United States of America eSeries: Why fish are falling from the sky

Why fish are falling from the sky

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July 13, 2021

Stephen Collinson and Shelby Rose

Why fish are falling from the sky

Often the news from America makes it feel like the sky is falling.

Take today, for instance. The Delta variant of Covid-19 is rampaging across the heartland – victimizing those who won't get a free vaccine that would save their lives. Former President Donald Trump's campaign against democracy is intensifying – even as his hack election lawyers are being defenestrated by a Michigan judge. It turns out, according to a new book, that Trump's election night claim of victory was largely the brainchild of Rudy Giuliani, who told the loser to say he won everything.

There are signs of real desperation among grass-roots Democrats who are waging a losing fight against Republican restrictive voting laws passed in multiple states based on Trump's lies. More than 50 state Democratic legislators from Texas piled onto two chartered planes and flew to Washington to plead with their federal counterparts to trash the arcane filibuster rules Republicans are using to block voting rights legislation. When they go home, they risk arrest after walking out of the state House.

President Joe Biden traveled to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a stone's throw from where Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and the gang thrashed out the Declaration of Independence, which freed America from the rule of a real king – rather than a wannabe autocrat like Trump.

"You don't call facts fake and then try to bring down the American experiment just because you're unhappy," Biden said. "That's not statesmanship, that's selfishness. That's not democracy."

In Utah, meanwhile, the sky really does seem to be falling -- literally, folks, as Biden might say. Planes are dumping tens of thousands of fish to restock remote lakes. The baby "fingerlings" are so small they flutter to the surface of the water, and most survive the drop.

Even when everything seems like it can't get worse, not all the news is bad.

Thousands of fish were dropped from a plane into lakes near Bicknell, Utah, last week to repopulate them with marine life. (Utah Division of Wildlife Resources)

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The world and America

Video obtained by CNN shows 22 Afghan commandos being executed by the Taliban.

Cuban activists say more than 100 protesters have been arrested or are missing.

The gang behind major recent ransomware attacks has mysteriously vanished from the internet.

And tennis legend Roger Federer pulled out of the Olympics because of a knee injury.

Meanwhile in America, Covid-19 cases are surging again in 45 states.

Nominations for the 73rd annual Emmy Awards were released.

Coca-Cola is giving one of its most popular drinks a makeover.

Doctor won't wag a finger at vaccine-dodging Covid victims

By the time Dr. Christopher Morrison's patients want the vaccine, it's too late.

The Missouri emergency physician is in the epicenter of a new storm of Covid-19 infection, as the Delta variant scythes through populations skeptical of vaccines that leave recipients 99% immune from dying of the disease.

"Most of the patients I see are regretful that they didn't get vaccinated," said Morrison, who himself caught Covid but didn't even know until he was tested, as his symptoms were so mild due to the vaccine. "I'm not there to wag a finger at them at that point, when people are that sick," Morrison said on CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper."

Morrison said there are many reasons why people won't get their shots, including misinformation or that they simply didn't take the time to do it. But one of the saddest aspects of the pandemic is that politics, which have already infected everything else in America, are hampering the vaccination drive. Republicans long used to right-wing leaders downplaying the virus and criticizing the government are far less likely to get vaccinated. And some of them are paying with their lives. Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri -- a state won by Trump last year -- just opened a sixth Covid-19 unit and is seeing a surge higher than the last terrible peak, in December 2020.

Prominent right-wing politicians, meanwhile, are using Covid skepticism to power their political careers. A few falsely compared the Biden administration's voluntary vaccine push to Nazism. Rising star South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem complained that GOP governors who introduced rather lax social distancing should have shown more "grit." Never mind that her sparsely populated state ranks worse in Covid deaths than many others with big virus-spreading cities.

"After all, President Trump and his supporters take credit for developing the vaccine. … Why the heck won't they take advantage of the vaccine that they received plaudits for having developed?" asked Sen. Mitt Romney, who only nine years ago was the presidential nominee of the Republican Party but is now a pariah because he committed the sin of standing up to Trump's extremism.

Thanks for reading.

Wednesday is Bastille Day in France. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's proposal for an EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is expected to be adopted. Malta is set to close its borders to visitors who are not fully vaccinated. Schools in Seoul and surrounding areas will transition to online classes because of the Delta Covid-19 variant.