SAVE THE PLANET, SAVE THE ANIMALS

Pope joins Meloni in urging Italians to have more kids, not pets

SEX FOR PLEASURE, 

NOT FOR RE-CREATION

By NICOLE WINFIELD and PAOLO SANTALUCIA

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Pope Francis delivers his speech flanked by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni during a conference on birthrate, at Auditorium della Conciliazione, in Rome, Friday, May 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis joined Italy’s conservative premier on Friday in encouraging Italians to have more children, denouncing the financial precariousness facing young couples and “selfish, egotistical” choices that have led to a record low birth rate that is threatening the country’s economic future.

Francis urged concrete political action to invert the “demographic winter,” which in population terms resulted in the disappearance of a city the size of Bari last year. Blasting couples who have pets instead of children, Francis called for resources to be dedicated to helping couples grow their families, saying it was necessary to “plant the future” with hope.

“Let us not resign ourselves to sterile dullness and pessimism,” Francis told an annual gathering of pro-family organizations. “Let us not believe that history is already marked, that nothing can be done to reverse the trend.”

Italy recorded a record low number of live births last year, 392,598, which combined with an elevated number of deaths, 713,499, has accelerated the demographic trend that threatens to crash the country’s social security system. The government of Premier Giorgia Meloni is backing a campaign to encourage at least 500,000 births annually by 2033, a rate that demographers say is necessary to prevent the economy from collapsing by growing the wage-earning population as retirees draw on their pensions.

Meloni came to power last year on a pro-family campaign of “God, family, fatherland” and her government has proposed a host of measures to try to encourage families to have more children, given Italy’s fertility rate of 1.24 children per woman is among the lowest in the world. Numerous studies have pointed to a combination of factors that discourage women from having children, including a lack of affordable child care spots, low salaries and precarious work contracts, and a tradition of women often bearing the burden of caring for older parents.

Meloni, who has a daughter with her partner, told the family association congress that it was time to reverse the trend. But she said it must be done without resorting to surrogacy, hitting on broader political talking points that have surrounded the demographic debate in Italy as well as the government’s crackdown on migrants and aversion to registering children of same-sex couples.

“We want a nation where it is no longer scandalous to say that — whatever the legitimate, free choices, inclinations of each person — we are all born of a man or a woman,” Meloni said to applause. “Where it is not taboo to say that motherhood is not for sale, that wombs are not for rent and children are not over-the-counter products that you can choose on the shelf as if you were in the supermarket and maybe return if then the product does not match what you expect.”

Speaking in religious terms, Meloni concluded by saying that her government wants to begin by “respecting the dignity, the uniqueness, the sacredness of every single human being, because each of us has a unique and unrepeatable genetic code. And this, like it or not, has something of the sacred.”

MARAT/SADE: NO REVOLUTION WITHOUT GENERAL COPULATION

Thailand’s election may deliver mandate for change, but opposition victory may not assure power

By GRANT PECK

today

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Thailand Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, center, leaves after a general election campaign in Nonthaburi province, Thailand, March 25, 2023. Voters disaffected by nine years of plodding rule by a coup-making army general are expected to deliver a strong mandate for change in Thailand's general election Sunday, May 14, 2023.

 (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

BANGKOK (AP) — Voters disaffected by nine years of plodding rule by a coup-making army general are expected to deliver a strong mandate for change in Thailand’s general election Sunday. But a predicted victory by the allies of Thaksin Shinawatra, whose ouster by coup 17 years ago plunged the country into prolonged instability, has caused concern for an unhindered democratic transition.

Dissatisfaction with the incumbent prime minister running for reelection, Prayuth Chan-ocha, is high, due in part to a slumping economy and his government’s mismanaged response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But weariness and even anger at the military’s habitual interference in politics is a major factor. Thailand has had more than a dozen coups since becoming a constitutional monarchy in 1932, the last one in 2014 carried out by Prayuth when he was army commander. Prayuth’s governments slapped down democratic reforms and prosecuted activists.

“The main factor could be that people are no longer willing to tolerate the authoritarian government that has been in power for over nine years, and there is a significant wish for change among the people.” said Pinkaew Laungaramsri, a professor of anthropology at Chiang Mai University.

Seventy political parties are contesting the 500 seats up for grabs in the House of Representatives: 400 are directly elected, with 100 chosen via a form of proportional representation.

Thais go to polls for contentious election

Advance voting began last week for Thailand’s upcoming election, which looks set to reject the military’s influence and possibly trigger instability.

Opposition parties endorsing reforms to rein in the army are running strides ahead in opinion polls. But pitching policies that threaten the status quo alarms the ruling conservative establishment. It has repeatedly shown itself capable of bringing down popularly elected governments it didn’t like, through rulings in the royalist courts and army coups.

Prayuth represents one pole of the country’s politics, centered around royalists and the military. Thaksin, the billionaire populist ousted in the 2006 coup, represents the other. The power struggle between Thaksin’s supporters and his opponents has been fought — sometimes in the street, sometimes at the ballot box — for almost two decades.

Prayuth is trailing badly in opinion polls behind Thaksin’s 36-year-old daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who inherited the popularity and political style of her father. She campaigned intensively while heavily pregnant and gave birth to a son last week.

She is the favorite among the opposition Pheu Thai Party’s three registered nominees for prime minister. Her party looks set to win a majority of seats in the lower house of Parliament.

Recent history strengthens the appearance of this election as a grudge match between the Shinawatras and their foes. Prayuth’s 2014 coup unseated a government that had come to power with Yingluck Shinawatra — Paetongtarn’s aunt, Thaksin’s sister — as prime minister. And Pheu Thai topped the field in the 2019 vote, only to be denied power when the army-backed Palang Pracharath Party found partners to assemble a coalition government.

But a third major player has injected a sharp ideological aspect into the election. The Move Forward Party, led by 42-year-old businessman Pita Limjaroenrat, has galvanized younger voters and is running a strong second to Pheu Thai in the polls. However, for conservative Thailand, its platform is frighteningly radical: reform of the military and reform of the powerful monarchy, a bold move because the institution has been traditionally treated as sacrosanct.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, points out that while Move Forward’s agenda would be considered just “progressive” in other countries, in the Thai context it is “revolutionary.”

“This election is the most important in contemporary Thai politics because it’s an election that’s going to determine Thailand’s political future,” he says, crediting Move Forward with “pushing the frontiers of Thai politics into areas where it needs to go.”

Pheu Thai largely shares Move Forward’s reformist agenda, but the smaller party’s more forthright stand poses a dilemma. Adding Move Forward to a coalition government could antagonize the Senate, a conservative body whose support is crucial to taking power.

Thailand’s 2017 constitution, adopted under military rule, calls for the prime minister to be selected by a joint vote of the 500-member House and the unelected 250-seat Senate, whose members were appointed by Prayuth’s junta.

In 2019, the Senate voted as a bloc, unanimously backing Prayuth. This time, a party that wins a clear majority of House seats still might need at least 376, or 75% plus one, of the votes in the 500-member lower house if its prime minister candidate was opposed in the Senate.

If Pheu Thai lands in such a position, it could find coalition partners among parties that win some House seats. It could also nominate one of its other candidates for prime minister, most likely 60-year-old Srettha Thavisin, who is not burdened with the Shinawatra name that is anathema to the Senate’s conservatives.

Most intriguingly, Pheu Thai could ally with another former general, 77-year-old Prawit Wongsuwan, who has been Prayuth’s ambitious deputy prime minister and is this year’s prime minister candidate for the Palang Pracharath Party.

He and his party are polling badly, but his presence in government might reassure some senators. Such an alliance would seem like a deviance from Pheu Thai’s platform, but could be sold to supporters on the basis that Prawit was not actively involved in plotting the 2014 coup.

Until Sunday’s votes are counted, Pheu Thai’s path forward will remain unclear.

“Many said that this election reflects the people’s hope for change in politics, but at the same time, the greater the hope for change imposed on this election, the more nervous the conservatives currently holding power become,” says Chiang Mai University’s Pinkaew. “We will begin to see the retaliation from the conservative side, from provoking a sense of extreme nationalism to obstructing some parties.”

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Associated Press writer Jintamas Saksornchai contributed to this report.

THIRD WORLD U$A

Federal government’s $1 billion effort to recruit next generation of doctors at risk

By AMANDA SEITZ

today

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Dr. Catherine Casto, right, talks with Catherine Burns, left, of Millsboro, Del., during a visit to a Chesapeake Health Care office in Salisbury, Md., Thursday, March 2, 2023. Burns has been seeing Dr. Casto for 25 years. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

SALISBURY, Md. (AP) — Thousands of women living in rural, eastern Maryland have few options when they’re looking for someone to deliver their babies.

The local hospital doesn’t have an obstetrics doctor on staff so most women in this region, flanked by sprawling farm fields and antique stores, turn to the Chesapeake Health Care clinic.

Five of the 10 obstetricians and midwives at the clinic are there because of the National Health Service Corps, which promises to pay off $50,000 in medical school debt for every two years that a doctor serves working in rural, urban or poor areas.

“OB is frightfully difficult to recruit, and I’m not real sure exactly why,” said the clinic’s chief medical officer Dr. Lee Jennings. “We’re isolated, we’re in an area where we’re the only OB group in the entire area.”

Over the last three years, millions of taxpayer dollars were pumped into the National Health Service Corps to hire thousands more doctors and nurses willing to serve the country’s most desperate regions during the COVID-19 pandemic in exchange for forgiving medical school debts. Now, with the health emergency over, the program’s expansion is in jeopardy – even as people struggle to get timely and quality care because of an industry-wide dearth of workers.

Funding for the program expires at the end of September, although President Joe Biden asked Congress to sign off an extra half-billion dollar for the project in his budget.

The number of nurses, physician, dentists, counselors, and midwives has ballooned thanks to an extra $800 million the U.S. Congress kicked to the program in stimulus packages unveiled as coronavirus raged. Last year, just over 20,000 people were corps members – up 50% from 13,000 people in 2019.

The program has placed medical professionals across a variety of disciplines – from occupational therapists in Ohio to counselors who treat drug and alcohol addictions in Alaska – in community health centers around the country. Those clinics receive federal funding to provide primary care for patients, regardless of their health insurance status or ability to pay.

The program has found rare bipartisan support from Republican and Democratic lawmakers who say they’re grateful for the void corps members fill in rural and needy communities alike that are coping with shortages. The U.S. is short thousands of family doctors, OB-GYNs and nurses, a problem that is only expected to worsen over the next decade.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who oversees the powerful Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has made the issue a top talking point in hearings. Sanders said in his state, people have complained to him about waits as long as five months just to get a physical with a doctor.

The situation would worsen, he told The Associated Press, if corps funding is not renewed and increased.

“People are going to struggle to find a dentist, to find a mental health counselor,” Sanders said. “If it’s bad now, it’s only going to get worse.”

Last month, a group of House Republicans sponsored a bill that would continue funding for the corps program, but not give it the same cash infusion that Biden has requested.

“One of the most consistent issues I’ve heard in my district in Pennsylvania is the shortage of physician and health care workers,” Republican Rep. John Joyce, who introduced the bill, said during a congressional hearing on the health care worker shortage last month.

Still, the program’s future is hanging in the balance with a split Congress that’s just weeks away from allowing the U.S. to default on its debts. Uncertainty around funding for the program also makes it difficult for health clinics to recruit providers, said Carole Johnson, who heads up the federal Health Resources and Services Administration that oversees corps funding.

“We’re hopeful to continue to grow. We know there’s a net demand out there,” Johnson said. “All the conversations that we’ve had have been very positive; that doesn’t make it easy.”

One of the largest areas of growth for the program has been in mental health, with more than 2,000 additional counselors, social workers, psychologists, and substance abuse counselors being hired over the past four years.

At Chicago’s largest, around-the-clock treatment center, about eight of the Haymarket Center’s providers are corps members. The center sees roughly 12,000 patients every year, many of them homeless. The corps program allows the not-for-profit Haymarket Center to recruit health care workers in a competitive market with a different benefit: as much as $250,000 in student loan repayment, said Jeffrey Collord, the vice president of operations at the center.

“We might not be able to compensate staff at the highest levels so being able to be part of the program allows us to provide a benefit that other sites don’t have access to,” Collord said.

Student loan forgiveness allowed Dr. Stephen Robinson to be the family physician that he always hoped to be. He worried through medical school about the mountain of student loan debt that was piling up and watched as many of his classmates pursued more lucrative salaries as specialty doctors. But his dad researched alternatives and discovered the National Health Service Corps program.

“If more providers thought they could come out and still be able to pay off their debt, they’d go into primary services,” Robinson said. “This has allowed us to do that.”

His wife, Caitlin, is one of the coveted OB-GYNs that Chesapeake Health Care recruited through the program. Pregnant women drive as much as an hour to see her.

Both are now nearly debt-free after spending seven years in the program. But they don’t plan on leaving this small Maryland town anytime soon. The Robinsons love raising their children close to the shore, fresh air and parks.

“We have no plans on going anywhere, even though we’re done,” Stephen Robinson said.

BYE BYE NEUTRALITY

Swiss parliamentary panel seeks easing of export controls on weaponry

By JAMEY KEATEN

yesterday

State Councillor Werner Salzmann addresses the media during a press conference of the Security Policy Committee of the State Council on the War Material Act in Bern, Switzerland, Thursday, May 11, 2023 (Anthony Anex/Keystone via AP)

BERN, Switzerland (AP) — A parliamentary committee in Switzerland on Thursday recommended easing export controls for Swiss-made war materiel to help prop up the domestic defense industry as Western neighbors urge the country to do more to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia.

The passage of two motions by the Security Policy Commission of the upper house of parliament, the Council of States was largely a procedural step, but it highlighted the economic and political pressures on Swiss lawmakers.

The Council commission took into consideration Switzerland’s longtime policy of military neutrality and the effects of export restrictions on Swiss defense contractors. Its sister commission in parliament’s lower house took a similar position in January.

The war in Ukraine has prompted Swiss government officials to grapple with their country’s longtime conception of neutrality, which is enshrined in the constitution and prohibits exporting weaponry to active war zones.

The policy also bars countries like Germany, Spain and Finland that have bought Swiss arms from re-exporting such items to countries like Ukraine.

However, Switzerland has joined European Union sanctions against Russian interests in the wake of President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Werner Salzmann, the president of the Security Policy Commission said the committee’s main interest in softening export controls was ensuring the viability of the Swiss defense industry. While Switzerland maintains its own army and all young men are required to do military service, the country’s defense needs are not substantial enough for the domestic industry to survive and thrive at current levels.

The measure is now expected to go to the broader parliament next month, although Salzmann said any changes would not take effect before March 2024 at the earliest.

The commission approved two separate motions that, if approved, would allow the executive branch to lift some restrictions on the export of weaponry and war materiel “in exceptional circumstances” and if required to ensure national security.

Another motion said the law on the export of war materiel could also be adapted to allow deliveries to countries “that are committed to our values” and have similar export controls to Switzerland, a text provided by the commission said.

Buyer countries could re-export Swiss-made weapons after five years within certain parameters. Re-export to countries that “severely” violate human rights would be banned, and the risk that the weapons could be used against civilians would have to be averted.

The destination country could not be at war domestically or internationally unless the country was engaged in a struggle of “legitimate self-defense” under international law.

“Strict criteria would apply so that no Swiss war material would be used in conflicts,” Salzmann told reporters. “However, the re-export of war material to a country at war would be possible if this country made use of its right of self-defense under international law.”

Last month, the Group of Seven industrial countries — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — sent a letter to Swiss authorities seeking more action to strengthen international sanctions against Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.

Both sides of the neutrality debate acknowledge that weaponry and other war materiel from Switzerland, a small but wealthy Alpine country of about 8.7 million people, is unlikely to tip the balance in the war. But Switzerland’s stockpiles have remained mostly intact as many other countries in western Europe have delivered weapons to Ukraine, and they’re looking to replenish their stocks as well as re-export Swiss war materiel there.

Any decision from Switzerland, which is known internationally for its neutrality, could set the tone for other countries — like Japan — that have been bound by their own laws to avoid exporting weapons to active conflict zones.

Celine Vara, a Green party lawmaker on the commission who doesn’t want Switzerland to ship weapons to Ukraine, said the debate was emotional because “what is certain is that there is indeed a desire to support Ukraine in its defense against this Russian invasion.”

“On the other hand, what is also certain is that there is a lot of motivation and personal interests in this discussion, because we know that the market for weapons of war represents billions,” she said. “These are colossal sums — and there are also many personal interests within the commission.”

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Unanimous U.S. Supreme Court gives transgender woman from Guatemala new chance to fight deportation

yesterday

The Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 14, 2023. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a transgender Guatemalan woman who is fighting deportation on the grounds that she would face persecution if returned to her native country. 

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday in favor of a transgender Guatemalan woman who is fighting deportation on the grounds that she would face persecution if returned to her native country.

The court’s unanimous decision in favor of Estrella Santos-Zacaria gives her another chance to argue that immigration officials were wrong to reject her bid to remain in the United States.

Lawyers for Santos-Zacaria, now in her mid-30s, said she first fled to the United States after being raped as a young teenager and threatened with death because of her gender identity in a country that has targeted the LGBTQ community.

But a U.S. immigration judge found that she did not make a strong enough case that she would face persecution if sent back to Guatemala.

The issue at the Supreme Court was more technical, whether federal immigration law was flexible enough to allow her another day in court. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against her on that point, but other appellate courts had ruled in favor of immigrants on the same issue.

The Supreme Court ruled in an opinion by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that the 5th Circuit was wrong.

After leaving Guatemala as a teenager, Santos-Zacaria had once before made it to the United States, but her stay was brief and she was deported in 2008, Jackson wrote.

Ten years later, she again entered the U.S. and was quickly taken into custody by immigration authorities.

Santos-Zacaria had testified that she was raped by a neighbor in the small town in which she was born and that townspeople said they would kill her because of her gender identity and her attraction to men.

She spent most of her time between 2008 and 2018 in Mexico, but decided to try to return to the U.S. after a Mexican gang also raped and assaulted her.

The State Department has found that Guatemala has done little to protect LGBTQ people and that transgender women are subject to frequent threats of violence.

Vermont clean heat bill becomes law as Legislature overrides governor’s veto

yesterday

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott delivers his State of the State address remotely from the Pavilion office building, Jan. 5, 2022, in Montpelier, Vt. Vermont's Legislature struck down a veto from Scott, meaning a new law took effect Thursday, May 11, 2023, that will push people to stop using fossil fuels to heat their homes. (Glenn Russell/VTDigger via AP, Pool, File)

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont’s Legislature struck down a veto from Republican Gov. Phil Scott, meaning a new law that will push people to stop using fossil fuels to heat their homes took effect Thursday.

Supporters say the Affordable Heat Act will lead to cleaner, cheaper ways to keep warm in the winter while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but critics warn it will drive up heating costs.

It establishes a clean heating standard, with utilities getting credits for energy efficient technologies — and having to pay if they don’t meet certain goals.

Thursday’s veto override ends a long-running dispute with the governor over how to cut greenhouse gasses and prevent the worst of climate change ’s future harms. The state House voted 107-to-42 to block the veto, two days after the Senate also voted to override.

Environmental groups offered praise.

“Governor Scott’s attempts to kill this legislation threatened to continue an irresponsible business-as-usual approach,” Elena Mihaly of the Conservation Law Foundation said in a written statement. She added that it’s no longer necessary to be “overly reliant on polluting, expensive fossil fuels.”

Scott vetoed the Affordable Heat Act last week. He has said while he supports the bill’s goal he thinks the legislation will give too much authority to the unelected Public Utilities Commission and could end up punishing Vermonters who are least able to afford to switch.

He vetoed a similar bill last year, and an override failed by one vote in the House.

Carrying out the provisions of the law will be overseen by the Public Utility Commission, which will develop and implement clean heat programs designed through a public process. The bill says the final rules to implement the program must be submitted to the Legislature by January 2025, and progress reports must be provided in February 2025 and on final submission.

The Affordable Heat Act grew out of legislation passed in 2020 that requires Vermont to reduce greenhouse gas pollution to 26% below 2005 levels by 2025. Emissions would need to be 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% below by 2050.

Youth climate lawsuit attorneys say Montana tried to scuttle trial by dropping energy policy

By AMY BETH HANSON and MATTHEW BROWN

today

Emigrant Peak towers over the Paradise Valley in Montana north of Yellowstone National Park. Attorneys for a group of youths suing Montana over damages caused by climate change say officials repealed the state's energy policy to avoid an upcoming trial. 

(AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Attorneys for young people suing Montana over damages caused by climate change said officials repealed the state’s energy policy in a last-minute bid to avoid a trial sought by the plaintiffs to highlight the dangers of fossil fuels.

The two sides are due in court Friday for arguments before state District Judge Kathy Seeley. A two-week trial is scheduled to begin June 12.

The case was brought in 2020 by attorneys for the environmental group Our Children’s Trust, which since 2010 has filed climate lawsuits in every state on behalf of youth plaintiffs. Many of the cases — including a previous one in Montana — have been dismissed. None have yet reached trial.

The still-pending Montana lawsuit sought in part to repeal a state policy promoting coal, gas and oil development. Scientists say burning those fuels is largely driving climate change by releasing planet-warming carbon dioxide.

But after the disputed energy policy was repealed in March by the state Legislature, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, last month asked the judge to dismiss any part of the case touching on the cancelled policy.

The cancellation did not end the state’s support of fossil fuels.

An attorney for the plaintiffs, Philip Gregory, told The Associated Press the policy was repealed “not because the state has committed to changing its fossil fuel policy and actions, but because the state seeks to avoid standing trial.”

He explained in an email that the state’s continued support for fossil fuels violates environmental protections in the Montana Constitution, which says the state “shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and all future generations.”

The lawsuit documents how the consequences of climate change already are being felt by the young plaintiffs, with smoke from worsening wildfires choking the air they breathe and drought drying rivers that sustain agriculture, fish and wildlife.

Attorneys under Knudsen wrote that the plaintiffs were resorting to “emotional appeals” about the dangers of climate change, “regardless of whether their claims are moot or meritless.”

Judge Seeley already has narrowed the scope of the case, ruling in 2021 that it was outside her power to issue a requested order that would have forced the state to craft a greenhouse gas reduction plan. The judge also said she could not order the state to complete an inventory of emissions caused by fossil fuels.

In both instances, Seeley said such work should be left to experts in the executive and legislative branches of government.

But Seeley said the court could declare that the state was in violation of the Constitution, without ordering that anything be done in response.

The sponsor of the measure that repealed the energy policy, Republican Rep. Steve Gunderson, did not return a call seeking comment. He said when it was under consideration before the Legislature that the policy was meaningless and outdated.

US Senate votes to limit critical habitat designation for imperiled species and drop bat’s protections

The vote on removing the listing was 51-49, with Manchin and Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar voting with Republicans

By JOHN FLESHER

yesterday

This undated photo provided by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources shows a northern long-eared bat. The U.S. Senate on Thursday, May 11, 2023, proposed dropping a 2022 federal designation of the northern long-eared bat as endangered. The Fish and Wildlife Service declared the northern long-eared bat endangered last November, raising its status from threatened. It is among 12 bat types hammered by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has reduced its numbers by 97% or more in some areas.

 (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources via AP, File)

The U.S. Senate voted narrowly Thursday to overturn two Biden administration policies intended to protect endangered species.

Senators called for reinstating a rule adopted under former President Donald Trump but rescinded by the Biden administration that limited which lands and waters could be designated as places for imperiled animals and plants to receive federal protection.

They also proposed dropping a 2022 federal designation of the northern long-eared bat as endangered.

Earlier this month, the Senate voted to undo federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken, a rare grouse found in parts of the Midwest and Southwest.

The actions, backed mostly by Republicans, represent rare congressional involvement in matters usually left to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. The Endangered Species Act tasks those agencies with deciding which animals and plants to list as endangered or threatened and how to rebuild their populations.

President Joe Biden threatened to veto the resolutions, which await action in the House.

“We are in the midst of a global extinction crisis for which the chief driver is the destruction, degradation, and loss of habitat,” a White House statement said.

A 2019 United Nations report said about 1 million species are in danger of extinction, with losses accelerating up to hundreds of times faster than before.

The Biden administration last June withdrew a Trump definition of “habitat” that environmental advocates said was too narrow to provide essential protection. Supporters said it would give landowners incentives to help troubled species while securing property rights.

Restoring the Trump habitat definition, the White House said, would “severely limit” federal agencies’ ability to help troubled species survive and recover.

Senators backed a resolution to reinstate the definition, 51-49. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican and its chief sponsor, argued that uncertainty about what qualifies as habitat lowers property values and hampers crucial infrastructure projects.

“Two-thirds of all endangered species are located on private lands,” Lummis said. “For these species to be recovered, private landowners must be part of the solution and not treated as the enemy.”

Joining Republicans in voting for reinstating the Trump definition of habitat were Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Independent Angus King of Maine, who often caucuses with Democrats.

The Trump rule was among several steps his administration took to scale back or alter endangered species policies, including lifting blanket protections for animals newly listed as threatened and setting cost estimates for saving species. Biden ordered a review of his predecessor’s environmental rulemaking shortly after taking office.

Under the 1973 law, federal agencies cannot fund, permit or take actions that would destroy or severely damage critical habitats. It doesn’t restrict activities on private land unless government approval or financial support is involved.

The Trump rule’s habitat definition was “unclear, confusing and inconsistent with the conservation purposes” of the law, the Fish and Wildlife Service and Marine Fisheries Service said previously.

It prevented agencies from selecting areas that don’t presently meet a species’ needs but might in the future as a result of restoration work or natural changes, they said. Global warming is expected to alter many landscapes and waters, attracting species that migrate from places no longer suitable for them.

The Fish and Wildlife Service declared the northern long-eared bat endangered last November, raising its status from threatened. It is among 12 bat types hammered by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has reduced its numbers by 97% or more in some areas.

The bat is found in 37 eastern and north-central states, plus Washington, D.C., and much of Canada.

Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, said bats contribute $3 billion annually to the nation’s agricultural economy through pest control and pollination.

Critics of the endangered listing contend it would hamper logging and other land uses that weren’t responsible for the bat’s sharp decline.

The vote on removing the listing was 51-49, with Manchin and Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar voting with Republicans. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California opposed both measures after returning to the Capitol following a long illness.

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Follow John Flesher on Twitter: @johnflesher

Tiny bats provide ‘glimmer of hope’ against a fungus that threatened entire species

By WILSON RING

today

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Alyssa Bennett, small mammals biologist for the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, holds a dead bat in a cave in Dorset, Vt., on May 2, 2023. Scientists studying bat species hit hard by the fungus that causes white nose syndrome, which has killed millions of bats across North America, say there is a glimmer of good news for the disease. Experts say more bats that hibernate at a cave in Vermont, the largest bat cave in New England, are tolerating the disease and passing protective traits on to their young. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali)


DORSET, Vt. (AP) — Deep in a cool, damp cave in Vermont, tens of thousands of furry, chocolate brown creatures stir.

The little brown bats, survivors of a deadly fungus that decimated their population, went into hibernation last fall. Now in early May, they’re waking, detaching from their rock wall roosts and making their first tentative flights in search of the moths, beetles and flying aquatic insects they devour.

It’s here, in deep passages that creep into a Vermont mountain, where scientists found one of the first North American outbreaks of the fungus that causes white nose syndrome. Bat bones litter the cave floor like dry lawn-mower cuttings. Look closer and you’ll find tiny skulls.

And the bats are still dying.

White nose syndrome is caused by an invasive fungus first found in an upstate New York cave in 2006, a short bat flight from the Dorset, Vermont, colony. The fungus wakes bats from hibernation, sending them into the frigid, winter air in search of food. They die of exposure or starvation because the insect population is too sparse to support them that time of year.

Smaller than a mouse and about the weight of three pennies in the hand, the Dorset bats skitter across the cave walls or cling to one another for warmth. Their health hints that at least some species are adapting to the fungus that has killed millions of their brethren across North America.

“That’s really significant, because it seems to be a stronghold where these bats are mostly surviving and then spreading out throughout New England in the summer,” said Alyssa Bennett, a small mammal biologist for the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife. She has studied bats and white nose syndrome for more than a decade.

“We’re hoping that it’s a source population for them to recover,” Bennett said as critters flitted and swooped around her.

VIDEO Some bats show signs of resilience against fungus

 2 minutes, 23 seconds

It will take time. Little brown bat females birth only one pup a year. And while they can live into their teens or 20s, only 60% to 70% of pups make it beyond their first 12 months, Bennett said.

Scientists now estimate that between 70,000 and 90,000 bats hibernate in the Dorset cave, the largest concentration in New England. Their numbers have dwindled from an estimated winter population of 300,000 to 350,000 or more in the 1960s, the last time the location was surveyed before white nose infiltrated.

It’s unclear how far the numbers dropped after the fungus set in, but biologists who visited in 2009 or 2010 noted the ground in front of the cave was carpeted with dead bats.

The fungus that causes white nose syndrome is believed to have been brought to North America from Europe, where bats are apparently accustomed to it. Named for the white, fuzzy spots it produces on noses and other bat body parts, the fungus has killed 90% or more of the bat populations in parts of North America.

Last month, a report by the North American Bat Conservation Alliance found that 81 of the 154 known bat species in the United States, Canada and Mexico are at severe risk from white nose infection, climate change and habitat loss.

It matters. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that bats boost U.S. agriculture by $3.7 billion a year by eating crop-destroying insects such as larvae-laying moths, whose offspring bore into corn plants.

Scientists have known for years that some little brown bats seemed to survive being exposed to the fungus, despite an overall mortality rate that was feared could eradicate them. Though Dorset’s little brown bats are holding on, other once common species found with them, like northern long eared or tricolor bats, are almost impossible to detect there now, Bennett said.

“There’s something special about those bats,” Bennett said of Dorset’s little browns. “We can’t tell exactly what that is, but we have genetic research that we’ve collaborated on that suggests those bats do have factors that are related to hibernation and immune response that are allowing them to tolerate this disease and pass those features on to their young.”

Winifred Frick, chief scientist at Bat Conservation International, who has followed white nose syndrome’s march across North American, said the fungus has been found in 38 states so far. She says it’s a “gut punch” each time she hears of a new outbreak.

Colorado reported its first infected bats earlier this year.

Frick is relieved that bats are beginning to repopulate some areas where carcasses once piled up, even if the rebound is so far only a fraction of earlier numbers.

“That’s a real glimmer of hope,” she said.

In addition to Vermont, other areas near where white nose was first discovered also report stable, possibly rising numbers of little brown bats.

Pennsylvania lost an estimated 99.9% of its population after white nose struck, said Greg Turner, the state mammal expert for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. While the numbers are still low, they’re slowly increasing in some places. One old mine in Blair County had just seven bats in 2016. This year, there were more than 330.

“I’m feeling pretty comfortable,” Turner said. “We’re not going to be stuck staring down the barrel of extinction.”

His research shows bats that hibernate at colder temperatures do better against white nose because the fungus grows more slowly.

That may mean the bats are less likely to wake up from the irritation it causes, though scientists still don’t understand the mechanism that allows some animals to survive while so many succumb.

“By selecting colder temperatures, they’re helping themselves in two ways, they’re helping themselves preserve fat and preserve their energy and they’re also getting less disease,” Turner said.

Still, there are worrying trends. Pennsylvania’s bat population is a tiny fraction of what it was before white nose invaded. In some locations, Turner and his colleagues see more bats, but inexplicably few females.

In Virginia, populations have plummeted more than 95%, though the state is starting to see some colonies stabilize or slightly grow their numbers. However, that’s happening at only a fraction of the sites once monitored, said Rick Reynolds, a non-game mammal biologist with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources.

“We remain positive, but there is a long road ahead with much uncertainty,” Reynolds said in an email.

Back in Vermont, where temperatures in the Dorset cave fall into the low 40s (around 4.4 degrees Celsius) in winter, the bats seem to have found a sweet spot cold enough to slow growth of the fungus.

Bennett is working with Laura Kloepper, a bioacoustics expert from the University of New Hampshire, to get a better handle on the population count. Using acoustic modeling, they’re working to get a baseline population estimate this year by comparing sound recordings with thermal imaging. They’ll survey using the same method again next year to try to determine the change.

“We we want to try to understand what we can possibly do to save not only the species of bat, not only the bats at this cave, but really bats around the world,” Kloepper said.

Norway takes over presidency of Arctic Council from Russia

By JAN M. OLSEN

yesterday

Large Icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, Aug. 16, 2019. Norway has taken over the Arctic Council’s rotating presidency from Russia on Thursday, May 11, 2023 amid concerns that the work of the eight-country intergovernmental body on protecting the sensitive environment is at risk due to suspension of cooperation with Moscow over the Ukraine war. Research involving Russia ranging from climate work to mapping polar bears have been put on hold and scientists have lost access to important facilities in the Russian Arctic. 

(AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Norway on Thursday took over the Arctic Council’s rotating chairmanship from Russia amid questions about what role the eight-country intergovernmental body can play in protecting the polar region after the invasion of Ukraine prompted Western countries to suspend cooperation with Moscow.

The Arctic Council, which doesn’t deal with security issues but makes binding agreements on environmental protection and gives a voice to the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic region, was one of the few settings where Western countries and Russia worked together closely.

But the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden decided to pause their work with Russia in the council shortly after Moscow launched the full-scale war in February 2022.

As a result, research involving Russia on issues ranging from climate change to polar bears has been put on hold, and scientists have lost access to important facilities in the Russian Arctic.

Nonetheless, Norway vowed to keep the council’s work moving forward as it assumed the rotating two-year chairmanship from Russia.

“Norway will continue to focus on the core issues the Council deals with, including the impacts of climate change, sustainable development and efforts to enhance the well-being of people living in the region,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said. “Together with the other member states, we will now explore how this can be achieved in practice.”

Experts say that’s going to be complicated without cooperation with Russia, the biggest Arctic nation.

“It is a huge challenge for Norway. They have to isolate Russia and at the same time they have to make sure not to provoke Russia to dissolve the Council,” said Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen, of the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsoe.

He worried that Indigenous peoples might “lose an important forum and a prominent platform,” adding that many of the groups are cross-border organizations and don’t follow national borders.

Six organizations representing Arctic Indigenous peoples are permanent participants of the Arctic Council, which was established in 1996.

The council has been a key forum for Arctic stakeholders to address climate change and other environmental challenges in the region, where melting sea ice is opening up new areas to shipping and offshore oil and gas exploration.

Countries including France, Germany, China, Japan, India and Korea attend the meetings of the Arctic Council as observers.

Dwayne Ryan Menezes, founder and director of the London-based Polar Research and Policy Initiative, said that while it won’t make the council’s problems disappear, Norway taking over the chairmanship would “make it possible for the majority of member states to have a close working relationship with the chair once again, which will aid the forum’s work of promoting cooperation and coordination.”

The handover took place in an online ceremony, with member states’ Arctic ambassadors rather than foreign ministers attending. The council issued a statement “recognizing the historic and unique role of the Arctic Council” and acknowledging the commitment to safeguard and strengthen it.

Morten Høglund, a Norwegian diplomat who took over as chair of the council’s senior officials’ group, told reporters during an online briefing that “important work” would continue in the council even though government ministers wouldn’t participate in the talks in the foreseeable future.

“That’s one of the challenges we just have to try to overcome,” he said.

Methadone treatment may curb use of fentanyl, heroin, study shows

METHADONE HAS BEEN USED FOR HEROIN 

ADDICTION FOR SIXTY YEARS

By Cara Murez, HealthDay News

In the study, those who tested positive for fentanyl during the first year of methadone treatment declined on average from about 22% in week one to just over 17% in week 52. Photo by qimono/Pixabay

When people receive methadone treatment for opioid use disorder, their use of the dangerous drugs heroin and fentanyl significantly declines, a new study shows.

But decreases in cocaine or methamphetamine use were not seen in a year of treatment, researchers report.

"Methadone treatment can have tremendous success reducing fentanyl and heroin use in individuals, but this study shows we aren't addressing the complexity of polysubstance use," said study lead author Brendan Saloner, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

"The findings clearly sound an alarm bell that we need more tools to support other types of substance use," Saloner added in a school news release.

The findings are important, given the U.S. drug crisis. Drug overdose deaths rose from over 12,100 in 2015 to nearly 53,500 in 2021, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, is a key driver in those deaths.

In the study, those who tested positive for fentanyl during the first year of methadone treatment declined on average from about 22% in week one to just over 17% in week 52.

The heroin positivity rate was halved, dropping from about 8% to about 4%. The biggest declines for both fentanyl and heroin were seen in the first 10 weeks of treatment.

"At the same time, the prevalence of methamphetamine and cocaine use is on the rise and is not generally decreasing during a year in methadone treatment. These findings will help clinicians identify patients who are at greater risk and can offer additional support," Saloner said.

Researchers analyzed urine-specimen findings from patients receiving treatment at methadone clinics from 2017 to 2021. The study involved more than 16,000 people from 10 U.S. states: Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia and Washington.

Across the five-year study period, the first urine specimens collected indicated increasing fentanyl positivity rates in the broader population, from about 13% in 2017 to 53% in 2021. The positivity rate for methamphetamine also increased, from about 11% to more than 27%. The rate of cocaine use also rose, from almost 14% to nearly 20%.

Fentanyl positivity was significantly higher for males compared to females, and higher in the 18 to 24 age group.

Methadone is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat the cravings and withdrawal common in opioid use disorder.

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse funded the study. Findings were published online Tuesday in the journal Addiction.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on fentanyl.

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