YCLOAK

taipei, taiwan — China and Russia are deepening cooperation in Antarctica in a trend that analysts say could undermine marine conservation efforts and disrupt the long-standing status quo in the resource-rich region.

China and Russia were accused of collaborating to block key proposals that would establish new marine protected areas and revise the krill fishery management plan in the Southern Ocean, during the annual conference of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Australia last week.

The commission was established in 1982 and is a part of the Antarctic Treaty System, which establishes the legal status of Antarctica and comprises four different treaties.

CCAMLR focuses on preserving marine life and other resources in the Antarctic. The commission has 26 members, including China, Russia, the United States, Australia and the European Union.

Any member state can veto a proposed measure, and Russia and China have repeatedly used that power to block proposed conservation efforts by the council over the years.

Some member states said every proposed measure at this year’s conference, including the establishment of four new marine protected areas and an extension of existing krill management measures, was blocked by China or Russia or both.

“Most concerning was the failure of some members to support the extension of existing krill management measures while the harmonization process is progressed,” a spokesperson of the Australian Antarctic Division told VOA in a written response.

“This is a backwards step for CCAMLR and puts krill, and the ecosystems and predators it supports, at risk,” the spokesperson added. Krill are small shrimp-like crustaceans that play a crucial role in the marine food chain.

Limit on krill fishing

The measure that CCAMLR member states hope to preserve is the mechanism that limits krill fishing in a protected area near the Antarctic Peninsula to no more than 620,000 tons.

Another 620,000 tons of fishable krill are redistributed across several subareas to prevent overconcentration of krill fishing in one area.

The measure needs to be renewed annually during the CCAMLR meeting with the approval of all the commission’s member states. Analysts said China’s and Russia’s move to block the rollover of the krill measure will affect the sustainability of a crucial food source for species such as penguins, seals and whales.

“If there’s too much krill fishing in one small region of Antarctica, it will restrict the amount of food available to the seal and penguin populations,” Tony Press, an expert on Antarctic affairs at the University of Tasmania, told VOA in a video interview.

In his view, other countries within CCAMLR should try to collectively challenge China’s and Russia’s decisions to block the proposed conservation measures through diplomatic means or decide to implement the proposed measures without involving Beijing or Moscow.

“Other countries could decide that Russia and China’s behaviors mean they would have to start implementing decisions among themselves,” Press said.

Experts say China and Russia refuse to support the proposed measures because they think setting up more marine protected areas will lead to more areas in the Antarctic becoming unavailable for use or development.

“They think once a marine protected area is adopted, it creates a snowball effect and generates more support behind the development of additional marine protected areas, which both countries think could lead to all marine living resource exploitation in the Southern Ocean being completely prohibited,” said Donald Rothwell, professor of international law at Australian National University.

Lynda Goldsworthy, a research associate at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, said one of China’s objectives in increasing its fishery footprint in the Southern Ocean is to “increase geopolitical influence in the Antarctic region.”

But since Russia is not as invested in the Southern Ocean as before, Goldsworthy said its decision to block marine conservation efforts in Antarctica is driven by an attempt to challenge the rules-based world order.

“Russia is playing the disruptor and [the objections] are part of their global disruption approach,” she told VOA by phone.

The Russian Foreign Ministry and Russian Embassy in the U.S. have not responded to VOA’s request for comments. The Chinese Foreign Ministry and Chinese Embassy in Australia also have not responded to requests for comments from VOA.

CCAMLR successfully established two marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean in 2009 and 2017, but no new zones have been established since then. The four new zones proposed during the 2024 meeting would increase the protected area in the Southern Ocean to 26%.

Antarctic status quo

The deepened cooperation between China and Russia in Antarctica comes as Beijing expands its presence across the continent. In February, China inaugurated a new scientific research station near a U.S. research station. The development raises concerns among some security analysts that China may collect intelligence or develop its dual-used capabilities through the station.

China’s increased presence in Antarctica has allowed Beijing to more boldly assert its agenda in some regional bodies such as CCAMLR, said Press.

China’s behavior at last week’s conference “is a reflection of their confidence because they are now a party with a significant presence in the Antarctic,” he told VOA.

“A lot of what they [China and Russia] are doing points to the idea that the actions they take now are to ensure there are no curbs on any future actions they might take,” Press added.

Goldsworthy said the growing synergy between China and Russia in Antarctica could create potential challenges for the Antarctic Treaty System.

“There had been blockages for the protection of penguins on the Antarctic continent, and I do think both Russia and China are positioning themselves for [mineral mining] when or if the current mining ban is lifted,” she told VOA.

While Beijing and Moscow have been consistently blocking CCAMLR’s proposals, Rothwell said it is unclear whether that trend has “totally infected decision-making within the Antarctic Treaty,” which designates the continent as a demilitarized zone for peaceful purposes and scientific research.

Even if China and Russia can’t easily challenge the treaty, Rothwell said that China “will find it advantageous to align itself with Russia,” in order to fulfill its aspirations to exercise control and influence in Antarctica.

Goldsworthy added that if China and Russia maintain their “combative approach” in the Antarctic Treaty System, which includes CCAMLR, it could turn “a safe and secure region” into a “much less peace-oriented” continent.
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washington — Militant groups have intensified attacks against polio vaccination teams and their police escorts in Pakistan amid a dramatic resurgence of polio cases in the country.

Officials say because of the deteriorating security situation, polio vaccination teams cannot reach communities in high-risk areas where polio is endemic.

On Tuesday, militants attacked two health centers in the tribal districts of Orakzai and Waziristan that are being used in the polio vaccination campaign. Two police officials were killed in the attack in the restive region along the Afghan border.

According to local officials in North Waziristan, militants took guns from the police officers guarding the polio team and warned the health workers not to take part in the anti-polio campaign.

Pakistan Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, in reaction to the latest violence, said in a statement, “The terrorists’ attack on the polio team is an attack on the safe future of Pakistan.”

Violence has heightened safety concerns among front-line polio workers in the country.

“When I go out as part of [a] polio vaccination team, I am not sure I will return home safely,” Fahima Bibi, a front-line polio worker supervising vaccinations in northwestern Pakistan, told VOA.

But Bibi said she is determined to do the job.

“The cause is bigger and needs bigger commitment and sacrifice,” she told VOA.

Bibi’s concerns for safety are shared by many of her co-workers.

According to the Pakistan National Emergency Operations Center for Polio Eradication, 225,440 female vaccinators are working in the immunization workforce, going door to door to administer polio drops to children. They travel to hard-to-reach and remote, conservative regions in Pakistan, breaking cultural barriers.

Ihtesham Ali, minister of health in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, expressed concern Wednesday over the surge in attacks. He told VOA that the “security situation in the southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is quite bad. And it is affecting access to communities. It is creating difficulties in our access for polio vaccinations.”

‘A fearful environment’

Most of the recent cases in Pakistan were reported in southwestern Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

World Health Organization officials in southern Balochistan province say militant violence has affected polio campaigns in the province.

“Polio teams go house to house in a fearful environment,” said Dr. Nayyar Khan Loni, a WHO official in Balochistan. He said that the recent attacks in Balochistan have forced polio teams to rush the vaccination of children in some areas.

He said immunization campaigns have been modified because of security concerns. He attributed the recent polio outbreak in Balochistan to several factors, including cross-border mobility with Afghanistan and misinformation among certain parents about polio vaccines.

Campaign against polio vaccinators

Pakistan’s hard-line extremist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has sustained a violent campaign against polio vaccinators and security forces guarding polio team workers in Pakistan for nearly 15 years. Militants spread false claims that polio vaccines are part of a Western agenda to sterilize Muslim children. Also, militants target polio teams suspected of being government spies.

In January, at least five policemen were killed and more than a dozen injured in a major attack on polio teams and security personnel in northwestern Pakistan.

According to the Emergency Operations Center in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, militants have carried out 23 attacks against polio teams and security escorts in Pakistan this year.

Overall, militant-sponsored violence has increased in Pakistan since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021.

According to independent think tanks tracking violence in Pakistan, militant violence has killed more than 1,000 Pakistanis, half of them security forces, in the first 10 months of this year.

The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition identified 16 incidents of violence against or obstruction of health care in Pakistan in 2022, an increase from seven in 2021. Nearly 90% of these incidents involved threats and violence against polio vaccination workers, undermining health care providers’ ability to meet vaccination targets.

Experts say the TTP has ignored local and international religious scholars’ fatwa (edicts) that support polio vaccination in Pakistan.

Fakhar Hayat Kakakhel, a Pakistan-based researcher on militancy, said that because of military operations, militants lost space and polio vaccination teams gained more access to conflict areas.

“After August 2021, when the Pakistani Taliban regrouped in the region and got space, they restarted their anti-polio vaccination campaigns. And now we are seeing a sudden surge in cases of polio,” he said.

Sindh province health officials say the security situation in Sindh is not like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but police are providing security to polio teams in Karachi and other parts of the province.

“Police are patrolling the streets in Karachi so that polio teams feel safe. We do not have any security issue, but [the] police department is with us,” Shumaila Rasool, spokesperson for Emergency Operations Center in Sindh, told VOA.

Afghanistan and Pakistan launched synchronized polio immunization campaigns on Monday. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the spread of polio has never been stopped.

VOA Deewa reporter Usman Khan contributed from Peshawar.
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CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — H5N1 bird flu had been confirmed in a pig in a backyard farm in Oregon, the first detection of the virus in swine in the country, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Wednesday.

Pigs represent a particular concern for the spread of bird flu because they can become co-infected with bird and human viruses, which could swap genes to form a new, more dangerous virus that can more easily infect humans.

The USDA said there is no risk to the nation’s pork supply from the Oregon case and that the risk to the public from bird flu remains low.

Pigs were the source of the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009-2010, and have been implicated as the source of others, said Richard Webby, a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital virologist who studies flu in animals and birds for the World Health Organization.

The finding of the virus in a small farm makes the pig infection less of a concern than if it had been detected in a commercial pig farm, he said.

“I think it probably doesn’t increase the risk much, but surely, if this virus starts transmitting in pigs, that absolutely increases the risk,” he said.

The Oregon farm has been quarantined, and other animals there, including sheep and goats, are under surveillance, the USDA said.

Pigs and poultry on the farm were culled to prevent the spread of the virus and enable additional testing of the swine, the USDA said. Tests are still pending for two of the pigs, the agency said.

The swine case originated with wild birds and not from a poultry or dairy farm, a USDA spokesperson said. Wild bird migration has carried bird flu to poultry flocks and cattle herds.

The case was one factor that prompted the USDA to broaden its bird flu surveillance to include nationwide bulk milk testing, which the agency announced on Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Reuters in an interview.

“While it’s a different variation of the virus and it is tied to wild birds, it is a factor to make sure that we understand and appreciate exactly where the virus is in dairy and in bovine,” he said.

The pigs on the Oregon farm were not intended for the commercial food supply, the USDA said.

The agency said that poultry and swine on the backyard farm shared water sources, housing and equipment, which have all served as pathways for transmitting the virus between animals in other states.

The detection is a warning for pig farmers to be on the lookout for further infections, said Marie Culhane, a professor of veterinary population medicine at the University of Minnesota who has researched flu viruses in swine.

“People need to start increasing their plans to deal with it if it should happen in another herd and another herd,” Culhane said. “Pigs are just really good at picking up influenza viruses.”

This year, 36 people have tested positive for bird flu as the virus has spread to nearly 400 dairy herds. All but one of the people were farm workers who had known contact with infected animals.

Since 2022, the virus has wiped out more than 100 million poultry birds in the nation’s worst-ever bird flu outbreak.
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LONDON — Britain has detected its first case of new mpox variant clade Ib, the country’s health security agency (UKHSA) said Wednesday, adding that the risk to the population remained low.  

The clade Ib variant is a new form of the virus that was declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in August after an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo spread to neighboring countries in Africa.  

The case, in a patient who had recently traveled to affected countries in Africa, was detected in London and the individual has been transferred to a specialist hospital, the UKHSA said.  

Close contacts of the case are being followed up by UKHSA and partner organizations, the UKHSA added.  

There have been cases of mpox clade Ib reported in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Sweden, India and Germany, as well as Congo. It is a different form of the virus from clade II, which spread globally in 2022, largely among men who have sex with men.  

Mpox is a viral infection that typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, and while usually mild it can kill. Clade Ib is thought to cause more severe disease than clade II.  

Both forms can be transmitted through close physical contact, including sexual contact.  

The United Kingdom authorities said they would not provide any more details about the patient, but added that the person’s contacts were being followed up and would be offered testing and vaccination as needed, as well as further care if they test positive or have symptoms.  

According to the latest WHO figures, there have been more than 44,000 confirmed and suspected cases of mpox in Africa this year, and more than 1,000 deaths, largely in Congo.
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london — More than 8 million people were diagnosed with tuberculosis last year, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, the highest number recorded since the U.N. health agency began keeping track.

About 1.25 million people died of TB last year, the new report said, adding that TB likely returned to being the world’s top infectious disease killer after being replaced by COVID-19 during the pandemic. The deaths are almost double the number of people killed by HIV in 2023.

WHO said TB continues to mostly affect people in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Western Pacific; India, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Pakistan account for more than half of the world’s cases.

“The fact that TB still kills and sickens so many people is an outrage, when we have the tools to prevent it, detect it and treat it,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

TB deaths continue to fall globally, however, and the number of people being newly infected is beginning to stabilize. The agency noted that of the 400,000 people estimated to have drug-resistant TB last year, fewer than half were diagnosed and treated.

Tuberculosis is caused by airborne bacteria that mostly affects the lungs. Roughly a quarter of the global population is estimated to have TB, but only about 5%-10% of those develop symptoms.

Advocacy groups, including Doctors Without Borders, have long called for the U.S. company Cepheid, which produces TB tests used in poorer countries, to make them available for $5 per test to increase availability. Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders and 150 global health partners sent Cepheid an open letter calling on them to “prioritize people’s lives” and to urgently help make TB testing more widespread globally.
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The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services on Monday confirmed the death of a middle-aged eastern Iowa resident from Lassa fever.

The individual had recently returned from travel to West Africa, where it is believed the person contracted the virus, the state health department said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working to confirm the diagnosis of Lassa fever, the state health department said. The CDC said it assesses the risk to the general public to be extremely low.

Lassa fever is a viral disease common in West Africa, but rarely seen in the United States.

There have been eight travel-associated cases of Lassa fever in the United States in the past 55 years, according to the Iowa health department.

In West Africa, the Lassa virus is carried by rodents and spread to humans through contact with urine or droppings of infected rodents.

About 100,000 to 300,000 cases of Lassa fever and 5,000 related deaths occur in West Africa each year, according to the CDC.
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Islamabad — Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan simultaneously launched fresh vaccination campaigns against polio Monday amid a resurgence in cases in the only two countries globally where the virus continues to be endemic and paralyze children. 

The World Health Organization reported 64 polio infections this year: 41 from Pakistan and 23 from Afghanistan, up from six each in both countries in 2023.

Pakistani officials said the weeklong house-to-house nationwide campaign that was rolled out Monday enlists 400,000 polio workers, who aim to vaccinate over 45 million children under five against the paralytic disease.

“This is Pakistan’s third nationwide campaign this year, launched in response to the alarming increase in polio cases across 71 districts,” said Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s point-person for polio eradication.

More than half the infections in 2024 are located in southwestern Balochistan province, which sits on the Afghan border and is “facing an intense transmission” of the poliovirus. The southern province of Sindh has recorded 12 cases this year, while other regions in Pakistan, a country of more than 240 million, have reported the remaining cases, according to Pakistan’s polio eradication program.

Anwarul Haq, the coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Center for Polio Eradication, urged parents to cooperate with health teams in protecting their children against the crippling disease, stressing that there is no cure for polio. “With the threat at an all-time high, we must act as one nation to keep our children safe through vaccination,” he stated.   

Local and WHO officials attribute the resurgence of poliovirus in Pakistan to vaccine boycotts in rural areas stemming from the false propaganda that these initiatives are a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children.

Additionally, anti-state militants in violence-hit districts bordering Afghanistan occasionally attack vaccinators and their police escorts, suspecting them of spying for the government. The violence has resulted in the deaths of dozens of polio workers and police personnel, including at least two vaccinators and seven police members killed this year.

Afghanistan 

Meanwhile, health officials in Taliban-led Afghanistan announced Monday the opening of a three-day polio-vaccination campaign, saying it aims to reach 6.2 million children under five in 16 of the country’s 34 provinces. The target areas are primarily located close to the border with Pakistan.

The latest round of this year’s anti-polio campaign in Afghanistan began after nearly a two-month delay because Taliban authorities abruptly halted house-to-house vaccine deliveries in the southern province of Kandahar without publicly stating any reason. Instead, de facto Afghan authorities stressed the need to conduct vaccinations for children from site to site and mosque to mosque.

In a report released last month, an independent monitoring board of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative believed that the Taliban’s action had stemmed from their “administration’s concerns about covert surveillance activities.” The report quoted Taliban officials as explaining that their leadership is living in Kandahar and has concerns about their security.

Kandahar, regarded as the unofficial capital of Afghanistan under Taliban rule, is where the militant group’s reclusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, resides and governs the country through his decrees based on his strict interpretation of Islam.

The Taliban chief has banned most Afghan women from public and private sector workplaces and barred girls from receiving an education beyond the sixth grade.

WHO officials say eradicating polio in Afghanistan requires comprehensive integration of large migrant populations into the vaccination program. They say it is also crucial to reach out to groups that refuse vaccination and establish a female public health workforce dedicated to the polio initiative to tackle multiple challenges facing polio-eradication efforts in the impoverished country.
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LOS ANGELES — McDonald’s announced Sunday that Quarter Pounders will again be on its menu at hundreds of its restaurants after testing ruled out beef patties as the source of the outbreak of E. coli poisoning tied to the popular burgers that killed one person and sickened at least 75 others across 13 states.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to believe that slivered onions from a single supplier are the likely source of contamination, McDonald’s said in a statement. It said it will resume selling the Quarter Pounder at affected restaurants — without slivered onions — in the coming week.

As of Friday, the outbreak had expanded to at least 75 people sick in 13 states, federal health officials said. A total of 22 people had been hospitalized, and two developed a dangerous kidney disease complication, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. One person has died in Colorado.

Early information analyzed by the FDA showed that uncooked slivered onions used on the burgers “are a likely source of contamination,” the agency said. McDonald’s has confirmed that Taylor Farms, a California-based produce company, was the supplier of the fresh onions used in the restaurants involved in the outbreak, and that they had come from a facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

McDonald’s pulled the Quarter Pounder burger from menus in several states — mostly in the Midwest and Mountain states — when the outbreak was announced Tuesday. McDonald’s said Friday that slivered onions from the Colorado Springs facility were distributed to approximately 900 of its restaurants, including some in transportation hubs like airports.

The company said it removed slivered onions sourced from that facility from its supply chain on Tuesday. McDonald’s said it has decided to stop sourcing onions from Taylor Farms’ Colorado Springs facility “indefinitely.”

The 900 McDonald’s restaurants that normally received slivered onions from Taylor Farms’ Colorado Springs facility will resume sales of Quarter Pounders without slivered onions, McDonald’s said.

Testing by the Colorado Department of Agriculture ruled out beef patties as the source of the outbreak, McDonald’s said.

The Department of Agriculture received multiple lots of fresh and frozen beef patties collected from various Colorado McDonald’s locations associated with the E. coli investigation. All samples were found to be negative for E. coli, the department said.

Taylor Farms said Friday that it had preemptively recalled yellow onions sent to its customers from its Colorado facility and continues to work with the CDC and the FDA as they investigate.

While it remains unclear if the recalled onions were the source of the outbreak, several other fast-food restaurants — including Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC and Burger King — pulled onions from some menus in certain areas this week.

Colorado had the most illnesses reported as of Friday, with 26 cases. At least 13 people were sickened in Montana, 11 in Nebraska, 5 each in New Mexico and Utah, 4 each in Missouri and Wyoming, two in Michigan and one each in Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Wisconsin and Washington, the CDC reported.

McDonald’s said Friday it didn’t pull the Quarter Pounder from any additional restaurants and noted that some cases in states outside the original region were tied to travel.

The CDC said some people who got sick reported traveling to other states before their symptoms started. At least three people said they ate at McDonald’s during their travel. Illnesses were reported between Sept. 27 and Oct. 11.

The outbreak involves infections with E. coli 0157:H7, a type of bacteria that produces a dangerous toxin. It causes about 74,000 infections in the U.S. annually, leading to more than 2,000 hospitalizations and 61 deaths each year, according to CDC.

Symptoms of E. coli poisoning can occur quickly, within a day or two of eating contaminated food. They typically include fever, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea and signs of dehydration — little or no peeing, increased thirst and dizziness. The infection is especially dangerous for children younger than 5, people who are elderly, pregnant or who have weakened immune systems.
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The good news: You will get a glorious extra hour of sleep. The bad: It’ll be dark as a pocket by late afternoon for the next few months in the U.S. 

Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. local time next Sunday, Nov. 3, which means you should set your clock back an hour before you go to bed. Standard time will last until March 9 when we will again “spring forward” with the return of daylight saving time. 

That spring time change can be tougher on your body. Darker mornings and lighter evenings can knock your internal body clock out of whack, making it harder to fall asleep on time for weeks or longer. Studies have even found an uptick in heart attacks and strokes right after the March time change. 

“Fall back” should be easier. But it still may take a while to adjust your sleep habits, not to mention the downsides of leaving work in the dark or trying exercise while there’s still enough light. Some people with seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression usually linked to the shorter days and less sunlight of fall and winter, may struggle, too. 

Some health groups, including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine, have said it’s time to do away with time switches and that sticking with standard time aligns better with the sun — and human biology. 

Most countries do not observe daylight saving time. For those that do — mostly in Europe and North America — the date that clocks are changed varies. 

Two states — Arizona and Hawaii — don’t change and stay on standard time. 

Here’s what to know about the twice yearly ritual. 

How the body reacts to light 

The brain has a master clock that is set by exposure to sunlight and darkness. This circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour cycle that determines when we become sleepy and when we’re more alert. The patterns change with age, one reason that early-to-rise youngsters evolve into hard-to-wake teens. 

Morning light resets the rhythm. By evening, levels of a hormone called melatonin begin to surge, triggering drowsiness. Too much light in the evening — that extra hour from daylight saving time — delays that surge and the cycle gets out of sync. 

And that circadian clock affects more than sleep, also influencing things like heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones and metabolism. 

How do time changes affect sleep? 

Even an hour change on the clock can throw off sleep schedules — because even though the clocks change, work and school start times stay the same. 

That’s a problem because so many people are already sleep deprived. About 1 in 3 U.S. adults sleep less than the recommended seven-plus hours nightly, and more than half of U.S. teens don’t get the recommended eight-plus hours on weeknights. 

Sleep deprivation is linked to heart disease, cognitive decline, obesity and numerous other problems. 

How to prepare for the time change 

Some people try to prepare for a time change jolt by changing their bed times little by little in the days before the change. There are ways to ease the adjustment, including getting more sunshine to help reset your circadian rhythm for healthful sleep. 

Will the U.S. ever get rid of the time change? 

Lawmakers occasionally propose getting rid of the time change altogether. The most prominent recent attempt, a now-stalled bipartisan bill named the Sunshine Protection Act, proposes making daylight saving time permanent. Health experts say the lawmakers have it backward — standard time should be made permanent. 
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