Year: 2022

Phil and Kristie Graves are a U.S.couple from Maryland and parents of three biological children and an adopted girl with special needs from Armenia. Recently, they decided to adopt a six-year-old girl with special needs from Ukraine. But that was before the Russian invasion. Anush Avetisyan has the story. Videographer: Dmytri Shakhov   …

A massive, fast-growing black hole, more luminous than previously discovered phenomena, has been discovered by an international team led by astronomers in Australia. Scientists say the black hole consumes the equivalent of one Earth every second and shines 7,000 times brighter than all the light from our own galaxy. Researchers were looking for unusual stars when they came across a supermassive black hole. It consumes the equivalent of one Earth every second and has the mass of three billion suns. The team led by the Australian National University believes it was obscured by the lights of the Milky Way. The discovery was made using the SkyMapper telescope at Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran in New South Wales. To take a more detailed look, the team went to the South African Astronomical Observatory’s 1.9-meter telescope in Cape Town. Christopher Onken from the Australian National University is the study’s lead researcher. He says astronomers have been searching for these types of objects without success for more than 50 years. “What we found is what appears to be the most luminous growing black hole in the last nine billion years of the history of the universe,” said Onken. “People have been looking for these kinds of objects for almost 60-years and this one escaped its notice probably because it was just a little bit too close to the plane of the Milky Way, where there is so many stars that often it is hard to follow up all of the objects that you …

A dangerous heat wave hit much of the Midwest and South on Tuesday, with temperatures hitting triple digits in Chicago and combining with the humidity to make it feel even hotter there and in other sweltering cities.  More than 100 million people were expected to be affected by midweek, and authorities warned residents to stay hydrated, remain indoors when possible, and be aware of the health risks of high temperatures. Strong storms brought heavy rain and damaging wind to many of the affected areas on Monday, and more than 400,000 customers remained without power as of Tuesday afternoon.  Excessive heat warnings are in effect for much of Illinois and Indiana along with parts of Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio from Tuesday through Wednesday night, according to the National Weather Service.  Heat index values — which take into account the temperature and relative humidity and indicate how hot it feels outdoors — approached and topped 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) in some locations, including Chicago, the weather service said.  “Full sun today will make it feel even hotter,” the weather service wrote. “There will not be much relief for those without air conditioning today through Wednesday night.”  Much of southeastern Michigan — from just south of Flint to the state lines with Ohio and Indiana — was put under an excessive heat watch Wednesday through Thursday morning as the warm front is forecast to move east.  A heat advisory was also issued, stretching from as far north as Wisconsin down …

A government advisory panel Tuesday endorsed a second brand of COVID-19 vaccine for school-age children and teens. The Food and Drug Administration’s outside experts voted unanimously that Moderna’s vaccine is safe and effective enough to give to kids ages 6 to 17. If the FDA agrees, it would become the second option for those children, joining Pfizer’s vaccine. The same FDA expert panel will meet Wednesday to consider tot-sized shots from Moderna and Pfizer for the littlest kids, those under 5. Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine has long been available for adults in the U.S. and elsewhere, and more than three dozen countries offer it to older children. If the FDA authorizes Moderna’s vaccine for teens and younger children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will next decide whether to formally recommend the shots. The Massachusetts company is seeking clearance for two doses and plans to later offer a booster. Tuesday’s vote was only for two doses — full-strength for 12-17 and half-sized doses for those 6-11. “The data do support that the benefits outweigh the risks for both of these doses, in both of these age groups,” said the CDC’s Dr. Melinda Wharton, a member of the panel. “I believe that this will provide families an important option” and may be particularly important for families who live in areas where coronavirus spread is increasing, said another panel member, Dr. Ofer Levy of Boston Children’s Hospital. The FDA held up Moderna’s teen vaccine for months while it investigated a rare side …

Microscopic air pollution caused mostly by burning fossil fuels shortens lives worldwide by more than two years, researchers reported Tuesday. Across South Asia, the average person would live five years longer if levels of fine particulate matter met World Health Organization standards, according to a report from the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute. In the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, home to 300 million, crippling lung and heart disease caused by so-called PM2.5 pollution reduces life expectancy by eight years, and in the capital city of New Delhi by a decade. PM2.5 pollution – 2.5 microns across or less, roughly the diameter of a human hair – penetrates deep into the lungs and enters the bloodstream. In 2013, the United Nations classified it as a cancer-causing agent. The WHO says PM2.5 density in the air should not top 15 micrograms per cubic meter in any 24-hour period, or 5 mcg/m3 averaged across an entire year. Faced with mounting evidence of damaging health impacts, the WHO tightened these standards last year, the first change since establishing air quality guidance in 2005. “Clean air pays back in additional years of life for people across the world,” lead research Crista Hasenkopf and colleagues said in the Air Quality Life Index report. “Permanently reducing global air pollution to meet the WHO’s guidelines would add 2.2 years onto average life expectancy.” Major gains in China Almost all populated regions in the world exceed WHO guidelines, but nowhere more so that in Asia: …

After cooking for decades on earthen stoves lit with firewood, women in Sarmathla village in India’s northern Haryana state were excited when they received cooking gas stoves and connections about five years ago. The gas cylinders which use liquified petroleum gas (LPG) meant that they would not have to collect firewood and breathe in the smoky fumes emitted from stoves called “chullahs.” They are among millions of poor rural households given subsidized gas connections and cylinders under a government program launched in 2016 to help women move away from using highly polluting sources of cooking such as wood and animal dung to a cleaner cooking fuel. But in most homes in Sarmathla, the cylinders now lie unused in a corner of the kitchen as many return to lighting their stoves with firewood. “I am a poor person and everything has become so expensive. As daily wagers, we barely earn four dollars a day,” said Santosh Devi, a village resident. “Tell me, should I buy food for children or buy a gas cylinder?” A series of price increases in the past year and a half has made cooking gas cylinders unaffordable for many poor households already struggling to cope with soaring food prices and incomes that declined due to the pandemic. The approximately $13 price tag of a gas cylinder is almost double compared to six years ago when the project was launched. And although the government last month announced a $2.50 subsidy for those with subsidized gas connections, most village …

British health officials have detected another 104 cases of monkeypox in England in what has become the biggest outbreak beyond Africa of the normally rare disease. The U.K.’s Health Security Agency said Monday there were now 470 cases of monkeypox across the country, with the vast majority in gay or bisexual men. Scientists warn that anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, is susceptible to catching monkeypox if they are in close, physical contact with an infected person or their clothing or bed sheets. According to U.K. data, 99% of the cases so far have been in men and most are in London. In May, a leading adviser to the World Health Organization said the monkeypox outbreak in Europe and beyond was likely spread by sex at two recent raves in Spain and Belgium. Last week, WHO said 1,285 cases of monkeypox had been reported from 28 countries where monkeypox was not known to be endemic. No deaths have been reported outside of Africa. After the U.K., the biggest numbers of cases have been reported in Spain, Germany and Canada. WHO said many people in the outbreak have “atypical features” of the disease which could make it more difficult for doctors to diagnose. The U.N. health agency also said while close contact can spread monkeypox, “it is not clear what role sexual bodily fluids, including semen and vaginal fluids, play in the transmission.” Meanwhile, countries in Africa have reported more than 1,500 suspected cases including 72 deaths from eight countries. Monkeypox is …

U.S. health officials are working to expand capabilities to test for monkeypox beyond a narrow group of public health labs, heeding calls from infectious-disease experts who say testing for the virus needs to become part of routine care.  Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said during a conference call Friday that her agency was working with the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to expand testing capacity to include commercial laboratories.  The CDC did not respond to a request for details.  Currently, preliminary monkeypox testing in the United States is done through a network of 69 public health laboratories, which send results to the CDC for confirmation.  There have been 45 confirmed monkeypox cases in 16 U.S. states so far, with the bulk of the current outbreak outside Africa, where the virus is endemic, occurring in Europe.  The United States has conducted roughly 300 monkeypox tests. While testing for the virus rose by 45% last week, that needs to increase dramatically if the outbreak is to be contained, infectious-disease experts said.  “There is not enough testing going on now for monkeypox in the United States,” said Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.  “The commercial labs are used to working with health care providers from across the country, moving samples around quickly, reporting results quickly in a way that providers understand and expect,” he said.  For commercial labs to do this …

On Thursday, the first shipments of Australian baby formula landed in the U.S. Yet the shortage continues, with women going to extreme measures to feed their babies, including buying breast milk from strangers on social media. Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti reports. …

NASA is officially joining the hunt for UFOs.  The space agency on Thursday announced a new study that will recruit leading scientists to examine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) — a subject that has long fascinated the public and recently gained high-level attention from Congress.  The project will begin early this fall and last around nine months, focusing on identifying available data, how to gather more data in the future, and how NASA can analyze the findings to try to move the needle on scientific understanding.  “Over the decades, NASA has answered the call to tackle some of the most perplexing mysteries we know of, and this is no different,” Daniel Evans, the NASA scientist responsible for coordinating the study, told reporters on a call.  While NASA probes and rovers scour the solar system for the fossils of ancient microbes, and its astronomers look for so-called “technosignatures” on distant planets for signs of intelligent civilizations, this is the first time the agency will investigate unexplained phenomena in Earth’s skies.  With its access to a broad range of scientific tools, NASA is well placed not just to demystify UFOs and deepen scientific understanding, but also to find ways to mitigate the phenomena, a key part of its mission to ensure the safety of aircraft, said the agency’s chief scientist, Thomas Zurbuchen.  The announcement comes as the field of UFO study, once a poorly-regarded research backwater, is gaining more mainstream traction.  Last month, Congress held a public hearing on UFOs, while a U.S. …

For the first time, NASA is looking to launch a research rocket from a commercial port not in the United States. Plus, we remember a legendary cosmonaut who died this week, and Blue Origin returns to the skies. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. …

The risk of monkeypox becoming established in nonendemic nations is real, the WHO warned Wednesday, with more than 1,000 cases confirmed in such countries.  World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the U.N. health agency was not recommending mass vaccination against the virus and added that no deaths had been reported from the outbreaks.  “The risk of monkeypox becoming established in nonendemic countries is real,” Tedros told a press conference.  The zoonotic disease is endemic in humans in nine African countries, but outbreaks have been reported in the past month in several other states — mostly in Europe, and notably in Britain, Spain and Portugal.  “More than 1,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox have now been reported to WHO from 29 countries that are not endemic for the disease,” Tedros said.  “So far, no deaths have been reported in these countries. Cases have been reported mainly, but not only, among men who have sex with men.  “Some countries are now beginning to report cases of apparent community transmission, including some cases in women.”  Greece on Wednesday became the latest country to confirm its first case of the disease, with health authorities there saying it involved a man who had recently traveled to Portugal and who was hospitalized in stable condition.  The initial symptoms of monkeypox include a high fever, swollen lymph nodes and a blistery chickenpox-like rash.  Tedros said he was particularly concerned about the risk the virus poses to vulnerable groups, including pregnant women and children.  He said the …

The Biden administration announced Monday that it would waive tariffs on solar panels imported to the United States from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam for 24 months, reducing uncertainty for the U.S. solar energy companies that had been spooked by a Commerce Department investigation launched in March.  The announcement came as part of a package of measures to accelerate clean energy product development in the U.S. In addition to the waiver, President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to upgrade the electrical grid and speed up investment in the domestic manufacturing of solar panels, building insulation, heat pumps and clean energy fuels.  “The stakes could not be higher,” a document released by the White House said. “Failing to take these actions would deny consumers access to cost-cutting clean energy options, add risks to our power grid, and stall domestic clean energy construction projects that are critical to tackling the climate crisis.”  Solar development roadblock  In March, the Commerce Department announced it was investigating a complaint filed by a small solar panel manufacturer in California against competitors in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.  The company, Auxin Solar, charged that manufacturers in those countries were using Chinese-made components to assemble solar panels for sale in the U.S.   In 2011, the U.S. charged China with “dumping” solar panels in the U.S. market, a term for selling them at below cost. The Chinese imports were suffocating U.S. manufacturers, who could not profitably compete against the artificially low prices. As a result, the U.S. imposed …

The government of Poland, where a near-total abortion ban is in place, faced accusations Monday of creating a “pregnancy register” as the country expands the amount of medical data being digitally saved on patients.  Women’s rights advocates and opposition politicians fear women face unprecedented surveillance given the conservative views of a ruling party that has already tightened what was one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws.  They fear the new data could be used by police and prosecutors against women whose pregnancies end, even in cases of miscarriage, or that women could be tracked by the state if they order abortion pills or travel abroad for an abortion.  “A pregnancy registry in a country with an almost complete ban on abortion is terrifying,” said Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, a left-wing lawmaker.  The matter gained attention Monday after Health Minister Adam Niedzielski signed an ordinance Friday expanding the amount of information to be saved in a central database on patients, including information on allergies, blood type and pregnancies.  The health ministry spokesman, Wojciech Andrusiewicz, sought to allay concerns, saying only medical professionals will have access to the data, and that the changes are being made at the recommendation of the European Union.  The effort, he said, is meant to improve the medical treatment of patients, including if they seek treatment elsewhere in the 27-member EU. In the case of pregnant women, he said this will help doctors immediately know which women should not get X-rays or certain medicines.  “Nobody is creating a pregnancy …

A crewless robotic boat that had tried to retrace the 1620 sea voyage of the Mayflower has finally reached the shores of North America — this time in Canada instead of the Massachusetts coast where its namesake landed more than 400 years ago.  The sleek autonomous trimaran docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Sunday, after more than five weeks crossing the Atlantic Ocean from England, according to tech company IBM, which helped build it.  Piloted by artificial intelligence technology, the 50-foot (15-meter) Mayflower Autonomous Ship didn’t have a captain, navigator or human on board — though it might have helped to have a mechanic.  “The technology that makes up the autonomous system worked perfectly, flawlessly,” said Rob High, an IBM computing executive involved in the project. “Mechanically, we did run into problems.”  Trouble at sea Its first attempt at the trans-Atlantic crossing to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in June 2021 was beset by technical glitches, forcing the boat to return to its home port of Plymouth, England.  It set off again from England nearly a year later on April 27, bound for Virginia — but a generator problem diverted it to Portugal’s Azores islands, where a team member flew in to perform emergency repairs. More troubles on the open sea came in late May when the U.S.-bound boat developed a problem with the charging circuit for the generator’s starter batteries.  AI software is getting better at helping self-driving machines understand their surroundings and pilot themselves, but most robots can’t heal themselves when …

Three Chinese astronauts arrived at the country’s space station on Sunday, the Chinese space agency for human flights said, the latest stride in Beijing’s aim to become a major space power. The trio blasted off in a Long March-2F rocket at 0244 GMT from the Jiuquan launch center in northwestern China ‘s Gobi desert, reported state broadcaster CCTV. The team is tasked with “completing in-orbit assembly and construction of the space station,” as well as “commissioning of equipment” and conducting scientific experiments, state-run CGTN said Saturday. The astronauts entered the central module of the Tiangong station at around 1250 GMT, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said. The journey took about “seven hours of flight,” CCTV reported.  Tiangong, which means “heavenly palace,” is expected to become fully operational by the end of the year.  China ‘s heavily promoted space program has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the Moon. The Shenzhou-14 crew is led by air force pilot Chen Dong, 43, the three-person crew’s main challenge will be connecting the station’s two lab modules to the main body. Dong, along with fellow pilots Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe, will become the second crew to spend six months aboard the Tiangong after the last returned to earth in April following 183 days on the space station. Tiangong’s core module entered orbit earlier last year and is expected to operate for at least a decade. The completed station will be similar to the Soviet Mir …

Beijing will further relax COVID-19 curbs by allowing indoor dining, as China’s capital steadily returns to normal with inflections falling, state media said on Sunday. Beijing and the commercial hub Shanghai have been returning to normal in recent days after two months of painful lockdowns to crush outbreaks of the Omicron variant. Dine-in service in Beijing will resume on Monday, except for the Fengtai district and some parts of the Changping district, the Beijing Daily said. Restaurants and bars have been restricted to takeaway since early May. Normal work will resume and traffic bans will be lifted on Monday in most areas of Beijing, the newspaper reported. Employees in some areas have been required to work from home. Residents will need to show a PRC test taken within 72 hours to enter public spaces and take public transport, as part of steps to normalize COVID testing, the newspaper reported. Beijing reported 16 new local symptomatic cases, up from five a day earlier, and three new local asymptomatic cases, up from one, according to the local government. Shanghai reported six new local symptomatic cases, up from five, and 16 new local asymptomatic cases versus nine the previous day, local government data showed. Mainland China recorded 162 daily coronavirus cases, of which 56 were symptomatic and 106 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said. That compares with 171 new cases a day earlier – 46 symptomatic and 125 asymptomatic, which China counts separately. There were no new deaths, leaving the nation’s death …

China on Sunday launched a rocket carrying three astronauts on a mission to complete construction on its new space station, the latest milestone in Beijing’s drive to become a major space power. The trio blasted off in a Long March-2F rocket at (0244 GMT) from the Jiuquan launch center in northwestern China’s Gobi desert, said state broadcaster CCTV, with the team to spend six months expanding the Tiangong space station. Tiangong, which means “heavenly palace,” is expected to become fully operational by the end of the year. China’s heavily promoted space program has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the moon. The Shenzhou-14 crew is tasked with “completing in-orbit assembly and construction of the space station,” as well as “commissioning of equipment” and conducting scientific experiments, state-run CGTN said Saturday. Led by air force pilot Chen Dong, 43, the three-person crew’s main challenge will be connecting the station’s two lab modules to the main body. Dong, along with fellow pilots Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe, will become the second crew to spend six months aboard the Tiangong after the last returned to Earth in April following 183 days on the space station. Tiangong’s core module entered orbit earlier last year and is expected to operate for at least a decade. The completed station will be similar to the Soviet Mir station that orbited Earth from the 1980s until 2001. Space ambitions The world’s second-largest economy has poured billions into its military-run space program, …

Global reported cases of COVID-19 cases and deaths “are near their lowest levels since the beginning of the pandemic,” the World Health Organization director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Friday. Speaking at the GLOBSEC Bratislava Forum, Tedros warned, however, that “It is still far too early to say the pandemic is over. … Increasing transmission, plus decreasing testing and sequencing, plus 1 billion people still unvaccinated, equals a dangerous situation.” “There remains a real and present danger, the WHO chief said, “of a new and more virulent variant emerging that evades our vaccines.” Meanwhile, India’s health ministry reported a slight dip in COVID-19 cases Saturday, with 3,962 new cases.  On Friday, however, the daily count crossed 4,000 for the first time in about three months. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has recorded more than 43 million COVID cases in India with over 500,000 deaths. The global COVID infection toll is more than 531 million with 6.3 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. The center reported a total of 11.66 billion vaccines administered.  …

The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has shot past a key milestone — more than 50% higher than pre-industrial times — and is at levels not seen since millions of years ago when Earth was a hothouse ocean-inundated planet, federal scientists announced Friday.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its longtime monitoring station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, averaged 421 parts per million of carbon dioxide for the month of May, which is when the crucial greenhouse gas hits its yearly high. Before the industrial revolution in the late 19th century, carbon dioxide levels were at 280 parts per million, scientists said, so humans have significantly changed the atmosphere. Some activists and scientists want a level of no more than 350 parts per million. Industrial carbon dioxide emissions come from the burning of coal, oil and gas. This year’s carbon dioxide level is nearly 1.9 ppm more than a year ago, a slightly bigger jump than from May 2020 to May 2021.  “The world is trying to reduce emissions, and you just don’t see it. In other words, if you’re measuring the atmosphere, you’re not seeing anything happening right now in terms of change,” said NOAA climate scientist Pieter Tans, who tracks global greenhouse gas emissions for the agency.  Outside scientists said the numbers show a severe climate change problem.  More heat waves, floods, storms University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles said without cuts in carbon pollution “we will see ever more damaging levels of climate …