washington — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was released from the hospital on Monday, after spending two weeks there to treat complications from surgery for prostate cancer he kept secret from senior Biden administration leaders and staff for weeks.

Austin will work from home as he recovers, and his doctors said he “progressed well throughout his stay and his strength is rebounding.” They said in a statement the cancer was treated early and his prognosis is “excellent.”

In a statement, Austin expressed thanks to the medical staff and said that “as I continue to recuperate and perform my duties from home, I’m eager to fully recover and return as quickly as possible to the Pentagon.”

Austin, 70, was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on December 22 and underwent surgery to treat the cancer, which was detected earlier in the month during a routine screening. He developed an infection a week later and was hospitalized Jan. 1 and admitted to intensive care.

Dr. John Maddox, the trauma medical director, and Dr. Gregory Chesnut, the director of the Center for Prostate Disease Research at Walter Reed, said that during Austin’s hospitalization he underwent medical tests and was treated for lingering leg pain. They said he has physical therapy to do but there are no plans for further cancer treatment other than regular checks.

President Joe Biden and senior administration officials were not told about Austin’s hospitalization until January 4, and Austin kept the cancer diagnosis secret until January 9. Biden has said Austin’s failure to tell him about the hospitalization was a lapse in judgment, but the Democratic president insists he still has confidence in his Pentagon chief.

During Austin’s time at Walter Reed, the U.S. launched a series of military strikes late last week on the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, targeting dozens of locations linked to their campaign of assaults on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Working from his hospital bed, Austin juggled calls with senior military leaders, including General Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, and White House meetings to review, order and ultimately watch the strikes unfold over secure video.

The lack of transparency about Austin’s hospitalization, however, has triggered administration and Defense Department reviews on the procedures for notifying the White House and others if a Cabinet member must transfer decision-making authorities to a deputy, as Austin did during his initial surgery and a portion of his latest hospital stay. And the White House chief of staff ordered Cabinet members to notify his office if they ever can’t perform their duties.

Austin’s secrecy also drew criticism from Congress members on both sides of the political aisle, and Representative Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he has opened a formal inquiry into the matter. Others openly called for Austin to resign, but the White House has said the Pentagon chief’s job is safe.

It is still unclear when Austin will return to his office in the Pentagon or how his cancer treatment will affect his job, travel and other public engagements going forward. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks has been taking on some of his day-to-day duties as he recovers.
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NEW YORK — Sixty years ago, the U.S. surgeon general released a report that settled a longstanding public debate about the dangers of cigarettes and led to huge changes in smoking in America.  

Today, some public health experts say a similar report could help clear the air about vaping.  

Many U.S. adults believe nicotine vaping is as harmful as — or more dangerous than — cigarette smoking. That’s wrong. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and most scientists agree that, based on available evidence, electronic cigarettes are far less dangerous than traditional cigarettes.  

But that doesn’t mean e-cigarettes are harmless either. And public health experts disagree about exactly how harmful, or helpful, the devices are. Clarifying information is urgently needed, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University.  

“There have been so many confusing messages about vaping,” Gostin said. “A surgeon general’s report could clear that all up.”  

One major obstacle: E-cigarettes haven’t been around long enough for scientists to see if vapers develop problems like lung cancer and heart disease.  

“There’s a remarkable lack of evidence,” said Dr. Kelly Henning, who leads the public health program at Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Smoking and Vaping

Cigarette smoking has long been described as the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the annual toll at 480,000 lives. That count should start to fall around 2030, according to a study published last year by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, thanks in part to a decline in smoking rates that began in the 1960s.  

Back then, ashtrays were everywhere and more than 42% of U.S. adults smoked.  

On Jan. 11, 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry released an authoritative report that said smoking causes illness and death — and the government should do something about it. The report is considered a watershed moment: In the decades that followed, warning labels were put on cigarette packs, cigarette commercials were banned, governments raised tobacco taxes and new restrictions were placed on where people could light up.  

By 2022, the adult smoking rate was 11%.  

Some experts believe e-cigarettes deserve some of the credit. The devices were billed as a way to help smokers quit, and the FDA has authorized a handful of e-cigarettes as less-harmful alternatives for adult smokers.  

Vaping’s popularity exploded in the 2010s, among both adults but and teens. In 2014, e-cigarettes surpassed combustible cigarettes as the tobacco product that youth used the most. By 2019, 28% of high schoolers were vaping.

U.S. health officials sounded alarms, fearing that kids hooked on nicotine would rediscover cigarettes. That hasn’t happened. Last year, the high school smoking rate was less than 2% — far lower than the 35% rate seen about 25 years ago.

“That’s a great public health triumph. It’s an almost unbelievable one,” said Kenneth Warner, who studies tobacco-control policies at the University of Michigan.

“If it weren’t for e-cigarettes, I think we would be hearing the public health community shouting at the top of their lungs about the success of getting kids not to smoke,” he said.

Vaping’s Benefits and Harms

Cigarettes have been called the deadliest consumer product ever invented. Their smoke contains thousands of chemicals, at least 69 of which can cause cancer. 

The vapor from e-cigarettes has been estimated to contain far fewer chemicals, and fewer carcinogens. Some toxic substances are present in both, but show up in much lower concentrations in e-cigarette vapor than in cigarette smoke.

Studies have shown that smokers who completely switch to vaping have better lung function and see other health improvements.

“I would much rather see someone vaping than smoking a Marlboro. There is no question in my mind that vaping is safer,” said Donald Shopland, who was a clerk for the committee that generated the 1964 report and is co-author of a forthcoming book on it.

But what about the dangers to people who have never smoked?

There have been 100 to 200 studies looking at vaping, and they are a mixed bag, said Dr. Neal Benowitz, of the University of California, San Francisco, a leading academic voice on nicotine and tobacco addiction. The studies used varying techniques, and many were limited in their ability to separate the effects of vaping from former cigarettes smoking, he said.

“If you look at the research, it’s all over the map,” Warner said.

Studies have detected bronchitis symptoms and aggravation of asthma in young people who vape. Research also indicates vaping also can affect the cells that line the blood vessels and heart, leading to looks for a link to heart disease. Perhaps the most cited concern is nicotine, the stimulant that makes cigarettes and vapes addictive.

Animal studies suggest nicotine exposure in adolescents can affect development of the area of the brain responsible for attention, learning and impulse control. Some research in people suggests a link between vaping and ADHD symptoms, depression and feelings of stress. But experts say that the research is very limited and more work needs to be done.

Meanwhile, there’s not even a clear scientific consensus that vaping is an effective way to quit smoking, with different studies coming up with different conclusions.

Clearing the Air

Last month, the World Health Organization raised alarms about the rapidly growing global markets for electronic cigarettes, noting they come in thousands of flavors that attract young people.

In 2016, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said efforts were needed to prevent and reduce e-cigarette use by children and young adults, saying nicotine in any form is unsafe for kids.

About four months before the report’s release, the FDA began taking steps to regulate e-cigarettes, believing they would benefit smokers.

The agency has authorized several e-cigarettes, but it has refused more than 1 million product marketing applications. Critics say the FDA has been unfair and inconsistent in regulation of products.

Meanwhile, the number of different e-cigarette devices sold in the U.S. has boomed, due largely to disposables imported from China that come in fruit and candy flavors. But vaping by youths has recently been falling: Last year, 10% of high school students surveyed said they had used e-cigarettes in the previous month, down from 14% the year before.

Why the decline? “It’s hard to say what’s working,” said Steven Kelder, a University of Texas researcher.

He mentioned a 2019 outbreak of hospitalizations and deaths among people who were vaping products with THC, the chemical that gives marijuana its high.

The illnesses were traced to a thickening agent used in black market vape cartridges, a substance not used in commercial nicotine e-cigarettes. But it may be a reason many Americans think of e-cigarettes as unsafe, Kelder said.

Sherri Mayfield, a 47-year-old postal worker, remembers the 2019 outbreak and reports of rapid illnesses and deaths in youths. Vaping “absolutely” needs to be studied more, Mayfield said last week while on a cigarette break in New York with some co-workers.

“Cigarettes aren’t safe” but at least it can take them decades to destroy your health, she said.

The surgeon general’s office said in a statement that the 1964 report “catalyzed a 60-year movement to address the harmful effects of smoking” and suggested similar action was needed to address youth vaping.

Murthy’s website, however, currently lists neither vaping nor smoking as a priority issue.
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PORTLAND, Ore. — A dangerous Arctic blast will continue sweeping across the U.S. on Monday and linger through at least midweek, prolonging a bitter cold that set record-low temperatures in parts of the country and threatens to further disrupt daily life, including an NFL playoff game and the first-in-the-nation presidential nominating contest in Iowa.

The National Weather Service said wind chills are expected to push temperatures 34 degrees below zero Celsius from the Northern Rockies to northern Kansas and into Iowa, testing the hardiness of caucus-goers willing to brave the deep chill on Monday.

“You can’t sit home,” former President Donald Trump told supporters Sunday. “If you’re sick as a dog, you say, ‘Darling, I gotta make it.’ Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it.”

Arctic storms left at least four dead and knocked out electricity to tens of thousands in the Northwest, brought snow to the South and walloped the Northeast with blizzard conditions forcing the postponement of the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Buffalo Bills NFL playoff game hosted in bone-chilling Buffalo, New York.

The game was scheduled to be held Monday after being canceled Sunday.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo native, posted a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, showing near-whiteout conditions.

“Conditions right now in Orchard Park, where the game would have started moments ago,” she wrote early Sunday afternoon. “No visibility and dangerously high winds.”

The Bills invited diehard fans to help dig out snow-filled Highmark Stadium, offering $20 an hour for their labor.

“We made progress shoveling, but not much at all,” said Logan Eschrich, a storm chaser who made his way to Buffalo and pitched in.

It remains to be seen if the show will go on Monday afternoon. The weather service expects heavy lake-effect snow to push into upstate New York from Lake Erie, adding to the 30.4 to 60.9 centimeters of snow already blanketing the region. Snow fell at a rate of 5 centimeters per hour.

Sub-zero wind chills will grip much of the country, plunging to –45 degrees Celsius in Montana and the Dakotas.

“It takes a matter of minutes for frostbite to set in,” the South Dakota Department of Public Safety said in a statement Sunday urging people to stay indoors.

Other parts of the country could see temperatures drop 25 to 40 degrees below normal, from the Rockies to the Ohio Valley.

As temperatures in Texas plunged, the state’s power grid operator appealed to residents to voluntarily conserve electricity Monday morning due to the cold weather causing “record breaking demand” for energy.

A deadly freeze in 2021 left millions of Texans without power but state officials this week expressed confidence about the grid’s reliability as the cold front approached.

Freezing rain is expected to pelt parts of the Southern Plains and Southern Appalachians.

Even places like Florida won’t be spared from turbulent weather, with forecasts predicting showers and thunderstorms from Monday into Tuesday.

In Oregon, more than 120,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, most of them in the Portland metro area, a day after high winds and a mix of snow and ice brought down trees and power lines.

Some 100 trees toppled over the weekend in a community just south of Portland, including one that fell on a house and killed a man. Two other people died of suspected hypothermia and a fourth died in a fire that spread from an open-flame stove after a tree fell onto an RV.

“Given the extent of the damage and the high level of outage events, restoration efforts will continue into the week and customers are encouraged to plan accordingly,” Portland General Electric said in a statement. The utility said it was watching a second weather pattern that could bring high winds and freezing rain on Tuesday.

Widespread power outages affecting tens of thousands were also reported Sunday in Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In Nebraska, the Omaha Public Power District asked customers to conserve electricity to prevent outages.

Airports across the country were impacted. More than half of flights into and out of Buffalo Niagara International Airport were canceled. Scores of flights also were canceled or delayed at Chicago, Denver and Seattle-Tacoma airports.

 
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WASHINGTON — U.S. strategic interests in Central Asia boil down to stability and sovereignty, according to Washington’s top diplomat in Kazakhstan, an oil-rich republic sharing long borders with Russia and China. 

With an eye on the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine, a fellow former Soviet republic, the countries in the region have adopted a hedging strategy, maintaining deep links to Moscow while also bolstering relations with the West.

U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan Daniel Rosenblum told the Caspian Policy Center gathering on Jan. 4, that the main goal of U.S. policy for Central Asia is to ensure that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan “stand on their own, be fully sovereign and independent countries that can make their own choices about who to associate with, who to trade with, who to have relations with — without undue external pressure.” 

Rosenblum pointed to the so-called C5+1 group, including the United States and the five republics, underlining its “value in acting as a group, integrating with one another, cooperating — that makes each of them stronger individually.” 

A second focus for Washington is border security and counterterrorism, a third is boosting trade and investment, and a fourth is promoting human rights and the rule of law, he said.

Economic and political aspects

Kazakhstan is America’s top business partner in Central Asia, with $3 billion in bilateral trade in 2022 and an estimated 15% increase last year, plus $5 billion direct investment in 2023.

Despite holding regular talks on human rights, Rosenblum said Washington and Astana “do not see eye-to-eye” on the lack of meaningful political competition and the continuous arrests of critical voices.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch sites enduring concerns.

“Two years after large-scale anti-government protests rocked Kazakhstan in January 2022, few officials have been held accountable for their part in [the] disproportionate use of force against protesters, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, and torture and ill-treatment of detainees,” HRW stated in its annual report issued this week.

“When I arrived in November 2022, there were seven names on the list [of political prisoners], which had been going down steadily. And now there are 23, which is not a good trend,” Rosenblum said.

Akbota Karibayeva, a Ph.D. candidate at the George Washington University, agreed with Rosenblum, stressing that President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s transformation package branded as the “New Kazakhstan” has not yet had major effects.

“In the ‘New Kazakhstan,’ we continue to see a familiar cycle of detaining activists for expressing their opinions and repeatedly denying registration to opposition movements. The space for dissenting voices has barely expanded, if at all,” Karibayeva told VOA. 

Asserting that Astana is complying with sanctions against Russia, Rosenblum pointed to the U.S., EU and U.K. comprised list of 45 categories of goods.

“Those 45, our experts say, are less than 2% of Kazakhstan’s exports to Russia. Even if they weren’t controlling it at all, it would not constitute more than 2%,” he said.

Rosenblum defended Kazakhstan, which has a 7,644-kilometer border with Russia.

“Since the sanctions were first imposed back in 2022, Kazakhstan’s record, I’d argue, is a good one, both in terms of their ability to prevent sanctions evasion and also making sure that they’re complying with all the sanctions when it comes to their domestic companies, relationships with Russian companies, Russian banks, and so on,” he said.

Kazakhstan last month removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist groups. 

“They gave us advance notice that they were doing this, which is in the spirit of the partnership of no surprises,” Rosenblum said. “Kazakhstan has made clear that it will not recognize the Taliban government, and that remains its position until there’s an international consensus and certain benchmarks are made. And this doesn’t change that. They’ve also made clear that they prioritize developing some level of economic relations with Afghanistan, even with the Taliban regime in charge there.”

Kazakhstan vs. Uzbekistan

Before his current assignment, Rosenblum served as ambassador to Uzbekistan, whose leadership has also promised reforms. 

“When I arrived in Tashkent [in 2019], it was already a couple of years into the reform process. … Things were slowing down,” he said.

In Rosenblum’s view, Uzbekistan’s initial steps toward change were dramatic, despite the backslidings many observe now, specifically the systemic challenges, testing President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s commitment and his regime’s willingness to transition from an ingrained authoritarian government to a democratic one. 

Kazakhstan, he said, has cycled through reform phases producing limited advances, “as opposed to what was really like a sea change, kind of a watershed in Uzbekistan, where suddenly the closed system was opened up.” 

Since 2022, following the January civil unrest that left at least 227 dead, Kazakhstan changed its constitution, held presidential and parliamentary elections that Tokayev coined as “democratic” despite the lack of opposition. He has vowed to leave office in 2029, at the end of his seven-year presidential term. 

Tokayev pledged to decentralize power and strengthen local governance, moves that Rosenblum said are still unfolding.

“The jury is still out. We have to give some time to see,” he said.

China, Russia, Iran 

One issue Washington and Astana disagree on is China’s treatment of Uyghurs, atrocities that the U.S. considers a genocide and crimes against humanity. Yet Rosenblum sees some daylight there.

“There are some Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs who are able to cross the border. They don’t necessarily receive refugee status, but they’ve essentially taken refuge in Kazakhstan, which has lived up to its international obligations of nonrefoulement,” he said, referring to the principle that asylum-seekers should not be returned to countries where they face serious threat to life or freedom. 

“They do not send people back to China,” he said. 

Kazakhstan’s trade with China recently surpassed $30 billion, which is 10 times more than its trade with the United States, which Rosenblum said he does not find surprising “since they are close neighbors.”

“Kazakhs are sort of bullish on economic relations with China. They are not as exposed or as vulnerable, arguably, as other Central Asian countries because they haven’t taken on nearly as much Chinese debt,” he said.

Kazakhstan will continue to diversify its political and economic partnerships, Rosenblum predicted, despite China’s growing influence and the country’s continuing dependence on Russia for energy.

Russian nationalists’ frequent calls to annex Kazakhstan are viewed alarmingly in Astana, Rosenblum said, but he added, “I don’t feel like there’s a sense of any imminent danger or threat to the northern border of Kazakhstan.”

As part of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union, Kazakhstan recently signed a free trade deal with Iran. Rosenblum said Astana consults with Washington on this issue as well. 

“The Kazakh government by now has learned what’s sanctionable and what isn’t,” he said.

Kazakhstan, a regional leader?

While Rosenblum praised Kazakhstan as a “consistent pusher” for regional unity and connectivity, Karibayeva argued that to become a real catalyst for change in Central Asia, her country must lead by example.

“Symbolic gestures and high-level engagements among Central Asian countries and with the United States are important signals of commitment. But it is now essential to progress beyond discussions and focus on implementation at every level of cooperation,” she told VOA.

 
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New York — Joyce Randolph, a veteran stage and television actress whose role as the savvy Trixie Norton on “The Honeymooners” provided the perfect foil to her dimwitted TV husband, has died. She was 99.

Randolph died of natural causes Saturday night at her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, her son Randolph Charles told The Associated Press Sunday.

She was the last surviving main character of the beloved comedy from television’s golden age of the 1950s.

“The Honeymooners” was an affectionate look at Brooklyn tenement life, based in part on star Jackie Gleason’s childhood. Gleason played the blustering bus driver Ralph Kramden. Audrey Meadows was his wisecracking, strong-willed wife Alice, and Art Carney the cheerful sewer worker Ed Norton. Alice and Trixie often found themselves commiserating over their husbands’ various follies and mishaps, whether unknowingly marketing dogfood as a popular snack or trying in vain to resist a rent hike, or freezing in the winter as their heat is shut off.

Randolph would later cite a handful of favorite episodes, including one in which Ed is sleepwalking.

“And Carney calls out, ‘Thelma?!’ He never knew his wife’s real name,” she later told the Television Academy Foundation.

Originating in 1950 as a recurring skit on Gleason’s variety show, “Cavalcade of Stars,” “The Honeymooners” still ranks among the all-time favorites of television comedy. The show grew in popularity after Gleason switched networks with “The Jackie Gleason Show.” Later, for one season in 1955-56, it became a full-fledged series.

Those 39 episodes became a staple of syndicated programming aired all over the country and beyond.

In an interview with The New York Times in January 2007, Randolph said she received no compensation in residuals for those 39 episodes. She said she finally began getting royalties with the discovery of “lost” episodes from the variety hours.

After five years as a member of Gleason’s on-the-air repertory company, Randolph virtually retired, opting to focus full-time on marriage and motherhood.

“I didn’t miss a thing by not working all the time,” she said. “I didn’t want a nanny raising (my) wonderful son.”

But decades after leaving the show, Randolph still had many admirers and received dozens of letters a week. She was a regular into her 80s at the downstairs bar at Sardi’s, where she liked to sip her favorite White Cadillac concoction — Dewar’s and milk — and chat with patrons who recognized her from a portrait of the sitcom’s four characters over the bar.

Randolph said the show’s impact on television viewers didn’t dawn on her until the early 1980s.

“One year while (my son) was in college at Yale, he came home and said, ‘Did you know that guys and girls come up to me and ask, ‘Is your mom really Trixie?'” she told The San Antonio Express in 2000. “I guess he hadn’t paid much attention before then.”

Earlier, she had lamented that playing Trixie limited her career.

“For years after that role, directors would say: ‘No, we can’t use her. She’s too well-known as Trixie,'” Randolph told the Orlando Sentinel in 1993.

Gleason died in 1987 at age 71, followed by Meadows in 1996 and Carney in 2003. Gleason had revived “The Honeymooners” in the 1960s, with Jane Kean as Trixie.

Randolph was born Joyce Sirola in Detroit in 1924, and was around 19 when she joined a road company of “Stage Door.” From there she went to New York and performed in a number of Broadway shows.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she was seen often on TV, appearing with such stars as Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Danny Thomas and Fred Allen.

Randolph met Gleason for the first time when she did a Clorets commercial on “Cavalcade of Stars,” and The Great One took a liking to her; she didn’t even have an agent at the time.

Randolph spent her retirement going to Broadway openings and fundraisers, being active with the U.S.O. and visiting other favorite Manhattan haunts, among them Angus, Chez Josephine and the Lambs Club.

Her husband, Richard Lincoln, a wealthy marketing executive who died in 1997, served as president at the Lambs, a theatrical club, and she reigned as “first lady.” They had one son, Charles.
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