scientists worry virus could infect animals

Monkeypox virus, illustration. Thom Leach | Science Photo Library | Getty Images

In 2003, 47 people across six Midwestern states caught monkeypox from pet prairie dogs that were infected after they were housed with rodents imported from Ghana, Africa. Today's outbreak, which has already infected more than 14,100 people in the U.S. and more than 41,000 across the globe, is spreading mostly through close human contact among gay and bisexual men. But scientists reported the first presumed human-to-pet transmission in a dog in France this month, prompting U.S. and global health officials to step up warnings to ensure the virus doesn't spread to other pets and animals.  The recommendation stems from concerns that monkeypox could spill into wildlife or rodent populations as the human outbreak grows, allowing the virus to pass back-and-forth between humans and animals and giving the virus a permanent foothold in countries where it hasn't historically circulated.  Prior to the global outbreak this year, monkeypox spread primarily in remote parts of West and Central Africa where people caught the virus after exposure to infected animals. The 2003 outbreak, which was contained, was the first documented case of humans catching the virus outside Africa.

The current global outbreak differs dramatically from past patterns of transmission. Monkeypox is now spreading almost entirely through close physical contact between people in major urban areas in the U.S., European nations and Brazil.  But the first presumed case of people infecting an animal in the current outbreak was reported in France this month. A pet dog tested positive for the virus after a couple in Paris fell ill with monkeypox and shared their bed with the animal. 

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WHO officials have said a single incident of a pet catching the virus is not surprising or a cause for major concern, but there is a risk that monkeypox could start circulating in animals if people don't know they can infect other species.  If monkeypox becomes established in animal populations outside Africa, the virus would have more opportunities to mutate, which carries the risk of higher transmissibility and severity. Animals could then potentially give the virus to people, increasing the risk of future outbreaks. "What we don't want to see happen is disease moving from one species to the next and then remaining in that species," said Dr. Mike Ryan, director of the WHO's health emergencies program, said during a press conference in Geneva last week. "It's through that process of one animal affecting the next and the next and the next that you see rapid evolution of the virus." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not received any reports of pets infected with monkeypox in the U.S., said Kristen Nordlund, an agency spokesperson. But the virus can spread from people to animals or from animals to people, according to the CDC.  "While we are still learning which species of animals can get monkeypox, we should assume any mammal can be infected with monkeypox virus," Nordlund said. "We do not know if reptiles, amphibians, or birds can get monkeypox, but it is unlikely since these animals have not been found to be infected with viruses in the same family as monkeypox." Dr. Rosamund Lewis, the WHO's lead monkeypox expert, said it's important to dispose of potentially contaminated waste properly to avoid the risk of rodents and other animals becoming infected when they rummage through garbage. "While these have been hypothetical risks all along, we believe that they are important enough that people should have information on how to protect their pets, as well as how to manage their waste, so that animals in general are not exposed to the monkeypox virus," Lewis said. Ryan said that while vigilance is important, animals and pets do not represent a risk to people at the current time. "It's important that we don't allow these viruses to establish themselves in other animal populations," Ryan said. "Single exposures or single infections in particular animals is not unexpected."

Rodents in Africa

Although scientists have done some research on monkeypox in Africa, where it's historically circulated, their work was limited due to a lack of funding. So scientists don't know how many different species of animals can carry the virus and transmit it to humans. Scientists have only isolated monkeypox from wild animals a handful of times in Africa over the past 40 years. They included rope squirrels, target rats and giant pouched rats in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as two types of monkeys in Cote d'Ivoire. Rodents, not monkeys, are thought to be the host animal population in Africa, though the precise animal reservoir is unknown. Public health officials don't know whether the types of animals in close proximity to people in urban settings in the U.S. -- racoons, mice and rats -- can pick up and transmit the virus. Some types of mice and rats can get monkeypox but not all species are susceptible, according to the CDC. "We know this is a virus that's transmitted from rodents in West Africa," said Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious disease expert at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. "Could rats or other rodents in urban environments mean that it gains a foothold there and it also becomes more of a permanent fixture — we don't want that to happen," he said. The CDC recommends that people who have monkeypox avoid contact with animals — pets, livestock, domestic animas and wildlife. If a pet becomes sick within 21 days of contact with someone who has monkeypox, the animal should be evaluated by a veterinarian. Waste contaminated with monkeypox should go into in a lined, dedicated trash can and shouldn't be left outside because wildlife could potentially become exposed the virus, according to CDC.

U.S. outbreak in 2003

In the 2003 outbreak, the CDC was able to quickly administer vaccines and quarantine patients before the virus could spread farther. There were no cases of monkeypox spreading between people. The CDC then banned the importation of rodents from Africa. Containing the 2003 outbreak took 10,000 hours of work to trace the virus back to Gambian rats and other rodents imported from Ghana to an animal distributor in Texas, according to Marguerite Pappaioanou, a former CDC official who worked on the outbreak. The Food and Drug Administration banned the importation of all African rodents in the wake of the 2003 outbreak. The agency also prohibited the interstate distribution of prairie dogs and their release into the wild over concerns monkeypox could become established in wildlife populations. The U.S. Georgical Survey and Department of Agriculture subsequently trapped 200 wild animals in Wisconsin at sites close to where humans contracted monkeypox from pet prairie dogs. They did not find any evidence that the virus had spread into wild animals, and the FDA lifted the ban on distributing prairie dogs between states. It's still illegal to import rodents from Africa.

Wastewater worries

Scientists in California detected monkeypox DNA in sewage samples this summer. New York is also conducting wastewater surveillance for the virus, according to the state health department, though results have not been publicly released yet. The wastewater findings in California have raised concern among some health experts that the virus could infect rodents through the sewage. "There is the risk because of the widespread nature of infections and the fact that it's sewage and wastewater," said Dr. James Lawler, an infectious disease expert at Global Center for Health Security at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. "That's a concern, about getting into an animal population and having a zoonotic risk reservoir and honestly, if that's the case that I think it's game over for us." But it's not clear if live virus is present in wastewater. The study measured monkeypox DNA in sewage samples, not whether the virus was still infectious, according to Marlene Wolfe, a scientist at Emory University who is working on the project. Wastewater is treated in most urban areas so the probability of the virus surviving and replicating in such an environment is low, according to Amira Roess, a former official with the CDC's Epidemiological Intelligence Service. Roess said garbage that contains contaminated materials such as bedsheets or towels likely poses a higher risk than wastewater. "There are wildlife species that rummage in your garbage and then they're more likely to pick up virus that is able to replicate. "There's a lot of ifs, but it happens," said Roess, who is now a professor of epidemiology at George Mason University.

Low probability

Several steps would have to take place for the monkeypox virus to spill over from humans into animals and then spill back into people causing another outbreak, according to Richard Reithinger, an epidemiologist at RTI International. The virus would have to circulate in an animal population with a wide geographic distribution, but not cause so much mortality in the species that the train of transmission is snuffed out, Reithinger said. Humans would also need to have some level of regular contact with animals. "Each step has a certain probability. Once once you kind of add up all the probabilities of these steps, the probability actually becomes quite low," Reithinger said. It's also possible that monkeypox might be transmitting more efficiently among people in the current outbreak due to some sort of viral mutation, Roess said. If the virus has adapted to humans, it could be more difficult for people to give the disease to animals, she added. It also depends on what kind animal comes into contact with the virus, according to Pappaioanou. "All animals are not susceptible. We don't even know which ones are," said Pappaioanou, who is now an affiliate professor at the University of Washington.

Better surveillance needed

Although the risk of the virus becoming entrenched in a U.S. animal population and causing future human outbreaks is low, the U.S. needs a more robust surveillance system to prepare for such a possibility, according to Pappaioanou and Roess. There are major gaps in the ability of public health agencies to monitor animal populations for infectious diseases, the former CDC officials said. "It's a very big gap. We don't have a good surveillance system for humans," Roess said. "For wildlife, it depends on who is interested in what pathogen and if they're able to convince someone to fund surveillance. A lot of our surveillance is just really sporadic" Livestock such as cows, sheep and poultry are monitored by the Department of Agriculture, Pappaioanou said. But wildlife surveillance is underfunded and it takes a tremendous amount of work to monitor these animals for infectious disease, she said There's no government agency that overseas the health of dogs and cats, she said. Local health departments may monitor rodents and have population control programs but this also requires funding and significant staffing, she added.

"More and more people around the world are moving to cities," Pappaioanou said. "What would it mean in a highly urbanized city to have a reservoir of infection? We don't know the answer."

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CDC admits Covid response fell short, launches reorganization

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is reorganizing the agency, saying it didn't react quickly enough during the Covid pandemic, according an internal review of the agency's operations released on Wednesday.

Walensky laid out several organizational changes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will take over the coming months to correct missteps and failures that occurred during the last 2.5 years of the pandemic, according to a fact sheet.

"For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for COVID-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations," Walensky said in a statement.  "My goal is a new, public health action-oriented culture at CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication, and timeliness."

The central objectives of the reorganization are focused on sharing scientific data faster and making it easier for the public to understand health guidance, according to the briefing document. Walensky launched the review in April after the massive winter surge of infections from the omicron variant upended the nation's public health response.

The CDC repeatedly faced criticism during the pandemic for confusing public health recommendations and releasing data too slowly through retrospective reports that were outpaced by the rapid spread of the virus. Public health experts were often frustrated that briefings on the pandemic relied on data from other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Israel.

Walensky is appointing an executive to lead a team that will implement changes. The CDC will also create a new executive council that reports directly to Walensky to determine the agency's key priorities backed up by budget decisions.

The agency's science and laboratory sciences divisions, which play crucial roles in investigating and tracking public health threats such as Covid, will also report to the CDC director.

The CDC is also creating an equity office to make sure agency's workforce reflects the U.S. population and better communicates public health guidance across all groups.

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Walmart strikes streaming deal with Paramount

In this photo illustration, a woman's silhouette holds a smartphone with the Walmart logo displayed on the screen and in the background.

Rafael Henrique | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Walmart has reached a deal to offer Paramount Global's streaming service as a perk of its Walmart+ membership program, the companies confirmed on Monday.

Starting in September, customers who belong to the retailer's program will get free access to an ad-supported plan on Paramount+, which include movies and shows such as "Star Trek," "Paw Patrol," "The Godfather" and "SpongeBob Squarepants."

Walmart launched Walmart+ nearly two years ago to drive sales and deeper customer engagement. The program costs $98 per year, or $12.95 per month, and is the company's answer to Amazon Prime, but with a different set of perks. It includes free shipping of online purchases, free grocery deliveries for orders of at least $35 and discounts on prescriptions and gas.

Now it will also include access to the "essential tier" of Paramount+, which typically costs $4.99 per month and includes commercials. Paramount also sells a premium product without ads for $9.99 per month.

"With the addition of Paramount+, we are demonstrating our unique ability to help members save even more and live better by delivering entertainment for less, too," Chris Cracchiolo, general manager of Walmart+, said in a news release.

Walmart said in a news release on Monday that it has had positive membership growth every month since its launch in September 2020. But since launching the service, the retail giant has declined to share its subscriber total.

According to estimates by market research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, Walmart+ had 11 million customers as of July — the same as in the April. A survey by equity research firm Morgan Stanley pegged the subscriber count higher at about 16 million members as of May.

Paramount+ is one of the many services that compete for eyeballs in the streaming industry. Paramount Global announced earlier this month that Paramount+ has 43.3 million subscribers around the world. The company aims to reach 100 million subscribers by 2024.

The deal with Walmart will give Paramount+ a new distribution channel to add subscribers as well as a branding boost. Paramount+ is the only streaming service that has struck a deal with Walmart and wanted to launch exclusively to get full marketing attention, according to a person familiar with the deal who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Jeff Shultz, chief strategy officer and chief business development officer of Paramount Streaming, said the two companies have worked closely together for years by selling consumer products in Walmart's stores.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the news of the deal.

Walmart will report its second-quarter earnings on Tuesday.

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Automakers investing in the South as EVs change the auto industry

Jack Weaver, an 82-year-old retired dairy farmer whose house sits on a Civil War battlefield, lives near General Motors' Spring Hill plant in Tennessee.

Michael Wayland / CNBC

SPRING HILL, Tenn. – Jack Weaver can point to a cannon on a Civil War battlefield from the comfort of a shaded bench in his backyard — a visible marker of his land's rich past. As he speaks about his small town, it's over the loud rumble of cars and trucks at the intersection in front of his farmhouse red home.

The 82-year-old retired dairy farmer has lived in Spring Hill nearly his entire life. He's watched the once-quiet town in middle Tennessee grow into a burgeoning Nashville suburb. The evolution of Spring Hill has come in conjunction with a population boom in the state as well as the introduction of new industries — in particular, auto companies — that have poured billions of dollars in new investments into the state.

"It's good and it's bad," says Weaver, who complains about cars hitting his fence and the traffic General Motors' Spring Hill plant has brought since it opened in 1990. "I'm not against development at all. I'm not. I think a man outta do what he wants with his own land."

Detroit is the city that "put the world on wheels," but it's towns like Spring Hill and others in neighboring states that are attracting the most investments from automakers in recent years, as production priorities shift to a battery-powered future with electric vehicles.

Companies more than ever want to build EVs where they sell them, because the vehicles are far heavier and more cumbersome to ship than traditional models with internal combustion engines. They also want facilities for battery production to be close by to avoid supply chain and logistics problems.

Among the first to invest in southern states was Ford Motor in the 1950s and 1960s in Kentucky, followed by foreign-based, or transplant, automakers starting with Nissan Motor, which established a plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, in 1983. Others such as General Motors, Subaru, Toyota Motor and BMW followed suit through the 1990s. More have followed since then, including recent announcements by Hyundai Motor and Rivian Automotive to build multibillion-dollar plants in Georgia.

As more companies look to the American South, the investments are changing the landscape of towns across the region and of the automotive industry's workforce, supply chain and logistics. Companies first to set up shop in the South earn early advantages over their northern competitors, and future newcomers, according to officials.

Auto executives say they're investing in the South for a combination of reasons: lower energy costs, available workforce and livability among them. Many southern states also come with other benefits, potentially controversial, such as all-in lower pay for workers, millions in tax breaks and a largely non-unionized workforce in many of the Republican-controlled, right-to-work states.

But the shift brings unique challenges, too. As the Motor City moves and expands south, it has to grapple with preservation of historic plantation farms, unearthing of slave burial grounds and pushback from citizens and local politicians who aren't used to the traffic or industries.

Investments shifting

Automakers have announced $45.9 billion of investments in southern states since 2017, according to The Center for Automotive Research, a nonprofit think tank based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That's the first year the South outpaced the Midwest, or Great Lakes region, for announced investments since at least 2010.

Midwest states such as Michigan, Ohio and Indiana saw $39.9 billion in announced investments in that same timeframe.

Most of the money heading south – $34.2 billion, or 74% – has come in since last year from traditional automakers such as GM, Hyundai and Ford Motor as well as EV startup Rivian. Others such as Volkswagen and Nissan continue to invest and expand their operations in the South, largely for new electric vehicles.

"We are basically undergoing the single biggest industrial transformation, I would say, not to understate it, in the history of America," Scott Keogh, CEO at Volkswagen of America, told CNBC in June at the automaker's new battery lab in Chattanooga, Tennessee. "It's happening right now in this area."

Scott Keogh of Volkswagen of America at the VW plant in Chattanooga, TN, June 8, 2022.

Michael Wayland | CNBC

Keogh singled out energy capacity and costs as the top priority for the company's investments in Tennessee, including the potential for new assembly and battery facilities that the company is "actively" scouting locations for. He and other executives have also cited incentives, tax support, labor and workforce training as other key elements.

Ford CEO Jim Farley put a similar emphasis on the cost and availability of energy in September, announcing an $11.4 billion investment in new vehicle and battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky.

"We want to work with states who are really excited about doing that training and giving you access to that low energy cost," Farley told the Associated Press then.

Tennessee has among the lowest electricity prices in the country, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The state's average industrial price of electricity per kilowatt-hour was 6.31 cents as of May. Michigan's industrial energy cost was 8.72 cents per kilowatt-hour, and the national average was 8.35 cents.

Mississippi and South Carolina were under 7 cents, while Georgia was 9.05 cents – among the highest in area, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

While those cost differences seem minimal, they add up quickly. Ford's new battery plants will have an annual capacity for 43 megawatt-hours of production. There are 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in a megawatt-hour, meaning tens of thousands of dollars in savings per year.

The expansion south is expected to continue for years to come, according to AlixPartners. The global consulting firm expects investments from automakers and suppliers in southern states such as Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky to total $58 billion for electric vehicles between 2022 and 2026. That's nearly four times the $15 billion that's expected in Midwest states, and $20 billion elsewhere in the country.

"It definitely will change but right now there's a lot more interest and activity happening in the Southern states, particularly with all these automakers making investments on the EV front," said Arun Kumar, a managing director in the automotive and industrial practice at AlixPartners.

Southern hospitality

State economic development officials from Tennessee and Georgia say their states have made the automotive industry a priority because of the supply chain jobs that typically follow. They also say electric vehicles have helped to level the playing field for new investments.

"This is almost like a seed field of opportunity, as this industry changes because we're building the supply chain in the United States for electrification from scratch," said Pat Wilson, commissioner of Georgia's economic development unit. "There's a huge amount of opportunity."

As of July, EV-related projects contributed more than $12.6 billion in investments and more than 17,800 new jobs in Georgia since 2020, officials said.

Tennessee reports automotive companies have added more than 43,800 new jobs and invested $16.5 billion in private capital in the state since 2012, representing nearly 30% of private capital investments during that time.

Nissan's Smyrna Vehicle Assembly Plant opened in 1983, marking Tennessee's first major auto facility. The plant employs more than 7,000 people are produces a variety of vehicles, including the Leaf EV and Rogue crossover.

Michael Wayland / CNBC

With billions of dollars on the line and tens of thousands of new jobs, states have offered enormous incentive packages for the companies in the forms of land, tax abatements/incentives and other support such as installation of utilities and roadways.

For example, Tennessee approved an $884 million incentive package for Ford's plans to spend $5.6 billion in the state, as well as in-kind services and a $2 million grant for training services. Ford's investment includes a new electric truck plant and battery facility with supplier South Korea-based SK Innovation.

Bob Rolfe, who oversees The Volunteer State's economic development, said such actions are needed to compete with others. He said to attract Ford last year the state spent years accumulating enough land for an "electric vehicle mega site" ahead of securing the automaker's commitment.

"We tell our team every day to continue to recruit. Is enough, enough?" Lewis said ahead of a trip to Japan for automotive recruitment in June. "The more great companies that call Tennessee home, the softer the landing when we do hit the next wind shear that's going to be developed around the next recession."

Unique issues

But not all agree that the automotive industry should be expanding South into rural areas. Rivian has faced notable pushback since announcing plans last year to build a $5 billion plant about 45 miles east of Atlanta, Georgia.

While hailed by many politicians, including Gov. Brian Kemp, local news outlets report residents of the rural area are concerned with how it will impact their community. Others, including politicians, oppose a $1.5 billion in tax breaks and other incentives that state and local officials have offered Rivian.

Haynes Haven is a historic landmark in Spring Hill, Tennessee that has been maintained by GM since the automaker built an assembly plant near the site in the 1980s.

"[Union Army General] Sherman and his troops destroyed our community. Now this supposedly green company is coming to destroy it again," JoEllen Artz told NBC News in May. Artz is president of the grassroots No2Rivian group, which says it has raised over $250,000 and hired Atlanta lawyers to fight the plant. "We want to keep it just like it is."

Building massive assembly plants in traditionally rural areas can also involve a unique set of challenges.

Decades ago, when GM was building its Spring Hill plant, the company unearthed an unmarked slave graveyard. GM paid for the remains to be moved to a nearby burial site.

"When we invest in properties, we're also investing in communities, their history and culture," GM said in an emailed statement to CNBC. "With any building or renovation project, we expect to encounter the unexpected, and we try to work with community members to find solutions to fit the unique needs of each situation. In many cases, like in Spring Hill, the unexpected finds become intertwined in our own history, as well."

It wasn't the first time GM has operated around such a site. On the property of its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, there's an active Jewish graveyard that the company agreed to build around when it built the plant in the 1980s.

There was reportedly another cemetery moved in Smyrna, Tennessee – located about 28 miles northeast of Spring Hill – when Nissan's plant and railroads were built there in the early 1980s.

GM maintained and updated a historic plantation in Spring Hill, Tenn. called Rippavilla as part of a deal for land to build an assembly plant in the city in the 1980s.

Michael Wayland / CNBC

Since GM's Spring Hill Assembly plant was built, the company also has maintained two historic plantations as part of land deals struck during the construction. It still maintains one called Haynes Haven, whose historic horse stables were turned into a welcome center and used for other events. The surrounding area is currently being used for employee parking during construction of the company's new $2.3 billion battery plant, next to the original plant.

The other site, called Rippavilla, sits across the street from the plant and was donated by the company to the city in 2016. It is now being run by a nonprofit organization, The Battle of Franklin Trust, committed to Civil War preservation and education.

"The last people that owned Rippavilla were pretty insistent that they wanted it to be a historic site. They did not want to happen to what happened to Haynes Haven, which Haven is owned by GM and able to use however they see fit," said Eric Jacobson, CEO of the organization.

Jacobson credits GM with saving and maintaining the site in the form of $100,000 a year up until 2016, when a 10-year deal to maintain the property ended. GM said it continues to support the site.

Battling the union

While the automakers may have to navigate battlefields of the South, they don't have to worry as much about battling unions.

The United Auto Workers has failed to successfully organize a non-Detroit automaker plant in the South, despite decades of attempts. The prominent union also now faces challenges of organizing joint venture battery plants from GM and Ford in the South.

"It's a very critical time for the UAW," Ray Curry, president of the union, told CNBC. "This transformation piece is about our future. It's about 86-plus years of longstanding history."

Ford's more than $11.4 billion investment to build new U.S. facilities in Tennessee and Kentucky is expected to create nearly 11,000 jobs to produce electric vehicles and batteries.

Both GM and Ford officials have said the decision of whether to unionize at their U.S. battery plants, which are joint ventures, will be left to the workers.

While the labor cost gap has narrowed between the Detroit automakers and other non-unionized automotive plants, organized labor costs are higher for the companies.

At the end of a current four-year contract between the Detroit automakers and UAW in 2023, the Center for Automotive Research estimates average hourly labor costs per worker will be $71 for GM; $69 for Ford; and $66 for Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler.

"There's quite a bit of anti-union attitude that prevails in the international carmakers," said James Rubenstein, a professor emeritus at the University of Miami Ohio, who specializes in the automotive industry. "It's a little bit easier to do that down South, to keep the union out."

Correction: A graphic in an earlier version of this article misrepresented industrial energy costs from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. They should have been in cents, not dollars.

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Salman Rushdie stabbed in neck, airlifted to hospital

Author Salman Rushdie is reportedly on a ventilator and unable to speak after being attacked while on stage in western New York on Friday.

State troopers confirmed in a press conference Friday afternoon that Rushdie was stabbed at least once in the neck and at least once in the abdomen while on stage for a panel in Chautauqua in western New York.

Staff and audience members rushed to the stage and pinned the assailant to the ground following the attack, state troopers said. A state trooper who was present took the suspect into custody with the assistance of a local sheriff's deputy.

Rushdie was treated by a doctor who was in the audience before emergency medical services arrived and airlifted him to a local trauma center.

After hours of surgery, Rushdie was reportedly on a ventilator and unable to speak on Friday evening.

"The news is not good," Andrew Wylie, his book agent, wrote in an email reported by Reuters. "Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged."

Author Salman Rushdie is tended to after he was attacked during a lecture, Friday, Aug. 12, 2022, at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, NY.

Joshua Goodman | AP

The state police department identified the suspect as Hadi Matar, age 24, from Fairview, NJ. The New York State Police is collaborating with the FBI and local police for the investigation.

A preliminary review of Matar's social media accounts by law enforcement showed him to be sympathetic to Shia extremism and the causes of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a law enforcement person with direct knowledge of the investigation told NBC News. Law enforcement officers reportedly found images of Solemani and an Iraqi extremist sympathetic to the Iranian regime in a cell phone messaging app belonging to Matar, according to NBC News.

There are no definitive links to the IRGC but the initial assessment indicates he is sympathetic to the Iranian government group, the official said.

The New York State Police released a statement immediately following the incident:

"On August 12, 2022, at about 11 a.m., a male suspect ran up onto the stage and attacked Rushdie and an interviewer," the statement read. "Rushdie suffered an apparent stab wound to the neck, and was transported by helicopter to an area hospital. His condition is not yet known. The interviewer suffered a minor head injury. A State Trooper assigned to the event immediately took the suspect into custody."

A spokesperson from the Chautauqua Institution, where the panel was being held, told CNBC that the organization was coordinating with emergency officials on a public response after the attack.

The Wylie Agency, which represents Rushdie, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rushdie's book "The Satanic Verses" forced him into hiding after it was banned in Iran and a $3 million bounty was put on his head. The Iranian government has distanced itself from the bounty, according to The Associated Press, but the fatwa has been continued by a semiofficial religious organization, which raised the bounty to $3.3 million.

Rushdie has been awarded many of the top literary prizes, including two Whitbread Prizes for best novel. He was knighted in 2007 while Tony Blair was prime minister. Blair released a statement on the attack.

Author Salman Rushdie at the Blue Sofa at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair on October 12, 2017 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Hannelore Foerster | Getty Images

"My thoughts are with Salman and all his family," Blair wrote on Friday. "A horrible and utterly unjustified attack on someone exercising their right to speak, to write and to be true to their convictions in their life and in their art."

Rushdie was scheduled to sit on a panel alongside Henry Reese, president of City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, an organization that provides sanctuary to writers exiled under threat of persecution.

"We ask for your prayers for Salman Rushdie and Henry Reese, and patience as we fully focus on coordinating with police officials following a tragic incident at the Amphitheater today," the Chautauqua Institution said in a tweet Friday. "All programs are canceled for the remainder of the day. Please consult the NYS Police statement."

The institution's website described the panel as "A discussion of the United States as asylum for writers and other artists in exile and as a home for freedom of creative expression."

Rushdie was the former president of PEN America, a nonprofit that defends freedom of expression and supports persecuted writers. PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel released a statement in the wake of the attack.

"Just hours before the attack, on Friday morning, Salman had emailed me to help with placements for Ukrainian writers in need of safe refuge from the grave perils they face," Nossel wrote. "Salman Rushdie has been targeted for his words for decades but has never flinched nor faltered. He has devoted tireless energy to assisting others who are vulnerable and menaced."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul thanked the New York State Police for their response to the attack on Rushdie.

"Our thoughts are with Salman & his loved ones following this horrific event," wrote the governor. "I have directed State Police to further assist however needed in the investigation."

Hochul later said Rushdie is alive.

"It was a state police officer that stood up and saved his life," the governor said during an event about gun violence, adding that the event moderator was also attacked. "We're monitoring the situation, but he's getting the care he needs at the local hospital."

This is the latest in a series of onstage attacks against public figures, including Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., in a town near Rochester, New York, earlier this summer, Dave Chappelle at the Hollywood Bowl, and Chris Rock during the Oscars.

NBC News contributed to this report

Correction: Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., was attacked in a town near Rochester, New York, earlier this summer. An earlier version misspelled his name and misstated the location.

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CDC eases guidance as U.S. has more tools to fight the virus

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased its Covid-19 guidance on Thursday, saying the virus now poses a much lower risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death compared to earlier in the pandemic.

The CDC no longer recommends testing people in schools who don't have Covid symptoms, its previous strategy to catch possible infections and head off outbreaks. But such screening is still recommended in certain high risk settings such as nursing homes, prisons and homeless shelters.

And people who aren't vaccinated no longer need to quarantine if they have been exposed to Covid, according to the new CDC guidance. Instead, public health officials now recommend that these individuals wear a mask for 10 days and get tested on day five.

A sign outside of a hospital advertises COVID-19 testing on November 19, 2021 in New York City. On Friday vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention voted unanimously in recommending a booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccines for all adults in the United States six months after they finish their first two doses.

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The CDC, in a report published Thursday, said there is a high level of immunity in the population from both the vaccines and infections which means the virus now poses a much lower threat to public health. Greta Massetti, a CDC epidemiologist, said the U.S. has the vaccines and treatments needed to fight the virus. But it remains crucial for everyone to remain up to date on their vaccines, according to the public health agency.

"This guidance acknowledges that the pandemic is not over, but also helps us move to a point where COVID-19 no longer severely disrupts our daily lives," Massetti said in a statement.

The changes in CDC guidance come as public health officials have warned that the U.S. could face a major wave of infection in the fall and winter, as immunity from the vaccines wanes off and people gather indoors to escape the colder weather.

The U.S. has repeatedly faced new omicron subvariants that are more transmissible than previous versions of the virus, which has led to stubbornly high levels of infection. The dominant version of the virus right now is omicron BA.5, which caused infections to increase during the spring and early summer.

What to do if you test positive

People with healthy immune systems, regardless of vaccination status, should isolate for five days after testing positive for the virus, but you can end isolation at day six if you have not had symptoms or if you have not had a fever for 24 hours and other symptoms have improved, according to the guidelines.

After leaving isolation, you should wear a high-quality mask through day 10 after your positive test. If you have had two negative rapid antigen tests you can stop wearing your mask earlier, according to the guidelines. But you should avoid people who are more likely to get sick from Covid, such as the elderly and people with weak immune systems, until at least day 11.

People with weakened immune systems, those who have been hospitalized with Covid, or those who have had shortness of breath due to the virus should isolate from others for 10 days. But people with weakened immune systems and those who were hospitalized should also consult a physician before ending isolation.

If you end isolation but your Covid symptoms worsen, you should return to isolation and follow the guidelines from scratch again, according to the CDC.

The U.S. is currently reporting more than 107,000 new Covid cases a day on average, according to the CDC. That's likely a significant undercount because many people are now testing at home and results are not picked up in official data.

About 6,000 people with Covid are admitted to the hospital a day on average, according to the CDC data. Nearly 400 people are still dying a day on average from the virus.

About 67% of people in the U.S. are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. But only 48% of those who received their first two shots got their recommended booster dose. And just 30% of children ages 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated, according to the data.

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Biden to sign executive order to help cover costs for women traveling for abortions

US President Joe Biden appears on a monitor as he speaks on reproductive care services, during the first meeting of the interagency Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, in Washington, DC, on August 3, 2022.

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U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday to help cover costs for women traveling to receive abortions.

Biden directed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to encourage states to write rules so their state Medicaid plans could cover certain costs for women traveling to receive abortions in states where the procedure remains legal.

"This executive order also helps women travel out of state for medical care," Biden said during a the first meeting of the White House task force on reproductive health-care access. "Secretary Becerra is going to work with states through the Medicaid to allow them to provide reproductive health-care for women who live in states where were abortions were are being banned in that state."

The president's executive order also directs Becerra to ensure health-care providers do not discriminate against women on the basis of pregnancy. HHS will collect more data on the impact that abortion bans have on maternal health.

But groups such as Planned Parenthood have called on the Biden administration to use all the emergency powers at its disposal to protect access to abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights has specifically called on HHS to use an emergency health law, called the PREP Act, to enable health-care providers in states where abortion remains legal to prescribe and dispense mifepristone for early abortions for women in states with bans.

The Biden administration has considered declaring a public health emergency to protect access to the abortion pill, but it worries physicians could potentially face prosecution in states that have banned the procedure, a senior administration official said.

The White House hasn't used those powers yet because officials worry that it might not be enough to protect physicians and women in the end, the senior administration official said.

The law gives the Health and Human Services secretary the authority to extend legal protections to anyone who manufactures or administers a drug that's needed to respond to a public health emergency. It was widely used in March 2020 to protect Covid-19 vaccine makers, test manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer that were making therapeutic drugs like the antiviral Paxlovid. It also protected physicians administering the shots and tests.

Under that authority, HHS Secretary Becerra could designate the abortion pill, mifepristone, as a drug needed to prevent a health emergency caused by reduced abortion access. This would, in theory, preempt state abortion bans and make mifepristone available to women in those states, opening an avenue to early pregnancy abortions.

"One of the concerns we have about invoking the PREP Act is that we're concerned that we might not be able to protect women and doctors from liability, including criminalization. So that's why we haven't yet taken that action," the senior administration told reporters on a call.

Legal experts have said Republican state officials would immediately sue the administration for using the PREP Act to protect medication abortion and a federal court could quickly block the action from taking effect. The issue could ultimately end up before the same conservative-controlled Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Biden said Wednesday voters need to elect more members of Congress in the upcoming midterms who will support codifying Roe v. Wade through federal legislation. He pointed to Kansas voters resounding rejection Tuesday night of a ballot initiative that would have repealed the state's constitutional protections for abortion.

"Voters of Kansas sent a powerful signal that this fall the American people will vote to preserve and protect the right, and refuse to let them be ripped away by politicians," Biden said.

Many states that have banned abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe. v. Wade have also barred physicians from administering drugs to terminate pregnancies, which would include mifepristone. The state bans in most cases make performing an abortion a felony that can carry yearslong prison sentences.

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Women who receive abortions are generally exempt from prosecution under most of the state bans, but reproductive rights activists are worried that Republican state officials will ultimately try to prosecute patients who receive the procedure as well.

The Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone more than 20 years ago as a safe and effective way to end a pregnancy before the 10th week. Mifepristone is taken in conjunction with misoprostol to induce contractions that end early pregnancies.

Medication abortions have become an increasingly common procedure to end pregnancies in the U.S. Mifepristone used in conjunction with misoprostol accounted for more than 50% of abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to a survey of all known providers by the Guttmacher Institute.

In December, the FDA decided to permanently lift a requirement that women obtain the pill in person, making it easier to dispense the pill by mail through telemedicine appointments.

But the physical location of the patient determines which state's telemedicine laws apply. This means women in states where abortion has been banned cannot receive the procedure through telemedicine with providers in states where it is legal.

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Biden administration considering public health emergency

The Biden administration is considering declaring a public health emergency in response to the growing monkeypox outbreak, a senior White House health official said on Friday.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid response coordinator, said the administration is looking at how a public health emergency declaration might bolster the U.S. response to the outbreak.

"There's no final decision on this that I'm aware of," Jha said. "It's an ongoing, but a very active conversation at HHS."

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has the authority to declare a public health emergency under the Public Health Services Act. A declaration can help mobilize federal financial assistance to respond to a disease outbreak.

The U.S. has reported more than 2,500 monkeypox cases so far across 44 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The largest outbreaks are in New York, California, Illinois, Florida, D.C. and Georgia.

The Biden administration's response to the outbreak has come under scrutiny from Congress as infections rise. Fifty House Democrats, in a letter to President Joe Biden this week, called for the administration to declare a public health emergency in response to the outbreak.

Senate Health Committee Chair Patty Murray, in a letter to HHS Secretary Becerra, said she is worried about the U.S. response to the outbreak. Murray said some patients and health-care providers do not have the information and resources they need to test for monkeypox and respond to the outbreak.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said last week that demand for the vaccines is outstripping the available supply. Many people are struggling to get vaccinated amid long lines outside clinics.

The U.S. has shipped more than 300,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine, called Jynneos, to city and state health departments so far, Jha told reporters Friday. The Food and Drug Administration is in the process of authorizing an additional 786,000 doses stored at the manufacturer Bavarian Nordic's facility in Denmark for distribution in the U.S.

Jha said some of those shots have started shipping and will arrive in the U.S. this week and next week. The doses can be delivered to city and state health departments once FDA authorization is complete, Jha said. The U.S. has also ordered another 5 million doses that will be delivered through the middle of 2023, according to HHS.

Monkeypox is primarily spreading through skin-to-skin contact during sex. Right now, men who have sex with men are at the highest risk of infection, but anyone can catch the virus through close physical contact. People generally recover in two to four weeks, but the virus causes lesions that can be very painful. No deaths have been reported in the U.S.

The CDC on Friday confirmed the first two cases of monkeypox in children. One case is a toddler in California, and the other is an infant who is not a U.S. resident. The cases are not related and the children likely caught the virus due to transmission within their household, according to CDC.

The children are both in good health and are receiving the antiviral treatment tecovirimat, according to the CDC. Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, a CDC official, told reporters Friday that the health agency is working to make it easier for clinicians to prescribe tecovirimat to patients.

Prescribing tecovirimat for monkeypox comes with an additional layer of bureaucracy right now because it is only FDA approved for smallpox. Monkeypox is in the same virus family as smallpox, but it causes milder disease.

McQuiston said more than 97% of patients with monkeypox who provide demographic information are gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men.

"While this outbreak is spreading in a particular social network right now, I think we've messaged from the start that there could be cases that occur outside those networks and that we need to be vigilant for it and ready to respond and message about it," McQuiston told reporters.

The U.S. has the capacity to conduct 80,000 monkeypox tests a week after bringing on several commercial labs this month, according to the CDC. But the tests swab the lesions that caused by the virus, which can take weeks from the initial exposure to develop. This means the U.S. likely does not have an accurate picture of how many people are infected because patients can only get tested once symptoms develop.

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