Nation and World briefs for January 31

E-cigs outperform patches and gums in quit-smoking study

WASHINGTON — A major new study provides the strongest evidence yet that vaping can help smokers quit cigarettes, with e-cigarettes proving nearly twice as effective as nicotine gums and patches.

The British research, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, could influence what doctors tell their patients and shape the debate in the U.S., where the Food and Drug Administration has come under pressure to more tightly regulate the burgeoning industry amid a surge in teenage vaping.

“We know that patients are asking about e-cigarettes and many doctors haven’t been sure what to say,” said Dr. Nancy Rigotti, a tobacco treatment specialist at Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the study. “I think they now have more evidence to endorse e-cigarettes.”

At the same time, Rigotti and other experts cautioned that no vaping products have been approved in the U.S. to help smokers quit.

Smoking is the No. 1 cause of preventable death worldwide, blamed for nearly 6 million deaths a year. Quitting is notoriously difficult, even with decades-old nicotine aids and newer prescription drugs. More than 55 percent of U.S. smokers try to quit each year, and only about 7 percent succeed, according to government figures.

Dems see future in Abrams as she prepares to rebut Trump

ATLANTA — Stacey Abrams will be doing more than rebutting President Donald Trump next week. As the first black woman to deliver a Democratic response to a State of the Union address, she’ll represent what many in the party see as their political future.

In picking Abrams, the Georgian who narrowly lost her bid to be the nation’s first African-American woman governor, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is reflecting the party’s hope to win future elections with appeals to women and people of color. He’s also signaling the party’s desire to make inroads in the diversifying South and Sun Belt after disappointing losses there during last year’s midterms.

Abrams, 45, represents the growing political clout of black women. That’s something Schumer wants to tap into by recruiting her to compete in next year’s Georgia Senate race, a decision that could have national implications for Democrats if she successfully flips the seat and, in the process, turns out enough voters to make the Deep South state competitive at the presidential level.

Schumer and others “understand the power and prowess and contributions of black women … and choosing Stacey Abrams is the physical embodiment of that recognition,” said Democratic strategist Symone Sanders.

The speech offers Abrams a high-profile launching pad to a Senate campaign. Though she hasn’t decided whether she’ll run, Schumer has spent the past several weeks courting Abrams to challenge first-term Republican Sen. David Perdue. She has also met with Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, chairwoman of Senate Democrats’ 2020 campaign efforts, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Kamala Harris, a presidential contender who is currently the lone black woman in the Senate.

Venezuelans take to streets in walkout to push Maduro out

CARACAS, Venezuela — Doctors in scrubs, businessmen in suits and construction workers in jeans gathered on the streets of Venezuela’s capital Wednesday, waving their nation’s flag and demanding Nicolas Maduro step down from power in a walkout organized by the nation’s reinvigorated opposition to ratchet up pressure on the embattled president.

Protesters said they were heeding the opposition’s call for another mass demonstration despite the heavy-handed response by security forces over the last week to quell anti-government protests.

“I’m going out now more than ever,” said Sobeia Gonzalez, 63. “We have a lot more faith that this government has very little time left.”

The latest walkout comes one week exactly after opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself the nation’s rightful president amid a sea of supporters, hurling the nation into a new chapter of political tumult as the anti-Maduro movement tries to establish a transitional government and the socialist leader clings to power.

“We are staying in the streets,” Guaido told students at a surprise appearance at the Central University of Venezuela. “Not just in protest of the crisis we are living in all of Venezuela, not just because of how bad things are, but also for the future.”

Foxconn factory jobs touted by Trump will not come to pass

MADISON, Wis. — Electronics giant Foxconn reversed course and announced Wednesday that the huge Wisconsin plant that was supposed to bring a bounty of blue-collar factory jobs back to the Midwest — and was lured with billions in tax incentives — will instead be primarily a research and development center staffed by scientists and engineers.

The move was decried in some quarters as a case of bait-and-switch by the Taiwan-based company, which originally planned to build high-tech liquid crystal display screens in a project President Donald Trump had proudly pointed to as a sign of a resurgence in American manufacturing.

In a statement, Foxconn said it remains committed to Wisconsin and the creation of 13,000 jobs as promised. But because the global market environment that existed when the $10 billion project was announced in 2017 has shifted, “this has necessitated the adjustment of plans for all projects.”

“This news is devastating for the taxpayers of Wisconsin,” said Wisconsin Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, a Democrat. “We were promised manufacturing jobs. We were promised state-of-the-art LCD production. … And now, it appears Foxconn is living up to their failed track record in the U.S. — leaving another state and community high and dry.”

Economic development officials and other supporters of the project urged patience, saying Foxconn still plans to invest what it promised. The White House had no immediate comment.

Families dig to find loved ones in Brazil dam collapse

BRUMADINHO, Brazil — Under a scorching sun, Tereza Ferreira Nascimento on Wednesday dug through the mud with garden tools and her hands in search of her brother Paulo Giovane dos Santos, resigned to the reality that he was most likely dead six days after the collapse of a Brazilian dam holding back mine waste.

As search-and-recovery efforts continued, authorities also worked to slow the reddish-brown mud that was heading down a small river with high concentrations of iron oxide, threatening to contaminate a much larger waterway that provides drinking water to communities in five of the country’s 26 states.

Friday’s breach at the mine owned and operated by the Vale mining company led to a sea of mud that plastered several areas of the southeastern city of Brumadinho. To date, 99 people have been confirmed dead and 259 are missing.

“We have been here since Friday, taking turns between brothers, brothers-in-law, searching for the body so that we can at least give him a dignified burial,” said Nascimento, holding back tears. “So far it has been in vain.”

Nascimento’s sister-in-law, Sonia Monteiro, knelt down to smell the mud. Other smells, of dead animals, had thrown them off before, but this time they believed they were on the right track.

Apple busts Facebook for distributing data-sucking app

NEW YORK — Apple says Facebook can no longer distribute an app that paid users, including teenagers, to extensively track their phone and web use.

In doing so, Apple closed off Facebook’s efforts to sidestep Apple’s app store and its tighter rules on privacy.

The tech blog TechCrunch reported late Tuesday that Facebook paid people about $20 a month to install and use the Facebook Research app. While Facebook says this was done with permission, the company has a history of defining “permission” loosely and obscuring what data it collects.

“I don’t think they make it very clear to users precisely what level of access they were granting when they gave permission,” mobile app security researcher Will Strafach said Wednesday. “There is simply no way the users understood this.”

He said Facebook’s claim that users understood the scope of data collection was “muddying the waters.”