KAMIMOMI, Japan — In the remote village of Kamimomi in Japan’s western Okayama prefecture, a small group of rice farmers began their most recent harvest in sweltering heat, two weeks sooner than usual.

The prefecture is called “the Land of Sunshine” because of its pleasant climate, but farmers working among the paddy fields and ancient rice terraces say that climate change is hurting the harvest of rice, long a cornerstone of Japan’s diet.

“Last year, an exceptional heat wave took the water out of the rice, which became small and thin,” rice farmer Joji Terasaka said. “So I am worried about that this year because it will be just as hot.”

This year Japan experienced its hottest July on record, with temperatures reaching 2.16 Celsius higher than average, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The globe has seen a 1.2 C rise in average temperature since preindustrial times, and scientists agree that warming needs to be capped at 1.5 C to stave off the worst effects of climate change. That includes even more powerful heat, storms and irreversible ice melt.

Last year, Japan recorded a poor rice harvest nationwide because of exceptionally hot weather. Ministry data showed the country’s private-sector rice inventory fell to 1.56 million tons in June, the lowest level since records began in 1999. Last year was the hottest on record globally, though it’s feared that this year may top it.

The drop in harvest in Japan was partly to blame for this year’s widespread summer rice shortage, according to officials. There were empty shelves in supermarkets, and some retailers are still enforcing purchase limits of one rice bag per customer.

“Perhaps people think that an increase of one degree Celsius in average temperature isn’t much. But it’s quite a big change for plants and crops,” says Yuji Masutomi, a researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo.

Masutomi said the rising temperatures not only influence the growth cycle and yield of rice, but also hurt the quality of the grain.

When temperatures rise above 27 C, the buildup of starch inside rice grains is reduced. That causes the crop to take on a chalky appearance, and its value is reduced.

At least a fifth of rice farms have reported a drop in quality from rising temperatures, according to a farming ministry report last year.

“Not only is the appearance not good; people say the taste drops too,” Masutomi said.

For farmers in Kamimomi, there’s another problem with working under exceptional heat. The average age of agricultural workers in Japan is nearly 69, among the oldest in the world, and older people are especially vulnerable to heatstroke.

Toshimi Kaiami led a community project in Kamimomi that involved reviving some of the paddy fields abandoned because of the aging population.

“There are no longer any successors,” says Kaiami. “We are heading toward extinction.”

The community project divides labor among Kamimomi’s farmers. But preparations for the harvest coincided with the hottest months of the year — April to September.

“It takes a half year to produce rice. The heat and the work that we have to endure during that time is really tough,” said rice farmer Mitsumasa Sugimoto, 77.

To deal with climate change, the government is promoting the adoption of heat-resistant rice variants, including Sai no Kizuna, which was developed by a research center in Saitama prefecture, near Tokyo.

Research organizations around the world have worked to produce more resilient strains of essential food like rice while introducing more heat and drought resistant grains like sorghum or millet.

“Last year and this year have been extremely hot, but even in those conditions, Sai no Kizuna maintained a certain level of quality,” said Naoto Ohoka, who manages rice breeding at Saitama’s Agricultural Technology Research Center.

“Its other characteristic is that it is very delicious.”

The center cultivates more than a thousand types of rice strains, and through cross-pollination officials assess and select the best performers to develop new varieties.

Sai no Kizuna was developed in 2012 to better withstand heat, a trait that has become more widely recognized recently as Japan sees hotter summers. The strain also stands up well against typhoon wind and certain pests and diseases.

Researchers want to develop more resilient strains against heat as temperatures are projected to continue rising. Masutomi recommends that variants tolerant of temperatures up to 3 degrees Celsius higher should be introduced across Japan by the 2040s.

But it’s a long process. It can take up to 10 years to develop a new variant. Once it’s approved for the market, farmers must then be convinced to switch to the new strain.

The most widely grown variety is Koshihikari, which is less heat resistant. Even so, older farmers have shown a reluctance to switch to other varieties. Farming ministry data show that only around 15% of Japanese paddy fields have adopted heat resistance variants.
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Two years after reaching a historic biodiversity agreement, countries will gather next week to determine whether they are making progress on efforts to save Earth’s plant and animal life.

The agreement signed by 196 countries at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference calls for protecting 30% of land and water by 2030, known as 30 by 30. When the agreement was signed, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas were protected — which hasn’t changed significantly.

At the conference known as COP16, countries next will report on progress made toward the goals, and governments are expected to agree on mechanisms to assure the implementation of them, according to a European Parliament report.

The two-week meeting in Cali, Colombia, will also focus on efforts to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to protect nature by 2030 — with the payment of $20 billion for developing countries due next year. Twenty-three targets will be discussed including cutting food waste and preventing the introduction of invasive species.

Signs of progress hard to find

The nearly 200 countries are supposed to submit national plans ahead of the conference showing actions they are taking to meet the 30 by 30 goals. But as of this week, around 46% of countries have submitted targets and less than 15% submitted plans for reaching them. Australia has yet to submit its targets while India has not submitted a national plan. Brazil, which includes much of the Amazon rainforest, hasn’t submitted targets or a plan.

The United States, which is not party to the biodiversity convention, is not required to submit any plans. But the Biden administration has committed to protecting a third of American land and waters by 2030.

Some countries are expected to use the conference to unveil plans for creating or expanding protected areas and for how they’ll spend biodiversity funding. Canada, for example, has committed to spending $800 million on four Indigenous-led projects.

Conservation groups are concerned that more countries have not yet detailed their biodiversity goals and how to achieve them.

Bernadette Fischler Hooper, head of global advocacy for WWF International, called the commitments so far “disappointing.” WWF, which is tracking the progress, also found some plans lack actions to halt biodiversity loss, funding to support efforts and sufficient buy-in from across government.

“This is really, really getting close,” Hooper said. “There are some countries who can easily afford to update (their plans). There’s no reason why they didn’t do it … and there are countries that didn’t get the support they needed.”

Of the 91 countries that submitted targets, the convention’s secretariat found more than half had targets of protecting and conserving at least 30% of their terrestrial area and about a quarter had targets for 5% to 30%. For marine and coastal areas, more than one-third had a national target of 30% or more, and another third had targets between 5% and 30%.

But Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said the small number of countries submitting plans isn’t surprising since governments first had to come up with targets and then develop action plans.

“These are complex processes that are meant to be a whole of government,” she said of the plans that require coordination and buy-in from ministries, business leaders and community stakeholders, as well as raising money. “That’s not happening overnight.”

Achieving these targets is especially critical to migratory species, more than 40% which a U.N. report found are declining.

“Birds do not recognize boundaries of a protected area and move according to their feeding and roosting needs,” said Jennifer George, who leads the Seoul-based East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership, a nonprofit focused on birds migrating between East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Funding crunch

Much like the U.N. climate talks, a big topic of debate at the biodiversity conference will be financing.

Poor countries pushed to include language requiring that $200 billion a year be raised by 2030 for biodiversity from a range of sources to fund the target-specific projects. Rich countries committed to providing developing countries $20 billion starting next year and gradually scaling that up to $30 billion by 2030.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported in September that development finance for biodiversity more than doubled from 2015 to 2022. But when it comes to funding for this agreement, the world was still 23% short of the $20 billion goal.

Advocates said money will be critical since much of the biodiversity that needs protecting is in developing countries like those in Africa.

“There has been progress. Is there enough progress? No,” said Susan Lieberman, the vice president of international policy at Wildlife Conservation Society. “Some countries are taking it seriously and other countries are saying, ‘Oh we want to do this, but where’s the money?'”

More than 30 by 30

In addition to top-tier biodiversity targets, the conference will discuss a goal in the agreement to halt human-induced extinction of threatened species and, by 2050, to reduce extinction rates tenfold. The goal also calls for increasing the “abundance of native wild species” to healthy levels.

But conservationists say the goals lack specifics and hope details can be agreed upon at the meeting.

“Many of these other targets need to be nailed down and quantified, like stopping species extinctions,” said Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm. “At the moment, they are terribly vague.”

Countries plan to showcase the role biodiversity plays in achieving climate mitigation goals and in health, especially preventing future pandemics.

The meeting will also consider adoption of a global mechanism for sharing of benefits from digital data from genetic material derived from plants, animals, bacteria and viruses. The materials are often used to developed commercial products like drugs — and the hope is that an agreement will ensure profits are shared equitably. 
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When a woman has a mammogram, the most important finding is whether there’s any sign of breast cancer.

The second most important finding is whether her breasts are dense.

Since early September, a new U.S. rule requires mammography centers to inform women about their breast density — information that isn’t entirely new for some women because many states already had similar requirements.

Here’s what to know about why breast density is important.

Are dense breasts bad?

No, dense breasts are not bad. In fact, they’re quite normal. About 40% of women ages 40 and older have dense breasts.

Women of all sizes can have dense breasts. It has nothing to do with breast firmness. And it only matters in the world of breast cancer screening, said Dr. Ethan Cohen of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

With the new rule, “there are going to be a lot of questions to a lot of doctors and there’s going to be a lot of Googling, which is OK. But we want to make sure that people don’t panic,” Cohen said.

How is breast density determined?

Doctors who review mammograms have a system for classifying breast density.

There are four categories. The least dense category means the breasts are almost all fatty tissue. The most dense category means the breasts are mostly glandular and fibrous tissue.

Breasts are considered dense in two of the four categories: “heterogeneously dense” or “extremely dense.” The other two categories are considered not dense.

Dr. Brian Dontchos of the Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center said the classification can vary depending on the doctor reading the mammogram “because it’s somewhat subjective.”

Why am I being told I have dense breasts?

Two reasons: For one, dense breasts make it more difficult to see cancer on an X-ray image, which is what a mammogram is.

“The dense tissue looks white on a mammogram and cancer also looks white on a mammogram,” said Dr. Wendie Berg of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and chief scientific adviser to DenseBreast-info.org. “It’s like trying to see a snowball in a blizzard.”

Second, women with dense breast tissue are at a slightly higher risk of developing breast cancer because cancers are more likely to arise in glandular and fibrous tissue.

Reassuringly, women with dense breasts are no more likely to die from breast cancer compared to other women.

What am I supposed to do?

If you find out you have dense breasts, talk to your doctor about your family history of breast cancer and whether you should have additional screening with ultrasound or MRI, said Dr. Georgia Spear of Endeavor Health/NorthShore University Health System in the Chicago area.

Researchers are studying better ways to detect cancer in women with dense breasts. So far, there’s not enough evidence for a broad recommendation for additional screening. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force called for more research in this area when it updated its breast cancer screening recommendations earlier this year.

Do I still need a mammogram?

Yes, women with dense breasts should get regular mammograms, which is still the gold standard for finding cancer early. Age 40 is when mammograms should start for women, transgender men and nonbinary people at average risk.

“We don’t want to replace the mammogram,” Spear said. “We want to add to it by adding a specific other test.”

Will insurance cover additional screening?

For now, that depends on your insurance, although a bill has been introduced in Congress to require insurers to cover additional screening for women with dense breasts.

Additional screening can be expensive — from $250 to $1,000 out of pocket, so that’s a barrier for many women.

“Every woman should have equal opportunity to have their cancer found early when it’s easily treated,” Berg said. “That’s the bottom line.”
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WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA — Namibians who are part of the LGBTQ+ community often find it difficult to get decent health care and many report discriminatory practices within the health care system.

For example, when 20-year-old Immanuel Uirab sought contraception at a health facility, the nurse on duty would not assist him.

“I don’t know if it’s the shorts I was wearing or you can generally just tell by looking at me that I am gay,” he said, “but then this particular nurse … came out and she was, like, ‘No, we don’t offer contraceptives for people who practice sodomy. We can’t do that for you. … You can go buy them if you want to use them in your private space, but we … won’t give them to you because our government does not support homosexuality.’”

A recent two-day training workshop facilitated by the group Our Equity Advocacy was aimed at encouraging health care practitioners in Namibia to not discriminate against sexual minorities.

Discrimination in health care services violates the right to health care and the human rights principles of equity, privacy and dignity, said the United Nation’s special rapporteur on the right to health, Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng.

Mofokeng held a workshop last weekend in Windhoek where she trained health care practitioners and young people about the role of health care in human rights.

There are many opportunities in which health care workers “can take a seat at the table,” she said. “Not just in policymaking, but importantly in advocacy … also in understanding human rights.”

The executive director of Namibia’s Ministry of Health, Ben Nangombe, said that discrimination in health care based on sexual orientation is against the law and that practitioners who refuse health care to patients for any reason can lose their jobs.

“The official position [of the] government on this matter is that the Namibian government provides health care services to all Namibians who need it without any discrimination whatsoever,” he said.

One theme from last weekend’s workshop was the need for nurses to become agents of change and advocates for their patients.

Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane, a legal practitioner and health rights activist from South Africa who co-facilitated the workshop, said members of sexual minority groups in Africa often face intrusive questioning when they seek medical care.

“Let’s say you are going to a hospital or a clinic for a broken arm or a headache, some tummy ache, whatever,” Mokgoroane said. “What often happens is when you are trans or when you are gender nonconforming or when you are a member of the LGBTI community, immediately what happens is that the questions veer away from why you are actually there to really invasive and discriminatory questions, right? ‘I have a headache, why are you asking me about my sex life? … I have a headache, why are you asking me about my genitalia?’”

Mokgoroane said the issue can be addressed by training health care workers to affirm the gender of their patients when they treat them.

However, Mokgoroane expressed worry that the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ laws in Africa will further drive discriminatory practices in the health care system and undermine public health altogether.
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washington — The Orionids — one of two annual meteor showers from Halley’s comet — peak early Monday. A bright waning moon may make them difficult to spot.

The Orionid meteor shower can be unpredictable. It shines like a fireworks display in some years but is fairly slow in other years.

This highly variable shower may result in anywhere from 20 to 60 visible meteors per hour under ideal viewing conditions, said NASA’s Bill Cooke.

This year’s peak activity happens on a night when a waning moon is 83% full. The shower lasts through November 22.

Here’s what to know about the Orionids and other meteor showers.

What is a meteor shower?

Multiple meteor showers occur annually and don’t require special equipment to see them.

Most meteor showers originate from the debris of comets. The source of the Orionids is Halley’s comet.

When rocks from space enter Earth’s atmosphere, the resistance from the air makes them very hot. This causes the air to glow around them and briefly leaves a fiery tail behind them — the end of a “shooting star.”

The glowing pockets of air around fast-moving space rocks, ranging from the size of a dust particle to a boulder, may be visible in the night sky.

“Halley’s comet does not leave the same numbers of particles behind each year,” making it hard to predict what kind of show viewers will see, said Cooke.

How to view a meteor shower

Meteor showers are usually most visible between midnight and predawn hours.

It’s easier to see shooting stars under dark skies, away from city lights. Meteor showers also appear brightest on cloudless nights when the moon wanes smallest.

And your eyes will better adapt to seeing meteors if you aren’t checking your phone.

“It ruins your night vision,” said Cooke.

When is the next meteor shower?

October has been an active time for celestial sightings including the latest supermoon and the comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas.

The meteor society keeps an updated list of upcoming large meteor showers, including the peak viewing days and moonlight conditions.

The next big one is the Southern Taurid meteor shower, which peaks in early November.
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Scientists say beef production takes a heavy toll on the environment. Cattle produce methane, a powerful planet-warming gas, and forests get cut down for pastures. But one farm in northern Colombia hopes to show ranching can have a lighter footprint on the planet. Austin Landis travelled to Montería in northern Colombia for a closer look at what could be a revolution in sustainable cattle ranching.
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The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to put on hold a new federal rule targeting carbon pollution from coal- and gas-fired power plants at the request of numerous states and industry groups in another major challenge to President Joe Biden’s efforts to combat climate change.

The justices denied emergency requests by West Virginia, Indiana and 25 other states — most of them Republican led — as well as power companies and industry associations, to halt the Environmental Protection Agency rule while litigation continues in a lower court. The regulation, aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change, took effect July 8.

The rule would require existing coal and new natural gas-fired plants eventually to reduce emissions including by capturing and storing carbon dioxide.

The EPA’s new rule, issued under the landmark Clean Air Act anti-pollution law, was issued two years after a major ruling by the Supreme Court in 2022 undercut the agency’s power to issue sweeping regulations to force an electricity-generation shift from coal to cleaner energy sources.

The EPA has said efforts to address climate change and its impacts such as extreme weather and rising sea levels must include the power sector because fossil fuel-fired plants make up 25% of overall domestic greenhouse gas emissions.

Notably, the rule mandates that coal plants operating past 2038 and certain new gas plants reduce emissions by 90% by 2032 including by using carbon capture and storage systems that extract carbon dioxide from plant exhaust and sequester it underground.

The EPA has called the technology proven and technically feasible. The rule’s challengers have said it has not been shown effective at the scale predicted by the EPA.

The rule’s requirements are “really a backdoor avenue to forcing coal plants out of existence,” West Virginia, a major coal producer, and other state challengers said in a written filing.

The Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling was based on what is called the “major questions” legal doctrine embraced by its conservative justices that requires explicit congressional authorization for action on issues of broad importance and societal impact.

The states and certain other challengers contend that the EPA’s new rule likewise implicates a major question and exceeds the agency’s authority.

Numerous states and industry players filed multiple lawsuits challenging the rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which on July 19 denied requests to pause the regulation pending its review.

The case did not implicate a major question because the EPA’s actions setting plant limits were “well within” its statutory authority, the D.C. Circuit stated.
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A nationwide recall of meat and poultry products potentially contaminated with listeria has expanded to nearly 15.4 million kilograms (12 million pounds) and now includes ready-to-eat meals sent to U.S. schools, restaurants and major retailers, federal officials said.

The updated recall includes prepared salads, burritos and other foods sold at stores including Costco, Trader Joe’s, Target, Walmart and Kroger. The meat used in those products was processed at a Durant, Oklahoma, manufacturing plant operated by BrucePac. The Woodburn, Oregon-based company sells precooked meat and poultry to industrial, foodservice and retail companies across the country.

Routine testing found potentially dangerous listeria bacteria in samples of BrucePac chicken, officials with the U.S. Agriculture Department said. No illnesses have been confirmed in connection with the recall, USDA officials said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not launched an outbreak investigation, a spokesperson said.

The recall, issued on October 9, includes foods produced between May 31 and October 8. The USDA has posted a 342-page list of hundreds of potentially affected foods, including chicken wraps sold at Trader Joe’s, chicken burritos sold at Costco and many types of salads sold at stores such as Target and Walmart. The foods were also sent to school districts and restaurants across the country.

The recalled foods can be identified by establishment numbers “51205 or P-51205” inside or under the USDA mark of inspection. Consumers can search on the USDA recall site to find potentially affected products. Such foods should be thrown away or returned to stores for refunds, officials said.

Eating foods contaminated with listeria can cause potentially serious illness. About 1,600 people are infected with listeria bacteria each year in the U.S. and about 260 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Listeria infections typically cause fever, muscle aches and tiredness and may cause stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions. Symptoms can occur quickly or to up to 10 weeks after eating contaminated food. The infections are especially dangerous for older people, those with weakened immune systems or who are pregnant.

The same type of bacteria is responsible for an outbreak tied to Boar’s Head deli meat that has killed at least 10 people since May.
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Since the U.S. Supreme Court sent the issue of abortion back to the states in 2022, Democrats have mobilized to protect abortion rights while Republicans have worked to restrict the procedure on religious and moral grounds. The issue is motivating voters to go to the polls this election year. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Nevada. Videographer: Mary Cieslak
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