Month: November 2021

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday expanded emergency use authorization for the booster shot of the PFizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to all U.S. adults. The decision was announced by the drug companies Friday and comes after at least 10 states already had expanded their booster programs to fight COVID-19 surges. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still has to authorize the expanded distribution of the booster doses before people can start receiving their third shot, and the CDC’s independent panel of vaccine experts is scheduled to meet Friday to review the new data. During the White House COVID-19 response team meeting Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the agency will quickly review the safety and effectiveness data and make recommendations as soon as the FDA makes its decision. Walensky said the CDC has compiled evidence demonstrating boosters are working. Through its National Healthcare Safety Network, the agency has been studying new data from COVID-19 cases in long-term care facilities. She said when comparing cases of COVID-19 between those who are vaccinated with two doses and those who have received a third, booster dose, the rate of disease is markedly lower for those who received their booster shot. With CDC approval, boosters could be available for all as early as Saturday.   Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. …

A partial lunar eclipse could be seen from the Americas and East Asia on Friday. The phenomenon, when the Earth partially aligns between the sun and the full moon, was visible in much of the United States, in South America and in Philippines and Japan. “This one’s been kind of in the news as the longest partial eclipse in a very long time,” Resi Baucco, a public program supervisor at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona said during a livestream of the eclipse. “It’s actually the longest partial eclipse since 1440 and it is going to be the longest until 2669.” …

In a move that has some environmental activists charging it with hypocrisy, the Biden administration has approved the sale of oil and gas drilling rights to more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico — an act it says was mandated by a federal court ruling. The auction on Wednesday by an arm of the U.S. Interior Department resulted in leases for 1.7 million of the 80 million available acres, with Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. among the top buyers. Some 308 lots were purchased for a total of $191.7 million, though it is not certain exactly how much of that will ultimately be developed.  The decision came just days after the close of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), at which President Joe Biden promised that the United States would be “leading by the power of our example” in the effort to achieve a zero-emissions future. While some environmental groups accuse the administration of going back on its word, the Biden administration has said that it was forced to agree to the sale by a federal court ruling.  Shortly after taking office in January, Biden announced a moratorium on new leases for oil and gas projects on federal property. Republican attorneys general in more than a dozen states filed lawsuits challenging the halt in lease auctions, and in June, a U.S. District Court judge in Louisiana issued an injunction instructing the Biden administration to resume selling drilling rights.  At the time, a spokesperson for the …

The intended increase in effort and manufacturing comes as US lawmakers question inequities in global vaccine distribution and vaccination rates among richer and poorer nations. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more. Producer: Katherine Gypson …

The longest partial lunar eclipse in nearly 600 years, which will bathe the moon in red, will be visible Thursday and Friday for a big slice of humanity.  The celestial show will see the moon almost completely cast in shadow as it moves behind the Earth, reddening 99% of its face.  The spectacle will be visible for all of North America, as well as parts of South America, Polynesia, Australia and northeast Asia.  Sky-watchers in those parts who are blessed with a cloud-free view will see a slight dimming of the moon from 0602 GMT Friday as it enters Earth’s penumbra, the outer shadow.  An hour later it will appear as if someone has taken a giant bite out of the lunar disc as it starts to pass into the umbra, the full shadow.  By 0845 GMT the moon will appear red, with the most vivid coloring visible at peak eclipse 18 minutes later. The whole process then goes into reverse as the moon slips out of shadow and carries on its endless journey around our planet.  The dramatic red is caused by a phenomenon known as “Rayleigh scattering,” where the shorter blue light waves from the sun are dispersed by particles in the Earth’s atmosphere.  Red light waves, which are longer, pass easily through these particles.  “The more dust or clouds in Earth’s atmosphere during the eclipse, the redder the moon will appear,” a NASA website explains.  From the moment the eclipse proper begins — when the moon enters …

As researchers at U.S space agency NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory prepare for the 16th flight of Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter, the team has used recently downloaded data from the Mars mission to create the best video yet of one of Ingenuity’s previous flights.  The 1.8-kilogram aircraft arrived on the planet packed away on NASA’s Perseverance rover when it landed on Mars in February. Originally designed to be a simple demonstration project to prove flight was possible in the thin Martian atmosphere, the aircraft has far exceeded expectations and has completed 15 flights.  JPL scientists say Ingenuity’s 16th flight is scheduled to take place no earlier than Saturday. In the meantime, they have been examining the video footage taken by Perseverance of the helicopter’s 13th flight on September 4, which they say provides the most detailed look yet of the Martian aircraft in action.  The Ingenuity team said the helicopter is providing NASA with data to guide the Perseverance rover. They said the 2 minutes, 40.5 seconds Flight 13 was one of Ingenuity’s most complicated. It involved flying into varied terrain within a geological feature known as the “Séítah” and taking images of an outcrop from multiple angles for the rover team.  The images, taken from an altitude of 8 meters, complement those collected during Ingenuity’s previous flights, providing valuable insight for Perseverance scientists and rover drivers.  The video was captured by the rover’s two-camera Mastcam-Z. One video clip of Flight 13 shows most of Ingenuity’s flight profile. The other provides …

This week, space junk threatens the International Space Station, forcing four new arrivals who came on board to take safety measures. Plus, tragedy befalls a space tourist, and the longest partial lunar eclipse in nearly 600 years. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space Produced by: Arash Arabasadi …

One of the takeaways from this year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow is that much of the world is actively planning for a world without oil and coal. But as Jessica Stone reports, some of the world’s worst polluters, at least for now, need fossil fuels. Video editor – Keith Lane. …

Someday soon, drivers entering downtown Manhattan can expect to pay for the pollution and traffic jams they cause. Congestion pricing is a way that places such as Stockholm and Singapore are trying to unclog streets and clean up their air by making it more expensive for drivers to bring dirty vehicles into town. With traffic bringing many cities to a standstill, air pollution killing an estimated 4 million people per year, and concerns about climate change growing, interest in finding ways to clean up transportation is increasing worldwide. Economists love congestion pricing. Drivers? Not so much. But voters in cities that have tried it have come to accept it. The policy typically works by drawing a border around a city’s downtown business district and charging vehicles to cross the border. Some cities have gone beyond congestion charges and impose extra fees based on the vehicle model’s pollution levels. London keeps track of vehicles with a network of cameras that photograph license plates. In other cities, cars carry electronic tags. Some cities, rather than identifying individual vehicles, simply bar vehicles on certain days based on license plate numbers. Free roads aren’t free New York City has begun holding public meetings to work out its congestion pricing plan, the first in the United States. Under current proposals, drivers would pay between $9 and $23 to drive passenger vehicles south of Central Park, with some exceptions. The money raised would go toward improving the city’s public transit system. The idea behind congestion pricing …

Australian public health experts are making new efforts to curb the use of tobacco products, comparing its adverse effects on health to that of asbestos and lead paint.   Australia has led the world on tobacco control, with plain packaging laws introduced in 2012, higher taxes and graphic public health warnings.  But campaigners say those steps are not enough to stop people from smoking. Public health experts want to remove cigarettes from supermarket and convenience store shelves.    Fourteen percent of Australians smoke, according to the government’s latest figures.  In 1977, 37% of Australians smoked. In an article published Monday in The Medical Journal of Australia, researchers said tobacco use was declining too slowly.  Coral Gartner is the director of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame, a government body.  She says the availability of tobacco in stores and supermarkets needs to be further restricted.  “You know, it has been a very slow road that we have traveled to get to this point.  We are at the point now where we think, you know, it is time to start thinking about how long is it really suitable to be just selling this product in a general retail environment. We are not talking about making it an illicit product or banning smoking as such,” Gartner said. Researchers have said that studies in Australia, England, Canada, and Hong Kong have shown that half of all adults want tobacco sales to be phased out. In April, the New Zealand government proposed several new measures that would sharply reduce the number of tobacco retail outlets.  Government health experts have said that …

The White House says about 10% of eligible kids aged 5 to 11 have received a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine since its approval for their age group two weeks ago. At least 2.6 million kids have received a shot, White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said Wednesday, with 1.7 million doses administered in the last week alone, roughly double the pace of the first week after approval. It’s more than three times faster than the rate adults were vaccinated at the start of the nation’s vaccination campaign 11 months ago. Zients said there are now 30,000 locations across the country for kids to get a shot, up from 20,000 last week, and that the administration expects the pace of pediatric shots to pick up in the coming days. Kids who get their first vaccine dose by the end of this week will be fully vaccinated by Christmas, assuming they get their second shot three weeks after the first one. Pace varies among states State-by-state breakdowns of doses given to the age group haven’t been released by the White House or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but figures shared by states show the pace varies. About 11% to 12% of children in that age group have received their first doses in Colorado, Utah and Illinois, but the pace is much slower in places like Idaho (5%), Tennessee (5%) and Wyoming (4%), three states that have some of the lowest rates of vaccination for older groups. The White …

A Ghanian entrepreneur is helping prepare students in rural areas for the modern economy by teaching them about robotics. His roaming classes have been so successful that Ghana’s Ministry of Education has adopted the lessons in schools. Victoria Amunga reports from Accra, Ghana. Camera – Senanu Tord. Video editor – Henry Hernandez. …

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects that 100,000 Americans died of drug overdose between May 2020 and April 2021 — a nearly 30% increase over the previous year.  While not an official count, the CDC says it can confirm 98,000 deaths so far during the period and estimates the total number will likely be around 100,300 after causes of death are made official. It can take months to investigate and finalize drug fatalities.  Experts say the increased availability of the deadly opioids, particularly fentanyl, is a major driver, accounting for 64% of overdose deaths. Another factor is the COVID-19 pandemic which made it hard for drug users to get treatment or support.  “What we’re seeing are the effects of these patterns of crisis and the appearance of more dangerous drugs at much lower prices,” Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told CNN. “In a crisis of this magnitude, those already taking drugs may take higher amounts and those in recovery may relapse. It’s a phenomenon we’ve seen and perhaps could have predicted.”  In a statement, President Joe Biden called the number a “tragic milestone,” and said his administration “is committed to doing everything in our power to address addiction and end the overdose epidemic.” Overdose deaths are now more common than deaths from car crashes, guns and the flu. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the U.S., killing 660,000 in 2019.  Some information in this report comes from …

With the Indian capital enveloped in a haze of toxic smog, authorities ordered six thermal plants in the city’s vicinity to shut temporarily, closed schools and colleges indefinitely and imposed work-from-home restrictions to control pollution levels that turned severe on several days this month. A panel of the federal environment ministry has also banned construction activity until the end of the week and barred trucks, except those carrying essential commodities, from entering the city as part of the series of emergency measures. Environmentalists pointed out that these steps would only marginally mitigate the air pollution crisis that grips New Delhi every winter. “The emergency action is not a magic bullet that will address the pollution crisis,” said Anumita Rowchowdhury, executive director research and advocacy at New Delhi’s Center for Science and Environment. “It only ensures that it will not worsen the pollution but it will not clean the air.” The world’s most polluted capital city has recorded levels for dangerous particles known as PM 2.5 that settle deep inside lungs many times higher than the standards set by the World Health Organization. The haze that covers the city is a mix of fumes, including vehicular emissions, industrial pollution, construction dust, farm fires and fumes caused by the burning of waste in the open. In winter, the pollutants hang over the city due to low wind speeds. City authorities in Delhi have told the Supreme Court they are considering a weekend lockdown, similar to what was implemented during the pandemic. If …

The port of Vancouver, Canada’s largest, said on Tuesday that all rail access had been cut by floods and landslides farther east that killed at least one person and left two others missing.  Two days of torrential rain across the Pacific province of British Columbia touched off major flooding and shut rail routes operated by Canadian Pacific Rail and Canadian National Railway, Canada’s two biggest rail companies.  “All rail service coming to and from the Port of Vancouver is halted because of flooding in the British Columbia interior,” port spokesperson Matti Polychronis said.  At least one person was killed when a mudslide swept cars off Highway 99 near Pemberton, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the northeast of Vancouver.  Search and rescue crews were combing through the rubble for signs of survivors or additional casualties, officials said.  Vancouver’s port moves C$550 million ($440 million) worth of cargo each day, ranging from automobiles and finished goods to essential commodities.  The floods temporarily shut down much of the movement of wheat and canola from Canada, one of the world’s biggest grain exporters, during a busy time for trains to haul grain to the port following the harvest.  This year drought has sharply reduced the size of Canada’s crops, meaning a rail disruption of a few days may not create a significant backlog, a grain industry source told Reuters.  Del Dosdall, senior export manager at grain handler Parrish & Heimbecker, said he expected some rail service could be restored by the weekend. Another …

News outlets say the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is planning to spend $5 billion to purchase Pfizer’s new experimental antiviral pill designed to treat COVID-19, enough to cover 10 million courses of treatment.  The revelation comes a day after the U.S. drugmaker announced it had signed a deal with Geneva-based Medicines Patent Pool, a United Nations-backed public health group, to authorize generic drugmakers to produce its experimental COVID-19 pill for 95 countries.  The deal will make the pill available for low- and middle-income countries comprising about 53% of the world’s population.   Pfizer says its new pill, called Paxlovid, reduces the risks of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% in people with mild to moderate coronavirus cases. Independent experts recommended ending Pfizer’s study because of its encouraging results. Tuesday’s agreement between Pfizer and the Medicines Patent Pool coincided with Pfizer’s application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize use of the drug on an emergency basis.   “It’s quite significant that we will be able to provide access to a drug that appears to be effective and has just been developed, to more than 4 billion people,” said the Medicines Patent Pool’s Esteban Burrone.  Yuanqiong Hu, a senior legal policy adviser at Doctors Without Borders, said the organization is disappointed the agreement does not make the pill available to all countries.  “The world knows by now that access to COVID-19 medical tools needs to be guaranteed for everyone, everywhere, if we really want to control this pandemic,” she said.  Pfizer will not receive payments on sales in low-income countries, where …

With the Earth getting warmer and weather events more extreme, the African Union has set up a Disaster Operations Center in Nairobi to help monitor major hazards and provide regional early warnings for drought, floods, extreme rainfall, food insecurity, and pests like the desert locusts. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera – Jim Makhulo. …

Russian officials on Tuesday rejected accusations that they endangered astronauts aboard the International Space Station by conducting a weapons test that created more than 1,500 pieces of space junk. U.S. officials on Monday accused Russia of destroying an old satellite with a missile in what they called a reckless and irresponsible strike. The debris could do major damage to the space station as it is orbiting at 17,500 mph (28,000 kph). Astronauts now face four times greater risk than normal, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told The Associated Press. The test clearly demonstrates that Russia, “despite its claims of opposing the weaponization of outer space, is willing to … imperil the exploration and use of outer space by all nations through its reckless and irresponsible behavior,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. The Russian space agency Roscosmos wouldn’t confirm or deny that the strike took place, saying only that “unconditional safety of the crew has been and remains our main priority” in a vague online statement released Tuesday. Russia’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday confirmed carrying out a test and destroying a defunct satellite that has been in orbit since 1982, but insisted that “the U.S. knows for certain that the resulting fragments, in terms of test time and orbital parameters, did not and will not pose a threat to orbital stations, spacecraft and space activities” and called remarks by U.S. officials “hypocritical.” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also charged that it is “hypocrisy” to say that Russia …

Relentless rain battered Canada’s Pacific coast on Monday, forcing a town’s evacuation and trapping motorists as mudslides, rocks and debris were washed across major highways.  Some 275 people, according to local media, were stuck overnight in their cars between two mudslides on Highway 7 near the town of Agassiz in British Columbia.  Meanwhile, Merritt – about 300 kilometers (185 miles) from the coast – ordered the evacuation of all 7,000 of its townsfolk after flooding compromised the local wastewater treatment plant and washed out two bridges. Barricades also went up restricting access to the town.  The province’s public safety minister, Mike Farnworth, said search and rescue crews were dispatched to free people trapped for hours without food or water in 80 to 100 cars.  “We are looking at the possibility of air rescues, if needed,” he told a news conference, adding that “high winds may challenge these efforts.”  Farnworth said there had been “multiple rain-induced incidents” in the southwest and central regions of the province, describing the situation as “dynamic.”  Video footage showed a military helicopter landing on the highway covered in mud and debris, to pick up stranded motorists.  British Columbia emergency health services said it transported nine patients to hospital with minor injuries overnight from the Agassiz landslide. And it assembled ambulances in nearby Chilliwack “for any patients requiring care from areas affected by flooding and landslides,” it added.  Emergency centers were also set up for displaced residents.  In a Twitter message to British Columbians, Prime Minister Justin …

A Russian weapons test created more than 1,500 pieces of space junk that is now threatening the seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station, U.S. officials said Monday.  The State Department confirmed that the debris was from an old Russian satellite destroyed by the missile strike.  “It was dangerous. It was reckless. It was irresponsible,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price.  The Russian military and ministry of defense were not immediately available for comment, according to a Reuters report.  Earlier Monday, the four Americans, one German and two Russians on board were forced to briefly seek shelter in their docked capsules because of the debris.  At least 1,500 pieces of the destroyed satellite were sizable enough to show up on radar and with telescopes, Price said. But countless other fragments were too small to track, yet still posed a danger to the space station as well as orbiting satellites.  Even a fleck of paint can do major damage when orbiting at 28,000 kph (17,500 mph). Something big, upon impact, could be catastrophic.  “We are going to continue to make very clear that we won’t tolerate this kind of activity,” Price said.  He said the U.S. has “repeatedly raised with Russian counterparts our concerns for a potential satellite test.”  NASA Mission Control said the heightened threat from the debris might continue for another couple of days and continue to interrupt the astronauts’ science research and other work. Four of the seven crew members arrived at the orbiting outpost Thursday night.  NASA …

With its red and yellow rock formations, the Ramon Crater in Israel’s Negev desert has been compared to the surface of Mars. Now, scientists are using the landscape deep in the desert for experiments to help make human travel to Mars a reality. Six astronauts from around the world recently spent a month simulating a mission to Mars, living in a special habitat built to resemble a spaceship, conducting scientific experiments, and exploring the terrain that resembles the red planet. For VOA, Linda Gradstein and Ricki Rosen visited the mission in the crater. Camera: Ricki Rosen …

The British government Monday announced Monday an expansion of the nation’s COVID-19 booster shot program to people ages 40 and up, to fight off a potential winter surge of the deadly disease. Until now, only British residents ages 50 and up, those clinically vulnerable because of underlying conditions, and frontline health workers were eligible for booster shots. But at a news briefing in London, the chairman of Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, Wei Shen Lin, announced the extension to those ages 40 and up who have been fully vaccinated for at least six months. He said, as with the original booster program, either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines can be used as the booster dose, regardless of the type of vaccine originally received. The committee also recommended a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for young people between the ages of 16 and 18. In August, the committee had advised only one dose of the vaccine for people of that age group, but would review the data, and were anticipating that a second dose may well be advised. Monday, the committee chairman said that was “indeed the case.”  The chief executive of Britain’s drug regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Dr. June Raine, said they had closely monitored the use of the vaccines in people under 18, and their use raised no additional safety issues specific to this age group.  Speaking via video conference, British Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said the …

Pakistan rolled out a massive two-week drive Monday to immunize more than 90 million children in what officials hailed as one of the world’s biggest vaccination campaigns against measles and rubella. An official announcement said children aged between 9 months and 15 years across the country will be inoculated against the contagious viral infections. The Pakistani government has mobilized more than 600,000 health professionals, vaccinators and social mobilizers for the campaign with the support of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization. “Measles and rubella are contagious diseases and can have severe complications for children even death,” said Dr. Faisal Sultan, special assistant to the Pakistani prime minister on health. “I urge both the front-line workers to work with dedication and the caregivers to express their support by vaccinating their children against the diseases,” Sultan added. Officials said Pakistan has experienced an alarming rise in measles cases in recent years, affecting thousands of children and claiming many young lives. “The measles and rubella campaign will move us not only one step closer to maintaining measles elimination and accelerating rubella control, but also one step closer to reducing the overall child mortality across Pakistan,” said WHO Country Representative Palitha Mahipala. UNICEF said children under the age of five will also receive polio drops during the campaign to support Pakistan’s eradication efforts against the crippling disease.  “Today’s world is still grappling with the very contagious measles and rubella viruses, none of which have gone away …