Month: September 2023

U.N. member nations Friday approved a “political declaration” that establishes a plan to end tuberculosis around the world in the next five years. The plan, engineered by the World Health Organization (WHO), was approved during the U.N. General Assembly’s high-level meeting on tuberculosis in New…

Fall is in the air — officially. The equinox arrives on Saturday, marking the start of the fall season for the Northern Hemisphere. But what does that actually mean? Here's what to know about how we split up the year using the Earth's orbit. What…

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese Thursday announced the government will conduct a yearlong inquiry into the country’s approach to COVID-19, but opposition politicians say the limited scope and powers of the inquiry will make it “a complete waste of time.”    International border closures made Australia…

Kai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman killed 14 students and three staff members there on Valentine’s Day in 2018. Seeing his peers — and himself — struggle with returning to normal, he wanted to do something to…

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is providing $600 million in funding to produce new at-home COVID-19 tests and is restarting a website allowing Americans to again order up to four free tests per household — aiming to prevent possible shortages during a rise…

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned a climate summit of world leaders on Wednesday there is not much time left to avert an environmental catastrophe. “We must make up for time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from…

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients.  Those with paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic…

The tiny Pacific island nation of Niue has come up with a novel plan to protect its vast and pristine territorial waters — it will get sponsors to pay. Under the plan, which was being launched by Niue's Prime Minister Dalton Tagelagi on Tuesday in…

Measles, diarrhea and malnutrition, among other preventable diseases, kill about 100 children every month in Sudan where armed conflicts have uprooted more than five million people from their homes, according to the United Nations. Between May 15 and September 14, at least 1,200 children under…

Climate change and conflict are hitting efforts to tackle three of the world's deadliest infectious diseases, the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has warned. International initiatives to fight the diseases have largely recovered after being badly affected by the…

Bystanders are less likely to give life-saving CPR to women having a cardiac arrest in public than men, leading to more women dying from the common health emergency, researchers said Monday. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation combines mouth-to-mouth breathing and chest compressions to pump blood to the brain…

Families and a pediatrician are challenging North Dakota's law criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors, the latest lawsuit in many states with similar bans.  Gender Justice on Thursday announced the state district court lawsuit in a news conference at the state Capitol in Bismarck. The lawsuit…

Farmers say extreme temperatures caused a huge drop in the output of olive oil in Spain, the world’s largest producer, triggering a big jump in world olive oil prices. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona, who says Europe’s leadership is blaming…

For decades, preventing dengue fever in Honduras has meant teaching people to fear mosquitoes and avoid their bites. Now, Hondurans are being educated about a potentially more effective way to control the disease — and it goes against everything they've learned. Which explains why a…

A global hunger crisis has left more than 700 million people not knowing when or if they will eat again, and demand for food is rising relentlessly while humanitarian funding is drying up, the head of the United Nations food agency said Thursday. World Food…

Authorities in India are scrambling to contain a rare outbreak of Nipah, a virus spread from animals to humans that causes deadly fever and has a high mortality rate. Here is a look at what is known so far: What is the Nipah virus?  The first…

One American and two Russian space crew members blasted off Friday aboard a Russian spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a mission to the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub lifted off on the…

Bangladesh is struggling with a record outbreak of dengue fever, with experts saying a lack of a coordinated response is causing more deaths from the mosquito-transmitted disease.  The World Health Organization recently warned that diseases such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever caused by…

NASA said on Thursday it has selected a research director to investigate UFO sightings on the recommendation of an independent panel of experts.  Administrator Bill Nelson, who made the announcement, has yet to identify the appointee.  The unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, is the official…