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Discontent over Fukushima nuclear disaster response casts shadow over Tokyo Olympics

July 26, 2021 by WDNY Radio

DigitalGlobe via Getty Images via Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — Some 150 miles from Tokyo’s Olympic venues, calendars that line the walls of empty classrooms remain frozen on a date more than a decade in the past: March 11, 2011.

Images from an abandoned elementary school in Futaba, Japan, are an eerie reminder of the uneven recovery efforts 10 years after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered a catastrophic tsunami and caused the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

About 164,000 people were forced to evacuate in the aftermath of the meltdown at the now-infamous Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Many never returned home.

As the Japanese government doggedly forges ahead with the delayed and beleaguered Olympic Games this year, some advocates say initial promises that the situation in Fukushima is “under control” are false. Some also say the “Recovery Olympics” branding exploits residents who feel forgotten, and cleanup of the Dai-ichi power plant will take decades longer than government estimates.

Japanese officials insist radiation levels in reopened parts of Fukushima prefecture — which is set to host baseball and softball for the Summer Games — are safe for visitors, and many independent monitors agree. But what many say is a lack of transparency has eroded public trust, and a new debate rages over the what to do with the more than 1 million tons of “treated” radioactive wastewater piling up in storage tanks at the damaged nuclear power plant.

Here is how the legacy of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe looms large over the Tokyo Olympics.

A ‘Made in Japan’ disaster

Kiyoshi Kurokawa, the chairman of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (a group mandated by Japanese legislators to examine what went wrong and make recommendations), told ABC News that recovery efforts are far from complete and a permanent plan for how to dispose of contaminated waste is not in place.

“It has a long way to go,” Kurokawa told ABC News of Fukushima’s recovery. “It’s a very tragic thing — and there are just certain people that cannot go back.”

“The issue is, what is the long-term prospectus of how to contain Fukushima Dai-ichi, and I’m not so sure TEPCO [Tokyo Electric Power Company] has a clear long-term plan of what to do,” Kurokawa added. “They’re doing at least their best effort, but I think cleaning up radioactivity is a mess, and particularly with Fukushima Dai-ichi’s issues.”

While the quasi-state-owned power firm that runs the embattled nuclear power plant has suggested a 30- to 40-year timeline for decommissioning, Kurokawa said conflicting research estimates it could take at least “100 years.”

In his team’s scathing report on what went wrong, delivered to Japanese lawmakers in the aftermath of the event, Kurokawa calls the nuclear catastrophe a “profoundly manmade disaster — that could and should have been foreseen and prevented.”

Kurokawa blasted cultural factors in the nation with the world’s third-largest gross domestic product that he says ultimately resulted in more suffering.

“What must be admitted — very painfully — is that this was a disaster ‘Made in Japan,'” Kurokawa wrote in the English version of the executive summary. “Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.”

While they are separate issues, similar criticisms have been leveled at Japanese officials still insistent upon hosting the Olympics despite a global pandemic.

“The biggest issue from our point of view has been this historical lack of adequate transparency on the part of TEPCO and also the Japanese government,” Azby Brown, a researcher for the nuclear monitoring nonprofit organization Safecast, told ABC News, “and this is from the beginning and may actually predate the accident.”

“We see some similar things happening regarding the coronavirus response and even among the negotiations or the discussions regarding the Olympics and what measures will be taken to protect the safety of people who come here for that,” Brown added. “So, it’s all part of a similar phenomenon within Japanese institutions and bureaucracies and government.”

‘Recovery is far from reality’ ahead of so-called ‘Recovery Olympics’

Before the COVID-19 pandemic engulfed the world, the Japanese government originally painted the 2020 Olympic Games as the “Recovery Olympics,” meant to showcase how the nation rebuilt in the decade following the cataclysmic triple disaster of 2011.

The global health crisis and mounting costs associated with hosting the international event during a once-in-a-century pandemic has led to dwindling public support for holding the games, but these concerns appear to have largely fallen on deaf ears. Many locals have expressed fears that it could lead to a surge in coronavirus cases as vaccination rates in Japan lag far behind its peers in the developed world.

For some residents or evacuees of Fukushima, however, hosting the Olympics at a cost of some $12.6 billion is a painful reminder of government-spending priorities.

“Some people feel abandoned not only by the government but also by the nation,” Kazuya Hirano, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told ABC News. “They also feel used for the promotion of the government slogan, the ‘Recovery Olympics.'”

Hirano — whose research has focused on the continued social, political and health effects of the disaster — said that the government terminated financial support for evacuees in 2017, but most have not returned home.

“Reconstruction does not make much sense as most former Fukushima residents who were affected by the disaster have not returned or have no intention to return because they are worried about the radiation for their families as well as themselves,” Hirano said. “Most people have already settled in new places.”

Safecast’s Brown said that he feels some people in the region take pride in hosting Olympic events, as it provides something to be optimistic about.

“But for them to try to use this as a way to showcase recovery, it was a sketchy idea from the beginning and I think now it’s probably certainly backfired,” he said. “Instead, it will only highlight the problems and the lack of recovery.”

“We spend a lot of time with people in communities we help,” Brown said. “They’re all totally skeptical of these big-picture things, like to spend millions and millions on Olympics. They are saying we need more support for concrete things — actual support for small businesses, actual support for single parents.”

With “real, concrete things” still not adequately taken care of in Fukushima, Brown said many residents view the billions of dollars pumped into the Olympics as “just misspent funds.”

In his 2013 speech pitching Tokyo as a host city, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told members of the International Olympic Committee that the situation in Fukushima is “under control” and “has never done and will never do any damage to Tokyo.”

His words have drawn ire from Fukushima residents for years.

In July 2020, Katsunobu Sakurai — who was mayor of Minamiosama, Fukushima, at the time of the catastrophe — blasted the “Recovery Olympics” branding in an interview with the one of the country’s biggest newspapers.

“No matter how much you tout the games as a sign of recovery, the overall picture of only Tokyo prospering while the recovery of the disaster-hit areas in the Tohoku region remains undone will not change,” he told the Mainichi newspaper, referring to the region that is home to Fukushima. “I’ve been to Tokyo many times, and saw that there were more crane trucks at the construction site of the athletes’ village than in the disaster-hit areas.”

“It was obvious at a glance where the national government was placing its resources,” he added.

How safe is the area now?

The Japanese government has been slowly lifting evacuation orders and “restricted areas” over the years, removing top soil and declaring new swaths of land safe for residents to return to in the lead up to the Summer Games. Currently, a vast majority of Fukushima is considered safe to visit — only about 230 square miles remain in designated evacuation zones, or 2.7% of the total area of Fukushima prefecture.

Fukushima’s Azuma Baseball stadium, about 42 miles from the Dai-ichi power plant, is set to host baseball and softball competitions for the Tokyo Olympics.

In a symbolic move, the Olympic torch relay kicked off at the J-Village National Training Center, a sports complex just 12 miles south of the Dai-ichi plant. The complex served as a front-line base for first responders in the aftermath of the meltdown.

“That place, the base of operations dealing with the nuclear accident, has now been reborn into Japan’s largest holy site of soccer, filled with children’s smiling faces,” Abe said of J-Village in a January 2020 speech. The former prime minister and fierce champion of hosting the games also reminisced how a man born in Hiroshima on the day the atomic bomb was dropped carried the Olympic flame in Tokyo’s 1964 Olympics, sending a message to the world that “Japan had achieved reconstruction” following World War II.

While the government has assured visitors the designated areas in Fukushima are safe, some independent monitoring organizations, including Greenpeace Japan, have reported finding radioactive hotspots with readings that don’t align with figures released by the officials.

Kurokawa and Brown agreed that the risk of dangerous levels of radiation exposure in reopened areas of Fukushima is low, but residents’ trust in official statements also remains low.

“More or less, I think it’s very clean and if there’s any sort of radioactivity, there are some warnings around there, so I think local people know where it is safe and where may not be as safe,” Kurokawa told ABC News. He added that he believes people can “reasonably trust” municipal radiation data even if they have doubts about TEPCO-released figures.

Brown added that barring intentionally scaling a fence and entering a prohibited zone, radiation in most areas welcoming Olympic guests is relatively low.

“Before coronavirus there was a question if it was safe to have Olympic events in Fukushima. We were involved in that and had people involved who measured at the stadium, talked to people,” Brown said. “Our opinion was that … the risk of an overseas visitor going to Fukushima was similar to the radiation risk they got on their flight over.”

“That is not an exaggeration and is not trying to minimize risk in general,” he added. “You get a very hefty dose on an overseas flight.”

‘Transparency is the foundation of trust’

Earlier this year, Japan’s government announced plans to start releasing “treated” radioactive wastewater from the Dai-ichi plant into the Pacific Ocean in approximately two years. The move had already been delayed due to protests, drawing ire from local fisherman as well as Japan’s neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said this decision is “unavoidable” in order to “make progress in the decommissioning of Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant and achieve the reconstruction of Fukushima.”

The wastewater has been stored in tanks at the wrecked power plant for years, and space is reaching full capacity, the prime minister added. As of January 2021, there were approximately 1,061 tanks on the site of the power plant, carrying 1.24 million tons of treated water. Suga said he doesn’t think the plan reflects a “contradiction” to Abe’s former pledge to Olympic officials that the Fukushima situation was “under control.”

The water has been treated, but still contains minute amounts of the harder-to-remove radioactive isotope tritium. In a failed bid to gain public support for the plan, the Japanese government created a rosy-cheeked so-called “Little Mr. Tritium” mascot. The cute character that looked like something out of a children’s book was scrapped from government websites in a single day after community backlash.

“The gap between the gravity of the problems we face and the levity of the character is huge,” a local fisherman told Japan’s Kyodo News Agency.

Suga promised they would reduce the tritium concentration to “one-fortieth or less of the domestic regulatory standard value,” or levels small enough to be largely considered safe by the nuclear energy community.

While nuclear operators around the world release small amounts of tritium into the ocean as part of standard operating procedures, Brown told ABC News that it’s a “false comparison to say that Fukushima Dai-ichi is the same.”

“What we’re dealing with is a stopgap emergency response to a horrific nuclear disaster,” he said, noting that the release is not being done as part of the designed operation of the plant.

“Another criticism of ours is that there should be a process, a full environmental impact assessment before the decision is made,” Brown said. While a limited assessment was carried out, he added, “It has not been done transparently.”

“We think that if it is done the way they said they are going to do it, then the impact on health and the environment can be very low,” he added. “But the point is there has been such bad faith all along that none of us should take it on their word. We believe it needs to be independently verified.”

Kurokawa added that while the tritium debate has dominated discussion, there’s evidence that there could be trace amounts of other radioactive elements in the wastewater destined for the Pacific.

“I just testified in the parliament, there are other sort of radioactivities in addition to tritium,” he said. “But nobody talks much about this.”

While he said he genuinely believes the levels are within accepted norms, it sill must be disclosed.

“It’s safe, but you have to say it,” he said.

Kurokawa is advocating for TEPCO and the Japanese government to invest in a highly transparent, bilingual website that is constantly being updated with the latest data and plans for Fukushima.

“I think all the data has to be available because in this connected world, transparency is a foundation of trust,” he said. “You just cannot hide it.”

The city of Minamiosama, where Sakurai was mayor, was among the hardest-hit by the disaster. Kurokawa and his team’s report found that 44% of evacuees from Fukushima were residents of this city. Data indicates that even after it was declared safe, it still suffered a mass exodus of its young people.

“The Japanese government has prepared for the Olympics while upholding the ‘disaster recovery’ label, even though a recovery is far from reality,” Sakurai said to the Mainichi newspaper in July 2020. “It is superficial to declare a recovery with no actual progress.”

“The government is now talking of an Olympics that could be a sign of humanity’s triumph over the pandemic, but vaccines have not yet been put into practical use, and the world has not yet been freed from the risk of infection,” he added. “There is no chance of success by trying to box in reality to meet the labels the government upholds. The idea of a ‘coronavirus Olympics’ may also likely end as a mere fantasy.”

2 arrested after fatal shooting of Washington state sheriff’s deputy

July 25, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(SEATTLE) — Two people were arrested after a Washington state sheriff’s deputy was fatally shot in the line of duty Friday night.

After an “exhaustive search,” a 28-year-old man, Abran Raya-Leon, and a 35-year-old woman, Misty M. Raya, were arrested on unrelated felony warrants, Vancouver, Washington, police said in a press release on Saturday night.

Another man, Guillermo O. Raya, 26, is still being sought, police said.

The deputy involved in the shooting that unfolded around 7 p.m. has been identified as Clark County Sheriff’s Office Detective Sergeant Jeremy Brown.

Brown was in his vehicle conducting surveillance at 3508 NE 109th Avenue, according to police. Other units in the area on the same detail were unable to reach Brown on radio, and around the same time, a citizen reported hearing gunshots, saw a man bleeding inside a vehicle and called 911, police said.

Two men and a woman fled the area by vehicle and were pursued by police, officials said. Their vehicle crashed near Padden Parkway and Interstate 205. Police said the three then fled on foot.

Police said Guillermo O. Raya is considered armed and dangerous, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest in connection with the shooting.

“This is a difficult time for the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, law enforcement agencies in Clark County and the surrounding Clark County, Portland metro area. Clark County law enforcement appreciates the support and understanding of the community in these tough times,” the department said in a news release.

The investigation is continuing and nothing further is releasable at this time, police said.

140,000 without power as storms rip through Michigan

July 25, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(DETROIT) — Nearly 140,000 customers in Michigan are without power this morning after storms hit the Detroit area Saturday night.

Poweroutage.us reports 138,990 customers in the state lack power.

Ferocious storms whipped through the Detroit metro area and led to a tornado watch for other areas including Armada, ABC News affiliate, WXYZ reported.

In the storm’s wake, trees, houses and businesses sustained major damage.

“It appears there might have been a tornado, we have to wait for officials to make that determination, Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel told WXYZ. “There’s a substantial amount of damage to businesses, houses, power lines down.”

The Detroit Police Department issued an alert for area residents, cautioning them roadways are flooded and not to drive through standing water.

The storm comes amid a tumultuous weather season in the United States as wildfires and drought ravage the West, and unprecedented rainfall and floods plague the Northeast as well as other areas of the country.

Wildfllife is also feeling the effects of the severe weather. Baby birds have been jumping out of their nests to escape the heat and falling to the ground, on the West Coast. A bear and her cubs jumped into a home’s pool to cool off from the recent scorching temperatures in the Pacific Northwest.

ABC News’ Ben Stein and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.

Backlash over Bezos spaceflight sparks debate about equity in the cosmos

July 25, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took what some viewed as a joyride to the edge of space earlier this week and then thanked the employees of his e-commerce empire for paying for it, the backlash against the richest man in the world was swift.

The anguish left behind from an economic shock induced by a global pandemic compounded animosity towards Bezos, whose fortune — now topping $200 billion — multiplied during the crisis. As millions of Americans struggled to pay rent, reports emerged that he had avoided paying income taxes. One lawmaker blasted his spaceflight on Twitter as “a monument to tax evasion and inequality.” Tens of thousands signed a Change.org petition calling for Bezos not to return.

Bezos has argued his mission is “not about escaping earth” but building a “road to space” for the benefit of future generations. “We need to do that to solve the problems here on Earth,” he said after the launch, which was also lauded for sending pioneering female pilot Wally Funk into space after her astronaut dreams were deferred in the ’60s because she is a woman.

The Amazon chairman’s trip came just nine days after a similar suborbital jaunt from fellow billionaire Richard Branson, which seemed to cement the idea that spacefaring — once revered by many as the pinnacle of human prowess and American ingenuity — was just another playground for the ultra-wealthy and a reminder of the deep-rooted inequities that persist down on Earth.

But intrigue in what lies beyond our planet is indiscriminate, despite the vast wealth and racial disparities that have plagued space programs for decades. As a new commercial space industry officially launches with Bezos’ and Branson’s spaceflights, here is what some experts say may be left behind if equity in the cosmos is not considered.

‘I represented a lot of hope’: Space exploration ‘for the people’

First-generation Mexican American Jose Hernandez grew up toiling alongside his migrant farmworker parents from a young age but, like Bezos, had lifelong dreams of visiting outer space.

“When I was 10-years-old, I was lucky enough to watch the very last Apollo mission on our black-and-white TV console with rabbit ear antennas,” he told ABC News, recalling how he clung to the antennas “for dear life, trying to improve reception.”

As he watched NASA’s Gene Cernan step on the surface of the moon, Hernandez said he felt a “calling.” He decided right then that he wanted to become an astronaut, saying, “Lucky enough, my parents were very supportive.” He was rejected by NASA eleven times before on the 12th attempt, he was selected to be a part of the space agency’s 19th class of astronauts.

In 2009, he launched aboard the second-to-last Space Shuttle mission and spent 14 days in orbit on the International Space Station. He sent the first Spanish-language tweet from the ISS.

Upon arriving back to Earth, Hernandez said he was surprised to find out he had become a hero in his community and one of the most-requested astronauts for speaking engagements at the time.

“The response, especially from the Hispanic community and Hispanic news media, was tremendous,” he said. “I quickly realized that I, overnight, became a role model to a lot of kids.”

Hernandez said he tried to embrace this role, and showed up at every event and school that he could, urging students of color to quite literally reach for the stars.

“I represented a lot of hope for a lot of people because it’s one thing seeing an astronaut, it’s another seeing someone that looks like you, that talks like you, that came from the same socio-economic background you’re from,” he said. “And yet, you see them with the flight suit. And so then they begin to visualize themselves in that flight suit.”

“That’s what my dad did when he empowered me, he said, ‘I believe in you,'” Hernandez added. “That’s what I tried to do with these kids, I said look at my story, I could trade poor stories with the rest of you, and I was able to make it and so can you.”

Kate Howell, of the space exploration nonprofit Planetary Society, told ABC News that agencies like NASA sending humans on scientific and exploratory missions is “closest that we’re going to get to space travel being for the people.”

“If an astronauts sets foot on Mars, for example, that’s kind of being done on behalf of all humankind,” she said. “It’s not just about that individual astronaut’s experience, they’re there on a mission to learn things, to discover things.”

Howell said she thinks it is important to distinguish “space tourism” from “space science and exploration.”

While Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are selling tickets for the first space tourists, both companies have expressed interest in assisting space agencies on science missions as well.

“A lot of people lump sort of all things space into the same category, or see this tourism industry as sort of the evolution of humanity’s activities in space, but I really see them as separate endeavors,” she said. “Space tourism, I think the criticisms that are being levied against that industry are fair, but humanity is still going to continue to explore space in scientific ways that do benefit everybody.”

MORE: What to know about Richard Branson’s spaceflight, as billionaires race to the cosmos
Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX are some of the well-known names in the budding commercial space industry, but a slew of smaller firms are also emerging. In 2020, investors poured almost $9 billion into private space companies, according to a report earlier this year from consulting firm McKinsey.

While Howell says she doesn’t see a near future where ordinary people who wants to experience space can easily go due to its cost — despite the promises of democratizing space from Bezos and Branson — others are attempting to find a way.

In what is being dubbed “the World’s first sponsored Citizen Astronaut Program,” the nonprofit Space for Humanity is inviting all to apply for its “Humanity-1” program.

“What we’re working to do is sponsor people from all over the world to go to space, so they can go and see and experience our planet as a planet floating in the universe,” Rachel Lyons, the group’s executive, told ABC News.

The initiative foots the bill for the spaceflight ticket, astronaut training, travel and accommodations for those it sends to space.

“When astronauts go to space and they see and experience our planet, they come back down very often transformed human beings — with a new care for what’s happening on our planet,” she said, referring to what researchers dub the “Overview Effect.”

“Basically, we will be covering people to go and have this overview effect experience so they can come back down and then be like seeds of people around the world to go and share this perspective far and wide, because we believe that this is a perspective that we need to take on collectively in order to solve these challenges that we now face,” Lyons said.

Humanity-1 participants will launch when the technology is ready via whatever flight provider that may be, she added, such as buying tickets from Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin.

“Space is not about a specific gender or specific race,” Lyons said. “It’s important to us to have everyone feel included in it, as everyone feel like a stakeholder in it.”

The Planetary Society’s Howell added that in the current state of the space tourism industry, where tickets have sold for millions of dollars, “You are going to see the racial disparities of wealth play into that.”

“Most people who are going to be able to afford to go on these trips into space for fun, are going to be the people who have benefited from racial privilege,” Howell said.

‘Whitey on the moon’

Chris Smalls, an activist and former Amazon fulfillment center worker who was fired under contentious circumstances last March, said he was handing out water bottles to his former colleagues at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, when Bezos was taking his trip to space. Smalls has spent the past year protesting pandemic working conditions at Amazon warehouses, and is currently organizing a union drive at the same facility where he used to work.

Smalls said Bezos’ thanking Amazon employees and customers for funding his space jaunt was “a slap in the face” to workers.

“We take it as disrespect, and all the money he was donating, giving out, and the fact that I’m outside of his facility in 90-degree weather handing out waters … we honestly don’t even care about it,” Smalls said.

Smalls said that he did not even watch the live event, saying, “I’m in the middle of a union drive right now.”

“We’re focused on our mission, and our mission is to get organized to unionize and protect ourselves,” he said.

Smalls, who is Black, called the billionaire space race “whitewashed.”

Racial disparities in all aspects of the space sector have persisted since its inception. As the nation rushed to put a man on the moon during the original U.S.-Soviet space race in the ’60s, Black Americans were still fighting for equal freedoms back on Earth with the simultaneous eruption of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated just one year before the moon landing.

The 1970 spoken word poem “Whitey on the Moon” by Gil Scott-Heron became a rallying cry criticizing government spending on the space program while basic needs for Black Americans were left unmet. “I can’t pay no doctor bill, but Whitey’s on the Moon,” the poem — which started trending on social media soon after Bezos took flight — states.

“That’s always been an issue, and it’s going to continue to be an issue until we fix these root causes,” Smalls said of the racial disparities in space.

Smalls says this is why his focus remains on unionizing Amazon, with the goal of providing better wages for all, and addressing the “massive wealth inequality at play” in the commercial space race.

“If we fixed the root causes, instead of everything trickling down you will see a trickle up, and hopefully that will also encourage more African Americans to explore options in space,” he said. “We should also have the option to join when we want to.”

‘Every world leader should take a trip’

Hernandez said he sees the commercial space race as ultimately a positive, bringing high-paying engineering jobs to the U.S. and carrying potential spin-off technological developments could benefit everyone on earth. He also says every dollar spent on space exploration by a private company is “one dollar less the taxpayer pays to NASA to explore space.”

“We now have three companies that that can give access to humans into space without being involved with NASA for the first time,” Hernandez said. “I think that that is a great achievement.”

What he would like to see is more efforts to include diverse backgrounds at the top levels of management in these emerging commercial space firms, and in the cosmos. He called on Bezos, Branson and SpaceX’s Elon Musk to “in each flight, designate one seat to go so that it could fulfill a purpose.” This could be as simple as sending artists, poets, regular people who meet the general physical requirements and “more than just geeky engineers” to experience space.

Virgin Galactic states on its website that its mission is to “open space to everybody” and has emphasized that its future astronauts come from “diverse backgrounds” but are united by “a shared passion for the democratization of space travel.” Still, its tickets cost some $250,000. Branson has also said he hopes their work encourages and inspires the future generation.

“I really hope that there will be millions of kids all over the world who will be captivated and inspired about the possibility of them going to space one day,” he stated.

Blue Origin has launched a charitable foundation, Club for the Future, which distributed $1 million grants to 19 space-based charities from the funds raised through the sale of Blue Origin’s first commercial ticket to space. Club for the Future has the goal of inspiring young people to pursue careers in STEM fields and help invent the future of life in space.

Like many astronauts have reported, Hernandez said seeing the “the sun’s rays hit the Earth’s atmosphere, clearly delineated from space” scared and awed him — and made him appreciate the planet with a new urgency.

In addition, the farmworker-turned-astronaut also said that he was hit with an inexplicable awe almost immediately after arriving in space, as he flew over North America and saw the continent out his window.

“What struck me in awe is that you can see Canada, the U.S., and Mexico, but you can’t see where Canada ended and the U.S. began, you can’t see where the U.S. ended and Mexico began,” he said. “I said, ‘Wow, borders are human-made concepts designed to separate us and how sad, because from this perspective, we’re just one down there.'”

“Now that we have this space tourism industry going, I think it should be a requirement that every world leader take a trip so they can see what I saw,” he said. “And I’ll guarantee you that our world would be a much better place than it is today.”

Dixie Fire, California’s largest, forces evacuations amid a rapid spread

July 25, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(SAN FRANCISCO) — More than 100 people were forced out of their homes overnight as California’s largest wildfire continues to spread at a rapid pace.

The Dixie Fire has now expanded to more than 190,000 acres — increasing by 20,000 acres in just 24 hours — prompting new mandatory evacuations near the Feather River Canyon as firefighters struggle to increase the 21% containment. Officials are still investigating the cause.

More than 8,300 people in Northern California are currently under evacuation orders, according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

Over the weekend, the Dixie Fire surpassed the Beckwourth Complex Fire in Doyle, California, as the state’s largest wildfire. The Beckwourth Complex Fire, which was sparked by lightning on July 3, is now 98% contained after it scorched through 105,670 acres.

The Tamarack Fire near Gardnerville, Nevada, had burned through nearly 67,000 acres by Sunday morning, destroying at least 13 structures, and was just 27% contained. It sparked on July 4 in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

In Oregon, the Bootleg Fire, currently the largest in the country and the third-largest in state history, is so hot it’s creating its own weather pattern. Pyrocumulus clouds, or fire-driven thunderstorm clouds, are created as large pockets of heat and smoke from the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon rise and meet a relatively cool atmosphere.

The Medford National Weather Service has also confirmed that a tornado occurred on July 18 near the eastern side of the Bootleg Fire due to extreme fire behavior, dry fuels, and an unstable atmosphere.

The Bootleg Fire, approximately 11 miles northeast of the town of Sprague River in southern Oregon, had scorched through nearly 409,000 acres by Sunday morning and was 46% contained.

The Long Draw Fire in 2012 at 557,028 acres and the Biscuit Fire in 2002 at 500,000 acres were the top two largest fires in the state.

Nearly 90 large wildfires are burning in 13 states, with more than 2.5 million acres burned so far this year. More hot and dry conditions are expected in the West today, enhancing the fire risk for the already blaze-ridden region.

More than 3 million people in the West are under heat and fire alerts through Monday, and several states also have air quality alerts due to the wildfires.

Four states from Nevada to Montana will experience triple-digit temperatures on Sunday, while relative humidity is expected to remain at just 11%, with wind gusts up to 35 mph.

ABC News’ Jenna Harrison, Sarah Hermina, and Hope Osemwenkhae contributed to this report.

Pelosi confident in bipartisan committee, plans to add more Republicans

July 25, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she is confident in the bipartisan select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, despite House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulling his recommendations for the panel.

“Maybe the Republicans can’t handle the truth, but we have a responsibility to seek it, to find it and in a way that maintains the confidence of the American people,” she told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos.

Despite McCarthy, R-Calif., slamming Pelosi last week for conducting “a sham process” after she rejected two of the five Republican members he recommended for the select committee, Pelosi said she plans to appoint more Republicans to the panel.

McCarthy had threatened that Republicans “will not participate” if Pelosi did not accept all five of his recommendations, but Sunday afternoon Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois announced he’d accepted Pelosi’s invitation to participate in the commission.

Only one Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming — who was named to the committee by Pelosi and not on McCarthy’s list — had initially accepted an invitation to join the committee. Cheney, a strong critic of McCarthy and former President Donald Trump, was described by Pelosi on Sunday as a “very courageous member of Congress.”

Like Cheney, Kinzinger is among the few Republicans to vote to impeach Trump over the insurrection.

“This moment requires a serious, clear-eyed, non-partisan approach.,” Kinzinger said in a statement. “We are duty-bound to conduct a full investigation on the worst attack on the Capitol since 1814 and to make sure it can never happen again.”

Asked on “This Week” about the possibility that she will name Kinzinger to the committee, Pelosi said, “That would be my plan.”

Pressed by Stephanopoulos on when she might announce Kinzinger’s appointment, Pelosi said, “perhaps after I speak to Adam Kinzinger.”

“But I’m not going to announce it right this minute,” Pelosi said. “But you could say that that is the direction that I would be going.”

Pelosi and House Democrats were also considering asking a former GOP congressman to serve on committee staff amid the standoff with House GOP leaders over their picks for the panel, sources familiar with the deliberations told ABC News.

“He and other Republicans have expressed an interest to serve on the select committee and I wanted to appoint three of the members that Leader McCarthy suggested but he withdrew their names,” she continued.

The select committee, chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., is scheduled to hold hearings this week.

McCarthy withdrew his list after Pelosi rejected Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio — two prominent conservative leaders and allies of the former president.

Pelosi said she rejected Banks and Jordan, who both voted to overturn the presidential election, over the negative comments they have made about the select committee.

“Are you confident that the committee’s work can be seen as credible if most Republicans won’t participate?” Stephanopoulos pressed Pelosi on the subject.

Pelosi responded, “My confidence is high. I do believe that the work of this committee, in order to retain the confidence of the American people, must act in a way that has no partisanship. It’s all about patriotism, not partisanship.”

“We have to again ignore the antics of those who do not want to find the truth,” Pelosi told Stephanopoulos.

Pelosi also scoffed at a letter the conservative House Freedom Caucus, for which Jordan is a member, sent to McCarthy on Friday asking him to try to remove Pelosi from her powerful position, writing, “Speaker Pelosi’s tenure is destroying the House of Representatives and our ability to faithfully represent the people we are here to serve.”

Pelosi responded on Sunday, “I’m not concerned about any threat from the Freedom Caucus. I get those every day of the week.”

Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi if she is worried that her rejection of two of McCarthy’s picks for the select committee would prompt Republicans to take similar action if they take back control of the House, she said, “no.”

“Look, we have had an unprecedented action, an assault, an insurrection against our government, an assault on the Capitol Building, which is an assault on the Congress, on a day that the Constitution required us, by the Constitution, to validate the work of the Electoral College,” Pelosi said. “So, this was not just any day of the week. This was a constitutionally required day of action for Congress. The Republicans will say what they will say. Our select committee will seek the truth. It’s our patriotic duty to do so.”

ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.

Portman slams Pelosi’s threat to withhold infrastructure bill until Senate passes larger package

July 25, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds off voting on the bipartisan infrastructure bill until a larger bill is passed through reconciliation by the Senate, the Democrats could end up with nothing, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said Sunday.

Pelosi, in a separate interview earlier on ABC’s “This Week,” said that she plans to stick with her decision to hold any vote on the bipartisan deal until after the Senate passes a larger infrastructure package through reconciliation.

“I won’t put it on the floor until we have the rest of the initiative,” Pelosi said.

“I’m not happy with what she said,” Portman told “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “It’s inconsistent with the agreement that we have on a bipartisan basis.”

Portman’s optimism on Sunday indicated that negotiations have improved since late last week.

Democrats were making a behind-the-scenes push to move some funding away from highways to increase federal funding for transit. The senator was so frustrated with the state of negotiations on Thursday that he told reporters they might just drop highway funding from the bill entirely.

“We have one issue outstanding and we’re not getting much response from the Democrats on it — it’s about mass transit,” Portman said Sunday.

Negotiators told ABC News the bipartisan infrastructure package could be ready to vote on again as early as Monday. Portman emphasized the popularity of the bill.

“Eighty-seven percent of the American people think we should do a bipartisan infrastructure package. It’s the right thing to do. Every president in modern times has talked about it,” Portman said.

Portman also rejected criticism that the negotiations on the bill are not truly bipartisan.

“The Wall Street Journal weighed in against the deal yesterday on their editorial page — It says, taking the “bi” out of bipartisan. And they write: What’s striking about the deal so far, however, is that by all appearances, this will be the most one-sided bipartisan deal in decades,” Stephanopoulos said.

“Every single one of the issues has been bipartisan in the sense there have been Republican views and Democrat views and we found a way to find common ground, which is exactly what ought to happen,” Portman responded.

Stephanopoulos also pressed Portman on why the Republicans have yet to vote on raising the debt ceiling when they did so three times under former President Donald Trump.

“Under every president there is a discussion of how you actually — if you’re going to raise the debt ceiling, how — how to use something to affect the debt, particularly the long-term debt of this country,” Portman responded. “And I think we ought to have that discussion.”

One nation under fire: A week’s glance at gun violence ripping across America

July 25, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(SALT LAKE CITY) — Thousands of fans gathered in Wisconsin to celebrate the Milwaukee Bucks’ NBA championship, but scenes of celebration soon turned into chaos when gunfire rang out.

Two shootings broke out early Wednesday in downtown Milwaukee that wounded three, sent people running for their lives and left the community shell-shocked.

The shootings are only a snapshot of the skyrocketing gun violence that has swept the nation in recent months. Between Saturday, July 17, and Friday, July 23, the Gun Violence Archive tracked at least 915 shooting incidents — or, a shooting every 12 minutes — that left at least 430 people dead and 1,007 wounded. In total, more than 1,000 were wounded or killed this week alone. These numbers are not static, and are constantly updated as data comes in.

Last year marked the deadliest year for shooting-related incidents in the U.S. in at least two decades, according to Gun Violence Archive data with more than 43,000 gun deaths. But GVA’s data suggests 2021 is on track to surpass those figures with more than 24,000 gun fatalities reported so far.

ABC News partnered with its owned stations and affiliates across the nation to track the devastation. The findings reveal that gun violence, for many Americans, isn’t far removed from everyday life.

Gun violence in all its forms

As attention turned toward the shooting outside the Nationals game last Saturday, across the country in a dark church parking lot in Utah, 13-year-old Lance Moorehead was shot in the head around 1:40 a.m.

Lt. Richard Bell of the West Jordan Police Department called the shooting “a truly unfortunate, tragic accident” during a press conference. He said that Moorehead and his 15-year-old friend had snuck out and that one had brought a gun.

The two were “not being safe” with the gun which resulted in the 15-year-old unintentionally shooting and killing his 13-year-old friend, Bell said. He added that there was some criminal culpability and the 15-year-old was booked into a juvenile detention center on suspicion of manslaughter.

According to the 911 dispatch call, the teens did not know the gun was loaded.

“We’ve got a 13- and a 15-year-old. They’re inside a vehicle. Did not know the gun was loaded. The juvenile’s been shot in the head,” a 911 dispatcher told officers in a recording of the call.

Derek Thatcher, the heartbroken father of Moorehead, said in a statement to local station KSL-TV that his son “loved to skate, play football and video games. He had a contagious smile that could warm anyone’s heart. You couldn’t help but smile back.”

“Gun safety is of the utmost importance to prevent this kind of tragedy and heartache our family has experienced. We can’t stress enough how important gun safety is,” Thatcher said in his statement.

The tragedy shows that even children aren’t spared from this spike in gun violence.

In west Philadelphia last Saturday, a white Jeep pulled up to a store and an unknown number of occupants began to shoot indiscriminately into the store, striking two people, including a year-old child who was there with their mother, according to Joel Dales, deputy commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department. He said a man inside subsequently returned fire.

Police said one person had been arrested in connection to that shooting, Philadelphia ABC station WPVI reported.

“They don’t care who’s around when they use these guns. It’s a big problem. This is not OK. … I’m tired of this. I’m sick and tired of this,” Dales said during a press conference.

In San Antonio early Tuesday morning, 15-year-old Tristan Jaden Rosas was playing video games in his bedroom with his younger cousin when a stray bullet entered the room and hit him in the head.

“Dudes were fighting in the back. They were shooting at each other and they brought it up here to the front,” Ray Rosas, the victim’s uncle, told San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT.

Rosas told ABC News that after the bullet struck his nephew, his cousin tried to keep him alive.

“I should have been there, because when you tell your kid you’re going to protect him, that’s a promise you can’t ever take back,” Epi Rosas, Tristan’s father said.

San Antonio police told ABC News no one has been arrested in the case.

Altogether, more than 800 Americans under 18 years old have died from gun violence so far in 2021, with 174 of them under 12, GVA data shows.

Some of those incidents have been mass shootings, defined as involving four people or more who were injured or killed — not including the suspect. So far, there have been 18 mass shootings in 12 cities across the U.S. this week, according to the GVA’s data, with 19 dead and 74 wounded.

The epidemic of gun violence also includes suicides, which are the cause of about 60% of adult firearm deaths, according to the Department of Justice. In 2019, an average of 66 people each day died by suicide with a gun, according to the Education Fund to Stop Gun Violence. This year alone there have been more than 13,500 suicides by gun, GVA data shows.

There are also gun violence incidents that erupt from alleged domestic disputes.

In Wichita, Kansas, on Monday, Kamden Campos, 21, allegedly kidnapped his girlfriend and her two children and brought them to a nearby lake. The woman jumped into the car and sped away as he fired shots towards the vehicle, wounding her 2-year-old daughter, the Reno County Sheriff’s Office said.

After a manhunt, Campos was booked into jail on attempted murder in the first degree, aggravated kidnapping and possession of stolen property charges, the sheriff’s office announced on Facebook. Officials said the child underwent surgery and is in stable but critical condition.

Officer-involved shootings also play a role in the violence, which includes instances where cops are the victim as well as the perpetrator.

In Clark County, Washington, a sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed Friday night and police are looking for suspects who may be armed and dangerous.

“This is a difficult time for the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, law enforcement agencies in Clark County and the surrounding Clark County, Portland metro area,” the sheriff’s office said in a press conference after the shooting.

ABC News and the GVA’s assessment of this past week’s gun violence found that in all, two people had been killed and five people had been wounded every hour.

The assessment found that practically every state in the nation had been affected over the last week, with at least one gun-related incident in 47 states and the District of Columbia.

Of all the states, Illinois had the highest number of gun violence incidents, with 109 incidents tracked. Texas followed with 63 incidents, and then Pennsylvania, California and New York, where there were 59, 52 and 48 incidents, respectively, over the last week.

When it came to gun-related incidents that led to death, Texas had the highest rates with 35 fatalities. Illinois, meanwhile, topped the list for most people wounded from firearms at 124.

Over the last week, the worst day for gun violence was July 18 and the most violent time on any given day was between midnight and 3 a.m. — a time period when about 22% of all incidents occurred.

“This week is indicative of a big longer-term systemic issue where people are becoming afraid to go out to parks and afraid to go to malls because they know when they go to a baseball game, there is going to be a drive by [shooting],” Mark Bryant, the executive director of GVA, said. “It’s been a very average week and we should be horrified.”

Disparities in gun violence

While no part of the country is immune to gun violence, as ABC News dug into the data, it found that the violence occurs disproportionately in poorer, urban areas — from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York City.

More than two-thirds of all the gun violence incidents reviewed unfolded in census tracts across the nation, where more than 50% of residents are nonwhite.

Over half of the incidents occurred in the nation’s poorest census tracts, where the median household income is $40,000 a year or less. About 17% of shootings occurred in census tracts where people make more than $60,000.

In New York City, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea told ABC News that the city saw a 73% increase in shootings in May 2021 when compared to the same time last year. When asked if people are brazen with carrying weapons, he said, “I don’t think there’s any doubt. … The data here in New York City is [there are] more guns on the scene of shootings, more rounds being fired.”

He said that factors contributing to the surge in gun violence include gang violence, police budget cuts and COVID-19 shutdowns in the court system, which have caused a backlog of more 5,000 gun cases.

“Taking the gun off the street is great, but really, what we need is we need the individual carrying the gun off the street,” he said.

Shea said there had been a drop in the rate of gun-related cases in June 2021 after the department increased gun-related arrests and police targeted repeat offenders, but he says the drop still isn’t enough.

“When you look at who’s getting shot in this city right now, it’s about 97% of people of color,” he said. “It’s way off the charts.”

ABC News spent time at the Oakland, California, headquarters of ShotSpotter, a company that works with law enforcement across the country to record and track gunshots in the area and alert authorities.

“We published 240,000 gunshot alerts, real verified confirmed gunfire alerts in 2020,” ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clarke said. “On a year-to-date basis, 2020 to 2021 is over 20% [in gunshot activity]. And we haven’t reached the peak part of the summer yet.”

In Philadelphia on Wednesday, where the gun-related death toll has already surpassed 300 this year, three teens were shot — two of them died from their wounds. As ABC News embedded with Philadelphia police, they repeatedly pointed out streets where shootings had once occurred.

Later that night, a person was shot dead in front of what some might consider Philadelphia’s most famous cheesesteak restaurants, Pat’s and Geno’s. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw told ABC News the shooting was due to a parking dispute.

During a time in which policing has received extra scrutiny after the death of George Floyd, Outlaw, a Black woman, sees the struggle from both sides.

“Because I have all of these lived experiences and these different perspectives, I understand why the police do what we do,” she said. “But I also understand the hurt and torment in our communities.”

Like so many other communities across the nation, in Suitland, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C., one community is mourning the death of Taya Ashton. The 20-year-old transgender woman was killed last Saturday night in her apartment.

DeAllen Price, 27, has been charged with first- and second-degree murder in connection to Ashton’s killing. He was arrested a day after her death on unrelated charges in Virginia and is pending extradition to Prince George’s County, authorities said. Police say the suspect and victim knew each other.

Prince George’s County Police said they don’t believe it was a random crime, but also said that they have “uncovered no evidence suggesting Taya’s murder was due to her gender identity.”

Taya’s grandfather, Stuart Anderson, held a vigil in her honor on Wednesday where around 100 friends and family members hugged one another, sang and released purple balloons in her honor.

Anderson denounced the gun violence that has wracked the community.

“I’m tired of doing vigils,” Anderson told ABC News. “If whoever it is that shot my grandchild hadn’t had the gun, my grandchild would be right here. We got to get these guns off the streets.”

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also reach the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741741.

Americans’ optimism about country’s direction over next year drops nearly 20 points since May: POLL

July 25, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(SALT LAKE CITY) — As President Joe Biden completed 100 days in office, the country was optimistic about the coming year, but now, just after hitting the six-month mark, Americans’ optimism about the direction of the country has plummeted nearly 20 points, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.

A majority — 55% — of the public say they are pessimistic about the direction of the country, a marked change from the roughly one-third (36%) that said the same in an ABC News/Ipsos poll published May 2. In the early May survey, Americans were more optimistic than pessimistic by a 28-percentage point margin. Optimism is now under water by 10 points. Looking ahead to the next 12 months, fewer than half — 45% — now report feeling optimistic about the way things are going, a significant drop from about two-thirds (64%) in the May poll.

The decline in optimism has occurred across the board among Democrats, Republicans and independents. Optimism is down about 20 points among Democrats and Republicans and down 26 points among independents. Among Democrats, about 7 in 10 (71%) now say they are optimistic about the direction of the country over the next 12 months. That’s much lower than the near universal (93%) approval from Democrats on Biden’s handling of the pandemic. In politics today, partisans usually are more unified in their support or opposition to particular issues or people.

The optimism-pessimism flip comes as Americans give Biden his lowest approval rating for his handling of the pandemic yet in ABC News/Ipsos polling. A little over 6 in 10 (63%) approve of the president’s response to the coronavirus, according to the poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.

Although still a majority, it’s a nine-point drop from late March — the high for Biden. It likely reflects the growing concern that lockdowns could be reinstated and already vaccinated Americans could need a booster shot as the highly contagious delta variant now is estimated to account for 83% of all new coronavirus cases in the United States. As of Friday, according to Health and Human Services data obtained by ABC News, the United States’ daily case average was up 47% compared to the prior week, and on Wednesday, the nation recorded its highest single-day new case total since April.

Worry about a resurgence of the virus is also apparent when looking at how concerned the public is about contracting the virus.

According to this ABC News/Ipsos poll, about 6 in 10 Americans are concerned — 20% very and 42% somewhat — that they or someone they know will become infected with the coronavirus; about 4 in 10 (39%) are not concerned about this.

That’s the lowest level of concern in polling by ABC News/Ipsos going back to March 2020, but there is a significant gap since this question was last asked in early March of this year, when less than 20% of the U.S. population was at least partially vaccinated. Since then, every American 12 years and older has become eligible to receive a vaccine. In this ABC News/Ipsos poll, about three-quarters (74%) of U.S. adults say they have had at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, which, similar to other recent surveys, slightly overstates the number of Americans who have been vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most recent CDC report, which could lag actual vaccinations by a few days, shows that 68.8% of the adult population had received at least one dose.

Concern about infection, according to this poll, is higher among those who are at least partially vaccinated than those who are not, 67% compared to 46%. But while a majority of unvaccinated U.S. adults say they are not concerned that they or someone they know will be infected with the virus, public health experts, including the CDC director, have warned that this is becoming a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

While ABC News/Ipsos did not poll on the level of concern for contracting the virus over the last four to five months, other polls have, and the public’s concern appears to be rising again.

In a Monmouth University poll conducted in mid-June, about a quarter (23%) of Americans said they were very concerned they or someone in their family would become seriously ill from COVID, and about 2 in 10 (19%) said they were somewhat concerned about this — both record lows in Monmouth’s polling. About a quarter (24%) said they were not so concerned about this, and over 3 in 10 (32%) said they were not at all concerned — both record highs in Monmouth’s polling.

Additionally, the level of approval for the president’s handling of the country’s economic recovery from the pandemic has also dropped by seven points since late March, when 6 in 10 approved, according to ABC News/Ipsos polling. Although jobless claims were expected to hit a new pandemic-era low Thursday, instead, they increased to a level last seen in mid-June, though it’s too soon to know if that will become a trend.

The overwhelming majority (88%) of Democrats approve of the president’s handling of the economic recovery, but only about half (49%) of independents do and less than 2 in 10 (16%) Republicans do.

On other issues, Biden’s approval is underwater, and lackluster even among his own party.

Fewer than 4 in 10 Americans approve of the president’s handling of immigration and the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, crime and gun violence. Republicans have hounded Biden and Democrats over all three, as border crossings and violent crime rates, especially in Democrat-run U.S. cities nationwide, surge. That’s reflected in Republicans’ high level of disapproval — ranging between 86% and 92% — of the president’s handling of the three issues, according to this poll.

Among all Americans, the disapproval figures for crime and gun violence track closely with each other — both around 6 in 10 each — and disapproval of Biden’s handling of gun violence has ticked up slightly since late March among the public, from 57% to 61%.

An exception to these low ratings on issue- or policy-based performance is the president’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, for which a majority (55%) of Americans approve.

Asked how well Biden’s delivered on his campaign promises, Americans are divided: 52% say he has done an excellent or good job keeping those promises, while 47% say he’s done a not so good or poor job.

METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs’ KnowledgePanel® July 23-24, 2021, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 527 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 5.0 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 31-24-36%, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.

ABC News’ Dan Merkle, Ken Goldstein and Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.

Botox users getting younger after a year of Zoom meetings, doctors say

July 25, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As cities around the world start to reopen after COVID-19 lockdowns, the effects of the pandemic are starting to show on people’s faces.

Experts in cosmetic medicine say they have begun to notice an uptick in Botox treatments among younger generations. They say people, particularly women, in their early 20s — aged from the pandemic and wearing less makeup than before — spent so much time looking at themselves during Zoom meetings that they started to notice their “imperfections,” and for the first time, turned to Botox and fillers.

“I would say that my average age of patients shifted down considerably this year, and it’s now early 20s,” Skinly Aesthetics founder Dr. Dmitriy Schwarzburg said. “And they’re coming not just for Botox, but for all kinds of procedures that they would otherwise consider at a much later point in their lives.”

Amy Shecter, the CEO of Ever/Body said, “The Zoom effect is real, and it has definitely been a catalyst for increased interest in cosmetic dermatology treatments.”

According to Stacy Garrity, a nurse practitioner at Ever/Body, many of their clients over the past year have admitted that they only started to notice their fine lines because of Zoom, and now that things are opening up, they’re anxious to get out of their quarantine funk and look and feel better.

The number of patients in their early to mid 20s “is a phenomenon that was not seen five years ago,” Garrity said.

Schwarzburg said the pandemic accelerated what was already happening with people’s interest in Botox. He said the median age of patients at his clinic has actually been declining for about four years, “and it’s 100% because of social media — especially filters.” Schwarzburg said patients often come to him with photos of themselves with Instagram filters on and ask him to make them look that way. His biggest requests this year: “smooth skin, full lips, nice cheeks, sharp jawline.”

Priya Patel, a physician assistant and Botox expert at Plump, agreed social media is to thank for the younger audience, and for the slow but steady de-stigmatization of Botox and cosmetic procedures in general.

“You can easily go on Instagram or TikTok and watch the procedures being done and realize like, ‘Oh, it’s not really what I thought it would be,'” she said. “And you can also follow those posts and see what their results look like.”

But what’s different about this younger population of first-time Botox users, Schwarzburg said, is that many of them are choosing to embrace wrinkle relaxers before their “dynamic lines” turn “static.” In other words, it’s all “preventative,” whereas some years ago, it was used purely to treat an already existing “problem.”

He explained that all Botox — a protein approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration — does is temporarily paralyze one’s muscle receptors so that even when the brain sends the muscle a signal to move, it stays put. It takes about 12 weeks for the Botox to have full effect. Researchers also believe that the injections give the skin a chance to produce collagen to erase whatever fine lines may have developed over time. That’s why those lines disappear. So, by using Botox early, millennials and Gen Zs are essentially taking control of how they age — at least externally.

“What millennials want is for those dynamic lines to be less expressive, so they never reach the point of static lines. And they start early, so they never have to worry about developing static lines,” Schwarzburg said. “That’s a huge shift, I would say.”

Botox clinics are adapting to this younger population

Dr. Carolyn Treasure, the co-founder of Peachy, opened the Botox clinic in New York’s SoHo neighborhood at the peak of the pandemic, but has already secured a cult-like following of younger fans, including influencers, who love her services. This is not because Peachy is the only place in Manhattan to get wrinkle-relaxers — there are hundreds — but because clinics like hers are catering to a younger audience by making the experience of cosmetic procedures feel more trendy and casual than scary, taboo and hospital-like.

Also, Peachy uses a technology to apply Botox that was made precisely for the digital times we’re living in. When a patient goes into the clinic, the nurse or doctor who will deliver the treatment first takes photos of the patient’s face using an iPad. Then, Peachy’s own Botox app will analyze the photos and suggest the number of Botox units that should be applied to each of the three FDA-approved points: forehead, frown lines and crow’s feet. Of course, those numbers can be tweaked depending on the patient’s desired look.

After the procedure — which takes about five minutes — the patient can sit down in the clinic’s cozy, pink relaxation room, enjoy a complimentary sparkling water, ice their Botox points and take selfies on the many mirrored walls.

“Our mission at Peachy is really balancing fun and approachability with clinical excellence and scientific rigor,” Treasure said. “I really try to fight against the ‘Botox bar’ stereotype in that we do have a clinically excellent environment and phenomenal providers and nurse practitioners who are really here to educate people on wrinkle prevention, and particularly prevention that doesn’t alter or change how you naturally look. And it’s a novel model of health care delivery.”

Peachy, Plump, Skinly Aesthetics and Ever/Body — with their pastel-colored decor, bright white lights ideal for photos and stylish waiting rooms — look more like spas you want to post on Instagram than clinics where you get injected in. At the same time, many of the doctors and nurse practitioners who deliver the treatments have become social media stars, and often run in the same circles as fashion influencers or celebrities.

Treasure, who graduated from Harvard Medical School and was previously a resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said Peachy is like no other health care environment she’s ever worked in, and that is exactly the draw. Young patients see getting Botox as a fun experience they want to brag about, whereas their parents likely believed in the myths associated with the procedure and thought it taboo.

The FDA does not recommend Botox cosmetic use in people under 18, and says any side effects are generally minor, such as redness, headache or nausea, according to the medication guide.

One common misconception is that Botox gives you a plastic or “deformed” look, but experts said that is actually the result of too much filler — which is not the same. Another myth is that Botox is bad for the health, but Garrity said, “Neuromodulators are FDA-approved and have been used cosmetically in the U.S. since 1991. When injected judiciously and by a skilled medical provider, there is very little risk to people of any age.”

Schwarzburg, at Skinly Aesthetics, said those are the exact misconceptions that caused the yearslong stigma against Botox, and which millennials and Gen Zs are helping to eliminate.

“I can tell you that most of the 40-plus patients keep it to themselves or to a very close circle of friends, while 20-year-olds could be posting it as I’m doing it and then they’ll tell everyone and that will generate more traffic,” Schwarzburg said. “It’s a lifestyle kind of achievement.”

The experts also agreed that while Zoom, Instagram and TikTok have certainly pushed younger people to try out Botox for the first time, so have they. Now that medical professionals have different platforms, health, skin care and scientifically backed cosmetic procedures have begun trending.

“People are now more interested in what is results-oriented — what has data behind it. Because in this space there’s historically been a lot of pseudo-science, and that’s what we’re fighting against,” Treasure said.

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