washington — An ancient species of great ape was likely driven to extinction when climate change put their favorite fruits out of reach during dry seasons, scientists reported Wednesday. 

The species Gigantopithecus blacki, which once lived in southern China, represents the largest great ape known to scientists — standing 10 feet tall and weighing up to 650 pounds. 

But its size may also have been a weakness. 

“It’s just a massive animal – just really, really big,” said Renaud Joannes-Boyau, a researcher at Australia’s Southern Cross University and co-author of the study published in the journal Nature. “When food starts to be scarce, it’s so big it can’t climb trees to explore new food sources.” 

The giant apes, which likely resembled modern orangutans, survived for around 2 million years on the forested plains of China’s Guangxi region. They ate vegetarian diets, munching on fruits and flowers in tropical forests, until the environment began to change. 

The researchers analyzed pollen and sediment samples preserved in Guangxi’s caves, as well as fossil teeth, to unravel how forests produced fewer fruits starting around 600,000 years ago, as the region experienced more dry seasons. 

The giant apes didn’t vanish quickly, but likely went extinct sometime between 215,000 and 295,000 years ago, the researchers found. 

While smaller apes may have been able to climb trees to search for different food, the researchers’ analysis shows the giant apes ate more tree bark, reeds and other non-nutritious food. 

“When the forest changed, there was not enough food preferred by the species,” said co-author Zhang Yingqi of China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology. 

Most of what scientists know about the extinct great apes comes from studying fossil teeth and four large lower jaw bones, all found in southern China. No complete skeletons have been found. 

Between around 2 and 22 million years ago, several dozen species of great apes inhabited Africa, Europe and Asia, fossil records show. Today, only gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and humans remain. 

While the first humans emerged in Africa, scientists don’t know on which continent the great ape family first arose, said Rick Potts, who directs the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and was not involved in the study. 
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Washington — Ancient DNA helps explain why northern Europeans have a higher risk of multiple sclerosis than other ancestries: It’s a genetic legacy of horseback-riding cattle herders who swept into the region about 5,000 years ago.

The findings come from a huge project to compare modern DNA with that culled from ancient humans’ teeth and bones — allowing scientists to trace both prehistoric migration and disease-linked genes that tagged along.

When a Bronze Age people called the Yamnaya moved from the steppes of what are now Ukraine and Russia into northwestern Europe, they carried gene variants that today are known to increase people’s risk of multiple sclerosis, researchers reported Wednesday.

Yet the Yamnaya flourished, widely spreading those variants. Those genes probably also protected the nomadic herders from infections carried by their cattle and sheep, concluded the research published in the journal Nature. 

“What we found surprised everyone,” said study co-author William Barrie, a genetics researcher at the University of Cambridge. “These variants were giving these people an advantage of some kind.”

It’s one of several findings from a first-of-its-kind gene bank with thousands of samples from early humans in Europe and western Asia, a project headed by Eske Willerslev of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen who helped pioneer the study of ancient DNA. Similar research has traced even earlier cousins of humans such as Neanderthals.

Using the new gene bank to explore MS was a logical first step. That’s because while MS can strike any population, it is most common among white descendants of northern Europeans and scientists have been unable to explain why.

The potentially disabling disease occurs when immune system cells mistakenly attack the protective coating on nerve fibers, gradually eroding them. It causes varying symptoms — numbness and tingling in one person, impaired walking and vision loss in another — that often wax and wane.

It’s not clear what causes MS although a leading theory is that certain infections could trigger it in people who are genetically susceptible. More than 230 genetic variants have been found that can increase someone’s risk. 

The researchers first examined DNA from about 1,600 ancient Eurasians, mapping some major shifts in northern Europe’s population. First, farmers from the Middle East began supplanting hunter-gatherers and then, nearly 5,000 years ago, the Yamnaya began moving in — traveling with horses and wagons as they herded cattle and sheep.

The research team compared the ancient DNA to about 400,000 present-day people stored in a UK gene bank, to see the MS-linked genetic variations persist in the north, the direction the Yamnaya moved, rather than in southern Europe.

In what is now Denmark, the Yamnaya rapidly replaced ancient farmers, making them the closest ancestors of modern Danes, Willerslev said. MS rates are particularly high in Scandinavian countries.

Why would gene variants presumed to have strengthened ancient immunity later play a role in an autoimmune disease? Differences in how modern humans are exposed to animal germs may play a role, knocking the immune system out of balance, said study co-author Dr. Astrid Iversen of Oxford University.

The findings finally offer an explanation for the north-south MS divide in Europe, but more work is needed to confirm the link, cautioned genetic expert Samira Asgari of New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who wasn’t involved with the research, in an accompanying commentary.

Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead at WHO for COVID-19, cited an increase in respiratory diseases across the globe due to the coronavirus but also flu, rhinovirus and pneumonia.

“We expect those trends to continue into January through the winter months in the northern hemisphere,” she said, while noting increases in COVID-19 in the southern hemisphere — where it’s now summer.

While bouts of coughs, sniffling, fever and fatigue in the winter are nothing new, Van Kerkhove said this year in particular, “We are seeing co-circulation of many different types of pathogens.”

WHO officials recommend that people get vaccinated when possible, wear masks, and make sure indoor areas are well ventilated.

“The vaccines may not stop you being infected, but the vaccines are certainly reducing significantly your chance of being hospitalized or dying,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergencies at WHO. 
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Geneva — The head of the U.N. health agency said Wednesday holiday gatherings and the spread of the most prominent variant globally led to increased transmission of COVID-19 last month. 

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly 10,000 deaths were reported in December, while hospital admissions during the month jumped 42% in nearly 50 countries — mostly in Europe and the Americas — that shared such trend information. 

“Although 10,000 deaths a month is far less than the peak of the pandemic, this level of preventable deaths is not acceptable,” the World Health Organization director-general told reporters from its headquarters in Geneva. 

He said it was “certain” that cases were on the rise in other places that haven’t been reporting, calling on governments to keep up surveillance and provide continued access to treatments and vaccines. 

Tedros said the JN.1 variant was now the most prominent in the world. It is an omicron variant, so current vaccines should still provide some protection. 

Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead at WHO for COVID-19, cited an increase in respiratory diseases across the globe due to the coronavirus but also flu, rhinovirus and pneumonia. 

“We expect those trends to continue into January through the winter months in the northern hemisphere,” she said, while noting increases in COVID-19 in the southern hemisphere — where it’s now summer. 

While bouts of coughs, sniffling, fever and fatigue in the winter are nothing new, Van Kerkhove said this year in particular, “We are seeing co-circulation of many different types of pathogens.” 

WHO officials recommend that people get vaccinated when possible, wear masks, and make sure indoor areas are well ventilated. 

“The vaccines may not stop you being infected, but the vaccines are certainly reducing significantly your chance of being hospitalized or dying,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergencies at WHO. 
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Islamabad — A senior representative of Afghanistan’s Taliban government told a Pakistan-hosted international health conference Wednesday that his country had recorded an increase in mosquito-borne malaria and dengue fever cases, but infections caused by highly contagious poliovirus declined significantly.

Only 12 children around the world were paralyzed by wild poliovirus in 2023, all of them in Afghanistan and Pakistan — with six reported in each. The two countries, sharing a nearly 2,600-kilometer border, have not detected a polio infection this year.

“Polio is still a great challenge for both Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Qalandar Ebad, the Taliban health minister, said in his English-language speech at the first global health security summit in Islamabad.

Delegates from 70 countries worldwide, including those from the United States and the United Nations, are attending the summit in the Pakistani capital.

“We are trying our best to eradicate the polio virus from the country and fortunately we have good accomplishments in this area,” Ebad said.

The World Health Organization says the polio vaccination campaign in Afghanistan has improved in quality and outreach since the Taliban regained control of the war-ravaged country in August 2021, leading to the cessation of years of nationwide hostilities.

The Taliban minister noted that there was a “slight increase in HIV/AIDS cases” in the impoverished country, but he did not elaborate.

Ebad blamed climate change for some health emergencies facing his South Asian nation of more than 40 million people. He urged the need to assist Afghanistan and other developing countries in improving their national healthcare systems to enable them to utilize locally available expertise to combat infectious diseases.

“We are witnessing that the funding in Afghanistan is decreasing, but still, in our country, instead of national capacity [building], many international [workers] with higher salaries are recruited, though the national [workers] can perform the same tasks as internationals do,” the Taliban minister asserted.

No foreign country has recognized the Taliban, citing their bans on Afghan women’s access to education and work.

Afghanistan lost billions of dollars in foreign aid after the Taliban takeover as Western countries and international donors suspended their financial support for the country, where the health sector was primarily dependent on the funding.

In his address to Wednesday’s opening session of the summit, Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar urged collective efforts to fight global infectious diseases like COVID-19 and climate change-induced emergencies.

Kakar said that “no state in the world, no matter how powerful it is, can meet such challenges” alone.

While addressing the gathering, Donald Blome, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, backed calls for a collaborative international approach to global health security.

“Coordination with partners is the most effective way to address regional and global health threats,” Blome said. He added that halting infectious disease outbreaks at their point of origin is one of the best and most economical ways to save lives. “Health is the cornerstone to the future of any thriving nation, and the United States will be a strong partner to build this future.”
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PARIS — The year 2023 was the hottest on record, with the increase in Earth’s surface temperature nearly crossing the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, EU climate monitors said Tuesday.

Climate change intensified heatwaves, droughts and wildfires across the planet and pushed the global thermometer 1.48 C above the preindustrial benchmark, the Copernicus Climate Change Service reported.

“It is also the first year with all days over one degree warmer than the preindustrial period,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy head of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“Temperatures during 2023 likely exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years,” she said.

Nearly half the year exceeded the 1.5C limit, beyond which climate impacts are more likely to become self-reinforcing and catastrophic, according to scientists.

But even if Earth’s average surface temperature breaches 1.5C in 2024, as some scientists predict, it does not mean the world has failed to meet the Paris Agreement target of capping global warming under that threshold.

That would occur only after several successive years above the 1.5C benchmark, and even then, the 2015 treaty allows for the possibility of reducing Earth’s temperature after a period of “overshoot.”

2023 saw massive fires in Canada, extreme droughts in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, unprecedented summer heatwaves in Europe, the United States and China, along with record winter warmth in Australia and South America.

“Such events will continue to get worse until we transition away from fossil fuels and reach net-zero emissions,” said University of Reading climate change professor Ed Hawkins, who did not contribute to the report.

“We will continue to suffer the consequences of our inactions today for generations,” he said.

The Copernicus findings come one month after a climate agreement was reached at COP28 in Dubai calling for the gradual transition away from fossil fuels, the main cause of climate warming.

“We desperately need to rapidly cut fossil fuel use and reach net-zero to preserve the livable climate that we all depend on,” said John Marsham, atmospheric science professor at the University of Leeds.

The year saw another ominous record: two days in November 2023 exceeded the preindustrial benchmark by more than two degrees Celsius.

Copernicus predicted that the 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 would “exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial level.”

Reliable weather records date to 1850, but older proxy data for climate change — from tree rings, ice cores and sediment — show that 2023 temperatures “exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years,” Burgess said.

Records were broken on every continent. In Europe, 2023 was the second-warmest year on record, after 2020.

2023 saw the beginning of a naturally occurring El Nino weather phenomenon, which warms waters in the southern Pacific and stokes hotter weather beyond.

The phenomenon is expected to reach its peak in 2024 and is linked to the eight consecutive months of record heat from June to December.

Ocean temperatures globally were also “persistently and unusually high,” with many seasonal records broken since April.

These unprecedented ocean temperatures caused marine heatwaves devastating to aquatic life and increased storm intensity.

Oceans absorb more than 90% of excess heat caused by human activity and play a major role in regulating Earth’s climate.

Rising temperatures have also accelerated the melting of ice shelves — frozen ridges that help prevent massive glaciers in Greenland and West Antarctica from slipping into the ocean and raising sea levels.

Antarctic sea ice hit record-low levels in 2023.

“The extremes we have observed over the last few months provide a dramatic testimony of how far we now are from the climate in which our civilization developed,” said Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus director.

In 2023, carbon dioxide and methane concentrations reached record levels of 419 parts per million and 1,902 parts per billion, respectively.

Methane is the second-largest contributor to global warming after CO2 and is responsible for around 30% of the rise in global temperatures since the industrial revolution, according to the United Nations Environment Program.
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Researchers in Taiwan are using a special robot to hunt mosquitoes that carry the virus that causes dengue fever. From the southern city of Kaohsiung, Shelley Schlender has our story.
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The impact of climate change is increasingly evident along El Salvador’s coastlines where saltwater is slowly claiming what once was farmland. Veronica Villafañe narrates this report from Claudia Zaldaña
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BISMARCK, ND — The first person to spot it was a shovel operator working the overnight shift, eyeing a glint of white as he scooped up a giant mound of dirt and dropped it into a dump truck.

Later, after the truck driver dumped the load, a dozer driver was ready to flatten the dirt but stopped for a closer look when he, too, spotted that bit of white.

Only then did the miners realize they had unearthed something special: a 2-meter-long mammoth tusk that had been buried for thousands of years.

“We were very fortunate, lucky to find what we found,” said David Straley, an executive of North American Coal, which owns the mine.

The miners unearthed the tusk from an old streambed, about 12.1 meters deep, at the Freedom Mine near Beulah, North Dakota. The 18,210-hectare surface mine produces up to 14.5 million metric tons of lignite coal per year.

After spotting the tusk, the crews stopped digging in the area and called in experts, who estimated it to be 10,000 to 100,000 years old.

Jeff Person, a paleontologist with the North Dakota Geologic Survey, was among those to respond. He expressed surprise that the mammoth tusk hadn’t suffered more damage, considering the massive equipment used at the site.

“It’s miraculous that it came out pretty much unscathed,” Person said.

A subsequent dig at the discovery site found more bones. Person described it as a “trickle of finds,” totaling more than 20 bones, including a shoulder blade, ribs, a tooth and parts of hips, but it’s likely to be the most complete mammoth found in North Dakota, where it’s much more common to dig up an isolated mammoth bone, tooth or piece of a tusk.

“It’s not a lot of bones compared to how many are in the skeleton, but it’s enough that we know that this is all associated, and it’s a lot more than we’ve ever found of one animal together, so that’s really given us some significance,” Person said.

Mammoths once roamed across parts of Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Specimens have been found throughout the United States and Canada, said Paul Ullmann, a University of North Dakota vertebrate paleontologist.

The mine’s discovery is fairly rare in North Dakota and the region, as many remains of animals alive during the last Ice Age were destroyed by glaciations and movements of ice sheets, Ullmann said.

Other areas have yielded more mammoth remains, such as bonebeds of skeletons in Texas and South Dakota. People even have found frozen carcasses in the permafrost of Canada and Siberia, he said.

Mammoths went extinct about 10,000 years ago in what is now North Dakota, according to the Geologic Survey. They were larger than elephants today and were covered in thick wool. Cave paintings dating back 13,000 years depict mammoths.

Ullmann calls mammoths “media superstars almost as much as dinosaurs,” citing the Ice Age film franchise.

This ivory tusk, weighing more than 22.6 kilograms, is considered fragile. It has been wrapped in plastic as paleontologists try to control how fast it dehydrates. Too quickly, and the bone could break apart and be destroyed, Person said.

Other bones also have been wrapped in plastic and placed in drawers. The bones will remain in plastic for at least several months until the scientists can figure how to get the water out safely. The paleontologists will identify the mammoth species later, Person said.

The mining company plans to donate the bones to the state for educational purposes.

“Our goal is to give it to the kids,” Straley said.

North Dakota has a landscape primed for bones and fossils, including dinosaurs. Perhaps the best-known fossil from the state is that of Dakota, a mummified duckbilled dinosaur with fossilized skin, Ullmann said.

The state’s rich fossil record is largely due to the landscape’s “low-elevation, lush, ecologically productive environments in the past,” Ullmann said.

North Dakota’s location adjacent to the Rocky Mountains puts it in the path of eroding sediments and rivers, which have buried animal remains for 80 million years or more, he said.

“It’s been a perfect scenario that we have really productive environments with a lot of life, but we also had the perfect scenario, geologically, to bury the remains,” Ullmann said.
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sydney — With fangs that could pierce a human fingernail, the largest male specimen of the world’s most venomous arachnid has found a new home at the Australian Reptile Park where it will help save lives after a member of the public discovered it by chance.

The deadly Sydney funnel-web spider dubbed Hercules was found on the Central Coast, about 50 miles north of Sydney, and was initially given to a local hospital, the Australian Reptile Park said in a statement Thursday.

Spider experts from the nearby park retrieved it and soon realized it was the largest male specimen ever received from the public in Australia.

The spider measured 7.9 centimeters from foot to foot, surpassing the park’s previous record-holder from 2018, the male funnel-web named Colossus.

Sydney funnel-web spiders usually range in length from 1 to 5 centimeters, with females being generally larger than their male counterparts but not as deadly. They are predominantly found in forested areas and suburban gardens from Sydney, Australia’s most populous city, to the coastal city of Newcastle in the north and the Blue Mountains to the west.

Hercules will contribute to the reptile park’s anti-venom program. Safely captured spiders handed in by the public undergo “milking” to extract venom, essential for producing life-saving anti-venom.

“We’re used to having pretty big funnel-web spiders donated to the park, however receiving a male funnel-web this big is like hitting the jackpot,” said Emma Teni, a spider keeper at Australian Reptile Park. “Whilst female funnel-web spiders are venomous, males have proven to be more lethal. With having a male funnel-web this size in our collection, his venom output could be enormous, proving incredibly valuable for the park’s venom program.”

Since the inception of the program in 1981, there has not been a fatality in Australia from a funnel-web spider bite.

Recent rainy, humid weather along Australia’s east coast has provided the ideal conditions for funnel-web spiders to thrive.
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NEW YORK — The flu season in the U.S. is getting worse but it’s too soon to tell how much holiday gatherings contributed to a likely spike in illnesses.

New government data posted Friday for last week — the holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s — show 38 states with high or very high levels for respiratory illnesses with fever, cough and other symptoms. That’s up from 31 states the week before.

The measure likely includes people with COVID-19, RSV and other winter viruses, and not just flu. But flu seems to be increasing most dramatically, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We expect it to be elevated for several more weeks,” said the CDC’s Alicia Budd. So far, though, this is a moderate flu season, she said.

Interpreting flu reports during and after the holidays can be tricky, she noted. Schools are closed. More people are traveling. Some people may be less likely to go see a doctor, deciding to just suffer at home. Others may be more likely to go.

The flu season generally peaks between December and February; CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said she expects it to peak by the end of this month. Officials say this season’s flu shots are well-matched to the strain that is spreading the most.

According to CDC estimates, since the beginning of October, there have been at least 10 million illnesses, 110,000 hospitalizations, and 6,500 deaths from flu so far this season. The agency said 27 children have died of flu.

COVID-19 illnesses may not be escalating as quickly as flu this winter. CDC data indicates coronavirus-caused hospitalizations haven’t hit the same levels they did at the same point during the last three winters. Still, COVID-19 is putting more people in the hospital than flu, CDC data shows.

Lauren Ancel Meyers of the University of Texas said the nation is seeing a second rise in COVID-19 after a smaller peak in September.

“There is a lot of uncertainty about when and how high this current surge will peak,” said Meyers, who runs a team that forecasts COVID-19, flu and RSV trends.

A new version of the coronavirus, called JN.1, is accounting for nearly two-thirds of U.S. cases, according to a CDC estimate. But health officials say there’s no evidence that it causes more severe disease than other recent variants. 
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WASHINGTON — At a time when growing numbers of young Americans are diagnosed with mental health conditions, media are looking at ways to cover the issue more responsibly.

Data shows a rise in young adults being diagnosed with conditions such as depression or anxiety. But media reports of public incidents involving mental health sometimes use damaging language, experts say.

Terms such as “unhinged” or “erratic” — language used to describe a homeless man killed on the New York subway last year — are held up as poor examples of coverage.

Reporters on the health beat and experts who specialize in mental health say that such terms are damaging for those who have a medical condition and that they can be misleading.

“Media plays an important role in shaping public perception of many things, including mental illness,” said Christine Herman, a freelancer journalist.

Coverage can make it appear as if the illness is a moral failing or lack of character, Herman told VOA.

“Sometimes mental health issues are criminalized in our society,” she said, citing how some news outlets still use terms such as “commit suicide” when reporting on someone who has taken their own life.

The term dates to when suicide was still criminalized in the United States.

“The language we use and the way we describe and talk about mental health conditions can really contribute and shape perception,” Herman said.

Rebecca Brendel, a medical doctor and former president of the American Psychiatric Association, said she believes media plays an important role in explaining health conditions.

“We know that to get treatment and to be healthy, we need to have health literacy,” she told VOA. “We need to have an awareness. We need to have reliable information as consumers of health care and mental health care.”

The late first lady Rosalynn Carter was an early advocate for responsible reporting on mental health. Through the Carter Center, she created a fellowship that offers training to journalists on how to better cover the issue.

“Informed journalists can have a significant impact on public understanding of mental health issues as they shape debate and trends with the words and pictures they convey,” Carter said, as cited by the Center.

When Carter died in November, staff at the Center paid tribute to her legacy.

“She taught generations of journalists how to report about behavioral health in a way that reduces stigma and stimulates understanding and equitable treatment,” a statement read.

Since the fellowship started in 1996, more than 250 journalists have benefited from the program — including Herman.

“It’s important because the type of coverage we do … people in our communities read it, or people across the country read this coverage,” said Herman, who started her career in public radio.

Based in Champaign, Illinois, Herman said that as she started to cover health issues more regularly, her interest in mental health grew.

Her reporting on the obstacles for families trying to access mental health care was recognized with an award last year.

Herman, who serves on the board of the Association of Health Care Journalists, said the most effective reporting is accurate, based on science and puts a focus on the person not the condition.

She advocates for compassionate coverage that includes the voices and perspectives of the people affected.

“These are all things that can help contribute to dismantling stigma and ending discrimination toward people who have mental health conditions in our society,” she said.

Data from the American Psychiatric Association shows 1 in 5 Americans experiences a mental health disorder.

“We know that Americans are struggling with their mental health now more than ever before, following the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Brendel of the American Psychiatric Association. “In fact, in mental health circles, we’ve even called it a twin pandemic, a pandemic of mental health.”

She and Herman say they have seen an improvement in how media reports on mental illness, due in part to the Carter fellowship program.

Having the skills to report in a way “that is both accurate and actionable,” Herman said, ensures coverage that contributes to “better public understanding of these issues and ideally to dismantling stigma.”
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A busy week for SpaceX launches. NASA eyes an upcoming moon mission. And Australian buffaloes get a high-tech upgrade. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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NEW YORK — More U.S. hospitals are requiring masks and limiting visitors as health officials face an expected but still nasty post-holiday spike in flu, COVID-19 and other illnesses.

While many experts say this season likely won’t prove to be as deadly as some other recent winters, it still could mean hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and many thousands of deaths across the country.

New York City last week instituted a mask mandate for the city’s 11 public hospitals. Similar measures were ordered last week at some hospitals in Los Angeles and Massachusetts. Some hospitals reinstated masking rules for employees months ago, in anticipation of a seasonal rush of sick people.

Flu and COVID-19 infections have been increasing for weeks, with high levels of flu-like illness reported in 31 states just before Christmas. Updated national numbers are to be released Friday, but health officials predict infections will grow in many states well into January.

“What we’re seeing right now, in the first week of January, is really an acceleration — of flu cases, in particular,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There is some good news. Flu and COVID-19 cases may peak by the end of the month and then drop, Cohen said. Though the flu has been skyrocketing, this year’s cases are being caused by a strain that usually doesn’t cause as many deaths and hospitalizations as some other versions. What’s more, signs suggest current flu vaccines are well-matched to the strain.

“I don’t think it’s going to be overwhelming,” said Dr. William Schaffner, Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert. He deemed the current season “moderately severe.”

The CDC is pointing the public to an agency website where people can look up their county, which can help them make decisions about whether to wear masks or take other precautions. Cohen urged people to get vaccinated and to seek treatment for flu and COVID-19.

Vaccinations are down this year, officials say. About 44% of U.S. adults had gotten flu shots by Dec. 23, according to the most recently available CDC vaccination survey data. Only about 19% of U.S. adults were reported to have received an updated COVID-19 shot as of early December.

COVID-19 cases are causing more severe disease than the flu but have been rising less dramatically. Health officials are keeping an eye on JN.1, a new version of the ever-evolving coronavirus. The omicron variant was first detected in the U.S. in September and just before Christmas accounted for an estimated 44% of COVID-19 cases.

The JN.1 variant may spread easier or be better at evading our immune systems, but there is no evidence that it causes more severe disease than other recent variants, health officials say. Current evidence indicates vaccines and antiviral medications work against it.

The CDC also has reported disappointing vaccination rates against another seasonal bug, respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. That is a common cause of mild cold-like symptoms, but it can be dangerous for infants and older people. RSV cases rose in the fall but appear to have plateaued and are even going down in some places, according to the latest data.

At Hillsdale Hospital in southern Michigan, a 65% increase in respiratory illness activity in late December triggered a limitation to visitors in the birthing center. Only a spouse, a support person and grandparents can visit. They all must wear a mask and not show symptoms of sickness.

The restriction is common for the hospital around this time of year, said Dr. Nichole Ellis, a pediatrician who is the hospital’s medical chief of staff. But it’s more difficult this season, she added.

“In the past, we would have one … disease that we were tracking or monitoring at one time,” Ellis said. “But now, babies and children will have multiple diseases at the same time. It’s not that they just have RSV … but they’re getting RSV and COVID at the same time, or influenza and RSV at the same time because all of the diseases are prevalent in our community.”
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio was in the throes of a bitter debate over abortion rights this fall when Brittany Watts, 21 weeks and 5 days pregnant, began passing thick blood clots.

The 33-year-old Watts, who had not shared the news of her pregnancy even with her family, made her first prenatal visit to a doctor’s office behind Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren, a working-class city about 100 kilometers southeast of Cleveland.

The doctor said that, while a fetal heartbeat was still present, Watts’ water had broken prematurely and the fetus she was carrying would not survive. He advised heading to the hospital to have her labor induced, so she could have what amounted to an abortion to deliver the nonviable fetus. Otherwise, she would face “significant risk” of death, records of her case show.

That was a Tuesday in September. What followed was a harrowing three days entailing: multiple trips to the hospital; Watts miscarrying into, and then flushing and plunging, a toilet at her home; a police investigation of those actions; and Watts, who is Black, being charged with abuse of a corpse. That’s a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.

Her case was sent last month to a grand jury. It has touched off a national firestorm over the treatment of pregnant women, and especially Black women, in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump elevated Watts’ plight in a post to X, formerly Twitter.

Michele Goodwin, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Policing The Womb, said the case follows a pattern of women’s pregnancies being criminalized against them. She said those efforts have long overwhelmingly targeted Black and brown women.

Even before Roe was overturned, studies show that Black women who visited hospitals for prenatal care were 10 times more likely than white women to have child protective services and law enforcement called on them, even when their cases were similar, she said.

“Post-Dobbs, what we see is kind of a wild, wild West,” said Goodwin. “You see this kind of muscle-flexing by district attorneys and prosecutors wanting to show that they are going to be vigilant, they’re going to take down women who violate the ethos coming out of the state’s Legislature.”

She called Black women “canaries in the coal mine” for the “hyper-vigilant type of policing” women of all races might expect from the nation’s network of health care providers, law enforcers and courts now that abortion isn’t federally protected.

At the time of Watts’ miscarriage, abortion was legal in Ohio through 21 weeks, six days of pregnancy. Her lawyer, Traci Timko, said Watts sat for eight hours at Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s awaiting care on the eve of her pregnancy reaching 22 weeks, before leaving without being treated.

Timko said hospital officials had been deliberating over the legalities.

“It was the fear of, is this going to constitute an abortion and are we able to do that,” Timko said. The hospital didn’t return calls seeking confirmation and comment.

But B. Jessie Hill, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said the hospital was in a bind.

“These are the razor’s edge decisions that health care providers are being forced to make,” she said. “And all the incentives are pushing hospitals to be conservative, because on the other side of this is criminal liability.”

Warren Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri told Warren Municipal Court Judge Terry Ivanchak during Watts’ preliminary hearing that she left home for a hair appointment after miscarrying, leaving the toilet clogged. Police would later find the fetus wedged in the pipes.

“The issue isn’t how the child died, when the child died,” Guarnieri told the judge, according to TV station WKBN. “It’s the fact the baby was put into a toilet, was large enough to clog up the toilet, left in that toilet, and she went on (with) her day.”

In court, Timko bristled.

“This 33-year-old girl with no criminal record is demonized for something that goes on every day,” she said.

The size and stage of development of Watts’ fetus became an issue during her preliminary hearing.

At the time, vigorous campaigning over Issue 1, an ultimately successful amendment to enshrine a right to abortion in Ohio’s constitution, included ads alleging the amendment would allow abortions “until birth.”

A county forensic investigator reported feeling “what appeared to be a small foot with toes” inside Watts’ toilet. Police seized the toilet and broke it apart to retrieve the intact fetus as evidence. An autopsy confirmed that the fetus died in utero before passing through the birth canal and identified “no recent injuries.”

The judge acknowledged the case’s complexities when he bound the case over to the grand jury.

“There are better scholars than I am to determine the exact legal status of this fetus, corpse, body, birthing tissue, whatever it is,” he said from the bench.

Assistant Trumbull County Prosecutor Diane Barber, lead prosecutor on Watts’ case, could not speak specifically about the case, other than to note the county is compelled to move forward with it. She doesn’t expect a grand jury finding this month.

Timko, a former prosecutor, said Ohio’s abuse-of-corpse statute is vague.

“From a legal perspective, there’s no definition of ‘corpse,'” she said. “Can you be a corpse if you never took a breath?”

Grace Howard, assistant justice studies professor at San José State University, said clarity on what about Watts’ behavior constituted a crime is essential.

“Her miscarriage was entirely ordinary,” she said. “So I just want to know what (the prosecutor) thinks she should have done. If we are going to require people to collect and bring used menstrual products to hospitals so that they can make sure it is indeed a miscarriage, it’s as ridiculous and invasive as it is cruel.”
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NEW YORK — The scene: A crowded shopping center in the weeks before Christmas. Or a warehouse store. Or maybe a packed airport terminal or a commuter train station or another place where large groups gather.

There are people — lots of people. But look around, and it’s clear one thing is largely absent these days: face masks.

Yes, there’s the odd one here and there, but nothing like it was three years ago at the dawn of the COVID pandemic’s first winter holidays — an American moment of contentiousness, accusation and scorn on both sides of the mask debate.

As 2023 draws to an end, with promises of holiday parties and crowds and lots of inadvertent exchanges of shared air, mask-wearing is much more off than on around the country even as COVID’s long tail lingers. The days of anything approaching a widespread mask mandate would be like the Ghost of Christmas Past, a glimpse into what was.

Look at it a different way, though: These days, mask-wearing has become just another thing that simply happens in America. In a country where the mention of a mask prior to the pandemic usually meant Halloween or a costume party, it’s a new way of being that hasn’t gone away even if most people aren’t doing it regularly.

“That’s an interesting part of the pandemic,” says Brooke Tully, a strategist who works on how to change people’s behaviors.

“Home delivery of food and all of those kind of services, they existed before COVID and actually were gaining some momentum,” she says. “But something like mask-wearing in the U.S. didn’t really have an existing baseline. It was something entirely new in COVID. So it’s one of those new introductions of behaviors and norms.”

The situation now is … situational

It tends to be situational, like the recent decision from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center hospital system to reinstate a mask mandate at its facilities starting Dec. 20 because it’s seeing an increase in respiratory viruses. And for people like Sally Kiser, 60, of Mooresville, North Carolina, who manages a home health care agency.

“I always carry one with me,” she says, “’cause I never know.”

She doesn’t always wear it, depending on the environment she’s in, but she will if she thinks it’s prudent. “It’s kind of like a new paradigm for the world we live in,” she says.

It wasn’t that long ago that fear over catching COVID-19 sent demand for masks into overdrive, with terms like “N95” coming into our vocabularies alongside concepts like mask mandates — and the subsequent, and vehement, backlash from those who felt it was government overreach.

Once the mandates started dropping, the masks started coming off and the demand fell. It fell so much so that Project N95, a nonprofit launched during the pandemic to help people find quality masks, announced earlier this month that it would stop sales Monday because there wasn’t enough interest.

Anne Miller, the organization’s executive director, acknowledges she thought widespread mask usage would become the rule, not the exception.

“I thought the new normal would be like we see in other cultures and other parts of the world — where people just wear a mask out of an abundance of caution for other people,” she says.

But that’s not how norms work, public safety or otherwise, says Markus Kemmelmeier, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Reno.

In 2020, Kemmelmeier authored a study about mask-wearing around the country that showed mask usage and mandate resistance varied by region based on conditions including pre-existing cultural divisions and political orientation.

He points to the outcry after the introduction of seat belts and seat belt laws more than four decades ago as an example of how practices, particularly those required in certain parts of society, do or don’t take hold.

“When they first were instituted with all the sense that they make and all the effectiveness, there was a lot of resistance,” Kemmelmeier says. “The argument was basically lots of complaints about individual freedoms being curtailed and so forth, and you can’t tell me what to do and so forth.”

Figuring out the balance

In New York City’s Brooklyn borough, members of the Park Slope Co-op recently decided there was a need at the longstanding, membership-required grocery. Last month, the co-op instituted mask-required Wednesdays and Thursdays; the other five days continue to have no requirement.

The people who proposed it weren’t focused on COVID rates. They were thinking about immune-compromised people, a population that has always existed but came to mainstream awareness during the pandemic, says co-op general manager Joe Holtz.

Proponents of the mask push at the co-op emphasized that immunocompromised people are more at risk from other people’s respiratory ailments like colds and flu. Implementing a window of required mask usage allows them to be more protected, Holtz says.

It was up to the store’s administrators to pick the days, and they went with two of the slowest instead of the busy weekend days on purpose, Holtz says, a nod to the reality that mask requirements get different responses from people.

“From management’s point of view,” he says, “if we were going to try and if there’s going to be a negative financial impact from this decision that was made, we want to minimize it.”

Those shopping there on a recent Thursday didn’t seem fazed.

Aron Halberstam, 77, says he doesn’t usually mask much these days but wasn’t put off by the requirement. He wears a mask on the days it’s required, even if he doesn’t otherwise — a middle ground reflecting what is happening in so many parts of the country more than three years after the mask became a part of daily conversation and daily life.

“Any place which asks you to do it, I just do it,” Halberstam says. “I have no resistance to it.”

Whatever the level of resistance, says Kemmelmeier, the culture has shifted. People are still wearing masks in places like crowded stores or while traveling. They do so because they choose to for their own reasons and not because the government is requiring it. And new reasons can come up as well, like when wildfires over the summer made air quality poor and people used masks to deal with the haze and smoke.

“It always will find a niche to fit in with,” he says. “And as long as there are needs somewhere, it will survive.”
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MEXICO CITY — Guatemala violated Indigenous rights by permitting a huge nickel mine on tribal land almost two decades ago, according to a ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Friday.

The landmark verdict marks a monumental step in a four-decade struggle for Indigenous land rights and a long, bitter legal battle, which has at times spilled into the streets of northern Guatemala.

It also comes at the close of the U.N. climate summit COP28, which stressed the importance of renewables and energy transition minerals like nickel more than ever.

According to a verdict read from Costa Rica in the early hours of the morning, the Guatemalan government violated the rights of the Indigenous Q’eqchi’ people to property and consultation by permitting mining on land where members of the community have lived at least since the 1800s.

In its written sentence, the court linked the human rights violations to “inadequacies in domestic law,” which fail to recognize Indigenous property and ordered the state to adopt new laws.

Leonardo Crippa, an attorney with the Indian Law Resource Center who has been researching and representing the community since 2005, said that the finding against the state of Guatemala was a once-in-a-century advance for Indigenous rights in Guatemala and internationally.

“All countries in Latin America are going to look at this decision,” Crippa said. “All courts will have to secure that any decision that this made on mining, on Indigenous lands or titling of Indigenous land is done in a way that is consistent with what the court decided today.”

The court also ordered an immediate stop to all mining activities, gave Guatemala six months to begin awarding a land title to the community, and ordered the creation of a development fund. No further mining can take place, it said, without the community’s consent.

The Guatemalan environmental department responsible for initially permitting the mine didn’t immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment.

For Rodrigo Tot, a local leader, the verdict is vindication of a lifelong battle against the mine and the state which took his own son’s life.

Guatemala first granted massive exploratory permits at the Fenix mine in eastern Guatemala to Canadian company Hudbay just under two decades ago. In 2009, the mine’s head of security shot Tot’s son dead. Hudbay sold the site to a local subsidiary of Swiss-based Solway Investment Group two years later.

“Losing your life doesn’t matter, but only for something important,” Tot said. “Within our anthem there is a part where it says ‘overcome or die.’ If I die defending my land, then I believe it is something that will remain as the history of our struggle.”

Over a decade of national and now international litigation after the murder of Tot’s son, documents were leaked appearing to show the mine attempting to divide the community by bribing some locals to testify in court in favor of the mine.

In response the U.S. Treasury sanctioned two Solway officials implicated in the accusations in November 2022. The ruling Friday noted the community suffered “violence, threats and harassment,” from 2006 to 2019. The U.S. Treasury sanctions against the two Solway employees, who were fired by the company, were not part of the court’s decision Friday.

A spokesperson for Solway wrote that the company and its subsidiary were “not a party to this case” and that “disagreements regarding the mismatch in land demarcation began even before our company acquired the project.”

She did not respond to questions about bribery allegations or the community’s harassment up to 2019, eight years after Solway’s subsidiary acquired the site.

While Crippa said it was encouraging that the court’s ruling came with strict timelines, Tot admitted he expects there will now be a battle for compliance.

“It doesn’t end here. Our fight is going to go on,” he said. But “it encourages us when we see that there are people who also value our struggle.”

The Fenix mine isn’t the only conflict between international mines offering clean energy minerals and Indigenous communities in the region, nor is it likely to be the last.

Indigenous and environmental protests rocked Panama for weeks earlier this year when the government approved a 20-year contract for a Canadian company’s local subsidiary. Eventually, a ruling of the country’s supreme court struck down the contract and ordered the copper mine to close.

Meanwhile, one study published last year calculated that over half of existing and planned critical mineral mines sit on or near Indigenous land. In remarks at COP28, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned of the potential for exactly this type of conflict as demand for minerals like nickel grows.

“The extraction of critical minerals for the clean energy revolution — from wind farms to solar panels and battery manufacturing — must be done in a sustainable, fair and just way,” Guterres said.
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WEST END, N.C. — Jesse Wimberley burns the woods with neighbors.

Using new tools to revive an old communal tradition, they set fire to wiregrasses and forest debris with a drip torch, corralling embers with leaf blowers.

Wimberley, 65, gathers groups across eight North Carolina counties to starve future wildfires by lighting leaf litter ablaze. The burns clear space for longleaf pine, a tree species whose seeds won’t sprout on undergrowth blocking bare soil. Since 2016, the fourth-generation burner has fueled a burgeoning movement to formalize these volunteer ranks.

Prescribed burn associations are proving key to conservationists’ efforts to restore a longleaf pine range forming the backbone of forest ecology in the American Southeast. Volunteer teams, many working private land where participants reside or make a living, are filling service and knowledge gaps one blaze at a time.

Prescribed fire, the intentional burning replicating natural fires crucial for forest health, requires more hands than experts can supply. In North Carolina, the practice sometimes ends with a barbecue.

“Southerners like coming together and doing things and helping each other and having some food,” Wimberley said. “Fire is not something you do by yourself.”

More than 100 associations exist throughout 18 states, according to North Carolina State University researchers, and the Southeast is a hot spot for new ones. Wimberley’s Sandhills Prescribed Burn Association is considered the region’s first, and the group reports having helped up to 500 people clear land or learn how to do it themselves.

The proliferation follows federal officials’ push in the past century to suppress forest fires. The policy sought to protect the expanding footprint of private homes and interrupted fire cycles that accompanied longleaf evolution, which Indigenous people and early settlers simulated through targeted burns.

“Fire is medicine and it heals the land. It’s also medicine for our people,” said Courtney Steed, outreach coordinator for the Sandhills Prescribed Burn Association and a Lumbee Tribe member. “It’s putting us back in touch with our traditions.”

The longleaf pine ecosystem spans just 3% of the 360,000 square kilometers it encompassed before industrialization and urbanization. But some pockets remain, from Virginia to Texas to Florida. The system’s greenery still harbors the bobwhite quail and other declining species. The conifers are especially resistant to droughts, a hazard growing more common and more severe due to climate change.

A big tent of environmentalists, hunters, nonprofit groups and government agencies recently celebrated a 53% increase in the longleaf pine range since 2009, spanning an estimated 20,000 square kilometers. However, those strides fell short of their goal to hit 32,000 square kilometers.

Private landowners are central to the coalition’s latest restoration effort. They hold roughly 86% of forested land in the South, according to America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative.

The partnership needs thousands of new landowners to support longleaf management on their properties. The nascent burn associations are vital in their education, according to a 15-year plan released in November.

Federal agencies back the endeavor through activities such as invasive species removal and land management workshops. Nearly $50 million in federal grants are available for projects bolstering forest health, including prescribed fire.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a “Longleaf Pine Initiative” partnering with burn groups like Wimberley’s. Farm bill money supports planning and planting. Personnel can help install firebreaks.

But applicants are increasingly competing for limited funding that cannot cover all the needed maintenance burns, USDA spokesperson Matthew Vandersande said.

Landowners say liability-concerned states are reluctant to send their relatively few burners onto private property and private contractors cannot meet the demand.

“When it comes time to drop the match, you’re kind of on your own,” said Keith Tribble, 62, who owns a North Carolina tree farm.

While state forestry services provide classes, Tribble credits burn associations for the hands-on experience and crews needed to confidently manage the pines.

Humidity and wind speed are the biggest factors in a burn plan, according to Hitchcock Woods Superintendent Bennett Tucker, manager of a private forest in South Carolina. The pine’s oils allow it to almost always carry fire and he typically burns at a relative humidity between 25% and 50%.

“With a prescribed fire, we can control the where, the when, the how and all those factors by choosing the best conditions,” Tucker said.

Handheld weather meters ensure wind speed, temperature and humidity fall within limits under plans written beforehand. The prescriptions also can reduce potential liability in the event a fire escapes. Runaway fires are rare, according to studies of federal agencies and surveys of community burn groups. Wimberley’s teams haven’t had one yet, even with 40 burns per year.

Climate change is reducing the number of safe burn days. Rising temperatures cause lower relative humidity in the South and intensify periods when it’s too dry, said Jennifer Fawcett, a North Carolina State University wildland fire expert.

As the severity and frequency of storms, droughts and wildfires increase, longleaf pines could become even more important for ecological resilience in the South. Deep roots anchor them during strong winds and stretch far into the ground for water. Flames enhance soil nutrients.

Further, the surrounding ecosystems have few known rivals for biodiversity in the U.S. Light pours through open canopies onto the sparse floor, giving way to flora like an insect-eating plant that needs sun exposure and wet soil. Gopher tortoises feed on the native vegetation and dig up to 4.5-meter burrows sheltering other at-risk species.

“It’s more than just planting trees,” said Lisa Lord, The Longleaf Alliance conservation programs director. “We want to take the time to restore all of the values of the forest.”

A late 1920s education campaign known as the “Dixie Crusaders” harmed those interdependent relationships. Federal officials turned southerners against the practice and burning fell off. Flammable needles and wiregrasses piled up to dangerous tinder levels.

Wimberley’s family resisted, knowing their livelihoods depended on fire. His ancestors first applied it to “sweat” out the pine’s lucrative sap distilled into turpentine or exported as sealants. Later generations burned to shield crops.

Burning looks different from the times Wimberley’s mother dragged kindling known as “fat lighter” through the forest. But public understanding of its importance is returning and the ranks are growing.

“We’re all a bunch of pyromaniacs,” said Tribble, the tree farm owner.

Still, Tribble burns for a reason: he values connecting with people and the land.

Before his burns, brush cluttered the ground, choking waterflow to parts of the property that were “bone dry.” Now water runs from more marshy areas and the squeaky call of the rarely spotted red-cockaded woodpecker resounds from mature pines. Wild turkeys appear when smoke fills the sky.

Steed, the Lumbee outreach coordinator, is heartened by the rekindling of this proactive “fire culture” beyond the tribe that she says introduced it to the region.

She ran through her grandfather’s scorched woods as a child, but the expanse has gone about a decade without fire. Steed plans to lead her first burn next year in Wimberley’s woods and then manage a family property she recently inherited.

“It feels empowering,” Steed said of prescribed fire. “It feels like a very tangible way to connect to the past and also guide the future.”
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New oil and natural gas leasing will be prohibited on state land surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park, an area sacred to Native Americans, for the next 20 years under an executive order by New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard.

Wednesday’s order extends a temporary moratorium that she put in place when she took office in 2019. It covers more than 293 square kilometers of state trust land in what is a sprawling checkerboard of private, state, federal and tribal holdings in northwestern New Mexico.

The U.S. government last year adopted its own 20-year moratorium on new oil, gas and mineral leasing around Chaco, following a push by pueblos and other Southwestern tribal nations that have cultural ties to the high desert region.

Garcia Richard said during a virtual meeting Thursday with Native American leaders and advocates that the goal is to stop the encroachment of development on Chaco and the tens of thousands of acres beyond the park’s boundaries that have yet to be surveyed.

“The greater Chaco landscape is one of the most special places in the world, and it would be foolish not to do everything in our power to protect it,” she said in a statement following the meeting.

Cordelia Hooee, the lieutenant governor of Zuni Pueblo, called it a historic day. She said tribal leaders throughout the region continue to pray for more permanent protections through congressional action.

“Chaco Canyon and the greater Chaco region play an important role in the history, religion and culture of the Zuni people and other pueblo people as well,” she said. “Our shared cultural landscapes must be protected into perpetuity, for our survival as Indigenous people is tied to them.”

The tribal significance of Chaco is evident in songs, prayers and oral histories, and pueblo leaders said some people still make pilgrimages to the area, which includes desert plains, rolling hills dotted with piñon and juniper and sandstone canyons carved by eons of wind and water erosion.

A World Heritage site, Chaco Culture National Historical Park is thought to be the center of what was once a hub of Indigenous civilization. Within park boundaries are the towering remains of stone structures built centuries ago by the region’s first inhabitants, and ancient roads and related sites are scattered further out.

The executive order follows a tribal summit in Washington last week at which federal officials vowed to continue consultation efforts to ensure Native American leaders have more of a seat at the table when land management decisions affect culturally significant areas. New guidance for federal agencies also was recently published to help with the effort.

The New Mexico State Land Office is not required to have formal consultations with tribes, but agency officials said they have been working with tribal leaders over the last five years and hope to craft a formal policy that can be used by future administrations.

The pueblos recently completed an ethnographic study of the region for the U.S. Interior Department that they hope can be used for decision-making at the federal level.
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