WASHINGTON (AP) — Raymond T. Odierno, a retired Army general who commanded American and coalition forces in Iraq at the height of the war and capped a 39-year career by serving as the Army's chief of staff, has died, his family said Saturday. He was 67.

“The general died after a brave battle with cancer; his death was not related to COVID,” a family statement said. “There are no other details to share at this time. His family is grateful for the concern and asks for privacy.”

Odierno died Friday; the family declined to say where. It said funeral and interment information was not yet available.

President Joe Biden lauded Odierno as a “hero of great integrity and honor.” In a joint statement, the president and First Lady Jill Biden recalled that Odierno spoke at the funeral of their son Beau, who served under Odierno in Iraq and died of brain cancer in 2015.

“Ray was a giant in military circles — dedicated first and always to the service members he commanded and served alongside,” the Bidens said, adding that Odierno and his wife Linda were advocates for military children and families.

“We stand with the Odierno family and all our brave service members who were shaped and molded by General Odierno over his lifetime of service,” they said.

At 6-foot-5, Odierno was an imposing figure. He played football as a cadet at West Point and retained a lifelong interest in the sport. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth wrote on Twitter Saturday evening that Odierno embodied the values of West Point and of the Army itself.

“A leader who was larger than life, we will remember him always for his selfless service to our nation and to our soldiers in and out of uniform,” she wrote.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who succeeded Odierno as the top overall commander in Iraq in 2010, called him a confidant, a friend and a powerful example.

“Ray was known for his loyalty — to mission and to his people,” Austin said in a statement. “He cared deeply about the troops who knew him as ‘General O,’ and he and Linda looked after the families of those troops as if they were their own."

Odierno served three tours in Iraq. After his first, in 2003-04 as commander of the 4th Infantry Division, he was criticized by some for overly aggressive tactics that some believed fed an insurgency. At an early high water mark, in December 2003, his soldiers involved in the capture of Iraq’s deposed president, Saddam Hussein. That success gave hope to quashing an emerging insurgency, but in 2004 the insurgency gained greater momentum and led to the deadly rise of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Odierno returned to Iraq in 2006 and served for two years as commander of Multi-National Corps-Iraq. In 2008 he took over as the top overall American and coalition commander in Baghdad, leaving in 2010 as combat was winding down and as President Barack Obama was adding troops in Afghanistan.

A native of Rockaway, New Jersey, Odierno graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1976 with a commission in field artillery. He served in a wide range of Army and Defense Department roles with multiple tours abroad, including in Iraq, Germany, Albania and Kuwait. As a three-star general he was assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a job that made him the main military adviser to the secretary of state.

When Odierno retired in 2015, he was succeeded as Army chief of staff by Gen. Mark Milley, the current Joint Chiefs chairman. In a statement Saturday, Milley said Odierno's legacy will “live on through the generations he led.”

At a ceremony marking his retirement from the Army in 2015, then-Defense Secretary Ashton Carter described him as a commander whose tenacity and operational savvy gave civilian leaders great confidence.

“His commanding presence calmed the confused, and his courage and compassion helped carry the burden of loss and sacrifice,” Carter said.

Three months ago, North Carolina State University announced that Odierno had joined its board of trustees. In 1986 he earned a Master of Science degree in nuclear effects engineering from North Carolina State. He was president of Odierno Associates, a consulting firm in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

Thousands of protesters including members of far-right groups demonstrated in central Rome on Saturday against the extension of the Covid-19 health pass system to all workplaces.

There were scuffles with police as the demonstrators took aim at the health pass, which has been a requirement to enter museums, sporting events and restaurants since August.

Retiree Maria Ballarin denounced "criminal and cowardly blackmail" by the Italian state.

By not making vaccinations compulsory but forcing workers to take them "it absolves itself of any responsibility for fatal or serious consequences, but indirectly obliges people to be vaccinated in order to be able to go to work", she said.

Under the health pass system, anyone entering these establishments must also provide a certificate of vaccination, proof of recovery from Covid-19 or a recent negative test result.

Three weeks ago the government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi announced that the scheme would be extended to all places of work from October 15 and any employees refusing to comply would be threatened with suspension without pay.

The health pass system is already in place for all medical workers.

"We were both suspended two months ago," Cosimo, one of the protesters, told AFP. He and his wife Morena are both nurses.

The couple say they have immunity and allergy problems and were exempted from the vaccination requirement by their family doctor.

But both were suspended without pay.

Stefano, who came from Como in the north to join Saturday's protest, said he would take the test. "I have to pay to work it's absurd," he said./AFP

• Maria Ressa, who won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize this week, criticized Facebook's practices.
• Facebook has struggled with misinformation rapidly spreading on its platforms.
• The company continues to face criticism over its handling of misinformation.

Journalist and activist Maria Ressa, who received the coveted Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, criticized Facebook for spreading misinformation and lies "laced with anger and hate," the Guardian reported.

Facebook, which Ressa called the world's largest distributor of news, is "biased against facts" and "biased against journalism," posing a threat against democracy as the platform continues to allow bad actors to sow disinformation.

"If you have no facts, you can't have truths, you can't have trust. If you don't have any of these, you don't have a democracy," Ressa told the Guardian in an interview.

The Nobel Committee awarded Ressa and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize this week for their "efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."

Ressa, CEO of independent online newspaper Rappler, was lauded by the international community after being charged and arrested by the Philippine government, supposedly in retaliation for her paper's critical coverage of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's policies and human rights violations surrounding his "war on drugs."

Though Rappler began on Facebook's platform, the Filipino journalist has been critical of Facebook on its policies toward leaders like Duterte and its role in developing countries and non-democratic regimes.

Facebook has struggled to make an impact on battling misinformation on its various platforms, including Instagram and WhatsApp. The company has spent upwards of 2.8 million hours trying to identify of false or misleading information on its platforms, and even tried to designate "expert moderators" in a bid to crackdown on misinformation.

A study found misinformation sources get six times the engagement on Facebook compared to reputable news sites, and the company previously said that misinformation and racism will "inevitably" always exist on its platforms.

This comes as a Facebook whistleblower leveled accusations against the social media giant for its negative effects on society and its ineffectiveness in tackling those issues.

The whistleblower and former Facebook employee, France Haugen, published thousands of pages of Facebook research, which touched on how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg allows hateful content on the platform to reach more people and how the company pushes harmful attitudes around mental health and body image on teenagers.

The US government has also come down hard on the platform for not acting quicker to take down bad information, especially around COVID-19 and its vaccines.

Insider reached out to Facebook for a response toward Ressa's comments, but the company has not yet responded.

 Business Insider

WASHINGTON (NBC) — Democrats built a historic new benefit program in their pandemic relief bill earlier this year.

But in doing so, they planted an election-year time bomb for their own party, and their only realistic hope of defusing it in time is to pass President Joe Biden’s social spending bill.

At the center of the American Rescue Plan is a monthly payment structured as a tax credit for the vast majority of families — of $300 per child under 6 years old or $250 per child between ages 6 and 17. The benefit has been well received in polls, and studies say it quickly lifted millions of U.S. kids out of poverty.

But there’s a catch: It is only authorized for 2021. The payments end in December unless extended. With Republicans opposed, the only realistic vehicle to extend them is Biden’s multitrillion-dollar bill, which Democratic leaders are working feverishly to craft.

Allowing the payments to expire would risk erasing the economic gains and leaving struggling parents who have come to rely on it in the lurch. Democratic operatives warn it could turn a significant political asset into a liability just months before an election in which Republicans are historically favored to make gains.

“Letting the extremely popular child care tax credit expire would be exactly the type of mistake we can’t afford,” Tyler Law, a Democratic consultant who worked for the party’s House election arm during the 2018 blue wave, said.

“Democrats need to deliver win after win after win to show voters we can govern and deserve to stay in power,” he said. “There’s no silver bullet for success, but there’s certainly a recipe for disaster: failing to pass the Biden agenda.”

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the child tax credit has had a major impact in alleviating poverty and held it up as an example that says Democrats, when in charge, can help Americans.

“The idea of letting it expire, I think, would be horrific,” he said.

Grappling with the details

While Democrats battle over what provisions make it into the bill, they appear to agree unanimously that the money for kids should be extended — from centrists like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., to progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.

But the details are unclear. The House version of the bill extends the payments through 2025. That may be adjusted as lawmakers sort out how to cut down the plan's price tag to get the centrists on board. And the income threshold for who is eligible may be adjusted as Manchin has demanded additional means-testing for the various programs in the bill.

“There's some differences of opinion about how to do it, and how long to fund it, etcetera. And it has to fit within the overall top line of the bill,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said. “But every Dem really wants it to happen.”

Republicans are adamantly opposed to the program and say it should expire.

“The federal government shouldn't be in the business of just handing out money because you have kids,” Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said. “That's ridiculous.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, accused Democrats of “trying to build a permanent welfare class in the country,” saying the child tax credit includes “distributing more borrowed money to people who don't have a need for it.”

Some Democrats are spoiling for that fight.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., the chair of the party’s House campaign arm, projected confidence that Democrats will pass the bill, extend the child cash payments and then run on them.

“We're going to get it done,” he said. “And the fact that the Republicans have opposed it at every step of the way will come back to haunt them. I believe that it's exactly that type of thing that is the anvil on which we will hammer them in 2022.”

'Key persuasion gains'

Sean McElwee, a progressive pollster who has been cited by the White House, said his firm has found that voters who received the child cash payment approve of Biden's job performance by a wide margin of 66 percent to 32 percent, whereas voters who haven't gotten it split evenly with 49 percent approving and disapproving.

The firm, Data for Progress, found that those who voted for then-President Donald Trump in 2020 and who receive the child tax credit register 79 percent disapproval of Biden, whereas 92 percent of those who do not receive it disapprove of the president.

“Ending the child tax credit would risk washing away these key persuasion gains that will be necessary to win in 2022 and 2024,” McElwee said.

Overall, the child cash payments are supported by 59 percent of U.S. adults, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. That includes 75 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of Republicans.

Some of the states with the highest average per-month cash payments are conservative states.

Progressives cite the program as an example of how government can make Americans' lives better.

“We already have powerful data showing us that this tax credit is reducing hunger in America. It's providing school shoes and backpacks for kids to be able to go back to school,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “We need to protect this — not just because it expires in an election year. We need to protect it because this helps American families.”

The White House allocated an additional $1 billion to buy millions of rapid at-home COVID-19 tests earlier this week.

Why it matters: Rapid tests can quickly determine whether you're infected with COVID-19 and at risk of spreading it to others, but lack of funding — and slow approval — has led to a dire shortage.

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Driving the news: White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeffrey Zients told reporters on Wednesday that the new funding — as well as an additional $2 billion allocated in September — will quadruple the number of available tests over the next few months.

• Earlier in the week the FDA also authorized Flowflex, a rapid at-home test made by ACON Laboratories that the White House expects will retail at about $10 per test, making it cheaper than other available diagnostics.
• "We'll have available supply of 200 million rapid at-home tests per month, starting in December," he said.

How it works: Rapid antigen tests — which can deliver results in as little as 15 minutes — are particularly useful for the current moment.

• As millions of Americans return to school and the workplace, rapid tests can let them quickly determine their COVID-19 status if they've been exposed to the virus or they begin to show symptoms.
• My thought bubble: My wife and I used one of our last remaining rapid tests this past weekend on my as-yet-unvaccinated 4-year-old so he could attend a bar mitzvah with us. (He was negative, which was fortunate because the party had both pizza and foosball.)

The catch: In part because of that utility, however, rapid tests have become increasingly difficult to find.

• "Employer demand has gone crazy," Doug Bryant, CEO of testing company Quidel, told Reuters. "We won't be able to meet all the requests that we're having."
• Even if the U.S. can get to 200 million rapid tests per month, it will mean less than one test per person at a time when both COVID-19 and traditional winter infections like the flu will be active.

What's next: This week, the FDA also authorized a new lab-based test from PerkinElmer that can detect COVID-19 as well as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus — a capability that should be especially useful this winter./   Axios

A new study from the team behind NASA's Perseverance Mars rover reveals that areas of Mars — specifically the Jezero Crater, an area scientists think may hold keys to ancient Martian life — experienced "significant" flash floods that carved the landscape into the rocky wasteland we see today.

The team says they based their findings on images the rover took of sediment that gathered at the end of an ancient river that fed a lake inside the Jezero Crater.

The photos, taken during a landing on February 18 and published on Thursday, suggest that billions of years ago, Mars had a thick atmosphere that could support large quantities of water. The sediment seen in the pictures shows a now-barren river delta that experienced "late-stage flooding events" whose waters carried boulders and debris from Mars highlands to the banks of the crater.

"Never before has such well-preserved stratigraphy been visible on Mars," said lead author Nicolas Mangold from the Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique. "This is the key observation that enables us to once and for all confirm the presence of a lake and river delta at Jezero. Getting a better understanding of the hydrology months in advance of our arrival at the delta is going to pay big dividends down the road."

The NASA team has, according to their press release, "long planned to visit the delta" leading into the Jezero Crater due to the potential that it may contain fossils of ancient microbial life.

The collected images have given the scientists information into where they can find the best rock samples to find the traces of life that may have once existed on Mars, which scientists hope they can bring back to Earth to analyze with more powerful lab equipment. The evidence of so much ancient water brings the scientists hope.

"We saw distinct layers in the scarps containing boulders up to 5 feet across that we knew had no business being there," said Mangold.

Mangold and his team believe that the flash floods that carried these boulders — some for tens of miles — would have moved at 4 to 20 mph.

Sanjeev Gupta, from Imperial College, London, and a co-author of the paper, says the findings "could potentially provide valuable insights into why the entire planet dried out" and what happened to the ancient microbial life.

NASA next plans to send spacecraft to Mars to collect the rock samples and return them to Earth. /CBS

Brazil on Friday surpassed the 600,000 death mark since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic amid a significant and gradual reduction in the number of cases. 

The first case was registered in March 2020. Since then, 600,077 people have died from the disease.

The data was released by the Press Consortium, a group of media outlets that collects numbers from states’ health departments since the Health Ministry changed its counting system to hide figures.

The Ministry said 600,425 deaths have been recorded.

Brazil registered 21,533,752 cases but those numbers are considered lower than the actual figure since the country has not adopted an effective policy for testing its population.

Experts point to underreporting in the numbers of deaths and cases.

One of the most terrifying numbers released Friday is that at least 12,211 children up to age 6 have been orphaned by the pandemic -- boys and girls who lost their fathers, mothers or both to the virus, according to an association that gathers information form notary offices across the country.

The survey only took into account children in that age group because since 2015, newborns have had their document number registered on their birth certificate, which facilitated the crossing of information with deceased parents’ documents. The actual number, therefore, could be much higher, according to the association.​​​​​​​

On average, 438 daily deaths are currently registered, which represents an 18.1% drop compared to 14 days ago and the lowest number since November 2020.

In June, when Brazil reached the 500,000 deaths mark, the average was 2,000 every 24 hours. The number of cases is also decreasing by 55.8% compared to two weeks ago.

Experts attribute it to the more optimistic scenario to the advancement of vaccination but the delta variant is still a concern, they said.

Started in January, vaccination has reached 71.8% of the population with the first dose and 45.6% with the full immunization cycle. Less than 1% have received a booster.

Brazil is ranked third with the highest daily average of new deaths in the world, behind the US and Russia. It is also second with more deaths, after the US, which has surpassed 700,000 victims./aa

Turkey urged G20 countries on Friday to take further action against climate change. 

G20 countries that have 70% of the world population and most of the global economic opportunities should act for the solution, Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Mustafa Sentop said in a news conference in Rome.

Reiterating that the Turkish Parliament already ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, he said countries that contribute more to pollution should bear more liability.

When countries' responsibilities in the struggle against climate change are considered, economic power also should be taken into account, he said.

Sentop also commented on various global and regional matters at the Turkish Embassy in Rome.

Sentop emphasized that Turkish-Italian relations are historical and deep, noting bilateral ties are at the strategic partnership level.

On the latest developments in Turkish-Egyptian relations, he drew attention to recent improvements in bilateral relations and expressed hope for full normalization.

Egypt is one the most important countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, he added.

Regarding Libya, Sentop stressed that Turkey supports elections on Dec.24 as well as that country's territorial integrity.

In Libya, Turkey always acted in line with international law and supported elected, legitimate government, he said.

And on irregular migration, he underlined that Turkey already hosts around 4 million Syrian refugees, and said some countries which caused the irregular migration flow from Syria and Afghanistan are not taking any responsibility./aa

Some users were unable to access Facebook and Instagram on Friday, for the second time in a week. 

“We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products,” Facebook said in a statement on Twitter. “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience.”

Facebook-owned Instagram, the photo and video sharing platform, also acknowledged that "some of you may be having some issues using Instagram right now."

It apologized, saying: "We’re so sorry and are working as quickly as possible to fix."

It comes four days after a global outage, which Facebook blamed on a “faulty configuration change.” Facebook as well as WhatsApp and Instagram were not accessible for around six hours./agencies

The White House announced on Friday that for the first time ever, the US will recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day, to be observed next week on the same day as Christopher Columbus Day, which celebrates the arrival of Europeans in America.

It is the first such proclamation by a US president, although some individual states observe days to honor Native Americans, and America's neighbor, Canada, has recognized National Indigenous Peoples Day for decades.

While praising the contributions of Indigenous peoples in America, Biden said in a statement, "We must never forget the centuries-long campaign of violence, displacement, assimilation and terror wrought up Native communities and Tribal Nations throughout our country."

The federal government's efforts to kill or contain Native Americans is the stuff of legend and horror in American history, and the Biden Administration has taken steps to address that. Biden's choice for Interior Secretary, Deb Haaland, is the highest-ranking Native American in presidential administration history, and she has made it a priority to identify mass gravesites of Native American children who were taken from their families in an effort to white-wash their culture.

"Today , we recognize Indigenous peoples' resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society," Biden said.

Indigenous Peoples Day will fall on Monday, Oct. 11, the same day as the annual Columbus Day holiday, which was established by Congress. In a separate statement regarding Columbus Day, Biden praised the contribution of Italian Americans but he also referenced the violence and harm Columbus and other explorers brought to America.

"It is a measure of our greatness as a Nation that we do not seek to bury these shameful episodes of our past - that we face them honestly, we bring them to light and we do all we can to address them."

Biden's remarks are a stark departure from his predecessor, Donald Trump who, as President, decried "radical activists" of trying to undermine Columbus' legacy "with talk of his failings, his discoveries with atrocities and his achievements with transgressions."

After the George Floyd murder in 2020 sparked racial unrest, activists across the country started demanding statues honoring Christopher Columbus be taken down. In Chicago, violence broke out at one of those statues and the city removed three of them. Italian American activists are still trying to get them re-installed./agencies