Early humans were regularly using animal bones to make cutting tools 1.5 million years ago. A newly discovered cache of 27 carved and sharpened bones from elephants and hippos found in Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge site pushes back the date for ancient bone tool use by around 1 million years. Researchers know that early people made simple tools from stones as early as 3.3 million years ago. The new discovery, published Wednesday in Nature, reveals that ancient humans “had rather more complex tool kits than previously we thought,” incorporating a variety of materials, said William Harcourt-Smith, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the research. The well-preserved bone tools, measuring up to around 16 inches (40 centimeters), were likely made by breaking off the thick ends of leg bones and using a stone to knock off flakes from the remaining bone shaft. This technique was used to create one sharpened edge and one pointed tip, said study co-author Ignacio de la Torre, a researcher at the Spanish National Research Council. The bone tools were “probably used as a hand axe” – a handheld blade that’s not mounted on a stick – for butchering dead animals, he said. Such a blade would be handy for removing meat from elephant and hippo carcasses, but not used as a spear or projectile point. “We don’t believe they were hunting these animals. They were probably scavenging,” he said. Some of the artifacts show signs of having been struck to remove flakes more than a dozen times, revealing persistent craftsmanship. Chinese scientists find evidence for existence of intermediate-mass black holes The uniform selection of the bones – large and heavy leg bones from specific animals – and the consistent pattern of alteration makes it clear that early humans deliberately chose and carved these bones, said Mírian Pacheco, a paleobiologist at the Federal University of Sao Carlos in Brazil, who was not involved in the study. The bones show minimal signs of erosion, trampling or gnawing by other animals — ruling out the possibility that natural causes resulted in the tool shapes, she added. The bone tools date from more than a million years before our species, Homo sapiens, arose around 300,000 years ago. At the time the tools were made, three different species of human ancestors lived in the same region of East Africa, said Briana Pobiner, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program, who was not involved in the study. The tools may have been made and used by Homo erectus, Homo habilis or Paranthropus boisei. “It could have been any of these three, but it’s almost impossible to know which one,” said Pobiner.

NASA’s two stuck astronauts are just a few weeks away from finally returning to Earth after nine months in space. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have to wait until their replacements arrive at the International Space Station next week before they can check out later this month. They’ll be joined on their SpaceX ride home by two astronauts who launched by themselves in September alongside two empty seats. During a news conference Tuesday, Wilmore said that while politics is part of life, it did not play into his and Williams' return, moved up a couple weeks thanks to a change in SpaceX capsules. President Donald Trump and SpaceX's Elon Musk said at the end of January that they wanted to accelerate the astronauts' return, blaming the previous administration. But Williams, in response to a question, did take issue with Musk's recent call to dump the space station in two years, rather than waiting until NASA's projected deorbit in 2031. She noted all the scientific research being performed at the orbiting lab. “This place is ticking. It's just really amazing, so I would say we're actually in our prime right now,” said Williams, a three-time space station resident. “I would think that right now is probably not the right time to say quit, call it quits.” How springing forward to daylight saving time could affect your health — and how to prepare Williams said she can't wait to be reunited with her Labrador retrievers. The hardest part about the unexpected extended stay, she added, was the wait by their families back home. “It’s been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us," she said. “We're here. We have a mission. We're just just doing what we do every day, and every day is interesting because we're up in space and it's a lot of fun.” Wilmore and Williams expected to be gone just a week or so when they launched last June aboard Boeing’s new Starliner capsule, making its crew debut after years of delay. The Starliner had so many problems getting to the space station that NASA ruled it too dangerous to carry anyone and it flew back empty. Their homecoming was further delayed by extra completion time needed for the brand new SpaceX capsule that was supposed to deliver their replacements. Last month, NASA announced the next crew would launch in a used capsule instead, pushing up liftoff to March 12. The two crews will spend about a week together aboard the space station before Wilmore and Williams depart with NASA’s Nick Hague and the Russian Space Agency’s Alexander Gorbunov. Wilmore and Williams — retired Navy captains and repeat space fliers — have insisted over the months that they are healthy and committed to the mission as long as it takes. They took a spacewalk together in January. They will wear generic SpaceX flight suits for the ride back, not the usual custom-made outfits bearing their names because their trip home in a Dragon capsule was unplanned. That's fine with them, although Wilmore hinted he might use a pen to write his name on his suit. Private lunar lander Blue Ghost aces moon touchdown with special delivery for NASA “We’re just Butch and Suni," Williams said. “Everybody knows who we are by now."

Most of America “springs forward” Sunday for daylight saving time and losing that hour of sleep can do more than leave you tired and cranky the next day. It also could harm your health. Darker mornings and more evening light together knock your body clock out of whack — which means daylight saving time can usher in sleep trouble for weeks or longer. Studies have even found an uptick in heart attacks and strokes right after the March time change. There are ways to ease the adjustment, including getting more sunshine to help reset your circadian rhythm for healthful sleep. When does daylight saving time start? Daylight saving time begins Sunday at 2 a.m., an hour of sleep vanishing in most of the U.S. The ritual will reverse on Nov. 2 when clocks “fall back” as daylight saving time ends. Hawaii and most of Arizona don’t make the spring switch, sticking to standard time year-round along with Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Worldwide, dozens of countries also observe daylight saving time, starting and ending at different dates. Some people try to prepare for daylight saving time’s sleep jolt by going to bed a little earlier two or three nights ahead. With a third of American adults already not getting the recommended seven hours of nightly shuteye, catching up can be difficult. What happens to your brain when it's lighter later? The brain has a master clock that is set by exposure to sunlight and darkness. This circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour cycle that determines when we become sleepy and when we’re more alert. The patterns change with age, one reason that early-to-rise youngsters evolve into hard-to-wake teens. Private lunar lander Blue Ghost aces moon touchdown with special delivery for NASA Morning light resets the rhythm. By evening, levels of a hormone called melatonin begin to surge, triggering drowsiness. Too much light in the evening — that extra hour from daylight saving time — delays that surge and the cycle gets out of sync. Sleep deprivation is linked to heart disease, cognitive decline, obesity and numerous other problems. And that circadian clock affects more than sleep, also influencing things like heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones and metabolism. How does the time change affect your health? Fatal car crashes temporarily jump the first few days after the spring time change, according to a study of U.S. traffic fatalities. The risk was highest in the morning, and researchers attributed it to sleep deprivation. Then there’s the cardiac connection. The American Heart Association points to studies that suggest an uptick in heart attacks on the Monday after daylight saving time begins, and in strokes for two days afterward. Doctors already know that heart attacks, especially severe ones, are a bit more common on Mondays generally — and in the morning, when blood is more clot-prone. Researchers don't know why the time change would add to that Monday connection but it's possible the abrupt circadian disruption exacerbates factors such as high blood pressure in people already at risk. How to prepare for daylight saving time Gradually shift bedtimes about 15 or 20 minutes earlier for several nights before the time change, and rise earlier the next morning, too. Go outside for early morning sunshine that first week of daylight saving time, another way to help reset your body's internal clock. Moving up daily routines, like dinner time or when you exercise, also may help cue your body to start adapting, sleep experts advise. Afternoon naps and caffeine as well as evening light from phones and other electronic devices can make adjusting to an earlier bedtime even harder. Will the U.S. ever eliminate the time change? A child dies of Ebola in Uganda, raising concern over disease surveillance in outbreak Every year there's talk about ending the time change. In December, then-President-elect Donald Trump promised to eliminate daylight saving time. For the last several years, a bipartisan bill named the Sunshine Protection Act to make daylight saving time permanent has stalled in Congress; it has been reintroduced this year. But that's the opposite of what some health groups recommend. The American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine agree it's time to do away with time switches but say sticking with standard time year-round aligns better with the sun — and human biology — for more consistent sleep.

A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth's celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side. Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company's Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away. “You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported. An upright and stable landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. A half hour after landing, Blue Ghost started to send back pictures from the surface, the first one a selfie somewhat obscured by the sun's glare. The second shot included the home planet, a blue dot glimmering in the blackness of space. Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week. Private company rockets toward the moon in the latest rush of lunar landing attempts Blue Ghost — named after a rare U.S. species of fireflies — had its size and shape going for it. The squat four-legged lander stands 6-foot-6 (2 meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) wide, providing extra stability, according to the company. Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It’s the third mission under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, intended to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting around before astronauts show up later this decade. Firefly’s Ray Allensworth said the lander skipped over hazards including boulders to land safely. Allensworth said the team continued to analyze the data to figure out the lander's exact position, but all indications suggest it landed within the 328-foot (100-meter) target zone in Mare Crisium. The demos should get two weeks of run time, before lunar daytime ends and the lander shuts down. It carried a vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to measure temperature as deep as 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface. Also on board: a device for eliminating abrasive lunar dust — a scourge for NASA’s long-ago Apollo moonwalkers, who got it caked all over their spacesuits and equipment. On its way to the moon, Blue Ghost beamed back exquisite pictures of the home planet. The lander continued to stun once in orbit around the moon, with detailed shots of the moon's gray pockmarked surface. At the same time, an on-board receiver tracked and acquired signals from the U.S. GPS and European Galileo constellations, an encouraging step forward in navigation for future explorers. The landing set the stage for a fresh crush of visitors angling for a piece of lunar business. Another lander — a tall and skinny 15-footer (4 meters tall) built and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is due to land on the moon Thursday. It’s aiming for the bottom of the moon, just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the south pole. That’s closer to the pole than the company got last year with its first lander, which broke a leg and tipped over. Despite the tumble, Intuitive Machines' lander put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts closed out the Apollo program in 1972. Plane that flipped over in Canada highlights some of the dangers of holding kids on your lap A third lander from the Japanese company ispace is still three months from landing. It shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like Intuitive Machines, ispace is also attempting to land on the moon for the second time. Its first lander crashed in 2023. The moon is littered with wreckage not only from ispace, but dozens of other failed attempts over the decades. NASA wants to keep up a pace of two private lunar landers a year, realizing some missions will fail, said the space agency's top science officer Nicky Fox. “It really does open up a whole new way for us to get more science to space and to the moon," Fox said. Unlike NASA’s successful Apollo moon landings that had billions of dollars behind them and ace astronauts at the helm, private companies operate on a limited budget with robotic craft that must land on their own, said Firefly CEO Jason Kim. Kim said everything went like clockwork. “We got some moon dust on our boots," Kim said.

A 4-year-old child became the second person to die of Ebola in Uganda, the World Health Organization said Saturday, in a setback for health officials who had hoped for a quick end to the outbreak that began at the end of January. The child had been hospitalized at the main referral facility in Kampala, the capital of the East African country, and died Tuesday, the WHO office in Uganda said in a brief statement. That statement said WHO and others are working to strengthen surveillance and contact tracing. There were no other details about the death and local health officials were not commenting on the case. The death undermines Ugandan officials’ assertions of an outbreak under control after eight Ebola patients were discharged earlier in February. The first victim was a male nurse who died the day before the outbreak was declared on Jan. 30. He had sought treatment at multiple facilities in Kampala and in eastern Uganda, where he also visited a traditional healer in trying to diagnose his illness, before later dying in Kampala. The successful treatment of eight patients who had been contacts of that man, including some of his relatives, had left local health officials anticipating the end of the outbreak. But they are still investigating its source. Tracing contacts is key to stemming the spread of Ebola, and there are no approved vaccines for the Sudan strain of Ebola that's infecting people in Uganda. Over 20,000 travelers are screened daily for Ebola at Uganda’s different border crossing points, according to WHO, which supports the work. The WHO has given Uganda at least $3 million to support its Ebola response, but there have been concerns about adequate funding in the wake of the U.S. administration’s decision to terminate 60% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts. Uganda starts Ebola vaccine trial after outbreak kills nurse Dithan Kiragga, executive director of the Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation, a non-governmental group that supports Ebola surveillance in Uganda, told The Associated Press on Friday that his group had stopped its work supporting local health authorities in screening traveling passengers after the termination of its contract with USAID. The five-year contract, signed in 2022 and worth $27 million, employed 85 full-time staff who were employed in a range of public health activities, Dr. Kiragga said. Charles Olaro, the director of health services at Uganda’s Ministry of Health, said that U.S. aid cuts hurt the work of some non-governmental groups supporting the response to infectious diseases. “There are challenges, but we need to adjust to the new reality,” Dr. Olaro said, speaking of the loss of U.S. funding. Ebola, which is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials, manifests as a deadly hemorrhagic fever. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding. Scientists suspect the first person infected with Ebola in an outbreak acquired the virus through contact with an infected animal or eating its raw meat. Uganda’s last outbreak, discovered in September 2022, killed at least 55 people before it was declared over in January 2023. Ebola in Uganda is the latest in a trend of outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic fevers in the east African region. Tanzania declared an outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg disease in January, and in December, Rwanda announced its own outbreak of Marburg was over. Uganda has had multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that killed hundreds. The 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people, the disease’s largest death toll. Congo announces end to 2nd deadliest Ebola outbreak ever Ebola was discovered in 1976 in simultaneous outbreaks in South Sudan and Congo, where it occurred in a village near the Ebola River, after which the disease is named.

Measles is rarely seen in the United States, but Americans are growing more concerned about the preventable virus as cases continue to rise in rural West Texas. This week, an unvaccinated child died in the West Texas outbreak, which involves more than 120 cases. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the last confirmed measles death in the United States was in 2015. There are also nine measles cases in eastern New Mexico, but the state health department said there is no direct connection to the outbreak in Texas. Here’s what to know about the measles and how to protect yourself. What is measles? It's a respiratory disease caused by one of the world’s most contagious viruses. The virus is airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It most commonly affects kids. “On average, one infected person may infect about 15 other people,” said Scott Weaver, a center of excellence director for the Global Virus Network, an international coalition. “There’s only a few viruses that even come close to that.” Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash. The rash generally appears three to five days after the first symptoms, beginning as flat red spots on the face and then spreading downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet. When the rash appears, the fever may spike over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the CDC. There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable. People who have had measles once can’t get it again, health officials say. Private company rockets toward the moon in the latest rush of lunar landing attempts Can measles be fatal? It usually doesn’t kill people, but it can. Common complications include ear infections and diarrhea. But about 1 in 5 unvaccinated Americans who get measles are hospitalized, the CDC said. Pregnant women who haven’t gotten the vaccine may give birth prematurely or have a low-birthweight baby. Among children with measles, about 1 in every 20 develops pneumonia, the CDC said, and about one in every 1,000 suffers swelling of the brain called encephalitis — which can lead to convulsions, deafness or intellectual disability. It’s deadly “in a little less than 1% of cases, mainly in children,” said Weaver, who works at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. “Children develop the most severe illness. The cause of death in these kinds of cases is usually pneumonia and complications from pneumonia.” How can you prevent measles? The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old. “Before a vaccine was developed in the 1960s, everybody got” measles, Weaver said. "But then when the vaccine came along, that was a complete game-changer and one of the most successful vaccines in the history of medicine.” There is “great data” on the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine, he said, because it's been around for decades. “Any of these outbreaks we’re seeing can easily be prevented by increasing the rate of vaccination in the community,” he said. “If we can maintain 95% of people vaccinated, we’re not going to see this happening in the future. And we’ve slipped well below that level in many parts of the country.” Vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic, and most states are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners — the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks. A French surgeon is on trial accused of raping or abusing 299 people, mostly child patients Do you need a booster if you got the MMR vaccine a while ago? Health care professionals are sometimes tested for antibodies to measles and given boosters if necessary, Weaver said — even if they’ve already had the standard two doses as a child. He said people at high risk for infection who got the shots many years ago may also want to consider getting a booster if they live in an area with an outbreak. Those may include family members living with someone who has measles or those especially vulnerable to respiratory diseases because of underlying medical conditions. “But I don’t think everyone needs to go and run out to their doctor right now if they did receive two doses as a child,” he said. "If people would just get the standard vaccination, none of this would be happening.”

A private company launched another lunar lander Wednesday, aiming to get closer to the moon’s south pole this time with a drone that will hop into a jet-black crater that never sees the sun. Intuitive Machines’ lander, named Athena, caught a lift with SpaceX from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It’s taking a fast track to the moon — with a landing on March 6 — while hoping to avoid the fate of its predecessor, which tipped over at touchdown. Never before have so many spacecraft angled for the moon’s surface all at once. Last month, U.S. and Japanese companies shared a rocket and separately launched landers toward Earth's sidekick. Texas-based Firefly Aerospace should get there first this weekend after a big head start. The two U.S. landers are carrying tens of millions of dollars’ worth of experiments for NASA as it prepares to return astronauts to the moon. “It’s an amazing time. There’s so much energy,” NASA's science mission chief Nicky Fox told The Associated Press a few hours ahead of the launch. This isn’t Intuitive Machines’ first lunar rodeo. Last year, the Texas company made the first U.S. touchdown on the moon in more than 50 years. But an instrument that gauges distance did not work and the lander came down too hard and broke a leg, tipping onto its side. vivo Y29 4G Review: What’s special about this budget-friendly phone? Intuitive Machines said it has fixed the issue and dozens of others. A sideways landing like last time would prevent the drone and a pair of rovers from moving out. NASA’s drill also needs an upright landing to pierce beneath the lunar surface to gather soil samples for analysis. “Certainly, we will be better this time than we were last time. But you never know what could happen,” said Trent Martin, senior vice president of space systems. It’s an extraordinarily elite club. Only five countries have pulled off a lunar landing over the decades: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. The moon is littered with wreckage from many past failures. The 15-foot (4.7-meter) Athena will target a landing 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the lunar south pole. Just a quarter-mile (400 meters) away is a permanently shadowed crater — the ultimate destination for the drone named Grace. Named after the late computer programming pioneer Grace Hopper, the 3-foot (1-meter) drone will make three increasingly higher and longer test hops across the lunar surface using hydrazine fueled-thrusters for flight and cameras and lasers for navigation. If those excursions go well, it will hop into the nearby pitch-black crater, an estimated 65 feet (20 meters) deep. Science instruments from Hungary and Germany will take measurements at the bottom while hunting for frozen water. It will be the first up-close peek inside one of the many shadowed craters dotting both the north and south poles. Scientists suspect these craters are packed with tons of ice. If so, this ice could be transformed by future explorers into water to drink, air to breathe and even rocket fuel. Apple shareholders reject proposal to scrap company's diversity programs NASA is paying $62 million to Intuitive Machines to get its drill and other experiments to the moon. The company, in turn, sold space on the lander to others. It also opened up the Falcon rocket to ride-sharing. Tagalongs included NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer satellite, which will fly separately to the moon over the next several months before entering lunar orbit to map the distribution of water below. Also catching a ride was a private spacecraft that will chase after an asteroid for a flyby, a precursor to asteroid mining.

 An annual United Nations conference on biodiversity that ran out of time last year will resume its work Tuesday in Rome with money at the top of the agenda. That is, how to spend what's been pledged so far — and how to raise a lot more to help preserve plant and animal life on Earth. The talks in Colombia known as COP16 yielded some significant outcomes before they broke up in November, including an agreement that requires companies that benefit from genetic resources in nature — say, by developing medicines from rainforest plants — to share the benefits. And steps were taken to give Indigenous peoples and local communities a stronger voice in conservation matters. But two weeks turned out to be not enough time to get everything done. The Cali talks followed the historic 2022 COP15 accord in Montreal, which included 23 measures aimed at protecting biodiversity. Those included putting 30% of the planet and 30% of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030, known as the Global Biodiversity Framework. “Montreal was about the ‘what’ — what are we all working towards together?” said Georgina Chandler, head of policy and campaigns for the Zoological Society London. “Cali was supposed to focus on the ‘how’ — putting the plans and the financing in place to ensure we can actually implement this framework.” “They eventually lost a quorum because people simply went home,” said Linda Krueger of The Nature Conservancy, who is in Rome for the two days of talks “And so now we’re having to finish these last critical decisions, which are some of the the nitty gritty decisions on financing, on resource mobilization and on the planning and monitoring and reporting requirements under the Global Biodiversity Framework.” As Davos 2025 reacts to Trump tack, EU chief leads defense against climate change The overall financial aim was to achieve $20 billion a year in the fund by 2025, and then $30 billion by 2030. So far, only $383 million had been pledged as of November, from 12 nations or sub-nations: Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Province of Québec, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Participants will discuss establishing a “global financing instrument for biodiversity” intended to effectively distribute the money raised. And a big part of the talks will be about raising more money. ‘Completely off track’ on larger financial goal Chandler and Kruger both said the finance points at Colombia's talks were particularly contentious. “It’s really about how do we collect the money and how do we get it distributed fairly, get it to the ground where it’s needed most, so that that’s really the core issue,” said Kruger. Oscar Soria, chief executive of The Common Initiative, a think tank specializing in global economic and environmental policy, was pessimistic about raising a great deal more money. “We are completely off track in terms of achieving that money,” Soria said. Key sources of biodiversity finance are shrinking or disappearing, he said. “What was supposed to be a good Colombian telenovela in which people will actually bring the right resources, and the happy ending of bringing their money, could actually end up being a tragic Italian opera, where no one actually agrees to anything and everyone loses,” Soria said. Susana Muhamad, Colombia's former environment minister and the COP16 president, said she's hopeful of “a good message from Rome.” “That message is that still, even with a very fragmented geopolitical landscape, with a world increasingly in conflict, we can still get an agreement on some fundamental issues," Muhamad said in a statement. "And one of the most important is the need to protect life in this crisis of climate change and biodiversity.” Global wildlife populations have plunged on average by 73% in 50 years, according to an October report from the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London. AKDN's resident representative discusses education and climate change initiatives with Foreign Adviser “Biodiversity is basically essential to our livelihoods and well-being,” Chandler said. “It’s essential to the the air we breathe, the water we drink, rainfall that food systems rely on, protecting us from increasing temperatures and increasing storm occurrences as well.” Chandler said deforestation in the Amazon has far-reaching impacts across South America, just as it does in the Congo Basin and other major biodiverse regions worldwide. “We know that has an impact on rainfall, on food systems, on soil integrity in other countries. So it’s not just something that’s kind of small and isolated. It's a widespread problem,” she said.

A former surgeon is set to stand trial in France on Monday for the alleged rape or sexual abuse of 299 victims, most of them children who were his patients, in what investigators and his own notebooks describe as a pattern of violence spanning over three decades. Joël Le Scouarnec, now 74, will face hundreds of victims during a four-month trial in Vannes, Brittany. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, on top of 15 years he has been serving after being found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault of children. He does not deny the allegations, though says he doesn't remember everything. Some survivors have no memory of the assaults, having been unconscious at the time. Le Scouarnec’s trial comes as activists are pushing to lift taboos that have long surrounded sexual abuse in France. The most prominent case was that of Gisèle Pélicot, who was drugged and raped by her now ex-husband and dozens of other men who were convicted and sentenced in December to prison terms ranging from three to 20 years. Child protection and women’s rights groups and medical community associations have called for a rally on Monday in front of the courthouse where Le Scouarnec will be tried. The case began in 2017, when a 6-year-old neighbor said Le Scouarnec had touched her over the fence separating their properties. A subsequent search of his home uncovered more than 300,000 photos, 650 pedophilic, zoophilic and scatological video files, as well as notebooks where he described himself as a pedophile and detailed his actions, according to investigation documents. Chinese researchers use Earth science satellite to monitor offshore oil, gas platforms In 2020, Le Scouarnec was convicted of rape and sexual assault of four children, including two nieces, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He had admitted to child abuse dating to 1985-1986, but some cases could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired. The Vannes trial will examine alleged rapes and other abuses committed between 1989 and 2014 against 158 men and 141 women who were aged 11 on average at the time. The doctor sexually abused both boys and girls when they were alone in their hospital rooms, according to investigation documents. “I didn’t really remember the operation. I remembered the post-operation, a surgeon who was quite mean,” one of the victims, Amélie Lévêque, recalled of her time in the hospital when she was 9 years old in 1991. “I cried a lot." Years later, she described feeling overwhelmed when she learned that her name appeared in Le Scouarnec’s notebooks. “That was the beginning of the answers to a lifetime of questions, and then it was the beginning of the descent into hell,” she told public broadcaster France 3. “I felt like I had lost control of everything. I wasn’t crazy, but now I had to face the truth of what had happened.” “I fell into a deep depression. ... My family tried to help, but I felt completely alone.” The Associated Press does not name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to being identified or decide to tell their stories publicly. Layoffs hit many at CDC lab program that was started to address previous failures Le Scouarnec’s lawyer, Thibaut Kurzawa, told Sud-Ouest newspaper his client will “answer the judges’ questions” as he decided “to face up to reality.” Le Scouarnec had already been convicted in 2005 for possessing and importing child sexual abuse material and sentenced to four months of suspended prison time. Despite that conviction, he was appointed as a hospital practitioner the following year. Some child protection groups joined the proceedings as civil parties, saying they hope to toughen the legal framework to prevent such abuse.

The crash landing of a Delta Air Lines flight in Toronto this week highlighted the potential dangers of flying with a young child sitting on an adult's lap. The plane flipped over, which would make holding onto a baby extremely difficult. Authorities haven't said whether the 18-month-old child who was injured in the crash was riding on a parent's lap. All 21 people who were hurt were released from the hospital, but young children have died in previous crashes. Despite the recent rash of aviation disasters, airline crashes remain rare, but children could easily get hurt if they are on a parent's lap when a plane encounters turbulence. Experts agree it's safer for children younger than 2 years old to have their own plane seats and ride in approved car seats when flying, even if families have to pay for an extra ticket. But babies are still allowed to travel in laps, so parents continue doing it despite the risks. “The saddest part is that most families who travel with a lap child think that because it’s allowed, it’s safe,” said former flight attendant Jan Brown, who had to look a mother in the face after she had just lost her 22-month-old son when their plane crashed and broke into several pieces near Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989. Brown stopped that mother from climbing back into the wreckage of United Flight 232 after it came to rest upside down in a cornfield. “I told her what I thought would stop her: that rescue workers would find him. And she just looked up at me and said, ‘You told me to put my baby on the floor. And I did. And he’s gone.’ And so I think that was the moment that I became a child seat advocate,” Brown said. Of the four lap children on that plane, three were injured and the woman's son was among the 112 people who died. A 6-month-old boy traveling on a parent's lap was killed in 2012 when a plane landed hard and overran the end of a runway in Nunavut, Canada. Last year, three infants on laps could have been sucked out of an Alaska Airlines plane after a door plug flew off midflight, but none were sitting close enough to the opening for that to happen. What do experts recommend? The National Transportation Safety Board and its counterpart in Canada, the Transportation Safety Board, have long recommended that young children fly only in approved car seats to protect them. The Federal Aviation Administration also recommends the use of car seats but doesn't require it despite lobbying from advocates. In addition to those safety regulators, the American Academy of Pediatrics and most major airline trade groups and unions support requiring young children to fly in approved car seats. The main crash investigators in the United States and Canada started recommending car seats for children under 2 and specialized restraint systems for older kids until they are taller than 40 inches (102 centimeters) after the deadly crashes in their countries decades ago. Chinese scientists find evidence for existence of intermediate-mass black holes “We’ve all been there at that point in your life when you’ve got young children. You’re not swimming in money. You’re trying to save nickels and dimes any way you can. And if you can avoid buying an extra seat, it’s a completely understandable reaction,” NTSB member Tom Chapman said. “It’s just that people don’t understand the risk that they are subjecting their child to by not buying that seat and properly restraining them.” Not only is it safer for children to ride in their own seats, but it's more enjoyable for parents who don't have to hold a squirming baby for hours in the air. Car seat expert and mother Michelle Pratt, who founded Safe in the Seat, said no matter how tempting it is to check that lap child box, families should get everyone a ticket. “Your baby could cost less than your checked suitcase. Why not take advantage?” Pratt said. What do parents think? Some parents like Clare Ronning aren't convinced. After landing in Burbank, California, with her husband and 5-month-old baby Thursday, she said she doesn't see a need for a car seat on a plane. “I don’t really see the difference, personally,” said Ronning, who already has taken her daughter on six flights. “It just seems like another money grab.” But Meredith Tobitsch never imagined flying without a seat for her 3-year-old daughter and won't do it with her 14-month-old now, either, because of safety and practical concerns. “If there was turbulence, your natural reflex would be to let go of your child,” said Tobitsch, who lives in Connecticut, adding that her oldest daughter always slept better in her car seat, making the flights much more enjoyable. “Obviously, that does add to the cost of air travel for families, but it is a safety thing. At least for us, we’re fortunate to do that,” she said. Why isn't it required? The FAA relies on a study done in the 1990s to justify not requiring families to buy tickets for children younger than 2. Utah Republicans push to let patients supply their own blood as vaccine concerns linger The rationale is that if families had to buy those extra tickets, more of them might drive instead of fly. Because driving is riskier than flying, that would mean more kids would die in car crashes than would be saved in planes if car seats and separate tickets were required. Chapman with the NTSB thinks that logic is a stretch and the study should be revisited, particularly since airline tickets are more affordable today. But parent Andrea Arredondo suggested there might be some truth to it, saying she might fly less if she had to buy a ticket and lug along a car seat for her 4-month-old when flying with her family and two older kids. “I would be more likely to decrease our plane travel than bring a car seat,” Arredondo said, explaining she and her husband already have their hands full traveling with three kids, three car seats that they check, a stroller and play set.