US to reopen review of Nevada geothermal plant near endangered toad while legal battle is on hold


RENO, Nev. (AP) — In a reversal that marks a significant victory for conservationists, federal officials have decided to “revisit” the 2021 environmental review that cleared the way for construction of a geothermal power plant in Nevada where an endangered toad lives.

Environmentalists and tribal leaders suing to block the project said the move will trigger an unprecedented third review of the partially built power plant that they say the Bureau of Land Management illegally approved in December 2021.

“This vindicates what we've been saying for years,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The federal government’s environmental review was flawed and it never should’ve approved the project."

Justice Department lawyers representing the bureau didn't specify in court documents last week whether the agency intends to conduct a supplemental analysis of the potential impacts of the project or scrap the previous review and initiate an entirely new one required under the National Environmental Policy Act. They also didn't say what prompted the agency to reverse its earlier position that additional review was unnecessary.

But either way the decision means it will be several months or potentially more than a year before Ormat Technologies can resume construction of the plant it started building last year in the Dixie Meadows, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Reno.

“I really can’t guess because there’s so much that remains up in the air, but I would say we are looking at a years’ long process,” Scott Lake, a lawyer for the Center for Conservation Biology, said on Friday.

The conflict underscores challenges President Joe Biden has repeatedly faced in vowing to protect fish and wildlife while also pushing the development of so-called green energy projects on U.S. lands to help combat climate change.

The center and the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe first sued the bureau in federal court in Reno in January 2022. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the Dixie Valley toad endangered on an emergency basis that April and then made the listing permanent in December.

The opponents say pumping hot water from beneath the earth’s surface to generate carbon-free power would adversely affect the levels and temperatures of surface water critical to the survival of the toad. The area is the only place the toad is known to exist on earth. The hot springs that feed the wetlands are sacred to the tribe, the lawsuit says.

The Fish and Wildlife Service concluded in its listing decision the project posed the single biggest threat to the toad and that “threatened species status is not appropriate because the threat of extinction is imminent.”

Last summer, a U.S. appeals court refused to grant a temporary injunction blocking construction of the 60 megawatt power plant. But hours later, Ormat announced that it had agreed to temporarily suspend all work. Then, in late October, the company asked for the case to be put on hold while it developed a smaller plan.

U.S. District Judge Robert C. Jones formally stayed the case in February.

BLM subsequently rescinded its approval of the original project and approved plans for a scaled-down plant that would produce only about one-fourth as much power. But the agency said construction couldn't resume until it completed consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the service agreed it would not jeopardize the survival of the toad — as required under the Endangered Species Act.

The bureau said earlier this year it anticipated consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service would be completed sometime this summer.

But its lawyers said in a July 5 court filing that “while BLM has been diligently working to complete a biological assessment, it has not yet done so.”

“As a result of its ESA consultation efforts and new information it has determined that it would be prudent to revisit the environmental review underlying the project,” they wrote. “BLM does not intend to authorize any such new construction until the conclusion of the environmental review.”

Reno-based Ormat, the second largest U.S. producer of geothermal power behind Texas-based Calpine, said in a statement last week it supported additional review.

“Consistent with Ormat’s track record of environmental stewardship, we are confident that additional NEPA review will support responsible development of Dixie Meadows, and will ensure Ormat is taking the necessary steps to mitigate any environmental impact," Ormat CEO Doron Blachar said.

Ormat said in a report to security holders in March that the company “believes it has strong legal defenses against the present claims, however, there can be no assurances regarding the resolution of these proceedings.”

“As a result, at this time, the company cannot reasonably predict the ultimate outcome of this litigation or regulatory process or estimate the possible loss or range of loss it may bear, if any.”

Scott Sonner, The Associated Press

TIT FOR TAT

Sweden allows protest burning Torahs and Bibles outside Israeli Embassy

Story by Sharon Braithwaite • CNN

Swedish authorities have approved a protest involving the burning of Torahs and Bibles outside the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden’s national radio broadcaster reported on Friday.

A person who has applied to hold a public gathering on Saturday to burn the holy books has been granted permission, Sveriges Radio said.

The European Jewish Congress (EJC) said in a press release on Friday that they “strongly” condemned the decision of Swedish authorities.

“Provocative, racist, antisemitic and sickening acts such as these have no place in any civilised society,” EJC president Ariel Muzicant said in the statement.

“Stamping on the deepest religious and cultural sensibilities of people is the clearest expression possible to send a message that minorities are unwelcome and unrespected,” Muzicant added.

“These actions, based on contorted and specious free speech arguments, are a disgrace to Sweden and any democratic government worthy of the name should prevent it.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog also condemned the Swedish authorities’ decision.

“I unequivocally condemn the permission granted in Sweden to burn holy books. As the President of Israel, I condemned the burning of the Quran, sacred to Muslims world over, and I am now heartbroken that the same fate awaits a Jewish Bible, the eternal book of the Jewish people,” Herzog tweeted.

At the end of June, a man burned a copy of Islam’s holy book outside a mosque in the Swedish capital, triggering violent protests at the Swedish embassy in Baghdad.

The decision to permit that protest was made in accordance with the right of freedom of speech, Swedish police said at the time.

A police permit obtained by CNN last month stated that the “security risks and consequences connected to a Quran burning are not of such a nature that, according to current law, they can be the basis for a decision to reject an application for a general meeting.”

The permit for the June demonstration said that Quran burnings “mean an increased risk of a terrorist attack” and “can also have foreign policy consequences.”

However, it added that for “security problems to be the basis for a decision to refuse a general assembly, these must have a clear connection to the planned gathering or its immediate surroundings.”

Scientists May Have Stolen Metallic Spherules Found on the Ocean Floor.

Story by Jackie Appel • POP MECH

Scientists found metallic spherules on the ocean floor–and they may be extraterrestrial. A controversial physicist says the strange remnants are alien tech.© J&S Digital Photography - Getty Images

Researchers are looking for evidence of extraterrestrial life deep under the sea.

A team led by controversial physicist Avi Loeb is combing the ocean floor off the coast of Papua New Guinea for remnants of two meteors that they believe could actually be alien tech.

The government of Papua New Guinea claims that the artifacts recovered by Loeb’s team are stollen, and is under pressure to abandon a new security agreement with the U.S. as a result.

Researchers are scouring the deep for signs of alien life—and it might be illegal.

The team—led by Avi Loeb, a controversial theoretical physicist known for his strong belief that we have been visited by intelligent extraterrestrial life and specific focus, in this context, on ‘Oumuamua—has been searching the ocean floor for remnants of Interstellar Meteor 1 (IM1), which crashed into Earth in 2014.

The meteor was a bit of an anomaly, largely due to its robust nature and speed. It and its spiritual successor Interstellar Meteor 2 (IM2), which crashed to Earth in 2017, flew in at about 110,000 miles per hour. That’s at the higher end of meteor speeds, as they typically hit Earth’s atmosphere traveling between 25,000 and 160,000 miles per hour.

That speed is what eventually led Loeb and one of his grad students to conclude that the meteors came from outside our solar system, a conclusion that has since been backed by the United States Space Command, according to Vice. But Loeb and his team took it one step further, putting forth the idea that the meteors are remnants of alien tech.

It should be said that most scientists do not believe that IM1 and IM2 were alien tech of any kind. And it’s important to remember that—while Loeb’s writings indicate that his hopes are high for these finds to be evidence of extraterrestrial societies (He has even reportedly rented out a video screen in Times Square to announce the results of his work.)—the origins of all artifacts found on this mission are still very much unconfirmed.

In order to gather as much data on the meteors as possible, the team has been scraping the sea floor where IM1 splashed down and gather whatever remnants they can find. And most recently, they found something particularly exciting—metallic spherules.

According to Loeb, these particular spherules are made predominantly of iron, with trace amounts of titanium and magnesium. Notably, there was no nickel detected in early compositional analyses. “This composition is anomalous compared to human-made alloys, known asteroids and familiar astrophysical sources,” Loeb wrote in a Medium post. The team has also been able to find steel shards and wire made of manganese and platinum.

While the origin of these specific spherules is still unknown (it takes time and tests to confirm the origin of pretty much anything found at the bottom of the ocean), spherules are a good sign of a meteor. They form from the impact debris of the object, and usually measure only micrometers to millimeters in size.

It turns out, however, that all of this research may not have been legal in the first place.

According to the UK outlet The Times, the government of Papua New Guinea is accusing Loeb’s team of stealing the artifacts they have collected on their mission. The country’s National Research Agency claimed that the team never received a Marine Science Research permit (though they did apply for one), and that they entered the country on business visas instead of visas meant for scientific researchers. Stanis Hulahau, Papua New Guinea’s chief migration officer, even said that the team could face “criminal charges for removing ‘rare objects’ without notifying the state authorities.”

Rob McCallum, the leader of the expedition (Loeb leads the research team), claims that approval for their mission was given by the Papua New Guinea cabinet, but The Times reports that two cabinet members say they have heard nothing of this approval.

As a result of this mission, pressure is now reportedly being put on the government of Papua New Guinea to abandon a security agreement recently made with the United States. According to The Times, member of parliament and Leader of the Opposition Joseph Lelang called the country to abandon the newly-signed Defense Co-operation Agreement if the US “fail to heed our call and protests”.

“What the US citizens were doing was illegal from the start, including stealing the artifacts from our shores,” Lelang said in a statement. “The ink has not yet dried and already the US citizens are disrespecting our people, our country and constitution.. We expect nothing less than the return of what was stolen from us and for those thieves to be held accountable.”

What will come of these accusations is still to be seen. But even if we don’t have proof of extraterrestrial visitors, we do have proof that pursuing alien life doesn’t make everyday Earth life just go away.

A new outbreak of Canadian wildfires is sending a plume of unhealthy smoke into the US yet again

WE'VE BEEN BREATHING IT ALREADY

Story by Eric Zerkel • CNN 8h ago

A recent outbreak of wildfires in western Canada is again sending a plume of unhealthy smoke into the United States.

The smoke is already wafting into the Northern Plains and will spread into the Upper Midwest, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Michigan and Indiana, where air quality advisories that warn of “unhealthy” levels of smoke are in place through the weekend.

The smoke could also cause issues in Iowa and Illinois, including Chicago, which experienced some of the worst air quality in the world amid heavy smoke in late-June.

This time, the smoke plume is not coming from the Canadian province of Quebec. It is instead funneling across Canada from much further away in the West, so it shouldn’t reach the Northeast like it did in early June, when New York City’s skies turned an apocalyptic shade of orange.

On Friday, the encroaching smoke dropped air quality in parts of Montana and North Dakota to code red, or unhealthy levels on the Air Quality Index, and to code orange, or unhealthy for sensitive groups, in Minnesota, according to airnow.gov.


An out-of-control fire burns 60 miles southeast of Kamloops, British Columbia, on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. - Pete Laing/BC Wildfire Service© Provided by CNN

Wildfire smoke contains tiny pollutants known as particle matter, or PM 2.5, that can get into the lungs and bloodstream once inhaled. These pollutants most commonly cause difficulty breathing and eye and throat irritation, but have also been linked to more serious long-term health issues like lung cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The plume was birthed from nearly 400 fires sparked in Canada’s province of British Columbia in the past week, nearly half of which were started by 51,000 lightning strikes from thunderstorms, the BC Wildfire Service said. Some of those thunderstorms were “dry” or produced inconsequential amounts of rain to help squelch any fires, a dangerous prospect in a province experiencing the worst level of drought.

Parts of the US will be at risk of smoke for the foreseeable future depending on weather patterns and fire flareups because Canada is experiencing its worst fire season on record. More than 23 million acres have burned so far this year, an area roughly the size of Indiana.

British Columbia has had more than 1,000 fires start since April. Those fires have already burned through nearly three times the amount of land compared to an average year in British Columbia over the last 10 years, the BC Wildfire Service said.

One firefighter died Thursday responding to one of the blazes near Revelstoke, British Columbia, a press release from the firefighter’s union said. The BC Wildfire Service confirmed the death to CNN. The firefighter has not been identified.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau eulogized the firefighter on Twitter Friday.

“The news from British Columbia – that one of the firefighters bravely battling wildfires has lost her life – is heartbreaking,” Trudeau said. “At this incredibly difficult time, I’m sending my deepest condolences to her family, her friends, and her fellow firefighters.”

CNN.com

Ancient 'Outsider' Human Species Pinpointed in Oldest Genetic Study Yet

Story by David Nield • Yesterday 

Paranthropus robustus skull© Provided by ScienceAlert

Researchers have managed the incredible feat of predicting genetic relationships between some of the earliest hominins to live on planet Earth, using little more than some proteins scraped from 2 million year old fossilized teeth.

The team behind the new study, mostly from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the University of Cape Town in South Africa, says the analysis will be vitally useful in tracing the distant family tree of human beings.

"The evolutionary relationships among extinct African hominin taxa are highly debated and largely unresolved, due in part to a lack of molecular data," write the researchers.

"Even within taxa, it is not always clear, based on morphology alone, whether ranges of variation are due to sexual dimorphism versus potentially undescribed taxonomic diversity."

The research will help paleoanthropologists chart out which differences in the fossil record are down to natural variations between men and women (sexual dimorphism), and which signify separate species of hominids altogether.

When it comes to timescales of thousands and millions of years, answering those questions isn't at all straightforward. The DNA molecule is fragile, prone to disintegrating quickly. Nuclear DNA from 430,000 year old hominin remains of has been deciphered, yet the process itself was far from productive.

Proteins can be a little more robust, and their amino acide sequences can be translated back into a possible genetic code that produced them. Although far from precise, it could serve as a reasonable proxy for estimating a genetic relationship where the genes themselves can't be read.

In this case the data was interpreted enamel on teeth recovered from Swartkrans cave, an important site for archaeological material that's about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the northwest of Johannesburg. They were thought to belong to an ancient relative of ours, Paranthropus robustus.

By cross-checking their results against DNA information from other fossils and today's hominids – from orangutans to humans – the researchers were able to tentatively show that P. robustus represented an "outgroup" (like distant cousins, in a way) to the evolutionary line that includes Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans.

Flash floods in an otherwise arid area were responsible for these teeth being so well buried and preserved, the team reports. That may limit how many other fossils we can find like this, but the techniques used here should be able to be applied elsewhere too.

"This study demonstrates the feasibility of recovering informative Early Pleistocene hominin enamel proteins from Africa," write the researchers.

"We anticipate that this approach can be widely applied to geologically-comparable sites within South Africa, and possibly more broadly across the continent."

The study has yet to be peer reviewed, but is available to view on the preprint server bioRxiv.

CANADA
As rents soar, tenants organize local protests. But what's needed for a national housing movement?

Story by Vanessa Balintec • CBC

Striking tenants who are refusing to pay big rent increases in several buildings in Toronto's west end say they've been flooded with support from across the country.

York South-Weston Tenant Union organizer Bruno Dobrusin said support for their rent strike has been "overwhelming." Not only are people paying attention, but he said they're interested in learning how to organize themselves.

"It's a hopeful sign that people are rising up and fighting back," said Dobrusin.

"We're seeing that there is more and more demand for broader movements. But provincially or nationally, the question now is how can we support each other?"

Advocates like Dobrusin say Canadians shut out of the country's tight housing market may be more likely to consider organizing as a way to push for solutions to the housing crisis.

While they say there's an appetite for change that can make way for a widespread movement aimed at creating more affordable and accessible housing, there's enough obstacles facing both organizers and residents to keep it from getting off the ground.

"Folks are seeing no change, no improvements year after year," said Ricardo Tranjan, a political economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a research group based in Ottawa.

Rents have been steadily increasing nationally since 2021 and hit a record-high last month. According to real estate research firm Urbanation, average asking rents nationally sat at $2,042 in June, passing the previous record set in November 2022.

"I think folks are starting to be more open to the notion that the missing link is not ideas, the missing link is not technical solutions. The missing link is the political will to make change and … it will require some pressure," Tranjan said.

Is a broad housing movement warranted?

While discontent may be brewing among precariously housed Canadians, that doesn't mean new homes aren't being built.

Data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) shows Canada has ramped up construction in recent years, including over 240,000 new home starts in 2022, just slightly down from the record-high 244,000 units started in 2021. Additionally, Statistics Canada data shows that from 2019 to 2021, housing stock growth outpaced population growth in Toronto and Vancouver, two of the hottest markets in the country.

But CMHC has said at the current pace of construction, Canada is still short on supply. It projects almost 2.3 million housing units will be added to the market by 2030, bringing the country's total housing stock to 19 million — but that's 3.5 million units short of achieving "housing affordability for everyone living in Canada," the CMHC said.


According to a recent report by rental search site Rentals.ca and real estate research firm Urbanation, average asking rents sat at $2,042 in June, passing the previous record set in November 2022. It relies on data compiled from Rentals.ca's internal listings service. (Rentals.ca)© Provided by cbc.ca

Mary Rowe, president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute research group, said it's not necessarily how many units are being built, it's about what kind, and where.

"The pattern of development has gone where the highest rate of return is," said Rowe, pointing to a push toward single-family and detached homes when private developer housing took off. That mainly started after the federal government ended programs geared toward social housing in the 1990s.

It left a real deficit in affordable, family and supportive housing, along with different types of rental and ownership schemes such as co-ops, rent-to-own and shared ownership, she said.

"We've got to get smart here in Canada and figure out what are the interventions we need to keep a kind of balance and make that a healthy ecosystem that provides a wide range of choice."

While embracing activism might not be everyone's calling, Rowe said it makes sense some people will join social movements in order to be "engaged in the quality of our communities."

"There are people with extraordinary frustration and people that have been disadvantaged by ... the way the housing market has been driven for decades," said Rowe.

"Now there's a moment for all of us to look at how that needs to be corrected."

What's stopping people from getting involved?

While there may be an appetite for change, it's not easily tapped into — both for residents and those looking to organize.



Alejandra Ruiz Vargas is a national leadership representative of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), as well as the chair of the East York ACORN chapter in Toronto. (Submitted by ACORN)© Provided by cbc.ca

Alejandra Ruiz Vargas, a national leader with multi-issue advocacy organization Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), said the group has been focused on issues like housing, fair banking and internet accessibility since its inception in 2004.

It opened new chapters in Calgary and Waterloo, Ont., in the past year due to demand, she said, bringing their membership to over 140,000 nationally.

While they welcome the growth, Vargas said they're still working within a system where many people are too burned out or busy to get involved, and actively feel "defeat" when it comes to their ability to make a difference in Canadian politics.

"Right now there are people that have to work three jobs to [make] ends meet. So what time do you really have to participate?"

Vargas said despite how bleak things may seem, it's important to continue getting their message out.

"We're going to continue fighting, we're going to give our 100 per cent, we're going to try our best," said Vargas, pointing toward tenant information sessions, social media campaigns and door-knocking blitzes as examples.

What does it take to build a movement?

Tranjan said having broader conversations about politicization, financialization and the lack of housing regulation might open the doors for more people to get involved.

"There's actually folks trying to make things worse because they enormously benefit from the kind of money that they can make on the backs of tenant families right now," said Tranjan, pointing toward weakening rent control and tenant protections as examples.

"We need to have that grown up conversation — stop pretending that supply and demand is what explains everything."

For Dobrusin, the fight continues locally by encouraging people to talk to their neighbours, sparking the idea of collective action.

That's what he and other organizers hope to do on Saturday. Tenants, joined by supporters, trade unions and community organizations, are marching down Toronto's Weston Road to local MPPs and MPs offices to call for fair rent and landlord accountability.

"Whether you're in a rent strike or not, it's important to join those forces," he said.

"Hopefully from that we'll be able to build something bigger."

First daily over-the-counter birth control pill approved in the U.S.

Story by Washington Post • Yesterday 

This undated illustration photo courtesy of the Perrigo Company, shows the Opill oral contraceptive.

Federal regulators Thursday approved the first over-the-counter daily birth control pill available in the United States, a milestone in decades-long efforts to make oral contraceptives easier to obtain, especially by teenagers and women who don’t regularly see a doctor.

The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Opill, made by the consumer health giant Perrigo, comes six decades after birth control pills were introduced in the United States, drastically changing the lives of countless women and American society. And it means the country will join about 100 other nations that allow the sale of nonprescription birth control pills.

Health experts, citing the pill’s lengthy record of safety and effectiveness, have pushed for a nonprescription pill for years, but their campaign took on new urgency after the Supreme Court last year struck down the fundamental right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade.

How birth control became legal in Canada. It starts with an eugenicist

Male birth control pill 99 per cent effective in mice, man trials to start this year

“It’s a transformative change in contraceptive access and reproductive health,” said Victoria Nichols, project director of Free the Pill, a coalition of dozens of groups working for over-the-counter birth control pills in the United States.

Opill is expected to be available over the counter in stores starting in January or February, according to Perrigo. It will not have an age restriction. The suggested retail price is expected to be announced this fall. The FDA decision applies only to Opill, not to other birth control pills.

Dyvia Huitron, who is 19 and lives in McAllen, Tex., was 16 when she started having sex and was not able to get the pill; she said she used condoms. Her parents told her to stop having sex. Huitron said several of her friends became pregnant in high school.

“Young people absolutely need this,” said Huitron, a member of Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit organization that has been pressing for easier access to birth control. “For them to be able to get something so important in terms of taking care of their bodies, at an age when historically we have not been allowed to . . . it will have a really significant impact on our lives and our ability to plan for the future.”

The OTC decision comes amid ongoing turmoil following the decision overturning Roe. Today, about a quarter of women of reproductive age live in states where abortion is banned or mostly banned, with dozens of clinics across the South and Midwest no longer providing abortions. New restrictions have led to almost 25,000 fewer legal abortions.

Among the biggest outstanding questions about Opill: cost and insurance coverage. The company has said it would keep the drug affordable and offer financial assistance to people who qualify.

Under the Affordable Care Act, group health plans and insurance companies are required to cover women’s preventive services, including birth control, at no cost. But that applies to prescription products; typically, insurers do not cover OTC drugs – something that women’s health groups want the Biden administration to change.

Some states require the insurance companies they regulate to cover contraceptive products sold without a prescription, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. Almost 30 states and the District of Columbia allow pharmacists to write prescriptions for contraceptives, but some of the laws have age and other restrictions.

Almost half of the pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because Opill has been shown to be more effective than other forms of contraception, such as condoms, experts say it could reduce the number of unintended pregnancies.

Major medical groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, have called for the change for years, saying nonprescription pills could be a boon for public health.

Opill, also called norgestrel, is sometimes called a “mini pill” because it contains only progestin, a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone. It works by thickening cervical mucus to inhibit sperm and suppressing ovulation. Opill does not contain a synthetic form of the hormone estrogen.

Birth control pills that contain both progestin and a synthetic form of estrogen – called combination pills – are more popular in the United States than progestin-only pills. But there are more medical conditions, including blood clots, that preclude use of those combination pills.

The first birth control pill was approved in 1960. Norgestrel was first cleared in 1973 under the brand name Ovrette. It was discontinued by Pfizer in 2005 for business reasons.

HRA Pharma, a Paris company, acquired the medication in 2014 and in recent years has worked closely with Ibis Reproductive Health, a Cambridge, Mass., research group that heads Free the Pill. HRA Pharma applied to the FDA for over-the-counter status for the drug in July 2022 shortly after being acquired by Perrigo, a giant Dublin-based manufacturer of generic medications.

Perrigo applauded the FDA’s approval Thursday.

“Today marks a truly momentous day for women’s health nationwide,” said Patrick Lockwood-Taylor, Perrigo’s president and chief executive. He said Opill has the potential to sharply improve access to contraception.

In May, outside experts advising the FDA voted unanimously that the benefits of approving OTC status for Opill outweigh the risks. They overrode reservations expressed by agency staffers who wondered whether physician oversight might be needed to ensure the pill was used safely and effectively.

The staffers were especially concerned that women might not adhere to directions to take the pill every day, around the same time, and to use another form of contraception or abstain from sex if they missed a dose. They also worried that some women with breast cancer and other medical conditions might not follow instructions to avoid the medications.

Opposition to Opill’s application for nonprescription status mostly came from Catholic groups that have traditionally opposed birth control in favor of natural family planning methods that rely on tracking a woman’s cycle, and fertility, throughout the month. Catholic groups that oppose OTC status focus, in part, on safety issues.

“We strenuously oppose the non-prescription availability of Opill,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Catholic Bioethics Center, Catholic Medical Association and National Association of Catholic Nurses wrote to the FDA’s outside advisers in November.

Antiabortion groups that pushed hard to dismantle Roe have not spent a lot of time focusing on oral contraceptives.

COWABUNGA, MAN

An 'aggressive sea otter' is scaring surfers and stealing their boards

Story by Chris Knight • National Post  -Yesterday 

Santa Cruz Police released this image of Otter 841 in the act of commandeering a surfboard.

Police in Santa Cruz are warning surfers of an unusual threat in the waters of the California community. An “aggressive sea otter” is approaching, biting and scratching surfboards – and in some cases climbing aboard and making off with them.

A widely shared video shows one hapless surfer trying to fight off the creature, which hangs onto the board and at one point seems to rush the man, forcing him to let go. When the map flips the board, it briefly dislodges the animal, but moments later it’s back and chewing on the side of the board.

Unlike recent reports of various orcas attacking boats in what appears to be learned group behaviour, the surfboard-munching marine mammal is a singular scofflaw. It even has a name. The New York Times reports that it’s Otter 841, a five-year-old female, one of about 3,000 endangered southern sea otters remaining along California’s central coast, after the sub-species was almost wiped out in the early 20th century.

Otter 841 is the offspring of an otter that was raised in captivity and, after being released in the wild, started approaching humans for handouts, which they willingly offered. As a result, she was taken in at a local wildlife veterinary care and research centre, where she gave birth to 841.

The Times says 841 was kept from forming close attachments to humans before being released. “After one year of being in the wild without issue, we started receiving reports of her interactions with surfers, kayakers and paddle boarders,” Jessica Fujii, sea otter program manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said. “We do not know why this started. We have no evidence that she was fed. But it has persisted in the summers for the last couple of years.”

It’s also increased in frequency and boldness, with the otter observed stealing surfboards on three separate occasions over a recent weekend.

In the video, onlookers seem to be more amazed than horrified at what is happening. This was also the reaction of 16-year-old Noah Wormhoudt, who related his experience to the Times.

“I started paddling away trying to avoid it but it kept getting closer and closer. I jumped off my board and then it jumped onto my board,” he said. “It seemed friendly, so we got comfortable with it. It was a pretty cool experience.”

But he then realized that this was a wild animal, and that he “wasn’t really like thinking about how it could bite my finger off.” He also added admiringly: “The otter was shredding, caught a couple of nice waves.”

Others are less impressed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFW) has released a statement that, “While there have been no confirmed reports of injury, due to the highly unusual behavior of this otter, kayakers, surfers, and others recreating in the area should not approach the otter or encourage the otter’s interactions.”

The sea otter is the largest member of the weasel family and can tip the scales at over 45 kg or 100 pounds. The carnivorous creature has left claw and bite marks on several surfboards.

Meanwhile, a team from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Monterey Bay Aquarium is looking to catch Otter 841. Aquarium spokesperson Kevin Connor told NPR that she won’t be able to return to the wild, however.

“Trying to recapture the otter is an effort to avoid anything more drastic. If the otter were to harm or bite a person, the USFW, which is responsible for managing the population of these animals, would have to begin discussions of euthanizing the animal,” he said. “That’s the reality, and nobody wants to see that.”

Why cluster munitions are so controversial

THEY KILL AND MAIM CIVILIANS

Story by The Associated Press • Yesterday 

An elderly man riding a bicycle pushes the bike of his wife killed by a cluster bomb in Lyman, Donetsk region, on July 8, 2023.© Provided by National Post

The United States has decided to send cluster munitions to Ukraine to help its military push back Russian forces entrenched along the front lines.

The Biden administration announced that it will send thousands of them as part of a new military aid package worth $800 million.

The move has triggered outrage from some allies and humanitarian groups that have long opposed the use of cluster bombs. More than 120 countries signed onto a 2008 treaty banning all production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions, including the U.K., Germany and Canada.

Trudeau says cluster bombs 'should not be used' after U.S. sends munitions to Ukraine

Proponents argue that Russia has already been using the controversial weapon in Ukraine, and that the munitions the U.S. will provide have a reduced dud rate, meaning there will be far fewer unexploded rounds that can result in unintended civilian deaths.

Here is a look at what cluster munitions are, where they have been used, and why the U.S. plans to provide them to Ukraine now.

What is a cluster munition?

A cluster munition is a bomb that opens in the air and releases smaller “bomblets” across a wide area. The bomblets are designed to take out tanks and equipment, as well as troops, hitting multiple targets at the same time.

The munitions are launched by the same artillery weapons that the U.S. and allies have already provided to Ukraine for the war — such as howitzers — and the type of cluster munition that the U.S. is planning to send is based on a common 155 mm shell that is already widely in use across the battlefield.

In previous conflicts, cluster munitions have had a high dud rate, which meant that thousands of the smaller unexploded bomblets remained behind and killed and maimed people decades later. The U.S. last used its cluster munitions in battle in Iraq in 2003, and decided not to continue using them as the conflict shifted to more urban environments with more dense civilian populations.

On Thursday, Brig.-Gen. Pat Ryder said the Defense Department has “multiple variants” of the munitions and “the ones that we are considering providing would not include older variants with [unexploding] rates that are higher than 2.35 per cent.”

Why provide them now?

For more than a year the U.S. has dipped into its own stocks of traditional 155 mm howitzer munitions and sent more than two million rounds to Ukraine. Allies across the globe have provided hundreds of thousands more.

A 155 mm round can strike targets 15 to 20 miles (24 to 32 km) away, making them a munition of choice for Ukrainian ground troops trying to hit enemy targets from a distance. Ukrainian forces are burning through thousands of the rounds a day battling the Russians.

Yehor Cherniev, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, told reporters at a German Marshall Fund event in the U.S. this spring that Kyiv would likely need to fire 7,000 to 9,000 of the rounds daily in intensified counteroffensive fighting. Providing that many puts substantial pressure on U.S. and allied stocks.

The cluster bomb is an attractive option because it would help Ukraine destroy more targets with fewer rounds, and since the U.S. hasn’t used them in conflict since Iraq, it has large amounts of them in storage it can access quickly, said Ryan Brobst, a research analyst for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

A March 2023 letter from top House and Senate Republicans to the Biden administration said the U.S. may have as many as three million cluster munitions available for use, and urged the White House to send the munitions to alleviate pressure on U.S. war supplies.

“Cluster munitions are more effective than unitary artillery shells because they inflict damage over a wider area,” Brobst said. “This is important for Ukraine as they try to clear heavily fortified Russian positions.”

Tapping into the U.S. stores of cluster munitions could address Ukraine’s shell shortage and alleviate pressure on the 155 mm stockpiles in the U.S. and elsewhere, Brobst said.

Is using them a war crime?

Use of cluster bombs itself does not violate international law, but using them against civilians can be a violation. As in any strike, determining a war crime requires looking at whether the target was legitimate and if precautions were taken to avoid civilian casualties.

“The part of international law where this starts playing [a role], though, is indiscriminate attacks targeting civilians,” Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) associate arms director Mark Hiznay told The Associated Press. “So that’s not necessarily related to the weapons, but the way the weapons are used.”

The U.S., Russia and Ukraine haven’t signed on to the convention banning cluster bombs joined by more than 120 countries.

Where have they been used?

The bombs have been deployed in many recent conflicts, including by U.S. forces.

The U.S. initially considered cluster bombs an integral part of its arsenal during the invasion of Afghanistan that began in 2001, according to HRW. The group estimated that the U.S.-led coalition dropped more than 1,500 cluster bombs in Afghanistan during the first three years of the conflict.

The Defense Department had been due by 2019 to stop use of any cluster munitions with a rate of unexploded ordnance greater than one per cent. But the Trump administration rolled back that policy, allowing commanders to approve use of such munitions.

Syrian government troops often used cluster munitions — supplied by Russia — against opposition strongholds during that country’s civil war, frequently hitting civilian targets and infrastructure. And Israel used them in civilian areas in south Lebanon, including during the 1982 invasion.

During the month-long 2006 war with Hezbollah, HRW and the United Nations accused Israel of firing as many as four million cluster munitions into Lebanon. That left unexploded ordnance that threatens Lebanese civilians to this day.

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has been criticized for its use of cluster bombs in the war with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels that has ravaged the southern Arabian country.

In 2017, Yemen was the second deadliest country for cluster munitions after Syria, according to the U.N. Children have been killed or maimed long after the munitions originally fell, making it difficult to know the true toll.

In the 1980s, the Russians made heavy use of cluster bombs during their 10-year invasion of Afghanistan. As a result of decades of war, the Afghan countryside remains one of the most heavily mined regions in the world.

What’s happening in Ukraine?

Russian forces have used cluster bombs in Ukraine on a number of occasions, according to Ukrainian government leaders, observers and humanitarian groups. And human rights groups have said Ukraine has also used them.

During the early days of the war, there were repeated instances of Russian cluster bombs cited by groups such as Human Rights Watch, including when they hit near a preschool in the northeastern city of Okhtyrka. The open-source intelligence group Bellingcat said its researchers found cluster munitions in that strike as well as multiple cluster attacks in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, also in the northeast.

More recently, in March, a Russian missile and drone barrage hit a number of urban areas, including a sustained bombardment in Bakhmut, in the eastern Donetsk region. Just west of there, shelling and missile strikes hit the Ukrainian-held city of Kostiantynivka, and AP journalists in the city saw at least four injured people taken to a local hospital. Police said Russian forces attacked the town with S-300 missiles and cluster munitions.

Just a month later, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko accused Russian forces of attacking a town with cluster munitions, wounding one person. An AP and Frontline database called War Crimes Watch Ukraine has cataloged how Russia has used cluster bombs.

Additional reporting from National Post

NEEDLE IN HAYSTACK
Search for 300 migrants reported missing in Atlantic shows difficulty of locating lost ships

Story by Nick Logan • Yesterday 

Three boats, carrying more than 300 migrants combined, are reported to have disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean while making a long and risky 1,700-kilometre journey from the coast of Senegal to Spain's Canary Islands.

A search and rescue operation has been underway since a Spanish migrant aid group, known in English as Walking Borders, sounded the alarm on Sunday, after families had not heard from loved ones who had departed last month for the archipelago, situated off the coast of Morocco and Western Sahara.

As desperate families hold out hope the boats will be found, the search demonstrates how difficult it is to track down missing vessels in the vast ocean with little — and sometimes conflicting — information.

The voyage, which can take several days or even weeks, is one of the deadliest in the world. At least 559 people lost their lives trying to reach the Canary Islands in 2022, according to the United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM). The IOM recorded 178 deaths in the first half of this year.

Walking Borders estimates that number is far higher, at 778 deaths, in the first six months of 2023.

Mixed messages on missing migrant boats

Walking Borders reported one boat, believed to have 200 passengers on board, set off on June 27 from the Senegalese fishing village of Kafountine, while two others, one with 65 people and another with 50 to 60 people, left on June 23 from the town of Mbour, near the capital, Dakar.

The Senegalese government is disputing the organization's claims that boats that set out from the country are missing, saying it carried out checks showing "that this information is completely unfounded."

The Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that 260 of its citizens were rescued in Moroccan territorial waters between June 28 and July 9, and that Senegalese and Moroccan authorities are ensuring those who were rescued were taken care of and repatriated as soon as possible.

In a statement sent to CBC News Wednesday, Walking Borders insisted the government's comments were incorrect and that the details of the rescues don't match up with the information it received about missing boats.

The aid group also said 86 people rescued from a boat spotted by a Spanish rescue plane on Monday was unlikely to be one of those it reported missing.

"The main thing is to search for these people, to protect their right to life and to provide answers to the families who are desperately calling," the organization said in its statement. "With every passing minute we are losing some precious time to find them alive."

Searching an area the size of B.C.

If the boats are still adrift, it will be a daunting task to find them in the open ocean, said Luna Vives, an associate professor of geography at Université de Montréal who researches migration and maritime search and rescue in Europe.

The traditional canoe-like fishing boats that are generally used to transport migrants from Senegal are "relatively safe," she said, compared to some of the dilapidated vessels or rubber dinghies used on other migration routes, like in the Mediterranean Sea or English Channel.

She said the search and rescue zone along the migration route to the Canary Islands encompasses about one million square kilometres — an area bigger than British Columbia. It is covered by a rather small search and rescue crew from Spain's Maritime Safety and Rescue Society, also known as Salvamento Maritimo.

"We're talking about a crew of about 30 people with about five boats, two helicopters and one plane who are responsible for rescuing over 7,000 [migrants] in this area in 2023 so far," Vives said.



Migrants rest on the pier after disembarking from a hollowed-out wooden boat, known as a cayuco, at the port of Los Cristianos on the Spanish Canary island of Tenerife following a rescue operation on July 4. (Desiree Martin/AFP/Getty Images)© Provided by cbc.ca

"Unless you come upon one of these boats by accident, the only way to find it is if you know exactly from where and when they left, and the approximate route that the boat followed."

Vives said it's often families of the missing who alert aid groups when they don't hear from their loved ones after several days at sea. In turn, those organizations, like Walking Borders, contact rescue crews or the relevant authorities who then deploy a plane or helicopter to begin searching from the air.

Intensified scrutiny of search and rescue efforts

Search and rescue efforts for migrant boats that are in distress or go missing have been under scrutiny following the sinking of a trawler carrying up to 750 people off the coast of Greece last month. Only 104 people are confirmed to have survived the disaster, one of the deadliest migrant boat incidents on record.

There are questions about the Greek Coast Guard's handling of the incident, as well as scrutiny of the resources dedicated to rescuing migrants at sea, compared to the international response to the missing OceanGate Titan submersible, which imploded while carrying wealthy travellers to the site of the Titanic wreckage in the North Atlantic.

Vives said the broad response to the Titan is actually what is supposed to happen, with search and rescue resources scrambled to assist distressed vessels. But that's not the case with boats carrying migrants from poor or conflict-stricken countries.

She said some countries in Europe are shirking their international search and rescue obligations when it comes to migrant vessels. Rescues have become increasingly politicized, as countries put in place policies meant to deter migrants from arriving by irregular sea routes, and have even penalized non-government organizations attempting to carry out rescues.

Vives said Spain's Salvamento Maritimo is generally successful at saving migrants at sea, when they have the necessary information to guide them.

She worries the situation could change now that Spain and the European Union have reached an agreement to support more involvement from Morocco and other countries in migrant search and rescue efforts.

She said Morocco, for example, does not have the same search and rescue capabilities as Spain, which could ultimately put more lives at risk.

"It's not a combination of efforts, it's a retreat of Spain to let Morocco step in," she said. "Deaths are going to increase along this route."

This week, prosecutors in the Canary Islands filed a lawsuit alleging that negligence led to the deaths of 36 migrants last month off Gran Canaria, the largest of the islands, after a Spanish rescue vessel did not immediately assist, because Morocco had taken charge of the rescue operations.