A trio of health care bills enshrining access in Colorado to abortion and gender-affirming procedures and medications became law Friday as the Democrat-led state tries to make itself a safe haven for its neighbors, whose Republican leaders are restricting care. 

The main goal of the legislation signed by Democratic Governor Jared Polis is to ensure people in surrounding states and beyond can go to Colorado to have an abortion, begin puberty blockers or receive gender-affirming surgery without fear of prosecution. Bordering states of Wyoming and Oklahoma have passed abortion bans and Utah has severely restricted transgender care for minors. 

Many states with abortion or transgender care bans are also criminalizing traveling to states for the purpose of accessing legal health care. 

The contradicting laws are setting the stage for interstate disputes comparable to the patchwork of same-sex marriage laws that existed until 2015, or the 19th-century legal conflict over whether fugitive enslaved people in free states remained the property of slaveholders when they escaped. 

The governor’s office was packed with lawmakers, advocates and health care providers, many of them women, for a ceremony with a celebratory feel that resembled a rally at times with loud applause and call-and-response chants. 

“We see you and in Colorado, we’ve got your back,” Democratic state Senator Julie Gonzalez said during the ceremony. 

With the new laws, Colorado joins Illinois as a progressive place offering reproductive rights to residents of conservative states. Illinois abortion clinics now serve people living in a 2,900-kilometer (1,800-mile) stretch of 11 Southern states that have largely banned abortion. 

Florida, temporarily a haven for abortion seekers in those states, outlawed abortions after six weeks. The bill, signed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday in a closed-door ceremony, doesn’t go into effect right away. 

California and New York are considering similar bills, with the U.S. Supreme Court having knocked down Roe. v. Wade, putting abortion laws in the hands of state legislatures. 

Colorado’s southern neighbor, New Mexico, is also controlled by Democrats and passed a similar abortion protection bill earlier this year. It legally shields those who seek abortions or gender-affirming care, and those who provide the treatments, from interstate investigations. 

Ashley Blinkhorn, a graduate student and activist who testified in favor of the Colorado bills during legislative hearings, said they would help people across the country, including possibly her recently married friends in their 30s and her queer friends in her former homes of Texas and Florida. 

“It’s a real comfort to know that Colorado … will provide health care to them if they visit or if they move here,” she said. 

Visits to Colorado’s abortion clinics have increased by about a third since the Supreme Court ruling, and wait times for an appointment have increased from one or two days up to three weeks, according to state lawmakers. They also expect an increase in wait times for gender-affirming care. 

Colorado House Minority Leader Mike Lynch said he feared the legislation would make Colorado an abortion destination that will attract “the vulnerable, the indigent and frightened minors from all over the country” and said the package of laws does not protect choice. 

“They deny a new mother the choice to consider alternative options other than to end her pregnancy,” Lynch, a Republican from Wellington, said in a statement. 

Karen Middleton, president of Cobalt Advocates, a Denver-based organization that pushes for abortion access, said most of the women traveling to Colorado since the Supreme Court ruling have come from Texas and Wyoming. The organization spent $220,000 to help women get access to abortion in Colorado last year, most of them from other states, up from $6,000 in 2021, she said. 

Polis added the first layer of abortion protection a year ago, signing an executive order that bars state agencies from cooperating with out-of-state investigations regarding reproductive health care. One of the bills he signed Friday codifies that order into law. Like the New Mexico law, it blocks court summonses, subpoenas and search warrants from states that decide to prosecute someone for having an abortion. 

Colorado’s abortion law extends the protections to transgender patients dodging restrictions in their own states. Gender-affirming health care has been available for decades, but some states have recently barred minors from accessing it, even with parental consent. Hospitals in some of those states say gender-affirming surgeries are rarely recommended for minors anyway. Puberty blockers are more common. 

Conservative states are pushing back. Idaho passed a bill that outlaws providing a minor with abortion pills and helping them leave the state to terminate a pregnancy without their parents’ consent. 

The Colorado law comes as medication abortions are in limbo across the U.S. and mail-order prescriptions of a crucial abortion drug are virtually banned pending the outcome of a federal court case. 

Also on Friday, Polis signed a measure that outlaws “deceptive practices” by anti-abortion centers, which are known to market themselves as abortion clinics but don’t actually offer the procedure. Instead, they attempt to persuade patients to not terminate their pregnancies. The bill also prohibits sites from offering what’s called an abortion pill reversal — an unproven practice to reverse a medical abortion. 

A third bill signed Friday requires large employers to offer coverage for the total cost of an abortion, with an exception for those who object on religious grounds. It exempts public employees because Colorado’s constitution forbids the use of public funds for abortions.
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The Supreme Court said Friday that it was temporarily keeping in place federal rules for use of an abortion drug, while it takes time to more fully consider the issues raised in a court challenge. 

In an order signed by Justice Samuel Alito, the court asked both sides to weigh in by Tuesday over whether lower court rulings restricting the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug, mifepristone, should be allowed to take effect while the case works its way through federal courts. The order suggests the court will decide that issue by late Wednesday. 

The justices are being asked at this point only to determine what parts of an April 7 ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas, as modified by an appellate ruling Wednesday, can be in force while the case continues. 

The Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, the maker of the pill, asked the justices to intervene. 

The type of order issued by the court Friday, an administrative stay, ordinarily is not an indication of what the justices will do going forward. 

The Justice Department and Danco Laboratories both had warned of regulatory chaos and harm to women if the high court didn’t block an appeals court ruling in the Texas case that had the effect of tightening FDA rules under which mifepristone can be prescribed and dispensed. 

“This application concerns unprecedented lower court orders countermanding FDA’s scientific judgment and unleashing regulatory chaos by suspending the existing FDA-approved conditions of use for mifepristone,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote Friday, less than two days after the appellate ruling. 

A lawyer for the anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations suing over mifepristone said the justices should reject the drugmaker’s and the administration’s pleas and allow the appeals court-ordered changes to take effect. 

The fight over mifepristone lands at the Supreme Court less than a year after conservative justices reversed Roe v. Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright. 

A ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Wednesday would prevent the pill, used in the most common abortion method, from being mailed or prescribed without an in-person visit to a doctor. It also would withdraw the FDA’s approval of mifepristone for use beyond the seventh week of pregnancy. The FDA says it’s safe through 10 weeks. 

Still, the appeals court did not entirely withdraw FDA approval of mifepristone while the fight over it continues. The 5th Circuit narrowed an April 7 ruling by Kacsmaryk, whose far-reaching and virtually unprecedented order would have blocked FDA approval of the pill. He gave the administration a week to appeal. 

“To the government’s knowledge, this is the first time any court has abrogated FDA’s conditions on a drug’s approval based on a disagreement with the agency’s judgment about safety — much less done so after those conditions have been in effect for years,” Prelogar wrote. 

Erin Hawley, a lawyer for the challengers, said in a statement that the FDA has put politics ahead of health concerns in its actions on medication abortion. 

“The 5th Circuit rightly required the agency to prioritize women’s health by restoring critical safeguards, and we’ll urge the Supreme Court to keep that accountability in place,” said Hawley said, a senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that also argued to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Mifepristone was approved by the FDA more than two decades ago and is used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol. 

The two judges who voted to tighten restrictions, Kurt Engelhardt and Andrew Oldham, are both appointees of former President Donald Trump. The third judge, Catharina Haynes, is an appointee of former President George W. Bush. She said she would have put the lower court ruling on hold entirely for now to allow oral arguments in the case. 

The appeals court judges in the majority in Wednesday’s decision noted that the Biden administration and mifepristone’s manufacturer “warn us of significant public consequences” that would result if mifepristone were withdrawn entirely from the market under the lower court ruling. 

But the judges suggested FDA changes making mifepristone easier to obtain since 2016 were less consequential than its initial approval of the drug in 2000. It would be difficult to argue the changes were “so critical to the public given that the nation operated — and mifepristone was administered to millions of women — without them for sixteen years” the judges wrote. 

Use of medication abortion jumped significantly after the 2016 rule expansion, according to data gathered by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. In 2017, medication abortion accounted for 39% percent of abortions but by 2020 had increased to become the most common method, accounting for 53% of all abortions. 

Experts have said the use of medication abortion has increased since the court overturned Roe. 

When the drug was initially approved, the FDA limited its use to up to seven weeks of pregnancy. It also required three in-person office visits: the first to administer mifepristone, the next to administer the second drug, misoprostol, and the third to address any complications. It also required a doctor’s supervision and a reporting system for any serious consequences of the drug. 

If the appeals court’s action stands, those would again be the terms under which mifepristone could be dispensed for now. At the core of the Texas lawsuit is the allegation that the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone was flawed because the agency did not adequately review safety risks.
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Taifa 1, Kenya’s first operational 3U nanosatellite, was set to launch aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in the U.S. state of California on Friday after being delayed twice. But the launch was scrubbed at the last minute because of unfavorable weather.  

Teddy Warria, with Africa’s Talking Limited, a high-tech company, traveled to the University of Nairobi in Kenya from Kisumu, 563 kilometers west of Nairobi. He said he’ll stay as long it takes to witness the historic day.  

“It shows us through science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and if we apply the lessons learned from STEM, we can go as far as our minds and imagination can take us,” Warria said. 

Regardless of the delay, Charles Mwangi, the acting director of space sector and technology development at the Kenya Space Agency, said the satellite is quite significant. 

“… [I]t’s initiating conversations we’ve not been having in terms of what our role within the space sector should be,” Mwangi said. “How do we leverage the potential space to address our societal need. More importantly, how do we catalyze research and activities of developing systems within our region.”  

Mwangi told VOA that launching the satellite will have some major benefits “that will help us in monitoring our forests, doing crop prediction, determine where the yield for our crops, disaster management, planning.” 

The satellite was developed by nine Kenyan engineers and cost $385,000 to build. The engineers collaborated with Bulgarian aerospace manufacturer Endurosat AD for testing and parts.  

Pattern Odhiambo, an electrical and electronics engineer at the Kenyan Space Agency, who worked on the Taifa 1 mission, said, “I took part in deciding what kind of a camera we are supposed to have on this mission, so that we can meet the mission’s objectives, which is to take images over the Kenyan territory for agricultural use, for urban planning, monitoring of natural resources and the likes.”  

And, as the communication subsystem lead, he also had other tasks. 

“I took part in the design of the radio frequency link between the satellite and the ground station, the decision-making process on the kind of modulation schemes you can have on the satellite, the kind of transmitter power, the kind of antenna you are supposed to have,” he said.

Samuel Nyangi, a University of Nairobi graduate in astronomy and Astro physics, was also at the university to witness his country’s history making. 

“If you look at the African countries that are economically strong — Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt — they all have very strong space industries. We are so proud of the Kenya Space Agency, having taken this initiative, because the satellite data that we use [is] from foreign nations, specifically NASA in the United States. For us having our own data, tailoring it to our own needs as Kenyans, it’s a very big step,” Nyangi said.

This sentiment is echoed by Paul Baki, professor of Physics at the Technical University of Kenya, who participated in a panel discussion on education and research to help answer students’ questions. Baki told VOA this is a big leap for Kenya. 

“We have walked this journey, I think, for over 20 years when the first draft space policy was done in 1994,” Baki said. “We’ve decided that we are going to walk the talk and build something domestically. It has happened in approximately three years, which to me is no mean feat, and this is quite inspiring to our students because they have something to look up to.” 

Student James Achesa, who is in his fourth year studying mechanical engineering at Nairobi University, explained his understanding of the Taifa 1 mission.

“It’ll help the small-scale farmer, as well as just general people in Kenya to see and understand where our country is going to. So, they might not enjoy the science of putting a spacecraft into space, but the science that does will come and disseminate to them at grassroots levels and will help them plan for their future,” Achesa said.

Ivy Kut, who has a bachelor’s degree in applied sciences and geoinformatics from the Technical University of Kenya, said, “It’s going to benefit Kenyans in that we are going to get our own satellite data with better resolution and that is going to inform a lot of decisions in all sectors, especially in the analysis of earth data.”

The next launch attempt is scheduled for Saturday.  
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A European spacecraft rocketed away Friday on a decadelong quest to explore Jupiter and three of its icy moons that could have buried oceans.

The journey began with a morning liftoff by Europe’s Ariane rocket from French Guiana in South America. Arianespace’s chief executive Stephane Israel called it “an absolutely perfect launch.”

But there were some tense minutes later as controllers waited for signals from the spacecraft nearly an hour into the flight.

When contact was confirmed, European Space Agency’s Bruno Sousa declared from Mission Control in Germany: “The spacecraft is alive!”

It will take the robotic explorer, dubbed Juice, eight years to reach Jupiter, where it will scope out not only the solar system’s biggest planet but also Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. The three ice-encrusted moons are believed to harbor underground oceans, where sea life could exist.

Then in perhaps the most impressive feat of all, Juice will attempt to go into orbit around Ganymede: No spacecraft has ever orbited a moon other than our own.

With so many moons,— at last count 95 — astronomers consider Jupiter a mini solar system of its own, with missions like Juice long overdue.

“We are not going to detect life with Juice,” stressed the European Space Agency’s project scientist, Olivier Witasse.

But learning more about the moons and their potential seas will bring scientists closer to answering the is-there-life-elsewhere question. “That will be really the most interesting aspect of the mission,” he said.

Juice is taking a long, roundabout route to Jupiter, covering 6.6 billion kilometers (4 billion miles).

It will swoop within 200 kilometers (125 miles) of Callisto and 400 kilometers (250 miles) of Europa and Ganymede, completing 35 flybys while circling Jupiter. Then it will hit the brakes to orbit Ganymede, the primary target of the 1.6 billion-euro mission (nearly $1.8 billion).

Ganymede is not only the solar system’s largest moon — it surpasses Mercury — but has its own magnetic field with dazzling auroras at the poles.

Even more enticing, it’s thought to have an underground ocean holding more water than Earth. Ditto for Europa and its reported geysers, and heavily cratered Callisto, a potential destination for humans given its distance from Jupiter’s debilitating radiation belts, according to Carnegie Institution’s Scott Sheppard, who’s not involved with the Juice mission.

“The ocean worlds in our solar system are the most likely to have possible life, so these large moons of Jupiter are prime candidates to search,” said Sheppard, a moon hunter who’s helped discover well over 100 in the outer solar system.

The spacecraft, about the size of a small bus, won’t reach Jupiter until 2031, relying on gravity-assist flybys of Earth and our moon, as well as Venus.

“These things take time — and they change our world,” said the Planetary Society’s chief executive, Bill Nye. The California-based space advocacy group organized a virtual watch party for the launch.

Belgium’s King Philippe and Prince Gabriel, and a pair of astronauts — France’s Thomas Pesquet and Germany’s Matthias Maurer — were among the spectators in French Guiana. Thursday’s launch attempt was nixed by the threat of lightning.

Juice — short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer — will spend three years buzzing Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. The spacecraft will attempt to enter orbit around Ganymede in late 2034, circling the moon for nearly a year before flight controllers send it crashing down in 2035, later if enough fuel remains.

Europa is especially attractive to scientists hunting for signs of life beyond Earth. Juice will keep its Europa encounters to a minimum, however, because of the intense radiation there so close to Jupiter.

Juice’s sensitive electronics are encased in lead to protect against radiation. The 6,350-kilogram (14,000-pound) spacecraft also is wrapped with thermal blankets — temperatures near Jupiter hover around minus 230 degrees Celsius (minus 380 degrees Fahrenheit). And its solar panels stretch 27 meters (88 feet) tip to tip to soak in as much sunlight that far from the sun.

Late next year, NASA will send an even more heavily shielded spacecraft to Jupiter, the long-awaited Europa Clipper, which will beat Juice to Jupiter by more than a year because it will launch on SpaceX’s mightier rocket. The two spacecraft will team up to study Europa like never before.

NASA has long dominated exploration at Jupiter, beginning with flybys in the 1970s by the twin Pioneers and then Voyagers. Only one spacecraft remains humming at Jupiter: NASA’s Juno, which just logged its 50th orbit since 2016.

Europe provided nine of Juice’s science instruments, with NASA supplying just one.

If Juice confirms underground oceans conducive to past or present life, Witasse said the next step will be to send drills to penetrate the icy crusts and maybe even a submarine.

“We have to be creative,” he said. “We can still think it’s science fiction, but sometimes the science fiction can join the reality.”
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The World Health Organization says that the focus of this year’s World Chagas Disease Day observation is expanding awareness of Chagas and on “providing access to crucial care and implementing disease surveillance, at the primary health care level.”

The Centers for Disease Control says Chagas is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which is transmitted to animals and people by insects.

It is often referred to as a silent killer because if it is not detected early, it can cause serious heart and digestive problems and can be fatal.

It is found mainly in Latin America, but according to WHO, it has been detected elsewhere, including the United States, Canada, some European countries and some African, Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific countries.

WHO reports 6 million to 7 million people worldwide are infected with Chagas and 30,000 to 40,000 new cases are detected yearly.   Approximately 12,000 Chagas-related deaths are reported annually.

The disease is named after Carlos Justiniano Chagas, a Brazilian doctor who discovered the disease in 1909.
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A Zimbabwean actress battling cancer has asked wealthy citizens to buy a radiotherapy machine for government hospitals because she says the country’s only unit has stopped working. As Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, many blame Zimbabwe’s high mortality rate among cancer patients on the country’s poor state of health care.]
Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe
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The Republican-dominated Florida Legislature on Thursday approved a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a proposal supported by the Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as he prepares for an expected presidential run.

DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law. Florida currently prohibits abortions after 15 weeks.

A six-week ban would give DeSantis a key political victory among Republican primary voters as he prepares to launch a presidential candidacy built on his national brand as a conservative standard-bearer.

The policy would also have wider implications for abortion access throughout the South in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade and leaving decisions about abortion access to states. Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, while Georgia forbids the procedure after cardiac activity can be detected, which is around six weeks.

“We have the opportunity to lead the national debate about the importance of protecting life and giving every child the opportunity to be born and find his or her purpose,” said Republican Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka.

Democrats and abortion-rights groups have criticized Florida’s proposal as extreme.

“This ban would prevent 4 million Florida women of reproductive age from accessing abortion care after six weeks — before many women even know they’re pregnant,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement issued after Thursday’s vote. “This ban would also impact the nearly 15 million women of reproductive age who live in abortion-banning states throughout the South, many of whom have previously relied on travel to Florida as an option to access care.”

The bill contains some exceptions, including to save the woman’s life. Abortions for pregnancies involving rape or incest would be allowed until 15 weeks of pregnancy, provided a woman has documentation such as a restraining order or police report. DeSantis has called the rape and incest provisions sensible.

Drugs used in medication-induced abortions — which make up the majority of those provided nationally — could be dispensed only in person or by a physician under the Florida bill. Separately, nationwide access to the abortion pill mifepristone is being challenged in court.

Florida’s six-week ban would take effect only if the state’s current 15-week ban is upheld in an ongoing legal challenge that is before the state Supreme Court, which is controlled by conservatives.

“I can’t think of any bill that’s going to provide more protections to more people who are more vulnerable than this piece of legislation,” said Republican Rep. Mike Beltran, who said the bill’s exceptions and six-week timeframe represented a compromise.

Abortion bans are popular among some religious conservatives who are part of the GOP voting base, but the issue has motivated many others to vote for Democrats. Republicans in recent weeks and months have suffered defeats in elections centered on abortion access in states such as Kentucky, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“Have we learned nothing?” House Democratic Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell said of recent elections in other states. “Do we not listen to our constituents and to the people of Florida and what they are asking for?”

DeSantis, who often places himself on the front lines of culture war issues, has said he backs the six-week ban but has appeared uncharacteristically tepid on the bill. He has often said, “We welcome pro-life legislation,” when asked about the policy.

DeSantis is expected to announce his presidential candidacy after the session ends in May, with his potential White House run in part buoyed by the conservative policies approved by the Republican supermajority in the Statehouse this year.

Democrats, without power at any level of state government, have mostly turned to stall tactics and protests to oppose the bill, which easily passed both chambers on largely party-line votes. The Senate approved it last week, and the House did so Thursday.

A Democratic senator and chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party were arrested and charged with trespassing during a protest in Tallahassee against the six-week ban. In a last ditch move to delay the bill’s passage in the House on Thursday, Democrats filed dozens of amendments to the proposal, all of which were rejected by Republicans.

“Women’s health and their personal right to choose is being stolen,” said Democratic Rep. Felicia Simone Robinson. “So I ask: Is Florida truly a free state?”
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The U.S. Department of Justice responded Thursday to a ruling that limits access to the abortion pill mifepristone and said it would ask the Supreme Court for an emergency order to put any restrictions on hold.

After conflicting rulings by various courts on mifepristone, a pill that induces abortion and is the most commonly used method in the United States, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that it could be used for now but with some restrictions. They include reducing the period of time when the drug can be taken and prohibiting it from being mailed.

Mifepristone has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for 23 years. Last week, Matthew Kacsmaryk, a U.S. district judge in Texas, reversed approval of the pill’s use following a lawsuit by opponents of abortion.

Less than an hour later, a judge in Washington state ordered the FDA to preserve access to the drug in 17 states and the District of Columbia.

In response, the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit voted late Wednesday to temporarily narrow the ruling by Kacsmaryk.

In a 2-1 vote, the judges on the appeals court put on hold changes made by the FDA in 2016 and 2021 that relaxed the rules for prescribing and dispensing mifepristone. The relaxed rules included allowing the pill to be sent through the mail, lifting a requirement for three in-person doctor visits, and approving the drug’s use for up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy, rather than seven weeks.

Preventing the pill from being sent by mail reduces abortion access. The reversal of Roe vs. Wade less than a year ago has resulted in more than a dozen states banning abortion outright. Roe vs. Wade was the case that recognized a constitutional right to abortion.

Reactions to rulings

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement, “We will be seeking emergency relief from the Supreme Court to defend the FDA’s scientific judgment and protect Americans’ access to safe and effective reproductive care.” Without the granting of an emergency order, the Court of Appeals’ ruling will go into effect on Saturday.

Vice President Kamala Harris issued a statement as well.

“There is a reproductive health care crisis in America. Our administration will continue fighting to protect women’s health and the right to make decisions about one’s own body,” she wrote.

Erin Hawley, a lead lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case, expressed satisfaction with the latest ruling.

“The 5th Circuit’s decision is a significant victory for the doctors we represent, women’s health, and every American who deserves an accountable federal government acting within the bounds of the law,” said Hawley, senior counsel for the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom.

Abortion rights supporters or opponents could take the case to the Supreme Court. Opponents of the drug could try to keep the full Court of Appeals ruling in effect. Or, the Biden administration could ask the Supreme Court to allow all the FDA changes to remain in place while the case makes its way through the legal system.

Ruling alleges inadequate review

At the core of the Texas ruling is the allegation that the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone was flawed because the agency did not adequately review safety risks.

Common side effects include cramping, bleeding, nausea, headache and diarrhea. In rare cases, women can experience excess bleeding that requires a surgical intervention.

More than 5.6 million women in the U.S. had used the drug as of June 2022, according to the FDA. In that period, the agency received 4,200 reports of complications, which represented less than one-tenth of 1% of women who took the drug.

In loosening restrictions on mifepristone, FDA regulators cited “exceedingly low rates of serious adverse events.”

More than 250 pharmaceutical executives criticized the Texas judge’s decision in a public letter. They said it ignored decades of scientific evidence and legal precedent.

In the letter, they wrote, “We call for the reversal of this decision to disregard science, and the appropriate restitution of the mandate for the safety and efficacy of medicines for all with the FDA, the agency entrusted to do so in the first place.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France Presse and Reuters.
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An activist in Ghana is swimming the nearly 500-kilometer-long Volta River, including Lake Volta, to bring attention to worsening water pollution. Yvette Tetteh is also collecting water samples along the way to test for pollution. Senanu Tord reports from Lake Volta, Ghana.
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The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center on Thursday issued an El Nino watch for the next six months, a climate pattern that is likely to play a role in this year’s Atlantic hurricane season. 

In a statement, NOAA said the indications are favorable — a 62% chance — for an El Nino pattern to form sometime from May to July. The pattern is characterized by warmer ocean temperatures and higher than normal precipitation in the central to eastern Pacific Ocean. 

The El Nino pattern would follow nearly two continuous years of La Nina conditions in the Pacific. 

El Nino and La Nina are opposite extremes of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern that occur across the equatorial Pacific and can influence weather across the United States and around the world. NOAA monitors ENSO and issues monthly outlooks on the patterns. 

The agency’s El Nino watch comes as the first forecast for the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season was issued by Colorado State University (CSU), led by meteorologist Philip Klotzbach. 

The CSU forecast calls for a slightly below normal hurricane season but cautions there is a great deal of uncertainly as the forecast depends heavily on the likelihood of El Nino forming and how strong it might be. The warmer than normal ocean temperatures associated with El Nino are conducive to an active hurricane season. 

The CSU forecast predicts 13 named storms to form during the 2023 season compared with the annual average of 14.4. Of those, CSU predicts six would become hurricanes, compared with the annual average of 7.2. 

The forecasters predict two of those will become major hurricanes — those with winds topping 179 kilometers per hour — compared with the average of three. 

The official Atlantic hurricane season of the U.S. National Weather Service, which is part of NOAA, runs from June 1 to November 30 each year. 

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
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A plan to legalize irrigation around the Donana wildlife reserve in southern Spain, one of Europe’s largest wetlands and a wintering location for migratory birds, has sparked an outcry during a prolonged drought.

Andalusia’s conservative regional government wants to allow agricultural irrigation in five municipalities around Donana, saying the move poses no risk to the national park.

The regional assembly, where the conservatives have a majority, on Wednesday voted in favor of proceeding with detailed studies of the proposal.

During the debate, a lawmaker for the left-wing Adelante Andalucia party emptied a glass full of sand on regional leader Juanma Moreno’s vacant seat after accusing him of wanting to “dry up” Donana.

‘No water at all’

Scientists and the national government warn the park is in critical condition with lagoons drying out and biodiversity disappearing, and want a reduction in water extracted.

“There is no water at all. It makes no sense to promise something that is not there,” Environment Minister Teresa Ribera said on Tuesday, vowing to take all possible legal measures to protect Donana from the move “that directly attacks one of the country’s most precious ecosystems.”

While some irrigation is already allowed, many farmers use illegal wells that drain underwater reserves. The central government closed this week 220 illegal wells and plans to close hundreds more in the near future.

The European Commision, which has already taken Spain to court for failure to protect the wetlands, warned last month the plan could lead to sanctions.

Home to eagles, lynx, more

Donana boasts lagoons, marshlands, scrub woodland, beaches and sand dunes and is home to fallow deer, badgers and endangered species including the Spanish imperial eagle and the Iberian lynx.

Spain is in the grip of a long-term drought after 36 months of poor rainfall. The Guadalquivir basin, where Donana is located, and Catalonia in the northeast are two of the most affected areas.

Exacerbating the drought, scientists say, is illegal use of underground waters by local red fruit producers in greenhouses and by tourism ventures that have mushroomed around Donana.

A study by the Spanish National Research Council said this week 19% of Donana’s 267 lagoons have disappeared over the past decade, and the number of wintering migratory birds dropped to below 90,000 from some 500,000.

Campaign group Greenpeace said in a statement the proposed regulation “threatens the survival of Donana, one of Europe’s most emblematic natural areas, and punishes (legal) irrigators who have been complying with the law.”
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Electronic cigarette-maker Juul Labs will pay $462 million to six states and the District of Columbia, marking the largest settlement the company has reached so far for its role in the youth vaping surge, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday.

The agreement with New York, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., marks the latest in a string of recent legal settlements Juul has reached across the country with cities and states.

The vaping company, which has laid off hundreds of employees, will pay $7.9 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the company violated West Virginia’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act by marketing its products to underage users, the state’s Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Monday. Last month, the company paid Chicago $23.8 million to settle a lawsuit.

Minnesota’s case against Juul went to trial last month with the state’s Attorney General Keith Ellison asserting that the company “baited, deceived and addicted a whole new generation of kids after Minnesotans slashed youth smoking rates down to the lowest level in a generation.”

Like some other settlements reached by Juul, this latest agreement includes various restrictions on the marketing, sale and distribution of the company’s vaping products. For example, it is barred from any direct or indirect marketing that targets young people, which includes anyone younger than 35. Juul is also required to limit the purchases customers can make in retail stores and online.

“Juul lit a nationwide public health crisis by putting addictive products in the hands of minors and convincing them that it’s harmless,” James said in a statement. “Today they are paying the price for the harm they caused.”

James said the $112.7 million due to New York will pay for underage smoking abatement programs across the state.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement that Juul “knew how addictive and dangerous its products were and actively tried to cover up that medical truth.”

A spokesperson for the Washington, D.C.-based Juul said that with Wednesday’s settlement, “we are nearing total resolution of the company’s historical legal challenges and securing certainty for our future.”

The spokesperson added that underage use of Juul products has declined by 95% since 2019 based on the National Youth Tobacco Survey. According to the CDC, since surveys were administered online instead of on school campuses during the pandemic, the results cannot be compared to prior years.

In September, Juul agreed to pay nearly $440 million over a period of six to 10 years to settle a two-year investigation by 33 states into the marketing of its high-nicotine vaping products to young people. That settlement amounted to about 25% of Juul’s U.S. sales of $1.9 billion in 2021.

Three months later, the company said it had secured an equity investment to settle thousands of lawsuits over its e-cigarettes brought by individuals and families of Juul users, school districts, city governments and Native American tribes.

Juul rocketed to the top of the U.S. vaping market about five years ago with the popularity of flavors like mango and mint. But the startup’s rise was fueled by use among teenagers, some of whom became hooked on Juul’s high-nicotine pods.

Parents, school administrators and politicians have largely blamed the company for a surge in underage vaping.
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Hospitals in Cameroon are reporting an increase in cases of river blindness, a parasitic disease caused by bites from infected blackflies. Hundreds of aid workers have been dispatched to remote, riverside villages to encourage those infected to seek treatment. 

In Sa’a district, 74 kilometers north of Cameroon’s capital of Yaounde, 45-year-old Jean Christophe Onana says he has not been able to recover his sight after receiving treatment from an African traditional healer for two months. He says he strongly believes that he has been bewitched by his enemies who are envious of last year’s abundant yield from his cocoa farm.

Aid workers say Onana suffers from river blindness, a parasitic disease particularly prevalent in Africa, where 99% of all cases occur.

Cameroon’s ministry of public health says that hospitals in Lekie, the administrative unit where Sa’a is located, have reported several hundred fresh cases of river blindness within the past three months. 

The central African state’s government says the increase is in areas where there have been floods and where new farmland was opened near rivers, attracting settlers.

Ophthalmologist Raoul Edgard Cheuteu, one of the aid workers in Sa’a, says humanitarian agencies and the government of Cameroon have decided to jointly equip the Sa’a district hospital and scores of other hospitals in areas where there is an increase in river blindness cases with standard tests for the diagnosis of the disease. Cheuteu says Onchocerciasis is increasing in Sa’a because of its many rivers that are breeding sites for blackflies that transmit river blindness.

Aid workers are educating civilians in Cameroon riverside villages that river blindness is not a spell or divine punishment for wrongdoing but an infection that can be controlled and treated at hospitals.

Cameroon reports that youths are deserting remote villages where the number of people suffering from the parasitic disease of the skin and eyes transmitted by the blackfly is increasing. 

The Cameroon government says besides Sa’a, several hundred hospitals in Cameroon’s Centre, East and South regions have reported at least 6,000 new infections within three months.

The figures may be higher since 70% of Cameroonians go for African traditional medicine where it is difficult to collect data, the government says.

The Global Institute for Disease Elimination, GLIDE, works with the Cameroon ministry of Public Health to help accelerate treatment for river blindness, a neglected tropical disease.

GLIDE’s top official, Dr. Aissatou Diawara, says river blindness is a public health concern in Cameroon because about 6 million of the country’s 26 million inhabitants are already infected.

“Despite two decades of annual treatment or community-directed treatment with ivermectin or CDTI, confirmed cases of Onchocerciasis are still present in 113 health districts previously classified as hyperendemic,” Diawara said via a messaging app. “So the use of test and treat strategy and addressing communities to get used to treatment are essential steps towards eliminating Onchocerciasis in Cameroon.”

Diawara says blackflies that transmit river blindness breed along fast-flowing rivers and streams, close to remote villages located near fertile land where people rely on agriculture. She said river blindness is transmitted to humans through exposure to repeated bites of infected blackflies and symptoms include severe itching, disfiguring skin conditions and visual impairment, including permanent blindness.

The United Nations says Onchocerciasis occurs mainly in tropical areas, with more than 99% of infected people living in 31 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.  
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday proposed sweeping emissions cuts for new cars and trucks through 2032, a move it says could mean two out of every three new vehicles automakers sell will be electric within a decade.

The proposal, if finalized, represents the most aggressive U.S. vehicle emissions reduction plan to date, requiring 13% annual average pollution cuts and a 56% reduction in projected fleet average emissions over 2026 requirements. The EPA is also proposing new stricter emissions standards for medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks through 2032.

The EPA projects the 2027-2032 model year rules would cut more than 9 billion tons of CO2 emissions through 2055 – equivalent to more than twice total U.S. CO2 emissions last year.

Automakers and environmentalists say the administration is moving quickly in order to finalize new rules by early 2024 to make it much harder for a future Congress or president to reverse them. Then President Donald Trump rolled back tough emissions limits through 2025 set under Barack Obama but the Biden administration reversed the rollback.

The agency estimates net benefits through 2055 from the proposal range from $850 billion to $1.6 trillion. By 2032 the proposal would cost about $1,200 per vehicle per manufacturer, but save an owner more than $9,000 on average on fuel, maintenance, and repair costs over an eight-year period.  

“A lot has to go right for this massive – and unprecedented – change in our automotive market and industrial base to succeed,” said John Bozzella, CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation representing General Motors GM.N, Volkswagen VOWG_p.DE, Toyota 7203.T and others.

“Factors outside the vehicle, like charging infrastructure, supply chains, grid resiliency, the availability of low carbon fuels and critical minerals will determine whether EPA standards at these levels are achievable.”

The proposal is more ambitious than President Joe Biden’s 2021 goal, backed by automakers, seeking 50% of new vehicles by 2030 to be electric vehicles (EVs) or plug-in hybrids. Stellantis STLAM.MI said it was “surprised that none of the alternatives align with the President’s previously announced target of 50% EVs by 2030.”

The Biden administration is not proposing banning gasoline-powered vehicles, but wants comments on whether it should extend emissions rules through 2035 and on other alternatives. Some environmental groups want the EPA to set tougher rules, especially on heavy trucks.

“These standards are very ambitious and they track with the sense of urgency that the president and this administration have as we tackle the climate crisis,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a Reuters interview, declining to endorse setting a date to end the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles. He emphasized the proposal is a “performance-based standard” and not an EV mandate.

Under the EPA proposal, automakers are forecast to produce 60% EVs by 2030 and 67% by 2032 to meet requirements – compared with just 5.8% of U.S. vehicles sold in 2022 that were EVs. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to propose parallel economy standards in the coming weeks.

California in August moved to require all new vehicles sold in the state by 2035 be electric or plug-in electric hybrids, but must still seek an EPA waiver to proceed. Regan would not to say how the EPA would react to a California request. “We’ll be on the lookout for that if it were to ever come,” he said.

Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign, said the EPA proposal should have been tougher.

“Automakers talk out of both sides of their tailpipes, promising electric vehicles while delivering mostly the same old gas-guzzlers and lobbying for weak, loophole-riddled rules,” Becker said.

Under the proposal, the EPA estimates 50% of new vocational vehicles like buses and garbage trucks could be EVs by 2032, along with 35% of new short-haul freight tractors and 25% of new long-haul freight tractors. Medium-duty vehicle rules are projected to cut emissions by 44% over 2026.
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The U.S. has named a veterinary tranquilizer as an “emerging threat” when it’s mixed with the powerful opioid fentanyl, clearing the way for more efforts to stop the spread of xylazine.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy announced the designation Wednesday, the first time the office has used it since the category for fast-growing drug dangers was created in 2019.

Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the drug policy office, said xylazine has become increasingly common in all regions of the country.

It was detected in about 800 drug deaths in the U.S. in 2020 — most of them in the Northeast. By 2021, it was present in more than 3,000 fatalities —with the most in the South — according to a report last year from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“We cannot ignore what we’re seeing,” Gupta said. “We must act and act now.”

Xylazine was approved for veterinary use in 1971. Sometimes known as “tranq,” it’s been showing up in supplies of illicit drugs used by humans in major quantities in only the last several years.

It’s believed to be added to other drugs to increase profits. Officials are trying to understand how much of it is diverted from veterinary uses and how much is made illicitly.

The drug causes breathing and heart rates to slow down, sometimes to deadly levels, and causes skin abscesses and ulcers that can require amputation. Withdrawal is also painful.

While it’s often used in conjunction with opioids, including fentanyl and related illicit lab-made drugs, it’s not an opioid. And there are no known antidotes.

Gupta said his office is requesting $11 million as part of its budget to develop a strategy to tackle the drug’s spread. Plans include developing an antidote, learning more about how it is introduced into illicit drug supplies so that can be disrupted, and looking into whether Congress should classify it as a controlled substance.

Gupta said it needs to be available for veterinary uses even amid crackdowns on the supply used by people. He also said systems to detect the drug and data about where it’s being used need to be improved.

The drug is part of a deepening overdose crisis in the U.S.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 107,000 people died from overdoses in the 12 months that ended Oct. 31, 2022. Before 2020, the number of overdose deaths had never topped 100,000.

Most of the deaths were linked to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Like xylazine, they’re often added to other drugs — and users don’t always know they’re getting them.
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U.S. health officials released data Tuesday showing how chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis cases have been accelerating, but doctors are hoping an old drug will help fight the sexually transmitted infections.

Experts believe STDs have been rising because of declining condom use, inadequate sex education, and reduced testing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Millions of Americans are infected each year. Rates are highest in men who have sex with men, and among Black and Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.

“Sexually transmitted infections are an enormous, low-priority public health problem. And they’ve been a low-priority problem for decades, in spite of the fact that they are the most commonly reported kind of infectious disease,” said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr., a retired health official who lectures at the Colorado School of Public Health.

To try to turn the tide, many doctors see promise in doxycycline, a cheap antibiotic that has been sold for more than 50 years.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is drafting recommendations for using it as a kind of morning-after pill for preventing STDs, said Dr. Leandro Mena, director of the agency’s STD prevention division.

The drug is already used to treat a range of infections. A study published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine showed its potential to prevent sexually transmitted infections.

In the study, about 500 gay men, bisexual men and transgender women in Seattle and San Francisco with previous STD infections took one doxycycline pill within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Those who took the pills were about 90% less likely to get chlamydia, about 80% less likely to get syphilis, and more than 50% less likely to get gonorrhea compared with people who did not take the pills after sex, the researchers found.

The study was led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and built on a similar French study that saw promise in the idea.

“We do need new approaches, new innovations” to help bring sexually transmitted infections under control, said Dr. Philip Andrew Chan, who is consulting with the CDC on the doxycycline recommendations.

Mena, of the CDC, said there is no sign the STD trend is slowing.

Mississippi had the highest rate of gonorrhea cases, according to 2021 CDC data released Tuesday. Alaska saw a sharp increase in its chlamydia case rate that allowed it to overtake Mississippi at the top of that list. South Dakota had the highest rate of early-stage syphilis.

Arizona had the highest rate of cases in which infected mothers pass syphilis on to their babies, potentially leading to death of the child or health problems like deafness and blindness.

Using an antibiotic to prevent these kinds of infections won’t “be a magic bullet. but it will be another tool,” said Chan, who teaches at Brown University and is chief medical officer at Open Door Health, a health center for gay, lesbian and transgender patients in Providence, Rhode Island.

Experts noted the CDC will have many factors to weigh as it develops the recommendations.

Among them: The drug can cause side effects such as stomach problems and rashes after sun exposure. Some research has found it ineffective in heterosexual women. And widespread use of doxycycline as a preventive measure could contribute to mutations that make bacteria impervious to the drug, as has happened with antibiotics before.

Nevertheless, the San Francisco Department of Public Health in October became the first U.S. health department to issue guidance about doxycycline as an infection-prevention measure. And some other clinics have been recommending the antibiotic to patients who may be at higher risk.

Derrick Woods-Morrow, a 33-year-old artist and an assistant professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, is an early adopter. Woods-Morrow said he isn’t a fan of condoms — they can break, and sometimes people slip them off during sex. But he wants to stay healthy.

About a decade ago, he started taking an anti-viral medication before sex to protect himself from HIV infection. Five years ago, a doctor told him about research into whether doxycycline might protect people from other diseases.

“I thought it was probably in my best interest to protect myself and my partners, as well,” he said. He said it’s been a positive experience, and that he hasn’t tested positive for chlamydia, gonorrhea or syphilis while using it.

“I feel like it’s a tool to sort of take back the sexual freedoms that someone may have lost and to really enjoy sex and interactions with people with a peace of mind,” he said.
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Even before he has dipped his toes into the murky waters of Paris ‘ famous but forbidden River Seine, French triathlete Thibaut Rigaudeau is already fielding questions from disbelieving friends.

“Are you scared of swimming in the Seine?” he says they ask him. “It looks disgusting.'”

For decades, it was. Though immortalized in art, literature and song, and cherished by lovers who whisper sweet nothings or tearfully part on the privacy of its banks, the river was ecologically dying. It was too toxic for most fish and for swimmers, largely useful only as a waterway for goods and people or as a watery grave for discarded bicycles and other trash. Swimming in the Seine has, with some exceptions, been off-limits since 1923.

Now, however, its admittedly unappetizing green-brown waters hide a tale of rebirth.

A costly and complex cleanup is resuscitating the Seine just in time for it to play a starring role in the 2024 Paris Olympics and, after that, for it to genuinely live up to its billing as the world’s most romantic river, one that’s actually fit again for people. And in a warming world, a renewed ability to take cooling dips in the river should help France’s capital remain livable during increasingly frequent heat waves. It possibly might also inspire other cities to invest in reclaiming their waterways.

“It will create waves, so to speak, across the world because a lot of cities are watching Paris,” says Dan Angelescu, a scientist who is tracking the Seine’s water quality for City Hall, with regular sampling.

“It’s the beginning of a movement,” he says. “We hope so, at least.”

The Olympic deadline has supercharged a cleanup that has been decades in the making. Without the imperative of having to be ready for 10,500 Olympians in July and August next year, followed by 4,400 Paralympians, City Hall officials say it would have taken many more years to fund the multi-pronged, 1.4 billion-euro ($1.5 billion) effort. Because as well as hosting outdoor swim races, the Seine is going to be the centerpiece of Paris’ unprecedented Olympic opening ceremony. For the first time, it will take place not in a stadium setting but along the river and its banks.

So it needs to be ready. Officials have been going after homes upstream of Paris and houseboats on the Seine that were emptying their sewage and wastewater directly into the river. An Olympic law adopted in 2018 gave moored boats two years to hook up to Paris’ sewage network. Sewage treatment plants on the Seine and its tributary, the Marne, are also being improved.

And more than half a billion euros (dollars) is going into huge storage basins and other public works that will reduce the need to spill bacteria-laden wastewater into the Seine untreated when it rains. One storage facility is being dug next to Paris’ Austerlitz train station. The giant hole will hold the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools of dirty water that will now be treated rather than being spat raw through storm drains in the river.

City Hall says the water quality is already improving and that there are many more types of fish than the two or three species that were the only ones hardy enough to survive in the filth a few decades ago. It says samples taken daily last July and August in the stretch of river where Olympians and Paralympians will compete showed the water quality was overwhelmingly “good.” By their sports’ standards, that means acceptable.

Setting off from the Seine’s ornate Alexandre III bridge, triathletes will race first in 2024, with men on July 30, followed by women the next day. Then come marathon swimmers, on Aug. 8 and 9, and para-triathletes on Sept. 1 and 2.

Rigaudeau, who competed in para-triathlon at the 2021 Tokyo games, is thrilled by the prospect. He’s hoping for an early taste of the experience when Paris hosts warm-up swims in the Seine this summer to hone its readiness for 2024. It will be Rigaudeau’s first-ever dip in his home river.

“We will be the ‘testers,'” he says. “I hope we don’t get sick.”

After the games, the river should then reopen to everyone — in the summer of 2025. City Hall says five potential bathing spots are being studied within Paris itself, with others a bit further afield.

Officials hope that after so many years where swimming in the Seine was unthinkable, Parisians will start to feel that it’s safe to go back in the water when they see Olympians and Paralympians leading the way.

“It’s going to change our lives,” Rigaudeau says. “But it’s also true that because everyone thinks that it’s really very dirty, I’m not sure if people will go of their own accord, at least at first.”
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