With wildfires blazing across the West, more counties are declaring states of emergency
(CNN) As dozens of wildfires burn across the West, officials declared additional states of emergency for counties in California and Nevada while the nation's largest blaze in Oregon continued to swell Friday.
The Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon has scorched 401,601 acres since it was sparked by lightning on July 6, according to officials. It is 42% contained while more than 2,000 people in the surrounding areas remain under some form of an evacuation order.
"Our firefighters have put in an incredible amount of hard work on this fire," Joe Hessel, an incident commander for the Oregon Department of Forestry, said in a statement Friday. "The fire continues to throw challenges at us, and we are going to continue to stay vigilant, work hard, and adapt."
Extreme fire behavior by the blaze helped to create a tornado last weekend, according to a post on the Bootleg Fire Info Facebook page Saturday.
The July 18 tornado was confirmed with the Medford National Weather Service Forecast Office, the post said.
"Extreme fire behavior, dry fuels and unstable atmosphere" combined to form the tornado, according to the post.
Overall, crews are battling 88 wildfires throughout the US, with six new large fires reported Saturday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Nearly 22,000 firefighters and support personnel have been deployed to tackle the blazes, which have collectively burned more than 1.4 million acres, the agency says.
The climate crisis is making deadlier and more destructive wildfires the new normal, devastating homes, forcing thousands to evacuate and even destroying trees intended to offset carbon emissions.
Hundreds more fires are burning in the Canadian province of British Columbia, where a state of emergency was also declared this week.
In California, where eight fires are currently active, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday declared a state of emergency in four Northern California counties due to the hasty spread of flames.
Butte and Lassen counties are under states of emergency prompted by the state's largest blaze, the Dixie fire, the governor said in a news release. The Dixie and Fly fires have pushed officials to put Plumas County under the emergency declaration as well as Alpine County due to the Tamarack Fire, which straddles the California-Nevada border, he said.
By Saturday, the Dixie Fire had ballooned to 181,289 acres and was 19% contained, according to Inciweb. Nearly 4,200 firefighters and personnel were battling the fire.
Smoke from the blaze has moved into the area above the Tamarack Fire and, according to Inciweb, may impact Air Operations.
The Tamarack Fire has burned more than 65,000 acres and was 4% contained as of Saturday. The blaze also prompted Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak to put Douglas County under an emergency declaration on Friday.
Officials alarmed over delays on the Tamarack Fire
The handling of the Tamarack Fire has squared off local politicians and forestry officials.
It was initially allowed to burn because federal forest officials determined it wouldn't be a threat.
But they were wrong.
The fire has destroyed nearly 60,000 acres and at least 10 structures in California and Nevada.
Additional evacuations were announced Friday, bringing the total to 2,439 evacuees, according to InciWeb.
Nevada and California officials are questioning why the blaze wasn't tamed when it was sparked July 4.
In a letter to Forest Service Chief Vickie Christiansen dated Tuesday, California Rep. Tom McClintock -- who represents the rugged Sierra Nevada region where the fire was sparked -- demanded to know "why there was a lack of suppression action to combat the Tamarack Fire that began on July 4, 2021 until after July 10, 2021," according to a statement from his office.
On Tuesday, the Tamarack Fire crossed the state line and into Douglas County, Nevada.
And on Thursday, Nevada state Assemblyman Jim Wheeler, who represents that district, tweeted his disbelief.
"Firefighters doing everything they can to stop this monster. Still can't believe the USFS and Cal Fire let it grow from ¼ acre when it was first discovered," he wrote.
The US Forest Service defended its decision, saying in a statement "The steep, rugged, and remote terrain presented challenges to safely suppress this wilderness fire" and added that resources were limited and had to be assigned to higher-priority fires, like the East Fork Fire.
On Thursday, Nevada also received a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to fight the fire after requesting assistance earlier that day.
"At the time of the request, the fire threatened approximately 800 homes in and around Holbrook Junction," FEMA said Friday in a news release. "The fire also threatened a water treatment plant, power distribution lines and substations, cellular communications towers, and U.S. Highway 395."
Wildfire smoke compromises air quality for millions
The smoke from the hundreds of wildfires in both the US and Canada has had an impact on millions far from where they're burning
The smoke has traveled far and wide and is expected to continue causing health problems across the US.
The air quality in New York City, home to more than 8 million people, took a hit Tuesday when the smoke created a hazy skyline and gave it the city's poorest air in 15 years.
While air conditions in the Northeast significantly improved Thursday -- thanks to a cold front that pushed out some of that smoke -- millions in the Midwest and Southeast are still breathing air compromised by blankets of smoke that linger.
Many areas in the Northwest and Rockies, where the wildfires are burning, are also under air quality alerts.
Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson went to space. What's next?
New York (CNN Business)Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson each took a spin in their supersonic, suborbital rockets over the past two weeks, kicking off a new era of space travel in which billionaire-backed companies offer the high-flying excursions to anyone who can afford it.
Bezos' Blue Origin, which developed a 60-foot-tall vertically launched rocket, and Branson's Virgin Galactic, which built an air-launched rocket-powered space plane, are now due to begin marketing themselves to wealthy thrill seekers and making suborbital jaunts more routine.
Blue Origin may conduct up to two more flights for paying customers in 2021, though the company has stayed staunchly mum about how much tickets will cost. At least one ticket was sold at an auction that concluded last month and the winner, whose identity is unknown, agreed to fork over $28 million. That person was expected to fly alongside Bezos, but they bowed out at the last minute citing "scheduling conflicts" and is now expected to cash in their ticket at a later date.
Virgin Galactic plans to fly one more test flight before beginning to offer seats in early 2022 to the roughly 600 people who have already bought tickets for between $200,000 and $250,000 — or about the median home price in the United States. The company is also accepting reservations for new tickets that are expected to sell at an even higher price point.
Not to mention, Elon Musk's SpaceX, which has developed far more powerful rockets capable of hauling NASA astronauts into Earth's orbit for multi-day visits, is expected to fly its first tourism mission later this year. Though it hasn't disclosed price points, one early estimate was that such orbital expeditions would cost around $55 million per seat. (Musk has not announced any firm plans to travel to space himself, beyond saying that he would like to die on Mars one day.)
But that's far from all these billionaires have planned in outer space.
The big vision
For Bezos, Blue Origin's suborbital tourism missions are merely a bridge to much grander ambitions for cosmic adventure. In his view, Earthly civilizations are headed for an energy-supply crisis that can only be solved by harnessing extraterrestrial resources. And, according to Bezos, "we really have to move heavy industry and polluting industry" — things like energy and microchip production — "off Earth."
"It won't be done in my lifetime," Bezos told CNN's Anderson Cooper. But he envisions Blue Origin will create new technologies that start paving the way there, such as reusable orbital rockets much like those that SpaceX already operates. And the New Shepard suborbital vehicle that Blue Origin developed helped inform the design of a moon lander that could be used to support commercial operations on the moon, such as mining water ice for rocket fuel or other deep-space projects.
Bezos has also previously said that he hopes millions of people will one day live and work in space, possibly inside massive, spinning space stations like those proposed by Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill in the 1970s.
Branson, meanwhile, hopes his high-flying space plane technology can be parlayed into a hypersonic point-to-point travel business, shuttling passengers across the globe in a fraction of the time it would take them on a more traditional commercial aircraft.
Then there's Musk, whose SpaceX is already building and testing a gargantuan rocket that he envisions will carry the first humans to Mars and give humanity the means to establish a permanent settlement there.
The backlash
All of these visions have elicited plenty of pushback, with critics decrying the tendency of billionaires to hoard wealth and skirt taxes in the name of pursuing grandiose ambitions that do little to confront the myriad pressing problems humanity is facing. (See: climate change, an ongoing pandemic that has already killed millions and likely many more without proper vaccine access, global political uncertainty, housing and homelessness crises, etc.)
In the meantime, Branson, Bezos and Musk hope their otherworldly pursuits inspire a new generation of curious space explorers and entrepreneurs. And there were plenty of people cheering Bezos and Branson on during their supersonic joy rides in recent days. But those voices were met with cries of displeasure at equal decibels.
Sports and culture website Defector, for example, declared that Bezos and Branson had somehow done the impossible — not by building rockets that can reach the edge of space (as NASA and other space agencies have been able to do since the mid 20th-century) — but by managing to make space fatally "uncool." The Atlantic blared a headline begging the money-laden duo to "please read the room." Tiktoks relentlessly mocked them. Tweets accusing them of pursuing pointless vanity projects racked up over 100,000 likes. Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonists pointed out that Bezos' dream of saving the planet was only made real through thousands upon thousands of planet-destroying trucks.
The so-called space barons are known to defend themselves by saying they can work to solve Earthly problems while also chasing their long-term goals in outer space. And their long-term goals, especially with promises that they won't be delivered on within anyone alive today's lifetime, also serve to insulate them from any long-term criticism. In awarding CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andrés with his $100 million "courage and civility award," Bezos went so far as to decry those who, instead of disagreeing with a person's ideas, "question their character, or their motives."
But if Bezos, Branson and Musk want to save humanity, they first have to convince humanity. And they will have to answer many questions about their character and motives if they want humanity to trust that the goal of these efforts is to lead it to a survivable future.
How colonial-era debt helped shape Haiti's poverty and political unrest
When Haiti won its independence nearly 200 years ago, it came at a hefty price -- an estimated $21 billion today.
The country spent the next century paying off the debt to its former slave owners, France.
It's a financial conundrum that those experts and historians say have helped keep some formerly colonized countries impoverished: the demand by former slave owners and colonizers for pay in exchange for independence.
The French recognized Haiti's independence in 1825 but in return demanded a hefty indemnity of 100 million francs, approximately $21 billion (USD) today. It took Haitians more than a century to pay off the debt to its former slave owners and lenders including the City Bank of New York, experts who spoke with ABC News said.
"By forcing Haiti to pay for its freedom, France essentially ensured that the Haitian people would continue to suffer the economic effects of slavery for generations to come," said Marlene Daut, a professor at University of Virginia specializing in pre-20th century French colonial literary and historical studies.
Money that could have gone toward erecting a country was channeled to France, Daut said. And France had already profited immensely from slaves producing sugar and coffee, said Alyssa Sepinwall, a history professor at California State University San Marcos.
Since 2004, the bicentennial of the Haitian Revolution, Haiti has unsuccessfully sought compensation from France. After Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2010 that left approximately 250,000 people dead, international activists urged the French president to reimburse Haiti's "independence debt" in the form of disaster relief -- an amount totaling $20 billion. The government has yet to respond to these requests.
The Elysee, the official residence of the President of the French Republic, told ABC News in a request for comment: "there’ll be no reaction from Elysee on that matter."
The country's GDP remains extremely low at $1,149.50 per capita and nearly 60% of Haitians currently live in poverty. Even though the country has finished paying off its debt and interest by 1947, its economy has not advanced significantly because it is particularly vulnerable to natural disasters and corruption.
Ralph Emmanuel Francois, a Haitian and CEO of a social enterprise in Haiti, said the debt left a gaping hole in Haiti's economy and believes France should pay reparations to Haiti. "I'm saying that they also have a responsibility about what they did to us and how they, you know, stole our economy that we could use for our benefit," Francois said.
A similar tale: Jamaica asking to zero out the balance
Jamaica, another Caribbean island that was a British colony from 1707 until it gained independence in 1962, is also preparing a petition asking Britain to compensate an estimate of 7.6 billion pounds to descendants of former indentured African slaves who were forced to work on sugar plantations, according to Mike Henry, a member of Jamaican Parliament.
Henry, whose private motion served as the basis for the petition, said his motion is about addressing the human rights abuse former slaves had to endure and added that the motion is first to pursue a political approach in asking reparations for chattel slavery.
The motion has since been approved by the National Commission on Reparations which examines cases for reparations for descendants of slaves in Jamaica.
Jamaica was considered the richest British colony of the time and slavery was regarded as the key to wealth. A Cambridge report on legacies of British slave ownership found that 15 to 20% of wealthy British directly benefited from slavery. After the abolition of slavery in 1835, the British government compensated its slave owners with 20 million pounds, which is worth 2 billion pounds today.
An international push to address legacies of slavery
The death of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement reverberated on a global scale, prompting the U.N. human rights chief to inspect the issue of racism across nations.
A report published by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet in June, stated that there is a "long-overdue need to confront the legacies of enslavement, the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and colonialism and to seek reparatory justice." Discussing the report further, the human rights chief called on all countries to "stop denying racism…. confront past legacies and deliver redress."
France has "amnesia" when it comes to dealing with its past about slavery, history professor Sepinwall said.
"This is so long ago and I think that's one reason why there's not been a push among French citizens to say we need to be accountable for this," said Sepinwall. "The political will is not there in France for this to happen sadly because not enough people recognize what happened."
Former French president Jacques Chirac said in 2000: "Haiti was not, strictly speaking, a French colony."
There is reason to be skeptical about the U.N.'s efforts, Sepinwall said, because there were often gaps between its rhetoric and action.
"It is also about accountability. It is also about responsibility. Not only saying that I'm sorry, but also saying that I am fully responsible for that," said Francois.
Tokyo Olympics opening draws 16.7 million U.S. TV viewers, a 33-year low
July 24 (Reuters) - NBC's broadcast of the Tokyo Olympic Games opening ceremony drew 16.7 million viewers, the smallest U.S. television audience for the event in the past 33 years, according to preliminary data from Comcast-owned(CMCSA.O) NBCUniversal on Saturday.
Across all platforms, including NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app, 17 million people watched the ceremony, NBCUniversal said in an email.
The streaming audience on those platforms grew 76% from the 2018 PyeongChang opening ceremony and 72% from the 2016 Rio opener, reflecting a change in viewing habits.
Friday's audience reflects a steep drop, despite difficult comparisons with previous opening ceremonies when viewers had fewer streaming options.
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The Tokyo opener TV audience declined 37% from 2016, when 26.5 million people watched the Rio de Janeiro Games opener, and 59% from 2012, when 40.7 million people watched the London ceremony.
It was the lowest audience for the opening ceremony since the 1988 Seoul Games, which attracted 22.7 million TV viewers. It was also lower than the 1992 Barcelona Games, when 21.6 million people tuned in, according to Nielsen data.
The Rio, London, Barcelona and Seoul numbers reflect final ratings data not yet available for the Tokyo Games opener.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Friday's scaled-down opening event took place with fewer than 1,000 attendees at the Olympic Stadium under strict social distancing rules.
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Major absences included former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had wooed the games to Tokyo, and top sponsors, as the event faced strong opposition in COVID-fatigued Japan.
With Tokyo 13 hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast, NBC for the first time broadcast the ceremony live in the morning, at 6:55 a.m. ET Friday. NBC's taped, primetime broadcast began at 7:30 p.m. ET.
In its primetime coverage, NBC acknowledged the pandemic and its toll while presenting the Olympics as a positive event.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," said host Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor of NBC News' "Today" morning show. "There's nothing like an opening ceremony to really get you excited for the Olympic Games."
NBCUniversal has aggressively pushed its digital platforms this year and views the Olympics as a vital driver of subscribers for its Peacock streaming service.
The company plans to air an "unprecedented" 7,000 hours of Olympics coverage across its multiple television networks and Peacock. These include some of the most anticipated events, such as gymnastics and U.S. Men's basketball, on the streaming platform. It will also stream over 5,500 hours of the Olympics on NBCOlympics.com and its sports app.
Not all athletes were present at the teams' parade during the opening ceremony, due to rules that require many to fly in just before their competitions and leave shortly after to limit social contact.
The TV ratings drop is part of a trend among live TV events, including awards shows and sports.
February's Super Bowl broadcast on CBS, a ViacomCBS (VIAC.O)unit, attracted an average of about 92 million viewers, according to Nielsen data, the lowest since 2006. The April Oscars telecast on Walt Disney Co's (DIS.N) ABC broadcast network averaged 10.4 million, a record low, Nielsen said. Audiences for the most recent Emmys and Grammys also hit new lows.
NBCUniversal, which paid $7.65 billion to extend its U.S. broadcast rights for the Olympics through 2032, is framing the games as a "healing" event, despite skepticism from many Japanese citizens about the wisdom of holding even a scaled-down Games during a pandemic.
In June NBCUniversal said it had signed over 120 advertisers for the games, more than any other Olympics broadcast. An NBCUniversal spokesperson said that month the company was on track to exceed the $1.2 billion in ads sold for the 2016 Rio Olympics, but declined to say whether it would beat the $1.25 billion sold last year before the Tokyo Games were postponed.
Ratings are not an indication of profitability. Despite a drop in overall viewership from the 2012 London Olympics, NBC earned more than $250 million from its Rio Olympics coverage, with ad sales up more than 20% from London.
In June NBCUniversal Chief Executive Jeff Shell said the Tokyo Games could be the most profitable Olympics in NBC’s history.
Tunisia and Japan stun swimming superpowers as Barty and Murray exit
TOKYO, July 25 (Reuters) - Surprise gold medal joy in the pool for Tunisia and Japan and an Aussie world record contrasted with abject misery for some of the world's best athletes whose Olympics were over in a flash on a dramatic Sunday in Tokyo.
Japan secured its second Olympic gold with Yui Ohashi's victory in the 400m women's medley, but it was Tunisia's Ahmed Hafnaoui who stunned swimming superpowers with a win in the men's 400m freestyle.
"I just can't believe it. It's a dream and it became true. It was great. It was my best race ever," the 18-year-old Hafnaoui said after he produced a blistering finish to pip Australia's Jack McLoughlin, with U.S. swimmer Kieran Smith taking bronze.
The joy in the teenager's face was in sharp contrast to the misery of Wimbledon champion Ash Barty upon her shock departure in the first round. Britain's twice Olympic champion Andy Murray didn't even get that far. He pulled out of the tournament injured before his opening singles match.
The Aussies got their moment in the pool in the last of the morning races when the Dolphins beat their own world record of 3:29.69 in the 4x100m women's freestyle relay. Chase Kalisz delivered Team USA its first gold in the men's 400m medley.
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Ohashi's gold offers organisers hope of improving enthusiasm for the delayed Olympics among the Japanese public, who are labouring under a state of emergency in the capital amid elevated COVID-19 cases.
The shadows of the pandemic continued to hang over the Games. World number six golfer Bryson DeChambeau was replaced in the U.S. men's team after testing positive for COVID-19 before his departure. The Dutch rowing coach also tested positive as Olympic organisers reported 10 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total disclosed to 132.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) insisted that masks were a "must to have" at Tokyo medal ceremonies after swimmers were seen taking off theirs on the medal podium and hugging other competitors in violation of COVID-19 rules.
"It's not a nice to have. It's a must to have," said IOC spokesman Mark Adams.
TOKYO SWELTERS
Earlier in the day, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga phoned judoka Naohisa Takato to offer congratulations after the triple world champion secured Japan's first gold medal with victory over Taiwan's Yang Yung-wei on Saturday.
"This gold medal give hopes and dreams to many children and young people. There are also reports that many families are really delighted," Suga said in the call.
Japanese tennis superstar Naomi Osaka, who lit the Olympic cauldron on Friday at the opening ceremony, started her first match against China's Saisai Zheng at the Ariake Tennis Park.
With temperatures rising above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in Tokyo, skateboarders were sweating at their historic Olympic debut, part of organisers' attempts to broaden the appeal of the world's largest sporting event.
Competitors at the unshaded Ariake Urban Sports Park on the Tokyo waterfront said the heat was already unbearable at 9 a.m. and that it was a distraction from performing their tricks.
Yahoo Tenki, one of Japan's most popular weather apps, offered caution over the risk of heatstroke, saying users should "avoid exercising under the sun" and "minimise vigorous exercise".
Surfing also made its Olympic debut on Sunday, with competitors meeting with a strengthening swell after flat conditions a day earlier at Tsurigasaki Surfing Beach in Chiba prefecture, which borders the capital.
A typhoon is currently forecast to hit the main Japanese island of Honshu midweek, potentially bringing heavy rain and high winds.
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Simone Biles was also about to get into action on Sunday, setting the stage for a gymnastics gold medal assault that could enshrine the American in the pantheon of Olympic all-time greats.
Biles and her U.S. team mates go into the qualification competition as the gold medal favourites in almost every event.
The 24-year-old, who has won every all-around competition she has contested since 2013, needs three more medals to move past Shannon Miller as the most decorated U.S. gymnast.
Looks like Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have made it Instagram official
(CNN) For beloved Bennifer fans, the long desired reunion of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck might actually be happening.
Lopez posted photos from her birthday on Saturday, including one of her kissing someone who appears to be Affleck. She did not tag him in the post.
"5 2 ... what it do ..." she captioned the Instagram photos.
The singer and actress, who turned 52, was also pictured with Affleck in a video montage posted on Instagram by fellow actress and friend Leah Remini on Friday. The video included photos and clips from Remini's birthday in June.
The pair, who first dated 19 years ago, was captured by paparazzi earlier this summer, following Lopez' split with fiance and former baseball player Alex Rodriguez, who she was with for four years.
Affleck and Lopez had first met on the set of the rom-com "Gigli," where they played criminals stuck on a job together and struck up a real-life friendship. The two nearly got married and split in 2004 after being together for over a year.
Following their break up, Affleck married actress Jennifer Garner in a private ceremony. The couple, who had three children together, split in 2015 and officially divorced in 2017.
Robots are joining the fight against coronavirus in India
London (CNN Business) In India, the country with the world's second-highest number of Covid-19 cases, a handful of hospitals has started to use robots to connect patients with their loved ones, and assist healthcare workers on the frontlines of the pandemic.
Bangalore-based Invento Robotics has designed three robots to carry out tasks ranging from disinfecting surfaces to answering patient questions and enabling video consultations with doctors.
Of the eight the company has so far deployed, the most popular model is Mitra, which means friend in Hindi and costs around $10,000. Using facial-recognition technology, the robot can recall the names and faces of patients it has interacted with. Mitra can roam around a hospital independently, helping patients connect with family and doctors via its cameras and a video screen attached to its chest.
"Mitra can be the nurse's or doctor's assistant, take readings and vitals, remind them of medications," says Balaji Viswanathan, CEO of Invento Robotics.
He says the human-like robot engages with patients and gains their trust. "It may sound ironic but we are using robots to bring humanity to hospitals," he tells CNN Business.
Yatharth Hospital in the city of Noida, northern India, has deployed two Mitra robots — one at its entrance to screen patients for coronavirus symptoms and the other in the intensive care unit.
"Inside our ICU [Mitra] helps patients connect with their families through video stream and gives the patient's family a look inside," hospital director Kapil Tyagi tells CNN Business.
"Patients get happy and positive whenever the robot visits them. They are often clicking selfies with Mitra," he says.
Viswanathan says Invento uses "best in class security" for video feeds between doctors, patients and their families. For in-depth telemedicine consultations, a booth is built around the robot to give patients privacy.
Coronavirus pivot
Viswanathan and his wife Mahalakshmi Radhakrushnun moved to Bangalore in 2016 from Boston, USA, where Viswanathan was completing a PhD in human robot interaction and Radhakrushnan was working in manufacturing. They wanted to combine their experience to create robots that improved patient care in hospitals and care homes, but they struggled to find customers.
So they started supplying banks, including India's HDFC (HDB) and Standard Chartered (SCBFF) in Qatar, with robots who could identify visitors, print passes and take customer feedback.
"Two years ago, there was not much interest on the healthcare side," says Viswanathan. "When coronavirus hit, hospitals finally understood what we were talking about."
India has had more than 8 million cases of coronavirus, and more than 120,000 deaths. Hospitals have struggled to cope, and Invento isn't the only robotics company that is helping out.
Milagrow Robotics specializes in home cleaning robots, but has deployed five humanoid cleaning robots to Indian hospitals during the pandemic, while Kerala-based Asimov Robotics has created a robot to dispense medicine and clean up after patients.
Producing robots during the pandemic has been challenging, says Viswanathan.
When India went into lockdown in March, non-essential businesses closed and his company struggled to secure materials from suppliers. "There was a three to four-month delay. Manufacturing was a huge headache," he adds.
But his company is starting to deliver on its mission of improving patient care. "That is where our heart is," Viswanathan says.
India's billionaires got richer while coronavirus pushed millions of vulnerable people into poverty
New Delhi (CNN Business) India has been hobbled by an economic slump and a brutal wave of coronavirus that new research shows pushed millions of people into poverty.
But as these Indians struggle to live on a few dollars a day, the country's ultra-wealthy have gotten even richer and more influential, as their combined fortunes have soared by tens of billions of dollars in the last year.
Mukesh Ambani — chairman of the sprawling conglomerate Reliance Industries — is now worth more than $80 billion, some $15 billion more than a year ago, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Not far behind him is Adani Group founder Gautam Adani, whose wealth skyrocketed from less than $13 billion this time last year to $55 billion today.
The two men, who are now the first and fourth richest men in Asia, respectively, are worth more than the GDP of some nations. Their diverging fortunes with fellow Indians are symbolic of a rising wealth gap that has hammered many across the world, and which has become particularly pronounced in Asia's third largest economy, which accounted for more than half of the global increase in poverty in 2020.
Leading other Asian billionaires
Ambani spent much of the pandemic as Asia's wealthiest person, ahead of many Chinese tycoons.
He's retained his comfortable perch through most of this year, and is the world's 12th richest man — worth more than the likes of Mexican mogul Carlos Slim and Dell (DELL) founder Michael Dell. His company had a terrific 2020, raising billions of dollars from Silicon Valley giants such as Google (GOOGL) and Facebook (FB), who are betting on his vision to dominate the internet in one of the world's biggest markets.
And it is not too lonely at the top for Ambani. Until recently, the continent's second richest man was also an Indian: Adani. The founder of Adani Group controls companies ranging from ports and aerospace to thermal energy and coal. Like Reliance, Adani Group has performed exceptionally well on the Indian stock market — shares of Adani Enterprises, for example, have jumped over 800% on the National Stock Exchange in Mumbai since June 2020, a sign that investors are optimistic about Adani's ability to bet on sectors key to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's economic development goals.
Both the Indian billionaires have roots in Gujarat, which is Modi's home state.
Shares in Adani's companies tumbled last month after The Economic Times newspaper said that foreign funds that hold stakes worth billions of dollars were frozen by the country's National Securities Depository.
Even though the conglomerate said the report was "blatantly erroneous," its founder lost nearly $20 billion dollars in net worth in less than a month. Despite this steep fall, Adani remains among Asia's richest men behind Chinese bottle water tycoon Zhong Shanshan and Tencent (TCEHY) CEO Pony Ma, according to Bloomberg.
Other Chinese billionaires, including Alibaba (BABA) co-founder Jack Ma, have taken a hit as Beijing cracks down on tech entrepreneurs.
The utter dominance of Ambani and Adani isn't surprising, according to Saurabh Mukherjea, founder of Marcellus Investment Managers. He added that almost every major sector in India is now ruled by one or two incredibly powerful corporate houses.
"The country has now reached a stage where the top 15 business houses account for 90% of the country's profits," Mukherjea told CNN Business.
"The playbook is the same as other countries," he said, referencing some of America's famous tycoons throughout history, including John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.
The other 99% in India
While Adani can easily brush aside a single-day loss of $6 billion, most of the country has been dealing with life-changing economic turmoil during the pandemic.
As India imposed severe restrictions on travel and business activity to control the spread of Covid-19, the share of wealth held by nation's top 1% rose to 40.5% by the end of 2020, a 7 percentage point increase from 2000, according to a Credit Suisse report on global wealth released in June.
The report noted that the Gini coefficient — a popular measure of inequality — increased from 74.7 in 2000 to 82.3 last year. The higher the number, the greater the disparity in income. A rating of 0 means that income is equally distributed throughout a society, while a rating of 100 means that one person takes home all of the income.
India slipped into a rare recession last year, after a lockdown that lasted for almost four months. While the economy recovered this year, unemployment numbers approached record levels this May after a massive surge in Covid cases this spring.
According to an analysis by Pew Research Center, India's middle class shrank by 32 million people last year as a consequence of the economic slowdown, compared to what it was expected to be without the pandemic.
"Meanwhile, the number of people who are poor in India (with incomes of $2 or less a day) is estimated to have increased by 75 million because of the Covid-19 recession," senior Pew researcher Rakesh Kochhar wrote in a post in March, adding that it accounted for nearly 60% of the global increase in poverty. That increase didn't account for the second wave.
By comparison, the change in living standards in China has been "more modest," Kochhar added.
Many households coped with the loss of income last year by cutting back on food intake, selling assets, and borrowing informally from friends, relatives, and money lenders, according to researchers at Azim Premji University in the Indian state of Karnataka. The researchers estimate that some 230 million Indians fell into poverty — which they defined as income of less than $5 a day — because of the pandemic.
"An alarming 90 per cent of respondents ... reported that households had suffered a reduction in food intake as a result of the lockdown," the researchers wrote in a May report examining the impact of one year of Covid in India. "Even more worryingly, 20 per cent reported that food intake had not improved even six months after the lockdown."
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab has been studying the impact of the pandemic on workers from some of India's poorest states. In a report on young migrant workers from the states of Bihar and Jharkhand, the researchers found that Covid-19 pushed men out of salaried work, and women out of the workforce entirely.
"They [women] had this one chance of working. Now they are back home with their families and being pushed to get married," Clément Imbert, associate professor of economics at the University of Warwick and one of the researchers, told CNN Business.
Now, as India braces for a potential third wave of Covid-19, researchers hope the government can introduce some bold measures to cushion the impact on the world's weakest.
Italy crowned European champion after beating England on penalties
Wembley Stadium, London (CNN) On a night fraught with tension, Italy clinched its first major title for 15 years with a penalty shootout win over England in the Euro 2020 final.
Luke Shaw's goal inside the opening two minutes gave England a lead it looked like it would hold onto all night, before a goalmouth scramble midway through the second half allowed Leonardo Bonucci to poke home an equalizer for Italy.
For the remainder of the match it felt as though extra-time and penalties were inevitable, as neither side seemed willing or brave enough to commit enough men forward to really trouble the opposing defenders.
England had suffered innumerable heartbreaks on penalties over the years and this time it was Italy's turn to inflict yet more pain on beleaguered English fans as Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka all missed from the spot.
During the wild Italian celebrations, Bonucci -- who had been immense all night and rightly earned the man of the match award -- screamed "it's coming to Rome" into the pitch side camera to rub yet more salt into the wounds of English fans.
England's wait to end its wretched run in major international competitions, stretching all the way back to 1966, will go for at least another year until the World Cup is hosted in Qatar.
Few would have expected Italy, which failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, to reach the final prior to the start of Euro 2020, much less win the entire competition, but Roberto Mancini's side quickly established itself as one of the contenders after three thrilling group stage performances.
Gianluigi Donnarumma, Italy's hero in the penalty shootout with two fine saves, was deservedly named the player of the tournament and the goalkeeper heads up a group of talented stars that should ensure this side remains competitive for the foreseeable future.
As for England, this defeat is likely to sting for quite some time to come for players and fans alike, but the squad at least has the consolation of knowing it has provided the country with a tournament run not seen for more than five decades.
Anticipation
Wembley Way, the famous road leading up to England's national stadium, was heaving as many as seven hours before kick off.
Many of the fans here in the early afternoon didn't even have tickets, instead choosing to just soak up the atmosphere before moving on to watch the match elsewhere.
The fridges that stocked beer in one of the grocery stores closest to Wembley Stadium were almost completely empty by late morning.
For the vast majority of fans in attendance, this was something they had never experienced in their lifetimes. It had been 55 long years since England was last in a major international final and fans have known only heartache and disappointment since that World Cup triumph in 1966.
One couple considered it such a momentous occasion that they decided to get married on Wembley Way just hours before kick off, both dressed in full wedding attire and holding up England shirts with "Mr" and "Mrs" printed on the back.
Even when cheering on 'golden generations' of the past, England fans have never supported their national team with a fervor quite like this. Southgate and this group of players deserve much of the credit for stirring up such a feeling of national pride.
Stars have regularly used their platform to speak out on social issues and, when it comes to Rashford's fight against child food poverty, have even managed to reverse government policy.
"I think we've got good players and ice boys, but more importantly relatable boys," English journalist Darren Lewis tells CNN. "I think the secret to the success of this team is that the people in charge of the England team -- and I mean the PR team around them -- have allowed them to speak on issues that affect them, on issues that people can connect with.
"They've allowed them to be normal. I remember being at the 2010 World Cup and England were keeping their players away from everyone, treating them like rock stars. I remember going down to the harbor in South Africa and the Dutch were walking around -- they were finalists that year -- walking around, talking to people, just enjoying themselves.
"I think this regime who are looking after the team, they realize that it's important just to let the players be players, let them be men who people can connect with. If you walk through some parts of the crowd, I remember doing it after games and being struck by the diversity in the crowd; black, brown, white.
"Everyone wants to be a part of this England because they identify with [Raheem] Sterling, [Harry] Kane, [Tyrone] Mings, [Jordan] Henderson. They identify with these players because these players aren't detached. They care about their communities. They care about the people in the places that they come from and that means a lot to the general public."
Anyone but England?
However, that feeling of goodwill towards the national team seems to extend no further than England's borders.
Ahead of the final, viral memes have shown a map of Europe covered in Italian flags to signify the support of every other country on the continent.
Much of the animosity towards England and its fans seems to have stemmed from the chant of "football's coming home," the chorus of the 1996 song 'Three Lions' which has become the national team's adopted anthem.
The song was released ahead of Euro 96, hosted in England, and is about pessimism and despair, but still feeling hope that the national team may finally end years of heartache.
However, fans of rival countries have interpreted the chant as arrogant and presumptuous, despite multiple attempts to explain its true meaning.
"First of all, there is this 'It's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming' that's banging [on] since the beginning," Italian journalist Tancredi Palmeri told CNN.
"At the beginning it was nice, but then it sounds like: 'You owe us,' like 'it belongs to us, so you owe us' and people would say: 'No, nobody owes you anything and it doesn't belong to you.
"Just look at the footage of people singing all the time 'It's coming home' for a month. It doesn't really look like, 'we are being ironic, being sarcastic.' It looks like, 'finally we are getting back what is ours.' So that is the sentiment [from the outside]."
Some fans outside the stadium certainly didn't endear themselves to the watching world when they broke through the security barriers in an attempt to get into Wembley before the gates had been opened.
Fast start
In the hour leading up to kick off, Wembley was thundering.
Large swathes of English and Italian fans were mingling throughout the stadium, joining in chorus to belt out a number of songs that have become English anthems during Euro 2020.
By the time the national anthems came around, neither of which were booed by opposition fans, Wembley felt as though its very foundations were rocking.
When Shaw scored, then, with less than two minutes on the clock, the 60,000 or so fans inside the stadium raised the decibels to levels this ground has never heard before.
It was a wonderful move, too, with Shaw getting on the end of Kieran Trippier's deep cross to the far post to finish off a rapid counterattack.
England certainly hasn't thrilled with attacking football at this European Championships, instead its success has been built on an organized defense -- the best in the tournament -- and a smothering midfield.
However, the players perhaps sensed this was an occasion like no other and put Italy on the back foot from the first whistle.
Throughout Euro 2020, this Italian team has somewhat torn up the defensive blueprints that the country's national team has become synonymous with over the years.
Though it still boasts tremendous defensive leadership and organization in veteran central pairing Bonucci and Gorgio Chiellini, it's been the more fluid and aggressive attacking style that has caught the eye.
In the first 25 minutes of this contest, however, they had been stifled entirely by an England team that wasn't affording them a moment's rest on the ball.
On the rare occasion Italy did enjoy any extended period of possession, boos rang loudly around the stadium and when a foray forward was ended by a wayward pass, England's fans erupted into rapturous cheers.
Italy was still showing brief flashes of the exciting football that had got it this far -- notably through the quick-footed Lorenzo Insigne -- but its players were quickly met with a solid white wall whenever they threatened to fashion a sight of goal.
Mancini's side did create one opening before the half was over through Federico Chiesa, the goal hero from Italy's semifinal win over Spain, who picked up the ball from deep and drove towards the box, but could only drag his shot wide of Jordan Pickford's post.
Before the roar that greeted the referee's half time whistle, for the first time all evening Wembley had quietened down significantly; the first half had gone as perfectly as these fans could have dreamed of, perhaps they were already nervously allowing themselves to believe.
Italy rallies
Less than five minutes into the second half, however, Insigne fired a direct free-kick not too far wide of Pickford's post just as a prompt reminder that this match was far from over.
With Italy still struggling to create anything from open play, Mancini was forced into making a double substitution after only 50 minutes, bringing on Bryan Cristante and Domenico Berardi for Nicolo Barella the ineffective Ciro Immobile.
The changes had almost the immediate desired impact, as Italy for the first time got in behind England's back line but Insigne's shot from a narrow angle was well blocked by Pickford.
That chance rallied the Italian fans congregated behind Pickford's goal, who had fallen largely silent after their team's lackluster first half.
This was now without question Italy's best period of the match so far, for the first time its passing was starting to pull the English defense from one side to another to force some openings.
England soon retaliated, however, with John Stones rising highest in the area to head Trippier's corner towards goal and force Gianluigi Donnarumma to tip the ball over the crossbar.
But Italy soon got the goal its improved performance deserved.
Berardi's corner to the far post somehow found its way to Marco Verratti, who saw his shot saved excellently onto the post by Pickford, but Bonucci was in the right place at the right time to tap the rebound into an empty net.
Now it was the turn of the Italian fans to fill Wembley with noise, as England's supporters descended into a nervous silence with their team now on the back foot.
The minor capitulation forced Gareth Southgate into making his first substitutions, as Saka and Henderson replaced Trippier and Declan Rice.
It so nearly went from bad to worse for England as Bonucci's raking long ball found Berardi bearing down on goal, but the forward could only send his volley over the crossbar.
England now seemed to be doubting everything that had helped them reach the final; Maguire, normally assured in defense, hacked a desperate clearance away under no pressure at all, while Kane's passes began falling short of their desired target.
It was almost as if, for the first time all tournament, the magnitude of the occasion had finally started to dawn on these England players.
The game was on a knife edge as it entered the final 10 minutes, though Italian fans would certainly have been more confident than their English counterparts of snatching a win.
Extra time continued in much the same vein with neither side able to stamp its authority on proceedings, both perhaps too nervous to commit at this late stage.
Southgate threw on Rashford, 23, and Sancho, 21, for the penalty shootout but both men went on to miss as England suffered an all too familiar fate.
2 US men, ex-Colombia soldiers held in Haiti assassination
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Seventeen suspects have been detained so far in the stunning assassination of Haiti's president, and Haitian authorities say two are believed to hold dual U.S.-Haitian citizenship and Colombia's government says at least six are former members of its army.
Léon Charles, chief of Haiti's National Police, said Thursday night that 15 of the detainees were from Colombia.
The police chief said eight more suspects were being sought and three others had been killed by police. Charles had earlier said seven were killed.
“We are going to bring them to justice,” the police chief said, the 17 handcuffed suspects sitting on the floor during a news conference on developments following the brazen killing of President Jovenel Moïse at his home before dawn Wednesday.
Colombia's government said it had been asked about six of the suspects in Haiti, including two of those killed, and had determined they were retired members of its army. It didn't release their identities.
The head of the Colombian national police, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas Valencia, said President Iván Duque had ordered the high command of Colombia’s army and police to cooperate in the investigation.
“A team was formed with the best investigators ... they are going to send dates, flight times, financial information that is already being collected to be sent to Port-au-Prince,” Vargas said.
The U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports that Haitian Americans were in custody but could not confirm or comment.
The Haitian Americans were identified by Haitian officials as James Solages and Joseph Vincent. Solages, at age 35, is the youngest of the suspects and the oldest is 55, according to a document shared by Haiti’s minister of elections, Mathias Pierre. He would not provide further information on those in custody.
Solages described himself as a “certified diplomatic agent,” an advocate for children and budding politician on a website for a charity he started in 2019 in south Florida to assist people in the Haitian coastal town of Jacmel. On his bio page for the charity, Solages said he previously worked as a bodyguard at the Canadian Embassy in Haiti.
Canada's foreign relation department released a statement that did not refer to Solages by name but said one of the men detained for his alleged role in the killing had been “briefly employed as a reserve bodyguard” at its embassy by a private contractor. He gave no other details.
Calls to the charity and Solages’ associates at the charity either did not go through or weren't answered.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's foreign ministry said Haitian police had arrested 11 armed suspects who tried to break into the Taiwanese embassy early Thursday. It gave no details of the suspects’ identities or a reason for the break-in.
“As for whether the suspects were involved in the assassination of the President of Haiti, that will need to be investigated by the Haitian police," Foreign Affairs spokesperson Joanne Ou told The Associated Press in Taipei.
Police were alerted by embassy security guards while Taiwanese diplomats were working from home. The ministry said some doors and windows were broken but there was no other damage to the embassy.
Haiti is one of a handful of countries worldwide that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan instead of the rival mainland Chinese government in Beijing.
In Port-au-Prince, witnesses said a crowd discovered two suspects hiding in bushes, and some people grabbed the men by their shirts and pants, pushed them and occasionally slapped them. An Associated Press journalist saw officers put the pair in the back of a pickup and drive away as the crowd ran after them to a police station.
“They killed the president! Give them to us! We’re going to burn them,” people chanted outside Thursday.
The crowd later set fire to several abandoned cars riddled with bullet holes that they believed belonged to the suspects. The cars didn’t have license plates, and inside one was an empty box of bullets and some water.
Later, Charles urged people to stay calm and let his officers do their work. He cautioned that authorities needed evidence that was being destroyed, including the burned cars.
Officials have given out little information on the killing, other than to say the attack was carried out by “a highly trained and heavily armed group.”
Not everyone was buying the government’s description of the attack. When Haitian journalist Robenson Geffrard, who writes for a local newspaper and has a radio show, tweeted a report on comments by the police chief, he drew a flood of responses expressing skepticism. Many wondered how the sophisticated attackers described by police could penetrate Moïse’s home, security detail and panic room and escape unharmed but then be caught without planning a successful getaway.
A Haitian judge involved in the investigation said Moïse was shot a dozen times and his office and bedroom were ransacked, according to the Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste. It quoted Judge Carl Henry Destin as saying investigators found 5.56 and 7.62 mm cartridges between the gatehouse and inside the house.
Moïse’s daughter, Jomarlie Jovenel, hid in her brother’s bedroom during the attack, and a maid and another worker were tied up by the attackers, the judge said.
Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who assumed leadership of Haiti with the backing of police and the military, asked people to reopen businesses and go back to work as he ordered the reopening of the international airport.
Joseph decreed a two-week state of siege after the assassination, which stunned a nation already in crisis from some of the Western Hemisphere’s worst poverty, widespread violence and political instability.
Haiti had grown increasingly unstable under Moïse, who had been ruling by decree for more than a year and faced violent protests as critics accused him of trying to amass more power while the opposition demanded he step down.
The U.N. Security Council met privately Thursday to discuss the situation in Haiti, and U.N. special envoy Helen La Lime said afterward that Haitian officials had asked for additional security assistance.
Public transportation and street vendors remained scarce Thursday, an unusual sight for the normally bustling streets of Port-au-Prince.
Marco Destin was walking to see his family since no buses, known as tap-taps, were available. He was carrying a loaf of bread for them because they had not left their house since the president’s killing out of fear for their lives.
“Every one at home is sleeping with one eye open and one eye closed,” he said. “If the head of state is not protected, I don’t have any protection whatsoever.”
Gunfire rang out intermittently across the city hours after the killing, a grim reminder of the growing power of gangs that displaced more than 14,700 people last month alone as they torched and ransacked homes in a fight over territory.
Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said gangs were a force to contend with and it isn’t certain Haiti’s security forces can enforce a state of siege.
“It’s a really explosive situation,” he said.