Author: Sellheal

WASHINGTON — Federal officials are seizing more shipments of unauthorized electronic cigarettes at U.S. ports, but thousands of new flavored products continue pouring into the country from China, according to government and industry data reviewed by The Associated Press. The figures underscore the chaotic state of the nation’s $7 billion vaping market and raise questions about how the U.S. government can stop the flow of fruit-flavored disposable e-cigarettes used by 1 in 10 American teens and adolescents.  More than 11,500 unique vaping products are being sold in U.S. stores, up 27% from 9,000 products in June, according to tightly held industry data from analytics firm Circana. “FDA whacks one product and then the manufacturers get around it and the kids get around it,” said Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, a Stanford University psychologist who develops anti-vaping educational materials. “It’s too easy to change your product a little bit and just relaunch it.” Halpern-Felsher says she is “constantly” updating her curriculum to keep pace with new vaping brands and trends. Nearly all the new products are disposable e-cigarettes, according to the sales data gathered from gas stations, convenience stores and other shops. The products generated $3.2 billion in the first 11 months of this year. The FDA has authorized a handful of e-cigarettes for adult smokers and is still reviewing products from several major companies, including Juul. Regulators consider nearly all other e-cigarettes to be illegal. “Those committing illegal acts don’t advertise their crimes, and those trying to import illegal tobacco products into the United …

AMSTERDAM — Climate activists blocked part of the main highway around Amsterdam near the former headquarters of ING bank Saturday to protest its financing of fossil fuels. Amsterdam Municipality said in a message on X, formerly Twitter, that traffic authorities closed part of the road and diverted traffic “to prevent a life-threatening situation.” Hundreds of activists walked onto the road in the latest road blockade organized by the Dutch branch of Extinction Rebellion. Earlier this year, the activist organization repeatedly blocked a highway leading into The Hague. Some of Saturday’s protesters walked along the closed A10 highway carrying a banner emblazoned with the words “Change or die” as two police vans drove slowly behind them. Another person carried a handwritten banner that said: “ING get out of oil and gas now!” Others glued their hands to the road surface. Police criticized the protesters for blocking the road close to the VU medical center, one of Amsterdam’s main hospitals. “The blockade is very undesirable given its impact on the traffic in the city and, for example, employees at the nearby VU medical center and people visiting patients,” Amsterdam police said in a statement. The protest took place despite ING announcing earlier this month that it is accelerating its moves to phase out loans for fossil fuel exploration. ING made its announcement a week after nearly 200 countries at the COP28 climate meeting in Dubai agreed to move away from planet-warming fossil fuels in a document that critics said contained significant loopholes. Extinction …

seattle — The U.S. government said Thursday it plans to spend more than $1 billion over the next decade to help recover depleted populations of salmon in the Pacific Northwest, and that it will help figure out how to offset the hydropower, transportation and other benefits provided by four controversial dams on the Snake River, should Congress ever agree to breach them. President Joe Biden’s administration stopped short of calling for the removal of the dams to save the fish, but Northwest tribes and conservationists who have long sought that called the agreement a road map for dismantling them. Filed in U.S. District Court in Oregon, it pauses long-running litigation over federal operation of the dams and represents the most significant step yet toward breaching them. “Today’s historic agreement marks a new direction for the Pacific Northwest,” senior White House adviser John Podesta said in a written statement. “Today, the Biden-Harris administration and state and tribal governments are agreeing to work together to protect salmon and other native fish, honor our obligations to tribal nations, and recognize the important services the Columbia River system provides to the economy of the Pacific Northwest.” The Columbia River Basin, an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world’s greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Another iconic but endangered Northwest species, a population of killer whales, also depends on the salmon. Dams blamed …

washington — The maiden liftoff of a new American rocket called Vulcan Centaur has been delayed from December 24 to January 8, the company that developed it said Thursday. The postponement stems from last-minute technical snags, but United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno said on X, formerly Twitter, that a recent dress rehearsal on the launch pad went well. The rocket will carry a private lunar lander, developed by the startup Astrobotic, which could become the first such private craft to touch down on the moon and the first American robot to land on the surface since the Apollo program ended in 1972. “This is sort of, in a way, the first giant step in the campaign for the U.S., and for all of our friends, to go back to the moon, eventually with people,” Bruno told AFP in an interview last week. “It’s a pretty big deal to have a payload at all, let alone one that goes to the surface of the moon,” he added. “We wanted to do something really important, and we have a lot of confidence, obviously, in the design of our rocket,” Bruno said. Liftoff for this mission called Cert-1 will take place at the U.S. Space Force launch base at Cape Canaveral, Florida. In dress rehearsals in recent days, some “routine” issues emerged in the ground system so a Christmas Eve flight is now out, and the new window opens January 8, Bruno wrote on X. Besides the lunar lander, this rocket will carry …

London/Dubai — Nearly 200 countries signed a deal Wednesday at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels. Proponents say it heralds the end of the age of oil — but not all nations are satisfied with the text of the deal.  The deal calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner … so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”     It also calls for a tripling of renewable energy capacity globally by 2030, speeding up efforts to reduce coal use, and accelerating technologies such as carbon capture and storage.  Sultan al-Jaber, the COP28 president who also is head of the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil firm, said the deal could prevent global warming exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the target agreed to at the Paris climate summit in 2015. Scientists say that exceeding this level of warming will likely cause irreversible and increasingly catastrophic climate change.  “It is a plan that is led by the science. It is a balanced plan that tackles emissions, bridges the gap on adaptation, reimagines global finance and delivers on loss and damage,” al-Jaber said of the COP28 agreement.  He called the deal “historic” but added that its true success would be in its implementation. “We are what we do, not what we say. We must take the steps necessary to turn this agreement into tangible actions,” al-Jaber told delegates in Dubai.  Many …

Nearly 200 countries signed a deal to transition away from fossil fuels at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai. The summit’s president called it a historic agreement — but not all nations are satisfied, as Henry Ridgwell reports. …

Yaounde — Sanitation and health workers in Cameroon are disinfecting homes to kill bedbugs that have infested the central African state’s capital, Yaounde, and several towns and villages. Government officials say the bloodsucking bugs are imported by travelers from Europe, where some countries are also experiencing infestation. Cameroon residents say they are expecting teams from the central African state’s hygiene and sanitation service to come to their homes to help get rid of the bugs. Fruit seller Kuffo Marilyne lives in Madagascar, a neighborhood in Yaounde. She said she first used insecticides to get rid of the bugs in her home, thinking they were little cockroaches. She said she was surprised when three of her children developed insomnia and experienced irritation after they were bitten by the insects. Bedbug bites leave blisters or large rashes on the skin, health workers say. Kuffo said she took her children to the hospital for treatment, but that a majority of her neighbors who also reported bedbugs in their homes are poor and unable to get their children medical care. Cameroon’s government reported that huge numbers of bedbugs have infested homes in several poor Yaounde neighborhoods. Cameron’s health ministry said the bugs come out at night to feed on human blood and often cause psychological distress, sleeping issues, anxiety and depression. The government said it has dispatched several hundred sanitary and health workers to disinfect homes and kill the bugs. Mariline Longue a medical staff member at the Cite Verte District Hospital in Yaounde, said …

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Undeterred by wars at home, delegations from Ukraine and the Palestinian territories are active at COP28, determined to call attention not only to the environmental threats facing their homelands but also to emphasize their places in the global community. Ukraine, attending its second COP international conference, is using its pavilion in Dubai to highlight the extensive environmental damage caused by Russia’s invasion and propose preventive measures against ecocide on a global scale. Ruslan Strilets, Ukraine’s minister of environmental protection and natural resources, told VOA that the delegation aims not only to showcase the environmental and climate consequences of the war, but also to unite and engage the international community in achieving justice and peace. Ukraine is committed to fighting climate change, Strilets said. “Despite the war, Ukraine is finalizing the development of its climate architecture and consistently fulfilling its climate commitments. At COP28, we plan to gather even more partners around our country for a greener future for Ukraine and the entire world,” he said. The Ukraine pavilion’s exposition is organized into three key blocks. One block recounts a catastrophic explosion at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam in June, which flooded dozens of towns and villages and killed more than 50 people. A second block illustrates Ukrainians’ efforts to swiftly rebuild what the war has destroyed, and the third block details the impact the war is having on the environment. During a visit this week to the Ukrainian Pavilion, Moldova Energy Minister Victor Parlicov expressed …

Five countries in East and southern Africa are in the middle of outbreaks of the anthrax disease, with more than 1,100 suspected cases and 20 deaths this year, the World Health Organization said Monday.  A total of 1,166 suspected cases had been reported in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Thirty-seven cases had been confirmed by laboratory tests, according to the WHO, which also said the five countries have seasonal outbreaks every year, but Zambia was experiencing its worst since 2011 and Malawi reported its first human case this year. Uganda had reported 13 deaths.  Anthrax usually affects livestock like cattle, sheep and goats, as well as wild herbivores. Humans can be infected if they are exposed to the animals or contaminated animal products. Anthrax isn’t generally considered to be contagious between humans, although there have been rare cases of person-to-person transmission, WHO says.  Anthrax is caused by spore-forming bacteria and is sometimes associated with the weaponized version used in the 2001 attacks in the United States, when five people died and 17 others fell sick after being exposed to anthrax spores in letters sent through the mail.  Anthrax bacteria also occurs naturally in soil.  In a separate assessment of the Zambia outbreak, which was the most concerning, WHO said that 684 suspected cases had been reported in the southern African nation as of November 20, with four deaths. Human cases of anthrax had been reported in nine out of Zambia’s 10 provinces. In one instance, 26 people were suspected …

The U.N.’s climate body has published a draft of what is set to be its final agreement from the COP28 climate summit, which ends Tuesday. Activists have condemned the draft as moving away from previously expected language, and not containing measures that would tackle the global warming that scientists blame for sea rise, increasing droughts and other trends that threaten hundreds of millions across the world.  Specifically, activists are upset that the draft, which was written by the COP28 presidency, run by an Emirati oil company CEO, does not call for a phasing out of all fossil fuels, something that was asked for by over 100 nations. In referring to fossil fuels, the draft says that countries must engage in the “phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption and do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible.” The COP28 presidency viewed the draft as a success, calling it a “huge step forward.” “We have a text and we need to agree on the text,” COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber said. “The time for discussion is coming to an end and there’s no time for hesitation. The time to decide is now.” Discussions are ongoing with the summit expected to end at 11 a.m. Tuesday. Fossil fuels are at the forefront of negotiations. The presidency of the conference “recognizes that for this to be viewed as a success, we need to find some agreement on fossil fuels,” said Steven Guilbeault, Canadian environment minister and …

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended Britain’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday, telling an official inquiry he did not recognize testimony describing a dysfunctional government and saying his hospitality scheme was supported at the time.   The inquiry is examining Britain’s response to the pandemic which killed more than 230,000 people in the country. It has heard that the government of then-prime minister Boris Johnson was gripped by infighting and incompetence, and unable to make a decision.   Sunak was a relatively unknown politician when he was promoted to finance minister on the eve of the pandemic, appearing to be sure-footed as he set out hundreds of billions of pounds of support to keep companies and livelihoods afloat.  He has come under fire during the inquiry from other witnesses over his “Eat out to help out” subsidized meal scheme, which encouraged people to visit restaurants and pubs in August 2020.   Some scientists have questioned whether Sunak’s policy may have contributed to a wave of infections, but Sunak said scientists and other ministers did not raise any objections during meetings in the month leading up to the scheme.  He said that “Eat out to help out” took place within guidelines for the safe reopening of hospitality which had happened in July and that was why the policy went ahead.   “My primary concern was protecting millions of jobs of particularly vulnerable people who worked in this industry (hospitality),” Sunak told the inquiry.   The inquiry has also heard testimony …

Renowned Chinese doctor and activist Gao Yaojie who exposed the AIDS virus epidemic in rural China in the 1990s, has died at the age of 95 at her home in the United States. Gao’s outspokenness about the virus outbreak embarrassed the Chinese government and drove her to live in self-exile for over a decade in Manhattan, New York. Gao became China’s most well-known AIDS activist after speaking out against blood-selling schemes that infected thousands with HIV. Her contributions were ultimately acknowledged to a certain extent by the Chinese government, which was forced to grapple with the AIDS crisis well into the 2000s. She moved to the U.S. in 2009, where she began holding talks and writing books about her experiences. Renowned Chinese doctor and activist Gao Yaojie who exposed the AIDS virus epidemic in rural China in the 1990s died Sunday at the age of 95 at her home in the United States. Gao’s outspokenness about the virus outbreak — which some gauged to have infected tens of thousands — embarrassed the Chinese government and drove her to live in self-exile for over a decade in Manhattan, New York. Columbia University professor Andrew J. Nathan, an expert in Chinese politics who had Gao’s legal power of attorney and managed some of her affairs, confirmed her death. Gao became China’s most well-known AIDS activist after speaking out against blood-selling schemes that infected thousands with HIV, mainly in her home province of Henan in central China. Her contributions were ultimately acknowledged to …

After seven weeks held hostage in the tunnels of Gaza, they are finally free to laugh and chat and play. But some of the children who have come back from captivity are still reluctant to raise their voices above a whisper. In theory, they can eat what they want, sleep as much as they choose and set aside their fears. In practice, some have had to be convinced there’s no longer a need to save a cherished bit of food in case there is none later. At last, the 86 Israelis released during a short-lived truce between their government and Hamas are home. But the October 7 terror attack by Hamas on roughly 20 towns and villages left many of the children among them without permanent homes to go back to. Some of their parents are dead and others are still held hostage, foreshadowing the difficulty of the days ahead. And so, step by step, these children, the mothers and grandmothers who were held alongside them, and their families are testing the ground for a path to recovery. No one, including the physicians and psychologists who have been treating them, is sure how to get there or how long it might take. “It’s not easy in any way. I mean, they’re back. They’re free. But you can definitely see what they went through,” said Yuval Haran, whose family is celebrating the reunion with his two nieces, their mother and grandmother, while yearning for the return of the girls’ father, who …

The future of fossil fuels is at the center of the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where many activists, experts and nations are calling for an agreement to phase out the oil, gas and coal responsible for warming the planet. On the other side: energy companies and oil-rich nations with plans to keep drilling well into the future. In the background of those discussions are carbon capture and carbon removal, technologies most, if not all, producers are counting on to meet their pledges to get to net-zero emissions. Skeptics worry the technology is being oversold to allow the industry to maintain the status quo. “The industry needs to commit to genuinely helping the world meet its energy needs and climate goals — which means letting go of the illusion that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution,” International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said before the start of talks. What is carbon capture? Many industrial facilities such as coal-fired power plants and ethanol plants produce carbon dioxide. To stop those planet-warming emissions from reaching the atmosphere, businesses can install equipment to separate that gas from all the other gases coming out of the smokestack and transport it to where it can be permanently stored underground. And even for industries trying to reduce emissions, some are likely to always produce some carbon, such as cement manufacturers that use a chemical process that releases CO2. “We call that a mitigation technology, a way to stop the increased concentrations …

Majestic cedar trees towered over dozens of Lebanese Christians gathered outside a small mid-19th century chapel hidden in a mountain forest to celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration, the miracle in which Jesus Christ, on a mountaintop, shined with light before his disciples. The sunset’s yellow light coming through the cedar branches bathed the leader of Lebanon’s Maronite Church, Patriarch Beshara al-Rai, as he stood at a wooden podium and delivered a sermon. Then the gathering sang hymns in Arabic and the Aramaic language. For Lebanon’s Christians, the cedars are sacred, these tough evergreen trees that survive the mountain’s harsh snowy winters. They point out with pride that Lebanon’s cedars are mentioned 103 times in the Bible. The trees are a symbol of Lebanon, pictured at the center of the national flag. The iconic trees in the country’s north are far from the clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops along the Lebanon-Israel border in recent weeks against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war. The long-term survival of the cedar forests is in doubt for another reason, as rising temperatures due to climate change threaten to wipe out biodiversity and scar one of the country’s most iconic heritage sites for its Christians. The lush Cedars of God Forest, some 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) above sea level near the northern town of Bcharre, is part of a landscape cherished by Christians. The preserve overlooks the Kadisha Valley — Aramaic for “sacred” — where many Christians took refuge from persecution over Lebanon’s …

One of the biggest and brightest stars in the night sky will momentarily vanish as an asteroid passes in front of it to produce a one-of-a-kind eclipse. The rare and fleeting spectacle, late Monday into early Tuesday, should be visible to millions of people along a narrow path stretching from central Asia’s Tajikistan and Armenia, across Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain, to Miami and the Florida Keys and finally, to parts of Mexico. The star is Betelgeuse, a red supergiant in the constellation Orion. The asteroid is Leona, a slowly rotating, oblong space rock in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers hope to learn more about Betelgeuse and Leona through the eclipse, which is expected to last no more than 15 seconds. By observing an eclipse of a much dimmer star by Leona in September, a Spanish-led team recently estimated the asteroid to be about 55 kilometers wide and 80 kilometers long. There are lingering uncertainties over those predictions as well as the size of the star and its expansive atmosphere. It’s unclear if the asteroid will obscure the entire star, producing a total eclipse. Rather, the result could be a “ring of fire” eclipse with a miniscule blazing border around the star. If it’s a total eclipse, astronomers aren’t sure how many seconds the star will disappear completely, perhaps up to 10 seconds. “Which scenario we will see is uncertain, making the event even more intriguing,” said astronomer Gianluca Masa, founder of the Virtual Telescope Project, …

European Union negotiators clinched a deal Friday on the world’s first comprehensive artificial intelligence rules, paving the way for legal oversight of technology used in popular generative AI services such as ChatGPT that have promised to transform everyday life and spurred warnings of existential dangers to humanity.  Negotiators from the European Parliament and the bloc’s 27 member countries overcame big differences on controversial points, including generative AI and police use of facial recognition surveillance, to sign a tentative political agreement for the Artificial Intelligence Act.  “Deal!” tweeted European Commissioner Thierry Breton, just before midnight. “The EU becomes the very first continent to set clear rules for the use of AI.”  The result came after marathon closed-door talks this week, with the initial session lasting 22 hours before a second round kicked off Friday morning.  Officials were under the gun to secure a political victory for the flagship legislation but were expected to leave the door open to further talks to work out the fine print, likely to bring more backroom lobbying.  Out front The EU took an early lead in the global race to draw up AI guardrails when it unveiled the first draft of its rulebook in 2021. The recent boom in generative AI, however, sent European officials scrambling to update a proposal poised to serve as a blueprint for the world.  The European Parliament will still need to vote on it early next year, but with the deal done, that’s a formality, Brando Benifei, an Italian lawmaker co-leading …

Thousands of tons of dead sardines have washed up on a beach in northern Japan for unknown reasons, officials said Friday. The sardines and some mackerel washed ashore in Hakodate on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday morning, creating a silver blanket along a stretch of beach about a kilometer long. Residents said they have never seen anything like it. Some gathered the fish to sell or eat. The town, in a notice posted on its website, urged residents not to consume the fish. Takashi Fujioka, a Hakodate Fisheries Research Institute researcher, said he has heard of similar phenomena before, but it was his first time to see it. He said the fish may have been chased by larger fish, become exhausted due to a lack of oxygen while moving in a densely packed school, and were washed up by the waves. The fish also may have suddenly entered cold waters during their migration, he said. The decomposing fish could lower oxygen levels in the water and affect the marine environment, he said. “We don’t know for sure under what circumstances these fish were washed up, so I do not recommend” eating them, Fujioka said. …

The U.S. Commerce Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Friday $1 million in funding to improve the collection of Arctic climate data. In a statement, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the U.S. Arctic region — which consists of the state of Alaska — is warming faster than any region in the United States and demands immediate action. She said the new funding — part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included money for clean energy development — will provide “data and tools that can build climate resilience and strengthen our economy and national security.” The $1 million in funding will be used to solicit grant ideas from institutions of higher education, other nonprofits or commercial organizations to help improve climate and data collection, with a focus on Alaskan communities. In the same statement, NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said, the call for grant proposals is designed to both gather data and help Alaskan rural and Indigenous communities. “Providing communities with environmental information that allows them to make informed decisions in the face of a changing climate is the foundation of creating a more climate resilient nation,” he said. The most recent NOAA National Climate Assessment indicates Alaska is warming at a rate that is two to three times faster than the lower 48 states, and the Arctic as a whole is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the global average. …

In a letter leaked to news organizations this week, OPEC Secretary-General Haitham Al Ghais urged member nations to reject any agreement from the U.N. climate summit targeting fossil fuels rather than emissions. In the letter dated Wednesday referencing a draft agreement on climate change action at the 28th U.N. climate conference — known as COP28 — in Dubai, the OPEC leader said, “It seems that the undue and disproportionate pressure against fossil fuels may reach a tipping point with irreversible consequences.” The letter goes on to say, “I … respectfully urge all esteemed OPEC Member Countries and Non-OPEC Countries participating in the CoC and their distinguished delegations in the COP 28 negotiations to proactively reject any text or formula that targets energy i.e. fossil fuels rather than emissions.” The contents of the letter were reported Friday by multiple news organizations, including Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Bloomburg, which verified the letter’s authenticity. OPEC declined when asked to comment. The reports come as negotiations among 197 countries on a final climate summit agreement are underway ahead of a deadline Tuesday, when the conference is scheduled to end. Fossil fuels — oil, coal and natural gas — have been a focus of the discussions since COP28 opened last week, with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling for an end to their use. At least 80 countries have called for a COP28 deal that calls for an eventual end to fossil fuel use, as scientists urge ambitious action to avert the worst impacts of climate …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday approved a pair of gene therapies for sickle cell disease, including the first treatment based on the breakthrough CRISPR gene editing technology.  The agency approved Lyfgenia from bluebird bio, and a separate treatment called Casgevy by partners Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics.  Both the therapies were approved for people aged 12 years and older.  The Vertex/CRISPR gene therapy uses the breakthrough gene editing technology that won its inventors the Nobel Prize in 2020.  Sickle cell disease is a painful, inherited blood disorder that can be debilitating and lead to premature death. It affects an estimated 100,000 people in the United States, most of whom are Black.  In sickle cell disease, the body makes flawed, sickle-shaped hemoglobin, impairing the ability of red blood cells to properly carry oxygen to the body’s tissues.  The sickle cells tend to stick together and can block small blood vessels, causing intense pain. It also can lead to strokes and organ failure.  U.S.-listed shares of CRISPR therapeutics were up 1.6%, while Vertex Pharmaceuticals stock was down 1.4%. Shares of bluebird bio were halted for trading ahead of the news.  Makers of both the therapies have pitched them as one-time treatments, but data on how long their effect lasts is limited. The only longer-term treatment for sickle cell disease is a bone marrow transplant.  “I actually am very reticent to call them a cure. I prefer to call them a transformative therapy because patients will still have sickle …

Black people make up about 38% of Mississippi’s population, but a new study shows that Black women were four times more likely to die of causes directly related to pregnancy than white women in the state in 2020. “It is imperative that this racial inequity is not only recognized, but that concerted efforts are made at the institutional, community, and state levels to reduce these disparate outcomes,” wrote Dr. Michelle Owens and Dr. Courtney Mitchell, leaders of the Maternal Mortality Review Committee that conducted the study. The Mississippi State Department of Health published the findings Wednesday. The committee said 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in Mississippi between 2016 and 2020 were considered preventable, and cardiovascular disease and hypertension remain top contributors to maternal mortality. Women need comprehensive primary care before, during and after pregnancy, but many people live in areas where health care services are scarce, Owens and Mitchell wrote. “A substantial portion of this care is being shouldered by smaller hospitals with limited resources, many of whom are facing possible closure and limiting or discontinuing the provision of obstetrical services, further increasing the burdens borne by the individuals and their communities,” they wrote. The Maternal Mortality Review Committee was formed in 2017, and its members include physicians, nurses, public health experts and others who work in health care. The committee found that from 2016 to 2020, Mississippi’s pregnancy-related mortality rate was 35.2 deaths per 100,000 live births. The study did not provide a comparable five-year number for the U.S. but …

Environmental watchdogs accused a Mexico-based startup Thursday of violating international trade law by selling a health supplement made from endangered totoaba fish to several countries including the U.S. and China. Advocates told The Associated Press they also have concerns that the company, The Blue Formula, could be selling fish that is illegally caught in the wild. The product, which the company describes as “nature’s best kept secret,” is a small sachet of powder containing collagen taken from the fish that is designed to be mixed into a drink. Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, to which Mexico and the U.S. are both signatories, any export for sale of totoaba fish is illegal, unless bred in captivity with a particular permit. As a listed protected species, commercial import is also illegal under U.S. trade law. The environmental watchdog group Cetacean Action Treasury first cited the company in November. Then on Thursday, a coalition of environmental charities — The Center for Biological Diversity, National Resources Defense Council and Animal Welfare Institute — filed a written complaint to CITES. The Blue Formula did not immediately respond to an AP request for comment. The company claims on its website to operate “100%” sustainably by sourcing fish from Cygnus Ocean, a farm which has a permit to breed totoaba, and using a portion of their profits to release some farmed fish back into the wild. However, Cygnus Ocean does not have a permit for commercial export of …

NASA celebrates a quarter century of human cooperation in space. Plus, a busy week of space launches, and ‘America’s Dad’ wants you to see the moon like those who’ve been there. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space …