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☆ Endangered Komodo dragons hatch at Spanish zoo
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Jon Nazca | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] Embum, a one-month-old baby Komodo dragon, one of the five Komodo dragons born at Bioparc Fuengirola, rests in a terrarium in Fuengirola, southern Spain, March 28, 2023. REUTERS/Jon NazcaFUENGIROLA, Spain, March 28 (Reuters) - Five Komodo dragon hatchlings have been born at a zoo in Spain, the first successful breeding of the world's largest lizard - an endangered species - in the country for a decade. "This is a great achievement for all of us," Milagros Robledo, the head of the Herpetology department at the Bioparc Fuengirola zoo in southern Spain and self-described "mother" of the dragons, told Reuters on Tuesday. The baby dragons' parents mated on June 24 last year, when Spaniards celebrate the feast of St John. In the wild, newborn Komodo dragons tend to move to the treetops and need no maternal or paternal care, Robledo said.

WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) - Vice President Kamala Harris starts a weeklong trip to Africa this weekend as the United States seeks to pitch itself as a better partner than China, which has invested heavily in the continent over several decades. Harris will discuss China's engagement in technology and economic issues in Africa that concern the United States, as well as China's involvement in debt restructuring, senior U.S. officials said. The White House hosted an Africa Leaders Summit in December, and President Joe Biden is expected to travel to Africa this year. "The Vice President is very much looking forward to returning to Lusaka, which is a part of her family's story and a source of pride," one of the officials said. Harris will also meet with young leaders and business representatives and discuss topics such as climate change and food insecurity.

☆ ‘Marie Antoinette’ Review: Boudoirs and Bloodlines on PBS
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( John Anderson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

An ornate soap opera of the sort that has become a fixture of Sunday nights on PBS, the eight-part “ Marie Antoinette ” is a little like “Titanic”: We all know the subject’s destination. The question is how long it will take to get there. It’s not a brisk trip. Not usually a problem, if the parties are eager and the plumbing is intact. But the dauphin, Louis-Auguste (Louis Cunningham), is diffident to the point of paralysis and Marie spends much time worried if he’ll ever rise to greatness.

☆ Why Is the Maternal Mortality Rate So High in the U.S.?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Sarah Toy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Public-health officials and physicians think that Covid-19 pushed maternal mortality rates higher in 2020 and 2021. Maternal mortality rates in the U.S. surged in 2021 to their highest level since 1965, as Covid-19 exacerbated longstanding problems including access to care and heart health. Here’s what we know about maternal mortality in the U.S.How is a maternal death defined? The World Health Organization defines a maternal death as the death of a woman while she is pregnant or up to 42 days after pregnancy. Maternal mortality refers to the number of maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births.

☆ U.S. Maternal Mortality Hits Highest Level Since 1965
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Sarah Toy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Maternal-death rates are higher in the U.S. than in any other high-income country. Maternal deaths surged to the highest rate in nearly 60 years, data showed, exacerbating a yearslong trend that has made the U.S. the most dangerous place among high-income countries to give birth. The number of women who died during pregnancy or shortly after rose 40% to 1,205 in 2021, compared with 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019, the National Center for Health Statistics said Thursday. The increase pushed the maternal-mortality rate to 33 deaths per 100,000 live births, the highest since 1965, compared with 24 in 2020 and 20 in 2019.

☆ Pregnancy-related deaths in US surged during pandemic - CDC
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Mariam Esunny | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The United States has one of the highest rates of pregnancy-related deaths among developed countries. It recorded more than 1,200 deaths in pregnant women in 2021, compared with 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019, according to CDC data. About 32.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births were reported in 2021, compared with 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019. The mortality rate for Black women in the United States was at 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021, about 3 times higher than white and Hispanic women. UN agencies reported last month that nearly all parts of the world saw a spike in maternal mortality rates in 2020.

☆ Calls to boycott Walgreens grow as pharmacy confirms it will not sell abortion pills in 20 states, including some where it remains legal
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Last month, 20 Republican attorneys general told Walgreens it could face legal action if it sold abortion pills in some states. Walgreens told Politico it will not sell the pills in those states, which includes some where abortion is legal. Walgreens told Politico that it has responded to the states represented by the 20 AGs, and said it will not distribute the abortion pill Mifepristone in any of those states. At the time, Walgreens told Insider that it was working to become FDA-certified to sell abortion pills in the states where they are legal. Several Democratic attorneys general filed an argument in the case last month that said banning the pill would lead to an "unprecedented spike" in maternal mortality.

☆ A female orca adopted a baby pilot whale in the first known case of its kind, scientists say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A female orca appeared to adopt a baby pilot whale in the first known case of its kind. The orca, known as "Sædís," was first observed swimming with the pilot whale calf in August 2021 in western Iceland. This marks the first scientific documentation of orcas nurturing and tending to a long-finned pilot whale calf. "The orca was swimming with the pilot whale calf in the echelon position, which means the calf was swimming right behind the pectoral fin of the orca," she said. Off Iceland, there's been quite the interaction between both species, and oftentimes pilot whales are seen chasing the killer whales," she said.

☆ These cofounders are giving parents-to-be an alternative option to traditional hospital care by addressing the system inadequacies for people of color
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Alexandra York | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Allegra Hill and Kimberly Durdin launched Kindred Space LA, a birth-support center, in 2018. They shared their experiences launching Kindred Space LA and their hopes for the future. Today, Kindred Space LA offers in-clinic births, home births, support groups, sessions with mental-health professionals, and collaborative care with ob-gyns and midwives who work in hospitals. Insider spoke with Hill and Durdin about their experiences launching Kindred Space LA and their hopes for the future. Kindred Space LA ultimately raised around $50,000, enough to open the birth clinic that year.

☆ George Santos — who is Catholic — insists he used to say he was 'Jew-ish' as a party joke. Now he says he's taken 4 DNA tests to prove his maternal grandparents are actually Jewish.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Rebecca Cohen | Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

George Santos told Piers Morgan he used to say he was "Jew-ish" as a party joke. He also said he has taken four DNA tests to prove that his maternal grandparents are actually Jewish. Santos claimed his grandparents fled Belgium in 1941 before falsifying documents to say they were born in Brazil. "I would always say I was raised Catholic but I come from a Jewish family, so that makes me 'Jew-ish.'" Santos explained: "I would say that my grandparents are Jewish on my mother's side, so I am 'Jew-ish.'

☆ Childbirth is far more dangerous for women than the abortion pill, American Medical Association tells the Texas judge weighing mifepristone ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The American Medical Association is urging a Texas judge to reject an effort to ban mifepristone. This is not an opinion — it is a fact based on hundreds of medical studies and vast amounts of data amassed over the course of two decades," the brief states. But pregnant teenagers, the medical groups note, have levels of progesterone far greater than their non-pregnant peers. "There is no reason to think, nor is there evidence to show, that preventing the absorption of progesterone for a brief window would have any effects on adolescent development," the brief states. Republican attorneys general also submitted a brief arguing that the availability of the drug infringes on the right of states to regulate abortion.

☆ There will be an 'unprecedented spike' in maternal mortality if a Trump-appointed judge bans the abortion pill, Democratic attorneys general argue
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Banning mifepristone will result in more women dying in pregnancy, Democratic attorneys general argued this month. The argument comes as a judge in Texas is considering a ban on the abortion pill. Republican attorneys general who have weighed in on the case also maintain that its approval infringed on state rights. In her brief, James noted that carrying a pregnancy to term poses significantly greater health risks than an early abortion. As Slate's Christina Cautertucci notes, mifepristone is only one of the two drugs used in a typical medication abortion.

The richest Black mothers and their babies are twice as likely to die as the richest white mothers and their babies. Yet there is one group that doesn’t gain the same protection from being rich, the study finds: Black mothers and babies. The researchers found that maternal mortality rates were just as high among the highest-income Black women as among low-income white women. The richest Black women have infant mortality rates at about the same level as the poorest white women. Generally, rates for Hispanic mothers and Asian mothers track more closely with those of white mothers than Black mothers.

☆ Protect, advance women for a better South Sudan, pope says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-04 | by ( Philip Pullella | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

A United Nations report on South Sudan issued last March condemned widespread sexual violence against women and girls in conflict and said it was "fuelled by systemic impunity". South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011 but plunged into civil war in 2013 with ethnic groups turning on each other. The pope responded by calling on everyone in South Sudan "to ensure that women are protected, respected, valued and honoured". Francis said that if women are given opportunities "they will have the ability to change the face of South Sudan, to give it a peaceful and cohesive development!" About 10% of 15-year-old girls and 52% of 18-year-old girls in South Sudan are married, she said.

☆ Indian police arrest 1,800 men in crackdown on underage marriage
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Zarir Hussain | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

GUWAHATI, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Police in Assam have arrested more than 1,800 men for marrying or arranging marriages to underage girls, launching what the eastern Indian state's chief minister said on Friday was the start of a sustained crackdown on the practice. "Child marriage is the primary reason behind child pregnancy, which in turn is responsible for high maternal and infant mortality rates," he said. Nearly 1.5 million underage girls get married there every year, U.N. children's agency UNICEF said in a 2020 report. The Assam government has registered cases related to child marriage against 4,004 people, he added. Reporting by Zarir Hussain in Guwahati, writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; editing by John StonestreetOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The issue brief stated that a "10% increase in median childcare prices was associated with 1 percentage-point lower county-level maternal employment rates." "High childcare prices and minimal public childcare investments are especially detrimental to employment among mothers with lower wages, as childcare affordability is out of reach," the researchers wrote. Childcare costs have outpaced inflation during the pandemic, according to one recent report, and the lion's share of childcare duties have fallen on women during the pandemic, causing them to leave the workforce en masse. Childcare workers made a mean hourly wage of $13.31 as of 2021, with the bottom 10% earning about $9 an hour. That's as childcare workers are more than twice as likely to live below the poverty line as those in other industries.

☆ House Democrats just launched a 'Dads Caucus' to push for parental leave, the child tax credit, and universal childcare
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Jacob Zinkula | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A group of House Democrats just established the "Dads Caucus" to push for reforms. They want to expand parental leave, the child tax credit, and childcare funding to help working families. Last Thursday, House Democrats launched the Congressional Dads Caucus, a group that says it will advocate for legislation that includes guaranteed paid parental leave, the expansion of the child tax credit, and universal childcare. The US is the only industrialized country that doesn't require employers to offer paid parental leave, and only 25% of workers have access to it, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The expanded child tax credit passed in the American Rescue Plan, which offered monthly payments to parents between March and December of 2021, helped reduce the child poverty rate to historic lows.

☆ Black maternal deaths and disparities increase in Mississippi
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

The Mississippi Maternal Mortality Report shows that the maternal mortality rate increased by 8.8% between 2013‐2016 and 2017‐2019, with the latter period being the most recent one analyzed by researchers. Of the maternal deaths directly related to pregnancy, 87.5% were determined to be preventable. Velvet Johnson holds a sign calling for support of the Mississippi Black Women's Roundtable legislative agenda at Capitol in Jackson, Miss. It found that 42.5% of the maternal deaths it identified occurred more than 60 days but less than one year after delivery. Advocates from the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, an advocacy group, gathered at the Capitol to urge lawmakers to extend postpartum coverage.

☆ Most Abortion Bans Include Exceptions. In Practice, Few Are Granted.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Amy Schoenfeld Walker | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +19 min

But abortion-rights advocates say legal exceptions do nothing but make abortion bans appear more reasonable than they really are. One shows states with abortion bans with exceptions for rape or incest and the other shows states without those exceptions. One shows states with abortion bans with exceptions for fatal birth defects and the other shows states without those exceptions. One shows states with abortion bans with exceptions for patients with severe health risks and the other shows states without those exceptions. One shows states with abortion bans with exceptions for the life of the patient and the other shows states without those exceptions.

NBC News has repeatedly contacted Santos’ team with requests for comment about his lies and other allegations against him. Here is a timeline mapping out the controversy:Nov. 3, 2020: Santos loses his first bid for Congress to Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi. Sept. 6, 2022: Santos files his personal financial disclosure report, claiming his assets are as much as $11 million. The New York Times later reported that none of the 49 victims appear to have worked at the various firms named in his biography. In another Dec. 26 interview with the New York Post, Santos acknowledges some of the specific fabrications in his résumé.

☆ French nurse fears Macron's pension reform will leave women worse off
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Juliette Jabkhiro | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

PARIS, Jan 20 (Reuters) - French nurse Maryse Lopez says women get a raw deal in President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform because they take longer parental leave and work part time more often than men. Macron wants to raise the retirement age by two years to keep the pension system out of the red. Like many women, Lopez took six months of maternity leave and worked part time a few years for childcare. "We need to live life in good health and not be completely broken by the time we retire," Lopez said. [1/3] French nurse Maryse Lopez attends a demonstration against the French government's pension reform plan in Paris as part of a day of national strike and protests in France, January 19, 2023.

☆ I am a working mom who wants to ask to go down to 4 days a week. Will that kill my career?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Rebecca Knight | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Insider's latest work-advice column is about a mom who wants to go down to a four-day workweek. She worries she'll regret not spending enough time with her kids but also fears for her career. I feel like I'm missing my kids' lives and I don't want to have any regrets on my deathbed. I'm considering asking my boss if I can work four days a week. Strober suggests saying something like, "I know that you prioritize work over just about everything.

☆ 'We were duped': How George Santos raised money from wealthy GOP donors while lying about his resume
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

His name was actually Sam Miele, and he worked for Santos raising money for his campaign, according to one GOP donor who contributed to Santos' campaign. In raising money for his campaign, Santos fed donors the same falsehoods he gave voters, campaign fundraisers and others say. "We were duped," said a Republican political strategist close to GOP donors and the leadership of the Republican Jewish Coalition. The RJC is considered the most prominent group of Jewish Republican donors, making gatherings such as the Hanukkah event key networking platforms for politicians. Vallone gave $17,900 in August between Santos' campaign, his leadership PAC and a joint fundraising committee, according to FEC records.

[1/2] GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) logo is seen in this illustration, August 10, 2022. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law preempts the plaintiffs' state-law claims that GSK failed to warn doctors and pregnant women that animal studies found a link between birth defects and taking Zofran. Louis Bograd, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at Motley Rice, did not respond to a request for comment. Without any newly acquired information, GSK could not legally change the label without the FDA's blessing, Kayatta wrote. For the plaintiffs: Louis Bograd of Motley RiceFor GSK: Lisa Blatt of Williams & ConnollyRead more:Zofran birth defect cases should be revived, say hundreds of plaintiffsGSK defeats 425 lawsuits alleging Zofran causes birth defects(NOTE: This story has been updated with a comment from GSK.)

The most chilling moment in Gerard Johnstone’s new horror film, “M3GAN,” comes early. Its wildly popular — and immediately viral — trailer seems to give away the entire story, beat by beat, but what it can’t convey is the picture’s delightfully oddball tone, which is poised at a peculiar juncture of slasher horror and self-aware satire. Gemma, dressed in flannels, so you know she’s an antisocial nerd, has developed M3GAN, short for Model 3 Generative ANdroid. As a character, M3GAN is a marvel of design, combining body actor (Amie Donald), voice (Jenna Davis), animatronics, makeup and special effects. (“Humanity kills every day, just to make its existence more bearable,” M3GAN cackles, presumably after doing some online reading about Apple and Foxconn’s Longhua facility.)

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