Malawi has begun a mass distribution of mosquito nets, aiming to reach almost half the country’s population of 18 million people. Health authorities say the campaign is aimed at reducing the spread of malaria, which in Malawi currently accounts for 36% of all hospital outpatients and 15% of hospital admissions. The Global Fund-supported campaign was…
read moreThe idea was striking in its ambition: African countries aimed to plant trees in a more than 8,000 kilometer-line spanning the entire continent, creating a natural barrier to hold back the Sahara Desert as climate change swept the sands south. The project called the Great Green Wall began in 2007 with a vision for the…
read moreMedicare’s “Part B” outpatient premium will jump by $21.60 a month in 2022, one of the largest increases ever. Officials said Friday a new Alzheimer’s drug is responsible for about half of that. The increase guarantees that health care will gobble up a big chunk of the recently announced Social Security cost-of-living allowance, a boost…
read moreIn Kansas City, Kansas, educators are opening an after-school mental health clinic staffed with school counselors and social workers. Schools in Paterson, New Jersey, have set up social emotional learning teams to identify students dealing with crises. Chicago is staffing up “care teams” with the mission of helping struggling students on its 500-plus campuses. With…
read moreAfrica is on the front line of climate change. Nowhere is this more evident than the Lake Chad Basin, which covers almost 8% of the continent and supports tens of millions of people. The United Nations says it has shrunk by 90% since the 1960s because of drought. The resulting competition for resources has caused…
read moreSeveral young African climate activists traveled thousands of miles to Glasgow, Scotland, to be part of the COP26 climate summit — and to convey their sense of urgency to world leaders. Henry Ridgwell spoke with some of them about their climate change experiences and what COP26 must deliver to help their communities back home. Camera:…
read moreA businessman who traveled to space with William Shatner last month was killed along with another person when the small plane they were in crashed in a wooded area of northern New Jersey, state police said. The space tourist, Glen M. de Vries, 49, of New York City, and Thomas P. Fischer, 54, of Hopatcong,…
read moreWorld Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that Europe remains the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting 2 million new cases last week, the region’s highest number since the pandemic began. At a briefing in Geneva, the WHO chief said the region also reported nearly 27,000 deaths last week, more than half of…
read moreScientists in South Africa have discovered the first partial Homo Naledi child’s skull in one of the world’s richest hominin fossil sites. The discovery at a UNESCO World Heritage site near Johannesburg, called “Cradle of Humankind,” reveals that the non-human species performed rituals for their dead thousands of years ago, before humans did. For VOA,…
read moreU.S. drug maker Johnson & Johnson announced Friday it will separate its consumer health business of over-the-counter, name brand drugs from its prescription drug and medical device business, creating two companies. In a release posted to its website, the 135-year-old company said its new Consumer Health Company will be publicly traded and market such products as Band-Aids, Neutrogena skin cream, Tylenol pain reliever and Listerine mouthwash. The company known as Johnson & Johnson will continue selling prescription…
read moreMore than 22 million infants missed their first measles vaccine in 2020, according to a report by the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. WHO said in a statement the 22 million tally was “the largest increase in two decades” and sets the stage for “creating dangerous conditions for outbreaks…
read moreGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday people have a duty to be inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine as a way of protecting not only themselves, but others as well. She made the comments in a virtual conversation with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. COVID-19…
read moreThe contagious delta variant is driving up COVID-19 hospitalizations in the Mountain West and fueling disruptive outbreaks in the North, a worrisome sign of what could be ahead this winter in the U.S. While trends are improving in Florida, Texas and other Southern states that bore the worst of the summer surge, it’s clear that…
read moreA SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts pulled up Thursday at the International Space Station, their new home until spring. It took 21 hours for the flight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to the glittering outpost. The one German and three U.S. astronauts said it was an emotional moment when they first spotted the space station…
read moreNew York state legalized recreational marijuana use this year, just in time to host the annual Cannabis World Congress & Business Exposition. Evgeny Maslov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera – Michael Eckels. …
read moreThe International Space Station will perform a brief maneuver on Wednesday to dodge a fragment of a defunct Chinese satellite, Russian space agency Roscosmos said. The station crewed by seven astronauts will climb 1,240 meters higher to avoid a close encounter with the fragment and will settle in an orbit 470.7 km (292 miles) above…
read moreNASA on Tuesday delayed putting astronauts back on the moon until 2025 at the earliest, missing the deadline set by the Trump administration. The space agency had been aiming for 2024 for the first moon landing by astronauts in a half-century. In announcing the delay, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Congress did not provide enough…
read moreThousands of people gathered Tuesday outside of New Zealand’s parliament building in the capital, Wellington, to protest the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates and lockdowns intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus. An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 protesters marched through central Wellington carrying signs displaying various anti-mandate slogans, with many waving campaign flags of former U.S. president Donald Trump. Security personnel closed nearly all entrances to the parliament…
read moreAsian countries with some of the world’s largest yearly tropical forest losses have either not joined a new global pact to halt forest loss by the end of the decade or sparked doubts about their commitment after signing up. More than 120 countries joined the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use on November…
read moreThe World Food Program says it is seeking $65 million to ease food insecurity in Zimbabwe. The U.N. agency says its assessment shows that more than 5 million people in the southern African nation are looking at food shortages in coming months. Belinda Popovska, the WFP Zimbabwe spokeswoman, told VOA on Monday that the U.N. agency had started looking for funds to import food for…
read moreFormer U.S. President Barack Obama told the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow on Monday that most nations failed to meet their commitments made in the 2015 Paris Climate Conference agreement and the world is nowhere near where it needs to be in confronting climate change. Speaking during the second full week of the talks…
read moreMore than 100,000 climate-action activists from across the world gathered in Glasgow Saturday to protest the agreements and promises made so far at the COP26 climate talks. According to protesters, the new pledges made during the summit — to cut carbon and methane emissions, end deforestation, phase out coal and provide more financing for poorer…
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