Japan turns back to nuclear power to tackle energy crisis

An aerial view shows the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following a strong earthquake, in Okuma town
1
Fri, December 16, 2022

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan confirmed a major nuclear power policy shift on Friday to tackle an energy crisis more than a decade after the 2011 Fukushima disaster prompted it to idle most of its reactors.

Public opinion has been hostile towards nuclear energy since a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, but the mood has shifted due to soaring energy costs amid the prolonged war in Ukraine and repeated power crunches in both summer and winter.

Quake-prone Japan, which previously said it had no plans to build new reactors, will now seek to replace decomissioned ones and extend the lifespan of others, the industry ministry said.

The stark policy turnaround comes after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in August that Japan would look at developing next-generation reactors, instructing the industry ministry to set up a policy plan to widen use of nuclear energy by the end of this year.

Governments across Europe and Asia are also extending the life of their aging nuclear fleets, restarting reactors and dusting off plans to resume projects shelved after the Fukushima disaster.

Under a strategic energy plan approved by the Cabinet last year, Japan aimed to reduce its dependence on nuclear power as much as possible.

But the new policy, which was approved by an expert panel under the industry ministry on Friday, would allow existing nuclear reactors to operate beyond the current limit of 60 years as well as support the development of new ones.

Further details will be discussed in parliament next year, an official at the industry ministry said.

In the financial year to March 2021, nuclear accounted for 3.9% of Japan's power mix, with the government aiming to boost it to as much as 22% by 2030.

(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi and Miho Uranaka; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Contested natural gas pipeline granted permanent certificate

Thu, December 15, 2022 

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Federal officials on Thursday granted Spire Inc. a permanent certificate to operate a natural gas pipeline in Missouri and Illinois, angering the environmental group that had sued over the project.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission first granted approval for the Spire STL Pipeline in 2018 and it became fully operational in 2019. It connects with another pipeline in western Illinois and carries natural gas to the St. Louis region, where Spire serves around 650,000 customers.

But the Environmental Defense Fund sued in 2020, raising concerns that the pipeline was approved without adequate review. Last year, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that FERC had not adequately demonstrated a need for the project, vacating approval of the pipeline.

For the past year, the pipeline had been operating under a temporary certificate while FERC conducted a court-ordered review.

Scott Smith, president of the Spire STL Pipeline, said in a statement that he was pleased with the decision. He described the review the project underwent as “thorough."

But Ted Kelly, an Environmental Defense Fund attorney, disagreed, saying that FERC had “again failed to fulfill its obligation," alleging that some landowners, ratepayers and stakeholders were shut out of the review.

He said that FERC should reverse its decision to grant the permanent certificate and reopen the process with a temporary certificate in place so there is no disruption in service.

Common process by which people get pregnant is in legal jeopardy. Some Democrats want to legally protect IVF

Trevor Hughes and Christine Fernando, USA TODAY

Thu, December 15, 2022 

Democratic senators are trying to legally protect the right to use in vitro fertilization after the fall of Roe v. Wade not only ended the constitutional right to abortion but also threw into question the fate of IVF.

Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Patty Murray, along with Rep. Susan Wild, are introducing the new legislation, called the Right to Build Families Act of 2022.

Murray told USA TODAY she hopes the legislation "absolutely makes it clear in this country that IVF is protected so everyone is able to have their family."

IVF has become a commonly-used process by which people get pregnant, and about 2% of all babies born in the U.S. are conceived through IVF or another form of assisted reproductive therapy.

PREVIOUSLY: Medication abortion may be the next focal point in the fight over abortion access. Here's what to know.

FACT CHECK: Planned Parenthood parody account shared tweet promoting 'white privilege' donations

What to know about IVF

• It's commonly used: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, IVF is responsible for about 84,000 babies annually, including those born to military families who wanted to delay pregnancy during deployments or people undergoing cancer treatments.

• It's in legal jeopardy: Some state-level abortion bans or proposals contain no exceptions for IVF, including the process by which eggs are harvested and then fertilized in a laboratory.

• Experts worried: Some IVF experts say strict bans on abortion could curtail the use of IVF through a variety of avenues, from the potential removal of a failed implanted embryo to the fate of unused embryos left over from the process.

• Many embryos in storage: The Department of Health and Human Services estimated in 2020 that there were at least 600,000 frozen embryos in storage nationally.

What is the Right to Build Families Act of 2022?

The Right to Build Families Act of 2022 bans any limits on seeking or receiving assisted reproductive therapy, according to a summary of the bill shared with USA TODAY by Duckworth and Murray's offices.

Assisted reproductive technology, also called ART, includes fertility treatments such as IVF.

The bill also protects health care providers who offer assisted reproductive technology and related counseling and allows the Department of Justice to pursue civil action against states that violate the bill by limiting access to it.

Supporters of Right to Build Families Act say it's necessary

Duckworth said abortion rights groups had been warning for years that anti-abortion activists would not stop at banning abortion and would also seek to limit access to contraception and restrict the use of assisted reproductive technology.

She said comments from leading anti-abortion groups in Texas demonstrate that agenda in the wake of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

"There is this outright push to basically get rid of IVF, just as there is a push to get rid of contraception," said Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois. "People thought that the Dobbs decision was about abortion. It's about your privacy rights to bodily autonomy."

Duckworth open about personal journey with IVF

Duckworth conceived two daughters via IVF and made history in 2018 when she became the first sitting U.S. senator to cast a vote while accompanied by a child, then-10-day-old Maile Pearl. Two years later, Duckworth opposed the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the grounds that the judge had previously supported the work of an anti-abortion group that considered some aspects of IVF to be manslaughter.

Murray said many people may not be aware of the threats against IVF post-Roe. But in a hearing after the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Murray said IVF providers "have serious concerns about whether parents and providers could be punished if an embryo doesn’t survive being thawed for implantation, or for disposing unused embryos."

MIDTERMS: Abortion rights were on midterm ballots in several states. Here's what voters decided.

WATCH: President Biden marks 100 days since Dobbs decision, calls out 'extremist' abortion laws

"This is such an important issue for so many families in our country who today, because of the medical care we can provide, have the ability to have a family when they may not have many years ago," she told USA TODAY on Tuesday. "That is now under threat because of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and decisions in state courts across the country that may now impact their ability to have a child."

Why does IVF access matter?

Without a federal mandate to protect IVF, states could be free to ban it using some of the same justifications as abortion.

Rebecca Parma, the senior legislative associate with the anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life, said anti-abortion advocates will eventually push for embryos to be considered human, regardless if they are inside a uterus or in cryo-storage.

“Ultimately, we believe that all human life is valuable and deserves our legal protection from that beginning moment of fertilization, whether that occurs through normal means or through IVF," Parma told Spectrum News 1 this summer. "And so certainly we want those embryos who are created through the IVF process protected."

Duckworth said many of her Republican colleagues have previously supported mandating the Department of Veterans Affairs to pay for IVF and other assisted reproductive technology.

"It is one thing to say that you're anti-choice, and you're against abortion," she said. "But it's another thing to be on the record being against the right of people to start families."

Want to know more?

WITHOUT ROE, WHAT HAPPENS TO IVF?: People struggling to conceive worry embryos are at risk

'IT WAS REALLY HARD': Jennifer Aniston reveals journey with IVF, trying to get pregnant

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Senate Democrats move to protect IVF with Right to Build Families Act

HUMAN RIGHTS TRUMP RELIGIOUS RITES

Yeshiva University must recognize LGBTQ club, New York appeals court rules

Thu, December 15, 2022 
By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) - A New York appeals court on Thursday ruled that Yeshiva University must formally recognize an LGBTQ student group, rejecting the Jewish school's claims that doing so would violate its religious rights and values.

The ruling by the Appellate Division in Manhattan marked the latest setback for the university in its fight to avoid recognizing Y.U. Pride Alliance in a case that conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices have signaled interest in reviewing.

The court upheld a judge's ruling that the school did not qualify as a "religious corporation," which would exempt it from prohibitions against discrimination by a place or provider of public accommodation under the New York City Human Rights Law.

That law bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, religion, race, gender, age, national origin and some other factors.

The unanimous four-judge panel also said requiring Yeshiva to recognize the club did not violate its rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment to the free exercise of religion, saying the law was "neutral and generally applicable."

Katie Rosenfeld, a lawyer for Y.U. Pride Alliance, in a statement said the ruling affirmed that the school "cannot discriminate against its LGBTQ+ students by continuing its refusal to recognize the YU Pride Alliance."

Yeshiva, a Modern Orthodox Jewish university based in Manhattan, in a statement said it would "continue on appeal to defend against the claim that we are not a religious institution."

YU Pride Alliance agreed in September to hold off on forcing Yeshiva to recognize it while the school pursued its appeals after the school briefly halted all student club activities.

It did so after the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision earlier that month declined to block the New York judge's June ruling requiring it to recognize the club.

Four conservative justices dissented including Justice Samuel Alito, who said Yeshiva's First Amendment rights appeared to be violated and that the court would likely take the case up if Yeshiva lost its lower-court appeals.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Stephen Coates)

B FOR BOONDOOGLE

Wild video shows F-35B jet crashing and skidding in botched vertical landing, forcing the pilot to eject

Sophia Ankel

Fri, December 16, 2022 

A Marine F-35B joint strike fighter hovers over the runway as it descends toward the ground during the first short take-off and vertical landing mission at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Oct. 25, 2013.U.S. Air Force photo/Samuel King Jr.

• A video showed a fighter jet crash landing at a military base in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday.

• The pilot was forced to eject from the F-35B aircraft after it spun out of control.

• The pilot landed without injury, CBS News reported.

Video showed a US pilot ejecting from an F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter jet that crashed during the aircraft's trademark vertical landing at a naval base in Texas.

The plane was landing at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth on Thursday when things went wrong.

The video, published by CBS reporter Doug Dunbar, shows the aircraft bouncing on the tarmac before its nose leans forward and its back wheels lift up unexpectedly. The jet then begins to spin around on its nose.

The jet continues to spin, then rights itself as the pilot is seen ejecting from the aircraft with a parachute trailing amid plumes of smoke.

The pilot landed without injury, CBS News reported.

The F-35B is a short take-off/vertical landing variant built for operations from aircraft carriers with ramps, amphibious assault ships, and airfields with limited runways.

It is built differently from the F-35A, armed with a cannon, and the F-35C, equipped with the tools for carrier launch and recovery.

The F-35B achieved initial operating capability in 2015 and first flew combat missions in 2018. It is unclear exactly what caused the problem with this particular vertical landing Thursday.

Pentagon press secretary Gen. Pat Ryder said Thursday that the jet was still under the ownership of its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, and had not yet been handed over to the US military. The aircraft, however, was being flown by a "US government pilot" at the time of the crash, he said. This is not uncommon during testing.

In a statement provided to multiple outlets, Lockheed Martin said: "We are aware of the F-35B crash on the shared runway at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth and understand that the pilot ejected successfully. Safety is our priority, and we will follow appropriate investigation protocol."

Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The F-35 program is among the most expensive weapons programs in the world.

But the advanced fifth-generation fighter has faced setbacks over the course of its development, including crashes involving both the US military and foreign partners, though not all were caused by problems with the plane.

The first F-35 crash involved a US Marine Corps F-35B that went down in 2018 outside Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina due to a problem with the fuel tube. The next year, a Japanese F-35A crashed into the sea; however, the crash was attributed to pilot error.

2020 saw a US Air Force F-35A crashed at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida due to a mixture of pilot error and issues with the aircraft, and a Marine Corps F-35B crashed in Florida after colliding with a tanker plane.

The following year, a Marine F-35B damaged itself after a round fired from the jet's gun pod exploded close to the aircraft, throwing shrapnel into the plane, and then another F-35B operating off the British Royal Navy carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth crashed into the Mediterranean.

Following an emergency belly landing by a South Korean F-35 in early 2022, a US Navy F-35C crashed on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, caught fire, and slid into the South China Sea. This year also saw an Air Force F-35A crash on the runway at Hill Air Force Base, and then there was the latest crash in Texas.

German FM to personally return 20 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria


Benin bronzes are being packed for return to Nigeria at the Ethnological Museum Dahlem in Berlin on Dec. 6, 2022. Germany's foreign minister will personally take 20 artifacts looted by Europeans during colonial times back to Nigeria when she visits to Africa's most populous country next week, her spokesman said Friday. The symbolic gesture follows an agreement earlier this year between Berlin and Abuja that will see all 514 so-called Benin Bronzes held in German museums handed back to Nigeria. (Wolfgang Kumm/dpa via AP)

Fri, December 16, 2022 

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's foreign minister will personally take 20 artifacts looted by Europeans during colonial times back to Nigeria when she visits to Africa's most populous country next week, her spokesman said Friday.

The symbolic gesture follows an agreement earlier this year between Berlin and Abuja that will see all 514 so-called Benin Bronzes held in German museums handed back to Nigeria.

“With her trip Foreign Minister (Annalena) Baerbock is fulfilling this pledge," her spokesman Christofer Burger told reporters in Berlin.

Baerbock, who departs for Abuja on Sunday, will be accompanied by representatives from the German museums with the biggest collections of Benin Bronzes.

“It shows how serious Germany is about working through its colonial history,” Burger said.

The bronzes were among a vast trove of treasures stolen in 1897 by a British colonial expedition from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now southwestern Nigeria.

The objects, including numerous bas-reliefs and other sculptures, later found their way to collections around Europe, including the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. It has one of the world’s largest groups of historical objects from the Kingdom of Benin, many dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

As part of the agreement, Nigeria will regain ownership of the bronzes but loan scores of them to German museums, ensuring that some can remain on display in Berlin and elsewhere.

Museums in France and the United States have also begun a process of handing back items looted from Africa during colonial times.

Obesity was long considered a personal failing. Science shows it's not.

Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY
Fri, December 16, 2022 

More than 70% of Americans are now considered overweight

 and 42% meet the criteria for having obesity.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of a six-part USA TODAY series examining America’s obesity epidemic.

Barbara Hiebel carries 137 pounds on her 5-foot-11 frame. Most of her life she weighed 200 pounds more.

For decades she tried every diet that came along. With each failure to lose the extra weight or keep it off, her shame magnified.

In 2009, Hiebel opted for gastric bypass surgery because she had "nothing left in the gas tank" to keep fighting. She quickly dropped 200 pounds and felt better than she had in ages.

Over the next eight years though, 70 pounds crept back, and the shame returned.

"I knew everything to do to lose weight. I could teach the classes," said Hiebel, 65, a retired marketing professional from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She asked to be identified by her first and maiden name because of the sensitivity and judgment surrounding obesity. "I'm not a stupid person. I just couldn't do it."

Barbara Hiebel has tried every diet, surgery and now medication; she’s down 200 pounds from her heaviest.

The vast majority of people find it almost impossible to lose substantial weight and keep it off.

Medicine no longer sees this as a personal failing. In recent years, faced with reams of scientific evidence, the medical community has begun to stop blaming patients for not losing excess pounds.

Still, there's a lot at stake.

Rethinking Obesity

Despite decades fighting America's obesity epidemic, it's only gotten worse. To try to understand why, USA TODAY spoke with more than 50 experts for this six-part series, which explores emerging science and evolving attitudes toward excess weight.

Obesity increases the risk for about 200 diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, asthma, hypertension, arthritis, sleep apnea and many types of cancer. Obesity was a risk factor in nearly 12% of U.S. deaths in 2019.

Even for COVID-19, carrying substantial extra weight triples the likelihood of severe disease.

Early in the pandemic, pictures from intensive care units repeatedly showed large people fighting for their lives. At Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, the average age for ICU patients was 72 if their weight was in the "normal" range and just 58 if they fit the medical definition for having obesity, said Dr. Louis Aronne, an obesity medicine specialist there.

As fat cells expand, the body produces inflammatory hormones. Combined with COVID-19, the inflammation creates a biological storm that damages people's organs and leads to uncontrolled blood clotting, Aronne said.

The link between obesity and severe COVID-19 is surprisingly strong, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has dedicated his life to combating infectious diseases.

"The data were so strong," Fauci said of a recent government study. Even for children, every increase in body mass index led to a greater risk of infection with COVID-19 and for a dangerous case of the viral illness.

"The more you learn about the deleterious consequences of obesity, the more reason and impetus you have to seriously address the problem," Fauci said.

But despite more than 40 years of diets and workouts, billions of dollars spent on weight loss programs and medical care, and tens of millions of personal struggles like Hiebel's, the obesity epidemic has only gotten worse. Nearly three-quarters of Americans are now considered overweight, and more than 4 in 10 meet the criteria for having obesity.

To try to understand why, USA TODAY spoke with more than 50 nutrition and obesity experts, endocrinologists, pediatricians, social scientists, activists and people who have fought extra pounds. The reporting resulted in a six-part series, which explores emerging science and evolving attitudes toward excess weight.

The experts pointed to an array of compounding forces. Social stigma. Economics. Stress. Ultra-processed food. The biological challenges of losing weight.

They agree people need to take responsibility for eating as well as they can, for staying fit, for sleeping enough. But simply promoting individual change won't end the obesity epidemic – just as it hasn't for decades.

It's time to rethink obesity, they said.

Experts offered different ideas to change the trajectory.

Subsidize healthy food. Make ultra-processed foods healthier or scarcer. Teach kids to better care for their bodies. Provide insurance for prevention instead of just the consequences. Personalize weight loss programs to support, not stigmatize. Learn what makes fat unhealthy in some people and not in others.

Dr. Sarah Kim

For real progress to come, they agreed, society must stop blaming people for a medical condition that is beyond their control. And people must stop blaming themselves.

"There's a lot of misperception among patients that they can somehow 'behavior' their way out of this – if they just had enough willpower and they just decided they were finally going to change their ways, they could do it," said Dr. Sarah Kim, an endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

For the vast majority, trying to will or work themselves to thinness is just a prescription for misery, she said.

"There's so much suffering associated with weight that is just so unnecessary."
Origin story

Like many people who struggle with weight, Hiebel has a family tree that includes others with extra pounds. Her mother was heavy, as were other female relatives.

In childhood, Hiebel simply loved food. It gave her pleasure. A buzz.

In fourth grade, her mother brought up her weight with the pediatrician. He prescribed amphetamines.

"I was a fat kid who always wanted to be skinny," Hiebel said. "My whole life. I wanted to be healthy. Thinner."

She blamed herself. For not pushing away from the table sooner. For enjoying what she ate. For the thoughts about food that popped into her head every 30 seconds all day long. For not being able to throw away the plate of cake until she had devoured every bite.

Even though she was trained as a nurse, Hiebel, was petrified of getting medical care. "I spent 50 years largely avoiding doctors because they're going to weigh me," she said.

People who experience and internalize weight stigma are more likely to avoid health care and report lower quality of medical care, research shows.

Many fear the waiting room won't have chairs strong enough to support their weight. They won't fit on the examining table. The doctor will mock or criticize them for being overweight without offering realistic advice for how to lose their extra pounds.

Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford

"We treat them as if we obviously don't care because obesity must be their fault," said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. "We just tell them to eat less and exercise more, and when that fails, as it does 95% of the time, we don't do anything about it."

And people with obesity continue to punish themselves. Stanford tells a story about a patient whose weight kept climbing even after being prescribed medications that are usually effective.

The woman confessed she wasn't taking the prescription because she hadn't tried hard enough to lose weight on her own and didn't deserve it. "I only do 15,000 steps a day," the woman told Stanford. "I feel like I should be doing 20,000."

Stanford ended up persuading her to take the medication. She explained that if someone had a disability weakening their legs, it wouldn't be a failure for them to use a wheelchair.

Compassionate care

Hiebel had excellent insurance coverage, but she remembers overhearing her internist arguing with the insurance company to get her weight loss surgery covered. She was required to try Weight Watchers for at least six months and a second weight loss program for another six months, although data shows the vast majority of people can't lose substantial weight and keep it off.

It felt as if the whole insurance industry was telling her she was guilty for being fat.

Shame and embarrassment led Hiebel to avoid seeking help when she started regaining weight after the surgery. "People did all this work on you. You spent all this time and energy and you're failing yet again," she said.

But she didn't want to let all her progress fall apart. She eventually went back to her surgeon.

He told her to make an appointment with Dr. Katherine Saunders at Weill Cornell – and to wait as long as was necessary to see her.

When Hiebel eventually found herself in Saunders' office, she heard for the first time in her life the words: "This is not your fault."

"In my head, I'm going, 'Of course it's my fault. I'm weak. I've got no willpower,'" Hiebel said.

Saunders told her weight loss would take hard work. Her body was conspiring against her to keep on the pounds. The free snacks in her office break room would be a constant temptation.

She offered Hiebel some new tools, including medication to address metabolic issues and her mental state.

With other weight loss doctors, Hiebel felt embarrassed to return for another appointment until she had lost 10 pounds. That often meant never going back. But Saunders told Hiebel to call immediately if she started to struggle.

"She was inoculating me against that from the beginning," Hiebel said. "'This isn't your fault. I can help. And if you get into trouble, don't do what you would normally do and actually call me.'"

The medication gave Hiebel some stomach problems. Saunders warned her that might happen and told her to tough it out for a few weeks. They would adjust the dosage or prescription if it got too bad.

Hiebel's pounds started melting off. She felt great.

Then, for two days, Hiebel found herself repeatedly standing in front of her pantry. "Just looking," she said. "I'd grab a cracker or shut the door. But you keep going back."

Without noticing, she had missed two daily doses of Contrave, a prescription weight loss pill that also helps with mood disorders. Hiebel resumed taking the pills, and her pantry-gazing ended. "I went back to my normal habits almost overnight. Literally."

That's when she realized the power of the medications – and of the drive she carried within her.

"I always felt controlled by food," she said. "Everything was about not eating."

But the metabolic changes from the surgery and the boost from the medications finally changed that dynamic. Raw cookie dough, once her "fifth major food group," lost its grip on her mind. "I kind of don't really want it," she said.

She can throw away a piece of cake after just a few bites, even leaving behind the icing. "Now I'm that person," Hiebel said, "not because I somehow have the willpower, but because I don't really want it.

"I feel liberated around food."

Easy to gain, hard to lose

Weight gain may be as simple as consuming more calories than you burn, but weight loss isn't as simple as burning more calories than you eat.

The human body evolved over tens of thousands of years to hold on to excess calories through fat.

"The default is to promote eating. It's very simple, very logical. If it were not this way, you would die after you're born," said Tamas Horvath, a neuroscientist at the Yale School of Medicine. "When you live out in the wild, you need to be driven to find food, otherwise you're going to miss out on life."

Severe calorie restriction is dangerous, said Horvath, who, with his colleague Joseph Schlessinger, has been studying the brain wiring that drives hunger.

In a study of mice whose calories were severely restricted, one-third lost weight and lived longer, as the experiment set out to prove, Horvath said. But nothing happened to another third. The remainder died young.

"When you engage in such behavior, you are basically playing Russian roulette," he said.

Restricting calories seems to slow metabolism, meaning the body needs less fuel. "You have to keep restricting more and more to keep losing weight," said Dr. David Ludwig, an endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Children's Hospital. "This is a battle between mind and metabolism that most people don't win."

Genetics play a role, too. Some people seem destined from birth to be thin, like everyone else in their family.

Only about a quarter of the population, those with a genetic gift for thinness, seem to escape extra pounds in today's food climate. Even these lucky few can develop the same metabolic problems seen with obesity, becoming "thin outside, fat inside," according to Jose Ordovas, a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

And everybody doesn't gain the same amount of weight from overeating.

A 1990 study showed that a group of identical twin men fed an additional 1,000 calories a day for three months led some to gain roughly 10 pounds and others to gain 30. The twin pairs varied substantially from each other in how much weight they gained and where, but each twin responded nearly the same as his brother.

Overeating can distort the nerves in the brain that receive signals from hormones, said Aronne, at Weill Cornell.

"As you get more damage there, fewer hormonal signals are able to get through and tell your brain how much you've eaten and how much fat is stored," he said. "As a result, your body keeps expanding your fat mass."

Exercise doesn't lead to weight loss either. "You can't easily exercise off obesity," said Marion Nestle, an emerita professor of nutrition and food science at New York University.

Still, experts agree that regular exercise is crucial to health at any size. And it may help prevent weight gain and regain.

"The Biggest Loser" TV show ran on NBC for 17 seasons, following participants as they lost weight through diet and exercise. In 2016, Kevin Hall, a National Institutes of Health researcher, examined what had happened to 14 of the 16 contestants from the 2009 season.

All but one regained some or all of their lost weight, Hall found. But the contestants who remained the most physically active kept off the most weight, he reported in a 2017 analysis of the results.

"The benefits of exercise when it comes to weight don't seem to show up so much while people are actively losing weight," he said, "but in keeping weight off over the long term."

Adequate sleep also is essential for maintaining a healthy body weight and can help with weight loss, studies show.

To accomplish everything she wanted to do in a day, Hiebel often limited her sleep to five to six hours a night. Her solution to the resulting exhaustion was to snack. She remembers frequent coffee and cookie breaks, "as self-defeating as that is."

Many people make the same decision to sleep less – and end up eating more.

In a study published earlier this year, people who had extra weight but not obesity were encouraged to sleep 1.2 hours more a night for two weeks. They ended up consuming 270 calories less a day than the volunteers who slept their typical 6½ hours or less a night.

"It's about sufficient sleep making you feel less hungry, making you want to consume fewer calories," said Dr. Esra Tasali, who led the study and directs the UChicago Sleep Center. "Basically not eating the extra chocolate bar."
Growing hope

Even though she knows how to work the system from her years in the insurance industry, Hiebel is struggling again to get her medication covered by insurance.

She may have to switch to two low-cost generics, provided at the wrong dose. "I'm going to have to cut a pill into fourths with a razor blade," she said. "It's ridiculous."

But Heibel will do what she must to keep off the extra weight.

She feels healthier without those pounds. She used to dread the hills she faced on hikes with her husband. After losing weight, she barely notices them.

Barbara Hiebel wants to share her story of weight loss, so others know there's hope.

"We're not talking about Everest," she said. "I'm not running marathons, but I can do this stuff and I don't huff and puff."

Before she started weight loss medications, she was heading into pre-diabetes. She had borderline high cholesterol and was managing hypertension. Now, her LDL and HDL hover around 70; 60 to 100 is considered optimal.

Just knowing it was possible to break food's grip on her life, that there was hope, was transformative.

Hiebel wants to talk publicly about her story, about the shame she endured for decades, because she wants others to know it's not their fault and help is out there.

The incident with the Contrave made her realize she'll probably need to take a constellation of medications forever. And they still give her a rumbly tummy sometimes.

It's a small price to pay, she said, "to do something that for 50 years I wasn't able to do."

"I'm happy as a clam, and I'm not looking back."

Contact Karen Weintraub at kweintraub@usatoday.com.

Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Obesity rate in America: Overweight people are blamed despite research

Texas Republicans Want Even More Fossil Fuels on the Grid

Molly Taft
Fri, December 16, 2022 


Texas Republicans are messing with the state’s grid to fulfill their political ambitions. Again.

Ahead of the 2023 legislative session, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has made it clear that one of his priorities for the upcoming year is increasing natural gas production to, supposedly, stabilize the grid. Patrick has told multiple media outlets in recent weeks that he will push this spring for the legislature to form a plan to build more natural gas plants—potentially forcing renewables providers to help foot the bill.

“We still need more power. We just have to do that. We have plenty of cheap, natural gas under the ground,” he said in an interview with KXXV this week as he discussed the reforms to the Texas grid . “Renewables are fine. They help the environment, help lower the cost of energy, but we don’t have enough dispatchable power. That means when we turn on the light switch, the lights come on. When you turn on your AC or furnace, it comes on because it’s reliable.”

There are some real conversations to be had around making sure the grid is reliable and has enough baseload power for when wind and solar aren’t available. Unfortunately, legislation that simply mandates more production—especially any legislation proposed by those with a vested interest in promoting oil and gas interests—far oversimplifies the issues that are facing the state’s grid.

Texas’s grid failed during a winter storm in February 2021 that caused widespread blackouts and hundreds of deaths. The cause of the blackouts was multifold and included equipment unprepared for freezing temperatures and the failure of natural gas infrastructure. However, in the nearly two years since the storm, Governor Greg Abbott’s leadership has taken every opportunity to blame renewables for the grid’s failure—including helping to spread false rumors that frozen wind turbines were responsible for the blackouts. (Some of these efforts were encouraged by fossil fuel interests.)

Patrick, in particular, has a history of trying to use the legislature to tie the hands of renewables and promote fossil fuels. After the storm, during the last legislative session (the Texas Legislature meets once every other year) he backed a bill that would have imposed new fees on wind and solar energy. While that bill failed to pass, Patrick also (successfully) pitched a bill that prohibits Texas from doing business with companies that “boycott” the oil and gas industry, which inspired a series of similar bills in other states.

At the same time that Patrick is pitching this yes-more-gas approach, the folks actually in charge of the grid are trying to make some major decisions to avoid future disasters. The state’s Public Utility Commission suggested a new proposal to make serious changes to the grid that would mandate power providers buy credits as a way to ensure power during peak demand; this plan, as E&E News reported this week, “would favor thermal plants fueled by natural gas, coal and nuclear energy.” But there are lots of questions around the feasibility of this plan: A bipartisan set of lawmakers sent a letter to the PUC expressing concerns around the proposal.

And all of this is happening as renewables are, for lack of a better word, thriving in Texas. The International Energy Agency this month predicted that wind and solar will make up the largest share of electricity in the state next year, pushing natural gas use down. Legislation or policies that actively punish renewables generation could do serious damage to cheap and clean sources of energy.

The challenges facing Texas’s grid are complex and don’t boil down to some sort of battle between fossil fuels and renewables; it will take careful considerations and major policy decisions to tackle its problems. Unfortunately, Republican lawmakers like Patrick have proven time and again that they are determined to politicize these conversations—to paint fossil fuels as good and renewables as bad—and gloss over the details in favor of helping out their fossil fuel funders.

'It could happen tomorrow': Experts know disaster upon disaster looms for West Coast

Joel Shannon, USA TODAY
Fri, December 16, 2022

Brown pelicans fly in front of the San Francisco skyline Aug 17, 2018.

It's the elevators that worry earthquake engineering expert Keith Porter the most.

Scientists say a massive quake could strike the San Francisco Bay Area at any moment. And when it does, the city can expect to be slammed with a force equal to hundreds of atomic bombs.

Porter said the shaking will quickly cut off power in many areas. That means unsuspecting people will be trapped between floors in elevators without backup power. At peak commute times, the number of those trapped could be in the thousands.

To escape, the survivors of the initial quake will need the help of firefighters with specialized training and tools.

But their rescuers won't come – at least not right away. Firefighters will be battling infernos that could outnumber the region's fire engines.

Running water will be in short supply. Cellphone service may not work at all. The aftershocks will keep coming.

And the electricity could remain off for weeks.

"That means people are dead in those elevators,” Porter said.
'Problems on the horizon'

The situation Porter described comes from his work on the HayWired Scenario, a detailed look at the cascading calamities that will occur when a major earthquake strikes the Bay Area's Hayward Fault, including the possibility of widespread power outages that will strand elevators.

The disaster remains theoretical for now. But the United States Geological Survey estimates a 51% chance that a quake as big as the one described in HayWired will occur in the region within three decades.

It's one of several West Coast disasters so likely that researchers have prepared painstakingly detailed scenarios in an attempt to ready themselves.

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The experts who worked on the projects are highly confident the West Coast could at any moment face disasters with the destructive power to kill hundreds or thousands of people and forever change the lives of millions more. They also say there's more that can be done to keep individuals – and society – safer.

"We’re trying to have an earthquake without having one,” Anne Wein told USA TODAY. Wein is a USGS researcher who co-leads the HayWired earthquake scenario and has worked on several other similar projects.

Such disaster scenarios are massive undertakings that bring together experts from various fields who otherwise would have little reason to work together – seismologists, engineers, emergency responders and social scientists.

That's important because "it's difficult to make new relationships in a crisis," Wein said.

Similar projects aimed at simulating a future disaster have turned out to be hauntingly accurate.

The Hurricane Pam scenario foretold many of the devastating consequences of a major hurricane striking New Orleans well before Hurricane Katrina hit the city.

More recently, in 2017, the authors of “The SPARS Pandemic” called their disaster scenario “futuristic.” But now the project now reads like a prophecy of COVID-19. Johns Hopkins University even issued a statement saying the 89-page document was not intended as a prediction of COVID-19.

“The SPARS Pandemic” imagined a future where a deadly novel coronavirus spread around the world, often without symptoms, as disinformation and vaccine hesitancy constantly confounded experts’ efforts to keep people safe.

The “SPARS scenario, which is fiction, was meant to give public health communicators a leg up … Think through problems on the horizon,” author Monica Schoch-Spana told USA TODAY.

At the time that SPARS was written, a global pandemic was thought of in much the same way experts currently describe the HayWired earthquake: an imminent catastrophe that could arrive at any time.

'It could happen tomorrow'

Disaster scenario researchers each have their own way of describing how likely the apocalyptic futures they foresee are.

"The probability (of) this earthquake is 100%, if you give me enough time," seismologist Lucy Jones will often say.

Earthquakes occurring along major faults are a certainty, but scientists can't predict exactly when earthquakes will happen – the underground forces that create them are too random and chaotic. But researchers know a lot about what will happen once the earth begins to shake.

Earthquakes like HayWired are “worth planning for," Porter said. Because “it could happen tomorrow.”

“We don’t know when,” Porter said. But "it will happen."

Wein says we're “overdue for preparedness.” You might say we're also overdue for a major West Coast disaster.

The kind of earthquake described in HayWired historically occurs every 100-220 years. And it's been more than 153 years since the last one.

Farther south in California, it's difficult to pin down exactly how at risk Los Angeles is for The Big One – the infamous theoretical earthquake along the San Andreas fault that will devastate the city. But a massive magnitude 7.5 earthquake has about a 1 in 3 chance of striking the Los Angeles area in the next 30 years, the United States Geological Survey estimates.

A 2008 scenario said a magnitude 7.8 quake could cause nearly 2,000 deaths and more than $200 billion in economic losses. Big quakes in Los Angeles are particularly devastating because the soil holding up the city will turn into a "bowl of jelly," according to a post published by catastrophe modeling company Temblor.

Another scenario warns that a stretch of coast in Oregon and Washington state is capable of producing an earthquake much more powerful than the ones California is bracing for. Parts of coastline would suddenly drop 6 feet, shattering critical bridges, destroying undersea communication cables and producing a tsunami.

Thousands are expected to die, but local leaders are considering projects that could give coastal residents a better chance at survival.

It too "could happen at any time," the scenario says.

Earthquake scenarios often focus on major coastal cities, but West Coast residents farther inland also have yet another disaster to brace for.

"Megastorms are California's other Big One," the ARkStorm scenario says. It warns of a statewide flood that will cause more than a million evacuations and devastate California's agriculture.

Massive storms that dump rain on California for weeks on end historically happen every few hundred years. The last one hit around the time of the Civil War, when weeks of rain turned portions of the state "into an inland sea."
'Decades to rebuild'

Whether the next disaster to strike the West Coast is a flood, an earthquake or something else, scenario experts warn that the impacts will reverberate for years or longer.

"It takes decades to rebuild,” Wein said. “You have to think about a decade at least."

A major West Coast earthquake isn't just damaged buildings and cracked roads.

It's weeks or months without running water in areas with millions of people. It's mass migrations away from ruined communities. It's thousands of uninhabitable homes.

Depending on the scenario, thousands of people are expected to die. Hundreds of thousands more could be left without shelter. And those impacts will be a disproportionately felt.

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California already has a housing and homelessness crisis, and Nnenia Campbell said the next disaster is set to magnify inequalities. Campbell is the deputy director of the William Averette Anderson Fund, which works to mitigate disasters for minority communities.

Campbell doesn't talk about "natural disasters" because there's nothing natural about the way a major earthquake will harm vulnerable communities more than wealthy ones.

Human decisions such as redlining have led to many of the inequities in our society, she said. But humans can make decisions that will help make the response to the next disaster more equitable.

Many of those choices need to be made by local leaders and emergency management planners. Investing in infrastructure programs that will make homes in minority communities less vulnerable to earthquakes. Understanding how important a library is to unhoused people. Making sure all schools are built to withstand a disaster. Keeping public spaces open, even during an emergency.

But individuals can make a difference as well, Campbell said. You can complete training that will prepare you to help your community in the event of an emergency. Or you can join a mutual aid network, a group where community members work together to help each other.

Community support is a common theme among disaster experts: One of the best ways to prepare is to know and care about your neighbors.

If everyone only looks out for themselves in the next disaster, “we are going to have social breakdown," Jones said.
What you can do

Experts acknowledge you'll want to make sure you and your family are safe before being able to help others. Fortunately, many disaster preparedness precautions are inexpensive and will help in a wide range of emergency situations.

Be prepared to have your access to electricity or water cut off for days or weeks.

For electricity, you'll at least want a flashlight and a way to charge your phone.

While cell service will be jammed immediately after a major earthquake, communications will likely slowly come back online faster than other services, Wein said. (And when trying to use your phone, text – don't call. In a disaster, text messages are more reliable and strain cell networks less.)

To power your phone, you can cheaply buy a combination weather radio, flashlight and hand-crank charger to keep your cell running even without power for days.

A cash reserve is good to have, too, Jones said. You'll want to be able to buy things, even if your credit card doesn't work for a time.

Preparing for earthquakes specifically is important along the West Coast, too, experts said. Simple things like securing bookshelves can save lives. Downloading an early warning app can give you precious moments to protect yourself in the event of a big quake. Buying earthquake insurance can protect homeowners. And taking part in a yearly drill can help remind you about other easy steps you can take to prepare.

There's even more you could do to ready yourself for a catastrophe, but many disaster experts are hesitant to rely on individuals' ability to prepare themselves.

Just as health experts have begged Americans to use masks and vaccines to help keep others safe during the pandemic, disaster scenario experts believe community members will need to look out for one another when the next disaster strikes.

Telling people to prepare as if “nobody is coming to help you” is a self-fulfilling prophesy, Jones said.

For now, policymakers hold the real power in how prepared society will be for the next disaster. And there are many problems to fix, according to Porter, including upgrading city plumbing, because many aging and brittle water pipes will shatter in a major earthquake, cutting off water to communities for weeks or months.

"Shake it, and it breaks,” Porter said.

Getting ready for the next big earthquake means mundane improvements like even stricter building codes, emergency water supply systems for firefighters and retrofitting elevators with emergency power.

The elevator change could prevent thousands of people from being trapped when the big San Francisco earthquake comes.

“A lot of that suffering can be avoided," Porter said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: California's Big One just one West Coast disaster worth preparing for

Jordanians protest over fuel price rises, day after policeman killed in riots

Fri, December 16, 2022 

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordanians staged sit-ins on Friday and activists called for more protests over fuel price rises that have added to a cost-of-living squeeze, a day after riots in a southern city left one police officer dead, witnesses and security sources said.

The authorities said the policeman was killed on Thursday night by a gunshot fired by an unidentified individual when armed officers entered a neighborhood of Maan to quell riots. Youths had attacked government property in the city, witnesses said.

Tensions have mounted in Maan and several cities in southern Jordan in particular after sporadic strikes by truck drivers protesting against high fuel prices and demanding cuts in diesel prices. Fuel rises have added to the squeeze on households.

Interior Minister Mazen Farrayeh told a news conference that the government will apply tough steps and redeploy more anti-riot police against demonstrators who protest violently.

"We have seen a large jump in violent acts," he said. "After what happened, there will be tougher security measures to reinforce the security forces in the areas that witness such acts."

Although the streets were calm on Friday, sporadic protests continued with a sit-in in front of Maan's main mosque and a mosque in the capital Amman after Friday prayers, while activists called for more demonstrations.

Overnight, riot police chased scores of youths throwing stones in Amman, Zarqa, Irbid and other cities where Farrayeh said rioters torched public property, vandalised state buildings and burned tyres that closed major highways across the kingdom.

Internet users and activists said Internet services faced slowdowns in several regions, disrupting social media platforms activists used to share footage of clashes with police.

The government has promised to examine truck strikers' demands but says it has already paid more than 500 million dinars ($700 million) to cap fuel prices this year and cannot do much more if it wants to avoid breaching an International Monetary Fund deal.

Other protests in recent years have usually been peaceful and involved demands for democratic reforms and calls to curb corruption.