Baby eels remain one of America’s most valuable fish after strong year in Maine

By PATRICK WHITTLE

today

- Bruce Steeves uses a lantern to look for young eels, known as elvers, on a river, in southern Maine. Fishermen in the U.S.'s only commercial-scale fishing industry for valuable baby eels once again had a productive season searching for the tiny fish. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Fishermen in the U.S.’s only commercial-scale fishing industry for valuable baby eels once again had a productive season searching for the tiny fish.

Baby eels, called elvers, are often worth more than $2,000 per pound because of how valuable they are to Asian aquaculture companies. That makes them one of the most valuable fish species in the U.S. They’re raised to maturity so they can be used in Japanese food, some of which is sold in the U.S. in unagi dishes at sushi restaurants.

The elvers have again been worth more than $2,000 per pound at the docks this year, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The fishermen are limited to a combined quota of a little less than 10,000 pounds per year and were about through it by early May, the department said. The price was a tick below last year’s, but higher than the previous two.

Fishermen this year have been aided by favorable weather and strong international demand, said Jeffrey K. Pierce, a former Maine state representative and adviser to the Maine Elver Fishermen Association. Foreign sources of baby eels have largely dried up, and that has made Maine eels more valuable in recent years.

“There’s a huge demand for it. They’re not getting a lot out of Europe,” Pierce said. “And it’s just a great product.”

South Carolina is the only other state in the country with a fishing industry for baby eels, and that state’s fishery is much smaller.

Maine fishermen harvest the eels using nets in rivers and streams every spring. Some fish in rural areas, while others harvest them in the state’s cities, including Portland and Bangor. They’re also harvested by members of Native American tribes in the state.

The worldwide industry for eels has been threatened by poaching for many years because of how valuable the fish are. Maine has adopted new controls in recent years to try to thwart illegal elver fishing and dealing in the state. Federal law enforcement has also targeted illegal eel dealing and fishing.

Still, illegal dealing persists. One study published this year by a research team led by the University of Exeter found that as much as two-fifths of the North American unagi samples they tested actually contained European eels, which are banned from importing or exporting.

VP Harris, 1st woman to give commencement speech at West Point, welcomes cadets to ‘unsettled world’

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN

AP

May 27, 2023

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the graduation ceremony of the U.S. Military Academy class of 2023 at Michie Stadium on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in West Point, N.Y. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston)

NEW YORK (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman to deliver a commencement speech at West Point, lauded graduating cadets Saturday for their noble sacrifice in serving their country, but noted they were entering an “unsettled world” because of Russian aggression and the rising threats from China.

“The world has drastically changed,” Harris told the roughly 950 graduating cadets. She referred to the global pandemic that took millions of lives and the fraught shifts in global politics in Europe and in Asia.

“It is clear you graduate into an increasingly unsettled world where long-standing principles are at risk,” she said.

As the U.S. ended two decades of war in Afghanistan, the longest in the country’s history, the vice president again condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the first major ground war in Europe since World War II.

She also warned cadets to be wary of China, as it rapidly modernizes its military and muscles for control of parts of the high seas, ostensibly referring to the brewing disputes over the South China Sea.

Harris made no mention in her address about the ongoing skirmishing in Washington, where the White House and congressional Republicans try to avert a debt crisis.

In her speech, Harris touched on the importance of having institutions reflect the diversity of the broader United States, making the comment at an institution that has made slow progress diversifying its ranks in the four decades since the first class of female cadets graduated.

Today, about one quarter of the student body are women. Only a few dozen graduates each year are Black women, like Harris, though the number has ticked up in recent years. The academy didn’t admit women until 1976 and had its first female graduates in 1980.

Upon graduation, the cadets will be commissioned as Army second lieutenants.

West Point dates to 1802. Since then, the college has educated future military leaders including Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Gen. George Patton and Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Harris’ visit is her first to the U.S. Army academy. Commencement speakers at the country’s military academies are usually delivered by the president, vice president or high-ranking military official — which until Harris’ election meant speakers have always been men.

Harris was joined at the commencement by Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, who in 2021 became the first woman to hold the military service’s top civilian post.

While Harris visited West Point, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Manhattan, President Joe Biden heads to Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday to address graduates at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III addressed the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, on Friday.

Last year, Harris addressed graduates at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.

Cracks emerging in Europe’s united front to battle climate change

By SAMUEL PETREQUIN

AP

today

1 of 10
 Large parts of the forests are missing in the Taunus region near Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, April 7, 2023. The European Union has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change and the protection of nature for years. But it now finds itself under pressure from within to pause new environmental efforts amid fears they will hurt the economy. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change and the protection of nature for years. But it now finds itself under pressure from within to pause new environmental efforts amid fears they will hurt the economy.

With the next European Parliament elections set for 2024, some leaders and lawmakers are concerned about antagonizing workers and voters with new binding legislation and restrictive measures and are urging the 27-nation bloc to hit the brakes.

Since Ursula von der Leyen took the helm of the powerful European Commission back in 2019, environmental policies have topped the EU agenda. EU nations have endorsed plans to become climate neutral by 2050 and adopted a wide range of measures, from reducing energy consumption to sharply cutting transport emissions and reforming the EU’s trading system for greenhouse gases.

But cracks in the European united front against climate change have emerged in recent months.

The first sign was earlier this year when Germany, the bloc’s economic giant, delayed a deal to ban new internal combustion engines in the EU by 2035 amid ideological divisions inside the German government.

An agreement was finally reached in March, but just weeks later, the bloc’s other powerhouse, France, called for a pause on EU environmental regulation, causing controversy.

As he presented a bill on green industry earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron said it was time for the EU to implement existing rules before adopting new ones.

“We have already passed a lot of regulations at European level, more than our neighbors,” he said. “Now we have to execute, not make new rules, because otherwise we will lose all players.”

Macron has been particularly concerned by a U.S. clean energy law that benefits electric vehicles and other products made in North America, fearing it will expose European companies to unfair competition. Although Europeans and their American partners keep working to resolve the challenges posed by the U.S. law, Macron’s logic basically holds that a pause on environmental constraints would help EU businesses keep producing on home soil, despite competition from countries such as China that have lower environmental standards.

Belgian Prime minister Alexander De Croo quickly followed suit, calling this week for a moratorium on the introduction of EU legislation aimed at nature preservation, creating a rift within the governing coalition including green politicians.

The law proposed by the EU’s executive arm aims, by 2030, to cover at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas with nature restoration measures, “and eventually extend these to all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050,” the commission said.

De Croo said that climate legislation should not be overloaded with restoration measures or limits on agricultural nitrogen pollution, warning that businesses would no longer be able to keep up.

“That’s why I’m asking that we press the pause button,” he told VRT network. “Let’s not go too far with things that, strictly speaking, have nothing to do with global warming. These other issues are important too, but measures to address them must be taken in phases.”

Macron and De Croo have found allies at the European Parliament, where members of the biggest group, the Christian Democrat EPP, have asked the European Commission to withdraw the nature restoration law proposal on grounds that it will threaten agriculture and undermine food security in Europe.

The move came after two parliamentary committees, the Fisheries Committee and the Agriculture Committee, rejected the planned legislation.

EPP lawmakers claim that abandoning farmland will lead to an increase in food prices, more imports and drive farmers out of businesses.

“This is an exceptional step and shows that the Parliament is not ready to accept a proposal that only increases costs and insecurity for farmers, fishers and consumers,” said Siegfried Mureşan, the vice-chairman of the EPP Group responsible for budget and structural policies.

The growing opposition to the nature restoration law has caused great concern among environmental NGOs, and Frans Timmermans, the EU Commission’s top climate official in charge of its Green Deal, warned he would not put forward an alternative proposal because there isn’t time.

“You can’t say I support the Green Deal, but not the ambition to restore nature. It’s not ‘à la carte menu,’” Timmermans said.

The EU commission has also proposed setting legally binding targets to reduce the use of pesticides by 50% by 2030 and a ban on all pesticide use in public parks, playgrounds and schools. To ease the transition to alternative pest control methods, farmers would be able to use EU funds to cover the cost of the new requirements for five years.

“If one piece falls, the other pieces fall. I don’t see how we can maintain the Green Deal without the nature pillar, because without the nature pillar, the climate pillar is also not viable,” Timmermans told EU lawmakers. “So we need to get these two together.”

German government denies Scholz comments spurred raids on climate activists

AP
yesterday

Activists and supporters of the group 'Letzte Generation' Last Generation demonstrate in Stuttgart, Friday May 26, 2023. A German government spokesperson on Friday rejected the notion that comments by Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticizing climate activists might have prompted raids against them this week. (Andreas Rosar/dpa via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — A German government spokesperson on Friday rejected the notion that comments by Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticizing climate activists might have prompted raids against them this week.

Police on Wednesday searched more than a dozen properties across Germany linked to the group Last Generation, seizing assets as part of a probe into its finances. Prosecutors in Munich said they are investigating whether the group constitutes a criminal organization after its repeated road blockades and other protests drew numerous complaints from the public.

Days before the raids, Scholz said he thought it was “ completely nutty to somehow stick yourself to a painting or on the street.”

Members of Last Generation have hit back, describing the raids as a blow to democracy and accusing Scholz of belittling young people’s fears about global warming.

Scholz’s spokesperson, Wolfgang Buechner, said he didn’t know whether the chancellor had advance knowledge of the raids but that it would be unusual if that were the case.

Asked whether prosecutors in Bavaria could have taken Scholz’s comments as a signal to crack down on the group, Buechner strongly rejected the idea.

“It has to be possible for the German chancellor to answer a question about what he thinks of the protests in a plain-spoken way,” he said. “I think the chancellor did this in an appropriate way.”

Buechner said the German government remains committed to tackling climate change and protesters must abide by the law.

A United Nations spokesperson said Thursday that while governments have a duty to uphold the law, “people also have a fundamental right to demonstrate peacefully to have their voices heard.”

“And it is clear that a lot of the progress that we have seen on awareness on climate change and positive movement on climate change is due to the fact that people have been demonstrating peacefully throughout the world,” Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

“Climate advocates – led by the moral voice of young people – have kept the agenda moving through the darkest of days. They must be protected, and we need them now more than ever,” he told German news agency dpa.

Last Generation and other groups have said they plan further protests in Germany over the coming days.

Portland, Oregon, to clear sidewalk tents to settle suit with people with disabilities

By CLAIRE RUSH

AP

May 25, 2023

Tents line the sidewalk on SW Clay St in Portland, Ore., on Dec. 9, 2020. Portland will remove tents blocking sidewalks under a tentative settlement announced Thursday, May 25, 2023, in a lawsuit brought by people with disabilities who said sprawling homeless encampments prevent them from navigating Oregon's most populous city. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer, File)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Portland will remove tents blocking sidewalks under a tentative settlement announced Thursday in a lawsuit brought by people with disabilities who said sprawling homeless encampments prevent them from navigating Oregon’s most populous city.

The federal class action lawsuit, filed in September, alleged that the city violated the American with Disabilities Act by allowing tents to obstruct sidewalks. The plaintiffs included a caretaker and nine people with disabilities who use wheelchairs, scooters, canes and walkers to get around. The settlement still requires approval from the City Council and the U.S. District Court in Portland.

The settlement comes as City Council prepares to consider new restrictions on camping. The updates to the city’s camping code would ban camping between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. in many locations, including sidewalks. Mayor Ted Wheeler plans to present the ordinance Wednesday. The City Council previously voted in November to gradually ban street camping and create at least three large, designated campsites where homeless people will be allowed to camp.

Under the tentative lawsuit settlement, the city must prioritize removing tents that block sidewalks and clear at least 500 sidewalk-blocking encampments every year for the next five years. If there are fewer than 500 such campsites in a given year, the city will be found to be in compliance if it clears all that are blocking sidewalks.

The city must operate a 24-hour hotline for reporting tents that are blocking sidewalks and create an online reporting portal where people can upload photos. It will create a publicly accessible database of reported campsites and actions taken in response.

Portland will also limit its distribution of tents to homeless people and post “no camping” signs in areas where sidewalks are frequently blocked.

“People with disabilities deserve to use transportation corridors to pursue their daily activities unimpeded,” one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, John DiLorenzo, said in an email, adding that he was hopeful the settlement would make it easier for people with disabilities to navigate the city.

Under the tentative deal, the city will not admit wrongdoing or liability.

The settlement is expected to be presented to the City Council next week.

“I strongly believe that everyone should have access to sidewalks to navigate the City safely, and this is especially true for Portlanders with mobility challenges,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said in an emailed statement. “The settlement that will come before Council next week will help prioritize the City’s efforts to ensure accessibility to sidewalks.”

The plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit described how unnavigable sidewalks complicate their lives and sometimes put them in harm’s way.

Among them is Steve Jackson, who is legally blind and uses a cane to walk. He said tents prevent him from navigating the sidewalk and accessing bus stops.

“Often there’s tents blocking the entire sidewalk, where I don’t see them because they weren’t there the day before, and I hit the tent and then people are mad at me and think I’m attacking them,” Jackson said during a news conference in September.

About 13% of Portlanders live with a disability, according to the lawsuit, including 6% with mobility impairments and 2.4% with visual impairments.

The city must devote at least $8 million in the 2023-2024 fiscal year to making sure the conditions of the settlement are met, and at least $3 million annually for the following four fiscal years, according to a copy of the settlement shared with reporters by DiLorenzo. It has also agreed to pay $5,000 to each of the 10 plaintiffs and reasonable attorney fees.

Oregon’s homelessness crisis has been fueled by an affordable housing shortage, a lack of mental health treatment, high drug addiction rates and the coronavirus pandemic.

In Multnomah County, home to Portland, there were more than 5,000 people experiencing homelessness in 2022 — a 30% increase compared with 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to federal point-in-time count data.
____

Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Egypt unveils recently discovered ancient workshops, tombs in Saqqara necropolis

AP
today

An Egyptian archeologist points at a colored painting showing offering sacrifices at a recently uncovered tomb that was said to belong to a top official of the fifth Dynasty named "Ne Hesut Ba" (2400 BC), at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, 24 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, May 27, 2023. Saqqara is a part of Egypt's ancient capital of Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage site. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil


CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian antiquities authorities Saturday unveiled ancient workshops and tombs they say were discovered recently at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside the capital Cairo.

The spaces were found in the sprawling necropolis of Saqqara, which is a part of Egypt’s ancient capital of Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the workshops had been used to mummify humans and sacred animals. They date back to the 30th Pharaonic Dynasty (380 BC to 343 BC) and Ptolemaic period (305 BC to 30 BC), he said.

Inside the workshops, archaeologists found clay pots and other items apparently used in mummification, as well as ritual vessels, Waziri said.

The tombs, meanwhile, were for a top official from the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, and a priest from the New Kingdom, according to Sabri Farag, head of the Saqqara archaeological site.

In recent years, Egypt’s government has heavily promoted new archaeological finds to international media and diplomats. It hopes that such discoveries will help attract more tourists to the country to revive an industry that suffered from political turmoil following the 2011 uprising.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, displays a recently unearthed ancient wooden sarcophagus at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, 24 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, May 27, 2023. Saqqara is a part of Egypt's ancient capital of Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Waziri said the workshops had been used to mummify humans and sacred animals, dated back to the 30th Pharaonic Dynasty 380 BC to 343 BC and Ptolemaic period 305 BC to 30 BC. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Remains of 5 more Native American children to be disinterred in Pennsylvania

May 25, 2023

 A headstone is seen at the cemetery of the U.S. Army's Carlisle Barracks, Friday, June 10, 2022, in Carlisle, Pa. The remains of five more Native American children who died at a notorious government-run boarding school in Pennsylvania more than a century ago will be disinterred from a small Army cemetery and returned to descendants, authorities said.

   

 

(AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) — The remains of five more Native American children who died at a notorious government-run boarding school in Pennsylvania over a century ago will be disinterred from a small Army cemetery and returned to descendants, authorities said Thursday.

The remains are buried on the grounds of the Carlisle Barracks, home of the U.S. Army War College. The children attended the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families and forced to assimilate to white society as a matter of U.S. policy.

The Carlisle school put children through harsh conditions that sometimes resulted in their deaths. Founded by an Army officer, the school cut their braids, dressed them in military-style uniforms and punished them for speaking their native languages. European names were forced upon them.

The Office of Army Cemeteries said the latest disinterment of remains will take place beginning Sept. 11. It will be the sixth such disinterment operation at Carlisle since 2017 as the military transfers remains to living family members for reburial. Twenty-eight children have been returned so far, according to cemetery officials.

The remains to be moved this fall include those belonging to 13-year-old Amos LaFromboise, of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe of South Dakota, who died in 1879, only 20 days after his arrival at the school. The tribe had written to the U.S. Army’s cemetery office in March to urge a faster return of the boy, who has been described as a son of one of the tribe’s most celebrated leaders. The Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate want to bury him next to his father on the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota.

The other students to be moved died between 1880 and 1910 while attending the Carlisle school, according to the Office of Army Cemeteries. They are Edward Upright from the Spirit Lake Tribe of North Dakota, Beau Neal from the Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming, Edward Spott from the Puyallup Tribe of Washington state, and Launy Shorty from the Blackfeet Nation of Montana

More than 10,000 children from more than 140 tribes passed through the school between 1879 and 1918, including famous Olympian Jim Thorpe.

Starting with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the U.S. enacted laws and policies to establish and support Native American boarding schools across the nation. Hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their communities and forced into boarding schools that focused on assimilation.

The federal government has been investigating its past oversight of the boarding schools.

LIKE HUNGARY, POLAND IS FASCIST
Poland’s lawmakers approve contentious law targeting opposition

By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA

yesterday

1 of 7
Poland's opposition leader and former prime minister, Donald Tusk, watches lawmakers vote to approve a contentious draft law in parliament in Warsaw, Poland, on Friday, May 26, 2023. The law is for investigating Russia's alleged influence in Poland that is targeting the opposition, especially Tusk, and may affect the outcome of fall parliamentary elections. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)



WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish lawmakers on Friday approved a contentious draft law on Russia’s alleged influence in Poland that is targeting the opposition and may affect the outcome of fall parliamentary elections.

The new law would establish a state commission for investigating Russian influences in Poland. It is generally seen as targeting former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, now the main opposition Civic Coalition leader, at a time when early campaigning for the fall elections is underway.

The lower house, or Sejm, voted 234-219 with one abstention to approve the law proposed by the right-wing ruling party. It still needs approval from President Andrzej Duda to take effect. It was not clear whether Duda will approve it.

Tusk, who is not a parliament member, was present in the chamber during the vote.

He later said those who voted for the law were “cowards” who have “broken good parliamentary manners and the fundamental principles of democracy, out of fear of losing their power, out of fear of the people, out of fear of responsibility (they should face) after they lose the elections.”

He said the opposition has a strategy ready for the commission and called on the Poles to walk with him in pro-democracy marches June 4, the anniversary of partly free elections in 1989 that led to the ouster of communist from power in Poland.

Critics say that the draft law violates Poland’s constitution and a citizen’s right to face an independent court, and that it is a clear example of how the ruling party, Law and Justice, has been using the law for its own ends ever since coming to power in 2015.

They view the bill, dubbed “Lex Tusk,” as an attempt to create a powerful and unconstitutional tool that would help Law and Justice continue to wield power even if it loses control of the parliament in elections this fall.

“This regulation violates all the constitutional foundations,” said Slawomir Patyra, a constitution expert at Marie Sklodowska-Curie University in Lublin.

Patyra said the proposed commission would investigate and prosecute “anyone who will criticize the current political or economic order” because the definition of ‘Russian influences’ is vague.

Law and Justice accuses Tusk of having been too friendly toward Russia as prime minister between 2007-14 and making gas deals favorable to Russia before he went to Brussels to be the president of the European Council between 2014-19.

Opposition senator Krzysztof Brejza said the new law is a “Soviet-style idea stemming from the mentality of (Law and Justice leader) Jaroslaw Kaczynski and an attempt at organizing a witch hunt against Donald Tusk and eliminating him” from Poland’s politics.

Tusk and Kaczynski are long-term political rivals.

The bill foresees the creation of a state commission with the powers of prosecutor and judge. It could impose punishments, including 10-year bans on officials from positions that have control over spending public funds.

The lower house also debated another bill proposed by the ruling party that lowers the required quorum of the Constitutional Court. It is intended to speed up work on legislation that is stalled by divisions inside the court, which has been put under political control. Among those laws are new regulations that could unblock massive EU funds that Brussels froze amid the rule-of-law clash with Warsaw.

At stake is some 35 billion euros ($37 billion) in EU grants and loans as Poland’s government continues to spend huge amounts on social bonuses, pensions and weapons as the war in neighboring Ukraine continues.

A vote was postponed to next parliament session.

During heated debates in parliament earlier this week, one of the ruling party’s key lawmakers, Tadeusz Cymanski, said that the bill lowering the Constitutional Tribunal’s quorum is crucial because the party wants to “force the tribunal ... to issue a certain ruling that we are waiting for.”

The government’s policies, especially in the judicial system, have already put Warsaw at odds with the EU, which says they go against the principles of rule of law and democracy. The two drafts laws could add to the rift.

Climbers celebrate Mount Everest 70th anniversary amid melting glaciers, rising temperatures

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA

AP

yesterday



KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — As the mountaineering community prepares to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the conquest of Mount Everest, there is growing concern about temperatures rising, glaciers and snow melting, and weather getting harsh and unpredictable on the world’s tallest mountain.

Since the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) mountain peak was first scaled by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay in 1953, thousands of climbers have reached the peak and hundreds of lost their lives.

The deteriorating conditions on Everest are raising concerns for the mountaineering community and the people whose livelihoods depend on the flow of visitors.

The Sherpa community, who grew up on the foothills of the snow-covered mountain they worship as the mother of the world, is the most startled.

“The effects of climate change are hitting not just the fishes of Antarctica, the whales or the penguins, but it’s having a direct impact on the Himalayan mountains and the people there,” said Ang Tshering, a prominent Sherpa who has been campaigning for years to save the Himalayan peaks and surrounding areas from the effects of global warming.

Almost every year, he and his Asian Trekking agency organize a cleaning expedition in which clients and guides alike bring down garbage left by previous Everest climbing parties.

The effects of climate change and global warming have been severe in the high Himalayan area, Ang Tshering said. “The rising temperature of the Himalayan area is more than the global average, so the snow and ice is melting fast and the mountain is turning black, the glaciers are melting and lakes are drying up.”

Growing up on the foothills of the mountain, Ang Tshering said he remembers sliding on the glacier near his village. But that’s gone now.

Other Sherpas also said they have seen the changes in the Khumbu Glacier at the foot of Everest, near the base camp.

“We don’t really need to wait for the future; we are seeing the impact already,” said Phurba Tenjing, a Sherpa guide who recently scaled the peak for the 16th time guiding foreign clients to the summit.

Phurba Tenjing has been climbing Everest since he was 17. He said both the snow and ice have melted and the trek that used to take five or six hours over the icy path now only takes half an hour because the glaciers have melted and bare rocks are exposed.

“Before, the building-like ice chunks of the Khumbu Glacier used to come all the way up to the base camp. But now we don’t see it near the base camp,” Phurba Tenjing said.

Recent research found that Mount Everest’s glaciers have lost 2,000 years of ice in just the past 30 years.

Researchers found that the highest glacier on the mountain, the South Col Glacier, has lost more than 54 meters (177 feet) of thickness in the past 25 years. A team of 10 scientists visited the glacier and installed two weather monitoring stations — the world’s highest — and extracted samples from a 10-meter-long (33-foot) ice core. The glacier, which sits around 7,900 meters (26,000 feet) above sea level, was found to be thinning 80 times faster than it first took the ice to form on the surface, according to research published in 2022.

The glaciers are losing ice at rates that likely have no historic precedent, said Duncan Quincey, a glaciologist at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

The change is happening “extremely rapidly” he said. “It’s causing challenges for everybody within that region and, of course, for the millions of people who are living downstream,” since much of Southern Asia depends on rivers that originate in the Himalayas for agriculture and drinking water.

Both floods and droughts are likely to become more extreme, he said.

“There’s a huge amount of unpredictability within these systems now, and it makes it very difficult for people who require water at a particular time of year to know that they’re going to have that water available,” he said.

Nepal’s government and mountaineering community plan to celebrate Everest Day on May 29 with a parade around Kathmandu and a ceremony honoring the climbers and veteran Sherpa guides.

___

Associated Press climate writer Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India, contributed to this report.

___

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

 

  

THIRD WORLD U$A
Oregon man died waiting for an ambulance, highlighting lack of emergency responders

AP
yesterday

An American Medical Response vehicle drives in San Francisco, Monday, May 22, 2023. Lawyers sued medical transport provider American Medical Response West, saying the ambulance company's lax oversight allowed a paramedic to sexually assault two women in their 80s on their way to a hospital. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man died while waiting over a half-hour for an ambulance after being struck by a hit-and-run driver last month, according to emergency dispatch logs, an incident that Portland firefighters say highlights their frustration at a lack of available ambulances to respond to emergency calls.

The Bureau of Emergency Communications 911 dispatch log was obtained by KGW-TV through a public records request. It revealed that American Medical Response, the private provider contracted by Multnomah County, was operating at level zero — a code meaning there are no ambulances available to respond to an emergency call.

“More and more, day after day, we’re seeing this level zero pop up, and as firefighters we’re getting frustrated,” Isaac McLennan, president of the Portland Fire Fighters’ Association, told KGW-TV. “This is a highly dangerous situation and it should be unacceptable not only just for firefighters, it should be unacceptable for everybody who lives in this community.”

Shortly after midnight on April 28, both firefighters and an ambulance crew were dispatched to the accident scene in northeast Portland. Police said it appeared the man, who has not been publicly identified, was attempting to cross the street in a wheelchair when he was hit.

The man was still alive when firefighters arrived, but 911 dispatchers repeatedly told them that American Medical Response was operating at level zero, according to dispatch logs. The firefighters worked to stabilize the man in the road while waiting for an ambulance.

The logs show the initial dispatch went out at 12:10 a.m. Firefighters arrived at 12:14, and an ambulance got there at 12:42. The ambulance left the scene five minutes later, as a hospital transport was no longer necessary because the man had died.

McLennan told KGW-TV there was no practical way firefighters could have taken the man to the hospital themselves as it was clear he needed an ambulance.

Global Medical Response, the parent company of American Medical Response, said in a statement to KGW-TV that the incident is still under review by the company as well as by county emergency officials.

“The safety of our patients is always our top priority. American Medical Response is committed to responding to all calls in a timely manner,” it said.

Official in Multnomah County, which is home to Portland, have said ambulances should arrive to 90% of emergency calls within eight minutes. However KGW-TV reported that during a five-month period ending in February, that mark was missed about a third of the time.