It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, August 04, 2023
Pope presides over solemn Way of the Cross prayer as Portugal government weighs in on LGBTQ+ protest Pope Francis arrives at Lisbon’s Parque Eduardo VII to preside over a ‘Via Crucis’ (Way of the Cross) with young people participating into Sunday’s 37th World Youth Day in the Portuguese capital, Friday, Aug. 4, 2023. Francis is in Portugal through the weekend to preside over the jamboree that St. John Paul II launched in the 1980s to encourage young Catholics in their faith. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
BY NICOLE WINFIELD, BARRY HATTON AND PIETRO DE CRISTOFARO August 4, 2023
LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Pope Francis led an estimated 800,000 people in a meditation on the scourges of violence, poverty and intolerance Friday at World Youth Day, as the Portuguese government weighed in on an incident of intolerance directed at LGBTQ+ pilgrims attending the big Catholic youth festival.
Lisbon’s central Eduardo VII park was packed for Francis’ evening Way of the Cross prayer, one of the most solemn events in the days-long gathering. St. John Paul II launched these festivals of faith in the 1980s to try to inspire the next generation of Catholics, and young people from around the world have flocked to Lisbon in droves for Francis’ first edition since the coronavirus pandemic.
Francis had to quiet them down as the crowd erupted in the traditional World Youth Day chant of “This is the youth of the pope,” when he arrived on stage at sunset. He seemed to want to get right down to the seriousness of the dramatic re-creation of Christ’s crucifixion, urging them to “think of your own suffering, your own miseries, fears, desires.
Saying there was no greater love than dying for others, as Jesus did, he urged them to not be afraid of loving. “Loving is a risk, but a risk worth taking.”
After he spoke, the crowd was led in prayer though a series of meditations that touched on problems facing young people today: violence, addiction, social media pressures, broken families, economic crises, intolerance and alienation.
The prayer took place against the backdrop of an incident of intolerance against LGBTQ+ Catholics attending World Youth Day that took on greater weight Friday when the Socialist government issued a statement demanding that pilgrims respect one another.
According to participants, a group of about 10 people, reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Latin and holding up crucifixes, tried to disrupt a Mass being celebrated in a Lisbon church for members of the LGBTQ+ Catholic community. According to the presiding priest, the Rev. Jose Nunes, the LGBTQ+ group was wary of possible trouble and had tipped off the police, who were keeping watch and led the protesters away after the Mass incident, Nunes told Portuguese radio station TSF.
Police did not immediately respond to an AP request for details of the incident.
In a statement Friday, Portugal’s secretary of state for equality and migrations, Isabel Almeida Rodrigues, called for respect of the human rights of LGBTQ+ people, noting that such principles are enshrined in the Portuguese Constitution.
“Bearing in mind that unfortunately this was not a unique episode in this World Youth Day — which summons all people to a common goal in the fight against hate speech and violence against all people — it is important to remember that people LGBTI+ are among the most stigmatized groups of people and the target of episodes of violence, based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sexual characteristics,” the statement said.
Minority rights and liberal issues have been a political banner of Portugal’s center-left Socialist Party. In power for the past eight years, the government has pushed through laws allowing abortion, gay marriage and euthanasia in this mostly Catholic country.
The incident at the Mass came as Francis has emphasized the inclusive message of the church that he has championed throughout his 10-year papacy. During the World Youth Day opening ceremony on Thursday, he told the crowd that “in the church, there is room for everyone.” He led the crowd of a half-million people in a chant of “todos, todos, todos” or “everyone, everyone, everyone” to make his point.
That message of inclusivity has resonated in particular with LGBTQ+ Catholics, who have long felt ostracized by a church that considers homosexual activity “intrinsically disordered.” Francis, though, has offered a message of welcome to LGBTQ+ Catholics, starting from his very first World Youth Day in 2013, when he famously said “Who am I to judge,” when asked about a purportedly gay priest.
Dignity USA, a group of LGBTQ+ Catholics, has a delegation in Lisbon and said overall the reception had been positive, with a few moments of tension, including the Mass incident.
“We’ve been able to trade our rainbow pens, our rainbow prayer cards,” member Sam Barnes said Friday. But a transgender participant in the Mass, who identified herself as Victoria, said the liturgical protest was an unfortunate reminder of the problems LGBTQ+ Catholics face.
“It’s important that everyone, independent of their sexuality, can have their faith and their relation with God,” Victoria said, adding that despite such incidents she has felt very accepted in Lisbon.
In another incident captured on social media and broadcast on Portuguese television, two World Youth Day participants told a transgender participant to put away her flag.
The Mass had been organized by the Centro Arcoiris, an offshoot of a much larger Portuguese LGBTQ+ Catholic group called Sopro. They set up a “Rainbow Center” to welcome LGBTQ+ pilgrims to World Youth Day, outside the official organization
In an interview published Friday by the Spanish Catholic magazine Vida Nueva, Francis referred to his frequent meetings with members of the transgender community and his message of welcome.
“The first time a group of transsexuals came to the Vatican and saw me, they left weeping, saying I had given them my hand, a kiss, as if I had done something exceptional,” Francis was quoted as saying. “But they’re children of God!”
The Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit who runs an outreach program for LGBTQ+ Catholics, said he had dined in Lisbon with the Arcoiris group the night before the Mass was disrupted. He said they had been looking forward to the liturgy, which he did not attend.
Recalling that the incident occurred on the same day as Francis’ “todos, todos, todos” comment, Martin tweeted: “LGBTQ people are part of todos.” ___
Once nearing extinction, Brazil’s golden monkeys have rebounded from yellow fever, scientists say
A golden lion tamarin sits in a tree in the Atlantic Forest region of Silva Jardim, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, Friday, July 8, 2022. There are now more golden lion tamarins bounding among branches of the Brazilian rainforest than any other time since modern conservation efforts to save the species started in the 1970s, a new survey released Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023, reveals.
(AP Photo/Bruna Prado, File) A group of golden lion tamarins are seen in a tree during an observation tour at a private partner property of the golden lion tamarin ecological park, in the Atlantic Forest region of Silva Jardim, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, Thursday, June 16, 2022. There are now more golden lion tamarins bounding among branches of the Brazilian rainforest than any other time since modern conservation efforts to save the species started in the 1970s, a new survey released Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023, reveals.
(AP Photo/Bruna Prado, File)
BY CHRISTINA LARSON August 1, 2023
There are now more golden lion tamarins bounding between branches in the Brazilian rainforest than at any time since efforts to save the species started in the 1970s, a new survey reveals.
Once on the brink of extinction, with only about 200 animals in the wild, the population has rebounded to around 4,800, according to a study released Tuesday by the Brazilian science and conservation nonprofit Golden Lion Tamarin Association.
“We are celebrating, but always keeping one eye on other threats, because life’s not easy,” said the nonprofit’s president, Luís Paulo Ferraz.
Golden lion tamarins are small monkeys with long tails and copper-colored fur that live in family groups led by a mated pair. Usually, they give birth annually to twins, which all family members help to raise by bringing them food and carrying them on their backs.
The population survey was conducted over roughly a year. Researchers went to specific locations and checked whether monkeys responded to recordings of the tamarins’ long call, which basically means “I’m here. Are you there?” said James Dietz, a biologist and vice president of the U.S.-based nonprofit Save the Golden Lion Tamarin.
The new population figures are notable because the species had experienced a sharp decline from a yellow fever outbreak. In 2019, there were 2,500 monkeys, down from 3,700 in a 2014 survey.
Scientists intervened by vaccinating more than 370 monkeys against yellow fever, using shots adapted from a formula for humans — a fairly novel approach for conservation.
Scientists “cannot pinpoint a single exact cause for the recovery,” but believe several factors may be at play, said Carlos R. Ruiz-Miranda, a State University of Northern Rio de Janeiro biologist who advised on the population study.
Firstly, the yellow fever outbreak has subsided, perhaps due to a combination of the virus’ natural cycle and the vaccination campaign.
The animals may also be benefiting from an increase in forest habitat, said Dietz, who is also a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s Conservation Biology Institute. Between 2014 and 2022, the amount of connected forest habitat increased 16%, mostly through forests regrown on converted cattle pasture, he said.
Currently about three dozen farmers and ranchers in the Atlantic Forest region participate in such reforestation programs.
“It makes me so happy to see the tamarins playing free on my farm. They don’t only live in protected areas,” said Ayrton Violento, a farmer and entrepreneur in the small city of Silva Jardim. His family’s Fazenda dos Cordeiros has planted native fruit trees and also manages a tree nursery for native Atlantic Forest seedlings to plant on other farms.
“Recently, every year I see more tamarin families, more frequently,” he said.
Ferraz, of the nonprofit Golden Lion Tamarin Association, said that despite the good news, he was still concerned about a renewed risk of trafficking for the illegal pet trade. The problem was rampant in the 1960s, but had almost disappeared in recent decades due to enforcement.
In July, the anti-poaching nonprofit Freeland Brazil reported that Suriname’s forest service had seized seven golden lion tamarins and 29 endangered Lear’s macaws believed to have been trafficked from Brazil for sale in Europe.
“We have seen the resilience of the species, but also know they are still vulnerable,” said Ferraz. ___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___
This story has been corrected to show that Deitz is vice president, not president, of Save the Golden Lion Tamarin.
Many stars at Women’s World Cup juggle parenthood while playing on the world stage Australia’s Katrina Gorry, center, plays the ball next to Nigeria’s Ifeoma Onumonu, right, and Christy Ucheibe, left, during the Women’s World Cup Group B soccer match between Australia and Nigeria In Brisbane, Australia, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Nigeria won 3-2. (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard) Jamaica’s Cheyna Matthews shields her eyes as rain intensifies during the Women’s World Cup Group F soccer match between France and Jamaica at Sydney Football Stadium in Sydney, Australia, Sunday, July 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Sophie Ralph)
BY ANNE M. PETERSON August 3, 2023
Alex Morgan was speaking to reporters at the Women’s World Cup when she had to excuse herself to Facetime her young daughter before the toddler’s bedtime back home in the United States.
Just another day for a working mom.
Forget about orange slices, players such as Morgan, Katrina Gorry of Australia and Cheyna Matthews of Jamaica are redefining what it means to be a “soccer mom.”
There have been plenty of elite athletes who have also juggled parenthood, but the level of support the mothers are receiving while on the job at the Women’s World Cup is improving.
Morgan’s daughter, Charlie, has now joined her mother at the World Cup as the United States prepares for a Round of 16 match against Sweden on Sunday in Melbourne, Australia. Morgan has been reflective about being both a parent and a player at soccer’s biggest international tournament. In 2019, when the United States won its second straight World Cup trophy and fourth overall, now 3-year-old Charlie hadn’t even been born.
Now that the American star has a daughter, she’s had to balance her job with trying to lead the United States to an unprecedented third consecutive World Cup title.
“I have become a little bit more patient with my daughter and in life in general. But I think the biggest thing about it is that I get to bring my daughter with me. On all of these trips, I get to show her what mom does and surround her by just so many strong and confident women,” Morgan said.
There are three moms on the U.S. team: Morgan, Crystal Dunn and Julie Ertz. Other moms at this World Cup include Konya Plummer of Jamaica, Amel Majri of France, Vanina Correa of Argentina and Melanie Leuopolz of Germany.
Morgan, Ertz and Dunn have all become mothers since winning the World Cup in 2019, and all three are benefitting from the battles that prior players fought to make sure that moms — and their kids — were supported while representing the United States abroad.
“It was important to us and to the women that everything was equal, and we were very transparent about that,” said goalkeeper Matt Turner, who brought his wife and son to the men’s World Cup in Qatar late last year. “We’re going to take advantage of the different benefits that the other team might have had.”
Majri is the mother of a 1-year old daughter, Maryam, who accompanied her to a training camp in April. Her daughter’s presence was supported by French coach Herve Renard.
“There needs to be organized facilities, with a nanny. It won’t affect the team, and psychologically speaking, it’s very important. In order for her to have peace of mind and to perform well, the two need to be associated,” Renard said. “There is progress to be made in terms of assistance. We’re going to manage what they do in the USA. Maybe one day we’ll end up with four or five kids among us, and if things run smoothly, it won’t be an issue.”
In 2020, FIFA adopted rules to protect women who choose to become parents, including mandatory maternity leave of at least 14 weeks, and continued pay at a minimum of two-thirds of their salary. The rules also require clubs to make sure women are reintegrated after childbirth and that they have necessary medical support.
“No female player should ever suffer a disadvantage as a result of becoming pregnant, thus securing greater employment protection for women in football,” FIFA said in announcing the new rules.
While all of the Americans have their kids with them at the World Cup, others choose to leave them at home.
“Being a mom and leaving them at home is hard, but it is obviously a personal decision to be here. They are enjoying it from home, they didn’t ask to come,” said Correa, Argentina’s goalkeeper, and the mother of twins. “They have told me they are proud that I’m here. I know they are with me and it gives me the energy and drive to be here.”
Moms at the World Cup are helping show that parenting and soccer can mix, but some are slow to catch on. A television commentator came under fire for his comments about Gorry, who had IVF treatments and gave birth to her daughter, Harper, in 2021.
“Certainly motherhood has not blunted her competitive instincts, that’s for sure,” the Australian broadcaster said during the Matlidas’ tournament-opener against Ireland.
Ertz gave birth to son, Madden, last year and worked hard to get back in time for the World Cup. It was tough for Ertz because she had not played for the team since the 2021 Olympics because of injuries and her pregnancy.
“I think the truth is, I had no idea what my timeline was going to be where typically, like, obviously, pregnancy changes for your body changes it for so long versus like an injury, which usually has a timeline,” she said.
Madden has a village caring for him at the World Cup, including his dad, Arizona Cardinals tight end Zach Ertz — and of course all his `aunts’ on the U.S. team.
“Like anything else in life, you figure it out, and we’re doing it together as a family,” Julie Ertz said. “It’s just a really cool opportunity to be able to share with them.” ___
Pioneering mothers are breaking down barriers to breastfeeding in Olympic sports When Clarisse Agbégnénou won her sixth world judo title, confirming the reigning Olympic champion as one of the athletes to watch at next year’s Paris Games, the French star’s smallest but greatest fan was less wild about her mother’s newest gold medal than she was about her breast milk.
BY JOHN LEICESTER August 4, 2023
PARIS (AP) — When Clarisse Agbégnénou won her sixth world judo title, confirming the reigning Olympic champion as one of the athletes to watch at next year’s Paris Games, the French star’s smallest but greatest fan was less wild about her mother’s newest gold medal than she was about her breast milk.
After a peckish day of few feeds — because mum had been busy putting opponents through the wringer — 10-month-old Athéna made amends that night.
“She didn’t let my boobs out of her mouth,” Agbégnénou says. “I was like, ‘Wow, okay.’ I think it was really something for her.”
French judoka Clarisse Agbegnenou gestures during an interview with The Associated-Press in Paris, Wednesday, June 14, 2023. Breast-feeding and high-performance sports were long an almost impossible combination for women athletes, faced for decades with the cornelian choice of career or motherhood, because it was so tough to have both. But that’s becoming less true ahead of the first Summer Games where men and women will compete in equal numbers and with pioneering super-mums showing that it’s possible (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
Breastfeeding and high-performance sports were long an almost impossible combination for top female athletes, torn for decades between careers or motherhood, because having both was so tough.
But that’s becoming less true ahead of the 2024 Olympics, where women will take another step forward in their long march for equality, competing in equal numbers with men for the first time, and with pioneering mothers like Agbégnénou showing that it is possible to breastfeed and be competitive.
They don’t pretend that late-night feeds, broken sleep, pumping milk and having to eat for two people are easy. But some female athletes are also discovering that juggling their careers with the rigors of motherhood can pay off with powerful emotional well-being.
Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press, Agbégnénou said she stunned even herself by coming back so quickly from childbirth to win at the worlds in May, with Athéna in tow and expecting to be fed every few hours.
French judoka Clarisse Agbegnenou breast-feeds her baby Athena at an unknown location in France, Oct. 17, 2022. Breast-feeding and high-performance sports were long an almost impossible combination for women athletes, faced for decades with the cornelian choice of career or motherhood, because it was so tough to have both. But that’s becoming less true ahead of the first Summer Games where men and women will compete in equal numbers and with pioneering super-mums showing that it’s possible (Nadia Benabdelouamed via AP)
In training, Agbégnénou would stop for quick feeds when Athéna needed milk, nestling her hungry baby in the folds of her kimono, while other athletes in the judo hall paid them no mind, carrying on with their bouts.
“I was sweating on her, poor baby,” she says. “But she didn’t pay attention. She just wanted to eat.”
Women who have breastfed and carried on competing say that support from coaches and sports administrators is essential. Agbégnénou credits the International Judo Federation for allowing her to take Athéna to competitions. IJF officials sounded out other competitors and coaches about whether the baby was a nuisance for them and were told, “‘No, she was really perfect, we didn’t hear the baby,’” she says.
“It’s amazing,” she says of her peers’ acceptance and support. “They are part of my fight and I am really proud of them.”
As well as Agbégnénou, three other women also asked and were allowed to nurse their babies at IJF World Tour competitions in the past six years, with arrangements made each time that enabled the moms “to care for the child and to not disturb other athletes’ preparation,” says the governing body’s secretary general, Lisa Allan. She says the IJF is now drawing up specific policies for judokas who are pregnant or postpartum because ”more and more athletes are continuing their careers whilst balancing having a family.”
The Paris Olympics’ chief organizer, Tony Estanguet, says they’re also exploring the possibility of providing facilities for nursing athletes at the Games.
“They should have access to their children — for the well-being of the mothers and the children,” he said in an AP interview. “The status of athletes who are young mothers needs to evolve a bit. We need to find solutions to perhaps make it easier for these athletes to bring babies” into the Olympic village where athletes are housed.
For some breastfeeding athletes, being a pioneer is part of the kick.
French judoka Clarisse Agbegnenou gestures during an interview with The Associated-Press in Paris, Wednesday, June 14, 2023. Breast-feeding and high-performance sports were long an almost impossible combination for women athletes, faced for decades with the cornelian choice of career or motherhood, because it was so tough to have both. But that’s becoming less true ahead of the first Summer Games where men and women will compete in equal numbers and with pioneering super-mums showing that it’s possible (AP Photo/Michel Euler
Two-time Olympic rowing champion Helen Glover, now aiming for her fourth Summer Games, gave birth to twins at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, breastfed them and then came out of what she’d intended to be retirement to compete at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021. Glover was the first rower to compete for Britain at the Olympics as a mother.
Glover’s eldest, Logan, lost interest in her milk about the time of his first birthday, but twins Kit and Willow kept feeding to 14 months old. She says that mixing her punishing rowing training with long feeds for two babies was “very draining. It was taking every calorie I had.”
“But I could do it because it was my own time and my own choice,” she says.
“Everyone should have the choice,” Glover adds. “Our bodies ... are sometimes very changed through childbirth and pregnancy and breastfeeding. So the answers are never going to be one-size-fits-all. But I think it’s really exciting that these conversations are even being had.”
For some athletes, Milk Stork has also been a help. The U.S.-based transporter ships working moms’ milk when they’re separated from their babies. It says it shipped milk pumped by athletes who competed at the 2021 Paralympic Games in Tokyo and also transported 21 gallons (80 liters) of milk from coaches, trainers and other support staff at the Olympics that year.
The daughter of British archery athlete Naomi Folkard was just 5 1/2-months old and breastfeeding exclusively when her mother traveled to Tokyo for her fifth and final Olympic Games.
Nursing mothers successfully pushed to be able to take babies to those Olympics, held with social distancing and without full crowds because of the coronavirus pandemic. Rather than put her daughter, Emily, through the ordeal of having to live apart from her, in a Tokyo hotel outside of the athletes’ village, Folkard reluctantly left her behind with a large stock of frozen milk. She built that up over months, pumping into the night so Emily wouldn’t go hungry while she was in Japan.
But that created another problem: Because Folkard’s breasts had become so good at making milk, she had to pump regularly at the Games to stop them from becoming painfully swollen. She threw that milk away.
“I was having to get up in the night and pump just because my supply was so much,” she says. “It wasn’t great for performance preparation really. But I did what I had to do to be there.”
And with each drop, progress.
“There’s still a long way to go, but people are talking about it now. Women aren’t retiring to have children. They’re still competing,” Folkard says.
After helping prevent extinctions for 50 years, the Endangered Species Act itself may be in peril
A bald eagle flies over a partially frozen Des Moines River, Dec. 21, 2022, in Des Moines, Iowa. Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say the law is as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk.
(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
BY JOHN FLESHER August 3, 2023
SHARON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Biologist Ashley Wilson carefully disentangled a bat from netting above a tree-lined river and examined the wriggling, furry mammal in her headlamp’s glow. “Another big brown,” she said with a sigh.
It was a common type, one of many Wilson and colleagues had snagged on summer nights in the southern Michigan countryside. They were looking for increasingly scarce Indiana and northern long-eared bats, which historically migrated there for birthing season, sheltering behind peeling bark of dead trees.
The scientists had yet to spot either species this year as they embarked on a netting mission.
“It’s a bad suggestion if we do not catch one. It doesn’t look good,” said Allen Kurta, an Eastern Michigan University professor who has studied bats for more than 40 years.
The two bat varieties are designated as imperiled under the Endangered Species Act, the bedrock U.S. law intended to keep animal and plant types from dying out. Enacted in 1973 amid fear for iconic creatures such as the bald eagle, grizzly bear and gray wolf, it extends legal protection to 1,683 domestic species.
More than 99% of those listed as “endangered” — on the verge of extinction — or the less severe “threatened” have survived.
“The Endangered Species Act has been very successful,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in an Associated Press interview. “And I believe very strongly that we’re in a better place for it.”
Biologist Ashley Wilson holds a big brown bat in Sharon Township, Mich., June 21, 2023. Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say the law is as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk.
(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)Read More
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Biologist Ashley Wilson weighs a captured big brown bat in Sharon Township, Mich., June 21, 2023. Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say the law is as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
A gray wolf is pictured on July 16, 2004, at the Wildlife Science Center in Forest Lake, Minn. Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say the law is as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk.
(AP Photo/Dawn Villella, File) A grizzly bear roams near Beaver Lake on July 6, 2011, in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo. Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say the law is as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk.
(AP Photo/Jim Urquhart, File)
Fifty years after the law took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say it’s as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk.
Yet the law has become so controversial that Congress hasn’t updated it since 1992 — and some worry it won’t last another half-century.
The act is “well-intentioned but entirely outdated ... twisted and morphed by radical litigants into a political firefight rather than an important piece of conservation law,” said Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, who in July announced a group of GOP lawmakers would propose changes.
Environmentalists accuse regulators of slow-walking new listings to appease critics and say Congress provides too little funding to fulfill the act’s mission.
“Its biggest challenge is it’s starving,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife.
After helping prevent extinctions for 50 years, the Endangered Species Act itself could be in peril
Fifty years after the U.S. Endangered Species Act took effect, officials say 99% of the animals and plants it protects have survived. But some scientists and activists fear the act itself is in trouble (Aug. 4)(AP video: Mike Householder)
Some experts say the law’s survival depends on rebuilding bipartisan support, no easy task in polarized times.
“The Endangered Species Act is our best tool to address biodiversity loss in the United States,” Senate Environment and Public Works chairman Tom Carper said during a May floor debate over whether the northern long-eared bat should keep its protection status granted in 2022.
“And we know that biodiversity is worth preserving for many reasons, whether it be to protect human health or because of a moral imperative to be good stewards of our one and only planet.”
That’s an ominous sign, said Kurta the Michigan scientist, donning waders to slosh across the mucky river bottom for the bat netting project in mid-June.
“Its population has dropped 90% in a very short period of time,” he said. “If that doesn’t make you go on the endangered species list, what’s going to?”
TURBULENT HISTORY
It’s “nothing short of astounding” how attitudes toward the law have changed, largely because few realized at first how far it would reach, said Holly Doremus, a University of California, Berkeley law professor.
Attention 50 years ago was riveted on iconic animals like the American alligator, Florida panther and California condor. Some had been pushed to the brink by habitat destruction or pollutants such as the pesticide DDT. People over-harvested other species or targeted them as nuisances. California Condor named Hope takes to flight at the Los Angeles Zoo on Tuesday, May 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
FILE - A Florida panther, rescued as a kitten, was released back into the wild in the Florida Everglades, April 3, 2013. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter, File)
The 1973 measure made it illegal to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect” listed animals and plants or ruin their habitats.
It ordered federal agencies not to authorize or fund actions likely to jeopardize their existence, although amendments later allowed permits for limited “take” — incidental killing — resulting from otherwise legal projects.
The act cleared Congress with what in hindsight appears stunning ease: unanimous Senate approval and a 390-12 House vote. President Richard Nixon, a Republican, signed it into law.
“It was not created by a bunch of hippies,” said Rebecca Hardin, a University of Michigan environmental anthropologist. “We had a sense as a country that we had done damage and we needed to heal.”
But backlash emerged as the statute spurred regulation of oil and gas development, logging, ranching and other industries. The endangered list grew to include little-known creatures — from the frosted flatwoods salamander to the tooth cave spider — and nearly 1,000 plants.
“It’s easy to get everybody to sign on with protecting whales and grizzly bears,” Doremus said. “But people didn’t anticipate that things they wouldn’t notice, or wouldn’t think beautiful, would need protection in ways that would block some economic activity.”
An early battle involved the snail darter, a tiny Southeastern fish that delayed construction of a Tennessee dam on a river then considered its only remaining home.
The northern spotted owl’s listing as threatened in 1990 sparked years of feuding between conservationists and the timber industry over management of Pacific Northwest forestland. A northern spotted owl sits on a branch in Point Reyes, Calif., in June 1995. Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say the law is as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk. (AP Photo/Tom Gallagher, File)
Rappaport Clark, who headed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under President Bill Clinton, said there were still enough GOP moderates to help Democrats fend off sweeping changes sought by hardline congressional Republicans.
“Fast-forward to today, and support has declined pretty dramatically,” she said. “The atmosphere is incredibly partisan. A slim Democratic majority in the Senate is the difference between keeping the law on life support and blowing it up.”
But with a couple of Democratic defections, the Senate voted narrowly this spring to undo protections for a rare grouse known as the lesser prairie chicken as well as the northern long-eared bat. The House did likewise in July.
President Joe Biden threatened vetoes. But to wildlife advocates, the votes illustrate the act’s vulnerability — if not to repeal, then to sapping its strength through legislative, agency or court actions.
One pending bill would prohibit additional listings expected to cause “significant” economic harm. Another would remove most gray wolves and grizzly bears — subjects of decades-old legal and political struggles — from the protected list and bar courts from returning them.
“Science is supposed to be the fundamental principle of managing endangered species,” said Mike Leahy, a senior director of the National Wildlife Federation. “It’s getting increasingly overruled by politics. This is every wildlife conservationist’s worst nightmare.” ELUSIVE MIDDLE GROUND
Federal regulators are caught in a crossfire over how many species the act should protect and for how long — and how to balance that with interests of property owners and industry.
Since the law took effect, 64 of roughly 1,780 listed U.S. species have rebounded enough to be removed, while 64 have improved from endangered to threatened. Eleven have been declared extinct, a label proposed for 23 others, including the ivory-billed woodpecker.
That’s a poor showing, said Jonathan Wood, vice president of law and policy with the Property and Environment Research Center, which represents landowners.
The act was supposed to function like a hospital emergency room, providing lifesaving but short-term treatment, Wood said. Instead, it resembles perpetual hospice care for too many species.
But species typically need at least a half-century to recover and most haven’t been listed that long, said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group.
And they often languish a decade or more awaiting listing decisions, worsening their condition and prolonging their recovery, he said. The Fish and Wildlife Service has more than 300 under consideration.
The service “is not getting the job done,” Greenwald said. “Part is lack of funding but it’s mixed with timidity, fear of the backlash.”
Agency officials acknowledge struggling to keep up with listing proposals and strategies for restoring species. The work is complex; budgets are tight. Petitions and lawsuits abound. Congress provides millions to rescue popular animals such as Pacific salmon and steelhead trout while many species get a few thousand dollars annually.
To address the problem and mollify federal government critics, supporters of the act propose steering more conservation money to state and tribal programs. A bill to provide $1.4 billion annually cleared the House with bipartisan backing in 2022 but fell short in the Senate. Sponsors are trying again.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is using funds from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to improve strategies for getting species off the list sooner, Director Martha Williams told a House subcommittee in July.
It’s also seeking accommodation on another thorny issue: providing enough space where imperiled species can feed, shelter and reproduce.
The act empowers the government to identify “critical habitat” where economic development can be limited. Many early supporters believed public lands and waters — state and national parks and wildlife refuges — would meet the need, said Doremus, the California-Berkeley professor.
But now about two-thirds of listed species occupy private property. And many require permanent care. For example, removing the Kirtland’s warbler from the endangered list in 2019 was contingent on continued harvesting and replanting of Michigan jack pines where the tiny songbird nests.
Meeting the rising demand will require more deals with property owners instead of critical habitat designations, which lower property values and breed resentment, said Wood of the landowners group. Incentives could include paying owners or easing restrictions on timber cutting and other development as troubled species improve.
“You can’t police your way” to cooperation, he said.
“Did the makers of DDT voluntarily stop making it? No,” said Greenwald, arguing few landowners or businesses will sacrifice profits to help the environment. “We have to have strong laws and regulations if we want to address the climate and extinction crises and leave a livable planet for future generations. GRIM PROSPECTS
Stars and fireflies provided the only natural light on the June night after Michigan biologists Kurta and Wilson extended fine nylon mesh over smoothly flowing River Raisin, 90 minutes west of Detroit. Frogs croaked; crickets chirped. Mayflies — tasty morsels for bats — swarmed in the humid air.
Long feared by people, bats increasingly are valued for gobbling crop-destroying insects and pollinating fruit, giving U.S. agriculture a yearly $3 billion boost.
“The next time you have some tequila, thank the bat that pollinated the agave plant from which that tequila was made,” Kurta said, tinkering with an electronic device that detects bats as they swoop overhead.
Allen Kurta, an Eastern Michigan University professor, prepares netting to capture bats in Sharon Township, Mich., June 21, 2023. Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say the law is as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Biologist Ashley Wilson prepares a net to capture bats in Sharon Township, Mich., June 21, 2023. Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say the law is as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Hour after hour crept by. Eight bats fluttered into the nets. The scientists took measurements, then freed them. None were the endangered species they sought.
A month later, Kurta reported that 16 nights of netting at eight sites had yielded 177 bats — but just one Indiana and no northern long-eared specimens.
“Disappointing,” he said, “but expected.” ___
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. ___
Follow John Flesher on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com@johnflesher
WHITE SUPREMACY IS INJUSTICE
Court throws out conviction after judge says Black man ‘looks like a criminal to me’
The Theodore Levin United States Courthouse is seen in Detroit, Monday, July 11, 2011. An appeals court on Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023, overturned the drug conviction of a Black man, saying his rights were violated by U.S> District Judge Stephen Murphy III who was upset over delays in the case and declared: “This guy looks like a criminal to me.” Murphy is based in the Detroit courthouse.
(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
BY ED WHITE August 4, 2023
DETROIT (AP) — An appeals court on Thursday overturned the drug conviction of a Black man, saying his rights were violated by a Detroit federal judge who was upset over delays in the case and declared: “This guy looks like a criminal to me.”
“Such remarks are wholly incompatible with the fair administration of justice,” the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy III, who is white, apologized nearly two years later when the case against Leron Liggins finally was ready for trial. He explained that he was mad at the time “and I regret it.”
Nonetheless, the appeals court said Murphy should have removed himself as Liggins’ attorney had requested. The court threw out a heroin distribution conviction and 10-year prison sentence and ordered a new trial with a different judge.
Allowing the conviction to stand “would substantially undermine the public’s confidence in the judicial process,” 6th Circuit Judge Eric Clay said in a 3-0 opinion.
Prosecutors said the remark was a reference to Liggins’ alleged conduct, not his appearance. But the appeals court said a “reasonable observer” could interpret it differently.
Murphy said he lost his composure in 2020 after Liggins repeatedly had switched between wanting to plead guilty and choosing a trial and also failed to get along with his second lawyer. He ended up with four.
“I’m tired of this case. I’m tired of this defendant. I’m tired of getting the runaround. This has been going on since February 6, 2018,” Murphy said in court.
“This guy looks like a criminal to me. This is what criminals do,” Murphy said. “This isn’t what innocent people who want a fair trial do. He’s indicted in Kentucky. He’s indicted here. He’s alleged to be dealing heroin, which addicts, hurts and kills people, and he’s playing games with the court.”
At trial in 2021, Murphy, a judge for 15 years, apologized and said he could be fair to Liggins.
“I lost my head,” he said.
V'GER CALL HOME
NASA restores contact with Voyager 2 spacecraft after mistake led to weeks of silence
In this Aug. 4, 1977, photo provided by NASA, the “Sounds of Earth” record is mounted on the Voyager 2 spacecraft in the Safe-1 Building at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. On Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, NASA’s Deep Space Network sent a command to correct a problem with its antenna. It took more than 18 hours for the signal to reach Voyager 2 _ more than 12 billion miles away _ and another 18 hours to hear back. On Friday, Aug. 4, the spacecraft started returning data again.
(AP Photo/NASA, File)
BY MARCIA DUNN Updated 4:40 PM MDT, August 4, 2023Share
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft was back chatting it up Friday after flight controllers corrected a mistake that had led to weeks of silence.
Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar space billions of miles away, Voyager 2 stopped communicating two weeks ago. Controllers sent the wrong command to the 46-year-old spacecraft and tilted its antenna away from Earth.
On Wednesday, NASA’s Deep Space Network sent a new command in hopes of repointing the antenna, using the highest powered transmitter at the huge radio dish antenna in Australia. Voyager 2’s antenna needed to be shifted a mere 2 degrees.
It took more than 18 hours for the command to reach Voyager 2 — more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) away — and another 18 hours to hear back.
The long shot paid off. On Friday, the spacecraft started returning data again, according to officials at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“I just sort of sighed. I melted in the chair,” project manager Suzanne Dodd told The Associated Press.
“Voyager’s back,” project scientist Linda Spilker chimed in.
Voyager 2 has been hurtling through space since its launch in 1977 to explore the outer solar system. Launched two weeks later, its twin, Voyager 1, is now the most distant spacecraft — 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away — and still in contact.
The two-week outage was believed to be the longest NASA had gone without hearing from Voyager 2, Dodd said.
As long as their plutonium power holds, the Voyagers may be alive and well for the 50th anniversary of their launch in 2027, according to Dodd. Among the scientific tidbits they’ve beamed back in recent years include details about the interstellar magnetic field and the abundance of cosmic rays.
“We’ve been very clever over the last 10 years to eke out every single little watt,” Dodd said. “Hopefully, one of them will make it to 50. But they are old and certainly events like this one that just happened scare the dickens out of me, as far as making that type of a milestone.” ___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
US Supreme Court won’t block a ruling favoring a Native American man cited for speeding in Tulsa
The U.S. Supreme Court is seen on Thursday, July 13, 2023, in Washington.
The justices rejected an emergency appeal by Tulsa to block the ruling while the legal case continues. The order is the latest consequence of the high court’s landmark 2020 decision that found that much of eastern Oklahoma, including Tulsa, remains an Indian reservation.
Justin Hooper, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, was cited for speeding in 2018 by Tulsa police in a part of the city within the historic boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. He paid a $150 fine for the ticket, but filed a lawsuit after the Supreme Court’s ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma. He argued that the city did not have jurisdiction because his offense was committed by a Native American in Indian Country. A municipal court and a federal district court judge both sided with the city, but a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision.
There were no noted dissents among the justices Friday, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a short separate opinion, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, in which he said that Tulsa’s appeal raised an important question about whether the city can enforce municipal laws against Native Americans.
Kavanaugh wrote that nothing in the appeals court decision “prohibits the City from continuing to enforce its municipal laws against all persons, including Indians, as the litigation progresses.”
‘Cuddling’ is just what the doctor ordered for a 200-pound walrus calf rescued this week in Alaska
A walrus calf is being nursed back to health after being found on its own by oil field workers in Alaska
BY BECKY BOHRER August 4, 2023
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A 200-pound (90 kilogram) walrus calf found alone and miles from the ocean on Alaska’s North Slope is being bottle fed and receiving round-the-clock “cuddling” from doting animal welfare workers who are trying to keep the 1-month-old baby alive.
The male Pacific walrus — who, so far, doesn’t have a name — was found Monday and flown a day later from the North Slope to Seward, where the Alaska SeaLife Center is based, a journey of at least 700 miles (1,126 kilometers). Staff with the nonprofit research facility and public aquarium are caring for the gigantic, brown, wrinkly-skinned baby, which was dehydrated and possibly fighting an infection.
In an effort to mimic the near-constant care a calf would get from its mom, the walrus is receiving “round the clock ‘cuddling’” to keep him calm and aid in his development and is being fed every three hours, the center said. It described the cuddling as trained staff giving the walrus “the option to have a warm body to lean up against, which he has been taking advantage of almost constantly.”
The calf was found by oil field workers about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) inland from the Beaufort Sea, in Alaska’s extreme north. A “walrus trail,” or track, was seen on the tundra near a road where the walrus was found. But it’s unclear how, exactly, he got there, the center said.
While calves rely on their mothers for their first two years of life, no adults were seen nearby, which raised concerns about the infant’s ability to survive without intervention.
The range of the Pacific walrus includes the northern Bering and Chukchi seas but the walruses are occasionally observed in areas like the Beaufort Sea to the northeast, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
The walrus — one of just 10 that the center has cared for in its 25-year history — is already taking formula from a bottle, the center said. The calf likely will be under 24-hour care for at least several weeks, a timeline that will depend on his progress, appetite and medical condition, the center said.
ConocoPhillips Alaska, a major oil producer in the state operating on the North Slope, offered a company plane to fly the calf to Seward.
Cyprus allows human COVID-19 medications to be used against deadly virus mutation in cats Cats sit in a shelter at the main linear park, in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on July 19, 2023. Cyprus’ veterinarians association on Friday Aug. 4, 2023 lauded a government decision to allow its stock of human coronavirus medication to be used on cats to fight a local mutation of a feline virus that has killed thousands of animals on the Mediterranean island. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)Read More A cat crosses a pedestrian road at the main linear park, in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on July 19, 2023. Cyprus’ veterinarians association on Friday Aug. 4, 2023 lauded a government decision to allow its stock of human coronavirus medication to be used on cats to fight a local mutation of a feline virus that has killed thousands of animals on the Mediterranean island.
(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)
BY MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS August 4, 2023
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus’ veterinarians association on Friday lauded a government decision to allow its stock of human coronavirus medication to be used on cats to fight a local mutation of a feline virus that has killed thousands of animals on the Mediterranean island but can’t be transmitted to people.
The association said in a statement that it had petitioned the government for access to the medication at “reasonable prices” from the beginning of this year, when the mutation that causes lethal Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) began to noticeably crop up in the island’s cat population.
“We want to assure that we will continue to investigate and control the rise in case of FCov-2023,” the association said.
Cyprus Veterinary Services head Hristodoulos Pipis told the state broadcaster Friday that cat owners can receive medication in pill form at 2.5 euros ( $2.74) for each pill at their local veterinarian’s office following a formal examination and diagnosis.
The medication’s brand name is Lagevrio and its active ingredient is Molnupiravir. Veterinarians Association President Nektaria Ioannou Arsenoglou told The Associated Press that humans cannot contract the mutated feline virus, which isn’t related to COVID-19.
Health Ministry senior pharmacist Costas Himonas told the AP that 2,000 packages of the drug will be made available to veterinarians incrementally over the next month. Himonas said there’s no risk that current pharmaceutical stocks will be depleted to the point treatment of any COVID-19 surge in people would be compromised.
Local animal activists had claimed that the mutation had killed as many as 300,000 cats, but Arsenoglou says that’s an exaggeration.
Arsenoglou had said an association survey of 35 veterinary clinics indicated an island-wide total of about 8,000 deaths. Pipis corroborated those findings.
According to Arsenoglou, FIP is nearly always lethal if left untreated, but medication can nurse cats back to health in approximately 85% of cases in both the “wet” and “dry” forms of the illness.
What made FIP treatment difficult was the high price of the medication that activists said put it out of reach of many cat care givers.
Spread through contact with cat feces, the feline coronavirus has been around since 1963. Previous epidemics eventually fizzled out without the use of any medication, Arsenoglou said.
Measures have already been enacted to prevent the export of the mutation through mandatory medical check-ups of all felines destined for adoption abroad.
It’s unclear how many feral cats live in Cyprus, where they are generally beloved and have a long history dating back thousands of years.
An American billionaire says he’ll stop funding the think tank behind Israel’s judicial overhaul
A man carries the U.S. flag with a placard reading, “horror movie for the sake of reasonableness,” as Israelis march in support of the judicial system during a protest against the plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to overhaul it, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023. Israeli activist Moran Zer Katzenstein, center, leads chants as she marches with her group Bonot Alternativa (Women Building an Alternative) in support of the judicial system during a protest against the plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to overhaul it, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023.
Israelis march in support of the judicial system during a protest against the plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to overhaul it, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023.
AP Photos/Maya Alleruzzo
BY ISABEL DEBRE August 4, 2023
JERUSALEM (AP) — An American billionaire and major donor to a Jerusalem think tank backing the Israeli government’s divisive judicial overhaul said on Friday that he would stop giving to the conservative group.
“I believe what is most critical at this time is for Israel to focus on healing and national unity,” Dantchik said in a statement shared with The Associated Press announcing his move to halt funding. “Throughout my life, I have supported a diverse array of organizations that promote individual liberties and economic freedoms for all people.”
The protests have raged in Israel for seven months, exposing deep-seated social tensions and thrusting the country into a crisis over the future of its democracy.
The Kohelet Policy Forum, founded in 2012 by American-Israeli computer scientist Moshe Koppel, has emerged as one of the main architects of Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul package
Kohelet declined to comment specifically on Dantchik, saying only that the donations it receives “are broad-based and increasing steadily.”
Israeli media has reported Kohelet has been involved in negotiations over the overhaul plans. The changes would give the government more control over the selection of judges and make it harder for the Supreme Court to strike down laws. At one point earlier this year, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party said the think tank even provided the government with the same overhaul proposal that it presented to Israel’s parliament.
The Israeli parliament, or Knesset, passed first major measure in the judicial overhaul last month, unleashing widespread unrest among critics who fear it will blunt one of Israel’s few checks on government overreach and erode its democratic institutions. Supporters of the plan, including Kohelet, claim it will boost democracy by giving the elected government more power than unelected judges.
Dantchik’s announcement Friday also drew attention to the powerful influence American money and ideas have on Israeli politics. In 2021, the Haaretz daily first identified Dantchik as one of Kohelet’s two principal financial supporters in an investigation that revealed a maze of opaque third-party groups in the United States through which Dantchik and others channeled their donations.
Kohelet is not required to disclose its donations, and the exact amount that Dantchik has provided over the years is not publicly known.
As the co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, a powerful privately held financial firm in Pennsylvania, Dantchik is worth $7.3 billion, according to Forbes’ latest tally.
Kohelet’s founder, Koppel, keeps a low profile and long has avoided questions about the think tank’s donors.
Despite its support from some American Jewish businessmen, the turmoil over the judicial changes in Israel threatens to strain ties with Israel’s closet ally. President Joe Biden has publicly criticized Netanyahu’s push to overhaul the judiciary. Liberal Jewish organizations in the U.S. have condemned the legislation.
In his statement on Kohelet, Dantchik warned against the widening rifts in Israeli society that the overhaul plan has highlighted.
“When a society becomes dangerously fragmented, people must come together to preserve democracy,” he said.
