First Thing: Monkeypox fatality confirmed in Los Angeles
Show caption People wait in line to get vaccinated against monkeypox in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: Étienne Laurent/EPA First Thing First Thing: Monkeypox fatality confirmed in Los Angeles The death is the first in the state and possibly in the country, with the individual being immunocompromised and hospitalized. Plus, who won big at the Emmys
Nicola Slawson Tue 13 Sep 2022 11.09 BST Share on Facebook
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Good morning.
A Los Angeles resident with a compromised immune system has died of monkeypox in what is believed to be the first US fatality from the virus.
The Los Angeles department of public health reconfirmed the death on Monday, and said that the individual was severely immunocompromised and had been hospitalized. No other information on the person was released.
The department and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made the determination that the death was due to monkeypox. A CDC spokesperson confirmed the cooperation but did not immediately respond when asked if this was the first US death.
It is the second known death of a person diagnosed with the disease in the US. Texas last month reported the first death in a severely immunocompromised person who was diagnosed with monkeypox. However, that case is still under investigation to see what role monkeypox played in the death.
What are the symptoms of monkeypox? It can cause a rash, fever, body aches and chills but relatively few people require hospitalizations and only a handful of deaths worldwide have been directly linked to the disease.
Is the spread of the disease getting worse? No. Cases in some large US cities do appear to be declining, matching trends seen in Europe, and experts are cautiously optimistic the outbreak may have peaked in places that were hit hardest.
Emmys 2022: Succession, Ted Lasso, The White Lotus triumph
Lizzo, who created Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, won for best competition series and underscored the importance of representation in an emotional speech. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
The Emmys offered few surprises but plenty of truncated speeches on Monday evening, in an awards-packed telecast that mostly handed out repeat trophies to established favorites with a few spoilers mixed in.
During the three-hour telecast, held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, the Emmys once again crowned Succession, the 2020 best drama winner and most nominated series of the evening with 25, as best drama, and Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso as best comedy series. HBO’s limited series The White Lotus, tied with Ted Lasso for second with 20 nominations apiece, swept all the awards for which it was nominated.
The show, hosted by Saturday Night Live veteran Kenan Thompson, included several back-to-back wins – Hacks’ Jean Smart for comedy actress, Ted Lasso’s Jason Sudeikis for comedy actor and co-star Brett Goldstein as supporting – as well as repeat nods from previous years, while Zendaya, already the youngest best drama actress winner, became the youngest two-time acting winner in history for the second season of Euphoria.
Sheryl Lee Ralph, a 40-plus year veteran of the screen and first-time winner, provided arguably the emotional highlight of the evening with a rendition of Endangered Species by Dianne Reeves when she won best supporting actress for her role in Abbott Elementary.
Who else won? Here’s a full list of all the winners.
Revealed: how UK targeted American civil rights leader in covert campaign
Stokely Carmichael at an anti-Vietnam war rally at the UN in New York, circa 1967. Photograph: Images Press/Getty Images
The British government targeted the American civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael and sought to weaken the Black Power movement with covert disinformation campaigns, recently declassified documents have revealed.
The effort was the work of a secret unit known as the Information Research Department, based in London and part of the Foreign Office, which created and distributed literature from fake sources as part of a broader effort to destabilise cold war enemies.
Though focused primarily on the Soviet Union and China, leftwing liberation groups and leaders the UK saw as threats to its interests, the discoveries reveal that the IRD from the late 1960s sought to counter more diverse targets too.
“We can see a large-scale attempt to shape events overseas, but one that was moving away from communism and targeting whole new areas. This shows the breadth, scope and scale of British covert information operations,” said Rory Cormac, an expert in the history of subversion and intelligence who found the material when researching his recent book, How to Stage a Coup: And Ten Other Lessons from the World of Secret Statecraft.
Why did the British government want to weaken the Black Power movement? The smear campaign came amid rising concern in Whitehall about the Black Power movement in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The IRD was particularly worried by the movement’s potential influence in the Caribbean.
In other news …
The director Jean-Luc Godard who was a key figure in the French Nouvelle Vague, has died. Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images
Jean-Luc Godard , the French-Swiss director who was a key figure in the Nouvelle Vague, the film-making movement that revolutionised cinema in the late 1950s and 60s, has died , French newspaper Libération reported. The radical director of Breathless and Alphaville was 91.
The justice department has indicated it is willing to accept one of Donald Trump’s picks for a so-called special master to review documents seized during the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago last month. The accommodation on the agency’s part could clear the way for a neutral arbiter to review the material.
Britney Spears fans hoping the pop star will perform live again, now she is free from an infamous conservatorship that governed her life for more than a decade, might not want to hold their breath. In an Instagram post, Spears said she was “pretty traumatized” from her work onstage under the conservatorship.
Clashes have erupted between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, according to Russian news agencies, in a resumption of decades-old hostilities linked to the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan acknowledged casualties among its forces while Armenia said clashes persisted overnight.
Air quality has plummeted as smoke from roaring wildfires is choking the US west. California firefighters are battling large blazes across the state as fire season heats up, covering swaths of Oregon, Washington, California and Canada in heavy smoke that has also traveled across the US.
Stat of the day: US issues 40 subpoenas about Trump’s failed bid to overturn the 2020 election
The US Justice Department has issued 40 subpoenas seeking information on the failed plot by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election. Photograph: Tom Brenner/Reuters
The US Justice Department has issued about 40 subpoenas over the past week seeking information about efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election, the New York Times reported on Monday. Boris Epshteyn, a longtime Trump adviser, and Mike Roman, a campaign strategist for Trump, had their phones seized last week as evidence, the Times said, while Dan Scavino, Trump’s former social media director, was also among those who were subpoenaed. The subpoenas seek information on a failed bid to overturn the results of the 2020 election by submitting alternative slates of fake electors.
Don’t miss this: how Bill Gates is staying optimistic despite the biggest strain in his lifetime
Covid and Ukraine war were major setbacks in pursuit of global development goals, the philanthropist admits, but cutting back on aid would be ‘tragic’. Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images
The figures are bad, progress has stalled and all the trends that had been building hope in the world becoming a fairer place are showing sharp about-turns. Yet Bill Gates, who has poured billions of his own dollars into eradicating poverty, remains “optimistic”. In an exclusive interview ahead of today’s publication of the annual Goalkeepers Report from the foundation he co-chairs, he told the Guardian: “It would be awful to turn away just because we’re getting bad grades due to unexpected setbacks.”
Climate check: megadrought in the American south-west – a climate disaster unseen in 1,200 years
A formerly sunken boat rests on a now-dry section of lakebed at the drought-stricken Lake Mead, Nevada. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
When the Nasa climatologist James Hansen testified before Congress in June 1988 about a warming planet, the temperature in Washington DC hit a record 100F. It was a summer of unprecedented heatwaves, and 40 states were grappling with drought. His warning was seen as a historic wake-up call – but instead of heeding the existential smoke alarm, the US removed the batteries and kept on cooking. Nearly four decades later, the consequences of a sweltering Earth are hitting home in the US south-west and mountain west.
Last Thing: bear crashes Connecticut birthday party to steal cupcakes
Connecticut’s bear population has increased in recent years, with more than 8,000 sightings reported this year. Photograph: SL/Getty Images/iStockphoto
A birthday picnic ended in a big surprise for a Connecticut family when a black bear emerged from the woods and made a beeline for their cupcakes. Rauf and Laura Majidian captured video of the bear as it raided a table of goodies laid out for their two-year-old son Cyrus’s party at their West Hartford home. The eager ursine scoffed several of the cakes before sauntering off again, ignoring a number of juice boxes and a basket of bread. “We’ll be talking about it for a long time,” Laura Majidian told local station WTNH News.
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