Lung cancer is the deadliest form of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But it doesn’t get nearly the same amount of research dollars as breast or prostate cancer. That may be changing, thanks to one man’s efforts and new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. VOA’s Saba Shah Khan reports.
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Al Unser, one of only four drivers to win the Indianapolis 500 a record four times, died Thursday following a long illness. He was 82.
Unser died at his home in Chama, New Mexico, with his wife, Susan, by his side, Indianapolis Motor Speedway said early Friday. He had been battling cancer for 17 years.
“My heart is so saddened. My father passed away last night,” son Al Unser Jr., himself a two-time Indy 500 winner, posted on social media. “He was a Great man and even a Greater Father. Rest In Peace Dad!”
Unser is the third member of one of America’s most famed racing families to die in 2021. His oldest brother, three-time Indy 500 winner Bobby Unser, died in May, and Bobby Unser Jr. passed six weeks after his father.
Known as “Big Al” once his own son made a name for himself in racing, Unser is part of an elite club of four-time winners of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” Unser won the Indy 500 in 1970, 1971, 1978 and 1987, and is the only driver in history to have both a sibling and a child also win one of the biggest races in the world.
His final victory at age 47 made him the oldest winner in Indy 500 history. He dominated in his first Indy win in 1970 by starting from the pole and leading all but 10 of the 200 laps. Unser beat runner-up Mark Donohue by 32 seconds that year.
Unser led over half the laps in three of his Indy 500 victories, and his 644 total laps led at Indianapolis is most in race history. He made 27 starts in the Indy 500, third most in history, and qualified once on the pole and five times on the front row.
Unser won three Indy car national championships over his career, and his total of 39 victories is sixth on the all-time list.
He and son Al Jr. were the first father-son pairing at Indianapolis, and in 1985 they battled one another for the CART championship. A pass in the closing laps of the race gave Unser a fourth-place finish in the season finale at Miami’s Tamiami Park road course, and it was enough for him to beat Al Jr. for the championship by a single point. He fought back tears while describing the “empty feeling” of defeating his son.
Unser also ran five NASCAR races in his career, finishing fourth in the 1968 Daytona 500. He earned three top-10 finishes in NASCAR. He also won three times in the International Race of Champions, an all-star series that pitted the top drivers from various disciplines against each other.
Unser won the Indy car “Triple Crown” by winning all three of of the 500-mile races on the 1978 schedule, which included stops at Pocono Raceway and in Ontario, California. He’s the only driver in history to win all three of those races in the same season.
The Unser family combined for a record nine wins in the Indy 500; Al Jr. won the Indy 500 twice — in 1992 and 1994. Coincidentally, Al Unser, Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Unser all won their final Indy 500s driving for Roger Penske. Helio Castroneves won his first three Indy 500s driving for Penske.
“Al was the quiet leader of the Unser family, a tremendous competitor and one of the greatest drivers to ever race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” Penske said. “We were honored to help Al earn a place in history with his fourth Indy victory … and he will always be a big part of our team. Our thoughts are with the Unser family as they mourn the loss of a man that was beloved across the racing world and beyond.”
Unser earlier this year was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to welcome Castroneves as the newest member of the four-time winners club. Unser achieved the feat after A.J. Foyt, and Rick Mears won his fourth in 1991. Castroneves won in May to become the first new member in 30 years.
“Some days the race track smiles on you and some days, you got it the other way,” Unser said during the July celebration. “It’s not always that you’re going to think you’re going to win because your chances are very slim. There’s 32 other guys who want it as bad as you do.”
Unser received his Baby Borg — the 18-inch replica of the Indy 500 winner’s Borg-Warner Trophy that lives onsite in the speedway’s museum — during a celebration in May with family and friends. He was set to be honored in 2020 on the the 50th anniversary of his 1970 victory at Indianapolis, but the celebration was postponed because of the pandemic.
Both Castroneves and two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato lauded Unser, with Sato calling Unser’s speech at the May winner’s ceremony “very funny and so charming.”
“I will always remember Big Al welcoming me to the speedway,” Castroneves told The Associated Press on Friday. “He and Johnny Rutherford were the two helping me with my rookie orientation. He will be missed.”
The youngest of four racing brothers, Unser was born in in Albuquerque in 1939 to a family of hardcore racers. His father Jerry Unser and two uncles, Louis and Joe, were also drivers. Beginning in 1926 the family began competing in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, an annual road race held in Colorado.
Al’s oldest brother, Jerry, became the first Unser to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in 1958; he was killed in a crash during practice the following year.
Unser began racing himself in 1957 when he was 18, but competed mostly in sprint cars. He made it to Indy in 1965 driving in a car owned by Foyt and was part of a rookie class with future Indy 500 winners Mario Andretti (1969) and Gordon Johncock (1973, 1982).
“Al was one of the smartest drivers I ever raced against,” Andretti said. “I often said that I wished I could have had some of his patience.”
The Unser family combined for 73 career starts in the Indy 500 — a number bettered only by the 76 starts by the Andretti family. The Unser participation spans Al (27 races), Bobby (19), and Al Jr. (19), as well as Johnny (five), Robby (two) and Jerry (one).
Unser was inducted into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame in 1986 and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1998. His collection of trophies and cars is housed at the Unser Racing Museum in Albuquerque.
Unser is survived by wife, Susan, and son, Al Jr. He was preceded in death by daughters Mary and Deborah.
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South Korea, widely seen as a global model of coronavirus containment, faces its biggest pandemic challenge yet, as COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise after the country began removing pandemic related restrictions.
Daily caseloads surpassed 7,000 Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That is quadruple the daily numbers reported at the beginning of November, when South Korea pivoted toward its living with COVID-19 plan.
In the Seoul metropolitan area, where more than half the country’s population resides, intensive care hospital beds are full. The country has also hit new daily highs for the number of severely ill COVID-19 patients, which stood at 857 Thursday.
Although South Korea has tallied only a fraction of the cases and deaths of other developed countries such as the United States and Britain, its fatality rate rose to 1.4% over the past week. That is the ninth highest among 38 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations.
South Korea’s deteriorating situation demonstrates the challenges of returning to life as normal, complicated by the delta variant that undermined government projections, even in a country that had until now been spared the worst of the pandemic.
Grim warnings
Government officials, who have been careful not to raise unnecessary alarms as they sought to keep businesses open, are now sounding a grimmer tone.
At a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters on Friday, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum, who oversees the pandemic response, judged that the country’s medical response capability was quickly burning out, warning that stricter social distancing measures may need to be enforced if the “risky situation” does not soon turn around.
The prime minister again placed heavy emphasis on vaccination, including for minors. He announced the interval between the second vaccine shot and boosters would be shortened to three months.
The government paused its “living with COVID-19” transition Monday, replacing it with an expanded “vaccine pass” mandate. The new plan requires people who gather in limited groups at restaurants and cafes to show proof of vaccination or a very recent negative PCR test result upon entry. This usually takes the form of a smartphone application, called COOV. The mandate extends to other public facilities, including gyms, study rooms and bars.
Risk control
The figure that health officials are watching closely is the number of severe COVID-19 patients, especially as hospitals are taxed. A recent projection by the National Institute for Mathematical Sciences put that figure as likely to exceed 1,000 by next week, and the overall daily caseload could reach the 12,000 level by the end of the month.
That is an alarming prospect for hospital staff, who are already exhausted by the unrelenting stream of COVID-19 patients.
“Non-COVID patients are not able to access the ER.” Dr. Chon Eun-mi, a pulmonologist at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital, told VOA.
“The ER is clogged with COVID patients, leaving people with other symptoms no choice but to wait it out at home. Surgeries are also being delayed,” she said.
It’s a similar picture at other major hospitals across Seoul, nearby Incheon and the surrounding Gyeonggi province.
Kim issued an administrative order for 1,700 more hospital beds to be secured outside of the capital.
Those 60 years and older, with waning vaccine immunity, have made up most of the severe breakthrough cases as the delta variant spreads in the country.
“The government didn’t expect this many severe COVID cases since we had made vaccination progress,” Chon said, referring to South Korea’s 92% vaccination rate among adults.
“It broadly adopted its ‘living with COVID’ transition, more people moved about, and those who were immunocompromised or elderly became reinfected. But, this time, they had to wait at home because there were no available hospital beds. Their conditions worsened and they died before they could get real help,” she said.
Chon said COVID-19 patients should be centralized at a large facility such as a stadium, convention hall or borrowed hotel, where those with mild symptoms can receive antibody or remdesivir treatment before their conditions worsen. She said the current approach of remotely treating mild patients from home is not working.
The omicron factor
South Korea has detected at least 63 cases of the omicron variant, 48 of which were linked to community spread.
Omicron, which the World Health Organization last month designated a variant of concern, was first reported by South Africa. Health experts fear it may be more transmissible, but it is not yet clear if it causes more or less severe symptoms.
Seoul has limited arrivals from a growing list of African countries, most recently Ghana and Zambia. It also instituted a mandatory 10-day quarantine on all international arrivals, regardless of their vaccination status.
Dr. Chung Jae-hoon, adviser to the prime minister’s office and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, recently offered this assessment to a local newspaper.
“Expect to stay in this COVID-19 reality for at least another three years. Delta has taught us that vaccination alone will not end the crisis. The first half of next year will be even harder for medical staff. Bigger challenges remain,” he said.
Lee Juhyun contributed to this report.
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The United States rushed millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses for children ages 5-11 across the nation, but demand for inoculations for younger kids has been low, more than a dozen state public health officials and physicians said.
Of the 28 million eligible U.S. children in that age group, around 5 million have received at least one dose, according to federal data, likely satisfying initial pent-up demand from parents who were waiting to vaccinate their kids.
At the current pace, fewer than half of U.S. children ages 5-11 are expected to be fully vaccinated in the coming months, state officials told Reuters. Some states, including Mississippi, said thousands of vaccine doses are sitting idle.
“We are concerned that the demand is not going to be as quick and as great as it was for the adult population,” said Karyl Rattay, director of Delaware’s division of public health.
A smaller dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for those aged 5-11 received U.S. authorization last month, with the first shots going into young arms on Nov. 3.
Vaccine hesitancy among adult caregivers has affected the vaccination rate for this age group more than other groups, physicians told Reuters.
“I think parents are nervous. There’s probably a cohort of parents who felt comfortable vaccinating themselves… but are hesitant to vaccinate their children,” said Dr. Matthew Harris, a pediatrician leading COVID-19 vaccinations for the Northwell Health hospital system in New York.
The push to vaccinate children has taken on fresh urgency amid concerns that the new Omicron variant of the virus, first identified in southern Africa and Hong Kong in late November, will spread quickly in the United States, causing a surge in infections already back on the rise from the easily transmitted delta variant.
Given the pervasiveness of delta and prospects of new variants spreading in the United States, “having as much immunity in the population as possible is critical,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
While serious illness and death from COVID-19 among children is relatively rare, cases among unvaccinated people under age 17 have increased in recent months. Infected children can also pass COVID-19 to other people at higher risk of serious illness, including those who have already been vaccinated.
Some parents have been concerned about reports of heart inflammation, a rare vaccine side effect seen in young men at higher rates than the rest of the population.
On Tuesday, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said the agency has been scouring its database of adverse events and has not found any reports of the condition among 5- to 11-year-old recipients of the vaccine.
The children’s vaccine rollout may also be hampered by staffing shortages at healthcare providers, and greater reliance on pediatricians as opposed to larger and more efficient mass vaccination centers, said Sean O’Leary, a professor of pediatrics at University of Colorado.
Fewer than 20% of U.S. children ages 5-11 have gotten at least one shot so far, compared to around 80% of U.S. adults, according to federal data. Of particular concern is that the number of U.S. children getting COVID-19 shots may already be plateauing.
In the past week, more children have been receiving a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine than a first, according to government data. That suggests a slowdown in demand aside from those who were anxious to get their kids vaccinated at the first opportunity.
“I think what we were hoping for was that parents would have these meaningful conversations with pediatricians and that would provide them confidence to vaccinate their kids,” Northwell’s Harris said. “I’m not sure that that’s really come to fruition.”
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Experts say that for the U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics to be effective, more countries will need to participate. But that could be challenging given some countries’ economic ties to China or recognized prowess in winter sports.
Since the Biden administration’s announcement this week that it would not send an official U.S. delegation to the Beijing Olympics, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada have joined the diplomatic boycott. That means no officials or diplomats from these countries will attend, although their athletes are still scheduled to compete in the February 4-20 Games.
All four countries said the boycott was in response to human rights violations by the Chinese government. During Monday’s White House briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. boycott was a statement against China’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at a news conference on Wednesday that his government had raised its concerns with Beijing regarding “human rights abuses and issues in Xinjiang.”
And as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the decision, he expressed “extreme concern by the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese government.”
New Zealand reiterated this week that it would not send any government ministers to the Beijing Games, citing “a range of factors but mostly to do with COVID.”
Julian Ku, a professor of constitutional law at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, told VOA Mandarin via email Wednesday that the leaders’ statements indicate how seriously these countries take allegations of China’s human rights abuses and how willing they are to face criticism and retaliation from Beijing.
China has faced widespread international criticism for its treatment of the Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities as well as its crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.
Boycott scenarios
If the boycott fails to draw widespread support, “it will be easier for the Chinese government to focus on a few countries who are ‘attacking’ it. But if it is a broader range of countries, then I think it would be harder for China to make it seem like a U.S.-led conspiracy against it,” Ku wrote.
Susan Brownell, an anthropology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis with expertise in Chinese sports and the Olympic Games, told VOA Mandarin on Wednesday that “this is a really critical period right now. If a large number of countries jump on board immediately, it really will have much more impact. If it’s only what the Chinese sometimes call the ‘Anglo-Saxon clique,’ if the vast majority of the nearly 100 countries participating don’t follow at all or take a long time to follow, then that will have less impact.”
At a daily briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian responded to the boycott, warning the U.S. “to stop politicizing sports, and stop disrupting and undermining the Beijing Winter Olympics.”
When asked about any countermeasures China might take, Zhao said “the U.S. would pay a price for its erroneous actions,” without providing details.
Brownell said the European Union’s position on the boycott was particularly important because the Winter Games are “entirely dominated by European countries.”
France, host of the next Summer Games, and Italy said they would not join the boycott. Germany and the Netherlands said they were seeking a “common EU stance.”
Norway, a winter Olympics powerhouse, said it would not participate in the diplomatic boycott.
Loss of trust
It’s unclear whether the EU will forge a common ground, Brownell said, because many Eastern European nations, such as Poland and Hungary, want to develop trade relationships with China and are not “huge supporters of human rights.”
“Another point is that many of our old allies felt a bit betrayed during the Trump era, and the U.S. lost their trust, and they’re not as likely to immediately follow the U.S. as they would have been before that,” she added.
The Beijing Games face challenges beyond the boycott. A November 29 article in the Chinese state-run Global Times said that because of the pandemic, “it’s not practical to invite too many foreign guests to China.”
The Global Times also reported it had “learned that as the host country, China has no plan to invite politicians who hype the ‘boycott’ of the Beijing Games.”
Meanwhile, some experts said that the International Olympic Committee should be blamed for the current controversy around the Beijing Olympics.
Jules Boykoff, a former professional soccer player who is now a political science professor at Pacific University in Oregon, told VOA Mandarin via email that the IOC deserved “a huge amount of the blame for the situation. … After all, they decided to allocate the 2022 Winter Olympics to Beijing even though they knew full well that serious human rights abuses were happening in China. Rather than standing up for the principles enshrined in its own charter, the IOC chose to look the other way in order to keep the Olympics — the IOC’s golden money spigot — on track.”
On Tuesday, Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the IOC’s coordination commission chief for the Beijing Winter Olympics, said, “We always ask for as much respect as possible and least possible interference from the political world. … We have to be reciprocal. We respect the political decisions taken by political bodies.”
Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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Former Empire actor Jussie Smollett was convicted Thursday on charges he staged an anti-gay, racist attack on himself nearly three years ago and then lied to Chicago police about it.
In the courtroom as the verdict was read, Smollett stood and faced the jury, showing no visible reaction.
The jury found the 39-year-old guilty on five counts of disorderly conduct — for each separate time he was charged with lying to police in the days immediately after the alleged attack. He was acquitted on a sixth count, of lying to a detective in mid-February, weeks after Smollett said he was attacked.
Outside court, special prosecutor Dan Webb called the verdict “a resounding message by the jury that Mr. Smollett did exactly what we said he did.”
Judge James Linn set a post-trial hearing for Jan. 27 and said he would schedule Smollett’s sentencing at a later date. Disorderly conduct is a felony that carries a prison sentence of up to three years, but experts have said if convicted, Smollett would likely be placed on probation and ordered to perform community service.
The damage to his personal and professional life may be more severe. Smollett lost his role on the TV program Empire after prosecutors said the alleged attack was a hoax, and he told jurors earlier this week that “I’ve lost my livelihood.”
The jury deliberated for just more than nine hours Wednesday and Thursday after a roughly one-week trial in which two brothers testified that Smollett recruited them to fake the attack near his home in downtown Chicago in January 2019. They said Smollett orchestrated the hoax, telling them to put a noose around his neck and rough him up in view of a surveillance camera, and that he said he wanted video of the hoax made public via social media.
Smollett testified that he was the victim of a real hate crime, telling jurors, “There was no hoax.” He called the brothers liars and said the $3,500 check he wrote them was for meal and workout plans. His attorneys argued that the brothers attacked the actor — who is gay and Black — because they are homophobic and didn’t like “who he was.” They also alleged the brothers made up the story about the attack being staged to get money from Smollett, and that they said they wouldn’t testify against him if Smollett paid them each $1 million.
In closing arguments Wednesday, Webb told jurors there was “overwhelming evidence” that Smollett staged the attack, then lied to police about it for publicity. He said Smollett caused Chicago police to spend enormous resources investigating what they believed was a hate crime.
“Besides being against the law, it is just plain wrong to outright denigrate something as serious as a real hate crime and then make sure it involved words and symbols that have such historical significance in our country,” Webb said.
Defense attorney Nenye Uche called the brothers “sophisticated liars” who may have been motivated to attack Smollett because of homophobia or because they wanted to be hired to work as his security.
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