GUET NDAR, Senegal (AP) — It’s impossible to miss the gas platform off the coast of northern Senegal. Its flare stack burns day and night above the rolling breakers.

The natural gas project, a joint venture between British energy giant BP and U.S.-based Kosmos Energy, started operations on the final day of 2024. It is meant to bring jobs to the densely populated fishing community of Guet Ndar, just outside the old colonial capital of Saint Louis.

The gas extraction plant, the deepest in Africa, is aimed at helping to transform Senegal’s stagnant economy after the discovery just over a decade ago of oil and gas off the country’s coast. The first offshore oil project also began last year.

Fishermen say the project is killing their livelihoods

Mariam Sow, one of the few remaining sellers in the once-thriving fish market, said the decline began in 2020 when the platform started rising from the sea.

“This market used to be full every day,” Sow said, gesturing at the barren lot. The nearby beach is now occupied by hundreds of unused boats.

Fishing is central to life in coastal Senegal. It employs over 600,000 people, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The country exported nearly half a billion dollars worth of fish in 2022, according to think tank Chatham House, citing international trade data.

What’s the gas project about?

The Grand Tortue Ahmeyim project plans to extract gas off Senegal and neighboring Mauritania. According to BP, the field could produce 2.3 million tons of liquefied natural gas every year.

Last year, Senegal elected President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who ran on an anti-establishment platform. He pledged to maximize the country’s natural resources, including by renegotiating what he called unfair contracts with foreign firms and distributing revenues to the population.

“I will proceed with the disclosure of the effective ownership of extractive companies (and) with an audit of the mining, oil, and gas sector,” he said in his first address. It was not clear whether contract renegotiation efforts had begun, or whether they would include the gas project.

The fishermen of Guet Ndar say the benefits promised by both the project and Senegal’s government have not materialized. The cost of living remains high, and the price of natural gas, a major cooking source in Senegal, is still rising. Lower gas prices had been a major selling point for the gas project.

Mohamed Sow, a shopkeeper in Dakar, said his customers complain that a 12-liter gas canister has gone from 5,000 CFA ($8.50) to 8,000 CFA ($13.80) in the past few years.

“It’s impossible to keep raising the price,” he said.

Senegal’s government did not respond to requests for comment.

The fishing community near the project says it has noticed more signs of trouble.

A leak that took weeks to fix

Soon after the gas project’s production began, fishermen said they noticed a large number of bubbles in the sea. BP cited a temporary gas leak that “had no immediate impact on ongoing production activities from the remaining wells.”

The leak took weeks to fix. BP did not say how much gas — largely methane — leaked into the ocean, or what caused a leak so early in the new project.

In a response to written questions, BP said “the environmental impact of the release was assessed as negligible” considering the “low rate” of release.

The environmental charity Greenpeace, however, called the effects of such spills on the environment significant.

“The GTA field is home to the world’s largest deep-water coral reef, a unique ecosystem. A single spill can wipe out decades of marine biodiversity, contaminate food chains and destroy habitat,” it said in a statement.

Sitting outside a BP-built and branded fish refrigeration unit meant to help community relations, Mamadou Sarr, the president of the Saint Louis fishermen’s union, talked about the concerns.

Sarr asserted that fish have become more scarce as they are attracted to the platform and away from several reefs that the people of Guet Ndar had fished for centuries.

Drawing in the sand, he explained how the fish, drawn by the project’s lights and underwater support structures, no longer visit their old “homes.” Areas around the platforms are off-limits to fishermen.

Sarr also said an artificial reef that BP is building lies in the path of ships that regularly visit the structures, keeping the fish away.

A fisherman’s life

One fisherman, Abdou, showed off his catch after two days at sea: two insulated boxes full of fish, each about the size of an oil drum. A box of fish fetches 15,000 CFA, or $26.

Prior to the gas project, he said, he would get four or five boxes per two-day trip. Now, getting two is a win.

That worsens a problem already created by overfishing by foreign vessels.

BP stressed that face-to-face talks with members of the community about such issues are ongoing, and noted its community-facing projects such as microfinance and vocational training programs in the region.

Sarr said that despite its promises, the government failed to consider his community when agreeing to the gas project.

“This is our land and sea, why don’t we get a voice?” he asked.

He and others expressed irony that the refrigeration unit sitting next to them cannot be opened. The key is “somewhere in Dakar” Sarr said, and locals said they have never seen inside it.

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About five years ago, Gail Friedman noticed her Parson Russell Terrier was constantly licking his paws and seemed super uncomfortable.

“The poor dog. I would put baby socks on his feet so that he wouldn’t lick them or bite at them,” said Friedman, of Oak Brook, Illinois. “I was constantly changing the socks, washing his feet a lot. Nothing worked.”

It turned out her canine companion, Mr. Friedman, had allergies.

It’s a common and tricky problem in pets — caused by various things such as pollen, dust, mold, chemicals and food — but veterinarians say there are several ways to ease their suffering.

What sorts of allergies do dogs and cats get?

Allergies happen when the immune system overreacts to a foreign substance. Cats and dogs react to many of the same things people do, as well as pests like fleas.

There are no definitive recent statistics on how many pets have allergies, but research suggests the problem is growing.

“I probably see allergic dogs and cats every single day, probably multiple times a day,” said Dr. Karen Woodard, medical director at Thrive Pet Healthcare-Elmhurst in Illinois.

About 90% of allergic pets react to environmental triggers, Woodard said, and the rest have food allergies only.

Dog breeds that are especially vulnerable include various types of terriers, boxers and bulldogs; in cats, it’s Persians, Siamese and Himalayans.

Pets can even be allergic to other animals — cats to dogs, dogs to cats and either to another species.

“It’s possible for them to be allergic to us, just like we are to them,” said Thrive’s Dr. Anthea Elliott Schick of Scottsdale, Arizona, immediate past president of the American College of Veterinary Dermatology.

How can you tell if your pet has allergies?

Allergic cats and dogs aren’t as likely as humans to sneeze and cough. More often, they scratch and lick themselves, shake their heads and develop ear infections.

Woodard said her Yorkie mix, Teddy, had the classic signs — scratching around his shoulders and getting rashes and ear infections starting as a six-month-old puppy. She lived in the South at the time, and he tested positive for allergies to various trees and grasses there.

A common sign of allergies in her feline patients is “overdoing their grooming,” said Woodard, who’s on the Chicago Veterinary Medical Association’s board of directors. “Cats shouldn’t be pulling their hair out when they groom. So if you start seeing bald patches on your cat, even though the skin underneath it looks normal, that could be a sign of allergies.”

Even food allergies, often to chicken, beef, lamb or other protein sources, frequently show up on the skin, although pets can have vomiting or diarrhea, too.

Rarely, pets can develop life-threatening anaphylactic reactions, perhaps after being stung by an insect. But most allergies are simply miserable for the animals.

“It breaks my heart because it gets to a point that not only do I have socks on poor Mr. Friedman — which is humiliating for him — he sometimes gets so bad he has to wear the cone of shame,” Gail Friedman said. “And that’s not fair because he can’t move around right, he can’t sleep right. It’s terrible.”

How can you help your pet?

The first step is to get a diagnosis from the vet. This could involve allergy testing, or in the case of food allergies, an “elimination diet,” which involves feeding limited ingredients the pet hasn’t previously eaten.

If the allergy culprit is environmental, there are medications like anti-inflammatory drugs and newer oral and injectable medications for dogs to block chemical signals associated with itchiness. Food allergies may be treated with special diets such as “hydrolyzed” food, in which proteins are chemically broken down into tiny pieces.

All this can get expensive. Friedman estimates she’s spent about $10,000 on testing, medication and care for Mr. Friedman and another allergic dog.

But vets say there are also ways to help pets at home by cleaning their bedding frequently, wiping their fur with a wet washcloth and giving them baths.

Outdoors, “they’re almost acting like little Swiffers, getting allergens on their skin, and it goes through their skin and actually becomes a problem,” Schick said. “We say bathe your dog, at a minimum, once a week if they’re allergic.”

After she’s tried nearly everything, Friedman’s dogs are still vexed by allergies. But they’re doing better.

“I’m going to keep experimenting until we find what stops it completely,” she said. “All you can do is try.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Taylor Jenkins Reid recalls a moment writing her new novel, “Atmosphere: A Love Story,” set against NASA’s robust 1980s shuttle program, where she felt stuck. She went, where she often goes, to her husband to talk it through.

“I said, ‘I can’t write this book. I don’t know enough about the space shuttle. I don’t know what happens when the payload bay doors won’t shut and you have to get back within a certain amount of revs, but they can’t land at White Sands. They have to land at Cape Kennedy.’ And he’s like, ‘Just listen to yourself. You know so much more than you knew a couple months ago. Keep doing what you’re doing.’”

“Atmosphere,” out Tuesday, follows the journey of astronomer Joan Goodwin, an astronomer selected to join NASA’s astronaut program. She and fellow trainees become like family and achieve their dream of going to space — until tragedy strikes.

The story unfolds in two timelines: One when Joan first joins the NASA program and the other in December 1984 when a mission goes terribly wrong. The duo behind “Captain Marvel,” Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, are adapting the book into a film with a theatrical release in mind.

Reid knew that she had to do more than just her average six to eight weeks of research. Research and rabbit holes, by the way, are Reid’s jam. She’s written blockbuster novels set in the golden age of Hollywood in “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” the 1970s rock scene in “Daisy Jones & the Six,” 1980s surf culture in “Malibu Rising” and professional tennis in “Carrie Soto is Back.” With “Atmosphere,” though, it took extra time, reading and understanding.

“It feels like a fever dream now when I think about it,” Reid told The Associated Press. “It was a very intense period of time.”

For this endeavor, she needed assistance.

“I had to reach out to people, complete strangers that I did not know and say, ‘Will you please help me?’”

Reid was surprised at how many people said yes. One of the most important voices was Paul Dye, NASA’s longest-serving flight director.

“He spent hours of time with me,” Reid said. “He helped me figure out how to cause a lot of mayhem on the space shuttle. He helped figure out exactly how the process of the connection between mission control and the space shuttle work. The book doesn’t exist if he hadn’t done that.”

In an interview, Reid also talked about astronomy, social media and yes, the latest on “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” movie at Netflix.

Answers are condensed for clarity and length.

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AP: How has writing “Atmosphere” changed you?

REID: I’m really into astronomy. Last Thanksgiving my family took a road trip to the Grand Canyon. I routed us through Scottsdale, Arizona, because I wanted to go to a dark sky park.

Because of light pollution, we can only see the brightest stars when we go out and look at the night sky in a major city. Whereas when you go to a dark sky park there is very limited man-made light. So you can see more stars. We got there and it was cloudy. I was beside myself. The next night we got to the Grand Canyon and all the clouds had disappeared and you could see everything. I stood there for hours. I was teary-eyed.

I can’t emphasize enough: If anyone has any inclination to just go outside and look up at the night sky, it’s so rewarding.

AP: Last fall you left social media. Where are you at with it now?

REID: I didn’t realize how much social media was creating so many messages in my head of, you’re not good enough. You should be better. You should work harder. You should have a prettier home. You should make a better dinner. And when I stopped going on it, very quickly I started to hear my own voice clearer.

It was so much easier to be in touch with what I thought, how I felt, what I valued. I was more in touch with myself but also I’m going out into the world and I’m looking up at the sky and I am seeing where I am in relation to everything around me and I starting to understand how small my life is compared to the scale of the universe.

AP: Serena Williams is executive producing “Carrie Soto” for a series at Netflix. Did you meet her?

REID: Yes. It’s the only time I’ve been starstruck. I was in my bones, nervous. I had to talk to myself like, “Taylor, slow down your heart rate.” The admiration I have for her as an athlete but also as a human is immense. The idea that I might have written something that she felt captured anything worth her time, is a great honor. And the fact that she’s coming on board to help us make it the most authentic story we possibly can, I’m thrilled.

It’s one thing for me to pretend I know what it’s like to be standing at Flushing Meadows and win the U.S. Open. Serena knows. She’s done it multiple times. And so as we render that world, I think it is going to be really, really special because we have Serena and her team to help us.

AP: Now for your favorite question. What’s up with the “Evelyn Hugo” movie?

REID: There’s not much that I am allowed to say but a lot of times I think people mistake me not saying anything as a lack of interest or focus and that’s not the case. Everyone is working incredibly hard to get this movie made and everyone knows that there is a lot of pressure to get it exactly right. We’re all hard at work. We’re taking it very seriously and I give Netflix so much credit because they have such an immense respect for the readership of that book. They want to make them happy.