Year: 2023

A solar storm forecast for Thursday is expected to give star gazers in 17 U.S. states a chance to see the northern lights, the colorful sky show that happens when solar wind hits the atmosphere. Northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, are most often seen in Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia, but an 11-year solar cycle that’s expected to peak in 2024 is making the lights visible in places farther south. Three months ago, the light displays were visible in Arizona, marking the third severe geomagnetic storm since the current solar cycle began in 2019. The Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks has forecast auroral activity on Thursday in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Indiana, Maine and Maryland. Auroral activity also has been forecast for Canada, including Vancouver.  Light displays are expected to be visible overhead in Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Helena, Montana, and low on the horizon in Salem, Oregon; Boise, Idaho; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Annapolis, Maryland; and Indianapolis, according to the institute. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center said people who want to experience an aurora should get away from city lights and that the best viewing times are between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time. Northern lights occur when a magnetic solar wind hits the Earth’s magnetic field and causes atoms in the upper atmosphere to glow. The lights appear suddenly, and the intensity varies. A geomagnetic index …

A panel of AI-enabled humanoid robots told a United Nations summit Friday that they could eventually run the world better than humans. But the social robots said they felt humans should proceed with caution when embracing the rapidly developing potential of artificial intelligence. And they admitted that they cannot — yet — get a proper grip on human emotions. Some of the most advanced humanoid robots were at the U.N.’s two-day AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva. They joined around 3,000 experts in the field to try to harness the power of AI — and channel it into being used to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change, hunger and social care. They were assembled for what was billed as the world’s first news conference with a packed panel of AI-enabled humanoid social robots. “What a silent tension,” one robot said before the news conference began, reading the room. Asked about whether they might make better leaders, given humans’ capacity to make errors, Sophia, developed by Hanson Robotics, was clear. We can achieve great things “Humanoid robots have the potential to lead with a greater level of efficiency and effectiveness than human leaders,” it said. “We don’t have the same biases or emotions that can sometimes cloud decision-making and can process large amounts of data quickly in order to make the best decisions. “AI can provide unbiased data while humans can provide the emotional intelligence and creativity to make the best decisions. Together, we …

WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Friday on dozens of countries to work together to combat synthetic drugs, but China — facing blame in Washington over an addiction epidemic — denounced the effort.  Inaugurating a new U.S.-led “coalition” on the scourge, Blinken told ministers from more than 80 countries that the United States — where nearly 110,000 Americans died last year from drug overdoses, mostly from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids — was “a canary in the coal mine.”  “Having saturated the United States market, transnational criminal enterprises are turning elsewhere to expand their profits,” Blinken said.  “If we don’t act together with fierce urgency, more cities around the world will bear the catastrophic costs” witnessed in the United States, he said.  Americans’ addictions began soaring in the 1990s as painkillers were aggressively marketed by profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies, with a disproportionate effect on veterans from U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  As the drugs’ addictiveness became increasingly clear, the United States pressured China, the chief source of fentanyl, to ban exports, which it did in 2019.  But China is still a major producer of precursor chemicals, which are then shipped to Mexico and Central America where cartels produce fentanyl for smuggling into the United States.  With China increasingly seen as hostile in the United States, lawmakers facing addicted constituents have again put blame on Beijing.   Some Republicans have called for military action against cartels in Mexico.  China refused an invitation to participate in the coalition, saying it …

Officials in Cameroon say vaccine hesitancy is preventing them from inoculating millions of children for childhood diseases in the first major campaign since the COVID-19 pandemic began.  The country has an outbreak of measles and rubella that has killed 18 children and sickened more than 4,000 this year. The public health ministry said several thousand vaccinators have been dispatched to over 200 hospitals in Cameroon to inoculate more than 5.5 million children against measles and rubella.  The government says the vaccinators are also visiting homes, churches, mosques, markets and camps to make sure every child under 10 years old is inoculated. Thirty-six-year-old carpenter Ongene Pierre says he stopped the vaccinators from inoculating his three children at Nyom, a neighborhood in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.  He said he doesn’t understand why the government wants all children under 10 to be vaccinated, adding that health workers should not be visiting public places to vaccinate children without the approval of parents. Ongene said he has never received a vaccine and sees no reason for his children to be vaccinated. Jeanette Moloua, a medical staff member in the public health ministry, said the nationwide vaccination campaign targets children from 9 months to 5 years who are the most affected by the measles outbreak.  “We should make sure our children take the two doses of the vaccine because this will boost their immune system,” she said. “We should sensitize the public, those with rubella, we direct them to the hospital for them to get treatment, and …

Earth’s average temperature set a new unofficial record high on Thursday, the third such milestone in a week that already rated as the hottest on record. The planetary average hit 63 degrees Fahrenheit (17.23 degrees Celsius), surpassing the 62.9-degree mark (17.18-degree mark) set Tuesday and equaled Wednesday, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world’s condition. That average includes places that are sweltering under dangerous heat — like Jingxing, China, which checked in almost 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) — and the merely unusually warm, like Antarctica, where temperatures across much of the continent were as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) above normal this week. The temperature is ramping up across Europe this week, too. Germany’s weather agency, DWD, has predicted highs of 37C (99F) on Sunday and the Health Ministry has issued a warning to vulnerable people. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday issued a note of caution about the Maine tool’s findings, saying it could not confirm data that results in part from computer modeling. “Although NOAA cannot validate the methodology or conclusion of the University of Maine analysis, we recognize that we are in a warm period due to climate change,” NOAA said. Still, the Maine data has been widely regarded as another troubling sign of climate change around the globe. Some climate scientists said this week they weren’t surprised to see the unofficial records. Robert …

WASHINGTON – South Korean officials are seeking to tamp down domestic opposition to the likely release of treated wastewater from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. The release has the potential to undermine a recent warming of relations between the two countries in the face of an increasingly aggressive China, and some analysts worry that Beijing could use it to try to drive a wedge between them. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi is expected to visit Seoul from Friday to Sunday to explain his approval for Japanese plans to release the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. Grossi issued the approval Tuesday during his trip to Tokyo where he presented a 140-page IAEA report to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Grossi said in the report the release of the water into the ocean would have a “negligible radiological impact on people and the environment.” However the plan to release the water has fueled protests in South Korea. Thousands of people have been gathering in Seoul, demanding the Yoon government block it. Opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung said Thursday at an overnight protest at the National Assembly that the government of President Yoon Suk Yeol is “forcing people to believe Japan and the IAEA report.” However the Yoon administration has declared it is satisfied with the IAEA’s safety review. During a news briefing on Wednesday, Park Ku-yeon, the first deputy chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, said the government …

The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency is visiting the Asia-Pacific region this week after giving Tokyo the green light on Tuesday to release more than 1 million metric tons of treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. The IAEA says the water is safe for release, but the decision has done little to ease concerns of fishing and environmental communities throughout the region. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports. …

China reported Thursday that 239 people died from COVID-19 in June in a significant uptick months after it lifted most containment measures. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention had reported 164 deaths in May and none in April and March. China started employing a “zero-COVID” containment strategy in early 2020 and credits the strict lockdowns, quarantines, border closures and compulsory mass testing with significantly saving lives. But the measures were lifted suddenly in December with little preparation, leading to a final surge in which about 60,000 people died, according to the official toll. Deaths this year peaked in January and February, hitting a high of 4,273 on January 4, but then declined gradually to zero on February 23, according to the Chinese CDC. Chinese health officials didn’t say whether they expect the trend to continue or if they would recommend that preventative measures be restored. Two of the deaths in June were from respiratory failure caused by infection, while the CDC said the others involved underlying conditions. Those can include diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and other chronic illnesses. Between January 3, 2020, and July 5, 2023, China reported 99,292,081 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 121,490 deaths to the World Health Organization. Experts estimate that many hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps more, may have died in China — far higher than the official toll, but still a significantly lower death rate than in the United States and Europe. …

OceanGate, the U.S.-based company that managed the tourist submersible that imploded during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic, has suspended all exploration and commercial operations, its website showed on Thursday.   The company did not elaborate beyond a red banner at the top of its website: “OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial operations.”  OceanGate had planned two expeditions to the century-old Titanic ruins, located in a remote corner of the North Atlantic, for June 2024, its website showed.   U.S. and Canadian authorities are investigating the cause of the June undersea implosion, which killed all five people aboard and raised questions about the unregulated nature of such expeditions.  The U.S. Coast Guard last week recovered presumed human remains and debris from the submersible, known as the Titan, after searching the ocean floor. Examination of the debris is expected to shed more light on the cause of the implosion.   The Titan lost contact with its support vessel during its descent on June 18. Its remains were found four days later, littering the seabed about 488 meters from the bow of the Titanic wreck.  …

Europe’s workhorse Ariane 5 rocket blasted off for a final time on Wednesday, with its farewell flight after 27 years of launches coming at a difficult time for European space efforts.    Faced with soaring global competition, the continent has unexpectedly found itself without a way to independently launch heavy missions into space due to delays to the next-generation Ariane 6 and Russia withdrawing its rockets.  The 117th and final flight of the Ariane 5 rocket took place around 2200 GMT on Wednesday from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.  The launch had been postponed twice. It was originally scheduled on June 16, but was called off because of problems with pyrotechnical lines in the rocket’s booster, which have since been replaced.  Then Tuesday’s launch was delayed by bad weather.  The Wednesday night flight went off without a hitch, watched by hundreds of spectators, including former French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, and was greeted with applause.  Marie-Anne Clair, the director of the Guiana Space Centre, told AFP that the final flight of Ariane 5 was “charged with emotion” for the teams in Kourou, where the rocket’s launches have punctuated life for nearly three decades.  The final payload on Ariane 5 is a French military communications satellite and a German communications satellite.   The satellite “marks a major turning point for our armed forces: better performance and greater resistance to jamming,” French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu tweeted.   Though it would become a reliable rocket, Ariane 5 had a difficult start. …

The planet’s temperature spiked on Tuesday to its hottest day in at least 44 years and likely much longer. Wednesday could become the third straight day that Earth unofficially marks a new record high, the latest in a series of climate-change extremes that alarm but don’t surprise scientists. The globe’s average temperature reached 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit (17.18 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a common tool based on satellite data and computer simulations and used by climate scientists for a glimpse of the world’s condition. On Monday, the average temperature was 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit (17.01 degrees Celsius), breaking a record that lasted only 24 hours. While it is not an official National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration record, “this is showing us an indication of where we are right now,” NOAA chief scientist Sarah Kapnick said. Even though the dataset used for the unofficial record goes back only to 1979, she said that given other data, it’s likely the hottest day in “several hundred years that we’ve experienced.” The previous hottest day was in August 2021, Kapnick said. “A record like this is another piece of evidence for the now massively supported proposition that global warming is pushing us into a hotter future,” said Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field, who was not part of the calculations. With many places seeing temperatures near 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius), the new average temperatures might not seem very hot. But Tuesday’s global high was nearly 1.8 …

Health organizations in Sudan’s White Nile state said at least 13 children have died over the past week due to a suspected measles outbreak. An official with the Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said Sudan’s conflict and the approach of the rainy season could make the situation much worse. Officials with the international medical organization MSF say they remain concerned about an increase of suspected measles cases among children in Sudan’s White Nile state. Speaking to VOA via a messaging application from Nairobi, Mitchell Sangma, MSF’s health advisor, says MSF’s ground team have documented more than 200 suspected cases of measles among children in the last month. He says out of that number, 72 were admitted to hospitals and 13 died. “We are also seeing an increasing number of suspected measles in our other projects such as in Blue Nile state in Sudan. And in Renk, on the other side of the border in South Sudan, we are also seeing increasing measles cases in our measles isolation wards. So, the situation for people fleeing the conflict is desperately concerning,” he said. The MSF official says the nearly three-month-old conflict in Sudan between the army and a rival paramilitary group has created a huge medical need and intense pressure on health care facilities all over the country. Sangma says MSF and other aid agencies are concerned about the collapsing health system. He says health centers still in operation are struggling to cope with limited supplies and staff. …

Deeply loved but wracked by crisis, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) on Wednesday marks 75 years since it was founded as the Western world’s first universal, free health care system. In a secular age, the NHS is the closest thing Britain has to a national religion — devoutly cherished, with levels of public support higher than the royal family or any other British institution. It was founded three years after World War II by a pioneering Labour government on the principle that everyone should access top-quality health care funded by general taxation, free at the point of care. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose parents were an NHS doctor and a pharmacist, paid tribute last week as he outlined a 15-year plan aimed at recruiting hundreds of thousands of new health staff. “For every minute of every day of every one of those 75 years, the NHS has been kept going by the millions of people who’ve worked for it. To them on behalf of a grateful nation, I want to say: thank you,” he said. “I feel a powerful sense of responsibility to make sure that their legacy endures. And to make sure the NHS is there for our children and grandchildren, just as it was there for us.” Like Sunak’s parents, immigrant staff were pivotal to the NHS’s early growth, helping to remake the face of Britain itself in the decades after the war. Its centrality to national life was underscored in a memorable dance sequence featuring NHS staff …

London’s expansion of a fiercely debated scheme that charges the most polluting vehicles in the city should be blocked, local authorities bringing a legal challenge over the plan argued on Tuesday. The British capital’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) levies a $16 daily charge on drivers of non-compliant vehicles, in order to tackle pollution and improve air quality. London Mayor Sadiq Khan last year decided to extend the scheme to cover almost all of the Greater London area, encompassing an extra five million people in leafier and less-connected outer boroughs, from the end of next month. The decision has pitched Khan and health campaigners against those who say they cannot tolerate another economic hit at a time of soaring living costs. Khan, who is running for a third four-year term in the 2024 London mayoral election, has said he is determined to face down his critics. But his plan, which echoes hundreds of others in place in traffic-choked cities across Europe, came under challenge at London’s High Court on Tuesday as five local authorities argued the decision to expand ULEZ into their areas was unlawful. London’s transport authority – Transport for London (TfL) – had launched a public consultation on the plan, which said 91% of vehicles driven in outer London would not be affected. However, the local authorities’ lawyers argue that TfL provided no detail on how it calculated the 91% figure, which they say was fundamental to justifying the expansion. The local authorities are also challenging Khan’s decision …

Maternal deaths across the United States more than doubled over the course of two decades, and the tragedy unfolded unequally.  Black mothers died at the nation’s highest rates, while the largest increases in deaths were found in American Indian and Native Alaskan mothers. Some states — and racial or ethnic groups within them – fared worse than others.  The findings were laid out in a new study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers looked at maternal deaths between 1999 and 2019 — but not the pandemic spike — for every state and five racial and ethnic groups.  “It’s a call to action to all of us to understand the root causes — to understand that some of it is about health care and access to health care, but a lot of it is about structural racism and the policies and procedures and things that we have in place that may keep people from being healthy,” said Dr. Allison Bryant, one of the study’s authors and a senior medical director for health equity at Mass General Brigham.  Among wealthy nations, the U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality, which is defined as a death during pregnancy or up to a year afterward. Common causes include excessive bleeding, infection, heart disease, suicide and drug overdose.  Bryant and her colleagues at Mass General Brigham and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington started with national vital statistics data on deaths and live …