Year: 2020

After managing to keep on top of the first wave of coronavirus outbreaks, Singapore is grappling with an alarming rise in infections among migrant workers housed in crowded dormitories.   Such cases now account for about a quarter of Singapore's 1,910 infections. The government reported 287 new cases Thursday, its biggest daily jump. More than 200 were linked to the foreign workers' dormitories.   The tiny city-state of less than 6 million people was seen as a model in its early, swift response to the virus. But it apparently overlooked the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers living in conditions where social distancing is impossible. Now more than 50,000 workers are quarantined and others are being moved to safer locations.   The outbreaks merit attention in a region where practically…

Taking a toy out of the box can make a mess.Hardly eco-friendly, the process can yield more clutter from plastic and cardboard than the actual toy.But there are moves to change that as some toy manufacturers say they’re going green with a series of environmentally friendly initiatives: Army soldiers and Kermit the Frog aren’t the only toys that are green.“Companies are trying to be more environmentally conscious with their products, whether it’s using their packaging that has less plastic or making sure that their packaging is part of the toy … it’s really taking over the industry and we’re going to see a lot more of it this year,” said Maddie Michalik, senior editor for Toy Insider magazine.These initiatives range from using minimal packaging and recycled packing materials to opting…

It looked like a white splotch on the underside of a Neanderthal stone tool. But a microscope showed it was a bunch of fibers twisted around each other.Further examination revealed it was the first direct evidence that Neanderthals could make string, and the oldest known direct evidence for string-making overall, researchers say. The find implies our evolutionary cousins had some understanding of numbers and the trees that furnished the raw material, they say. It's the latest discovery to show Neanderthals were smarter than modern-day people often assume. Bruce Hardy, of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and colleagues report the discovery in a paper released Thursday by the journal Scientific Reports. The string hints at the possibility of other abilities, like making bags, mats, nets and fabric, they said.  It came from an archaeological…

African officials pushed back Thursday against the global jostling to obtain medical equipment to combat the coronavirus, warning that if the virus is left to spread on the continent the world will remain at risk. "We cannot be neglected in this effort," the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, told reporters. "The world will be terribly unsafe, and it will be completely naive, if countries think they can control COVID-19 in their countries but not in Africa." While Africa's 1.3 billion people had a head start in preparing for the pandemic as the virus spread in China, Europe and the United States, Nkengasong warned that "the very future of the continent will depend on how this matter is handled" as cases, now over 11,000,…

Apollo 13's astronauts never gave a thought to their mission number as they blasted off for the moon 50 years ago. Even when their oxygen tank ruptured two days later — on April 13.Jim Lovell and Fred Haise insist they're not superstitious. They even use 13 in their email addresses.As mission commander Lovell sees it, he's incredibly lucky. Not only did he survive NASA's most harrowing moonshot, he's around to mark its golden anniversary."I'm still alive. As long as I can keep breathing, I'm good," Lovell, 92, said in an interview with The Associated Press from his Lake Forest, Illinois, home.A half-century later, Apollo 13 is still considered Mission Control's finest hour.  Lovell calls it "a miraculous recovery."  Haise, like so many others, regards it as NASA's most successful failure.…

Brooklyn is dark except for the streetlamps when Carla Brown's alarm goes off at 5:15 a.m. -- much too early for an average Monday. But with the coronavirus laying siege to New York, today looms as anything but ordinary.Brown runs a meals-on-wheels program for elderly shut-ins and in her embattled city, that label suddenly fits nearly every senior citizen. For two weeks, she's been working 12- to 14-hour days, taking over routes for sick or missing drivers. Today, she has to find room on the trucks for more than 100 new deliveries.She pulls on jeans, grabs her mask and heads for the Grand Army Plaza subway station, wearing a sweatshirt with Muhammad Ali's name printed across the front."He's one of my idols," Brown says. "And I just felt like I…

Iran's supreme leader suggested Thursday that mass gatherings may be barred through the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan amid the coronavirus pandemic, as Amnesty International said it believed at least 35 Iranian prisoners were killed by security forces amid rioting over the virus. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the comment in a televised address as Iran prepares to restart its economic activity while suffering one of the world's worst outbreaks. He is also the highest-ranking official in the Muslim world to acknowledge the holy month of prayer and reflection will be disrupted by the virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes.   "We are going to be deprived of public gatherings of the month of Ramadan," Khamenei said during a speech marking the birth of Imam Mahdi. "Those…

A U.S.-Russian space crew blasted off for the International Space Station (ISS) Thursday from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts, Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner lifted off as scheduled in a Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft.Russian space officials had taken extra precautions to protect the crew during training and pre-flight preparations following the outbreak of the coronavirus. The usual group of reporters was not present at lift off, though the crew did speak to journalists via video link Wednesday.Cassidy said the crew has been in "a very strict quarantine" for the past month and so are in good health.Later Thursday the crew will dock the Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS station’s Poisk service module. Following about two hours of docking procedures, hatches between the Soyuz craft and…

Britons braced Thursday for several more weeks in lockdown as Prime Minister Boris Johnson remained in a London hospital after three nights in intensive care for treatment of his coronavirus infection.   The British government said Wednesday evening that the prime minister was making "steady progress" at St. Thomas' Hospital and sitting up in bed. He has been receiving oxygen but not on a ventilator since his COVID-19 symptoms worsened and he was admitted to an ICU.   Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said Thursday that Johnson was stable and "seems to be doing reasonably well." An update on the prime minister's condition is expected later. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is standing in while Johnson is ill, will chair a meeting of the government's COBRA crisis committee to discuss whether…

Scientists studying data from a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite say they have observed a strong reduction in ozone concentrations over the Arctic, creating what they are calling a “mini-hole” in the ozone layer.The ozone layer is a natural, protective layer of gas in the stratosphere that shields life from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation, often associated with skin cancer and cataracts, as well as other environmental issues.The “ozone hole” most often referenced is over Antarctica, forming each year. But observations scientists made at the German Aerospace Center in the last week indicate ozone depletion over northern polar regions as well.The scientists refer to the Arctic depletion zone as a “mini-hole” because it has a maximum extension of less than a million square kilometers, which is tiny compared with the…

India is considering plans to seal off coronavirus hotspots in Delhi, Mumbai and parts of the south while easing restrictions elsewhere as a way out of a three-week lockdown that has caused deep economic distress, officials said on Wednesday.   The sweeping clampdown in the country of 1.3 billion people to prevent an epidemic of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, ends on April 14 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to decide this week whether to extend it.   He told a conference of political leaders on Wednesday that several state governments had asked for an extension of the lockdown to cope with the outbreak. But he also said that India was facing serious economic challenges, according to a statement issued by his office.   Scenes of…

Puerto Rico's governor on Wednesday asked federal officials to ban all flights from U.S. cities with a high number of coronavirus cases to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. territory. The petition by Gov. Wanda Vázquez to the Federal Aviation Administration came after officials accused some visitors of taking medicine to lower their fevers to avoid being placed in quarantine by National Guard troops screening people at the island's main international airport.   At least two passengers from New York who lowered their fever with medication are now hospitalized in the island with COVID-19, said National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Dahlen. "They themselves admitted it," he said, adding that the two people called health authorities when their condition worsened and that one of them was placed…

At the construction site in Tel Aviv, Jamal Salman and the other Palestinian workers wore gloves and masks, and their employer provided apartments for them to stay overnight.But his wife, alarmed by the news about the coronavirus outbreak in Israel, called him every night from the West Bank, begging him to come home. He came back early this week.Now he sits alone in his basement all day, quarantined from his wife and five children and wondering how he'll make ends meet. In Tel Aviv he earned $1,500 a month, enough to support his family. Now he's unemployed."Coronavirus is like an all-out war," he said. "Everyone is suffering."The coronavirus outbreak poses a dilemma for tens of thousands of Palestinian laborers working inside Israel who are now barred from traveling back and…

Just weeks ago, cities and even states across the U.S. were busy banning straws, limiting takeout containers and mandating that shoppers bring reusable bags or pay a small fee as the movement to eliminate single-use plastics took hold in mainstream America. What a difference a pandemic makes.  In a matter of days, hard-won bans to reduce the use of plastics — and particularly plastic shopping sacks — across the U.S. have come under fire amid worries about the virus clinging to reusable bags, cups and straws.  Governors in Massachusetts and Illinois have banned or strongly discouraged the use of reusable grocery bags. Oregon suspended its brand-new ban on plastic bags this week, and cities from Bellingham, Washington, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, have announced a hiatus on plastic bag bans as the…

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other hard-hit Japanese prefectures to fortify the fight against the coronavirus outbreak. But this is no European or Wuhan-style lockdown. A look at what Japan's state of emergency entails:Why Did Abe Declare A State Of Emergency? A. Abe was facing heavy pressure to declare a state of emergency after the number of new cases in Tokyo began doubling every several days in late March. The city of 14 million had 1,339 cases as of Wednesday, up from about 600 a week earlier. Japan focused on dealing with clusters of infections and selective testing for the virus, a strategy that has failed to curb its spread. Experts found that one-third of Tokyo's recent cases were linked to…

New analysis of data collected by the U.S. space agency’s Cassini spacecraft may have solved what has been a mystery to scientists for years: What keeps the upper layers of Saturn so warm?The warmth of Saturn and other gas giants in the solar system has puzzled scientists because the planets are too far from the sun for it to be the source of the heat that has been found in their atmospheres.But the authors of a report published this week in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy used NASA's Cassini probe data to make the most detailed examination yet of Saturn’s temperatures and atmospheric density.They discovered auroras – similar to Earth’s northern lights – active at the planet's north and south poles. The researchers believe the auroras, electrical currents triggered by…

The lockdown that served as a model for countries battling the coronavirus around the world is set to end after 11 weeks: Chinese authorities are moving to allow residents of Wuhan to once again travel in and out of the sprawling city where the pandemic began. Just after midnight Wednesday, the city's 11 million residents will be permitted to leave without special authorization as long as a mandatory smartphone application powered by a mix of data-tracking and government surveillance shows they are healthy and have not been in recent contact with anyone confirmed to have the virus.   Restrictions in the city where most of China's more than 82,000 virus cases and over 3,300 deaths were reported have been gradually relaxed in recent weeks as the number of new cases…

Pakistan's military promised Tuesday that dozens of doctors who were briefly jailed for protesting a lack of protective equipment needed to treat the growing number of coronavirus cases will get the equipment they need.   The 47 doctors protested in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, on Monday, when they were detained. They were released later the same day, according to provincial spokesman Liaquat Shahwani.   An army statement on Tuesday said the "emergency supplies of medical equipment, including PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) are being dispatched to Quetta."   However, some of the doctors said they were mistreated by police and that some of their colleagues were beaten. The physicians declined to give their names, fearing reprisals. Two doctors have died after contracting the new virus in Pakistan, which…

When Philippine health workers end their daily hospital shifts, they trade the risks of COVID-19 for the risks that they could have bleach thrown in their faces or be chased from public areas.  Many workers report they are being evicted from homes, refused rides on buses, and kicked out of restaurants as their fellow citizens worry about coming into contact with them and contracting the ailment caused by the coronavirus.Critics say the disregard goes all the way to the top, with President Rodrigo Duterte saying these health professionals are “lucky” to die for the nation, even as he condemns the discrimination.The Department of Health has said it would investigate the treatment of health workers. And the capital city of Manila has approved an ordinance outlawing discrimination against workers and COVID-19…

The World Health Organization warns a severe global shortage of nurses is putting the lives of millions of people at risk and is particularly worrisome at a time when the world is doing battle with the COVID-19 pandemic.   To mark World Health Day, the first ever State of the World’s Nursing Report, produced jointly by WHO and the International Council of Nurses, is being launched. Data from 191 countries show the critical work performed by nurses is frequently undervalued.  Instead of celebrating their skills and compassion, the survey finds nurses too often are abused, subject to discrimination, and work long hours under stressful conditions for low pay.Nurses account for more than half of all the world’s health workers and are the backbone of any health system.  The report reveals there are…

People around the world, trapped in their homes amid a health crisis, have something to look forward to this week when the full moon appears as a supermoon for the second of three times this year and in its most spectacular form.  A phenomenon known as the Super Pink Moon will make an appearance over a couple of nights this week. It will be the biggest and brightest on Tuesday, but its appearance on Monday and Wednesday will also be worth viewing. Housebound people are more likely than usual to want to step out into their yards or poke their heads out of their windows to watch this so-called supermoon and develop a new appreciation for the natural world or renew an old one. A full moon appears approximately once a month. When the moon gets closest to the Earth in its orbit, it appears bigger and brighter than usual and is called a supermoon. A supermoon can look up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than a regular monthly full moon.  Most years have 12 full moons, but this year will have 13, three of them supermoons. The April supermoon follows the one of March 9 and precedes the one coming on…