British Columbia

B.C. teen wins Highland dancing world championship in Scotland

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Annalise Lam placed first in junior championships at the Cowal Highland Gathering in Dunoon

Akshay Kulkarni · CBC News · Posted: Sep 04, 2022 

Annalise Lam, centre, smiles with her trophy at the Cowal Highland Gathering on Aug. 27 in Dunoon, Scotland. The Nanaimo teenager won the world championship for highland dancing. She is flanked by juvenile champion Lily Kelman, left, and adult champion, Marielle Lesperance, right. (Ronnie Cairns Photography)

A 17-year-old from British Columbia has won a world championship Highland dancing event in Scotland, the birthplace of the dance form.

Annalise Lam, from the Brigadoon Dance Academy in Nanaimo, B.C., placed first in the junior championship at the Cowal Highland Gathering in Dunoon last Saturday.

The teenager has been practising Highland dance for over a decade, and qualified for the event in Scotland after winning the Canadian championship in Regina in July.

Lam beat Australian Morven Johnston and Nova Scotian Olivia Burke for the junior title, which is limited to teenagers under the age of 18.

"I'm just over the moon, excited," she told Robyn Burns, host of CBC's All Points West.

"My friends won't let me forget it," she said, laughing. "I'm so proud of myself. And they are, too."

Brigadoon Dance Academy students Keltie Willis, left, and Annalise Lam during their trip to Scotland. It was the first time Lam, who has Scottish heritage, visited the birthplace of Highland dancing. (Brigadoon Dance Academy/Facebook)

Dozens of people showed up at the Nanaimo airport to welcome Lam home, with one of her friends even bringing bagpipes to add a bit of Scottish atmosphere to her arrival.

"It was so much fun," Lam said.

'You need to show those judges what you can do'

Highland dancing is a form of competitive dancing that was developed in 19th-century Scotland, where men practised it as a battlefield ritual and also as a form of social storytelling. 

Today, women win nearly all of the major championships worldwide. In Dunoon, dancers had to compete in four categories set to bagpipe music and percussion: the fling, sword, seann triubhas and reel.

Lam's coach Diena Henry attended the championships along with another dancer from the academy, Keltie Willis — who, earlier in the same trip, won medals at a Commonwealth competition in Stirling.

Leading up to the trip to Scotland, Lam finished second in the B.C. championships before her win at the nationals, which Henry says was the first for a Vancouver Island-born dancer since 1988.

After her protégé cleared the qualifiers in Dunoon last weekend, Henry said there wasn't much opportunity for practice due to the quick turnaround between events.

"We had a talk … our goal is always to not beat anybody. Our goal is always to dance our personal best," she said.

"Our discussion was, for the world final, you cannot hold back. You need to show those judges what you can do."

Lam said she felt "really good" about her performance before the judges gave their verdict.

"I was just in tears hugging her," Henry said, describing her emotions after Lam was awarded first place. "It just went her way, you know? It was pretty exciting."

Henry said she couldn't sleep that night because she kept replaying in her mind the final event of the gathering — a ceremonial Highland fling in which Lam danced with the other champions. 

Dreams of the Edinburgh Tattoo

Lam says she was attracted to dancing because of the strength, power and technique required to execute it properly. She also has Scottish heritage from her mother's side of the family.

She practises at Henry's academy twice a week, and at home in the interim. 

Henry likened Lam's attitude in class to a "border collie that wants to go to work."

"She just wants the ball, like, 'give it to me,'" Henry told CBC News. "It's a treat to work with her because she's just so hungry to get better."

Lam (left) and Willis at the caravan park in Dunoon where they stayed during the Cowal Highland Gathering. (Brigadoon Dance Academy/Facebook)

The champion has now set her sights on performing at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo — a series of performances in the Scottish capital including bands, drills and display teams — that takes place every August.

"[It] would be a new experience with performing rather than competing," Lam said. "I'd have to audition, but that would be amazing if I could get in."

5:27Highland dancer from Nanaimo takes top spot at world championships in Scotland

Annalise Lam, a 17-year old Highland dancer from Nanaimo, took home the top spot in the Juniors category at the Cowal Gathering in Scotland. She spoke with Robyn Burns about the experience.

Quirks & Quarks

The Black Death was history's most lethal plague. Now scientists say they know where it started

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Ancient DNA has identified the earliest victims of the Black Plague in Kyrgyzstan in central Asia

CBC Radio · Posted: Jun 17, 2022 3:57 PM ET | Last Updated: June 17

The headstone of the believer Sanmaq, from a graveyard in the Lake Issyk-Kul region of present-day Kyrgyzstan. The epitaph on his headstone, written in Syriac, reads: 'In the Year 1649 (AD 1337–8), died of pestilence (mawtānā).' This photo was taken during the original excavations in the late 19th century. (A.S. Leybin)

Quirks and Quarks8:08The Black Death was history’s most lethal plague. Now we know where it started

There are few events in human history as ominous — both in name and impact — as the Black Death.

The bubonic plague pandemic made its way across Eurasia and north Africa between 1346 and 1553. It's estimated to have killed up to 200 million people, or 60 per cent of the Earth's entire population at the time.

Now, scientists believe they have pinpointed the origin of the Black Death to a region of present day Kyrgyzstan called Issyk-Kul, once a stopover on the Silk Road trade route in the 14th century. 

Its place of origin has been one of the most hotly debated controversies in the history of epidemiology. Philip Slavin, an associate professor of environmental history at Stirling University in Scotland, and part of the research team, told Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald there have been a couple of prevailing theories over the past 200 years. 

"The Black Death was thought to have originated either in China or in Central Asia," Slavin said. "But one thing in common to those theories was that there was absolutely no way to actually prove those theories without the ancient DNA."

In the late 19th century, archeologists excavated this cemetery in the Chu-Valley of Kyrgyzstan within the foothills of the Tian Shan mountains. (A.S. Leybin)

14th century grave markers referred to 'pestilence'

The new study began several years ago when by chance Slavin came across a graveyard in the Lake Issyk-Kul region of present-day Kyrgyzstan. The graveyard had clearly marked and dated gravestones that showed an unusually high number of burials in the years 1338 and 1339.

"What's really remarkable is that some of those tombstones, the inscriptions were actually longer and more detailed than others," Slavin said. "They stated very precisely that the cause of the death of those individuals was 'pestilence.'" 

Slavin wanted to investigate further, because these deaths occurred only six or seven years before the Black Death turned up in Europe. He thought there could be a connection. So he and his colleagues looked for ancient DNA from skulls that had been found by archeologists from the graveyard during excavations in the 1880s and 90s.

A gravestone from the medieval cemetery in Kyrgyzstan. Researchers found stones like this with engravings identifying victims of 'pestilence' from 1338 and 1339. (Pier-Giorgio Borbone)

Microbial DNA from the skulls matched DNA from the plague bacterium called Yersinia pestis, the strain responsible for the plague.

Their research was published in the journal Nature.

"We also were able to actually compare that strain to other strains from the Black Death in Europe. And what we found, astonishingly, is that genetically, that particular strain from northern Kyrgyzstan actually precedes the other strains from Europe." Slavin said.

"It is situated exactly just before a very important evolutionary event," which Slavin and his colleagues came to call the plague bacteria's "big bang" of diversification into different genetic variants. "So that strain preceded this huge big bang, whereas the main line split into four new lines. And one of those lines actually gave birth to the Black Death in Europe. So we know it actually started there in Central Asia."

The medieval bubonic plague outbreak known as the Black Death may have killed up to 200 million people. This miniature by Pierart dou Tielt (c. 1353) illustrates the people of Tournai in Belgium burying plague victims. (Pierart dou Tielt )

The value of ancient DNA 

Dr. David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, said in an email that ancient DNA studies like this "have really provided a lot of insights into the origins of historical plagues."

In particular, he pointed to the value of the nucleic amplification technology that the researchers used, which allowed them to take tiny amounts of preserved ancient DNA and make copies of it to study.

"The ability to amplify sequences, even when material has been buried in the ground for centuries, does transform the way we understand epidemics." 

But in the case of understanding where the Black Death originated, ancient DNA answered only one part of the mystery. Slavin and his team still didn't know how this virulent strain of plague got into humans in the first place. 

The bubonic plague often persists in the wild in rodents, and Slavin thinks he knows which species was responsible.

"It was really bound to start with local marmots, because the marmot is the most prevalent type of plague-carrying rodent in that region." Salvin said. Marmots are large ground squirrels common in the area.

"And at some point, something must have happened which prompted those bacteria to cross over from marmots into humans. Usually what happens is that you have population collapse in those rodents. And then fleas which are carrying the bacteria become very, very unhappy, and they start seeking an alternative host — and this [new host] is usually humans." 

The Tian Shan mountains, where researchers traced the origins of the Black Death close to Lake Issyk Kul, in what is now Kyrgyzstan. (Lyazzat Musralina)

The Black Death takes the Silk Road

Another key part of the story is that this region of Kyrgyzstan was a stopover on the Silk Road trading route that extended from China to western Europe. The Black Death then spread by humans, or fleas travelling with humans, as they travelled the Silk Road, according to Slavin.

"We suspect that both long-distance trade and the local regional trade were a very, very paramount factor in spreading this disease all the way from Tian Shan region into west Eurasia and beyond," he said.

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Written and produced by Mark Crawley

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE

• FULL EPISODE: Jun 18: Black Death origins, chicken domestication, the life of a mastodon and more…

Mikhail Gorbachev’s commitment to the environment was ahead of its time


After stepping down as Soviet leader he devoted himself to ‘the most urgent task facing humanity today’

Mikhail Gorbachev in 2016. After his presidency he founded environmental group Green Cross

International. Photograph: Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA

\
Amelia Gentleman
@ameliagentleman

Sun 4 Sep 2022 

When Mikhail Gorbachev introduced reforms permitting greater freedom of speech in the 1980s, one of the first things Soviet citizens begin to speak out about was their anger over the pollution spewed out by the country’s biggest and oldest factories.

It prompted his administration to shut down 1,300 of the most polluting factories, he said in an interview with US National Public Radio in 2000, but it also helped crystallise a commitment to environmental causes that put him well ahead of his time and made him an outlier among other former global leaders.

“This is a problem that cannot be postponed. I think the environmental problem will be the number one item on the agenda of the 21st century,” he said in the same interview. “If we just hope that we’ll make it somehow, that nature will cope with these problems somehow through its own resources, and we can just do what we’ve been doing, we could face an even graver situation.”


Most of the international tributes to Gorbachev have focused on his liberalisation and reform agenda, perestroika, glasnost, the role he played in ending the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the work he undertook on promoting environmental causes after he stepped down as president of the Soviet Union is also significant for its prescience.

Two years after his resignation he set up Green Cross International, a foundation that he hoped would gain the status of the Red Cross, focusing on environmental rather than humanitarian crises (the crossover between the two was then less well established). It was set up to address everything from climate change to the chemical contamination left by weapons of mass destruction.

Many fellow global leaders were puzzled by his preoccupation with the issue, according to Adam Koniuszewski, who was the non profit’s director from 2008 until 2017. “He brought a level of urgency to questions of environmental degradation and climate change, questions that many world leaders still do not take seriously enough. Many were wondering how is it that such a serious statesperson – someone credited with having had perhaps the biggest impact on global affairs in recent times – could be so interested in questions in the environment?” he said.

Within Russia, where Gorbachev was viewed less warmly than he was in the west, there was some scepticism about his environmental campaigns. Shortly after its launch, reporters asked him about his role in the initial cover-up of the Chornobyl disaster and about why he had not done more to stop the dumping of used Soviet nuclear reactors and radioactive materials into the sea when he had the power to do so.

The Guardian view on Gorbachev’s legacy: the hope endures

But those who worked closely with him said the experience of Chornobyl was partly what motivated his commitment to the cause. “It impacted him as the kind of industrial disaster that has consequences across borders very quickly, as the cloud spread. He realised environmental problems don’t stop at the border and require international cooperation,” Koniuszewski said. His childhood experience of losing two sisters and an uncle to famine prompted by Stalin’s collectivisation programme in the 1930s also shaped his concerns about human-made environmental disasters.

“I am convinced that this is the most urgent task facing humanity today,” Gorbachev wrote in 2006.

Tony Juniper, the former vice-chair of Friends of the Earth International, said Gorbachev was highlighting the importance of taking immediate action on climate 30 years ago at a time when others world leaders viewed the environment as a “future challenge rather than an issue that needed to be dealt with immediately. He made strong links with questions of poverty and security. There was a lot of foresight in what he did.”

The international environment minister, Zac Goldsmith, tweeted this week: “Mikhail Gorbachev was a good and wise man, with immense courage and a true passion for the environment. I was privileged to meet him 20 years ago when I was awarded the Gorbachev prize for my environmental work. He was a giant.”

Primatologist and ecological activist Jane Goodall met Gorbachev on several occasions to discuss the environment. “I admired him for having that commitment to the environment when many leaders didn’t seem to care,” she said. “He was very clear on the interrelationship between poverty and sustainability. He understood the importance of alleviating poverty, because he understood so well that when you’re really poor you may destroy the environment just to survive.”

In the 1990s and 2000s Gorbachev brought together films stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Redford, CNN founder Ted Turner, scientists and UN leaders to sit on the board of the organisation, but its influence has waned since he stepped down, without ever achieving the global household recognition of the Red Cross.

But the organisation had tangible impact in awareness raising and in facilitating the destruction of chemical weapon stockpiles. “His greatness lies in the fact that he saw and understood the greatest challenges of our times ahead of most other world leaders, if not all of them. I think that’s quite something,” Koniuszewski said.

Bobby Fischer inspired millions to play chess, then decided to stop playing

CECIL ROSNER

SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 5, 2022

Fifty years ago this week, Bobby Fischer was crowned world chess champion. He arrived more than an hour late for his own ceremony.

It seemed to sum up the enigma that was Fischer, the bad boy of American chess who both inspired and enraged chess fans everywhere. The first American world champion in a century, he defeated Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union in a legendary Cold War match in Iceland.

I was a student at the time, working in Europe for the summer, and lucky enough to attend four games of the historic match.

Fischer came home to a hero’s welcome, making appearances on the Johnny Carson show and on the covers of Sports Illustrated and Life magazines. His inventive play and success at the board inspired a whole new generation of people to take up the game.

But Fischer had a reputation for being difficult and petulant. When he was handed his gold medal at the world championship ceremony, he inspected the prize and said: “It doesn’t have a name on it.”

Fischer slowly descended into seclusion and paranoia, refusing to defend his title or make public appearances. He played just one more serious match in his life.

Bobby Fischer died in 2008 at the age of 64, having lived one year for every square on the chessboard.

Bobby Fischer v. Ruben Shocron, Mar del Plata, 1959

HANDOUT

Bobby as White has just won a piece, but his Rook is pinned and looks lost. What does he do?

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25 years later: Deep Blue vs Kasparov
by ChessBase

9/3/2022 – Last week BBC Four brought together a group of personalities that, 25 years ago, were part of the epic struggle between the reigning World Champion and a million-dollar computer built by IBM. The broadcast reunited the chess masters and AI pioneers who went into battle at the time, to test the limits of human and artificial intelligence. You can listen to the 42-minute discussion and read experts.

Deep Blue v Kasparov


BBC Four, the British free-to-air television channel, hosted the discussion as part of their Reunion series. The battle of man vs machine took place in New York, 25 years ago. IBM had proposed a six-game match, which was held in a hushed room while a packed audience watched it broadcast on large screens a few floors below. Every move was streamed online, threatening to crash a fledgling Internet.

Over the tense nine days, the mood turned from anticipation to suspicion to bewilderment. Not only would the world of chess never be the same again, but the balance of power between humans and computers seemed to have shifted irrevocably. Was it the dawning of a new age?

In the BBC Four broadcast Kirsty Wark reunites the chess masters and AI pioneers who went into battle to test the limits of human and artificial intelligence:Frederic Friedel, advisor to Garry Kasparov;
Malcolm Pein, Kasparov team member and IBM consultant;
Murray Campbell, co-creator of Deep Blue;
Joel Benjamin, IBM’s official grandmaster consultant;
Maurice Ashley, Grandmaster, author and commentator, who covered the big match;
Steven Levy, Editor at Large at Wired Magazine, who scooped the front cover for Newsweek.

The producer of the A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 was Ruth Abrahams, the series Producer David Prest. You can follow the entire 42-minute discussion here:



Here are some excerpts from the discussion:

Kirsty Wark: The match was held on the 35th floor of a skyscraper in New York. It was one of those landmark challenges in the spirit of the famous Touring Test of 1950 – humanity's last chance to prove itself before computers outstripped us forever. Deep Blue was housed in twin black cabinets weighing 1.4 tonnes and evaluating 200 million chest positions per second.

Murray Campbell [computer scientist at IBM, and co-creator of Deep Blue] when did you first become interested in chess?

Murray Campbell: I was a chess player from quite a young age and was looking for what to study in college. I discovered a computer that could play chess. That inspired me to go into computer science. Deep Thought was created by a group of graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. It was sort of a fun project, something that we did for a lark.

KW: Frederick Friedel [co-founder of ChessBase], how did you meet Garry Kasparov?

Frederic Friedel: It was in 1985 when he came to Hamburg. I had written him a fan letter and he said he wanted to meet me. We sat together every evening for a whole week. I told him what a computer can do, and he would tell me what a computer should do for chess. We designed a plan, one that changed chess completely.

Malcolm Pein: In 1993 I was commercializing the sale of this chess database that Frederic referred to. All of a sudden we became so much more powerful, we could learn at a much faster rate. In a sense, computers enabled us to completely democratize chess...

KW: Frederick Friedel, how did you and Kasparov prepare for the match?

FF: I didn't dare to tell him you must play an Open Spanish and things like that. I just said think about it please, isn't it better not to play anti-computer chess because you're not very good at it.

Maurice Ashley: [commentator at the Deep Blue-Kasparov match] We were all consistent with the same idea: Garry is too good for this computer. We were all confident that he was simply going to dominate this machine. It did not rise to the level of the greatest entity playing chess on the planet.

Joel Benjamin: [grandmaster, part of the Deep Blue team] I was obviously not happy about losing the first game, but I felt that Kasparov was going to get overconfident, especially because in general he's a very confident person he thinks he can solve any kind of problem.

BBC4: On the fourth of May, following his win the previous day, Kasparov was feeling in control. Then came the shock: Kasparov lost game two he resigned in the middle of what he considered a hopeless situation, instead of fighting for a draw. It represented a steep change in the way that computers played chess. This was not a computer type game, this was real chess. Deep Blue's sudden strategic play was gnawing away at Kasparov's mind.

FF: The mood after that second game was just pure devastation. We didn't know what had happened, and just moaned and groaned the entire evening. Then the next morning I had a conversation with Malcolm and with ChessBase, and they revealed to me that in the final position Garry could have drawn. I showed it Yury Dokhoian, Garry's second, and now came the question: who's going to tell Garry? Yuri said "okay I'll tell him." We were walking down the street, and he went to Garry and started to explain in Russian. Garry was petrified.

JB: The move that really frightened Kasparov was a bug [in the first game]. That was the thing it wasn't supposed to do. So it's very bizarre that the computer freaking out actually helped us.

FF: Garry became very nervous about game two. He wanted printouts so that you can check whether they cheated or not. IBM said no. He was psyching himself out. Suddenly there was a lot of animosity. Garry expected a rematch – he'd won the first one in 1996, and lost the second one in 1997. He expected a new match, but they refused. The mood changed dramatically.

MA: The audience's mood after game six: stunned, shocked. I think those of us who had this the sense of the invincibility of Kasparov, suddenly it seemed like something had happened, not just to him but really to humanity itself. The terminator had arrived.

MC: I'd been building to the moment for decades, and it was somewhat tempered by the fact that I had been accused of cheating, and it took 20 years for him to apologize and admit that there had been no cheating.

KW: Frederic Friedel, what was your sense of the role of computers in chess after Deep Blue?

FF: Garry didn't believe that he'd been beaten by a stronger entity than himself, but he knew that's going to come. Immediately after this we started discussing what can we do about it. One of his ideas was "Advanced Chess", which is a human and a computer playing against a human and a computer. This would make the system stronger than the human or the computer alone.

MC: I remember shortly afterwards the match a former US champion came to me he said "I'm giving up chess, it's finished now, with Deep Blue having defeated Garry. I said, "well a Ferrari is faster than Linford Christie, that doesn't mean that athletics is gone. All computers are really doing are enhancing our understanding of the game.

Steven Levy: [American journalist, NYT, Newsweek, etc] This is all the history of AI. Every time a computer does something that people say you're not going to get from an AI computer, they go on to the next thing. To me, the story wasn't about chess, it was a story about AI and our relationship to our overlord to be.

FF: I spent two and a half weeks in the Plaza Hotel with Garry. We had breakfast, lunch and dinner together. I went through all the high moments and especially the devastating moments. If you ask me would you like to do it again, I would say probably no. It was very taxing...

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FDA panel backs much-debated ALS drug in rare, 2nd review

By MATTHEW PERRONE

yesterday

This 2018 photo provided by Amylyx shows the company's co-founders Joshua Cohen, left, and Justin Klee in Cambridge, Mass. on Sept. 2, 2022. A closely watched experimental drug for Lou Gehrig’s disease is getting an unusual second look from U.S. regulators on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022, amid intense pressure to approve the treatment for patients with the fatal illness. Patients and their families have rallied behind the drug from Amylyx Pharma, launching an aggressive lobbying campaign and enlisting members of Congress to push the Food and Drug Administration to grant approval.

 (Amylyx via AP, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — A panel of federal health advisers voted Wednesday to recommend approval for an experimental drug to treat Lou Gehrig’s disease, a remarkable turnaround for the much-debated medication that was previously rejected by the same group earlier this year.

The Food and Drug Administration advisers voted 7-2 that data from Amylyx Pharma warranted approval, despite hours of debate about the strength and reliability of the company’s lone study. The FDA is not required to follow the group’s advice, but its positive recommendation suggests an approval is likely later this month.

The FDA has approved only two therapies for the disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, which destroys nerve cells needed for basic functions like walking, talking and swallowing.

ALS patients and their families have rallied behind Amylyx’s drug, launching an aggressive lobbying campaign and enlisting members of Congress to push the FDA to grant approval.

Despite a negative review published by FDA’s internal scientists ahead of the meeting, a majority of the outside panelists said Amylyx had presented enough evidence to suggest the drug is helping patients live longer. The same group of neurology experts narrowly voted against the drug in March, due to concerns about missing data and other issues in the company’s study.

“To deprive ALS patients of a drug that might work, it’s probably not something I would feel terribly comfortable with,” said Dr. Liana Apostolova of Indiana University’s School of Medicine, who voted for approval. “At the previous meeting it wasn’t that clear and it’s still questionable.”

Amylyx also appeared to benefit from an unusual exchange in which a company executive — at the FDA’s request — committed to pull the drug from the market if its benefits aren’t confirmed by a large, ongoing study.

“I’m somewhat assured that if an approval is issued it can be withdrawn in the future,” Apostolova noted.

Wednesday’s vote concluded a rare second meeting to review several new statistical analyses submitted by Amylyx in support of the treatment’s benefit in slowing disease and extending life.

The ALS drug review is being closely watched as an indicator of FDA’s flexibility in reviewing experimental medications for the terminally ill and its ability to withstand outside pressure.

Dr. Billy Dunn, FDA’s neurology review chief, opened the meeting by detailing the “concerns and limitations” with Amylyx’s data, while emphasizing the need for new treatment options.

“We are highly sensitive to the urgent need for the development of new treatments for ALS,” Dunn said.

Dunn also noted that a larger Amylyx study being conducted in the U.S. and Europe could provide “more definitive results” by 2024.

In a highly unusual move, Dunn suggested the agency might be more willing to approve the drug if Amylyx would commit to withdrawing its medication if the ongoing 600-patient trial fails to show a benefit. He then called on the company’s co-founders to publicly commit to that step, and Amylyx co-CEO Justin Klee said the company would voluntarily withdraw its drug in that scenario.

The FDA has the power to force companies to pull drugs from the market, though it’s generally faster if drugmakers voluntarily take that step. In cases where companies resist removal the regulatory process can drag on for years.

“I think the FDA — with all due respect — significantly understates the complexity and likelihood of their pulling the product from the market,” said Dr. Caleb Alexander of Johns Hopkins University, one of the two panelists who voted against the drug.

Amylyx conducted one small, mid-stage trial of its drug that showed some benefit in slowing the disease, but it was plagued by missing data and other problems, according to FDA reviewers.

“The final result — for a single study — is borderline and not very statistically persuasive,” FDA statistician Tristan Massie told panelists.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts, company says follow-up data gathered after the study concluded showed the drug extended life. Patients who continued taking the drug survived about 10 months longer than patients who never took the drug, according to a new company analysis.

Panelists favoring the drug cited that data, along with the drug’s mild side effects, to suggest there would be little downside for patients even if it doesn’t ultimately slow ALS.

“The drug is not harmful — it seems like it has a benefit — there’s no safety signal here,” said Dean Follmann, a biostatistician with the National Institutes of Health.

Earlier Wednesday, more than 20 ALS researchers, patients and family members told the advisers they supported approval. The agency has also received more than 1,200 written comments, largely from ALS patient advocates.

“I’m asking you to approve it because I know it works. It’s extending my life and I want that for others,” said Greg Canter, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2018 and participated in Amylyx’s study. He credits the drug with improving his lung capacity and slowing his functional decline.

Amylyx’s medication comes as a powder that combines two older drugs: one prescription medication for liver disorders and a dietary supplement used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Hanging over the review is FDA’s controversial approval of the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm last year, which was reviewed by the same agency scientists and outside advisers.

In that case, the FDA disregarded the overwhelmingly negative vote by its outside advisers, three of whom resigned over the decision. The agency’s approval — which followed irregular meetings with drugmaker Biogen — is under investigation by Congress and federal inspectors.

___

Follow Matthew Perrone on Twitter: @AP_FDAwriter

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Judge strikes down 1931 Michigan law criminalizing abortion


Abortion rights protesters attend a rally outside the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on June 24, 2022, following the United States Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Judge Elizabeth Gleicher, of the Court of Claims, on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022, struck down Michigan's 1931 anti-abortion law, months after suspending it. Judge Gleicher said the law, long dormant before U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, violates the Michigan Constitution. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)


DETROIT (AP) — A judge on Wednesday struck down Michigan’s 1931 anti-abortion law, months after suspending it, the latest development over abortion rights in a state where the issue is being argued in courtrooms and, possibly, at the ballot box.

The law, which was long dormant before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, violates the Michigan Constitution, said Judge Elizabeth Gleicher.

“A law denying safe, routine medical care not only denies women of their ability to control their bodies and their lives — it denies them of their dignity,” Gleicher of the Court of Claims wrote. “Michigan’s Constitution forbids this violation of due process.”

The decision comes as the Michigan Supreme Court is considering whether to place a proposed amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot that would add abortion rights to the state constitution. A Friday deadline is looming.

Supporters submitted more than 700,000 signatures, easily clearing the threshold. But a tie vote by the Board of State Canvassers over spacing issues on the petition has kept it off the ballot so far.

In the case handled by Gleicher, the 1931 law makes it a crime to perform an abortion unless the mother’s life is in danger.

The judge said the law “compels motherhood” and prevents a woman from determining the “shape of her present and future life.”

The law “forces a pregnant woman to forgo her reproductive choices and to instead serve as `an involuntary vessel entitled to no more respect than other forms of collectively owned property,’” Gleicher wrote, quoting constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe.

The law was suspended in May with an injunction, following a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood of Michigan. Gleicher said her latest decision applies to all state and local prosecutors. An appeal by the Republican-controlled Legislature is possible.

“The House is reviewing the ruling,” spokesman Gideon D’Assandro said.

Gleicher acknowledged in July that she has been a regular donor to Planned Parenthood and gave $1,000 to the 2018 campaigns of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, both Democrats who support abortion rights.




But that support wasn’t a reason to pass the case to another judge, said Gleicher, who also serves as chief judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals.

“Judges are presumed to be unbiased and impartial,” she said.

In a separate lawsuit, Whitmer has repeatedly asked the state Supreme Court to bypass lower courts and settle the status of the 1931 law. The court hasn’t decided whether to intervene.

“With our rights still hanging by a thread, the Michigan Supreme Court needs to provide certainty,” the governor said Wednesday.

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EPA leader: Jackson needs ‘fair share’ of money to fix water
EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS

yesterday

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Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael S. Regan discusses elements of a coordinated response of federal, state and city agencies, that he hopes will help deal with the city's long-standing water problems, during a Wednesday news briefing, Sept. 7, 2022, in Jackson, Miss. Regan met with both Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, and other officials to explore options. 

(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)


JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that he wants Mississippi’s capital city to receive “its fair share” of federal money to repair a troubled water system that left homes and businesses without running water for several days.

Even with water flowing from taps and people again able to flush toilets this week, Jackson lacks safe drinking water. The city of 150,000 is in the sixth week of a boil-water advisory from the state health department because of concerns that low pressure could allow contaminants into the water.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan was in Jackson to meet with residents and state and local elected officials Wednesday. He touted the $1 trillion federal infrastructure law that President Joe Biden signed in November.

Mississippi is set to receive more than $4 billion from the law, with most of the money designated for highways and bridges, the White House said. The state’s allocation includes $429 million over five years to improve water systems.

“It’s our desire that the city of Jackson gets its fair share,” Regan said during a meeting with community leaders. “It’s our desire that the city of Jackson doesn’t have to live with what you all have lived with for far too long.”

Jackson’s main water-treatment plant malfunctioned in late August after torrential rain caused flooding along the Pearl River. The influx altered the quality of the raw water entering the plant from a reservoir. That slowed the treatment process, depleted supplies in water tanks and caused a dangerous drop in pressure.

But even before the rainfall, officials said some water pumps had failed and a treatment plant was using backup pumps. A rental pump was installed last week, and the system’s water pressure is back to normal.

Groups are distributing bottled water at drive-thru sites, and restaurants are bringing tanks of clean water from suburbs.

About 25% of Jackson’s residents live in poverty, and the city’s tax base has declined with a sharp decrease in population since 1980 — a change that happened along with mostly white flight that started about a decade after public schools began integrating in 1970.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson sat with Regan at the community meeting and toured Jackson’s main water plant with the administrator, Gov. Tate Reeves and Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. Other members of Mississippi’s congressional delegation also participated in meetings with them about short-term and long-term solutions for the city’s water problems.

“We do know that will require all of us working together to cut through the bureaucracy,” Regan said during a news conference at Jackson State University.

Thompson pointed out during the community meeting that Regan is from North Carolina, which also has a large Black population.

“He understands the challenges, especially (for) communities of color,” said Thompson, the only Black member of Mississippi’s congressional delegation. “Under this current administration, they have taken the fact that many of these communities have been underserved by its government and tried to right the ship.”

Jackson’s water system has been fragile for years, with officials warning that widespread loss of service was possible. A cold snap in 2021 froze pipes and some water treatment equipment, leaving tens of thousands of people without running water. Similar problems happened again early this year, on a smaller scale. The EPA also told Jackson months ago that its water system violates the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

Record heat wave puts California in fossil fuel conundrum


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A man pushes a stroller near the AES power plant in Redondo Beach, Calif., Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. A record heat wave put California in a fossil fuel conundrum: The state has had to rely more heavily on natural gas to produce electricity and avoid power outages while Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration moves toward ending the use of oil and gas. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A record heat wave put California in a fossil fuel conundrum: The state has had to rely more heavily on natural gas to produce electricity and avoid power outages while Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration moves toward ending the use of oil and gas.

The heat wave that started more than a week ago has been hotter and longer than any other in the state, and it put unprecedented strain on power supplies. That prompted Newsom to plead with people to use less power to avoid rolling blackouts — a practice that involves cutting some people’s power to save energy so the lights can stay on for everyone else.

The effort worked, but meeting the state’s heightened energy demand also required activating generators fueled by natural gas, which is still a major part of the state’s power picture. The Democratic governor’s calls for conservation also drew criticism about new state policies governing electric vehicles and other measures that will only increase energy demand.

Newsom, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said the “pretty extreme” circumstances required the state to turn to more natural gas as a backup supply.

“We all want to accelerate the elimination of the gas, but it’s a sober reminder of reality,” he said.

Tuesday’s demand for 52,000 megawatts set a record, as triple-digit temperatures blanketed much of the state. Sacramento hit a record high of 116 degrees (47 degrees Celsius), and normally cooler places like San Francisco and San Diego also reached sizzling temperatures.

Demand will only climb in the years ahead. By 2045, when the state is mandated to get all of its electricity from non-carbon or renewable sources, demand is expected to be as high as 78,000 megawatts due to more electric home appliances and cars on the road, according California Energy Commission estimates.

To meet that demand, both the government and major utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric are working to scale up renewable sources such as solar and wind power, as well as large-scale batteries that can store that power for use at night. The California Public Utilities Commission last year ordered utilities to procure enough additional power for 2.5 million homes by 2026.

Newsom just signed legislation aimed at keeping the state’s last nuclear plant open for five years beyond its planned 2025 closure, and he suggested Wednesday that the plant could run even longer if needed.

The sun is typically the state’s biggest power source during the day. But as the hot weather arrived, natural gas surpassed renewables for more time over the past week, according to the California Independent System Operator, which is responsible for managing and maintaining reliability on the state’s power grid.

Gas was the primary energy source all day on Tuesday — the expected peak of the brutal temperatures.

Meanwhile, on Monday the state for the first time turned on four gas-powered generators to add more supply, enough to power 120,000 homes. It planned to rely on some diesel-powered generators as well.

But some of the state’s fossil-fuel plants have their own reliability problems. Several power plants, including aging gas-fired ones along California’s coast, partially broke down or produced less energy than planned, according to the ISO.

Four of the plants, which suck up ocean water to cool down their equipment, were slated to close in 2020, but the state has continually extended their lives to help stabilize the power supply. They now plan to stay open until at least 2023, but they could last even longer under legislation Newsom signed in June.

If the state wants to keep the old coastal gas-powered plants online beyond 2023, it needs to give the companies that own them more certainty about the future so they can decide whether to spend money to maintain them, said Siva Gunda, vice chairman of the California Energy Commission, the state’s energy planning agency.

“Everything has to be moved forward at full throttle” with the “ambitious aim” that cleaner energy sources make up most of the state’s power reserves, he said.

The intensity of the heat wave only emphasizes the need for California to move away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible, he said.

The grid challenges also provided plenty of fodder for Newsom’s political critics, who have argued that Democrats’ policies to move away from oil and gas don’t add up.

The state recently adopted new regulations aimed at ending the sale of most new gas-powered cars in the state by 2035. But during the heat wave, officials also urged people not to charge cars or use other large appliances at night. The state has not banned car charging, but instead urged people to do so during the day.

“Gavin Newsom — You have to buy an electric car. Also Gavin Newsom — But you can’t charge it,” Republican state Sen. Melissa Melendez tweeted Tuesday evening after the state sent out an emergency wireless alert urging people to reduce power use.

Environmental groups say planning failures led California to rely on natural gas — and even ramp up its use — during the heat wave. The state needs to set clearer goals and benchmarks to meet its clean energy targets and ensure that fossil fuels aren’t used as a backup, said Ari Eisenstadt, campaign manager for Regenerate California, a campaign aimed at ending fossil fuel use in the state.

“Folks have been talking about natural gas as a bridge for decades,” he said. “And if it were truly a bridge, we would have crossed it by now.”