With the coronavirus killing an estimated 15 million people worldwide, including nearly 1 million in the United States, the Biden administration, despite a lack of funding for domestic and international pandemic response, is set to mobilize a global effort to end the acute phase of COVID-19. The move comes as the World Health Organization announced…
read moreThere is renewed interest nuclear energy in Europe driven in part by climate goals but also the war in Ukraine – especially as the European Union moves to cut all energy ties with Russia. But tapping nuclear power remains expensive, time consuming and deeply controversial. For VOA, Lisa Bryant takes a look at the debate…
read moreIt took two trips over state lines, navigating icy roads and a patchwork of state laws, for a 32-year-old South Dakota woman to get abortion pills last year. For abortion-seekers like her, such journeys, along with pills sent through the mail, will grow in importance if the Supreme Court follows through with its leaked draft…
read moreThe Global Network, an alliance of humanitarian and developmental agencies, says around 193 million people globally experienced extreme hunger last year, with more than half a million on the brink of famine in Ethiopia, southern Madagascar, South Sudan, and Yemen. The network, which includes the European Union, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, and World Food…
read moreSouth African health officials are urging COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Aspen to keep its plant in the Eastern Cape province open. This follows a Reuters article quoting Aspen’s senior director saying they may have to shut down as there have been no orders for their rebranded COVID vaccine. A South African-owned subsidiary of pharmaceutical giant Aspen…
read moreA body inside a barrel was found over the weekend on the the newly exposed bottom of Nevada’s Lake Mead as drought depletes one of the largest U.S. reservoirs. Officials say the discovery could be the first of more grim finds. “There is a very good chance as the water level drops that we are…
read moreHealth officials are still trying to identify the cause of cases of acute and severe hepatitis that have infected scores of children in 16 countries, mainly in Europe. Over 170 cases of acute severe hepatitis in children aged between 1 month and 16 years have been reported from 16 countries, 12 in Europe. Most cases…
read moreMany Chinese are marking a quiet May Day holiday this year as the government’s zero-COVID approach restricts travel and enforces lockdowns in multiple cities. All restaurants in Beijing are closed to dine-in customers from Sunday through the end of the holiday on Wednesday, open only for takeout and delivery. Parks and tourist attractions in the…
read moreSatellites have detected methane emissions from belching cows at a California feedlot, marking the first time emissions from livestock – a major component of agricultural methane – could be measured from space. Environmental data firm GHGSat this month analyzed data from its satellites and pinpointed the methane source from a feedlot in the agricultural Joaquin…
read moreMeteorologists warn the extreme heat gripping India and Pakistan is likely to have many cascading effects on human health, ecosystems, agriculture, water, energy, and the economy. For the past few days, hundreds of millions of people have been sweltering under temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius in widespread areas of India and Pakistan. The…
read moreChris Mei has been stuck in his Shanghai flat for a month save for PCR testing and occasional volunteer work delivering food to neighbors. That will change in a couple of days when he boards his flight for a long-scheduled trip home to Portland, Oregon. He uses Zoom to do factory inspections for his 2-year-old…
read moreBeijing residents will need clear COVID tests to enter public spaces, officials said Saturday, announcing fresh virus controls at the start of a Labor Day holiday muted by creeping infections in the capital. The five-day break is typically one of China’s busiest travel periods, but the country’s worst COVID resurgence since early in the pandemic…
read moreA blindfold calms the large black and white augur buzzard as two men glue a prosthetic leg into an insert on her body to replace the one that she lost. The female is one of many injured birds of prey that turn up at Simon Thomsett’s Kenyan rehabilitation center, most of which, like her, have…
read moreA San Francisco area-based nonprofit is working to send easily operated, simply maintained and low-cost incubators to Ukraine. After learning that 260,000 women in Ukraine are pregnant, with many now giving birth in bomb shelters or without access to modern medical care, Embrace Global is working to send 3,000 of its incubators to war ravaged…
read moreA Colorado prison inmate who worked at a poultry farm culling infected birds has become the first person in the U.S. to test positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment confirmed the case Thursday. H5N1 has been spreading rapidly among birds in the U.S. since February…
read moreAfter years of preparation and testing, a new NASA spacecraft is almost ready for its mission to an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists hope the journey will uncover clues into the origins of Earth. For VOA, Villafañe visited NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to see the spacecraft and speak with mission…
read moreChina has suspended cross-border freight train services with North Korea following consultations after COVID-19 infections in its border city of Dandong, the foreign ministry said Friday. The suspension came within four months after North Korea eased border lockdowns enforced early in 2020 against the coronavirus, measures global aid groups have blamed for its worsening economic…
read moreSouth Korea said Friday it will lift its outdoor mask mandate next week in response to a steady drop in COVID-19 cases after an omicron-fueled surge. The announcement comes after Seoul dropped almost all other social-distancing measures earlier this month, ending two years of strict requirements that put a massive strain on the country’s small…
read moreMission accomplished for the latest SpaceX and NASA trip to the International Space Station. Plus, the first-ever all-private charter to the ISS ends and … see what it looks like to catch a four-story rocket out of the sky. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. …
read moreMenthol cigarettes and other menthol tobacco products may soon be things of the past, according to an announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday saying authorities are moving forward on a plan to ban them. It could still be years before the products are removed from stores. “The proposed rules would help…
read moreDr. Anthony Fauci has given an upbeat assessment of the current state of the coronavirus in the United States, saying the country is “out of the pandemic phase” with regard to new infections, hospitalizations and deaths, and that it appears to be making a transition to COVID-19 becoming an endemic disease — occurring regularly in…
read moreTokyo’s Shibuya is famed for its Scramble Crossing, where crowds of people crisscross the intersection in a scene symbolizing urban Japan’s congestion and anonymity. It may have added another boasting right. Tokyu Railways’ trains running through Shibuya and other stations were switched to power generated only by solar and other renewable sources starting April 1.…
read more