Month: April 2023

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(With AP Photo) 

Europe’s Most Powerful Nuclear Reactor Kicks Off in Finland 

Apr 16, 2023 13:05 (GMT) – 423 words |By JARI TANNER The Associated Press 

FOR RADIO: HELSINKI (AP) — Finland’s much-delayed and costly new nuclear reactor, Europe’s most powerful by production capacity, has completed a test phase lasting over a year and has started regular output, significantly boosting the Nordic country’s electricity self-sufficiency. The Olkiluoto 3 reactor, which has 1,600-megawatt capacity, was connected into the Finnish national power grid in March 2022 and kicked off regular production Sunday. Operator Teollisuuden Voima, or TVO, tweeted that “Olkiluoto 3 is now ready” after a delay of 14 years from the original plan. It will help Finland achieve its carbon neutrality targets and increase energy security at a time when European countries have cut oil, gas and other power supplies from Russia, Finland’s neighbor. 

FOR WEB: HELSINKI (AP) — Finland’s much-delayed and costly new nuclear reactor, Europe’s most powerful by production capacity, has completed a test phase lasting over a year and started regular output, boosting the Nordic country’s electricity self-sufficiency significantly. 

The Olkiluoto 3 reactor, which has 1,600-megawatt capacity, was connected into the Finnish national power grid in March 2022 and kicked off regular production Sunday. Operator Teollisuuden Voima, or TVO, tweeted that “Olkiluoto 3 is now ready” after a delay of 14 years from the original plan. 

It will help Finland to achieve its carbon neutrality targets and increase energy security at a time when European countries have cut oil, gas and other power supplies from Russia, Finland’s neighbor. 

“The production of Olkiluoto 3 stabilizes the price of electricity and plays an important role in the Finnish green transition,” said TVO President and CEO Jarmo Tanhua in a statement. The company added that “the electricity production volume of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant unit is a significant addition to clean, domestic production.” 

Construction of Olkiluoto 3 began in 2005 and was to be completed four years later. However, the project was plagued by several technological problems that led to lawsuits. The last time a new nuclear reactor was commissioned in Finland was over 40 years ago. 

The Olkiluoto 3 is western Europe’s first new reactor in more than 15 years. It is the first new-generation EPR, or European Pressurized Reactor, plant to have gone online in Europe. It was developed in a joint venture between France’s Areva and Germany’s Siemens. 

Primarily due to safety concerns, nuclear power remains a controversial issue in Europe. The launch of the Finnish reactor coincides with Germany’s move to shut down its last remaining three nuclear plants Saturday. 

Experts have put Olkiluoto 3’s final price tag at some 11 billion euros ($12 billion) — almost three times what was initially estimated. Finland now has five nuclear reactors in two power plants located on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Combined, they cover more than 40% of the nation’s electricity demand. 

The conservative National Coalition Party, or NCP, which won Finland’s April 2 general election, wants to increase the share of energy that the country of 5.5 million gets from nuclear power still further. 

NCP leader Petteri Orpo, Finland’s likely new prime minister, said during the election campaign that the new Cabinet should make nuclear power “the cornerstone of the government’s energy policy.” 
…

The Group of Seven rich nations on Sunday set big new collective targets for solar power and offshore wind capacity, agreeing to speed up renewable energy development and move toward a quicker phase-out of fossil fuels.

But they stopped short of endorsing a 2030 deadline for phasing out coal that Canada and other members had pushed for, and left the door open for continued investment in gas, saying that sector could help address potential energy shortfalls.

“In the midst of an unprecedented energy crisis, it’s important to come up with measures to tackle climate change and promote energy security at the same time,” Japanese industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told a news conference.

“While acknowledging that there are diverse pathways to achieve carbon neutral, we agreed on the importance of aiming for a common goal toward 2050,” he said.

G7 ministers finish two days of meetings on climate, energy and environmental policy in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo on Sunday. Renewable fuel sources and energy security have taken on a new urgency following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Initially people thought that climate action and action on energy security potentially were in conflict. But discussions which we had and which are reflected in the communique are that they actually work together,” said Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s minister of natural resources.

In their communique, the members pledged to collectively increase offshore wind capacity by 150 gigawatts by 2030 and solar capacity to more than 1 terawatt.

They agreed to accelerate “the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels” – the burning of fossil fuels without using technology to capture the resulting C02 emissions – to achieve net zero in energy systems by 2050 at the latest.

On coal, the countries agreed to prioritize “concrete and timely steps” towards accelerating the phase-out of “domestic, unabated coal power generation”, as a part of a commitment last year to achieve at least a “predominantly” decarbonized power sector by 2035.

Canada was clear that unabated coal-fired power should be phased out by 2030, and Ottawa, Britain and some other G7 members committed to that date, Canada’s Wilkinson told Reuters.

“Others are still trying to figure out how they could get there within their relevant timeframe,” Wilkinson said.
…

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris made an appearance at an abortion rights rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, one of a number of such rallies held around the country following recent court rulings limiting access to abortion.

“When you attack the rights of women in America, you are attacking America,” Harris told the crowd.

On Friday, the Supreme Court temporarily kept in place federal rules for use of the abortion drug mifepristone, after lower court rulings sought to restrict the use of the drug, which women have been using for years.

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

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

Last year, the justices reversed Roe v. Wade, opening the door for some states to ban abortions.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press.
…

Cindy Powers was driven into bankruptcy by 19 life-saving abdominal operations. Medical debt started stacking up for Lindsey Vance after she crashed her skateboard and had to get nine stitches in her chin. And for Misty Castaneda, open heart surgery for a disease she’d had since birth saddled her with $200,000 in bills.

These are three of an estimated 100 million Americans who have amassed nearly $200 billion in collective medical debt — almost the size of Greece’s economy — according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Now lawmakers in at least a dozen states and the U.S. Congress have pushed legislation to curtail the financial burden that’s pushed many into untenable situations: forgoing needed care for fear of added debt, taking a second mortgage to pay for cancer treatment or slashing grocery budgets to keep up with payments.

Some of the bills would create medical debt relief programs or protect personal property from collections, while others would lower interest rates, keep medical debt from tanking credit scores or require greater transparency in the costs of care.

In Colorado, House lawmakers approved a measure Wednesday that would lower the maximum interest rate for medical debt to 3%, require greater transparency in costs of treatment and prohibit debt collection during an appeals process.

If it became law, Colorado would join Arizona in having one of the lowest medical debt interest rates in the country. North Carolina lawmakers have also started mulling a 5% interest ceiling.

But there are opponents. Colorado Republican state Sen. Janice Rich said she worried that the proposal could “constrain hospitals’ debt collecting ability and hurt their cash flow.”

For patients, medical debt has become a leading cause of personal bankruptcy, with an estimated $88 billion of that debt in collections nationwide, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Roughly 530,000 people reported falling into bankruptcy annually due partly to medical bills and time away from work, according to a 2019 study from the American Journal of Public Health.

Powers’ family ended up owing $250,000 for the 19 life-saving abdominal surgeries. They declared bankruptcy in 2009, then the bank foreclosed on their home.

“Only recently have we begun to pick up the pieces,” said James Powers, Cindy’s husband, during his February testimony in favor of Colorado’s bill.

In Pennsylvania and Arizona, lawmakers are considering medical debt relief programs that would use state funds to help eradicate debt for residents. A New Jersey proposal would use federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to achieve the same end.

Bills in Florida and Massachusetts would protect some personal property — such as a car that is needed for work — from medical debt collections and force providers to be more transparent about costs. Florida’s legislation received unanimous approval in House and Senate committees on its way to votes in both chambers.

In Colorado, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts and the U.S. Congress lawmakers are contemplating bills that would bar medical debt from being included on consumer reports, thereby protecting debtors’ credit scores.

Castaneda, who was born with a congenital heart defect, found herself $200,000 in debt when she was 23 and had to have surgery. The debt tanked her credit score and, she said, forced her to rely on her emotionally abusive husband’s credit.

For over a decade Castaneda wanted out of the relationship, but everything they owned was in her husband’s name, making it nearly impossible to break away. She finally divorced her husband in 2017.

“I’m trying to play catch-up for the last 20 years,” said Castaneda, 45, a hairstylist from Grand Junction on Colorado’s Western Slope.

Medical debt isn’t a strong indicator of people’s credit-worthiness, said Isabel Cruz, policy director at the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.

While buying a car beyond your means or overspending on vacation can partly be chalked up to poor decision making, medical debt often comes from short, acute-care treatments that are unexpected — leaving patients with hefty bills that exceed their budgets.

For both Colorado bills — to limit interest rates and remove medical debt from consumer reports — a spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said the governor will “review these policies with a lens towards saving people money on health care.”

While neither bill garnered stiff political opposition, a spokesperson for the Colorado Hospital Association said the organization is working with sponsors to amend the interest rate bill “to align the legislation with the multitude of existing protections.”

The association did not provide further details.

To Vance, protecting her credit score early could have had a major impact. Vance’s medical debt began at age 19 from the skateboard crash, and then was compounded when she broke her arm soon after. Now 39, she has never been able to qualify for a credit card or car loan. Her in-laws cosigned for her Colorado apartment.

“My credit identity was medical debt,” she said, “and that set the tone for my life.”
…

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to take its most daring leap yet with a round-the-world test flight of its mammoth Starship.

It’s the biggest and mightiest rocket ever built, with the lofty goal of ferrying people to the moon and Mars.

Jutting almost 120 meters into the South Texas sky, Starship could blast off as early as Monday, with no one aboard. Musk’s company got the OK from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Friday.

It will be the first launch with Starship’s two sections together. Early versions of the sci-fi-looking upper stage rocketed several miles into the stratosphere a few years back, crashing four times before finally landing upright in 2021. The towering first-stage rocket booster, dubbed Super Heavy, will soar for the first time.

For this demo, SpaceX won’t attempt any landings of the rocket or the spacecraft. Everything will fall into the sea.

“I’m not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement. It won’t be boring,” Musk promised at a Morgan Stanley conference last month. “I think it’s got, I don’t know, hopefully about a 50% chance of reaching orbit.”

Here’s the rundown on Starship’s debut:

Supersize rocket

The stainless-steel Starship has 33 main engines and 7.6 million kilograms of thrust. All but two of the methane-fueled, first-stage engines ignited during a launch pad test in January — good enough to reach orbit, Musk noted. Given its muscle, Starship could lift as much as 250 tons and accommodate 100 people on a trip to Mars. The six-engine spacecraft accounts for 50 meters of its height. Musk anticipates using Starship to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit, including his own Starlinks for internet service, before strapping anyone in. Starship easily eclipses NASA’s moon rockets — the Saturn V from the bygone Apollo era and the Space Launch System from the Artemis program that logged its first lunar trip late last year. It also outflanks the former Soviet Union’s N1 moon rocket, which never made it past a minute into flight, exploding with no one aboard.

Game plan

The test flight will last 1 ½ hours and fall short of a full orbit of Earth. If Starship reaches the three-minute mark after launch, the booster will be commanded to separate and fall into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft would continue eastward, passing over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans before ditching near Hawaii. Starship is designed to be fully reusable, but nothing will be saved from the test flight. Harvard astrophysicist and spacecraft tracker Jonathan McDowell will be more excited whenever Starship lands and returns intact from orbit. It will be “a profound development in spaceflight if and when Starship is debugged and operational,” he said.

Launch pad

Starship will take off from a remote site on the southernmost tip of Texas near Boca Chica Beach. It’s just below South Padre Island, and about 32 kilometers from Brownsville. Down the road from the launch pad is the complex where SpaceX has been developing and building Starship prototypes for the past several years. The complex, called Starbase, has more than 1,800 employees, who live in Brownsville or elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley. The Texas launch pad is equipped with giant robotic arms — called chopsticks — to eventually grab a returning booster as it lands. SpaceX is retooling one of its two Florida launch pads to accommodate Starships down the road. Florida is where SpaceX’s Falcon rockets blast off with crew, space station cargo and satellites for NASA and other customers.

The odds

As usual, Musk is remarkably blunt about his chances, giving even odds, at best, that Starship will reach orbit on its first flight. But with a fleet of Starships under construction at Starbase, he estimates an 80% chance that one of them will attain orbit by year’s end. He expects it will take a couple of years to achieve full and rapid reusability.

Customers

With Starship, the California-based SpaceX is focusing on the moon for now, with a $3 billion NASA contract to land astronauts on the lunar surface as early as 2025, using the upper stage spacecraft. It will be the first moon landing by astronauts in more than 50 years. The moonwalkers will leave Earth via NASA’s Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket, and then transfer to Starship in lunar orbit for the descent to the surface, and then back to Orion. To reach the moon and beyond, Starship will first need to refuel in low-Earth orbit. SpaceX envisions an orbiting depot with window-less Starships as tankers. But Starship isn’t just for NASA. A private crew will be the first to fly Starship, orbiting Earth. Two private flights to the moon would follow — no landings, just fly-arounds.
…

A man in Chile is infected with a bird flu that has concerning mutations, but the threat to people from the virus remains low, U.S. health officials said Friday.

Past animal studies suggest these mutations could cause the virus to be more harmful or spread more easily, health officials said. But they also said there is no evidence that the mutations would make it easier for it to take root in a person’s upper lungs — a development that would raise concerns about it spreading among people.

The mutations do not change public health officials’ assessment of the overall risk to people from the H5N1 virus, which “continues to be low,” said Vivien Dugan of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The mutations, which have appeared only in the one hospitalized patient, may have occurred after the man got sick, CDC officials said. There’s no evidence that the mutated virus spread to other people, mixed with other flu viruses, or developed the ability to fight off current medicines or evade vaccines, agency officials said.

Such genetic changes have been seen in past bird flu infections.

“Nevertheless, it’s important to continue to look carefully at every instance of human infection,” Dugan said. “We need to remain vigilant for changes that would make these viruses more dangerous to people.”

Threat first identified in 1997

This type of flu, called Type A H5N1, was first identified as a threat to people during a 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong, when visitors to live poultry markets caught it.

Sporadic outbreaks have followed, and more than 450 people have died in the past two decades from bird flu infections, according to the World Health Organization. Most infected people got it directly from birds.

As bird flu hits other species, however, scientists fear the virus could evolve to spread more easily among people. And it has been spreading widely to birds and animals in scores of countries.

Millions of chickens dead

In the U.S., it has recently been detected in wild birds in every state, as well as in commercial poultry operations and backyard flocks. Since the beginning of last year, tens of millions of chickens have died of the virus or been killed to stop outbreaks from spreading, one of the reasons cited for soaring U.S. egg prices.

The new lab analysis looked at the virus found in the lungs of a 53-year-old man living in Chile’s Antofagasta region. It may be that he became infected through contact with sick or dead birds or infected sea lions, according to a WHO summary of the case.

The man was healthy and had not traveled recently. On March 13, he started getting a cough, sore throat and hoarseness, the WHO said.

His symptoms worsened and eventually he was sent to an intensive care unit and treated with antiviral medicines and antibiotics. He is still hospitalized and being monitored, CDC officials said.

Genetic sequencing this week revealed the two concerning mutations. Chilean and American health officials have been working together on the investigation.

Andrew Pekosz, a flu researcher at Johns Hopkins University, said he hasn’t seen the preliminary analysis of the Chilean patient’s infection.

“When these viruses get into humans, there’s a likelihood that they start to adapt to grow better in us,” and this is a sign that is happening, he said.

There are three or four kinds of mutations that would need to be seen in a H5N1 virus “before that would really raise the alarm signal that something is happening of concern,” he added.
…

For 35 years, the Emsland nuclear power plant in northwestern Germany has reliably provided millions of homes with electricity and many with well-paid jobs in what was once an agricultural backwater.

Now, it and the country’s two other remaining nuclear plants are being shut down. Germany long ago decided to phase out both fossil fuels and nuclear power over concerns that neither is a sustainable source of energy.

The final countdown Saturday — delayed for several months over feared energy shortages because of the Ukraine war — is seen with relief by Germans who have campaigned against nuclear power.

Yet with energy prices stubbornly high and climate change a growing concern, some in the country and abroad are branding the move reckless. As Germany closes nuclear stations, other governments in Europe have announced plans to build new ones or have backtracked on commitments to shut down existing plants.

“The Emsland nuclear power plant has indeed contributed significantly to the economic development of this region,” says Albert Stegemann, a dairy farmer and lawmaker for the opposition Christian Democrats who represents the nearby town of Lingen and surrounding areas in the federal parliament.

Unlike some of his conservative colleagues, Stegemann isn’t worried the lights will go out in Germany when the three reactors — Emsland, Neckarwestheim II and Isar II — are switched off for good. The closure of three other plants in late 2021 reduced nuclear’s share of electricity produced in Germany to about 5% but didn’t result in any blackouts.

The 47-year-old is also realistic about the lack of support the technology has among German voters, though he insists the vast majority of people in Lingen supported the plant.

“In the long term, nuclear power is certainly not the technology of the future. But at this time it would have been good to be able to rely on it,” he said.

Against the backdrop of the Russian attack on Ukraine and the challenges of climate change “it would have been wise to think about (delaying the shutdown) another one, two or three years,” Stegemann said.

“Politicians need to adjust to changed circumstances,” he added. “And I accuse the government of not doing that at all.”

Similar concerns have been raised in other quarters.

“Right now, existing nuclear plants are a critical source of carbon-free baseload energy,” said Peter Fox-Penner, previously a senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy and now with the Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy. “Energy efficiency, wind, and solar energy will soon become dominant sources, but in the meantime, it is wisest to continue to run existing nuclear,” as long as safety is the priority, he said.

The government of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has made clear, however, that a further extension isn’t in the cards.

“Nuclear power remains a risky technology, and in the end, the risks can’t be controlled even in a high-tech country like Germany,” Environment Minister Steffi Lemke said at a news conference ahead of the shutdown.

She cited the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima atomic power plant in 2011, when a tsunami knocked out the power supply leading to a catastrophic meltdown, evoking memories of the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl that remains a pivotal event for Germany’s anti-nuclear movement.

While Lemke’s environmentalist Green party is most closely linked to that movement, it was former Chancellor Angela Merkel — then leader of Stegemann’s Christian Democrats — who pulled the plug on atomic energy in Germany following Fukushima. The decision led to a greater reliance on fossil fuels that has kept Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions stubbornly high compared to neighbors such as atom-friendly France.

At Lingen’s modern town hall, Mayor Dieter Krone said there are mixed feelings about the imminent nuclear shutdown, which will be marked with a small, closed-doors ceremony inside the plant.

“For the staff, it will be a moment of sadness” he said, noting that Emsland has safely produced electricity for Germany and its neighbors for decades. “On the other hand, it’s the start of a new era because we want to get into hydrogen.”

For the past 12 years, Krone and others have worked to convince public and private partners to invest in what they hope will be a key green fuel of the future. The region already produces more renewable energy than it consumes and aims to become a hub for hydrogen production using wind and solar power in the coming years.

“We have the big advantage that all the infrastructure, the networks, are there,” he said.

One of the world’s biggest clean hydrogen production facilities is due to begin operating in Lingen this fall. Some of it will be used to make “green steel,” a vital step if Europe’s biggest economy wants to become carbon neutral by 2045.

“I believe we are going to become the biggest and most significant location in Germany for hydrogen,” Krone said. “As such, I do think we can say this is a kind of blueprint for development.”

Critics have warned that without nuclear power, Germany will have to rely on dirty coal and gas plants for energy during periods of overcast but calm weather — a condition for which Germans have even coined a new term, Dunkelflaute.

The government has dismissed such concerns, arguing that thanks to Europe’s integrated electricity network, Germany can import energy when needed while remaining a net exporter.

Lemke has brushed aside suggestions that Germany’s no-nuclear policy will hamper efforts to cut the country’s emissions.

“The expansion of renewables remains the cheaper and in particular faster path if we want to achieve the climate goals,” she told reporters in Berlin earlier this month, pointing to significant delays and cost overruns in the construction of nuclear power plants elsewhere in Europe.

Meanwhile, the price of installing solar and wind energy has dropped significantly in recent years, a trend that is expected to continue.

Back in Lingen, activist Alexander Vent of the anti-nuclear group AgIEL says the shutdown isn’t the end of the road for their efforts.

“We want to stop and commemorate this day. Of course it’s a reason to celebrate,” he said. “But for us it’s basically a milestone that’s been reached. We now need to look forward because we see there’s still a lot left to do.”

Campaigners like Vent have now shifted their focus to nearby facilities that process nuclear fuel for reactors elsewhere in Europe.

“We need to stop enriching uranium,” he said. “We need to stop producing fuel rods for all the nuclear plants outside Germany.”
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A third bill signed Friday requires large employers to offer coverage for the total cost of an abortion, with an exception for those who object on religious grounds. It exempts public employees because Colorado’s constitution forbids the use of public funds for abortions.
…

The Biden administration and a drug manufacturer asked the Supreme Court on Friday to preserve access to an abortion drug free from restrictions imposed by lower court rulings, while a legal fight continues. 

The Justice Department and Danco Laboratories both warned of “regulatory chaos” and harm to women if the high court doesn’t block an appeals court ruling in a case from Texas that had the effect of tightening Food and Drug Administration rules under which the drug, mifepristone, can be prescribed and dispensed. 

The new limits would take effect Saturday unless the court acts before then. 

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

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

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

The justices are being asked for a temporary order to keep in place Food and Drug Administration regulations governing mifepristone. Such an order would give them time to more fully consider each side’s arguments without the pressure of a deadline. 

The Biden administration and Danco, which is based in New York, also want a more lasting order that would keep the current rules in place as long as the legal fight over mifepristone continues. As a fallback, they asked the court to take up the issue, hear arguments and decide by early summer a legal challenge to mifepristone that anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations filed last year. 

The court rarely acts so quickly to grant full review of cases before at least one appeals court has thoroughly examined the legal issues involved. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adding to the uncertainty, a separate federal judge in Washington on Thursday clarified his own order from last week to make clear that the FDA is not to do anything that might block mifepristone’s availability in 17 Democrat-led states suing to keep it on the market. 

It’s unclear how the FDA can comply with court orders in both cases, a situation that Prelogar described Friday as untenable. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

If the appeals court’s action stands, those would again be the terms under which mifepristone could be dispensed for now. At the core of the Texas lawsuit is the allegation that the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone was flawed because the agency did not adequately review safety risks. 

Mifepristone has been used by millions of women in the past 23 years. While less drastic than completely overturning the drug’s approval, the latest ruling still represents a stark challenge to the FDA’s authority overseeing how prescription drugs are used in the U.S. The panel overturned multiple decisions made by FDA regulators after years of scientific review. 

Common side effects with mifepristone include cramping, bleeding, nausea, headache and diarrhea. In rare cases, women can experience excess bleeding that requires surgery to stop. 

Still, in loosening restrictions on mifepristone, FDA regulators cited “exceedingly low rates of serious adverse events.” More than 5.6 million women in the U.S. had used the drug as of June 2022, according to the FDA. In that period, the agency received 4,200 reports of complications in women, or less than one-tenth of 1% of women who took the drug. 
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Taifa 1, Kenya’s first operational 3U nanosatellite, was set to launch aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in the U.S. state of California on Friday after being delayed twice. But the launch was scrubbed at the last minute because of unfavorable weather.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reactions to rulings

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

Vice President Kamala Harris issued a statement as well.

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

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

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

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

Ruling alleges inadequate review

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France Presse and Reuters.
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