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Russia’s war in Ukraine left Oleksandr Vikhruk without both arms and his right leg. Maksym Radiuk lost his left arm, his eyesight and was badly burned.Now, through pain and sweat, Oleksandr, 45, works with US doctors to one day go fishing using prosthetic limbs. Maksym, 23, hopes the treatment will make him fit to join Ukraine’s national football team for the blind.As the world awaits what promises to be the first direct negotiations Thursday in Turkey between Moscow and Kyiv since the early months of the Russian invasion in 2022, the two badly injured Ukrainian soldiers being treated at an elite US military hospital outside Washington embody the tremendous cost of the war for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian servicemen and their families.”It’s very painful, very scary to see your husband maimed,” Oleksandr’s wife Olha, 50, said, choking back tears. “I couldn’t speak without tears. I couldn’t live. For three months, I didn’t speak to almost anybody, except the kids.”She added: “It’s a terrible, horrible war. I cannot describe it.”- ‘I imagined the sea’ -Oleksandr was wounded in March 2023, when his infantry unit was ambushed by Russian drones in the eastern Donetsk region. Gravely wounded, Oleksandr applied tourniquets to his arms and leg, but had to wait 10 hours to get medical help because the evacuation route was under attack by Russian forces.”When I was in a lot of pain, I simply thought about something pleasant: my home, my wife, my children,” Oleksandr, wearing a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt and sitting in a wheelchair in the office of United Help Ukraine, a charity that covered the families’ non-medical expenses during treatment.As hours passed, Oleksandr’s body started shivering violently and he thought back to the time when he visited Marseille in southern France.”I imagined the sea and I started feeling warm. I plunged into my dreams, that’s how I was able to endure it,” Oleksandr said in a weak voice, his eyes reflecting the traumatic memories.When he was finally taken to hospital, his arms and leg had to be amputated and he spent 2.5 months in a medical coma. Later, he also suffered a cardiac arrest and a stroke — doctors said it was a miracle he survived.Olha was devastated, but eventually seeing how Oleksandr’s eyes would light up when he saw her entering his intensive care unit gave her strength.”You begin to get used to this pain, to the idea that you must go on living, that life continues,” said Olha, a soft-spoken brunette, also clad in a Ukrainian shirt.”We fought together,” she added. “I would tell him, Sasha, you will live, I believe in you, we are together, we will get through this. And we did.”- One eye, one arm -In April 2024, Maksym’s territorial defense unit was serving in the southern Kherson region, when a Russian drone exploded near his face. It destroyed his right eye, blew off his left arm and several fingers and set him on fire.Because of the shock, Maksym initially didn’t feel any pain as he waited to be evacuated, but his legs were so badly burnt that it felt like he was wearing shorts.”I completely dissociated and just sat and waited and didn’t think about anything,” Maksym recalled, wearing sunglasses and sitting in a wheelchair.Maksym spent one and a half months in a medically induced coma after doctors amputated the remains of his arm. His wounds were so severe that his mother Natalia, 40, herself a servicewoman, was told that Maksym was unlikely to survive.When Maksym finally came to, he couldn’t see.”He woke up and he asked me: how many eyes? I told him: one,” said Natalia, adding that initially there was hope to save his left eye. “How many arms? I said: one. And legs? I said: two.”Natalia, who brims with energy, said she only allowed herself a couple of hours to cry.”I decided that I will not help my child this way, that I need to pull myself together and move forward, forward, forward,” she recalled.”I will do everything so that he can return to normal life and he will show people with arms and legs and eyes what he can do.”- ‘Rise up and scream’ -The soldiers are scheduled to spend six months to a year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as part of a treatment plan paid for by the US Department of Defense. Both should receive bionic limbs, and doctors have also offered to transplant one of Maxym’s toes onto his right hand.”I am very grateful that we were welcomed here in America, in this superb hospital, by superb professionals. They are great, they treat our guys very well, they treat them as heroes,” said Natalia.But with the talks scheduled in Turkey, the families hold out little hope for any fair and lasting peace deal with Moscow and called on the international community to do more to support Ukraine.”Everybody must rise up and scream that this war needs to be stopped,” she added.

Ben Cohen, co‑founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and a longtime progressive activist, told AFP he was speaking for millions of Americans outraged by the “slaughter” in Gaza after his removal from a US  Senate hearing on Wednesday.Cohen, 74, was among a group of protesters who startled Health Secretary  Robert F Kennedy Jr. by interrupting his testimony about his department’s budget proposal.Shouting that “Congress pays for bombs to kill children in Gaza” while lawmakers move to slash Medicaid — the health insurance program for low‑income families — the businessman and philanthropist was placed in handcuffs by Capitol Police.He urged senators to press Israel to let food reach “starving kids” as he was led away.”It got to a point where we had to do something,” Cohen said in an interview after his release, calling it “scandalizing” that the US approved “$20 billion worth of bombs” for Israel even as social programs are squeezed back home.”The majority of Americans hate what’s going on, what our country is doing with our money and in our name,” he said.US public opinion toward Israel has become increasingly unfavorable, especially among Democrats, according to a Pew Research Center Poll last month.Beyond the spending, Cohen framed the issue as a moral and “spiritual” breach.”Condoning and being complicit in the slaughter of tens of thousands of people strikes at the core of us as far as human beings and what our country stands for,” he said, pointing to the fact that the United States pours roughly half its discretionary budget into war‑related spending.”If you spent half of that money making lives better around the world, I think there’d be a whole lot less friction.”Invoking a parenting analogy, he added: “You go to a three-year-old who goes around hitting people and you say ‘Use your words.’ There’s issues between countries but you can work them out without killing.”A longtime critic of Israeli policy, Cohen last year joined prominent Jewish figures in an open letter opposing the pro‑Israel lobby AIPAC. “I understand that I have a higher profile than most people and so I raise my voice, it gets heard. But I need you and others to understand that I speak for millions of people who feel the same way.”Israel’s war in Gaza began after the October  7, 2023 attack by Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 52,928 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.Gaza is at “critical risk of famine,” with the entire population facing a food crisis after more than two months of an Israeli aid blockade, and 22 percent facing a humanitarian “catastrophe,” a UN-backed food security monitor warned this week.

California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday proposed eliminating free healthcare for undocumented migrants in what he said was an effort to balance a budget battered by Donald Trump’s erratic governance.The move is the latest sign of political moderation from a man believed to have White House ambitions, who is looking to soften his image among conservative voters and distance himself from a reputation as a free-spending liberal helming a state where migration is out of control.Newsom told a press conference that California should freeze admission to the public Medi-Cal program for undocumented people starting next year, and should charge those already enrolled $100 per month.”We’re not cutting or rolling back those that enrolled in our medical system. We’re just capping it, particularly for those without documentation,” he said.Almost 11 percent of the 15 million Medi-Cal recipients are undocumented, Newsom said.In March, the California state legislature reported that opening Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants — which began in 2023 — had cost $2.7 billion more than expected in 2024.The program’s costs have also been bloated by high drug prices, including a growing demand for weight control prescriptions.- ‘Trump Slump’ -Trimming eligibility for Medi-Cal and cutting back on drug availability could save the state approximately $5.4 billion over the coming years, Newsom’s office said.He presented the idea as part of an overall plan to make up a $12 billion shortfall in California’s budget.Newsom said the state’s financial situation was due in part to the impact of President Donald Trump’s volatile tariff policies, which have walloped California, the world’s fourth largest economy, and one that is heavily exposed to international trade and tourism.The state’s revenues for the first 18 months of Trump’s presidency were expected to be $16 billion lower than they would have been without the volatility, a fall he dubbed the “Trump Slump.” Economists say the US economy as a whole is expected to take a hit from the uncertainty generated by the sudden policy lurches from the White House, with business leaders unwilling to invest and consumers increasingly wary of spending.California last month sued the Trump administration over the tariffs, saying the president did not have the ability to impose taxes on imports unilaterally, a power the lawsuit said rests only with Congress.Wednesday’s announcement dovetails with Newsom’s push to present himself as a fiscally responsible alternative to Trump, while trying to keep pace with the national mood on immigration.But he faces a tough balancing act in a state where a majority of voters support providing healthcare to undocumented migrants.”California is under assault. The United States of America, in many respects, is under assault because we have a president that’s been reckless in terms of assaulting those growth engines,” he told reporters.”It’s created a climate of deep uncertainty,” he added.”This is a Trump Slump all across the United States, reflected in adjustments by every independent economist, by leading banks, by institutions.”Local Republicans hit back Wednesday, characterizing the budget shortfall as Democratic Party overspending that disproportionately benefits migrants.”I urged the governor to immediately freeze his reckless Medi-Cal expansion for illegal immigrants a year and a half ago, before it buried our healthcare system and bankrupted the state,” state Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones said.”With a massive deficit largely driven by this policy, our focus should be on preserving Medi-Cal for those it was originally designed to serve.”Newsom’s proposal must now go to the state legislature for review. 

Ben Cohen, cofounder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and longtime progressive activist, was removed from a Senate hearing Wednesday after confronting Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and lawmakers over US support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.Kennedy had been reading prepared remarks about his department’s 2026 budget when activists interrupted the session, chanting “RFK kills people with AIDS.”Kennedy jumped from his seat in reaction to the outburst.Cohen then shouted: “Congress pays for bombs to kill children in Gaza,” accusing lawmakers of funding arms by cutting Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income families that Republicans are seeking to slash.Video posted by anti-war group Codepink showed the 74-year-old in handcuffs as Capitol Police escorted him from the chamber.”They need to let food into Gaza, they need to let food to starving kids!” Cohen yelled as he was taken away.A vocal critic of Israeli policy, Cohen last year co-signed an open letter titled A Statement From Jewish Americans Opposing AIPAC, denouncing the pro-Israel lobby’s influence in US politics.

A US judge ordered the release from custody on Wednesday of an Indian researcher at a top American university who is facing possible deportation for alleged Hamas ties.Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University in the US capital, was arrested by federal agents two months ago at his home in Virginia and has been held in Texas.District Judge Patricia Giles ordered Suri’s immediate release on Wednesday and that he be allowed to return from Texas to his wife and three children in Virginia on his personal recognizance.”Hearing the judge’s words brought tears to my eyes,” Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, said in a statement released by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which is among the groups representing her husband in court.”Speaking out about what’s happening in Palestine is not a crime,” Saleh said. “Let’s show the world that this country is still a place where people can and do express their beliefs without fear.”Giles, in ordering Suri’s release, said his detention violated his First Amendment rights to free speech.”The court’s order today should send a clear message to the Trump administration that it cannot arrest someone, rip them away from their family, and incarcerate them just for standing in solidarity with Palestinians and against the genocide in Gaza,” said Astha Sharma Pokharel, an attorney at the CCR.Nader Hashemi, an associate professor at Georgetown, told AFP the decision was “a victory” not only for Suri and his family but also “for the struggle for democracy in the United States.”Suri’s release comes several days after another judge ordered the release from custody of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish Ph.D student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who was detained in another high-profile case.The arrests of Suri, Ozturk and others have sparked fears in the academic world that freedom of research and speech is being challenged under Republican President Donald Trump.Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said on X at the time of Suri’s arrest that he was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism on social media.”McLaughlin also accused him of having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”According to The New York Times, Saleh, Suri’s wife, is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former adviser to assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.McLaughlin said Suri was subject to deportation under a provision of immigration law that allows for expulsion if the visa holder’s presence in the United States is determined to threaten US foreign policy.Hamas is a US-designated terror organization.

US authorities have charged a couple who allegedly forced a teenager to live in a dog cage and abused her for years, they said on Wednesday following her escape from apparent captivity last week.The prosecutor in Camden County, New Jersey, said the pair were arrested and charged for confining and abusing the child who lived in their home for over seven years.”The victim advised detectives that Brenda Spencer, 38, and Branndon Mosley, 41, had been abusing her since approximately 2018,” the prosecutor and local police said in a joint statement. “Around that time, she was removed from school in the sixth grade at Spencer’s discretion and confined to her home. She stated that shortly after this, she was forced to live in a dog crate for approximately one year and was let out periodically.”Following her escape on May 8, the girl, who has not been named and is now 18 years old, sought help from a neighbor and subsequently disclosed the years of alleged abuse.Spencer and Mosley were charged with a host of crimes including kidnapping and aggravated assault.The girl was forced to live in “squalid conditions alongside numerous dogs, chinchillas, and other animals,” according to the statement.  “Detectives learned that a 13-year-old who also lived in the home was removed from school years earlier at Spencer’s discretion as well. Both girls were allegedly homeschooled.”After the year in a dog crate, the older victim was allegedly made to reside in a padlocked bathroom where she was chained up.  She told investigators she would only be let out of the bathroom when family visited. “At other times, she was forced to live in a bare room with just a bucket to use instead of a toilet,” the statement read. “She explained the bare room had an alarm system that would alert Spencer and Mosley if she tried to leave.”The victim also reported being beaten with a belt, as well as being sexually abused by Mosley.

Sean “Diddy” Combs’s former partner Casandra Ventura testified Wednesday that the music mogul raped her near the end of their decade-plus relationship that included routine physical abuse and left her with post-traumatic stress and suicidal thoughts.Ventura, the singer widely known as “Cassie,” returned to the witness stand in the sex trafficking trial against her ex for another marathon day of questioning from prosecutors who accuse Combs of heading a criminal sex ring.The hours of questioning finished with Ventura, who is eight months pregnant with her third child, in tears as she recounted “horrible flashbacks” of her time with Combs — they stopped seeing each other in 2018 — that left her telling her husband years later that she was contemplating suicide.”I didn’t want to be alive anymore at that point,” she told the courtroom.”I couldn’t take the pain that I was in anymore,” the emotional Ventura said, adding that her husband, celebrity fitness trainer Alex Fine, stopped her from any action.The 2023 episode prompted her to seek professional rehabilitation help.Over two days of testimony Ventura described Combs as controlling and willing to wield his wealth and influence to fulfill his desires.Ventura, now 38, gave vivid accounts of coercive sex parties and violent beatings that will underpin much of the prosecution’s case against the music industry figure, who is alleged to have used violence and blackmail to manipulate women over many years.She said that in 2011 Combs looked through her phone and discovered she was seeing the rapper Kid Cudi, which sent him into a rage that saw him lunge at her with a corkscrew.”I knew his capabilities, his access to guns,” Ventura later testified.Combs subsequently threatened to release videos of her participating in his sex parties as retaliation, she said.Ventura recounted so-called “freak-off” sex parties saying she participated because she was “just in love and wanted to make (Combs) happy — to a point I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice.”Ventura, who is 17 years younger than Combs and first met him when she was 19, described how the mogul would sometimes urinate on her, or he would instruct one of the numerous sex workers he engaged to participate in the freak-offs to do so. – ‘It was disgusting’ -Ventura will return to the stand Thursday for what’s expected to be dramatic cross-examination from defense lawyers for Combs, who vehemently denies all charges.The artist’s lawyers indicated they would seek to emphasize that Ventura took drugs of her own free will, and behaved erratically.Ventura said during direct testimony that she developed an addiction to opioids during her time with Combs, and that during the encounters she took drugs including ecstasy, ketamine and cocaine to cope with the sometimes days-long sex parties.The drugs kept her awake but also had a “dissociative and numbing” effect, she said — “a way to not feel it for what it really was.”And the opioids “made me feel numb, which is why I relied on them so heavily,” she testified. “It was an escape.”In a graphic hotel surveillance clip from March 2016 shown to jurors Monday, Tuesday and again Wednesday, Combs is seen brutally beating and dragging Ventura down a hallway.The prosecution played portions of the footage while Ventura was on the stand.When asked why she didn’t fight back or get up, Ventura answered simply that staying curled up on the ground “felt like the safest place to be.”Following the hotel assault, Ventura was forced to attend the premiere of her movie “The Perfect Match” days later, covered in bruises to her body and face, the jury heard as they were shown photographs of the actress with Combs at the event.Ventura said she wore sunglasses to conceal a black eye.The images contrasted with red carpet shots of the pair seemingly enjoying each other’s company and projecting harmony.Combs’s defense team insists while some of his behavior was questionable, it did not constitute racketeering and sex trafficking. He denies all counts.In late 2023, Ventura filed a civil suit against Combs seeking damages, and the parties settled less than 24 hours later to the tune of $20 million, she testified.Asked by prosecutors Wednesday why she chose to participate in the criminal trial that meant she would spend days publicly reliving some of the most excruciating details of her life, Ventura took a long pause and began to cry.”I can’t carry this anymore,” she said. “I can’t carry the shame, the guilt… what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong.””I’m here to do the right thing.”

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday Qatar Airways had placed a “record” order for 160 planes from Boeing, as he signed a raft of deals in Doha alongside Qatar’s emir.The order, Boeing’s largest ever for its wide-body jets, deepens ties between the US aerospace giant and the giant Middle East carrier.Qatar Airways will honour a “$96 billion agreement to acquire up to 210 American-made Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777X aircraft powered by GE Aerospace engines,” according to a White House fact sheet.”This is Boeing’s largest-ever widebody order and largest-ever 787 order,” it said.The order is comprised of 130 Dreamliner planes and 30 Boeing 777-9 jets, which are still being certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration. There are also options for 50 additional 787 and 777X planes, according to a Boeing news release. “We are deeply honored that Qatar Airways has placed this record-breaking order with Boeing, one that solidifies their future fleet,” Boeing commercial plane chief Stephanie Pope said.The order represents a win for new Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, although analysts noted that the planes will not be delivered for at least five years due to industry backlogs.Both Boeing and rival Airbus, which has also sold extensively to Qatar Airways, have struggled in recent years with supply chain problems as they have taken thousands of plane orders amid strong airline demand. Boeing has also been beset with safety and labour problems that have limited output.Ortberg joined Trump for part of Wednesday’s signing ceremony that also included defence agreements and the purchase by Qatar of American MQ-9B drones, after about two hours of talks with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.”It’s over $200 billion but 160 in terms of the jets. That’s fantastic. So that’s a record,” Trump said, adding: “It’s the largest order of jets in the history of Boeing. That’s pretty good.”The list prices of the 777X and 787 Dreamliner suggest the total value of the Boeing deal is well under $200 billion. The $96 billion figure in the White House factsheet also appears to include some business for GE Aerospace.- Plane backlog -Trump’s Qatar visit is the second destination of his Gulf tour, after a first stop in Riyadh, where he made a surprise announcement lifting sanctions on Syria and met the country’s president.Relations between Washington and Doha have been in the spotlight over Qatar’s offer to Trump of a $400 million luxury aircraft to serve as a new Air Force One and then pass into his personal use.Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Tuesday he would hold up Trump’s Justice Department political appointees in protect, saying, “This is not just naked corruption, it is also a grave national security threat.”Since 2016, Boeing has received 118 gross orders from Qatar Airways and delivered 65 planes to the carrier, according to Boeing’s website.  Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens said the order represents “good news” for Boeing, but noted that it would be years before Boeing receives revenues for the jets in Wednesday’s order.”If you’re ordering a plane today it’s not going to be on your landing strip for at least five years,” Owens said.Owens said the announcement is also a “vote of confidence” in the much-delayed 777X, which is still to be certified, with Boeing pointing to first deliveries in 2026.A press release from Qatar Airways praised the new 777 planes for reducing fuel use and emission by 25 percent compared to the aeroplanes they will replace.Ortberg joined Boeing in August 2024 following a leadership shakeup after a series of safety and quality control problems. He has focused on upgrading Boeing’s operations under the close scrutiny of US air safety regulators, saying improving Boeing’s corporate culture will take time.Shares of Boeing rose 0.6 percent.

President Donald Trump’s health secretary gave mixed messages Wednesday on whether children should be vaccinated and defended a brutal series of budget cuts in a grilling by congressional Democrats.The hearing — ostensibly about Trump’s 2026 budget proposal — offered Democrats a chance to pressure Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on layoffs, budget cuts and a measles outbreak that has killed three children and sickened more than a thousand.Asked in the House of Representatives if he would vaccinate his own child for measles, the long-time vaccine skeptic initially declined to respond.”If I answer that question directly, it will seem like I’m giving advice to other people and I don’t want to be doing that,” Kennedy told Democratic Representative Mark Pocan during the session, which was interrupted by protesters.Pocan responded that Kennedy oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a premier US government public health service, and therefore advising on vaccines is “kind of your jurisdiction.”Later, Kennedy said he was “recommending” vaccination as “the best way to stop the spread.”But asked the same question about chicken pox and Polio, Kennedy said “I don’t want to give advice.”The globally renowned US health agencies and centers for scientific research are facing deep workforce and budget cuts under a plan to slash the federal government led by Trump’s mega-billionaire backer Elon Musk.Kennedy defended the elimination of 20,000 positions from the Department of Health and Human Services — nearly a quarter of the workforce — and denied reports that key programs and funding, such as cancer research, have been cut.”We intend to do more, a lot more, with less,” he said, claiming to be staunching an “unsustainable hemorrhage” of spending that would have “disastrous health consequences.”Democrat Rosa DeLauro suggested that Kennedy was illegally reducing the department without congressional approval.”I believe you are promoting quackery,” DeLauro said.”The United States remains the sickest developed nation,” Kennedy said. “Clearly, something is structurally and systematically wrong with our approach.”

President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday moved to scrap limits on several toxic “forever chemicals” in drinking water, reversing what had been hailed as a landmark public health victory.The Environmental Protection Agency said it would retain maximum contaminant levels for just two of the most notorious compounds from the so-called PFAS class of chemicals, while removing limits for four others known to cause harm.At least 158 million people across the United States have drinking water contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which accumulate in the body and have been linked to cancers, birth defects, decreased fertility and behavioral disorders even at very low levels.The original rules, imposed by then president Joe Biden’s administration in April 2024, were celebrated as a long-overdue response to decades of industry deception and government inaction.But under the changes announced by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the limits would now apply only to PFOA and PFOS — two legacy chemicals historically used in products such as nonstick Teflon pans, fabric protectors like 3M’s Scotchgard, and firefighting foams — while exempting newer-generation PFAS developed as replacements.The EPA would also extend the compliance deadline for these two chemicals from 2029 to 2031, and stop the agency from assessing cumulative risks from mixtures of PFAS chemicals.”We are on a path to uphold the agency’s nationwide standards to protect Americans from PFOA and PFOS in their water,” said Zeldin. “At the same time, we will work to provide common-sense flexibility in the form of additional time for compliance.”The move — part of a broader deregulatory push under Zeldin, who has recast his agency’s role as prioritizing the “unleashing” of American industry over environmental stewardship — was welcomed by water utilities but sharply criticized by advocacy groups.”This is a huge step backwards, and it’s really a betrayal of the promise this administration made to provide clean drinking water and clean air, and to make America healthy again,” Melanie Benesh of the nonprofit Environmental Working Group told AFP.”With a stroke of the pen, the EPA is making a mockery of the Trump administration’s promise to deliver clean water for Americans,” added Eric Olson and Anna Reade of the Natural Resources Defense Council.Benesh noted that the excluded chemicals were developed as substitutes, but the EPA’s own research has linked some of them — including GenX, which contaminated a swath of North Carolina’s water supply — to harm to the liver, kidneys, immune system, fetal development, and cancer.- Planet-wide contamination -PFAS earned the nickname “forever chemicals” because they can take millions of years to break down in the environment.First synthesized in the 1930s, PFAS contain carbon-fluorine bonds — the strongest in chemistry — giving them extraordinary heat resistance and liquid-repellent properties. Today, they blanket the planet, from the Tibetan Plateau to the ocean floor, and circulate in the blood of nearly every American.Internal documents cited by researchers show that manufacturers such as DuPont and 3M knew for decades about PFAS dangers yet worked to cloud the science and delay regulation.In recent years, companies have paid billions of dollars to settle lawsuits with water utilities and affected communities — even as next‑generation PFAS continue to appear in clothing, cookware, and cosmetics.Water systems will eventually have to install granular-activated carbon systems, but the newer-generation PFAS, which have shorter molecular chains, clog filters more quickly, raising operating costs.”This commonsense decision provides the additional time that water system managers need to identify affordable treatment technologies and make sure they are on a sustainable path to compliance,” said National Rural Water Association CEO Matthew Holmes, welcoming the delay.The rollback is likely to face legal challenges. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, any change to existing standards must be equally or more protective of health.Activists are also calling on states — which are free to set stricter standards — to step in and fill the gap left by federal inaction.