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Iota strengthens to a Category 2 hurricane as it approaches coast

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Hurricane Iota, the season’s 13th hurricane, strengthened to a Category 2 storm on Sunday evening, its strongest winds reaching 100 mph, and it was expected to be at or near Category 4 strength ahead of its forecasted landfall in northeastern Central America, the National Hurricane Center said.

“Rapid strengthening is expected during the next 24 hours, and Iota is forecast to be an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane when it approaches Central America,” the National Hurricane Center said in a 7 p.m. Sunday Flight From Page One

“A great launch!” said President Donald Trump in a tweet. President-elect Joe Biden called it “a testament to the power of accomplish by harnessing our innovation, ingenuity, and determination.”

SpaceX’s first operational trip to the orbital lab followed a test flight with a two-person crew that returned to the planet three months ago. The latest launch occurred 18 years after Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp. with the ultimate goal of populating other planets.

The Crew-1 mission launched two days after officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration determined that Musk, who may be infected with coronavirus, had no physical interactions with key personnel.

Musk tweeted Sunday morning that he had “no symptoms right now,” after saying a day earlier that he “most likely” has a moderate case of Covid-19. He said late Thursday that he’d tested positive and also negative for Covid-19 in four tests, and was experiencing mild cold symptoms.

SpaceX sent its president, Gwynne Shotwell, launch. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence also attended. Debate From Page One

The applicant, and landowner, is Verna Schuette, parcels at the southwest corner of Humphrey Drive and Railroad Avenue.

The proposal is for an approximate 2,500-square-foot retail cannabis building with future Cannabis Business Zone expansion.

Schuette submitted a proposal to the first request for applications earlier this year and modified the current application cerns raised then.

Some of the modifications include more effort and development timeline, as well as bringing the cannabis industry onto her team. public advisory.

If the forecast holds, Iota would be “only (the) 2nd Atlantic hurricane to reach Category 4 intensity this late in the calendar year on record,” according to Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach.

Only 2005 has had more hurricanes on record, at 15, Klotzbach added.

Iota had increased in intensity from a tropical storm to a hurricane at Category 1 strength, with 90 mph winds, by Sunday morning, before intensifying again to a Category 2 hurricane by Sunday night. Iota is likely to be at Category 3 strength

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to Florida to observe the Monday, forecasters said.

Beyond becoming the U.S. space agency’s first regular commercial launch, the Crew-1 mission is also the first human orbital flight licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration. The regulator is assuming responsibility for public safety because the flight will be conducted by a commercial company.

The Crew-1 astronauts are set for a six-month sojourn aboard the space station, where they’ll join two Russians and an American. The Dragon’s crew is comprised of three astronauts from the U.S. and one from Japan: n Commander Michael Hopkins, 51, a U.S. Air Force colonel and test pilot, is making his second trip to the space station, seven years after his first. He’s joined by three others on the mission: n Shannon Walker, 55, a physicist and Houston native, is serving her second stint on the orbiting lab. n Victor Glover, 44, a Navy pilot from California, is taking his first flight to space. He’ll be the first Black astronaut to stay on the space station for a full six-month rotation, according to NASA. n Soichi Noguchi, 55, a Japanese astronaut and aeronautical engineer, has the most space experience among the crew. With Sunday’s flight, he has left the Earth on three vehicles: Russia’s Soyuz, the Space Shuttle, and the

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Schuette does not have any existing cannabis licenses. She is a resident of Suisun City.

The topic of a cannabis business came before the council for the first time in March 2017. The ad hoc committee met in September with the four applicants.

The City Council will meet in closed session with labor negotiators at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday.

The regular meeting should get underway about 6:30 p.m. Councilman Mike Segala and City Clerk Linda Hobson, each retiring, will be recognized for their service to the city.

The meeting is at 701 Civic Center Blvd. Those attending in person are required to wear a mask. It can also be viewed on the Zoom teleconference platform.

For more information, or to view the entire agenda, visit www.suisun.com.

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Juried

From Page One

books, visit galleries, look online for accomplished artists who do inspiring work with recyclable materials

“I first used large cardboard as they were easier to cut and assemble,” he wrote. “As I got more proficient, I began to notice not only that the assembly was important, but the angle, depth and shapes added interest.”

Every year since he started, Chew has subDeaths From Page One ready for weeks or months and the weather is quickly getting colder, sending more Americans indoors to places where the virus may spread rapidly.

“I think it is important (to note) that before delivered,” Baric said, “that we are looking at about 250,000 more deaths in the U.S., despite the development of new drugs. That is probably going to still occur because of the massive increases in cases.”

Nationwide, and in North Carolina, records are being set for daily positive coronavirus cases. On Friday, more than 181,100 new cases were reported across the country, a record that came only eight days after the U.S. reported its first 100,000-case day, The New York Times reported.

More than 244,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the U.S.

Perhaps more than half of those additional deaths can be avoided, Baric said, if people wear masks, practice social distancing and wash their hands frequently.

“But you have to wear masks the correct way – not just covering your mouth,” he said. That is because Covid-19 actually grows fastest in people’s noses and nasal cavities.

Baric has been studying coronaviruses for three decades, and he has been one of the scientists raising red flags for the longest about their potential to cause global pandemics. In March, his lab was one of the first to get a sample of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. It was also one of the first to conduct trials on remdesivir, the first treatment Food and Drug Administration for Covid-19.

Since March, Baric has spent nearly every day in his lab at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, studying the virus and conducting trials on potential treatments. He’s also published mitted cardboard pieces of art. He’s happy people have enjoyed them.

He uses a typical box cutter. The thinner the bald, the better.

Chew is also known to use barbecue skewers to push into the ribs of the cardboard to peel it apart and expose the ribbing.

“Long kitchen knives are also used to cut larger areas in one swipe,” he wrote.

The present artwork features small details, such as staircases.

“As I was playing around with it, I imagined I was a construction year than any other in his career, he surmised.

And after eight months of living with the virus in the U.S., he has good and bad news.

The good news: The current strain of the coronavirus in the U.S. is not reduce the effectiveness of vaccines being developed.

It is mutating, though. It is becoming more infectious – a definite problem in the near term as people gather indoors. But vaccines developed from should work. And the new mutation might be more vulnerable to vaccines.

That is according to a new paper by Baric and others, which looked at the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the U.S. That strain mutated likely in Italy, then spread to New York and the rest of the U.S.

But the virus becoming more vulnerable to vaccines happened by chance.

“It could easily have changed and become more resistant to a vaccine,” Baric said. “That would have been a perfect nightmare.”

And that still could happen, he warned.

“At some point as more and more people have been exposed and survived or been vaccinated,” he said, “the selective pressure (to mutate) is going to increase. The virus might have to change to protect itself (and) to become less vulnerable or it has to figure out something else, like jump into a reservoir species.”

That seems to be happening in Denmark at concern. In that Scandinavian country, an outbreak is occurring in a farmed mink population, and it is creating a new mutated strain. In response, the country plans to cull 15 million minks.

The minks appeared to have been infected by humans, and then stored the virus. After mutating, the virus transferred from minks back into humans. Since June, more than 200 human cases of Covid-19 in Denmark have been traced to farmed minks, including a dozen cases that had a unique variant, the World Health Organization said.

Baric said that in a preworker building a structure. The image of scaffolding and a building several stories high emerged,” Chew wrote. “As there was only so much space in the blocks of letters created, I was forced to work smaller. I also began noticing that I had small bits and pieces of cardboard shavings and splinters all over.

“So I thought, why not recycle the recycled pieces, too? And so, at the gallery, you will see the very small pieces of cardboard emanating from the lightning bolt and the blocks of letters – all representing sparkles of electric liminary test, the mink more resistant to antibodies. But these are Baric’s lab and others will do more tests to validate the findings. David Montefiori, the director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development at Duke, told The N&O that he is working on a synthetic version of that mink mutation and should know more

The mink mutation could be a problem.

“In general, the Covid-19 virus is a Southeast Asian virus,” Baric in contact with mammals that have lived in Southeast Asia. When the virus has gone global – and there are 50 million people with it on every continent – all sorts of mammals and bats are being exposed to it that have never seen it before. Some are going to become reservoirs. Even if we eliminated it in humans, it could hang out in another species in North America.”

Baric knows he can sound overly negative. And there are some positive developments.

One is Pfizer’s vaccine, which the company reported was 90% effective, far exceeding many

“This is really good data,” he said of Pfizer’s report. The crabby worries about it, he said, namely that most of the infections studied by Pfizer were mild and that the pool of elderly and minority people in the trial was small.

But this is “absolutely good news,” Baric said. “There’s more important data that will come in the (coming) months, and if it is as encouraging (as Pfizer’s), we are pandemic waning in the U.S. in June, July and the end of summer.”

But that will depend on how many people choose to get the vaccine. An October poll by STAT News found that only 58% of the U.S. public said they would get vaccinated as soon as a vaccine

If that is the case, Baric said, half the population will get closer to energy,” Chew wrote.

It requires patience. which Chew said he is still learning.

“I am in the age group that requires a little more time to do things,” he said.

The 57th annual Juried Art Show continues through Dec. 31.

It also features pieces related to the Covid-19 pandemic as well as social justice.

The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday at 1350 Travis Blvd.

For more information,

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visit www.fvaa-arts.org. returning to normal life, and half will continue to get sick and be at risk of hospitalization or death. To reach herd immunity, he said, 70% of the population must be vaccinated or survive infection. Right now, only 5% to 10% of the U.S. population has been exposed to Covid-19, he said.

Making matters worse, he said, is the tumultuous leadership transition since the presidential election.

“It is a real issue, I have to admit. And it has been an issue the whole time,” Baric said. “The lack of a single, uniform voice based in public health practices has resulted in a lot of American deaths.”

Baric’s lab is currently conducting Phase 2 clinical trials for a Covid-19 antiviral drug called EIDD-2801, which is being developed by Merck.

In trials using mice, EIDD-2801 showed that it could prevent and reduce severe lung damage, The N&O previously reported.

And it can be taken as a pill, which makes it easier to treat Covid-19 patients outside of hospitals. Remdesivir, a Covid-19 treatment that President Donald Trump received when he got infected, is taken intravenously.

That means it has to be taken at a hospital. But hospitals are filling up with patients, and it is getting harder to find space for Covid-19 patients.

EIDD-2801 is much easier, he said, but it is unclear when it might be ready for widespread use.

EIDD-2801 could be especially important for rural communities, which have much smaller hospitals. And the current surge in coronavirus cases appears to be hitting rural places harder than urban ones.

“(Rural) hospital facilities aren’t as large, and they don’t have as much in the way of critical care equipment,” Baric said. “And so, sadly, they are approaching that point of no return, where hard decisions may have to be made about who gets critical care and who doesn’t. That is tragic for physicians and for families and sad for our country.”