Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are getting the vegan treatment.  

The Hershey Co. said Tuesday that Reese’s Plant Based Peanut Butter Cups, which go on sale this month, will be its first vegan chocolates sold nationally. A second plant-based offering, Hershey’s Plant Based Extra Creamy with Almonds and Sea Salt, will follow in April.

The chocolates are made with oats instead of milk, Hershey said.

Hershey has experimented with vegan chocolate before. It sold an oat-based chocolate bar called Oat Made in some test markets starting in 2021. But the new products will be the first sold throughout the U.S. under the “Plant Based” label.

Hershey said consumers want choice and are looking for products they consider healthier or with fewer ingredients, including reduced sugar and plant-based options. Hershey also introduced an organic version of Reese’s Cups in February 2021.

Younger consumers, in particular, are looking to reduce consumption of animal-based products, says Euromonitor, a market research firm. In a 2021 survey, Euromonitor found that 54% of Generation Z consumers were restricting animal-based products from their diets, compared to 34% of Baby Boomers.

Nestle has sold its KitKat V, a vegan KitKat bar, in Europe since 2021, while Cadbury sells a vegan chocolate bar in the United Kingdom. But so far, U.S. vegan chocolate options have generally been limited to premium brands, like Lindt, or organic chocolatiers like Hu Kitchen.

Hershey said it developed plant-based versions of Reese’s Cups and Hershey bars — some of its most popular products — because there’s a dearth of mainstream plant-based chocolates in the U.S. market.

The plant-based versions will cost more. Hershey wouldn’t share details because it said retailers set final prices. But Rite Aid lists a 1.4-ounce package of two plant-based Reese’s Cups at $2.49; that’s about $1 more than consumers would pay for a regular package. Hershey charges a similar premium for organic versions of its Reese Cups, which went on sale in 2021.

And ditching the dairy won’t cut calories. While Hershey didn’t release all of the nutritional facts, the 1.4-ounce package of plant-based Reese’s Cups have 210 calories; that’s the same number of calories as a 1.5-ounce package of traditional Reese’s Cups. 
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The top U.S. Army commander in the Indo-Pacific recently gave a ground-up view of the challenges posed by China’s military buildup in the region, citing munitions shortage as among the areas the United States should strengthen to effectively deter potential Chinese aggression.

“I’ve been watching the ground forces and the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] since 2014,” Commanding General Charles A. Flynn of U.S. Army Pacific told an audience in Washington last week. He was on a rare break from the Indo-Pacific theater, where he started off as Commanding General of the 25th Infantry Division based in Hawaii.

Sitting alongside U.S. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, Flynn described China’s military forces as extraordinary and “on a historical trajectory,” noting that “they’re rehearsing, practicing, experimenting, and they’re preparing those forces for something.”

He shared with the audience gathered at the American Enterprise Institute the steady buildup of the Chinese military’s presence and capacity in the Indo-Pacific region from 2014 to today, highlighting force reorganization combined with modernization that China undertook in 2015, and the establishment of newly structured theater commands that ensued.

Flynn said that by 2018, China had built and armed artificial islands in the South China Sea while ramping up joint operations. Today, he observes a significant increase of “payload of activities that they’re doing with all of their services, from the rocket forces to the strategic support forces, to space, cyber, land and sea.”

“Absent them slowing down, that’s a dangerous trajectory that they’re on,” he warned.

Flynn noted three advantages China currently holds over the United States.

“They’re operating on what’s called interior lines. They’re right next to their primary objective. And make no doubt about it — the prize is Taiwan and the land.”

“The second thing they have is, they have mass,” [I.E., numbers], he continued.

“And then, of course, they have magazine depth.” “They have a lot of munitions, a lot of arrows in their quiver,” Flynn explained.

The magazine depth issue is a “real one,” Wormuth said, telling the audience that America needs to recalibrate its strategy on munitions supplies.

“Everything we’re seeing in Ukraine shows us that we have to ramp up production,” Wormuth pointed out, especially considering a protracted conflict.

The current U.S. peacetime supply chain model falls short of demand, she warned, while sharing with the audience that the U.S. Army has already taken steps to bolster strength in this area.

“We’re doing a lot in the Army to ramp up our own organic industrial base, and to work very closely with industry to see them ramp up their industrial base,” she said.

The Army chief acknowledged that “logistics will be very hard in the Indo-Pacific in the event of a conflict,” and said the Army is focusing on this area of preparedness.

The Army is creating what Flynn called “joint interior lines” to both bolster and deter against a background of the Chinese military’s footprint of expansion in the Indo-Pacific.

Among the significant footprints China has amassed in the region are 12 airfields that fall under China’s Western Theater Command, “most of them [are] the size of Dulles,” Flynn pointed out, referring to the huge international airport located just outside of Washington.

The Western Theater Command, one of the five military commands established on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s watch, exercises operational jurisdiction over China’s borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Myanmar.

Adding to the above, Beijing has also moved two army corps to be positioned along the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border between China and India, built heliports and surface-to-air missile sites, and “choked off freshwater in the Mekong River,” Flynn warned. Dams built by China in upstream locations within its territory have been described by researchers and investigators as by turn depriving livelihood and constituting a strategic chokehold to downstream nations and communities in southeast Asia.

Lines of communication “being cut through Myanmar and Pakistan to get access to the Ottoman Sea” was another worrisome development, Flynn noted, adding that the 1.2 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh also posed a potential challenge. “And that’s just South Asia, alone.”

While Southeast Asia is trending in a positive direction, according to Flynn, in terms of relations with the United States, Oceania, he said, currently is “under duress.” There, China has made great inroads by compromising local elites, Flynn said.

“Their currency is corruption.” Ultimately, China seeks to gain “access to terrain,” he said.

Flynn identified some of the features on or about the terrain that China seeks access: IT backbone, electrical grid, warehouses, piers, airfields and ports.

Flynn named Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, as places where Chinese influence poses a particular challenge.

Looking around the region, he pointed out other areas where tension has risen. “Of course, the activity in the South and East China Sea, and around Taiwan,” he said.

“I can’t go into great detail here on what’s happening on the ground, but I can tell you that the PLA Army and the PLA Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force are in dangerous positions,” Flynn alerted the audience in Washington.

He also hinted at a unique role the Army could play to counter China’s strategy in the Taiwan Strait.

“The A2AD arsenal that the Chinese have designed is primarily designed to defeat air and maritime capabilities,” he noted. “Secondarily, it’s designed to degrade, disrupt and deny space and cyber,” he continued.

China is said to employ an A2AD [anti-access and area-denial] strategy concerning Taiwan aimed at keeping the United States and other friendly forces out of that theater during a potential invasion.

The A2AD strategy, Flynn pointed out, “is not designed to find, fix and finish mobile, networked, dispersed, reloadable ground forces that are lethal and nonlethal, that are operating amongst their allies and partners in the region.”

This, he said, “is an important point.”

Another point he emphasized is the United States would much prefer not to engage in a military conflict with China.

“Our goal out there is no war. But we have to be in a position and be forward with combat-credible forces to deter that from happening,” Flynn said. If deterrence “happens to fail, then we’re at least in a position to take advantage [together] with the joint force, to achieve the national objectives set up by the National Command Authority and the president.”

Wormuth noted that the U.S. is also paying attention to scenarios of potential conflict with China beyond the Taiwan Strait. Spikes in border clashes between China and India, Beijing’s belligerent behavior in the South China Sea or around the Senkaku Islands, a contentious point between China and Japan, are among those scenarios, she noted.
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Many states have enacted or contemplated limits or outright bans on transgender medical treatment, with conservative U.S. lawmakers saying they are worried about young people later regretting irreversible body-altering treatment.

But just how common is regret? And how many youth change their appearances with hormones or surgery only to later change their minds and detransition?

Here’s a look at some of the issues involved.

What is transgender medical treatment?

Guidelines call for thorough psychological assessments to confirm gender dysphoria — distress over gender identity that doesn’t match a person’s assigned sex — before starting any treatment.

That treatment typically begins with puberty-blocking medication to temporarily pause sexual development. The idea is to give youngsters time to mature enough mentally and emotionally to make informed decisions about whether to pursue permanent treatment.

Puberty blockers may be used for years and can increase risks for bone density loss, but that reverses when the drugs are stopped.

Sex hormones — estrogen or testosterone — are offered next. Dutch research suggests that most reports from doctors and individual U.S. clinics indicate that the number of youth seeking any kind of transgender medical care has increased in recent years.

How often do transgender people regret transitioning?

In updated treatment guidelines issued last year, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health said evidence of later regret is scant, but that patients should be told about the possibility during psychological counseling.

Dutch research from several years ago found no evidence of regret in transgender adults who had comprehensive psychological evaluations in childhood before undergoing puberty blockers and hormone treatment.

Some studies suggest that rates of regret have declined over the years as patient selection and treatment methods have improved. In a review of 27 studies involving almost 8,000 teens and adults who had transgender surgeries, mostly in Europe, the U.S and Canada, 1% on average expressed regret. For some, regret was temporary, but a small number went on to have detransitioning or reversal surgeries, the 2021 review said.

Research suggests that comprehensive psychological counseling before starting treatment, along with family support, can reduce chances for regret and detransitioning.

What is detransitioning?

Detransitioning means stopping or reversing gender transition, which can include medical treatment or changes in appearance, or both.

Detransitioning does not always include regret. The updated transgender treatment guidelines note that some teens who detransition “do not regret initiating treatment” because they felt it helped them better understand their gender-related care needs.

Research and reports from individual doctors and clinics suggest that detransitioning is rare. The few studies that exist have too many limitations or weaknesses to draw firm conclusions, said Dr. Michael Irwig, director of transgender medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

He said it’s difficult to quantify because patients who detransition often see new doctors, not the physicians who prescribed the hormones or performed the surgeries. Some patients may simply stop taking hormones.

“My own personal experience is that it is quite uncommon,” Irwig said. “I’ve taken care of over 350 gender-diverse patients and probably fewer than five have told me that they decided to detransition or changed their minds.”

Recent increases in the number of people seeking transgender medical treatment could lead to more people detransitioning, Irwig noted in a commentary last year in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. That’s partly because of a shortage of mental health specialists, meaning gender-questioning people may not receive adequate counseling, he said.

Dr. Oscar Manrique, a plastic surgeon at the University of Rochester Medical Center, has operated on hundreds of transgender people, most of them adults. He said he’s never had a patient return seeking to detransition.

Some may not be satisfied with their new appearance, but that doesn’t mean they regret the transition, he said. Most, he said, “are very happy with the outcomes surgically and socially.”
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made an unannounced visit Tuesday to Iraq, two weeks ahead of the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion that knocked President Saddam Hussein from power. 

“I’m here to reaffirm the U.S.-Iraq strategic partnership as we move toward a more secure, stable, and sovereign Iraq,” Austin tweeted upon his arrival. 

The United States has about 2,500 troops in Iraq with a mission to advise and assist Iraqi troops in the fight against Islamic State militants. 

A senior U.S. defense official told reporters that Austin would express a commitment to “retaining our force presence.” The official said the United States is also “broadly interested in a strategic partnership with the government of Iraq.” 

Austin’s visit follows one last week by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who pledged “deep solidarity with the Iraqi people and my hope that Iraq will face a future of peace and prosperity and with consolidated democratic institutions.” 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Vice President Kamala Harris says the United States is working to mitigate the impacts of climate change because competition for diminishing resources can lead to instability. She spoke about drought and climate change in the Western U.S. state of Colorado. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.
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A nuclear power plant in Georgia has begun splitting atoms in one of its two new reactors, Georgia Power said Monday, a key step toward reaching commercial operation at the first new nuclear reactors built from scratch in decades in the United States. 

The unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. said operators reached self-sustaining nuclear fission inside the reactor at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta. That makes the intense heat that will be used to produce steam and spin turbines to generate electricity. 

A third and a fourth reactor were approved for construction at Vogtle by the Georgia Public Service Commission in 2009, and the third reactor was supposed to start generating power in 2016. The company now says Unit 3 could begin commercial operation in May or June. 

Unit 4 is projected to begin commercial operation sometime between this November and March 2024. 

The cost of the third and fourth reactors was originally supposed to be $14 billion. The reactors are now supposed to cost more than $30 billion. That doesn’t include $3.68 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to the owners after going bankrupt, which brings total spending to more than $34 billion. 

The latest set of delays at Unit 3 included a pipe part of a critical backup cooling system that was vibrating during startup testing. Construction workers had failed to install supports called for on blueprints. The company has also said it had to repair a slowly dripping valve and diagnose a problem involving water flow through reactor coolant pumps. 

Georgia Power said Unit 3 would continue startup testing to show that its cooling system and steam supply system will work at the intense heat and pressure that a nuclear reactor creates. After that, operators are supposed to link the reactor to the electrical grid and gradually raise it to full power. 

“We remain focused on safely bringing this unit online, fully addressing any issues and getting it right at every level,” Chris Womack, chairman, president and CEO of Georgia Power, said in a written statement. “Reaching initial criticality is one of the final steps in the startup process and has required tremendous diligence and attention to detail from our teams.” 

Georgia Power owns a minority of the two new reactors. The remaining shares are owned by Oglethorpe Power Corp., the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and the city of Dalton. Oglethorpe and MEAG would sell power to cooperatives and municipal utilities across Georgia, as well in Jacksonville, Florida, and parts of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. 

Georgia Power’s 2.7 million customers are already paying part of the financing cost, and state regulators have approved a monthly rate increase of $3.78 a month as soon as the third unit begins generating power. The elected Georgia Public Service Commission will decide later who pays for the remainder of the costs. 

Vogtle is the only nuclear plant under construction in the United States. Its costs and delays could deter other utilities from building such plants, even though they generate electricity without releasing climate-changing carbon emissions. 
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Tribal leaders, scientists and conservation advocates buried Southern California’s most famous mountain lion Saturday in the mountains where the big cat once roamed. 

After making his home in the urban Griffith Park — home of the Hollywood Sign — for the past decade, P-22 became a symbol for California’s endangered mountain lions and their decreasing genetic diversity. The mountain lion’s name comes from being the 22nd puma in a National Park Service study. 

The death of the cougar late last year set off a debate between the tribes in the Los Angeles area and wildlife officials over whether scientists could keep samples of the mountain lion’s remains for future testing and research. 

Some representatives of the Chumash, Tataviam and Gabrielino (Tongva) peoples argued that samples taken during the necropsy should be buried with the rest of his body in the ancestral lands where he spent his life. Some tribal elders said keeping the specimens for scientific testing would be disrespectful to their traditions. Mountain lions are regarded as relatives and considered teachers in LA’s tribal communities. 

Tribal representatives, wildlife officials and others discussed a potential compromise in recent weeks, but a consensus was not reached before P-22 was buried in an unspecified location in the Santa Monica Mountains on Saturday. 

“While we have done everything we could to keep the carcass intact, the Tribes and agencies involved are still working toward a conclusion about some of the samples,” the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement Monday. “What is important to understand is that the Tribes and agencies involved all agreed on moving forward with the burial and it was a moving ceremony. We have come to a better place of understanding, and we look forward to continued growth from this place.” 

It was not clear whether the unspecified samples might also be buried with the animal in the future or if the tribes have agreed to let scientists keep some specimens for additional testing. 

Saturday’s traditional tribal burial included songs, prayers and sage smoke cleansings, according to Alan Salazar, a tribal member of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians and a descendent of the Chumash tribe. 

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, where the cougar’s remains had been kept in a freezer before the burial, called the burial a “historically significant ceremony.” 

“The death of P-22 has affected all of us and he will forever be a revered icon and ambassador for wildlife conservation,” the museum said in a statement Monday. 

Salazar, who attended the ceremony, said he believes P-22’s legacy will help wildlife officials and scientists realize the importance of being respectful to animals going forward. 

Beth Pratt, the California executive director for the National Wildlife Federation who also attended the ceremony, wrote on Facebook that the burial “helped me achieve some measure of peace” as she grieves the animal’s death. 

“I can also imagine P-22 at peace now, with such a powerful and caring send-off to the next place,” she wrote. “As we laid him to rest, a red-tailed hawk flew overhead and called loudly, perhaps there to help him on his journey.” 

Los Angeles and Mumbai are the world’s only major cities where large cats have been a regular presence for years — mountain lions in one, leopards in the other — though pumas began roaming the streets of Santiago, Chile, during pandemic lockdowns. 

Wildlife officials believe P-22 was born about 12 years ago in the western Santa Monica Mountains but left because of his father’s aggression and his own struggle to find a mate amid a dwindling population. That drove the cougar to cross two heavily traveled freeways and migrate east to Griffith Park, where a wildlife biologist captured him on a trail camera in 2012. 

His journey over the freeways inspired a wildlife crossing over a Los Angeles-area highway that will allow big cats and other animals safe passage between the mountains and wildlands to the north. The bridge broke ground in April.

P-22 was captured last December in a residential backyard following dog attacks. Examinations revealed a skull fracture — the result of being hit by a car — and chronic illnesses including a skin infection and diseases of the kidneys and liver. The city’s cherished big cat was euthanized five days later. 

Los Angeles celebrated his life last month at the Greek Theater in Griffith Park in a star-studded memorial that featured musical performances, tribal blessings, speeches about the importance of P-22’s life and wildlife conservation, and a video message from Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

To honor the place where the animal made his home among the city’s urban sprawl, a boulder from Griffith Park was brought to the gravesite in the Santa Monica Mountains and placed near P-22’s grave, Salazar said. 
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U.S. lawmakers will take an important step towards repealing a decades-old authorization of presidential war powers this week, as an effort to reassert Congress’ authority appears to have growing support.

“Both Democrats and Republicans have come to the same conclusion: we need to put the Iraq war squarely behind us once and for all. And doing that means we should extinguish the legal authority that initiated the war to begin with,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor last week, praising the bipartisan effort.

Lawmakers have made multiple attempts in recent years to repeal the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force, or AUMFs, that were passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, giving U.S. presidents broad powers to conduct military operations without Congress’ constitutional right to approval.

To date, each attempt has failed amid criticism that repealing those authorizations endangers U.S. national security and U.S. forces abroad.

In addition to repealing the AUMF authorizing the 2003 war in Iraq, the legislation under consideration this week in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would also repeal the 1991 AUMF that authorized President George Herbert Walker Bush to send forces into Iraq.

“Iraq is a strategic partner of the United States in advancing the security and stability of the Middle East. Sadly, according to these laws that are still on the books, Iraq is still technically an enemy of the United States,” Republican Senator Todd Young, a co-sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement. “This inconsistency and inaccuracy should be corrected. Congress must do its job and take seriously the decision to not just commit America to war, but to affirmatively say that we are no longer at war.”

Presidents of both parties have used the 2002 AUMF as justification for military actions far beyond the scope of its original purpose. In 2014, Democratic President Barack Obama used the AUMF to justify airstrikes without congressional approval against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. Republican President Donald Trump used that same AUMF in 2020 to authorize the airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassim Suleimani in Iraq.

A broad range of U.S. lawmakers now support the legislation, arguing that Congress has neglected its constitutional responsibilities for several decades. The last time Congress formally used its powers to declare war was in 1942 against Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. Since that time, it has granted U.S. presidents broader authority to conduct military operations.

“Congress is responsible for both declaring wars and ending them because decisions as important as whether or not to send our troops into harm’s way warrant careful deliberation and consensus,” said Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, another co-sponsor of the legislation. “The 1991 and 2002 AUMFs are no longer necessary, serve no operational purpose, and run the risk of potential misuse.”

After the legislation passes committee, it will go to a full floor vote in the Democratic-majority Senate. It is expected to have enough Republican support to overcome a filibuster.

The chances of a repeal in the Republican-majority U.S. House of Representatives is much narrower. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has said he will allow an open amendment process, meaning any Senate-passed repeal would likely be added on to the annual National Defense Authorization for consideration later this year.

The Democratic-majority House of Representatives repealed the 2002 AUMF by a vote of 268-161 in June 2021 but it failed to pass the Senate. The 2001 AUMF authorizing the U.S. war in Afghanistan also remains law, despite earlier attempts at a repeal.
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Four American citizens were shot at and kidnapped by armed men after driving across the U.S. border into northeastern Mexico, the FBI said Sunday.

The Americans crossed into Matamoros, in Tamaulipas state, on Friday, driving a white minivan with North Carolina license plates, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. 

“Shortly after crossing into Mexico, unidentified gunmen fired upon the passengers in the [minivan]. All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the FBI said. 

Matamoros, located across the U.S. border from Brownsville, Texas, has been beset by violence linked to drug trafficking and other organized crime. 

Tamaulipas’s highways are considered among the most dangerous in Mexico due to the threat of kidnapping and extortion by criminal gangs. 

The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for help in the unidentified victims’ rescue and the arrest of the suspects. 

U.S. and Mexican authorities are investigating, the FBI said. 
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Novak Djokovic has formally withdrawn from the draw for the Indian Wells tournament, organizers said on Sunday in an indication that the world number one’s application for a COVID-19 vaccine waiver to enter the U.S. might have failed. 

The Serbian, who is one of the most high-profile athletes unvaccinated against the virus, applied to the U.S. government last month for special permission to play at ATP Masters events at Indian Wells and Miami. 

“World No. 1 Novak Djokovic has withdrawn from the 2023 BNP Paribas Open. With his withdrawal, Nikoloz Basilashvili moves into the field,” organizers said in a statement late on Sunday. 

The U.S. currently bars unvaccinated foreigners from entry into the country, a policy that is expected to be lifted when the government ends its COVID-19 emergency declarations on May 11. 

Djokovic has not competed at the back-to-back ATP Masters events in Indian Wells and Miami, two of the biggest tournaments on the ATP calendar and known as the “Sunshine Double”, since 2019. 

No one from Djokovic’s team was immediately available to comment on the withdrawal. 

Last Friday, Florida Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio wrote a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden urging him to grant the waiver request. 

Indian Wells tournament director Tommy Haas, the United States Tennis Association and the U.S. Open were among those also hoping the 22-time Grand Slam champion would be allowed to enter. 

He would have been a heavy favorite to win his sixth Indian Wells title when the tournament kicks off in the Southern California desert on Wednesday. 

Djokovic, who missed last year’s Australian Open due to his vaccination status and was not allowed into the U.S. for last year’s U.S. Open, has said he would skip Grand Slams rather than have a COVID shot. 

He won his record-tying 22nd major championships at the Australian Open in January.  
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