FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida — Although more rain could trigger additional isolated Florida flooding, forecasters say the strong, persistent storms that dumped up to 50 centimeters (20 inches) in southern parts of the state appear to have passed.

Some neighborhood streets in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas still have standing water, although it is rapidly receding, officials said.

“The worst flooding risk was the last three days,” said Sammy Hadi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami. “The heaviest rainfall has concluded.”

The no-name storm system pushed across Florida from the Gulf of Mexico at roughly the same time as the early June start of hurricane season, which this year is forecast to be among the most active in recent memory amid concerns that climate change is increasing storm intensity.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a media briefing in Hollywood, south of Fort Lauderdale, and said while more rain was coming, it’s likely to be more typical of South Florida afternoon showers this time of year.

“We are going to get some more rain today, maybe throughout the balance of the weekend. Hopefully it’s not approaching the levels that it was, but we have a lot of resources staged here, and we’ll be able to offer the state’s assistance,” he said.

DeSantis said the state has deployed about 100 pumps in addition to what cities and counties are using to try to clear water from streets.

Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said while flooding was extensive, there were no reports of destroyed homes and very few of severely damaged homes. No deaths or serious injuries have been reported.

“We don’t think there’s going to be enough damage to necessarily qualify for a federal disaster declaration,” DeSantis said. But he added the storms may have affected enough business to qualify for Small Business Administration assistance.

The downpours hit Tuesday and continued into Wednesday, delaying flights at two of the state’s largest airports and leaving vehicles waterlogged and stalled in some of the region’s lowest-lying streets. The main problem was hundreds of vehicles that were stranded on streets as people were unable to navigate the flood waters.

“Looked like the beginning of a zombie movie,” said Ted Rico, a tow truck driver who spent much of Wednesday night and Thursday morning helping to clear the streets of stalled vehicles. “There’s cars littered everywhere, on top of sidewalks, in the median, in the middle of the street, no lights on. Just craziness, you know. Abandoned cars everywhere.”
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ABUJA, Nigeria — Traces of highly potent opioids known as nitazenes have for the first time been found to be consumed by people who use drugs in Africa, according to a report released Wednesday by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, a nonprofit organization.

Nitazenes, powerful synthetic opioids, have long been in use in Western countries as well as in Asia where they have been associated with overdose deaths. Some of them can be up to 100 times more potent than heroin and up to 10 times more potent than fentanyl, meaning that users can get an effect from a much smaller amount, putting them at increased risk of overdose and death.

The report focused on Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau and is based on chemical testing of kush, a derivative of cannabis mixed with synthetic drugs like fentanyl and tramadol and chemicals like formaldehyde. Researchers found that in Sierra Leone, 83% of the samples were found to contain nitazenes, while in Guinea-Bissau it was identified in 55%.

“The GI-TOC ( Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime) believes that these results are the first indication that nitazenes have penetrated retail drug markets in Africa,” the report said.

Many young people in West and Central Africa have become addicted to drugs with between 5.2% and 13.5% using cannabis, the most widely used illicit substance on the continent, according to the World Health Organization.

In Sierra Leone where kush is one of the most widely consumed drugs, President Julius Maada Bio this year declared war on the substance, calling it an epidemic and a national threat.

Nitazenes have been detected repeatedly in substances sold to young people in the region such that users are most likely ingesting them “without knowing the risks they face,” Wednesday’s report said.

The authors said their findings suggest that nitazenes are being imported into Sierra Leone from elsewhere and that the substance being sold as kush in Guinea-Bissau was of similar chemical composition to that found in Freetown.

Officials in the two countries must deploy chemical testing equipment as a first step in tackling drug abuse, the report said. “Without this, it is impossible for the government of Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and the wider subregion to accurately monitor the countries’ illicit drug markets and develop evidence-based responses,” it said.
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MOGI GUACU, Brazil — Orange juice prices have always been volatile, falling when bumper harvests create an oversupply of oranges and rising when frost or a hurricane knocks out fruit trees.

But the record-high prices the world is seeing for OJ right now may be on the table for a while, since the diseases and extreme weather ravaging orange groves in some top-producing countries aren’t easily resolved problems.

This year’s harvest in Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of orange juice, is likely to be the worst in 36 years due to flooding and drought, according to a forecast by Fundecitrus, a citrus growers’ organization in Sao Paulo state.

“The concern isn’t just that the price of juice is going up. The concern is not having the juice,” Oscar Simonetti, an orange farmer in Mogi Guacu, Brazil, said.

In the U.S., Florida’s already diminished orange production fell 62% in the 2022-23 season after Hurricane Ian further battered a crop that was struggling due to an invasive pest. Drought also cut Spain’s orange production last year.

Scarce supplies have sent prices soaring. In the U.S., a 12-ounce can of frozen orange juice concentrate cost an average of $4.27 in April, 42% more than during the same month a year earlier, according to government figures.

In the United Kingdom, where the British Fruit Juice Association says supplies are at 50-year lows, the price of fresh orange juice rose 25% over the past year, according to consumer research company Nielsen.

Those price increases are turning off inflation-weary consumers. Orange juice consumption has fallen 15% to 25% in major global markets — including the U.S. and the European Union — over the last year, according to Rabobank, a Dutch bank that focuses on food and agriculture.

Jonna Parker, a principal for fresh food client insights at market research company Circana, said consumers are increasingly getting their morning fruit intake from energy drinks, smoothies and other beverages besides orange juice.

“The price gets high and people consider other alternatives,” she said.

Global orange juice consumption was already declining before the current price hikes due to competition from other drinks and public concern about the amount of sugar in fruit juices. If that trend continues, it should help balance supply with demand and keep prices from rising much further, Rabobank said. But it expects limited supplies will keep prices elevated for some time.

In some markets, orange juice is disappearing from shelves altogether.

Late last year, McDonald’s in Australia removed orange juice from its menu in favor of an “orange fruit drink” that contains 35% orange juice. The company cited short supplies.

Tokyo-based Morinaga Milk Industry Co. expects to stop shipping its Sunkist brand orange juice – which uses juice from Brazil – by the end of June because of low juice supplies from Brazil, a company spokeswoman said. In April 2023, Megmilk Snow Brand Co., based in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo, stopped shipments of 1-liter and 450-milliliter packs of orange juice, which it sells under an agreement with Dole. Sales haven’t yet resumed.

Some companies are considering using alternatives to oranges in their products. Coldpress, a British juice company, introduced a mandarin juice product in February, citing the high price of regular juicing oranges.

But others are tight-lipped about their plans. Several major orange juice makers – including Dole, Tropicana, Florida’s Natural, Uncle Matt’s and Coca-Cola, which makes the Simply and Minute Maid brands – declined to comment or failed to respond to inquires from The Associated Press.

The roots of the current supply troubles stretch back decades. In 2005, an invasive bug called the Asian citrus psyllid arrived in Florida, injecting bacteria from its saliva into the state’s orange trees. The bacteria slowly kills the tree by destroying its root systems. There’s no known cure once a tree is infected.

The impact has been devastating. In 2004, before the disease – called citrus greening – hit Florida, the state produced 200 million boxes of oranges. This year, it will produce less than 20 million.

Michael Rogers, a professor of entomology and the director of the University of Florida’s Citrus Research and Education Center, said no type of orange tree is totally resistant to greening, but scientists have been trying to breed trees that are more tolerant of it.

Citrus greening arrived in Brazil around the same time as Florida, but it has progressed more slowly there because Brazil has much larger orange groves. Bugs spread the disease by flying from tree to tree, Rogers said.

Still, the disease is spreading. Fundecitrus estimates that 38% of Brazil’s orange trees had citrus greening in 2023. Simonetti, the orange farmer, estimates that 20% of his production is affected by greening. Oranges on affected trees don’t ripen properly and fall off early, affecting the quality of their juice, he said.

Shifting production to other locations isn’t necessarily an option. California grows oranges, for example, and the citrus psyllid doesn’t fare as well in the state’s climate. But California also doesn’t get the rainfall needed for juicing oranges; its oranges are usually sold for eating, Rogers said.

Another issue impacting orange harvests is extreme weather, which is becoming more common as the world warms due to climate change.

Last year, nine heat waves swept across Brazil, resulting in lower output and poorer fruit quality. This year, the impacts of El Niño have been particularly dramatic, with a historic drought in the Amazon and devastating floods in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

“The temperatures are high during the day. At night the temperature drops. The plant can’t stand this temperature difference,” Simonetti said.

Brazil’s 2024-25 harvest is expected to yield 232 million boxes of oranges, down 24% from the prior year.

“We have never seen a harvest like this,” Vinícius Trombin, the coordinator of Fundecitrus’ crop estimates survey, said.

To make up for the anticipated smaller yield, some producers are considering blending oranges with tangerines to make juice, Trombin said. But he’s skeptical.

“The consumer wants an orange juice made up 100% out of oranges,” he said.

Parker, of Circana, isn’t so sure. She thinks blends with other fruits might help hold down costs and revive consumer interest in orange juice.

“The idea of multiple flavors is very popular and is a way to stand out,” she said. “You’ve got to keep people engaged. Once you lose that interest, it’s really hard to get people back.”
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The debate over the right to an abortion has divided U.S. politics for decades. But two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sending that decision back to the states, a new front has opened — the debate over birth control. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports on the election-year battle over contraception and in-vitro fertilization.
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New studies examine the effects of spaceflight on amateur astronauts. Plus, a VIP tour of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, and we remember a spaceflight pioneer. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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A public-private partnership in Kenya provides female students with free sanitary napkins dispensed from converted ATMs at school. The goal is to provide pads to young women from poor families so they don’t miss school because they are menstruating. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi, Kenya.
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Before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine was an international surrogacy hub. Relatively low cost and a favorable legal framework led to thousands of babies born every year thanks to Ukrainian surrogate mothers, many of them for overseas parents. Despite the war and the risks, hopeful foreigners keep coming to Ukraine. Mariia Prus has the story.
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Sydney — Australia’s national science agency warns a lack of scientists specialized in plant breeding could lead to ‘dire’ food security implications around the world. Researchers say plant breeding is a critical science that underpins the global production of food, animal feed and fuel. The finding is among the conclusions of a recently published paper by researchers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada.      

A joint paper published earlier this month by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, in collaboration with Lincoln University in New Zealand and McGill University in Canada, warns that highly-skilled plant breeding experts, who are reaching the end of their careers, are not being replaced by sufficient numbers of university graduates, many of whom are choosing other areas of plant science including molecular biology.

Lucy Egan is the study’s lead author and a CSIRO research scientist.  She told VOA Wednesday that new recruits are needed.

“It is really based on developing new plant varieties for future climates.  So, plant breeding is a slow game.  It takes a long time to develop a new crop variety, so you’re looking at least ten years on average to develop a new variety.  When you have a lack of plant breeders coming through to replace the generation that are retiring, it does generate a bit of concern around the succession plan,” she said.

The report said that the implications of a skills shortage “could be dire” and that global food security could be affected. It recommends establishing “dedicated training facilities in different countries”.  

Egan said that plant breeding can help countries adapt to a warming climate.

“I think instead of focusing on, you know, certain countries and the implications, I think if you look at it on a global level plant breeding is really the backbone of the agricultural sector.  Without the development of new varieties with changing climates and all these things that are sort of happening across the world, we need to really build strength and resilience within the agricultural sector and plant breeding is really key to do that,” she said.

The research is published in the journal, Crop Science.  It reports that since the 1960s, global crop production has increased by more than 250%, which is due in large part to plant breeding science.
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Sydney — Bird flu continues to spread in the Australian state of Victoria, where more than 500,000 chickens have been euthanized.  Strict quarantine zones restricting the movement of birds and equipment have also been put in place.  Australian health authorities say bird flu spreads mainly among wild water birds.

The highly pathogenic H7N3 strain of avian influenza has been found on four farms, while another virus, H7N9, has been detected at a fifth property over the past seven weeks in Victoria state.  The Australian farms have been put into lockdown.  At least 580,000 birds have been destroyed as part of sweeping biosecurity controls.

Japan and the United States have temporarily banned imports of poultry from Victoria as a precaution.

In Australia, some supermarkets are restricting the number of eggs that consumers can buy because of disruptions to the supply chain.

Avian influenza is a viral disease found across the world. It spreads between birds or when contaminated animal feed and equipment is moved between areas.

Danyel Cucinotta is the vice president of the Victorian Farmers Federation, an industry group.  She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.  Tuesday that the virus can spread quickly.

“There is very little we can do and no matter how good your biosecurity is you cannot stop wild fowl coming in. This is a particular flight path for migratory birds.  There is housing orders at the moment, which means all birds get locked up.  This is about protecting our birds and protecting the food supply chain,” she said.

The strains of bird flu identified in the states of Victoria and Western Australia can infect people, but experts insist that cases are rare.

The virus can also infect cows.  The United States’ Department of Agriculture has said that avian flu has infected dairy cows in more than 80 herds across several states since late March.

At least three U.S. dairy workers have tested positive for bird flu after exposure to infected cattle.  All three patients are recovering.  

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the infections do not change its assessment that bird flu is a low risk to the general community and that it has not seen evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Last month, health authorities in Mexico confirmed a fatal case of human infection with an avian flu virus that had been reported in poultry.
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WASHINGTON — A closely watched Alzheimer’s drug from Eli Lilly won the backing of federal health advisers Monday, setting the stage for the treatment’s expected approval for people with mild dementia caused by the brain-robbing disease. 

Food and Drug Administration advisers voted unanimously that the drug’s ability to slow the disease outweighs its risks, including side effects like brain swelling and bleeding that will have to be monitored. 

“I thought the evidence was very strong in the trial showing the effectiveness of the drug,” said panel member Dean Follmann, a National Institutes of Health statistician. 

The FDA will make the final decision on approval later this year. If the agency agrees with the panel’s recommendation, the drug, donanemab, would only be the second Alzheimer’s drug cleared in the U.S. that’s been shown to convincingly slow cognitive decline and memory problems due to Alzheimer’s. The FDA approved a similar infused drug, Leqembi, from Japanese drugmaker Eisai last year. 

The slowdown seen with both drugs amounts to several months and experts disagree on whether patients or their loved ones will be able to detect the difference. 

But Lilly’s approach to studying its once-a-month treatment prompted questions from FDA reviewers. 

Patients in the company’s study were grouped based on their levels of a brain protein,  

called tau, that predicts severity of cognitive problems. That led the FDA to question whether patients might need to be screened via brain scans for tau before getting the drug. But most panelists thought there was enough evidence of the drug’s benefit to prescribe it broadly, without screening for the protein. 

“Imposing a requirement for tau imaging is not necessary and would raise serious practical and access concerns to the treatment,” said Dr. Thomas Montine of Stanford University, who chaired the panel and summarized its opinion. 

At a high level, Lilly’s results mirrored those of Leqembi, with both medications showing a modest slowing of cognitive problems in patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s. The Indianapolis-based company conducted a 1,700-patient study showing patients who received monthly IV infusions of its drug declined about 35% more slowly than those who got a placebo treatment. 

The FDA had been widely expected to approve the drug in March. But instead, the agency said it would ask its panel of neurology experts to publicly review the company’s data, an unexpected delay that surprised analysts and investors. 

Several unusual approaches in how Lilly tested its drug led to the meeting. 

One change was measuring patients’ tau — and excluding patients with very low or no levels of the protein. But panelists said there was enough data from other measures to feel confident that nearly all patients could benefit from the drug, regardless of their levels. 

In another key difference, Lilly studied taking patients off its drug when they reached very low levels of amyloid, a sticky brain plaque that’s a contributor to Alzheimer’s. 

Lilly scientists suggested stopping treatment is a key advantage for its drug, which could reduce side effects and costs. But FDA staff said Lilly provided little data supporting the optimal time to stop or how quickly patients might need to restart treatment. 

Despite those questions, many panelists thought the possibility of stopping doses held promise. 

“It’s a huge cost savings for the society, we’re talking about expensive treatment, expensive surveillance,” said Dr. Tanya Simuni of Northwestern University. She and other experts said patients would need to be tracked and tested to see how they fare and whether they need to resume treatment. 

The main safety issue with donanemab was brain swelling and bleeding, a problem common to all amyloid-targeting drugs. Most cases identified in Lilly’s trial were mild. 

Three deaths in the donanemab study were linked to the drug, according to the FDA, all involving brain swelling or bleeding. One of the deaths was caused by a stroke, a life-threatening complication that occurs more frequently among Alzheimer’s patients. 

The FDA’s panel agreed those risks could be addressed by warning labels and education for doctors and medical scans to identify patients at greater risk of stroke.
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After Russia invaded Ukraine, the West responded, sending military weaponry and aid to the embattled nation. But as the war drags on, there is also a need for doctors. One nonprofit is sending American surgeons to Ukraine, and Ukrainian surgeons to train in the United States. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Pavlo Terekhov.
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KAMPALA, Uganda — Early last year, Caroline Ikendi was in distress after undergoing an emergency Caesarean section to remove one stillborn baby and save two others. Doctors said one of the preterm babies had a 2% chance of living.

If the babies didn’t get breast milk — which she didn’t have — Ikendi could lose them as well.

Thus began a desperate search for breast milk donors. She was lucky with a neighbor, a woman with a newborn baby to feed who was willing to donate a few milliliters at a time.

“You go and plead for milk. You are like, ‘Please help me, help my child,'” Ikendi told The Associated Press.

The neighbor helped until Ikendi heard about a Ugandan group that collects breast milk and donates it to mothers like her. Soon the ATTA Breastmilk Community was giving the breast milk she needed, free of charge, until her babies were strong enough to be discharged from the hospital.

ATTA Breastmilk Community was launched in 2021 in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, by a woman who had struggled like Ikendi without getting support. The registered nonprofit, backed by grants from organizations and individuals, is the only group outside a hospital setting in Uganda that conserves breast milk in substantial amounts.

ATTA, as the group is known, receives calls for support from hospitals and homes with babies born too soon or too sick to latch onto their mothers’ breasts.

More than 200 mothers have donated breast milk to support more than 450 babies since July 2021, with over 600 liters of milk delivered for babies in that period, according to ATTA’s records.

In a measure of efforts to build a reliable community, many donors have given multiple times while others help to find new ones, said ATTA administrator Racheal Akugizibwe.

“We are an emergency fix,” Akugizibwe said. “As the mother is working on their own production, we are giving (her) milk. But we do it under the directive and under the support of a lactation specialist and the medical people.”

She added: “Every mother who has given us milk, they are kind of attached to us. They are we; we are them. That’s what makes it a community.”

ATTA makes calls for donors via social media apps like Instagram. Women who want to donate must provide samples for testing, including for HIV and hepatitis B and C, and there are formal conversations during which ATTA tries to learn more about potential donors and motivations. Those who pass the screening are given storage bags and instructed in safe handling.

Akugizibwe spoke of ATTA’s humble beginnings in the home of its founder, Tracy Ahumuza, who would store the milk in her freezer. Ahumuza started the group amid personal grief: She hadn’t been able to produce breast milk for her newborn who battled life-threatening complications. Days later, after the baby died, she started lactating.

She asked health workers, “Where do I put the milk that I have now?'” Akugizibwe said. “They told her, ‘All we can do for you is give you tablets to dry it out.’ She’s like, ‘No, but if I needed it and I didn’t get it, someone could need it.'”

In the beginning, ATTA would match a donor to a recipient, but it proved unsustainable because of the pressure it put on donors. ATTA then started collecting and storing breast milk, and donors and recipients don’t know each other.

Akugizibwe said the group gets more requests for support than it can meet. Challenges include procuring storage bags in large quantities as well as the costs of testing. And donors are required to own freezers, a financial obstacle for some.

“The demand is extremely, extremely high,” Akugizibwe said, “but the supply is low.”

Lelah Wamala, a chef and mother of three in Kampala who twice has donated milk, said she was spurred to act when, while having a baby in 2022, she saw mothers whose premature babies were dying because they didn’t have milk.

Being a donor is a time-consuming responsibility, “but this is the right thing to do,” she said.

Via motorcycle courier on Kampala’s busy streets, breast milk from donors is taken to ATTA’s storage and delivered to parents in need.

ATTA’s goal is to set up a full-fledged breast milk bank with the ability to pasteurize. The service is necessary in a country where an unknown number of women suffer for lack of lactation support, said Dr. Doreen Mazakpwe, a lactation specialist who collaborates with ATTA.

Mazakpwe cited a range of lactation issues mothers can face, from sore nipples to babies born too sick or too weak to suckle and stimulate milk production.

If both mother and baby are healthy, “this mother should be able to produce as much milk as the baby needs because we work on the principle of supply and demand,” said Mazakpwe, a consultant with a private hospital outside Kampala. “So, in situations where there’s a delay in putting the baby on the breast, or the baby is not fed frequently enough … you can eventually have an issue where you have low supply.”

Mazakpwe said she advises mothers on how to establish their own supply within about a month of receiving donated breast milk, and sometimes all that’s needed is to hold the baby the right way. When mothers start lactating, it frees up supply for new ones who need ATTA’s help, she said.

Akugizibwe said their work is challenging in a socially conservative society where such a pioneering service raises eyebrows. Questions, even from recipients, include fears that babies who drink donated breast milk might inherit the bad habits of their benefactors.

In addition, “If you don’t breastfeed there is a lot of negativity,” said Ikendi, whose premature babies survived on donated milk. “Society looks at you as though you’ve just literally refused to breastfeed.”

She spoke of struggling even when she knew she had no choice after seeing her babies in the intensive care unit for the first time. Through the glass she saw they were so tiny, on oxygen therapy and bleeding from their noses. The babies, a boy and a girl, had been removed at seven months.

Ikendi’s babies received donated breast milk for two months.

One recent morning, an emotional Ikendi held her children as she described how the donated milk “contributed 100% to our babies’ growth.”
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