The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is providing $600 million in funding to produce new at-home COVID-19 tests and is restarting a website allowing Americans to again order up to four free tests per household — aiming to prevent possible shortages during a rise in coronavirus cases that has typically come during colder months.

The Department of Health and Human Services says orders can be placed at COVIDTests.gov starting September 25, and that no-cost tests will be delivered for free by the United States Postal Service.

Twelve manufacturers that employ hundreds of people in seven states have been awarded funding and will produce 200 million over-the-counter tests to replenish federal stockpiles for government use, in addition to producing enough tests to meet demand for tests ordered online, the department said.

Federal officials said that will help guard against supply chain issues that sparked some shortages of at-home COVID tests made overseas during past surges in coronavirus cases.

Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, said the website will remain functional to receive orders through the holidays and “we reserve the right to keep it open even longer if we’re starting to see an increase in cases.”

“If there is a demand for these tests, we want to make sure that they’re made available to the American people for free in this way,” O’Connell said. “But, at this point, our focus is getting through the holidays and making sure folks can take a test if they’re going to see Grandma for Thanksgiving.”

The tests are designed to detect COVID variants currently circulating and are intended for use by the end of the year. But they will include instructions on how to verify extended expiration dates, the department said.

The initiative follows four previous rounds where federal officials and the U.S. Postal Service provided more than 755 million tests for free to homes nationwide.

It is also meant to complement ongoing federal efforts to provide free COVID tests to long-term care facilities, schools, low-income senior housing, uninsured individuals and underserved communities which are already distributing 4 million per week and have distributed 500 million tests to date, the department said.

O’Connell said manufacturers would be able to spread out the 200 million tests they will produce for federal use over 18 months. That means that, as demand for home tests rises via the website or at U.S. retailers when COVID cases increase around the country, producers can focus on meeting those orders — but that they will then have an additional outlet for the tests they produce during period when demand declines.

“We’ve seen every winter, as people move indoors into heated spaces, away from the outside that, over each of the seasons that COVID’s been a concern, that we have seen cases go up,” O’Connell said.

She added that also “there’s always an opportunity or chance for another variant to come” but “we’re not anticipating that.”

“That’s not why we’re doing this,” O’Connell said. “We’re doing this for the fall and winter season ahead and the potential for an increase in cases as a result.”

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said that the “Biden-Harris Administration, in partnership with domestic manufacturers, has made great strides in addressing vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain by reducing our reliance on overseas manufacturing.”

“These critical investments will strengthen our nation’s production levels of domestic at-home COVID-19 rapid tests and help mitigate the spread of the virus,” Becerra said in a statement.
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned a climate summit of world leaders on Wednesday there is not much time left to avert an environmental catastrophe.

“We must make up for time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels,” Guterres told world leaders at the start of the daylong General Assembly symposium at United Nations headquarters in New York.

After Guterres’ opening remarks, heads of state representing 34 nations were set to speak on the importance of sustainability, including Brazil, Pakistan, South Africa, Canada, the European Union and Tuvalu, a Polynesian island nation imperiled by rising sea levels. Brazilian President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva withdrew after falling ill. His environment minister was expected to speak in his place.

The two largest economies that also are the biggest polluters — the United States and China — were noticeably left off the speakers’ list. Only nations who planned to increase their pledges to slash emissions were invited to the podium. U.S. Special Envoy on Climate John Kerry was in attendance.

Guterres said that the global shift from fossil fuels to renewables is underway, but that progress is decades overdue. The harms of climate change, he said, are hitting the developing world the hardest, and the Global North is mostly to blame.

“Many of the poorest nations have every right to be angry, angry that they are suffering from a climate crisis they did nothing to create, angry that promised finance has not been materialized, angry that their borrowing costs are sky-high,” the U.N. chief said.

Guterres said he is optimistic that the climate summit will help persuade some of the richest countries and corporations to meet the U.N.’s worldwide target of net-zero emissions by 2050. He said he is hopeful the powers that be take sharp action and invest more in the future of renewable energy.

But the focus was not solely on curbing pollution in the wealthiest echelons of the Global North.

Kenyan President William Ruto urged countries in the Global South to pool together their trillions of dollars in collective resources to independently finance climate initiatives.

“Neither Africa nor the developing world stands in need of charity from developed countries,” he said.

Ruto floated another progressive idea in his address: a universal tax on the sale of fossil fuels.

The climate summit also featured executives from Allianz, the travel insurer, as well as numerous key global lenders, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Additionally, the mayor of London and the governor of California were set to speak.

A U.N. report released earlier this month noted global temperatures are on track to rise 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average in the next decade, an increase widely recognized as a tipping point in the battle to reverse climate change.

Some information for this story was provided by Reuters.
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Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients. 

Those with paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may qualify for the study, Neuralink said, but did not reveal how many participants would be enrolled in the trial, which will take about six years to complete. 

The study will use a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone. 

The company, which had earlier hoped to receive approval to implant its device in 10 patients, was negotiating a lower number of patients with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after the agency raised safety concerns, according to current and former employees. It is not known how many patients the FDA ultimately approved. 

Musk has grand ambitions for Neuralink, saying it would facilitate speedy surgical insertions of its chip devices to treat conditions such as obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia.  

In May, the company said it had received clearance from the FDA for its first-in-human clinical trial, when it was already under federal scrutiny for its handling of animal testing. 

Even if the BCI device proves to be safe for human use, it would still potentially take more than a decade for the startup to secure commercial use clearance for it, according to experts. 
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The tiny Pacific island nation of Niue has come up with a novel plan to protect its vast and pristine territorial waters — it will get sponsors to pay.

Under the plan, which was being launched by Niue’s Prime Minister Dalton Tagelagi on Tuesday in New York, individuals or companies can pay $148 to protect 1 square kilometer (about 250 acres) of ocean from threats such as illegal fishing and plastic waste for a period of 20 years.

Niue hopes to raise more than $18 million from the scheme by selling 127,000 square-kilometer units, representing the 40% of its waters that form a no-take marine protected area.

In an interview with The Associated Press before the launch, Tagelagi said his people have always had a close connection with the sea.

“Niue is just one island in the middle of the big blue ocean,” Tagelagi said. “We are surrounded by the ocean, and we live off the ocean. That’s our livelihood.”

He said Niueans inherited and learned about the ocean from their forefathers, and they want to be able to pass it on to the next generation in sustainable health.

Most fishing in Niue is to sustain local people, although there are some small-scale commercial operations and occasional offshore industrial-scale fishing, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

“Because of all the illegal fishing and all the other activities at the moment, we thought that we should be taking the lead, to teach others that we’ve got to protect the ocean,” Tagelagi said.

Unregulated fishing can deplete fish stocks, which then cannot replenish, while plastics can be ingested by or entangle marine wildlife. Human-caused climate change has also led to warmer and more acidic oceans, altering ecosystems for underwater species.

Niue is also especially vulnerable to rising sea levels threatening its land and freshwater, and the island is at risk of more intense tropical storms charged by warmer air and waters.

With a population of just 1,700 people, Niue acknowledges it needs outside help. It’s one of the smallest countries in the world, dwarfed by an ocean territory 1,200 times larger than its land mass.

Under the plan, the sponsorship money — called Ocean Conservation Commitments — will be administered by a charitable trust.

Niue will buy 1,700 sponsorship units, representing one for each of its citizens. Other launch donors include philanthropist Lyna Lam and her husband Chris Larsen, who co-founded blockchain company Ripple, and U.S.-based nonprofit Conservation International, which helped set up some technical aspects of the scheme.

Maël Imirizaldu, marine biologist and regional leader with Conservation International, said one problem with the conventional approach to ocean conservation funding was the need for places like Niue to constantly seek new funding on a project-by-project basis.

“The main idea was to try and switch that, to change the priority and actually help them have funding so they can plan for the next 10 years, 15 years, 20 years,” Imirizaldu said.

Simon Thrush, a professor of marine science at New Zealand’s University of Auckland who was not involved in the plan, said it sounded positive.

“It’s a good idea,” Thrush said, adding that as long as the plan was thoroughly vetted and guaranteed over the long term, “I’d be up for it.”
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Measles, diarrhea and malnutrition, among other preventable diseases, kill about 100 children every month in Sudan where armed conflicts have uprooted more than five million people from their homes, according to the United Nations.

Between May 15 and September 14, at least 1,200 children under the age of five died from a deadly combination of a suspected measles outbreak and high malnutrition in nine camps for internally displaced people in Sudan’s White Nile state.

There have also been reports of cholera, dengue, and malaria cases emerging in various parts of the country, sparking concerns about the looming threat of epidemics.

“Children younger than five are worst impacted, accounting for nearly 70% of all cases and 76% of all deaths,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

The U.N. warning comes as Sudan’s health sector is teetering on the brink of collapse, crippled by a severe lack of funding and essential resources.

“Health facilities are at breaking point, due to shortages of staff, life-saving medicine and critical equipment, exacerbating current outbreaks and causing unnecessary deaths,” the WHO said.

Ongoing-armed hostilities between Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which started in April, have generated and exacerbated humanitarian crises in the African country.

The conflict has taken an immense toll on Sudan’s civilian population, with the Health Ministry acknowledging over 1,500 civilian deaths since the conflict started.

However, aid agencies contend that the actual death toll far exceeds the officially reported figures.

Both warring factions, the SAF and RSF, have faced accusations of committing egregious acts of violence against civilians, including arbitrary detentions and killings.  

“The conflict has paralyzed the economy, pushing millions to the brink of poverty,” Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said last week.

“More than 7.4 million children are without safe drinking water and at least 700,000 are at risk of severe acute malnutrition,” he said.

Humanitarian appeal 

In May, the U.N. appealed for $2.57 billion in humanitarian assistance for 18 million people in Sudan.

However, the situation remains dire, with aid agencies estimating that more than 24 million Sudanese are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.

As of September 19, the appeal has garnered $788 million, approximately 30% of the required funds, with the United States leading the list of donors with a contribution of $472.5 million.

“The world has the means and the money to prevent every one of these deaths from measles or malnutrition,” Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“And yet dozens of children are dying every day — a result of this devastating conflict and a lack of global attention. We can prevent more deaths, but need money for the response, access to those in need, and above all, an end to the fighting,” he said, according to the statement. 
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Climate change and conflict are hitting efforts to tackle three of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has warned.

International initiatives to fight the diseases have largely recovered after being badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Fund’s 2023 results report released on Monday.

But the increasing challenges of climate change and conflict mean the world is likely to miss the target of putting an end to AIDS, TB and malaria by 2030 without “extraordinary steps,” said Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund.

For example, malaria is spreading to highland parts of Africa that were previously too cold for the mosquito carrying the disease-causing parasite.

Extreme weather events like floods are overwhelming health services, displacing communities, causing upsurges in infection and interrupting treatment in many different places, the report said. In countries including Sudan, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Myanmar, simply reaching vulnerable communities has also been immensely challenging due to insecurity, it added.

There are positives, Sands said. For example, in 2022, 6.7 million people were treated for TB in the countries where the Global Fund invests, 1.4 million more people than in the previous year.

The Fund also helped provide 24.5 million people with antiretroviral therapy for HIV and distributed 220 million mosquito nets.

Sands added that innovative prevention and diagnostic tools also provided hope.

This week, there is a high-level meeting on TB at the U.N. General Assembly, and advocates hope for renewed focus on the disease.

The Global Fund has faced criticism from some TB experts for not allocating more of its budget to the disease, as it is the biggest killer of the three diseases the fund focuses on.

“There’s no doubt that the world needs to devote more resources towards fighting TB… but it is not as simple as comparing annual deaths from each disease,” said Sands. For example, he said, many countries with the highest burden of TB are middle-income countries that have more capacity to fund health services domestically.
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Bystanders are less likely to give life-saving CPR to women having a cardiac arrest in public than men, leading to more women dying from the common health emergency, researchers said Monday.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation combines mouth-to-mouth breathing and chest compressions to pump blood to the brain of people whose hearts have stopped beating, potentially staving off death until medical help arrives.

In research to be presented at a medical conference in Spain this week, but which has not yet been peer-reviewed, a team of Canadian doctors sought to understand how bystanders administer the procedure differently to men and women.

They looked at records of cardiac arrests that took place outside of hospitals in the United States and Canada between 2005 and 2015, which included nearly 40,000 patients. 

Overall, 54% of the patients received CPR from a bystander, the research said.

For cardiac arrests in a public place, such as in the street, 61% of women were given CPR by a bystander — compared to 68% of men. 

Alexis Cournoyer, an emergency physician at the Hopital du Sacre-Coeur de Montreal who conducted the research, told AFP that this gap “increases women’s mortality following a cardiac arrest — that’s for sure.”

Cardiac arrests are a leading cause of death, with more than 350,000 occurring in the U.S. alone every year, according to the American Heart Association.

Only around 10% of people who have a sudden cardiac arrest outside of a hospital survive, research has shown.

The researchers sought to find a reason for the gender gap.

One theory was that bystanders in public could be uncomfortable touching a women’s breast without consent, Cournoyer said.

The researchers looked into whether age could play a role, he added.
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Families and a pediatrician are challenging North Dakota’s law criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors, the latest lawsuit in many states with similar bans. 

Gender Justice on Thursday announced the state district court lawsuit in a news conference at the state Capitol in Bismarck. The lawsuit against the state attorney general and state’s attorneys of three counties seeks to immediately block the ban, which took effect in April, and to have a judge find it unconstitutional and stop the state from enforcing it. 

State lawmakers “have outlawed essential health care for these kids simply and exclusively because they are transgender,” Gender Justice attorney and North Dakota state director Christina Sambor told reporters. “They have stripped parents of their right to decide for themselves what’s best for their own children. They have made it a criminal offense for doctors to provide health care that can literally save children’s lives.” 

The bill that enacted the ban passed overwhelmingly earlier this year in North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature. Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, who is running for president, signed the ban into law in April. It took effect immediately. 

“Going forward, thoughtful debate around these complex medical policies should demonstrate compassion and understanding for all North Dakota youth and their families,” Burgum said at the time. 

Tate Dolney, a plaintiff and 12-year-old transgender boy from Fargo, said gender-affirming care helped his confidence, happiness, schoolwork and relationships with others. 

“I was finally able to just be who I truly am,” the seventh-grader told reporters. “It has hurt me all over again to know that the lawmakers who have banned the health care don’t want this for me and want to take it all away from me and every other transgender and nonbinary kid who just wants to be left alone to live our lives in peace.” 

Mother Devon Dolney said Tate was previously severely depressed and angry, but with the care “went from being ashamed and uncomfortable with who he is to being confident and outspoken,” a “miraculous” change. 

North Dakota’s ban has led the family to travel farther for Tate’s appointments, now in neighboring Minnesota, she said. The family has considered moving out of North Dakota, she said. 

Politicians “have intruded on our lives and inserted themselves into decisions that they have no business being involved in,” father Robert Dolney said. 

The law exempts minors who were already receiving gender-affirming care and allows for treatment of “a minor born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development.” 

But the grandfather clause has led providers “to not even risk it, because that vague law doesn’t give them enough detail of exactly what they can and cannot do” — an element of the suit, Gender Justice Senior Staff Attorney Brittany Stewart said. 

North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley told The Associated Press he hadn’t seen the lawsuit’s filing, but his office “will evaluate it and take the appropriate course.” 

Bill sponsor and Republican state Rep. Bill Tveit told the AP that he brought the legislation to protect children. 

“I’ve talked to a number of people who are of age now and would transform back if they could, and they’re just really upset with their parents and the adults in their life that led them to do this, to have these surgeries,” Tveit said. He declined to identify the two people he said he talked to, but said one is a college student in Minnesota that he became acquainted with while working on the bill. 

North Dakota’s law criminalizes doctors’ performance of sex reassignment surgeries on minors with a felony charge, punishable up to 10 years’ imprisonment and a $20,000 fine. 

The law also includes a misdemeanor charge for health care providers who prescribe or give hormone treatments or puberty blockers to minors. That charge is punishable up to nearly a year’s incarceration and a $3,000 fine. 

Opponents of the bill said sex reassignment surgeries are not performed on minors in North Dakota, and the ban on gender-affirming care would harm transgender youth, who are at increased risk for depression, suicide and self-harm. 

At least 22 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and most of those states face lawsuits. A federal judge struck down Arkansas’ ban as unconstitutional, and a federal judge has temporarily blocked a ban in Indiana.
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Farmers say extreme temperatures caused a huge drop in the output of olive oil in Spain, the world’s largest producer, triggering a big jump in world olive oil prices. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona, who says Europe’s leadership is blaming climate change.
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