Qantas announced Monday it will launch the world’s first non-stop commercial flights from Sydney to London and New York by the end of 2025, finally conquering the “tyranny of distance.”

After five years of planning, the airline said it was ordering 12 Airbus A350-1000 aircraft to operate the “Project Sunrise” flights to cities including London and New York.

Non-stop flights will start from Sydney by the end of 2025, it said, with the long-haul flights later planned to include Melbourne.

“New types of aircraft make new things possible,” said Qantas chairman Alan Joyce, according to a statement.

“The A350 and Project Sunrise will make any city just one flight away from Australia,” he said. “It’s the final frontier and the final fix for the tyrany of distance.”

Qantas operated research flights for long-haul flights in 2019, including a trial London-Sydney flight of 17,750 kilometers (11,030 miles) that took 19 hours and 19 minutes.

The airline already operates a 14,498-kilometre Perth-London trip that takes 17 hours.

“As you’d expect, the cabin is being specially designed for maximum comfort for long-haul flying,” Joyce said.

Qantas said the new A350 aircraft would be configured for 238 passengers in total with first-class suites offering a separate bed, recliner chair and wardrobe.

It promised spacier economy sections and a “well-being zone” designed for “movement, stretching and hydration.” 

Singapore Airlines currently operates the world’s longest nonstop commercial flight from Singapore to New York, clocking in a time of about 19 hours.

At the same time, Qantas confirmed it was also ordering 40 A321 XLR and A220 aircraft from Airbus. In addition, it bought options for another 94 of these planes until the end of 2034.

“The A320s and A220s will become the backbone of our domestic fleet for the next 20 years, helping to keep this country moving,” Joyce said.

The newer aircraft would reduce emissions by at least 15% if running on fossil fuels, and more if using sustainable aviation fuel, he said.

“We have come through the other side of the pandemic a structurally different company,” the airline boss said. “Our domestic market share is higher and the demand for direct international flights is even stronger than it was before COVID. The business case for Project Sunrise has an internal rate of return in the mid-teens.”

Qantas said the total cost of the deal was a matter of commercial confidence, though it indicated it had obtained a significant discount on the standard price of the aircraft.

The A350-1000 planes will be powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 turbofan engines, designed to be 25% more fuel efficient than the previous generation of aircraft, Qantas said.
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When amputee athlete Jacky Hunt-Broersma says her mantra is, “I can do hard things,” she’s not kidding — the amputee athlete has run 104 marathons in as many days, all using a carbon-fiber prosthesis.

Hunt-Broersma, 46, completed that epic quest Saturday near her home in suburban Phoenix, setting an unofficial world record along the way.

 

“What a journey,” she tweeted.

The South Africa native, who lost her left leg below the knee to a rare cancer, gained worldwide attention and a huge social media following after beginning her record attempt on Jan. 17.

Brick Runners, an organization that supports athletes who raise money for charities, even designed a Jacky-inspired Lego-style character complete with one of her favorite T-shirts, which reads: “Strong Has Many Forms.”

Hunt-Broersma also raised more than $67,000 to help fellow amputee blade runners get the expensive prostheses they need. Health insurance typically doesn’t cover the cost, which can exceed $10,000.

Every day since mid-January, she covered the classic 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) marathon distance either on a loop course laid out near her home in Gilbert, Arizona, or on a treadmill indoors.

Her original goal was to run 100 marathons in 100 days so she’d beat a record of 95 set in 2020 by Alyssa Amos Clark, a nondisabled runner from Bennington, Vermont, who did it as a pandemic coping strategy. But last month, after nondisabled British runner Kate Jayden unofficially broke Clark’s record with 101 marathons in 101 days, Hunt-Broersma realized she’d need to run at least 102.

In an interview with The Associated Press, she said she hoped her quest would inspire people everywhere to push themselves regardless of their physical limitations.

Guinness World Records spokesperson Amanda Marcus said the Britain-based organization was aware of Hunt-Broersma’s attempt, and that it would take 12 to 15 weeks to review the evidence before the record can be confirmed.

Guinness lists the men’s record for consecutive daily marathons as 59, set in 2019 by Enzo Caporaso of Italy.
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Being homeless in Los Angeles and struggling with addiction is hard enough, but Rachel Niebur couldn’t imagine enduring it without her dog Petey.

Niebur credits her constant companion, an energetic black and white chihuahua mix, with helping her keep off drugs and giving her a reason to get up in the morning.

“She needs me. She gives me my focus. I have to feed her. I have to walk her. It’s a real relationship,” said Niebur, before following Petey to the small, fenced-in dog park on the grounds of the shelter in the Venice neighborhood where the inseparable pair have lived for about two years.

Traditional homeless shelters have long been off limits to pets, leaving animal owners who want to get off the streets with a difficult choice. But as homelessness surges across the U.S., those working toward a solution are increasingly recognizing the importance pets have for vulnerable populations and are looking for ways to keep owners and pets together.

When given the choice between getting shelter or giving up their pet, unhoused people will almost always choose to remain on the streets, said Tim Huxford, the associate director of the Venice facility now home to Niebur and Petey.

“So we always want to reduce the amount of barriers that we have for people in bringing them off the street,” he said. “We realize that pets are like family to people.”

The Venice shelter operated by the nonprofit People Assisting the Homeless, or PATH, was the first of its kind in Los Angeles County to allow residents to bring animal companions, Huxford said.

Thanks to a state grant, PATH has a budget for food, crates, toys and veterinary services under an initiative called the Pet Assistance and Support program. In 2019, the pilot program provided $5 million to nonprofits and local jurisdictions, and that amount was doubled the following year. Now pending legislation would make the grant program permanent, while expanding it across the state.

State Sen. Robert Hertzberg, who wrote the bill that would expand the program, estimates that about 10% of homeless Californians have pets. And the reason many shelters don’t accept animals is simply because they don’t have resources to care for them, said Hertzberg, a dog owner.

He called pets “our comfort” and cited research that found animals provide companionship and a sense of purpose to people who don’t have housing.

The Democrat from Los Angeles said it’s just “raging common sense” to give nonprofits and other caregivers the budgets they need to feed and house pets, especially considering how much California already allocates to address the statewide homelessness crisis.

“We’re spending a billion dollars over here to get people off the street; why can’t we spend a few dollars over there to put together veterinary services and dog food and crates? These are grants of between $100,000 and $200,000, so it’s not a ton of money in the grand scheme of things,” Hertzberg said.

The money would come from the state’s general fund, so it’s not cutting into any existing funding, Hertzberg said. The measure, SB513, unanimously passed the state Senate in January and now awaits consideration in the Assembly.

The California law is part of a larger national recognition of the issue.

In Arizona, for example, there are several organizations that take care of animals for residents who are struggling to get back on their feet.

A nonprofit no-kill shelter called Lost Our Home provides up to 90 days of pet care for homeless people while they search for a permanent place to live following a crisis like eviction, domestic violence or medical treatment.

Don Kitch manages one of several shelters operated in the Phoenix area by the nonprofit Family Promise, among the few that allow people to keep their pets at a separate area for the animals at the site. He said his shelter was currently housing four dogs, two cats and a Guinea pig.

“Unfortunately, there are very few facilities around here that will accept pets,” said Kitch.

He said many shelters do allow service animals, and less frequently emotional support animals.

Kitch said the Arizona Humane Society takes in pets for 90 days to allow their owners time to find stable housing, while the Sojourner Center allows domestic violence victims to keep their pets at the shelter.

Kitch said Family Promise used a grant from PetSmart to get started with its program to house pets. He said he’d welcome a law like California’s, because “anything to defray the cost would be ideal for a nonprofit homeless shelter like ours.”

The national nonprofit Best Friends Animal Society has joined forces with Catholic Charities USA to push for programs that keep homeless people and their pets together. The group Feeding Pets of the Homeless organizes veterinary clinics and donation drives for pet food and supplies.

The ASPCA and other animal care groups are urging the California bills’ passage.

“The ASPCA believes that financial circumstances alone are not reliable indicators of the capacity to love and care for a companion animal and that pets are incredible source of support and companionship in our lives, especially during times of stress and uncertainty,” said Susan Riggs, the ASPCA’s Senior Director of Housing Policy.

One of Petey’s canine companions at the Venice PATH facility is Champ, a pit bull mix that his owner Ro Mantooth calls “the mascot” of the shelter.

“He’s really my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do without him,” Mantooth, 29, said of Champ. “I’m lucky to have him. Not a lot of places are going to take animals, you know?”

In addition to Petey and Champ, there are eight other dogs and one cat at the Venice shelter. Huxford said another PATH facility has a parrot in a cage. Technically there are no rules about what animals can be admitted, he said, but that hasn’t been tested yet.

“If someone came in with an elephant, I guess we’d have to see,” he said.
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Black and Hispanic Americans remain far more cautious in their approach to COVID-19 than white Americans, recent polls show, reflecting diverging preferences on how to deal with the pandemic as federal, state and local restrictions fall by the wayside.

Despite majority favorability among U.S. adults overall for measures like mask mandates, public health experts said divided opinions among racial groups reflect not only the unequal impact of the pandemic on people of color but also apathy among some white Americans.

Black Americans (63%) and Hispanic Americans (68%) continue to be more likely than white Americans (45%) to say they are at least somewhat worried about themselves or a family member being infected with COVID-19, according to an April poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Throughout the pandemic, Black and Hispanic communities have experienced higher rates of illness and death from COVID, said Amelia Burke-Garcia, public health program area director at NORC. Those experiences have resulted in greater levels of stress, anxiety and awareness of the risks of catching COVID-19, she said, which means people of color are more likely to feel measures like mask mandates are needed.

“We’ve seen these trends endure throughout the entire pandemic,” Burke-Garcia said. “What we’re seeing now as mitigation measures are being rolled back is there’s still great concern amongst Black Americans and Hispanic Americans around the risk of getting sick.”

Seventy-one percent of Black Americans say they favor requiring face masks for people traveling on airplanes, trains and other types of public transportation. That’s more than the 52% of white Americans who support mask mandates for travelers; 29% of white Americans are opposed. Among Hispanic Americans, 59% are in favor and 20% are opposed. The poll was conducted before a ruling by a federal judge scuttled the government’s mask mandate for travelers.

In Indiana, Tuwanna Plant said she sees fewer and fewer people wearing masks in public, even though she said she has been diligent in always wearing one. Plant, who is Black, said she sees people treating the pandemic like it’s over, and she wants the mask mandate to continue.

Plant, a 46-year-old sous chef, said she had some concerns about getting the vaccine and took every other precaution, such as cleaning and masking, to avoid getting sick but recently was hospitalized for COVID-19.

The experience scared her — she has a preexisting lung condition, and knew family members who died from COVID-19. She said she plans to get vaccinated as soon as she can.

“I called my children while I was in the emergency room,” Plant said. “I didn’t know … if it was going to get better or worse, I didn’t know. So it was the experience for me altogether.”

Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist and editor-at-large at Kaiser Health News, said people’s lived experiences deeply shape how they perceive the pandemic. Anecdotes and personal experience can have a larger impact on behavior than numbers, she said, and people of color are more likely to have had negative experiences with health care prior to and during the pandemic.

While new medicines and vaccines have made it easier to treat COVID-19, Gounder said many people still face systemic barriers to accessing that medical care. Others risk losing their jobs or are unable to take time off if they do fall ill, she said, or cannot avoid things like public transit to reduce their exposures.

“When people argue that they don’t have to mask on the plane, that means something very different for someone who has access to all of these new innovations than it does for somebody who has no health insurance, who struggles to care for an elderly parent and their children, who’s maybe a single mom working in a job where she has no paid sick and family medical leave,” Gounder said. “It’s just a completely different calculation.”

In January, an AP-NORC poll showed Black and Hispanic Americans were more likely than white Americans to feel certain things would be essential for getting back to life without feeling at risk of infection. For example, 76% of Black Americans and 55% of Hispanic Americans said it was essential for getting back to normal that most people regularly wear face masks in public indoor places, compared with 38% of white Americans.

Last month, an AP-NORC poll showed Black and Hispanic Americans, 69% and 49%, were more likely than white Americans, 35%, to say they always or often wear a face mask around others.

Lower support for mask mandates and other precautions among white Americans may also reflect less sensitivity towards what occurs in communities of color. In a 2021 study of mask wearing during the early part of the pandemic, researchers found that mask wearing among white people increased when white people were dying at greater rates in the surrounding community. When Black and Hispanic people were dying, mask usage was lower.

Berkeley Franz, a co-author of the paper, said that in addition to residential segregation that separates white people from communities of color, past research has shown that white people can display ambivalence toward policies that they believe mostly help people of color.

“Anti-Blackness is really pervasive and has tremendous consequences, both in terms of the policies that get passed, and what doesn’t,” Franz said. “White people can still have really racist actions without seeing themselves that way and understanding the consequences. It’s largely below the surface and unintentional but has tremendous consequences in terms of equity.”

Communities of color also have a different perception of risk from the pandemic than their white counterparts, said Michael Niño, a sociology professor at the University of Arkansas who co-authored a paper on race, gender and masking in the pandemic.

“Masking is something that is relatively cheap, it’s effective, and it’s something that can be easily done,” he said. “It doesn’t require any sort of governmental response. These broader histories of racism and sexism in the United States are most certainly shaping some of the patterns we’re seeing.”

The AP-NORC poll of 1,085 adults was conducted April 14-18 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
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Billionaire finance guru Warren Buffett, who complained recently that he did not know where to put his money, said Saturday he has invested billions of dollars so far this year, even as he took jabs at Wall Street.

Buffett, 91, took questions for five hours at the much-anticipated annual shareholder meeting of his holding company Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Nebraska, its first in-person gathering since before the COVID-19 pandemic. He did so along with his right-hand man Charlie Munger, who is 98.

The event, dubbed a “Woodstock for Capitalists,” draws thousands of shareholders from around the world to hear the investment wisdom of Buffett, revered among investors as the “Oracle of Omaha.”

As markets vacillated since the start of the year, Berkshire Hathaway spotted bargains and bought shares worth more than $51 billion from January through March.

For example, it raised its investment in oil company Chevron from $4.5 billion in late 2021 to $26 billion in late March. Chevron is now among the top four of the holding’s investments, along with American Express, Apple and Bank of America. Berkshire Hathaway also acquired a 14% stake in Occidental Petroleum.

It bought an 11% stake in computer maker HP, as well, and increased its share of video game maker Activision — which is being acquired by Microsoft — to 9.5%.

Berkshire sold shares worth $10 billion over the same January to March period.

Bottom line, Berkshire’s war chest of cash on hand dropped from $147 billion to $106 billion.

But Buffett said investors need not worry because Berkshire “will always have a lot of cash” to weather hard times.

Joining him and Munger on the podium were vice president Greg Abel — at 59, he is Buffett’s designated successor — and company executive Ajit Jain.

Profits down

Buffett took some pot shots at Wall Street, saying, “They make a lot more money when people are gambling than when they are investing.”

He said the fact that his company acquired 14% of Occidental Petroleum in just two weeks shows that “overwhelmingly large companies in America, they became poker chips.”

Of cryptocurrencies, he said: “Whether it goes up or down in the next year or five or 10 years, I don’t know. But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is it doesn’t produce anything.”

The question of succession at Berkshire Hathaway is a big one because of the age of Buffett and Munger, but neither said anything about retiring.

Before the meeting, Berkshire said its net profit plunged by 53% in the first quarter due to a drop in the paper value of its investments.

Berkshire listed net profits of $5.5 billion, down sharply from the $11.7 billion of the year-earlier period.

Operating profits of companies owned by the conglomerate — ranging from insurance companies to energy providers and even frozen desserts — remained essentially unchanged, at $7.04 billion.

A drop in profits from insurance companies was compensated by profits from rail lines, energy firms, manufacturing, services and retail sales, said a statement from Berkshire Hathaway.

But the value of its investments, which can be volatile from one quarter to the next, plunged amid the year’s market weakness, leading to a paper loss of $1.58 billion.

Buffett regularly advises his shareholders to ignore quarterly fluctuations, whether positive or negative.

The value of Berkshire shares themselves has held up well— rising 7% since the beginning of the year, while the S&P 500 index, representing the 500 biggest Wall Street-traded firms, lost more than 13%. 
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