United States returns pillaged skull, golden objects to France



The skull was originally a part of the Parisian catacombs -- which houses millions of bones in caves under the streets of Paris (AFP/Nicholas Kamm)

Sébastien BLANC
Thu, March 3, 2022, 6:25 PM·2 min read


The United States has returned a set of illegally obtained artifacts, including a skull from the Parisian catacombs and golden ingots from an Atlantic shipwreck, to their rightful owner -- the French state.

The prized objects, which also included an ancient Roman coin, were handed over on Wednesday during an official "restitution" ceremony at the French ambassador's residence in Washington.

Steve Francis, a high-ranking official in the US Department of Homeland Security, along with French Ambassador Philippe Etienne, unveiled the pieces and detailed how American authorities had worked with their French counterparts to get them back into French hands.


"It is unacceptable that cultural property can be stolen and trafficked, and this is one of the mutual priorities between the United States and France," the ambassador told AFP.

- Treasure hunt -

The five golden ingots had originally been looted from the Prince de Conty, a ship that wrecked in December 1746 off the French island of Belle-Ile-en-Mer, near mainland France, according to a handout provided by the French embassy.

The vessel, which was on a return trip from China, had long been forgotten, until a teacher in 1975 came across archival documents mentioning its location. He received authorization to excavate the site, but it was quickly looted, with many of the ingots disappearing before arrests were made.

However, in December 2017, five ingots matching the description of the Prince de Conty gold appeared on a list of items up for auction in California.

A French agency dedicated to underwater archeology notified American authorities, who stepped in to seize the objects.

"The evidence that was provided by the French government was overwhelming," said David Keller, a US agent who focuses on cultural property and antiquities.

"These marks on them identify the people that actually made the ingots in the Qing dynasty," Keller told AFP, "so there's a lot of history just wrapped up in it."

The golden coin is much older -- dating back to the third century AD.

It is part of a larger treasure trove of ancient Roman objects, known as the Treasure of Lava, which was found in 1985 on the French island of Corsica, and was sold without official permission.

According to the French Embassy, specialists in currency "consider it one of the most important monetary treasures in the world."

The skull originated in the Parisian catacombs, extensive caverns created in the late 18th century to house relocated remains from local cemeteries.

The site, known as an ossuary, is the largest in the world, containing the bones of more than six million Parisians.

The skull was recovered from an antiquities dealer in Houston, Texas in 2015.

seb/dax/des

ECOCIDE

Long road ahead for Iraq pledge to phase out gas flares

The government has pledged to phase out the practice by 2030 but the road to a greener, less wasteful energy sector is proving a long one.

 AFP 

THE PERFECT PICTURE OF ECOCIDE

A boat sails past the Umm Qasr port near Iraq's southern port city of Basra on Feb. 11, 2022. (Photo: Hussein Faleh/AFP)

In the oilfields of southern Iraq, billions of cubic feet of gas literally go up in smoke, burnt off on flare stacks for want of the infrastructure to capture and process it.

The flares produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, contributing to global warming without any economic or social benefit.

Analysts say the waste is particularly egregious, as Iraq is a significant importer of natural gas, meeting a third of its needs through expensive and not always reliable supplies from neighbouring Iran.

The government has pledged to phase out the practice by 2030 but the road to a greener, less wasteful energy sector is proving a long one.

For the oil companies exploiting the mega fields around Basra, it is actually cheaper to flare off the associated gas than to capture, process and market it, despite the obvious environmental costs.

Currently, only half of the three million cubic feet of gas that comes out of Iraqi oil wells each day is captured and processed.

The rest is burnt off in flares creating the plumes of acrid black smoke that blight the skies.

"Flared gas, if captured and processed, could provide electricity to three million homes," said Yesar al-Maleki, Gulf analyst at Middle East Economic Survey.

"This could definitely help the country end its acute power shortages that go up all the way to a supply and demand gap of nine gigawatts in summer."

'Up in smoke'

In December, Iraq's oil minister Ihsan Ismail pledged to cut flare gas by 90 percent by 2024.

But despite contracts with foreign oil majors, including France's TotalEnergies, the target is likely to face bureaucratic obstacles in a sector which provides 90 percent of government revenues.

Over the past two years, the government has cut flare gas by just five percent.

The captured gas is fuel that Iraq desperately needs for its power stations.

Under an exemption from US sanctions on Iran, Iraq imports 750 million cubic feet per day from its eastern neighbour.

Any disruption to that supply can lead to widespread power cuts, particularly in summer when the demand for air conditioning and refrigeration peaks.

Maleki said the failure to address the issue bore multiple costs for Iraq.

"It loses financially by burning money in the air; it loses more money by importing gas from neighbouring countries at a premium; it loses more money resolving resultant issues in its power sector when it switches its gas turbines to costly and pollutive liquid fuels; and it definitely loses environmentally."

Basra province is home to Iraq's five largest oilfields and accounts for 65 percent of its flared gas, according to World Bank figures.

The Basrah Gas Company, a consortium of Iraq's state-owned South Gas Company, Shell and Mitsubishi, captures one billion cubic feet of gas from the three fields in which it operates.

It plans to raise that figure to 1.4 billion cubic feet by the end of 2023 but doing so requires heavy investment, in processing as well as capture.

Managing director Malcolm Mayes said the consortium was investing around $1.5 billion in a giant new processing facility in Artawi, outside Basra.

"In Artawi, we are building two processing trains," Mayes said.

"The first will be on stream in May 2023 and the second will come on stream in November 2023, and at that point we will have the capacity to process 1.4 billion cubic feet -- approaching 90 percent from our lease area."

'Cleaner electricity'

Iraq has also signed a mega-contract with TotalEnergies that includes building a processing facility for the associated gas from three southern oilfeilds.

"The plant's launch is scheduled for 2026," the French firm said.

Iraq says the plant will process 300 million cubic feet a day of gas that is currently flared off, rising to 600 million in a second phase.

Teams from TotalEnergies are already on the ground carrying out preliminary studies, but the process is dragging on.

Last month, Baghdad said some clauses of the contract "require time and cannot be implemented or solved in a short period".

A similar project awarded to Chinese firms in neighbouring Maysan province is only half finished.

In the meantime, Basra's residents continue to live with the environmental consequences.

"Everything is polluted by these flares -- the water, the animals, they're all dead," said Salem, an 18-year-old shepherd in the village of Nahr Bin Omar, site of a major oilfield just north of Basra.

Moroccan appeals court upholds six-year sentence for dissident journalist Omar Radi

Thu, 3 March 2022

Omar Radi
Moroccan investigative journalist and human rights activist

Moroccan journalist and rights activist Omar Radi has been sentenced on appeal to six years in prison on espionage and rape charges.

Radi, a 35-year-old freelance journalist known as a vocal critic of the authorities, has insisted on his innocence throughout his two-year-long trial.

“My only fault is to have demanded independent justice,” Radi said before the judge’s verdict on Thursday, to applause from supporters in the courtroom.

Accused of undermining state security with “foreign financing” and of rape, Radi was initially sentenced last July.

His trial began in 2020 just days after human rights group Amnesty International said Moroccan authorities had planted Pegasus spyware on his cellphone – a claim denied by Morocco.

Radi’s arrest and detention was protested by rights activists, intellectuals and politicians both inside the country and abroad.

Earlier this week, the prosecution had called for “the maximum sentence” against him. Rape is punishable by up to ten years imprisonment.

After the original sentence was upheld, defence lawyer Miloud Kandil called it “a very hard judgment”.

“We have exposed all the elements proving the innocence of Omar Radi before the court but sadly nothing has been taken into account,” he told AFP.

In the same case, fellow journalist Imad Stitou was sentenced to one year in prison.

Stitou, who was initially presented as the sole witness for the prosecution, was said to have been present with Radi when he allegedly raped a woman.

Stitou left Morocco for Tunisia and was tried in absentia.

Radi’s is the latest in a series of harsh sentences passed against journalists in the North African kingdom and in neighbouring Algeria.

Authorities in both countries have detained and tried journalists on charges ranging from harming national interests to sexual assault.

Morocco is currently ranked 136th out of 180 countries on watchdog RSF’s World Press Freedom Index.

(AFP)

Russia Ukraine conflict
Tigers, lions evacuated from Ukraine zoo to Poland

A 17 year-old female tiger is seen in a cage at the border crossing in Korczowa, Poland, as she is being transported in a truck from Ukraine to a zoo in Poland on March 3, 2022. (AFP)

AFP, Poland
Published: 04 March ,2022:

Six lions and six tigers evacuated from near Kyiv arrived at a zoo in Poland on Thursday following a two-day odyssey skirting battle frontlines and coming face to face with Russian tanks, a zoo spokesman said.

A Ukrainian truck drove the animals, along with two wild cats and a wild dog, nearly 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to the Polish border while avoiding the Zhytomyr region, which the invading Russian forces have bombarded, spokeswoman Malgorzata Chodyla told AFP.

At one point, the truck had to stop overnight opposite Russian tanks.

The driver rested under his vehicle while the owner of the Ukrainian shelter fed the animals because the transport crew did not know how to, the spokeswoman said.

At the border, the animals were transferred to a Polish truck while the Ukrainian driver returned home to his children.

For now, the animals will be cared for at the Poznan zoo.

Zoo director Ewa Zgrabczynska, who helped arrange the evacuation, said she is already in contact with several western organizations that want to take in the animals.

She also launched a fundraising drive as the city of Poznan, which runs the zoo, lacks a budget for the evacuated animals.

Russians pack trains into Finland as sanctions bite

While trains out of Russia have been sold out, the return service from Helsinki to St Petersburg has only been 30 percent full

AFP / Mar 4, 2022

People get off the Allegro train at the central railway station on March 3, 2022 in Helsinki, Finland

HELSINKI: It's one of the few remaining routes from Russia to the EU: trains to Finland are packed with Russians fearful that now is their last chance to escape the impact of Western sanctions.

After two years of pandemic, the 6:40 am from St Petersburg was full of largely Russian passengers as it pulled into Helsinki station on Thursday.

"We decided with our families to go back as soon as possible, because it's unclear what the situation will be in a week," Muscovite Polina Poliakova told AFP as she wheeled her suitcase along platform 9.

Travelling "is hard now because everything is getting cancelled," added Beata Iukhtanova, her friend who studies with her in Paris, where the pair were headed.

The Allegro express train linking St Petersburg to the Finnish capital is currently the only open rail route between Russia and the EU.

It is therefore one of the few remaining ways out of the country since the widespread airspace closures in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine a week ago.

"The trains coming from St Petersburg to Helsinki are now full for the next few days," said Topi Simola, senior vice president of Finnish railway operator VR.

He said that passenger numbers jumped on Saturday, two days after Moscow began its assault on Ukraine.

Since then, people's motives for travelling on the 3.5 hour twice-a-day service appear to have changed, Simola said.

"We can see from the luggage they carry that people are moving to somewhere else, they are basically moving for good."

The Allegro train to Helsinki is, however, only open to a select few.

Russia stipulates that passengers must be Russian or Finnish citizens, a visa is required, and passengers must prove they have an EU-recognised Covid vaccination, not the Sputnik dose which is most commonly given in Russia.

Most passengers are therefore Russians who live or work in Europe, such as 14-year-old Maria and her mother Svetlana, who took a last-minute train to Finland after the cancellation of their flight on Sunday back to Austria, where they live.

"Everyone was like, 'I don't know what to do'," Maria told AFP. "First we thought we should travel through Turkey, but it's way more expensive than Finland, so we are lucky."

VR, which operates the service in partnership with the Russian railways, is looking to have the service opened to EU passport holders, and to increase capacity.

"We know that there are tens of thousands of EU citizens still in Russia and we assume that many of them would like to come back home," Simola said.

Since the start of the invasion large numbers of Russians are reported to be looking to leave the country, worried that the borders will close imminently and about the impact of Western sanctions.

"Many people are in a panic," said Daria, arriving back in Helsinki a week or two earlier than planned, to resume her studies.

"I know some people who are quite desperate at the moment to go abroad," said Elena, a Russian who lives and works in Finland and who did not want to use her full name.

Elena was visiting her native Moscow when the Ukraine assault began last Thursday, and changed her flight to return to Finland on the same day, becoming one of the last to travel before flights to the EU were frozen.

A lot of people "don't feel safe, they know that the economic situation will be very hard from now on, and also many people from a moral perspective can't bear staying," the 37-year-old told AFP.

While trains out of Russia have been sold out, the return service from Helsinki to St Petersburg has only been 30 percent full, Simola told AFP.

"I'm not planning to go back to Russia anytime soon, that's for sure," Elena said.
But she added that despite the difficulties there, "it's impossible to compare it to the horrors happening in Ukraine at the moment."

Sony and Honda plan electric vehicle joint firm


Sony and Honda hope to establish their joint venture by the end of this year (AFP/Behrouz MEHRI) (Behrouz MEHRI)

Fri, March 4, 2022, 12:20 AM·2 min read

Sony is teaming up with automaker Honda to start a new company that will develop and sell electric vehicles, the electronics giant said Friday, its latest step into the rapidly growing sector.

Major global carmakers are increasingly prioritising electric and hybrid vehicles as concern about climate change grows.

Sony's news comes on the heels of a January unveiling of a new prototype, its Vision-S electric vehicle, and the announcement that its new subsidiary Sony Mobility will explore jumping into the sector.


Sony Group said in a statement Friday that the two Japanese names hope to establish their firm by the end of this year, calling it "a strategic alliance".

"This alliance aims... to realize a new generation of mobility and services that are closely aligned with users and the environment," Sony said in a statement.

Sales of their first electric model are expected to begin in 2025, with Honda responsible for its manufacturing but both companies working on design, tech and sales.

"Although Sony and Honda are companies that share many historical and cultural similarities, our areas of technological expertise are very different," Sony Group president Kenichiro Yoshida said.

"I believe this alliance which brings together the strengths of our two companies offers great possibilities for the future of mobility."

At present, around 10 percent of European car sales are EVs, and the US figure is just two percent.

But demand is growing, and other major automakers including Honda's Japanese rivals are investing money and resources into electric vehicles.

Earlier this year, the Nissan auto alliance promised to offer 35 new electric models by 2030 as it announced a total investment of $25 billion in the sector.

Toyota, the world's top-selling carmaker, has also recently hiked its 2030 electric vehicle sales goal by 75 percent in a more ambitious plan for the sector.

kaf/dhc

UN report paints dire picture of the Gulf of Mexico’s future

By REBECCA SANTANA and CURT ANDERSON

FILE-In this Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017 file photo, Businesses are surrounded by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey, in Humble, Texas. Extreme weather is becoming more common, and that's just one of the warnings for the Gulf of Mexico region in a United Nations report released this week.

 (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)


NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 50 inches of rain on parts of the Texas coast in 2017. Then in 2020, ferocious winds from Hurricane Laura destroyed homes across coastal Louisiana. Hurricane Ida hit in 2021, leaving the entire city of New Orleans without power for days.

Such extreme weather is becoming more common, and that’s just one of the warnings for the Gulf of Mexico region in a United Nations report released this week. The devastating effects of climate change in the region also include rising seas, collapsing fisheries and toxic tides, even if humanity somehow manages to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era.

“The hurricanes that we get, there’s a higher probability that they can bloom up into major hurricanes,” Louisiana’s state climatologist Barry Keim said, agreeing with the report’s details on more dangerous weather.

The report, an “atlas of human suffering,” details numerous ways in which climate change will affect the gulf. From Texas to Florida, which has the longest coastline of any state, the entire U.S. Gulf coast is under serious threat from rising seas as the planet’s polar ice caps melt, the U.N. report says.


The region, home to major oil and gas production in Texas and Louisiana and tourist destinations in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, tends to be conservative politically, and its mostly Republican leaders have stressed adaption to climate change — higher roads, sea walls, preventing saltwater intrusion — more than broad efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or promote cleaner energy.

For example, the Republican-led Florida House of Representatives refused on Tuesday to add clean-energy measures to a plan to bolster the state against sea level rise and flooding. The bill’s sponsor, GOP Rep. Demi Busatta Cabrera of the Miami area, said her aim is to do “what we can fix today.”

Democratic Rep. Ben Diamond, who is running for a St. Petersburg-area congressional seat, was disappointed lawmakers didn’t do more.

Improved climate change resiliency is good, he said, but “then there’s also stopping the causes of those problems in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, in terms of reducing our carbon emissions.” The Florida House bill does not get into that.

People considering 30-year mortgages are already looking for homes and commercial buildings that pose lower flood risks. One study cited by the U.N. says the trend is evident in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, where some buyers are shying away from expensive waterfront homes.

In Miami Beach, streets already flood on sunny days, especially during the so-called King Tides, and the report says the Tampa Bay area, surrounded by shallow seas, and is considered one of the most vulnerable places in the nation for storm surges.


Sea level rise poses an existential threat to much of Louisiana, because so much of the Mississippi River delta has been sinking due to human interventions. The loss of sediment from leveeing the river and saltwater intrusion caused by coastal oil and gas development are two big culprits, Keim noted.

“South Louisiana is probably the most vulnerable place to climate change in the United States,” Keim said.

Other parts of the Gulf face different problems, the report warns. Tourism and fishing industries depend on thriving habitats off the coasts of Florida and the Yucatan Peninsula, but coral reefs are bleaching due to “warming ocean waters interacting with non-climate stressors.” In Florida alone, the decline of the reefs could translate into $24 billion to $55 billion in economic losses by 2100, the report said.

The report details efforts in the region to adapt to climate change. Miami-Dade released a strategic sea level rise response plan in 2021 that calls for adapting infrastructure, elevating roads, building on higher ground and expanding waterfront parks and canals.

The city of Miami Beach has already spent more than $500 million installing pumps to flush water off the island, with no guarantees that this will keep the tourists’ feet dry. The city of Miami is spending potentially billions of dollars to keep the ocean at bay and limit saltwater intrusion into freshwater supplies.

“The most common question I get asked is whether Miami is going to be here in 50 years, whether it’s going to be here in 100 years,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said at a recent news conference. “This is the beginning of having a comprehensive plan to answer that question in the affirmative.”

In Louisiana, the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority has a plan with “very specific projects,” the U.N. report said, such as dredging to replenish wetlands and rebuilding barrier islands damaged by storms.

Alex Kolker, an associate professor of coastal geology at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Cocodrie, noted that on Feb. 1, Louisiana also announced a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

Outbreaks of red tide, which are natural toxic organisms originally noticed by the Spanish explorers, have become more frequent and more deadly because of warmer air and water, experts say.

The increasing outbreaks kill more fish and sea life and harm the tourist industry with smelly fish-strewn beaches, poor fishing and the possibility of harms to human health, especially among people with asthma or other lung conditions.

From 2017 to 2019, according to a University of Florida study, tourism sectors lost $184 million in revenue because of red tide. The warmer water also fosters algae blooms, caused by pollution from agricultural, urban and other sources, that are getting worse along Florida’s coasts, contributing to the lack of seagrass that has led to a record die-off of manatees in the past year. The state resorted to feeding one group of starving manatees romaine lettuce instead.

“You can’t just go out and plant a bunch of seagrass,” said Tom Reinert, regional director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

_____

Anderson reported from St. Petersburg, Florida.

PRO-CHOICE; SO RARE IN THE USA

California could OK abortions by solo nurse practitioners
By ADAM BEAM

 People rally in support of abortion rights at the state Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., May 21, 2019. A bill announced, Thursday, March 3, 3022, by Senate President Pro Team Toni Atkins, a Democrat, that would let nurse practitioners who have the required training to perform first trimester abortions without the supervision by a doctor. 

(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A bill announced Thursday in the California Legislature would let some nurse practitioners perform abortions without the supervision of a doctor — part of a plan to prepare for a potential influx of patients from other states if the U.S. Supreme Court allows states to ban or severely restrict the procedure.

State Senate leader Toni Atkins, a Democrat from San Diego, said the goal is to increase the number of health care workers in California who can perform abortions ahead of a potential Supreme Court ruling this summer.

“As states like Texas and others start to restrict further abortion, it just makes sense that women are going to find other places to go. California will be one of those states,” she said.

Nurse practitioners are not doctors, but they have advanced degrees and can provide a number of treatments. In 2013, California passed a law allowing nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and physician assistants to perform abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy — but only if they completed special training and were under the supervision of a doctor.

Atkins’ bill would change the law by letting nurse practitioners with the required training perform first trimester abortions without a doctor’s supervision. California has about 30,000 nurse practitioners. But it’s unclear how many more of them would be allowed to perform abortions if this bill becomes law.

The U.S. Supreme Court now has a conservative majority after former President Donald Trump made three appointments during his term. Many conservative-led states have responded by passing new abortion restrictions, hoping the court will uphold them.

Texas has a law that bans nearly all abortions in the state, but it is only enforceable by civil lawsuits. Abortion rights groups have sued to block that law, but the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the law to remain in effect while the case is pending.

Last year, the court heard arguments over whether to uphold a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The court likely won’t make a decision on that case until June. But during a hearing on the case, a majority of justices indicated they were likely to uphold the law and could even overturn Roe v. Wade, the court’s 1973 ruling that banned states from outlawing abortion.

If the court overturns or significantly weakens the Roe ruling, multiple states would likely act quickly to ban or severely limit access to abortion.

But California, led by Democrats who support abortion rights, would do the opposite by passing laws to increase access to abortion. That could include helping women who live in states where abortion is banned or severely limited travel to California for care.

A proposal filed last month would potentially use taxpayer money to help women from other states get to California by paying for things like travel, lodging, child care and food. Atkins said the government couldn’t pay for everyone, saying the bill would create a fund that would also accept private donations.

“You will see a bill that tries to set up a framework for where we can do that and take private dollars,” Atkins said.

Jonathan Keller, president and CEO of the California Family Council, called Atkins’ bill “a tragic example of the legislators putting abortion numbers above abortion safety and putting ideology above patients.”

“We are essentially treating abortion like no other health care service,” he said. “We’re not flying people from poor states to California to get heart transplants.”

A 2013 study led by the University of California-San Francisco concluded first trimester abortions are “just as safe when performed by trained nurse practitioners, physician assistance and certified nurse midwives as when conducted by physicians.”

“When we’re within our areas of training, we are absolutely qualified to provide the care that we do,” said Patti Gurney, president of the California Association for Nurse Practitioners.

LIBERAL DYSTOPIA

Newsom proposes mental health courts for homeless people

By DON THOMPSON and JANIE HAR

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, helps clean a homeless encampment alongside a freeway on Jan. 12, 2022, in San Diego. California's governor proposed a plan on Thursday, March 3, 2022, to force homeless people with severe mental health and addiction disorders into treatment. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s governor proposed a plan Thursday to offer more services to homeless people with severe mental health and addiction disorders even if that means compelling some into care, a move that many advocates of homeless people oppose as a violation of civil rights.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a press conference that he has no intention of rounding people up and locking them away. Instead, he said his plan would offer a way for people to get court-ordered psychiatric treatment, medication and housing, preferably before they are arrested.

Under the plan, which requires approval by the Legislature, all counties would have to set up a mental health branch in civil court and provide comprehensive and community-based treatment to those suffering from debilitating psychosis. People need not be homeless to be evaluated by a court.

But if approved, they would be obligated to accept the care or risk criminal charges, if those are pending, and if not, they would be subject to being held in psychiatric programs involuntarily or lengthier conservatorships in which the court appoints a person to make health decisions for someone who cannot.

“There’s no compassion stepping over people in the streets and sidewalks,” Newsom told reporters at a briefing at a mental health treatment facility in San Jose. “We could hold hands, have a candlelight vigil, talk about the way the world should be, or we could take some damn responsibility to implement our ideals and that’s what we’re doing differently here.”



Newsom, a Democrat and former mayor of San Francisco, has made homelessness and housing a focus of his administration as the number of unsheltered people grow across the country. Last year, the Legislature approved $12 billion for new housing and treatment beds for the homeless and this year Newsom has proposed an additional $2 billion, primarily to shelter people suffering from psychosis, schizophrenia and behavioral health disorders.

It was not immediately clear how much the program might cost, although Newsom proposed in his budget this year more money for mental health services. He has called distressing behavior on the streets heartbreaking and maddening and says residents are right to complain that government is not doing enough.

People with addiction issues or mental health disorders often pinball among various public agencies, namely hospitals, court and jail. There is no one place that manages the person’s health, offering steady and safe housing combined with resource intensive care and California, like the rest of the country, suffers from a shortage of treatment beds.

Newsom’s plan could apply to an estimated 7,000 to 12,000 people, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency.

Compare that to just over 200 people forced into court-ordered treatment last year under Laura’s Law, a program for people with severe and persistent mental illness who may pose a risk to themselves or others, he said. The program is optional and just over half of California’s 58 counties participate.

The governor said under his proposal, people would have a say in their treatment plan and have a public defender to represent them. Most importantly, the proposal allows a broader array of people, including family member or first responder, to refer the person for help, he said. Care could last up to 24 months.

But the idea of compelling treatment rattled some, and the California State Association of Counties objected to the requirements put on counties. Other groups called on the need for more resources, which Newsom has proposed for additional psychologists and treatment beds.

“At this point there are a million questions and a million things that could go horribly wrong,” said Kevin Baker, director of government relations for ACLU California, in an email. He said homeless is caused by skyrocketing housing costs “and we won’t solve homelessness, mental health, or substance abuse problems by locking people up and drugging them against their will.”



Los Angeles city councilmember Paul Krekorian, right, walks past tents where people are living as he walks with staff member Karo Torossian during an official homeless count on Feb. 22, 2022, in the North Hollywood section of Los Angeles. California's governor proposed a plan on Thursday, March 3, 2022, to force homeless people with severe mental health and addiction disorders into treatment.

 (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

The Western Center on Law and Poverty pointed to a 2020 state audit that found many people put under conservatorship wound up with limited treatment and follow-up.

“Forcing people into temporary hospitalization will not help individuals move out of homelessness when there are not enough services or housing units to begin with,” it said in a statement.

Still, others say that mandated treatment is necessary for some who are too sick to realize they need care.

In San Francisco, a state law designed to get more people into conservatorships has resulted in just two people being forced into care, said Rafael Mandelman, a city supervisor who has watched helplessly as homeless residents languish outdoors.

He would welcome more money for emergency psychiatric treatment beds and staffing. But he also says there needs to be a major change in both the deployment of resources and in the way judges think.

“We also clearly need better systems that are able to respond to the needs of this population much better,” he said, “and we need laws that are clear to judges, and that reflect the expectations of the community.”

Har reported from Marin County.

Keto diet may help improve symptoms of multiple sclerosis
By HealthDay News

A new study found that when people with multiple sclerosis ate a keto diet for six months, they reported less fatigue and depression, and an improved overall quality of life .Image by zuzyusa from Pixabay

The Keto diet is a low-carb lover's dream, but a new study suggests the popular eating plan may also improve some symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS).

MS is an autoimmune disease that occurs when your body attacks the insulation wrapped around its nerves, causing numbness, fatigue, bladder problems, mood issues and mobility problems that can interfere with daily life. There is no cure for MS.

But there may be a way to ease symptoms.

In the study, when folks with MS ate a keto diet for six months, they reported less fatigue and depression, and an improved overall quality of life.

"Our study provides evidence that medically supervised ketogenic diets are safe and tolerable when studied over a six-month period, and convey clinical benefits to persons living with MS," said study author Dr. J. Nicholas Brenton. He is the director of the Pediatric MS & Related Disorders Clinic at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Keto diets restrict your intake of carbs while increasing fats and protein. The goal is to shift from burning blood sugar for energy to a fat-burning state (ketosis), producing weight loss.

Exactly how a keto diet improves symptoms of MS isn't fully understood yet, but the researchers have their theories, starting with the weight loss it induces given the emerging role of obesity in MS. Ketogenic diets may also reduce inflammation and help re-balance the bacteria in the guts of people with MS. Certain gut bacteria create more inflammation in the body and this has been observed in some people with MS, Brenton said.

The study included 65 people with relapsing-remitting MS, the most common form of the disease. It is marked by periods of flares followed by remissions. Patients ate a strict keto diet for six months. Researchers measured ketones in their urine each day to see if they were sticking to the diet. (Ketones are produced by the body when it is burning fat for fuel.) Fully 83% of participants adhered to the diet for the six-month study period.

Those who followed the diet had less body fat and showed about a 50% decline in fatigue and depression scores after six months. What's more, their quality of life and mental health scores improved over the course of the study. They also performed better on tests measuring MS disability. Specifically, study patients walked an average of 1,631 feet on a six-minute walking test at the start of the study, compared to 1,733 feet after six months on a keto diet.

Levels of inflammatory markers in their blood also improved through the study period, Brenton said.

So, should everyone with MS start eating a keto diet?

Not necessarily, Brenton said. There is no one-size-fits-all MS diet. "What works for some patients may not work for others, and accumulating evidence suggests that there are numerous benefits to diet interventions in patients living with MS," he said. "My current advice is to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet and to maintain a healthy weight, as both of these aspects likely play a positive role in MS."

The study is scheduled for presentation at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in Seattle, to be held April 2 to 7. Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

This study builds on previous work in animals and smaller studies in people, said Dr. Barbara Giesser, a neurologist at the Pacific Brain Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif.

"Ketogenic diets may be of benefit in persons with MS by several mechanisms, including decreasing inflammation, reducing body fat, and/or promoting a less inflammatory gut microbiome," said Giesser, who has no ties to the new study.

The study did have its share of limitations, including its small size and lack of a control group for comparison's sake, Giesser noted.

And keto diets aren't risk-free, she said. "Ketogenic diets could lead to other medical complications or nutrient deficiencies," Giesser explained, "and any dietary regimen should be undertaken after consultation with a physician."

General dietary recommendations for people with MS include eating a heart-healthy diet that limits saturated fats and highly refined grains, sugars and processed foods, and is abundant in colorful plants, lean proteins and polyunsaturated fats such as omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon and other fatty fish, Giesser advised.

More information

The American Academy of Neurology's patient education magazine, Brain and Life, offers more on living with MS.

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