Defense officials: Reports of unidentified objects 'frequent, continuing'

The Milky Way is seen above the Cerro Tololo Observatory near La Serena, Chile. A congressional hearing on Tuesday was scheduled to hear expert testimony regarding "unidentified aerial phenomena." File Photo by Joe Marino/UPI | License Photo

May 17 (UPI) -- Pentagon officials told a House panel Tuesday that reports of "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" are getting more frequent -- and there is not always a ready explanation.

In an open session of the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee, Defense Under Secretary Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Navy Intelligence Scott Bray showed short videos of objects encountered by U.S. military that remained undefined.

They said some of the reports by service members have turned out to be classified experimental technology by the military, civilian assets such a drones or previously unknown technology by adversaries.

But the said some sightings don't fall in any of those categories, with objects appearing to move and at speeds that defied known modern physics. While some are simply eyewitness accounts, others have been recorded by radar and other instruments.

"Since the beginning of 2000s, we have seen an increasing number of unauthorized or unidentified aircraft or objects in military-controlled training areas and training ranges and other designated airspace," Bray told the committee. "Reports of sightings are frequent and continuing."

Bray deferred to talk about many of those incidents in an open session because the technology used to record the objects is classified.

Moultrie and Bray said there has been more reports of UAPs by military personnel because of better technology, and more people feel more comfortable reporting it because of the seriousness of the work. They said fewer service members feel stigmatized by reporting UAPs.

Bray assured the subcommittee that its work into UAPs carries serious risk and responsibility to the Pentagon, where officials work to stay on top of new technology developed by adversaries.

"Incursions within our training ranges by unidentified objects represents serious hazards to safety of flight," Bray said. "In every aspect of naval aviation, the safety of our crews is paramount. Second, intrusions by unknown aircraft of objects pose potential threats to the security of our operations."

Moultrie oversees the Pentagon's Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, which was established by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act and is tasked with detecting identifying and attributing "objects of interest in special use airspace and to assess and mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and national security."

The same provision requires Pentagon officials to issue regular classified and public reports to oversight committees on new UAP incidents.

A June 2021 report from the team's predecessor, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, concluded there wasn't enough information to draw conclusions about 143 of 144 reports of UAP that had been submitted by government sources between 2004 and 2021. The one that was explained involved a large, deflating balloon.

The report noted "unusual" aerial activity on several of the reported incidents but did not rule out the possibility that they were caused by "sensor errors, spoofing or observer misperception." It added that "rigorous" further analysis was required in those cases.

Tuesday's was the first open hearing on UFOs in Congress in more than a half-century. The Air Force, following a public investigation known as Project Blue Book, concluded in 1969 that no UFO had ever threatened national security, that objects it studied did not display technology beyond what was presently known and that no evidence indicated any of the reported objects were extraterrestrial in nature.

Fossilized tooth proves extinct Denisovans lived in southeast Asia


An ancient tooth found in southeast Asia links extinct Denisovans to modern day humans, according to findings published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. A close-up of the 3D printed reconstruction of a female Denisovan. File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

May 17 (UPI) -- A fossilized tooth dug from a mountain cave in northern Laos is the first evidence to show the extinct human species, the Denisovans, lived in southeast Asia.

Scientists published their findings Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications and said the large ancient molar, found in Cobra Cave, appears to be from a young Denisovan girl who died between 164,000 and 131,000 years ago.

"We've always assumed that Denisovans were in this part of the world, but we've never had the physical evidence," said study co-author Laura Shackelford, a paleoanthropolotist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "This is one little piece of evidence that they were really there."


RELATED Scientists use Neanderthal genes to grow tissue in a Petri dish

Denisovan teeth and finger bones were first discovered in Siberia and Tibet in 2010. DNA testing revealed these extinct hominids interbred with Neanderthals and modern humans, and are among the ancestors to current populations in Australia and the Pacific. But until now, scientists could not track the ancient species to the area.

Tuesday's published discovery of a Denisovan fossilized tooth in southeast Asia provides the geographical link between these ancient hominids and people living today.

It also shows the Denisovans occupied a wide range of areas and were able to adapt to different climates. It shows that 131,000 years ago the Denisovans could survive in temperate conditions as well as frigid temperatures, making them more similar to our own species.

RELATED Earliest evidence of hominin interbreeding revealed by DNA analysis

University of Toronto researcher Bence Viola said the molar was in the "right place and right time" to belong to a Denisovan. "In its size, it is comparable to hominins that lived two or three million years ago... but the age of it shows that it is very recent."

Scientists were convinced five years ago there were Denisovan fossils in southeast Asia.

"The genetic data shows that these guys were spread over large parts of Asia, so we must have them," Viola said in 2017.

Child’s 130,000-year-old tooth could offer clues to extinct human relative

Researchers believe the discovery in a Laos cave proves that Denisovans lived in the warm tropics of southeast Asia

A view of the molar thought to belong to a young female child from the extinct human species called the Denisovans, was found in cave Tam Ngu Hao in northeastern Laos.
Photograph: Fabrice Demeter/Reuters

Agence France-Presse

Tue 17 May 2022

A child’s tooth at least 130,000 years old found in a Laos cave could help scientists uncover more information about an early human cousin, according to a new study.

Researchers believe the discovery proves that Denisovans – a now-extinct branch of humanity – lived in the warm tropics of southeast Asia.

Very little is known about the Denisovans, a cousin of Neanderthals.

Scientists first discovered them while working in a Siberian cave in 2010 and finding a finger bone of a girl belonging to a previously unidentified group of humans.

Using only a finger and a wisdom tooth found in the Denisova Cave, they extracted an entire genome of the group.

Researchers then found a jawbone in 2019 on the Tibetan Plateau, proving that part of the species lived in China as well.

Aside from these rare fossils, the Denisovans left little trace before disappearing – except in the genes of human DNA today.

Through interbreeding with Homo sapiens, Denisovan remnants can be found in current populations in southeast Asia and Oceania.

Aboriginal Australians and people in Papua New Guinea have up to five percent of the ancient species’ DNA.

Scientists concluded “these populations’ modern ancestors were ‘mixed’ with Denisovans in southeast Asia”, said Clement Zanolli, a paleoanthropologist and co-author of the study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.

But there was no “physical proof” of their presence in this part of the Asian continent, far from the freezing mountains of Siberia or Tibet, the researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research told AFP.

This was the case until the group of scientists began searching in the Cobra Cave in northeast Laos.

Cave specialists discovered the area in a mountain in 2018 next to Tam Pa Ling Cave, where the remains of ancient humans have already been found.

The tooth immediately appeared to have a “typically human” shape, explained Zanolli.

The study said, based on ancient proteins, the tooth belonged to a child, likely female, aged between 3.5 and 8.5 years old.

But the tooth is too old for carbon-dating, and the DNA has been badly preserved because of heat and humidity, said paleoanthropologist and study co-author Fabrice Demeter.

After analysing the shape of the tooth, scientists reckon it was most likely a Denisovan who lived between 164,000 to 131,000 years ago.

They then studied the tooth’s interior through different methods including analysing proteins and a 3D X-ray reconstruction.


'Spectacular' jawbone discovery sheds light on ancient Denisovans

The tooth’s internal structure was similar to that of the molars found in the Tibetan Denisova specimen. It was clearly distinguishable from modern humans and other ancient species that lived in Indonesia and the Philippines.

“The proteins allowed us to identify the sex – female – and confirm its relation to the Homo species,” said Demeter, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where the tooth is temporarily based.

The tooth’s structure had common characteristics with Neanderthals, who were genetically close to Denisovans. The two species are thought to have diverged about 350,000 years ago.

But Zanolli explained that the researchers concluded it was a Denisova specimen because no Neanderthal traces have been found so far east.

For Demeter, the discovery shows that Denisovans occupied this part of Asia and adapted to a wide range of environments, from cold altitudes to tropical climates, whereas their Neanderthal cousins seemed more “specialised” in cold western regions.

The last Denisovans could have therefore met and interbred with modern humans, who passed on their genetic heritage to southeast Asia’s modern populations, in the Pleistocene epoch.

Arkansas water tower leak makes Johnny Cash silhouette appear to be urinating

May 17 (UPI) -- Johnny Cash is once again making headlines in his Arkansas hometown after a bullet hole in a "very sensitive area" of the musician's silhouette on the local water tower made the man in black appear to be urinating.

Mayor Luke Neal of Kingsland said a bullet struck the town's water tower last week, right between the legs of a Johnny Cash silhouette painted on the side of the structure.

"Somebody shot our water tower, shot the silhouette of Johnny Cash in a very sensitive area," Neal told KLRT-TV. "It's been leaking for the last almost week."

Neal told KTHV-TV the town is "losing about 30,000 gallons of water per day" at a daily cost of about $200.

The sight of Johnny Cash's silhouette spraying water onto the ground below has been drawing in tourists to witness the unusual scene.

"Just the placement of where it was at, I mean it was -- you could tell someone was trying to be funny," Neal said.

Neal said the water tower previously leaked from a bullet hole in 1993.

He said an investigation has been opened into the most recent bullet hole.

Experts advocate better red flag laws as 2022 sees 202 mass shootings

A group prays in the street on Sunday near the site of the mass shooting on Saturday at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. 

Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI | License Photo

May 16 (UPI) -- There have been 202 mass shootings in the United States through the 5 1/2 months of this year, including Saturday's racially motivated attack at a Buffalo supermarket that killed 10.

One person was killed and four others were critically injured in a shooting at a California church Sunday, while two people died after an argument escalated at a Houston flea market on the same day.

Eight other mass murders have occurred, and midway through May, more than 7,100 people have been killed by gun violence.

"We are a country right now that is awash in weaponry. We have lots and lots of violent rhetoric and we have lots of weapons," Josh Horwitz, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, told UPI in a interview Monday.

"What we're seeing around the country is an unprecedented rise in shootings," said Horwitz, who pointed to a 35% increase in firearm-related homicides in 2020, the most-recent data available.


"There's an unprecedented level of gun violence in America right now. What we're seeing right now is a rise in homicide. We don't know why that's happening. We know some of the factors that can cause a rise in homicide [rates], but we don't know exactly how all those have come together."

Factors include pandemic-related job loss and subsequent economic hardships.

"The type of social dislocation that we see in the pandemic -- we see economic and housing dislocation, the type of community supports that have been in place -- have fallen away," Horwitz said.

"We know that these are risk factors, we just don't know how they're combining right now."

But it's not just economic desperation, spurred on by record inflation.

"You see an unprecedented level of gun purchasing. There are more firearms in peoples' hands and a lot of new gun owners are out there," he said.

That, combined with a political rhetoric that can at times be used to justify violence, means Americans will continue experiencing cases like Buffalo.

"We've got a much more coarse political system with open appeals to violence and that cannot help but trickle down to other people," Horwitz said, pointing to politicians like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and former President Donald Trump.

"When some leaders talk using violence in the political system, some people take that realistically. And so there's a responsibility to really tone down our rhetoric."

Strengthening or expanding firearms laws is also essential to see any tangible changes, Jooyoung Lee, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto's Center for the Study of the United States, said in an interview.

"One of the big takeaways we can glean from any mass shooting is that the people who go on to do them, overwhelmingly, buy their guns legally. They don't go through secret networks of gun traffickers," said Lee, an American who has studied gangs and gun violence in Los Angeles, publishing books on the subject.

"While mass shootings get everyone talking about the problems of gun violence, there are far more instances, quantitatively speaking, of everyday, routine conflicts that escalate into serious injuries or deaths because the wrong people have access to guns."

No system is perfect, Lee said, but one solution is so-called red flag laws that allow individuals or law enforcement to petition the court to have someone's firearm temporarily taken away, if they've shown a proclivity for or have a history of violence.

In Buffalo, shooting suspect Payton Gendron had been investigated by police after threatening a school shooting.

"In principle, red flag laws are a good thing. They empower police and law enforcement to confiscate weapons from people who are at risk of using them against themselves or others," said Lee, who is also a senior fellow with the Yale University Urban Ethnography Project.



"There are some studies showing the efficacy of efforts at the municipal level of using red flag legislation to take guns when there is credible information about a person planning an attack or using them against themselves. I don't think that any red flag law would be a perfect model but certainly, we have to try something."

Horwitz agrees.

"We need better gun laws, we need more investment in violence intervention," he said, having contributed to California's existing regulations.

"In 2014 in California, we helped develop a modern version of the extreme risk protection order that allows for family members and law enforcement to petition the court for a civil order to remove a firearm from a person who would hurt themselves or others," Horwitz said.

"These [laws] are a really important tool. But they are very young and they need to be widely implemented, and frankly, they're only in 19 states and the District of Columbia. They need to be in every state."

On a state-by-state basis, getting congruence can be challenging.

"We need to use them [laws] and state governors need to provide money for these things to work," Horwitz said, while acknowledging he does see a shift in thinking.

"Often when these [red flag] laws are proposed, you'll have rural sheriffs or law enforcement say, 'We're not going to do this.' But the reality is, when push comes to shove, and people need it, they use it. If you need to get a firearm out of their hands, this is a great tool, these extreme risk protection orders."

A sustained spate of public violence may spur even the most hardened state legislators to change their position, he said.

"I think states are moving in this direction. What we do at the center is, we provide the information and the research when there is a critical opportunity for change. Right now is a critical opportunity for change. State legislators are looking and saying, 'We don't want that to happen in our state.'"

Ukrainian soldiers uncover ancient amphorae while digging trenches


Officials believe the amphorae date to between the 3rd and 4th century, when Odessa was an ancient Roman settlement. Photo courtesy of the 126th Territorial Defense

May 17 (UPI) -- Ukrainian soldiers digging trenches in the city of Odessa in preparation for a Russian attack uncovered artifacts dating as far back as the 3rd century, the military announced.

Ukraine's 126th Brigade of Territorial Defense of Odessa unveiled the discovery May 11 in a Facebook post.

The archaeological find included multiple amphorae used to store liquid or dry goods. This style of amphora -- with a tall, bottle-necked shape -- was popular in ancient Roman, Greek and Byzantine settlements, ARTnews reported.

The items date to between the 3rd and 4th century at a time when Odessa was a Roman settlement known as Odessus, Heritage Daily reported.

Because of the dangerous nature of the war in Ukraine, archaeologists were unable to document the site of the finds. Instead, the brigade said it recovered the artifacts and handed them over to staff at the Odessa Archaeological Museum.

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, UNESCO estimates some 127 archaeological or culturally significant sites have sustained damage, including religious buildings, museums, historic buildings, monuments and libraries.

Second endangered cheetah cub dies in Iran: state media

A critically endangered Asiatic cheetah is seen in its enclosure at Pardisan Park in the

 Iranian capital Tehran in 2017. Just a dozen individuals are believed to survive in the wild.

The second of three Asiatic cheetah cubs born in captivity in Iran has died in a blow to conservation efforts for the critically endangered subspecies, state media reported Wednesday.

"The cause of death of the cub is being investigated and the result will be announced after the post mortem," environment department official Hassan Akbari told state news agency IRNA.

The announcement came just two weeks after a first cub from the litter died.

The cause of death was established as congenital malformation of the left lung, an environment department statement said.

The cubs were born in the Touran Wildlife Refuge by caesarean section on May 1, in what the department said was the first birth of an Asiatic cheetah in captivity.

The world's fastest land animal, capable of speeds of up to 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour, cheetahs once stalked habitats from the eastern borders of India to the Atlantic coast of Senegal.

They are still found in parts of southern Africa, but have practically disappeared from North Africa and Asia.

The Asiatic subspecies -– Acinonyx jubatus venaticus—is critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Iran is the last country in the world where the Asiatic cheetah can be found in the wild. Authorities launched a United Nations-supported protection programme in 2001.

In January, deputy environment minister Hassan Akbari said only a dozen individuals were left in the wild—down from an estimated 100 in 2010.

Their situation "is extremely critical", Akbari said, adding that animals had been lost to drought, hunters and car accidents.Rare birth of Asiatic cheetah cubs in Iran

© 2022 AFP

OH, SO IT WAS DELIBERATE THEN

Pentagon finds no fault in 2019 Syria airstrike that killed civilians

The Pentagon under U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that there was no need to reprimand anyone in response to a 2019 airstrike in Syria that resulted in the deaths of at least four civilians. Pool File Photo by Win McNamee/UPI | License Photo

May 17 (UPI) -- A U.S. Department of Defense investigation into dozens of people killed during a 2019 airstrike in Syria found no rules or laws were broken but a number of compliance deficiencies caused the initial reporting of the incident to be delayed.

A two-page executive summary of the report made public Tuesday states that no Rules of Engagement or Law of War violations occurred on March 18, 2019, when the U.S. military conducted an airstrike targeting ISIS militants in Baghuz, Syria.

The airstrike was conducted in support of ally Syrian Democratic Forces who had requested Coalition air support.

The investigation was launched in November with Michael Garrett, a four-star general of the Army's Forces Command, tapped to lead the probe by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after a report from The New York Times said 80 people including civilians were killed in the strike while alleging officials attempted to cover it up.

Garrett's report found that the strike killed 56 people, including 52 enemies and four civilians, one woman and three children, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters during a press conference Tuesday.

Of those labeled enemies, 51 were adult men and one was a child.

There were also 15 civilians wounded, including 11 women and four children, he said.

The report said U.S. ground forces commander "acted reasonably" and within the bounds of the law when he initiated the strike.

The officer received confirmation that no civilians were in the strike area before conducting the attack, the report said, adding that "[u]nbeknowst to the GFC, civilians were within the blast radius," resulting in deaths, it said.

"I found clear evidence that the GFC demonstrated awareness and concern for CIVCAS and took steps to mitigate harm," Garrett wrote in his summary.

Garrett said his review included additional information not available to the ground forces commander that showed he relied on data that was not "fully accurate" but that was "no fault of his own."

"In accordance with the [Law of War], the GFC's actions cannot be judged based on what we know now in hindsight, but only on the reasonableness of his decisions given the information known at the time," he said.

The report also found numerous policy deficiencies at multiple levels of command that led to delays in reporting the incident, which Garrett said contributed to the impression that the Pentagon was not treating it seriously and was not being transparent.

In a memo, Austin said he was "disappointed" that issues led to the original incident review missing deadlines and that the negative perception the department gave off could have been avoided by timely review and a clear explication of the situation surrounding the strike.

In response, he ordered several policy changes concerning reviews of civilian casualty incidents.

"Our efforts to mitigate and respond to civilian harm resulting from U.S. military operations are a direct reflection of U.S. values," he wrote.

Concerning why no one was held responsible for the civilian deaths and casualties, Kirby said Garrett did not see need for reprimands as he did no find anyone who acted outside the Law of War or with malicious intent.

He also added that Austin is holding the entire department accountable for the issues that affected the incident's reporting.

"In this case, Gen. Garrett found that the ground force commander made the best decisions that he could, given the information he had, at the time, given a very lethal, very aggressive ISIS threat in a very confined space," he said. "And it is deeply regrettable, we deeply regret, we apologize for the loss of innocent life that was taken in this particular strike."


"It matters to us," he said.

Los Angeles observatory evacuated as firefighters battle blaze


The Griffith observatory, opened in 1935, has appeared in many Hollywood films such as the James Dean movie "Rebel Without a Cause."

 (AFP/MARIO TAMA)

Tue, May 17, 2022, 5:14 PM·1 min read

A small fire broke out at a park in the heart of Los Angeles on Tuesday, causing officials to evacuate the city's historic Griffith Observatory.

Los Angeles Fire Department declared the four-acre blaze a "major emergency" and were tackling the flames from the ground and by air.

Park rangers were called in to ban hikers from trails in the area, which is popular with tourists and residents of the nearby upmarket Los Feliz neighborhood.

Griffith Park is a sprawling and rugged expanse of countryside criss-crossed by hiking and riding trails, home to Griffith Observatory as well as Los Angeles Zoo.

The landmark observatory, opened in 1935, is world-famous and has appeared in many Hollywood films such as the James Dean movie "Rebel Without a Cause."

The news evoked memories of a major fire in 2007 which ripped through 800 acres of the park before it was contained.

The cause of Tuesday's fire was not known, and no homes had been evacuated by mid-afternoon.

Wildfires are a natural phenomenon in the western United States, but their frequency and ferocity has increased in recent years as the planet warms.

Human behavior, including the unchecked burning of fossil fuels, is altering weather patterns, exacerbating droughts in some areas and generating unseasonal storms in others.

Southern California is in the grip of a multi-year drought.

In California, average temperatures during the summer are 1.6C higher than at the end of the 19th century.

amz/hg/jh

Global pollution kills 9 million people a year, study finds


- Smoke and steam rise from a coal processing plant in Hejin in central China's Shanxi Province on Nov. 28, 2019. A study released on Tuesday, May 17, 2022, blames pollution of all types for 9 million deaths a year globally, with the death toll attributed to dirty air from cars, trucks and industry rising 55% since 2000.

AP Photo/Sam McNeil

SETH BORENSTEIN
Tue, May 17, 2022,

A new study blames pollution of all types for 9 million deaths a year globally, with the death toll attributed to dirty air from cars, trucks and industry rising 55% since 2000.

That increase is offset by fewer pollution deaths from primitive indoor stoves and water contaminated with human and animal waste, so overall pollution deaths in 2019 are about the same as 2015.

The United States is the only fully industrialized country in the top 10 nations for total pollution deaths, ranking 7th with 142,883 deaths blamed on pollution in 2019, sandwiched between Bangladesh and Ethiopia, according to a new study in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health. Tuesday’s pre-pandemic study is based on calculations derived from the Global Burden of Disease database and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle. India and China lead the world in pollution deaths with nearly 2.4 million and almost 2.2 million deaths a year, but the two nations also have the world's largest populations.

When deaths are put on a per population rate, the United States ranks 31st from the bottom at 43.6 pollution deaths per 100,000. Chad and the Central African Republic rank the highest with rates about 300 pollution deaths per 100,000, more than half of them due to tainted water, while Brunei, Qatar and Iceland have the lowest pollution death rates ranging from 15 to 23. The global average is 117 pollution deaths per 100,000 people.




Pollution kills about the same number of people a year around the world as cigarette smoking and second-hand smoke combined, the study said.

“9 million deaths is a lot of deaths,” said Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Public Health Program and Global Pollution Observatory at Boston College.

“The bad news is that it’s not decreasing,” Landrigan said. “We’re making gains in the easy stuff and we’re seeing the more difficult stuff, which is the ambient (outdoor industrial) air pollution and the chemical pollution, still going up.”

It doesn’t have to be this way, researchers said.

“They are preventable deaths. Each and every one of them is a death that is unnecessary,” said Dr. Lynn Goldman, dean of the George Washington University School of Public Health, who wasn’t part of the study. She said the calculations made sense and if anything. was so conservative about what it attributed to pollution, that the real death toll is likely higher.

The certificates for these deaths don’t say pollution. They list heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, other lung issues and diabetes that are “tightly correlated” with pollution by numerous epidemiological studies, Landrigan said. To then put these together with actual deaths, researchers look at the number of deaths by cause, exposure to pollution weighted for various factors, and then complicated exposure response calculations derived by large epidemiological studies based on thousands of people over decades of study, he said. It’s the same way scientists can say cigarettes cause cancer and heart disease deaths.

“That cannon of information constitutes causality,” Landrigan said. “That’s how we do it.”

Five outside experts in public health and air pollution, including Goldman, told The Associated Press the study follows mainstream scientific thought. Dr. Renee Salas, an emergency room doctor and Harvard professor who wasn’t part of the study, said “the American Heart Association determined over a decade ago that exposure to (tiny pollution particles) like that generated from the burning of fossil fuels is causal for heart disease and death.”

“While people focus on decreasing their blood pressure and cholesterol, few recognize that the removal of air pollution is an important prescription to improve their heart health,” Salas said.

Three-quarters of the overall pollution deaths came from air pollution and the overwhelming part of that is “a combination of pollution from stationary sources like coal-fired power plants and steel mills on one hand and mobile sources like cars, trucks and buses. And it’s just a big global problem,” said Landrigan, a public health physician. “And it’s getting worse around the world as countries develop and cities grow.”

In New Delhi, India, air pollution peaks in the winter months and last year the city saw just two days when the air wasn’t considered polluted. It was the first time in four years that the city experienced a clean air day during the winter months.

That air pollution remains the leading cause of death in South Asia reconfirms what is already known, but the increase in these deaths means that toxic emissions from vehicles and energy generation is increasing, said Anumita Roychowdhury, a director at the advocacy group Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi.

“This data is a reminder of what is going wrong but also that it is an opportunity to fix it,” Roychowdhury said.

Pollution deaths are soaring in the poorest areas, experts said.

“This problem is worst in areas of the world where population is most dense (e.g. Asia) and where financial and government resources to address the pollution problem are limited and stretched thin to address a host of challenges including health care availability and diet as well as pollution,” said Dan Greenbaum, president of the Health Effects Institute, who wasn’t part of the study.

In 2000, industrial air pollution killed about 2.9 million people a year globally. By 2015 it was up to 4.2 million and in 2019 it was 4.5 million, the study said. Toss in household air pollution, mostly from inefficient primitive stoves, and air pollution killed 6.7 million people in 2019, the study found.

Lead pollution — some from lead additive which has been banned from gasoline in every country in the world and also from old paint, recycling batteries and other manufacturing — kills 900,000 people a year, while water pollution is responsible for 1.4 million deaths a year. Occupational health pollution adds another 870,000 deaths, the study said.

In the United States, about 20,000 people a year die from lead pollution-induced hypertension, heart disease and kidney disease, mostly as occupational hazards, Landrigan said. Lead and asbestos are America’s big chemical occupational hazards, and they kill about 65,000 people a year from pollution, he said. The study said the number of air pollution deaths in the United States in 2019 was 60,229, far more than deaths on American roads, which hit a 16-year peak of nearly 43,000 last year.

Modern types of pollution are rising in most countries, especially developing ones, but fell from 2000 to 2019 in the United States, the European Union and Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s numbers can’t quite be explained and may be a reporting issue, said study co-author Richard Fuller, founder of the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution and president of Pure Earth, a non-profit that works on pollution clean-up programs in about a dozen countries.

The study authors came up with eight recommendations to reduce pollution deaths, highlighting the need for better monitoring, better reporting and stronger government systems regulating industry and cars.

“We absolutely know how to solve each one of those problems,” Fuller said. “What’s missing is political will.”

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Aniruddha Ghosal contributed from New Delhi, India.

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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Pollution behind 1 in 6 global deaths in 2019: study

(AFP/Valentin RAKOVSKY)

Kelly MACNAMARA
Tue, May 17, 2022, 4:30 PM·4 min read

Pollution caused some 9 million people to die prematurely in 2019, according to a new global report published Wednesday, with experts raising alarm over increasing deaths from breathing outside air and the "horrifying" toll of lead poisoning.

Human-created waste in the air, water and soil rarely kills people immediately, but causes instead heart disease, cancer, respiratory problems, diarrhoea and other serious illnesses.

The Lancet Commission on pollution and health said the impact from pollution on global health remains "much greater than that of war, terrorism, malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, drugs and alcohol".

Pollution is an "existential threat to human health and planetary health, and jeopardises the sustainability of modern societies," it added.

In general, the review found, air pollution -- accounting for a total of 6.7 million deaths globally in 2019 -- was "entwined" with climate change because the main source of both problems is burning fossil fuels and biofuels.

"If we can't manage to grow in a clean and green way, we're doing something terribly wrong," said the report's lead author Richard Fuller, of the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution, adding that chemical pollution also harms biodiversity -- another major global threat.

"These things are terribly connected and strategies to deal with one have ripple effects all the way through," he said.

Overall, one in six premature deaths globally -- or nine million -- were caused by pollution, a figure unchanged since the last assessment in 2015.

Researchers noted a reduction in mortality linked to indoor air pollution, unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation, with major improvements seen in Africa.

But early deaths associated with industrialisation -- outdoor air and chemical pollution -- are on the rise, particularly in southern and eastern Asia.

Ambient air pollution caused some 4.5 million deaths in 2019, according to the study, published in Lancet Planetary Health, compared with 4.2 million in 2015 and just 2.9 million in 2000.

Chemical pollution is also increasing, with lead poisoning alone causing 900,000 deaths. Even that, the report warned, is likely a "substantial undercount" in light of new research suggesting there is no safe level of exposure.

- Harmful to children -

Algeria banned lead in petrol in 2021, the last country to do so.

But people continue to be exposed to the toxic substance, largely due to unregulated recycling of lead-acid batteries and e-waste. Contaminated culinary spices are also a culprit.

"The fact that lead is getting worse, mostly in poorer countries, and ramping up in terms of the number of deaths, is horrifying," said Fuller.

Heart disease is the cause of almost all early deaths from exposure to lead, which hardens arteries, said Fuller.

But elevated lead levels in blood -- estimated to affect hundreds of millions of children -- also harm brain development and are linked to serious losses of cognitive function.

The report said lead is also linked to a spike in behavioural disorders and diminished economic productivity, with global economic losses estimated at almost $1 trillion annually.

In Africa, economic losses from lead-related IQ loss are equivalent to about four percent of gross domestic product, while in Asia it amounts to two percent.

- Silent killer -

Overall, excess deaths due to pollution have led to economic losses totalling $4.6 trillion in 2019, or around six percent of global economic output, researchers said.

Low- and middle-income countries are by far the most affected, with more than 90 percent of deaths in these regions.

There is also increasing evidence of pollution crossing national boundaries in wind, water and the food chain.

Wealthier nations that have reduced domestic outdoor air pollution effectively "displace" it overseas to countries with higher levels of manufacturing, the report said.

Prevailing global winds transport air pollution from east Asia to North America, from North America to Europe, and from Europe to the Arctic and central Asia.

Meanwhile, cereals, seafood, chocolate and vegetables produced for export in developing countries can be contaminated as a result of soil and water polluted with lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury and pesticides.

This "increasingly threatens global food safety", the report said, adding that "toxic metals found in infant formula and baby foods are of particular concern."

Fuller said the threat of pollution -- particularly air and lead pollution -- is underappreciated, with more attention focused on the health implications of microplastics.

"We can show a million people dying from lead pollution right now -- more than die from malaria, more than die from HIV -- and that's not even discussed," he said.

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