Mar62025 by DmediaNo Comments

Canada reports increase in measles cases, urges vaccination

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Canada is seeing a noticeable increase in measles cases this year, with more reported in the first two months of 2025 than all of last year, the country's health agency said on Thursday and urged citizens to get vaccinated.  The Public Health Agency of Canada said it has recorded 227 measles cases as of March 6, with many patients requiring hospitalization.   "I strongly urge all Canadians to ensure they are vaccinated against measles," said Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer.  The agency said most of the patients are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children exposed in community settings such as social events, day cares, schools and health care facilities.  Cases can also arise when unvaccinated individuals travel to or from regions where measles is prevalent.  "As we move through spring break…


Mar62025 by DmediaNo Comments

US firm targets moon landing with drill, rovers, hopping drone

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WASHINGTON — A drill to search for ice. A 4G network test. Three rovers and a first-of-its-kind hopping drone. After becoming the first private firm to land on the moon last year, Intuitive Machines is aiming for its second lunar touchdown on Thursday, carrying cutting-edge payloads to support future human missions. The Houston-based company is targeting no earlier than 12:32 p.m. ET (1732 GMT) at Mons Mouton, a plateau near the lunar south pole -- farther south than any robot has ventured. NASA will livestream the landing an hour before touchdown as Athena, the 4.8-meter hexagonal lander -- about the height of a giraffe -- begins its descent. "It kind of feels like this mission is straight out of one of our favorite sci-fi movies," said Nicky Fox, NASA's associate administrator…


Mar62025 by DmediaNo Comments

US stops sharing air quality data, raising scientists’ concerns

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NEW DELHI — The U.S. government will stop sharing air quality data gathered from its embassies and consulates, worrying local scientists and experts who say the effort was vital to monitor global air quality and improve public health. In response to an inquiry from The Associated Press, the State Department said Wednesday that its air quality monitoring program would no longer transmit air pollution data from embassies and consulates to the Environmental Protection Agency's AirNow app and other platforms, which allowed locals in various countries, along with scientists around the world, to see and analyze air quality. The change was "due to funding constraints that have caused the Department to turn off the underlying network" the department said in a statement. However, it added, embassies and consulates were directed to keep…


Mar52025 by TechmanNo Comments

Musk fails in bid to block OpenAI becoming for-profit business

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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — A U.S. judge on Tuesday denied Elon Musk's request to prevent OpenAI from becoming a for-profit business in a loss for the Tesla tycoon amid his feud with Sam Altman.  U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Musk and his xAI startup failed to prove an injunction against OpenAI was necessary as the case heads to trial.  Musk sued in California federal court to stop OpenAI from transitioning from a nonprofit to a for-profit business, arguing the startup violated antitrust law and betrayed his trust in their mission as a co-founder of OpenAI.  The judge wrote that, while Musk did not prove the need for an injunction, she is prepared to expedite a trial on that claim later this year.  The ruling leaves OpenAI free…


Mar42025 by DmediaNo Comments

James Harrison, whose blood plasma donations are credited with saving 2.4 million babies, dies at 88 

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MELBOURNE, Australia — James Harrison, whose blood plasma donations are credited with An Australian man credited with saving 2.4 million babies through his record-breaking blood plasma donations over six decades, has died at 88, his family said Tuesday. James Harrison, a retired state railway department clerk, died in a nursing home on the central coast of New South Wales state on Feb. 17, according to his grandson, Jarrod Mellowship. Harrison had been surprised to be recognized by Guinness World Records in 2005 as the person who had donated the most blood plasma in the world, Mellowship said. Despite an aversion to needles, he made 1,173 donations after he turned 18 in 1954 until he was forced to retire in 2018 at age 81. “He did it for the right reasons. As…


Mar42025 by TechmanNo Comments

VOA Mandarin: Who has better humanoid robots, US or China?

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Chinese tech firms and state media have spotlighted humanoid robots, which have grown in popularity since the Unitree G1 appeared to run, jump, dance and perform martial arts-like movements in a recent demonstration. Both the United States and China are leaders in humanoid robot technology. But industry analysts believe that the United States is superior in AI technology, which is responsible for the robot's "brain," while Chinese technology companies have flourished in the hardware manufacturing capabilities of the robot's "body." Click here for the full story in Mandarin. ...


Mar42025 by TechmanNo Comments

China uses DeepSeek AI for surveillance and information attacks on US

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The United States may become the second country after Australia to ban China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence on government devices. U.S. Representatives Josh Gottheimer and Darin LaHood introduced a bipartisan bill proposing the ban. In their letter to 47 U.S. governors and the mayor of Washington, the congressmen warned that DeepSeek could pose security risks to sensitive government data and cybersecurity and Americans’ privacy, NBC News reported on March 3. China denies the allegations. However, concerns highlighted by the U.S. lawmakers and state officials are not without merit, experts say. The Chinese government has reportedly also used AI models like DeepSeek for mass surveillance, including the collection of biometric data and social media listening models that report to China's security services and the military, as well as for information attacks on…


Mar32025 by TechmanNo Comments

Trump, Taiwanese chipmaker announce new $100 billion plan to build five new US factories

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WASHINGTON — Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. announced on Monday plans to make an additional $100 billion investment in the United States and build five additional chips factories in the coming years. TSMC CEO C.C. Wei announced the plan in a meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump. "We must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here," Trump said. "It's a matter of national security for us." TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, is a leading supplier to major U.S. hardware manufacturers. The $100 billion outlay, which would boost domestic production and make the United States less reliant on semiconductors made in Asia, is in addition to a major prior investment announcement. TSMC agreed in April to expand its planned U.S. investment…


Mar22025 by DmediaNo Comments

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost touches down on the moon with special delivery for NASA

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CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth's celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side. Confirmation of touchdown came from the company's Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 360,000 kilometers away. "We’re on the moon," Mission Control reported, adding the lander was "stable." A smooth, upright landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon…


Mar22025 by DmediaNo Comments

Uganda reports second Ebola death, a 4-year-old, WHO says

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KAMPALA, UGANDA — A second Ebola patient, a 4-year-old child, has died in Uganda, the World Health Organization said, citing the country’s health ministry. The fatality brings the number of confirmed cases in Uganda to 10. The East African country declared an outbreak of the highly infectious and often fatal hemorrhagic disease in January after the death of a male nurse at the Mulago National Referral Hospital in the capital of Kampala. The WHO's Uganda office posted late on Saturday on X that the ministry had reported "an additional positive case in Mulago hospital of a 4 1/2-year-old child, who tragically passed away" on Tuesday. Mulago is the country's sole national referral hospital for Ebola cases. The ministry said on Feb. 18 that all eight Ebola patients under care had been…


Mar12025 by DmediaNo Comments

Judge blocks Trump order threatening funding for transgender youth care

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SEATTLE — President Donald Trump's plan to pull federal funding from institutions that provide gender-affirming care for transgender youth will remain blocked on a long-term basis under a federal judge's ruling in Seattle late Friday.  U.S. District Court Judge Lauren King previously granted a two-week restraining order after the Democratic attorneys general of Washington, Oregon and Minnesota sued the Trump administration — Colorado has since joined the case.  King's temporary order expired Friday, and she held arguments that day before issuing a preliminary injunction blocking most of Trump's plan pending a final decision on the merits of the case.  The judge found the states lacked standing on one point: the order's protections against female genital mutilation. Female genital mutilation is already illegal in the four states that are part of the…


Mar12025 by TechmanNo Comments

2 lunar landings in a week for NASA’s private moon fleet

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WASHINGTON — More than 50 years passed between the last Apollo mission and the United States' return to the lunar surface, when the first private lander touched down last February 2024. Now, starting Sunday, two more missions are set to follow within a single week, marking a bold push by NASA and its industry partners to make moon landings a routine part of space exploration. First up is Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1, nicknamed "Ghost Riders in the Sky." After launching in January on a 45-day journey, it is targeting touchdown near Mons Latreille, a volcanic feature in Mare Crisium on the moon's northeastern near side, at 3:34 a.m. U.S. Eastern time. Along the way, it captured stunning footage of the moon, coming as close as 100 kilometers above the…


Mar12025 by DmediaNo Comments

Measles: What to know, how to avoid it

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Measles is rarely seen in the United States, but Americans are growing more concerned about the preventable virus as cases continue to rise in rural West Texas.   This week, an unvaccinated child died in the West Texas outbreak, which involves more than 120 cases. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the last confirmed measles death in the United States occurred in 2015.   There are also nine measles cases in eastern New Mexico, but the state health department said there was no direct connection to the outbreak in Texas. Here's what to know about the measles and how to protect yourself.   What is measles? It's a respiratory disease caused by one of the world's most contagious viruses. The virus is airborne and spreads easily when…


Mar12025 by DmediaNo Comments

Voices Unheard: Living with disability in Libya

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Khalid Al-Khateb was born in Libya in the 1990s without the use of his legs. Despite wars and economic collapse in his country, the greatest challenge he has faced is trying to function in a world where disabilities are mostly ignored. From Tripoli, Libya, Malik Ghariani has this animated story. ...


Mar12025 by DmediaNo Comments

Measles cases rise to 146 in outbreak that led to first US measles death in 10 years

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DALLAS, TEXAS — The number of people with measles in Texas increased to 146 in an outbreak that led this week to the death of an unvaccinated school-aged child, health officials said Friday.  The number of cases — Texas' largest in nearly 30 years — increased by 22 since Tuesday. The Texas Department of State Health Services said cases span over nine counties in Texas and 20 patients have been hospitalized.  The child who died Tuesday night in the outbreak is the first U.S. death from the highly contagious but preventable respiratory disease since 2015, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation's top health official and a vaccine critic, said Wednesday that the U.S. Department of the Health and Human Services was watching…


Mar12025 by DmediaNo Comments

WHO says water contamination suspected in Congo village hit by illness 

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BASANKUSU, Democratic Republic of Congo — Authorities investigating the deaths of at least 60 people in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo suspect the water source in one of the areas may have been contaminated, the World Health Organization said Friday. But the agency said it's too early for a definitive conclusion. Doctors are investigating more than 1,000 illnesses that have emerged since late January in five villages in Congo's Equateur province, where high rates of malaria have complicated efforts to diagnose the cases and where officials have said they've been unable so far to confirm the main cause. WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan said during an online briefing Friday that for one of the villages there is "a very strong level of suspicion ... related to the poisoning of a…


Feb282025 by DmediaNo Comments

Southern Africa pushes for better energy access

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GABORONE, BOTSWANA — Southern Africa energy experts and political leaders pledged to improve access to energy at a summit in Botswana this week. The commitments come as most countries in the region still rely on coal, a major contributor to global warming. More than 500 participants from 16 Southern African Development Community, or SADC, member states, as well as other African countries, participated in the energy gathering. Moses Ntlamelle, a senior SADC programs officer, said pursuing a more inclusive transition to cleaner energy was one of the resolutions that regional representatives adopted at the summit. “The region is recommended to expedite just energy transition and explore the development of a regional renewable energy market,” he said. “This is to ensure that nobody is left behind. ... Inasmuch as we are going…


Feb282025 by DmediaNo Comments

Harsh flu season has health officials worried about brain complications in children

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WASHINGTON — This year's harsh flu season — the most intense in 15 years — has federal health officials trying to understand if it sparked an increase in a rare but life-threatening brain complication in children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 19,000 people have died from the flu so far this winter, including 86 children. On Thursday, the CDC reported at least nine of those children experienced brain complications, and it has asked state health departments to help investigate if there are more such cases. There is some good news: The CDC also reported that this year's flu shots do a pretty good job preventing hospitalization from the flu — among the 45% of Americans who got vaccinated. But it comes a day after the Trump administration canceled…


Feb272025 by DmediaNo Comments

Katy Perry, Gayle King to join Blue Origin spaceflight

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CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — Katy Perry and Gayle King are headed to space with Jeff Bezos’ fiancee, Lauren Sanchez, and three other women. Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, announced the all-female celebrity crew on Thursday. Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and former TV journalist, picked the crew who will join her on a 10-minute spaceflight from west Texas, the company said. They will blast off sometime this spring aboard a New Shepard rocket. No launch date was given. Blue Origin has flown tourists on short hops to space since 2021. Some passengers have gotten free rides, while others have paid a hefty sum to experience weightlessness. It was not immediately known who’s footing the bill for this upcoming flight. Sanchez invited singer Perry and TV journalist King, as well as former NASA…


Feb272025 by DmediaNo Comments

Japan’s births fell to record low in 2024

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TOKYO — The number of babies born in Japan fell to a record low of 720,988 in 2024 for a ninth consecutive year of decline, the health ministry said on Thursday, underscoring the rapid aging and dwindling of the population. Births were down 5% on the year, despite measures in 2023 by former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government to boost child-bearing, while a record number of 1.62 million deaths meant that more than two people died for every new baby born. Although the fertility rate in neighboring South Korea rose in 2024 for the first time in nine years, thanks to measures to spur young people to marry and have children, the trend in Japan has yet to show an upturn. Behind Japan's childbirth decline are fewer marriages in recent years,…


Feb272025 by TechmanNo Comments

Private company’s craft rockets toward moon in latest rush of lunar landing attempts

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A private company launched another lunar lander Wednesday, aiming to get closer to the moon's south pole this time with a drone that will hop into a black crater where the sun never shines.  Intuitive Machines' lander, named Athena, caught a lift with SpaceX from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It's taking a fast track to the moon, with a landing on March 6. The company hopes to avoid the fate of Athena's predecessor, which tipped over at touchdown.  Never before have so many spacecraft angled for the moon's surface all at once. Last month, U.S. and Japanese companies shared a rocket and separately launched landers toward the moon. The lander from the U.S. company, Firefly Aerospace of Texas, should get there first this weekend.  The two U.S.…


Feb262025 by DmediaNo Comments

What we know about Congo illness that has sickened 400, killed 50

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KINSHASA, CONGO — Unidentified illnesses in northwestern Congo have killed more than 50 people over the past five weeks, nearly half of them within hours after they felt sick.  The outbreaks in two distant villages in Congo's Equateur province began on Jan. 21 and include 419 cases and 53 deaths. Health officials still do not know the cause, or whether the cases in the two villages, which are separated by more than 190 kilometers (118 miles), are related. It's also unclear how the diseases are spreading, including whether they are spreading between people.  The first victims in one of the villages were children who ate a bat and died within 48 hours, the Africa office of the World Health Organization said this week. More infections were found in the other village,…


Feb262025 by DmediaNo Comments

First measles death reported in West Texas outbreak that’s infected more than 120 people

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LUBBOCK, TEXAS — A person who was hospitalized with measles has died from measles in West Texas, the first death in an outbreak that began late last month.   Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center spokesperson Melissa Whitfield confirmed the death Wednesday.  It wasn't clear the age of the patient, who died overnight. Covenant Children's Hospital in Lubbock didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The measles outbreak in rural West Texas has grown to 124 cases across nine counties, the state health department said Tuesday.   There are also nine cases in eastern New Mexico. Measles is a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours.   Up to 9 out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the U.S.…


Feb262025 by DmediaNo Comments

US will spend up to $1 billion to combat bird flu, USDA secretary says

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. will invest up to $1 billion to combat the spread of bird flu, including increasing imports of eggs, agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said on Wednesday.   A three-year bird flu outbreak in U.S. poultry has killed 166 million chickens since 2022, according to USDA data.   The virus has also infected nearly 1,000 dairy herds and almost 70 people, including one death, since early 2024.  The USDA will spend up to $500 million to provide free biosecurity audits to farms and $400 million to increase payment rates to farmers who need to kill their chickens due to bird flu, Rollins said at a conference of state agriculture officials.   Some of the money will come from cuts to USDA spending by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, Rollins said in…