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Study: Antidepressants may not improve overall well-being in depressed people



April 20 (UPI) -- People who use drugs intended to treat depression long-term do not see improvements in their overall physical and mental well-being compared with those who avoid taking antidepressants, a study published Wednesday found.

Participants with depression treated with prescription drugs had similar scores on the short-form health survey to those not on the drugs, both at the start of the study and up to two years later, data published Wednesday by PLOS One showed.

At the beginning of the study, the more than 10 million people treated with antidepressants included had average scores of 41 on the mental component and 44 on the physical component, the researchers said.

After two years of treatment, their average scores were 42 and 43, respectively, according to the researchers.

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For the 7.5 million people with depression in the study who did not receive prescription drugs for the disorder, average scores on the mental and physical components were 43 and 46, the data showed.

After two years, their scores were 45 in both components, the researchers said.

"We found the change in the health-related quality of life to be comparable or similar between patients that used antidepressant medications and those who did not use them," study co-author Omar A. Almohammed told UPI in an email.

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"However, we are not saying that [these drugs are] not helpful at all -- [this measure] is only one of many measures intended to assess health outcomes," said Almohammed, an assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

About 21 million adults in the United States have had at least one episode of major depressive disorder, or depression, in their lives, the National Institute of Mental Health estimates.

Depression is a mood disorder that causes feelings of sadness that persist for two or more weeks, affecting a person's ability to manage daily activities, according to the institute.

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For this study, Almohammed and his colleagues reviewed data on short-form health survey scores for 17.5 million adults in the United States diagnosed with, and treated for, depression between 2005 and 2015.

The components of the short-form health survey that assess mental health and physical health, respectively, as well as health-related quality of life, are scored on a 0-to-100 scale, according to the researchers.

On average, adults in the United States typically score about 50 on each component, the researchers said.

More than 10 million of the included patients were treated with prescription antidepressant drugs, while the rest received other care, including counseling.

Based on the average scores among both sets of participants, the change in quality of life seen among those on antidepressants over two years was not significantly different from those not taking the drugs, according to the researchers.

However, the researchers caution against people with depression discontinuing their medications based on these findings, they said.

"We still recommend that they continue using their antidepressant medications, but they may want to ask their healthcare providers to provide them with other [options]," Almohammed said.

"These patients may have had some improvement on other clinical outcome measures" as a result of prescription drug treatment, he said.

Blood test may accurately diagnose melanoma, study finds

A blood test may be able to accurately identify people with melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, according to a new study. 

File photo by damiangretka/Shutterstock


April 20 (UPI) -- Testing a person's blood for the presence of circulating melanoma cells may help identify skin cancer, while allowing them to skip invasive biopsies, a study published Wednesday found.

The test uses a technology called Melanoma-specific OncoBean and employs antibodies, or proteins produced by the immune system to fight off diseases, related to the form of skin cancer, researchers said.

It was able to identify "noticeable" levels of circulating tumor cells in blood samples collected from 45 study participants with melanoma, data published Wednesday by Advanced NanoBiomed Research showed.

Nine participants who did not have the disease did not have detectable levels of the cancer cells, according to the researchers.

"Circulating tumor cells have the potential to pinpoint treatment resistance and recurrence," study co-author Sunitha Nagrath said in a press release.

"[They] can be a valuable biomarker to non-invasively monitor for disease progression," said Nagrath, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Melanoma, or malignant melanoma, is a type of skin cancer that develops from pigment-producing cells called melanocytes, according to the American Cancer Society.

Though less common than other forms of skin cancers, melanomas can be life-threatening and may develop in the skin, mouth, intestines or eyes, the society says.

Early detection of the cancer is key to successful treatment, but many people are not aware they have it until it has progressed, it adds.

The disease is typically diagnosed using a skin biopsy, a procedure in which a small sample of skin is removed for testing. The procedure involves cutting a skin sample and can be painful, according to the American Academy of Dermatology.

Current approaches may not always identify those who need aggressive treatment for the disease, according to earlier studies.

Based on the findings of this study, the Melanoma-specific OncoBean can be used instead of biopsies to diagnose melanoma or to evaluate whether all cancer cells have been successfully removed following skin cancer surgery, the researchers said.

"Circulating tumor cells [can be used] to evaluate the efficacy of surgery," study co-author Yoon-Tae Kang said in a press release.

The test can identify "changes in the number of circulating tumor cells," said Kang, a post-doctoral research fellow in chemical engineering at the University of Michigan.

Study links college football with cognitive impairment, other health issues

Former Pittsburgh Steeler Rocky Bleier is among ex-Notre Dame players who initiated a survey of the potential long-term health effects of football. 

File photo by Archie Carpenter/UPI | License Photo

April 20 (UPI) -- Athletes who played football through college experience suffer cognitive impairment and health problems such as headaches, heart disease and high cholesterol more so than those who did not play the sport, a study published Wednesday found.

Based on a survey initiated by former football players at Notre Dame, including Rocky Bleier, who won four Super Bowls with the Pittsburg Steelers, those who played the sport were about five times as likely to have cognitive impairment with age, the researchers said.

"The idea of the study was not to point fingers at Notre Dame specifically or the sport of football in general," Bleier, a running back at the school from 1964 through 1968 who had an 11-year career in the National Football League, told UPI in a phone interview.

"We wanted to see what kind of effects playing the game of football might have on former players' health and get that information out to them so that they can be aware of these issues and make informed decisions about their health," he said.

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The former players, part of the Independent Notre Dame Footballers Medical Research Project, raised more than $80,000, according to Ed Ziegler, who was a running back for the Fighting Irish between 1966 and 1969 and had a knee injury that kept him out of the NFL.

More than 150 former players contributed to the fund, which went to researchers at Boston University to finance the project, Ziegler, a retired law professor, told UPI in an email.

Among the former football players who were seniors at the South Bend, Ind., university between 1964 and 1980, 5% reported cognitive impairment, or a decline in brain function such as memory loss as they aged, data published Wednesday by JAMA Network Open showed.

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Of non-football-playing adults of a similar age used for comparison in the study, 1% indicated they suffered from cognitive impairment, according to the researchers.

In addition, 10% of the former players reported regular headaches, compared with 4% of non-playing adults, the researchers said.

Former players also were about 50% more likely to suffer from heart disease or high cholesterol but appeared to be at 50% lower risk for developing diabetes, the data showed.

RELATED Study: More years playing football means more brain lesions on MRI

For the study, the Boston University researchers surveyed 216 former players ages 59 to 75 years and compared their responses to 638 adults within a similar age group who did not play the sport.

In addition to reporting more cognitive impairment and headaches, 33% of the former players had heart disease compared with 20% of non-playing adults, the data showed.

Similarly, 52% of the former players indicated they had high cholesterol compared with 29% of non-playing adults, the researchers said.

More former players -- 86% -- reported drinking alcohol than those who did not play the sport, at 77%, according to the researchers.

Conversely, 11% of the former players developed diabetes, or less than half of the 23% among non-playing adults, the data showed.

Former players also were less likely than non-playing adults to die from heart, circulatory, lung or digestive disorders, as well as lung cancer and violence, the researchers said.

However, the ex-players were nearly four times more likely to die from brain and other nervous system cancers, and appeared to be at higher risk for developing brain disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson's disease, according to the researchers.

"Later life cognitive impairment and brain disorders associated with receiving repetitive blows to the head from American football are not just observed in former NFL players, but also in former college players," study co-author Robert Stern told UPI in an email.

However, "there are also apparent positive health outcomes in former college football players, perhaps due to overall fitness earlier in life," said Stern, a professor of neurology, neurosurgery and anatomy and neurobiology at Boston University.

The findings "add to growing evidence about the relationship between exposure to repetitive head impacts from football at the college and professional levels and later life risk for cognitive and behavioral impairments, dementia and neurodegenerative diseases," according to Stern.

This includes chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a neurodegenerative disease linked with repeated head trauma that causes behavioral, mood and thinking problems, said Stern, who is part of the team at Boston University leading research into the condition.

Previous studies have linked CTE with head injuries sustained among athletes in sports such as football, hockey and soccer.

Earlier surveys indicate most people in the United States believe kids should not play tackle football because of the risk.

Although efforts to reduce the risk for concussions, or head injuries that cause temporary declines in brain function, in the sport can help, more needs to be done to "reduce [players'] overall exposure to repetitive head impacts," he said.

"Concussions are not the big issue when it comes to long-term risk to brain health," Stern said.

"Change, therefore, does not mean just building a bigger helmet -- rather, change means removing the head from the game and definitely from practice as much as possible," he said.

In spite of the findings, Bleier said he does not believe radical changes to the sport are needed.

"The game does everything it possibly can to protect players, including providing better pads and helmets and in how coaches teach tackling technique," he said.

"What we see here with this study is that some players don't experience problems from playing the sport later in life, so we need to understand why that is, and why some players do, so that we can find ways to prevent these health issues for future generations."

USA

Study: Western wildfires bring 'new peak to air pollution'

By Adriana Navarro, Accuweather.com

Heavy plumes of smoke billow from the Dixie fire above the Plumas National Forest, can be seen from Oroville, California, seventy miles away from the fire in July 2021. Wildfires at the time were raging in many western states. 

File Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI | License Photo

The large, intense wildfires that have scorched the Pacific Northwest in recent years are altering the seasonal pattern of air pollution and causing a surge in unhealthy air pollutants in August -- as well as undermining clean air gains and posing potential health risks to millions across the continent, a new study found.

The research, helmed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and published this week in Nature Communications, pointed to a sharp increase in carbon monoxide levels during the month of August -- a time when carbon monoxide levels have historically remained low.

While this gas generally is not a significant health concern outdoors, it indicates the presence of more harmful pollutants like aerosols and ground-level ozone.

Normally, carbon monoxide levels in the summer have remained low due to chemical reactions in the atmosphere related to sunlight, the press release on the study said.

The discovery that these levels have instead jumped during the summer as Western wildfires spread underscores the extent of the smoke's impact.

"Wildfire emissions have increased so substantially that they're changing the annual pattern of air quality across North America," said NCAR scientist Rebecca Buchholz, the lead author of the study. "It's quite clear that there is a new peak of air pollution in August that didn't used to exist."

The findings were particularly striking since carbon monoxide levels have otherwise been decreasing -- globally and across North America -- due to improvements in pollution-control technologies, she added.

Findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change further underscored the outcome of the study.

"The IPCC reports on climate change show that fire seasons have lengthened by nearly 20 globally since the 1980s and that wildfires could happen 30 more frequently by 2050," Plume Labs Founder Romain Lacombe told AccuWeather, which acquired Plume Labs earlier this year.

"Wildfires are estimated to release 2.2 gigatons of carbon in the air annually," Lacombe said.

In 2016, researchers at Climate Central noted that the annual average wildfire season in the western U.S. was 105 days longer than it was in the 1970s, burned six times as many acres and had three times as many large fires -- those burning over 1,000 acres.

The research team behind the new report used satellite-based observations of atmospheric chemistry and global inventories of fires to track wildfire emissions from 2002 to 2018 alongside computer modeling to analyze the potential impacts of the smoke, focusing on three regions: the Pacific Northwest, the central U.S. and the Northeast.

Not only did they find the increase in carbon monoxide levels across North America during the month of August, but they found that the trend became more pronounced from 2012 to 2018, when the Pacific Northwest fire season became more active, a press release on the study said.

This year's wildfire season is expected to be another active one, with the number of fires and acreage burned already running well above the 10-year average to date, according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Brandon Buckingham.

AccuWeather is expecting an above-normal wildfire season in 2022, with early predictions of 67,000-70,000 fires.

The average number of fires from the 2001-2020 seasons is 68,707 fires.

"The aridification of the West as a result of a multi-decadal drought and climate change will only continue to heighten the wildfire threat in 2022 and years to come," Buckingham said.

"Studies have now revealed that the ongoing drought across the West is the worst that the region has experienced since 800 A.D., found by extensive study via tree ring analysis across the West," Buckingham said.

Human-caused climate change has been responsible for over half of the increase in fuel aridity in the western U.S. since the 1970s, according to a study published by the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, doubling the cumulative area burned in forest fires since 1984.

This season, below-average precipitation east of the Cascades in Washington and across a majority of Oregon during the winter season has further dried out the area's foliage and is expected to lead to a higher-than-average risk for wildfires this season, according to Buckingham.

While the risk of a thunderstorm complex or two during late June to July across the Pacific Northwest could bring bouts of rainfall, it could also bring a higher risk of lightning strikes, which can lead to complex fires. The higher risk for this resides in Oregon, Buckingham said.

The researchers were able to attribute the Western wildfires to the far-reaching spike in air pollutants in August by first ruling out the possibility of it originating from pollution carried overseas, from other regional fire seasons and fossil fuel emissions. Upwind of the Pacific Northwest in the Pacific Ocean, measured carbon monoxide levels were lower in August, ruling out transference from Asia.

As for the other two variables, fire seasons in the Central states and Northeast didn't coincide with the August increase, and the pair of fossil fuel emission inventories that showed emissions from human activities didn't increase in any of the three regions from 2012 to 2018.

"Multiple lines of evidence point to the worsening wildfires in the Pacific Northwest as the cause of degraded air quality," Buchholz said. "It's particularly unfortunate that these fires are undermining the gains that society has made in reducing pollution overall."

Air pollution from wildfire smoke differs from "normal" air pollution generated by human activity, according to Plume Labs.

For one thing, pollution from wildfires is more intense, meaning that a large amount of particulate matter, or PMs, and gases are released within a relatively short period of time. It also carries more volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.

And these hazards are capable of remaining active over long periods of time in the atmosphere as they travel.

Findings from Plume Labs Chief Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Boris Quennehen on the composition of anthropogenic -- man-made -- and forest fire pollution transported from mid-latitudes to the Arctic showed that processes affecting particle size and concentration remain active after several days of traveling in the atmosphere.

Usually, as the smoke moves away from the fire, it's lofted into the higher altitudes of the atmosphere.

There have been plenty of hazy orange sunsets in the Northeast prompted by Western wildfires, but the pollutants at higher altitudes aren't necessarily immediately harmful, as the pollution isn't being breathed in by people at ground level.

In 2021, however, a high pressure pushed the transported smoke in the Northeast down toward the surface, prompting air quality warnings across the region.

While wildfire air pollution doesn't carry the same level of toxic gases due to plastic or mineral oil burning as anthropogenic air pollution, it still poses a threat to a population's health due to the sheer amount of particulates released -- and the NCAR study estimates that the pollutants from the Pacific Northwest wildfires could impact more than 130 million people.

That includes about 34 million people in the Pacific Northwest, 23 million in the central U.S. and 72 million in the Northeast.

The study didn't specifically investigate the health implications of the emissions, but the authors did look at respiratory death rates in Colorado -- where state respiratory death rates were readily available -- and compared the month of August from 2002 to 2011 with August of 2012 to 2018.

They found respiratory deaths during that month in the state increased significantly during the 2012-2018 time frame -- a period during which fires in the Pacific Northwest, but not Colorado, produced more emissions in August.

"It's clear that more research is needed into the health implications of all this smoke," Buchholz said. "We may already be seeing the consequences of these fires on the health of residents who live hundreds or even thousands of miles downwind."

The most common health risks associated with smoke exposure are found within the lungs, Dr. Jonathan Tan from the Philadelphia Children's Hospital told Plume Labs in a 2019 interview.

"In my experience working in hospitals around the world, smoke exposure also increases in the use of emergency department, hospitalizations and need for medications during wildfire disasters," Tan said.

"This has an impact across almost all aspects of patient care," Tan said.

Some populations are also more affected by smoke exposure, and health effects may be exacerbated for someone with a heart or lung or pulmonary disease.

Older adults, pregnant people, children, smokers and people involved in strenuous outdoor work or outdoor sports may also be more affected by smoke exposure.

"With the health of millions of people at stake, the air pollution impact of these more frequent fires is yet another reason we need strong and urgent action on climate," Lacombe said.

Scientists find evidence of largest earthquake in human history 3,800 years ago

An ancient super-earthquake occurred along the Atacama Desert Coast in northern Chile, scientists found in a new study. 

Photo by James Goff/University of Southampton


April 19 (UPI) -- Scientists have found evidence that an earthquake 3,800 years ago in Northern Chile is the largest in human history, according to a new study.

The quake had a magnitude of around 9.5, prompting tsunamis that struck countries as far away as New Zealand and boulders the size of cars to be carried inland by the waves, according to researchers at the University of Southampton

Since earthquakes occur when two tectonic plates rub together and rupture, a longer rupture indicates a bigger earthquake, they said.

"It had been thought there could not be an event of that size in the north of the country because you could not get a long enough rupture," study co-author James Goff said in a press release.

The largest known earthquake before the new study was the 9.5 magnitude Valdivia earthquake, which struck Southern Chile in May 1960, with a rupture zone that stretched up to about 621 miles along the country's coast, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Estimates of the death toll from the quake range from 1,655 to 5,700, along with leaving 3,000 injured, 2 million homeless and causing $550 million in economic damage in Southern Chile.

"But we have now found evidence of a rupture that's about 1,000 kilometers long just off the Atacama Desert coast and that is massive," said Goff, a visiting professor at the University of Southampton in Britain.

The new study was published this month in the journal Science Advances.

Researchers reported that that the rupture caused the coastline of northern Chile, which was home to pre-historic hunter-gatherer communities 3,800 years ago, to lift up -- in addition to generating a massive tsunami.

"The Atacama Desert is one of the driest, most hostile environments in the world and finding tsunamis there has always been difficult," Goff said.

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"However, we found evidence of marine sediments and a lot of beasties that would have been living quietly in the sea before being thrown inland. And we found all these very high up and a long way inland so it could not have been a storm that put them there."

"The local population there were left with nothing," Goff said.

Goff was asked to join the study about a week after after he had been investigating a site in New Zealand on Chatham Island that included boulders, some the size of cars, that had been carried inland by waves around the same time of the earthquake in Northern Chile.

"In New Zealand, we said that those boulders could only have been moved by a tsunami from northern Chile, and it would need to be something like a 9.5 magnitude earthquake to generate it. And now we have found it," Goff said

Moon to align with 4 planets in early morning sky before end of April

By Brian Lada, Accuweather.com


A Pink Supermoon rises behind the Statue of Liberty from Liberty State Park in Hoboken, New Jersey, in April 2021. Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn have been lined up in the sky this month, and by the end of April the Moon will join them, astronomers say. 

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Early risers waking up before the crack of dawn will be rewarded with great views of the planets through the end of the month, and the daily spectacle will be even more impressive at the start of next week.

Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn have lined up in the early morning sky and will continue to glow in a row throughout the rest of April. The quartet can be easily seen without a telescope in the eastern sky, and another celestial object will join the alignment early next week.

The crescent moon will appear near the four planets about an hour before sunrise on Monday, April 25, and Tuesday, April 26.

The two-day event means that folks can check the AccuWeather forecast to see which morning will have the better viewing conditions before waking up early to enjoy the sights in the eastern sky.

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A fifth planet will be hidden in plain sight near the bottom of the alignment, going unnoticed except for those with a little help.

Neptune will appear near Venus and Jupiter on April 25 and April 26 however, it will be difficult to spot as the planet is too dim to see without the help of a telescope.

People new to using a telescope will have some help finding the distant world as it will appear directly between Jupiter and Venus. Neptune will look like a small blue dot, seeing itself apart from the other planets and stars visible in this area of the sky before sunrise.

The morning planets will be worth another look on April 30 and May 1 as Jupiter and Venus pass extremely close to each other.

Astronomers refer to this type of planetary meetup as a conjunction, and it will be the closest Jupiter and Venus have appeared in the night sky since Nov. 24, 2019.

Skywatchers should also keep an eye out for shooting stars as the annual Lyrid meteor shower will remain active until April 29.

Hourly rates will not be as impressive as the 15 to 20 per hour expected on the night of Thursday, April 21, but a few meteors are still possible throughout the early morning when the planetary alignment is visible.

Bright fireball over Ontario likely left several small meteorites on the ground

April 20 (UPI) -- Canadian researchers said an unusually bright fireball that lit up the night sky over Ontario likely left numerous meteorite fragments on the ground.

The physics and astronomy department at Western University in London, Ontario, said a network of sky cameras recorded the fireball streaking across the sky at 11:37 p.m. Sunday.

The department said fragments of the meteor likely made it to the ground near the eastern shore of Lake Simcoe, near Argyle.

"This fireball was particularly significant because it was moving slowly, was on an asteroidal orbit and ended very low in the atmosphere. These are all good indicators that material survived," Denis Vida, an astronomy postdoctoral associate and meteor expert, said in a news release.

Vida said an analysis of the video indicates multiple small meteorites might have made landfall.

The Royal Ontario Museum is asking anyone who finds a suspected meteorite to contact the facility.

Vanishing act: Exploring the case of the disappearing moon

By Thomas Leffler, Accuweather.com

The relationship between the Earth, moon and sun has been documented since the beginning of time. The welcoming golden light of the sun greets humanity and serves as the dawn of a new day, while the eerie white glow of the moon sends the human race into its nightly slumber.

But what if there was a day when one occurred without the other? What if that day became weeks or even months?

Such an occurrence took place nearly a millennium ago, as Earth's moon disappeared from view during the month of May in the year 1110, with nary a reason given for the strange phenomenon. The unusual occurrence puzzled those who lived through it and continued to baffle astronomers throughout the ages. There was a belief that the moon's disappearance was the result of an eclipse.

The British astronomer George Frederick Chambers wrote about the celestial mystery in his 1899 book The Story of Eclipses. About 800 years after it happened, Chambers pegged the date of the eclipse as having occurred on May 5, during the reign of Henry I.


"The totality occurred before midnight," Chambers wrote of the moon's disappearance from the night sky, adding that it was "evident that this was an instance of a 'black' eclipse when the moon becomes quite invisible instead of shining with the familiar coppery hue."

But is that really what happened?

Finding out the root of the lunar absence became the work of a 2020 study in the journal Scientific Reports, leading to a more complex answer than originally thought.

The previously agreed-upon conclusion was that an eruption at Iceland's Mount Hekla was the culprit. Hekla, located in the southern end of Iceland, was referred to as the "Gateway to Hell" by Europeans during the Middle Ages due to its frequent eruptions.

When an eruption took place at Hekla on approximately Oct. 15, 1104, sulfur-rich particles launched into the stratosphere. For many years, this event was thought to be the catalyst for the moon's apparent disappearance.

The Scientific Reports study, led by a team from the University of Geneva in Switzerland, began to unravel new information into the moon's whereabouts. To see whether the Hekla eruption was the sole cause of the disappearance, the researchers analyzed ice cores from Iceland and Antarctica, and eventually determined that the date of the Hekla eruption did not line up with the 1110 timeline of lunar absence.

To find the true source, researchers combed through the records of medieval times for any references made to a "dark lunar eclipse" or a "black eclipse." After pouring over many a scripture, the team made a breakthrough with the following 1110 entry from The Peterborough Chronicle: "[The moon] was so completely extinguished withal, that neither light, nor orb, nor anything at all of it was seen."

Knowing the lunar absence began around 1110, the team suggests a cluster of volcanic eruptions from between 1108 and 1110 was most likely the root cause, not the 1104 Hekla eruption as previously thought.

One of these oft-forgotten eruptions took place in 1108 in Honshu, Japan. A diary entry from a Japanese statesman, uncovered by researchers and cited in the Scientific Reports study, said that an eruption of Honshu's Mount Asama began in late August of 1108 and continued through that October.

"On August 29, there was a fire at the top of the volcano, a thick layer of ash in the governor's garden, everywhere the fields and the rice fields are rendered unfit for cultivation," the entry read. "We never saw that in the country. It is a very strange and rare thing."

The 1108 eruption at Asama, known as perhaps the most significant in the volcano's history, is one of what the study called "several major volcanic events" that is consistent with the "stratospheric aerosol loading sufficient to induce" the dark eclipse. Observations of changes to the moon, such as the dark, total lunar eclipse, as well as observations of dimming or discoloration of the sun, are major corroborators of the timing of major explosive volcanic activity.

On top of the eclipse, the 1108-1110 eruptions led to several societal impacts in Europe, particularly in agriculture. The researchers' work revealed descriptions of an abundance of severe weather conditions, crop failures and famines compared to other years with similar volcanic events.Losing the lunar connection between Earth and the moon had several negative side effects, making the bright nightly appearance missed all the more.

PRISON NATION USA

Mississippi prison found to have violated inmates' Constitutional rights

A Mississippi prison violated the Constitution by subjecting its inmates to inhumane conditions, the U.S. Justice of Department announced on Wednesday, April 20, 2022. 

Photo courtesy of Mississippi Department of Corrections/Twitter

April 20 (UPI) -- A Mississippi prison violated the Constitution by subjecting its inmates to inhumane conditions, the U.S. Justice of Department announced on Wednesday.

Prisoners at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, also called Parchman, had insufficient access to mental health treatment for severe conditions, the department reports. The prison also subjected the incarcerated to prolonged solitary confinement "in egregious conditions," neglected to implement effective anti-suicide protections and failed to prevent inmate-on-inmate violence.

"The Constitution guarantees that all people incarcerated in jails and prisons are treated humanely, that reasonable measures are taken to keep them safe, and that they receive necessary mental health care, treatment, and services to address their needs," Assistant Attorney General Clarke said in a media release.

"Our investigation uncovered evidence of systemic violations that have generated a violent and unsafe environment for people incarcerated at Parchman. We are committed to taking action that will ensure the safety of all people held at Parchman and other state prison facilities."

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The department began its investigation of the facility more than two years ago, after a series of violent incidents in late 2019 and early 2020 killed nine inmates and injured several others. It's continuing to investigate conditions at three other Mississippi correctional facilities.

According to Wednesday's release, the Mississippi Department of Corrections "has been on notice of these deficiencies for years and failed to take reasonable measures to address the violations, due in part to non-functional accountability or quality assurance measures."

Parchman isn't the first Mississippi prison found to have violated the Constitution. In 2015, two other state facilities were found to have routinely failed protect prisoners from violence, kept them in filthy conditions and kept them in custody past their court-ordered release dates.

Sri Lanka police open fire at protesters; 1 dead, 13 injured

By KRISHAN FRANCIS and BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI

yesterday

1 of 13

Sri Lankans hold up their mobile phone torches during a vigil condemning police shooting at protesters in Rambukkana, 90 kilometers (55 miles) northeast of Colombo, at a protest outside the president's office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, April 19, 2022. Sri Lankan police opened fire Tuesday at a group of people protesting new fuel price increases, killing one and injuring 10 others, in the first shooting by security forces during weeks of demonstrations over the country's worst economic crisis in decades.

 (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)


COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan police opened fire Tuesday at people protesting new fuel price increases, killing one and injuring 13 others, in the first shooting by security forces during weeks of demonstrations over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Fifteen police personnel were also admitted to a hospital with minor injuries after clashes with protesters.

Police confirmed they shot at the protesters in Rambukkana, 90 kilometers (55 miles) northeast of Colombo, the capital, and they declared a local curfew afterward. Police spokesman Nihal Talduwa said the demonstrators were blocking railway tracks and roads and had ignored police warnings to disperse. He said protesters also threw rocks at police.

Dr. Mihiri Priyangani of the government hospital in Kegalle said 14 people were brought there with suspected gunshot wounds and one had died. Three others had undergone surgeries and were being monitored. The police in the hospital had minor injuries, possibly from being hit by stones, she said.

Sri Lanka is on the brink of bankruptcy, with nearly $7 billion of its total $25 billion in foreign debt due for repayment this year. A severe shortage of foreign exchange means the country lacks money to buy imported goods.

U.S. Ambassador Julie Chung and U.N. Resident Coordinator Hanaa Singer-Hamdy urged restraint from all sides and called on the authorities to ensure the people’s right to peaceful protest.

Chung called for an independent investigation into the shooting.

Sri Lankans have endured months of shortages of essentials such as food, cooking gas, fuel and medicine, lining up for hours to buy the very limited stocks available.

Fuel prices have risen several times in recent months, resulting in sharp increases in transport costs and prices of other essentials. There was another round of increases at midnight Monday.

Thousands of protesters continued to occupy the entrance to the president’s office for an 11th day Tuesday, blaming him for the economic crisis. At night, the crowd outside his office in Colombo held up their phones as illumination during a vigil condemning the shooting in Rambukkana.

Sri Lanka’s prime minister said Tuesday that the constitution will be changed to clip presidential powers and empower Parliament, as protesters continued to demand that the president and his powerful family quit.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa told Parliament that the power shift is a quick step that can be taken to politically stabilize the country and help talks with the International Monetary Fund over an economic recovery plan.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the prime minister’s brother, concentrated power in the presidency after being elected in 2019.

“While looking for solutions to the economic problems, it is important that we have political and social stability in the country,” Prime Minister Rajapaksa said, adding that restoring more power to Parliament will be a start to the reforms.

The Rajapaksa brothers are likely to retain their grip on power even if the constitution is amended, since they hold both offices.

President Rajapaksa acknowledged on Monday that he made mistakes which had led to the crisis, such as delaying an appeal to the IMF for help and banning agrochemicals with the aim of making Sri Lankan agriculture fully organic. Critics say the ban on imported fertilizer was aimed at conserving the country’s declining foreign exchange holdings and badly hurt farmers.

Both the president and prime minister have refused to step down, resulting in a political impasse. Opposition parties have rejected the president’s proposal of a unity government, but have been unable to put together a majority in Parliament and form a new government.

In a Cabinet reshuffle Monday, the president appointed many new faces and left out four family members who had held Cabinet and non-Cabinet posts, in an apparent attempt to please the protesters without giving up his family’s grip on power.

Finance Minister Ali Sabry met with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in Washington and requested a rapid financing facility for countries facing urgent balance of payment crises, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.

It said Georgieva told Sabry that India had also backed Sri Lanka’s request for the facility.

Later, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met with Sabry and assured him of India’s support for Sri Lanka’s economic recovery, the ministry said.

Sri Lanka has also turned to China and India for emergency loans to buy food and fuel.