Memphis ‘snake factory’ transplants slither into their new home in Louisiana

By STEPHEN SMITH and KEVIN McGILL

today

PHOTO ESSAY 1 of 19
A Louisiana pine snake bluffs in a posture to defend itself against predators, during the release of several of about 100 Louisiana pine snakes, which are a threatened species, in Kisatchie National Forest, La., Friday, May 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

BENTLEY, La. (AP) — They were born and raised in captivity, but as they slowly slithered away from their handlers and disappeared into gopher holes in the Kisatchie National Forest, the group of Louisiana pine snakes appeared to be right at home.

The five pine snakes bred at the Memphis Zoo in Tennessee were released into the Kisatchie in early May as part of an ongoing conservation effort involving zoos in Memphis, New Orleans and two Texas cities, Fort Worth and Lufkin. This year, more than 100 pine snakes — a species the federal government lists as threatened — will be released into the central Louisiana forest.

“We provide the snakes in our snake factories, which are funded by the U.S. Forest Service, into habitat that the Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service have developed,” said Steve Reichling, the Memphis Zoo’s Director of Conservation and Research. “It’s just a perfect marriage, really.”

Reichling said the characteristics of the area where the snakes were released — a high tree canopy dominated by longleaf pine, little mid-level vegetation, grassy ground and sandy soil — are all vital to the snakes’ survival. The forest is also home to gophers that are both a food source for the snakes and the creators of the burrow system where the snakes live and hibernate.

“Unlike some of the other snakes that are here that can survive in different habitats, Louisiana pines, they cannot,” Reichling said as the snakes were being released.

Although they bear a resemblance to rattlesnakes, pine snakes are non-venomous constrictors and aren’t considered dangerous to humans.

“There is no other snake in the world like it,” Reichling said. “And to me, that’s the definition of precious, right?”

The release into the Kisatchie of juvenile pine snakes raised at the Memphis Zoo has become an annual event, one that Emlyn Smith, a biologist with the forest service, looks forward to.

“I love this,” she said. “This is why I haven’t retired yet, because I love this project and it’s just so exciting. Every time I come out here, there’s the potential to see a pine snake that we released and to see that it’s surviving and it’s thriving and it’s making babies and it’s getting bigger.”

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McGill reported from New Orleans.

California condors confront bird flu in flight from extinction

By STEFANIE DAZIO

today

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Condor chick LA1123 waits for it's feeding in a temperature controlled enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo on Tuesday, May 2, 2023. The chick hatched Sunday April 30, 2023. The latest breeding efforts to boost the population of North America's largest land bird, an endangered species where there are only several hundred in the wild. Experts say say the species cannot sustain itself without human intervention. More birds still die in the wild each year than the number of chicks that are born, both in nature and in captivity, and survive annually.

 (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The California condor is facing the deadliest strain of avian influenza in U.S. history, and the outbreak could jeopardize the iconic vulture with its 10-foot (3.05-meter) wingspan decades after conservationists saved the species from extinction.

But nine newly hatched chicks, covered in downy white feathers, give condor-keepers at the Los Angeles Zoo hope that the endangered population of North America’s largest soaring land birds will once again thrive after 40 years of aggressive efforts.

With fewer than 350 condors in the wild — in flocks that span from the Pacific Northwest to Baja California, Mexico — the historic outbreak means ongoing breeding-in-captivity and re-wilding programs like the LA Zoo’s remain essential.

Over the past year and a half, millions of birds across the U.S. have died from avian flu, including more than 430 bald eagles and some 58 million turkeys and commercial chickens that were euthanized to prevent the spread of the disease. Bird flu is further suspected in the deaths of dozens of seals off the coast of Maine last summer.

Already, the strain is believed to have caused the deaths of at least 22 California condors in Arizona, which were part of a flock in the Southwest that typically accounts for a third of the species’ entire wild population.

Experts are now concerned the strain could further impact condors by rapidly spreading across state lines through the spring migration. More than two dozen environmental advocates this week urged the federal government to expedite approvals for a vaccine that would be given to both condors in the wild and in captivity.

The advocates, which include the Center for Biological Diversity, warned in a letter that the flu strain is “jeopardizing the existence” of the famed bird.

“The California condor is at risk of extinction once again, and once again, an emergency vaccination campaign is required to stave off a deadly infection and possible extinction,” they wrote, referencing the success of the West Nile Virus vaccine for condors in the early 2000s.

As the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act approaches, wildlife officials say the species still cannot sustain itself without human intervention — even though humans are also to blame for much of its losses outside the avian flu, including deaths from lead ammunition poisoning.

“I think it’s going to take some changes in behavior from the humans on the planet so that we can really address the threats to the species,” said Ashleigh Blackford, the California condor coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Despite a California law banning it for hunting, lead ammunition is still readily used. The condors scavenge meat from dead animals, felled by the lead ammunition, and fall ill — often fatally.

“It’s really hard to watch a bird you raised come back and die in your arms,” said Los Angeles Zoo condor-keeper Chandra David, who has tended to lead-poisoned condors brought back to the zoo for treatment. “And there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Still, spring is a time for hope. At breeding programs in the U.S. and Mexico, chicks are hatching and online “condor cams” provide live feeds for fans.

“It’s a funny species in that it really is not your typical charismatic species, right? They are a little bit on the ugly side. Most people are not endeared to vultures, but this one in particular (is different),” Blackford said.

Regardless, the condor looms large in California culture — even if it’s not the official state bird (that’s the California quail). The mascot for the Los Angeles Clippers is Chuck the Condor and one of the birds in flight is featured prominently on the state quarter.

The population was nearly wiped out by hunting during the California Gold Rush, as well as poisoning from toxic pesticide DDT and lead ammunition.

In the 1980s, all 22 California condors left in the wild were controversially captured and put into captive breeding programs to save the species. Zoo-bred birds were first released into the wild in 1992 and in the years since have been reintroduced into habitats they’d disappeared from — including the Yurok Tribe’s ancestral lands in Northern California. The ongoing re-wilding efforts are considered a conservation success.

“It took decades to drive species toward extinction and it’s, in many cases, going to take decades to bring them back,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for Center for Biological Diversity.

The condor is intrinsically tied to several Native American tribes in the West. The Havasupai people, for example, say the condor flew their ancestors from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the top -- its wings creating the famous striations.

For the Yurok Tribe, the work to bring the condors back highlights how Native Americans are reclaiming their traditional roles as stewards of the land — “which was a role that was taken from us forcibly post-contact,” said Tiana Williams-Claussen, director of the tribe’s wildlife department.

Known as prey-go-neesh in Yurok, the revered condor disappeared from the region in the late 1800s. In 2021, Williams-Claussen and her team, building on a promise made by tribal leaders in 2003, watched as captive-bred condors took flight over Yurok lands for the first time in more than a century.

The tribe hopes to release four to six captive-bred birds into the wild annually over the next two decades.

“Ultimately our goal, of course, is to have birds without tags, without transmitters, that can just reintegrate into our ecosystem,” Williams-Claussen said, “into our cultural lifeways aga

Toyota: Data on more than 2 million vehicles in Japan were at risk in decade-long breach

By YURI KAGEYAMA

 Shown is a Toyota logo at the Philadelphia Auto Show on Jan. 27, 2023, in Philadelphia. A decade-long data breach in Toyota’s much-touted online service put some information on more than 2 million vehicles at risk, the Japanese automaker said Friday, May 12. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

TOKYO (AP) — A decade-long data breach in Toyota’s much-touted online service put some information on more than 2 million vehicles at risk, the Japanese automaker said Friday.

Spanning from January 2012 to April 2023, the problem with Toyota’s cloud-based Connected service pertains only to vehicles in Japan, said spokesperson Hideaki Homma.

The Connected service reminds owners to get maintenance checks and links to streaming entertainment and provides help during emergencies. It can call for help after a crash or locate a car that’s been stolen.

No issues arising from the breach have been reported so far.

Although there is no evidence any information was leaked, copied or misused due to the breach, the data at risk includes: the vehicle identification number, which is separate from the license plate; the location of the vehicle and at what time it was there; and video footage taken by the vehicle, known as the “drive recorder” in Japan.

Such information cannot be used to identify individual owners, according to Toyota Motor Corp., which makes the Prius hybrid and Lexus luxury models.

Vehicles belonging to about 2.15 million people have been affected, including those who used net services called G-Link, G-Book and Connected.

Toyota’s Connected service in Japan is operated by a subsidiary. Until recently, no one noticed outside access to such information should have been turned off, Homma said.

“We are so sorry to have caused such trouble to all the people,” he said.

The problem is a major embarrassment for Japan’s top automaker, which has built a reputation for quality and attention to detail.

Automakers worldwide are competing to differentiate model offerings with the latest technology to lure buyers.

The problem with the system has been fixed, Homma said, so it’s safe to continue driving Connect-enabled vehicles as usual, and there is no need to bring them in for repairs.

Sex? Sexual intercourse? Neither? Teens weigh in on evolving definitions — and habits

By JOCELYN GECKER

today

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A young couple sit on the beach in Huntington Beach, Calif., Monday, May 8, 2023. For years, studies have shown a decline in the rates of American high school students having sex. That trend continued, not surprisingly, in the first years of the pandemic, according to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found that 30% of teens in 2021 said they had ever had sex, down from 38% in 2019 and a huge drop from three decades ago when more than half of teens reported having sex. 

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Situationships. “Sneaky links.” The “talking stage,” the flirtatious getting-to-know-you phase — typically done via text — that can lead to a hookup.

High school students are having less sexual intercourse. That’s what the studies say. But that doesn’t mean they’re having less sex.

The language of young love and lust, and the actions behind it, are evolving. And the shift is not being adequately captured in national studies, experts say.

For years, studies have shown a decline in the rates of American high school students having sex. That trend continued, not surprisingly, in the first years of the pandemic, according to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found that 30% of teens in 2021 said they had ever had sex, down from 38% in 2019 and a huge drop from three decades ago, when more than half of teens reported having sex.

The Associated Press took the findings to teenagers and experts around the country to ask for their interpretation. Parents: Some of the answers may surprise you.

THE MEANING OF SEX: DEPENDS WHO YOU ASK

For starters, what is the definition of sex?

“Hmm. That’s a good question,” says Rose, 17, a junior at a New England high school.

She thought about it for 20 seconds, then listed a range of possibilities for heterosexual sex, oral sex and relations between same-sex or LGBTQ partners. On her campus, short-term hookups — known as “situationships” — are typically low commitment and high risk from both health and emotional perspectives.

There are also “sneaky links” — when you hook up in secret and don’t tell your friends. “I have a feeling a lot more people are quote unquote having sex — just not necessarily between a man and a woman.”

For teens today, the conversation about sexuality is moving from a binary situation to a spectrum and so are the kinds of sex people are having. And while the vocabulary around sex is shifting, the main question on the CDC survey has been worded the same way since the government agency began its biannual study in 1991: Have you “ever had sexual intercourse?”

“Honestly, that question is a little laughable,” says Kay, 18, who identifies as queer and attends a public high school near Lansing, Michigan. “There’s probably a lot of teenagers who are like, ‘No, I’ve never had sexual intercourse, but I’ve had other kinds of sex.’”

The AP agreed to use teenagers’ first or middle names for this article because of a common concern they expressed about backlash at school, at home and on social media for speaking about their peers’ sex lives and LGBTQ+ relations.

SEXUAL IDENTITY IS EVOLVING

Several experts say the CDC findings could signal a shift in how teen sexuality is evolving, with gender fluidity becoming more common along with a decrease in stigma about identifying as not heterosexual.

They point to another finding in this year’s study that found the proportion of high school kids who identify as heterosexual dropped to about 75%, down from about 89% in 2015, when the CDC began asking about sexual orientation. Meanwhile, the share who identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual rose to 15%, up from 8% in 2015.

“I just wonder, if youth were in the room when the questions were being created, how they would be worded differently,” said Taryn Gal, executive director of the Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health.

Sex is just one of the topics covered by the CDC study, called the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. One of the main sources of national data about high school students on a range of behaviors, it is conducted every two years and asks about 100 questions on topics including smoking, drinking, drug use, bullying, carrying guns and sex. More than 17,000 students at 152 public and private high schools across the country responded to the 2021 survey.

“It’s a fine line we have to try to walk,” says Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, which leads the study.

From a methodological standpoint, changing a question would make it harder to compare trends over time. The goal is to take a national snapshot of teenage behavior, with the understanding that questions might not capture all the nuance. “It doesn’t allow us to go as in depth in some areas as we would like,” Ethier says.

The national survey, for example, does not ask about oral sex, which carries the risk of spreading sexually transmitted infections. As for “sexual intercourse,” Ethier says, “We try to use a term that we know young people understand, realizing that it may not encompass all the ways young people would define sex.”

IS LESS TEEN SEX GOOD NEWS?

Beyond semantics, there are a multitude of theories on why the reported rates of high school sex have steadily declined — and what it might say about American society.

“I imagine some parents are rejoicing and some are concerned, and I think there is probably good cause for both,” says Sharon Hoover, co-director of the National Center for School Mental Health at the University of Maryland. Health officials like to see trends that result in fewer teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

“But what we don’t know is what this means for the trajectory of young people,” Hoover says.

This year’s decrease, the sharpest drop ever recorded, clearly had a lot to do with the pandemic, which kept kids isolated, cut off from friends and immersed in social media. Even when life started returning to normal, many kids felt uncomfortable with face-to-face interaction and found their skills in verbal communication had declined, Hoover said.

The survey was conducted in the fall of 2021, just as many K-12 students returned to in-person classrooms after a year of online school.

Several teens interviewed said that when schools reopened, they returned with intense social anxiety compounded by fears of catching COVID. That added a new layer to pre-pandemic concerns about sexual relations like getting pregnant or catching STIs.

“I remember thinking, ‘What if I get sick? What if I get a disease? What if I don’t have the people skills for this?’” said Kay, the 18-year-old from Michigan. “All those ‘what ifs’ definitely affected my personal relationships, and how I interacted with strangers or personal partners.”

Another fear is the prying eyes of parents, says college student Abby Tow, who wonders if helicopter parenting has played a role in what she calls the “baby-fication of our generation.” A senior at the University of Oklahoma, Tow knows students in college whose parents monitor their whereabouts using tracking apps.

“Parents would get push notifications when their students left dorms and returned home to dorms,” says Tow, 22, majoring in social work and gender studies.

Tow also notices a “general sense of disillusionment” in her generation. She cites statistics that fewer teenagers today are getting driver’s licenses. “I think,” she says, “there is a correlation between students being able to drive and students having sex.”

Another cause for declining sex rates could be easy access to online porn, experts say. By the age of 17, three-quarters of teenagers have viewed pornography online, with the average age of first exposure at 12, according to a report earlier this year by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit child advocacy group.

“Porn is becoming sex ed for young people,” says Justine Fonte, a New York-based sex education teacher. She says pornography shapes and skews adolescent ideas about sexual acts, power and intimacy. “You can rewind, fast forward, play as much as you want. It doesn’t require you to think about how the person is feeling.”

IS THERE AN EVOLVING DEFINITION OF CONSENT?

Several experts said they hoped the decline could be partly attributed to a broader understanding of consent and an increase in “comprehensive” sex education being taught in many schools, which has become a target in ongoing culture wars.

Unlike abstinence-only programs, the lessons include discussion on understanding healthy relationships, gender identity, sexual orientation and preventing unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Contrary to what critics think, she said, young people are more likely to delay the onset of sexual activity if they have access to sex education.

Some schools and organizations supplement sex education with peer counseling, where teens are trained to speak to each other about relationships and other topics that young people might feel uncomfortable raising with adults.

Annika, 14, is a peer ambassador trained by Planned Parenthood and a high school freshman in Southern California. She’s offered guidance to friends in toxic relationships and worries about the ubiquity of porn among her peers, especially male friends. It’s clear to her that the pandemic stunted sex lives.

The CDC’s 2023 survey, which is currently underway, will show if the decline was temporary. Annika suspects it will show a spike. In her school, at least, students seem to be making up for lost time.

“People lost those two years so they’re craving it more,” she said. She has often been in a school bathroom where couples in stalls next to her are engaged in sexual activities.

Again, the definition of sex? “Any sexual act,” Annika says. “And sexual intercourse is one type of act.”

To get a truly accurate reading of teen sexuality, the evolution of language needs to be taken into account, says Dr. John Santelli, a Columbia University professor who specializes in adolescent sexuality.

“The word intercourse used to have another meaning,” he points out. “Intercourse used to just mean talking.”

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Jocelyn Gecker is an education reporter for The Associated Press, based in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jgecker

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The AP education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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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

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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

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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

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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.