Category: News

The United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, recently called for mental health treatment to be given to millions of people around the world who are suffering from psychological distress triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s not just about those who are sick – but for all of us, the fear of what might happen if we do get the virus. And it’s especially acute for caregivers. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has this penetrating firsthand report. Camera: Veronica Balderas Iglesias  Producer: Veronica Balderas Iglesias ...

NASA postponed Wednesday’s scheduled launch of a Space X rocket ship, the first manned commercial space flight in history.NASA canceled the launch 16 minutes before takeoff because of the threat of lightning near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.NASA will try again Saturday to send the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station.The launch will be the first time since the space shuttle fleet was retired in 2011 that Americans will fly into space from U.S. soil. Astronauts have been using Russian Soyuz spacecraft to travel to the space station.Led by veteran NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, the flight marks a new era in piloted space flight.Space X will join Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle in space aviation history. The difference is that those rockets were…

The launch of a SpaceX rocket ship with two NASA astronauts on a history-making flight into orbit was called off with 16 minutes to go in the countdown Wednesday because of thunderclouds and the danger of lightning. Liftoff was rescheduled for Saturday afternoon.The commercially designed, built and owned spacecraft was set to blast off in the afternoon for the International Space Station, ushering in a new era in commercial spaceflight and putting NASA back in the business of launching astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly a decade. But thunderstorms for much of the day threatened to force a postponement, and the word finally came down that the atmosphere was so electrically charged that the spacecraft with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken aboard could get hit by…

"Do as I say, but not as I do" was the message many British saw in the behavior of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's key aide, who traveled hundreds of miles with coronavirus symptoms during the country's lockdown. While  Dominic Cummings has faced calls for his firing  but support from his boss over his journey from London to the northern city of Durham in March, few countries seem immune to the perception that politicians and top officials are bending the rules that their own governments wrote during the pandemic. From U.S. President Donald Trump to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, global decision-makers have frequently set bad examples, whether it's refusing to wear masks or breaking confinement rules aimed at protecting their citizens from COVID-19.   Some are punished when they're caught,…

French lawmakers were set to vote Wednesday on whether to endorse a contact-tracing app designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus amid sharp debate over privacy concerns. If approved, France's StopCovid app will be made available to users on a voluntary basis starting Monday. The government committed to honoring the result of the non-binding parliamentary vote.   French privacy watchdog CNIL backed the app this week, stating the technology "won't lead to creating a list of infected people but only a list of contacts using pseudonymous data. It does respect the concept of data protection." The app uses Bluetooth signals on mobile phones to trace individuals that people infected with the virus had contact with and informs them of potential exposure so they can self-isolate. It will store anonymous…

Farhad Karimi's eyes fill with tears as he recalls the events of August 1, 2017. It was a warm Tuesday evening and he was attending prayers in the Jawadia mosque in Herat, Afghanistan, along with his 18-year-old brother and a college friend. Suddenly, a large explosion forced him to the ground.    The hall of the Shi'ite mosque filled with blood. That day, the attack claimed by the Islamic State killed 33 people, wounding 65. Karimi’s brother and his classmate were among the dead.   Ever since, panic attacks and suicidal thoughts have become part of his life. Unable to cope with the trauma, he ended his studies for a medical degree and abandoned his business. For Karimi, now 26, life lost its purpose.   “Before the incident we had a private business, we imported…

When NASA’s Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, few thought it would take more than eight years for U.S. astronauts to launch back into orbit from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, hopes ride high on a new “space race” of privately developed launch systems ushering in a new era of U.S. space exploration.Camera: Kane Farabaugh, Elizabeth Lee   ...

NASA and SpaceX are set to launch a crewed mission Wednesday to the International Space Station from U.S. soil for the first time since 2011. Two NASA astronauts will be on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft in what is the final part of the testing phase of NASA’s work with private companies to return to launching Americans into space. Since the retirement of the space shuttle program, NASA has relied on partnering with the Russian space agency in order to send U.S. astronauts to the ISS. U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are expected to be at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for Wednesday’s launch. There were concerns earlier this week that weather could interfere, but the U.S. Air Force 45th Weather Squadron said Tuesday that prospects seemed to be improving, and that there was a…

Even by using the tools at his disposal at the Adler Planetarium situated along the shore of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Director of Astronomy Geza Gyuk acknowledges there is a limit to what he can see and do in understanding the cosmos.“We’ve got a 24-inch telescope in the back of the Adler. It’s not a great place to do observing because of all the light pollution from Chicago,” he explained to VOA in an interview via Skype.Gyuk said he and many other astronomers around the world depend on experiments and equipment — like the Hubble Telescope — deployed by astronauts above Earth’s atmosphere to help them not only “see” the cosmos in new and different ways, but also to see the Earth from above.The independent ability to launch crews into space…

A U.S. judge has dealt another blow to the Trump administration's efforts to increase domestic oil and gas output from public lands, saying officials failed to protect habitat for a declining bird species when it issued energy leases on hundreds of square miles. Judge Brian Morris said the Interior Department did not do enough to encourage development outside of areas with greater sage grouse, a ground-dwelling bird whose numbers have dropped dramatically in recent decades. The judge canceled energy leases on more than 470 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) of public land in the western states of Montana and Wyoming. That means officials will have to return millions of dollars in sales proceeds to companies that purchased the leases. The leases at issue already had been invalidated in previous cases that went through…

Officials with the U.S. space agency say the weather is looking favorable for the scheduled launch Wednesday of the first manned space craft from U.S. soil in nine years. During a briefing from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said the forecast is currently at 60% favorable for launch, an improvement from Monday when the probability for liftoff was at 40%.  The launch will be history making also because it will be the first manned space flight from a commercially made rocket and spacecraft. Bridenstine said the United States is transforming the way it does space flight by commercializing low earth orbit. He said commercially made unmanned cargo craft have been resupplying the International Space Station (ISS) for years. Wednesday’s launch will take the next step with commercially produced spacecraft…

Merck & Co Inc, which has largely kept to the sidelines of the race for COVID-19 treatments, said it was buying Austrian vaccine maker Themis Bioscience and would collaborate with research nonprofit IAVI to develop two separate vaccines.   It also announced a partnership with privately held Ridgeback Biotherapeutics to develop an experimental oral antiviral drug against COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.   It did not disclose the terms of the acquisition of Themis, a privately held company.   Merck shares rose more than 3% in premarket trading.   Most big pharmaceutical companies have already placed their bets on COVID-19 treatments, but Merck has been waiting for opportunities with proven track records, Chief Executive Ken Frazier said.   "We wanted to be in a position where…

Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit failed Monday on its first attempt to launch a test satellite into space aboard a rocket carried aloft by a Boeing 747 and released over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California. The inaugural launch had appeared to be going well until moments after the rocket was dropped from beneath the left wing of the jumbo jet dubbed Cosmic Girl. "We've confirmed a clean release from the aircraft. However, the mission terminated shortly into the flight. Cosmic Girl and our flight crew are safe and returning to base," Virgin Orbit said in its official Twitter commentary on the launch. There was no immediate word on what went wrong. The highly modified jumbo jet took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in the desert north of Los Angeles…

Countries should levy an "orbit congestion charge" on satellite operators to tackle the growing concentration of space junk cluttering the skies, researchers said on Monday, but with some doubting the practicalities of such a fee. From dead satellites to bits of rockets, the amount of debris orbiting the planet is already so great that space agencies often have to alter the course of satellites to avoid collisions. With the world increasingly reliant on orbital infrastructure to maintain communications links and steer new generations of autonomous vehicles, scientists warn that the danger posed by debris is growing exponentially. The best way to deal with it would be to charge satellite operators an annual orbital-use fee for every satellite launched, according to an economics analysis by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "Space is…

The World Health Organization said Monday that it will temporarily drop hydroxychloroquine — the malaria drug U.S. President Trump says he is taking — from its global study into experimental COVID-19 treatments, saying that its experts need to review all available evidence to date. In a press briefing, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that in light of a paper published last week in the Lancet that showed people taking hydroxychloroquine were at higher risk of death and heart problems, there would be "a temporary pause" on the hydroxychloroquine arm of its global clinical trial. "This concern relates to the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19," Tedros said, adding that the drugs are approved treatments for people with malaria or autoimmune diseases. Other treatments in the trial, including the…

When President Donald Trump doesn't like the message, he shoots the messenger. So it was this past week when he took very personally a scientific study that should give pause to anyone thinking of following Trump's lead and ingesting a potentially risky drug for the coronavirus. He branded the study's researchers, financed in part by his own administration, his "enemy." Boastful on the occasion of Memorial Day, Trump exaggerated some of his accomplishments for veterans' health care. Over the weekend, he also repeated a baseless allegation of rampant mail-in voting fraud and resurrected claims of unspecified conspiracies against him in 2016. A look at the rhetoric and reality as the pandemic's death toll approached 100,000 in the U.S.:Voting FraudTrump: "The United States cannot have all Mail In Ballots. It will…

Several snow leopards, including a mother and her cub, have been spotted near the Kazakh city of Almaty wandering through a usually popular hiking destination that is now mostly off limits due to the coronavirus lockdown.   There are only around 150 snow leopards left in Kazakhstan, out of a global population of less than 10,000 across Central and South Asia. Classified as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the big cats are rarely seen in the wild, let alone within city limits.   However, in the past few weeks at least three animals – a lone male and a female with a cub - were caught on film by a motion sensor-equipped camera trap installed near the Big Almaty Lake by an NGO set up to…

The global pandemic is causing major anxiety for many. Some are finding treatment via online therapy. Deana Mitchell reports. Camera, produced by: Deana Mitchell ...

The newest branch of the U.S. military began a mostly-classified mission in public view while Japan launched a rocket to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, astronauts scheduled to make history next week reported for duty.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi transports us through This Week in Space. ...

Nearly 80 million children under age 1 are at higher risk of preventable diseases such as measles, cholera and polio because of the disruption of routine vaccination programs, according to a report released Friday by the World Health Organization and other global organizations.  Immunization campaigns have been disrupted in half of the 129 countries surveyed around the world in March and April, according to data produced by the WHO, UNICEF, the Sabin Vaccine Institute, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Of the 68 countries, 27 have suspended their measles initiatives. Thirty-eight countries have suspended campaigns to vaccinate children against polio.  The COVID-19 pandemic is "walking back progress" that was made in vaccinating children around the world, putting children and their families at greater risk of diseases that routine vaccinations can prevent,…

In ordinary times, the beaches and roads along Florida's Space Coast would be packed with hundreds of thousands of spectators, eager to witness the first astronaut launch from Florida in nine years.   In the age of coronavirus, local officials and NASA are split on whether that's a good idea. NASA and SpaceX are urging spectators to stay at home next Wednesday for safety reasons. Officials in Brevard County, home to the Kennedy Space Center, are rolling out the welcome mat in an effort to jump-start a tourism industry hit hard this spring by coronavirus-related lockdowns. If people are comfortable coming and watching the launch, "by all means, come. If they aren't, I respect that too," said Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey. "I'm not going to tell Americans they can't…

With forecasters predicting another intense Atlantic hurricane season with as many as 13 to 19 named storms, disaster preparedness experts say it's critically important for people in evacuation zones to plan to stay with friends or family, rather than end up in shelters during the coronavirus pandemic. "Shelters are meant to keep you safe, not make you comfortable," said Carlos Castillo, acting deputy administrator for resilience at FEMA.   "Social distancing and other CDC guidance to keep you safe from COVID-19 may impact the disaster preparedness plan you had in place, including what is in your go-kit, evacuation routes, shelters, and more," Castillo said. "With tornado season at its peak, hurricane season around the corner, and flooding, earthquakes and wildfires a risk year-round, it is time to revise and adjust…