Category: News

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Scientists have confirmed a cave on the moon, not far from where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed 55 years ago, and suspect there are hundreds more that could house future astronauts. An Italian-led team reported Monday that there's evidence for a sizable cave accessible from the deepest known pit on the moon. It's located at the Sea of Tranquility, just 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Apollo 11's landing site. The pit, like the more than 200 others discovered up there, was created by the collapse of a lava tube. Researchers analyzed radar measurements by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and compared the results with lava tubes on Earth. Their findings appeared in the journal Nature Astronomy.  ...

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Geneva — Global childhood vaccination levels have stalled, leaving millions more children un- or under-vaccinated than before the pandemic, the U.N. said Monday, warning of dangerous coverage gaps enabling outbreaks of diseases like measles. In 2023, 84% of children, or 108 million, received three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP), with the third dose serving as a key marker for global immunization coverage, according to data published by the U.N. health and children's agencies. That was the same percentage as a year earlier, meaning that modest progress seen in 2022 after the steep drop during the COVID-19 crisis has "stalled," the organizations warned. The rate was 86% in 2019 before the pandemic. "The latest trends demonstrate that many countries continue to miss far too many children," UNICEF…

The Kenyan government is using a new mobile application to educate girls about menstrual health. Through the Oky Kenya app, users can access information on hygiene and other topics. The goal is to dispel myths and misconceptions about menstruation and protect girls against teenage pregnancies. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi. ...

NEW YORK — The nearly complete fossilized remains of a 161-million-year-old stegosaurus discovered in Colorado in 2022 will be auctioned by Sotheby's in New York next week, auction house officials said. The dinosaur that Sotheby's calls Apex stands 3.3 meters tall and measures 8.2 meters nose to tail, according to Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby's global head of science and popular culture. The stegosaurus, with its distinctive pointy dorsal plates, is one of the world's most recognizable dinosaurs. Apex, which Hatton called "a coloring book dinosaur," was discovered in May 2022 on private land near the town of Dinosaur, Colorado. The excavation was completed in October 2023, Sotheby's said. Though experts believe stegosauruses used their fearsome tail spikes to fight, this specimen shows no signs of combat, Sotheby's said. The fossil does show…

PARIS — At least 25 cases of a dangerous new strain of mpox spreading through the Democratic Republic of Congo have been detected in the eastern city of Goma, mostly in camps housing people fleeing a surrounding conflict, health authorities said Wednesday. Congo has seen 20,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths from mpox, mainly among children, since the start of 2023. Over 11,000 cases, including 443 deaths, have been reported so far this year. Authorities recently approved the use of vaccines to tackle the upsurge, but none are currently available outside of clinical trials in the country. The head of the national response team against the mpox epidemic, Cris Kacita, said in an interview that most of the new reported cases were in displaced people camps. He said cases were…

WASHINGTON — Astronomers have scrutinized a cluster of stars that is the apparent remnant core of a relatively small galaxy that was swallowed by the sprawling Milky Way 8 to 10 billion years ago. What lurks at the center of this cluster has them excited. The researchers said Wednesday the unusual motion of seven stars in this cluster provides compelling evidence for the presence of an elusive mid-sized black hole at its heart. These are bigger than the class of ordinary black holes formed in the implosion of a single star but smaller than the behemoths residing at the nucleus of most galaxies. The cluster, called Omega Centauri, contains about 10 million stars. The black hole within it is at least 8,200 times as massive as our sun, the researchers said.…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX rocket failed for the first time in nearly a decade, leaving the company's internet satellites in an orbit so low that they're doomed to fall through the atmosphere and burn up.  The Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from California on Thursday night, carrying 20 Starlink satellites. Several minutes into the flight, the upper stage engine malfunctioned. SpaceX on Friday blamed a liquid oxygen leak.  The company said flight controllers managed to make contact with half of the satellites and attempted to boost them to a higher orbit using onboard ion thrusters. But with the low end of their orbit 135 kilometers above Earth — less than half what was intended — "our maximum available thrust is unlikely to be enough to successfully raise the satellites,"…

NEW YORK — Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the diminutive sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, has died. She was 96. Westheimer died on Friday at her home in New York City, surrounded by her family, according to publicist and friend Pierre Lehu. Westheimer never advocated risky sexual behavior. Instead, she encouraged an open dialogue on previously closeted issues that affected her audience of millions. Her one recurring theme was that there was nothing to be ashamed of. “I still hold old-fashioned values, and I'm a bit of a square,” she told students at Michigan City High School in 2002. “Sex is a private art and a private matter. But still, it is a subject we must talk about.”…

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LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas baked Wednesday in its record fifth consecutive day of temperatures sizzling at 46.1 Celsius or greater amid a lengthening hot spell that is expected to broil much of the U.S. into the weekend. The temperature climbed to 46.1 shortly after 1 p.m. at Harry Reid International Airport, breaking the old mark of four consecutive days set in July 2005. And the record could be extended, or even doubled, by the weekend. Even by desert standards, the prolonged baking that Nevada's largest city is experiencing is nearly unprecedented, with forecasters calling it "the most extreme heat wave" since the National Weather Service began keeping records in Las Vegas in 1937. Already the city has broken 16 heat records since June 1, well before the official start of…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Two astronauts who should have been back on Earth weeks ago said Wednesday that they're confident that Boeing's space capsule can return them safely, despite breakdowns. NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing's new Starliner capsule early last month, the first people to ride it. Leaks and thruster failures almost derailed their arrival at the International Space Station and have kept them there much longer than planned. In their first news conference from orbit, they said they expect to return once thruster testing is complete on Earth. They said they're not complaining about getting extra time in orbit and are enjoying helping the station crew. "I have a real good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring us home, no problem,"…

Kourou, France — Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket successfully blasted off for the first time on Tuesday, releasing satellites into orbit and restoring the continent's independent access to space. European space efforts have suffered a series of blows, including four years of delays on Ariane 6, that have robbed the continent of its own way to launch missions into space for the past year.  But with the successful inaugural flight of Europe's most powerful rocket yet, European space chiefs were keen to move on from recent setbacks.  "It's a historic day for Europe," European Space Agency head Josef Aschbacher said.   "Europe is back," announced Philippe Baptiste, head of France's CNES space agency.  Surrounded by jungle on the South American coast, the rocket launched from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana…

New York — Purdue Pharma on Tuesday received U.S. court approval for a 60-day freeze on lawsuits against its owners — members of the wealthy Sackler family — in its first court appearance since a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling upended its bankruptcy settlement.   U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane granted an injunction at a court hearing in White Plains, New York, saying that a litigation cease-fire will give Purdue a chance to renegotiate a comprehensive settlement of lawsuits alleging that its painkiller OxyContin spurred an opioid addiction crisis in the U.S.   The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 27 that Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy settlement cannot shield the Sacklers, who did not file for bankruptcy themselves, over their role in the nation's deadly opioid epidemic.  The ruling sent Purdue back…

OKLAHOMA CITY, oklahoma — Former Senator Jim Inhofe, a conservative known for his strong support of defense spending and his denial that human activity is responsible for the bulk of climate change, has died. He was 89.  Inhofe, a powerful fixture in Oklahoma politics for more than six decades, died Tuesday morning after suffering a stroke during the July Fourth holiday, his family said in a statement.  Inhofe, a Republican who underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery in 2013 before being elected to a fourth term, was elected to a fifth Senate term in 2020, before stepping down in early 2023.  'The greatest hoax' Inhofe frequently criticized the mainstream science that human activity contributed to changes in the Earth's climate, once calling it "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." …

Abuja — In Nigeria, bushmeat is more than just food, it's a culinary tradition and a trade. Despite the risk of zoonotic diseases like Ebola and Lassa fever, 45% of the country consumes bushmeat regularly, and now discussions to raise awareness are taking center stage. Following last week’s World Zoonoses Day celebrations, Nigeria's bush meat consumption comes under scrutiny due to the associated health risks. Abuja-based civil servant Barnabas Bagudu among the 45% of Nigerians who consume bushmeat frequently, despite being aware of the potential risks. His personal favorites include antelope, rabbit, grasscutter, and alligator. Bagudu emphasizes bushmeat's unique taste and cultural significance. "I like bushmeat so much that if I see it anywhere, I like to eat it, mostly antelope and rabbit. Since it is from bush, it's blessed by…

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LIMA, Peru — The preserved body of an American mountaineer — who disappeared 22 years ago while scaling a snowy peak in Peru — has been found after being exposed by climate change-induced ice melt, police said Monday. William Stampfl was reported missing in June 2002, aged 59, when an avalanche buried his climbing party on the mountain Huascaran, which stands more than 6,700 meters (22,000 feet) high. Search and rescue efforts were fruitless. Peruvian police said his remains were finally exposed by ice melt on the Cordillera Blanca range of the Andes. Stampfl's body, as well as his clothes, harness and boots had been well-preserved by the cold, according to images distributed by the police. His passport was found among his possessions in good condition, allowing police to identify the…

Harare, Zimbabwe — After her son, the family’s shining light and only breadwinner, was arrested last year, Tambudzai Tembo went into meltdown. In Zimbabwe, where clinical mental health services are scarce, her chances of getting professional help were next to zero. She contemplated suicide. “I didn’t want to live anymore. People who saw me would think everything was OK. But inside, my head was spinning,” the 57-year-old said. “I was on my own.” A wooden bench and an empathetic grandmother saved her. Older people are at the center of a homegrown form of mental health therapy in Zimbabwe that is now being adopted in places like the United States. The approach involves setting up benches in quiet, discreet corners of community clinics and in some churches, poor neighborhoods and at a…

Las Vegas — Roughly 130 million people were under threat over the weekend and into next week from a long-running heat wave that broke or tied records with dangerously high temperatures and is expected to shatter more from East Coast to West Coast, forecasters said. Ukiah, north of San Francisco, hit 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius) on Saturday, breaking the city's record for the date and tying its all-time high. Livermore, east of San Francisco, hit 111 F (43.8 C), breaking the daily maximum temperature record of 109 F (42.7 C) set more than a century ago in 1905. Las Vegas tied the record of 115 F (46 C), last reached in 2007, and Phoenix topped out at 114 F (45.5 C), just shy of the record of 116 F…