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Four space tourists who orbited the north and south poles returned to Earth on Friday, splashing down in the Pacific to end their privately funded polar tour.Bitcoin investor Chun Wang chartered a SpaceX flight for himself and three others in a Dragon capsule that was outfitted with a domed window that provided 360-degree views of the polar caps and everything in between. Wang declined to say how much he paid for the 3 1/2-day trip.The quartet, who rocketed from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Monday night, returned off the Southern California coast. It was the first human spaceflight to circle the globe above the poles and the first Pacific splashdown for a space crew in 50 years.The Chinese-born Wang, now a citizen of Malta, invited Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge and Australian polar guide Eric Philips, all of whom shared stunning vistas during their voyage.“It is so epic because it is another kind of desert, so it just goes on and on and on all the way,” Rogge said in a video posted by Wang on X while gazing down from orbit.Mikkelsen packed the capsule with camera equipment and spent much of her time behind the lens.All four suffered from space motion sickness after reaching orbit, according to Wang. But by the time they woke up on day two, they felt fine and cranked open the window cover right above the South Pole, he said via X.Besides documenting the poles from 270 miles (430 kilometers) up, Wang and his crew took the first medical X-rays in space as part of a test and conducted two dozen other science experiments. They named their trip Fram2 after the Norwegian sailing ship that carried explorers to the poles more than a century ago. A bit of the original ship’s wooden deck accompanied the crew to space.Their medical tests continued at splashdown. All four got out of the capsule on their own, heaving bags of equipment so researchers could see how steady returning space crews are on their feet. They pumped their fists in jubilation.SpaceX said its decision to switch splashdown sites from Florida beginning with this flight was based on safety. The company said Pacific splashdowns will ensure that any surviving pieces of the trunkjettisoned near flight’s endfalls into the ocean.The last people to return from space to the Pacific were the three NASA astronauts assigned to the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Marcia Dunn, AP Aerospace Writer
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Oil company Chevron must pay $744.6 million to restore damage it caused to southeast Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, a jury ruled on Friday following a landmark trial more than a decade in the making.The case was the first of dozens of pending lawsuits to reach trial in Louisiana against the world’s leading oil companies for their role in accelerating land loss along the state’s rapidly disappearing coast. The verdictwhich Chevron says it will appealcould set a precedent leaving other oil and gas firms on the hook for billions of dollars in damages tied to land loss and environmental degradation. What did Chevron do wrong? Jurors found that energy giant Texaco, acquired by Chevron in 2001, had for decades violated Louisiana regulations governing coastal resources by failing to restore wetlands impacted by dredging canals, drilling wells, and billions of gallons of wastewater dumped into the marsh.“No company is big enough to ignore the law, no company is big enough to walk away scot-free,” the plaintiff’s lead attorney John Carmouche told jurors during closing arguments.A 1978 Louisiana coastal management law mandated that sites used by oil companies “be cleared, revegetated, detoxified, and otherwise restored as near as practicable to their original condition” after operations ended. Older operations sites that continued to be used were not exempt and companies were required to apply for permits.But the oil company did not obtain proper permits and failed to clean up its mess, leading to contamination from wastewater stored unsafely or dumped directly into the marsh, the lawsuit said.The company also failed to follow known best practices for decades since it began operating in the area in the 1940s, expert witnesses for the plaintiff’s testified. The company “chose profits over the marsh” and allowed the environmental degradation caused by its operations to fester and spread, Carmouche said.The jury awarded $575 million to compensate for land loss, $161 million to compensate for contamination and $8.6 million for abandoned equipment. The amount earmarked for restoration exceeds $1.1 billion when including interest, according to attorneys for Talbot, Carmouche & Marcello, the firm behind the lawsuit.Plaquemines Parish, the southeast Louisiana district which brought the lawsuit, had asked for $2.6 billion in damages.Chevron’s lead trial attorney Mike Phillips said in a statement following the verdict that “Chevron is not the cause of the land loss occurring” in Plaquemines Parish and that the law does not apply to “conduct that occurred decades before the law was enacted.”Phillips called the ruling “unjust” and said there were “numerous legal errors.”Houston-headquartered Chevron reported more than $3 billion in earnings for the fourth quarter of 2024. How are oil companies contributing to Louisiana’s land loss? The lawsuit against Chevron was filed in 2013 by Plaquemines Parish, a rural district in Louisiana straddling the final leg of the Mississippi River heading into the Gulf of Mexico, also referred to as the Gulf of America as declared by President Donald Trump.Louisiana’s coastal parishes have lost more than 2,000 square miles (5,180 square kilometers) of land over the past century, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which has also identified oil and gas infrastructure as a significant cause. The state could lose another 3,000 square miles (7,770 square kilometers) in the coming decades, its coastal protection agency has warned.Thousands of miles of canals cut through the wetlands by oil companies weakens them and exacerbates the impacts of sea level rise. Industrial wastewater from oil production degrades the surrounding soil and vegetation. The torn up wetlands leave South Louisianahome to some of the nation’s biggest ports and key energy sector infrastructuremore vulnerable to flooding and destruction from extreme weather events like hurricanes.Phillips, Chevron’s attorney, said the company had operated lawfully and blamed land loss in Louisiana on other factors, namely the extensive levee system that blocks the Mississippi River from depositing land regenerating sedimenta widely acknowledged cause of coastal erosion.The way to solve the land loss problem is “not suing oil companies, it’s reconnecting the Mississippi River with the delta,” Phillips said during closing arguments.Yet the lawsuit held the company responsible for exacerbating and accelerating land loss in Louisiana, rather than being its sole cause.Chevron also challenged the costly wetlands restoration project proposed by the parish, which involved removing large amounts of contaminated soil and filling in the swaths fragmented wetlands eroded over the past century. The company said the plan was impractical and designed to inflate the damages rather than lead to real world implementation.Attorney Jimmy Faircloth, Jr., who represented the state of Louisiana, which has backed Plaquemines and other local governments in their lawsuits against oil companies, told jurors from the parish that Chevron was telling them their community was not worth preserving.“Our communities are built on coast, our families raised on coast, our children go to school on coast,” Faircloth said. “The state of Louisiana will not surrender the coast, it’s for the good of the state that the coast be maintained.” What does this mean for future litigation against oil companies? Carmouche, a well-connected attorney, and his firm have been responsible for bringing many of the lawsuits against oil companies in the state. Industry groups have accused the firm of seeking big paydays, not coastal restoration.Louisiana’s economy has long been heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry and the industry holds significant political power. Even so, Louisiana’s staunchly pro-industry Gov. Jeff Landry has supported the lawsuits, including bringing the state on board during his tenure as Attorney General.Oil companies have fought tooth and nail to quash the litigation, including unsuccessfully lobbying Louisiana’s Legislature to pass a law to invalidate the claims. Chevron and other firms also repeatedly tried to move the lawsuits into federal court where they believed they would find a more sympathetic audience.But the heavy price Chevron is set to pay could hasten other firms to seek settlements in the dozens of other lawsuits across Louisiana. Plaquemines alone has 20 other cases pending against oil companies.The state is running out of money to support its ambitious coastal restoration plans, which have been fueled by soon-expiring settlement funds from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and supporters of the litigation say payouts could provide a much-needed injection of funds.Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association, said the verdict against Chevron “undermines Louisiana’s position as an energy leader” and “threatens our country’s trajectory to America-first energy dominance across the globe.” He warned that “businesses here are at risk of beingsued retroactively tomorrow for following the laws of today.”Attorneys for the parish said they hope that big payout will prompt more oil companies to come to the table to negotiate and channel more funding towards coastal restoration.“Our energy is focused on securing appropriate verdicts and awards for every parish involved in these actions,” Carmouche said in a statement. “If we continue to be successful in our efforts, these parishes, and Louisiana, will have sent a clear message that Louisiana’s future must be built around a new balance between our energy industry and environmental necessities.” Jack Brook, Associated Press/Report for America
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President Donald Trump’s administration has decided not to cover expensive, high-demand obesity treatments under the federal government’s Medicare program.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said late Friday that it would not cover the medications under Medicare’s Part D prescription drug coverage. Medicare covers health care expenses mainly for people age 65 and older.Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, proposed a rule in late November after Trump won reelection that would have extended coverage of drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy. The rule was not expected to be finalized until Trump took office.Trump returned to office in January. The Senate confirmed Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Thursday.CMS did not offer an explanation Friday for its decision, and federal spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been an outspoken opponent of the injectable drugs, which have exploded in popularity due to the potentially life-changing weight loss that some patients experience.Polls show Americans favor having Medicaid and Medicare cover the costs. But many insurers, employers and other bill payers have been reluctant to pay for the drugs, which can be used by a wide swath of the population and can cost hundreds of dollars a month.Biden’s proposal was expensive: It would have included coverage for all state- and federally funded Medicaid programs for people with low incomes, costing taxpayers as much as $35 billion over next decade.Proponents of the coverage have argued that treating obesity can actually reduce longer-term costs by cutting down on heart attacks and other expensive health complications that can arise from the disease.The benefits consultant Mercer has said that 44% of U.S. companies with 500 or more employees covered obesity drugs last year.Medicare does pay for drugs like Wegovy for patients who have heart disease and need to reduce their risk of future heart attacks, strokes and other serious problems. The federal program also covers versions of the drugs that treat diabetes.More than a dozen state Medicaid programs already cover the drugs for obesity. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Tom Murphy, AP Health Writer
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