abroad.  

Separately, German media in 2017 alleged that Metin Kulunk, a high-ranking member of the AKP, had links the Turkish nationalist group Osmanen Germania.  

The group was outlawed in Germany in 2018 because of its links to violent crimes and extreme right-wing views.  

VOA was not able to find contact information for Kulunk. The media chair of the AKP did not respond to VOA’s email. 

Kulunk responded to the 2017 media reports at the time via social media, saying Germany supports the PKK and FETO group, and that its “deep state’s media operations are futilely trying to target me and Turkish civil society organizations.” 

Ankara says the FETO group was behind the failed attempted coup. The PKK is designated as a terror group by Turkey, U.S. and EU. 

No safety in exile

Hayko Bagdat, an exiled Turkish Armenian journalist, says Germany’s foreign policy priorities with Turkey, including the EU refugee deal and Turkey’s potential role in Afghanistan, prevent Berlin from addressing human rights issues with Ankara. 

Police also informed Bagdat his name is on the apparent list. 

“We are no longer a subject on their agenda at the negotiation table with the Erdogan regime. Democracy in Turkey, prisoners, imprisoned politicians, people in exile or their safety is not even an argument that is used against Erdogan anymore,” Bagdat told VOA.  

Because of that, Bagdat said, “Dissidents all over the world do not feel secure.”  

The journalist moved to Berlin from Istanbul in 2016 and Turkey later issued a warrant for his arrest on charges including terrorist propaganda and insult.   

An official source in Germany’s Foreign Ministry told VOA via email that Germany has “repeatedly campaigned for journalists and the respect for their rights in Turkey.” 

“For all people living in Germany, it must be guaranteed that they are not imperiled by any violence, regardless of underlying motivations,” the source said, adding that any “deficits in the respect for freedom of speech and the media are addressed consistently.” 

Laurens Hueting, an advocacy officer for the Leipzig-based European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), finds the attack on Acarer and list of alleged targets disturbing.  

“Going to live in exile is not enough for Turkish journalists to escape the persecution they face inside their own country, which is quite a frightening development in and of its own,” Hueting told VOA, describing Germany as a “safer haven.” 

“What we’ve been advocating for and saying is that there should not be this half-hearted approach and that human rights should be always at the center and the forefront of this relationship consistently, and not be made subordinate to other geopolitical considerations,” Hueting said. 

For all the debates on politics and attention to the apparent hit list, for those directly affected, it is one more threat they must contend with just because of their profession.  

When asked if he was taking steps to protect his safety, Baslangic responded, “What can we do? Are we supposed to get guns? We’re journalists and we’re doing our jobs.” 

This report originated in VOA’s Turkish service.  
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Warning: This TV package includes a soundbite from Tuesday’s congressional hearing that contains profane and racist language.

U.S. lawmakers heard emotional testimony from four members of law enforcement Tuesday as a special panel met for the first time to investigate the events of the January 6 attempt by Trump supporters to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports the panel will probe former President Donald Trump’s role in the riot.

Produced by: Katherine Gypson
 
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is expected to recommend that vaccinated people in parts of the country wear masks while indoors, reversing a decision it made two months ago.

Federal officials with knowledge of the decision told news agencies the CDC is expected to make the announcement later Tuesday, based on surging numbers of new cases in regions with low vaccination rates.   

The rising caseload is driven by the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.  

There has also been a rise in cases of so-called breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people, suggesting the delta variant may be able to cause such infections more often than previous strains of the virus.  

Health officials say vaccines remain effective against the worst outcomes of infection with the virus, including those involving the delta variant.

In televised interviews Sunday, White House medical advisor and top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said the mask guidelines were under review, as new infections in areas with low vaccination rates have been surging. The CDC says 30 states have less than half their residents fully vaccinated.

In May, the CDC said fully vaccinated people no longer would be required to wear masks or maintain social distancing of six feet from other people.  The agency still suggested people remain masked on public transportation and at crowded outdoor events.  

For months, COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations in the U.S. fell steadily, but those trends reversed over the past two months as the delta variant of the coronavirus began to spread.

The New York Times reports several cities and towns have restored indoor masking rules in recent weeks, including St. Louis, Missouri, Savannah, Georgia and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press, Reuters and the French News agency, AFP.
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The UN refugee agency warns about 24,000 Eritrean refugees trapped in two camps in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray province are in great danger as fighting among armed groups escalates. 

Concerns are growing for the safety and wellbeing of thousands of Eritrean refugees in Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps as fighting intensifies in Tigray’s Mai Tsebri area.  

The UN refugee agency reports aid agencies have been unable to access the camps since July 14.  It says conditions for the refugees have become increasingly dire and worrisome since then. 

UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch says members of armed groups have infiltrated the camps.  He says the Eritreans are living in constant fear.  He says they are facing intimidation and harassment and are cut off from humanitarian assistance.

“We have received disturbing and credible reports in recent days from Mai Aini camp that at least one refugee was killed by armed elements operating inside the camp,” Baloch said. “The latest death is in addition to the killing of another refugee on 14 July.”   

Baloch says he does not know which of the armed groups is responsible for the killings.  However, his agency, he says, has received credible reports that people with guns are operating inside the two refugee camps.

He says the UNHCR has been appealing to the local authorities and the Ethiopian refugee agency to provide safety for the refugees and to grant aid agencies access to the camps.  He notes the Eritrean refugees have been without humanitarian assistance for the last two weeks.

“Trapped refugees need urgent life-saving assistance,” Baloch said. “Clean drinking water is running out, no healthcare services are available, and hunger is a real danger.  The last food distribution to both refugee camps was done in late June, which provided them rations for just one month.  

Baloch says recent armed clashes in Afar region to the east of Tigray have displaced thousands of people, among them about 55,000 Eritrean refugees.  He says concerns for their safety also are growing as armed confrontations are taking place near where the refugees live.
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Human Rights Watch on Tuesday accused the Israeli military of carrying out attacks that “apparently amount to war crimes” during an 11-day war against the Hamas militant group in May.

The international human rights organization issued its conclusions after investigating three Israeli airstrikes that it said killed 62 Palestinian civilians. It said “there were no evident military targets in the vicinity” of the attacks.

The report also accused Palestinian militants of apparent war crimes by launching more than 4,000 unguided rockets and mortars at Israeli population centers. Such attacks, it said, violate “the prohibition against deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians.”

The report, however, focused on Israeli actions during the fighting, and the group said it would issue a separate report on the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in August.

“Israeli forces carried out attacks in Gaza in May that devastated entire families without any apparent military target nearby,” said Gerry Simpson, associated crisis and conflict director at HRW. He said Israel’s “consistent unwillingness to seriously investigate alleged war crimes,” coupled with Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli civilian areas, underscored the importance of an ongoing investigation into both sides by the International Criminal Court.

There was no immediate reaction to the report by the Israeli military, which has repeatedly said its attacks were aimed at military targets in Gaza. It says it takes numerous precautions to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for civilian casualties by launching rocket attacks and other military operations inside residential areas.

The war erupted on May 10 after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests against Israel’s heavy-handed policing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and because of the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers in a nearby neighborhood. In all, Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets and mortars toward Israel, while Israel has said it struck more than 1,000 targets linked to Gaza militants.

In all, some 254 people were killed in Gaza, including at least 67 children and 39 women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Hamas has acknowledged the deaths of 80 militants, while Israel has claimed the number is much higher. Twelve civilians, including two children, were killed in Israel, along with one soldier.

The HRW report looked into Israeli airstrikes. The most serious, on May 16, involved a series of strikes on Al-Wahda Street, a central thoroughfare in downtown Gaza City. The airstrikes destroyed three apartment buildings and killed a total of 44 civilians, HRW said, including 18 children and 14 women. Twenty-two of the dead were members of a single family, the al-Kawlaks.

Israel has said the attacks were aimed at tunnels used by Hamas militants in the area and suggested the damage to the homes was unintentional. 

In its investigation, HRW concluded that Israel had used U.S.-made GBU-31 precision-guided bombs, and that Israel had not warned any of the residents to evacuate the area ahead of time. It also found no evidence of military targets in the area.

“An attack that is not directed at a specific military objective is unlawful,” it wrote.

The investigation also looked at a May 10 explosion that killed eight people, including six children, near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. It said the two adults were civilians.

Israel has suggested the explosion was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket. But based on an analysis of munition remnants and witness accounts, HRW said evidence indicated the weapon had been “a type of guided missile.”

“Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target at or near the site of the strike,” it said.

The third attack it investigated occurred on May 15, in which an Israeli airstrike destroyed a three-story building in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp. The strike killed 10 people, including two women and eight children.

HRW investigators determined the building was hit by a U.S.-made guided missile. It said Israel has said that senior Hamas officials were hiding in the building. But the group found no evidence of a military target at or near the site and called for an investigation into whether there was a legitimate military objective and “all feasible precautions” were taken to avoid civilian casualties.

The May conflict was the fourth war between Israel and Hamas since the Islamic militant group, which opposes Israel’s existence, seized control of Gaza in 2007. Human Rights Watch, other rights groups and U.N. officials have accused both sides of committing war crimes in all of the conflicts.

Early this year, HRW accused Israel of being guilty of international crimes of apartheid and persecution because of discriminatory policies toward Palestinians, both inside Israel as well as in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel rejected the accusations.

In Tuesday’s report, it called on the United States to condition security assistance to Israel on it taking “concrete and verifiable actions” to comply with international human rights law and to investigate past abuses. 

It also called on the ICC to include the recent Gaza war in its ongoing investigation into possible war crimes by Israel and Palestinian militant groups. Israel does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and says it is capable of investigating any potential wrongdoing by its army and that the ICC probe is unfair and politically motivated.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will likely discuss deterring Chinese aggression in Southeast Asia through his stated pursuit of “integrated deterrence” as he delivers an address Tuesday during a visit to Singapore. 

Austin is the first top official from the Biden administration to visit the region.

After talks Tuesday with Singapore’s Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen, the two countries said in a joint statement they discussed regional security issues and “the importance of sustaining a rules-based order,” a major tenet of U.S. foreign policy since Biden took office.

The statement said the defense ministers also talked about potential areas of further cooperation, including cyber defense, humanitarian aid and disaster relief. 

Austin’s trip includes further stops in Vietnam and the Philippines.

 
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Britain enjoyed a one-two finish on Tuesday in the men’s 200-meter freestyle, while Russian swimmers ended U.S. dominance in the 100-meter backstroke and Kaylee McKeown gave Australia’s women more Olympic gold to celebrate at the Tokyo pool. 

Tom Dean won gold and teammate Duncan Scott took the silver in the 200-meter freestyle as the two British swimmers left their rivals in their wake, Brazil’s Fernando Scheffer won the bronze. 

It was Britain’s second swimming gold following Adam Peaty’s victory in the 100-meter breaststroke on Monday. 

“It’s amazing,” said Dean, reflecting on his journey to becoming Olympic champion. “It’s a dream come true having a gold around my neck. … I contracted COVID twice in the last 12 months … sitting in my flat in isolation, an Olympic gold was a million miles away.” 

It was the first time since 1908 that two male British swimmers have finished on the Olympic podium together. 

Scott had gone into the race as the slightly faster swimmer and narrowly favored for gold, but the blow of missing out was softened by his teammate’s joy. 

“Just a massive credit to Tom Dean. That was unbelievable. Olympic champion,” he said. “To come along so far in the last 18 months, it’s a pleasure to watch him. It’s great to be able to say he’s a good mate out of the pool.” 

In the men’s 100 backstroke, an event won by U.S. swimmers at the last six Games, Evgeny Rylov and Kliment Kolesnikov took top spots on the podium with Rio champion Ryan Murphy of the United States coming in third. 

Russian men had not won a swimming gold since 1996 when Alexander Popov and Denis Pankratov both topped the podium twice. 

Rylov and Kolesnikov were competing under the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee as part of sanctions imposed for several doping scandals. 

Women’s events 

Australia’s McKeown delivered a stunning victory in the women’s 100 backstroke as well as the team took gold in the 4×100 freestyle relay. 

The 20-year-old McKeown’s time was just two hundredths of a second shy of the world record she set in the Australian trials in June. 

McKeown would almost certainly not have been able to compete at Tokyo if the Games had been held on schedule last year with her father struggling with brain cancer. He died in August. 

McKeown forms part of an impressive generation of Australian women swimmers and the latest to see her golden goal come true. 

“I’m just thankful I have a good support team. A few people before the race came up and said to just have all the faith in the world that you have got this.” 

In another race that went down to the wire, Lydia Jacoby of the United States won gold in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke, the 17-year-old Alaskan finishing in 1:04.95, 0.27 seconds ahead of Tatjana Schoenmaker of South Africa. 

Jacoby’s teammate Lilly King, who won the event in Rio in 2016, took the bronze. 

Jacoby is the first Alaskan to represent the U.S. swim team and said she was stunned when she saw the scoreboard. 

“I was definitely racing for a medal. I knew I had it in me. I wasn’t really expecting a gold medal,” she said. “When I looked up and saw that scoreboard, it was insane.”  
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The U.S. Senate has confirmed Frank Kendall’s nomination to lead the Air Force. 

The approval of President Joe Biden’s choice came in a voice vote late Monday. 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that Kendall brings decades of expertise and is “an unmatched asset for the challenges we face today.” 

“Throughout his career, Frank has led the department’s acquisition efforts to equip our warfighters with the latest capabilities and cutting-edge weaponry for the battlefield, educated our next generation of leaders at West Point, and served as a human rights lawyer,” Austin said. 

Kendall served as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics during the administration of former President Barack Obama. 

He earlier worked as a vice president for defense contractor Raytheon. 

Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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