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NEW YORK — The number of fatal overdoses in the U.S. fell last year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data posted Wednesday.

Agency officials noted that the data is provisional and could change after more analysis, and that they still expect a drop when the final counts are in. It would be only the second annual decline since the current national drug death epidemic began more than three decades ago.

Experts reacted cautiously. One described the decline as relatively small and said it should be thought of as part of a leveling off rather than a decrease. Another noted that the last time a decline occurred — in 2018 — drug deaths shot up in the years that followed.

“Any decline is encouraging,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends. “But I think it’s certainly premature to celebrate or to draw any large-scale conclusions about where we may be headed long term with this crisis.”

It’s also too soon to know what spurred the decline, Marshall and other experts said. Explanations could include shifts in the drug supply, expansion of overdose prevention and addiction treatment, and the grim possibility that the epidemic has killed so many that now there are basically fewer people to kill.

CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry called the dip “heartening news” and praised efforts to reduce the tally, but she noted that “there are still families and friends losing their loved ones to drug overdoses at staggering numbers.”

About 107,500 people died of overdoses in the U.S. last year, including American citizens and noncitizens who were in the country at the time they died, the CDC estimated. That’s down 3% from 2022, when there were an estimated 111,000 such deaths, the agency said.

The drug overdose epidemic, which has killed more than 1 million people since 1999, has had many ripple effects. For example, a study published last week in JAMA Psychiatry estimated that more than 321,000 U.S. children lost a parent to a fatal drug overdose from 2011 to 2021.

“These children need support” and are at a higher risk of mental health and drug use disorders themselves, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which helped lead the study. “It’s not just a loss of a person. It’s also the implications that loss has for the family left behind.”

Prescription painkillers once drove the nation’s overdose epidemic, but they were supplanted years ago by heroin and more recently by illegal fentanyl. The dangerously powerful opioid was developed to treat intense pain from ailments such as cancer but has increasingly been mixed with other drugs in the illicit drug supply.

For years, fentanyl was frequently injected, but increasingly it’s being smoked or mixed into counterfeit pills.

A study published last week found that law enforcement seizures of pills containing fentanyl are rising dramatically, jumping from 44 million in 2022 to more than 115 million last year.

It’s possible that the seizures indicate that the overall supply of fentanyl-laced pills is growing fast, not necessarily that police are whittling down the illicit drug supply, said one of the paper’s authors, Dr. Daniel Ciccarone of the University of California, San Francisco.

He noted that the decline in overdoses was not uniform. All but two of the states in the eastern half of the U.S. saw declines, but most Western states saw increases. Alaska, Washington and Oregon each saw 27% increases.

The reason? Many Eastern states have been dealing with fentanyl for about a decade, while it’s reached Western states more recently, Ciccarone said.

Nevertheless, some researchers say there are reasons to be optimistic. It’s possible that smoking fentanyl is not as lethal as injecting it, but scientists are still exploring that question.

Meanwhile, more money is becoming available to treat addiction and prevent overdoses, through government funding and legal settlements with drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies, Ciccarone noted.

“My hope is 2023 is the beginning of a turning point,” he said. 
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A groundbreaking clinical trial is underway in South Africa, marking a pivotal moment in the fight against tuberculosis. The new vaccine could become the first to help prevent pulmonary TB, the most common form of the disease, in adolescents and adults. It would be the first new TB vaccine in more than a century. Zaheer Cassim has the story.
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Washington — The spectacular auroras that danced across the sky in many parts of the world over the weekend are fading, scientists said Monday, as the massive sunspot that caused them turns its ferocious gaze away from Earth.

Since Friday, the most powerful solar storm to strike our planet in more than two decades has lit up night skies with dazzling auroras in the United States, Tasmania, the Bahamas and other places far from the extreme latitudes where they are normally seen.

But Eric Lagadec, an astrophysicist at France’s Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur, told AFP that the “most spectacular” period of this rare event has come to an end.

The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun — came just after 1600 GMT Friday, according to the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The event was later upgraded to an “extreme” geomagnetic storm — the first since the “Halloween Storms” of October 2003 that caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged power infrastructure in South Africa.

Excitement over the phenomenon — and otherworldly photos of pink, green and purple night skies — broke out across the world, from Austria to Australia’s island state of Tasmania.

The storm had been forecast to intensify again until 0600 GMT Monday, the NOAA said, adding that auroras could be viewable as far south as New York.

But thousands of people who came out on Sunday night in the hope of seeing the aurora borealis over the Joshua Tree National Park in California instead saw the Milky Way. AFP pictures showed stars shining clearly in the night sky.

Lagadec said that while there were further solar outbursts on Sunday, it is unlikely that more auroras will be visible to the naked eye in lower latitudes such as in France.

“Only the most experienced photographers will be able to capture them” in such areas, said Lagadec, who was moved by witnessing an aurora during the event’s peak on Friday night.

The solar storm emanated from a massive sunspot cluster that is 17 times wider than our planet.

The storm has not ended, and auroras are expected to continue in the far northern or southern regions where they are normally visible.

But “the source of the storm is a sunspot that is now on the edge of the Sun, (so) we do not expect the next coronal mass ejections to head in Earth’s direction,” Lagadec said.

Scientists had already warned that the intensity of anything seen on Sunday night would unlikely reach the level of Friday’s show.

“This is likely the last of the Earth-directed CMEs from this particular monster sunspot,” Mathew Owens, a professor of space physics at the UK’s University of Reading, told AFP.

When charged particles from solar winds are captured by Earth’s magnetic field, they accelerate towards the planet’s magnetic poles, which is why auroras are normally seen there.

But during periods of heightened solar activity, the effects extend farther toward the equator.

Unlike during 2003’s solar storms, no major disruptions to power or communications networks appear to have been reported this time around.

Elon Musk’s satellite internet operator Starlink said on X that its thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit had “weathered the geomagnetic storm and remain healthy”.

Unlike solar flares, which travel at the speed of light and reach Earth in around eight minutes, CMEs travel at a more sedate pace, with officials putting the current average at 800 kilometers (500 miles) per second.

People with eclipse glasses can still look for the sunspot cluster during the day.

Fluctuating magnetic fields associated with geomagnetic storms induce currents in long wires, including power lines, which can lead to blackouts. Long pipelines can also become electrified.

Spacecraft are at risk from high doses of radiation, although the atmosphere prevents this from reaching Earth.

NASA can ask astronauts on the International Space Station to move to better-shielded places within the outpost.

Even pigeons and other species that have internal biological compasses can be affected.
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Washington — The first living patient to receive a genetically modified pig kidney transplant has died two months after the procedure, the US hospital that carried it out said.

“Mass General is deeply saddened at the sudden passing of Mr. Rick Slayman. We have no indication that it was the result of his recent transplant,” the Boston hospital said in a statement issued late Saturday.

In a world first, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital in March successfully transplanted the genetically edited pig kidney into Slayman, who was 62 years old at the time and suffering from end-stage kidney disease.

“Slayman will forever be seen as a beacon of hope to countless transplant patients worldwide and we are deeply grateful for his trust and willingness to advance the field of xenotransplantation,” the hospital statement said.

Organ shortages are a chronic problem around the world and Mass General said in March that there were more than 1,400 patients on its waiting list for a kidney transplant.

The pig kidney used for the transplant was provided by a Massachusetts biotech company called eGenesis and had been modified to remove harmful pig genes and add certain human genes, according to the hospital.

Slayman, who suffered from Type 2 diabetes and hypertension, had received a transplanted human kidney in 2018, but it began to fail five years later.

When the hospital announced the successful transplant in March, Slayman said he had agreed to the procedure “not only as a way to help (him), but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive.”

In a statement posted on Mass General’s website, his family said while they were “deeply saddened about the sudden passing of our beloved Rick” they took “great comfort knowing he inspired so many.”

The family said they were “comforted by the optimism he provided patients desperately waiting for a transplant”.

More than 89,000 patients were on the national kidney waiting list as of March this year, according to a US health department website.

On average, 17 people die each day while waiting for an organ transplant.

Slayman’s family also thanked the doctors “who truly did everything they could to help give Rick a second chance. Their enormous efforts leading the xenotransplant gave our family seven more weeks with Rick, and our memories made during that time will remain in our minds and hearts.”

“After his transplant, Rick said that one of the reasons he underwent this procedure was to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive,” the family added.

“His legacy will be one that inspires patients, researchers, and health care professionals.”

The transplantation of organs from one species to another is a growing field known as xenotransplantation.

About a month after Slayman’s procedure, surgeons at NYU Langone Health in New York carried out a similar transplant on Lisa Pisano, who had suffered heart failure and end-stage kidney disease.

Pig kidneys had been transplanted previously into brain-dead patients, but Slayman was the first living person to receive one.

Genetically modified pig hearts were transplanted in 2023 into two patients at the University of Maryland, but both lived less than two months.

Mass General said Slayman’s transplant had been carried out under a policy known as “compassionate use” that allows patients with “serious or life-threatening conditions” to access experimental therapies not yet approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
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New York — All dogs coming into the U.S. from other countries must be at least 6 months old and microchipped to help prevent the spread of rabies, according to new government rules published Wednesday.

The new rules require vaccination for dogs that have been in countries where rabies is common. The update applies to dogs brought in by breeders or rescue groups as well as pets traveling with their U.S. owners.

“This new regulation is going to address the current challenges that we’re facing,” said Emily Pieracci, a rabies expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was involved in drafting the updated regulations.

The CDC posted the new rules in the federal register on Wednesday. They take effect Aug. 1 when a temporary 2021 order expires. That order suspended bringing in dogs from more than 100 countries where rabies is still a problem.

The new rules require all dogs entering the U.S. to be at least 6 months, old enough to be vaccinated if required, and for the shots to take effect; have a microchip placed under their skin with a code that can be used to verify rabies vaccination; and have completed a new CDC import form.

There may be additional restrictions and requirements based on where the dog was the previous six months, which may include blood testing from CDC-approved labs.

The CDC regulations were last updated in 1956, and a lot has changed, Pieracci said. More people travel internationally with their pets, and more rescue groups and breeders have set up overseas operations to meet the demand for pets, she said. Now, about 1 million dogs enter the U.S. each year.

Dogs were once common carriers of the rabies virus in the U.S. but the type that normally circulates in dogs was eliminated through vaccinations in the 1970s. The virus invades the central nervous system and is usually a fatal disease in animals and humans. It’s most commonly spread through a bite from an infected animal. There is no cure for it once symptoms begin.

Four rabid dogs have been identified entering the U.S. since 2015, and officials worried more might get through. CDC officials also were seeing an increase of incomplete or fraudulent rabies vaccination certificates and more puppies denied entry because they weren’t old enough to be fully vaccinated.

A draft version of the updated regulations last year drew a range of public comments.

Angela Passman, owner of a Dallas company that helps people move their pets internationally, supports the new rules. It can especially tricky for families that buy or adopt a dog while overseas and then try to bring it to the U.S., she said. The update means little change from how things have been handled in recent years, she said.

“It’s more work for the pet owner, but the end result is a good thing,” said Passman, who is a board member for the International Pet and Animal Transportation Association.

But Jennifer Skiff said some of the changes are unwarranted and too costly. She works for Animal Wellness Action, a Washington group focused on preventing animal cruelty that helps organizations import animals.

She said those groups work with diplomats and military personnel who have had trouble meeting requirements, and was a reason some owners were forced to leave their dogs behind.
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ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — The U.S. government is dedicating $60 million over the next few years to projects along the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico and West Texas to make the river more resilient in the face of climate change and growing demands.

The funding announced Friday by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland marks the first disbursement from the Inflation Reduction Act for a basin outside of the Colorado River system. While pressures on the Colorado River have dominated headlines, Haaland and others acknowledged that other communities in the West — from Native American reservations to growing cities and agricultural strongholds — are experiencing the effects of unprecedented drought.

Water users and managers can’t afford to waste one drop, Haaland said, sharing the advice her own grandmother used to give when she and her cousins would carry buckets of water to their home at Laguna Pueblo for cooking, cleaning and bathing.

“She was teaching us how precious water is in the desert,” Haaland said, standing among the cottonwoods that make up a green belt that stretches the length of the river from the Colorado-New Mexico border south into Texas and Mexico.

Haaland noted that parts of the river have gone dry through the Albuquerque stretch in recent years. In fact, a decades-long drought has led to record low water levels throughout the Rio Grande Basin.

“When drought conditions like this strike, we know it doesn’t just impact one community, it affects all of us,” she said, pointing to the importance of investing in water projects throughout the basin.

One of the longest rivers in North America, the Rio Grande provides drinking water for millions of people and supplies thousands of farmers with water for crops. Management of the river has sparked legal battles over the decades, with the most recent case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court as New Mexico, Texas and Colorado seek approval of a settlement that will help ensure they have more flexibility in the future.

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat, said improving sustainability along the Rio Grande will help the state meets obligations under a decades-old compact to deliver water downstream to Texas and ultimately Mexico.

Irrigation districts in southern New Mexico and El Paso, Texas, will work with the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to develop projects that will benefit the river and endangered species that inhabit the basin.

The work will range from capturing more stormwater runoff to improving existing infrastructure. Officials said the savings could result in tens of thousands of acre-feet of water. An acre-foot is roughly enough to serve two to three U.S. households annually.

In all, the Inflation Reduction Act provides $4 billion for mitigating drought in 17 western states, with the priority being the Colorado River Basin. However, the legislation also carved out $500 million for water management and conservation projects in other basins that are experiencing similar levels of long-term drought.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said funding for other basins will be announced later this year, with the goal of putting the money to use over the next four years.

On the Rio Grande, prolonged drought and heavy reliance on groundwater pumping has reduced surface water supplies, resulting in decreased efficiency and lost wildlife habitat.

By capturing more stormwater and increasing storage, officials said they could recharge aquifers and reduce irrigation demands.

Some of that work already is happening in the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, which serves about 5,000 farmers in southern New Mexico. Near the farming village of Rincon, officials are working to slow down runoff and keep sediment from clogging channels that feed the river.

It’s among several projects that the irrigation district has proposed to federal officials to save water, protect communities from seasonal flooding and restore habitat.

Irrigation district manager Gary Esslinger and Samantha Barncastle, a water attorney who represents the district, traveled to Albuquerque on Friday to participate in a briefing with Haaland and other officials. They described the efforts as “re-plumbing” the West with irrigation and flood control systems that can accommodate the changing conditions.

“It’s quite a large vision,” Barncastle said, “but it’s what everyone should be doing — thinking big is the only way to resolve the climate crisis.”
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SANFORD, Florida — With the start of hurricane season less than a month away, U.S. officials who predict, prepare for and respond to natural disasters had a message for Floridians on Friday: It’s not a matter of if a hurricane will hit, but when.

The 2024 hurricane season is expected to be busier than average. To ensure that people everywhere are prepared, officials visited residents in Sanford, a landlocked city in the middle of the Sunshine State.

Even if they don’t live on the coast, the officials told residents, they need to know the potential danger hurricanes pose to their property, such as flooding; and put together an emergency plan that includes a supply kit.

“Everybody in Florida is at risk,” said Michael Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center.

As if to punctuate Florida’s vulnerability to damaging weather, wind gusts of 114 kph, just shy of hurricane force, were recorded early Friday in Tallahassee, where mangled metal and other debris from damaged buildings littered parts of the state’s capital city.

The officials in Sanford brought along two “hurricane hunter” planes used in the daredevil business of flying into the middle of storms to gather data about their intensity and direction.

The WP-3D, operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the WC-130J, flown by the U.S. Air Force Reserve, fly straight into the storms’ eyewall, usually three times during a flight. The aim of the hair-raising trips is to gather information that can help officials on the ground make decisions such as when to order people to evacuate.

NOAA’s propeller plane typically has 11-17 people on board during flights through hurricanes, including the crew and scientists. Since flights usually last eight hours, the crew members bring plenty of snack food, and there is a microwave, refrigerator and a hot plate for cooking more elaborate meals.

Although the rides can be very bumpy, sometimes they aren’t as turbulent as expected and crew members don’t realize that they already are in the eye of a hurricane, said William Wysinger, a NOAA flight engineer who has flown on a dozen missions through hurricanes.

“I liken it to riding an old wooden roller coaster during the worst of times,” Wysinger said.

The National Hurricane Center is predicting that the upcoming Atlantic and Gulf season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, will exceed the yearly average of seven tropical storms and seven hurricanes, and that three of the storms will be major. Not all hurricanes make landfall.

Floridians would be wise to remember 20 years ago when four hurricanes made landfall consecutively in just a matter of weeks, crisscrossing the state and carving paths of disaster, said David Sharp, meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service in Melbourne, Florida.

“Many remember the ravages of the Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne — blue tarps and pink insulation everywhere, along with displaced lives,” Sharp said. “Scars upon the land but also scars upon the psyche of our people.”

Hundreds of thousands of new residents have arrived in Florida since the last hurricane season, and it’s important that they know what to expect and how to prepare, said Robbie Berg, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center.

“Talk to your neighbors,” Berg said. “A lot of people in Florida have experienced these storms and they can help you through a storm if you’ve never been through one before.”
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GENEVA — As Brazil’s heavily flooded southern state of Rio Grande do Sul braces for a weekend of intense rain, the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, is calling for greater support to help tens of thousands of refugees, who are among the most vulnerable people affected by the disaster.

“Those affected include some 41,000 refugees and others in need of international protection, including many Venezuelans and Haitians who live in the affected areas — some of [whom] can only be reached by boat,” William Spindler, UNHCR spokesperson, told journalists Friday in Geneva.

According to local authorities, at least 126 people have died in the floods, 141 are missing, about 2 million people are adversely affected, and more than 400,000 are homeless.

Spindler said the UNHCR, in coordination with local authorities, is distributing relief items such as blankets and mattresses, noting that additional relief items such as emergency shelters, kitchen sets, solar lamps and hygiene kits are being sent to Brazil.

“In the coming days, UNHCR will be supporting the issuance of documentation, where it has been lost or damaged, to guarantee refugees and asylum-seekers continue to access social benefits and public services,” he said.

Spindler noted that refugees do not live in camps separated from the population, but that they live with the host communities, under the same conditions in which the local inhabitants live.

“So, it is the host communities that is the focus of our support. … We need to strengthen their capacity, so they can continue to host refugees. That means strengthening social services, access to education, to health, and so on for the local people, as well as the refugees,” he said.

The UNHCR estimates $3.21 million is needed to support the most urgent needs, including direct financial assistance to flood-affected people and the provision of essential relief items.

Brazil is a country prone to natural disasters. It has been subject to more frequent and devastating extreme weather events in recent years, including droughts in the Amazon region and severe rains in Bahia and Acre states.

A report issued this week by the World Meteorological Organization on the state of the climate in Latin America and the Caribbean highlights the vulnerability of the entire region to extreme weather and climate change impacts in 2023.

The authors of the report say it is difficult to know whether conditions this year will be worse. But WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis observes that for those affected by the disastrous floods in Brazil, “2024 is an absolutely record-breaking bad year.”

She emphasized that the flooded area is huge. “It is massive, and it really will undermine the socio-economic development in that entire area for a long time to come.”

She said El Nino, a weather phenomenon that warms ocean surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean, is playing a major role in the floods in Brazil, as it also is in the floods in Eastern Africa.

“On top of that, you have got climate change. … It is a double whammy of El Nino and climate change. And that is what we are seeing in Brazil right now. Even when El Nino fades, which it will do, the long-term effects of climate change are with us,” she said.

“Our weather is on steroids,” Nullis said, adding that every fraction of a degree of global warming means “our weather will become more extreme.”

The UNHCR’s Spindler noted severe climate events disproportionately affect refugees and other people requesting international protection. Therefore, he said it is important to work on prevention and to focus on populations that are most at risk.

“The impact of climate change affects everybody, but some individuals and communities are in a more vulnerable situation,” he said, noting that refugees and migrants are most imperiled because they are not from the country in which they are living.

“They come from other countries, and that means they do not have the same social networks, family and so on that nationals have.

“Often, they are living in areas that are more exposed to risks. So, they are impacted in a more disproportionate way by these events,” he said, underscoring that not enough funding is available to address the impact of climate change nor “to address the needs of those forcibly displaced, nor the communities hosting them.”

“Without help to prepare for, withstand and recover from climate-related shocks, they face an increased risk of further displacement,” he warned.
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ISLAMABAD — The United Nations and Taliban authorities said Saturday that the death toll from flash floods following heavy seasonal rains in Afghanistan’s northern Baghlan province had risen to a least 300.

The U.N. World Food Program said the flooding destroyed more than 1,000 houses. It said that “this has been one of many floods over the last few weeks due to unusually heavy rainfall.”

A senior Taliban official said in a social media video message that Friday’s calamity had left at least 150 people dead in a single Baghlan district called Nahreen.

Ghulam Rasool Qani said the death toll might rise and noted that military helicopters had arrived in the area to assist in local rescue efforts.

Authorities said that rescue workers are bringing aid to hardest-hit Baghlan districts. The WFP said it was distributing fortified biscuits to the survivors.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government spokesperson, stated on social media platform X that the flooding had caused devastation in several other northern and western provinces, including Badakhshan, Ghor and Herat.

“Regrettably, hundreds of our fellow citizens have succumbed to these calamitous floods, while a substantial number have sustained injuries,” Mujahid wrote. “Moreover, the deluge has wrought extensive devastation upon residential properties, resulting in significant financial losses.”

Mujahid said the government had directed the Ministry of Disaster Management and other relevant authorities “to mobilize all available resources expeditiously” to rescue victims and bring them to safer areas, evacuate bodies, and provide timely medical treatment to those injured.

“We also urge our fellow citizens to assist the affected victims of this natural disaster to the best of their abilities and collaborate with the flood-stricken individuals,” Mujahid said.

Poverty-stricken Afghanistan also experienced heavy rains and flash floods across 32 of its 34 provinces in mid-April, resulting in the deaths of more than 100 people.

According to international aid groups, the flooding destroyed nearly 1,000 homes and about 24,000 hectares (59,800 acres) of agricultural land, along with critical infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, and electricity supplies, which could hinder the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on the Afghan human rights situation, expressed his condolences to the victims’ families.

“Recent floods in Afghanistan, including Baghlan, which claimed many lives, are a stark reminder of Afghanistan’s vulnerability to the climate crisis & both immediate aid and long-term planning by the Taliban & internal actors are needed,” Bennett wrote Saturday on X.

An estimated 80% of the more than 40 million people in Afghanistan depend on agriculture to survive. The war-ravaged South Asian nation is ranked sixth among the countries most vulnerable to climate change, which experts say is responsible for the unusually heavy seasonal rains.

Aid workers had warned before Friday’s devastation that any additional flooding would be detrimental for large swathes of the Afghan population, already reeling from an economic collapse, high levels of malnutrition and conflict.

“Three years of successive drought and the harshest winter in 15 years have exacerbated Afghanistan’s hunger crisis at a time when international support is falling,” the U.S.-based International Rescue Committee, or IRC, said in its latest assessment, published last week.

The report said that an estimated 15.3 million Afghans, or 35% of the population, continue to suffer from crisis or worse levels of food insecurity. “Nearly half of the population lives in poverty and will continue to experience economic hardship,” the IRC said.

Afghanistan’s economy crashed after the Taliban militarily seized power in 2021 as the then-internationally supported government collapsed and U.S.-led international forces withdrew after 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.

The Taliban takeover led to the termination of foreign development funding for Afghanistan, and its banking system largely remains isolated over terrorism-related concerns, as well as sanctions on Taliban leaders.
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Washington — The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows in skies from Tasmania to Britain — and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend.

The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun — came just after 1600 GMT, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

It was later upgraded to an “extreme” geomagnetic storm — the first since the “Halloween Storms” of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged power infrastructure in South Africa. More CMEs are expected to pummel the planet in the coming days.

Social media lit up with people posting pictures of auroras from northern Europe and Australasia.

“We’ve just woken the kids to go watch the Northern Lights in the back garden! Clearly visible with the naked eye,” Iain Mansfield of Hertford, Britain, told AFP.

“Absolutely biblical skies in Tasmania at 4am this morning. I’m leaving today and knew I could not pass up this opportunity,” photographer Sean O’ Riordan posted on X alongside a photo.

Authorities notified satellite operators, airlines and the power grid to take precautionary steps for potential disruptions caused by changes to Earth’s magnetic field.

Unlike solar flares, which travel at the speed of light and reach Earth in about eight minutes, CMEs travel at a more sedate pace, with officials putting the current average at 800 kilometers per second.

They emanated from a massive sunspot cluster that is 17 times wider than Earth. The sun is approaching the peak of an 11-year cycle that brings heightened activity.

‘Go outside tonight and look’

Mathew Owens, a professor of space physics at the University of Reading, told AFP that while the effects would be largely felt over the planet’s northern and southern latitudes, how far they would extend would depend on the storm’s final strength.

“Go outside tonight and look would be my advice because if you see the aurora, it’s quite a spectacular thing,” he added. If people have eclipse glasses, they can also look for the sunspot cluster during the day.

In the United States, this could include places such as Northern California and Alabama, officials said.

NOAA’s Brent Gordon encouraged the public to try to capture the night sky with phone cameras even if they can’t see auroras with their naked eyes.

“Just go out your back door and take a picture with the newer cell phones and you’d be amazed at what you see in that picture versus what you see with your eyes.”

Spacecraft and pigeons

Fluctuating magnetic fields associated with geomagnetic storms induce currents in long wires, including power lines, which can potentially lead to blackouts. Long pipelines can also become electrified, leading to engineering problems.

Spacecraft are also at risk from high doses of radiation, though the atmosphere prevents this from reaching Earth.

NASA has a dedicated team looking into astronaut safety and can ask astronauts on the International Space Station to move to places within the outpost that are better shielded.

Pigeons and other species that have internal biological compasses could also be affected. Pigeon handlers have noted a reduction in birds coming home during geomagnetic storms, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Officials said people should have the normal backup plans in place for power outages, such as having flashlights, batteries and radios at hand.

The most powerful geomagnetic storm in recorded history, known as the Carrington Event, occurred in September 1859, named after British astronomer Richard Carrington.

Excess currents on telegraph lines at that time caused electrical shocks to technicians and even set some telegraph equipment ablaze. 
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geneva — After the coronavirus pandemic triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions, leaders at the World Health Organization and worldwide vowed to do better in the future. Years later, countries are still struggling to come up with an agreed-upon plan for how the world might respond to the next global outbreak.

A ninth and final round of talks involving governments, advocacy groups and others to finalize a “pandemic treaty” was scheduled to end Friday. The accord’s aim: guidelines for how the WHO’s 194 member countries might stop future pandemics and better share scarce resources. But experts warn there are virtually no consequences for countries that don’t comply.

WHO’s countries asked the U.N. health agency to oversee talks for a pandemic agreement in 2021. Envoys have been working long hours in recent weeks to prepare a draft ahead of a self-imposed deadline later this month: ratification of the accord at WHO’s annual meeting. But deep divisions could derail it.

U.S. Republican senators wrote a letter to the Biden administration last week critical of the draft for focusing on issues like “shredding intellectual property rights” and “supercharging the WHO.” They urged Biden not to sign off.

Britain’s department of health said it would only agree to an accord if it was “firmly in the U.K. national interest and respects national sovereignty.”

And many developing countries say it’s unfair that they might be expected to provide virus samples to help develop vaccines and treatments, but then be unable to afford them.

“This pandemic treaty is a very high-minded pursuit, but it doesn’t take political realities into account,” said Sara Davies, a professor of international relations at Griffith University in Australia.

For example, the accord is attempting to address the gap that occurred between COVID-19 vaccines in rich and poorer countries, which WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said amounted to “a catastrophic moral failure.”

The draft says WHO should get 20% of the production of pandemic-related products like tests, treatments and vaccines and urges countries to disclose their deals with private companies.

“There’s no mechanism within WHO to make life really difficult for any countries that decide not to act in accordance with the treaty,” Davies said.

Adam Kamradt-Scott, a global health expert at Harvard University, said that similar to the global climate agreements, the draft pandemic treaty would at least provide a new forum for countries to try to hold each other to account, where governments will have to explain what measures they’ve taken.

The pandemic treaty “is not about anyone telling the government of a country what it can do and what it cannot do,” said Roland Driece, co-chair of WHO’s negotiating board for the agreement.

There are legally binding obligations under the International Health Regulations, including quickly reporting dangerous new outbreaks. But those have been flouted repeatedly, including by African countries during Ebola outbreaks and China in the early stages of COVID-19.

Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Center at Geneva’s Graduate Institute, said it was critical to determine the expected role of WHO during a pandemic and how outbreaks might be stopped before spreading globally.

“If we fail to seize this window of opportunity which is closing … we’ll be just as vulnerable as we were in 2019,” she warned.

Some countries appear to be moving on their own to ensure cooperation from others in the next pandemic. Last month, President Joe Biden’s administration said it would help 50 countries respond to new outbreaks and prevent global spread, giving the country leverage should it need critical information or materials in the future.

Yuanqiong Hu, a senior legal and policy adviser at Doctors without Borders, said it’s unclear what might be different in the next pandemic, but hoped that focusing attention on some of the glaring errors that emerged in COVID-19 might help.

“We will mostly have to rely on countries to do better,” she said. “That is worrisome.”
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