June 7 (UPI) — Arrivals and departures are limited for the rest of the year at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.
The restrictions took effect on Friday and limit arrivals and departures to 28 per hour on weekends while airport construction occurs from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31, the Federal Aviation Administrationannounced on Friday.
Arrivals and departures also are limited to no more than 34 per hour during other periods through Oct. 25.
“The confirmed reduced rates will maintain safety while alleviating excessive flight delays at the airport due to staffing and equipment challenges,” the FAA announcement says.
“The early completion of runway construction at the airport that added to the delays will also contribute to a more efficient operation.”
Similar travel restrictions “paid dividends” by enabling “smooth travel into and out of Newark” over the Memorial Day holiday, according to the FAA.
Officials at the federal agency recently met with airline representatives to discuss problems at the Newark airport that triggered long delays and flight cancellations that left many air passengers stranded for hours and sometimes longer.
The discussions led to the current flight restrictions while undertaking several improvements at the airport and regionally.
The FAA is working to improve operations at the Newark airport by adding three new high-bandwidth telecommunications links between New York-based hubs and the Philadelphia-based terminal radar approach control system for regional air traffic control.
Old copper telecommunications connections will be replaced with fiber-optic technology for greater bandwidth and speed, and a temporary backup system to the Philadelphia-based TRACON system will be active while improvements are done.
The FAA also is increasing air traffic controller staffing by adding 22 fully certified controllers and five fully certified supervisors at the Newark airport and others in the area.
“The U.S. Department of Transportation and the FAA will continue working with all stakeholders to ensure that the airport is a safe, efficient and functional gateway for passengers and air crews,” the FAA announcement says.
California and three other states petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Thursday to ease its new restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone, citing the drug’s proven safety record and arguing the new limits are unnecessary.
“The medication is a lifeline for millions of women who need access to time-sensitive, critical healthcare — especially low-income women and those who live in rural and underserved areas,” said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who filed the petition alongside the attorneys general of Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.
The petition cites Senate testimony by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last month, in which Kennedy said he had ordered FDA administrator Martin Makary to conduct a “complete review” of mifepristone and its labeling requirements.
The drug, which can be received by mail, has been on the U.S. market for 25 years and taken safely by millions of Americans, according to experts. It is the most common method of terminating a pregnancy in the U.S., with its use surging after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022.
The Supreme Court upheld access to the drug for early pregnancies under previous FDA regulations last year, but it has remained a target of anti-abortion conservatives. The Trump administration has given Kennedy broad rein to shake up American medicine under his “Make America Healthy Again” banner, and Kennedy has swiftly rankled medical experts by using dubious science — and even fake citations — to question vaccine regimens and research and other longstanding public health measures.
At the Senate hearing, Kennedy cited “new data” from a flawed report pushed by anti-abortion groups — and not published in any peer-reviewed journal — to question the safety of mifepristone, calling the report “alarming.”
“Clearly, it indicates that, at very least, the label should be changed,” Kennedy said.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Monday posted a letter from Makary to X, in which Makary wrote that he was “committed to conducting a review of mifepristone” alongside “the professional career scientists” at the FDA.
Makary said he could not provide additional information given ongoing litigation around the drug.
The states, in their 54-page petition, wrote that “no new scientific data has emerged since the FDA’s last regulatory actions that would alter the conclusion that mifepristone remains exceptionally safe and effective,” and that studies “that have frequently been cited to undermine mifepristone’s extensive safety record have been widely criticized, retracted, or both.”
Democrats have derided Kennedy’s efforts to reclassify mifepristone as politically motivated and baseless.
“This is yet another attack on women’s reproductive freedom and scientifically-reviewed health care,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said the day after Kennedy’s Senate testimony. “California will continue to protect every person’s right to make their own medical decisions and help ensure that Mifepristone is available to those who need it.”
Bonta said Thursday that mifepristone’s placement under the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy program for drugs with known, serious side effects — or REMS — was “medically unjustified,” unduly burdened patient access and placed “undue strain on the nation’s entire health system.”
He said mifepristone “allows people to get reproductive care as early as possible when it is safest, least expensive, and least invasive,” is “so safe that it presents lower risks of serious complications than taking Tylenol,” and that its long safety record “is backed by science and cannot be erased at the whim of the Trump Administration.”
The FDA has previously said that fewer than 0.5% of women who take the drug experience “serious adverse reactions,” and deaths are exceedingly rare.
The REMS program requires prescribers to add their names to national and local abortion provider lists, which can be a deterrent for doctors given safety threats, and pharmacies to comply with complex tracking, shipping and reporting requirements, which can be a deterrent to carrying the drug, Bonta said.
It also requires patients to sign forms in which they attest to wanting to “end [their] pregnancy,” which Bonta said can be a deterrent for women using the drug after a miscarriage — one of its common uses — or for those in states pursuing criminal penalties for women seeking certain abortion care.
Under federal law, REMS requirements must address a specific risk posed by a drug and cannot be “unduly burdensome” on patients, and the new application to mifepristone “fails to meet that standard,” Bonta said.
The states’ petition is not a lawsuit, but a regulatory request for the FDA to reverse course, the states said.
If the FDA will not do so nationwide, the four petitioning states asked that it “exercise its discretion to not enforce the requirements” in their states, which Bonta’s office said already have “robust state laws that ensure safe prescribing, rigorous informed consent, and professional accountability.”
Chad Rivera gingerly makes his way to the edge of what looks like an emptied out swimming pool, a lime-green skateboard in one hand, a white cane in the other. At 58, he’s legally blind, but he’s been skateboarding since he was 5, so what’s about to happen is part muscle memory, part “trust fall.”
Deathracer Chad Rivera is 58 and blind, but says he’ll never give up skateboarding.
Dozens of other skateboarders — mostly men in their 50s and 60s decked out in skating gear — roll along the periphery, watching on, at Encinitas Skate Park near San Diego. It’s not yet 11 a.m., but punk music blasts from the speakers, punctuated by the rumbling and clanking of skateboard wheels on concrete.
Standing at the deep end, Rivera considers the pool bowl’s nine-foot concrete walls. He sets down his white cane and secures the tail of his board on the pool’s rim with one foot, the rest of the board hanging in the air, like a mini diving board. He then steps onto the front of the board with his other foot and throws his body weight forward, “dropping in.”
He races down and around the sides of the walls before flipping around and landing back up on the pool deck.
It’s a frightening move to watch, but Rivera now beams, triumphant, eyes shining.
“Woo! Feel it and kill it,” says Rivera, a retired grape grower who’s suffered from a rare optic nerve disease since he was 22. “It always feels good, so I keep doing it. I’ll never stop, no matter how old I get.”
Rivera is a member of Deathracer413, a group of older skateboarders who believe that skateboarding is their key to longevity. They grew up amid the ’70s and ’80s skate scene and are as passionate about the sport as when they were teens. Many of them are now retired and the joy they get from skateboarding, the sense of community and the health benefits, such as core strength and balance, keep them young, they say. The inherent danger gives them an adrenaline rush that, they argue, keeps their brains sharp.
“Our slogan is: Keep dropping in or you’ll be dropping out,” says the group’s founder, Doug Marker, a former professional skateboarder and retired construction worker who’s lived in San Diego his entire life. Marker, who also surfs, plays guitar and rides motorcycles, is 63 going on 16, with silver hair and a skate-park suntan. On this Saturday morning, he’s wearing baggy shorts, Vans sneakers and a graphic T-shirt featuring “Death Racer” in heavy metal band-like typography.
“Knowing you can get hurt keeps you ultra-focused,” Marker says. “And trusting that you can do it — believing in yourself — is hugely empowering. I keep dropping in, I keep going. It’s put me into a bubble where I never feel like I’m getting older.”
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Marker founded Deathracer413 in 2011 to draw like-minded people who are “living life to the fullest,” he says. The name Deathracer reminded him of a motorcycle club and 413 are his initials, numerically. It was just a loose social affiliation at first, but in 2020 Marker launched the Deathracer413 Road Show, an invitation to join him in skating a different skate park every Saturday.
Deathracer413 now includes former and current pro skateboarders doing tricks alongside average enthusiasts and late-life skating newbies. There are a handful of women in the group as well as a few children honing their skills with the masters.
Marker estimates there are about 1,300 members of the group internationally, though typically only about 20-30 locals attend on any given Saturday. He welcomes anyone into the club and mails them a “welcome letter” and custom Deathracer413 patch that he designed. Hundreds of recipients remain members from afar, kindred spirits who share a “full throttle” outlook on life and participate via social media. Others have trekked from Australia, Germany, Belgium and the UK to skate with Deathracer413.
“’Cause now everybody’s retired and can travel,” Marker says. “They’re finding destinations to come and skateboard and San Diego’s a top one. So they come.”
‘I’ll stop when my body tells me to stop’
The deathracers catch up with one another, fist bumping and drinking beers, as one of them drops into the pool bowl.
As Deathracer413 celebrates its 200th skating session, the vibe is affectionate and rambunctious, jovial retiree backyard barbecue meets heavily tattooed skater meetup. More than 50 members — many with bushy gray beards, paunchy bellies and caps reading “The Goonies: Never Say Die” or “Independent” — mingle on the pool deck, cracking open beers, fist-bumping one another and catching up on life as the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” fades into Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” on the sound system.
The skaters drop into the pool one after another — swirling and swooshing around, “carving” and “grinding,” before popping back up — in such tight succession it feels choreographed. It’s as if we’re inside a pinball machine, with tiny objects orbiting around one another maniacally, wheels spinning, helmets twisting, boards whizzing by or flying into the air before crashing back down. Every so often someone wipes out, sliding across the pool bottom, sparking cheers of encouragement.
“I feel like the older I get the more I worry about getting hurt — because it lasts longer,” admits skateboarding legend Steve Caballero, 60. “If you think about it, it’s kind of a scary sport. You can get really hurt.”
Caballero has been a pro skateboarder since he was 15 and fear doesn’t stop him today — “I’ll stop when my body tells me to stop,” he says. He performs one of his signature moves, sliding along the rim of the pool on the skateboard truck instead of the wheels. No small feat for a body that’s endured more than 45 years of extreme athletics. A documentary about his life, “Steve Caballero: The Legend of the Dragon,” debuts this November.
Legendary skateboarder and deathracer Steve Caballero, 60, has been pro since he was 15.
“It definitely keeps me in shape,” he says. “It keeps me youthful-thinking, staying creative and being challenged. I think when people get older they quit doing these things because they feel like they should. I’m trying to show people, hey, even in your older age you can still have fun and challenge yourself.”
The feeling of freedom, the thrill of sailing through the air, is worth the risk to Barry Blumenthal, 60, a retired stockbroker.
“I’m more worried about crashing my car. I mean, I wear gear in here,” Blumenthal says. “Skating is just extreme fun where you can’t help but grin. It’s kid-like. It’s a fountain of youth experience. You’re chasing stoke.”
Pushing the boundaries of skating
Wiping out is part of the process, the Deathracers say. It’s still “kid-like” fun, “a fountain of youth experience.”
No doubt “dropping in” and “chasing stoke” for eternity would be “rad.” But is there any validity to Deathracer413’s claims that skateboarding promotes health and longevity?
“I’d worry about fractures,” says Dr. Jeremy Swisher, a UCLA sports medicine physician. “As you get older, it takes the body longer to heal. But it comes down to a risk-benefit analysis. The endorphins, the adrenaline — the joy of it — as well as the new challenges that stress the mind in a good way would be very mentally stimulating. You’re forming new neural pathways as you’re trying new moves. It would help keep the brain young and fresh.”
“I race cars for a hobby, and I know what that does for my aging,” adds Dr. Eric Verdin, president and chief executive of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Northern California. “Finding a thing that you’re passionate about, having a sense of community, not to mention the balance and motor coordination — skateboarding is extremely physical — all of that is part of healthy aging.”
Skateboarding has been around in California since the 1950s — a way to recreate surfing, but on dry land. “Vertical skateboarding,” which the Deathracers partake in, grew out of SoCal kids commandeering emptied backyard swimming pools. It was especially prevalent during the 1976-77 drought, when residents had to drain their pools and kids began performing elaborate airborne tricks. Skate parks emerged and “vert skating,” as it was dubbed, became a phenomenon.
Doug Marker, founder of Deathracer413, shows off the ring and patch he designed, bearing the group’s name.
The first park in California opened in Carlsbad in 1976 and the San Diego area is still considered a central hub for the sport. So today there’s a critical mass of ’70s and ’80s-era skateboarding devotees who still live nearby. That’s why Deathracer413 — the only club of its kind in the area, Marker says — has so many active members.
“There hasn’t ever been 60-year-plus [vert skaters] before,” Marker says. “The sport’s not that old. So that’s kind of our thing — we’re just gonna keep pushing the bar.”
In that sense, Deathracer413 is more than a subcultural vestige — its members present a sports medicine study of sorts, says Michael Burnett, editor in chief of “Thrasher Magazine,” a longtime skateboarding publication.
“A lot of people here are older than me,” says John Preston Brooks, 56.
“There were a few old-guy outliers, but this is the first generation of older skaters,” Burnett says. “We’re now witnessing how long someone can physically skateboard for — this is the test. It’s uncharted territory.”
Still, many of the Deathracers have modifed their skating techniques as they’ve aged. Marker says he now skates within 80-85% of his ability range to be safe. Others admit that the inevitable — death — is on their minds.
“As an older adult, you can get into your head about, oh, how much time do I have left?” says John Preston Brooks, 56. “But a lot of people here are older than me and it just makes me realize I got a lot more time to do the things I love and make the best of life.”
David Skinner, 60, a retired school teacher, says he’s realistic about his physical limits.
“A lot of us have health issues,” he says. “We’re not necessarily trying to cheat death, but we’re definitely trying to stay ahead. We know it’s coming, but we wanna keep dropping in and having fun, and this gives us a venue to do it.
A brotherhood, even if you no longer skate
As the day grinds on, the skate session morphs into an actual barbecue. Marker fires up the grill, tossing on an assortment of meat: burgers, bratwursts, hot dogs. Plumes of aromatic smoke float over the pool bowl, which is still getting some action.
Lance Smith, 74, stands off to the side of the bowl, a Coors Light in one hand, a Nikon camera in the other. With his dark sunglasses, soul patch of facial hair above his chin and trucker hat that reads “Old Bro,” he appears like someone’s cool great-uncle. He can’t skate anymore due to three replacements — two hip, one knee — after years of skateboarding injuries. (“I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” he says.) But Smith, who documented the SoCal skateboarding scene in the ’70s and photo edited the book “Tracker: Forty Years of Skateboard History,” still attends Deathracer413 events nearly every Saturday. He photographs club members in action.
Doug Marker mans the grill as the afternoon skate session morphs into a barbecue.
“It’s the community,” Smith says, stretching out his arm and snapping a passing skater. “I get enjoyment out of shooting pictures and seeing my friends skateboard. And, yeah, drinking a Coors Light.”
Deathracer413 is both a brotherhood and a sisterhood, says Tuli Lam, 31, a physical therapy student and one of the only women skaters in attendance today. “When I’m here, I’m just one of the guys. We’re bonded by skating.”
That camaraderie is evident when the group presents Marker with a gift of thanks.
“OK, gather round! Bring it in!” yells Lansing Pope, 58.
The skaters crowd around, stretching their necks to see what’s in the wrapped box Marker is tearing open.
“It’s a knee brace!” someone yells.
“It’s a crutch!” says another.
“Something for his prostate?” jokes a third.
“Whoa, super dope,” Marker says. (It’s a leather Deathracer413 bedroll for his motorcycle.) “I’m super stoked.”
The skateboarders presented Doug Marker with a gift, a custom Deathracer413 bedroll for his motorcycle.
“Till your wheels fall off!” several guys scream in unison, fists in the air.
Then, as if on cue, the skaters disperse around the pool bowl, streaming in and out of it, the sound of rattling wheels and screeching metal on concrete filling the space.
Tye Donnelly, 54, surveys the scene from a nearby picnic table, an electric guitar on his lap. He noodles on it, playing a mix of Black Sabbath and reggae.
“When I was 18, I never thought I’d be the old age of 20 and still skateboarding,” he says. “At 54, I thought I’d have a hat on, a suit, with a newspaper. But it turns out you can skateboard your whole life. And I’m thankful for this group — because it wasn’t like this back in the day.”
Caballero sums up senior skateboarding best: “This is the new bingo.”
The justices said these claims of the potential impact on the environment have been used too often to delay or block new projects.
“A 1970 legislative acorn has grown over the years into a judicial oak that has hindered infrastructure development under the guise of just a little more process. A course correction of sorts is appropriate,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, speaking for the court.
He said procedural law has given judges and environmentalists too much authority to hinder or prevent development, he said.
“Fewer projects make it to the finish line. Indeed, fewer projects make it to the starting line. Those that survive often end up costing much more than is anticipated or necessary,” he said. “And that in turn means fewer and more expensive railroads, airports, wind turbines, transmission lines, dams, housing developments, highways, bridges, subways, stadiums, arenas, data centers, and the like. And that also means fewer jobs, as new projects become difficult to finance and build in a timely fashion.”
In a unanimous decision, the high court ruled for the developers of a proposed 88-mile railroad in northeastern Utah which could carry crude oil that would be refined along the Gulf Coast.
In blocking the proposal, judges had cited its potential to spur more drilling for oil in Utah and more pollution along the Gulf Coast.
In addition, it has been established if United win, their intention is to celebrate by holding a barbeque at the club’s Carrington training ground.
Tottenham are yet to announce their plans in the event of victory but it is expected they will have a parade to show off the trophy.
Newcastle held a parade in the city in March to mark their Carabao Cup triumph, while Liverpool are due to host one on 26 May following their Premier League title success.
United have not held a trophy parade since 2013, which coincided with Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement. Players were famously irritated in 2008 to discover there was no such celebration to mark their Champions League triumph over Chelsea.
Hosting one this season would have been logistically tricky.
Unlike their last Europa League success, against Ajax in Stockholm in 2017 during Jose Mourinho’s time in charge, United will still have a Premier League game to play after the match in Bilbao – when Aston Villa visit Old Trafford on 25 May.
Immediately after that game, United fly to Asia for two post-season matches against local opposition in Malaysia and Hong Kong.
They return to Manchester on 31 May, after which players have to immediately report for international duty.
Portugal have a Nations League semi-final with Germany on 4 June, which would involve Bruno Fernandes and, if fit, Diogo Dalot.
World Cup qualifiers also take place in South America on 5 June and in Europe from 6 June.
