washington — The United States is moving to grant federal protections to the monarch butterfly — a once-common species recognizable by its striking black and orange patterns that has faced a dramatic population decline in recent decades.

The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) said Tuesday it has initiated a public comment period to consider listing the insect under the Endangered Species Act.

But the looming presidency of Donald Trump, who rolled back numerous wildlife protections during his first term, casts uncertainty over the decision.

“The iconic monarch butterfly is cherished across North America, captivating children and adults throughout its fascinating lifecycle,” said FWS Director Martha Williams in a statement. “Despite its fragility, it is remarkably resilient, like many things in nature when we just give them a chance.”

The proposed listing comes at a critical time for the species, which has been designated as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature since 2022.

Monarchs are divided into two migratory populations in North America. The larger eastern group has declined by approximately 80% since the 1980s, while the western population has plummeted by 95%.

According to the FWS, the species faces a host of threats, including the loss and degradation of its breeding, migratory and overwintering habitats; exposure to insecticides; and the growing impacts of climate change.

As part of its conservation efforts, the FWS is also recommending the designation of critical habitat at specific overwintering sites along California’s coast. These habitats serve as vital winter refuges, providing monarchs the resources needed to rest and prepare for spring breeding.

“The fact that a butterfly as widespread and beloved as the monarch is now the face of the extinction crisis is a tri-national distress signal warning us to take better care of the environment that we all share,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“For 30 years, we’ve watched the population of monarch butterflies collapse. It is clear that monarchs cannot thrive — and might not survive — without federal protections,” added Dan Ritzman, director of conservation at Sierra Club.

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is widely credited with saving iconic American species such as the gray wolf, bald eagle and grizzly bear.

During Trump’s first administration, however, key provisions of the law were weakened. These changes, later reversed by President Joe Biden, included measures that allowed industrial projects such as roads, pipelines and mines in areas designated as critical habitat for vulnerable species.

Trump’s administration also removed endangered species protections for gray wolves across most of the United States and slashed critical habitat designated for northern spotted owls.
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NEW YORK — The most expensive dinosaur fossil ever discovered will be on view in New York starting this weekend, American Museum of Natural History officials announced Wednesday.

The giant stegosaurus fossil, dubbed “Apex,” is 3.3 meters tall and 8.2 meters nose to tail. The display will start in a giant atrium at the museum’s entrance before being moved to the museum’s existing fossil halls next year.

The museum also confirmed the identity of the philanthropist who purchased Apex. Billionaire hedge fund manager and longtime museum donor Ken Griffin bought it at an auction in July for $45 million, the most ever paid for dinosaur remains. Sean Decatur, president of the American Museum of Natural History, said that Griffin approved a long-term loan of Apex, as well as allowing scientists to take samples from the fossil for analysis.

“This partnership allows Apex to have pride of place at a museum world-renowned for its dinosaur collection and for its longstanding leadership in paleontology and, even more exciting, enables us to pursue specialized stegosaurus research centered around this extraordinary and scientifically important specimen,” Decatur said in a statement Wednesday.

Of the more than 80 stegosauri made available to scientific institutions, very few are substantially complete, the statement said. Apex is the most complete specimen ever found, Decatur said. With about 80% of its 320 bones preserved, it is miraculous for creature that has been dead for 150 million years. The specimen is also prized by scientists because it is estimated to have died at a relatively old age, and it could reveal insights into stegosaurus metabolism and bone growth.

Scientists will make CT scans of the internal structures of the dinosaur’s skull and analyze a small sample extracted from one of its giant thigh bones, the statement said.

“As exciting as is it is to have this dinosaur on display, it is even more exciting to have the opportunity to study it and make important scientific data available for research,” said Roger Benson, who curates the American Museum of Natural History’s fossil amphibians, reptiles, birds and plants.

The museum’s paleontologists have a long record of breaking ground in dinosaur research, including identifying the first dinosaur eggs and early evidence of dinosaur feathers, the statement said.

Commercial paleontologist Jason Cooper discovered in Apex on his land near Dinosaur, Colorado, on the Utah border near Dinosaur National Monument.

Griffin’s successful $44.6 million bid for Apex over the summer set a record for dinosaur remains, beating out the $31.8 million paid for “Stan,” the remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex sold in 2020. Like Apex, the Stan fossils were purchased by a private individual with plans to make it available to the public. The T. rex has been slated to be on display in Abu Dhabi, in United Arab Emirates, at a museum that opens in late 2025.
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SKOPJE, North Macedonia — A political party in North Macedonia on Saturday demanded authorities ban social networks whose content incites violence and self-destructive behavior after several young people were seriously injured in connection with the popular “Superman challenge” on TikTok. 

Health authorities said at least 17 students, ages 10 to 17, were brought to hospitals in the capital Skopje and other towns over the past week with broken bones, contusions and bruises. The children were injured after being thrown into the air by their friends to fly like superheroes and get applause on the internet. 

The Liberal-Democratic Party, which was part of the left-led coalition that ruled the country from 2016 to earlier in 2024, issued a press statement Saturday strongly condemning “the irresponsible spread of dangerous content on social media, such as the latest TikTok ‘challenge’ known as ‘Superman,’ which has injured six children across (the country) in the past 24 hours.” 

“The lack of adequate control over the content of social media allows such ‘games’ to reach the most vulnerable users,” the party statement said. It demanded the “immediate introduction of measures to ban content that incites violence and self-destructive behavior, increase surveillance, and sanction platforms that enable dangerous trends.” 

North Macedonia’s education minister Vesna Janevska said students should focus on education, not TikTok challenges. 

“The ban on mobile phones in schools will not have an effect. Phones will be available to children in their homes, neighborhoods and other environments,” she said. 

Psychologists have warned that the desire to be “in” with the trends on social networks, combined with excessive use of mobile phones, is the main reason for the rise in risky behaviors among children. They urged parents and schools to talk with students. 
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SYDNEY — Australian authorities are being criticized for ruling out drug decriminalization at an international summit in Sydney this week, ignoring a call by many experts and health groups for a health care response to drug use and addiction rather than criminal penalties.

Several hundred politicians, policy experts, police officers and health professionals gathered this week for a summit on drug reform in Sydney.

The New South Wales government is examining ways to redraft the state’s drug laws and policies.

Calls for the decriminalization of drug use and possession were the focus of the meeting.

Campaigners say not treating drug use as a crime would encourage people to seek help without fear of legal consequences.

New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park told local media Friday, though, there is not enough local support for such reform.

“The summit is not just about decriminalization, and for a government to move to decriminalize in the drugs … would be a seismic shift to the way in which we handle drugs in New South Wales,” Park said. “In relation to decriminalization, we think that is too significant to put on the table now without a clear mandate.”

The Sydney summit heard from the mayor of Portland, in the U.S. state of Oregon, Ted Wheeler. He told delegates that earlier this year, state lawmakers repealed laws that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs in the state. He said that the health system has been overwhelmed, and that drug-related crime has risen sharply because of the legislation.

International debate is passionate and divided.

A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, formed in 2011 to campaign for drug reform, called for a total reexamination of the approach to illicit substances.

Louise Arbour, a former U.N. high commissioner for human rights, was involved in the report and told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that a new approach is needed.

“Globally, it is very clear that this so-called war on drugs has created a gigantic international illegal drug trade,” Arbour said. “The worst aspect of that war is that it has essentially been a war on people — been a war on people who use drugs and not a war on people who actually prey on them.”

The annual number of drug overdose deaths in Australia has almost doubled over the past 20 years, according to the Penington Institute, a nonprofit organization in Victoria state.

Some 100,000 people are estimated to die each year from drug overdoses in the United States, but the number of fatalities has decreased, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Efforts to reduce the nation’s persistently high maternal mortality rates involve state panels of experts that investigate and learn from each mother’s death.

The panels — called maternal mortality review committees — usually do their work quietly and out of the public eye. But that’s not been the case recently in three states with strict abortion laws.

Georgia dismissed all members of its committee in November after information about deaths being reviewed leaked to the news organization ProPublica. Days later, The Washington Post reported that Texas’ committee won’t review cases from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after the state banned nearly all abortions. In Idaho, the state let its panel disband in 2023 only to reinstate it earlier this year.

“They’ve become more of a lightning rod than they were before,” said epidemiologist Michael Kramer, director of the Center for Rural Health and Health Disparities at Mercer University in Georgia.

Here’s what maternal mortality review committees across the nation do and what might happen next:

What are they?

“Maternal mortality review committees are important because they are the most comprehensive source of information about maternal mortality that we have,” said David Goodman, who leads the maternal mortality prevention team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The panels review deaths that occur during pregnancy or within a year after it ends, whether directly related to the pregnancy or not. Causes of death can range from hemorrhage during childbirth to drug overdoses to traffic accidents.

The goal, Kramer said, is to examine maternal deaths and help “decide what we can do about them.”

All states, a few cities and Puerto Rico have these committees. Their membership varies and may include OB-GYNs, maternal-fetal medicine doctors, nurses, midwives, mental and public health experts and members of patient advocacy groups. Most have representatives from several areas of expertise, which the CDC recommends.

How members are selected also varies; people may apply, submit letters of interest or be invited to serve.

The selection shouldn’t be politically motivated, Kramer said, because “if there’s a systematic exclusion of certain data or certain perspectives” it’s difficult to truly understand what’s happening.

How do they look at deaths?

First, the panels work with state vital statistics offices and epidemiologists to identify deaths associated with pregnancy by examining death certificates and looking for a pregnancy checkbox or a related cause of death. They may also search for links to birth and fetal death records, or delve into hospital discharge data, media reports and obituaries.

Once they identify cases, they collect as much information as possible, such as prenatal care records, hospital and social service records, autopsy reports and interviews with family members. Professional “abstractors” distill all this into case narratives, which committee members pore over. Most use a standardized review process developed by the CDC — and all panels can get help and guidance from the agency.

They consider questions such as: Was the death pregnancy-related? What was the underlying cause? Was it preventable? What factors contributed?

States generally have privacy rules that protect committee members and people who provide information on the deaths.

The groups then issue public reports that don’t name moms or hospitals but include overall findings, trends and recommendations. Some come out a couple of years or more after the deaths.

Across the nation in 2023, Goodman said, 151 recommendations from those reports were implemented by communities, hospitals, medical professionals and policymakers.

What about Georgia, Texas and Idaho?

Georgia will rebuild its committee through a new application process, the state public health commissioner said.

Texas’ committee has been reviewing 2021 deaths and will start on 2024 cases at its next meeting, Texas Department of State Health Services spokesperson Lara Anton said in an email to The Associated Press.

“Reviewing cases is a lengthy process and legislators have asked for more recent data. Starting the next review cycle with 2024 cases will allow us to provide that in the next report,” Anton said, adding that maternal and child health epidemiologists will continue to analyze and publish data for 2022 and 2023.

In Idaho, the reconstituted review committee now falls under the state board of medicine, which licenses doctors, instead of the state’s health and welfare department. It will operate like it always has, said Bob McLaughlin, spokesperson for the medical board. Members met for the first time in November and plan to issue a report by Jan. 31. Because the legislature wanted the most up-to-date information, McLaughlin said the first report will cover only 2023 cases, and the group will review 2022 deaths next.

Goodman said he’s encouraged that every state has a review committee now — only 20 had them in 2015.
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A surprising study of temperature-related deaths in Mexico upends conventional thinking about what age group is hit hardest by heat. Researchers found at higher temperatures and humidity, the heat kills far more young people under 35 than those older than 50.

For decades, health and weather experts have warned that the elderly and the youngest children were most vulnerable in heat waves. But this study looking at all deaths in Mexico from 1998 to 2019 shows that when the combination of humidity and temperature reach uncomfortable levels, around 30 degrees Celsius and 50% relative humidity, there were nearly 32 temperature-related deaths of people 35 years old for every temperature-related death of someone 50 and older.

The study in Friday’s journal Science Advances shows an especially surprising spike of heat-related deaths in an age group thought to be young and robust: people between 18 and 35. That age group alone had nine times as many temperature-related deaths as those older than 50.

Study authors and outside experts are scrambling to figure out why. Demographics alone don’t explain why more young adult Mexicans are dying in high heat than their elders. Two theories: Outdoor workers who can’t escape the heat, and young people who don’t know their limits.

The trend is likely to widen as the world warms from human-caused climate change, according to computer simulations run by the study team.

“We found that younger people are especially vulnerable to humid heat,” study co-author Jeffrey Shrader, a climate economist at Columbia University, said. “As the climate warms, we’re really going to be shifting the burden of temperature-related mortality towards younger individuals and away from older individuals who tend to be more vulnerable to cold temperatures.”

Data from cold weather shows more than 300 deaths of Mexican residents 50 and older for every young person dying from cold temperatures, according to the study.

“People of all ages are increasingly at risk from the rising temperatures, and this study shows that those that we might have considered relatively safe from heat-related adverse health outcomes might not be so much so,” said Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown that monitors health effects of climate change. She was not part of the study team.

“Heat is a much more dangerous silent killer than most people acknowledge it to be, and that heat is increasingly putting our health and survival at risk,” Romanello said in an email.

Study authors decided to examine weather-related deaths in Mexico because that country not only has detailed mortality data, but it has a variety of different climates making it an ideal place to study in depth, Shrader said.

Researchers also want to figure out whether this is just a situation in Mexico or other warmer sections of the globe have similar spikes in young adult deaths in high heat and humidity.

Initially the team just wanted to look at deaths and what scientists call wet-bulb globe temperatures, but when they looked at age differences, they were surprised and looked in more detail, Shrader said. Wet-bulb temperature, which is intended to mirror how the body cools itself, is derived using a complicated measurement system that factors in humidity and solar radiation. A wet-bulb globe temperature of 35 degrees Celsius is thought to be the limit for human survivability. Most places don’t reach that level.

Researchers determined temperature-related mortality by complex statistical analysis that compares numerous factors in the number of deaths and removes everything they can except temperature fluctuations, said study co-author Andrew Wilson, a Columbia climate economics researcher.

Researchers also calculated the ideal temperature for when there are the fewest excess deaths at each age group. Younger adults’ sweet temperature spot is about 5 degrees Celsius cooler than it is for older people, Shrader and Wilson said.

Some outside health and climate experts were initially puzzled at the higher youth mortality seen in the study. Co-author Patrick Kinney, a professor of urban health and sustainability at Boston University, said it was likely the study included a higher proportion of outdoor workers exposed to heat than prior studies did.

Study co-author Tereza Cavazos, a climate scientist at the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education in Mexico, said she remembers her father’s generations taking siestas in the high heat of the day and that was healthy. That doesn’t happen so much now, she said.

“There is a lot of population that is vulnerable in the future. Not even in the future, right now,” Cavazos said. She mentioned three Mexican heat waves this year that hit in the middle of the country and kept the deadly heat going overnight so people had little relief. Usually cool nights allow a body to recover.

Younger people often have a sense of invulnerability to weather extremes and do things that increase their risk, such as play sports in high heat, Cavazos said.

“High humidity makes it a lot harder for the body to cool itself through sweating – which is how our body primarily stays cool,” said Dr. Renee Salas, an emergency medicine physician and climate change expert at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She was not part of the study team. “So someone young and healthy working outside in heat and high humidity can reach a point where the body can no longer cool itself safely – causing a deadly form of heat injury called heat stroke.” 
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The U.S. space agency, NASA, is leading an effort to return astronauts to the surface of the moon and establish a routine presence on the lunar surface. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, NASA says it will push the next mission of its Artemis program from late 2025 to early 2026.
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LONDON — As a landmark climate change case reached its halfway mark Friday at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, clear divisions have emerged over whether nation states can be held legally liable for global warming under international human rights laws.

The 15 judges at the United Nations’ top court have been asked to give an opinion on whether nation states are obliged under such laws to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and to address damage caused by climate change.

Existential threat

Small island and coastal states say their very existence is at stake due to rising sea levels. They argue that international human rights law must apply.

“Territories are disappearing. Livelihoods are being destroyed. Fundamental rights are being violated as we speak,” said Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, the lead counsel for the Pacific Islands state of Vanuatu.

“The destruction of the Earth’s climate system and other parts of the environment constitutes grave breaches of international law. So, our hopeful expectation is that the court will recognize this and articulate the legal consequences of these violations,” she said.

“Legal consequences of violations of international law are always twofold. The wrongful conduct — the breaching conduct — must cease, it must be put to an end. And secondly, reparations must be made,” Wewerinke-Singh told reporters at The Hague at the opening of the hearing Monday.

Big polluters

However, the world’s biggest polluters — including the United States, China and India — argue that only global climate change agreements have any legal relevance. Human rights, they say, do not apply.

“In rendering its advisory opinion, the court may exercise due caution to avoid devising new or additional obligations beyond what is already agreed to under the existing climate change regime, which take into consideration historic emissions, climate justice and the principles of equity,” India’s representative, Luther Rangreji, told the court on Thursday.

Other major economies have made similar arguments during the first week of the hearing, according to analyst Elena Kosolapova of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

“For example, Canada has argued that human rights obligations do not encompass the obligation to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Germany said the goal of human rights treaties is to protect actual victims of concrete violations and not abstract persons from abstract risks,” Kosolapova told VOA.

“Spain was a notable exception in this camp because it argued that governments actually have human rights obligations in relation to the response to climate change,” she said.

Reparations

Many developed nations fear the financial consequences if human rights laws are invoked, Kospolova said.

“Under the law of state responsibility, any breach of an international obligation, known as an ‘international wrongful act,’ entails certain consequences,” she said. “And many vulnerable countries have highlighted this during the hearings. The responsible state is obligated to make reparations for the injury caused by the wrongful act.”

Those reparations could take the form of compensation.

“Compensation was explicitly excluded from the loss and damage talks under the [climate change] convention and from the Paris Agreement itself,” Kospolova said. “So, I think it would be very interesting to see what the court has to say about it.”

Crucial year

The judges will hear another week of evidence before delivering their legal opinion next year, which is expected to be a crucial year for climate legislation. Over the next few months, nation states are due to publish action plans known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, which outline how they plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The NDCs will form a central part of the COP30 climate summit in November, to be held in the Brazilian city of Belem on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.
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Tehran, Iran — Iran successfully launched on Friday its heaviest space payload, which includes a satellite and a space tug, using a domestically developed satellite carrier, official media reported.

Weighing 300 kilograms, the payload consisted of the Fakhr-1 telecommunications satellite and the Saman-1 space tug, according to state television.

The Saman-1 is an “orbital transmission system” designed to transport satellites from lower orbits to higher ones, as described by the Iran Space Research Center when it was unveiled in 2017.

The launch marks an “operational step” toward transferring satellites into higher orbits, the TV report said.

The system was first introduced in February 2017 at a ceremony attended by Iran’s then-president, Hassan Rouhani, and was test-launched in 2022.

The payloads were launched using the homegrown Simorgh satellite carrier from the Imam Khomeini launch base in Semnan province.

Named after a mythical Iranian bird, the Simorgh is a two-stage, liquid-fueled satellite launch vehicle developed by Iran’s defense ministry.

In September, Iran said it successfully put the Chamran-1 research satellite into orbit using the Ghaem-100 carrier, which is produced by the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division.

Western governments, including the United States, have repeatedly warned Iran against such launches, arguing technology used for satellites could be applied to ballistic missiles, potentially capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Iran denies it wants nuclear weapons. It has consistently stated that its satellite and rocket launches are focused on civil and defense applications.

Last month, Russia launched 55 satellites, including two built by Iran — Koswar and Hodhod — reflecting the deepening political, economic and military relations between the two nations.
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KINSHASA, CONGO — Public health officials in Africa urged caution Thursday as Congo’s health minister said the government was on alert over a mystery flu-like disease that in recent weeks killed dozens of people.

Jean Kaseya, the head of Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters that more details about the disease should be known in the next 48 hours as experts receive results from laboratory samples of infected people.

“First diagnostics are leading us to think it is a respiratory disease,” Kaseya said. “But we need to wait for the laboratory results.” He added that there are many things that are still unknown about the disease — including whether it is infectious and how it is transmitted.

Authorities in Congo have so far confirmed 71 deaths, including 27 people who died in hospitals and 44 in the community in the southern Kwango province, Health Minister Roger Kamba said.

“The Congolese government is on general alert regarding this disease,” Kamba said, without providing more details.

Of the victims at the hospitals, 10 died due to lack of blood transfusion and 17 because of respiratory problems, he said.

The deaths were recorded between November 10 and 25 in the Panzi health zone of Kwango province. There were around 380 cases, almost half of which were children under the age of 5, according to the minister.

The Africa CDC recorded slightly different numbers, with 376 cases and 79 deaths. The discrepancy was caused by problems with surveillance and case definition, Kaseya said.

Authorities have said that symptoms include fever, headache, cough and anemia. Epidemiological experts are in the region to take samples and investigate the disease, the minister said.

The Panzi health zone, located around 700 kilometers from the capital, Kinshasa, is a remote area of the Kwango province, making it hard to access.

The epidemiological experts took two days to arrive there, the minister said. Because of the lack of testing capacity, samples had to be taken to Kikwit, more than 500 kilometers away, said Dieudonne Mwamba, the head of the National Institute for Public Health.

“The health system is quite weak in our rural areas, but for certain types of care, the ministry has all the provisions, and we are waiting for the first results of the sample analysis to properly calibrate things,” Kaseya said.

Mwamba said that Panzi was already a “fragile” zone, with 40% of its residents experiencing malnutrition. It was also hit by an epidemic of typhoid fever two years ago, and there is currently a resurgence of seasonal flu across the country.

“We need to take into account all this as context,” Mwamba said.

A Panzi resident, Claude Niongo, said his wife and 7-year-old daughter died from the disease.

“We do not know the cause, but I only noticed high fevers, vomiting … and then death,” Niongo told The Associated Press over the phone. “Now, the authorities are talking to us about an epidemic, but in the meantime, there is a problem of care [and] people are dying.”
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FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE — Authorities in Sierra Leone on Thursday started a nationwide rollout of the single-dose Ebola vaccine, the first such campaign in West Africa, where a deadly outbreak 10 years ago resulted in the death of thousands.

The 2014 Ebola outbreak — the deadliest in history — was primarily in West Africa but affected Sierra Leone the most, with nearly 4,000 deaths out of the more than 11,000 recorded globally. The country also lost 7% of its health care workforce to the outbreak.

The nationwide vaccine campaign, implemented by the government in partnership with the global vaccine alliance Gavi, the World Health Organization and the United Nations children’s agency, will target 20,000 front-line workers across the country, officials said.

“This is an investment in the safety of our people and a healthier Sierra Leone,” Health Minister Austin Demby said.

There had been no approved vaccine at the time of the 2014 outbreak, which recorded up to 28,000 cases, starting in Guinea before spreading across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia, the other two countries affected the most.

Three years have passed since the last case was recorded in Guinea, although officials have spoken of remaining threats in endemic regions.

Among those killed by the disease during the 2014 outbreak were nine relatives of Hassan Kamara, a resident of Freetown. Of the 11 people he was living with at the time, only he and his baby daughter survived.

“They died in front of me,” he said. “I feel bad sometimes speaking about this because of what I went through.”

Thursday’s campaign, which launched in the capital, Freetown, was welcomed by health workers.

Collins Thomas, a community health worker in Freetown, remembers losing many colleagues in 2014 as they managed patients during the outbreak in Freetown.

“It was scary, because we knew nothing about the disease and learned along the line. With this vaccine, we know we are protected,” Thomas said.

Gavi Chief Executive Sania Nishtar said the organization is “incredibly proud” of how its support for timely and equitable access to vaccines has helped save lives and protect communities.

“To have the first nationwide preventive vaccination campaign take place in the country most deeply impacted by the 2014 outbreak makes this historic milestone even more meaningful,” he said.
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Wednesday in just its second major transgender rights case, which is a challenge to a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming health care for minors.

The justices’ decision, not expected for several months, could affect similar laws enacted by 25 other states and a range of efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use.

The case is coming before a conservative-dominated court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people.

There were dueling rallies outside the court in the hours before the arguments. Speeches and music filled the air on the sidewalk below the court’s marble steps. Advocates of the ban bore signs like “Champion God’s Design” and “Kids Health Matters,” while the other side proclaimed “Fight like a Mother for Trans Rights” and “Freedom to be Ourselves.”

Four years ago, the court ruled in favor of Aimee Stephens, who was fired by a Michigan funeral home after she informed its owner that she was a transgender woman. The court held that transgender people, as well as gay and lesbian people, are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace.

The Biden administration and the families and health care providers who challenged the Tennessee law are urging the justices to apply the same sort of analysis that the majority, made up of liberal and conservative justices, embraced in the case four years ago when it found that “sex plays an unmistakable role” in employers’ decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate.

The issue in the Tennessee case is whether the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same.

Tennessee’s law bans puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors, but not “across the board,” lawyers for the families wrote in their Supreme Court brief. The lead lawyer, Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, is the first openly transgender person to argue in front of the justices.

The administration argues there is no way to determine whether “treatments must be withheld from any particular minor” without considering the minor’s sex.

“That is sex discrimination,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in her main court filing.

The state acknowledges that the same treatments that are banned for transgender minors can be prescribed for other reasons. But it rejects the claim that it is discriminating on the basis of sex. Instead, it says lawmakers acted to protect minors from the risks of “life-altering gender-transition procedures.”

The law “draws a line between minors seeking drugs for gender transition and minors seeking drugs for other medical purposes. And boys and girls fall on both sides of that line,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti wrote in the state’s Supreme Court brief.

While the challengers invoke the 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County for support, Tennessee relies on the court’s precedent-shattering Dobbs decision in 2022 that ended nationwide protections for abortion and returned the issue to the states.

The two sides battled in their legal filings over the appropriate level of scrutiny the court should apply. It’s more than an academic exercise.

The lowest level is known as rational basis review and almost every law looked at that way is ultimately upheld. Indeed, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati that allowed the Tennessee law to be enforced held that lawmakers acted rationally to regulate medical procedures, well within their authority.

The appeals court reversed a trial court that employed a higher level of review, heightened scrutiny, that applies in cases of sex discrimination. Under this more searching examination, the state must identify an important objective and show that the law helps accomplish it.

If the justices opt for heightened scrutiny, they could return the case to the appeals court to apply it.

Gender-affirming care for youth is supported by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.

But Tennessee is pointing to health authorities in Sweden, Finland, Norway and the United Kingdom that found the medical treatments “pose significant risks with unproven benefits.”

None of those countries has adopted a ban like the one in Tennessee, and individuals can still obtain treatment, Prelogar wrote in response.

The Williams family of Nashville, Tennessee, are among those challenging the state law. Brian Williams said that because of puberty blockers and hormone treatments, his transgender daughter, L.W., is a “16-year-old planning for her future, making her own music and looking at colleges.”

But because of Tennessee’s ban, she has to travel to another state to receive the health care that “we and her doctors know is right for her.”
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In Zambia, an education and prevention program known as the Total Control of the Epidemic project is focused on ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. Kathy Short reports from Petauke, Zambia. Camera: Jawadu Sumaili
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WASHINGTON — When the Supreme Court this week wades into the contentious issue of transgender rights, the justices will hear from an attorney with knowledge that runs deep.

Chase Strangio will be the first openly transgender attorney to argue before the nation’s highest court, representing families who say Tennessee’s ban on health care for transgender minors leaves their children terrified about the future.

Arguments in the case come amid heightened pushback to transgender rights, including a presidential campaign where Republican Donald Trumpput his fierce opposition front and center.

Strangio will bring months of intense legal preparation to the case as well as hard-won lessons from his own experience.

“I am able to do my job because I have had this health care that transformed and, frankly, saved my life,” he said. “I am a testament to the fact that we live among everyone.”

Strangio grew up outside of Boston and came out as trans when he was in law school. Now 42, he’s an American Civil Liberties Union attorney whose legal career has included representing former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, challenging a ban on transgender people serving in the military and helping win an LGBTQ+ worker-discrimination case at the Supreme Court. He’s also the father of a 12-year-old, the son of a father who supports Trump, and has a close relationship with his Army-veteran brother.

He’s also an advocate, speaking out as a series of U.S. states banned gender-affirming health care for transgender minors. The laws are part of a wave of restrictions on school sports participation and bathroom usage around the country. After the first openly transgender person was elected to Congress, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson declared support for restricting bathroom use to sex assigned at birth.

Tennessee, meanwhile, will argue before the Supreme Court that treatments like puberty blockers and hormones carry risks for young people and that its law protects them from making treatment decisions prematurely.

“Tennessee, like many other states, acted to ensure that minors do not receive these treatments until they can fully understand the lifelong consequences or until the science is developed to the point that Tennessee might take a different view of their efficacy,” state attorneys wrote in court filings.

Arguing for Tennessee is state Solicitor General Matt Rice. He served in 2019 as a clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, who dissented from the transgender worker-discrimination case Strangio worked on that term. The state attorney general’s office did not make Rice available for an interview ahead of arguments, but his background also includes a couple of years as a minor league baseball player for the Tampa Bay Rays before he earned his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

The Biden administration is supporting the challenge to Tennessee’s law, but the federal government’s position is expected to change after Trump takes office in January. 

Strangio said he’ll nevertheless keep advocating for transgender youth to access health care that wasn’t available when he was young.

“Many of us think about our childhood and young adulthood as lost years, when we were just simply disembodied from our core,” he said. Major medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, oppose the bans and have endorsed such care, saying it’s safe when administered properly. 

Strangio also pointed out that many medical interventions for young people, like gastric bypass surgeries for weight loss, carry some risk and it makes sense to inform families and let them decide.

“There is harm that is compounded when we are forcing young people to be denied care that their doctors and their parents and they themselves all agree they need,” he said.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide the case by the summer.
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Washington — President Joe Biden on Sunday had the AIDS Memorial Quilt spread on the White House South Lawn for the first time in observance of World AIDS Day.

Gathered with the president and his wife, Jill, were survivors, family members and advocates to memorialize the lives lost to the epidemic. The president emphasized the federal government’s support for the 1.2 million people in the United States living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which can lead to AIDS.

“This movement is fully woven into the fabric and history of America,” Biden said. “For all the lives lost, for all those that are still alive, look at what you’ve already done to change the hearts and minds, to save lives across the country and around the world. That’s the power of this movement.”

There were 124 sections of the quilt on the lawn to commemorate people who died due to AIDS-related illnesses. Conceived in 1985, the quilt made its first public appearance in 1987. There was also a red ribbon, a symbol of support and awareness for those with HIV and AIDS, draped across the South Portico of the White House.

There are 40 million people around the world with HIV, according to the White House.

Introducing Biden was Jeanne White-Ginder, whose son, Ryan White, contracted AIDS through a tainted blood transfusion at the age of 13 and died in 1990 at the age of 18. She said her son’s experience taught America that “we needed to fight AIDS and not the people who have it.”

The Ryan White CARE Act became law in 1990, and White-Grinder recalled being at the U.S. Capitol to speak for the measure and met Biden when he was a senator from Delaware.

The president also saluted Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert until leaving the government in 2022, Fauci was in attendance at the event as he worked to treat AIDS, though he’s known by much of the country for his efforts to address the coronavirus pandemic that made him a target of criticism by many Republican lawmakers.

The Biden administration has sought to make investments to stop the epidemic, and the stigmas attached to people with HIV. Among other steps, it has worked to expand access to PrEP, or the pre-exposure prophylaxis, which at-risk populations use to prevent HIV infections.
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The Hague — The top United Nations court will take up the largest case in its history Monday, when it opens two weeks of hearings into what countries worldwide are legally required to do to combat climate change and help vulnerable nations fight its devastating impact.

After years of lobbying by island nations who fear they could simply disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice last year for an opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.”

“We want the court to confirm that the conduct that has wrecked the climate is unlawful,” Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, who is leading the legal team for the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, told The Associated Press.

In the decade up to 2023, sea levels have risen by a global average of around 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches), with parts of the Pacific rising higher still. The world has also warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times because of the burning of fossil fuels.

Vanuatu is one of a group of small states pushing for international legal intervention in the climate crisis.

“We live on the front lines of climate change impact. We are witnesses to the destruction of our lands, our livelihoods, our culture and our human rights,” Vanuatu’s climate change envoy Ralph Regenvanu told reporters ahead of the hearing.

Any decision by the court would be non-binding advice and unable to directly force wealthy nations into action to help struggling countries. Yet it would be more than just a powerful symbol since it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits.

On Sunday, ahead of the hearing, advocacy groups will bring together environmental organizations from around the world. Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change — who first developed the idea of requesting an advisory opinion — together with World Youth for Climate Justice plan an afternoon of speeches, music and discussions.

From Monday, the Hague-based court will hear from 99 countries and more than a dozen intergovernmental organizations over two weeks. It’s the largest lineup in the institution’s nearly 80-year history.

Last month at the United Nations’ annual climate meeting, countries cobbled together an agreement on how rich countries can support poor countries in the face of climate disasters. Wealthy countries have agreed to pool together at least $300 billion a year by 2035 but the total is short of the $1.3 trillion that experts, and threatened nations, said is needed.

“For our generation and for the Pacific Islands, the climate crisis is an existential threat. It is a matter of survival, and the world’s biggest economies are not taking this crisis seriously. We need the ICJ to protect the rights of people at the front lines,” Vishal Prasad, of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, told reporters in a briefing.

Fifteen judges from around the world will seek to answer two questions: What are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? And what are the legal consequences for governments where their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment?

The second question refers to “small island developing States” likely to be hardest hit by climate change and to “members of “the present and future generations affected by the adverse effects of climate change.”

The judges were even briefed on the science behind rising global temperatures by the U.N.’s climate change body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ahead of the hearings.

The case at the ICJ follows a number of rulings around the world ordering governments to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In May, a U.N. tribunal on maritime law said that carbon emissions qualify as marine pollution, and countries must take steps to adapt to and mitigate their adverse effects.

That ruling came a month after Europe’s highest human rights court said that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change, in a landmark judgment that could have implications across the continent.

The ICJ’s host country of The Netherlands made history when a court ruled in 2015 that protection from the potentially devastating effects of climate change is a human right and that the government has a duty to protect its citizens. The judgment was upheld in 2019 by the Dutch Supreme Court.
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Mexico City — It’s been called the closest the world has ever come to a vaccine against the AIDS virus.

The twice-yearly shot was 100% effective in preventing HIV infections in a study of women, and results published Wednesday show it worked nearly as well in men.

Drugmaker Gilead said it will allow cheap, generic versions to be sold in 120 poor countries with high HIV rates — mostly in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. But it has excluded nearly all of Latin America, where rates are far lower but increasing, sparking concern the world is missing a critical opportunity to stop the disease.

“This is so far superior to any other prevention method we have, that it’s unprecedented,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. She credited Gilead for developing the drug but said the world’s ability to stop AIDS hinges on its use in at-risk countries.

In a report issued to mark World AIDS Day on Sunday, UNAIDS said that the number of AIDS death last year — an estimated 630,000 — was at its lowest since peaking in 2004, suggesting the world is now at “a historic crossroads” and has a chance to end the epidemic.

The drug called lenacapavir is already sold under the brand name Sunlenca to treat HIV infections in the U.S., Canada, Europe and elsewhere. The company plans to seek authorization soon for Sunlenca to be used for HIV prevention.

While there are other ways to guard against infection, like condoms, daily pills, vaginal rings and bi-monthly shots, experts say the Gilead twice-yearly shots would be particularly useful for marginalized people often fearful of seeking care, including gay men, sex workers and young women.

“It would be a miracle for these groups because it means they just have to show up twice a year at a clinic and then they’re protected,” said UNAIDS’ Byanyima.

Such was the case for Luis Ruvalcaba, a 32-year-old man in Guadalajara, Mexico, who participated in the latest published study. He said he was afraid to ask for the daily prevention pills provided by the government, fearing he would be discriminated against as a gay man. Because he took part in the study, he’ll continue to receive the shots for at least another year.

“In Latin American countries, there is still a lot of stigma; patients are ashamed to ask for the pills,” said Dr. Alma Minerva Pérez, who recruited and enrolled a dozen study volunteers at a private research center in Guadalajara.

How widely available the shots will be in Mexico through the country’s health care system isn’t yet known. Health officials declined to comment on any plans to buy Sunlenca for its citizens; daily pills to prevent HIV were made freely available via the country’s public health system in 2021.

“If the possibility of using generics has opened, I have faith that Mexico can join,” said Pérez.

Byanyima said other countries besides Mexico that took part in the research were also excluded from the generics deal, including Brazil, Peru and Argentina. “To now deny them that drug is unconscionable.” she said.

In a statement, Gilead said it has “an ongoing commitment to helping enable access to HIV prevention and treatment options where the need is the greatest.” Among the 120 countries eligible for generic version are 18 mostly African countries that comprise 70% of the world’s HIV burden.

The drugmaker said it is also working on establishing “fast, efficient pathways to reach all people who need or want lenacapavir for HIV prevention.”

On Thursday, 15 advocacy groups in Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Guatemala and Colombia wrote to Gilead, asking for generic Sunlenca to be made available in Latin America, citing the “alarming” inequity in access to new HIV prevention tools while infection rates were rising.

While countries including Norway, France, Spain and the United States have paid more than $40,000 per year for Sunlenca, experts have calculated it could be produced for as little as $40 per treatment once generic production expands to cover 10 million people.

Dr. Chris Beyrer, director of the Global Health Institute at Duke University, said it will be enormously useful to have Sunlenca available in the hardest-hit countries in Africa and Asia. But he said the rising HIV rates among groups including gay men and transgender populations constituted “a public health emergency” in Latin America.

Hannya Danielle Torres, a 30-year-old trans woman and artist who was in the Sunlenca study in Mexico, said she hoped the government would find a way to provide the shots. “Mexico may have some of the richest people in the world but it also has some of the most vulnerable people living in extreme poverty and violence,” Torres said.

Another drugmaker, Viiv Healthcare, also left out most of Latin America when it allowed generics of its HIV prevention shot in about 90 countries. Sold as Apretude, the bi-monthly shots are about 80% to 90% effective in preventing HIV. They cost about $1,500 a year in middle-income countries, beyond what most can afford to pay.

Asia Russell, executive director of the advocacy group Health Gap, said that with more than 1 million new HIV infections globally every year, established prevention methods are not enough. She urged countries like Brazil and Mexico to issue “compulsory licenses,” a mechanism where countries suspend patents in a health crisis.

It’s a strategy some countries embraced for previous HIV treatments, including in the late 1990s and 2000s when AIDS drugs were first discovered. More recently, Colombia issued its first-ever compulsory license for the key HIV treatment Tivicay in April, without permission from its drugmaker, Viiv.

Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, an AIDS expert at South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal, said he had never seen a drug that appeared to be as effective as Sunlenca in preventing HIV.

“The missing piece in the puzzle now is how we get it to everyone who needs it,” he said.
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The way the dinosaurs relinquished their long dominance is well known. An asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, triggering a horrific mass extinction. But the way the dinosaurs — modest creatures initially — came to supremacy is less well understood.

New research that relied heavily on fossilized feces and vomit — evidence of who is eating what and who is eating whom – provides new clarity on how dinosaurs bested the competition during the Triassic Period. The study focused on a region in Poland with extensive fossils from this pivotal time.

First appearing roughly 230 million years ago, dinosaurs were at first overshadowed by other animals including large crocodile relatives — both terrestrial and semi-aquatic — and various plant-eaters including elephant-sized ones related to mammals and four-legged armored reptiles. By about 200 million years ago, dinosaurs reigned, their main competitors extinct.

“We approached the rise of dinosaurs in a completely novel way. We analyzed feeding evidence to deduce the ecological role of dinosaurs across their first 30 million years of evolution,” said paleontologist Martin Qvarnström of Uppsala University in Sweden, lead author of the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The earliest dinosaurs and close relatives were opportunists, eating foods including bugs, fish and insects. Subsequently, larger and more specialized dinosaur predators evolved along with herbivorous dinosaurs apparently better adapted than competitors to exploit new plants that arose when the climate became more humid.

Feces fossils are called coprolites. Vomit fossils are called regurgitates. Together they are called bromalites. So why study this stuff? By examining undigested food — plants and prey — in bromalites, researchers can discern feeding patterns of various species and reconstruct an ecosystem’s food webs.

Hundreds of bromalites were examined, primarily coprolites.

“We studied over 100 kilograms of fossilized feces,” said study senior author Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki, a paleontologist and geologist at Uppsala University and the Polish Geological Institute.

How can researchers tell who left the feces or vomit? Skeletal fossils and footprints showed what animals were present at a given time. And the researchers deduced who produced a given coprolite based on factors including its size and shape, the type of undigested food and the nature of the digestive systems of living relatives of these extinct animals.

Take, for example, the 6-meter four-legged meat-eater Polonosuchus, a type of reptile called a rauisuchian that was related to crocs and was an apex predator alongside the early dinosaurs.

“We know that today’s crocodiles and alligators digest food for a long time and thoroughly. In their feces, undigested bones are very rarely found. Such coprolites — large, sausage-shaped, with highly digested mass — we found in a site where bones of Polonosuchus were also found,” Niedźwiedzki said.

“In contrast, in sites where there were bones and tracks of predatory dinosaurs, we found coprolites containing a lot of undigested remains. Some of them are full of pieces of bones, fish remains, and there are also teeth. You can see that all this passed through the digestive tract quickly and was not digested in the crocodile way,” Niedźwiedzki added.

Early members of the dinosaur evolutionary lineage were omnivorous, like 2-meter Silesaurus.

“The first dinosaur relative in the area, Silesaurus, was an opportunistic little thing that ate bugs, fish and plants. Some of the insects were amazingly well preserved,” Qvarnström said.

Big herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs began appearing late in the Triassic, which ended 201 million years ago.

Environmental changes linked to Earth’s increased volcanic activity precipitated a wider range of plants that ever-larger herbivorous dinosaurs exploited. This proliferation of big plant-eating dinosaurs encouraged the evolution of larger carnivorous dinosaurs.

The large non-dinosaur meat-eaters disappeared before the start of the subsequent Jurassic Period, completing the transition to dinosaur dominion. By 200 million years ago, meat-eating dinosaurs 8 meters long were present, alongside plant-eating dinosaurs 10 meters long.

Smok, a 6-meter strong-jawed carnivorous dinosaur relative, lived about 210 million years ago. Coprolites showed Smok’s predilection for bone-crushing, obtaining nutritious marrow in a feeding trait associated with much later dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus.

The coprolites of herbivorous dinosaurs offered surprises.

“Another interesting and very mysterious discovery was the finding of geochemical signals in the coprolites from burnt plant remains, as well as pieces of charcoal. Did the dinosaurs eat charcoal from burnt plants? Ferns, whose remains are in coprolites, may be toxic, and the charcoal may have neutralized these toxins,” Niedzwiedzki added.
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BILLINGS, MONTANA — U.S. wildlife officials finalized a recovery plan for imperiled populations of Canada lynx on Wednesday and proposed new habitat protections in the southern Rocky Mountains for the forest-dwelling wildcats that are threatened by climate change.

The fate of the proposal is uncertain under President-elect Donald Trump: Officials during the Republican’s first term sought unsuccessfully to strip lynx of protections that they’ve had since 2000 under the Endangered Species Act.

Almost 20,000 square kilometers of forests and mountains in Colorado and northern New Mexico are covered under the habitat proposal. That’s different from a previous plan that left out the southern Rockies and concentrated instead on recovery efforts elsewhere, including Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota and Maine.

“This is a significant change and a good one,” said Matthew Bishop, an attorney for Western Environmental Law Center who has been involved in efforts to protect lynx through court actions. “They weren’t really committing to conserve lynx in Colorado anymore, and now they are.”

Areas of protected habitat also are being added in Idaho and Montana. Protected areas in Wyoming would be sharply reduced under Wednesday’s proposal.

Wildlife officials said they were removing locations where they consider lynx unlikely to thrive in the future, while adding new areas that the latest science suggests are more suitable to their long-term survival.

Lynx are elusive animals that live in cold boreal forests and prey primarily on snowshoe hares.

They originally received federal protections because the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management didn’t have sufficient regulations in place to shield their populations from potential harm. Those protective rules are now in place, but climate change has emerged as a new, worsening threat.

Warmer temperatures are melting away the lynx’s snowy habitat and could decrease the availability of snowshoe hares. Declines for lynx are expected across the contiguous U.S. under even the most optimistic warming scenario that officials have considered.

Most areas suitable for lynx are in Canada and Alaska, where the animals are widespread and hunting and trapping of them is allowed.

Their numbers never were great in the contiguous U.S., which is at the southern fringe of the species range, but the hope is to maintain some population strongholds so they can persist in a warmer world.

The changes announced Wednesday follow a 2016 court ruling that faulted federal wildlife officials for not designating protections for lynx habitat in Colorado and some parts of Montana and Idaho.

There are more than 1,100 lynx in the contiguous U.S., according to estimates from scientists. Those numbers are expected to plummet in some areas, and officials are aiming for a minimum contiguous U.S. population of a combined 875 lynx over a 20-year period.

More than 200 lynx were reintroduced in Colorado beginning in 1999 and at the time their prospects were considered uncertain.

“There were concerns about whether it would stick,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lynx biologist Jim Zelenak. “But they do seem to be hanging on.”

Now that area could become one of the future population strongholds, with the southern Rockies in Colorado and the region around Yellowstone National Park are most likely to have temperatures favorable to lynx for the longest time, he said.

Maine has the most lynx currently but is expected to be hit harder by climate change.

“We’ve got this overarching threat of climate warming, and so we want to do everything we can to minimize the effects that we can control,” Zelenak said. “So we don’t want to put roads in the wrong places. We don’t want to permanently convert very much of the habitat at all in the hopes that we can keep these populations viable coming into a warming future.”

Habitat protections in Maine and Minnesota would remain unchanged under the proposal.

A final decision is expected late next year.
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BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA — Dozens of countries warned Sunday that a handful of nations were obstructing efforts in South Korea to reach an ambitious landmark global treaty to curb plastic pollution.

With hours until negotiations are scheduled to end, delegates say a group of mostly oil-producing “like-minded countries” have refused to compromise on key sticking points.

Those include setting targets for reducing plastic production and phasing out chemicals known or believed to be harmful to human health.

“We also are worried by the continuing obstruction by the so-called like-minded countries,” Olga Givernet, France’s minister delegate for energy, told reporters.

Finding an agreement on an ambitious treaty “remains an absolute priority,” Givernet said, and “we are planning on pushing it.”

Plastic production is on track to triple by 2060, and over 90% of plastic is not recycled.

But while everyone negotiating in Busan agrees on the problem, they disagree on the solution.

Countries including Saudi Arabia and Russia insist the deal should focus only on waste and reject calls for binding global measures.

They have made their position clear in documents submitted in negotiations and during public plenary sessions, though neither delegation responded to repeated AFP requests for comment.

‘Blocking the process’

“It is disappointing to see that a small number of members remain unsupportive of the measures necessary to drive real change,” said Rwanda’s Juliet Kabera.

“We still have a few hours left in these negotiations, there is time to find common ground, but Rwanda cannot accept a toothless treaty,” she warned.

Fiji’s Sivendra Michael also called out a “very minority group” for “blocking the process.”

The latest draft text for the treaty contains a range of options, reflecting the ongoing divisions. A promised new version has been repeatedly delayed.

The talks are supposed to be the final round of negotiations after two years of discussion.

The venue has only been rented until mid-morning Monday, sources told AFP.

Portuguese delegate Maria Joao Teixeira said there were real fears talks could collapse and have to be extended to another round elsewhere.

“We are really trying to not have a weak treaty,” she told AFP.

Environmental groups have pushed ambitious countries to call a vote if progress stalls.

But observers caution that risks alienating even some countries in favor of a strong treaty.

Another option would be for the diplomat chairing the talks to simply gavel through an agreement over the objections of a handful of holdouts, they said.

That too holds risks, potentially embittering the remaining diplomatic process and jeopardizing adoption of a treaty down the road.

‘Hope in consensus’

Mexico’s head of delegation Camila Zepeda said she did not favor calling a vote.

“We have hope in consensus. The multilateral process is slow, but there is a possibility of having critical mass to move forward,” she told AFP.

“Showing this critical mass helps us so that the more contentious issues can be unblocked.”

German delegate Sebastian Unger also said many countries would prefer to avoid a vote.

“If you would leave out many important countries that you want to have on board, then the effects of the treaty [are impacted],” he told AFP.

Over 100 countries now support setting a target for production cuts, and dozens also back phasing out some chemicals and unnecessary plastic products.

But representatives of China and the United States, the world’s two top plastics producers, were absent from the stage at a news conference urging ambition.

“They are still considering, and we are hopeful that there will be some interest on their part,” said Mexico’s Zepeda.

“This coalition of the willing is an open invitation. And so it’s not like it’s them against us.”

Panama’s Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez meanwhile told colleagues that “history will not forgive us” for leaving Busan without an ambitious treaty.

“This is the time to step up or get out.”
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BUFFALO, NEW YORK — The first big snowfall of the season blanketed towns along Lake Erie on Saturday in the middle of the hectic holiday travel and shopping weekend. Numbing cold and heavy snow are forecast to persist into next week and cause hazards in the Great Lakes, Plains and Midwest regions. 

The heavy snow led to a state of emergency declaration in parts of New York and a disaster declaration in Pennsylvania, with officials warning of dangerous conditions for Thanksgiving travelers trying to return home. 

“Travel will be extremely difficult and hazardous this weekend, especially in areas where multiple feet of snow may accumulate very quickly,” the National Weather Service said. 

Part of I-90 in Pennsylvania was closed, as were westbound lanes of the New York Thruway heading toward Pennsylvania. Nearly 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow fell in parts of New York, Ohio and Michigan, and 29 inches (73 centimeters) was recorded in Pennsylvania’s northwestern tip. 

With roads in some parts impassable in northwestern Pennsylvania, scores of people took refuge overnight in the lobby and hallways of a fully booked Holiday Inn near I-90. Hotel staffer Jeremiah Weatherley said dozens of people rolled in as the snow piled up, and workers opened the conference room and gave them blankets to sleep on the floor. 

“It was hard to manage, but we had no choice,” he said. “They just showed up, and we don’t want to turn people away.” 

Weatherley was handing out bagels, juice and cereal Saturday morning as people helped one another dig out their cars from the snow. 

“Everyone helped each other,” he said. “It was pretty cool.” 

This week’s blast of Arctic air also brought temperatures of 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit below average to the Northern Plains, the weather service said, prompting cold advisories for parts of North Dakota. 

Frigid air was expected to move over the eastern third of the United States by Monday, with temperatures about 10 degrees below average. 

Parts of Michigan were battered by lake-effect snow, which happens when warm, moist air rising from a body of water mixes with cold dry air overhead. Bands of snow that have been rolling off Lake Superior for the past three days buried parts of the Upper Peninsula under 2 feet (61 centimeters) or more, said Lily Chapman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s office in Marquette, Michigan. 

Twenty-seven inches (69 centimeters) of snow was on the ground just northeast of Ironwood, in the Upper Peninsula’s western reaches, she said. Another 2 feet (61 centimeters) fell in Munising, in the eastern part of the peninsula. 

Chapman said continued lake-effect snow could add more than a foot (30.5 centimeters) over the eastern Upper Peninsula through Monday morning, with 6 to 10 inches (15 to 25 centimeters) or higher to the west. 

Meanwhile steady winds that trained snow bands Friday on Gaylord, Michigan, dumped 24.8 inches (63 centimeters), setting a new single-day record for the city, which sits in a region dotted by ski resorts, said Keith Berger, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Gaylord office. The previous record of 17.0 inches (43 centimeters) was from March 9, 1942. 

The snowfall was good news for Treetops Resort, which features 80 acres (32 hectares) of ski hill terrain among its 2,000 acres (809 hectares), said Doug Hoeh, the resort’s director of recreation. It boosted the base that snowmaking machines will be adding to in the coming days before the resort opens for the season next weekend. 

“Obviously when you get that much snowfall, it’s great for the snow hills, but it’s bad for the parking lots, so we’re kind of digging out,” Hoeh said. “But we’re close to being ready to pull the trigger on skiing, and the natural snowfall definitely helps.” 

In Pennsylvania, Governor Josh Shapiro signed a proclamation of disaster emergency and said parts of Erie County in the state’s northwest had already received nearly 2 feet (1 meter) of snow with more expected through Monday night. 

State Police responded to nearly 200 incidents during the 24-hour period from 6 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday, officials said. 
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BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA — The world’s nations will wrap up negotiating a treaty this weekend to address the global plastic pollution crisis.

Their meeting is scheduled to conclude Sunday or early Monday in Busan, South Korea, where many environmental organizations have flocked to push for a treaty to address the volume of production and toxic chemicals used in plastic products.

Greenpeace said it escalated its pressure Saturday by sending four international activists to Daesan, South Korea, who boarded a tanker headed into port to load chemicals used to make plastics.

Graham Forbes, who leads the Greenpeace delegation in Busan, said the action is meant to remind world leaders they have a clear choice: Deliver a treaty that protects people and the planet, or side with industry and sacrifice the health of every living person and future generations.

Here’s what to know about plastics:

Every year, the world produces more than 400 million tons of new plastic.

The use of plastics has quadrupled over the past 30 years. Plastic is ubiquitous. And every day, the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped into the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes, the U.N. said. Most nations agreed to make the first global, legally binding plastic pollution accord, including in the oceans, by the end of 2024.

Plastic production could climb about 70% by 2040 without policy changes.

The production and use of plastics globally is set to reach 736 million tons by 2040, according to the intergovernmental Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Panama is leading an effort to address the exponential growth of plastic production as part of the treaty, supported by more than 100 countries. There’s just too much plastic, said Juan Carlos Monterrey, head of Panama’s delegation.

“If we don’t have production in this treaty, it is not only going to be horribly sad, but the treaty may as well be called the greenwashing recycling treaty, not the plastics treaty,” he said in an interview. “Because the problem is not going to be fixed.”

China, the United States and Germany are the biggest plastics players.

China was by far the biggest exporter of plastic products in 2023, followed by Germany and the U.S., according to the Plastics Industry Association.

Together, the three nations account for 33% of the total global plastics trade, the association said.

The United States supports having an article in the treaty that addresses supply, or plastic production, a senior member of the U.S. delegation told The Associated Press Saturday.

Most plastic ends up as waste

Less than 10% of plastics are recycled. Most of the world’s plastic goes to landfills, pollutes the environment or is burned.

Sarah Dunlop, head of plastics and human health at the Minderoo Foundation, said chemicals are leaching out of plastics and “making us sick.”

The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Plastics held an event about the impact of plastics Saturday on the sidelines of the talks. They want the treaty to fully recognize their rights and the universal human right to a healthy, clean, safe and sustainable environment.

Juan Mancias of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation in Texas spoke about feeling a spiritual connection to the land.

“Five hundred years ago, we had clean water, clean air, and there was no plastics,” he said. “What happened?”

Many plastics are used for packaging

About 40% of all plastics are used in packaging, according to the United Nations. This includes single-use plastic food and beverage containers — water bottles, takeout containers, coffee lids, straws and shopping bags — that often end up polluting the environment.

U.N. Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen told negotiators in Busan the treaty must tackle this problem.

“Are there specific plastic items that we can live without, those that so often leak into the environment? Are there alternatives to these items? This is an issue we must agree on,” she said.
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