SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO — The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday struck down abortion restrictions by conservative cities and counties, helping to ensure the state remains a go-to destination for people from other states with bans.

The unanimous opinion, in response to a request from state Attorney General Raúl Torrez, reinforces the state’s position as having some of the most liberal abortion laws in the country.

Attorneys representing the cities of Hobbs and Clovis and Lea and Roosevelt counties had argued that provisions of a federal “anti-vice” law known as the Comstock Act block courts from striking down local abortion ordinances.

But Justice C. Shannon Bacon, writing for the majority opinion, said state law precludes cities and counties from restricting abortion or regulating abortion clinics.

“The ordinances violate this core precept and invade the Legislature’s authority to regulate access to and provision of reproductive healthcare,” she wrote. “We hold the ordinances are preempted in their entirety.”

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez praised the court’s ruling Thursday, saying that the core of the argument was that state laws preempted any action by local governments to engage in activities that would infringe on the constitutional rights of citizens.

“The bottom line is simply this: Abortion access is safe and secure in New Mexico,” he said. “It’s enshrined in law by the recent ruling by the New Mexico Supreme Court and thanks to the work of the New Mexico Legislature.”

New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martínez called access to health care a basic fundamental right in New Mexico.

“It doesn’t take a genius to understand the statutory framework that we have. Local governments don’t regulate health care in New Mexico. It is up to the state,” the Albuquerque Democrat said.

Opposition to abortion runs deep in New Mexico communities along the border with Texas, which has one of the most restrictive bans in the U.S.

But Democrats, who control every statewide elected office in New Mexico and hold majorities in the state House and Senate, have moved to shore up access to abortion — before and after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, eliminating the nationwide right to abortion.

In 2021, the New Mexico Legislature repealed a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures as felonies, ensuring access to abortion even after the Roe v. Wade reversal.

And in 2023, Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill that overrides local ordinances aimed at limiting abortion access and enacted a shield law that protects abortion providers from investigations by other states.

In September, construction began on a state-funded reproductive health and abortion clinic in southern New Mexico that will cater to local residents and people who travel from neighboring states.

The new clinic is scheduled for completion by early 2026 to provide services ranging from medical and procedural abortions to contraception, cervical cancer screenings and education about adoptions.

In Thursday’s opinion, justices said they “strongly admonish” Roosevelt County, in particular, for an ordinance that would have allowed individuals to file lawsuits demanding damages of more than $100,000 for violations of the county’s abortion ordinance.

The provision would have created “a private right of action and damages award that is clearly intended to punish protected conduct,” the court said in its opinion.

Erin Hawley, a vice president at Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based Christian legal advocacy group, is an attorney who argued on behalf of Roosevelt County in the case. On Thursday, she criticized the court’s decision and emphasized its limitations.

“Roosevelt County and other New Mexico localities should be able to enforce ordinances that comply with federal law and protect the lives of their citizens,” said Hawley, the wife of U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. “We’re grateful that the New Mexico Supreme Court did not abandon common sense and find a so-called right to abortion in the state constitution.”

It was not immediately clear whether the ruling can be appealed in federal court or influence broader efforts to apply Comstock Act restrictions on abortion. The New Mexico Supreme Court opinion explicitly declined to address conflicts with federal law, basing its decision solely on state provisions.

Austin, Texas-based attorney Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general and architect of that state’s strict abortion ban, said he looked forward “to litigating these issues in other states and bringing the meaning of the federal Comstock Act to the Supreme Court of the United States.” 
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CAPE CANAVERAL — A quarter of a century after its founding, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is finally ready for its maiden orbital voyage with a brand-new rocket the company hopes will shake up the commercial space race.

The launch initially scheduled for Sunday was pushed back a day due to “unfavorable” sea conditions, Blue Origin posted on X.

Named New Glenn after legendary astronaut John Glenn — the first American to orbit Earth in 1962 — the rocket stands 320 feet (98 meters) tall, roughly equivalent to a 32-story building — and is set to blast off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in a launch window that opens at 1 a.m. (0600 GMT) Monday.

“Pointy end up!” the company’s CEO, Dave Limp posted on X alongside photos of the gleaming white behemoth.

With the mission, dubbed NG-1, Bezos, the world’s second-richest man, is taking direct aim at the world’s wealthiest: Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.

These serve the commercial sector, the Pentagon, and NASA — including, crucially, ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

“SpaceX has for the past several years been pretty much the only game in town and so having a competitor… this is great,” G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, told AFP.

SpaceX, meanwhile, is planning the next orbital test of Starship — its gargantuan new-generation rocket — the same day, upping the sense of high-stakes rivalry.

If all goes to plan, shortly after launch, Blue Origin will attempt to land the first-stage booster on a drone ship named Jacklyn, in honor of Bezos’ mother, stationed about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.

Though SpaceX makes such landings a near-routine spectacle, this will be Blue Origin’s first shot at a touchdown on the high seas.

Meanwhile, the rocket’s upper stage will fire its engines toward Earth orbit, carrying a Defense Department-funded prototype spaceship called Blue Ring, which will remain aboard for the roughly six-hour test flight.

Limp emphasized that simply reaching orbit is the prime goal, while successfully recovering the booster would be a welcome “bonus.”

Blue Origin does have experience landing its New Shepard rockets — used for suborbital tourism — but they are much smaller and land on terra firma rather than a ship at sea.

Blue Origin has secured a NASA contract to launch two Mars probes aboard New Glenn. The rocket will also support the deployment of Project Kuiper, a satellite internet constellation designed to compete with Starlink.

Like Musk, Bezos has a lifelong passion for space. But whereas Musk dreams of colonizing Mars, Bezos envisions shifting heavy industry off-planet onto floating space platforms to preserve Earth, “humanity’s blue origin.”

He founded Blue Origin in 2000 — two years before Musk created SpaceX — but has adopted a more cautious pace, in contrast to his rival’s “fail fast, learn fast” philosophy.

“There’s been impatience within the space community over Blue Origin’s very deliberate approach,” Scott Pace, a space policy analyst at George Washington University and former member of the National Space Council, told AFP.

If New Glenn succeeds, Pace added, it will give the U.S. government “dissimilar redundancy” — valuable backup if one system fails.
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BANGKOK — Nearly all of the world’s 35,000 online pharmacies are being run illegally and consumers who use them risk getting ineffective or dangerous drugs, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s annual report on “notorious markets.” The report also singled out 19 countries over concerns about counterfeit or pirated products.

The report also named about three dozen online retailers, many of them in China or elsewhere in Asia that it said are allegedly engaged in selling counterfeit products or other illegal activities.

The report says 96% of online pharmacies were found to be violating the law, many operating without a license and selling medicines without prescriptions and safety warnings.

Their websites often look like legitimate e-commerce platforms, often with false claims that they are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, said the report, released Wednesday. The FDA and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration have both issued warnings about risks of buying prescription medicines from such sources.

It cited a survey by the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies’ Global Foundation that found nearly one in four Americans who have used online pharmacies reported having encountered substandard, fake or harmful medicines.

Last year, federal prosecutors reported that a network of illegal drug sellers based in the U.S., the Dominican Republic and India had packaged potentially deadly synthetic opioids into pills disguised as common prescription drugs and sold millions of them through fake online drugstores, federal prosecutors said Monday. At least nine people died of narcotics poisoning between August 2023 and June 2024 after consuming the counterfeit pills, the indictment said.

Apart from the risks of using drugs that may contain inert ingredients or those that could cause allergies, the medicines are sometimes made in unsanitary conditions, said the report, which did not give annual statistics for those who may have died or otherwise been harmed.

Progress in fighting counterfeit and pirated goods

The USTR’s annual report cited examples from inside the United States, but and also mentioned risks of imported ingredients including fentanyl from China. Many of the illicit online pharmacies are based outside the U.S.

The “Notorious Markets List” did laud progress in fighting counterfeit and pirated goods.

In one case, U.S. authorities, industry groups and the police collaborated in shutting down a Hanoi, Vietnam-based piracy ring, Fmovies, and other related piracy sites, in July and August.

The report said the world’s then-largest pirated movies site had drawn more than 6.7 billion visits from January 2023 to June 2024.

In another Vietnam-linked case, two people operating pirate television platform BestBuyIPTV were convicted and ordered to pay fines and forfeit property.

The report also cited crackdowns on online piracy in Brazil and the United Kingdom and busts of sellers of counterfeit purses, clothing and shoes in Kuwait.

But problems remain with cyberlockers that thwart efforts to restrict piracy of movies and other content and of so-called “bulletproof” internet service providers, or ISPs, that promise people using them leeway for using pirate sites, it said.

One such ISP is Avito, a Russian-based ad platform that allegedly lets sellers advertise counterfeit products.

Baidu Wangpan, a cloud storage service of China’s largest search engine provider, Baidu, was named for allegedly failing to enforce or being slow to act on copyright protection.

The report also pointed to social-commerce site Pinduoduo and to Douyin Mall, a Chinese online platform owned by Tiktok owner ByteDance. It said the shopping platforms have sought to build up protections but that they still host many counterfeit goods.

It also named Shopee, a Singapore-based online and mobile e-commerce site, saying some country-focused platforms serving Southeast Asia and South American had better track records in fighting piracy than others.

IndiaMART, an big business-to-business marketplace in India, still offers a slew of counterfeit products, it said.

While a large share of theft of intellectual property has moved online, the report also highlighted real world locations notorious for selling counterfeit products, including markets in Turkey, bazaars in the United Arab Emirates and Saigon Square Shopping Mall in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City.

The report said Bangkok’s MBK Center, a huge mall of about 2,000 stores, had actively cracked down on counterfeiting, though such products still can be found there. 
…

NEW YORK — The 13-year-old boy came to the clinic with a rapidly ballooning neck. Doctors were puzzled.

Testing ruled out their first suspicion. But further tests pinpointed what they — and the boy — had been missing: iodine.

A century ago, iodine deficiency affected kids across large swaths of the country. It essentially disappeared after some food makers started adding it to table salt, bread and some other foods, in one of the great public health success stories of the 20th century.

But today, people are getting less iodine because of changes in diet and food manufacturing.

Although most people are still getting enough, researchers have increasingly been reporting low levels of iodine in pregnant women and other people, raising concerns about an impact on their newborns. And there is also a very small, but growing, number of reports of iodine deficiency in kids.

“This needs to be on people’s radar,” said Dr. Monica Serrano-Gonzalez, a Brown University doctor who treated the boy in 2021 in Providence, Rhode Island.

What is iodine?

Iodine is a trace element found in seawater and in some soils — mostly in coastal areas. A French chemist accidentally discovered it in 1811 when an experiment with seaweed ash created a purple puff of vapor. The name iodine comes from a Greek word meaning violet-colored.

Later that century, scientists began to understand that people need certain amounts of iodine to regulate their metabolism and stay healthy, and that it’s crucial in the development of brain function in children.

One sign of insufficient iodine is a swelling of the neck, known as a goiter. The thyroid gland in the neck uses iodine to produce hormones that regulate the heart rate and other body functions. When there’s not enough iodine, the thyroid gland enlarges as it goes into overdrive to make up for the lack of iodine.

At the beginning of the 20th century, goiter was very common in children in certain inland parts of the United States, especially in a “goiter belt” that stretched from Appalachia and the Great Lakes to the northwest United States. Some of the kids were unusually short, deaf, intellectually stunted and had other symptoms of a syndrome once known as “cretinism.”

Adding iodine to salt

Public health experts realized they couldn’t solve the problem by feeding everyone seaweed and seafood, but they learned that iodine can essentially be sprayed on table salt. Iodized salt first became available in 1924. By the 1950s, more than 70% of U.S. households used iodized table salt. Bread and some other foods also were fortified with iodine, and iodine deficiency became rare.

But diets changed. Processed foods now make up a large part of the American diet, and though they contain a lot of salt, it’s not iodized. Leading bread brands no longer add iodine. In the case of the 13-year-old boy, he has mild autism and was a fussy eater, mostly only eating specific brands of bread and peanut butter.

And for people who do salt their food, the fashion now is to use kosher salt, Himalayan rock salt or other noniodized products.

“People have forgotten why there’s iodine in salt,” said Dr. Elizabeth Pearce of Boston Medical Center. She is a leader in the Iodine Global Network, a nongovernmental agency working to eliminate iodine deficiency disorders.

She noted a reported 50% drop in U.S. iodine levels in surveyed Americans between the 1970s and the 1990s.

How much iodine is enough?

Though iodine consumption is falling overall, most Americans are still getting enough through their diet, experts say. But doctors worry that’s not the case for women and children, who are most vulnerable to iodine deficiency.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical societies recommend that all pregnant and breastfeeding women get 150 micrograms of iodine each day. You can get that from one-half to three-quarters of a teaspoon of iodized table salt.

In the last 15 years or so, U.S. researchers have increasingly reported seeing mild iodine deficiency in pregnant women. A Michigan State University study of about 460 pregnant women in the city of Lansing found about a quarter of them were not getting enough.

Many prenatal vitamins don’t contain iodine, noted Jean Kerver, the study’s lead author. That’s why doctors recommend that pregnant or breastfeeding women check labels to ensure they are taking multivitamins or prenatal supplements with iodine.

Some studies have linked even mild iodine deficiency to lower IQs and language delay in children, although there is debate about at exactly what levels problems start, Pearce said.

Experts say there hasn’t been enough research to establish what impact that iodine deficiency has actually been having on the U.S. population in recent years.

Serrano-Gonzalez said she and her colleagues have seen four other cases in children in their clinic in Providence.

“We’re concerned this may be increasing, especially in patients with restricted diets,” she said. 
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Human Metapneumovirus (HMPV) has recently spread widely across China, overwhelming hospitals and evoking memories of the COVID-19 outbreak. HMPV is not a new virus; it has been known for years and typically has a low mortality rate. Nevertheless, epidemiologists are calling for greater transparency about the spread of the virus to help contain infections. While the health care system is under strain, experts stress that there is no need for panic. They recommend the public follow basic protective measures, particularly during the Spring Festival travel period, to help curb further spread of the virus.

Click here to read the full story in Mandarin.
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GENEVA — The World Meteorlogical Organization says that preventive action cannot avert natural disasters such as the wildfires raging across Los Angeles, but that it can help save lives and mitigate loss of property.

“Land management and prevention, regular clearing of underbrush play a key role in fire management, and evacuation plans are important in saving lives,” the WMO said Friday. “These are all part of effective early warning systems.”

In a briefing to journalists in Geneva, Claire Nullis, a WMO spokesperson, stressed the importance of preparing adequate evacuation plans and early warning systems to prevent some of the worst impacts from a natural disaster.

While acknowledging the staggering losses from the devastating wildfires sweeping across parts of Los Angeles in the United States this week, she said “The early warnings have, in this instance, been very, very good.

“You know, people have been evacuated. It has been impossible to save houses, and the loss of life is still too high, but it has been kept to a relative minimum,” she said.

Media reports say at least 10 people have been killed in this week’s Southern California wildfires, although more bodies are expected to be found once the fires have been contained and searchers can go through the debris.

More than 10,000 structures reportedly have burned, and 180,000 people are under evacuation orders.

While California is no stranger to wildfires, the WMO calls this catastrophic event “extraordinary” in that it is affecting one of the largest cities in the United States.

The WMO said that last year’s rainy season for the Los Angeles area as a whole was slightly above normal, but so far, this year it has been dry.

“The big compounding factor in this context is the winds. … They cause temperatures to rise, and they cause very low humidity, drying out the ground and vegetation,” Nullis said.

The WMO said destructive wildfires have been made worse by climate change.

“Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States during the last decades,” it said, citing data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The WMO said wildfires require the alignment of a number of factors, including temperature, humidity and the lack of moisture in fuels such as trees, shrubs, grasses and forest debris.

“All these factors have strong direct or indirect ties to climate variability and climate change,” it said.

“Obviously, not every single weather-related disaster is due to climate change,” WMO spokesperson Nullis said. “Nobody would say that. But we get quite clear signals that climate change is exacerbating some of these disasters.”

In addition to the loss of life and destruction of homes and other infrastructure that could total billions of dollars in insured losses, the World Health Organization warns that wildfires can have a significant impact on human morbidity and mortality.

“Wildfire smoke, which is a mixture of air pollutants, of which particulate matter is of major concern as it can be full of PM 2.5. This is a very small particulate matter that gets right down into the lungs, and there certainly is a lot of it.” said Dr. Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson.

“A lot of it is associated with premature death in the general population,” she said. “It can cause and exacerbate diseases of lung, heart, brain, the nervous system” and other illnesses.

“It has been shown to lead to cognitive impairment and actually damage your intellectual capacity and lead to memory loss,” she said, adding that firefighters and emergency response workers “are most at risk from exposure to smoke.”

The WHO estimates 4.2 million deaths globally are linked to ambient or outdoor air pollution, with 99% of the global population exposed to air pollution levels that exceed the WHO guideline level for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5).

Harris said more research is needed to understand the long-term health effects of wildfire exposure on vulnerable populations, particularly children, older people, pregnant women and the chronically ill.

“We expect that we will see this over and over again if we do not get what we are doing to the planet under control,” she said.

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization has officially confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record, “with a global mean temperature of more than 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 average.”

“We have just endured the hottest decade on record, with 2024 topping the list,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, noting that “blazing temperatures in 2024 require trailblazing climate action in 2025.”

“There is still time to avoid the worst of climate catastrophe. But leaders must act now,” he said.
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For the first time, a person in the United States has died after being infected with the bird flu. Louisiana health officials reported the death on Monday. The World Health Organization says the risk of infection for the general population remains low, but as VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports, some medical experts are still sounding the alarm.
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WASHINGTON — Nearly a quarter of animals living in rivers, lakes and other freshwater sources are threatened with extinction, according to new research published Wednesday.

“Huge rivers like the Amazon can appear mighty, but at the same time freshwater environments are very fragile,” said study co-author Patricia Charvet, a biologist at Brazil’s Federal University of Ceará.

Freshwater habitats – including rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, bogs and wetlands – cover less than 1% of the planet’s surface, but support 10% of its animal species, said Catherine Sayer, a zoologist at the International Union for Conservation of Nature in England.

The researchers examined around 23,500 species of dragonflies, fish, crabs and other animals that depend exclusively on freshwater ecosystems. They found that 24% were at risk of extinction – classified as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered – due to compounding threats from pollution, dams, water extraction, agriculture, invasive species, climate change and other disruptions.

“Most species don’t have just one threat putting them at risk of extinction, but many threats acting together,” said Sayer, a study-co-author.

The tally, published in the journal Nature, is the first time that researchers have analyzed the global risk to freshwater species. Previous studies have focused on land animals including mammals, birds and reptiles.

Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who was not involved in the study, called it “a long-awaited and hugely important paper.”

“Almost every big river in North America and Europe is massively modified” through damming, putting freshwater species at risk, he said.

In South America, the vast Amazon River ecosystem also faces threats from deforestation, wildfires and illegal gold mining, said Charvet.

Illegal fires to clear forest result in waves of ash polluting the river, and unlicensed gold miners dump mercury into the water, she said.

Rivers and wetlands “concentrate everything that happens around them,” she said. “If something goes really wrong, like an acid or oil spill, you can threaten an entire species. There’s nowhere else for these animals to go.”
…

India TV’s claims that HMPV is a mysterious virus, or speculation that a new virus may have arisen out of China, are false.
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WASHINGTON — The Louisiana Department of Health said Monday that a U.S. patient hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu had died, the country’s first death from an outbreak of the virus that has sickened dozens of people and millions of poultry and cattle. 

Nearly 70 people in the U.S. have contracted bird flu since April, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of them livestock workers exposed to sick chickens or dairy cattle. 

The patient in Louisiana, the first person in the country to be hospitalized with the virus, contracted bird flu after exposure to a combination of backyard chickens and wild birds, said Louisiana health officials. The patient was hospitalized on Dec. 18, state health officials said. 

The patient was over 65 and had underlying medical conditions, the officials said. 

“While the current public health risk for the general public remains low, people who work with birds, poultry or cows, or have recreational exposure to them, are at higher risk,” the department said in a statement.  

The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — The new year will bring a pair of lunar eclipses, but don’t expect any sun-disappearing acts like the one that mesmerized North America last spring.

While the world will have to wait until 2026 for the next total solar eclipse, the cosmos promises plenty of other wow moments in 2025. It’s kicking off the year with a six-planet parade in January that will be visible for weeks. Little Mercury will join the crowd for a seven-planet lineup in February.

Five planets already are scattered across the sky — all but Mars and Mercury — though binoculars or telescopes are needed to spot some of them just after sunset.

“People should go out and see them sometime during the next many weeks. I certainly will,” said the Planetary Society’s chief scientist Bruce Betts.

Here’s a sneak peek of what’s ahead:

Eclipses

The moon will vanish for more than an hour over North and South America on March 14, followed two weeks later by a partial solar eclipse visible from Maine, eastern Canada, Greenland, Europe, Siberia and northwestern Africa.

The cosmic double-header will repeat in September with an even longer total lunar eclipse over Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, and a partial solar eclipse two weeks later near the bottom of the world.

Supermoons

Three supermoons are on tap this year in October, November and December.

The full moon will look particularly big and bright those three months as it orbits closer to Earth than usual.

November’s supermoon will come closest, passing within 356,980 kilometers. Last year featured four supermoons, wrapping up in November.

Planet parade

Six of our seven neighboring planets will line up in the sky to form a long arc around mid-January. All but Neptune and Uranus should be visible with the naked eye just after sunset, weather permitting.

The parade will continue for weeks, with some of the planets occasionally snuggling up. Mercury will make a cameo appearance by the end of February. The planets will gradually exit, one by one, through spring.

Northern and southern lights

The sun burped big time last year, painting the sky with gorgeous auroras in unexpected places.

Space weather forecasters anticipate more geomagnetic storms that could yield even more northern and southern lights.

That’s because the sun has reached its solar maximum during its current 11-year cycle that could continue through this year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Shawn Dahl urges everyone to stay on top of space weather news, so as not to miss any pop-up, razzle-dazzle shows.

Meteor showers

The Perseids and Geminids are perennial crowd-pleasers, peaking in August and December, respectively. But don’t count out the smaller, less dramatic meteor showers like the Lyrids in April, the Orionids in October and the Leonids in November.

The darker the locale and dimmer the moon, the better it will be for viewing. Meteor showers are generally named for the constellation in which they appear to originate. They occur whenever Earth plows through streams of debris left behind by comets and sometimes asteroids. 
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TOKYO — Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman who was the world’s oldest person according to Guinness World Records, has died, an Ashiya city official said Saturday. She was 116.

Yoshitsugu Nagata, an official in charge of elderly policies, said Itooka died on Dec. 29 at a care home in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture, central Japan.

Itooka, who loved bananas and a yogurt-flavored Japanese drink called Calpis, was born on May 23, 1908. She became the oldest person last year following the death of 117-year-old Maria Branyas, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

When she was told she was at the top of the World Supercentenarian Rankings List, she simply replied, “Thank you.”

When Itooka celebrated her birthday last year, she received flowers, a cake and a card from the mayor.

Born in Osaka, Itooka was a volleyball player in high school, and long had a reputation for a sprightly spirit, Nagata said. She climbed the 3,067-meter (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake twice.

She married at 20, and had two daughters and two sons, according to Guinness.

Itooka managed the office of her husband’s textile factory during World War II. She lived alone in Nara after her husband died in 1979.

She is survived by one son, one daughter and five grandchildren. A funeral service was held with family and friends, according to Nagata.

According to the Gerontology Research Group, the world’s oldest person is now 116-year-old Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas, who was born 16 days after Itooka.
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WASHINGTON — The highly decorated Special Forces soldier who died by suicide in a Cybertruck explosion on New Year’s Day confided to a former girlfriend who had served as an Army nurse that he faced significant pain and exhaustion that she says were key symptoms of traumatic brain injury.

Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger, 37, was a five-time recipient of the Bronze Star, including one with a V device for valor under fire. He had an exemplary military record that spanned the globe and a baby born last year. But he struggled with the mental and physical toll of his service, which required him to kill and caused him to witness the deaths of fellow soldiers.

Livelsberger mostly bore that burden in private but recently sought treatment for depression from the Army, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public.

He also found a confidant in the former nurse, who he began dating in 2018.

Alicia Arritt, 39, and Livelsberger met through a dating app while both were in Colorado Springs. Arritt had served at Landstul Regional Medical Center in Germany, the largest U.S. military medical facility in Europe, where many of the worst combat injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan were initially treated before being flown to the United States.

There she saw and treated traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, which troops suffered from incoming fire and roadside bombs. Serious but hard to diagnose, such injuries can have lingering effects that might take years to surface.

“I saw a lot of bad injuries. But the personality changes can happen later,” Arritt said.

In texts and images he shared with Arritt, Livelsberger raised the curtain a bit on what he was facing.

“Just some concussions,” he said in a text about a deployment to Helmand Province in Afghanistan. He sent her a photo of a graphic tattoo he got on his arm of two skulls pierced by bullets to mark lives he took in Afghanistan. He talked about exhaustion and pain, not being able to sleep and reliving the violence of his deployment.

“My life has been a personal hell for the last year,” he told Arritt during the early days of their dating, according to text messages she provided to The Associated Press. “It’s refreshing to have such a nice person come along.”

On Friday, Las Vegas law enforcement officers released excerpts of messages Livelsberger left behind showing the way Livelsberger killed himself was intentional, meant both as a “wakeup call” but also to “cleanse the demons” he was facing from losing fellow soldiers and taking lives.

Livelsberger’s death in front of the Trump Hotel using a truck produced by Elon Musk’s Tesla company has raised questions as to whether this was an act of political violence.

Officials said Friday that Livelsberger apparently harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, and Arritt said she and Livelsberger were Tesla fans.

“I had a Tesla, too, that I rescued from a junkyard in 2019, and we used to work on it together, bond over it,” Arritt said.

The pair stopped talking regularly after they broke up in 2021, and she had not heard from him in more than two years when he texted out of the blue on Dec. 28, and again on Dec. 31. The upbeat messages included a video of him driving the Cybertruck and another one of its dancing headlights; the vehicle can sync up its lighting and music.

But she also said Livelsberger felt things “very deeply, and I could see him using symbolism” of both the truck and the hotel.

“He wasn’t impulsive,” Arritt said. “I don’t see him doing this impulsively, so my suspicion would be that he was probably thinking it out.”

Arritt served on active duty from 2003 to 2007 and then was in the Army Reserve until 2011. With Livelsberger, she saw symptoms of TBI as early as 2018.

“He would go through periods of withdrawal, and he struggled with depression and memory loss,” Arritt said. “I don’t know what drove him to do this, but I think the military didn’t get him help when he needed it.”

But Livelsberger was also sweet and kind, she recalled: “He had a really deep well of inner strength and character, and he just had a lot of integrity.”

Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday that it has turned over all Livelsberger’s medical records to local law enforcement and encouraged troops facing mental health challenges to seek care through one of the military’s support networks.

“If you need help, if you feel that you need to seek any type of mental health treatment, or just to talk to someone — to seek the services that are available, either on base or off,” Singh said.

When Livelsberger struggled during the time they were dating, Arritt prodded him to get help. But he would not, saying it could cost him his ability to deploy if he was found medically unfit.

“There was a lot of stigma in his unit; they were, you know, big, strong, Special Forces guys there. There was no weakness allowed, and mental health is weakness is what they saw,” she said.

Livelsberger seeking treatment for depression was first reported by CNN.
…

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration announced Friday that it will allocate $306 million to bolster the nation’s bird flu response before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The new funding will support national, state and local preparedness and monitoring programs, as well as research into potential medical countermeasures against the H5N1 virus.

“While the risk to humans remains low, we are always preparing for any possible scenario that could arise,” Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.

“Preparedness is the key to keeping Americans healthy and our country safe.”

The United States has reported 66 human cases of bird flu since the start of 2024, though experts believe the true number could be higher, with cases potentially going undetected among cattle and poultry workers.

While the virus has not been found to spread from person to person, the amount of bird flu circulating among animals and humans has alarmed scientists, because it might combine with seasonal influenza and mutate into a more transmissible form — potentially triggering a deadly pandemic.

The funding announcement comes amid concern over how the incoming Trump administration will handle the threat.

The president-elect told Time magazine recently he would abolish the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy established under Biden — though it is not clear if he has the authority to do so, since it was created by Congress.

His pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a vocal vaccine skeptic who has pledged to shake up the nation’s health agencies and promotes raw milk, thought to be a vector for bird flu.

Biden’s administration has also faced criticism for what some consider a subpar bird flu response.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, published a report last month citing an array of problems including “lagging data, incomplete surveillance, sluggish coordination, considerable mistrust, and insufficient planning and stockpiling of vaccines and therapies.”

Given these shortcomings, infectious disease epidemiologist Meg Schaeffer of the SAS Institute told AFP: “In my opinion, avian influenza is going to become either a pandemic or a virus…  that will become a very widespread and significant health issue for us in the next one to two years.”

She urged raw milk consumers in particular to “take a pause on that consumption.”

Adding to concerns, a virus sample from a critically ill patient in Louisiana has shown signs of mutating to better adapt to human airways, although there is no evidence it has spread beyond that individual, health authorities said last week.

Researchers are also closely monitoring the growing number of bird flu infections in cats, which could expose humans through close contact. 
…

The holidays came with a side of flu for many Americans, with 40 states reporting high or very high levels of illness last week, according to the latest government health data. 

“A lot of flu out there,” said Carrie Reed of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Of course, there are a number of bugs that cause fever, cough, sore throat and other flulike symptoms. One is COVID-19. Another is RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which is a common cause of coldlike symptoms but can be dangerous for infants and the elderly. 

Reed said that the most recent CDC hospitalization data and other indicators show that the flu virus is trending higher than the other germs. Several seasonal flu strains are driving cases, with no dominant one, she added. 

Pediatric hospitals have been busy since November with RSV, but “influenza has now joined the party,” said Dr. Jason Newland, an infectious-diseases specialist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. 

“Now we’re really starting to roll,” he added. “Our hospitals are busy.” 

Where flu illnesses are the highest 

One indicator of flu activity is the percentage of doctor’s office visits driven by flulike symptoms. That level last week was about equal to the peak of last winter’s respiratory virus season — which occurred at the same time of year. Reed noted that most people avoid medical appointments over the holidays if they can help it, so the data in late December might be skewed by people who came down with sudden illnesses. 

Last week’s flu activity was particularly intense in the South, Southwest and West. The states reporting lesser amounts of suffering were mostly in the northern Great Plains and in New England. 

So far this season, the CDC estimates, there have been at least 5.3 million flu illnesses, 63,000 hospitalizations and 2,700 deaths, including at least 11 children. 

It’s not clear if this winter respiratory virus season will be any worse than others. So far it seems relatively typical, at least for kids, Newland said. 

How to protect yourself 

U.S. health officials recommend that everyone 6 months and older get an annual flu vaccination, and they say it’s not too late to get a shot. 

You should also avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth because germs can spread that way, health officials say. You should also wash your hands with soap and water, clean frequently touched surfaces and avoid close contact with people who are sick.

The CDC also has been keeping its eye on a rise of illnesses from norovirus, a nasty stomach bug, with 91 outbreaks reported early in December. 

Investigators also have been closely watching another kind of influenza virus, the Type A H5N1 version of bird flu. The CDC says 66 human U.S. cases of that were reported last year, but none of them in the last week. 

The cases are “fairly sporadic,” and the overall risk to the public remains low, Reed said. Almost all have been traced to direct contact with infected animals, with no proof of spread between people. 
…

WASHINGTON/LONDON — Alcoholic drinks should carry a warning about cancer risks on their label, the U.S. surgeon general said Friday in a move that could signal a shift toward more aggressive tobacco-style regulation for the sector. 

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said alcohol consumption increases the risk of at least seven types of cancer, including breast, colon and liver cancer, but most U.S. consumers remain unaware of this. 

Murthy also called for the guidelines on alcohol consumption limits to be reassessed so that people can weigh the cancer risk when deciding whether or how much to drink. U.S. dietary guidelines currently recommend two or fewer drinks per day for men and one drink or less per day for women. 

“Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity,” Murthy’s office said in a statement accompanying the new report, adding the type of alcohol consumed does not matter. 

His advisory sent shares in alcohol companies including Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Anheuser-Busch and Heineken down, in some cases over 3%. 

Alcohol producers and industry associations did not immediately share comments. 

It is unclear when or if the surgeon general’s suggestions will be adopted. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is entering its final two weeks. Murthy could be succeeded by Janette Nesheiwat, a director of a New York chain of urgent care clinics and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for the role. 

Trump, whose brother died from alcoholism and who does not drink himself, has long warned about the risks of drinking. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, has been open about his past struggles with heroin and alcohol, and says that he attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. 

The decision to update the label will ultimately be made by Congress. 

Small print 

Murthy’s advisory harks back to early U.S. surgeon general action on tobacco, starting with a 1964 report that concluded smoking could cause cancer. The report kicked off decades of increasingly strict regulations, starting with U.S. laws on warning labels one year later and still ongoing today. 

Alcoholic drinks in the U.S. already carry warnings on their packaging, including that drinking alcohol while pregnant can cause birth defects and that it can impair judgment when operating machinery. These appear in small print on the back of the packaging. This label has not changed since its inception in 1988. 

Murthy’s recommendations call for an update to these existing labels, rather than new cigarette-style warnings that are today displayed prominently on the front of every packet. 

Analysts, however, pointed out that cigarette warning labels did little to curb smoking and ingrained habits are hard to change. 

“Warning labels won’t be an immediate deathblow to alcohol makers, but it will compound the long-term threats to the industry,” said Blake Droesch, analyst with eMarketer. 

In the U.S., among the largest markets for many western producers, companies face growing competition from alternatives like cannabis and the threat of lower volumes as some consumers, especially younger ones, drink less than previous generations. 

Beer makers especially have, however, enjoyed benefits from a shift toward healthier lifestyles, with low- or no-alcohol products enjoying rapid growth. Heineken’s 0.0 version, for example, grew double digits in 16 markets last year. 

The advisory said alcohol is responsible for 100,000 U.S. cancer cases and 20,000 cancer deaths each year, more than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash deaths. 

The new report recommends health care providers should encourage alcohol screening and treatment referrals as needed, and efforts to increase general awareness should be expanded.
…

Juba, South Sudan   — More than 1.1 million doses of an oral cholera vaccine have arrived in South Sudan, as the government launched a program to inoculate more than 80 percent of the population. But the mass vaccination exercise faces numerous challenges, including a lack of access to the areas dealing with the worst cholera outbreaks.

Medics in South Sudan will attempt to vaccinate at least 9 million people against cholera, an exercise that targets mostly children and mothers.

More than 1.1 million doses of oral cholera vaccine arrived in the capital, Juba, and will be dispatched next week to hot spots areas like the town of Bentiu.

The country’s Ministry of Health reported last week that 199 people have died of cholera, with 13,000 more diagnosed so far with the bacteria.

Dr. Gabriel Boum Tap is an immunization officer at UNICEF in South Sudan.

“Of course, we had also received some vaccines before; only that they were not enough, because, you know, it’s not like the cholera vaccine is manufactured and is put in one place already,” he said.

At least one cholera case has been recorded in 29 of the 79 counties in South Sudan, with Bentiu, Renk and Juba most affected.

The first case was reported on September 23 in Renk, northeast of the capital.

But as the country prepares to roll out a mass vaccination exercise, the process faces some serious headwinds.

Thinjin Khoat is one of the victims of the cholera outbreak. He says he has seen people die of the disease, with many more trooping to local health centers seeking urgent medical attention.

“I was at one of the health facilities, and there was a suspected case of cholera. The patient was a 5-year-old. The patient was vomiting, and in the process, the health workers couldn’t get the vein. The patient is not able to get the oral fluid. … In that process, the patient died of dehydration,” he said.

Cholera is an acute diarrhea infection caused by consuming contaminated food or water. If not treated, it can be fatal within hours.

Khoat says accessibility to health care remains a major hindrance to the fight against the disease.

“Some of the community members, they don’t have access, because, you know, in Bentiu here, there is flooding. There are some areas that health workers cannot access because of the flood and also security issues,” he said.

According to Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, poor living conditions in South Sudan have created the perfect breeding ground for cholera.

Stephanie Ngai is MSF’s project coordinator for cholera response in Bentiu, located in Rubkona County, an area with a large refugee population.

“Here in Rubkona, the explosion on the outbreak very quickly overwhelmed the local systems that are responsible for coordinating the response and scaling up the interventions,” she said. ‘Other partners don’t have adequate funding to properly scale up the level needed, which is massive. And the overall response coordination has not been strong enough to manage the response and ensure that the needs are adequately met.”

The government says the vaccination exercise is expected to roll out next Monday with support from international partners such as MSF and the World Health Organization.

Buok Danhier, the immunization program manager for the Unity State Ministry of Health, says the various entities will split up duties in Rubkona.

“Rubkona has many payams [local districts]. Most of the payams are affected by flooding, and these are the ones that will be taken by WHO — the hard-to-reach areas. WHO and other partners are pledging to cover all those areas that are hard to reach and also very far from town. Bentiu IDP, Rukona and Bentiu town — these areas will be covered by MSF, and the recruitment process is ongoing,” said Danhier.

The vaccination exercise will target children 1 year and above.

WHO says up to 143,000 people worldwide die from cholera each year out of an estimated 4 million annual cases.
…

LONDON — A worker digging up clay in a southern England limestone quarry noticed unusual bumps that led to the discovery of a “dinosaur highway” and nearly 200 tracks that date back 166 million years, researchers said Thursday. 

The extraordinary find made after a team of more than 100 people excavated the Dewars Farm Quarry, in Oxfordshire, in June expands upon previous paleontology work in the area and offers greater insights into the Middle Jurassic period, researchers at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham said. 

“These footprints offer an extraordinary window into the lives of dinosaurs, revealing details about their movements, interactions, and the tropical environment they inhabited,” said Kirsty Edgar, a micropaleontology professor at the University of Birmingham. 

Four of the sets of tracks that make up the so-called highway show paths taken by gigantic, long-necked, herbivores called sauropods, thought to be Cetiosaurus, a dinosaur that grew to nearly 18 meters in length. A fifth set belonged to the Megalosaurus, a ferocious 9-meter predator that left a distinctive triple-claw print and was the first dinosaur to be scientifically named two centuries ago. 

An area where the tracks cross raises questions about possible interactions between the carnivores and herbivores. 

“Scientists have known about and been studying Megalosaurus for longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries prove there is still new evidence of these animals out there, waiting to be found,” said Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. 

Nearly 30 years ago, 40 sets of footprints discovered in a limestone quarry in the area were considered one of the world’s most scientifically important dinosaur track sites. But that area is mostly inaccessible now and there’s limited photographic evidence because it predated the use of digital cameras and drones to record the findings. 

The group that worked at the site this summer took more than 20,000 digital images and used drones to create 3-D models of the prints. The trove of documentation will aid future studies and could shed light on the size of the dinosaurs, how they walked and the speed at which they moved. 

“The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaur’s feet squelched in and out,” said Duncan Murdock, an earth scientist at the Oxford museum. “Along with other fossils like burrows, shells and plants we can bring to life the muddy lagoon environment the dinosaurs walked through.” 

The findings will be shown at a new exhibit at the museum and also broadcast on the BBC’s Digging for Britain program next week.
…

WASHINGTON — When the Quadrantid meteor shower peaks Friday, it will be the year’s first chance to see fireballs in the sky. 

A waning crescent moon means good visibility under clear and dark conditions. 

Most meteor showers are named for the constellations where they appear to originate from in the night sky. But the Quadrantids “take their name from a constellation that doesn’t exist anymore,” said NASA’s William Cooke. 

These meteors usually don’t have long trains, but the heads may appear as bright fireballs. The peak may reveal as many as 120 meteors per hour, according to NASA. 

Viewing lasts until Jan. 16. Here’s what to know about the Quadrantids and other meteor showers. 

What is a meteor shower? 

As the Earth orbits the sun, several times a year it passes through debris left by passing comets — and sometimes asteroids. The source of the Quadrantids is debris from the asteroid 2003 EH1. 

When these fast-moving space rocks enter Earth’s atmosphere, the debris encounters new resistance from the air and becomes very hot, eventually burning up. 

Sometimes the surrounding air glows briefly, leaving behind a fiery tail — the end of a “shooting star.” 

Special equipment is not needed to see the various meteor showers that flash across annually, just a spot away from city lights. 

How to view a meteor shower 

The best time to watch a meteor shower is in the early predawn hours, when the moon is low in the sky. 

Competing sources of light — such as a bright moon or artificial glow — are the main obstacles to a clear view of meteors. Cloudless nights when the moon wanes smallest are optimal viewing opportunities. 

And keep looking up, not down. Your eyes will be better adapted to spot shooting stars if you aren’t checking your phone. 

The Quadrantids will peak on a night with a slim crescent moon, just 11% full. 

When is the next meteor shower? 

The next meteor shower, the Lyrids, will peak in mid-April.
…

Geneva — The World Health Organization on Monday implored China to share data and access to help understand how COVID-19 began, five years on from the start of the pandemic that upended the planet.

COVID-19 killed millions of people, shredded economies and crippled health systems.

“We continue to call on China to share data and access so we can understand the origins of COVID-19. This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the WHO said in a statement.

“Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics.”

The WHO recounted how on Dec. 31, 2019, its country office in China picked up a media statement from the health authorities in Wuhan concerning cases of “viral pneumonia” in the city.

“In the weeks, months and years that unfolded after that, COVID-19 came to shape our lives and our world,” the U.N. health agency said.

“As we mark this milestone, let’s take a moment to honor the lives changed and lost, recognize those who are suffering from COVID-19 and Long COVID, express gratitude to the health workers who sacrificed so much to care for us, and commit to learning from COVID-19 to build a healthier tomorrow.”

Earlier this month, the WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus addressed the issue of whether the world was better prepared for the next pandemic than it was for COVID-19.

“The answer is yes, and no,” he told a press conference.

“If the next pandemic arrived today, the world would still face some of the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities that gave COVID-19 a foothold five years ago.

“But the world has also learnt many of the painful lessons the pandemic taught us and has taken significant steps to strengthen its defenses against future epidemics and pandemics.”

In December 2021, spooked by the devastation caused by COVID, countries decided to start drafting an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

The WHO’s 194 member states negotiating the treaty have agreed on most of what it should include but are stuck on the practicalities.

A key fault-line lies between Western nations with major pharmaceutical industry sectors and poorer countries wary of being sidelined when the next pandemic strikes.

While the outstanding issues are few, they include the heart of the agreement: the obligation to quickly share emerging pathogens, and then the pandemic-fighting benefits derived from them such as vaccines.

The deadline for the negotiations is May 2025.
…

The World Meteorological Organization warns this year’s record-breaking heat is likely to continue in 2025, further accelerating climate change and leading to catastrophic consequences if urgent action is not taken to stem the “human activities” behind this looming disaster. 

According to the United Nations weather agency, 2024 is set to be the warmest year on record, “capping a decade of unprecedented heat fueled by human activities.” 

“Greenhouse gas levels continue to grow to record observed highs, locking in even more heat for the future,” the WMO said. The agency stresses the need for greater international cooperation to address extreme heat risks “as global temperatures rise, and extreme heat events become more frequent and severe.” 

Celeste Saulo, who was appointed WMO secretary-general in June 2023 and began her four-year term in January 2024, said that in her first year in office she “issued repeated Red Alerts about the state of the climate” warning that “every fraction of a degree of warming matters, and increases climate extremes, impacts and risks.” 

The WMO State of the Climate 2024 report finds that between January and September global average temperatures were 1.54 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times and above the level stipulated in the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change. 

This year’s U.N. Environment Program’s Emissions Gap report warns temperatures are likely to rise to 3.1 degrees Celsius by the end of the century if preventive action is not taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. 

“Climate change plays out before our eyes on an almost daily basis in the form of increased occurrence and impact of extreme weather events,” Saulo said. “This year we saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent,” she said. 

Tropical Cyclone Chido, which hit the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean in mid-December and then moved on to Mozambique, has had a devastating impact on the lives and livelihoods of the communities in its wake. However, this cyclone is only the latest of dozens of extreme weather events that have wreaked havoc across the globe this year. 

According to a new report from the World Weather Attribution and Climate Central, climate change intensified 26 of the 29 extreme weather events studied “that killed at least 3,700 people and displaced millions.” 

“Climate change added 41 days of dangerous heat in 2024, harming human health and ecosystems,” it said. 

Extreme weather events have affected all regions of the world. Highlights include Hurricane Helene, which hit the U.S. state of Florida, causing widespread flooding and wind damage. 

Heavy rains have caused severe flooding and mudslides in South America. Massive rains also have led to deadly flash flooding in Europe, notably in Spain, and generated historic flooding across West and Central Africa, killing more than 1,500 people. 

These and other regions also have been affected by raging wildfires and severe drought causing hunger, irreparable suffering and harm, as well as enormous economic losses to countless millions. 

“This is climate breakdown — in real time,” Antonio Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general warned in his New Year’s message. “We must exit this road to ruin, and we have no time to lose. 

“In 2024, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions, and supporting the transition to a renewable future,” he said. 

In response to the secretary-general’s call to action on extreme heat, a group of experts from 15 international organizations, 12 countries, and several leading academic and NGO partners met at WMO headquarters earlier this month to advance a coordinated framework for tackling this growing threat. 

This plan is one of many WMO initiatives that aim to safeguard public health through improved climate services and early warnings. 

As the U.N. weather agency prepares to mark its 75th anniversary in 2025, WMO officials say they will continue to coordinate worldwide efforts to observe and monitor the state of the climate and support international efforts “to mitigate and adapt to climate change.” 

“Our message will be that if we want a safer planet, we must act now,” WMO chief Saulo said. “It is our responsibility. It is a common responsibility, a global responsibility.” 
…

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu successfully underwent prostate removal surgery on Sunday and is in good condition, according to the hospital treating him.  

The surgery took place while Israel remains at war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, more than 14 months after an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militants on Israel on October 7 last year. 

“The prime minister has awakened from anesthesia and is in good condition. He has been transferred to the recovery unit and will remain under observation in the coming days,” the Hadassah Medical Centre said in a statement. 

On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office announced that he had been diagnosed with a urinary tract infection caused by a benign prostate enlargement.  

Earlier, in March, Netanyahu underwent a hernia surgery, and in July last year, doctors implanted a pacemaker after a medical scare. 
…

Abortion has become more common despite bans or deep restrictions in most Republican-controlled states, and the legal and political fights over its future are not over yet.

It’s now been two and a half years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door for states to implement bans.

The policies and their impact have been in flux ever since the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Here’s a look at data on where things stand:

Abortions are more common than before Dobbs

Overturning Roe and enforcing abortion bans has changed how woman obtain abortions in the United States.

One thing it hasn’t done is put a dent in the number of abortions being obtained.

There have been slightly more monthly abortions across the country recently than there were in the months leading up to the June 2022 ruling, even as the number in states with bans dropped to near zero.

“Abortion bans don’t actually prevent abortions from happening,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a public health social scientist at the University of California San Francisco.

For women in some states, there are major obstacles to getting abortions — and advocates say that low-income, minority and immigrant women are least likely to be able to get them when they want.

For those living in states with bans, the ways to access abortion are through travel or abortion pills.

Pills become bigger part of equation — and legal questions

As the bans happened, abortion pills became a bigger part of the equation.

They were involved in about half the abortions before Dobbs. More recently, it’s been closer to two-thirds of them, according to research by the Guttmacher Institute.

The uptick of that kind of abortion, usually involving a combination of two drugs, was underway before the ruling.

But now, it’s become more common for pill prescriptions to be made by telehealth. By the summer of 2024, about 1 in 10 abortions were via pills prescribed via telehealth to patients in states where abortion is banned.

As a result, the pills are now at the center of battles over abortion access.

This month, Texas sued a New York doctor for prescribing pills to a Texas woman via telemedicine. There’s also an effort by Idaho, Kansas and Missouri to roll back their federal approvals and treat them as “controlled dangerous substances,” and a push for the federal government to start enforcing a 19th-century federal law to ban mailing them.

Travel for abortion has increased

Clinics have closed or halted abortions in states with bans.

A network of efforts to get women seeking abortions to places where they’re legal has strengthened and travel for abortion is now common.

The Guttmacher Institute found that more than twice as many Texas residents obtained abortions in 2023 in New Mexico as New Mexico residents did. And as many Texans received them in Kansas as Kansans.

Abortion funds, which benefitted from “rage giving” in 2022, helped pay the costs for many abortion-seekers. But some funds have had to cap how much they can give.

The ban that took effect in Florida this year has been a game-changer

Florida, the nation’s third most-populous state, began on May 1 enforcing a ban on abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy.

That immediately changed the state from one that was a refuge for other Southerners seeking abortions to an exporter of people looking for them.

There were about 30% fewer abortions there in May compared with the average for the first three months of the year. And in June, there were 35% fewer.

While the ban is not unique, the impact is especially large. The average driving time from Florida to a facility in North Carolina where abortion is available for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is more than nine hours, according to data maintained by Caitlin Myers, a Middlebury College economics professor.

Clinics have opened or expanded in some places

The bans have meant clinics closed or stopped offering abortions in some states.

But some states where abortion remains legal until viability – generally considered to be sometime past 21 weeks of pregnancy — have seen clinics open and expand.

Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico are among the states with new clinics.

There were 799 publicly identifiable abortion providers in the U.S. in May 2022, the month before the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade. And by this November, it was 792, according to a tally by Myers, who is collecting data on abortion providers.

Myers said some hospitals that always provided some abortions have begun advertising it. So, they’re now in the count of clinics – even though they might provide few of them.

Lack of access to abortions during emergencies threatens patients’ lives

How hospitals handle pregnancy complications, especially those that threaten the lives of the women, has emerged as a major issue since Roe was overturned.

President Joe Biden’s administration said hospitals must offer abortions when they’re needed to prevent organ loss, hemorrhage or deadly infections, even in states with bans. Texas is challenging the administration’s policy and the U.S. Supreme Court this year declined to take it up after the Biden administration sued Idaho.

More than 100 pregnant women seeking help in emergency rooms were turned away or left unstable since 2022, The Associated Press found in an analysis of federal hospital investigative records.

Among the complaints were a woman who miscarried in the lobby restroom of Texas emergency room after staff refused to see her and a woman who gave birth in a car after a North Carolina hospital couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.

“It is increasingly less safe to be pregnant and seeking emergency care in an emergency department,” Dara Kass, an emergency medicine doctor and former U.S. Health and Human Services official told the AP earlier this year.
…

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — 2024 was a brutal year for the Amazon rainforest, with rampant wildfires and extreme drought ravaging large parts of a biome that’s a critical counterweight to climate change. 

A warming climate fed drought that in turn fed the worst year for fires since 2005. And those fires contributed to deforestation, with authorities suspecting some fires were set to more easily clear land to run cattle. 

The Amazon is twice the size of India and sprawls across eight countries and one territory, storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise warm the planet. It has about 20% of the world’s fresh water and astounding biodiversity, including 16,000 known tree species. But governments have historically viewed it as an area to be exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples, and experts say exploitation by individuals and organized crime is rising at alarming rates. 

“The fires and drought experienced in 2024 across the Amazon rainforest could be ominous indicators that we are reaching the long-feared ecological tipping point,” said Andrew Miller, advocacy director at Amazon Watch, an organization that works to protect the rainforest. “Humanity’s window of opportunity to reverse this trend is shrinking, but still open.” 

There were some bright spots. The level of Amazonian forest loss fell in both Brazil and Colombia. And nations gathered for the annual United Nations conference on biodiversity agreed to give Indigenous peoples more say in nature conservation decisions. 

“If the Amazon rainforest is to avoid the tipping point, Indigenous people will have been a determinant factor,” Miller said. 

Wildfires and extreme drought 

 

Forest loss in Brazil’s Amazon — home to the largest swath of this rainforest — dropped 30.6% compared to the previous year, the lowest level of destruction in nine years. The improvement under leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva contrasted with deforestation that hit a 15-year high under Lula’s predecessor, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who prioritized agribusiness expansion over forest protection and weakened environmental agencies. 

In July, Colombia reported historic lows in deforestation in 2023, driven by a drop in environmental destruction. The country’s environment minister, Susana Muhamad, warned that 2024’s figures may not be as promising because a significant rise in deforestation had already been recorded by July due to dry weather caused by El Nino, a weather phenomenon that warms the central Pacific. Illegal economies continue to drive deforestation in the Andean nation. 

“It’s impossible to overlook the threat posed by organized crime and the economies they control to Amazon conservation,” said Bram Ebus, a consultant for Crisis Group in Latin America. “Illegal gold mining is expanding rapidly, driven by soaring global prices, and the revenues of illicit economies often surpass state budgets allocated to combat them.” 

In Brazil, large swaths of the rainforest were draped in smoke in August from fires raging across the Amazon, Cerrado savannah, Pantanal wetland and the state of Sao Paulo. Fires are traditionally used for deforestation and for managing pastures, and those man-made blazes were largely responsible for igniting the wildfires. 

For a second year, the Amazon River fell to desperate lows, leading some countries to declare a state of emergency and distribute food and water to struggling residents. The situation was most critical in Brazil, where one of the Amazon River’s main tributaries dropped to its lowest level ever recorded. 

Cesar Ipenza, an environmental lawyer who lives in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, said he believes people are becoming increasingly aware of the Amazon’s fundamental role “for the survival of society as a whole.” But, like Miller, he worries about a “point of no return of Amazon destruction.” 

It was the worst year for Amazon fires since 2005, according to nonprofit Rainforest Foundation U.S.  Between January and October, an area larger than the state of Iowa — about 15.1 million hectares of Brazil’s Amazon — burned. Bolivia had a record number of fires in the first 10 months of the year. 

“Forest fires have become a constant, especially in the summer months and require particular attention from the authorities who don’t how to deal with or respond to them,” Ipenza said. 

Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Guyana also saw a surge in fires this year. 

Indigenous voices, rights made headway 

The United Nations conference on biodiversity — this year known as COP16 — was hosted by Colombia. The meetings put the Amazon in the spotlight and a historic agreement was made to give Indigenous groups more of a voice on nature conservation decisions, a development that builds on a growing movement to recognize Indigenous people’s role in protecting land and combating climate change. 

Both Ebus and Miller saw promise in the appointment of Martin von Hildebrand as the new secretary general for the Amazon Treaty Cooperation Organization, announced during COP16. 

“As an expert on Amazon communities, he will need to align governments for joint conservation efforts. If the political will is there, international backers will step forward to finance new strategies to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest,” Ebus said. 

Ebus said Amazon countries need to cooperate more, whether in law enforcement, deploying joint emergency teams to combat forest fires, or providing health care in remote Amazon borderlands. But they need help from the wider world, he said. 

“The well-being of the Amazon is a shared global responsibility, as consumer demand worldwide fuels the trade in commodities that finance violence and environmental destruction,” he said. 

Next year marks a critical moment for the Amazon, as Belem do Para in northern Brazil hosts the first United Nations COP in the region that will focus on climate. 

“Leaders from Amazon countries have a chance to showcase strategies and demand tangible support,” Ebus said. 
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