The economy will not fully recover until a vaccine against COVID-19 is available, experts say.But once a vaccine is available, polls show one-quarter to one-third of Americans don’t plan to get it.That means bringing the pandemic to an end and getting people back to work is not just a medical science challenge. It’s a social science challenge, too.And while billions of dollars are going into solving the medical issues, none of it is earmarked to address the social issues, according to a new report.”You can’t just have a clinically successful vaccine. You have to have a socially acceptable vaccine,” said co-author Monica Schoch-Spana, a cultural anthropologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.Scientists are moving at unprecedented speed to develop a safe and effective vaccine against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. But “there wasn’t enough forethought about the importance of understanding the human factors,” Schoch-Spana said.So she and 22 co-authors, including prominent epidemiologists, vaccinologists and social scientists, put together the report to show where to fill the gaps.”In light of the high stakes, and the charged social environment, there have to be extra measures taken,” she said.Politically chargedVaccine opponents have been “very, very effective at connecting their anti-vaccine movement with some of the political issues” around COVID-19, protesting against lockdowns and refusing to wear masks, noted L.J. Tan, co-chair of the National Adult and Influenza Immunization Summit, a public-private vaccine advocacy coalition.Some of the messaging from the Trump administration has not helped build confidence, either, Schoch-Spana said.For example, naming the vaccine program Operation Warp Speed gives the impression that swiftness is more important than safety.The administration has undermined medical experts by continuing to insist that the drug hydroxychloroquine is effective against COVID-19 when gold-standard studies have found it is not. Suggesting ultraviolet light or bleach as treatments hasn’t helped, either, Schoch-Spana’s report said.One poll has found that an endorsement from President Donald Trump would make 36 percent of respondents less likely to get a vaccine, compared with 14 percent who would be more likely.Barbershop epidemiologyCommunities of color who are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 are also the most hesitant to get vaccinated. Polls have found from 25 percent to 44 percent of African Americans say they would not get a vaccine.It’s partly a result of unethical medical experiments on African Americans in the 20th century, “a legacy of malfeasance and malpractice feeding mistrust today,” Schoch-Spana said, in addition to present-day discrimination they face from the health system.Health officials are getting past the mistrust by connecting with local nonprofits, churches, community groups, even hair salons and barbershops, which can be champions for vaccination.”Those places are where people congregate and share information and, by the way, make health decisions,” Schoch-Spana said.With influenza season coming up, health officials are aiming to ramp up those and other channels. The goal, as Tan puts it, is to take flu out of the equation because seasonal flu on top of a second wave of COVID-19 would push the health system to the brink.”We’ve got existing infrastructure and existing systems that we know work, but they’re not working well,” he added. Communities of color get flu vaccines at lower rates than other groups. If officials can improve those systems, they can leverage them for COIVD-19 as well, Tan said.Not persuasiveConnecting with trusted community members is likely to be more effective than education campaigns aimed at increasing confidence in vaccines, or appealing to people’s sense of altruism, according to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill health behavior professor Noel Brewer.”The research is fairly clear that persuasion approaches are not all that effective for vaccination,” he said. Brewer co-authored a separate report on vaccine hesitancy.”What is effective in increasing vaccination is establishing systems that are easy to use and reach many people,” he added.That could include delivering vaccines in unusual places, including churches, community centers and mobile clinics, Schoch-Spana said.”It isn’t just enough to go to the convenient pharmacies in the community,” she noted. “It’s also about going to places that people can access readily and feel comfortable, safe and familiar to them.”When a vaccine arrives, there will not be enough for everyone, at least initially.”So there have to be decisions made about who gets to stand in line first for that limited set of doses,” Schoch-Spana said. “That’s not just a technical question. That’s also a question that’s informed by social values.”In the current politically charged environment, those decisions need to be made with transparency and accountability, she said. “The systems have to be built so that they are fair, and people need to recognize that they are fair.”There could be additional upsides to getting it right, she added.”If we do this vaccination program well, we will not only protect people’s health,” Schoch-Spana said. “We will regain people’s trust in institutions like government and public health and vaccine science.” 
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U.S. President Donald Trump says he will soon sign an executive order on immigration that includes a path to citizenship for young immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally when they were children.In an interview with Spanish-language television network Telemundo, Trump said “DACA is going to be just fine,” referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program under which young migrants have been allowed to stay in the United States temporarily.”We’re going to have a road to citizenship,” he said.However, this “does not include amnesty,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement after Trump’s television interview.The White House statement said the executive order would establish a merit-based immigration system and reiterated that Trump would work with Congress on a legislative solution that “could include citizenship, along with strong border security and permanent merit-based reforms,” but no amnesty.Ivania Castillo from Prince William County, Va., holds a banner to show her support for dreamer Miriam from California, June 18, 2020, in Washington.The Trump administration has previously tried to end DACA, an Obama-era program that protects more than 700,000 immigrants.Trump did not give details about the larger immigration order he says he plans to sign, only saying that it “will include DACA, and I think people are going to be very happy.”When asked if the measure will be an executive order, as opposed to a congressional bill, Trump said the Supreme Court gave him “tremendous powers” to pass an executive order when they ruled on DACA last month.The court’s ruling said that the administration had not given adequate justification to rescind DACA. The court’s ruling did not say whether DACA recipients have a permanent right to live in the United States and did not prevent Trump from trying again to end the program.Deere said Trump is “working on an executive order to establish a merit-based immigration system to further protect U.S. workers.” Trump said he plans to sign it in the next four weeks.“The president has long said he is willing to work with Congress on a negotiated legislative solution to DACA, one that could include citizenship, along with strong border security and permanent merit-based reforms,” Deere said in a statement.Republican Senator Ted Cruz criticized Trump’s plans, saying in a tweet, “There is ZERO constitutional authority for a President to create a ‘road to citizenship’ by executive fiat.”Congressional lawmakers have tried on several occasions in recent years to pass comprehensive immigration reform but failed over deep divisions between Republican and Democratic proposals.
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President Donald Trump called Roger Stone to inform his longtime political confidant that he would commute his sentence for crimes related to the Russia investigation, Stone told The Associated Press on Friday, just days before he was set to report to prison. The White House later confirmed the commuting of the sentence in a statement, saying Stone was a victim of the Russia “hoax.” The move, though short of a full pardon, is sure to alarm critics who have long railed against the president’s repeated interventions in the nation’s justice system. Popping Champagne”The president told me he thought my trial has been unfair,” Stone told the AP in a phone call from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Stone said he expressed his gratitude and was popping Champagne. Stone had been sentenced in February to three years and four months in prison for lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. He was set to report to prison by Tuesday. A commutation would not erase Stone’s felony convictions in the same way a pardon would, but it would protect him from serving prison time as a result. Lingering rageThe action, which Trump had foreshadowed in recent days, reflects his lingering rage over the Russia investigation and is a testament to his conviction that he and his associates were mistreated by agents and prosecutors. His administration has been eager to rewrite the narrative of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, with Trump’s own Justice Department moving in May to dismiss the criminal case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Stone, for his part, had been open about his desire for a pardon or commutation, appealing for the president’s help in a series of Instagram posts in which he maintained that his life could be in jeopardy if imprisoned during a pandemic. He had recently sought to postpone his surrender date by months after getting a brief extension from the judge. Trump had repeatedly publicly inserted himself into Stone’s case, including just before Stone’s sentencing, when he suggested in a tweet that Stone was being subjected to a different standard than several prominent Democrats. He railed that the conviction “should be thrown out” and called the Justice Department’s initial sentencing recommendation “horrible and very unfair.”  “Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” he wrote. Embraced his reputationStone, a larger-than-life political character who embraced his reputation as a dirty trickster, was the sixth Trump aide or adviser to have been convicted of charges brought as part of Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. A longtime Trump friend and informal adviser, Stone had boasted during the campaign that he was in contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange through a trusted intermediary and hinted at inside knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans to release more than 19,000 emails hacked from the servers of the Democratic National Committee. But Stone denied any wrongdoing and consistently criticized the case against him as politically motivated. He did not take the stand during his trial, did not speak at his sentencing, and his lawyers did not call any witnesses in his defense. Trump also targeted those involved in the case. He retweeted a comment by Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano that the jury appeared to have been biased against Trump, and called out Judge Amy Berman Jackson by name, saying “almost any judge in the country” would throw out the conviction.  Public rebukeThe tweets continued even after Trump earned a public rebuke from his own attorney general, William Barr, who said the president’s comments were “making it impossible” for him to do his job. Barr was so incensed that he told people he was considering resigning over the matter. Prosecutors had originally recommended Stone serve seven to nine years in federal prison. But, in a highly unusual move, Barr reversed that decision after a Trump tweet and recommended a more lenient punishment, prompting a mini-revolt inside the Justice Department, with the entire prosecution team resigning from the case. Department officials have vehemently denied Barr was responding to Trump’s criticism and have insisted there was no contact with the White House over the decision. Barr has also pointed out that the judge, in imposing a 40-month sentence, had agreed with him that the original sentencing recommendation was excessive. Barr, who was attorney general during Stone’s trial last fall, has said the prosecution was justified, and the Justice Department did not support Stone’s more recent effort to put off his surrender date. Though the Justice Department raised concerns about the handling of Flynn’s case, including what it said were irregularities about his FBI interview, prosecutors did not point to any similar issues or problems with the Stone prosecution. Even so, the pardon will almost certainly contribute to the portrait of a president determined — particularly in an election year — to undo the effects of a Russia investigation that has shadowed his administration from the outset, and to intervene on behalf of political allies. Trump, meanwhile, had long kept the door open to a reprieve. “You’re going to see what happens. Let’s see what happens,” he said when asked in February whether Stone deserved prison time, adding, “Somebody has to stick up for the people.” Hint from TrumpHe told Fox’s Sean Hannity in an interview Thursday night that it was a “disgrace they didn’t give him a retrial.” Asked if he was considering a pardon, he added: “I am always thinking.” That language prompted preemptive rebuke from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who tweeted after the sentencing that “to pardon Stone when his crimes were committed to protect Trump would be a breathtaking act of corruption.” The commutation was the latest example of Trump using his unlimited clemency power to pardon powerful men he believes have been mistreated by the justice system. Trump went on a clemency spree in February, commuting the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, and pardoning former New York City police commissioner Bernie Kerik, financier Michael Milken and several others. Trump has also offered clemency to other political allies, including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was awaiting sentencing at the time, conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who had been convicted on campaign finance violations, and Conrad Black, a newspaper publisher convicted of fraud who had written a flattering book about the president. Trump, however, has spent much more time trumpeting his decision to commute the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving life in prison for nonviolent drug offenses and who came to Trump’s attention after reality star Kim Kardashian West took up her cause. Her story was featured in a Trump campaign Super Bowl ad.
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Tulsa will begin test excavations at Oaklawn Cemetery next week, the first step in an effort to recover the remains of victims from the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, one of the deadliest incidents of white racial violence against Blacks in U.S. history.Initial news reports from 1921 said 36 people died in the violence. Today, most historians believe the real number to be around 300.The city, along with the University of Oklahoma and the FILE – A monument to the 1921 Black Wall Street massacre is pictured in Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 18, 2020.Oaklawn Cemetery was chosen as Monday’s excavation site based on oral histories and results from ground-penetrating radar probes that discovered an anomaly within the ground.While the excavation would be the first step in finding the true number of victims, Scott Ellsworth, a professor at the University of Michigan and author of Death in a Promised Land, a detailed account of the massacre, believes the dig has further significance.”Most importantly, we’re going to rebury [the victims] with honor,” Ellsworth said, speaking to Voice of America’s International Edition host, Steve Miller.Tulsa was put under martial law immediately after the race riot, with family members and loved ones of the deceased held under armed guard at internment camps.Instead of identifying the victims, the National Guard buried the bodies in unmarked graves, Ellsworth said.”These are individuals who were all murder victims … who were literally thrown away,” the professor said.Woman’s scream triggered riotThe 1921 Tulsa massacre was sparked by an incident between a young Black man, Dick Rowland, and a white woman, Sarah Page. On the morning of May 30, 1921, Rowland was supposedly riding in an elevator with Page when she screamed, and Rowland ran out when the doors opened.The following day, the Tulsa Tribune published a story of Rowland allegedly trying to rape Page, as well as an editorial declaring a lynching was being organized to take place that night.FILE – A sign marks the intersection of Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street, the former home of Black Wall Street, in Tulsa, Okla., June 15, 2020.Tensions eventually led to 18 hours of violence beginning on the night of May 31 and continuing into the next morning. A white mob burned to the ground Tulsa’s Greenwood district, also known as the Black Wall Street, and other African American businesses and institutions.The violence pushed most of Tulsa’s African American population into homelessness. Not one of the white rioters was imprisoned for murder or arson.After 99 years, the excavation next week will mark the first in-depth government effort to investigate the race riot.”No other agency or government entity has moved this far into an investigation that will seek truth into what happened in Tulsa in 1921,” Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said. “As we resume with the test excavation, we’re taking all precautions to do so under the safest environment possible.”Excavations to Resume for 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre GravesRacist mob killed hundreds of Black people in 1921Though the dig is not guaranteed to discover the massacre’s victims, Ellsworth revealed that there are two other possible sites for the remains.”Whatever happens next week — and it may take longer than that — this won’t be the final word on it,” Ellsworth said. “This is going to be the first word.” VOA’s International Edition host Steve Miller contributed to this report.
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Some 76 foreign journalists working for the Voice of America in Washington are facing the possibility that their visas, many of which expire this month, may not be renewed.A spokesperson for the U.S. Agency for Global Media said Thursday that the agency is conducting a case-by-case assessment of J-1 renewal applications. The agency has 62 contractors and 14 full time employees who are in the United States on J-1 visas. An unknown number of journalists at other USAGM entities are also affected. So far none of the journalists seeking J-1 extensions appears to have been rejected outright. But at least one journalist’s deadline for an extension has passed, giving her until the end of the month to leave the U.S.  Other VOA journalists have a few weeks left before they could be forced to return to their home countries, where some fear retribution because of VOA’s reporting.The USAGM spokesperson said the visa review is aimed at improving agency management, protecting U.S. national security and ensuring that hiring authorities are not misused.  
J-1 visas are a category of non-immigrant entry permits for individuals with unique skills who are approved to participate in work-and study-based exchange visitor programs. They are typically issued for a period of several years and are subject to renewal or extension.  But the J-1 is also among several visas that were temporarily banned by the Trump Administration in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, and because the administration believes such visa holders take jobs away from U.S. citizens.
Because of its mandate to provide high-quality professional journalism in more than 40 languages, VOA often struggles to find enough American citizens with the needed journalism and language skills to keep its programs on the air. In those cases it has long relied on individuals recruited from the target countries or new immigrants still working their way through the lengthy process of becoming American citizens.VOA and other government agencies routinely scrutinize J-1 visa renewals, which are filed by the employer and submitted to the State Department. In the past, some foreign journalists at VOA have been forced to leave their jobs because their visa was not renewed.  It’s unclear how the USAGM process this year differs from past practice.“To improve agency management and protect U.S. national security, it is imperative to determine that hiring authorities and personnel practices are not misused. As such, USAGM is undertaking a comprehensive, case-by-case assessment of personal services contractors (PSCs) who are J-1 visa holders,” the USAGM spokesperson’s statement said.  At the time of publication, USAGM had not responded to VOA’s inquiry about whether full time staff who hold J-1 visas are also subjected to this year’s review.USAGM CEO Michael Pack was nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the agency more than two years ago. But with solid Democratic opposition to his appointment, his confirmation was held up until June.  Since his confirmation, the heads of the five media networks USAGM oversees have quit or been fired. Pack told the Washington Times in an interview this month that he is working to correct past mismanagement. “My plan here, and I think everybody in the White House and everybody else knows this, is to hold these agencies accountable to fulfilling their mission, and in [Voice of America’s] case, its charter, and that’s what I plan to do,” he told the newspaper. 
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