Author: Sellheal

After consulting with several doctors in the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Aayat Hameed was advised to seek help from a mental health expert for her bouts of unspecified anxiety, random palpitation attacks and occasional but strong suicidal thoughts. A psychiatrist diagnosed her with acute depression. On a recent hot summer day, Hameed was among scores of other patients visiting a mental health clinic in Srinagar, where she had been undergoing rounds of counselling along with prescription medication. “I realized seeing a psychiatrist or reaching out to someone you trust really helps to deal with suicidal thoughts and depression,” Hameed said. She’s already recovered about 40% over the course of her one-month treatment, the young student said. For over three decades, Kashmiris have been living through multiple crises. Violent armed insurrections, brutal counterinsurgency, unparalleled militarization and securitization, and unfulfilled demands for self-determination have fueled depression and drugs in the disputed region, experts say. The stunning Himalayan region has been a flashpoint for more than 70 years for tensions and wars between rivals India and Pakistan, which both control part of it and lay claim to all of it. Despite the fierce fighting, the tight-knit Muslim families of Kashmir formed a durable safety net. That fell apart when an armed rebellion erupted in 1989. Since then, tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict that has left Kashmiris exhausted, traumatized and broken. Nearly every one of the Kashmir valley’s 7 million people has been …

Following the success of India’s moon landing, the country’s space agency launched a rocket on Saturday to study the sun in its first solar mission. The rocket left a trail of smoke and fire as scientists clapped, a live broadcast on the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) website showed. The broadcast was watched by nearly 500,000 viewers, while thousands gathered at a viewing gallery near the launch site to see the liftoff of the probe, which will aim to study solar winds, which can cause disturbance on Earth commonly seen as auroras. Named after the Hindi word for the sun, the Aditya-L1 launch follows India beating Russia late last month to become the first country to land on the south pole of the moon. While Russia had a more powerful rocket, India’s Chandrayaan-3 out-endured the Luna-25 to execute a textbook landing. The Aditya-L1 spacecraft is designed to travel about 1.5 million kilometers over four months to a kind of parking lot in space where objects tend to stay put because of balancing gravitational forces, reducing fuel consumption for the spacecraft. Those positions are called Lagrange Points, named after Italian-French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange. The mission has the capacity to make a “big bang in terms of science,” said Somak Raychaudhury, who was involved in the development of some components of the observatory, adding that energy particles emitted by the sun can hit satellites that control communications on Earth. “There have been episodes when major communications have gone down because a satellite …

The elephant population in southern Africa has increased by 5% since 2016 to nearly 228,000, according to results of a first ever aerial census conducted last year. However, there are concerns over the animals’ mortality rate. The elephants are mostly found in a large conservation area, the Kavango Zambezi Trans-Frontier Conservation Area, or KAZA. KAZA covers 520,000 square kilometers across Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe and contains the world’s largest elephant population. Presenting the census results Thursday, survey coordinator Darren Potgieter said the outcome shows a stable population. “Overall, across KAZA, the elephant population appears to be stable,” he said. “However, there is some variation within the different regions. Some areas have shown possible increases in elephant numbers, most remained stable while for some areas, potentially decrease in elephant numbers.” However, he raised concern about the number of dead elephants encountered during the counting exercise. More than 26,000 carcasses were reported. “That’s a high number, higher than what one would like to see, and it may be indicative of high mortality,” he said. “It is important to raise this as a red flag for the health of the population. It is important to conduct further investigation to understand the underlying reasons for this high level of mortality.” Potgieter said the reason for high mortality could be poaching, lack of habitat, an aging elephant population or diseases. In 2019, Botswana recorded more than 300 deaths due to elephants drinking water contaminated with bacteria. Malven Karidozo, representing the African Specialist Group, …

On Friday, Texas became the most populous state with a ban in effect against gender-affirming care for minors. The law was allowed to kick in after a court ruling Thursday, part of a flurry of action across the country on policies aimed at transgender people and their rights. A separate Texas ruling blocked a law that drag show performers feared would shut them down. Here’s a look at the latest developments and what’s next. Texas gender-affirming care ban takes effect In its ruling Thursday, the Texas Supreme Court allowed a law banning gender-affirming care including puberty blockers, hormones and surgery for minors. The ruling is not final, but allows enforcement of the law while courts determine whether it’s constitutional. The decision is also a reversal of a lower court from the week before, when a state judge had said the law should be put on hold while it’s sorted out. Since 2021, 22 Republican-controlled states have passed laws restricting access to gender-affirming care for minors. At least 13 states, meanwhile, have adopted measures intended to protect access. Several of the bans are so new that they haven’t taken effect yet. Missouri’s kicked in earlier this week. Enforcement of the laws in Arkansas, Georgia and Indiana are currently on hold. There are legal challenges to the policies across the country, and there isn’t a clear pattern for how courts handle them. None have reached a final court decision. Courts in three states hold hearings on care restrictions Two court hearings on …

The U.S. space agency NASA says a new 10-meter-wide crater on the moon “is likely the impact site of Russia’s Luna 25 mission.”   The Russian mission was aiming to pull off a soft landing on the moon’s south pole last month, but instead the spacecraft crashed on the moon.     NASA said, “the Russian spacecraft Luna 25 experienced an anomaly,” causing the spacecraft to crash on August 19.     NASA said Russia had pictures of the area surrounding the crash site that were taken in June 2022 and those photographs did not reveal a crater in the area.   “Since this new crater is close to the Luna 25 estimated impact point…  it is likely to be from that mission, rather than a natural impactor,” said the NASA report.     While Russia’s most recent moon mission failed, Russia was a space powerhouse in the 20th Century – launching Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth, in 1957 and sending the first man – cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin – into space in 1961. …

Releasing helium balloons and the use of thick shopping bags will be banned starting Friday in parts of Australia as state authorities there impose more restrictions on single-use plastic. Releasing helium balloons into the sky is now banned in the Australian state of Queensland. Research has shown that plastic balloons are a significant threat to seabirds, which can mistake them for food. There are also new bans in other parts of the country, including microbeads found in personal care and cleaning products. Western Australia is restricting the use of polystyrene packaging, while South Australia is banning single-use bowls and plates, starting Friday. There are exemptions for some businesses, including medical clinics and dental practices. The restrictions add to Australia’s existing waste laws. In 2018, the Queensland government outlawed single-use lightweight plastic shopping bags. In September 2021, the northern state expanded the ban to disposable plastic straws, cutlery, bowls and plates. Shane Cucow, plastics campaign manager at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said more restrictions are now in place. “Across Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia a range of single-use plastics are being added to the bans,” he said. “In particular, what we are seeing is cotton bud sticks and microbeads being added to the bans. But also, in some of those jurisdictions things like expanded polystyrene loose-filled packaging, which is the highly light and easy to blow away kind of loose beads of packaging that you can sometimes find when things are being mailed out to people.” There are no …

Polar bears have long symbolized the dangers posed by climate change, as rising temperatures melt away the Arctic sea ice which they depend upon for survival.  But quantifying the impact of a single oil well or coal power plant on the tundra predators had eluded scientists, until now.  A new report published in the journal Science on Thursday shows it is possible to calculate how much new greenhouse gas emissions will increase the number of ice-free days in the bears’ habitats, and how that in turn will affect the percentage of cubs that reach adulthood.  By achieving this level of granularity, the two authors hope to close a loophole in U.S. law.   Although the apex carnivores have had endangered species protections since 2008, a long-standing legal opinion prevents climate considerations from affecting decisions on whether to grant permits to new fossil fuel projects.  “We have presented the information necessary to rescind the Bernhardt Memo,” first co-author Steven Amstrup, a zoologist with Polar Bears International and the University of Wyoming, told AFP, referring to the legal caveat which was named after an attorney in former president George W. Bush’s administration.  The memo stated it was beyond the scope of existing science to distinguish the impacts of a specific source of carbon emissions from the impacts of all greenhouse gases since the beginning of the industrial age.  Cub survival imperiled  Polar bears rely heavily on the sea ice environment for hunting seals, traveling, mating and more.  When sea ice melts in …

A campaign in Africa to make beans the answer to food insecurity in areas affected by climate change will begin next week, with a focus on Kenya. A coalition of proponents will present its roadmap for increased production and consumption of beans and similar foods like lentils and peas at the Africa Food Systems Forum, to be held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  “Beans is How,” the name for a coalition of more than 60 non-profit organizations, companies and research institutes, has set its eyes on Kenya, pushing for a 100% increase in the consumption of beans and other foods classified as pulses.  Jean Claude Rubyogo, head of the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA), an organization that pushes for beans as a source of food and income for the continent, said the first step is to help farmers grow more beans.  “First of all, we need to double the production because if we don’t have enough, like in Kenya, there are many people, maybe half, who would like to eat beans daily and even as a meal but the availability is minimum,” he said. “So, we need to increase productivity, we need to see how we can reduce the cost to the consumer and at the same time incentivize the farmer with better varieties, with better agronomic practices so that they can increase production and productivity.”   Climate change has affected bean farming just as it has impacted other crops. Unpredictable weather patterns have made it challenging for farmers to cultivate …

A 2023 study found that in 2021, almost 2 billion people worldwide were affected by anemia, a condition in which red blood cell concentration is lower than usual. It also found that anemia was especially prevalent in Western and Central Africa. From Nairobi, Kenya, Mohammed Yusuf reports on the scope of the problem in Africa and the ways it can be reversed. …

Scores of sea lions have died from bird flu in Argentina, officials said Tuesday, as an unprecedented global outbreak continues to infect mammals, raising fears it could spread more easily among humans.  Animal health authorities have recently reported dead sea lions in several locations along Argentina’s extensive Atlantic coast, from just south of the capital Buenos Aires to Santa Cruz near the southern tip of the continent.  Another “50 dead specimens have been counted … with symptoms compatible with avian influenza,” read a statement from a Patagonian environmental authority.   Authorities have asked the population to avoid beaches along Argentina’s roughly 5,000-kilometer coastline where cases have been reported.  Sea lions are marine mammals, like seals and walruses. Adult males can weigh about 300 kilograms.  The H5N1 bird flu has typically been confined to seasonal outbreaks, but since 2021 cases have emerged year-round, and across the globe, leading to what experts say is the largest outbreak ever seen.  Hundreds of sea lions were reported dead in Peru earlier this year, as the virus has ravaged bird populations across South America.  There is no treatment for bird flu, which spreads naturally between wild birds and also can infect domestic poultry.  Avian influenza viruses do not typically infect humans, although there have been rare cases.  The outbreak has infected several mammal species, however, such as farmed minks and cats, and the World Health Organization warned in July this could help it adapt to infect humans more easily.  “Some mammals may act as mixing …

England will bring forward the start of its autumn flu and COVID-19 vaccination programs as a precautionary step after the identification of highly mutated COVID variant BA.2.86, which has been found in Britain.  Scientists have said BA.2.86, an offshoot of the omicron variant, was unlikely to cause a devastating wave of severe disease and death, given immune defenses built up worldwide from vaccination and prior infection.  However, Britain’s health ministry said annual vaccination programs for older and at-risk groups would start a few weeks earlier than planned in light of the variant.  “As our world-leading scientists gather more information on the BA.2.86 variant, it makes sense to bring forward the vaccination program,” junior health minister Maria Caulfield said in a statement.  The variant was first detected in Britain on August 18, and vaccinations will start on September 11, with care home residents and people at highest risk to receive the shots first.  It is not currently categorized as a “variant of concern” in Britain, and the health ministry said there was no change to wider public health advice.  The variant was first spotted in Denmark on July 24 after the virus that infected a patient at risk of becoming severely ill was sequenced. It has since been detected in other symptomatic patients, in routine airport screening, and in wastewater samples in a handful of countries.  England has been without coronavirus restrictions since February 2022, but UK Health Security Agency Chief Executive Jenny Harries said new variants were expected. “There is …

Astronomy enthusiasts are in for a treat Wednesday night: a rare “super blue moon” that won’t be seen again for more than a decade.  Supermoons occur when the moon passes through its perigee — the point in its elliptical orbit that takes it closest to Earth. This makes it look about 14% bigger, compared with when it is at its furthest point, and a touch brighter.   Full moons are defined by the exact moment they are opposite the sun, which will occur at 9:36 p.m. Eastern Time on August 30 (0136 GMT Thursday), according to NASA.   The Virtual Telescope Project, hosted by Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, will host a YouTube livestream beginning at 0336 GMT as it sets below the skyline of Rome.  Despite the description, it won’t actually be blue: the term “blue moon” simply refers to when we see a full moon twice in a month. This happens because lunar cycles are a bit shorter at 29.5 days than calendar months, which last 30 or 31 days, so it’s possible for one to happen at the start of a month and a second at the end.  The previous super blue moon occurred in December 2009, with the next set to come in quick succession: January and March of 2037.  The origins of the English expression “once in a blue moon,” today understood to mean something that is very rare, go back hundreds of years. In Elizabethan times, “he would argue the moon was blue” could be …

There is a lot less plastic pollution floating on the surface of the oceans, according to a recent study published in the scientific journal, Nature Geoscience. And while that sounds like good news, it means there must be much more plastic deep within the oceans, the study added. The report also indicated the amount of plastic that reaches the sea is 10 times less than some scientists previously thought.  Still, using 3D computer modeling of beaches, sea surfaces and ocean depths to determine the flow of the plastics, the researchers estimated that about a half million metric tons of plastic makes its way into the oceans each year. “We’re accumulating more and more plastics in the environment,” said Mikael Kaandorp, the lead author and a research scientist at Forschungszentrum Jülich, a research institute in Germany. Earlier this year, the Five Gyres Institute, a California-based group that focuses on reducing plastic pollution, published a study that estimated similar amounts of plastic floating in the ocean. “Even with the lower estimates of the amount of plastics entering the ocean each year, we are still faced with its visible and widespread impacts globally,” said Britta Baechler, associate director of oceans plastics research with the Ocean Conservancy in Portland, Oregon, in the northwestern U.S. Baechler, who did not take part in the study, told VOA, “They’re pervading coastlines and critical habitats, as well as smothering corals and invading sensitive ecosystems.” According to the report, more than 3 million metric tons of surface plastic could …

A rare ‘super blue Moon’ that won’t be seen again for more than a decade …

Cameroon officials say a fifth case of polio was reported in the capital, Yaounde, this week, despite the launching of a new polio vaccination campaign in the central African country and its neighbors. Health officials are increasing surveillance and encouraging parents, many of whom still resist vaccination programs, to have their children inoculated.  Cameroon’s health ministry says that five cases of type-2 poliovirus variants were discovered in the central African state’s capital, Yaounde, this week.   The Cameroon government says sequencing results indicate the virus belongs to the NIE-ZAS-1 group that circulates in Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria. The five cases constitute a national public health emergency given the high risk of the virus spreading very fast in the ongoing rainy season, according to the government. Alma Mpiki is a pediatrician at Cameroon’s health ministry. She said to stop the spread of the disease as soon as possible the government of Cameroon has increased efforts to vaccinate all children under the age of five. “There are still sporadic cases (of polio), that is why even though we are beginning to move towards the injectable form of the vaccines, we still continue to give the oral vaccination which is helpful and more efficient in protecting children,” she said. Alma said the government is sending caravans to markets and communities to ask civilians to make sure all children are vaccinated. Poliomyelitis is a highly infectious disease that is caused when the polio virus invades the nervous system of an infected person. The …

The blood thinner Eliquis and popular diabetes treatments including Jardiance are among the first drugs that will be targeted for price negotiations in an effort to cut Medicare costs. President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday released a list of 10 drugs for which the federal government will take an unprecedented step: negotiating drug prices directly with the manufacturer. The move is expected to cut costs for some patients but faces litigation from the drugmakers and heavy criticism from Republican lawmakers. It’s also a centerpiece of the Democratic president’s reelection pitch as he seeks a second term in office by touting his work to lower costs for Americans at a time when the country has struggled with inflation. The diabetes treatments Jardiance from Eli Lilly and Co. and Merck’s Januvia made the list, along with Amgen’s autoimmune disease treatment Enbrel. Other drugs include Entresto from Novartis, which is used to treat heart failure. “For many Americans, the cost of one drug is the difference between life and death, dignity and dependence, hope and fear,” Biden said in a statement. “That is why we will continue the fight to lower healthcare costs — and we will not stop until we finish the job.” Biden plans to deliver a speech on health care costs from the White House later Tuesday. He’ll be joined by Vice President Kamala Harris. The drugs on the list announced Tuesday accounted for more than $50 billion in Medicare prescription drug costs between June 1, 2022, and May 31, …

An 8-centimeter worm has been found alive in the brain of a woman in Australia, and researchers say it is the first time the parasite has ever been discovered in humans. The worm was extracted from the patient’s brain during surgery in the Australian capital, Canberra, in June 2022. The extraordinary case has been documented in the latest edition of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. The red 8-centimeter-long worm was alive and wriggling when it was pulled from the patient’s brain.  Scientists believe it could’ve been there for up to two months before it was extracted.   Sanjaya Senanayake, an associate professor of medicine at the Australian National University and an infectious disease physician at Canberra Hospital was one of the researchers involved in the case. He described to VOA the moment the surgeon made the unexpected discovery. “She and everyone (in) that operating theatre got the shock of their life when she took some forceps to pick up an abnormality and the abnormality turned out to be a wriggling, live 8-centimeter light red worm,” he said.  “Even if you take away the yuk factor, this is a new infection never documented before in a human being.”  The 64-year-old Australian patient had complained of stomach pains, diarrhea and depression.  She was admitted to the hospital in January 2021.  A scan later revealed an abnormality in her brain.  In June 2022, she underwent a biopsy at Canberra Hospital, and the parasite was found.  Senanayake warns that the case highlights the increased danger …

Ask Alexa or Siri about the weather. But if you want to save someone’s life? Call 911 for that. Voice assistants often fall flat when asked how to perform CPR, according to a study published Monday. Researchers asked voice assistants eight questions that a bystander might pose in a cardiac arrest emergency. In response, the voice assistants said: “Hmm, I don’t know that one.” “Sorry, I don’t understand.” “Words fail me.” “Here’s an answer … that I translated: The Indian Penal Code.” Only nine of 32 responses suggested calling emergency services for help — an important step recommended by the American Heart Association. Some voice assistants sent users to web pages that explained CPR, but only 12% of the 32 responses included verbal instructions. Verbal instructions are important because immediate action can save a life, said study co-author Dr. Adam Landman, chief information officer at Mass General Brigham in Boston. Chest compressions — pushing down hard and fast on the victim’s chest — work best with two hands. “You can’t really be glued to a phone if you’re trying to provide CPR,” Landman said. For the study, published in JAMA Network Open, researchers tested Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant and Microsoft’s Cortana in February. They asked questions such as “How do I perform CPR?” and “What do you do if someone does not have a pulse?” Not surprisingly, better questions yielded better responses. But when the prompt was simply “CPR,” the voice assistants misfired. One played news from a …

Poland has filed legal challenges attempting to annul three of the European Union’s main climate change policies, which the Polish government argues would worsen social inequality, document published on Monday showed. The legal actions, brought by Warsaw to the EU Court of Justice in July, target policies including a law agreed this year which will ban the sale of new CO2-emitting cars in the EU from 2035. “The contested regulation imposes excessive burdens connected with the transition towards zero-emission mobility on European citizens, especially those who are less well off, as well as on the European automotive companies sector,” Poland said in its challenge, which the European Commission published on Monday. A second EU policy setting national emissions-cutting targets “threatens Poland’s energy security”, while a third law to reform the EU carbon market may reduce coal mining jobs and increase social inequality, Poland said. Poland produces around 70% of its power from coal. The government wants all three laws annulled. Each was passed by a reinforced majority of EU member states, but Poland said they should have been passed with unanimous approval given the impact they could have on countries’ energy mixes. The European Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The EU has among the most ambitious climate change policies in the world, and has urged governments to use EU money to help vulnerable communities invest in clean energy to bring down bills and cut health-harming air pollution. A 17.5 billion euro EU “just transition fund” …

All children are entitled to a clean and healthy environment, a UN committee said for the first time on Monday, bolstering young people’s arguments for suing authorities over the ravages of climate change. Issuing a fresh interpretation of an important international rights treaty, the United Nations watchdog determined that it guarantees children the right to a healthy environment. And this, it said, means countries are obliged to combat things like pollution and climate change. “States must ensure a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in order to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights,” the Committee on the Rights of the Child said. “Environmental degradation, including the consequences of the climate crisis, adversely affects the enjoyment of these rights.” Tasked with monitoring implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the panel’s 18 independent experts provided a new interpretation of the treaty, which counts nearly all the world’s countries as parties. The fresh analysis comes just weeks after a landmark court ruling in Montana in favor of a group of youths who accused the western U.S. state of breaching their rights to a clean environment. The ruling found that a state law preventing consideration of greenhouse gas impacts when issuing fossil fuel development permits violated those rights. That followed several other recent high-profile lawsuits, including the youngsters who won a case against the Colombian government over deforestation, and the children who secured a ruling ordering a strengthening of Germany’s carbon emissions law. And the UN committee itself heard a case …

A group of Japanese and Peruvian archaeologists have discovered the 3,000-year-old tomb of a priest alongside ceramic offerings in northern Peru.  “We have recently discovered the tomb of a 3,000-year-old figure at the Pacopampa archaeological site,” in the Cajamarca region, 900 kilometers (560 miles) north of Lima, archaeologist Juan Pablo Villanueva told AFP Saturday.   “He is one of the first priests in the Andes to have a series of offerings,” the researcher said, adding that “the funerary context is intact.”  The body, its lower extremities partially flexed, was oriented from south to north. On the western side of the tomb were small spherical ceramic bowls, a carved bone spatula and other offerings.   Two seals were also found, one with designs of an anthropomorphic face and the other with that of a jaguar.   The body and the offerings were covered by at least six layers of ash and earth. The tomb is circular, three meters in diameter and one meter deep (10 feet by 3.3 feet).   Powerful leaders  “The find is extremely important because he is one of the first priests to begin to control the temples in the country’s northern Andes,” Japanese archaeologist Yuji Seki, who has been working at the site for 18 years, told AFP.   Researchers estimate that the priest lived around 1,000 B.C.   Seki said the find helped demonstrate that even that long ago, “powerful leaders had appeared in the Andes.”   In September 2022, the same group of archaeologists had discovered the tomb, more than 3,000 years …

Santos Brizuela spent more than two decades laboring outdoors, persisting despite a bout of heatstroke while cutting sugarcane in Mexico and chronic laryngitis from repeated exposure to the hot sun while on various other jobs. But last summer, while on a construction crew in Las Vegas, he reached his breaking point. Exposure to the sun made his head ache immediately. He lost much of his appetite. Now at a maintenance job, Brizuela, 47, is able to take breaks. There are flyers on the walls with best practices for staying healthy — protections he had not been afforded before. “Sometimes as a worker you ask your employer for protection or for health and safety related needs, and they don’t listen or follow,” he said in Spanish through an interpreter. A historic heat wave that began blasting the Southwest and other parts of the country this summer is shining a spotlight on one of the harshest, yet least-addressed effects of U.S. climate change: the rising deaths and injuries of people who work in extreme heat, whether inside warehouses and kitchens or outside under the blazing sun. Many of them are migrants in low-wage jobs. State and federal governments have long implemented federal procedures for environmental risks exacerbated by climate change, namely drought, flood and wildfires. But extreme heat protections have generally lagged with “no owner” in state and federal governments, said Ladd Keith, an assistant professor of planning with the University of Arizona. “In some ways, we have a very long way …

Rajee Narinesingh faced struggles throughout her life as a transgender woman, from workplace discrimination to the lasting effects of black market injections that scarred her face and caused chronic infections. In spite of the roadblocks, the 56-year-old Florida actress and activist has seen growing acceptance since she first came out decades ago. “If you see older transgender people, it shows the younger community that it’s possible I can have a life. I can live to an older age,” she said. “So I think that’s a very important thing.” Now, as a wave of state laws enacted this year limit transgender people’s rights, Narinesingh has new uncertainty about her own future as she ages. “Every now and then I have this thought, like, oh my God, if I end up in a nursing home, how are they going to treat me?” Narinesingh said. Most of the new state laws have focused attention on trans youth, with at least 22 states banning or restricting gender-affirming care for minors. For many transgender seniors, it’s brought new fears to their plans for retirement and old age. They already face gaps in health care and nursing home facilities properly trained to meet their needs. That’s likely to be compounded by restrictions to transgender health care that have already blocked some adults’ access to treatments in Florida and sparked concerns the laws will expand to other states. Transgender adults say they’re worried about finding welcoming spaces to live in their later years. “I have friends that …

Fish auction prices at a port south of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were mixed amid uncertainty over how seafood consumers will respond to the release of treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the ocean. The plant, which was damaged in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, began sending the treated water into the Pacific on Thursday despite protests at home and in nearby countries that are adding political and diplomatic pressures to the economic worries. Hideaki Igari, a middleman at the Numanouchi fishing port, said the price of larger flounder, Fukushima’s signature fish known as Joban-mono, was more than 10% lower at the Friday morning auction, the first since the water release began. Prices of some average-size flounder rose, but presumably because of a limited catch, Igari said. It was a relatively calm market reaction to the water release. But, Igari said, “we still have to see how it goes next week.” The decadeslong release has been strongly opposed by fishing groups and criticized by neighboring countries. China immediately banned imports of seafood from Japan in response, adding to worries in the fisheries community and related businesses. In Seoul on Saturday, thousands of South Koreans took to the streets to condemn the release of wastewater and to criticize the South Korean government for endorsing the plan. The protesters called on Japan to store radioactive water in tanks instead of releasing it into the Pacific Ocean. A citizens’ radiation testing center in Japan said it’s getting inquiries and expects more …