Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 1, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba A18 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS I CANADA / WORLD SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2025 Indicted in Louisiana for prescribing abortion pill to minor Arrest warrant issued for New York doctor BATON ROUGE, La. — An arrest war- rant has been issued for a New York doctor indicted on Friday by a Louisi- ana grand jury for allegedly prescrib- ing abortion pills online to a pregnant minor in the Deep South state, which has one of the strictest near-total abor- tion bans in the country. Grand jurors at the District Court for the Parish of West Baton Rouge unani- mously issued an indictment against Dr. Margaret Carpenter; her company, Nightingale Medical, PC; and the min- or’s mother. All three were charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony. In addition to Carter, an arrest war- rant was issued for the mother, who has not been publicly identified to protect the identity of the minor. District Attor- ney Tony Clayton told The Associated Press that the mother turned herself in to police on Friday. The case appears to be the first in- stance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state, at least since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and opened the door for states to have strict anti-abortion laws. “We expect Dr. Carpenter to come to Louisiana and answer to these charges, and if 12 people (a jury) think she’s in- nocent then, let it go,” Clayton said. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a video posted on social media, “I will never, under any circumstances, turn this doctor over to the state of Louisi- ana under any extradition requests,” signaling a potential legal battle be- tween the states. Last year, the Port Allen, La., woman requested abortion medication online from Carpenter for her daughter, whose age has not been specified. Clayton said the request was made through a ques- tionnaire only and no consultation with the girl. A “cocktail of pills” was mailed to the woman who directed her daughter to take the pill, Clayton said. After taking the drug, the girl ex- perienced a medical emergency while alone, called 911 and was transported to the hospital where she was treated. While responding to the emergency, a police officer learned about the pills and under further investigation found that a doctor in New York state had sup- plied the drugs and turned their find- ings over to Clayton’s office. It is unclear how far along the girl was in her pregnancy. “The (adult) mother has since been arrested, but the other person we be- lieve is just as culpable here is the person who sat in an office, wrapped a box of pills, put a stamp on the box and mailed it to the state of Louisiana for a child to take,” Clayton said. Carpenter was sued in December by the Texas attorney general under sim- ilar allegations of sending pills to that state. That case did not involve crimin- al charges. Carpenter did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press. The indictment comes just months after Louisiana became the first state with a law reclassifying both mifepris- tone and misoprostol as “controlled dangerous substances.” The drugs are still allowed, but medical personnel must take extra steps to access them. Under the legislation, if someone knowingly possesses either medication without a valid prescription, they could be fined up to US$5,000 and sent to jail for one to five years. The law carves out protections for pregnant women who obtain the drug without a prescription to take on their own. “I have said it before and I will say it again: We will hold individuals account- able for breaking the law,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Repub- lican, said in a statement on Friday. Abortion opponents and reproduct- ive rights groups alike flooded social media scrutinizing the indictment. “We cannot continue to allow forced birth extremists to interfere with our ability to access necessary healthcare, Chasity Wilson, executive director of the Louisiana Abortion Fund, said in a statement. “Extremists hope this case will cause a chilling effect, further ty- ing the hands of doctors who took an oath to care for their patients.” Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, Louisi- ana has had a near-total abortion ban, without any exceptions for rape or incest. Under the law, physicians con- victed of performing an illegal abor- tion, including one with pills, face up to 15 years in prison, US$200,000 in fines and the loss of their medical licence. “Make no mistake, since Roe v. Wade was overturned, we’ve witnessed a dis- turbing pattern of interference with women’s rights,” the Abortion Coalition of Telemedicine, where Carpenter is one of the founders, said in a statement. “It’s no secret the United States has a history of violence and harassment against abortion providers, and this state-sponsored effort to prosecute a doctor providing safe and effective care should alarm everyone.” Friday’s indictment could be the first direct test of New York’s shield laws, which are intended to protect prescrib- ers who use telehealth to provide abor- tion pills to patients in states where abortion is banned. New York Attorney General Letitia James said, “we will not allow bad actors to undermine our pro- viders’ ability to deliver critical care.” “This cowardly attempt out of Louisi- ana to weaponize the law against out-of- state providers is unjust and un-Amer- ican,” James added. Pills have become the most com- mon means of abortion in the U.S., ac- counting for nearly two-thirds of them by 2023. They’re also at the centre of political and legal action over abortion. In January, a judge let three states con- tinue to challenge federal government approvals for how one of the drugs usually involved can be prescribed. — The Associated Press SARA CLINE, GEOFF MULVIHILL AND MICHAEL HILL CHARLIE NEIBERGALL / ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Louisiana became the first state with a law reclassifying both mifepristone and misoprostol as ‘controlled dangerous substances.’ City infestations grow in size as climate warms Rat populations rise with the temperature W ASHINGTON — Rat infestation in many world cities appears to be soaring, especially in Wash- ington, D.C., and a new study blames warming temperatures, urbanization and other human actions. A first-of-its-kind examination of trends and reasons in hard-to-count rat populations uses rat sighting reports in 16 cities around the world. In 11 of those cities, rat complaints have increased, according to a study in Friday’s journal Science Advances. Based on individual trends within cities, Washington was by far the lead- er in rat increases, followed by San Francisco, Toronto, New York City and Amsterdam. Washington’s rising rat reporting trend was three times great- er than Boston’s and 50 per cent more than New York’s, the study said. Wash- ington city officials did not respond to requests for comment. Only three cities saw significant de- creasing trends — New Orleans, Louis- ville and Tokyo — with the home of Mardi Gras showing the biggest drop in rat reporting. Experts said the Louisi- ana city can teach others how to combat the rat problem. Researchers did a statistical analysis of the rising rat reporting in those cities and concluded that slightly more than 40 per cent of the trend seen is due to warming temperatures from the burn- ing of coal, oil and natural gas. And that comes down to sex and food, said study lead author Jonathan Richardson, a biol- ogist at the University of Richmond. “We’re seeing these increasing trends in rats in cities that are warm- ing the fastest, probably because this is a small mammal that has physiological challenges in the cold weather months,” Richardson said. “If we’re warming the climate and winter starts a week or two later and spring arrives a week or two earlier, that’s one, two, maybe even three or four weeks across the entire year where those rats can be above ground foraging, acquiring more food and maybe squeezing out one or two more reproductive cycles.” An extra month may not sound like much, but female rats can have a lit- ter every month. Each litter is eight to 16 baby rats, Richardson said: “That is a recipe for accelerated population growth.” Researchers pointed to two other big statistical links — that fit with known biological issues — behind more rat re- ports: the increase in urbanization and more densely populated cities. Rats like the built-up environment and being near people and their waste, the study and outside scientists said. “The rat is the third most successful mammal behind humans and house mice. So it evolved and engineered to live alongside us,” New York City rat czar Kathleen Corradi said during a break at a New Orleans conference on improving pest management. “They followed humans, Homo sapiens, across the continents and are in every single continent except Antarctica. So it’s con- sidered a wicked problem.” Even though rats are intelligent and highly adaptive, Richardson and other experts said they are a serious problem for people. “When rodent populations are high, people get sick, motor vehicles become disabled, mental health declines, fires are started and foods fouled,” said Houston rat expert Michael Parsons, who wasn’t part of the study. People are rightly bothered by rats because of “an innate fear caused by an organism that can make us sick.” Researchers have not had good fig- ures on rats. Because of the way they live and hide, they are not as easily counted as other critters, so this is one of the first attempts to quantify them. Several outside experts said the study is legitimate, sensible and was sorely needed. “This paper is by far the largest data-driven effort to understand chan- ges in urban rat populations ever at- tempted,” said Drexel University ecol- ogy professor Jason Munshi-South, who wasn’t part of the research. The answer is not more poison or traps, but prevention, the study said. “In New Orleans they make a big effort to get out into neighbourhoods and do educational workshops and cam- paigns to talk to residents about what makes a property less likely to have rats,” Richardson said. New York City’s recently stepped up rat-fighting, which includes replacing garbage in bags on the street with rat-resistant containers, hasn’t quite shown up in Richardson’s data yet, but rat czar Corradi said early results are encouraging. The city has signed people up for what it calls an elite squad of rat fighters, named “NYC rat pack.” “As our cities warm, urbanize and (increase in) density, we create more resources for rats which could result in further increases in numbers,” Simon Fraser University health and rat scien- tist Kaylee Byers said in an email. We can fight them better, but in the end people “need to coexist with wild- life in urban environments, even with rats,” University of Michigan conserv- ation scientist Neil Carter said. “Zero rats is impossible,” Richardson said. “But I think an expectation that we need to live with the number of rats that we’re seeing in many of these cit- ies is also an unhealthy perspective on this problem.” — The Associated Press SETH BORENSTEIN RICHARD DREW / ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Simon Fraser University health and rat scientist Kaylee Byers said as ‘our cities warm, urbanize and (increase in) density, we create more resources for rats which could result in further increases in numbers.’ Medical transport plane crashes in Philadelphia, setting homes ablaze MICHAEL SISAK AND MATT ROURKE PHILADELPHIA — A medical trans- port jet with a child patient, her mother and four others aboard crashed into a Philadelphia neighbourhood shortly after takeoff Friday evening, explod- ing in a fireball that engulfed several homes. All six people aboard were from Mexico. The child had been treated in Philadelphia for a life-threatening con- dition and was being transported home to Mexico, according to Shai Gold, Jet Rescue Air Ambulance spokesperson. The flight’s final destination was Tiju- ana after a stop in Missouri. The patient and her mother were on board along with four crew members. Gold said this was a seasoned crew and that everyone involved in these flights goes through rigorous training. “When an incident like this happens, it’s shocking and surprising,” Gold told The Associated Press. “All of the air- craft are maintained, not a penny is spared because we know our mission is so critical.” “We cannot confirm any survivors,” the company said in a statement. “Our immediate concern is for the patient’s family, our personnel, their families and other victims that may have been hurt on the ground.” There was no immediate word wheth- er anyone on the ground was killed. Mayor Cherelle Parker said Friday night at a news conference that infor- mation on fatalities wasn’t immediately known but several homes and vehicles had been damaged. “This is still an active scene under in- vestigation,” she said. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said at a news conference late Friday that officials expect fatalities in this “awful aviation disaster.” “We know that there will be loss,” he said. The plane was registered in Mexico. Jet Rescue is based in Mexico and has operations both there and in the U.S. The crash came just two days after the deadliest U.S. air disaster in a genera- tion. On Wednesday night, an American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided in mid-air in Washington, D.C., with an army heli- copter carrying three soldiers. There were no survivors in that crash. In Philadelphia, a doorbell camera captured footage of the plane plunging in a streak of white and exploding as it hit the ground near a shopping mall and major roadway. “All we heard was a loud roar and didn’t know where it was coming from. We just turned around and saw the big plume,” said Jim Quinn, the owner of the doorbell camera. The crash happened less than 3 miles (4.8 kilometres) from Northeast Philadelphia Airport, which primarily serves business jets and charter flights. The plane, a Learjet 55, quickly dis- appeared from radar after taking off from the airport at 6:06 p.m. EST and climbing to an altitude of 1,600 feet (487 metres). It was registered to a company operating as Med Jets, according to the flight tracking website Flight Aware. U.S. President Donald Trump posted on social media platform Truth Social it was “so sad” to see the crash. “More innocent souls lost,” he said. “Our people are totally engaged.” A continuous stream of police ve- hicles and fire trucks initially rushed into the crash site, taking over business parking lots as emergency workers re- sponded. Within about an hour, the cry of sirens and shouted orders had faded into relative quiet at the edges of the closed-off area, and darkness settled in as drivers passing by peered out trying to see what was happening. The plane crashed in a busy inter- section near Roosevelt Mall, an outdoor shopping centre in the densely popu- lated neighbourhood of Rhawnhurst. One cellphone video taken by a wit- ness moments after the crash showed a chaotic scene with debris scattered across the intersection. A wall of or- ange glowed just beyond as a plume of black smoke quickly rose into the sky and sirens blared. Michael Schiavone, 37, was sitting at his home in Mayfair, a nearby neigh- bourhood, when he heard a loud bang and his house shook. He said it felt like a mini earthquake and when he checked his home security camera footage, he said it looked like a missile was coming down. “There was a large explosion, so I thought we were under attack for a second,” he said. The plane’s owner, Jet Rescue, pro- vides global air ambulance services. The company flew baseball hall of fam- er David Ortiz to Boston after he was shot in the Dominican Republic in 2019 and was involved in transporting pa- tients critically ill with COVID-19. The FAA said the National Transpor- tation Safety Board will lead the inves- tigation. The NTSB, which investigates air crashes, said it was gathering infor- mation about the crash. — The Associated Press ;