Pollution from discarded plastic, metals and other items is a persistent problem in Nigeria. Some young people are doing what they can to clean up the trash and make strides toward sustainable development. Gibson Emeka has this story from Abuja, Nigeria, narrated by Salem Solomon.
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Month: August 2023
A Russian court on Thursday imposed a $32,000 fine on Google for failing to delete allegedly false information about the conflict in Ukraine.
The move by a magistrate’s court follows similar actions in early August against Apple and the Wikimedia Foundation that hosts Wikipedia.
According to Russian news reports, the court found that the YouTube video service, which is owned by Google, was guilty of not deleting videos with incorrect information about the conflict — which Russia characterizes as a “special military operation.”
Google was also found guilty of not removing videos that suggested ways of gaining entry to facilities which are not open to minors, news agencies said, without specifying what kind of facilities were involved.
In Russia, a magistrate court typically handles administrative violations and low-level criminal cases.
Since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has enacted an array of measures to punish any criticism or questioning of the military campaign.
Some critics have received severe punishments. Opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced this year to 25 years in prison for treason stemming from speeches he made against Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
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England will play Spain in the final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Sydney on Sunday. Spain beat Sweden 2-1 in its semifinal while England defeated co-hosts Australia 3-1 to reach the final.
Thirty-two teams started the 2023 Women’s soccer World Cup co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia. Two remain.
On Tuesday, Spain defeated Sweden by two goals to one at Eden Park in Auckland to reach its first World Cup final.
Spain first qualified for the event in 2015 and will face England, the current European champion, in Sunday’s final at Sydney’s Olympic Stadium.
England defeated co-hosts Australia in front of more than 75,000 supporters in Sydney. It was arguably the biggest match on home soil in the host nation’s football history.
Australian player Mary Fowler told reporters after the game that it was an honor to play in a team that had inspired the nation.
“It was unreal tonight, just like it has been for all the games, actually,” she said. “It is really nice even when we are under the pump and we are down by some goals to hear the crowd get behind us and really try to cheer us on. Not many people get to experience that in their life being able to play at a home World Cup and really feel the support of the country behind them. So, [it is] something, you know, we are all very lucky to be part of.”
The Australians – known as the Matildas – had reached the World Cup semifinals for the first time. Co-host New Zealand failed to advance from the group stage of the competition, where four teams competed in eight sections. The top two countries progressed to the knockout round of 16.
Players – both past and present – as well as coaches and administrators hope that the co-hosts’ world cup journey will leave a legacy for female sport in Australia and New Zealand. It is hoped the performances of other nations, including Nigeria, Morocco and South Africa, will also promote the sport in other parts of the world.
Angela Iannotta, a former Matilda forward who scored Australia’s first World Cup goal in 1995, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that women’s football is changing dramatically.
“It is quite interesting,” she said, “because I remember when I am sitting at the airport with the Australian tracksuit and people would say, ‘Oh, what are you doing with Australian colors?’ and I said, ‘Oh, I am playing for the Australian women’s football team.’ ‘Oh, have we really got a national team?’ So, yeah, and the crowds were like, you know, 100 people, 200 people and things like that. So, just to see this change and this growth in women’s football in Australia is really unbelievable.”
Australia’s Matildas play Sweden in the World Cup third- and fourth-place playoff in Brisbane on Saturday.
The final takes place between Spain and England in Sydney on Sunday.
England striker Chloe Kelly told reporters after the semifinal victory against Australia that reaching the final was “what dreams are made of.”
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The British Museum said Wednesday that a member of its staff has been dismissed after items dating back as far as the 15th century B.C. were found to be missing, stolen or damaged.
The museum said it has also ordered an independent review of security and a “vigorous program to recover the missing items.”
The stolen artifacts include gold jewelry and gems of semiprecious stones and glass dating from the 15th century B.C. to the 19th century A.D. Most were small items kept in a storeroom and none had been on display recently, the museum said.
“Our priority is now threefold: first, to recover the stolen items; second, to find out what, if anything, could have been done to stop this; and third, to do whatever it takes, with investment in security and collection records, to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said George Osborne, the museum’s chair.
“This incident only reinforces the case for the reimagination of the museum we have embarked upon,” Osborne said.
The museum said that legal action would be taken against the dismissed staff member and that the matter was under investigation by London’s Metropolitan Police Service.
The 264-year-old British Museum is a major London tourist attraction, drawing visitors from around the world who come to see a vast collection of artifacts ranging from the Rosetta Stone that unlocked the language of ancient Egypt to scrolls bearing 12th century Chinese poetry and masks created by the indigenous people of Canada.
But the museum has also attracted controversy because it has resisted calls from communities around the world to return items of historical significance that were acquired during the era of the British Empire. The most famous of these disputes include marble carvings from the Parthenon in Greece and the Benin bronzes from West Africa.
Hartwig Fischer, the director of the British Museum, apologized and said the institution was determined to put things right.
“This is a highly unusual incident,” said Fischer said. “I know I speak for all colleagues when I say that we take the safeguarding of all the items in our care extremely seriously.”
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Texas on Wednesday approved its plan to require companies to include Tesla’s technology in electric vehicle charging stations to be eligible for federal funds, despite calls for more time to re-engineer and test the connectors.
The decision by Texas, the biggest recipient of a $5 billion program meant to electrify U.S. highways, is being closely watched by other states and is a step forward for Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s plans to make its technology the U.S. charging standard.
Tesla’s efforts are facing early tests as some states start rolling out the funds. The company won a slew of projects in Pennsylvania’s first round of funding announced on Monday but none in Ohio last month.
Federal rules require companies to offer the rival Combined Charging System, or CCS, a U.S. standard preferred by the Biden administration, as a minimum to be eligible for the funds.
But individual states can add their own requirements on top of CCS before distributing the federal funds at a local level.
Ford Motor and General Motors’ announcement about two months ago that they planned to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard, or NACS, sent shockwaves through the industry and prompted a number of automakers and charging companies to embrace the technology.
In June, Reuters reported that Texas, which will receive and deploy $407.8 million over five years, planned to mandate companies to include Tesla’s plugs. Washington state has talked about similar plans, and Kentucky has mandated it.
Florida, another major recipient of funds, recently revised its plans, saying it would mandate NACS one year after standards body SAE International, which is reviewing the technology, formally recognizes it.
Some charging companies wrote to the Texas Transportation Commission opposing the requirement in the first round of funds. They cited concerns about the supply chain and certification of Tesla’s connectors could put the successful deployment of EV chargers at risk.
That forced Texas to defer a vote on the plan twice as it sought to understand NACS and its implications, before the commission voted unanimously to approve the plan on Wednesday.
“The two-connector approach being proposed will help assure coverage of a minimum of 97% of the current, over 168,000 electric vehicles with fast charge ports in the state,” Humberto Gonzalez, a director at Texas’ department of transportation, said while presenting the state’s plan to the commissioners.
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Russia’s lunar spacecraft entered the moon’s orbit on Wednesday, a major step toward the country’s ambition of being the first to land on the moon’s south pole in the search for frozen water.
The Luna-25 entered the moon’s orbit at 11:57 a.m. local time (0857 GMT), Russia’s space corporate Roskosmos said.
Luna-25 will circle the moon, the Earth’s only natural satellite, for about five days, then change course for a soft landing on the lunar south pole planned for August 21.
India’s Chandrayaan-3 entered the moon’s orbit earlier this month ahead of a planned touchdown on the south pole of the moon later this month.
The Luna-25, which is roughly the size of a small car, will aim to operate for a year on the south pole, where scientists at NASA and other space agencies in recent years have detected traces of frozen water in the craters.
The presence of water on the moon has implications for major space powers, potentially allowing longer human sojourns on the planet that would enable the mining of lunar resources.
No Russian spacecraft has entered lunar orbit since Luna-24, the Soviet Union’s 1976 moon mission, according to Anatoly Zak, the creator and publisher of www.RussianSpaceWeb.com which tracks Russian space programs.
“Entering lunar orbit is absolutely critical for the success of this project,” Zak told Reuters. “This is a first for the post-Soviet period.”
“Some are calling this the second lunar race so it is very important for Russia to resume this program. Luna-25 is not just one mission — it is part of a much broader Russian strategy that stretches 10 years into the future.”
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New restrictions on access to a drug used in the most common form of abortion would be imposed under a federal appeals court ruling issued Wednesday, but the Supreme Court will have the final say.
The ruling by three judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned part of a lower court ruling that revoked the Food and Drug Administration’s approval — more than two decades ago — of mifepristone. But it left intact part of the ruling that would end the availability of the drug by mail and require that the drug be administered in the presence of a physician.
Those restrictions won’t take effect, at least right away, because the Supreme Court previously intervened to keep the drug available during the legal fight.
At issue is a Texas-based federal judge’s April ruling revoking the drug’s approval, which was granted more than 20 years ago by the Food and Drug Administration.
There is no precedent for a U.S. court overturning the approval of a drug that the FDA has deemed safe and effective. While new drug safety issues often emerge after FDA approval, the agency is required to monitor medicines on the market, evaluate emerging issues and take action to protect U.S. patients. Congress delegated that responsibility to the FDA — not the courts — more than a century ago.
But during a May 17 hearing, the 5th Circuit panel — Judges Jennifer Walker Elrod, James Ho and Cory Wilson — pushed back frequently against assertions that U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s April 7 ruling was unprecedented and unwarranted.
Kacsmaryk, Ho and Wilson are all appointees of former President Donald Trump. Elrod was appointed to the 5th Circuit by former President George W. Bush. All of the judges have a history of supporting abortion restrictions.
The Texas lawsuit was filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group that was also involved in the Mississippi case that led to the June 2022 Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to abortion.
Mifepristone is one of two pills used in medication abortions. The other drug, misoprostol, is also used to treat other medical conditions. Health care providers have said they could switch to misoprostol if mifepristone is no longer available or is too hard to obtain. Misoprostol is somewhat less effective in ending pregnancies.
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Social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, delayed access to links to content on the Reuters and New York Times websites as well as rivals like Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Washington Post report on Tuesday.
Clicking a link on X to one of the affected websites resulted in a delay of about five seconds before the webpage loaded, The Washington Post reported, citing tests it conducted on Tuesday. Reuters also saw a similar delay in tests it ran.
By late Tuesday afternoon, X appeared to have eliminated the delay. When contacted for comment, X confirmed the delay was removed but did not elaborate.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in October, has previously lashed out at news organizations and journalists who have reported critically on his companies, which include Tesla and SpaceX. Twitter has previously prevented users from posting links to competing social media platforms.
Reuters could not establish the precise time when X began delaying links to some websites.
A user on Hacker News, a tech forum, posted about the delay earlier on Tuesday and wrote that X began delaying links to the New York Times on Aug. 4. On that day, Musk criticized the publication’s coverage of South Africa and accused it of supporting calls for genocide. Reuters has no evidence that the two events are related.
A spokesperson for the New York Times said it has not received an explanation from X about the link delay.
“While we don’t know the rationale behind the application of this time delay, we would be concerned by targeted pressure applied to any news organization for unclear reasons,” the spokesperson said on Tuesday.
A Reuters spokesperson said: “We are aware of the report in the Washington Post of a delay in opening links to Reuters stories on X. We are looking into the matter.”
Bluesky, an X rival that has Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on its board, did not reply to a request for comment.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Surgeons transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man and for over a month it’s worked normally — a critical step toward an operation the New York team hopes to eventually try in living patients.
Scientists around the country are racing to learn how to use animal organs to save human lives, and bodies donated for research offer a remarkable rehearsal.
The latest experiment announced Wednesday by NYU Langone Health marks the longest a pig kidney has functioned in a person, albeit a deceased one — and it’s not over. Researchers are set to track the kidney’s performance for a second month.
“Is this organ really going to work like a human organ? So far it’s looking like it is,” Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of NYU Langone’s transplant institute, told The Associated Press.
“It looks even better than a human kidney,” Montgomery said on July 14 as he replaced a deceased man’s own kidneys with a single kidney from a genetically modified pig — and watched it immediately start producing urine.
The possibility that pig kidneys might one day help ease a dire shortage of transplantable organs persuaded the family of the 57-year-old Maurice “Mo” Miller from upstate New York to donate his body for the experiment.
“I struggled with it,” his sister, Mary Miller-Duffy, told the AP. But he liked helping others and “I think this is what my brother would want. So I offered my brother to them.”
“He’s going to be in the medical books, and he will live on forever,” she added.
Attempts at animal-to-human transplants have failed for decades as people’s immune systems attacked the foreign tissue. Now researchers are using pigs genetically modified so their organs better match human bodies.
Last year with special permission from regulators, University of Maryland surgeons transplanted a gene-edited pig heart as a last-ditch attempt to save a dying man. He survived only two months before the organ failed for reasons that aren’t fully understood but that offer lessons for future attempts.
Now, the Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to allow some small but rigorous studies of pig heart or kidney transplants in volunteer patients.
The NYU experiment is one of a string of developments aimed at speeding the start of such clinical trials. Also Wednesday, The University of Alabama at Birmingham reported another important success — a pair of pig kidneys worked normally inside another donated body for seven days.
Kidneys don’t just make urine — they provide a wide range of jobs in the body. In the journal JAMA Surgery, UAB transplant surgeon Dr. Jayme Locke reported lab tests documenting the gene-modified pig organs’ performance. She said the weeklong experiment demonstrates they can “provide life-sustaining kidney function.”
These experiments are critical to answer more remaining questions “in a setting where we’re not putting someone’s life in jeopardy,” said Montgomery, the NYU kidney transplant surgeon who also received his own heart transplant — and is acutely aware of the need for a new source of organs.
More than 100,000 patients are on the nation’s transplant list and thousands die each year waiting.
Previously, NYU and a team at The University of Alabama at Birmingham had tested pig kidney transplants in deceased recipients for just two or three days. An NYU team also had transplanted pig hearts into donated bodies for three days of intense testing.
But how do pig organs react to a more common human immune attack that takes about a month to form? Only longer testing might tell.
The surgery itself isn’t that different from thousands he’s performed “but somewhere in the back of your mind is the enormity of what you’re doing … recognizing that this could have a huge impact on the future of transplantation,” Montgomery said.
The operation took careful timing. Early that morning Drs. Adam Griesemer and Jeffrey Stern flew hundreds of miles to a facility where Virginia-based Revivicor Inc. houses genetically modified pigs — and retrieved kidneys lacking a gene that would trigger immediate destruction by the human immune system.
As they raced back to NYU, Montgomery was removing both kidneys from the donated body so there’d be no doubt if the soon-to-arrive pig version was working. One pig kidney was transplanted, the other stored for comparison when the experiment ends.
“You’re always nervous,” Griesemer said. To see it so rapidly kickstart, “there was a lot of thrill and lot of sense of relief.”
How long should these experiments last? Alabama’s Locke said that’s not clear — and among the ethical questions are how long a family is comfortable or whether it’s adding to their grief. Because maintaining a brain-dead person on a ventilator is difficult, it’s also dependent on how stable the donated body is.
In her own experiment, the donated body was stable enough that if the study wasn’t required to end after a week, “I think we could have gone much longer, which I think offers great hope,” she said.
The University of Maryland’s Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin cautions that it’s not clear how closely a deceased body will mimic a live patient’s reactions to a pig organ — but that this research educates the public about xenotransplantation so “people will not be shocked” when it’s time to try again in the living.
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When Britain granted India independence in 1947, the subcontinent was divided along religious lines, triggering an exodus of an estimated 12 million people amid carnage and violence across the newly carved borders of the two countries, India and Pakistan.
Among the cities that received a massive influx of refugees was the Indian capital, Delhi.
A partition museum that opened in the city three months ago, documents the traumatic legacy of the times through the stories and memorabilia of the men, women and children who came there 76 years ago.
“Delhi was inundated with refugees. They came without any hope, without any home, they had lost their family, they had lost their friends, very often they came with very little money, and they had to start life all over again,” said Kishwar Desai, chairperson of The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust that has set up the museum.
The museum, housed in a revamped Mughal-era building given by the government, is the second one set up by the non-profit group – it opened one in the northern city of Amritsar six years ago.
The purpose is to ensure that future generations can learn of the massive scale of loss and displacement that accompanied the subcontinent’s chaotic division. “It’s a very important but forgotten narrative,” said Desai.
One of the seven galleries in the museum recreates a train in which millions fled across both sides of the border. Even some of the trains were ambushed by mobs.
The journeys were difficult, with refugees clambering onto trains clutching a handful of possessions – some meant to secure livelihoods, others as memorabilia. Some of these items that were carefully preserved by families for decades have been donated to the museum. They are diverse — a sewing machine, a chair, a drum used to store wheat.
In another gallery, a tent symbolizes the sprawling refugee camps that sprang up in the city for those who survived the slaughtering and rioting in which half-a-million to one million people were killed.
There are black and white photographs of the times, newspaper clippings and interviews running on screens of those who made it across the border.
But the exhibits also demonstrate that, despite the violence at that time and the decades-long political rivalry between India and Pakistan that persists, the bond among ordinary people on both sides of the border remains strong.
There is an old electricity meter handed over to an Indian family when it revisited their former home in Pakistan – the Pakistani family living there had kept it in memory of the earlier occupant. A frayed ledger on display belonged to an Indian man who once ran a shop in the neighboring country. It had been carefully preserved by the shop’s new owner in Pakistan.
“These small things, memories which are kept alive by both sides, add to the fact that there is still hope,” said Desai. “Even if politically, it is a very difficult narrative, when people from here go back to Pakistan, the contact is just wonderful. They are treated like VIP’s (very important persons). People say come in, this is your own home, and this happens on both sides of the border.”
Many survivors of partition carry no bitterness. Like Ashok Kumar Talwar, who has donated a brass bowl to the museum – it was among the handful of things his family had carried when they brought him to Delhi as a five-year-old.
Why a brass bowl? “I don’t know,” he answers. He speculates that it is probably because his family thought they would be able to return and reclaim their more precious possessions like jewelry, so they only carried what they needed during the journey.
Talwar’s family still fondly calls him “Shaukat,” a Muslim name given to him in Pakistan by his father’s student. And he has not forgotten his Pakistani roots. “I am fond of Pakistani things. I watch Pakistani movies and shows on TV. I have friends who are Muslim in the city. I am doing very well with them. There is no enmity at the grassroot level.”
The political relationship is starkly different – ties between the two bitter South Asian rivals have been in deep freeze for nearly eight years.
Many visitors to the museum are young people. Some draw a lesson from an event that left a deep mark on millions in both India and Pakistan but about which they had so far learned largely from fiction or movies.
For Sangeeta Geet, a postgraduate student, the museum highlighted the dangers of polarization that she says is driven by politicians on both sides of the border.
“We should learn from 1947. Here we can see what happens when we divide on the basis of religion,” said Geet. “So, we should step forward toward peace.”
That is the message the museum reinforces in the last section. Here a red mail box “of dreams and hope” underlines the hope that two countries with a shared heritage can have a better future. Visitors can write down their thoughts on postcards – many have said they had no idea what an older generation had experienced.
“We want people to leave the museum saying this should never happen again,” said Desai, who grew up hearing stories of partition from her parents, who also had to leave their homes in Pakistan in 1947.
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Germany’s Cabinet on Wednesday approved a plan to liberalize rules on cannabis, setting the scene for the European Union’s most populous member to decriminalize possession of limited amounts and allow members of “cannabis clubs” to buy the substance for recreational purposes.
The legislation is billed as the first step in a two-part plan and still needs approval by parliament. But the government’s approval is a stride forward for a prominent reform project of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s socially liberal coalition, although significantly short of its original ambitions.
The bill, which the government hopes will take effect at the end of this year, foresees legalizing possession of up to 25 grams (nearly 1 ounce) of cannabis for recreational purposes and allowing individuals to grow up to three plants on their own.
German residents who are 18 and older would be allowed to join nonprofit “cannabis clubs” with a maximum of 500 members each. The clubs would be allowed to grow cannabis for members’ personal consumption.
Individuals would be allowed to buy up to 25 grams per day, or a maximum 50 grams per month — a figure limited to 30 grams for people under 21. Membership in multiple clubs would not be allowed. The clubs’ costs would be covered by membership fees, which would be staggered according to how much cannabis members use.
The government plans a ban on advertising or sponsoring cannabis and the clubs, and consumption won’t be allowed within 200 meters (656 feet) of schools, playgrounds and sports facilities, or near cannabis club premises.
Officials hope their plan will help protect consumers against contaminated products and reduce drug-related crime. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said he expects the system to produce “very competitive” prices, “so we think that we can push back the black market well with these rules.”
At present, “we have rising consumption, problematic consumption,” Lauterbach told reporters. “It simply couldn’t have carried on like this.”
The center-right opposition argues that the government is pressing ahead with legalizing a risky drug despite European legal obstacles and expert opinion. An organization representing German judges says the plan is likely to increase rather than decrease the burden on the judicial system and could even increase demand for black-market cannabis.
Some advocates of legalization aren’t happy either.
“What we’re getting from the health minister is overregulation, a continued stigmatization of cannabis users and a much too tight regulatory corset, which simply makes it impossible for many, many [cannabis clubs] to work,” said Oliver Waack-Jürgensen, who heads the Berlin-based High Ground “cannabis social club” founded last year. He is also on the board of a national association representing such clubs.
Lauterbach rejected the objections.
“The fact that it’s being attacked from both sides is a good sign,” the minister said. He added that “approval with much more liberalization, like for example in Holland or some American states, would have led to consumption expanding,” and that those who oppose any legalization “have no answer” to rising consumption, crime and a burgeoning black market.
The legislation is to be accompanied by a campaign meant to sensitize young people to the risks of consuming cannabis.
The government says it plans to follow the new legislation by mapping out a second step — five-year tests of regulated commercial supply chains in select regions, which would then be scientifically evaluated.
That’s far short of its original plan last year, which foresaw allowing the sale of cannabis to adults across the country at licensed outlets. It was scaled back following talks with the EU’s executive commission.
Approaches elsewhere in Europe vary. The Netherlands combines decriminalization with little market regulation.
Dutch authorities tolerate the sale and consumption of small amounts of the substance at so-called coffeeshops, but producing and selling large amounts of it, necessary to keep the coffeeshops supplied, remains illegal. Amsterdam, long a magnet for tourists wanting to smoke weed, has been cracking down on coffeeshops.
The Dutch government, meanwhile, has launched an experiment it says aims to “determine whether and how controlled cannabis can be legally supplied to coffeeshops and what the effects of this would be.”
In Switzerland, authorities last year cleared the way for a pilot project allowing a few hundred people in Basel to buy cannabis from pharmacies for recreational purposes. The Czech government has been working on a plan similar to Germany’s to allow sales and recreational use of cannabis, which isn’t finalized.
Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, has proposed legalizing weed, but parliament turned down the idea. France has no plans to liberalize its strict cannabis rules.
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Vice President Kamala Harris marked the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act by touting the Biden administration’s commitment to mitigating the climate crisis. Natasha Mozgovaya reports from Seattle.
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Researchers in heavily drilled Pennsylvania were preparing Tuesday to release findings from taxpayer-financed studies on possible links between the natural gas industry and pediatric cancer, asthma and poor birth outcomes.
The four-year, $2.5 million project is wrapping up after the state’s former governor, Democrat Tom Wolf, in 2019 agreed to commission it under pressure from the families of pediatric cancer patients who live amid the nation’s most prolific natural gas reservoir in western Pennsylvania.
A number of states have strengthened their laws around fracking and waste disposal over the past decade. However, researchers have repeatedly said that regulatory shortcomings leave an incomplete picture of the amount of toxic substances the industry emits into the air, injects into the ground or produces as waste.
The Pennsylvania-funded study involves University of Pittsburgh researchers and comes on the heels of other major studies that are finding higher rates of cancer, asthma, low birth weights and other afflictions among people who live near drilling fields around the country.
Tuesday evening’s public meeting to discuss the findings will be hosted by the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and the state Department of Health, on the campus of state-owned Pennsylvania Western University.
Edward Ketyer, a retired pediatrician who is president of the Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania and who sat on an advisory board for the study, said he expects that the studies will be consistent with previous research showing that the “closer you live to fracking activity, the increased risk you have at being sick with a variety of illnesses.”
“We’ve got enough evidence that associates, that links, that correlates fracking activity to poor health. And the biggest question is, why is anybody surprised about that?” Ketyer said.
The gas industry has maintained that fracking is safe, and industry groups in Pennsylvania supported Wolf’s initiative to get to the bottom of the pediatric cancer cases.
The study’s findings are emerging under new Governor Josh Shapiro, also a Democrat, whose administration has yet to publish or otherwise release the researchers’ reports since taking office earlier this year.
The advent of high-volume hydraulic fracturing, combined with horizontal drilling miles deep in the ground over the past two decades, transformed the United States into a worldwide oil and gas superpower.
But it also brought a torrent of complaints about water and air pollution, and diseases and ailments, as it encroached on exurbs and suburbs in states like Texas, Colorado and Pennsylvania.
One of the most enduring images of gas drilling pollution was residents in a northern Pennsylvania community lighting their tap water on fire.
A state grand jury investigation later found that a company had failed to fix its faulty gas wells, which leaked flammable methane into residential water supplies in surrounding communities.
The Pennsylvania-funded study comes on the heels of other major studies, such as one published last year by Harvard University researchers, who said they found evidence of higher death rates in more than 15 million Medicare beneficiaries who lived downwind of oil and gas wells in major exploration regions around the U.S.
Yale University researchers last year said they found that children in Pennsylvania living near an oil or gas wellsite had up to two to three times the odds of developing acute lymphocytic leukemia, a common type of cancer in children.
Establishing the cause of health problems is challenging, however. It can be difficult or impossible for researchers to determine exactly how much exposure people had to pollutants in air or water, and scientists often cannot rule out other contributing factors.
Because of that, environmental health researchers try to gather enough data to gauge risk and draw conclusions.
“The idea is we’re collecting evidence in some kind of a systematic way, and we’re looking at that evidence and judging whether causation is a reasonable interpretation to make,” said David Ozonoff, a retired environmental health professor who chaired the Department of Environmental Health at Boston University.
Another key piece of evidence is to identify an activity that exposes people to a chemical as part of assembling evidence that fits together in narrative, Ozonoff said.
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Google plans to train 20,000 Nigerian women and youth in digital skills and provide a grant of $1.6 million to help the government create 1 million digital jobs in the country, its Africa executives said on Tuesday.
Nigeria plans to create digital jobs for its teeming youth population, Vice President Kashim Shettima told Google Africa executives during a meeting in Abuja. Shettima did not provide a timeline for creating the jobs.
Google Africa executives said a grant from its philanthropic arm in partnership with Data Science Nigeria and the Creative Industry Initiative for Africa will facilitate the program.
Shettima said Google’s initiative aligned with the government’s commitment to increase youth participation in the digital economy. The government is also working with the country’s banks on the project, Shettima added.
Google director for West Africa Olumide Balogun said the company would commit funds and provide digital skills to women and young people in Nigeria and also enable startups to grow, which will create jobs.
Google is committed to investing in digital infrastructure across Africa, Charles Murito, Google Africa’s director of government relations and public policy, said during the meeting, adding that digital transformation can be a job enabler.
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A court in Iran has sentenced prominent movie director Saeed Roustaee to six months in prison for the screening of his film “Leila’s Brothers” at the Cannes Film Festival last year, local media reported Tuesday.
“Leila’s Brothers,” a rich and complex tale of a family struggling with economic hardship in Tehran, has been banned in Iran since its release last year.
The movie was in competition for the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes festival. It missed the top prize but won the International Federation of Film Critics award.
On Tuesday, the reformist daily Etemad said that Roustaee, along with the movie’s producer Javad Noruzbegi, “were sentenced to six months in prison for screening the movie at Cannes Film festival.”
Roustaee and Noruzbegi were found guilty of “contributing to propaganda of the opposition against the Islamic system.”
“Leila’s Brothers” was banned after it “broke the rules by being entered at international film festivals without authorization,” and the director refused to “correct” it as requested by the culture ministry, official media said at the time.
The filmmakers will only serve about nine days of their sentence, while the remainder “will be suspended over five years,” according to Etemad, which added the verdict can be appealed.
During the suspension period, the defendants will be required to take a filmmaking course while “preserving national and ethical interests” and refrain from associating with other cinema professionals, the newspaper said.
Roustaee, 34, has gained international renown since the 2019 release of his film “Just 6.5,” an uncompromising look at Iran’s drug problem and the brutal, and fruitless, police response.
Iran has long had a thriving cinema scene, with figures like Jafar Panahi and Asghar Farhadi winning awards around the world.
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Brazil forward Neymar has signed for Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal from Paris Saint-Germain, the clubs announced on Tuesday, joining Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema as the latest big name lured to the oil-rich Gulf state.
“I am here in Saudi Arabia, I am Hilali,” the 31-year-old Neymar said in a video posted to Al Hilal’s social media accounts.
“It is always difficult to say goodbye to an amazing player like Neymar, one of the best players in the world,” said PSG President Nasser Al-Khelaifi in a statement from the French champions.
“I will never forget the day he arrived at Paris Saint-Germain, and what he has contributed to our club and our project over the last six years. We had a great moment and Neymar will always be a big part of our history,” he added.
Neymar joined PSG from Barcelona in 2017 for a world record fee of $242 million, a few weeks before they recruited Kylian Mbappe.
The Brazilian scored 118 goals in 173 matches for PSG, winning five Ligue 1 titles and three French Cups, but his time at PSG was blighted by injuries.
Although he helped the club to the 2020 Champions League final, which they lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich, he was sidelined for key games.
Neymar underwent surgery on his right ankle in early March, only returning to join PSG on their preseason tour of Asia.
However, he no longer figured in new coach Luis Enrique’s plans and was immediately linked with a move to Al Hilal, where he will earn “100 million euros a season,” according to a source close to the matter.
PSG will not come close to recouping the fee they paid for Neymar but will still pocket close to 100 million euros as well, according to the same source.
Al Hilal have traditionally been one of Saudi Arabia’s top clubs and have been crowned Asian Champions League winners on four occasions.
They are coached by Portugal’s Jorge Jesus, who is in his second spell at the club, while the squad currently boasts four international players recently lured from Europe — Ruben Neves, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Kalidou Koulibaly and Neymar’s Brazilian compatriot Malcom.
Last month Al Hilal made a $328 million bid for Mbappe, though the striker reportedly refused to meet with officials from the team.
Neymar’s departure from PSG follows that of Lionel Messi who now plays for Inter Miami in the United States.
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The music genre hip-hop celebrates its 50th anniversary this year with events across the United States. A Los Angeles art gallery is showing photographs of hip-hop legends. Genia Dulot visited the gallery and files this report. (Camera: Genia Dulot)
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A clinical trial in Australia is developing a treatment for sleep disturbances caused by wildfires. The study, which is supported by Natural Hazards Research Australia, a research organization, and Federation University Australia, is now seeking participants in Australia, the United States and Canada.
The trial is aimed at people who have disturbed sleep, including nightmares, insomnia or symptoms of trauma after surviving a wildfire.
Participants will be asked about their experiences with wildfires and asked to rate the severity of their sleep and trauma symptoms.
Those who take part complete short assessments and provide feedback through online activities. The testing is at home using sleep-specific technology and apps that track sleep.
Clinical psychologist Fadia Isaac is conducting the trial with other researchers at Federation University Australia, with funding from Natural Hazards Research Australia’s Postgraduate Research Scholarship program.
She tells VOA that people confronted by trauma experience a so-called “fight or flight” response, when the brain reacts to shock.
“If we are not getting sleep because of the fight or flight response then there is no room for these emotions to get processed during that time and therefore the trauma can be ongoing, sleep can also continue to be a problem for those people and unfortunately it becomes a vicious cycle for many people,” she said.
This is an international study that is seeking participants in Australia, the United States and Canada.
Their experiences of a wildfire do not need to be recent; the event could be several years or even decades ago.
Isaac says the early signs from the clinical trial are encouraging.
“If they are waking up too early or they cannot initiate sleep, or they are having regular nightmares, these modules are dedicated to actually psycho-educate the public about sleep, insomnia, nightmares and trauma symptoms. It is very easy to use and we have had some great feedback from our current participants,” she said.
Prolific vegetation growth has led to warnings that Australia could face serious wildfires later this year.
A royal commission inquiry into Australia’s Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 — which destroyed vast parts of the country — along with other disasters, said in October 2020 that climate change had exacerbated the extreme conditions which caused the fires.
2023 has already been a savage year for wildfires. The fires in Hawaii are the deadliest in the United States in more than 100-years.
Canadian wildfire officials said earlier this month that the 2023 wildfire season is the worst ever recorded, with millions of hectares of land already scorched.
Fires have also caused widespread devastation in Spain and Portugal.
And recent fires on the Greek island of Rhodes forced the evacuation of thousands of people as the flames reached resorts on the island’s south-eastern coast.
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