Ep. 93: News Roundup Week of 7/19/21

Heart & Home

The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics began on Friday in the largely empty National Stadium in Tokyo. Friday’s ceremony, a year late, was stripped of pomp, friends and families of competitors, most spectators and many athletes after Covid-19 forced a change to the bustling celebrations that opened previous Games. ———- Next, the extreme weather to strike three continents. Both China and Western Europe were hit by devastating floods, with a death toll above 100. In wooded areas of Canada, the US, and Russia, are battling huge fires. ——— PG&E Corp. reversed its earlier stance and said Wednesday that it plans to bury 10,000 miles of power lines to reduce wildfire risk throughout Northern California at an estimated cost of up to $20 billion. The utility company, which serves about 16 million customers in northern and central California, had previously said the cost was prohibitive. ———- An update on Surfside, north of Miami Beach in Florida where there is nothing but emptiness left where Parklane Towers South once stood. On Friday, firefighters ended their search for bodies at the site of the collapsed Florida condo building after a month of painstaking work amongst the dangerous debris that was once piled several stories high. ———- New COVID-19 infections in the U.S. are up by more than 120% nationwide in the past month and the CDC director says the Delta variant accounts for 83% of infections. Researchers at Georgetown University have identified five under-vaccinated regions of the U.S. that they say could be putting the entire nation at risk, because COVID-19 could mutate so significantly in these areas, it could defeat vaccines. Portions of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and New Mexico are part of these clusters. ———- A panel of health experts advising the U.S. government on vaccines expressed preliminary support for giving Covid-19 boosters to immunocompromised people, but said they were waiting for regulatory action before making a formal recommendation. ——— Prince Harry is writing a memoir. He said: “I’m writing this not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become.”