ICYMI

Warming-stoked tides eating huge holes in Greenland glacier

By SETH BORENSTEIN

May 8, 2023

This Aug. 16, 2010, image provided by NASA Earth Observatory shows a piece of the Petermann Glacier that cracked in Greenland. A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, May 8, 2023, found that tides and climate change are rapidly melting ice in the grounding line zone of the Petermann Glacier. That’s the point where glaciers go from being on land to floating on water. (Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon/NASA Earth Observatory via AP)


Daily tides stoked with increasingly warmer water ate a hole taller than the Washington Monument at the bottom of one of Greenland’s major glaciers in the last couple years, accelerating the retreat of a crucial part of the glacier, a new study found.

And scientists worry that the phenomenon isn’t limited to this one glacier, raising questions about previous projections of melting rates on the world’s vulnerable ice sheets.

The rapid melt seen in this study was in the far northwest of Greenland on Petermann Glacier. If it is happening in the rest of Greenland and the even bigger Antarctic ice sheet, then global ice loss and the sea level rise could jump as much as twice as fast as previously thought, according to the study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It’s bad news,” said study author Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at University of California Irvine. “We know the current projections are too conservative. We know that they have a really hard time matching the current record″ of melt.

He said this newly found consequence of tidal activity “could potentially double the projections” of global melt.

The study looks at the all-important grounding line area of glaciers on ice sheets. That’s the point where glaciers go from being on land to floating on water. Previous studies show it’s also a key spot for rapid ice loss.

At remote Petermann, where few people have been and there are no base camps, that grounding line zone is more than six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) wide and could be as much as 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) wide, the study said.

Scientists used to think the daily tides weren’t a big deal on melt. The snow added on top of the glacier compensated for the tides moving further in, said Rignot, the day before he left for an expedition to Petermann.

But with an ocean that’s warmer because of climate change the tides became “a very powerful mechanism,” Rignot said.

“The sea water actually goes much farther beneath the grounded ice (than previously thought), kilometers, not hundreds of meters,” Rignot said. “And that water is full of heat and able to melt the glaciers vigorously. And it’s kind of the most sensitive part of the glacier.”

Using satellite altitude measurements, Rignot’s team found a 669-foot tall (204 meters) cavity at the grounding line where the melt rate is 50% higher in the last three years than it was from 2016 to 2019. Previous models forecast zero melt there.

The melting in Petermann has accelerated in the last few years, later than the rest of Greenland, probably because it is so far north that the water melting it from underneath is from the North Atlantic and it takes longer for the warmer water to reach there, Rignot theorized.

Rignot this month is exploring Petermann to get more ground-based measurements using ultrasound. He hasn’t been there since 2006, a decade before the changes were seen via satellite. Visiting Petermann, even before the glacier’s retreat accelerated, Rignot said he noticed movements that make it seem like a living thing.

“When you are standing on that shelf or sleeping on the shelf you hear noise all the time, loud noises from deep inside cracks forming,” Rignot said. “That’s where the concept of a glacier being alive starts getting to you.”

Greenland ice researcher Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, who wasn’t part of the research, called Rignot’s technique clever and said the study makes sense, showing “that ocean heat delivery to tidewater glacier grounding lines represents a potent destabilizing effect.”

Box, who uses a different technique to calculate how much ice is no longer being fed by glaciers and is doomed to melt, something called “zombie ice,” figures 434 billion metric tons of ice on Petermann is already committed to melting.

The study provides strong evidence that models need to include these tidal effects deep inland and if they don’t, then they are underestimating future sea level rise, said Pennsylvania State University glaciologist Richard Alley, who wasn’t part of the Rignot study.

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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.

China raids offices of business consultancy Capvision

May 9, 2023

BEIJING (AP) — China’s chief foreign intelligence agency has raided the offices of business consulting firm Capvision in Beijing and other Chinese cities as part of an ongoing crackdown on foreign businesses that provide sensitive economic data.

Foreign companies operating in China have come under increasing pressure, driven primarily by national security considerations, as Xi Jinping’s government tightens control over business, clashing with efforts to lure back foreign investors after COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted.

Investigators simultaneously visited Capvision branches in Beijing, Shanghai, and the southeastern manufacturing hubs of Suzhou and Shenzhen, along with other locations the state media reports did not identify.

Officers from the Ministry of State Security, police and market regulatory bodies questioned staff, the reports said. There was no word on arrests or detentions, although the reports said investigations had been opened into the company and “personnel involved in the case according to law.”

No details were given about the specific legal issues at stake, and state media did not give the exact dates of the raids on Capvision, which is headquartered in New York and Shanghai.

“Over recent years, in order to realize the strategy of containing and and suppressing China, certain Western countries have become increasingly rampant in stealing intelligence and information pertaining to our country’s military industry, economy and finance,” state broadcaster CCTV said Monday.

The report alleged domestic consulting companies were tools of stealing such secrets. “Some domestic consulting companies have weak awareness of national security and seek to benefit financially by straddling the legal barriers,” the CCTV report said.

Asked about the recent actions against Capvision and other companies, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said China’s national security authorities and other “competent departments” have recently been carrying out “open law enforcement on relevant enterprises in accordance with the law.”

“This is a normal law enforcement action in accordance with Chinese law, aiming to promote the regulated and sound development of the industry and safeguard national security and development interests,” Wang told reporters at a daily briefing Tuesday. The spokesperson gave no further details.

Capvision bills itself on its website as a “leading global expert network platform that excels at identifying the right advisors for specific business insights.” The company says it serves more than 2,000 clients through more than 600 researchers and 450,000 industry professionals.

China needs to be more transparent about law enforcement actions against companies such as Capvision that carry out the sort of due diligence that firms need to make investment decisions, said Eric Zheng, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai said in a press statement.

“It would be helpful if the authorities would more clearly delineate the areas in which companies can or cannot conduct such due diligence,” Zheng said. “This would give foreign companies more confidence and enable them to comply with Chinese regulations.”

Capvision has not commented on the raids, but on its WeChat social media channel posted a flyer Monday marking National Security Education Day, which fell on April 15.

“As a leading Chinese industry specializing in providing information services, Capvision is resolutely committed to the outlook on national security and is leading the industry in its healthy and orderly development,” the flyer said.

The company is just the latest to be investigated, apparently over its attempts to obtain information that would not be considered state secrets in other countries.

Last month, consulting firm Bain & Co. said police questioned staff in its Shanghai office. It gave no details of what they were seeking. Prior to that, the corporate due diligence firm Mintz Group said its Beijing office was raided by police who detained five employees. An employee of a Japanese drug maker has also been detained on spying charges, and the government announced a security review of memory chip maker Micron Inc.

Last week, U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns said American companies were deeply concerned about a recent expansion of China’s anti-espionage law that could put them at legal risk simply for seeking standard information on China’s economy and local businesses they might seek to partner with.

Burns said the mixed signals were prompting many to put major investments on hold until more clarity was available, although they were unlikely to pull out of the world’s second-largest economy, which, despite the vitality of the private sector, is still dominated by major state-run companies and financial institutions.

Still, some global companies are shifting investment plans to Southeast Asia, India and other economies where political risks are considered lower.

Whether politically motivated or not, the investigations come as China’s relations with Washington, Europe and Tokyo are strained by disputes about human rights, Taiwan, security and technology.

Xi, China’s most powerful leader in decades, is in the midst of multiple campaigns to tighten the ruling Communist Party’s control over entrepreneurs, root out official corruption and reduce reliance on foreign technology and expertise. Foreign firms already face hurdles in executive travel to China, along with the possibility of exit bans, theft of commercial secrets and Chinese government interference in deal-making.

Changes to the espionage law give authorities powers to gain access to electronic information. The law covers all “documents, data, materials and items related to national security,” according to the official Xinhua News Agency. It remains unclear how national security is defined.

Foreign companies and government agencies have for years advised employees visiting China not to carry computers or mobile phones with confidential information because they might be seized by authorities or stolen by industrial spies.

The crackdowns paint a jarring backdrop for official efforts to reverse a decline in foreign business interest in China. The ruling party wants foreign companies in electric cars and other fields to bring in technology and provide competition to force Chinese companies to improve.

GLOW IN THE DARK HIGHWAY

Florida may study use of radioactive waste in building roads

May 8, 2023

FILE - This aerial photo taken from an airplane shows a reservoir near the old Piney Point phosphate mine on April 3, 2021, in Bradenton, Fla. Florida may begin to study whether a radioactive waste byproduct of fertilizer production, phosphogypsum, can be used to help build roads, under a bill passed by the state Legislature in May 2023. 

(Tiffany Tompkins/The Bradenton Herald via AP, File)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida may study whether a radioactive waste byproduct of fertilizer production can be used to help build roads under a bill passed by the Legislature.

The proposal, which awaits a signature from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, would task the state with conducting a study about the use of phosphogypsum in road construction aggregate materials.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires that phosphogypsum be placed in ”stacks” that resemble enormous ponds. Florida has 24 such stacks, totaling about 1 billion tons of phosphogypsum, with 30 million new tons generated every year through the phosphate fertilizer mining industry.

The EPA in 2020 approved the use of phosphogypsum in government road construction projects but reversed its decision after Democratic President Joe Biden took office.

Environmental groups have warned about phosphogypsum spilling into waterways and elsewhere during storms. A leak in March 2021 at a stack called Piney Point resulted in the release of an estimated 215 million gallons (814 million liters) of polluted water into Tampa Bay and caused massive fish kills.

The EPA regulates phosphogypsum because the material contains radium-226, a naturally occurring radioactive substance that produces radon gas, which is a hazardous air pollutant.

Chinese woman appeals in fight for right to freeze her eggs

May 9, 2023

Teresa Xu speaks to journalists before her appeal hearing in Beijing, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The unmarried Chinese woman on Tuesday began her final appeal of a hospital's denial of access to freeze her eggs five years ago in a landmark case of female reproductive rights in the country.

 (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

BEIJING (AP) — An unmarried Chinese woman on Tuesday began her final appeal of a hospital’s denial of access to freeze her eggs five years ago in a landmark case of female reproductive rights in the country.

Teresa Xu’s case has drawn broad coverage in China, including by some state media outlets, since she first brought her case to court in 2019. She lost her legal challenge last year at another Beijing court, which ruled the hospital did not violate the woman’s rights in its decision.

The upcoming judgment will have strong implications for the lives of many unmarried women in China and the country’s demographic changes, especially after the world’s second-largest economy recorded its first population decline in decades.

In China, the law does not explicitly ban unmarried people from services like fertility treatments and simply states that a “husband and wife” can have up to three children. But hospitals and other institutions, in practice, implement the regulations in a way that requires people to present a marriage license.

Xu, who wanted to preserve her eggs so she could have the option to bear children later, is one of those facing difficulties in accessing fertility treatment.

In 2018, Xu, then 30 years old, had gone to a public hospital in Beijing to ask about freezing her eggs. But after an initial check-up, she was told she could not proceed without a marriage certificate.

According to the judgment she received last year, the hospital argued that egg freezing poses certain health risks. It said that egg-freezing services were only available to women who could not get pregnant in the natural way, and not for healthy patients.

But it also stated that delaying pregnancy could bring risks to the mother during pregnancy and “psychological and societal problems” if there is a large age gap between parents and their child.

After Tuesday’s hearing, Xu told reporters that the denial constituted a violation of her right to bodily autonomy and she chose to fight on because this matter is very important to single women.

“I also have grown up a lot as the case evolves, I don’t want to give up easily,” she said.

It is unclear when the court will hand down the judgment, she said.

Spain plans to ban outdoor work in extreme heat
yesterday

Two man work at a construction site during a heatwave in Madrid, Spain, Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. Spain says it plans to ban outdoor work during periods of extreme heat. Second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz told reporters Wednesday, May 10, 2023 that the government will modify legislation covering occupational risks to prohibit outdoor work when the state weather agency, AEMET, issues red or orange alerts. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas, File)

MADRID (AP) — Spain says it plans to ban outdoor work during periods of extreme heat.

Second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz told reporters Wednesday that the government will modify legislation covering occupational risks to prohibit outdoor work when the state weather agency, AEMET, issues red or orange alerts.

The agency frequently issues such alerts when temperature increases pose a risk for citizens outdoors or for the environment.

Last year was Spain’s hottest since record-keeping started in 1961, and last month was the hottest and driest April on record.

Much of the country is experiencing drought, and water reserves are below 50%.

Díaz, who is also labor minister, said that the modifications would be announced by Spain’s Cabinet, but gave no further details.

The government will hold a special Cabinet meeting on drought measures on Thursday.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the measure announced by Díaz would apply to workers such as farmers, farmhands, police, firefighters, gardeners or cleaners.

In places accustomed to high temperatures, such as Spain’s southern Andalusia region, construction workers already work only morning hours during the summer.

A temporary street cleaner died of a heat stroke while working in Madrid last year.

___ Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

EURO FASCIST AGENDA
Top Spanish court considers far-right challenge to LGBT law

By JENNIFER O'MAHONY

May 9, 2023

A man walks in front of the Constitutional Court in Madrid, Spain, on Monday Dec. 19, 2022. Spain's Constitutional Court said Tuesday, May 9, 2023, it would consider a legal challenge lodged by the far-right Vox party against a new law extending rights for transgender teenagers and encouraging tolerance for sexual diversity in schools. (Fernando Sanchez/Europa Press via AP, File)


MADRID (AP) — Spain’s Constitutional Court said Tuesday it would consider a legal challenge lodged by the far-right Vox party against a new law extending rights for transgender teenagers and encouraging tolerance for sexual diversity in schools.

The wide-ranging LGBT rights law passed in February allows any Spanish citizen over 16 years to change their legally registered gender without medical supervision. Minors aged 12-13 still need a judge’s authorization, while those between 14 and 16 must be accompanied by their parents or legal guardians. Previously, transgender people needed a diagnosis by several doctors of gender dysphoria.

The Constitutional Court issued a statement confirming it had considered a legal brief lodged by Vox lawmakers and would analyze alleged violations of parental rights, the right to religious expression, freedom of speech and equality of all citizens before the law.

Vox said the recent legislation, which was promoted by the far-left United We Can party within Spain’s governing coalition, introduced “state interference in areas that should remain strictly personal.”

The far-right movement argued that a parent’s right to oversee the religious education of their children, which is guaranteed in the Spanish constitution, was violated by the introduction of material in schools aimed at teaching children to respect and tolerate sexual diversity.

It also attacked the introduction of gender self-identification, which allows anyone to change their legal gender without prior authorization from a doctor or judge, endangers women’s rights. It referred to the case of a convicted rapist being held in a women’s prison in Scotland while transitioning. That inmate was transferred to a men’s prison after being assessed by prison authorities.

Vox further hit out at a clause that allows intersex children aged between 12 and 16 to request surgery, as long as they are considered mature and informed enough to do so.

Vox has stoked culture wars in Spain by resisting any criticism of Spain’s 20th-century dictatorship, denying that domestic violence is a problem and linking unauthorized migration with increased violence. It has pushed a so-called “parental pin” policy in regions where it is influential, allowing parents to opt their children out of classes that they consider against their principles.

The party hopes to make a strong showing in May 28 local elections and in Spain’s general election at the end of the year. If Vox performs well in the December vote, it would try to force the center-right Popular Party into a national coalition.

On Tuesday, the German government announced that it was also planning to introduce a
law allowing people to change gender without medical involvement, as several European governments reassess legislation affecting transgender rights.

Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, has been widely praised by former U.S. president Donald Trump. Vox’s legal challenge comes as Republican-controlled US states issue a raft of restrictions on LGBT students in the name of parental rights or protecting other students.

1st babies born in Britain using DNA from 3 people

By MARIA CHENG

yesterday

 An embryologist works on a petri dish at the Create Health fertility clinic in south London. Britain's fertility regulator said the first babies created using an experimental technique combining DNA from three people have been born, in an effort to prevent the children from inheriting rare genetic diseases. (AP Photo/Sang Tan, File)

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s fertility regulator on Wednesday confirmed the births of the U.K.’s first babies created using an experimental technique combining DNA from three people, an effort to prevent the children from inheriting rare genetic diseases.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority said fewer than five babies have been born this way in the U.K. but did not provide further details to protect the families’ identities. The news was first reported by the Guardian newspaper.

In 2015, the U.K. became the first country to adopt legislation regulating methods to help prevent women with faulty mitochondria — the energy source in a cell — from passing defects on to their babies. The world’s first baby born using the technique was reported in the U.S. in 2016.

The genetic defects can result in diseases such as muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, heart problems and intellectual disabilities. About one in 200 children in Britain is born with a mitochondrial disorder. To date, 32 patients have been authorized to receive such treatment.

For a woman with faulty mitochondria, scientists take genetic material from her egg or embryo, which is then transferred into a donor egg or embryo that still has healthy mitochondria but had the rest of its key DNA removed.

The fertilized embryo is then transferred into the womb of the mother. The genetic material from the donated egg comprises less than 1% of the child created from this technique.

“Mitochondrial donation treatment offers families with severe inherited mitochondrial illness the possibility of a healthy child,” the U.K. fertility regulator said in a statement Wednesday. The agency said it was still “early days” but it hoped the scientists involved, at Newcastle University, would soon publish details of the treatment.

Britain requires every woman undergoing the treatment to receive approval from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority. The regulator says that to be eligible, families must have no other available options for avoiding passing on genetic disease.

Many critics oppose the artificial reproduction techniques, arguing there are other ways for people to avoid passing on diseases to their children, such as egg donation or screening tests, and that the experimental methods have not yet been proven safe.

Others warn that tweaking the genetic code this way could be a slippery slope that eventually leads to designer babies for parents who not only want to avoid inherited diseases but to have taller, stronger, smarter or better-looking children.

Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell expert at the Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research center in London, said it would be critical to monitor the babies’ future development.

“It will be interesting to know how well the (mitochondrial donation) technique worked at a practical level, whether the babies are free of mitochondrial disease and whether there is any risk of them developing problems later in life,” he said in a statement.

Scientists in Europe published research earlier this year that showed in some cases, the small number of abnormal mitochondria that are inevitably carried over from the mother’s egg to the donor’s can reproduce when the baby is in the uterus, which could ultimately lead to a genetic disease.

Lovell-Badge said the reasons for such problems were not yet understood and that researchers would need to develop methods to reduce the risk.

Previous research assessing another technique to create babies from three people, including an egg donor, found that years later the children were doing well as teenagers, with no signs of unusual health problems and good grades in school.

Doctors in the U.S. were the first to announce the world’s first baby using the mitochondria donation technique, after the treatment was conducted in Mexico.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Video of robot attacking factory worker is computer-generated

By MELISSA GOLDIN

May 9, 2023

CLAIM: A video shows a robot attacking a human factory worker.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. The video was created with CGI technology by Sozo Bear Films, the production company told The Associated Press. It was first posted on the company’s TikTok account in January 2022.

THE FACTS: The CGI video resurfaced this week when users on Instagram and TikTok shared it as a real-life assault.

It shows two standalone robotic arms moving boxes on a factory floor in grainy, black-and-white footage made to seem as if it was taken by a security camera. After one robot lets a box fall, the camera pans to the other machine, which creates an explosion of sparks by banging violently on a conveyor belt at its workstation. A human worker then puts his hands up in surrender before the robot throws multiple boxes at him, causing him to fall backward, and destroys part of the conveyor belt.

Ominous music plays in the background while captions narrate what is happening in the video. “ROBOT ATTACKS WORKER!” one reads after the robot throws the first box.

“Video captures the moment when a box-packaging robot makes a critical error,” says a voiceover at the beginning of the video. “And what follows will send shivers down your spine. Watch this.”

One TikTok post sharing the clip had been viewed more than 422,000 times as of Tuesday. An Instagram post — captioned, “AI can be scary!” — had received more than 2,200 likes.

But the video is not real, Sozo Bear Films confirmed to the AP.

“We made the video using visual effects,” Luke Pilgrim and Brad Kennedy, the Georgia-based company’s co-owners and directors, wrote in a joint emailed statement. “We use our tiktok and youtube platform to hone our visual effects skills and try out new ideas so that’s essentially what this video was.”

The original has also been posted multiple times on the company’s YouTube channel. These versions do not include the voiceover and use different music than the clip spreading on social media this week.

Sozo Bear Films, which specializes in commercials, music videos and short films, posted a video outlining how it created the CGI footage on TikTok and YouTube in February and March 2022, respectively. It features Pilgrim and Ellis Treece, the company’s lead VFX artist, who explains that he used software such as Blender, a 3D computer graphics tool, and Adobe After Effects, a post-production visual effects program.

“We wanted to make something that looked really believable, looked realistic, but we also wanted to tell a story,” Pilgrim says in the video. “And so we gave the robot some emotion, which kind of gave away that they were CGI to most people, but it still made a really cool video and I think overall it was a success.”

In their joint statement, Pilgrim and Kennedy pointed out that it can be easy to be fooled by the clip if people haven’t seen the video explaining how it was made.

“Plus when it gets re-shared out of context by someone else that also leads to confusion on whether it’s real or not,” they wrote.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

General who captured ‘Che’ Guevara buried without honors

By CARLOS VALDEZ

May 9, 2023

 Retired Bolivian Gen. Gary Prado shows photographs in his home in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Friday, Oct. 5, 2007. Prado led the mission to capture Cuba's late revolutionary leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia. Prado died on Saturday, May 6, 2023, and no military honors were given to him at his wake. (AP Photo, File)

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — The Bolivian general who captured Argentine-Cuban guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara has been buried, and the ceremony was shunned by Bolivia’s leftist national government in a gesture that has angered his relatives.

Retired Gen. Gary Prado Salmón, a hero to some compatriots and a pariah to others, died Saturday at 84 from renal complications.

He had been declared a “national hero” in 1967, but also was accused in 2009 of involvement in a coup attempt against then-President Evo Morales. The Bolivian Army did not bury Pardo with any honors for Sunday’s ceremony, though he did receive tributes from city and regional officials.

No authority from President Luis Arce’s government issued any statement on Prado’s death, nor did any military officials. No active members of the military participated in the wake nor funeral and there were no active duty officers flanking Prado’s coffin, as is the norm for deceased members of the service — all of which has upset Prado’s family.

“My husband will not be honored. The commanders violate the rules to please the government,” María del Carmen Morales, Prado’s widow, told the local El Deber newspaper.

Prado’s son, Gary Prado Araúz, said a request by the Union of Retired Military Personnel that honors be rendered had been denied. “It’s a shame,” he told journalists at his father’s wake.

“The government of Luis Arce, like his predecessor (Morales), sympathizes with ‘Che’ Guevara, so they won’t honor Gary Prado. That’s why they’ve chosen silence,” said Paul Coca, a political science professor at the Franz Tamayo University. “The Armed Forces, for their part, won’t do anything that could bother or disturb the government.”

In addition, Prado was an activist in the Revolutionary Left Movement of former president Jaime Paz, who is “a declared political enemy” of the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party of Arce and Morales, Coca said.

Prado did receive tributes from local authorities in Santa Cruz, the most populous city in the county where he lived. The government of the Santa Cruz region laid Prado in state and friends and family members as well as retired military officers celebrated a Mass in the city’s cathedral before he was buried.

Prado was a captain on October 8, 1967 when he commanded the patrol that captured the legendary guerrilla fighter in the Bolivian jungle.

In his book “How I Captured Che” and in subsequent interviews, Prado stated he was not responsible for Guevara’s execution, which was ordered by higher-ranking officers. “I had nothing to do with it. I was looking for the other guerrilla fighters. When I returned to the camp, they had already executed him,” he said.

Later in life, Prado was Bolivia’s ambassador to Great Britain in the early 1990s and to Mexico in 2000-2002. It was during his posting in Mexico that Mexican writer and filmmaker Alberto Híjar threw a glass of wine in his face, shouting, “To the health of ‘Che,’ murderer.”

The government substantially distanced itself from Prado during the tenure of Morales, a leftist president in office from 2006 to 2019, who is a recognized admirer of the Cuban revolution and a friend of late Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Prado served 11 years of home detention after he was accused of alleged terrorism as part of a supposed coup plot against Morales in 2009. Morales is the current leader of the MAS.

While Prado was in the opposition, he was admired by supporters for his backing of the leaders of Santa Cruz, the country’s economic engine that has long been at odds with politicians in La Paz.

Former center-right President Carlos Mesa, who was in office 2003-2005, sent a message of condolence. “I am deeply saddened by the death of General Gary Prado, an honorable military man and a good person. A protagonist of a historic and fundamental event in our history, the capture of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara,” he tweeted.

Guevara’s guerrillas fought in the Bolivian jungle for nine months between 1966 and 1967.

Guevara, an Argentine who later became a Cuban citizen, was buried alongside other guerrilla fighters in Valle Grande, near where he was captured. The whereabouts of his remains were kept secret until they were recovered and moved to Santa Clara, Cuba in 1997.

Defying the state, Kansas City would be a sanctuary for people seeking gender-affirming health care

By JOHN HANNA and MARGARET STAFFORD

yesterday
 Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks to reporters after taking the oath of office in Jefferson City, Mo., Jan. 3, 2023. A Kansas City Council committee will consider a resolution on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, that would designate the city as a sanctuary for people seeking or providing gender-affirming care, even as the state's attorney general is proposing a new restrictions on the procedures for adults and children. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb, File)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Officials in Missouri’s largest city are moving to declare it a sanctuary for people seeking or providing gender-affirming care, defying state officials who are intent on banning it for minors and restricting it for adults.

A Kansas City Council committee approved such a resolution Wednesday. The full council will now consider it Thursday. The council members acted as the Republican-controlled Missouri Legislature gave final approval to a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, sending it to GOP Gov. Mike Parson, who is expected to sign it into law. At least 16 other states have enacted laws restricting or banning such care for minors.

The resolution also comes as a judge considers a proposed emergency rule from Republican state Attorney General Andrew Bailey that would require adults and children to undergo more than a year of therapy and fulfill other requirements before they could receive gender-affirming treatment.

“This resolution is an entrance into a conversation and shows a commitment where trans people’s presence in Kansas City is valued,” Merrique Jenson, a transgender woman and founder of Transformations KC, a nonprofit that advocates for trans women of color, told the council committee. “It would minimize the legal violence toward trans people in accessing gender-affirming care.”

The resolution, approved by the Transportation, Infrastructure and Operations Committee after being proposed by LGTBQ advocates, says the city will not prosecute or fine any person or organization that seeks, provides, receives or helps someone receive gender-affirming care such as as puberty blockers, hormones or surgery.

It also says if the state passes a law or resolution that imposes criminal or civil punishments, fines, or professional sanctions in such cases, personnel in Missouri’s largest city will make enforcing those requirements “their lowest priority.”

During the committee’s debate, council members agreed that Kansas City should be welcoming, but council member Heather Hall questioned whether the issue was “a city conversation,” adding, “This is us getting out of our lane.”

Council member Melissa Robinson had questions about how being a sanctuary city would “play out” and worried about “the damage that comes back to the city” from the state.

But she backed the resolution after saying, “I do believe in good trouble, and this might just be one of those lines of good trouble.”

Kansas City’s proposal is coming from a Democratic-leaning city in a state with a Republican governor and GOP-controlled Legislature. In Texas, the state capital of Austin declared last year that it should be considered a sanctuary for transgender youth and their families, and Harris County, home to Houston, declared it wouldn’t pursue cases against parents over gender-affirming care.

California,Minnesota and Washington have declared themselves sanctuary states for gender-affirming care, as have the cities of Chicago; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and West Hollywood, California.

Republican state lawmakers across the U.S. who’ve attacked gender-affirming care as part of a larger effort to roll back LGBTQ+ rights have argued that they’re protecting children from decisions they may later regret. But gender-affirming care for minors has been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and is endorsed by major medical associations.

The resolution also says city personnel will not arrest or detain anyone sought by another jurisdiction for seeking gender-affirming care, respond to requests for information from other jurisdictions, or collect any civil penalties in such cases.

Supporters noted that Kansas City’s police force is controlled by a state-appointed Board of Police Commissioners and any possible criminal charges in gender-affirming cases would be filed by the county prosecutor rather than city prosecutors — both of which could make enforcing the resolution problematic.

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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.

North Carolina hospitals: We are not ‘transitioning’ toddlers

By PHILIP MARCELO

May 9, 2023

A family walks by an LGBTQ pride mural in downtown Raleigh, N.C., just a few blocks away from the Legislative Building, on Nov. 16, 2022. 

The Associated Press on Tuesday, May 9, 2023 reported on false claims circulating on social media that three North Carolina healthcare systems are diagnosing toddlers with gender dysphoria and transitioning them to the other gender. 

(AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum, File)


CLAIM: Three North Carolina healthcare systems are diagnosing toddlers with gender dysphoria and “transitioning” them.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Officials with Duke Health, University of North Carolina Health and ECU Health say that while they do accept young children as patients, staff only provide general counseling to parents and families at that age. They do not offer medical procedures such as gender-affirming surgeries or hormone treatments to toddlers.

THE FACTS: As North Carolina lawmakers weigh legislation restricting gender-affirming surgeries to adults, some social media users are suggesting some of the state’s most prominent medical institutions are already offering such medical interventions in toddlers.

Many are sharing a graphic that claims Duke Health is “starting gender transitions” at 2 years old while UNC Health begins it at 3 years old and ECU Health at 4 years old.

“Top medical schools in the state are now transitioning toddlers and training future primary care doctors on how to engage in the experimental treatment,” the text included with the graphic reads.

“Yes, you read that correctly,” wrote one Twitter user who shared the graphic in a post that’s been liked or shared more than 56,000 times as of Tuesday. “If a 2 year old girl picks up a truck instead a Barbie, that is proof to these activist doctors that she’s actually supposed to be a boy.”

The claims stem from a blog post from a conservative group supporting the North Carolina transgender surgery bill, which cites as evidence a 2016 newspaper interview with the head of Duke’s gender clinic in which she referenced having patients as young as 2.

The blog post also cites a patient form used by UNC’s gender clinic which purports to show that children as young as 3 are offered “psychoeducation and support for child and family” and other services.

But Duke Health said clinic staff simply provide support and counsel to families with young children wrestling with their gender identity. For prepubescent children, “there is parental support, but no testing, no treatment, not anything,” officials said in a written statement.

UNC Health, in a separate response, said parents with young children can request a meeting or counseling session, but the psychiatry team won’t meet with the actual child until they’re at least school age.

“To be clear: UNC Health does not offer any gender-transitioning care for toddlers,” the statement read. “We do not perform any gender-affirming surgical procedures or medical interventions on toddlers. Also, we are not doing any gender-affirming research or clinical trials involving children.”

ECU Health similarly rejected the claims as “dangerous misinformation.”

“To be clear: ECU Health does not offer gender affirming surgery to minors nor does the health system offer gender affirming transition care to toddlers,” it said in a written statement.

The healthcare providers also stressed that a toddler’s toy preference has nothing to do with gender dysphoria, despite what the social media posts suggest.

“It’s dangerous and reckless to post such incendiary claims online, and we are increasingly worried about threats to our providers and patients,” UNC Health said in its statement.

Like providers across the country, the three North Carolina health systems are following medical guidelines that have been in place for decades, according to healthcare experts and transgender advocates.

Those standards generally call for small, social changes to help pre-adolescent children dealing with gender dysphoria, such as a new haircut, name, clothing or even a change in pronouns, explained Ash Orr, a spokesperson for the National Center on Transgender Equality, a Washington-based advocacy group.

“At a young age, all children need love and encouragement to be who they are, do things that make them happy, and enjoy being a kid,” he wrote in an email, noting that surveys have found that nearly a third of transgender adults say they began to feel different from their assigned gender at birth as early as 5 years old.

Kellan Baker, executive director at the Whitman-Walker Institute, a Washington, D.C., research group focused on LGBTQ+ health issues, agreed.

“The process of gender affirmation is different for each person and is guided by patients and providers working together, and with families for minors, to identify and meet the patient’s medical needs,” he wrote in an email.