Pandemic Risk, Israel-Bound, More

Despite the advances made during Covid, an international body warned the next pandemic will likely “catch the world napping.”

The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board said in its annual report today that many of the modern world's defining features — urbanization and intensive farming to inequality and the advent of artificial intelligence — are driving up the risk of a new pandemic. The board called for urgent action.

The warning comes as H5N1 bird flu continues to spread from infected cattle and poultry to humans in the US, a variant of mpox is increasing in central Africa, and an outbreak of Marburg — a cousin of Ebola with a fatality rate of up to 88% — has flared in Rwanda, killing over a dozen people.

The GPMB, convened by the World Health Organisation and the World Bank, said the movement of people around the world “is at a record high and is likely to continue to increase in the coming years,” while a dramatic increase in global livestock numbers is already driving the spread of H5N1.

The GPMB attributes the rise of social media to increased misinformation that public health organizations and governments struggle to contend with. It also cites a “decline in trust” in governments and institutions. “This is impacting our collective capacity both to tackle health emergencies and to find multilateral solutions to protect the world.”

The GPMB said trust must be rebuilt and actions taken to “demonstrate that we can work together as a global community in an equitable manner.”

US troops will be sent to Israel along with an advanced anti-missile system to bolster the country's air defenses.

President Joe Biden said the move was meant “to defend Israel,” which is weighing an expected retaliation against Iran after Tehran fired more than 180 missiles at Israel on Oct 1.

The US has been privately urging Israel to calibrate its response to avoid triggering a broader war in the Middle East, officials say, with Biden publicly voicing his opposition to an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites and his concerns about a strike on Iran's energy infrastructure.

The US is reportedly sending a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, to complement Israel's formidable anti-missile defenses. A THAAD battery usually requires about 100 troops to operate. It includes six truck-mounted launchers, with eight interceptors on each launcher and powerful radar.

Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder described the deployment as part of "the broader adjustments the US military has made in recent months" to support Israel and defend US personnel from attacks by Iran and Iranian-backed groups.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi warned earlier on Sunday that the US was putting the lives of its troops "at risk by deploying them to operate US missile systems in Israel.”

With just three weeks left until Election Day, a national survey has found the White House race is deadlocked.

Former President Trump and Vice President Harris secured 48% support each. Harris lost 1% support over the last month, while Trump gained 4%. About 4% were undecided or said they wouldn’t cast their ballot, down from 7% in the Sept. survey, and 10% said they may change their mind before the election.

Among black voters, Harris leads with 84% to Trump’s 11%; with younger voters aged 18–34, she has 58% to Trump’s 37%; of white voters with college degrees, she has 55% to Trump’s 41%; among rural voters, Trump has 72% and Harris 23%. Splitting genders, 55% of women support Harris, and 56% of men Trump.

The NBC News survey was conducted Oct. 4–8 among 1,000 voters. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. According to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ, Harris has a 2.9% lead nationally, based on an aggregation of polls.

Lunar exploration, Artemis and Europe's sovereign access to space are on the 2024 International Astronautical Congress (IAC) agenda.

Since 1950, IAC has been a venue for the scientists, engineers, companies and political leaders of spacefaring nations to discuss cooperation. Russian space agency Roscosmos will have no official presence, highlighting the latest fault lines in space cooperation after the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson is expected to rally support at IAC for the agency's strategy of using private companies to replace the aging International Space Station after its 2030 retirement.

NASA, which has invested billions of dollars in its flagship Artemis moon program, is keen on maintaining a presence in low-Earth orbit to compete with China's Tiangong space station, which has continuously housed Chinese astronauts for three years.

After a year-long hiatus, Europe regained uncrewed access to orbit with the test flight of its Ariane 6 launcher in July. But capacity remains constrained by cutting ties with Russia, whose Soyuz rockets played a vital role before the Ukraine war.

NASA's effort to seed privately built replacements for the ISS is driving transatlantic tie-ups, such as the joint venture between Airbus and US space operations firm Voyager to help capture European demand for low-Earth orbit research and operations.

Cruise and container ships make over 200 million trips annually and are the largest cause of whale fatalities.

Nobody knows exactly how many whales are ship-strike victims because most sink after they're hit. However, blue whales, humpbacks, and fin whales are on the endangered list, and the Northern right whale is near extinct – about 350 are left.

The world's largest shipping company, MSC, rerouted one of its shipping routes to avoid strikes. “Off of Sri Lanka, we realized if we [moved] about 15 miles further offshore [we] could reduce the risk by 95% or more.”

But the approach channels to most ports don't have room for rerouting. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said slowing ships down gives whales more time to get out of the way.

Rerouting and slowing down both require a key piece of data for the ship captains: Are there whales ahead? Marine ecologist Mark Baumgartner's lab operates microphone buoys and autonomous vehicles that glide through the waves “listening” for whales. “The whole point of all these machines is to listen for whale song.”

Ship captains receive word of the whale locations from the buoys and gliders so they can slow down. NOAA has proposed a regulation to make the slowdowns mandatory in more areas.

Native Americans across the US come together today for Indigenous Peoples Day to celebrate their history and culture.

From a voting rally in Minneapolis featuring food, games and raffles to a public talk about the Native vote at Virginia Tech, the holiday, three weeks before Election Day, will feature a wide array of events geared toward Native voter mobilization and outreach.

In 2020, Native voters proved decisive in the presidential election. Voter turnout on tribal land in Arizona increased dramatically compared with the previous presidential election, helping Joe Biden win a state that hadn’t supported a Democratic candidate in a White House contest since 1996.

“We’re really all about just getting Native voters out to vote, not telling them how to vote. But sort of understanding that you have a voice and you’re a democracy, a democracy that we helped create,” said Comenote, a citizen of the Quinault Indian Nation.

In Apex, North Carolina, about 14 miles southwest of Raleigh, the coalition is working with the Triangle Native American Society for an event expected to include a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 and a booth with nonpartisan voter information and giveaways.

While not a federal holiday, Indigenous Peoples Day is observed by 17 states, including Washington, South Dakota and Maine, as well as Washington, D.C.

Winning a title that sounded very politically incorrect did not deter dozens of competitors from visiting a Maine ski resort on Oct. 12.

Over 30 couples competed in the North American Wife Carrying Championship, a 278-yard race where contestants splash through water, leap over logs and trudge through mud while carrying their partner like a sack of potatoes.

The champion leaves with the weight of the wife in beer and five times the wife's weight in cash. To estimate the amount they win, the winning wife is put on one side of a see-saw-like scale that organizers balance with cases of beer.

One contestant was dressed as Mr. Incredible, while his “wife” was dressed entirely in pink. They and others were cheered on heartily by crowds on both sides of the Sunday River Ski Resort course.

Most participants used a technique in which the “wife” is carried like a backpack — upside down — to ensure the runners’ arms are free for the greatest agility. Wearing smiles and grimaces, competitors ended up wet and muddy. The winning couple was from Australia.

The event is based on a 19th-century Finnish legend involving a man known as “Ronkainen the Robber,” whose gang pillaged villages and carried away the women.