The Trump administration doubled its orders from Pfizer and Moderna this month to 200 million doses each. But both vaccines are given as two doses per person, meaning the U.S. supply will only cover 200 million of the nation's 250 million adults. Authorizing more vaccines for emergency use could immediately increase that stockpile, and also help ensure sufficient vaccine when inoculation is allowed for teens and children.

Johnson & Johnson is preparing to release the first efficacy data on its shot, which is given as a single dose, in January. AstraZeneca could also release more data as early as next month from its late-stage trials, officials with the federal government's Operation Warp Speed said recently. (The company said in a statement that it has "no further updates on the US specific trial.")

An early frontrunner in the global vaccine race, AstraZeneca has sold more shots worldwide than any other manufacturer. Between agreements with the World Health Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation and the Serum Institute, a mass manufacturer in India, the British drugmaker has promised nearly 1 billion shots to other countries not including the 300 million it pledged to the U.S.

AstraZenecas vaccine is vastly cheaper than others and much easier to ship and store than vaccines such as Pfizers, that require ultra-cold freezers or dry ice. That makes it an appealing option for hard-to-reach areas in the U.S., as well as lower-income countries with less advanced infrastructure.

But the outlook for the company's vaccine is hazy after AstraZeneca reported last month that nearly 3,000 trial volunteers in the U.K. were accidentally given a half-strength first dose. The regimen proved 90 percent effective in early data, beating the 62 percent efficacy of two standard doses. Some vaccine experts think the lower dose's success could be a statistical fluke, since 3,000 people is a small slice of the tens of thousands of people enrolled in the company's trials; others say it could indicate a clearly better option.

AstraZeneca would still have to fully test the lower dosing regimen before applying to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency-use authorization. The agency is also requiring that drug companies follow at least half the trial volunteers for two months after their last dose.

A company spokesperson said that there is "nothing to share on U.S. filing plans at this time."

But the FDA's minimum criteria for seeking authorization do not tell the full story of a vaccine's value, said Peter Hotez, a virologist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine.

Initial efficacy over the first two months is only one of several aspects that requires consideration," said Hotez, who is also developing a potential coronavirus shot with partners in India. Other vaccines may offer advantages in terms of durability of protection, tolerability, safety, suitability for children or adolescents, and for that well require additional vaccines.

Pfizer and Moderna only recently started studying their vaccines in children as young as 12 years old, and no manufacturer has begun trials in children even younger. Regulators have also called for more data in pregnant women and for certain risk factors like heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses that could affect the immune system. Health experts say that a vaccine that may only work moderately overall may be best for key subpopulations, such as pregnant women.

The latest news in health care politics and policy.

And some of the vaccines still in development may prove easier to manufacture, transport or administer than the Pfizer and Moderna shots.

Both of those authorized vaccines use relatively new messenger RNA technology to instruct cells to make a protein found on the virus, which revs up the body's immune system. J&J and AstraZeneca use a more traditional method, in which small bits of DNA from the coronavirus are edited into a weakened version of another virus called an an adenovirus. When the adenovirus enters cells, they read its DNA and produce a protein found in the coronavirus.

One theory about the AstraZeneca dosing confusion is that a full dose of the adenovirus triggered too big of an immune response so the body didnt have time to learn much about the coronavirus it was meant to protect against, said Rasmussen. There is still value in having that information, because maybe [AstraZeneca] can start assessing that half-dose regimen.

But the AstraZeneca data could present a quandary for FDAs independent vaccine advisory panel, which has been meeting publicly to discuss each candidate in a bid to boost transparency and public confidence. The company has said that combined results so far from its Phase III trials show its vaccine to be 70 percent effective. But the two dosing regimens tell different stories: 90 percent is basically comparable with the existing vaccines; 62 percent is not.

You cant reasonably combine data from two different dosing strategies, two different dosing intervals and two different placebo groups, Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at the University of Pennsylvania who sits on the FDAs expert panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

It also presents a sticky situation for the largest national vaccination plan in history. While the two vaccines authorized now have nearly identical efficacy and safety profiles and use the same technology, having a more varied roster of vaccines would be harder to distribute fairly.

There are obvious ethical issues: If one vaccine is more effective than the others, who gets what, right? said Philip Landrigan, director of the global public health program at Boston College, who stressed the importance of clear federal planning if that happens. Transparency and openness have another benefit beyond just ensuring that the system works well it could persuade people who are reluctant to get the vaccine.

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The first Covid vaccines were triumphs. What if the next are only OK? - POLITICO

Coronavirus has changed lives and industries across the UK, accelerating fundamental shifts in behaviour and consumption that were already on their way. Debates about home working, preserving local high streets and the ethics of air travel were bubbling away before coronavirus rampaged across the world, but the consequences of the worst pandemic in more than a century have either settled those arguments or boosted the momentum behind certain lifestyle changes. Here we look at how those debates have been changed or resolved by Covid-19.

Coronavirus wont kill cinema, but it will forever change the movie-going experience. This year the global box office is likely to be just a quarter of the record $42bn (31bn) set in 2019 and UK cinema admissions are set to hit their lowest level since records began.

At the start of the pandemic theatre owners were confident that once the virus had been tamed, the blockbusters and their fans would return. However, Hollywood studios, fearful of empty seats making for box office flops, spied an unprecedented chance to bypass cinemas and make films available via streaming services. This has broken the sacrosanct tradition of months of big-screen exclusivity, outraging theatre owners who rely on that model to make their businesses viable.

Warner Bros has said its entire slate of 21 films, from Dune to The Suicide Squad, will debut on its streaming service, HBO Max, at the same time as in US cinemas next year. The same thing has already happened to Wonder Woman 1984, which was simultaneously released to US theatres and living rooms on Christmas Day. A precedent has been set over separating cinema release from streaming availability.

Cinema still has a role to play. The economics of blockbusters, which cost hundreds of millions to make and distribute, means films of such scale need the multimillion-dollar returns from the big-screen global box office. But in the future it is likely that movie fans will no longer have to wait endless months before streaming the latest blockbuster from their sofa. Mark Sweney

Rail was regarded as a privatisation too far even by Margaret Thatcher, before her Conservative successors went ahead in 1994. Then state spending on the industry vastly increased after Railtrack collapsed and the infrastructure behind it was brought under government control as Network Rail, although the franchise owners who operated the trains remained privately controlled.

Private train operators liked to take credit for the passengers who flocked back in record numbers; but most voters still backed nationalisation, polls showed. Even though a decade of intermittent franchising troubles showed reform was desperately needed, and the government had to step in twice to take over the east coast mainline, only Labour under Jeremy Corbyn gave a full-throated commitment to return the rest of rail into public hands.

But Covid-19 and lockdown restrictions meant passengers all but disappeared for parts of 2020. Following years of unresolved debate and inquiry over the best format for the industry, franchises were summarily scrapped overnight in March. Emergency contracts are more or less embedded until 2022: the industry now runs on Treasury cash, and is likely to do so for some time to come. British Rail may be history but nonetheless, by July the Office for National Statistics had reclassified the industry as, de facto, renationalised. Gwyn Topham

At the start of the millennium the Labour government concluded expansion of Heathrow was the answer to airport capacity constraints, granting planning permission which was overturned by the coalition in 2010. After another commission re-examined all the options, a third Heathrow runway was again approved by MPs in 2018.

A legal challenge to the policy on environmental grounds was first rejected, then upheld on appeal, before finally being dismissed by the supreme court this month.

In the long term, the climate crisis arguments might indeed prove the most compelling. But for now it is coronavirus that has all but swept aside the arguments for expansion. At its peak, Heathrow was constrained to its maximum permitted movements: a plane taking off or landing every 45 seconds, and passenger numbers growing beyond 70 million a year only through bigger, fuller planes.

Yet Novembers traffic figures showed only a tenth of the usual number of passengers passing through, leaving the airport using only one runway. Given the potential for a permanent decline in long-haul and business travel since the world turned to Zoom, the airport may struggle to present a compelling business case for expansion for some time to come. Gwyn Topham

The tumbleweed bowled down high streets this year as home working supercharged the growth of online shopping, with Debenhams and Topshop-owner Arcadia among the big casualties. And the shift is clear. In the third quarter of this year, 27% of retail sales were online compared with 18% the year before, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The pandemic pressed fast-forward on the painful restructuring process of an industry where fewer stores are needed to meet the needs of shoppers in the internet age. With each year more clothing, homeware and food will be bought online. This will create jobs for delivery drivers and in warehouses but not in shops, which employ around 3 million people across the UK.

What will happen with these empty stores? Rents have fallen sharply as landlords adjust to the post-pandemic reality, and changed working patterns show how neighbourhoods can blossom when people live and work nearby. This creates opportunities for businesses with the right offer and cost base. For instance, empty department stores are being converted into flats, food halls and crazy-golf courses. The high street is dead, long live the high street but not as we knew it. Zoe Wood

Technology rode to the rescue for British businesses when they had to send their staff home in the spring. High-speed internet, video-conferencing, chatrooms: everything required to work remotely was already widely available.

As a result, the year of working from home has generally been considered a great success. Banks are leading the drive for a permanent shift with Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays reviewing the amount of office space they use and Standard Chartered permanently shifting to flexible routines. Google and Facebook, which have substantial workforces in the UK, will embrace partial homeworking permanently.

But working from home isnt without its challenges. The impact on creativity, loss of interaction and serendipitous conversations, and lack of support for younger staff, are all cited as good reasons to return to offices. Workers juggling childcare and their job, and employees living in cramped flats, have also missed their desks.

Nonetheless, it appears that home working has been a bigger hit in the UK than elsewhere. British office workers were spending an average of 2.7 days per week at home in November, according to the US bank Morgan Stanley, compared with 2.1 days in France and Italy, and slightly less than that in Germany and Spain. Research found that UK workers spent just over a third (39%) of their working hours in the office in November, lagging the European average of 56%. The trend looks set to continue, with UK employees expected to request flexible working for 2.3 days per week, more than in the other four European nations. Joanna Partridge

Any lingering doubt that the UKs wind turbines and solar farms can provide a backbone for the electricity system were cast aside during the pandemic as renewable energy set new records through the year.

The collapse in energy demand following the lockdown of office blocks, schools and restaurants combined with the UKs bright, breezy weather helped renewable energy make up almost half of all electricity in the early months of the year. New records for solar power and wind generation followed in June and December respectively.

Stephen Stead, a director at energy provider SSE, said the low electricity demand levels in 2020 gave us an unprecedented peek at a future electricity market dominated by renewables and we learned that we can do it.

Wind and solar power will be able to play an even greater role in the future as investment in battery storage and flexible energy use becomes the norm. But in 2020 renewables proved they are already prepared to exceed expectations. Jillian Ambrose

The move to cashless payments accelerated this year, partly because so much spending moved online, and partly because of fears of infection through notes and coins. The contactless limit was raised to 45 and many outlets went cash-free.

According to the ATM provider Link, in the first full week of the spring lockdown withdrawals fell by 57% in value compared with the same week in 2019. Numbers went up as restrictions were eased, but by October the value of cash withdrawals was still down by 30% year-on-year.

However, throughout the year there have been queues outside banks, and the Bank of England has reported that the value of notes in circulation has increased since March, to approaching 80bn. In the days prior to Novembers lockdown, cash withdrawals surged.

There is still a core of people who use and depend on cash, and holding physical money seems to be a safety measure for some. Early on in lockdown, a Link survey found 14% consumers were keeping more cash at home in case of emergencies. The decline of cash as a payment method has been speeded up, but there is still a long way to go before we give it up. Hilary Osborne

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Future shock: how will Covid change the course of business? - The Guardian

The mountainous forests of northern Madagascar are biodiverse beyond measure, containing plant and animal species found nowhere else on the planet. Other forests in Madagascar have been lost in recent centuries and decades, but these have stood the test of time and remained relatively unscathed. They are difficult to access, and some have been officially protected since the 1920s. And yet their protected status is no longer enough: satellite data show they are now being cut down at an increasing rate.

In May, Mongabay reported on the dire situation in Tsaratanana Reserve. Since then, deforestation has continued apace, both in Tsaratanana and a neighboring protected area called COMATSA. Levels of deforestation have spiked since September, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD) visualized on Global Forest Watch. The dry months of September and October are normally peak season for slash-and-burn, and sources say the clearing is especially severe this year due to economic pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Experts say the forests are being burned and cleared primarily to make space for fields of marijuana, vanilla, and rice. The scale of the biodiversity loss is immeasurable, conservationists add.Many of the forest areas are so remote that their flora and fauna have not yet been surveyed.

[This] is a loss for everyone, Brian Fisher, an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences who has worked in the region, told Mongabay after looking at satellite images that show the deforestation. It hurts my heart to see these patches. It hurts because I know that the value of the forest as a forest is so much more.

Tsaratanana, which means good place in Malagasy, has a certain mystique among scientists. Its a magical forest the most mysterious place in the entirety of Madagascar, Maria Vorontsova, a botanist at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who has worked in the reserve, told Mongabay.

Its now unclear how long the reserve will remain in good health. Tsatanananas river valleys, where species richness is especially high, are being stripped of their forests, more so than in past decades, when they did face some threats. Meanwhile, at higher altitudes, once-continuous forest is being threatened for the first time as clearing advances upward; Mongabay has identified several recently deforested areas at elevations higher than 1,600 meters (about 5,200 feet), which researchers say marks the threshold for habitat that is particularly important for the regions endemic, endangered wildlife.

The change did not come overnight. Deforestation levels in Tsaratanana inched up in recent decades, then exploded in the last few years. Between 1996 and 2006, Tsaratanana lost only about 0.1 % of its forest cover to deforestation per year; things got worse from 2006 to 2016, when the level of deforestation increased to about 0.5 % per year, according to a three-volume compendium of Madagascars protected areas published by the University of Chicago Press in 2018. Since 2016, the rate has been 1.3% or higher every year, according to Madagascar National Parks (MNP), a semi-public agency that manages the reserve. Government data for 2020 is not yet available, but preliminary satellite data from UMD visualized on Global Forest Watch indicate the deforestation rate in 2020 may be higher than in years past.

The double whammy of deforestation and climate change could have a severe impact on wildlife populations, scientists warn. Tsaratananas elevational range makes the area suitable for a diverse set of plants and animals, including, for example, four genera of endemic bamboo (Hickelia, Oldeania, Sokinochloa and Nastus) and 15 species of tenrec (family Tenrecidae), a shrew-like animal. The reserve also provides crucial habitat for several threatened species found nowhere else in the world, including at least four endangered frog species: Rhombophryne guentherpetersi, Rhombophryne ornata, Rhombophryne tany and Cophyla alticola.

Many species will likely have to shift upslope as the area warms. Indeed, the warming is already pronounced the protected areas average temperature increased by 2.4 Celsius (4.3 Fahrenheit) between 1985 and 2014, according to the compendium and some species have already shifted. If their habitats become fragmented by deforestation, they may have nowhere to go to escape the heat.

The primary cause of deforestation in Tsaratanana is marijuana cultivation, according to MNP. The area is reportedly attractive to marijuana growers and smugglers because of its remoteness. Marijuana cultivation is illegal in Madagascar, regardless of protected area status, and Tsaratanana is one of only two major production areas.

Some of the marijuana product is exported via Nosy Be, a coastal city in the northwest, to nearby Indian Ocean islands. It fetches high prices in the island of Mauritius: an average of about $67 per gram, according to a forthcoming report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Marijuana is also consumed in Madagascar. The price there is low about $0.03 per gram but its still considered a profitable domestic business.

To stop the clearing and burning, MNP is partnering with law enforcement, forming what it calls mixed brigades that descend into the depths of the forest. According to MNP, the brigades have conducted five missions this year, during which they arrested 13 people, destroyed dozens of camps and shelters, and incinerated several tons of marijuana that had already been packaged in bags and cans; they also destroyed 35 hectares (86 acres) of marijuana fields.

UMD satellite data show significant deforestation since September. When first contacted for this article, in October, MNP representatives indicated that the data were misleading that many of the recent tree cover loss alerts were showing deforestation from previous years. However, following brigade missions over the last three months, MNP has confirmed to Mongabay that many of the alerts from the satellite system reflect recent deforestation. Satellite imagery of locations corresponding with the alerts also confirms that much of the deforestation is recent, particularly in upland areas.

Tsaratanana is not the only protected area in the region facing deforestation pressures due to shifting agriculture. COMATSA, a protected area that abuts Tsaratanana to the east, has also seen an increase in deforestation this year and a spike in the last three months, especially in the east of the protected area.

In COMATSA, people are clearing the forest mainly to plant vanilla or rice, and there is also a very small amount of marijuana cultivation, according to Maeva Volanoro, a technical officer for WWF, which manages the protected area.

For many years, COMATSA was somewhat well protected, with deforestation rates at just 0.3-0.5% of the protected areas forest cover per year, according to WWF. But that has changed in the last three years.

Some of the change has been due to fluctuations in international commodities prices. Madagascar produces roughly 80% of the worlds vanilla, and much of it cultivated in the northeast. In 2018, vanilla prices were especially high, and this led to a demand for more land to grow the beans. Consequently, deforestation rates in COMATSA increased to 1.7%, which amounted to 4,224 hectares (10,438 acres) of forest lost that year, about one-third of which was in the hard-core zones designated to protect primary forest. As the vanilla price dropped, pressure on the forests went down by about half in 2019, but deforestation is on the rise again this year, despite low vanilla prices, Volanoro said.

The regional outpost of the environment ministry has attempted to control the spate of slash-and-burn in COMATSA, with three patrols since August. Its work on the ground has confirmed what the Global Forest Watch data show.

Like weve seen in the satellites, the situation is bad, Volanoro told Mongabay.

As in Tsaratanana, the deforestation poses a threat to COMATSAs biodiversity. Its one of the only homes of the critically endangered silky sifaka (Propithecus candidus), a large lemur with white fur. Its also a crucial link in the chain of mountainous forests running across northern Madagascar. Indeed, the name COMATSA is short for corridor Marojejy Tsaratanana; it was designed to connect Marojejy National Park in the northeast with Tsaratanana Reserve in the northwest. It became a fully fledged protected area in 2015. Officially, its two protected areas, COMATSA north and south, with slightly different conservation rules in each.

Unlike Tsaratanana, COMATSA has a mixed-use status that permits local people to pursue livelihoods such as farming and to use resources in the protected area (except in the hard-core zones that have stricter rules). Community groups from villages near the protected area help manage and patrol it, with support from WWF.

Despite the more flexible rules, all of the clearing detected in COMATSA is illegal: even in sections of the protected area where human activity is allowed, deforestation is not. Moreover, slash-and-burn farming violates national law unless a permit is issued.

The uptick in deforestation since September coincides with the regions dry season, which is normally the peak period for slash-and-burn activity. Fires are easier to set in the dry conditions, and cultivation isnt possible then, so people have time to clear the forest in preparation for the rainy season, which begins in November or December.

Economic pressures caused by this years global recession are exacerbating the seasonal trend, local conservationists say. A lack of tourism in Madagascar has rippled through the entire economy, leaving people who live near the forests with less money, and thus more need to exploit them. Meanwhile, MNP has missed out on nearly all of the revenue it earned from ticket fees at the 46 protected areas it runs: it took in $1.84 million in ticket fees in 2019, but only about 5% of that this year.

These multilayered conservation challenges will not be easy to solve, but the singular nature of the problem in Tsaratanana does lend itself to possible solutions. Conservationists told Mongabay that if marijuana cultivation laws were changed, a more transparent farming and management system could be put in place and people would have little reason to farm the crop in the depths of the forest. Madagascars environment ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this article, including a question about whether such reforms are being considered.

Madagascars marijuana laws are a remnant of French colonialism and, perhaps, subject to change. Many countries around the world have reformed their marijuana laws in recent years, and a 2019 op-ed in La Gazette, a Malagasy newspaper, called for Madagascar to do the same. The author argued that legalizing the trade would benefit farmers, medical users, and the public purse. It might also help the tenrecs in the countrys northern forests.

Banner image of a silky sifaka adult and baby in Marojejy National Park by Jeff Gibbs via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Editors note:This story was powered byPlaces to Watch, a Global Forest Watch (GFW) initiative designed to quickly identify concerning forest loss around the world and catalyze further investigation of these areas. Places to Watch draws on a combination of near-real-time satellite data, automated algorithms and field intelligence to identify new areas on a monthly basis. In partnership with Mongabay, GFW is supporting data-driven journalism by providing data and maps generated by Places to Watch. Mongabay maintains complete editorial independence over the stories reported using this data.

Feedback:Use this formto send a message to the editorof this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.

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A Madagascar forest long protected by its remoteness is now threatened by it - Mongabay.com

London leavers bought 73,950 homes outside the capital in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic led the biggest exodus from London in four years.

People from London bought homes worth a collective 27.6bn over the course of the year the largest amount spent since 2007, according to research by the estate agent Hamptons.

The dash for property outside the capital was partly driven by a desire for larger homes with more space for home offices and gardens sparked by life under lockdowns. The same trend was experienced in other big cities across the country.

Sevenoaks, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Oxford were the three areas that experienced the biggest increase in the share of homes bought by Londoners, compared with 2019.

The stamp duty holiday, suspending payment of the tax on the first 500,000 of all property sales in England and Northern Ireland until April 2021, also helped to boost house sales.

Despite Covid-19 closing the housing market for seven weeks, the number of homes bought by Londoners outside the capital has risen to the highest level in four years, said Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons.

While leaving London has been a rite of passage for many, often families reaching life-stage milestones, the effects of lockdown and the desire for space seems to have heightened this drift.

Meanwhile, the lure of a stamp duty holiday acted as an impetus for more buyers to bring future planned moves forward. The prospect of homeworking more regularly has also meant that London leavers are moving further than ever before. The average London leaver moved 10 miles further than in 2019 as buyers favour space over commutability.

The research found that the average distance moved by a Londoner buying outside the capital hit 40 miles for the first time in more than a decade, up from 28 miles during the first three months of the year.

This means the average person leaving London from May onwards travels as far as Cambridge to the north, Colchester to the east, Brighton to the south or Didcot to the west.

Hamptons said first-time buyers tended to stay closer to London than those selling up their capital home for a lifestyle change. Since May, the average first-time buyer leaving the capital bought 26 miles away.

Conversely, someone selling a home in London tends to sever their ties more deeply by moving much further, the agency said. The average person selling their London home to buy outside the capital travels 41 miles, 57% further than a first-time buyer. These numbers are reflected in the sorts of homes leavers buy, with someone buying a two-bed property moving an average of 34 miles, while someone buying a four-bed travels 43 miles.

This year, 62% of homes in Sevenoaks were bought by a Londoner, 39% higher than in 2019. Windsor and Maidenhead (+27%), Oxford (+17%) and Rushmoor (+15%) in Hampshire followed.

In the first half of 2020, London leavers bought 6.9% of homes sold outside the capital, equating to 24,480 sales. However, in the second half of 2020, this figure rose to 7.8% and twice as many sales (49,470). In the final six months of 2020, Londoners bought 18.4bn worth of property outside the capital, more than in any full year between 2008 and 2013.

Beveridge said she expected the outmigration trend to continue next year. But usually as prices in the capital begin to flatline, which we forecast to happen in the second half of 2021, more Londoners decide to stay put, she said. Even so, given the housing market has been anything but normal since the onset of Covid, we expect to see the total number of homes bought by London leavers next year to hit 2016 levels.

The average price of a UK home started the year at 239,927, according to the mortgage lender Halifax, dropped to 237,00 after the first lockdown, then rocketed to 253,243. Between the end of June and the end of November, prices experienced the fastest five-month gain since 2004.

The pandemic triggered some clear changes in what people wanted in a home. The website Zoopla analysed searches by buyers and found that open-plan living was sharply down in popularity as more people worked from home while a home office or study and gardens became the priority. Detached, rural and secluded became Zooplas fourth, fifth and sixth most common search terms, as greater numbers of people shunned metropolitan living.

Sevenoaks: 39% increase.

Windsor and Maidenhead: 27% increase.

Oxford: 17% increase.

Rushmoor: 15% increase.

Eastbourne: 15% increase.

Wokingham: 13% increase.

Stevenage: 12% increase.

Luton: 10% increase.

Epsom and Ewell: 10% increase.

Brighton and Hove: 10% increase.

Excerpt from:
Covid led to huge London property exodus, says Hamptons - The Guardian

President-elect Joe Biden gave a sobering year-end message, particularly about the challenges remaining in the Covid-19 crisis and in the impact of the massive cyberattack on U.S. government agencies.

Biden said that there was hope with a new vaccine, which he received on Monday, but that the virus is still raging out of control, with more than 3,000 deaths per day.

Here is the simple truth: Our darkest days in the battle against covid are ahead of us, not behind us. So we need to prepare ourselves, to steel our spines. As frustrating as it is to hear, its going to take patience, persistence and determination to beat this virus.

The major news networks and NBC and ABC carried the remarks. CBS streamed the remarks on CBSN.

Related StoryUnemployment: Benefits End For Millions, Future Stimulus Funding Uncertain

Biden praised Congress for working together to pass another Covid-19 relief bill, but said that additional measures will be needed, including money for vaccine distribution and additional stimulus checks to boost the economy.

He criticized President Donald Trump for his response, or lack of response, the the cyberattack. Ive seen no evidence that suggests its under control, Biden said, adding that the Defense Department wont even brief us.

Biden said that Trumps failure will land on my doorstep, and he cited comments from some members of the administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General William Barr, who have said that Russia likely was behind it. Trump, though, has cast doubt on that assessment and pointed to China as a culprit.

The truth is this, the Trump administration failed to prioritize cybersecurity, said Biden, adding that Trump has been engaged in an irrational downplaying the seriousness of the hack.

Asked whether he thought that he would get a honeymoon period when he takes office, or a period in which politicians of both parties tone down their rhetoric and work together, Biden said, I dont think its a honeymoon. I think its a nightmare that everybodys going through, and they all say, Its got to end. Its not a honeymoon. Theyre not doing me a favor.

After he took a series of questions, Fox News Peter Doocy asked Biden whether he thinks the stories about his son, Hunter Biden, that came out during the campaign were Russian disinformation and a smear effort.

Yes, yes, yes, Biden said. God love you. Youre a one-horse pony.

He added that his Justice Department will be totally on its own in making judgments about how they should proceed.

Hunter Biden revealed earlier this month that he was under a federal investigation of his taxes.

Read the rest here:
Joe Biden, In Year-End Message, Warns That Our Darkest Days In The Battle Against Covid Are Ahead Of Us - Deadline

All of the world's freshwater dolphin species are now threatened with extinction.

With the small gray dolphin moving into the endangered category on the IUCN's latest Red List of Threatened Species, all of the world's freshwaterdolphinspecies are now listed as threatened. Of the 128,918 species included on the updated list, released Thursday, 35,765 are threatened with extinction as of December, according to the conservation organization.

And 31 plant and animal species have gone extinct, including all 17 freshwater fish species found mostly in Lake Lanao and its outlet in the Philippines.

From the lab to your inbox. Get the latest science stories from CNET every week.

There is at least some positive news in this week's report. Europe's largest land mammal, the European bison, has moved from vulnerable to near threatened.

The bison and 25 other species recoveries documented "demonstrate the power of conservation," Bruno Oberle, IUCN director-general, said in a statement. "Yet the growing list of extinct species is a stark reminder that conservation efforts must urgently expand. To tackle global threats such as unsustainable fisheries, land clearing for agriculture, and invasive species, conservation needs to happen around the world and be incorporated into all sectors of the economy."

The European bison population has seen a recovery, thanks to continued conservation efforts.

The small gray dolphin is mostly found in the Amazon river system. Its numbers have been severely depleted by fishing, river damming and water pollution. Eliminating the use of curtains of fishnet called gill nets, which hang in the water, and reducing the number of dams in their various habitats are priorities that should help numbers recover, the IUCN says.

The Chiriqui Harlequin Frog, endemic to Costa Rica and Panama, is now extinct.

Three Central American frog species are also now considered extinct. Additionally, 22 frog species across Central and South America are listed as critically endangered (possibly extinct). The main reason for these extinctions could be chytridiomycosis disease, an infectious disease caused by the chytrid fungus that affects amphibians worldwide.

"As a conservationist, the most emotionally impactful news to present is the confirmation of extinction. The causes range from overexploiting to disease, with some threats easier to mitigate than others," Thomas E Lacher Jr., a professor of wildlife and fisheries sciences at Texas A&M University, said in a statement.

Grevillea caleyi, from the protea family, is now listed as critically endangered.

Animals aren't the only species on the extinct and nearly extinct list. According to the new list, 45% of the protea family of plant species are now considered vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. These flowering plants grow mainly in the Southern Hemisphere. And three macadamia species have entered the IUCN Red List as threatened with extinction in the wild.

Excerpt from:
Bison recovery offset by 31 animal and plant species declared extinct - CNET

News

You supply the house, you supply the utilities, you supply the septic tank. Mother Nature took care of the rest.

This waterfall isnt quite as dramatic as the one outside Pittsburgh atop which Fallingwater sits, but the 60-foot-high Buttermilk Falls makes for a dramatic enough setting for your own vacation home. Its part of a five-acre lot on White Haven Rd., Bear Creek, Pa. 18702 | Luzerne County Association of Realtors MLS images via Century 21 Smith Horrigan Group

The story of the most famous house in Pennsylvania began when Pittsburgh department-store magnate Edgar Kaufmann took starchitect Frank Lloyd Wright on a tour of the lot in Bear Run where he wanted Wright to design a house for his family.

Wright asked Kaufmann what their favorite spot was on the property. Kaufmann showed him a clearing next to a waterfall where they loved to picnic and watch the stream.

Wright promptly plopped the Kaufmanns house on top of the waterfall. And the rest is history.

Im not suggesting that you even try to duplicate Fallingwater on this Bear Creek lot for sale. But if you are looking for a one-of-a-kind lot on which to build your own vacation retreat, well, here it is.

And to be fair, its current owner wouldnt mind if you did try to one-up Wright on this lot.

Buttermilk Falls at peak water flow

I would hope that if somebody did build on there, they wouldnt pack it out with as many homes as humanly possible, says Victor Juliano. (At least in theory, local zoning would allow you to build up to five houses on this lot if you found the room.) I was always thinking of a Frank Lloyd Wright type of house.

This lot certainly has the Wright stuff. A tributary of Bear Creek runs through its middle, and in the middle of that tributarys passage through this lot is the 60-foot-high waterfall you see at left, known as Buttermilk Falls. The lot is surrounded by conservation lands, which means that your retreat wont be surrounded by subdivisions someday.

This lot has been in private hands for more than a century and in the hands of Julianos family for 80 years. It was assembled by a Northeast Pennsylvania tycoon named Albert Lewis. Lewis, whose work as a timekeeper on the Lehigh Valley Railroad impressed founder Asa Packer so much he put Lewis in charge of the first train to run from the railroads hub in Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) to White Haven, married into the family that supplied lumber to the railroad and eventually went into the lumber business himself.

What brought Lewis to Bear Creek, however, was ice. He built a dam and a company village on the creek a half-mile upstream from here in 1895 that became the foundation of a prosperous ice-hauling business. The company survived his death in 1923, going out of business finally in 1938. This lot was not part of the ice operation, but it was part of the huge tracts of land Lewis amassed in Luzerne County. Juliano estimates that at his peak, Lewis owned about 100,000 acres in this rural part of the county.

Julianos grandfather eventually acquired this land from Lewis descendants through sheer persistence. When he went camping on the plot, Juliano says, he would ask the owners if they were willing to sell it. And for years and years, they said No, they had no interest in selling it. And one time, he went up there, and they said Yes, and he bought it. This would have been sometime around 1940, 17 years after Lewis death.

The falls in winter

Since then, Julianos family has used it as a getaway and a campground. Their own plans to build on the property never came to fruition, and as a result, he says, they became caretakers of the lot. And the lot became a community trust of sorts. I met a guy who was in his 90s once in Bear Creek Village, he says. And he told me that he used to go there with his father and play in the water. Somebody else told me that was where they proposed to their wife. Its meant a lot to a lot of people.

Juliano, who now lives in South Jersey, no longer visits this place like he used to, nor do his relatives, so they have decided to sell it on the open market for the first time since it was assembled by Lewis in the early 20th century. The stories he tells should make you aware that you are buying not just a lot with a lovely waterfall in it but a piece of Bear Creek Village history. Its yours to do with as you please, but if you decide to restrict access to it while you prepare to build your own vacation dream house on it, be aware that you might want to let your neighbors know respectfully that you plan on making it truly private.

Closeup of the face of the falls

Even though this lot is closer to Wilkes-Barre, a 20-minute drive to the northeast, than to Mt. Pocono, about 35 minutes to the east, its still a good place to build a Poconos vacation home, as several ski resorts, including Big Boulder, Split Rock and Camelback, are a 25- to 35-minute drive from here. And this lot is easier to get to from Philadelphia than many other places in the heart of the Poconos: its about a 10-minute drive from the Wilkes-Barre interchange (Exit 115) of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Northeast Extension. With state game lands even closer to this lot, you can indulge your hunting desires in season as well.

Even though he would love to see a Frank Lloyd Wright type of house on this site, Juliano, who is himself a developer, says he never would have chosen Wright himself to build it had he pursued that vision: He just made the decision and he built what he wanted, he says. He wouldnt be my ideal architect.

Given his personality, temper and monumental ego, he probably wouldnt have been yours either, but I suggest that whoever you do choose should be at the very least attuned to nature and rural environments. You will be giving that person a spectacular canvas on which to create a work of art.

Juliano hopes that whoever buys it at least doesnt clear the land and put a bunch of modular houses on top. And, he adds, You wouldnt want to put a McMansion on top, you know what I mean?

I certainly do. And I hope you do, too. It will be your land, and you can do with it what you will, but whatever you do with it, I think you at least should respect both its history and its setting.

THE FINE PRINT

LOT SIZE:5.05 acres

ZONING:Residential

SALE PRICE:$267,500

OTHER STUFF:Should you decide to build on this lot, you will need to provide your own electricity source, find a suitable source of water and build your own septic system, for this lot lacks public utilities.

White Haven Rd., Bear Creek, Pa. 18702 [Ben Piccillo | Century 21 Smith Horrigan Group]

See more here:
Just Listed in the Poconos: Five-Acre Lot in Bear Creek - Philadelphia magazine

Charles Bolinger, charles.bolinger@edwpub.net

Brewster Companies is blessed to have work so theyre giving back

MARYVILLE Brewster Companies, with land clearing, demolition, site preparation, erosion control and paving divisions, plans to donate 300, 15-pound turkeys to the first 300 drivers who show up at their location Saturday.

Between 9 a.m. and noon, drivers can visit 6321 East Main in Maryville and Brewster employees will put a frozen bird in their trunk, cargo area or on the back seat. Senior vice president Brent Phelps said that breaks down to 1.6 seconds per vehicle.

Phelps said for the past 15 years, the company has thrown employee holiday parties. Since thats impossible this year, they wondered what could they do to give back to the community. Unlike others who are unemployed or struggling to find work, 2020 has been good to Brewster Companies, Phelps said.

We are blessed to have work, he added.

To be charitable, they conceived the idea of giving away turkeys. After the company president approved it, Phelps soon discovered the difficulty in finding 300 turkeys to give away but after overcoming the hurdles, the frozen birds will be delivered in time for the giveaway. He said there are no other items included with the turkeys.

Mother Nature decided to throw a wrench into the plan by adding rain for Friday and Saturday morning. Phelps said adding a tent to the drive-through plan meant adhering to another set of rules.

The tent will be on the crushed rock parking lot in front of the building and Phelps said entrance and exit signs will be posted. Drivers pull in, workers load the turkey and drivers exit to either continue east on East Main or make a U-turn and head west.

They can roll down their windows or not, well put the bird in then tell em, Merry Christmas, Phelps said.

Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at 618-659-5735

Read this article:
Brewster Companies is blessed to have work so theyre giving back - The Edwardsville Intelligencer

Authorities said people were living illegally on the North Portland property for months. An eviction Tuesday morning sparked a protest.

PORTLAND, Ore. Authorities early Tuesday morning made several arrests and cleared people who they said have been trespassing for months at the "Red House on Mississippi," a private property in North Portland.

The Multnomah County Sheriffs Officesaid the alleged trespassers had been ordered to leave the property by court order in September.

Sheriffs deputies and Portland police officers arrived at the home, on North Mississippi Avenue near Skidmore Street, around 5 a.m. Tuesday. Police blocked off streets and sidewalks surrounding the property while they removed people from the area.

The police activity led to a tense confrontation between protesters and police.

Officers took one person who was armed with a gun into custody. The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) announced seven arrests in a press release Tuesday morning.

Police later said protesters tore down fencing around the property and built a barricade blocking North Mississippi Avenue.

Just after 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, police announced that the barricade must be removed and that continued criminal activity at the scene "may result in arrests including the potential use of force."

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced at about 6 p.m. that he was authorizing the PPB to "use all lawful means to end the illegal occupation" on the property.

A tweet fromRed House's Twitter accountsaid the property is not an autonomous zone but rather "an active eviction blockade on Indigenous land."

According to representatives for the family inside the house, police "violently dismantled the 75+ day "Red House' encampment" on Tuesday morning.

"Along with sweeping the encampment, which supports and surrounds the Red House, officers entered the home itself, destroying its interior, and violently arresting two residentsinjuring at least one," the statement reads.

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell on Wednesday called for a "peaceful and safe resolution to the occupation." He later recorded a video about the occupation that was posted to Twitter.

"We are aware of the stockpile of weapons and the presence of firearms," he said in the video. "We are aware of the threat to the community, to media, to police. We've seen the attacks. The Portland police will enforce the law and use force if necessary to restore order to the neighborhood."

Lovell said that can be avoided if those in the encampment "end it peacefully by putting down their weapons and leave the barricade."

Officers have responded to at least 81 calls at the property and surrounding area from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30, according to PPB. The calls included reports of fights, shots fired, burglary, theft, vandalism, noise violations, trespassing and threats. Community members told officers they were threatened and intimidated by people on the property, police said.

The Multnomah County Circuit Court ordered an eviction at the property in February 2020.

The judgment was issued prior to state and federal emergency moratoriums, said a press release from the Multnomah County Sheriffs Office. The eviction moratoriums do not apply to evictions based on post-nonjudicial foreclosures, such as this case.

In September, a group of protesters staged a sit-in at the property, which they said was the home of a Black-Indigenous family. The sheriffs office said housing and food assistance had been provided to people at the property.

Police announced the following arrests on Tuesday:

Read more:
'There will be no autonomous zone in Portland' | Wheeler says encampment at 'Red House' must end - KGW.com

GOULD Stunned by unprecedented megafires, Colorado is embracing logging mowing holes up to 140 acres in beetle-infested lodgepole pines in an effort to revive out-of-balance forests.

This for-profit mechanized tree-cutting, concentrated between the blackened Cameron Peak and East Troublesome burn scars, has been clearing 3,000 acres a year.

And state foresters propose to clear more.

At two cutting sites west of Fort Collins last week, hulking red and yellow tractors equipped with whirling hot saws sliced through 12-inch trunks of the towering pines, then as they thumped to the ground raked them into bunches. De-limbers stripped off branches. Hooked pinchers hoisted the logs into bus-sized loads for diesel-belching trucks. Drivers hauled these along icy mountain roads to sawmills at Saratoga and Parshall, where workers convert logs to lumber as a surging national wood-products market pays record prices.

This large-scale cutting creates fire breaks to give firefighters a place to make a stand and take out the energy from inevitable future record wildfires, Colorado State Forest Service director Mike Lester said.

Andy Cross, The Denver Post

When lodgepoles grow back, the surrounding broader forests will gain age diversity, with different species such as aspens popping up amid pines on newly-sunlit slopes, Lester said.

In lodgepole forests, if you want to mimic what happens to lodgepole naturally, you do clear-cuts, he said. Lodgepole pines naturally regenerate with forest-clearing fires.

Colorado traditionally hasnt had logging on the industrial scale seen in Oregon and other northwestern states, and forest ecologists warn against clear-cuts that accelerate erosion, degrade wildlife habitat and enable increased human incursions.

But state officials now are turning to this large-scale cutting as an alternative to inaction at an especially difficult moment. Across western Colorado, insect attacks on old and drought-enfeebled trees over the past decade have ravaged 5 million acres. Systematic suppression of wildfires, federal land managers priority for a century, has led to unnatural thickening.

For years, ecologists and emergency planners have warned that dying, dry and overly-dense forests would lead to massive, ruinous fires. Climate warming has emerged as the trigger, unleashing flames this year that burned across 700,000 acres, including the three largest fires ever recorded in Colorado: the Cameron Peak fire, at 208,913 acres; the East Troublesome fire, at 193,812 acres; and the Pine Gulch fire, at 139,007 acres.

If we keep doing things as weve been doing, this is going to be what we will see, Lester said.

Andy Cross, The Denver Post

Colorados population growth and development boom, particularly the construction of mountain homes by people compelled to escape cities, complicates the forest imbalance. Houses in woods force progressively more aggressive fire-snuffing, which allows more increased thickening of trees.

A recent state report estimated a $4.2 billion backlog in forest-thinning needed to selectively clear trees and create safety buffers around the most at-risk forest homes. Thats tree removal that state agencies and property owners generally must pay for in contrast to this industrial logging that brings in revenue when market conditions are right.

Last week, state foresters supervising the cutting of a 100-acre patch on Owl Mountain, within a 376-acre parcel controlled mostly by the federal Bureau of Land Management, pointed to the economics revenue of about $200,000 to state and federal agencies from loggers. And even if logging wasnt profitable, every dollar spent removing trees from fire-prone forests would save an estimated $7 in avoided firefighting costs, Steamboat Springs-based forester Carolina Manriquez said.

Andy Cross, The Denver Post

Now we have 200,000-acre fires rolling through. What is 100 acres? Nothing at the landscape scale, Manriquez said. We need to do more of this. I mean, were spending millions to suppress fires.

Colorado forests that increasingly burn, along with millions of acres where beetle-kill leaves trees unusable, might have helped sustain logging companies, said C.J. Pittington, a Walden-based logger running a 40-ton red feller-buncher last week clearing a 140-acre chunk of state land. He can mow through about 5 acres of lodgepole forest in a day and has built up a business his father began in 1973, currently employing a dozen workers, and expressed hope the big fires will lead to greater social acceptance of large-scale logging.

Logging in forests near sprawling mountain municipalities also will help protect people, Pittington said, referring to the East Troublesome fires destruction of 300 homes and other buildings.

If the U.S. Forest Service would have done something like this behind Grand Lake, many homes there would still be standing, Pittington said.

Future expansion of logging in northwestern Colorado will depend on industrial capacity, said John Twitchell, the supervisory state forester overseeing the work, who also serves on the states forest advisory commission.

Our logging industry has been small. We havent had a lot of users of the wood. Our capacity to use wood will dictate how much work we can do on our landscapes, Twitchell said.

We want to re-generate a new, healthy forest. As long as this dead timber is here, inevitably, it is going to fall and in time it will burn, he said. Weve seen the consequences of inaction. If we can have more cuts like this, we can accomplish a lot of goals at once.

Andy Cross, The Denver Post

But forest ecologists raised concerns about the logging. Industrial clear-cuts of 40 acres or more widely have been seen as harmful. Lodgepole forests like those in northwestern Colorado play key roles in nature stabilizing mountainsides that otherwise erode into streams and eventually municipal reservoirs, helping form soil, giving habitat for raptors and other wild animals.

If it is just willy-nilly punching holes in forests, it may not do any good at all and may make things worse, said Greg Aplet, a Denver-based senior scientist for the Wilderness Society.

Forest tree-cutting must be done based on large landscape-scale master plans, connected to broad restoration around the East Troublesome and Cameron Peak burn scars, he said. The risk is that Colorado forest officials, once beetle-killed lodgepole pines are removed from state land, will try to expand cutting on private and federal land by using social concern about fires to grab the social license to conduct more logging without the kind of review and careful ecological analysis that normally would attend large-scale logging, Aplet said.

The Wilderness Society isnt opposed to logging. Were not opposed to forest management. What we are opposed to is bogus science, poorly-planned projects and squandering money that could be spent on treatments that actually improve forest health, he said. There is reason to keep sawmills alive so that we have a destination for the logs that come out of well-planned forest restoration projects.

University of Colorado Denver forest ecologist Diana Tomback said much depends on how much forest thinning is done and where. When westerners began snuffing wildfires a century ago, this obligated some form of logging to replace disturbed natural processes, Tomback said. But large clear-cuts cause erosion and even standing majority-dead forests can be preferable ecologically, she said.

A storm of threats climate warming, megafires, insect outbreaks and drought is converging now to greatly diminish our nations once-magnificent forests, Tomback said, suggesting Gov. Jared Polis should convene a forest science brain trust to develop a strategy.

Andy Cross, The Denver Post

This convergence is new, and we are learning. And the answers may not all be there, she said. But we need a methodical approach. We have to sit down and talk about a new forest management paradigm. We dont want to do things ad hoc.

Federal forest managers at U.S. Forest Service headquarters werent available for comment. A newly-appointed regional director has declined for a month to discuss the overall health of Colorado forests in the face of climate warming, insect infestations and wildfires.

Lester was looking to make that connection. Most of the acres burned this year were in federally-managed forests, he said, urging better shared stewardship.

Polis recently proposed spending $6 million for grants to improve forest health, but the scale of work to save dying forests requires far more, Lester said.

What do we need from the feds? Certainly we need financial resources. And we need to sit down and coordinate what we are going to do. How are we going to get this done?

See original here:
Colorado looks to logging to help re-balance forests in an era of climate-triggered megafires - The Denver Post