内容摘要：“Now is not the time to take the foot off the gas pedal,” said Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

“Now is not the time to take the foot off the gas pedal,” said Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

“The need is there,” she said. “And we have a lot of hope.”For more on Africa and development:

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’sfor working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas atWASHINGTON (AP) — Organizers and the Kennedy Center have canceled a week’s worth of events celebrating LGBTQ+ rights for this summer’s World Pride festival in Washington, D.C., amid a shift in priorities and the ousting of leadership at one of the nation’s premier cultural institutions.

Multiple artists and producers involved in the center’s Tapestry of Pride schedule, which had been planned for June 5 to 8, told The Associated Press that their events had been quietly canceled or moved to other venues. And in the wake of the cancellations, Washington’s Capital Pride Alliance has disassociated itself from the Kennedy Center.“We are a resilient community, and we have found other avenues to celebrate,” said June Crenshaw, deputy director of the alliance. “We are finding another path to the celebration … but the fact that we have to maneuver in this way is disappointing.”

The Kennedy Center’s website still lists

with a general description and a link to the World Pride site. There are no other details.U.S. infant deaths fell to about 19,900 last year, according to CDC data, compared with about 20,150 in 2023.

The U.S. infant mortality rate has been worse than other high-income countries, which experts have attributed to poverty, inadequate prenatal care and other things. Even so, the U.S. rate generally has improved over the decades because of medical advances and public health efforts.The 2022 and 2023 levels were up from 5.44 per 1,000 in 2021 — the first statistically significant jump in the rate in about two decades. Experts attributed those years to a rebound in RSV and flu infections after two years of pandemic precautions.

In 2023, U.S. health officials begantwo new measures to prevent the toll on infants — one was a lab-made antibody shot for infants that helps the immune system fight off the virus, and the other was giving an RSV vaccine to women between 32 weeks and 36 weeks of pregnancy.