World
Hundreds believed dead in heat wave despite efforts to help in Northwest
Many of the dead were found alone, in homes without air conditioning or fans. Some were elderly — one as old as 97. The body of an immigrant farm laborer was found in an Oregon nursery.
As forecasters warned of a record-breaking heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada last weekend, officials set up cooling centers, distributed water to the homeless and took other steps. Still, hundreds of people are believed to have died from Friday to Tuesday.
An excessive heat warning remained in effect for parts of the interior Northwest and western Canada Thursday.
Also read: Hundreds of deaths could be linked to Northwest heat wave
The death toll in Oregon alone reached 79, the Oregon state medical examiner said Thursday, with most occurring in Multnomah County, which encompasses Portland.
In Canada, British Columbia’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, said her office received reports of at least 486 “sudden and unexpected deaths” between Friday and Wednesday afternoon. Normally, she said about 165 people would die in the province over a five-day period.
She said it was too soon to say with certainty how many deaths were heat related, but that it was likely the heat was behind most of them.
Washington state authorities have linked more than 20 deaths to the heat, but authorities said that number was likely to rise.
In Oregon’s Multnomah County, the average victim’s age was 67 and the oldest was 97, according to county Health Officer Jennifer Vines.
In a telephone interview Thursday, Vines said she had been worried about fatalities amid the weather forecasts. Authorities tried to prepare as best they could, turning nine air-conditioned county libraries into cooling centers.
Between Friday and Monday, 7,600 people cooled off amid the stacks of books. Others went to three more cooling centers. Nearly 60 teams sought out homeless people, offering water and electrolytes.
“We scoured the county with outreach efforts, with calls to building managers of low-income housing to be checking on their residents,” Vines said.
Also read: With 'big one' coming, quake alert system launches in Oregon
But the efforts weren’t enough, she said: “It’s been really sobering to see these initial (fatality) numbers come out.”
Oregon Office of Emergency Management Director Andrew Phelps agreed. “Learning of the tragic loss of life as a result of the recent heat wave is heartbreaking. As an emergency manager – and Oregonian – it is devastating that people were unable to access the help they needed during an emergency,” he said.
Among the dead was a farm laborer who collapsed Saturday and was found by fellow workers at a nursery in rural St. Paul, Oregon. The workers had been moving irrigation lines, said Aaron Corvin, spokesman for the state’s worker safety agency, Oregon Occupational Safety and Health, or Oregon OSHA.
Oregon OSHA, whose database listed the death as heat-related, is investigating labor contractor Andres Pablo Lucas and Ernst Nursery and Farms, which did not respond to a request for comment. Pablo Lucas declined to comment Thursday.
Farm worker Pedro Lucas said the man who died was his uncle, Sebastian Francisco Perez, from Ixcan, Guatemala. He had turned 38 the day before he died.
Lucas, who is cousins with the labor contractor, was summoned to the scene. But by the time he arrived, his uncle was unconscious and dying. An ambulance crew tried to revive him but failed. Lucas said Perez was used to working in the heat and that the family is awaiting an autopsy report.
Reyna Lopez, executive director of a northwest farmworkers’ union, known by its Spanish-language initials, PCUN, called the death “shameful” and faulted both Oregon OSHA for not adopting emergency rules ahead of the heat wave, and the nursery.
Corvin said Oregon OSHA is “exploring adopting emergency requirements, and we continue to engage in discussions with labor and employer stakeholders.”
He added that employers are obligated to provide ample water, shade, additional breaks and training about heat hazards.
An executive order issued in March 2020 by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown would formalize protecting workers from heat, but it is coming too late for the dead farmworker, whose name was not disclosed. Brown’s order focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and also tells the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon OSHA to jointly propose standards to protect workers from excessive heat and wildfire smoke.
They had until June 30 to submit the proposals, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the two agencies requested the deadline be pushed back to September.
In Bend, Oregon, a scenic town next to the snowy Cascade Range, the bodies of two men were found Sunday on a road where dozens of homeless people stay in trailers and tents.
Volunteer Luke Richter said he stepped into the trailer where one of the men, Alonzo “Lonnie” Boardman, was found.
“It was very obviously too late. It was basically a microwave in there,” Richter told Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Cooling stations had been set up at the campsite on Saturday, with water, sports drinks and ice available.
Weather experts say the number of heat waves are only likely to rise in the Pacific Northwest, a region normally known for cool, rainy weather, with a few hot, sunny days mixed in, and where many people don’t have air conditioning.
Also read: Blackouts in US Northwest due to heat wave, deaths reported
“I think the community has to be realistic that we are going to be having this as a more usual occurrence and not a one-off, and that we need to be preparing as a community,” said Dr. Steven Mitchell of Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, which treated an unprecedented number of severe heat-related cases. “We need to be really augmenting our disaster response.”
This week’s heat wave was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest and worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more intense.
Seattle, Portland and many other cities broke all-time heat records, with temperatures in some places reaching above 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 Celsius).
Xi rallies Party for 'unstoppable' pursuit to national rejuvenation as CPC celebrates centenary
The Communist Party of China (CPC) on Thursday celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding, as its top leader declared the achievement of a milestone development goal and announced that the Chinese nation is "advancing with unstoppable momentum toward rejuvenation."
Addressing a grand gathering at the iconic Tian'anmen Square, where CPC forefather Mao Zedong proclaimed the birth of the people's republic, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, hailed the Party's success over the past century and called on the whole Party to continue its hard work and carry out "a great struggle" to achieve national rejuvenation.
Xi delivered a nationally-televised speech from Tian'anmen Rostrum before a 70,000-strong crowd. The historic event also witnessed a chorus of Party songs, a flypast of fighter jets and helicopters, a 100-gun salute, and a flag-raising ceremony.
Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, declared that China has realized the first centenary goal of "building a moderately prosperous society in all respects."
"This means that we have brought about a historic resolution to the problem of absolute poverty in China, and we are now marching in confident strides toward the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects," Xi said.
HISTORICAL INEVITABILITY
Reviewing the past 100 years, Xi said the Party has united and led the Chinese people in achieving great success in the new-democratic revolution, socialist revolution and construction, reform, opening up and socialist modernization, as well as for socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.
In 1921 when the CPC was founded, it had just over 50 members. Today, with more than 95 million members in a country of more than 1.4 billion people, it is the largest governing party in the world and enjoys tremendous international influence.
Xi paid tributes to CPC forefathers including Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, as well as revolutionary martyrs who died for the Party's cause.
"All the struggle, sacrifice, and creation through which the Party has united and led the Chinese people over the past hundred years has been tied together by one ultimate theme -- bringing about the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," Xi said, adding that this prospect "has become a historical inevitability."
The ceremony was presided over by Li Keqiang, and attended by Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng -- all members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, as well as Vice President Wang Qishan.
At the event, Wan Exiang, chairman of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, read a congratulatory message on behalf of the eight non-CPC political parties in China, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and personages without party affiliation.
Also read: Xi takes firm line as China Communist Party marks centenary
Over 1,000 young people, who are representatives of the Chinese Communist Youth League and Young Pioneers, conveyed their congratulatory message through a recitation at Tian'anmen Square, expressing the younger generation's commitment to the CPC's cause.
"I feel very honored," said Wang Fangyanni, a 22-year-old university student who watched the celebrations on the spot. Wang gained full membership of the CPC in April.
Xi's one-hour speech captured the Party's tremendous success over a century.
Under the Party's leadership, the country has lifted nearly 800 million people out of poverty over the past four decades. China is now the world's second-largest economy, the largest recipient of foreign direct investment, and boasts one of the world's largest consumer markets. Its GDP has exceeded the 100-trillion-yuan (about 15.47 trillion U.S. dollars) threshold.
Many people have experienced a significant improvement in their lives.
Bao Xianjie is one of them. A member of the Tu ethnic group, she relates the CPC centenary with changes in her home county in northwestern Qinghai Province, which has recently cast off poverty.
"When I returned home in recent years, I saw big changes: expressway has been opened, traffic is made convenient, and everyone's life is getting better," Bao told Xinhua at Tian'anmen Square.
Yang Pin-hua, an ethnic singer from Taiwan who has been living in Beijing for 14 years, was also in the audience at the square.
Having traveled to more than 70 mainland cities with large ethnic populations, Yang said he has seen those places undergoing tremendous changes over the years. "The Party's support has reached every village and every ethnic group."
EVEN STRONGER PARTY
In his address, Xi laid down principles that must be followed on the journey ahead.
The firm leadership of the Party must be upheld, he said, calling it the foundation and lifeblood of the Party and the country, and the crux upon which the interests and wellbeing of all Chinese people depend.
Vowing to remain committed to combating corruption and root out "any viruses that would erode its health," Xi said the CPC must continue to advance the great new project of Party building.
"We must unite and lead the Chinese people in working ceaselessly for a better life," he added.
"Any attempt to divide the Party from the Chinese people or to set the people against the Party is bound to fail. The more than 95 million Party members and the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people will never allow such a scenario to come to pass," he said.
Xi stressed continuing to adapt Marxism to the Chinese context.
Also read: At 100, China’s Communist Party looks to cement its future
NO PREACHING, NO BULLYING
Xi said efforts to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics must be continued. In doing so, the Party has "created a new model for human civilization."
The Party is eager to learn what lessons it can from the achievements of other cultures, and welcomes helpful suggestions and constructive criticism, Xi said.
"We will not, however, accept sanctimonious preaching from those who feel they have the right to lecture us," he said.
Xi added that the Chinese nation does not carry aggressive or hegemonic traits in its genes. "We have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will."
But the Chinese people will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us, he said.
"Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people," Xi said, as the crowd present at Tian'anmen Square burst into thunderous applause and cheers.
Xi underlined elevating the armed forces to world-class standards to achieve greater capacity and more reliable means for safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests.
He also called for making efforts to strengthen the great unity of the Chinese people.
Resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China's complete reunification is a historic mission and an unshakable commitment of the CPC, Xi said, vowing resolute action to utterly defeat any attempt toward "Taiwan independence."
"No one should underestimate the great resolve, the strong will, and the extraordinary ability of the Chinese people to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said.
Devastated condo community looks to Biden visit for comfort
As the search for survivors of a Florida condo collapse enters its second week, rescue crews and relatives of those still missing are scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden Thursday, in a visit many are hoping will provide some measure of comfort to a devastated community.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to thank first responders and search and rescue teams. They also plan to meet with the families of victims, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
The president’s visit comes a week after Champlain Towers South, a 12-story beachfront condominium building in Surfside, suddenly came crashing down, leaving a pancaked rubble.
Search crews going through the ruins found the remains of six people Wednesday, bringing the number of confirmed dead to 18. The number of residents unaccounted for stands at 145.
Read:Latest victims in condo tower collapse include 2 children
Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said he hopes Biden’s visit will be a morale booster for the entire community.
“We’ve had several challenges from weather, sorrow, pain. And I think that the president coming will bring some unity here for our community, support, like our governor, our mayor, all of us together,” he said.
Psaki said the president and first lady also want to make sure that state and local officials have the resources and support they need under an emergency declaration approved by Biden for Miami-Dade. She emphasized Wednesday that the White House is being careful to coordinate with officials on the ground to ensure that Biden’s visit doesn’t do anything to “pull away” from the ongoing search and rescue effort.
State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis said he hopes to emphasize to Biden that there is a need for mental health resources to treat rescue workers for post-traumatic stress disorder.
“These guys are so blindly focused on the mission of saving lives, and unfortunately they see things they can’t unsee,” Patronis said.
“We want to make sure that when they ultimately do go home, that we’re giving them the strength … to be able to get back to work without fear of nightmares and challenges.”
Read:Florida officials pledge multiple probes into condo collapse
Since the tragedy, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, have projected a united and cooperative front as they respond to the crisis.
Previously, they had sometimes sparred over how best to respond to the coronavirus outbreak, with clashes over wearing masks and other measures to control the pandemic. But no signs of partisanship have been evident in Surfside.
DeSantis has spoken appreciatively of the aid coming from Washington, even commending the Biden administration for “stepping up to the plate.”
“We really appreciate having the support of the president,” DeSantis said at a Friday news conference in Surfside -- although hours before, he had blasted President Joe Biden’s border policies during an earlier press conference in the state’s Panhandle.
DeSantis, who is up for reelection next year, is said to be exploring a run for the presidency in 2024.
Among the remains found Wednesday were those of a mother and her two daughters, ages 4 and 10, a loss that Cava called “too great to bear.”
Read:‘Our backyard’: Tragedy strikes home for Miami-Dade rescuers
Miami-Dade police identified the children as 10-year-old Lucia Guara and 4-year-old Emma Guara, and their mother as 42-year-old Anaely Rodriguez. The remains of their father, Marcus Guara, 52, were pulled from the rubble Saturday and identified Monday.
The cause of the collapse is under investigation. A 2018 engineering report found that the building’s ground-floor pool deck was resting on a concrete slab that had “major structural damage” and needed extensive repairs. The report also found “abundant cracking” of concrete columns, beams and walls in the parking garage.
Just two months before the building came down, the president of its board wrote a letter to residents saying that structural problems identified in the 2018 inspection had “gotten significantly worse” and that major repairs would cost at least $15.5 million. With bids for the work still pending, the building suddenly collapsed last Thursday.
NKorea’s Kim vows to boost China ties amid pandemic hardship
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Thursday he’ll push to further upgrade relations with China, his main ally, as he struggles to navigate his country out of a deepening crisis linked to the pandemic.
Kim made the comments in a message to Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulating him on the 100th founding anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
“The Workers’ Party of Korea, by its firm unity with the Chinese Communist Party, would raise (North Korea)-China friendship to a new strategic point as required by the times and as desired by the peoples of the two countries,” Kim was quoted as saying.
Read:North Korea’s Kim berates officials for ‘grave’ virus lapse
In an apparent reference to the United States, Kim said that “hostile forces’ vicious slander and all-round pressure upon the Chinese Communist Party are no more than a last-ditch attempt and they can never check the ongoing advance of the Chinese people,” according to KCNA.
Kim’s message came a day after state media said he had told a powerful Politburo meeting that a “crucial” lapse in the anti-virus campaign has caused a “great crisis.” He did not elaborate, but there was speculation that Kim may have aimed to raise a call for international assistance, including vaccine shipments.
Read:North Korea's Kim vows to be ready for confrontation with US
North Korea maintains some of the world’s toughest anti-virus measures, including 1 ½ years of border shutdowns, despite its much questionable claim to be coronavirus free. Such draconian steps have devastated its already struggling economy, and Kim has said before his country faces the “worst-ever” situation. It’s unclear when North Korea would reopen its border with China, and so far, there are no reports that it has received any vaccines.
More than 90% of North Korea’s trade goes through China, which has long been suspected of refusing to fully implement U.N. sanctions against North Korea imposed over its nuclear weapons programs. Experts say China worries about a collapse and chaos in North Korea because it doesn’t want refugees flooding over the long border and a pro-U.S., unified Korea on its doorstep.
Read: State media: Kim has plans to stabilize N. Korean economy
On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin held out the possibility of sending assistance to North Korea.
“China and the DPRK have a long tradition of helping each other when they encounter difficulties,” Wang said, referring to the North by the initials of its official name. “If necessary, China will actively consider providing assistance to the DPRK.”
Pandemic tourism: Thailand launches Phuket ‘sandbox’ plan
Thailand embarked on an ambitious but risky plan Thursday that it hopes will breathe new life into a tourism industry devastated by the pandemic, opening the popular resort island of Phuket to fully vaccinated foreigners from lower-risk countries.
As the first flight arrived, airport fire trucks blasted their water canons to form an arch over the Etihad jet from Abu Dhabi as it taxied to its gate.
Leaving the airport, Frenchman Bruno Souillard said he had been dreaming for a year of returning to Thailand and jumped at the opportunity.
Read:Lava streams from crater as Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupts
“I am very, very happy,” the 60-year-old tourist said.
The so-called “Phuket sandbox” program comes as coronavirus infections are surging in Thailand, including a significant number of cases of the Delta variant, and many have questioned if it’s too early to woo tourists back, and whether they’ll come in significant numbers in any case due to the restrictions they’ll still face.
But the number of new cases on the island itself is extremely low, in the single digits daily, and more than 70% of its residents are fully vaccinated. The government is gambling that travelers will be willing to put up with coronavirus-related regulations for the opportunity for a beach holiday after being cooped up in their home countries for months.
Before the pandemic, the tourism sector made up some 20% of Thailand’s economy, and 95% of Phuket’s income.
The resort island off the southern coast saw fewer than a half million visitors in the first five months, and almost no foreigners, compared to more than 3 million during the same period last year including some 2 million foreigners.
Read:India’s covid curve could raise the world’s
In a nod to the importance of the “sandbox” plan, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha flew to Phuket to be on hand in person for the launch.
Last-minute hitches in some of the program details and cautions from authorities that if cases start to rise on the island more restrictions may be needed — or it may have to be shut down entirely — meant some cancelations before it even began. Fewer than 250 international travelers were expected on the first day compared to the initial target of 1,500.
But as the kinks are worked out and people report their first-hand experiences, authorities are hopeful for a steady increase in the numbers. From July 1-15, there are currently 1,101 hotel bookings for a total of 13,116 room overnights.
Travelers to other parts of Thailand are subject to a strict 14-day hotel room quarantine, but under the sandbox plan, visitors to Phuket will be allowed to roam the entire island — the country’s largest — where they can lounge on the white beaches, jet ski and enjoy evenings eating out in restaurants, although clubs and bars remain closed.
Only visitors from countries considered no higher than “low” or “medium” risk — a list currently including most of Europe and the Mideast, the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand — are permitted, and they must fly in directly to Phuket, though plans are in the works to allow carefully controlled transfers through Bangkok’s airport.
Read:Companies give vaccines to workers, boosting Japan’s rollout
Following the inaugural flight from Abu Dhabi, passengers were expected to arrive later Thursday from Qatar, Israel and Singapore.
Adult foreign visitors must provide proof of two vaccinations, a negative COVID-19 test no more than 72 hours before departure, and proof of an insurance policy that covers treatment for the virus of at least $100,000, among other things. Once on the island, they have to follow mask and distancing regulations and take three COVID-19 tests at their own expense — about $300 total — and show negative results.
After 14 days, visitors can travel elsewhere in Thailand.
Xi takes firm line as China Communist Party marks centenary
China will not allow itself to be bullied and anyone who tries will face “broken heads and bloodshed in front of the iron Great Wall of the 1.4 billion Chinese people,” President Xi Jinping said at a mass gathering Thursday to mark the centenary of the ruling Communist Party.
Wearing a grey buttoned-up suit of the type worn by Mao Zedong, Xi spoke from the balcony of Tiananmen Gate, emphasizing the party’s role in bringing China to global prominence and saying it would never be divided from the people.
Xi, who is head of the party and leader of the world’s largest armed forces also said China had restored order in Hong Kong following antigovernment protests in the semi-autonomous city in 2019 and reiterated Beijing’s determination to bring self-governing Taiwan under its control.
He received the biggest applause, however, when he described the party as the force that had restored China’s dignity and turned it into the world’s second largest economy since taking power amid civil war in 1949.
Read: At 100, China’s Communist Party looks to cement its future
“The Chinese people are a people with a strong sense of pride and self-confidence,” Xi said. “We have never bullied, oppressed or enslaved the people of another nation, not in the past, during the present or in the future.”
“At the same time, the Chinese people will absolutely not allow any foreign force to bully, oppress or enslave us and anyone who attempts to do so will face broken heads and bloodshed in front of the iron Great Wall of the 1.4 billion Chinese people,” Xi said.
Xi’s comments come as China is enmeshed in a deepening rivalry with the United States for global power status and has clashed with India along their disputed border. China also claims unpopulated islands held by Japan and almost the entire South China Sea, and it threatens to invade Taiwan, with which the U.S. has boosted relations and military sales.
Beijing also faces criticism that it is guilty of abusing its power at home, including detaining more than 1 million Uyghurs and and other Muslim minorities for political reeducation in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, and for imprisoning or intimidating into silence those it sees as potential opponents from Tibet to Hong Kong.
Thursday’s events are the climax of weeks of ceremonies and displays praising the role of the Communist Party in bringing vast improvements in quality of life at home and restoring China’s economic, political and military influence abroad. Those improvements coupled with harshly repressing opponents have helped the party hold power despite its 92 million members accounting for just over 6% of China’s population.
While the progress dates mainly from economic reforms enacted by Deng Xiaoping four decades ago, the celebrations spotlight the role of Xi, who has established himself as China’s most powerful leader since Mao. Xi mentioned the contributions of past leaders in his address, but his claims to have attained breakthroughs in poverty alleviation and economic progress while raising China’s global profile and standing up to the West were front and center.
Xi, 68, has eliminated limits on his time in office and is expected to begin a third five-year term as party leader next year.
In seeking to capture more gains for the party on the world stage, Xi is setting up China for a protracted struggle with the U.S., said Robert Sutter of George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs.
“In foreign affairs it involves growth of wealth and power, with China unencumbered as it pursues its very self-centered policy goals at the expense of others and of the prevailing world order,” Sutter said.
While the party faces no serious challenges to its rule, the legitimacy of its rule has been undercut by past disasters such as the mass famine of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Cultural Revolution’s violent class warfare and xenophobia, and the 1989 bloodshed at Tiananmen Square.
Read:India cranking up border infrastructure to narrow gap with China
The party’s official narrative glosses over past mistakes or current controversies, emphasizing development, stability and efficiency — including its success in controlling COVID-19 at home — in contrast to what it portrays as political bickering, bungling of pandemic control measures and social strife in multiparty democracies.
Xi’s comments Thursday on bullying, oppression and enslavement will elicit historical memories among Chinese of the the 19th century Opium Wars that led to foreign nations gaining special legal and economic privileges in China, as well as Japan’s brutal invasion and occupation of much of the country during the 1930s and 1940s.
Xi said those experiences had made the party’s rise to power inevitable as the only force truly able to rid China of foreign meddling and restore its global stature.
“History and the people chose the Communist Party,” Xi said.
Xi said the party would retain absolute control over its military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, which now has the world’s second-largest annual budget after the U.S. armed forces and has been adding aircraft carriers and sophisticated new aircraft, showcased in a flyover at the start of the ceremony featuring a squadron of China’s J-20 stealth fighters.
“We will turn the people’s military into a world-class military, with even stronger capabilities and even more reliable means to safeguard the nation’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” Xi said.
Thursday’s rally recalled the mass events at which Mao would greet hundreds of thousands of Red Guards in Tiananmen Square during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, a time many older Chinese would prefer to forget.
Yet it also portrayed a people strongly united behind the ruling party and its leader.
“After several generations of leaders, including President Xi, now (China) is advancing courageously and relentlessly on the path of socialism. So I think the Communist Party will be able to carry on for a thousand years, ten thousand years,” said Beijing resident Yang Shaocheng.
Events are being held across the country, including in Hong Kong, which is simultaneously holding commemorations of its 1997 handover from British to Chinese control.
Read:China's comical picture 'The Last G-7' raps Japan's Fukushima water
China has cracked down hard on freedom of speech and political opposition in the territory, while rejecting all outside criticism and sanctions imposed on its leaders.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam was among officials seated on Tiananmen Gate, while her deputy defended the national security law imposed by Beijing last year and said it would be used further in the coming year to ensure stability.
Since its implementation, large-scale demonstrations have been banned and a number of pro-democracy activists and journalists have been arrested, ceased public activities or left Hong Kong.
Despite the protest ban, a group of activists marched through part of Hong Kong on Thursday carrying a banner that called for the release of political prisoners.
Latest victims in condo tower collapse include 2 children
As more human remains emerged Wednesday from the rubble of the collapsed Florida condo tower, the dead this time included the first children, ages 4 and 10, a loss that the Miami-Dade mayor called “too great to bear.”
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava made the announcement nearly a week after the Florida building came crashing down. After some preliminary remarks at a media briefing, she took a deep breath to gather herself and stared down at her notes. She spoke haltingly and said the disclosure came with “great sorrow, real pain.”
“So any loss of life, especially given the unexpected, unprecedented nature of this event, is a tragedy,” she said. But the loss of children was an even heavier burden.
Miami-Dade police later identified the children as 10-year-old Lucia Guara and 4-year-old Emma Guara. The remains of their father, Marcus Guara, 52, were pulled from the rubble Saturday and identified Monday. The girls and their mother, Anaely Rodriguez, 42, were recovered Wednesday.
Read:Florida officials pledge multiple probes into condo collapse
Search crews going through the ruins found the remains of a total of six people Wednesday, bringing the number of confirmed dead to 18. It was the highest one-day toll since the building collapsed last Thursday into a heap of broken concrete. The number of residents unaccounted for stands at 145.
Earlier in the day, crews searching for survivors built a ramp that should allow the use of heavier equipment, potentially accelerating the removal of concrete that “could lead to incredibly good news events,” the state fire marshal said.
Since the sudden collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South last week in Surfside, rescuers have been working to peel back layers of concrete on the pancaked building without disturbing the unstable pile of debris.
Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told family members of those missing that the ramp allowed rescuers to use a crane on sections that were not previously accessible. He said that improves the chances of finding new pockets of space in the urgent search for survivors.
“We hope to start seeing some significant improvement in regards to the possibility of (finding) any voids that we cannot see,” Jadallah said.
In an interview with Miami television station WSVN, state Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis described the ramp as “a Herculean effort” that would allow crews “to leverage massive equipment to remove mass pieces of concrete,” which could lead to good results.
Patronis told The Associated Press that the ramp will permit heavy equipment to get closer to areas where debris needs to be cleared. The new equipment includes a so-called nibbler, a massive machine that has a scissors-like tool at the end of a long arm to cut through concrete and rebar.
Officials have been concerned an underground parking garage could collapse under the weight of heavy equipment, so they decided to build the makeshift limestone ramp, Patronis said. He said dogs are used to check for survivors in the area where the machine works, and then the nibbler is sent in.
Read:‘Our backyard’: Tragedy strikes home for Miami-Dade rescuers
“So you can really make some serious rapid headway just because of the sheer hydraulic forces this thing can exert versus a human being with hand tools,” Patronis said.
The cause of the collapse is under investigation. A 2018 engineering report found that the building’s ground-floor pool deck was resting on a concrete slab that had “major structural damage” and needed extensive repairs. The report also found “abundant cracking” of concrete columns, beams and walls in the parking garage.
Just two months before the building came down, the president of its board wrote a letter to residents saying that structural problems identified in the 2018 inspection had “gotten significantly worse” and that major repairs would cost at least $15.5 million. With bids for the work still pending, the building suddenly collapsed last Thursday.
Rescuers still faced enormous obstacles as they spent a seventh day searching for survivors. The pancake collapse of the building has frustrated efforts to reach anyone who may have survived in a pocket of space.
Officials were also worried about the possibility of severe weather interfering with search efforts. Crews have already had to deal with intermittent bad weather that caused temporary delays in the work, and they are now keeping an eye on a potential tropical storm in the Atlantic Ocean.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said some of the resources in Surfside might have to be removed in case the storms hit any part of Florida. “’Tis the season and you’ve got to be ready,” he said.
The possibility of severe weather prompted state officials to ask the federal government for an additional search and rescue team. Kevin Guthrie of the Florida Division of Emergency Management said the new team would be on hand if severe weather hits, allowing crews that have been working at the site for days to rotate out.
Authorities said it’s still a search-and-rescue operation, but no one has been found alive since hours after the collapse on Thursday.
Read:‘Excruciating:’ Florida collapse search stretches to Day 6
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden planned to travel to Surfside on Thursday.
“They want to thank the heroic first responders, search-and-rescue teams and everyone who’s been working tirelessly around the clock, and meet with the families” waiting for word of their loved ones, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.
Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said he hopes Biden’s visit will be a morale booster for the devastated community.
“We’ve had several challenges from weather, sorrow, pain. And I think that the president coming will bring some unity here for our community, support, like our governor, our mayor, all of us together.”
Canadian Indigenous group says more graves found at new site
A Canadian Indigenous group said Wednesday a search using ground-penetrating radar has found 182 human remains in unmarked graves at a site near a former Catholic Church-run residential school that housed Indigenous children taken from their families.
The latest discovery of graves near Cranbrook, British Columbia follows reports of similar findings at two other such church-run schools, one of more than 600 unmarked graves and another of 215 bodies. Cranbrook is 524 miles (843 kilometers) east of Vancouver.
The Lower Kootenay Band said in a news release that it began using the technology last year to search the site close to the former St. Eugene’s Mission School, which was operated by the Catholic Church from 1912 until the early 1970s. It said the search found the remains in unmarked graves, some about 3 feet (a meter) deep.
Read:Unmarked graves found at another Indigenous school in Canada
It’s believed the remains are those of people from the bands of the Ktunaxa nation, which includes the Lower Kootenay Band, and other neighboring First Nation communities.
Chief Jason Louie of the Lower Kootenay Band called the discovery “deeply personal” since he had relatives attend the school.
“Let’s call this for what it is,” Louie told CBC radio in an interview. “It’s a mass murder of Indigenous people.”
“The Nazis were held accountable for their war crimes. I see no difference in locating the priests and nuns and the brothers who are responsible for this mass murder to be held accountable for their part in this attempt of genocide of an Indigenous people.”
From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian boarding schools in an effort to assimilate them into Canadian society. Thousands of children died there of disease and other causes, with many never returned to their families.
Nearly three-quarters of the 130 residential schools were run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, with others operated by the Presbyterian, Anglican and the United Church of Canada, which today is the largest Protestant denomination in the country.
The Canadian government has acknowledged that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages.
Last week the Cowessess First Nation, located about 85 miles (135 kilometers) east of the Saskatchewan capital of Regina, said investigators found “at least 600” unmarked graves at the site of a former Marieval Indian Residential School.
Last month, the remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, were found buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school near Kamloops, British Columbia.
Prior to news of the most recent finding, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he has asked that the national flag on the Peace Tower remain at half-mast for Canada Day on Thursday to honor the Indigenous children who died in residential schools.
On Tuesday, it was announced that a group of Indigenous leaders will visit the Vatican later this year to press for a papal apology for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in residential schools.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said Indigenous leaders will visit the Vatican from Dec. 17-20 to meet with Pope Francis and “foster meaningful encounters of dialogue and healing.”
After the graves were found in Kamloops, the pope expressed his pain over the discovery and pressed religious and political authorities to shed light on “this sad affair.” But he didn’t offer the apology sought by First Nations and the Canadian government.
Read:More than 200 bodies found at Indigenous school in Canada
The leader of one of Canada’s largest Indigenous groups says there are no guarantees an Indigenous delegation travelling to the Vatican will lead to Pope Francis apologizing in Canada.
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde confirmed that assembly representatives will join Metis and Inuit leaders making the trip to the Vatican in late December.
“There are no guarantees of any kind of apology″ from the pope, said Bellegarde.
“The Anglican Church has apologized,” he told a virtual news conference. “The Presbyterian Church has apologized. United Church has apologized.”
“This is really part of truth and part of the healing and reconciliation process for survivors to hear the apology from the highest position within the Roman Catholic Church, which is the pope.”
Louie said he wants more concrete action than apologies.
“I’m really done with the government and churches saying they are sorry,” he said. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
A papal apology was one of 94 recommendations from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but the Canadian bishops conference said in 2018 that the pope could not personally apologize for the residential schools.
Since the discovery of unmarked graves at the sites of former residential schools, there have been several fires at churches across Canada. There has also been some vandalism targeting churches and statues in cities.
Four small Catholic churches on Indigenous lands in rural southern British Columbia have been destroyed by suspicious fires and a vacant former Anglican church in northwestern B.C. was recently damaged in what RCMP said could be arson.
On Wednesday, Alberta’s premier condemned what he called “arson attacks at Christian churches” after a historic parish was destroyed in a fire.
“Today in Morinville, l’église de Saint-Jean-Baptiste was destroyed in what appears to have been a criminal act of arson,” Kenney said in a statement.
RCMP said officers were called to the suspicious blaze at the church in Morinville, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Edmonton, in the early hours of Wednesday.
Read:Trudeau denounces truck attack that targeted Muslim family
Trudeau and an Indigenous leader said arson and vandalism targeting churches is not the way to get justice following the discovery of the unmarked graves.
“The destruction of places of worship is unacceptable and it must stop,” Trudeau said. “We must work together to right past wrongs.″
Bellegarde said burning churches is not the way to proceed.
“I can understand the frustration, the anger, the hurt and the pain, there’s no question,″ he said. ”But to burn things down is not our way.″
Hundreds of deaths could be linked to Northwest heat wave
The grim toll of the historic heat wave in the Pacific Northwest became more apparent as authorities in Canada, Oregon and Washington state said Wednesday they were investigating hundreds of deaths likely caused by scorching temperatures that shattered all-time records in the normally temperate region.
British Columbia’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, said her office received reports of at least 486 “sudden and unexpected deaths” between Friday and Wednesday. Normally, she said about 165 people would die in the Canadian province over a five-day period.
“While it is too early to say with certainty how many of these deaths are heat related, it is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather,” LaPointe said in a statement.
Many homes in Vancouver, much like Seattle, don’t have air conditioning, leaving people ill-prepared for soaring temperatures.
Read:Blackouts in US Northwest due to heat wave, deaths reported
“Vancouver has never experienced heat like this, and sadly dozens of people are dying because of it,” Vancouver police Sgt. Steve Addison said in a statement.
Oregon health officials said more than 60 deaths have been tied to the heat, with the state’s largest county, Multnomah, blaming the weather for 45 deaths since temperatures spiked Friday. At least 20 deaths in Washington state have been linked to the heat, a number that was expected to rise.
The heat wave was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest and worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more intense. Seattle, Portland and many other cities broke all-time heat records, with temperatures in some places reaching above 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 Celsius).
While the temperatures had cooled considerably in western Washington, Oregon and British Columbia by Wednesday, interior regions were still sweating through triple-digit temperatures as the weather system moved east into the intermountain West and the Plains.
Amid the dangerous heat and drought gripping the American West, crews were closely monitoring wildfires that can explode in the extreme weather.
Read:Northwest US faces hottest day of intense heat wave
Heat warnings were in place for parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana as well as Saskatchewan and southern Alberta, where “a prolonged, dangerous, and historic heat wave will persist through this week,” Environment Canada said.
“The temperatures recorded this week are unprecedented — lives have been lost and the risk of wildfires is at a dangerously high level,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
In Oregon, the Multnomah County medical examiner blamed 45 heat deaths on hyperthermia, an abnormally high body temperature caused by a failure of the body to deal with heat. The victims ranged in age from 44 to 97.
The county that includes Portland said that between 2017 and 2019, there were only 12 hyperthermia deaths in all of Oregon.
“This was a true health crisis that has underscored how deadly an extreme heat wave can be, especially to otherwise vulnerable people,” Dr. Jennifer Vines, the county’s health officer, said in a statement.
The King County medical examiner’s office, which covers an area including Seattle, said on Wednesday that a total of 13 people had died from heat-related causes. In neighboring Snohomish County, three men — ages 51, 75 and 77 — died after experiencing heatstroke in their homes, the medical examiner’s office told the Daily Herald in Everett, Washington, on Tuesday. Four deaths have also been linked to heat in Kitsap County, west of Seattle.
In western Washington, the Spokane Fire Department found two people dead in an apartment building Wednesday who had been suffering symptoms of heat-related stress, TV station KREM reported.
Read:UN: Don’t forget to save species while fixing global warming
The heat led a power company in Spokane to impose rolling blackouts because of the strain on the electrical grid. Avista Utilities says it’s trying to limit outages to one hour per customer.
Heather Rosentrater, an Avista vice president for energy delivery, said the outages were a distribution problem and did not stem from a lack of electricity in the system.
Renee Swecker, 66, of Clayton, Washington, visited a splashpad fountain in downtown Spokane’s Riverfront Park with her grandchildren Wednesday, saying they “are going everywhere where there is water.”
“I’m praying for rain every day,” Swecker said.
Bill Cosby freed from prison, his sex conviction overturned
Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and released him from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.
Cosby, 83, had served nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence after being found guilty of drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era.
The former “Cosby Show” star was arrested in 2015, when a district attorney armed with newly unsealed evidence — the comic’s damaging deposition in a lawsuit filed by Constand — brought charges against him days before the 12-year statute of limitations was about to run out.
But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said Wednesday that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby, though there was no evidence that promise was ever put in writing.
Justice David Wecht, writing for a split court, said Cosby had relied on the previous district attorney’s decision not to charge him when the comedian gave his potentially incriminating testimony in Constand’s civil case.
The court called Cosby’s subsequent arrest “an affront to fundamental fairness, particularly when it results in a criminal prosecution that was forgone for more than a decade.” It said justice and “fair play and decency” require that the district attorney’s office stand by the decision of the previous DA.
The justices said that overturning the conviction, and barring any further prosecution, “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”
He was promptly set free from the state prison in suburban Montgomery County and returned to his home with no immediate comment.
His appeals lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, said Cosby should never have been prosecuted. “District attorneys can’t change it up simply because of their political motivation,” she said, adding that Cosby remains in excellent health, apart from being legally blind.
Also read: Cosby in cuffs: TV star gets 3 to 10 years for sex assault
In a statement, Steele said Cosby went free “on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime.” He commended Constand for coming forward and added: “My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims. ... We still believe that no one is above the law — including those who are rich, famous and powerful.”
Constand and her lawyer did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
“FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!” the actor’s “Cosby Show” co-star Phylicia Rashad tweeted.
“I am furious to hear this news,” actor Amber Tamblyn, a founder of Time’s Up, an advocacy group for victims of sexual assault, said in a Twitter post. “I personally know women who this man drugged and raped while unconscious. Shame on the court and this decision.”
In sentencing Cosby, the trial judge had ruled him a sexually violent predator who could not be safely allowed out in public and needed to report to authorities for the rest of his life.
Four Supreme Court justices formed the majority that ruled in Cosby’s favor, while three others dissented in whole or in part.
Peter Goldberger, a suburban Philadelphia lawyer with an expertise in criminal appeals, said prosecutors could ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for reargument or reconsideration, but it would be a very long shot.
“I can’t imagine that with such a lengthy opinion, with a thoughtful concurring opinion and a thoughtful dissenting opinion, that you could honestly say they made a simple mistake that would change their minds if they point it out to them,” Goldberger said.
Even though Cosby was charged only with the assault on Constand, the judge at his trial allowed five other accusers to testify that they, too, were similarly victimized by Cosby in the 1980s. Prosecutors called them as witnesses to establish what they said was a pattern of behavior on Cosby’s part.
Cosby’s lawyers had argued on appeal that the use of the five additional accusers was improper.
But the Pennsylvania high court did not weigh in on the question, saying it was moot given the justices’ finding that Cosby should not have been prosecuted in the first place.
In New York, the judge at last year’s trial of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose case helped sparked the #MeToo movement in 2017, let four other accusers testify. Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Also read: Cosby prosecutor asks for 5 to 10 years in prison
In May, Cosby was denied parole after refusing to participate in sex offender programs behind bars. He said he would resist the treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it meant serving the full 10 years.
Prosecutors said Cosby repeatedly used his fame and family man persona to manipulate young women, holding himself out as a mentor before betraying them.
The groundbreaking Black actor grew up in public housing in Philadelphia and made a fortune estimated at $400 million during his 50 years in the entertainment industry that included the TV shows “I Spy,” “The Cosby Show” and “Fat Albert,” along with comedy albums and a multitude of television commercials.
The suburban Philadelphia prosecutor who originally looked into Constand’s allegations, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, considered the case flawed because Constand waited a year to come forward and stayed in contact with Cosby afterward. Castor declined to prosecute and instead encouraged Constand to sue for damages.
Questioned under oath as part of that lawsuit, Cosby said he used to offer quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with. He eventually settled with Constand for $3.4 million.
Portions of the deposition later became public at the request of The Associated Press and spelled Cosby’s downfall, opening the floodgates on accusations from other women and destroying the comic’s good-guy reputation and career. More than 60 women came forward to say Cosby violated them.
The AP does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted.
Cosby, in the deposition, acknowledged giving quaaludes to a 19-year-old woman before having sex with her at a Las Vegas hotel in 1976. Cosby called the encounter consensual.
On Wednesday, the woman, Therese Serignese, now 64, said the court ruling “takes my breath away.”
“I just think it’s a miscarriage of justice. This is about procedure. It’s not about the truth of the women,” she said. She said she took solace in the fact Cosby served nearly three years: “That’s as good as it gets in America” for sex crime victims, she said.