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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday ordered an Army review of an investigation into a January 2020 militant assault on the Manda Bay military base in Kenya that killed three Americans and wounded three others.In a written statement announcing Austin’s decision, his press secretary, John Kirby, did not pinpoint what Austin found lacking in the initial investigation, which was conducted by U.S. Africa Command. By apparent coincidence, Austin plans to meet with Africa Command officials Tuesday in Stuttgart as part of a broader tour of Europe to consult with allies and talk to U.S. commanders. He will also meet separately with officials at U.S. European Command, also in Stuttgart.”An independent review will provide added insight, perspective, and the ability to assess the totality of this tragic event involving multiple military services and Department of Defense components,” Kirby said.NEW: @DeptofDefense withholding findings of investigation into the #alShabaab attack on the #MandaBay airfield in #Kenya -which killed 1 US servicemember & 2 US contractors- pending “an independent review” by “a 4-star general officer” https://t.co/nQLShUfcRM— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) April 12, 2021Kirby said that after considering the results of Africa Command’s investigation, which have not been released publicly, Austin decided to order the Army to pick a four-star general to conduct the review. The Army chose General Paul Funk, commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command. Funk is an experienced combat veteran who served six deployments in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”It is the secretary’s desire to ensure there is a full examination and consideration of the contributing factors that led to this tragic event and that appropriate action is taken to reduce the risk of future occurrence,” Kirby said. “The families impacted deserve nothing less.”The attack by al-Shabab militants at the Manda Bay base destroyed six aircraft in addition to killing three Americans and wounding three others.The base, in the Kenyan seaside resort, was overrun by 30 to 40 of the al-Qaida-linked insurgents on January 5, 2020, marking al-Shabab’s first attack against U.S. forces in the East African country.The base at Manda Bay has been used for years by the U.S. military, but it only became a full-time airfield in 2016, with increased personnel, aircraft and operations.The initial phase of the assault came near dawn, when 20 to 30 al-Shabab militants slipped through the forest and fired rocket-propelled grenades onto the airfield at the base. The opening rounds of grenades quickly killed a soldier in a truck, wounded another, and killed two contractors in an aircraft and wounded one other. About a mile down the road, other militants fired on Camp Simba, a section of the base where U.S. forces are stationed.Marines from Camp Simba initially responded to the attack site and begin to fight back against the militants, who had made it onto the airfield and into buildings. But it took all day for Kenyan and U.S. security forces to finally quash the attack, search the airfield and secure the area.Air Force Colonel Chris Karns, spokesperson for U.S. Africa Command, said a “great deal of rigor” was put into the investigation, resulting in a number of immediate improvements. He said the goal has been to reassure the families and the American public “that we did everything possible to understand the situation and take appropriate action.”The investigation team made “findings and recommendations that fall outside U.S. Africa Command purview and ability to effect; therefore, we fully support the additional independent review directed by the secretary of defense,” Karns said. “We are confident in the report’s findings and remain committed to ensuring fixes and improvements in Kenya and across the continent.”Kenya has been a key base for fighting al-Shabab, which is based in Somalia and is one of the world’s most resilient extremist organizations. Al-Shabab has launched a number of attacks inside Kenya, including against civilian targets on buses, at schools and at shopping malls.Al-Shabab had been the target of a growing number of U.S. airstrikes inside Somalia during President Donald Trump’s administration. But Trump late last year ordered the withdrawal of the roughly 700 American forces there, and the bulk of those troops were pulled out of the country by mid-January. According to officials, there are fewer than 100 U.S. troops in Somalia now.Austin has launched a review of America’s military posture around the world.
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Police say multiple people including an officer were shot Monday at a high school in the east Tennessee city of Knoxville. The Knoxville Police Department tweeted that authorities were on the scene of the shooting at Austin-East Magnet High School. The online posting said a Knoxville Police Department officer was reported among the victims. An official later said the scene has been secured. Police urged people to avoid the area. Details remained sketchy and news outlets showed numerous police and emergency vehicles at the scene. 
 
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Confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths remain high in Brazil as the country’s campaign to vaccinate against the disease stumbles.
 
According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Brazil recorded more than 70,000 new cases of the virus in the past day.
 
Its seven-day rolling average has risen to 2,820 deaths, or about one-fourth of the world’s average deaths for the same period, according to Johns Hopkins. At more than 353,000 total deaths, Brazil has the second highest toll from the pandemic, behind only the United States, which has more than 562,000.
 
Less than 3% of the South American nation’s population has been fully vaccinated. The U.S. has fully vaccinated more than 20% of its population, according to Johns Hopkins.
 
ICU wards in cities within Rio de Janeiro’s metropolitan area are reportedly nearly full, with many patients sharing space and oxygen bottles.Nurses hold balloons during a protest asking for COVID-19 vaccines, in Brasilia, Brazil, April 7, 2021.“Will we have the medicines, the oxygen, the conditions to care for this patient accordingly? Today we do. But, if cases keep growing, sometime we will fight chaos,” hospital director Altair Soares Neto told the Associated Press.
 
Brazil’s vaccination campaign has been slow because of supply issues. The country’s two biggest laboratories face supply constraints.  
 
The nation’s health ministry bet on a single vaccine, the AstraZeneca shot, and after supply problems surfaced, bought only one backup, the Chinese-manufactured CoronaVac.
 
The vaccine situation in Brazil is an example of poor planning in a country with experience with large, successful vaccination programs, said a former health official.
 
“The big problem is that Brazil did not look for alternatives when it had the chance,” said Claudio Maierovitch, former head of Brazil’s health regulator.
 
China said it is considering using vaccines developed in other countries in conjunction with vaccines developed in China to boost the efficacy of China’s vaccines.
 
A top Chinese health expert recently told a conference that public health officials must “consider ways to solve the issue that efficacy rates of existing vaccines are not high,” citing Gao Fu, the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, according to The Paper, a Chinese media outlet, Agence France-Presse reported.People stand in a queue to get tested for the coronavirus, in Ahmedabad, India, April 9, 2021.India reported 10,732 new COVID-19 cases Sunday in the previous 24-hour period. It trails the U.S. and Brazil in the number of coronavirus infections at 13.3 million cases. The U.S. has 31.1 million infections, while Brazil had 13.4 million.
 
The unsanitary conditions of America’s prisons, jails and detention centers have become a breeding ground for the spread of the coronavirus. More than 2,700 inmates have died in the facilities since March 2020, while more than 525,000 of them have been infected, according to data compiled by The New York Times. “So, we’re basically just sitting back and biding our time until we get sick,” an inmate said in an email to the Times.  
 
Several nations have issued new guidelines over the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine after the European Union’s medical regulator announced a link between the vaccine and blood clots.
 
AstraZeneca is at odds with a number of European countries because the company has shipped fewer doses of the vaccine than indicated to the EU in an initial agreement.
 
Britain, where the vaccine was developed jointly by the British-Swedish drug maker and scientists at the University of Oxford, said it will offer alternatives for adults younger than 30. Oxford researchers have also suspended a clinical trial of the AstraZeneca vaccine involving young children and teenagers as British drug regulators conduct a safety review of the two-shot regimen.
 
Spain and the Philippines will limit the vaccine to people older than 60, Reuters reported, while The Washington Post reported Italy has issued similar guidelines.
 
The European Medicines Agency recently said blood clots should be listed as a very rare side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but continued to emphasize that its overall benefits outweigh any risks.
 
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An Egyptian court on Sunday convicted a former student at an elite university of attempted rape and drug possession, sentencing him to eight years imprisonment atop a previous punishment for other sexual misconduct convictions.It was the second verdict against disgraced former American University in Cairo student Ahmed Bassam Zaki, in a case that has rattled Egypt’s conservative society and fueled the #MeToo movement in the Arab world’s most populous country.The Cairo criminal court sentenced Zaki to seven years in prison for the attempted rape of three women and a year for possession of hashish, according to victims’ lawyer Ahmed Ragheb.  The women were minors at the time of the alleged crimes, according to court documents. Sunday’s verdict can be appealed to a higher court.In December, Zaki was convicted of blackmailing and sexually harassing two other women, receiving three years in prison.The former student was arrested in July after allegations against him surfaced on social media, resulting in a firestorm of criticism. The #MeToo movement aims to hold accountable those involved in sexual misconduct and those who cover it up.Several attempts at the time by The Associated Press to contact Zaki’s family and his lawyer were unsuccessful.According to accusations posted on social media, Zaki would mine the pool of mutual friends on Facebook, online groups or school clubs, for females to target.He would start with flattery, then pressure the women and girls to share intimate photos that he later used to blackmail them with if they did not have sex with him, according to the accusations. In some instances, he threatened to send compromising pictures to family members.Zaki hails from a wealthy family and studied at the American International School, one of Egypt’s most expensive private high schools, and the American University in Cairo.
 
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Iran’s nuclear chief called a blackout at the country’s Natanz facility Sunday an act of “nuclear terrorism.”
 
“While condemning this desperate move, the Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes the need for a confrontation by the international bodies and the (International Atomic Energy Agency) against this nuclear terrorism,” Ali Akbar Salehi said, according to state TV.
 
Salehi stopped short of blaming anyone for the alleged attack.
 
State TV reported a problem with the electrical distribution grid of Natanz – just hours after starting up a cascade of centrifuges for producing enriched uranium.Electrical Problem Strikes Iran’s Natanz Nuclear FacilityOfficials say didn’t cause any injuries or pollutionThe spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Behrouz Kamalvandi, said, “The incident caused no casualties or contamination.”
 
The IAEA, the United Nations body that monitors Tehran’s atomic program, said Sunday that it was aware of the situation and following developments, but did not elaborate.
 
Multiple Israeli media outlets reported Sunday that Israel could have been behind the blackout, which may have been a cyberattack.  
 
The Natanz facility has been subject to attacks in the past, including the Stuxnet cyberattacks nearly a decade ago, which was widely blamed on the United States and Israel. Natanz also suffered a mysterious explosion of its centrifuge assembly plant last July, which Iranian authorities described as sabotage.
 
The U.S. and Israel have not commented on the latest blackout.
 
The incident came one day after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani oversaw on live television the launch of advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium, a key component for nuclear weapons, while reiterating his country’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation.Iran Launches Advanced Centrifuges Marking Its National Nuclear DayMove comes amid indirect nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran Rouhani reiterated claims that the country’s nuclear activities are “peaceful and for non-military purposes,” but the latest actions may have been another in a series of breaches of the 2015 nuclear deal Iran reached with world powers.
The United States and Iran held indirect talks in Vienna last week and agreed to a second round this week to try to bring each other back into compliance with the deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Iran has maintained that all U.S. sanctions against it be lifted and the U.S. warned that such a demand may lead to an impasse. U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to return to the JCPOA if Iran first resumes full compliance.
 
Then-U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018 and a reimposition of American sanctions on Iran became a major irritant in relations between the U.S. and Europe. The Islamic Republic in turn began taking steps away from its commitments as it sought sanctions relief, including holding larger stockpiles of enriched uranium and enriching the material to higher levels. 
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Two South Korean electric vehicle battery manufacturers said Sunday they have settled an extended trade dispute that will allow one of them to make batteries in the southern U.S. state of Georgia.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who has pushed for more electric vehicles in the United States as part of his clean-energy agenda, called the trade settlement “a win for American workers and the American auto industry.”
The agreement between LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation ended the need for Biden to intervene in the dispute by a Sunday night deadline.
In a joint statement, the companies said SK will provide LG Energy with a total of $1.8 billion and an undisclosed royalty. SK has contracted to make batteries for an electric Ford F-150 truck and an electric Volkswagen SUV.
“We have decided to settle and to compete in an amicable way, all for the future of the U.S. and South Korean electric vehicle battery industries,” the leaders of the two companies, Jun Kim of SK, and Jong Hyun Kim of LG Energy, said in the statement.
Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who at Biden’s request had initiated negotiations between the two companies, said the settlement “has saved the battery plant in Commerce, Georgia, ensuring thousands of jobs, billions in future investment, and that Georgia will be a leader in electric vehicle battery production for years to come.”
The dispute had threatened a $2.6 billion factory SK Innovation is building in Georgia.
Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, called the settlement “fantastic news for northeast Georgia and our state’s growing electric vehicle industry.”
The U.S. has more than 279 million gas-powered vehicles, and the demand for switching to electric vehicles is expected to increase sharply in the next 15 years.
The Biden administration had until Sunday to decide whether to veto a ruling by the International Trade Commission in favor of LG in an intellectual property case. The ruling had threatened SK with a ban on supplying batteries in the U.S. 
 
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Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has ordered an urgent investigation into the assassination of one of the country’s top crime reporters. Greek media have long been targeted by far-left organizations and anarchists in a show of violent defiance to what they call links between them and the nation’s political and financial establishment. However,  journalist killings are rare in Greece and if it is established that the reporter was gunned down for carrying out his duties, it will be the first such case in Europe in years.Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis left a marathon meeting with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, saying he was determined to hunt down the killers of Giorgos Karaivaz.He called the assassination an abhorrent crime but said he is convinced authorities will soon find those responsible, and hand them over to justice to be dealt with.The race is on… and the stakes are high.Karaivaz was gunned down by a pair of masked men who pumped ten bullets into the crime reporter’s head, neck and left palm, leaving him dead in a pool of blood outside his home, in the balmy residential suburb of Alimos, south of Athens.Locals like Elias, a municipal gardener who refused to give his last name for fear of reprisals, said he saw the gunmen and was stunned by how calculating and calmly they conducted themselves.The actual gunshot(s) were not heard because they used a silencer, he said. The killers both came in on a motorbike, gunned down Karaivaz and left calmly, as if nothing had happened.Authorities say they are now putting together pieces of the mystery, trying to identify the assailants from surveillance cameras, burner phones and a string of forensic evidence that has so far been compiled.They believe Karaivaz had been tracked for days before gunmen committed the deadly shooting Friday, in broad daylight.Senior police officials told VOA they suspect the killing is linked to organized crime and a group called Mafia Greece, known for hiring foreign shooters to sort out differences in the underworld here.Eleftherios Economou, the deputy  citizens’ protection minister explains.There is no doubt, he said, that they are dealing with contract killers. This is a methodology, he said, authorities have seen in at least 19 similar style murders in the last three years here and this may make solving the case, so much more difficult.A woman reads newspapers headlines of the killing of a Greek journalist in Athens, April 10, 2021.Either way, experts say, the motive behind the Karaivaz killing remains unclear.If confirmed as related to the journalist’s work, then it will be the first assassination of a journalist in the European Union since the 2018 murder of investigative reporter Jan Kuciak in Slovakia.Karaivaz was a contributor to the Eleftheros Typos newspaper, and he founded the news website bloko.gr, which reported on crime.Leading officials across the European Union have issued sympathy statements, supporting free speech while urging the government and the authorities in Athens to hunt down the assailants.The U.S. Embassy in Athens said it would help any effort to defend the sacred right of free speech.Greek media offices and journalists are frequently targeted by far-left anarchists who routinely strike them in what they claim are attacks against the establishment.Nevertheless, journalist killings are rare here, raising concerns that freedom of speech in the country that gave birth to democracy may now be in serious peril. 
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The U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has arrived in Israel Sunday, his first stop on a two-day trip to the Middle Eastern country.“I’m looking forward to a series of robust discussions with our Israeli friends on regional security issues,” Secretary Austin posted on Twitter upon arrival. “I’m grateful to call Israel a major strategic partner.” I just arrived in Israel where I’m looking forward to a series of robust discussions with our Israeli friends on regional security issues. I’m grateful to call Israel a major strategic partner. pic.twitter.com/DgPBtGvb0M
— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) April 11, 2021Austin is the first high-level member from U.S. President Joe Biden’s Cabinet to travel to Israel since Biden’s administration’s announcement to rekindling of talks in order to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.Secretary Austin is scheduled to meet with his Israeli counterpart Benny Gantz Sunday.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been a staunch critic of the nuclear deal with Iran and welcomed former President Donald Trump’s withdrawing for pact.Last week, Netanyahu said that an agreement with Iran “would pave the way to nuclear weapons — weapons that threaten our extinction.”Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has announced the inauguration of a cascade of 164 IR-6 centrifuges for producing enriched uranium, as well as two test cascades — of 30 IR-5 and 30 IR-6S devices respectively — at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant, in a ceremony broadcast by state television.There was an accident Sunday to Natanz’s electrical grid, but no injuries were reported.
 
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French lawmakers voted late on Saturday to abolish domestic flights on routes than can be covered by train in under two-and-a-half hours, as the government seeks to lower carbon emissions even as the air travel industry reels from the global pandemic. The measure is part of a broader climate bill that aims to cut French carbon emissions by 40% in 2030 from 1990 levels, though activists accuse President Emmanuel Macron of watering down earlier promises in the draft legislation. The vote came days after the state said it would contribute to a 4 billion Euro ($4.76 billion) recapitalization of Air France, more than doubling its stake in the flag carrier, to shore up its finances after over a year of COVID-19 travel curbs. Industry Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher dismissed criticism from the aviation industry that a pandemic recovery was not the time to ban some domestic flights and said there was no contradiction between the bailout and the climate bill. “We know that aviation is a contributor of carbon dioxide and that because of climate change we must reduce emissions,” she told Europe 1 radio. “Equally, we must support our companies and not let them fall by the wayside.” Air traffic may not return to pre-crisis levels before 2024, McKinsey analysts forecast. Some environmental campaigners have said the bill does not go far enough. A citizens’ climate forum established by Macron to help shape climate policy had called for the scrapping of flights on routes where the train journey is less than 4 hours. Saturday night’s vote in the National Assembly was the first. The bill goes to the Senate before a third and final vote in the lower house, where Macron’s ruling party and allies dominate. 
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday called for the “worrying” developments in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region to come to an end after meeting his Ukrainian counterpart in Istanbul, adding that Turkey was ready to provide any necessary support. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held more than three hours of talks with Erdogan in Istanbul as part of a previously scheduled visit, amid tensions between Kyiv and Moscow over the conflict in Donbass. Kyiv has raised the alarm over a buildup of Russian forces near the border between Ukraine and Russia, and over a rise in violence along the line of contact separating Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists in Donbass. The Russian military movements have fueled concerns that Moscow is preparing to send forces into Ukraine. The Kremlin denies its troops are a threat but says they will remain as long as it sees fit. The United States says Russia has amassed more troops on Ukraine’s eastern border than at any time since 2014, when it annexed Crimea from Ukraine and backed separatists in Donbass. On Friday, Turkey said Washington will send two warships to the Black Sea next week. Speaking at a news conference alongside Zelenskiy, Erdogan said he hoped the conflict would be resolved peacefully, through dialogue based on diplomatic customs, in line with international laws and Ukraine’s territorial integrity. “We hope for the worrying escalation observed on the field recently to end as soon as possible, the cease-fire to continue and for the conflict to be resolved via dialogue on the basis of the Minsk agreements,” Erdogan said. “We are ready to provide any support necessary for this.” Major combat in Donbass ended with a truce agreed to in the Belarusian capital Minsk in 2015, whose implementation France and Germany have helped to oversee. Sporadic fighting continues despite repeated attempts to implement a cease-fire. Zelenskiy said the positions of Kyiv and Ankara coincided on threats in the Black Sea and the response to those threats, and added he briefed Erdogan on the developments in Donbass. “We discussed in detail the issues of security and joint counteraction to challenges in the Black Sea region and it is worth noting that the visions of Kyiv and Ankara coincide both regarding the threats themselves and the ways of responding to these threats,” he said. NATO member Turkey has forged close cooperation with Russia over conflicts in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as in the defense and energy areas. But it has criticized Crimea’s annexation and supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity. It also sold drones to Kyiv in 2019. Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey and Ukraine launched a platform with their foreign and defense ministers to discuss defense industry cooperation but added this was “not in any way a move against third countries.” Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for the increase in violence in the conflict, which Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people since 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a call with Erdogan on Friday, accused Ukraine of “dangerous provocative actions” in Donbass. Kyiv said on Saturday Ukraine could be provoked by Russian aggravation of the situation in Donbass.
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Britain’s Prince Charles paid a personal tribute Saturday to his “dear papa” Prince Philip, saying the royal family missed him enormously and that the 99-year-old would have been amazed at the touching reaction around the world to his death. Philip, the husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth who had been at her side throughout her record-breaking 69-year reign, died at Windsor Castle on Friday. “As you can imagine, my family and I miss my father enormously,” Charles, the couple’s eldest son and heir to the throne, said outside his Highgrove House home in west England. “My dear papa was a very special person who I think above all else would have been amazed by the reaction and the touching things that have been said about him and from that point of view we are, my family, deeply grateful for all that. It will sustain us in this particular loss and at this particularly sad time.” Britain’s Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, leave Windsor Castle in their car following the death of Britain’s Prince Philip in Windsor, England, April 10, 2021.’Queen has been amazing’ Tributes have flooded in from across Britain and from world leaders for Philip, who was a pillar of strength for the queen. At 94, she is the world’s oldest and longest-reigning living monarch. Philip was a decorated sailor who fought in World War II and the armed forces marked his passing with artillery salutes with units in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and Gibraltar, and some navy warships, firing their guns. The royal family asked the public to heed social distancing rules and avoid visits to its residences, but people still laid cards and bouquets outside Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. “It’s not something I’ve ever done before,” said Joanna Reesby, 60, who came to pay her respects at Buckingham Palace. “I brought yellow roses for friendship because I think that’s what he exhibited to everyone who came into his world.” The queen has lost her closest confidante. They had been married for 73 years and Philip would have turned 100 in June. Members of the family visited the grieving monarch at Windsor Castle. “The queen has been amazing,” said a tearful Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, as she left with her husband Prince Edward, the youngest son of Elizabeth and Philip. On its official Twitter feed, the royal family put up a tribute paid by the queen to her husband on their 50th wedding anniversary in 1997. “He has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, and I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know,” she said. Flags at Buckingham Palace and at government buildings across Britain have been lowered to half-mast and billboard operators replaced advertisements with photographs and tributes to the prince. Sporting events observed silences in his honor.
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Marine experts estimate about 40,000 humpback whales are now migrating through Australian waters annually, up from about 1,500 half a century ago.  
   
The humpbacks’ annual journey from Antarctica to subtropical waters along Australia’s east and west coasts is one of nature’s great migrations.  
 
It is a journey of up to 10,000 kilometers and is undertaken between April and November. Scientists have estimated 40,000 humpback whales have been in Australian waters to mate and breed.  It is a remarkable recovery from the height of commercial whaling in the early 1960s when it was estimated there were fewer than 1,500 humpbacks.  They were slaughtered mainly for their oil and baleen, or “whalebone.”
 
Australia’s environment department says no other whale species has recovered as strongly as the humpback since the end of commercial hunting, which ceased in Australia in 1978.
 
Australia is now considering removing humpback whales from the endangered species list because of their growing numbers.
 
The acrobatic humpbacks that can grow to 16 meters would still be protected in Australia. Conservationists, though, argue that they need more, not fewer, environmental safeguards to monitor the impact of climate change on krill – their main source of food. Krill are affected by the absorption of more carbon dioxide into the ocean.
 
Olaf Meynecke, a research fellow in Marine Science at Queensland’s Griffith University, says vigilance is needed to ensure the whales continue to thrive.  
 
“Generally speaking, yes, it is a great success story that humpback whales have come back.  But obviously we also need to ask questions as [to] how will this continue in the future, how are present threats already impacting the population and how we [are] going to detect changes in the future,” Meynecke said.  
 
Scientists say humpbacks face a combination of other threats including the overharvesting of krill, pollution, habitat degradation, and entanglement in fishing nets. Calves also face attack by killer whales or sharks.
 
The recovery of the humpback has helped the rapid growth of Australia’s whale-watching industry.
 
As their numbers have grown, much about the humpback, a species famous for its song, remains a mystery.  Scientists do not know exactly, for example, where on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef they mate and calve.  
 
Humpback whales live in all the world’s oceans. They take their common name from a distinctive hump on the whale’s back.   
 
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Cots, tents, and respirator masks poured into the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent as officials expected to start distributing them on Saturday, a day after a powerful explosion at La Soufriere volcano uprooted the lives of thousands of people who evacuated their homes under government orders.Nations ranging from Antigua to Guyana offered help by either shipping emergency supplies to their neighbor or agreeing to temporarily open their borders to the roughly 16,000 evacuees fleeing ash-covered communities with as many personal belongings as they could stuff into suitcases and backpacks.The volcano, which last erupted in 1979, kept rumbling as experts warned that explosive eruptions could continue for days or possibly weeks. A previous eruption in 1902 killed some 1,600 people.“The first bang is not necessarily the biggest bang this volcano will give,” Richard Robertson, a geologist with the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, said during a press conference.Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves asked people to remain calm, have patience and keep protecting themselves from the coronavirus as he celebrated that no deaths or injuries were reported after the eruption in the northern tip of St. Vincent, part of an island chain that includes the Grenadines and is home to more than 100,000 people.“Agriculture will be badly affected, and we may have some loss of animals, and we will have to do repairs to houses, but if we have life, and we have strength, we will build it back better, stronger, together,” he said in an interview with NBC Radio, a local station.Gonsalves has said that depending on the damage caused by the explosion, it could take up to four months for life to return to normal. As of Friday, 2,000 people were staying in 62 government shelters while four empty cruise ships floated nearby, waiting to take other evacuees to nearby islands. Those staying in shelters were tested for COVID-19, and anyone testing positive would be taken to an isolation center.The first explosion occurred Friday morning, a day after the government ordered mandatory evacuations based on warnings from scientists who noted a type of seismic activity before dawn on Thursday that meant magma was on the move close to the surface. The explosion shot an ash column more than 7 kilometers into the sky, with lightning crackling through the towering cloud of smoke late Friday.The volcanic activity forced the cancelation of several flights while falling ash limited evacuations in some areas due to poor visibility. Officials warned that Barbados, St. Lucia and Grenada could see light ashfall as the 1,220-meter volcano continued to rumble. The majority of ash was expected to head northeast into the Atlantic Ocean.La Soufriere previously had an effusive eruption in December, prompting experts from around the region to fly in and analyze the formation of a new volcanic dome and changes to its crater lake, among other things.The eastern Caribbean has 19 live volcanoes, including two underwater near the island of Grenada. One of those, Kick ‘Em Jenny, has been active in recent years. But the most active volcano of all is Soufriere Hills in Montserrat. It has erupted continuously since 1995, razing the capital of Plymouth and killing at least 19 people in 1997.  
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White House border coordinator Roberta Jacobson is leaving her job at the end of April, the White House said on Friday, a surprise move that solidified Vice President Kamala Harris’ control over U.S. diplomatic efforts in Central America.While the White House insisted Jacobson’s departure was planned, the announcement still was unexpected as she had been engaged in media interviews in the hours leading up to her announcement and had shown no sign of planning to step down.”Consistent with her commitment at the outset to serve in the administration’s first 100 days, Ambassador Jacobson will retire from her role as coordinator at the end of this month,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.The statement made no mention of a replacement for the role, saying only that Harris had been asked by President Joe Biden to lead the administration’s work with Mexico and the “Northern Triangle” countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.Biden named Harris on March 24 to lead U.S. efforts with the region to try to stem the flow of migration to the United States. The White House has stressed that Harris’ top chore is the diplomatic angle, not border security itself, a job led by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.Diplomatic efforts remain a challenge as the Biden administration tries to focus on the root causes of migration. White House spokesperson Jen Psaki confirmed on Friday that El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele refused to meet visiting U.S. envoy Ricardo Zuniga this week but said he had constructive meetings with other officials in his trip to the region.Jacobson told The New York Times on Friday that she supported the decision for Harris to engage in diplomatic talks with the region.”Nobody could be more delighted to see the vice president take on that role. It didn’t have anything to do with my decision,” she said.The New York Times said that Jacobson, in a separate interview two weeks ago, had talked expansively about her plans to travel to Central America as part of her job.She told Reuters on Friday that the United States was considering a conditional cash transfer program for the Northern Triangle, to help address economic woes.The White House has struggled to contain the flow of migrants across the U.S. southern border with Mexico, creating an early challenge for Biden. It has sent a mixed message to the region, saying that the border is closed but unaccompanied children will be provided shelter.Sullivan said Jacobson, the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, had launched renewed diplomatic efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle nations and helped the Biden administration’s “commitment to reenergizing the U.S. immigration system.”
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Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech asked U.S. regulators Friday to allow the emergency use of their vaccine in adolescents ages 12 to 15. The vaccine is currently authorized for emergency use in the United States for people age 16 and older. The companies said Friday that they requested an expansion of the authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to include the younger age group. In March, the drugmakers said the vaccine was found to be safe and effective and had produced robust antibody responses in 12-to-15-year-olds in a clinical trial. FILE – A laboratory worker simulates the workflow in a cleanroom of the BioNTech Corona vaccine production facility in Marburg, Germany, during a media day, March 27, 2021.It is unclear how long the FDA will take to review the data from the trial, although U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky told ABC news on Thursday that she expects the vaccine to be authorized for 12-to-15-year-olds by mid-May. Also unclear is whether the FDA will require that the independent advisory board that recommended the original authorization meet in order for the companies to receive the nod in the younger age group. Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are also testing their vaccines in 12-to-18-year-olds, and data from Moderna’s trial could come soon. Pfizer and Moderna have launched trials in even younger children, ages 6 months to 11 years old. Both companies have said they hope to be able to vaccinate children younger than 11 as soon as early 2022. Inoculating children and young people is considered a critical step toward reaching herd immunity and taming the pandemic, many experts have said. Pfizer and BioNtech said they plan to ask other regulatory authorities globally to allow the use of their vaccine in 12-to-15-year-olds in the coming days.  
 
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CDC says cases of coronavirus clusters are increasing in the U.S. in youth sports and day care centers, while hospitals are reporting more younger adults are being admitted with severe cases of the disease.  As Mariama Diallo reports, coronavirus variants are to blame for the rise.   
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The number of U.S. suicides fell nearly 6% last year amid the coronavirus pandemic — the largest annual decline in at least four decades, according to preliminary government data.Death certificates are still coming in, and the count could rise. But officials expect a substantial decline will endure, despite worries that COVID-19 could lead to more suicides.It is hard to say exactly why suicide deaths dropped so much, but one factor may be a phenomenon seen in the early stages of wars and national disasters, some experts suggested.”There’s a heroism phase in every disaster period, where we’re banding together and expressing lots of messages of support that we’re in this together,” said Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “You saw that, at least in the early months of the pandemic.”An increase in the availability of telehealth services and other efforts to turn around the nation’s suicide problem may have also contributed, she said.U.S. suicides steadily rose from the early 2000s until 2018, when the national suicide rate hit its highest level since 1941. The rate finally fell slightly in 2019. Experts credited increased mental health screenings and other suicide prevention efforts.The number fell further last year to below 45,000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a recent report. It was the lowest number of U.S. suicide deaths since 2015.Many worried that such progress might end when COVID-19 arrived.Mental health issues roseThe pandemic sparked a wave of business closures. Millions of people were forced to stay at home, many of them alone. In surveys, more Americans reported depression, anxiety, and drug and alcohol use. Adding to that dangerous mix, firearm purchases rose 85% in March 2020.But the spring of last year actually saw the year’s most dramatic decline in suicide numbers, said the CDC’s Farida Ahmad, the lead author of a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which described the decline.Suicide had been the nation’s 10th leading cause of death but dropped to 11th in 2020. That was mainly due to the arrival of COVID-19, which killed at least 345,000 Americans and became the nation’s No. 3 killer. But the decline in suicide deaths also contributed to the drop in the ranking.The CDC has not yet reported national suicide rates for 2020, nor has it provided a breakdown of suicides by state, age or race, and ethnicity.Moutier is anxious to see more data. For example, while overall suicides decreased last year, it is possible that suicides by youths and young adults did not, she said.She is optimistic the recent declines will mark the beginning of a lasting trend. But she also worries there may be a delayed effect on the mental health of many people as they get past the pandemic’s initial threats but sink into grieving the people and things they lost.”There’s sort of an evolution of mental health distress,” she said. “It’s possible we will see the whole mental health ramifications of this pandemic” later.
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