AFP

New Orleans, still scarred by the devastation wrought 16 years ago by Hurricane Katrina, held its breath as Ida bore down this week. But this time, the city’s flood defenses prevailed.

In the wake of the 2005 storm that killed over 1,800 people and submerged whole swaths of New Orleans, the US government spent $14.5 billion on levees, pumps and other protections for the city and nearby suburbs.

“Ida came onshore with everything that was advertised: the surge, the rain, the wind,” Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards told a briefing Monday.

“The good news, first, is all of our levee systems… performed magnificently,” he added.

Located at the mouth of the Mississippi River and in an area below sea level, New Orleans is surrounded by water, with the giant, briny Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. 

Given the city’s geography, as well as Ida’s lashing 150-mile (240-kilometer) per hour winds, storm surge and heavy rains, the danger to New Orleans’ 390,000 people was very real.

But no levee in the city was breached or overtopped. Edwards said that feat could be traced to 16 years ago.

Under the battering from Katrina’s flood waters, more than 50 levees broke and 80 percent of the city was submerged, with water reaching 20 feet (six meters) in places. Billions of dollars in damage was done.

The storm and the failed response that followed unleashed suffering that was captured in images of desperate people stranded on the roofs of their flooded homes in sweltering heat, violent looting and fetid evacuation sites.

Authorities from then-president George W. Bush on down faced ferocious criticism, and since then New Orleans’ flood-protections have been rebuilt and improved. 

The system “performed as it was designed, that is, to keep water out of the city,” said Rene Poche, spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans, which was responsible for designing and building the levee system.

– ‘You may be next’ – 

After Katrina, a 130-mile ring of barriers was built to withstand a storm surge of up to 30 feet. 

Huge gates now allow water to drain away to Lake Ponchartrain or the Gulf of Mexico, while preventing water from entering the city, said Poche. 

The protection system also includes more than 70 pumps, which drain water in the event of street flooding.

“After Katrina… it was important that the system was structurally superior — higher levees, higher wall and resilient,” he added.

The levees in Louisiana’s largest city had already passed an initial test during Hurricane Isaac in August 2012, which caused little damage. 

But some neighboring cities weren’t so lucky this week, as Ida roared ashore as a ferocious Category 4 storm.

In LaPlace, west of New Orleans, roads and homes were submerged under Ida’s floodwaters. 

Ida has since lost strength and is now continuing northeastward as a tropical depression. 

“Hurricane Ida’s lesson, therefore, is not that Louisiana’s storm protections are good enough. Its lesson is that investments in infrastructure save lives,” historian Andy Horowitz wrote in a New York Times guest essay. 

“Demand that Congress take meaningful action, because Louisiana is not unique, and you may be next,” he tweeted Tuesday.

Families of a giant rodent native to South America have been invading a luxury gated community in Argentina, highlighting the country’s controversial environmental and social policies.

Nordelta is a 1,600 hectare (3,950 acre) luxury private urban complex built on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, on a wetland from the Parana river that is the capybara’s natural habitat.

Many Nordelta residents have complained about capybara’s ruining manicured lawns, biting pets and causing traffic accidents.

Also known as a carpincho or chiguire, the capybara is the largest rodent in the world and can measure up to 1.35 meters (53 inches) in length and reach 80 kilograms (176 pounds) in weight.

“Nordelta is an exceptionally rich wetland that should never have been touched,” biologist Sebastian di Martino, conservation director at the Rewilding Argentina foundation, told AFP.

“Now that the damage has been done, the residents need to reach a certain level of coexistence with the carpinchos,” said Di Martino.

Built 20 years ago, Nordelta has homes, offices, a shopping center, schools, a church, a synagogue and an artificial lake that is home to aquatic birds.

But since work to build a clinic began on the last remaining piece of natural land, many residents have noted a sudden capybara “invasion.”

“Carpinchos were always here. We always saw them from time to time. But three or four months ago (builders) went for their last remaining stronghold and the stampede began,” Perla Paggi, a Nordelta resident and capybara activist, told AFP.

Nordelta and similar luxury developments on wetlands have also been a controversial topic in Argentina.

As well as eating into the capybara’s natural habitat, large scale development of the wetland means the soil can no longer absorb heavy rains, which then end up flooding poorer surrounding neighborhoods.

In politically polarized Argentina, leftists have long attacked Nordelta as an example of elite exploitation, while jokingly presenting the capybara as a hero of the working classes.

– Lack of predators –

Di Martino says the proliferation of capybaras is harmful to the environment, but that too is the fault of humans.

Capybaras are prey for jaguars, pumas, foxes, wild cats and wild dogs but all of these animals are now virtually extinct in Argentina.

“It’s happening all over the country, in urbanized and non-urbanized areas. It is caused by the alteration and degradation of ecosystems. We’ve extinguished a ton of species that were their natural predators,” Di Martino told AFP.

“The carpincho needs a predator to reduce its population and also make it afraid,” said Di Martino.

“When there’s a herbivore without a predator threatening it, it doesn’t hide and can spend all day eating, thereby degrading the vegetation which traps less carbon and contributes to climate change.”

In the wild, capybaras live between eight and 10 years and give birth to litters of up to six young, once a year.

Not everyone in Nordelta views them as a nuisance. In fact they have become the main attraction in the residential complex.

Drivers slow down to take pictures of them, while children seek them out at nightfall for selfies.

Some Nordelta residents want to create a natural reserve for the capybaras to live in.

“We have to learn to live beside them, they’re not aggressive animals,” said Paggi.

“A 20 to 30 hectare reserve is enough to maintain diversity. They are defenseless animals, we corner them, we take away their habitat and now we complain because they’re invading.”

Di Martino, though, says a natural reserve would change nothing.

“It’s complicated, you need to keep them away from children and pets. And then you’re going to have to find a way to reduce the population, maybe moving them to other places.”

US President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday announced new commercial fishing restrictions in what it called an effort to save critically endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement, a leading cause of their deaths.

But conservation groups immediately criticized the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries for not going far enough to stop the species’ slide towards extinction.

There are an estimated 368 North Atlantic right whales remaining, and the population has been declining since 2010, particularly from 2017 onwards, during which time there have been 50 deaths or serious injuries.

Under the rules, which take effect from May 2022, lobster and crab fishers will need to increase the number of traps they lay on the ocean floor per fishing line, in order to decrease the number of lines.

The rope lines, which are attached to buoys, will also have to be weakened so that whales that become entangled are more likely to break free.

It also adds new seasonal restrictions for certain types of entangling gear.

“The new measures in this rule will allow the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries to continue to thrive, while significantly reducing the risk to critically endangered right whales,” said NOAA official Michael Pentony.

But Gib Brogan, a senior campaign manager for the non-profit organization Oceana, told AFP that the use of weak ropes was a “largely theoretical strategy” that hasn’t been tested enough to deploy.

“Even if everything works as designed, it still puts stress on an endangered species and stress from all varieties has been shown to reduce the size of right whales, and decrease their reproduction,” Brogan said.

Oceana had suggested the United States follow Canada’s example by having longer seasonal restrictions that cover a greater area, and by reacting to new sightings of whale clusters by rapidly creating new zones.

“We can’t save this rapidly declining whale population from extinction with half-measures like this,” Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

Entanglement in fishing gear used to catch crustaceans and bottom-dwelling fish such as halibut, flounder and cod is one of two leading causes of North Atlantic right whale deaths. 

According to Oceana, about a quarter of North Atlantic right whales are entangled each year.

The ropes can be seen wrapped around their mouths, fins, tails and bodies, slowing them down, affecting their ability to feed and reproduce. 

At times the lines cut into their flesh, causing life-threatening infections, or even severing fins and tails and cutting into the bone.

The other leading cause of death is from speeding vessels, particularly those exceeding 10 knots (11.5 miles per hour, 18.5 kilometers per hour).

Brogan said Oceana was particularly disappointed that the government had pursued measures first proposed by the administration of former president Donald Trump, which had been opposed by more than 200,000 people during public comments.

The regulations were developed by the “Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction” group, which is largely composed of members of the fishing industry.

Families of a giant rodent native to South America have been invading a luxury gated community in Argentina, highlighting the country’s controversial environmental and social policies.

Nordelta is a 1,600 hectare (3,950 acre) luxury private urban complex built on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, on a wetland from the Parana river that is the capybara’s natural habitat.

Many Nordelta residents have complained about capybara’s ruining manicured lawns, biting pets and causing traffic accidents.

Also known as a carpincho or chiguire, the capybara is the largest rodent in the world and can measure up to 1.35 meters (53 inches) in length and reach 80 kilograms (176 pounds) in weight.

“Nordelta is an exceptionally rich wetland that should never have been touched,” biologist Sebastian di Martino, conservation director at the Rewilding Argentina foundation, told AFP.

“Now that the damage has been done, the residents need to reach a certain level of coexistence with the carpinchos,” said Di Martino.

Built 20 years ago, Nordelta has homes, offices, a shopping center, schools, a church, a synagogue and an artificial lake that is home to aquatic birds.

But since work to build a clinic began on the last remaining piece of natural land, many residents have noted a sudden capybara “invasion.”

“Carpinchos were always here. We always saw them from time to time. But three or four months ago (builders) went for their last remaining stronghold and the stampede began,” Perla Paggi, a Nordelta resident and capybara activist, told AFP.

Nordelta and similar luxury developments on wetlands have also been a controversial topic in Argentina.

As well as eating into the capybara’s natural habitat, large scale development of the wetland means the soil can no longer absorb heavy rains, which then end up flooding poorer surrounding neighborhoods.

In politically polarized Argentina, leftists have long attacked Nordelta as an example of elite exploitation, while jokingly presenting the capybara as a hero of the working classes.

– Lack of predators –

Di Martino says the proliferation of capybaras is harmful to the environment, but that too is the fault of humans.

Capybaras are prey for jaguars, pumas, foxes, wild cats and wild dogs but all of these animals are now virtually extinct in Argentina.

“It’s happening all over the country, in urbanized and non-urbanized areas. It is caused by the alteration and degradation of ecosystems. We’ve extinguished a ton of species that were their natural predators,” Di Martino told AFP.

“The carpincho needs a predator to reduce its population and also make it afraid,” said Di Martino.

“When there’s a herbivore without a predator threatening it, it doesn’t hide and can spend all day eating, thereby degrading the vegetation which traps less carbon and contributes to climate change.”

In the wild, capybaras live between eight and 10 years and give birth to litters of up to six young, once a year.

Not everyone in Nordelta views them as a nuisance. In fact they have become the main attraction in the residential complex.

Drivers slow down to take pictures of them, while children seek them out at nightfall for selfies.

Some Nordelta residents want to create a natural reserve for the capybaras to live in.

“We have to learn to live beside them, they’re not aggressive animals,” said Paggi.

“A 20 to 30 hectare reserve is enough to maintain diversity. They are defenseless animals, we corner them, we take away their habitat and now we complain because they’re invading.”

Di Martino, though, says a natural reserve would change nothing.

“It’s complicated, you need to keep them away from children and pets. And then you’re going to have to find a way to reduce the population, maybe moving them to other places.”

A Bengal tiger cub is being cared for by humans at Nicaragua’s National Zoo after its mother was unable to produce the milk necessary to feed the latest little addition to the endangered species, the zoo’s director Eduardo Sacasa said Tuesday.

The tiger, which was born on Saturday, is the fourth of its kind to be born at the National Zoo in Masaya, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of the capital Managua. 

The four-day-old baby, who does not yet have a name, is “being fed with a special milk for cats,” Sacasa said. 

“She is very sweet,” he said.

“We’re taking care of her so that she survives — this is a difficult period for her because she did not get any colostrum for her natural defenses,” Sacasa explained, referring to the early nutrient-dense milk mammals produce right after birth. 

The cub’s mother Dalila had given birth to a female white tiger cub — called Nieve, or snow — in December, but that baby died of respiratory problems only two weeks later, despite the special care given by the zoo. 

Nicaragua’s National Zoo has two other female tigers that have also given birth.

Sacasa said the births give him hope the zoo can be a kind of “genetic center” in protecting the species.

Bengal tigers are listed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species as in danger of extinction, thanks to hunting and deforestation of its natural habitat in Asia. 

Louisiana and Mississippi took stock Tuesday of the disaster inflicted by powerful Hurricane Ida, as receding floodwaters began to reveal the full extent of the damage along the US Gulf Coast and the death toll rose to four.

New Orleans was still mostly without power nearly two days after Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm, exactly 16 years after devastating Hurricane Katrina — which killed more than 1,800 people — made landfall.

Four deaths have been confirmed as crews began fanning out in boats and off-road vehicles to search communities cut off by the giant storm. A man was also missing after apparently being killed by an alligator.

Images of people being plucked from flooded cars and pictures of destroyed homes surfaced on social media, while the damage in New Orleans itself remained limited.

New Orleans Airport said all incoming and outgoing flights scheduled for Tuesday were canceled, while airlines had scrapped nearly 200 flights on Wednesday.

One person was killed by a falling tree in Prairieville, while a second victim died trying to drive through floodwaters some 60 miles (95 kilometers) southeast in New Orleans, officials reported.

Ida knocked out power for more than a million properties across Louisiana, according to outage tracker PowerOutage.us, most of which still out Tuesday afternoon as late-summer temperatures rose.

But power provider Entergy told New Orleans City Council members Tuesday morning that some electricity could be restored as early as Wednesday, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

The first to see power would likely be hospitals — many of which are dealing with a surge of Covid patients — and sewage and water treatment centers, the paper reported, saying it could still be days before average customers were reconnected. 

Entergy had initially said it could take days to even assess the full extent of the damage.

In Mississippi, which has been buffeted by torrential rain, a road collapse left two people dead and 10 more injured, including three in critical condition, the state’s highway patrol said.

The death toll is expected to rise further, Louisiana Deputy Governor Billy Nungesser warned Tuesday, especially in coastal areas directly hit by Ida where search and rescue operations are ongoing.

Meanwhile in St. Tammany Parish, police said a 71-year-old man was attacked and “apparently killed by an alligator while walking in flood waters following Hurricane Ida.”

– Ida heads northeast –

President Joe Biden declared a major disaster for Louisiana and Mississippi, which gives the states access to federal aid.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said his state had deployed more than 1,600 personnel for search and rescue operations, while the Pentagon said over 5,200 personnel from the military, federal emergency management and National Guard had been activated across several southern states.

As Ida — which has now been downgraded to a tropical depression — travels northeast, considerable heavy rain and flooding is expected to threaten the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys and move onward into the mid-Atlantic through Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Scientists have warned of a rise in cyclone activity as the ocean surface warms due to climate change, posing an increasing threat to the world’s coastal communities.

US President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday announced new commercial fishing restrictions in what it called an effort to save critically endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement, a leading cause of their deaths.

But conservation groups immediately criticized the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries for not going far enough to stop the species’ slide towards extinction.

There are an estimated 368 North Atlantic right whales remaining, and the population has been declining since 2010, particularly from 2017 onwards, during which time there have been 50 deaths or serious injuries.

Under the rules, which take effect from May 2022, lobster and crab fishers will need to increase the number of traps they lay on the ocean floor per fishing line, in order to decrease the number of lines.

The rope lines, which are attached to buoys, will also have to be weakened so that whales that become entangled are more likely to break free.

It also adds new seasonal restrictions for certain types of entangling gear.

“The new measures in this rule will allow the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries to continue to thrive, while significantly reducing the risk to critically endangered right whales,” said NOAA official Michael Pentony.

But Gib Brogan, a senior campaign manager for the non-profit organization Oceana, told AFP that the use of weak ropes was a “largely theoretical strategy” that hasn’t been tested enough to deploy.

“Even if everything works as designed, it still puts stress on an endangered species and stress from all varieties has been shown to reduce the size of right whales, and decrease their reproduction,” Brogan said.

Oceana had suggested the United States follow Canada’s example by having longer seasonal restrictions that cover a greater area, and by reacting to new sightings of whale clusters by rapidly creating new zones.

“We can’t save this rapidly declining whale population from extinction with half-measures like this,” Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

Entanglement in fishing gear used to catch crustaceans and bottom-dwelling fish such as halibut, flounder and cod is one of two leading causes of North Atlantic right whale deaths. 

According to Oceana, about a quarter of North Atlantic right whales are entangled each year.

The ropes can be seen wrapped around their mouths, fins, tails and bodies, slowing them down, affecting their ability to feed and reproduce. 

At times the lines cut into their flesh, causing life-threatening infections, or even severing fins and tails and cutting into the bone.

The other leading cause of death is from speeding vessels, particularly those exceeding 10 knots (11.5 miles per hour, 18.5 kilometers per hour).

Brogan said Oceana was particularly disappointed that the government had pursued measures first proposed by the administration of former president Donald Trump, which had been opposed by more than 200,000 people during public comments.

The regulations were developed by the “Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction” group, which is largely composed of members of the fishing industry.

Johnson & Johnson’s highly anticipated HIV vaccine failed to demonstrate adequate protection in a clinical trial involving more than 2,600 young women in sub-Saharan Africa, the company and US health authorities said Tuesday.

Though the vaccine was found to be safe, with no serious side effects, its efficacy in preventing HIV infection was just over 25 percent.

As a result, the “Imbokodo” trial that began in 2017 will now be halted, and the participants, from Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be told whether they received the vaccine or placebo. 

But the company will continue a parallel trial involving men who have sex with men and transgender individuals that is taking place in the Americas and Europe, where vaccine composition differs and so do the prevalent HIV strains.

In a statement, Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer of J&J thanked the women who participated and the company’s partners. 

“While we are disappointed that the vaccine candidate did not provide a sufficient level of protection against HIV infection in the Imbokodo trial, the study will give us important scientific findings in the ongoing pursuit for a vaccine to prevent HIV,” he said.

“We must apply the knowledge learned from the Imbokodo trial and continue our efforts to find a vaccine that will be protective against HIV,” added Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases which co-funded the study.

The J&J vaccine uses similar adenovirus technology to its Covid-19 vaccine, and was delivered with four vaccinations over a year.

A genetically modified cold virus delivers genetic cargo carrying instructions for the host to develop “mosaic immunogens” — molecules capable of inducing an immune response to a wide variety of HIV strains.

The last two doses also contained proteins that are found on the HIV virus itself, as well as a substance called an “adjuvant” that is meant to further spur the immune system.

The trial was analyzed two years after the women, who were aged 18-35, received their first dose.

Researchers found that 63 participants who received the placebo and 51 who received the vaccine became infected with HIV, meaning the efficacy was 25.2 percent.

The participants were offered pre-exposure prophylaxis medication (PrEP) to help prevent HIV infection during the clinical trial.

The women who acquired HIV infection were directed to medical care and offered antiretroviral treatment. 

– Quest continues –

In the four decades since the first cases of what would come to be known as AIDS were documented, scientists have made huge strides in HIV treatment, transforming what was once a death sentence to a manageable condition.

Oral PreP, when taken every day, reduces the risk of infection by 99 percent.

But because access to medication remains unequal across the world and even within wealthy countries, a vaccine that would train the human system to ward off infection remains a high priority.

This month, a trial of two vaccines by Moderna based on the same mRNA technology behind the company’s Covid vaccine was posted on a government website, with recruitment to begin September 19.

HIV is especially hard to produce a vaccine against, as there are hundreds or thousands of variants inside each infected person.

It is also a “retrovirus” meaning it quickly incorporates itself into its host’s DNA, becoming an irreversible infection.

A Paris auction house will seek to sell in October the world’s biggest known example of the dinosaur triceratops, known as “Big John”, with the spectacular skeleton on show to the public beforehand, organisers said Tuesday.

The triceratops is among the most distinctive of dinosaurs due to the three horns on its head — one at the nose and two on the forehead — that give the dinosaur its Latin name.

“Big John” is the largest known surviving example, 66 million years old and with a skeleton some eight metres long. 

It will be on display starting October 18 at the Drouot auction house in Paris, where it will be offered by the specialist auctioneers Giquello on October 21.

It is estimated that it will sell at 1.2 to 1.5 million euros ($1.4-$1.8 million), though dinosaur auction sales have proved very unpredicable in the past.

The dinosaur has an export licence and there are a dozen possible buyers, said Alexandre Giquello of the Giquello house.

The two-metre-wide skull, some 200 bones and large horns of the animal were being assembled Tuesday behind the windows of a Drouot exhibition gallery in central Paris.

A unique specimen with the skeleton more than 60-percent complete — including 75 percent for the skull — Big John was discovered in 2014 in the US state of South Dakota by geologist Walter W. Stein Bill. Its restoration was carried out in Trieste in Italy.

This sale comes amid continued enthusiasm for dinosaur skeletons, with prices often reaching records that leave public museums and research centres unable to outbid private buyers. 

In October, a rare allosaurus skeleton, one of the oldest dinosaurs, was auctioned in Paris to an anonymous bidder for over three million euros, twice its estimate.

A few weeks before, a 67-million-year-old T-Rex skeleton was sold in New York for $31.8 million, smashing records for a dinosaur and far surpassing an estimate of $6 to $8 million.

In 2020, however, several dinosaurs offered in Paris did not find takers after minimum prices were not reached.

Johnson & Johnson’s highly anticipated HIV vaccine failed to demonstrate adequate protection in a clinical trial involving more than 2,600 young women in sub-Saharan Africa, the company and US health authorities said Tuesday.

Though the vaccine was found to be safe, with no serious side effects, its efficacy in preventing HIV infection was just over 25 percent.

As a result, the “Imbokodo” trial that began in 2017 will now be halted, and the participants, from Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be told whether they received the vaccine or placebo. 

But the company will continue a parallel trial involving men who have sex with men and transgender individuals that is taking place in the Americas and Europe, where vaccine composition differs and so do the prevalent HIV strains.

In a statement, Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer of J&J thanked the women who participated and the company’s partners. 

“While we are disappointed that the vaccine candidate did not provide a sufficient level of protection against HIV infection in the Imbokodo trial, the study will give us important scientific findings in the ongoing pursuit for a vaccine to prevent HIV,” he said.

“We must apply the knowledge learned from the Imbokodo trial and continue our efforts to find a vaccine that will be protective against HIV,” added Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases which co-funded the study.

The J&J vaccine uses similar adenovirus technology to its Covid-19 vaccine, and was delivered with four vaccinations over a year.

A genetically modified cold virus delivers genetic cargo carrying instructions for the host to develop “mosaic immunogens” — molecules capable of inducing an immune response to a wide variety of HIV strains.

The last two doses also contained proteins that are found on the HIV virus itself, as well as a substance called an “adjuvant” that is meant to further spur the immune system.

The trial was analyzed two years after the women, who were aged 18-35, received their first dose.

Researchers found that 63 participants who received the placebo and 51 who received the vaccine became infected with HIV, meaning the efficacy was 25.2 percent.

The participants were offered pre-exposure prophylaxis medication (PrEP) to help prevent HIV infection during the clinical trial.

The women who acquired HIV infection were directed to medical care and offered antiretroviral treatment. 

– Quest continues –

In the four decades since the first cases of what would come to be known as AIDS were documented, scientists have made huge strides in HIV treatment, transforming what was once a death sentence to a manageable condition.

Oral PreP, when taken every day, reduces the risk of infection by 99 percent.

But because access to medication remains unequal across the world and even within wealthy countries, a vaccine that would train the human system to ward off infection remains a high priority.

This month, Moderna began a trial of two vaccines based on the same mRNA technology behind its Covid vaccine, according to a listing on a US government website.

HIV is especially hard to produce a vaccine against, in part because it quickly incorporates itself into its host’s DNA.