A pastor in Connecticut said the lack of clergy at a local event hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris is “an insult to the Black community.”
The Rev. Boise Kimber, speaking on behalf of the Greater New Haven Clergy Association at a Monday press conference, said it was insulting that he and other faith leaders were not invited to Harris’ event at the Boys and Girls Club of New Haven, the New Haven Register reported.
“New Haven is predominantly Black and Hispanic,” said Kimber. “Not to have our leadership present at this visit was certainly an insult to the Black community that worked so diligently across this country to elect the first female vice president.”
KAMALA HARRIS LAUGHS AFTER REPORTER ASKS IF SHE PLANS TO VISIT BORDER: ‘NOT TODAY!’
“We will not continue to be insulted by individuals that organize events and leave out the Black community,” Kimber continued.
Kimber also said the vice president and her boss should always meet with faith leaders and people of faith in the cities they visit, including New Haven.
“The bottom line is, [neither] President Biden nor Vice President Harris should ever go into a city without talking to faith-based people,” said Kimber. “You can’t come into this city, or any other city, and not pay some attention to individuals who helped you to get where you are today.”
KAMALA HARRIS’ LAUGHING ANSWER TO BORDER QUESTION SPARKS BACKLASH
“Of course we are committed to robust engagement when it comes to groups and folks in different cities,” a White House official told Fox News. “Just to be clear, this was a small roundtable that did not have any guests and there was not an audience there.”
The clergyman said he was unsure of the contents of the guest list, but questioned who was invited to the veep’s event by the office of Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.
DeLauro’s office said the congresswoman was not involved with inviting guests and that the Connecticut Democrat wasn’t at the event.
Harris has drawn scrutiny from both sides of the aisle in her tenure as vice president.
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She was lambasted online for laughing at a reporter’s question last week on whether or not she’d travel to see the growing crisis at the southern border.
“Kamala Harris laughs at a reporter who asked her if she has plans to visit the border. Don’t believe this administration when they say they are serious about solving this crisis,” Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., wrote on Twitter last week.
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil—Brazil is in the throes of a battle against the new Covid-19 variant from the Amazon that threatens to send shock waves across the globe.
Home to less than 3% of the world’s population, Brazil currently accounts for almost a third of the daily global deaths from Covid-19, driven by the new variant. More than 300,000 have died, and daily deaths now top 3,000, a toll suffered only by the far more populous U.S.
“We’re in the trenches here, fighting a war,” said Andréia Cruz, a 42-year-old emergency-ward nurse in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. In the past three weeks alone, the surrounding state of Rio Grande do Sul has seen nearly 5,000 people die from Covid-19, more than in the final three months of last year.
The spread of the virus in Brazil threatens to turn this country of 213 million into a global public-health hazard. The so-called P.1 strain, present in more than 20 countries and identified in New York last week, is up to 2.2 times more contagious and as much as 61% more able to reinfect people than previous versions of the coronavirus, according to a recent study.
The P.1 is now responsible for the majority of new infections in Brazil, with many doctors here saying they are seeing more young and otherwise healthy patients falling ill. About 30% of people dying from Covid-19 are now under 60, compared with an average of about 26% during Brazil’s previous peak between June and August, according to official figures analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.
FLUSHING, N.Y.—Before sunset Monday, a few dozen Asian-Americans outfitted in neon vests and jackets combed the streets of this New York City neighborhood.
They weren’t police officers. They were students, retail workers and retirees equipped with little more than a cellphone in the event they came across someone being harassed or attacked. Their mission: to stop would-be attackers from hurting other Asians, whether it be by calling the police for help or stepping in themselves.
“It’s made me feel sick,” said volunteer Wan Chen, 37, of the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes around the country. “So this is the time we need to speak up and try our best to help. If anyone tries to do anything, maybe they’ll think twice.”
Volunteer groups such as this one have sprung up around the U.S., patrolling the streets of Asian communities from New York City to Oakland, Calif. They have multiple goals: to escort individuals worried about their safety where they need to go, check in on community members, and if needed, intervene if they see someone being harassed.
Cities around the country have seen upticks in hate crimes against Asians since the start of the pandemic. One analysis conducted by researchers at California State University, San Bernardino, found hate crimes targeting Asians in 16 of the largest U.S. cities increased 149% between 2019 and 2020. Over the same period, overall reports of hate crimes declined by 7%, the researchers found.
Enlarge / Now you can do all of these things but faster.
Rockstar Games
A couple of weeks ago, we reported that a Grand Theft Auto Online player sick of the game’s notoriously long load times took matters into his own hands, broke out the disassembler, and crafted his own fix. The long load times were due to the inefficient way that the GTA Online developers chose to parse and then sort the data in a large multi-megabyte JSON file.
The fix—created by a coder known as t0st—resulted in a 70-ish percent decrease in loading times, going by t0st’s own informal benchmarks. For players suffering from the JSON parsing issue, this means that they only have to wait perhaps one or two minutes to enter a GTA Online game, rather than the six-plus minutes they were previously stuck watching the loading screen.
In the two weeks since t0st’s fix was made public, GTA Online developer Rockstar got in contact with t0st and acknowledged that t0st had indeed fixed a legitimate issue with the game and that he’d be receiving a $10,000 payment under Rockstar’s bug bounty program.
According to PC Gamer, Rockstar communicated the following in a statement:
After a thorough investigation, we can confirm that player t0st did, in fact, reveal an aspect of the game code related to load times for the PC version of GTA Online that could be improved. As a result of these investigations, we have made some changes that will be implemented in a forthcoming title update.
There is no timeframe on when that “forthcoming title update” will be released, but in his original write-up of his fix, t0st explained that the core JSON parsing and storing problem “shouldn’t take more than a day for a single dev to solve.”
ROME—The Vatican on Monday forbade blessings of same-sex relationships, contradicting calls for the practice by progressive bishops in Germany and elsewhere, and setting a limit to the conciliatory approach to gay people that has marked Pope Francis’ pontificate.
The Vatican’s doctrinal office, in a document personally approved by
Pope Francis,
said it wasn’t permissible for clergy to pronounce blessings on any sexual relationship outside of marriage between a man and a woman.
The document reaffirms Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality when several liberal bishops, including the head of the German Catholic bishops’ conference, have called for blessing same-sex couples in committed relationships. Priests in Germany have widely blessed such couples for years, as have clergy in some other parts of Northern Europe.
Such blessings are wrong, the Vatican said on Monday, because they would seem “to approve and encourage a choice and a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to the revealed plans of God,” adding that God “does not and cannot bless sin.”
German bishops have tangled with the Vatican on other matters, including the question of giving Communion to Lutherans, and are unlikely to back down in their stance on blessing gay unions. German bishops and lay Catholics are currently involved in a national synod that is considering changes to aspects of church life, including the possibility of women clergy and teaching on sexuality.
A move by German bishops to approve blessings of same-sex unions would exacerbate tensions with more conservative parts of the church, including in Africa and the U.S. Conservative bishops in the U.S. have been critical of what they see as an excessively progressive drift away from traditional teachings, with the archbishop of Denver warning in 2019 that the German bishops are moving toward a schism.
Pope Francis has taken a more liberal approach than his predecessors to some questions of marriage and sexuality, including divorce and homosexuality. In one of the most famous statements of his pontificate, he responded to a question about gay clergy in 2013: “Who am I to judge?” During his 2015 visit to the U.S., he met privately with a gay couple in Washington, D.C.
In comments published last year, the pope expressed support for same-sex civil unions, saying that gay couples “have the right to be legally covered,” a stance he had held as archbishop of Buenos Aires.
But the pope has also written that “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”
Monday’s Vatican document acknowledged “the presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated,” but said such elements “cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s plan.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, an official handbook of teaching, states that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,” the inclination to perform them is “objectively disordered” and “under no circumstances can they be approved.” But the catechism also states that gay people “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
Monday’s reaffirmation of traditional teaching is likely to disappoint progressive Catholics hoping for further change and cheer conservatives, as did the pope’s decision last February not to make it easier to ordain married men to the priesthood.
“It is not surprising by still disappointing,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBT Catholics. “This decision though is an impotent one because it will not stop the Catholic people in the pews, nor many Catholic leaders, who are eager for such blessings to happen.”
The question of homosexuality has roiled other Christian denominations, fomenting division with the world-wide Anglican Communion between liberal churches in Europe and North America and more conservative churches in Africa. Last year, the United Methodist Church agreed in principle to split because of disagreements over same-sex marriage and gay clergy, though a meeting to approve the move has been delayed because of the pandemic.
Write to Francis X. Rocca at francis.rocca@wsj.com
MacKenzie Scott, the philanthropist formerly married to
Jeff Bezos,
has married again following her 2019 divorce from the
Amazon.com Inc.
founder, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Ms. Scott, one of the world’s wealthiest women, has married Dan Jewett, a science teacher at a Seattle private school, according to the person.
Ms. Scott has devoted much of her time recently to philanthropic efforts benefiting women-led charities, food banks and Black colleges, among other institutions. Since her divorce, Ms. Scott has given away more than $4 billion of her fortune, according to a post she wrote on Medium in December.
In a post dated Saturday on Ms. Scott’s page on the Giving Pledge website, for billionaires who have promised to donate most of their fortune to philanthropic efforts, Mr. Jewett signed on to her commitment.
“It is strange to be writing a letter indicating I plan to give away the majority of my wealth during my lifetime, as I have never sought to gather the kind of wealth required to feel like saying such a thing would have particular meaning,” Mr. Jewett’s post says.
“Dan is such a great guy, and I am happy and excited for the both of them,” said Mr. Bezos in a statement provided by an Amazon spokesman.
Ms. Scott and Mr. Jewett couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Sunday.
Ms. Scott and Mr. Bezos, both Princeton University graduates, met while working at a hedge fund in New York. She helped him start Amazon in 1994, and is the author of two novels. Her Amazon author page now says that she “lives in Seattle with her four children and her husband, Dan.”
At the time of their 2019 divorce, after 25 years of marriage, Mr. Bezos was the wealthiest person in the world, with his stake of more than 16% of Amazon. Ms. Scott received 4% of Amazon’s shares as part of their divorce settlement, though Mr. Bezos kept voting rights for those shares.
Ms. Scott joined the Giving Pledge in May 2019, shortly after terms of her divorce with Mr. Bezos were finalized. The pledge was started by Bill and
Melinda Gates
and
Warren Buffett
in 2010. Mr. Bezos hasn’t joined the pledge.
Amazon’s business has been a major beneficiary of the pandemic, driving up its stock price. Mr. Bezos, after jostling for a time with
Elon Musk
for the title, again ranks as the world’s richest person, with a net worth of around $177 billion, according to wealth rankings by Forbes and Bloomberg. Ms. Scott ranks the 22nd richest person, at around $53 billion.
Mr. Jewett is a teacher at Lakeside School, according to the school’s website.
“In a stroke of happy coincidence, I am married to one of the most generous and kind people I know—and joining her in a commitment to pass on an enormous financial wealth to serve others,” Mr. Jewett said in his Giving Pledge letter.
The head of Jeep’s owner said he is open to dropping the Cherokee name from vehicles after recent criticism from the Native American tribe’s leader.
Carlos Tavares,
chief executive officer of the recently formed
Stellantis
STLA -2.71%
NV, said the company was engaged in dialogue with the Cherokee Nation over its use of the name. Jeep has two models, the Cherokee compact sport-utility vehicle and larger Grand Cherokee, that it sells in the U.S. and beyond.
Asked in an interview if he would be willing to change the Jeep Cherokee’s name if pushed to do so, Mr. Tavares said, “We are ready to go to any point, up to the point where we decide with the appropriate people and with no intermediaries.”
“At this stage, I don’t know if there is a real problem. But if there is one, well, of course we will solve it,” Mr. Tavares said, adding that he wasn’t personally involved in the talks.
Debate over the Cherokee name is among the issues facing Mr. Tavares, who took control of Stellantis when it was formed earlier this year from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Peugeot-maker PSA. In the interview Wednesday, Mr. Tavares also discussed whether to cut down on the company’s 14 brands, making Fiat plants more competitive and his plan to stick with China.
Jeep has two models, the Cherokee compact SUV and larger Grand Cherokee, that it sells in the U.S. and beyond.
Photo:
FCA/TNS/Abaca Press/Reuters
The Cherokee Nation is the largest Native American tribe in the U.S., with some 370,000 members, and Jeep has sold millions of vehicles named after it. The auto brand extended its use of the Cherokee name to a compact SUV, a smaller version of the Grand Cherokee, in 2013.
The leader of the Cherokee Nation recently said he would like to see Jeep stop using his tribe’s name on its SUVs.
Chuck Hoskin Jr.,
principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, said that he believed Jeep had good intentions but that “it does not honor us by having our name plastered on the side of a car,” according to a statement first released to Car and Driver last week.
“The Cherokee Nation has an open dialogue with Stellantis leadership, and look forward to ongoing discussions,” a spokesman for the tribe said Wednesday. “We appreciate Stellantis’ reaching out and thoughtful approach on this.”
“
‘It does not honor us by having our name plastered on the side of a car.’ ”
— Chuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation
Mr. Tavares’s remarks come in the wake of a broad reckoning over racial and social injustice in the U.S. that was sparked by the police killing of
George Floyd,
an unarmed Black man, in Minneapolis over Memorial Day weekend last year. In December, the Cleveland Indians decided to drop the baseball team’s longtime nickname after fans and Native American groups criticized it as racist. The Washington Football Team of the NFL has dropped a name that had been seen as a racial slur.
The Jeep Cherokee and Grand Cherokee SUVs are among the brand’s bestsellers in the U.S., accounting for 43% of Jeep’s sales in its largest market, according to company figures. Stellantis is rolling out a long-awaited redesign of the Grand Cherokee later this year.
Mr. Tavares said the auto industry’s practice of naming cars after Native American tribes was a sign of respect.
“I don’t see anything that would be negative here. I think it’s just a matter of expressing our creative passion, our artistic capabilities,” Mr. Tavares said.
The Jeep brand sits alongside profit-drivers like Ram in the U.S. and Peugeot in Europe. But the company’s sprawling portfolio of 14 brands also includes some that will need to prove their worth, Mr. Tavares said.
Mr. Tavares said he has asked each of his brand chiefs to work on a 10-year plan to develop more long-term visibility on product planning.
“I’m saying, ‘Look guys, I’m going to give you a chance. You need to convince me—you, the brand CEO—that you have a vision,’” Mr. Tavares said.
After several turnaround efforts, Fiat Chrysler’s Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands have failed to mount meaningful comebacks in recent years. The Fiat brand struggles with aging models and weak sales, which has caused an overcapacity problem in the company’s Italian factories.
Even the storied Chrysler brand has waned in recent years, now selling only three models compared with the six it carried a decade ago. The brand’s U.S. sales have also slid to one-third their volume in 2015, according to company figures.
On the PSA side, the DS brand—which focuses on high-end sedans and SUVs—grew market share last year but continues to lag far behind some of its German competitors.
“After we give them a chance to fail, we need to be also fair,” Mr. Tavares said. “If the rest of the company is doing the right things and there is one part of the company that is pulling everybody down, we’ll have to take that into consideration.”
The Portuguese executive built his reputation in the automotive industry as a turnaround expert. Peugeot was bleeding money when it hired Mr. Tavares in 2013. Since then the French car maker has gone from losing 5 billion euros, equivalent to about $6 billion, in 2012 to becoming one of the most profitable mass-market car makers in the industry. Last year it reported a net profit of €2.17 billion, or roughly $2.62 billion, with an adjusted operating margin of 7.1% in its core automotive business.
This time, Mr. Tavares has a longer to-do list, including integrating the two companies’ European businesses and stemming losses in China.
In Europe, Mr. Tavares has been visiting Fiat Chrysler factories—including an Alfa Romeo facility 80 miles south of Rome—and encouraging them to benchmark their performance against PSA plants. Additionally, employees from Fiat Chrysler’s Fiat factory in Mirafiori, Italy, visited PSA’s Citroën’s plant in Madrid, and Mr. Tavares said they were surprised by the nonlabor cost savings they observed.
The auto executive said the new company could reach its cost-saving goals in Europe without closing factories.
Asked what lessons he had learned from the chip shortage that has idled car plants across the world, Mr. Tavares said large suppliers didn’t relay signals they were receiving about the looming crisis. “We were not protected,” he said. “That’s a clear lesson learned.”
Chinese regulators are taking a close look at Tesla operations after recent videos on social media appear to show a Model 3 battery fire and malfunctioning vehicles. WSJ explains how possible quality issues with Tesla cars could threaten the EV-maker’s meteoric rise. Photo Illustration: Michelle Inez Simon
Mr. Tavares said the industrywide shift toward electrification would continue to rely on government subsidies and other financial incentives for buyers until auto makers figure out how to lower production costs over the next few years.
“If we propose electric vehicles which are extremely efficient but nobody can buy because they are costly, what’s the point from an environmental perspective?” he said.
In China, the combined sales of Peugeot and Fiat Chrysler accounted for less than 1% of a market that sold 20 million vehicles last year, according to industry data. Fiat Chrysler has long struggled to turn a profit in the world’s largest automotive market, while the French car maker sold only 45,965 vehicles in China last year, continuing a rapid multiyear decline.
Mr. Tavares said Stellantis isn’t considering exiting China, removing an option that he said was still on the table when the company started trading in New York at the start of this year.
“We cannot be away from the biggest market in the world,” he said.
Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com and Nora Naughton at Nora.Naughton@wsj.com
LCMC Health is starting the first COVID-19 mass community vaccination site in New Orleans. Dubbed “Operation: Be in That Number,” the site, the first of its type developed for the Greater New Orleans Region, will be launched with a $4.1m grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).In a vital step to help battle the spread of COVID-19, LCMC Health is announcing plans for the first large community site to provide COVID-19 vaccines to residents of the Greater New Orleans area. The site will be housed at LCMC Health’s partner on this project, the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Other partners include the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans Health Department.“LCMC Health is here to create a healthier community and with the availability of community vaccines we are doing that across our six hospitals,” said Gregory C. Feirn, Chief Executive Officer of LCMC Health. “We appreciate the support of FEMA, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, our city and state leaders, and our residents as we continue to rollout COVID-19 vaccinations throughout the New Orleans area. We want to assure the community that when more vaccines are available, we are ready to offer them in mass quantity.”This site at the convention center will have the capacity to vaccinate hundreds of residents each day when vaccines are readily available, eventually ramping up to thousands of recipients daily, increasing the efficiency and speed of vaccine distribution throughout the region.Vaccine distribution will be managed through the current phased, tiered approach established by the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH). Currently, vaccinations are available to Louisiana residents who meet the criteria for what is referred to as “Phase 1A and Phase 1B.” These groups include frontline healthcare workers, nursing home and long-term care communities’ residents and staff, teachers school personnel, day care personnel, home health providers, pregnant persons, law enforcement personnel, persons ages 65 and above, and persons ages 55 – 65 years of age with one of the underlying medical conditions as listed by the CDC.As more vaccines become available from the CDC, and LDH opens the criteria further, more individuals and groups will be offered a vaccination.“It is vital that we ramp up our vaccination efforts to ensure that all of our people can be protected from COVID-19, and we need the space to do it,” said Mayor LaToya Cantrell, City of New Orleans. “I thank LCMC Health for stepping up in the shared effort in partnership with the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center team to put the plans in place to vaccinate our residents so that we can be a stronger and healthier city on the road to recovery.”“The New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center is at the heart of the community and an important economic engine for the City and State. We are gratified to see that this great facility will be used to help promote good health to the resilient people of this region and pleased to partner with LCMC Health to move this initiative forward for our fellow citizens,” said Michael J. Sawaya, Convention Center President.“We are fortunate that all of the Convention Center employees have remained on the job throughout the last year, working hard to have the building prepared when events return. We look forward to getting back to business, and welcoming visitors in the coming months, and can see the days ahead when our guests will enjoy all the great things our city and hospitality industry has to offer.”For more information about COVID-19, the vaccination phases and how to further protect yourself from the virus, please visit www.lcmchealth.org/coronavirus. Please refer to the LDH website at www.ldh.la.gov/covidvaccine/ for a complete list of eligible groups.
NEW ORLEANS —
LCMC Health is starting the first COVID-19 mass community vaccination site in New Orleans.
Dubbed “Operation: Be in That Number,” the site, the first of its type developed for the Greater New Orleans Region, will be launched with a $4.1m grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
In a vital step to help battle the spread of COVID-19, LCMC Health is announcing plans for the first large community site to provide COVID-19 vaccines to residents of the Greater New Orleans area.
The site will be housed at LCMC Health’s partner on this project, the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Other partners include the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans Health Department.
“LCMC Health is here to create a healthier community and with the availability of community vaccines we are doing that across our six hospitals,” said Gregory C. Feirn, Chief Executive Officer of LCMC Health. “We appreciate the support of FEMA, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, our city and state leaders, and our residents as we continue to rollout COVID-19 vaccinations throughout the New Orleans area. We want to assure the community that when more vaccines are available, we are ready to offer them in mass quantity.”
This site at the convention center will have the capacity to vaccinate hundreds of residents each day when vaccines are readily available, eventually ramping up to thousands of recipients daily, increasing the efficiency and speed of vaccine distribution throughout the region.
Vaccine distribution will be managed through the current phased, tiered approach established by the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH). Currently, vaccinations are available to Louisiana residents who meet the criteria for what is referred to as “Phase 1A and Phase 1B.” These groups include frontline healthcare workers, nursing home and long-term care communities’ residents and staff, teachers school personnel, day care personnel, home health providers, pregnant persons, law enforcement personnel, persons ages 65 and above, and persons ages 55 – 65 years of age with one of the underlying medical conditions as listed by the CDC.
As more vaccines become available from the CDC, and LDH opens the criteria further, more individuals and groups will be offered a vaccination.
“It is vital that we ramp up our vaccination efforts to ensure that all of our people can be protected from COVID-19, and we need the space to do it,” said Mayor LaToya Cantrell, City of New Orleans. “I thank LCMC Health for stepping up in the shared effort in partnership with the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center team to put the plans in place to vaccinate our residents so that we can be a stronger and healthier city on the road to recovery.”
“The New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center is at the heart of the community and an important economic engine for the City and State. We are gratified to see that this great facility will be used to help promote good health to the resilient people of this region and pleased to partner with LCMC Health to move this initiative forward for our fellow citizens,” said Michael J. Sawaya, Convention Center President.
“We are fortunate that all of the Convention Center employees have remained on the job throughout the last year, working hard to have the building prepared when events return. We look forward to getting back to business, and welcoming visitors in the coming months, and can see the days ahead when our guests will enjoy all the great things our city and hospitality industry has to offer.”
For more information about COVID-19, the vaccination phases and how to further protect yourself from the virus, please visit www.lcmchealth.org/coronavirus. Please refer to the LDH website at www.ldh.la.gov/covidvaccine/ for a complete list of eligible groups.
ROME—Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Robert Sarah as head of the Vatican’s office for liturgy, removing an outspoken conservative and possible future pope from the ranks of Vatican leadership.
The Holy See Press Office announced Saturday that Cardinal Sarah had stepped down. No successor has been named.
The cardinal submitted his resignation as required by church law when he turned 75 on June 15 of last year. But the pope frequently lets cardinals serve two or three years past that age, though not past 80.
In accepting Cardinal Sarah’s resignation, the pope has removed a subordinate out of step with his approach to liturgy, homosexuality and relations with the Muslim world. The cardinal is a hero to many conservative Catholics, some of whom see him as a future pontiff. He will still be able to vote in a conclave to elect a pope until he turns 80.
Last year, the cardinal raised controversy with a book widely interpreted as an attempt to influence Pope Francis’ decision on whether to allow the ordination of married men as priests. The episode led to embarrassment for the cardinal when retired Pope Benedict XVI asked to have his name removed as the book’s co-author.
The record-fast creation of Covid-19 vaccines was a triumph. So why is it taking so long to vaccinate Americans?
The answer starts with tens of millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses that sat unused in medical freezers across the U.S. in the early weeks of the rollout.
In the launch, the federal government set aside far more doses for nursing homes than the facilities needed. A fragmented chain of communication between federal authorities dispatching doses and the local sites ultimately injecting them left the vaccinators in the dark about how many patients they could schedule. Worried about limited supplies, some hospitals and health departments held back doses to make sure they had enough to administer second shots for staff or to meet appointments, creating a bottleneck to the outflow.
Vaccinations are now picking up. But early stumbles might extend the pandemic, and leave more people without protection. Health officials say the new coronavirus variants that appear to spread more easily make the distribution of vaccines more urgent.
The Trump administration invested heavily in rapid vaccine development, but it left the last mile of getting shots into arms to states and localities. That approach resulted in multiple, sometimes contradictory systems, and failed to ensure local sites had information about vaccine shipments that they needed to quickly administer shots.