Family

Filipino dance groups used to be a big deal in Juneau. There were multiple troupes who practiced regularly and performed at the Filipino Community Hall. They even danced at high school basketball games. But that was 15 years ago.

Participation waned over the years, but David Abad, who grew up in Juneau’s Filipino community, wants to revive it. So he set up a workshop at Juneau’s Zach Gordon Youth Center called Tinikling 101.

Tinikling is a traditional folk dance from the Visayas region of the Philippines. Two people get on either end of two long bamboo poles and clap them together. Dancers jump in and out of the poles in between claps, deftly keeping from getting their ankles whacked. They look like the dance’s namesake tikling bird trying to avoid a foot snare set by rice farmers.

Abad bought the 8-foot long bamboo poles for the workshop on Etsy.

“They were really hard to find,” he said. It was especially hard to get someone to ship them to Alaska.

The clinic started with some inspiration. The group of about a dozen kids watched a video of a group of college students performing the dance to the song “Dolla Sign Slime” by hip-hop artist Lil Nas X, rather than the traditional Spanish rondalla. The choreography is truly impressive. They are fast on their feet, jumping in and out of the poles while spinning or even kneeling down between the poles for a split second before escaping. The crowd in the video cheered, and so did the kids watching at the clinic.

“These are my tinikling goals,” Abad said.

When it was time for the group to try it out, Abad asked for volunteers to be the clappers — the people who tap the poles twice on the ground and then snap them together in the middle.

“When I was a dancer, I didn’t used to think about the clappers,” Abad said. “But they are so important because they get to control the speed. They are super crucial.”

It took awhile to get the rhythm down: Click, click, clap. Click, click, clap. But once it got going, you could see it getting stuck in everyone’s head.

Kay Roldan said she could feel it in her body. She used to dance with Abad back in the day, but it’s been at least ten years since she’s done it. This clinic was the first time she’d seen anyone bring out the sticks in Juneau since she was a teenager.

Jennifer Lagundino brought her 5-year-old daughter Daryl.

“Her dad is Filipino, and she’s been asking to learn Filipino dance,” Lagundino said.

Daryl sat in front of her mom and wrapped her tiny hands around the fat bamboo pole while they worked it together. But it wasn’t long before she wanted to be the dancer, too. She said she knew ballet already — and she was very light on her feet as she jumped on her tiptoes in and out of the poles. She seemed instantly converted.

The clinic lasted for two hours. Everyone tried both roles — clapper and dancer — a few times. People were sweaty and panting after their turn.

Abad was lit up. He wants people to get back into tinikling. He wants to teach and coach and choreograph for a troupe.

When he was young, in the early 2000s, there were at least 50 Filipino kids who danced regularly. When they danced at the Filipino Community Hall, he says they were proud. But when they started dancing at high school basketball games and other non-Filipino spaces, he said it became more of a secret for him. He stopped dancing in high school.

So the small crowd was inspiring to him. There wasn’t just interest, there was enthusiasm — from Filipino kids and kids who said they were “kinda” Filipino, and one who said tinikling made them wish they were Filipino.

This story is part of KTOO’s participation in the America Amplified initiative to use community engagement to inform and strengthen our journalism. America Amplified is a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Children under 5 years old began getting COVID-19 vaccines in Alaska last week.

In a health presentation to parents Tuesday night, state health officials stressed the importance of getting kids vaccinated and addressed common concerns. Alaska’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink, said COVID-19 vaccines for the youngest Alaskans have been a long time coming.

“Some of you have had your children during this pandemic and have not had great ways to protect them against the worst of this disease,” she said. “Even though we know that it does not impact children to the same degree as our elders, we know that our children are not immune from this virus.”

The state reported a 26% increase in COVID-19 cases this week compared to the previous week.

Case numbers reported among young children have been lower than older groups. But pediatrician Dr. Mishelle Nace said it’s still worth getting them vaccinated to reduce the likelihood of severe symptoms.

“We want you to know that they’re safe and they are effective,” she said. “It doesn’t change a person’s DNA. It doesn’t impact fertility. It’s not been shown to have long-term impacts from the vaccination, and we know that there’s secondary effects from getting COVID-19.”

The two Alaskans under 19 who have died of COVID were both infants. There have also been more hospitalizations among kids younger than 10 than among older kids. Just 42 kids ages 10 to 19 have been hospitalized in Alaska, while 76 kids under 10 have, according to state data.

In Alaska, 23 kids have had multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C, a serious condition that can develop in the weeks after a COVID-19 infection. Eleven of them were younger than 4.

The risk for myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation, is higher from a COVID-19 infection than a vaccination, said pediatric cardiologist Dr. Kevin Kollins.

Health officials also emphasized how thorough the research was on pediatric vaccines before they were authorized. Dr. Lisa Rabinowitz said there were no cases of myocarditis, no allergic reactions and no deaths during trials for the vaccines. Plus, she said, the doses given to older groups have provided scientists with additional data.

“The pediatric population is a protected population, so if you’re wondering why this is coming so late in the game, we really take this population so seriously,” she said. “All the adults, all the older children, those trials happened first. We have the benefit of millions of doses to look at, in terms of safety and efficacy, before they started trials in this younger age group.”

Pfizer has a three-dose pediatric vaccine, and Moderna has a two-dose vaccine. Spacing between the doses varies depending on the brand.

Rabinowitz said not all pediatricians and clinics will have both brands in stock, so parents should opt for whichever one is available from their provider. She said parents should talk to their pediatricians about any questions or concerns.

So far, one in four Alaska kids ages 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The state has yet to publish data on vaccine rates for the youngest group.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Pfizer had a two-dose vaccine for the youngest children and Moderna’s was three doses. It’s the other way around.

As nearly two dozen states move to ban or restrict access to abortion following Friday’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, reproductive rights protests continued across the country.

In Alabama, hundreds gathered on Saturday in Birmingham, reciting poems, dancing and spreading hugs, all in support of reproductive rights, according to WBHM’s Miranda Fulmore.

https://twitter.com/RashahMcChesney/status/1540818871988502528

Fulmore reported that the Birmingham crowd, one of at least five rallies in Alabama over the weekend, chanted in unison Saturday: “We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Marchers streamed through downtown Boston as well on Saturday, with changes of “What do we want? Abortion rights,” according to GBH’s Jeremy Siegel.

In Philadelphia, Democratic attorney general and candidate for governor Josh Shapiro held a rally near the Liberty Bell, putting November’s election in focus. With a GOP majority in both chambers, the Keystone State could restrict abortion if a Republican wins the gubernatorial race.

Shapiro told the crowd of more than a thousand, “The reason why I’m hopeful today is because you’re here,” reported WHYY’s Emily Rizzo.

In a statement, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the GOP candidate, said, “Roe v. Wade is rightly relegated to the ash heap of history.”

He is the prime sponsor of a bill to restrict abortion in Pennsylvania.

In Washington, D.C., protesters in favor of abortion rights continued gathering in front of the Supreme Court building, NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben reports.

One man even slept on top of D.C.’s Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge as a form of protest, Business Insider reports.

Hundreds took to the streets in the sweltering heat of New Orleans, La., on Friday and called on city officials to make New Orleans a sanctuary city for abortions, according to WWNO’s Carly Berlin.

While most rallies were entirely peaceful, deputies with the Arizona Department of Public Safety fired tear gas at demonstrators outside of the capitol building in Phoenix on Friday. It briefly disrupted the legislative session, according to KJZZ’s Ben Giles.

“Republican state Sen. T.J. Shope said senators briefly evacuated the chamber and sheltered in an underground tunnel connecting the House and Senate before returning to work,” he reported on Saturday.

And in Seattle on Friday night, KNKX’s Bellamy Pailthorp reports protesters risked an arrest to stage a sit-in on Second Avenue near the Jackson Federal Building, with another sit-in taking place at Pike Place Market, a popular tourist destination.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

The U.S. Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade on Friday, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists.

Writing for the court majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that the 1973 Roe ruling, and repeated subsequent high court decisions reaffirming Roe, “must be overruled” because they were “egregiously wrong,” the arguments “exceptionally weak,” and so “damaging” that they amounted to “an abuse of judicial authority.”

The vote was 6 to 3, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing a separate concurring opinion.

The decision, most of which was leaked in early May, means that abortion rights will be rolled back in nearly half of the states immediately, with more restrictions likely to follow. For all practical purposes, abortion will not be available in large swaths of the country. The decision may well mean too that the court itself, as well as the abortion question, will become a focal point in the upcoming fall elections and in the fall and thereafter.

Joining the Alito opinion were Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by the first President Bush, and the three Trump appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Chief Justice Roberts, appointed by President George W. Bush, concurred in the judgment only, and would have limited the decision to upholding the Mississippi law at issue in the case, which banned abortions after 15 weeks.

Dissenting were Justices Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Clinton, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, appointed by President Obama.

“With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,” they wrote.

Alito’s opinion is a tour de force of the various criticisms of Roe that have long existed in academia.

Indeed, the 78-page opinion, which has a 30-page appendix, seemingly leaves no authority uncited as support for the proposition that there is no inherent right to privacy or personal autonomy in various provisions of the constitution. And similarly, no evidence that peoples’ reliance on the court’s abortion precedents over the past half century should matter.

He pointed for instance, to Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that upheld the central holding of Roe and was written by Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, all Republican appointees to the court. Alito pointed to language in the Casey opinion that he said “conceded” reliance interests were not really implicated because contraception could prevent almost all unplanned pregnancies.

In fact, though, that 1992 opinion, went on to dismiss that very argument as “unrealistic,” because it “refuse[s] to face the fact” that for decades “people have organized intimate relationships and made choices … in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.” Not exactly the concession that Alito described.

It is not unusual for justices to cherry pick quotes but not so out of context and not from former colleagues who are still alive and privately, not amused at all.

In the end, though, Alito’s opinion has a larger objective, perhaps multiple objectives.

Writing for the majority, he said forthrightly that abortion is a matter to be decided by states and the voters in the states. “We hold,” he wrote, that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.” As to what standard the courts should apply in the event that a state regulation is challenged, Alito said any state regulation of abortion is presumptively valid and “must be sustained if there is a rational basis on which the legislature could have thought” it was serving “legitimate state interests,” including “respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development.” In addition, he noted, states are entitled to regulate abortion to eliminate “gruesome and barbaric” medical procedures; to “preserve the integrity of the medical profession”; and to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability, including barring abortion in cases of fetal abnormality.

Ultimately, the translation of all that is that states appear to be completely free to ban abortions for any reason.

Near the end of the opinion, Alito sought to allay fears about the wide-ranging nature of his opinion. “To ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion. ”

The next steps on abortion across the country would play out in a variety of ways, almost all of them resulting in abortion bans.

Several states — among them Mississippi, North Carolina, and Wisconsin — still have decades-old abortion bans on their books; with Roe overturned, those states could revert to a pre-Roe environment. Officials in such states could seek to enforce old laws, or ask the courts to reinstate them. For example, a Michigan law dating back to 1931 would make abortion a felony. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has been working to try to block that law.

A cascade of newly active state laws

Another path to banning abortion involves “trigger bans,” newer laws pushed through by anti-abortion rights legislators in many states in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s action. Some 15 states – in the South, West and Midwest – have such laws in place, according to CRR and Guttmacher, but they fall into different categories.

Some states will act quickly to ban abortion. According to a new analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, South Dakota, Kentucky, and Louisiana have laws in place that lawmakers designed explicitly to take effect immediately upon the fall of the Roe precedent. Idaho, Tennessee, and Texas – where most abortions are already illegal after about six weeks of pregnancy – have similar laws, which would take effect after 30 days. Guttmacher says seven other “trigger ban” states have laws that would require state officials such as governors or attorneys general to take action to implement them.

Sue Liebel, state policy director with the anti-abortion rights group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said she expects officials in many of those Republican-controlled states to take swift action to do so.

“We have been talking to all of those about acting immediately,” Liebel told NPR. “So when that happens, let’s be ready. How do you get that back into play?”

In recent years, many states also have passed gestational bans prohibiting abortion at various stages of pregnancy. Courts have blocked many of those laws in response to legal challenges, including laws in Georgia, Ohio, and Idaho that ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Now those laws may take effect immediately. So too, could a law recently enacted in Oklahoma, that makes performing abortion a felony punishable by time in prison.

“It will be a tremendous change in an incredibly short period of time,” said Julie Rikelman, senior director of litigation at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Rikelman argued the Center’s challenge to Mississippi’s abortion ban at Supreme Court this term.

A host of other restrictions could limit where, by whom, and under what conditions abortion can be provided. Some examples include laws requiring parental notification or consent for abortions involving patients who are minors; and other health regulations for doctors and clinics that many medical groups say are unnecessary, expensive, and difficult to comply with.

Finally, Liebel said some governors may consider calling special sessions to pass new legislation in response to Friday’s ruling.

More legal uncertainty

Legal experts say the court’s decision will pose new questions for other courts to deal with – questions about how to apply the specific language of the final ruling to individual state laws.

If Roe is indeed overturned or substantially rolled back, Rikelman, the Center for Reproductive rights attorney, predicts “legal chaos” in states across the country in the immediate aftermath of the decision.

“I think what we will see is far more litigation in the federal courts – not less litigation,” Rikelman said.

Some states such as Texas and Oklahoma have multiple abortion restrictions on the books, raising potential questions about which ones would be valid. Those laws each include different provisions and carry different penalties, adding to the potential confusion and prompting additional litigation in state and federal courts.

Liebel, with SBA Pro-Life America, acknowledged that more legal battles are likely.

“That’s gonna take us back, frankly, to where we always have been. Each side tries to put their big toe right on that line and push the envelope,” Liebel said.

Battles in state courts are also likely. Some state constitutions may offer protections for abortion rights notwithstanding the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. In Florida, for example, the American Civil Liberties Union and other reproductive rights groups are challenging a 15-week abortion ban modeled on Mississippi’s law, on the grounds that it violates privacy rights protections guaranteed in Florida’s state constitution.

Even without overturning Roe, Rikelman points to the Texas law known as S.B. 8, which took effect in September. The law, which has spawned several copycat proposals in other states, including Oklahoma, relies on individuals filing civil lawsuits to enforce an abortion ban.

Interstate enforcement battles

Abortion bans in restrictive states will likely bleed over to states that protect abortion rights as well, Rikelman said. She noes that some state lawmakers are trying to prohibit people in other states from providing abortions to their residents.

“What we are seeing already are states and state legislators impacting even people’s ability to access abortion in places where it would remain legal,” she said.

For example, an omnibus abortion law passed by a Republican supermajority in Kentucky earlier this year includes a host of new requirements for dispensing medication abortion pills, and a provision for extraditing people from other states who illegally provide abortion pills to Kentuckians. It’s unclear how enforceable those types of laws would be.

Meanwhile, some states are trying to expand access to abortion in preparation for more patients traveling from restrictive states for procedures. Connecticut lawmakers passed legislation this year designed to protect abortion providers from out-of-state lawsuits.

“This just raises a whole host of issues,” Rikelman said. “All of those different disputes will have to be worked out in the courts” including, potentially, in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Even as abortions have now become far more restricted overall, the Guttmacher Institute reports that the long-term decline in abortions has reversed. In 2020, there were 930,160 abortion in the U.S., an increase of 8 percent more abortions than in 2017. The Institute also said that at the same time, fewer people were getting pregnant and among those who did, a larger proportion chose to have an abortion.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Kids as young as 6 months old were able to get a COVID-19 vaccine from at least one vaccine clinic in Alaska on Monday, just two days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on the vaccine. Support service company Fairweather LLC is holding vaccine clinics in two different locations in Anchorage every day for the rest of the month, offering both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for kids under age 5.

Kelsey Pistotnik took her 3-year-old daughter Vivienne to get the Moderna vaccine at the Fairweather clinic in Tikahtnu Commons late afternoon on Monday. The Anchorage mom, who’s also part of Alaska’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force, said she felt a wave of relief as the vaccine was administered.

“I would make this decision 10 times over. I am just so relieved to finally have that protection for the most vulnerable in my family,” Pistotnik said.

For other providers around the state, access to the vaccine may take a little longer, according to Dr. Lisa Rabinowitz, staff physician at the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.

“It will take several days for all the vaccine providers who preordered vaccine to receive it, but parents can check with their pediatrician or local pharmacy to see if they will be offering the vaccine and to make an appointment,” Rabinowitz said.

For public health centers, COVID-19 vaccines for the youngest age group will be available at some but not all, so it’s also wise to check in with your local public health center for more information.

All children, including children who have already had COVID-19, should get vaccinated, according to the CDC. Children under age 5 can be vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines to help protect them from COVID-19. Each is administered with its own timeline. DHSS is not recommending one over the other.

Pfizer-BioNTech is a three-dose series with three weeks between dose 1 and 2, and two months between dose 2 and 3. It’ll take 13 weeks for a kid to complete their primary series.

Moderna is a two-dose series with four weeks between Dose 1 and 2, which means it’ll take six weeks for a kid to complete their primary series.

The clinical trials and studies have shown the benefits of getting vaccinated outweigh the risks, which is why the decisions to authorize these vaccines were unanimous from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and CDC, said Rabinowitz.

“We’re very encouraged that the vaccines are safe and effective,” she said. “We recommend that Alaska parents talk to their health care provider or pharmacist if they have questions or concerns.”

The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services is also hosting a public webinar for parents to learn more about the pediatric vaccines on Tuesday, June 28, from 7 to 8 p.m. The webinar link will be available to the public prior to the event.

How COVID has impacted children in Alaska

Children under 10 years old account for 2% of the total hospitalizations from COVID-19 among Alaska residents. DHSS does not split that data to account for children under 5. There have been two deaths in Alaska in children under 10 years old from COVID-19. Nationally, children ages 0 to 4 account for around 3.3% of total cases and .1% of total deaths. That’s according to CDC’s COVID data tracker.

“Even with these low percentages of total deaths, it should be noted that COVID-19 is the fourth-leading cause of death in children under 1 year old, and fifth-leading cause in those 1 to 4 years old,” Rabinowitz said, citing national data. “Over half of the children who were hospitalized had no underlying condition.”

In addition, a reported 23 children have been hospitalized with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, Rabinowitz said. “It’s a severe inflammatory condition that kids, especially in that age group, will get after a COVID infection,” she said. “Most of those kids get pretty ill and end up in the ICU.”

Possible side effects of COVID-19 vaccine for babies and toddlers

Rabinowitz said possible side effects of the vaccine are similar to the 5-11 age group.

“Some fatigue and headache were the most common in 2- to 5-year-olds. You can see some irritability and sleepiness, and then the one thing that’s slightly higher in this age group is that fevers were a bit more common,” she said.

Fevers could last up to a couple of days and “treated easily with over-the-counter fever medications,” Rabinowitz said.

Mom Kelsey Pistotnik said her daughter Vivienne hasn’t experienced any side effects so far.

“She seemed just like her normal 3-year-old self, yesterday and today.”

Juneau public health officials say they hope to have COVID-19 vaccines available for children under five by Friday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended vaccine use for children as young as six months this weekend.

One shipment of Moderna vaccines has already arrived at the Juneau Public Health office, but they are waiting for Pfizer vaccines to arrive before opening appointments to Juneau’s youngest residents.

Vaccines will be available through the Juneau Public Health office, SEARHC and Juneau Urgent Care. Juneau Public Health offers vaccine clinics for all ages on Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Juneau will receive 200 total doses — 100 Moderna and 100 Pfizer.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.