The quickly changing coronavirus has spawned yet another super contagious omicron mutant that’s worrying scientists as it gains ground in India and pops up in numerous other countries, including the United States.

Scientists say the variant – called BA.2.75 – may be able to spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infection. It’s unclear whether it could cause more serious disease than other omicron variants, including the globally prominent BA.5.

“It’s still really early on for us to draw too many conclusions,” said Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “But it does look like, especially in India, the rates of transmission are showing kind of that exponential increase." Whether it will outcompete BA.5, he said, is yet to be determined.

Still, the fact that it has already been detected in many parts of the world even with lower levels of viral surveillance “is an early indication it is spreading,” said Shishi Luo, head of infectious diseases for Helix, a company that supplies viral sequencing information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The latest mutant has been spotted in several distant states in India, and appears to be spreading faster than other variants there, said Lipi Thukral, a scientist at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi. It’s also been detected in about 10 other countries, including Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada. Two cases were recently identified on the West Coast of the U.S., and Helix identified a third U.S. case last week.

Fueling experts’ concerns are a large number of mutations separating this new variant from omicron predecessors. Some of those mutations are in areas that relate to the spike protein and could allow the virus to bind onto cells more efficiently, Binnicker said.

Another concern is that the genetic tweaks may make it easier for the virus to skirt past antibodies — protective proteins made by the body in response to a vaccine or infection from an earlier variant.

But experts say vaccines and boosters are still the best defense against severe COVID-19. In the fall it’s likely the U.S. will see updated formulations of the vaccine being developed that target more recent omicron strains.

“Some may say, ‘Well, vaccination and boosting hasn’t prevented people from getting infected.’ And, yes, that is true,” he said. “But what we have seen is that the rates of people ending up in the hospital and dying have significantly decreased. As more people have been vaccinated, boosted or naturally infected, we are starting to see the background levels of immunity worldwide creep up.”

It may take several weeks to get a sense of whether the latest omicron mutant may affect the trajectory of the pandemic. Meanwhile Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies viruses at India’s Christian Medical College in Vellore, said the growing concern over the variant underlines the need for more sustained efforts to track and trace viruses that combine genetic efforts with real world information about who is getting sick and how badly. “It is important that surveillance isn’t a start-stop strategy,” she said.

Luo said BA.2.75 is another reminder that the coronavirus is continually evolving – and spreading.

“We would like to return to pre-pandemic life, but we still need to be careful,” she said. “ We need to accept that we’re now living with a higher level of risk than we used to.”/AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden welcomed a crowd to the White House lawn Monday to showcase a new law meant to reduce gun violence, celebrating “real progress” after years of inaction. But he also lamented the country remains “awash in weapons of war” — with the 16-day-old law already overshadowed by yet another horrific mass shooting.

The bill, passed after recent gun rampages in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, incrementally toughens requirements for young people buying guns, denies firearms to more domestic abusers and helps local authorities temporarily take weapons from people judged to be dangerous.

But the “celebration” Monday morning came a week after a gunman in Highland Park, Illinois, killed seven people at an Independence Day parade, a stark reminder of the limitations of the new law in addressing the American phenomenon of mass gun violence. And it comes as Democratic governors have taken up the mantle of offering outrage in the face of gun violence.

Biden hosted hundreds of guests on the South Lawn, including a bipartisan group of lawmakers who crafted and supported the legislation, state and local officials — including Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering — and the families of victims of both mass shootings and everyday gun violence.

“Because of your work, your advocacy, your courage, lives will be saved today and tomorrow because of this," Biden said.

"We will not save every life from the epidemic of gun violence," he added, “But if this law had been in place years ago, even this last year, lives would have been saved.”

Still, Biden said, "we’re living in a country awash in weapons of war.” He repeated his call on Congress to pass a federal ban on assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines — or at minimum to require more stringent background checks and training before purchases.

He also said Congress should pass legislation to hold gun owners legally accountable if their weapons are improperly stored and are used to commit violence. He noted that he owns four shotguns and said he keeps them secured at his home.

“We can’t just stand by," Biden said. " With rights come responsibilities. If you own a weapon, you have a responsibility to secure it and keep it under lock and key."

Biden on Saturday invited Americans to share with him via text — a new White House communications strategy — their stories of how they've been affected by gun violence, tweeting that “I’m hosting a celebration of the passage of the Safer Communities Act." He told some of their stories on Monday — of people traumatized by shootings and kids left orphaned.

The new law is the the most impactful firearms-violence measure Congress has approved since enacting a now-expired assault weapons ban in 1993. Yet gun control advocates — and even White House officials — say it's premature to declare victory.

“There's simply not much to celebrate here,” said Igor Volsky, director of the private group Guns Down America.

“It’s historic, but it’s also the very bare minimum of what Congress should do,” Volsky said. “And as we were reminded by the shooting on July 4, and there’s so many other gun deaths that have occurred since then, the crisis of of gun violence is just far more urgent.”

Volsky’s group, along with other advocacy groups, was holding a news conference on Monday outside the White House calling on Biden to create an office at the White House to address gun violence with a greater sense of urgency.

Biden has left gun control policy to his Domestic Policy Council, rather than establishing a dedicated office like the one he opened to address climate change or the gender policy council he started to promote reproductive health access.

“We have a president who really hasn’t met the moment, who has chosen to act as a bystander on this issue,” Volsky said. “For some reason the administration absolutely refuses to have a senior official who can drive this issue across government.”

During his remarks Monday, Biden was heckled by Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin was killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Biden briefly paused his speech and asked Oliver, who was shouting, to sit down, before adding “Let him talk, let him talk,” as he was escorted out of the event.

The president signed the bipartisan gun bill into law on June 25, calling it “a historic achievement" at the time.

On Monday, Biden said the law's passage should be a call for further action.

“Will we match thoughts and prayers with action?" Biden asked. “I say yes. And that’s what we’re doing here today.”

On Friday, Biden responded to the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by taking note of how the shooting had shocked people in Japan. The country has a strikingly low incidence of gun violence compared to the U.S., which has experienced thousands of gun deaths already this year.

Most of the new law's $13 billion in spending would be used for bolstering mental health programs and for schools, which have been targeted by shooters in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland. The law was the product of weeks of closed-door negotiations by a bipartisan group of senators who emerged with a compromise.

It does not include far tougher restrictions that Democrats and Biden have long championed, such as a ban on assault-type weapons and background checks for all gun transactions. Prospects are slim for any further congressional action this year.

Fourteen people have been killed in a mass shooting at a bar in Soweto township near Johannesburg, police said Sunday. 

Elias Mawela, the Gauteng police commissioner, said nine people were also being treated at hospitals for gun wounds.

Mawela said the incident happened shortly after midnight, when gunmen opened fire on revelers who were enjoying themselves at a club in the Nomzamo informal settlement in Orlando.

“For now, we don’t have details on the motive of the attack but as investigations progress, we are hoping we will get more information,” he told local reporters at the scene.

He said the attackers used high-caliber fire and were apparently shooting randomly.

The incident comes two weeks after tragic deaths of 22 young people at a nightclub in the city of East London in the Eastern Cape province./aa

In a first of its kind, the Catholic Church in France has paid financial reparations to six victims of child sexual abuse in the church, according to local media.

The fund for solidarity and the fight against sexual assault on minors (SALEM), set up by the Conference of Bishops of France, has paid compensation to six victims, French newspaper Journal Du Dimanche reported on Saturday.

The development comes after the Independent National Authority for Recognition and Reparation (Inirr) announced in June that 736 victims of church abuse had come forward to claim compensation. The remaining 730 victims will be compensated in the coming weeks of summer, the report said.

Although the amount of compensation has not been disclosed, Inirr said it will provide reparations of up to €60,000 (about $64,000) per person, depending on the severity of the case.

According to a report from the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE), about 216,000 adolescents have been sexually abused by a priest or a member of the clergy in France since 1950. The Inirr was established to process reparations after verifying the victims' claims.​​​​​​​/aa

By the time the Russians invaded, 43-year-old Mufti Said Ismahilov, who is one of Ukraine's Muslim spiritual leaders, had already resolved that he would step aside from his religious duties to defend his country.

At the end of last year, as warnings of an imminent attack grew louder, Ismahilov began training with a local territorial defense battalion. By then he had served as a mufti for 13 years.

Born and raised in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, Ismahilov had already fled Russia once before, in 2014, when Moscow-backed separatists captured his city. He eventually moved to a quiet suburb outside Kyiv called Bucha – only to find himself, eight years later, at the heart of Moscow’s assault on Kyiv, and the site of atrocities that shocked the world. It felt as if the threat of Russian occupation would never end.

“This time I made the decision that I would not run away, I would not flee but I would fight,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press (AP) in Kostiantynivka, a town close to the front lines in eastern Ukraine where a battle for control of the region is intensifying.

Ismahilov began working as a military driver for paramedics evacuating the wounded from front lines or besieged towns. Tasked with driving in highly dangerous conditions, but also emotionally supporting the critically injured, Ismahilov said he sees his new job as “a continuation of my spiritual duty before God.”

Ismahilov was one of the dozens of Ukrainian Muslims who gathered at the mosque in Kostiantynivka Saturday to mark Qurban Bayram, also known as Eid al-Adha, an important religious holiday in Islam. The mosque is now the last remaining operational mosque in Ukrainian-controlled territory in Donbass. Ismahilov told the AP that there are around 30 mosques in the region in total but that most are now in the hands of the Russians.

Last week, Russia captured the city of Lysychansk, the last major stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in the eastern province of Luhansk. The governor of the Luhansk region said on Saturday that Russian forces are now pressing toward the border with the neighboring Donetsk region.

Muslims make up almost 1% of the population in Ukraine, which is predominantly Orthodox Christian. There is a large Muslim population in Crimea – home to the Crimean Tatars that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Numbers there jump to 12%. There is also a sizable Muslim community in eastern Ukraine, the result of waves of economic migration as the region industrialized and many Muslims immigrated to the Donbass region to work in the mines and factories.

Symbolic significance

The conflict in 2014 forced many Muslims from Crimea and Donbass to relocate to other parts of the country where they joined long-established Tatar communities or built new Islamic centers alongside Turks, Arabs and Ukrainian converts.

But the invasion has forced many to flee once again. The mosque in Kostiantynivka used to cater to a local Muslim population of several hundred people. On Saturday, few local residents were present, having journeyed west with their families. Instead, the congregation was made up of soldiers or combat medics from different units: Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian convert from Kharkiv, Kyiv and western Ukraine.

In his sermon following the traditional Eid prayers, Ismahilov told the congregation that this year’s Eid had a symbolic significance in the midst of the war, and asked them to remember Muslims living in occupied territories, where many have lost their homes and several mosques have been destroyed by shelling. Referencing a series of arrests of Crimean Tartars in the wake of the 2014 annexation, Ismahilov said Muslims in occupied territories do not feel safe.

“There is a lot of fear ... The war continues and we have no idea what is happening in the occupied territories and what situation Muslims are in there” he said.

Ismahilov told the AP that he considers Russian Muslims invading Ukraine, including Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov’s infamous Chechen battalions, as “criminals.”

“They are committing sins and ... they have come as murderers and occupiers, on a territory that is the home of Ukrainians and Ukrainian Muslims, without any justification. Allah did not give them that right” said Ismahilov. “They will answer for all this before God,” he added.

Personal, religious struggle

Olha Bashei, 45, a lawyer turned paramedic from Kyiv who converted to Islam in 2015, said Russia is trying to “erase Ukraine from the face of the earth.” Bashei began working as a front-line paramedic in Donbass in 2014. She considers this war a personal and religious struggle.

“This war is my war, and I defend this as my personal and religious struggle because I have nephews, I have a mother and I defend my home. I do not want my nephews to ever see what I, unfortunately, saw in this war,” she said.

“Islam even helps me because in Islam, in prayer, you somehow distract yourself from the war because you read the prayer and you have a connection with the Almighty," she explained.

As the soldiers prepared the customary sacrificial sheep for the Eid feast, a residential area in Kostiantynivka several kilometers away came under violent shelling. The incoming artillery shook the ground. Some soldiers ran to the mosque’s bunker. Others shrugged it off and continued to drink their tea and eat dates. The shelling caused several fires, injuring several inhabitants and burning roofs to cinders.

Ismahilov said they would pray for victory and the liberation of the occupied territories.

“We pray that our Muslim compatriots will be safe, that our families will be reunited, that the slain Muslims will go to heaven, and that all the Muslim soldiers who are defending their country will be accepted as shahids (martyrs) by Allah,” he explained./AP

In yet another incident of anti-Muslim violence in Germany, a woman wearing a headscarf was physically attacked in the capital Berlin, local media reported Saturday

According to the daily Der Tagesspiegel, a 37-year-old attacker tore off the 39-year-old victim's head covering before hitting her head and upper body.

The attack took place at a restaurant in the Weissensee district, the daily added.

The daily also reported another racist attack in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district earlier Friday where a 52-year-old man racially insulted two women.

The attacker was arrested and taken to a clinic for abnormal behavior before being released, the daily said.

Although Germany's Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, Muslims, especially women wearing headscarves, often face discriminatory practices in education and the labor market.

The country has witnessed growing racism and Islamophobia in recent years, fueled by the propaganda of neo-Nazi groups and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Germany, a country of over 83 million people, has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France. Among the country's nearly 5.3 million Muslims, of which 3 million are of Turkish origin./aa