The law makes it legal to give prostitutes employment contracts, after Belgium became the first country in Europe to decriminalize self-employed sex work in 2022. It bestows certain rights on the worker and conditions on their employer. These include the right to refuse a client or a sexual act, as well as the right to interrupt a sexual act at any time without fear of dismissal or punishment.
Voters have made history by electing emergency room nurse and community organizer Molly Cook as Texas’s first out LGBTQ+ state senator. The Democrat’s victory was the result of a special election to fill the seat of John Whitmire (D), who is now Houston’s mayor.
Synthetic opioids are one of the main drivers in overdose deaths in the United States. They are often mixed with other drugs, but because of their potency, they are often present in such small amounts that they can be hard to detect. The new sensor, developed by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, uses carbon nanotubes and gold nanoparticles to tell the most deadly drugs apart from others.
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew traditionally used by Indigenous cultures in the Amazon and Orinoco. It is now often used to help treat depression, PTSD, trauma, and other mental illnesses and to promote spiritual and emotional development. The Church of the Eagle and the Condor is officially the first non-Christian church in the U.S to obtain legal protections to use it as a sacrament.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released an updated analysis of American fisheries late last week via its annual “Status of the Stocks” report, which provides an assessment of the populations of the seafood species fishermen catch and customers buy. The report states that 94% of fish stocks are not subject to overfishing. NOAA said it was able to remove Atlantic coast bluefish and a Washington coast stock of coho salmon from the overfished list.
In a historic win for the LGBTQ+ community, Aetna reached a settlement today with a group of plaintiffs alleging medical discrimination in their fertility coverage. The insurance company is paying out $2 million to the members of the class action lawsuit, as well as restructuring how they cover fertility for queer couples moving forward. This marks the first big step toward ending fertility-based medical discrimination for LGBTQ+ couples.
Denmark is easing its abortion law for the first time in 50 years to allow women to terminate their pregnancies up to the 18th week. The new rules will also allow 15 to 17-year-olds to have an abortion without parental consent and will replace the five regional abortion consultations with a new national abortion board, to avoid local differences.
In a first-ever human clinical trial of four adult patients, an mRNA cancer vaccine developed at the University of Florida quickly reprogrammed the immune system to attack glioblastoma, the most aggressive and lethal brain tumor.
In a first-ever human clinical trial of adult patients, an mRNA cancer vaccine developed at the University of Florida reprogrammed the immune system to attack glioblastoma, the most aggressive and lethal brain tumor. The results mirror those in 10 pet dog patients suffering from brain tumors, as well as results from preclinical mouse models. The breakthrough will now be tested in a Phase 1 pediatric clinical trial.
Delegates overwhelmingly approved the changes, 692 to 51, during the United Methodist Church’s General Conference. Shortly after the vote, spontaneous celebrations erupted on the conference center floor. Hundreds of people began cheering and singing. One of the hymn lyrics distinguishable in the crowd was, “You are a child, you are a child of God.” The UMC is one of the largest Protestant denominations in the U.S., with over five million members and 29,000 churches.
Energy ministers from the G7 countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union — agreed at a meeting in Turin, Italy, to close all coal-fired generating stations in their countries by 2035 if not sooner. Putting an end date on coal — the most polluting of all fossil fuels — has been highly controversial at international climate talks. Until this point, Japan, which derived 32% of its electricity from coal in 2023 according to the climate advocate Ember, has blocked progress on the issue at past G7 meetings.
