MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Parts of the north side of Montgomery are defined by what it has lost: restaurants, grocery stores and a convenient pharmacy, the latter of which closed five years ago. People who still live in the historically Black neighborhood of Newtown, like Sharon Harris, are frustrated. She goes to a different location of the same pharmacy chain, which is four miles from her home. “You have to come back sometimes,” she said, “and then they wait so long to fill the prescription.” In cities across the U.S., major retail pharmacies have closed hundreds of stores over the past few years and independents can’t always afford to stay open. That can leave residents of color without easy access to a business that provides not only prescriptions but also fundamental public health services like vaccinations, over-the-counter medicines and even food. Closures create “a situation where there’s not just (a lack of) …

seattle, washington — Retired Major General William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90. His son, Greg Anders, confirmed the death to The Associated Press. “The family is devastated,” Greg Anders said. “He was a great pilot, and we will miss him terribly.” Anders said the photo was his most significant contribution to the space program, given the ecological and philosophical impact it had, along with making sure the Apollo 8 command module and service module worked. A report came in around 11:40 a.m. local time that an older-model plane had crashed into the water and had sunk near the north end of Jones Island, San Juan County Sheriff …

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Zimbabwe is facing long hours of power cuts due to its dilapidated infrastructure and the impact of recurring droughts on hydropower. To help, the United Nations Development Program is installing solar panels on government-owned health facilities. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Bulawayo. …

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Boca Chica, Texas — SpaceX’s mega Starship rocket completed its first full test flight Thursday, returning to Earth without exploding after blasting off from Texas.  The previous three test flights ended in explosions of the rocket and the spacecraft. This time, both managed to splash down in a controlled fashion.  The world’s largest and most powerful rocket — almost 121 meters tall — was empty as it soared above the Gulf of Mexico and headed east on a flight to the Indian Ocean.  Minutes after Thursday morning’s liftoff, the first-stage booster separated from the spacecraft and splashed into the gulf precisely as planned, after firing its engines.  An hour later, live views showed parts of the spacecraft breaking away during the intense heat of reentry, but it remained intact enough to transmit data all the way to its targeted splashdown site in the Indian Ocean.  “And we have splashdown!” SpaceX launch …

Many Israeli and Palestinian children are suffering from trauma because of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing eight months of war between the two sides. Therapists in both communities say the emotional scars could linger for years. Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem. …

SHANGHAI, China — Novo Nordisk is facing the prospect of intensifying competition in the promising Chinese market, where drugmakers are developing at least 15 generic versions of its diabetes drug Ozempic and weight loss treatment Wegovy, clinical trial records showed. The Danish drugmaker has high hopes that demand for its blockbuster drugs will surge in China, which is estimated to have the world’s highest number of people who are overweight or obese. Ozempic won approval from China in 2021, and Novo Nordisk saw sales of the drug in the greater China region double to $698 million last year. It is expecting Wegovy to be approved this year. But the patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in both Wegovy and Ozempic, expires in China in 2026. Novo is also in the midst of a legal fight in the country over the patent. An adverse court ruling could make it lose its semaglutide …

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NEW YORK — The U.N. secretary-general said Wednesday that the world is “at a moment of truth” to reach targets in the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming, as the planet has just experienced the 12 hottest consecutive months on record. “The truth is, almost ten years since the Paris Agreement was adopted, the target of limiting long-term global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is hanging by a thread,” Antonio Guterres told an audience at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, where exhibits about extinct dinosaurs offered their own planetary warning. “The World Meteorological Organization reports today that there is an 80% chance the global annual average temperature will exceed the 1.5-degree limit in at least one of the next five years,” he said. “We are playing Russian roulette with our planet,” he warned in a special climate speech under the museum’s famous blue whale, marking World Environment …

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washington — Federal health advisers voted Tuesday against a first-of-a-kind proposal to begin using the mind-altering drug MDMA as a treatment for PTSD, handing a potentially major setback to advocates who had hoped to win a landmark federal approval and bring the banned drugs into the medical mainstream.  The panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration sided 10-1 against the overall benefits of MDMA when used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. They cited flawed study data, questionable research conduct and significant drug risks, including the potential for heart problems, injury and abuse.  “It seems like there are so many problems with the data — each one alone might be OK, but when you pile them on top of each other … there’s just a lot of questions I would have about how effective the treatment is,” said Dr. Melissa Decker Barone, a psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs.  …

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AKTUN TUYUL CAVE SYSTEM, Mexico — Rays of sunlight slice through pools of crystal water as clusters of fish cast shadows on the limestone below. Arching over the emerald basin are walls of stalactites dripping down the cavern ceiling, which opens to a dense jungle. These glowing sinkhole lakes — known as cenotes — are a part of one of Mexico’s natural wonders: A fragile system of an estimated 10,000 subterranean caverns, rivers and lakes that wind almost surreptitiously beneath Mexico’s southern Yucatan peninsula. Now, construction of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s crown jewel project — the Maya Train — is rapidly destroying part of that hidden underground world, already under threat by development and mass tourism. As the caverns are thrust into the spotlight in the lead-up to the country’s presidential elections, scientists and environmentalists warn that the train will mean long-term environmental ruin. Deep in the jungle, the roar …