By MELINA WALLING, Associated Press

Every time humans cut into the Amazon rainforest or burn or destroy parts of it, they’re making people sick.

It’s an idea Indigenous people have lived by for thousands of years. Now a new study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment adds to the scientific evidence supporting it, by finding that instances of several diseases were lowered in areas where forest was set aside for Indigenous peoples who maintained it well.

With the United Nations climate summit set for Brazil in November, the study authors and outside experts said the work highlights the stakes for people around the world as negotiators try to address climate change. Belem, the city hosting the conference, is known as the gateway to the Amazon, and many who will be attending, from activists to delegates, think the role of Indigenous communities in climate action and conservation will be highlighted in a distinct way.

“The ‘forest man’ or ‘man forest,’ according to the Indigenous perspective, has always been linked to the reciprocity between human health and the natural environment where one lives,” said Francisco Hernández Cayetano, president of the Federation of Ticuna and Yagua Communities of the Lower Amazon, or FECOTYBA, in the Peruvian Amazon. “If each state does not guarantee the rights and territories of Indigenous peoples, we would inevitably be harming their health, their lives, and the ecosystem itself.”

That harm can look like respiratory diseases such as asthma caused by toxic air pollution after fires, or illnesses that spread from animals to humans such as malaria, said Paula Prist, a senior program coordinator for the Forest and Grasslands Unit at the International Union for Conservation of Nature and one of the study authors.

The researchers compiled and analyzed data on forest quality, legal recognition of Indigenous territory and disease incidence in the countries that border and include the Amazon.

FILE – Ashaninka’s territory sits along the winding Amonia River in Acre state, Brazil, June 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz, File)

Outside experts weigh in

The work was “impressive” to University of Washington health and climate scientist Kristie Ebi. She said it highlighted the complexity of factors that affect human health, and the importance of understanding the role Indigenous communities play in shaping it. “Using these methods, others could study other parts of the world,” she said.

The researchers found creative ways to account for other variables that can affect the spread of diseases, like access to health care in a given area, said Magdalena Hurtado, an anthropology and global health professor at Arizona State University and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences who was not involved with the study. But she expressed concern that the findings were presented with a precision that may not be warranted, given that they were based on correlation and use data on observations that can be difficult to measure.

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“They claim that Indigenous territories only protect health when forest cover is above 40%. And so that that feels like, why 40%? Why not 35? Or why not a range?” she asked. “It doesn’t mean that the study is wrong, but it means that we need to be cautious because the patterns could change if different, more precise methods were used.”

Still, she thinks this is a starting point that could open the door to future research. “They are actually doing something quite beautiful,” empirically connecting the legal recognition of Indigenous lands to human health outcomes, she said.

Hernández, of FECOTYBA, said that’s important for the global policymakers who are coming to Brazil.

“From my Indigenous perspective, I think that this type of study would make our ancestral knowledge more visible and precise,” he said.

There’s a strong body of evidence showing that Indigenous land tenure helps maintain intact forests, but the paper shows it’s important to maintain forest outside of Indigenous-stewarded areas as well, said James MacCarthy, a wildfire research manager with the Global Forest Watch team at the World Resources Institute who worked on a new report on extreme wildfires and the role of Indigenous communities in addressing them, and who was not involved with the study.

FILE – Firefighters work to put out a blaze in the Amazon forest during a drought and high temperatures in the rural municipality of Careiro Castanho, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros, File)

Landscapes that produce benefits, and don’t harm human health

Prist said the goal of the study was to understand how landscapes can be healthy for people, but that it would be naive to suggest that all forest landscapes stay exactly as they are, especially with the land needs of farming and livestock production.

The world needs landscapes that provide economic services, but also services that protect people’s health, she said.

For Julia Barreto, an ecologist and data scientist who also worked on the study, it stood out to be part of a team of scientists from different nations working to make information publicly accessible and to bring attention to the Amazon.

“It is not only one country, and the whole world is depending on it somehow,” she said.

Associated Press writer Steven Grattan contributed to this report from Bogota, Colombia.

Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By JACQUES BILLEAUD and MORGAN, LEE Associated Press

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s effort to remove Guatemalan and Honduran children living in shelters or foster care after coming to the U.S. alone, according to a decision Thursday.

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U.S. District Judge Rosemary Marquez in Tucson extended a decision made over the Labor Day weekend.

Lawyers for the children said their clients have said they fear going home, and that the government is not following laws designed to protect migrant children.

A legal aid group filed a lawsuit in Arizona on behalf of 57 Guatemalan children and another 12 from Honduras between the ages 3 and 17.

Nearly all the children were in the custody of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement and living at shelters in the Phoenix and Tucson areas. Similar lawsuits filed in Illinois and Washington, D.C., seek to stop the government from removing the children.

The Arizona lawsuit demands that the government allow the children their right to present their cases to an immigration judge, to have access to legal counsel and to be placed in the least restrictive setting that is in their best interest.

The Trump administration has argued it is acting in the best interest of the children by trying to reunite them with their families at the behest of the Guatemalan government. After Guatemalan officials toured U.S. detention facilities, the government said that it was “very concerned” and that it would take children who wanted to return voluntarily.

Children began crossing the border alone in large numbers in 2014, peaking at 152,060 in the 2022 fiscal year. July’s arrest tally translates to an annual clip of 5,712 arrests, reflecting how illegal crossings have dropped to their lowest levels in six decades.

Guatemalans accounted for 32% of residents at government-run holding facilities last year, followed by Hondurans, Mexicans and Salvadorans. A 2008 law requires children to appear before an immigration judge with an opportunity to pursue asylum, unless they are from Canada and Mexico. The vast majority are released from shelters to parents, legal guardians or immediate family while their cases wind through court.

The Arizona lawsuit was amended to include 12 children from Honduras who have expressed to an Arizona legal aid group that they do not want to return to Honduras, as well as four additional children from Guatemala who have come into government custody in Arizona since the lawsuit was initially filed on Aug. 30.

A 20-year battle to unearth what NYC knew about the dangers of the 9/11 toxins swirling around Ground Zero in the weeks after the terror attacks is reaching a major turning point.

Eight weeks after being ordered to launch a detailed review, the city’s Department of Investigation is now preparing to receive “volumes of data” on the subject from city agencies, the Daily News has learned. Once the City Council mandated the DOI to hunt for documents on 9/11 toxins in mid-July, the agency sent out letters to every agency, asking them to identify and turn over any relevant documents they had.

The response they received has been so overwhelming that the DOI may need to contract with an outside investigations agency to parse through all the data.

Nearly all of the agencies contacted have responded to the DOI’s request to identify any documents they have concerning 9/11 toxins, DOI officials said. Some agencies will be providing information that will be specific to the request. Others will be providing “more general” information about the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, the DOI said.

It was not immediately disclosed exactly which agencies have responded.

Workers work to save any survivors from the rubble of the WTC on Sept. 13, 2001. (Craig Warga for New York Daily News)

Once they come in, the real challenge begins, DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber said.

“We’re in the preliminary stages of determining the complement of relevant records, which we know will be voluminous and require rigorous assessment of what the City knew and when it knew it as well as interviewing witnesses and consulting with environmental experts,” Strauber said.

“Once we have a better understanding of the scope of records, DOI can provide a more exact map of the necessary resources needed.”

Strauber admitted that this “complex investigation will exceed DOI’s existing resources, requiring that we engage an outside investigative firm to assist.”

“I am confident that with appropriate resources DOI will find the facts and lay them out in a public report,” she said.

The council has tasked the DOI with providing a report in two years.

DOI Commissioner Jocelyn E. Strauber. (Barry Williams for New Daily News)

The quick and positive response marks a sea change in the two-decade long quest to get this information from the city.

The Adams administration as well as its predecessors, have foguht the release if those documents, claiming they couldn’t find them and that the documents could lead to a barrage of lawsuits from survivors and first responders suffering from 9/11 illnesses.

Multiple FOIL requests from attorneys representing survivors suffering a 9/11 illness turned up nothing. When attorneys went to court demanding the information, they were repeatedly told that the agencies like the city’s Department of Environmental Protection had nothing to give.

Just last year, the city tried to squash a lawsuit demanding these documents, claiming it didn’t have them and that the search for the long-sought records is nothing more than a “fishing expedition.”

“After a diligent search was performed of DEP’s records, no responsive records were found,” city attorneys claimed in court papers.

The fact that the DOI investigation is turning up so many documents was “just remarkable,” said Andrew Carboy an attorney who represented 911 Health Watch, a responder and survivor advocacy group which filed the FOIL and then filed a lawsuit when the city refused to respond.

Massive amount of rubble still remains at Ground Zero more than a month after the destruction of the World Trade Center in a view from the Woolworth Building. (Mike Albans/New York Daily News)

“It should not take unprecedented Department of Investigation action for the City to comply with the FOIL requests our clients made, two years ago,” Carboy told the News, adding that City Hall also defied earlier requests of New York’s Congressional delegation.

“But for the City Council’s resolution and the DOI investigation, the city would either continue to deny the existence of the secret 9/11 archive or, equally outrageously, claim that the records of its response to the attacks were destroyed in the collapse of the World Trade Center,” he said.

City Councilwoman Gale Brewer wrote the resolution that the full council unanimously passed on July 14, ordering the DOI to probe what information the city had on Ground Zero toxins after the 9/11 attacks and when they had it. It marks the first time a provision of the City Charter allows the Council to order the DOI to undertake an investigation with a bill.

A lone American flag waves in the smoke on Liberty St., overlooking the debris of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. (Michael Schwartz for New York Daily News)

More than 140,000 first responders and survivors are enrolled in the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s WTC Health Program, which provides health care benefits for medical conditions related to exposure to the toxins that hung over Ground Zero. Out of that number, about 81,000 have a certified condition linked to the toxins that hung above Ground Zero.

By JIM MUSTIAN and MICHAEL BIESECKER

The assassination of Charlie Kirk offers the latest example of how ordinary security measures can be defeated in an era of escalating political violence, when anyone associated with the political process is a potential target, including influencers.

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Kirk was in a familiar setting Wednesday before a large crowd at a university in Utah, a red state where voting trends largely aligned with his pro-MAGA politics. The conservative firebrand appeared with his own security team, as he has at scores of events on other campuses.

In hindsight, those with experience protecting high-profile public officials and dignitaries say more could have been done to prevent the fatal shooting.

Security experts interviewed by The Associated Press questioned whether the event was sufficiently staffed but also acknowledged the limitations of both campus police forces and outdoor venues. They said only the inner ring closest to Kirk appeared to be secure, leaving the outer and middle rings exposed.

The killing, apparently carried out from a nearby rooftop, had eerie parallels to the assassination attempt last year against Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, where a 20-year-old gunman managed to climb on top of a nearby building and open fire during a campaign stop.

Law enforcement officials were still searching for the shooter Thursday. Authorities said the assassin used a high-powered, bolt-action rifle and jumped off that building as spectators fled the scene. The FBI released two photos of a “person of interest.”

This undated combination of images provided provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows a person of interest in connection with the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025, in Orem, Utah. (Federal Bureau of Investigation via AP)

Security seemed consistent with other engagements

Many details remained unclear, including what precise security measures were taken ahead of the debate hosted by Kirk’s nonprofit political organization, Turning Point USA. The event at Utah Valley University drew more than 3,000 people.

Hours after the attack, Jeff Long, the campus police chief, told reporters that six of his officers staffed the debate, and that his department had coordinated with Kirk’s own security team. He noted that Kirk had been speaking “in a lower area surrounded by buildings” but did not say whether officers had inspected nearby rooftops.

“This is a police chief’s nightmare,” Long said. “You try to get your bases covered, and unfortunately today we didn’t, and because of that we had this tragic incident.”

Students told AP they saw no metal detectors or bag checks, though the level of security appeared consistent with other speaking engagements on Kirk’s national tour. As Kirk was not an elected or government official, he or his organization likely would have had to pay for security beyond what the university provided.

“They probably didn’t have enough security personnel there,” said Ron Williams, a former U.S. Secret Service agent who now works as a private security consultant. “And the reason is because they really didn’t see the need, especially in Orem, Utah, which is a low-crime area.”

Videos posted to social media show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent. A single shot rings out, and Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the side of his neck.

The debate had been met with divided opinions on campus. An online petition calling on university administrators to bar Kirk from appearing received nearly 1,000 signatures. Kirk, 31, had taken note of the rising temperature last week, posting on X images of news clips showing that his visit to Utah was sparking controversy. “What’s going on in Utah?” he wrote.

Still, it was unclear whether Kirk had received specific death threats or other indications he was in danger. Even if he had, experts said it can be difficult to provide airtight protection for a private individual without a presidential-level security detail.

An example is “The Satanic Verses” novelist Salman Rushdie, who drew death threats from Iranian leaders for decades before he was nearly stabbed to death in 2022 by an assailant who rushed the stage as he was about to give a lecture in western New York.

Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged the inherent security risks of political events in July as he spoke alongside Kirk at a Turning Point USA summit in Tampa, Florida. The younger Trump recalled a 2016 campus event in which he said he appeared with Kirk even after Michigan state police warned that they could not guarantee the two men’s safety.

“I literally said I’d rather get my ass kicked right here, right now, than capitulate to the woke mob,” Trump Jr. said.

The map above shows the site on the Utah Valley University campus where conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot. (AP Digital Embed)

High ground offers ‘direct line of fire’

Kirk was an ardent supporter of Second Amendment rights and had long argued that an armed populace makes everyone safer. Utah is one of 14 states that allow some level of concealed carry of firearms on public college and university campuses. In May, a law took effect allowing anyone at least 18 years old with a valid Utah concealed weapon permit to carry a weapon on campus.

Williams said a uniformed officer should have been posted atop the university’s Losee Center, about 142 yards (130 meters) from the tent where Kirk was shot. Authorities believe the gunman fired from that rooftop.

“If you have a high ground issue, you’ve got to take care of that first,” said Williams, who protected four presidents and visiting foreign dignitaries during 22 years with the Secret Service. High ground gives a shooter “a direct line of fire.”

Williams also questioned the decision to hold the event outdoors. An inside venue, he said, would have allowed for security checkpoints.

Another former Secret Service agent, Joseph LaSorsa, said it was impossible “to secure 3,000 people” with half a dozen officers. “They didn’t have perimeter security. They didn’t have counter-sniper. They were wide open,” said LaSorsa, who protected three presidents during a 20-year-career with the Secret Service.

Kirk’s security team was likely most concerned “with people rushing the stage” or bothering him as he returned to his vehicle, said Bobby McDonald, a former Secret Service supervisory agent who is now a criminal-justice lecturer at the University of New Haven. A longer-range shooting, he said, was likely not even on the radar.

“I’m not sure if there were 20 police officers there that this type of event wouldn’t happen at that college setting,” McDonald said. “This person knew what they were doing with that firearm.”

Campus security challenges

Events at colleges can be exceedingly difficult to secure, especially when they involve a controversial figure, said David B. Mitchell, the chief of the University of Maryland Police Department. Student groups like to showcase such speakers because they draw big crowds.

“This is going to send shock waves across college campuses,” Mitchell said, because there are many similar events “happening all the time.”

Mitchell’s 100-officer force helps secure events involving high-profile politicians and other figures due to the school’s proximity to Washington. Former President Barack Obama has attended at least two University of Maryland basketball games. Such events require extensive preparation.

“It’s the Charlie Kirks of the world who don’t have large security details like that — certainly not to the level of the president or other elected officials — and yet they can still be a target,” Mitchell said. “There is really only so much you can do, given the circumstances.”

Associated Press journalists Hannah Schoenbaum in Orem, Utah, Del Quentin Wilber in Washington and Christopher Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.