Author: Dmedia

A different approach to energy is at the center of President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to bring down the cost of living for Americans. But as VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, Trump’s plans could be complicated by a complex global interdependence on oil and gas supplies. ...

As Russia’s war against Ukraine enters its third year, centers focused on soldiers' rehabilitation and mental health are appearing across Ukraine. An active serviceman started one such place in his native village in the Carpathian Mountains. Omelyan Oshchudlyak has the story. Videographer and video editor: Yuriy Dankevych ...

WASHINGTON — Changes are coming to the cold and cough aisle of your local pharmacy: U.S. officials are moving to phase out the leading decongestant found in hundreds of over-the-counter medicines, concluding that it doesn't actually relieve nasal congestion. Phenylephrine is used in popular versions of Sudafed, Dayquil and other medications, but experts have long questioned its effectiveness. Last month the Food and Drug Administration formally proposed revoking its use in pills and liquid solutions, kicking off a process that's likely to force drugmakers to remove or reformulate products. It's a win for skeptical academics, including researchers at the University of Florida who petitioned the FDA to revisit the drug's use in 2007 and again in 2015. For consumers it will likely mean switching to alternatives, including an older decongestant that…

A genetic analysis suggests the bird flu virus mutated inside a Louisiana patient who contracted the nation’s first severe case of the illness, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week. Scientists believe the mutations may allow the virus to better bind to receptors in the upper airways of humans — something they say is concerning but not a cause for alarm. Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious-disease researcher, likened this binding interaction to a lock and key. To enter a cell, the virus needs to have a key that turns the lock, and this finding means the virus may be changing to have a key that might work. “Is this an indication that we may be closer to seeing a readily transmitted virus between people?…

Health care organizations may be required to bolster their cybersecurity to better prevent sensitive information from being leaked by cyberattacks like the ones that hit Ascension and UnitedHealth, a senior White House official said Friday. Anne Neuberger, the U.S. deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, told reporters that proposed requirements are necessary in light of the massive number of Americans whose data has been affected by large breaches of health care information. The proposals include encrypting data so it cannot be accessed, even if leaked, and requiring compliance checks to ensure networks meet cybersecurity rules. The full proposed rule was posted to the Federal Register on Friday, and the Department of Health and Human Services posted a more condensed breakdown on its website. She said that the…

washington — Cosmetics companies would have to take extra steps to ensure that any products containing talc are free of asbestos under a federal rule proposed Thursday. The proposal from the Food and Drug Administration and mandated by Congress is intended to reassure consumers about the safety of makeup, baby powder and other personal care products. It follows years of lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson and other companies alleging links between talc-based baby powder and cancer. Despite the lawsuits, research has found mixed evidence of a potential link between cancer and talc, although the possibility has been recognized for decades because of how it is mined. Talc is a mineral used to absorb moisture or improve the texture, feel and color of cosmetics. It is mined from underground deposits that are…

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday its analysis of samples from the first severe case of bird flu in the country last week showed mutations not seen in samples from an infected backyard flock on the patient's property. The CDC said the patient's sample showed mutations in the hemagglutinin (HA) gene, the part of the virus that plays a key role in it attaching to host cells. The health body said the risk to the public from the outbreak has not changed and remains low. Last week, the United States reported its first severe case of the virus, in a Louisiana resident above the age of 65, who was suffering from severe respiratory illness. The patient was infected with the D1.1 genotype of the virus…

London — King Charles thanked the medics who have cared for him and his daughter-in-law Kate, after they both underwent treatment for cancer this year, in a Christmas Day message that touched on global conflicts and the summer's riots in Britain. In his third Christmas TV broadcast since becoming king, Charles struck an unusually personal tone for the royal seasonal message, a tradition that dates back to a radio speech by George V in 1932. The year has been traumatic for the royals after Buckingham Palace said in February the 76-year-old had been diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer detected in tests after a corrective procedure for an enlarged prostate. A month later, Kate, the wife of his son and heir Prince William, said she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy for…

WASHINGTON — NASA's pioneering Parker Solar Probe made history Tuesday, flying closer to the sun than any other spacecraft, with its heat shield exposed to scorching temperatures topping 930 degrees Celsius (1,700 degrees Fahrenheit).  Launched in August 2018, the spaceship is on a seven-year mission to deepen scientific understanding of our star and help forecast space-weather events that can affect life on Earth.  Tuesday's historic flyby should have occurred at precisely 11:53 Greenwich Mean Time, although mission scientists will have to wait until Friday for confirmation as they lose contact with the craft for several days due to its proximity to the sun.  "Right now, Parker Solar Probe is flying closer to a star than anything has ever been before," at 6.1 million kilometers (3.8 million miles) away, NASA official Nicky…

NEW YORK — A NASA spacecraft aims to fly closer to the sun than any object sent before. The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 to get a close-up look at the sun. Since then, it has flown straight through the sun's corona: the outer atmosphere visible during a total solar eclipse. The next milestone: closest approach to the sun. Plans call for Parker on Tuesday to hurtle through the sizzling solar atmosphere and pass within a record-breaking 6 million kilometers of the sun's surface. At that moment, if the sun and Earth were at opposite ends of a football field, Parker "would be on the 4-yard line,” said NASA's Joe Westlake. Mission managers won't know how Parker fared until days after the flyby since the spacecraft will be out…

The incoming Trump administration inherits efforts by the US space agency, NASA, to return astronauts to the surface of the moon and is turning to commercial space entrepreneurs to help. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more. ...

BEIRUT — Since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, industrial-scale manufacturing facilities of the amphetamine-like stimulant Captagon have been uncovered around the country, which experts say fed a $10 billion annual global trade in the highly addictive drug. Among the locations used for manufacturing the drug were the Mazzeh air base in Damascus, a car-trading company in Latakia and a factory that once made snack chips in the Damascus suburb of Douma. Government forces seized the factory in 2018. "Assad's collaborators controlled this place. After the regime fell ... I came here and found it on fire," Firas al-Toot, the original owner of the factory, told The Associated Press. "They came at night and lit the drugs on fire but couldn't burn everything." "From here, Captagon pills emerged to…

NEW YORK — Teen drug use hasn't rebounded from its drop during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the results from a large annual national survey released Tuesday. About two-thirds of 12th graders this year said they hadn't used alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes or e-cigarettes in the previous 30 days. That's the largest proportion abstaining since the annual survey started measuring abstinence in 2017. Among 10th graders, 80% said they hadn't used any of those substances recently, another record. Among eighth graders, 90% didn't use any of them, the same as was reported in the previous survey. The only significant increase occurred in nicotine pouches. About 6% of 12th graders saying they'd used them in the previous year, up from about 3% in 2023. Whether that has the makings…

When Bernard Jones Jr. and his wife, Doris, built their dream home, they didn't hold back. A grotto swimming pool with a waterfall for hot summer days. A home theater for cozy winter nights. A fruit orchard to harvest in fall. And a vast underground bunker in case disaster strikes. "The world's not becoming a safer place," he said. "We wanted to be prepared." Under a nondescript metal hatch near the private basketball court, there's a hidden staircase that leads down into rooms with beds for about 25 people, bathrooms and two kitchens, all backed by a self-sufficient energy source. With water, electricity, clean air and food, they felt ready for any disaster, even a nuclear blast, at their bucolic home in California's Inland Empire. "If there was a nuclear…

PARIS — France connected the Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor to its grid on Saturday morning, state-run operator EDF said, in the first addition to the country's nuclear power network in 25 years. The reactor, which began operating in September ahead of the grid connection, is going online 12 years later than originally planned and at a cost of about $13 billion — four times the original budget. "EDF teams have achieved the first connection of the Flamanville EPR to the national grid at 11:48 a.m. The reactor is now generating electricity," EDF said in a statement. The Flamanville 3 European Pressurized Reactor is France's largest at 1.6 gigawatts and one of the world's biggest, along with China's 1.75 GW Taishan reactor, which is based on a similar design, and Finland's Olkiluoto.…

TORONTO — Scientists have long known that light can sometimes appear to exit a material before entering it — an effect dismissed as an illusion caused by how waves are distorted by matter. Now, researchers at the University of Toronto, through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that "negative time" isn't just a theoretical idea, it exists in a tangible, physical sense, deserving closer scrutiny. The findings, yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, have attracted both global attention and skepticism. The researchers emphasize that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time. "This is tough stuff, even for us to talk about with other physicists. We get misunderstood all the time," said Aephraim Steinberg, a University…

NEW YORK — The U.S. flu season is under way, with cases surging across much of the country, health officials said Friday.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted sharp increases in several measures, including lab tests and emergency room visits.  “It's been increasing at a pretty steady pace now for the past several weeks. So yeah, we are certainly in flu season now,” said the CDC's Alicia Budd.  Thirteen states reported high or very high levels of flu-like illness last week, about double from the week before. One is Tennessee, where a sickness spike is hitting the Nashville area, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University.  “Flu has been increasing, but just this last week has exploded,” Schaffner said. He noted that in a local…

The Unforgettable Chorus in New York is using music to help people with memory loss reconnect with family, friends and themselves. Since 2011, the choir has been a beacon of hope, offering a space where those living with dementia can sing, participate and be part of a community. Johny Fernandez reports from New York City. ...

NEW YORK — U.S. life expectancy jumped last year, and preliminary data suggests there may be another — much smaller — improvement this year. Death rates fell last year for almost all leading causes, notably COVID-19, heart disease and drug overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Thursday. That translated to adding nearly a year the estimated lifespan of Americans. Experts note it's part of a bounce-back from the COVID-19 pandemic. But life expectancy has not yet climbed back to prepandemic levels, and the rebound appears to be losing steam. "What you're seeing is continued improvement, but slowing improvement," said Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a University Minnesota researcher who studies death trends. "We are sort of converging back to some kind of normal that is worse than it…

GENEVA — International human and animal health experts warn the H5N1 avian influenza is evolving quickly and posing a global health threat as the virus is increasingly crossing species barriers and infecting a wide range of domestic and wild mammals. “These developments pose significant challenges to animal, human and environmental health,” Dr. Gregorio Torres, veterinarian and head of the science department at the World Organization for Animal Health, told journalists in Geneva Tuesday. He noted that avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, has been reported in 108 countries and territories over five continents in the last three years. “And as of December 2024, the infection has been detected in over 70 species of domestic and wild mammals. This includes the ongoing detection of H5N1 in dairy cattle in the United…

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — A Zimbabwean national park is hosting relocated wildlife from a game park just outside the country's capital after an autopsy report on Saturday confirmed that four rhinos and several other animals died after drinking contaminated lake water. Tinashe Farawo, the spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, confirmed to VOA the death of four rhinos after drinking bacteria-polluted water at Lake Chivero Recreational Park, about 20 kilometers west of the capital, Harare. “We are not only losing the rhinos, but [we] also lost some zebras, wildebeest and some birds,” Farawo said. “We have tried to treat some of the rhinos, but unfortunately it seems like we are not managing at the moment. But we have made some temporary collective measures to make sure we do the…

NEW YORK — An Alabama woman is recovering well after a pig kidney transplant last month that freed her from eight years of dialysis, the latest effort to save human lives with animal organs.  Towana Looney is the fifth American given a gene-edited pig organ — and notably, she isn't as sick as prior recipients who died within two months of receiving a pig kidney or heart.  "It's like a new beginning," Looney, 53, told The Associated Press. Right away, "the energy I had was amazing. To have a working kidney — and to feel it — is unbelievable."  Looney's surgery marks an important step as scientists get ready for formal studies of xenotransplantation expected to begin next year, said Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health, who led the highly…

The United Nations says the HIV/AIDS epidemic could be ended by 2030. But patients need to follow their treatment plans to keep the virus in check. Games could help, as Zaheer Cassim reports from Johannesburg. ...

Tokyo — Japan wants renewable energy to account for up to 50% of its electricity mix by fiscal year 2040 with nuclear power taking up another 20%, according to a draft of its revised basic energy policy, as it makes a clean energy push while meeting rising power demand. As the world's second-largest importer of liquefied natural gas and a major consumer of Middle Eastern oil, Japan and its basic energy plans are drawing global attention from oil, gas and coal producers. Thermal power usage, particularly from inefficient coal-fired power plants, is set to decrease to between 30% and 40% by 2040 from 68.6% in 2023, although the draft energy policy does not specify the breakdown of coal, gas and oil. "It is necessary to utilize LNG-fired power as a realistic…

Goma, Congo — Some health officials say mpox cases in Congo appear to be “stabilizing” — a possible sign that the main epidemic for which the World Health Organization made a global emergency declaration in August might be on the decline.   In recent weeks, Congo has reported about 200 to 300 lab-confirmed mpox cases every week, according to WHO. That’s down from nearly 400 cases a week in July. The decline is also apparent in Kamituga, the mining city in the eastern part of Congo where the new, more infectious variant of mpox first emerged.   But the U.N. health agency acknowledged Friday that only 40% to 50% of suspected infections in Congo were being tested — and that the virus is continuing to spread in some parts of the…

KARACHI — Unprecedented air pollution levels in Pakistan's second-largest city of Lahore prompted authorities to take emergency measures on Sunday, including issuing work-from-home mandates and closing primary schools.   The city held the top spot on a real-time list of the world's most polluted cities on Sunday after recording its highest ever pollution reading of 1900 near the Pakistan-India border on Saturday, based on data released by the provincial government and Swiss group IQAir.   The government has shut primary schools for a week, advising parents to ensure children wear masks, said Senior Minister of Punjab Marriyum Aurangzeb during a press conference, as a thick blanket of smog enveloped the city.   Citizens have been urged to stay indoors, keep doors and windows shut, and avoid unnecessary travel, she said, adding that hospitals had…

ADDIS ABABA — As the price of fuel soared in Ethiopia earlier this year, Awgachew Seleshi decided to buy an electric car. That aligned with the government's new efforts to phase out gas-powered vehicles. But months later, he's questioning whether it was the right decision.   He faces a range of issues, from the erratic supply of electricity in Addis Ababa, the capital, to the scarcity of spare parts.   “Charging my car has been a challenge," the civil servant said. “Spare parts that are imported from China are expensive, few mechanics are able to fix such cars and the resale value of such cars is poor.”   Seleshi's troubles point to wider challenges for Ethiopia. In January, the East African country became the first in the world to ban the importation of non-electric…

orlando, florida — The news rippled through Treasure Island, Florida, almost like a third storm: The mayor planned to move off the barrier island a month after Hurricane Helene flooded tens of thousands of homes along the Gulf Coast and two weeks after Hurricane Milton also ravaged the state.  Mayor Tyler Payne's home had been flooded and damaged beyond repair, he explained in a message to Treasure Island residents, and he and his husband can't afford to rebuild. He also was stepping down as mayor.  "While it pains my heart to make this decision in the midst of our recovery from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, this is the best decision for me and my family," Payne, who had held the office for more than three years and was a fourth-generation Treasure…