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Fully vaccinated people can skip the mask when they get together outside with others, vaccinated or not, according to A person wears a mask while jogging, April 27, 2021, near the Capitol in Olympia, Washington.The only time vaccinated people need to wear masks outdoors is when they are in crowds, like at street festivals, parades, farmers markets or political rallies, for example.Keep that mask handy, however. CDC still says to mask up when you go inside. But do go inside, the recommendations say. Indoor dining, movies, haircuts, religious services, exercise classes, and other indoor public spaces all are much safer for vaccinated people than unvaccinated.Just wear a mask.Why wear a mask indoors if you are vaccinated?”At their best, these vaccines are 95% effective,” said Vanderbilt University Medical Center infectious diseases professor William Schaffner. “I did not say 100%. So, there’s still that small risk that you could yourself acquire the infection.”Even if a vaccinated person does not get seriously ill, there remains a chance that the person could pass the virus on to someone who is not vaccinated.Also, not wearing a mask puts an unfair burden on workers to enforce mask rules.”You can’t expect someone at a store to go around and look at people’s vaccination status,” noted Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.Indoor get-togethers without masks are fine when everyone is vaccinated, as earlier CDC guidelines said.Students at Wyandotte County High School wear masks as they walk through a hallway on the first day of in-person learning at the school in Kansas City, Kansas, March 31. 2021.The guidelines also note that unvaccinated people can walk, run or bike outside without a mask, a recommendation that some experts said is long overdue.”If you’re walking outside and passing someone for a second, even without vaccination, you did not need to be wearing a mask,” said Leana Wen, health policy professor at The George Washington University and former Baltimore health commissioner. “So, I’m glad that the Biden administration is clarifying that part.””I do still think that their guidance is overly cautious,” she added. “But at least now they are finally differentiating between what it is that people can do once they’re fully vaccinated compared to those who are not.”The updated recommendations give people more of an incentive to get vaccinated, Wen said.The recommendation regarding wearing masks indoors will likely remain until a bigger chunk of the population is vaccinated and the case count comes down from where it is today, in the tens of thousands, Adalja said.The pace of vaccination has slowed, however, from more than 3 million shots per day two weeks ago to about 2.5 million.The people who were ready and willing to get vaccinated have largely done so. Now, the hard work of overcoming hesitancy begins.”The more people who are vaccinated, the more steps we can take towards spending time with people we love doing the things we love to enjoy,” Walensky said. 
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The first shipment of critical medical supplies arrived in India Tuesday as the country continues to struggle with a catastrophic second wave of COVID-19 infections, a situation described as “beyond heartbreaking” by the head of the World Health Organization.A plane from Britain filled with 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators, which collects atmospheric air and converts it into pure oxygen, landed at the airport in Delhi before dawn. The British high commission in India says a total of nine transport planes will deliver nearly 500 oxygen concentrators and 140 ventilators to the South Asian nation this week.Other nations have also pledged to ship badly needed medical supplies to India.  France has promised to send ventilators, oxygen generators and containers of liquid medical oxygen by next week, with Germany, Israel and Pakistan, India’s neighbor and longtime arch-enemy, sending personal protective gear, treatments and diagnostic tests along with ventilators and oxygen.US to Send Oxygen to India Biden administration also plans to send 60 million vaccines doses abroad amid latest wave of coronavirus infections   WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva Monday the global health agency “is doing everything we can, providing critical equipment and supplies, including thousands of oxygen concentrators, prefabricated mobile field hospitals and laboratory supplies.”He noted the WHO has already announced 2,600 extra WHO staff members will go to India to help with efforts to fight the disease.The international assistance comes as India reported another 323,144 new confirmed COVID-19 cases Tuesday, marking the sixth consecutive day of more than 300,000 infections.  The country’s health care system is nearing complete collapse, with hospitals crammed with so many coronavirus patients that authorities have been forced to convert train carriages into COVID isolation wards.India also posted another 2,771 COVID-related deaths Tuesday, as crematories have been busy night and day burning people’s remains.  The capital, New Delhi, remains under a lockdown that was extended Monday for another week.India Posts Fifth Consecutive Day of 300,000-Plus New COVID-19 Infections as World Sends Badly Needed AidUS and Britain begin sending ventilators, protective gear, oxygen equipment and testing supplies to beleaguered South Asian nation This second wave has been blamed on the spread of more contagious variants of the virus, plus the easing of restrictions on large crowds when the outbreak appeared to be under control earlier this year.The situation has prompted many nations to suspend all passenger air travel to and from India.  Australia on Tuesday suspended direct passenger flights from India until May 15, leaving thousands of Australians stranded there, including several cricketers playing in the Indian Premier League.India has administered more than 142 million doses of the vaccine, but only 1.6% of its estimated 1.4 billion people are fully vaccinated, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.The country is facing a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines as it struggles with a shortage of raw materials needed to manufacture doses.Having already pledged to send raw materials to India to produce vaccines, the Biden administration announced Monday it will share its stockpile of 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine with other countries, with India likely to be a major recipient.  The two-dose vaccine, which has not been approved for use in the United States, will be shipped overseas once they pass a federal safety check.The doses were manufactured at a Baltimore manufacturing plant that ruined 15 million doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine after the ingredients were accidentally mixed with the ingredients that make the AstraZeneca vaccine. The plant was recently shut down by federal regulators over safety concerns.Meanwhile, the executive committee of the European Union has filed a lawsuit against AstraZeneca for failing to fulfill its contract to deliver millions of doses to its 27-member nations.The British-Swedish drugmaker had initially promised to deliver more than 300 million doses by the end of June, but has since cut that number down to just 100 million doses. The company issued a statement saying it “regrets” the European Commission’s action, calling the lawsuit “without merit.”The lawsuit is the latest blow to AstraZeneca’s efforts to produce a COVID-19 vaccine that can be stored at regular temperatures, making it easier to use and cheaper for many of the world’s poorer nations.  The vaccine has been plagued by a host of problems, including reports of possible blood clots that prompted many nations to halt their initial rollouts of the vaccine.
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U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday announced a federal investigation of policing practices in the southern U.S. city of Louisville, Kentucky, where officers last year shot and killed Breonna Taylor, a Black emergency technician, during a bungled raid on her home.
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Britain froze assets, imposed sanctions and enacted travel bans on nearly two dozen people accused of bribery, kickbacks and fraud on Monday, marking the first time the nation employed its own sanctioning powers to combat international corruption. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told lawmakers that the sanctions would prevent the United Kingdom from being used as “a haven for dirty money,” according to The Associated Press. “Corruption has a corrosive effect as it slows development, drains the wealth of poorer nations and keeps their people trapped in poverty. It poisons the well of democracy,” Raab said, according to Reuters. The list includes 14 Russians implicated in a $230 million tax fraud case, as well as Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, members of the Gupta business family at the center of a South African corruption scandal. The Guptas deny wrongdoing.  Sanctions were also imposed on businessman Ashraf Seed Ahmed Al-Cardinal, who is accused of stealing state assets in impoverished South Sudan, as well as individuals from Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. FILE – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press briefing in Brussels, Belgium, March 24, 2021.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he welcomed the sanctions, adding that they strengthened efforts to counter corruption globally. Britain previously imposed sanctions as part of the European Union or United Nations. It has created its own sanctions laws since leaving the EU at the end of 2020. Those laws give the British government the power to penalize those credibly involved in serious violation of human rights and corruption. Sanctioned individuals may not enter Britain, channel money through British banks or profit from the British economy.   The so-called Magnitsky sanctions, which the U.S. and several other countries have enacted, are named for Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who was arrested and later died in prison in Russia after accusing Russian officials of a massive tax fraud. Those officials were among those sanctioned Monday. Opposition politicians said Monday’s sanctions are welcomed but aren’t enough because they don’t target corruption in British overseas territories and dependencies.  Labour Party foreign affairs spokeswoman Lisa Nandy said Britain remains a haven for “dark money” and urged Raab to increase the powers for financial crime investigators.  “The current rate of prosecutions for economic crime is … woefully low, as he knows, and to put it bluntly if he’s serious about what he’s saying today he needs to put his money where his mouth is,” Nandy said, according to the Associated Press. 
 
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A fire that broke out late Saturday at a hospital in Baghdad, Iraq that treats COVID-19 patients killed over 80 and injured at least 110. Plus, the pandemic continues to tax India’s healthcare system.
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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was swept to power in pro-democracy protests in 2018, triggered an early election on Sunday to try overcome criticism over his handling of last year’s conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.   His resignation, which was expected, came a day after U.S. President Joe Biden said that massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 constituted genocide, a move welcomed by Armenians worldwide and condemned by Turkey.  Pashinyan told Biden the symbolic decision was a matter of security to Armenia after the six week conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, in which Turkey backed Armenia’s neighbor Azerbaijan, where the ethnic Armenian-populated enclave is located.  Pashinyan had been under pressure to resign since he agreed to a cease-fire after ethnic Armenians lost territory in the fighting with Azeri forces in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.  He had already named a June 20 date for an early election.  Announcing his resignation, he said on his Facebook page on Sunday that he was returning power received from citizens to them so they could decide the future of the government through free and fair elections.    He said he had been compelled to agree to the peace deal, which was brokered by Russia, to prevent greater human and territorial losses. The Armenian army called for his resignation and he then tried to sack the chief of staff, a decision blocked by the former Soviet republic’s president.  Pashinyan updated Russian President Vladimir Putin about the elections and the situation over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, where around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers have been deployed, in a phone call on Saturday, the Kremlin said.  The Armenian Prime Minister has complained before that some issues over the region, including the return of prisoners of war, have not been resolved yet.   According to the Sputnik media outlet, Pashinyan’s My Step ruling alliance led an opinion poll conducted by Gallup International Аssociation at the end of last month.    Its main rival is likely to be a grouping led by Robert Kocharyan, Armenia’s president from 1998-2008. 
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President Joe Biden aimed to accentuate the positive as he wrapped up his Leaders Summit on Climate Change on Friday. Biden highlighted the economic benefits the fight against climate change offers. But his plans still face an uphill battle at home. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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Around the world, more than 1 billion people live with some form of disability, and they are disproportionaly at risk from the COVID-19 pandemic. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at what’s being done in the U.S. to improve their situation.
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A missile launched from Syria struck southern Israel early Thursday, setting off air raid sirens near the country’s top-secret nuclear reactor, the Israeli military said. In response, it said it attacked the missile launcher and air-defense systems in neighboring Syria.The incident, marking the most serious violence between Israel and Syria in years, pointed to likely Iranian involvement. Iran, which maintains troops and proxies in Syria, has accused Israel of a series of attacks on its nuclear facilities, including sabatoge at its Natanz nuclear facility on April 11, and vowed revenge. It also threatened to complicate U.S.-led attempts to revive the international nuclear deal with Iran.The Israeli army said the missile landed in the Negev region and the air raid sirens were sounded in Abu Krinat, a village just a few kilometers from Dimona, where Israel’s nuclear reactor is located, and explosions were reported across Israel. The army later said the incoming missile had caused no damage.The Israeli military initially described the weapon fired as a surface-to-air missile, which is usually used for air defense against warplanes or other missiles. That could suggest the Syrian missile had targeted Israeli warplanes but missed and flown off errantly. However, Dimona is 300 kilometers (185 miles) south of Damascus, a long range for an errantly fired surface-to-air missile.Syria reports four woundedSyria’s state-run SANA news agency said four soldiers had been wounded in an Israeli strike near Damascus, which also caused some damage. The agency did not elaborate other than to claim its air defense had intercepted “most of the enemy missiles,” which it said were fired from the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the missile strike or comment from Iran. But on Saturday, Iran’s hardline Kayhan newspaper published an opinion piece by Iranian analyst Sadollah Zarei suggesting Israel’s Dimona facility be targeted after the attack on Natanz. Zarei cited the idea of “an eye for an eye” in his remarks.Action should be taken “against the nuclear facility in Dimona,” he wrote. “This is because no other action is at the same level as the Natanz incident.”The Dimona reactor is widely believed to be the centerpiece of an undeclared nuclear weapons program. Israel neither confirms nor denies having a nuclear arsenal.While Kayhan is a small circulation newspaper, its editor-in-chief, Hossein Shariatmadari, was appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and has been described as an adviser to him in the past.Strikes urged previouslyZarei has demanded retaliatory strikes on Israel in the past. In November, he suggested Iran strike the Israeli port city of Haifa over Israel’s suspected involvement in the killing of a scientist who founded Iran’s military nuclear program decades earlier. However, Iran did not retaliate then.Israel and Iran are archenemies. Israel accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons and has opposed U.S.-led efforts to revive the international nuclear deal with Iran. With Israel’s encouragement, then-President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.Iran recently began enriching a small amount of uranium up to 60% purity, the highest level ever for its program that edges even closer to weapons-grade levels. However, Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes. It also has called for more international scrutiny of the Dimona facility.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said Israel will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capability, and defense officials have acknowledged preparing possible attack missions on Iranian targets. Israel has twice bombed other Mideast nations to target their nuclear programs.Nuclear talksAll the incidents come as Iran negotiates in Vienna with world powers over the U.S. potentially re-entering its tattered nuclear deal with world powers. Negotiators there have described the talks as constructive so far, though they acknowledge the Natanz sabotage could strain the talks.Israel’s government says the deal will not prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability. It also says it does not address Iran’s long-range missile program and its support for hostile proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.
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Touting the 200 million COVID-19 shots administered since he took office, President Joe Biden said he is looking into sending excess doses abroad. His administration is under pressure to do more to improve global vaccine equity, including supporting a campaign to waive vaccine patents. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.
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This week the Biden administration is promoting a plan to boost electric bus production, proposing $45 billion spending to reduce American-made bus emissions to zero by 2030. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of all charges Tuesday in the death of George Floyd nearly a year ago. Chauvin had been charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
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Women’s rights leaders in Afghanistan and human rights advocates are expressing concern the hard-fought gains of the past 20 years are under threat from a potentially resurgent Taliban when U.S. and coalition troops depart later this year. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports on the determination of many to defend those rights.
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Minneapolis and other US cities are bracing for possible unrest as the trial of a white former police officer accused of murdering a black man enters its final phase.  Mike O’Sullivan reports.
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Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, a liberal icon who lost the most lopsided presidential elections after bluntly telling voters to expect a tax increase if he won, died Monday. He was 93. The death of the former U.S. senator, ambassador and Minnesota attorney general was announced in a statement from his family. No cause was cited. Mondale followed the trail blazed by his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, from Minnesota politics to the U.S. Senate and the vice presidency, serving under Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. His own try for the White House, in 1984, came at the zenith of Ronald Reagan’s popularity. Mondale’s selection of Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate made him the first major-party presidential nominee to put a woman on the ticket, but his declaration that he would raise taxes helped define the race. FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale and his running mate, Geraldine Ferraro, wave as they leave an afternoon rally in Portland, Ore., Sept. 5, 1984.On Election Day, he carried only his home state and the District of Columbia. The electoral vote was 525-13 for Reagan — the biggest landslide in the Electoral College since Franklin Roosevelt defeated Alf Landon in 1936. (Sen. George McGovern got 17 electoral votes in his 1972 defeat, winning Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.) “I did my best,” Mondale said the day after the election and blamed no one but himself. “I think you know I’ve never really warmed up to television,” he said. “In fairness to television, it never really warmed up to me.” Years later, Mondale said his campaign message had proved to be the right one. “History has vindicated me, that we would have to raise taxes,” he said. “It was very unpopular, but it was undeniably correct.” In 2002, state and national Democrats looked to Mondale when Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., was killed in a plane crash less than two weeks before Election Day. Mondale agreed to stand in for Wellstone, and early polls showed him with a lead over the Republican candidate, Norm Coleman. But the 53-year-old Coleman, emphasizing his youth and vigor, out-hustled the then-74-year-old Mondale in an intense six-day campaign. Mondale was also hurt by a partisan memorial service for Wellstone, in which thousands of Democrats booed Republican politicians in attendance. One speaker pleaded: “We are begging you to help us win this election for Paul Wellstone.” Polls showed the service put off independents and cost Mondale votes. Coleman won by 3 percentage points. “The eulogizers were the ones hurt the most,” Mondale said after the election. “It doesn’t justify it, but we all make mistakes. Can’t we now find it in our hearts to forgive them and go on?” It was a particularly bitter defeat for Mondale, who even after his loss to Reagan had taken solace in his perfect record in Minnesota. “One of the things I’m most proud of,” he said in 1987, “is that not once in my public career did I ever lose an election in Minnesota.” Years after the 2002 defeat, Mondale returned to the Senate to stand beside Democrat Al Franken in 2009 when he was sworn in to replace Coleman after a drawn-out recount and court battle. Mondale started his career in Washington in 1964, when he was appointed to the Senate to replace Humphrey, who had resigned to become vice president. Mondale was elected to a full six-year term with about 54% of the vote in 1966, although Democrats lost the governorship and suffered other election setbacks. In 1972, Mondale won another Senate term with nearly 57% of the vote. His Senate career was marked by advocacy of social issues such as education, housing, migrant workers and child nutrition. Like Humphrey, he was an outspoken supporter of civil rights. Mondale tested the waters for a presidential bid in 1974 but ultimately decided against it. “Basically I found I did not have the overwhelming desire to be president, which is essential for the kind of campaign that is required,” he said in November 1974. FILE – President Jimmy Carter embraces Vice President Walter Mondale on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Jan. 7, 1978.In 1976, Carter chose Mondale as No. 2 on his ticket and went on to unseat Gerald Ford. As vice president, Mondale had a close relationship with Carter. He was the first vice president to occupy an office in the White House, rather than in a building across the street. Mondale traveled extensively on Carter’s behalf and advised him on domestic and foreign affairs. While he lacked Humphrey’s charisma, Mondale had a droll sense of humor. When he dropped out of the 1976 presidential sweepstakes, he said, “I don’t want to spend the next two years in Holiday Inns.” Reminded of that shortly before he was picked as Carter’s running mate, Mondale said, “I’ve checked and found that they’re all redecorated, and they’re marvelous places to stay.” FILE – President Jimmy Carter, right, and Rosalynn Carter, second from right, pose with Vice President Walter Mondale and wife, Joan Mondale, left, following Carter’s inauguration in the White House, Jan. 21, 1977.Mondale never backed away from his liberal principles. “I think that the country more than ever needs progressive values,” Mondale said in 1989. The son of a Methodist minister and a music teacher, Walter Frederick Mondale was born Jan. 5, 1928, in tiny Ceylon, Minnesota, and grew up in several small southern Minnesota towns. He was only 20 when he served as a congressional district manager for Humphrey’s successful Senate campaign in 1948. His education, interrupted by a two-year stint in the Army, culminated with a law degree from the University of Minnesota in 1956. Mondale began a law practice in Minneapolis and ran the successful 1958 gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Orville Freeman, who appointed Mondale state attorney general in 1960. Mondale was elected attorney general in the fall of 1960 and was reelected in 1962. As attorney general, Mondale moved quickly into civil rights, antitrust and consumer protection cases. He was the first Minnesota attorney general to make consumer protection a campaign issue. After his White House years, Mondale served from 1993-96 as President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Japan, fighting for U.S. access to markets ranging from cars to cellular phones. He helped avert a trade war in June 1995 over autos and auto parts, persuading Japanese officials to give American automakers more access to Japanese dealers and pushing Japanese carmakers to buy U.S. parts. Mondale kept his ties to the Clintons. In 2008, he endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, switching his allegiance only after Barack Obama sealed the nomination. Mondale and his wife, Joan Adams Mondale, were married in 1955. During his vice presidency, she pushed for more government support of the arts and gained the nickname “Joan of Art.” She had minored in art in college and worked at museums in Boston and Minneapolis. The couple had two sons, Ted and William, and a daughter, Eleanor. Eleanor Mondale became a broadcast journalist and TV host, with credits including “CBS This Morning” and programs with E! Entertainment Television. Ted Mondale served six years in the Minnesota Senate and made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1998. William Mondale served for a time as an assistant attorney general. Joan Mondale died in 2014 at age 83 after an extended illness. 
 
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Jurors in the U.S. state of Minnesota are set to hear closing arguments Monday in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd. Derek Chauvin’s defense wrapped up two days of questioning witnesses last week after two weeks of the prosecution presenting its case. After hearing final arguments from each side, the jurors will be isolated until they reach a verdict. Prosecutors argued that Chauvin, who is white, caused Floyd’s death by kneeling on his neck. Floyd, who is African American, was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill, and bystander video of the police response last May sparked widespread protests in the United States and other parts of the world against police brutality and racial inequality.WATCH: Chauvin trialSorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 11 MB540p | 14 MB720p | 30 MB1080p | 58 MBOriginal | 70 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioChauvin declined to take the witness stand during the trial. His defense lawyers argued Chauvin acted reasonably against a suspect who was struggling, and that Floyd died because of an underlying heart condition and drug use. If convicted of the most serious charge against him, second-degree murder, Chauvin could face up to 40 years in prison, though state guidelines suggest a sentence of about 12 years for such a charge. The same issues raised by Floyd’s death came to the forefront in the community again about a week ago when a now-resigned police officer in a Minneapolis suburb killed a 20-year-old African American man during a traffic stop. 
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Allies of jailed Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny announced nationwide protests for this Wednesday — after the opposition figure’s family and personal doctors released blood analysis results that suggested Navalny was at high risk of cardiac arrest or kidney failure barring immediate care.
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