LAGOS, Nigeria — When a small number of cases of locally transmitted malaria were found in the United States last year, it was a reminder that climate change is reviving or migrating the threat of some diseases. But across the African continent malaria has never left, killing or sickening millions of people.

Take Funmilayo Kotun, a 66-year-old resident of Makoko, an informal neighborhood in Nigeria’s Lagos city. Its ponds of dirty water provide favorable breeding conditions for malaria-spreading mosquitoes. Kotun can’t afford insecticide-treated bed nets that cost between $7 and $21 each, much less antimalarial medications or treatment.

For World Malaria Day on Thursday, here is what you need to know about the situation in Africa:

Malaria is still widespread

The malaria parasite mostly spreads to people via infected mosquitoes and can cause symptoms including fever, headaches and chills. It mostly affects children under 5 and pregnant women.

Vaccine efforts are still in early stages: Cameroon this year became the first country to routinely give children a new malaria vaccine, which is only about 30% effective and doesn’t stop transmission. A second vaccine was recently approved. On Thursday, WHO announced that three African countries — Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone — were rolling out vaccine programs for millions of children.

Cases of resistance to antimalarial drugs and insecticides are increasing, while funding by governments and donors for innovation is slowing.

Living conditions play a role, with crowded neighborhoods, stagnant water, poor sanitation and lack of access to treatment and prevention materials all issues in many areas. And an invasive species of mosquito previously seen mostly in India and the Persian Gulf is a new concern.

A growing problem

Globally, malaria cases are on the rise. Infections increased from 233 million in 2019 to 249 million in 85 countries in 2022. Malaria deaths rose from 576,000 in 2019 to 608,000 in 2022, according to the World Health Organization.

Of the 12 countries that carry about 70% of the global burden of malaria, 11 are in Africa and the other is India. Children under 5 constituted 80% of the 580,000 malaria deaths recorded in Africa in 2022.

COVID-19 hurt progress

The fight against malaria saw some progress in areas such as rapid diagnostic tests, vaccines and new bed nets meant to counter insecticide resistance, but the COVID-19 pandemic and a shift in focus and funding set back efforts.

A study published in Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease last year said COVID-19-induced lockdowns led to disruptions at 30% of rural community health service points across Africa. Malaria cases started spiking again, breaking a downward trend between 2000 and 2019.

That downward trend could soon return, according to the WHO.

A warming world and new frontiers

Africa is “at the sharp end of climate change,” and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events causes havoc in efforts to combat malaria in low- and middle-income regions, Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, warned in December.

In 2023, the WHO’s World Malaria Report included a chapter on the link between malaria and climate change for the first time, highlighting its significance as a potential risk multiplier. Scientists worry that people living in areas once inhospitable to mosquitoes, including the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and the mountains of eastern Ethiopia, could be exposed.

In Zimbabwe, which has recorded some of its hottest days in decades, malaria transmission periods have extended in some districts, “and this shift has been attributed to climate change,” said Dr. Precious Andifasi, a WHO technical officer for malaria in Zimbabwe.
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SYDNEY — The Asian Development Bank holds its annual meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, next week, with discussions on climate change and the world’s aging population high on the agenda.

The four-day summit, starting Thursday, marks the first time that the ADB’s 68 members have gathered for a meeting in Georgia, which joined the multilateral development bank in 2007.

“Georgia sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia,” said Shalini Mittal, a principal economist for Asia at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

“This meeting signifies ADB’s agenda of bridges to the future where technology and expertise from the West can be used to enhance structural reforms in Asia,” Mittal told VOA.

Alongside numerous panel discussions and a keynote speech from ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa, finance ministers from Association of Southeast Asian Nations member countries Japan, China and South Korea will also meet on the sidelines.

“Given the geopolitical uncertainty with the Ukraine-Russia war and tensions in Asia with China’s problematic relations with its neighbors, I think the meeting is taking place at a crucial time,” said Jason Chung, a senior adviser with the Project on Prosperity and Development at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“It provides an additional path to have meaningful discussions on global economic issues,” Chung told VOA.

Climate change stressed

The issue of climate change is set to headline proceedings at the conference, with the ADB now marketing itself as the climate bank for the Asia-Pacific region.

The bank pledged a record $9.8 billion of climate finance in 2023, supporting developing countries to cut greenhouse emissions and adapt to extreme conditions as global warming continues.

“Storm surges, sea level rise, heat waves, droughts, and floods — all our countries suffer from all of the imaginable impacts of climate change,” said Warren Evans, who, as senior special adviser on climate change in the ADB president’s office, acts as the institution’s climate envoy.

The bank says that the Asia-Pacific region was hit by over 200 disasters last year alone, with many of them weather related, a problem that shows no sign of letting up.

“Right now, there’s a heatwave in Bangladesh that is causing severe impacts. Schools are closed, they’re seeing a drop in agricultural productivity, hospitals are getting overloaded with people with heatstroke,” Evans told VOA.

“Mortality rates are going up and, of course, women and children are the most vulnerable to those impacts,” he said.

While much of the Asia-Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to climate change, it is also a huge driver of the phenomenon.

The region contributes more than half of global carbon dioxide emissions, with a heavy reliance on coal as a source of energy, according to the ADB.

To try to reach net zero targets, many Asia-Pacific nations require huge investment to convert to clean energy alternatives.

One way that the ADB is tackling this issue is through a program targeting coal-burning power plants, a major contributor to emissions.

“With private sector partners and sovereign funding, we’re refinancing coal-fired power plants in order to be able to close them down early,” Evans said. The ADB’s “energy transition mechanism” uses private and public capital to refinance investments in coal-fired power, allowing power purchase agreements to be shortened and plants to be closed as much as a decade earlier than planned. The financing is also used to fund clean energy projects to generate the power that would have come from the coal plant.

The project looks to replace these plants with clean energy alternatives, ensuring that power is generated more sustainably.

A coal-burning power plant in Indonesia’s West Java is set to become the first to be retired early under the initiative.

“The communities that are impacted will have support, allowing people to find new jobs or to get social welfare,” Evans said.

 

Aging population in Asia

During the Tbilisi summit, the ADB will also launch a major report on aging population, which also affects member countries’ economies.

According to the bank, 1 in 4 people in the Asia-Pacific region will be over 60 by 2050, close to 1.3 billion people.

“The speed of aging is very quick in Asia, because of the rapid progress in the social development that has taken place in the region,” said Aiko Kikkawa, a senior economist for the ADB’s Aging Well in Asia report.

Researchers have investigated the implications of this demographic transition, with Kikkawa finding that the Asia-Pacific region is currently “unprepared” for aging populations.

“Large numbers of older people do report a substantial disease burden, lack of access to decent jobs or essential services, such as health and long-term care, and even lack of access to pension coverage,” Kikkawa told VOA.

The ADB has pledged to help to improve the lives of older people across the Asia-Pacific region, by supporting the rollout of universal health coverage and providing infrastructure for ‘age-friendly cities’ that are more accessible for older people.

Poverty to be addressed

While much of the focus in Tbilisi will be on climate change and aging populations, the ADB’s core edict remains to eradicate extreme poverty in its many developing country members.

That task has become even more challenging in an environment of high inflation and growing government debt.

However, Chung, the former U.S. director of the ADB, told VOA he believes that this goal should be at the center of discussions in the Georgian capital.

“The ADB should focus on its core mission of alleviating poverty and creating paths for economic growth in the developing member countries.

“While climate risk is important, I think given the state of uncertainty, it is important to provide support to create economic conditions for growth,” he told VOA.
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washington — About one-quarter of U.S. adults age 50 and older who are not yet retired say they expect to never retire, and 70% are concerned about prices rising faster than their income, an AARP survey finds.

About 1 in 4 have no retirement savings, according to research released Wednesday by the organization that shows how a graying America is worrying more and more about how to make ends meet even as economists and policymakers say the U.S. economy has all but achieved a soft landing after two years of record inflation.

Everyday expenses and housing costs, including rent and mortgage payments, are the biggest reasons why people are unable to save for retirement.

The data will matter this election year as Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump are trying to win support from older Americans, who traditionally turn out in high numbers, with their policy proposals.

Everyday expenses hamper saving

The AARP’s study, based on interviews completed with more than 8,000 people in coordination with the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, finds that one-third of older adults with credit card debt carry a balance of more than $10,000 and 12% have a balance of $20,000 or more. Additionally, 37% are worried about meeting basic living costs such as food and housing.

“Far too many people lack access to retirement savings options and this, coupled with higher prices, is making it increasingly hard for people to choose when to retire,” said Indira Venkateswaran, AARP’s senior vice president of research. “Everyday expenses continue to be the top barrier to saving more for retirement, and some older Americans say that they never expect to retire.”

The share of people 50 and older who say they do not expect to retire has remained steady. It was 23% in January 2022 and 24% that July, according to the study, which is conducted twice a year.

“We are seeing an expansion of older workers staying in the workforce,” said David John, senior strategic policy advisor at the AARP Public Policy Institute. He said this is in part because older workers “don’t have sufficient retirement savings. It’s a problem and its likely to continue as we go forward.”

In the AARP survey, 33% of respondents 50 and older believe their finances will be better in a year.

Based on the 2022 congressional elections, census data released Tuesday shows that voters 65 and older made up 30.4% of all voters, while Gen Z and millennials accounted for 11.7%.

Biden has tried to court older voters by regularly promoting a $35 price cap on insulin for people on Medicare. He trumpets Medicare’s powers to negotiate directly with drugmakers on the cost of prescription medications.

Trump, in an interview with CNBC in March, indicated he would be open to cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The former president said “there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.”

Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for Trump’s campaign, said in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday that Trump “will continue to strongly protect Social Security and Medicare in his second term.”

Candidates court senior voters

A looming issue that will affect Americans’ ability to retire is the financial health of Social Security and Medicare.

The latest annual report from the program’s trustees says the financial safety nets for millions of older Americans will run short of money to pay full benefits within the next decade.

Medicare, the government-sponsored health insurance that covers 65 million older and disabled people, will be unable to pay full benefits for inpatient hospital visits and nursing home stays by 2031, the report forecast. And just two years later, Social Security will not have enough cash on hand to pay out full benefits to its 66 million retirees.

An AP-NORC poll from March 2023 found that most U.S. adults are opposed to proposals that would cut into Medicare or Social Security benefits, and a majority support raising taxes on the nation’s highest earners to keep Medicare running as is.
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sydney — Analysis of more than 25,000 images from divers, tourism operators and recreational boats on Australia’s annual Great Reef Census is getting under way. Now in its fourth year, one of the world’s fastest-growing conservation projects is helping to gauge the health and degradation of the world’s largest coral system, which is suffering from another mass bleaching event.

The Great Reef Census collects a trove of images of what is arguably Australia’s greatest natural treasure.

Each picture can contain vital information about the health of the Great Barrier Reef. Together, the images create a vital evaluation of the state of the ecosystem.

The barrier reef stretches for 2,300 kilometers down Australia’s northeastern coast. It is under increasing threat from global warming, pollution and overfishing, as well as coral-eating crown of thorns starfish.

The surveillance project is urging so-called citizen scientists around the world to help in the analysis of the images. The survey also uses artificial intelligence to scan much of the data.

The public is being asked to analyze the images to see which reefs fared better than others and potentially identify so-called new “key source reefs,” which are those reefs that appear to have escaped the worst of the degradation.

Anyone can help in the effort, said Nicole Senn, impact and engagement lead at Citizens of the Reef, which coordinates the survey.

“Citizen scientists using our A.I assisted platform can actually provide data that is highly comparable in accuracy to a reef expert, and it takes as little as one minute to analyze an image, and the data you are generating helps to prioritize conservation efforts on the reef and identify key source reefs,” she said. “These are healthy reefs that are positioned in a way that they can help nearby reefs recover and this is just one of the many ways your analysis of these images can help.”

The Great Barrier Reef is suffering from another widespread bleaching event.

Scientists say that corals bleach, or turn white, when they are stressed by changes in water temperature, light, or nutrients. In response, the coral expels the symbiotic algae living in their tissues that give them their color and energy, exposing their white skeleton.

Not all bleaching incidents are due to warm water, but experts say the mass bleaching reported on the Great Barrier Reef is caused by a marine heatwave.

Experts say reefs around the world last year and early this year have been affected by high ocean surface temperatures.

Chris Lawson, a data scientist with the Great Reef Census’ Science Committee, told VOA that the situation appears to be dire.

“The latest mass bleaching event has been designated as the fourth global mass bleaching event,” he said. “So, it is not just in Australia, it has been observed globally and by all accounts is the worst one on record in terms of its extent and its severity of bleaching.”

Experts say reefs’ extreme susceptibility to warming sea temperatures makes them one of the world’s ecosystems that is most vulnerable to climate change.
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Methane leaking from fossil fuel production is among the top contributors to climate change. Now a leading environmental scientist is hoping to provide more accurate and consistent findings of methane emissions with the launch of a technologically advanced satellite. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. Arash Arabasadi contributed to this report. Camera: Adam Greenbaum
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COTONOU, Benin — Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone launched large-scale malaria vaccine programs on Thursday under an Africa-focused initiative that hopes to save tens of thousands of children’s lives per year across Africa.

The three West African countries are the latest to participate after successful rollouts of routine malaria immunization for children in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, the global vaccine alliance GAVI said in a statement.

The World Health Organization-approved vaccine is meant to work alongside existing tools such as bed nets to combat malaria, which in Africa kills nearly half a million children under the age of 5 each year.

“This introduction … will help save lives and offer relief to families, communities and hard-pressed health systems,” said Aurelia Nguyen, GAVI chief program officer.

Benin has 215,900 doses of the vaccine, which will be available to children from around 5 months old, according to GAVI.

Sierra Leone has 550,000 doses and neighboring Liberia has 112,000 doses, it said.

At the official launch in Benin, which took place in the town of Allada, some 54 kilometers from the country’s largest city, Cotonou, 25 children received the vaccine.

“I came to have my children vaccinated against malaria. It’s important to me because when children get this malaria disease, we spend a lot of money,” said Victoire Fagbemi, a 41-year-old mother of four.

Another mother, Victoire Boko, who had her 10-month-old child vaccinated at the launch, said the health minister’s explanations about the vaccine in the local Fon language had allayed any anxieties she had about its safety. “When I get home, I will share the information … with my neighbors and friends,” she said on the sidelines of the launch.

The African region is home to 11 countries that carry approximately 70% of the global burden of malaria, according to GAVI.
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MIGORI, Kenya — As the coffin bearing the body of Rosebella Awuor was lowered into the grave, heart-wrenching sobs from mourners filled the air. Her sister Winnie Akinyi, the guardian to Awuor’s orphaned son, fell to the ground, wailing. 

It was the latest of five deaths in this family attributed to malaria. The disease is common in Kenya, and it is preventable and curable, but poverty makes it deadly for those who can’t afford treatment. 

In the family’s compound in the western county of Migori, three other graves are visible, that of Awuor’s husband and their other two children who died from malaria before age 2. 

Awuor, 31, fell ill in December and lost her five-month pregnancy before succumbing to malaria. Her 11-year-old son is the family’s only survivor. 

Malaria is still a significant public health challenge in Kenya, though some progress may be coming. Parts of Kenya participated in an important pilot of the world’s first malaria vaccine, with a reported drop in deaths for children under 5. Kenya’s health ministry hasn’t said when the vaccine will be widely available. 

The biggest impact is felt in regions characterized by high temperatures like Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, and places with high rainfall like the western region near Lake Victoria. 

Kenya had an estimated 5 million malaria cases and more than 12,000 deaths reported in 2022, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO has declared April 25 as World Malaria Day. 

Most of those affected are children under 5 and pregnant women. 

New approaches needed

Kenya continues to combat malaria with traditional methods such as distributing bed nets that are treated with insecticides, spraying breeding areas, and promoting early diagnosis and treatment, but experts say progress against the disease with those approaches has plateaued. 

Public health expert Dr. Willis Akhwale, special adviser for the Kenya End Malaria Council, said the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the distribution of drugs and treatment. 

He said innovative treatment methods are needed in the wake of drug-resistant cases reported in parts of Africa. 

“We need to start looking at investments in new-generation medicines. That should then be able to counter any resistance in [the] foreseeable future,” he said. 

Akhwale said other needs include more funding and logistical support. 

“In Kenya, the shortfall in terms of the need is almost $52 million, so we need to close that gap,” he said, citing health ministry data. He recommended domestic funding and private sector support amid donor fatigue with crises around the world. 

Wilson Otieno has been admitted to a hospital three times for malaria and has received outpatient treatment countless times. It’s expensive for the 33-year-old accountant and father in the lakeside city of Kisumu. 

Malaria is never “pocket friendly,” he said. 

Some progress has been made with local manufacturing of crucial medication. 

The Kenya-based Universal Corporation Limited last year received the WHO’s approval to produce an antimalarial drug known as Spaq, a combination of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine plus amodiaquine. 

The approval was an important step in Africa’s capacity to make lifesaving medications, a new focus for governments and public health officials after vulnerabilities were exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Africa relies heavily on drug imports. 

“It will really help in lowering the dependency for imports as we saw during the COVID era, where whatever was being imported actually had huge supply disruptions,” said Palu Dhanani, the founder and managing director of UCL. 

If you don’t get the right medicine at the right time, malaria can cause unnecessary deaths, Dhanani said. 
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Paris, France — World wine production dropped 10 percent last year, the biggest fall in more than six decades, because of “extreme” climate changes, the body that monitors the trade said Thursday.  

“Extreme environmental conditions” including droughts, fires and other problems with climate were mostly to blame for the drastic fall, said the International Organization of Vine and Wine, or OIV, that covers nearly 50 wine-producing countries.  

Australia and Italy suffered the worst, with 26 and 23 percent drops. Spain lost more than a fifth of its production. Harvests in Chile and South Africa were down by more than 10 percent. 

The OIV said the global grape harvest was the worst since 1961, and worse even than its early estimates in November. 

In further bad news for winemakers, customers drank 3 percent less wine in 2023, the French-based intergovernmental body said.  

Director John Barker highlighted “drought, extreme heat and fires, as well as heavy rain causing flooding and fungal diseases across major northern and southern hemisphere wine-producing regions.” 

 

Although he said climate problems were not solely to blame for the drastic fall, “The most important challenge that the sector faces is climate change.  

“We know that the grapevine, as a long-lived plant cultivated in often vulnerable areas, is strongly affected by climate change,” he added.  

France bucked the falling harvest trend, with a 4 percent rise, making it by far the world’s biggest wine producer.

Less wine being drunk

Wine consumption last year was, however, at its lowest level since 1996, confirming a fall off over the last five years, according to the figures.  

The trend is partly due to price increases caused by inflation and a sharp fall in wine drinking in China — down a quarter — due to its economic slowdown. 

The Portuguese, French and Italians remain the world’s biggest wine drinkers per capita. 

Barker said the underlying decrease in consumption is being “driven by demographic and lifestyle changes. But given the very complicated influences on global demand at the moment,” it is difficult to know whether the fall will continue. 

 “What is clear is that inflation is the dominant factor affecting demand in 2023,” he said. 

Land given over to growing grapes to eat or for wine fell for the third consecutive year to 7.2 million hectares.  

But India became one of the global top 10 grape producers for the first time with a 3 percent rise in the size of its vineyards.  

France, however, has been pruning its vineyards back slightly, with its government paying winemakers to pull up vines or to distill their grapes.  

The collapse of the Italian harvest to its lowest level since 1950 does not necessarily mean there will be a similar contraction there, said Barker.  

Between floods and hailstones, and damp weather causing mildew in the center and south of the country, the fall was “clearly linked to meteorological conditions,” he said.
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April 25 marks the global observance of World Malaria Day. Pakistan saw the world’s largest increase in malaria cases in 2022 following that year’s catastrophic flooding, according to the latest World Health Organization data. Experts say climate change was a factor. VOA’s Nazr Ul Islam’s visited a hospital in Islamabad and filed this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
Camera: Nazr Ul Islam
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new york — Russia blocked a U.N. Security Council resolution Wednesday reaffirming the need to prevent a nuclear arms race in outer space.

The measure was proposed jointly by the United States, a nuclear power, and Japan, the only nation ever to be attacked with nuclear bombs.

“We have only begun to understand the catastrophic ramifications of a nuclear explosion in space,” said U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. “How it could destroy thousands of satellites operated by countries and companies around the world — and wipe out the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial and national security services we all depend on.”

The failed text recalled the responsibility of states to comply with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which is the basic framework on international space law. It says outer space is to be shared among nations and shall be free of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. The treaty also says the moon and other celestial bodies “shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes,” and astronauts shall be “regarded as the envoys of mankind.”

The proposed resolution also called on states “not to develop nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction specifically designed to be placed in orbit around the Earth, or to be installed on celestial bodies, or to be stationed in outer space in any other manner.”

Thomas-Greenfield noted that President Vladimir Putin has said publicly that Russia has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space.

“And so, today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them?” she asked. “What could you possibly be hiding? It’s baffling, and it’s a shame.”

Thomas-Greenfield just returned from Japan, where she visited Nagasaki, a city on which the United States dropped one of two atomic bombs at the end of World War II.

“It was a reminder of our profound responsibility to prevent the scourge of war and ensure that no place experiences the horror of nuclear weaponry ever again,” she said.

“Adopting this draft resolution would have been a positive and practical contribution to the promotion of the peaceful use and exploration of outer space,” said Japanese Ambassador Kazuyuki Yamazaki. “If adopted, we could have demonstrated our unity in reaffirming the principle of no placement of any weapons of mass destruction in outer space and in opposing the development of such capabilities.”

The proposed resolution, which had more than 60 co-sponsors, created no new international obligations, but reaffirmed existing ones. It was supported by 13 of the 15 council members. After failing to get an amendment added to it, Russia vetoed it and China abstained.

“Today, our council is once again being involved in a dirty spectacle prepared by the U.S. and Japan,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said. “This is a cynical ploy. We are being tricked.”

He said Moscow wanted a text that would have gone further, banning weapons of any kind in outer space.

China’s new U.N. ambassador, Fu Cong, echoed that, saying the draft needed “other substantive elements.” 

US concerns

In February, U.S. officials said Russia is developing a space-based weapon to attack satellites. They do not believe it would target people or cause destruction on Earth.

Analysts at the Washington-based Safe World Foundation think tank say on their website that Russia is most likely developing a system “that would use a nuclear explosion to create weapons effects, most likely an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), that would in turn disable or destroy satellites.”

There are thousands of satellites in space that run the gamut from sophisticated military purposes to running a car’s GPS or providing television programming.

Although the U.S. resolution was not adopted, Thomas-Greenfield said Washington would continue to pursue bilateral arms control discussions with Russia in good faith.

The U.S. also has concerns about China’s work in space, where officials say they are rapidly developing a range of counterspace weapons and using outer space to strengthen the capabilities of their military forces on Earth.

“Over the last six years they have tripled the number of intelligent surveillance and reconnaissance satellites in orbit, and they have used their space capabilities to improve the lethality, the precision and the range of their terrestrial forces,” said General Stephen Whiting, commander of the U.S. Space Command.

He spoke by phone to regional journalists Wednesday from Tokyo, where he is meeting with allies.
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Before the creation of engines, the ocean was full of low-emission vessels — they were called sailboats. Now a next-generation zero-emissions laboratory vessel called the Energy Observer recently docked in New York City to show off what this team hopes is the next generation of earth-friendly boats. Elena Wolf has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Videographer: Max Avloshenko 
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cologne, germany — For the past year, five fit, academically superior men and women have been spun in centrifuges, submerged for hours, deprived temporarily of oxygen, taught to camp in the snow, and schooled in physiology, anatomy, astronomy, meteorology, robotics, and Russian.

On Monday, the five Europeans and an Australian graduated from basic training with a new title: astronaut.

At a ceremony in Cologne, Germany, ESA added the five newcomers to its astronaut corps eligible for missions to the International Space Station, bringing the total to 11.

ESA has negotiated with NASA for three places on future Artemis moon missions, although those places will likely go to the more senior astronauts, according to ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher. The agency is also supplying the service module for the Orion crew capsule. ESA relies on NASA and others to get its astronauts to space.

It is only the fourth astronaut class since 1978 for the 22-country agency, chosen from among 22,500 applicants. Another 12 were selected as reservists, but were not sent to basic training. Not surprisingly, the five have resumes studded with advanced scientific and medical degrees, military training, experience flying planes, helicopters, gliders and balloons, and “leisure” activities like rowing, scuba diving, hiking, skydiving, cycling, sailing, and kayaking.

The group formed “a very good team” devoid of personal rivalry, said Aschbacher. “I told them, one of you will fly first and one will fly last, and they accepted that of course, but from the heart, not just lip service … the team spirit is very pronounced.”

Sophie Adenot, a French air force helicopter test pilot, said the group was “a fantastic crew and a fantastic team.” The moment that struck her the most was leaving the airlock for underwater spacewalk simulation when the instructor said, “Welcome to space.”

“And for me it was mind-blowing, I had goosebumps. … In a few years it is going to be me in space, not in the water with safety divers.”

When she was a girl dreaming of space travel, “I couldn’t count the number of people who told me, this dream will never come true. ‘You have unrealistic dreams, and it will never happen.’ … Listen to yourself and don’t listen to people who don’t believe in you.”

In addition to Adenot, the ESA class consists of:

— Pablo Alvarez Fernandez, a Spanish aeronautical engineer who has worked on the Rosalind Franklin Mars rover intended for a joint mission with Russia that was suspended after the invasion of Ukraine;

— Rosemary Coogan, a British astronomer who has researched radiation emissions from black holes;

— Raphael Liegeois, a Belgian biomedical engineer and neuroscientist who has researched degenerative diseases of the nervous system, and also flies hot-air balloons and gliders;

— Marco Alain Sieber, a Swiss emergency physician who achieved sergeant rank as a paratrooper during his service with the Swiss army.

The group was joined by Katherine Bennell-Pegg from Australia, who underwent training under a cooperation agreement between Australia and ESA. She remains an employee of the Australian Space Agency. It’s up to the Australian agency to find a way for her to travel in space.

Their yearlong basic training included preparation for the hostile environment encountered in space. They were exposed to multiple times the force of gravity in a centrifuge and spent hours underwater using scuba gear to float around mockups of space station modules to simulate working in zero gravity.

They learned how to recognize symptoms of hypoxia, or lack of oxygen, by experiencing it themselves in a low-pressure chamber. Survival training included dealing with potential splashdown in the ocean and staying warm in winter while waiting to be recovered in case a landing goes off course. On top of that came academic work on scientific topics and learning about the space station’s modules and equipment.

Intensive Russian language is still part of the program, even though ESA has suspended work with Russia except for the space station, where one of the working languages is Russian.
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Experts say one of the health care challenges in Africa is a shortage of training and education for workers. To help, a U.S. charity called Mission to Heal is training local workers who serve patients in remote locations. Juma Majanga reports from Ngurunit village in northern Kenya. Videographer: Jimmy Makhulo
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WASHINGTON — A ancient giant snake in India might have been longer than a school bus and weighed a ton, researchers reported Thursday.

Fossils found near a coal mine revealed a snake that stretched an estimated 11 meters to 15 meters. It’s comparable to the largest known snake at about 13 meters that once lived in what is now Colombia.

The largest living snake today is Asia’s reticulated python at 10 meters.

The newly discovered behemoth lived 47 million years ago in western India’s swampy evergreen forests. It could have weighed up to 1,000 kilograms, researchers said in the journal Scientific Reports.

They gave it the name Vasuki indicus after “the mythical snake king Vasuki, who wraps around the neck of the Hindu deity Shiva,” said Debajit Datta, a study co-author at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee.

This monster snake wasn’t especially swift to strike.

“Considering its large size, Vasuki was a slow-moving ambush predator that would subdue its prey through constriction,” Datta said in an email.

Fragments of the snake’s backbone were discovered in 2005 by co-author Sunil Bajpai, based at the same institute, near Kutch, Gujarat, in western India. The researchers compared more than 20 fossil vertebrae to skeletons of living snakes to estimate size.

While it’s not clear exactly what Vasuki ate, other fossils found nearby reveal that the snake lived in swampy areas alongside catfish, turtles, crocodiles and primitive whales, which may have been its prey, Datta said.

The other extinct giant snake, Titanoboa, was discovered in Colombia and is estimated to have lived around 60 million years ago.

What these two monster snakes have in common is that they lived during periods of exceptionally warm global climates, said Jason Head, a Cambridge University paleontologist who was not involved in the study.

“These snakes are giant cold-blooded animals,” he said. “A snake requires higher temperatures” to grow into large sizes.

So does that mean that global warming will bring back monster-sized snakes?

In theory, it’s possible. But the climate is now warming too quickly for snakes to evolve again to be giants, he said.
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Sydney — Australian researchers have built an electrical generator that consumes carbon dioxide, generates electricity and admits no exhausts.  They say the technology could create a new industrial-scale carbon capture method.  

Scientists say too much carbon dioxide, or CO2, in the atmosphere is main driver of warming temperatures.  

Researchers at the University of Queensland have created a generator that consumes carbon dioxide and produces electricity.

The carbon-negative “nano-generator” has been built by the university’s Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation.

The prototype device uses what is known as a poly amine gel to absorb carbon dioxide to create an electrical current.  

The design team acknowledges the technology needs further development and refinement but believes it could help to significantly curb global CO2 emissions.

Zhuyuan Wang from the University of Queensland told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. the concept has great potential.  

“We actually just finished the proof of concept that proves this can work but the current power density and efficiency is not high enough to compete with other energy sources, like solar panel[s], like the wind turbine,” he said.

The Queensland researchers hope their prototype could have industrial applications to help, for example, power plants reduce their emissions, as well as smaller units for use at home.

Carbon capture and storage techniques are used by the oil and gas sector to try to offset its emissions of greenhouse gases. Current methods involve harnessing CO2 produced by power companies, for example, and then burying it deep underground where it becomes trapped in rock formations. There are several large-scale CO2 burial sites in the United States.

However, the Climate Council, an Australian advocacy organization, claims that carbon capture and storage technology “has not been trialled and tested – anywhere in the world – at the scale required to tackle the climate crisis.” 

Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organisation, states that “emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels make the largest contribution to climate change.” 

Australia is the world’s 14th highest emitter, contributing just over 1% of global emissions.  It has, however, some of the world’s highest per capita emissions.  Coal and gas generate much of Australia’s electricity, but solar and wind are leading an energy transformation. 

The Climate Council states that almost a third of Australia’s energy is renewable and will soon reach 50%.
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SEATTLE — Saturday marks marijuana culture’s high holiday, 4/20, when college students gather — at 4:20 p.m. — in clouds of smoke on campus quads and pot shops in legal-weed states thank their customers with discounts.

This year’s edition provides an occasion for activists to reflect on how far their movement has come, with recreational pot now allowed in nearly half the states and the nation’s capital. Many states have instituted “social equity” measures to help communities of color, harmed the most by the drug war, reap financial benefits from legalization. And the White House has shown an openness to marijuana reform.

Here’s a look at 4/20’s history:

WHY 4/20?

 

The origins of the date, and the term “420” generally, were long murky. Some claimed it referred to a police code for marijuana possession or that it derived from Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35,” with its refrain of “Everybody must get stoned” — 420 being the product of 12 times 35.

But the prevailing explanation is that it started in the 1970s with a group of bell-bottomed buddies from San Rafael High School, in California’s Marin County north of San Francisco, who called themselves “the Waldos.” A friend’s brother was afraid of getting busted for a patch of cannabis he was growing in the woods at nearby Point Reyes, so he drew a map and gave the teens permission to harvest the crop, the story goes.

During fall 1971, at 4:20 p.m., just after classes and football practice, the group would meet up at the school’s statue of chemist Louis Pasteur, smoke a joint and head out to search for the weed patch. They never did find it, but their private lexicon — “420 Louie” and later just “420” — would take on a life of its own.

The Waldos saved postmarked letters and other artifacts from the 1970s referencing “420,” which they now keep in a bank vault, and when the Oxford English Dictionary added the term in 2017, it cited some of those documents as the earliest recorded uses.

HOW DID 420 SPREAD?

A brother of one of the Waldos was a close friend of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, as Lesh once confirmed in an interview with the Huffington Post, now HuffPost. The Waldos began hanging out in the band’s circle and the slang spread.

Fast-forward to the early 1990s: Steve Bloom, a reporter for the cannabis magazine High Times, was at a Dead show when he was handed a flyer urging people to “meet at 4:20 on 4/20 for 420-ing in Marin County at the Bolinas Ridge sunset spot on Mt. Tamalpais.” High Times published it.

“It’s a phenomenon,” one of the Waldos, Steve Capper, now 69, once told The Associated Press. “Most things die within a couple years, but this just goes on and on. It’s not like someday somebody’s going to say, ‘OK, cannabis New Year’s is on June 23rd now.’”

While the Waldos came up with the term, the people who made the flier distributed at the Dead show — and effectively turned 4/20 into a holiday — remain unknown.

HOW IS IT CELEBRATED?

With weed, naturally.

Some celebrations are bigger than others: The Mile High 420 Festival in Denver, for example, typically draws thousands and describes itself as the largest free 4/20 event in the world. Hippie Hill in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park has also attracted massive crowds, but the gathering was canceled this year, with organizers citing a lack of financial sponsorship and city budget cuts.

College quads and statehouse lawns are also known for drawing 4/20 celebrations, with the University of Colorado Boulder historically among the largest, though not so much since administrators banned the annual smokeout over a decade ago.

Some breweries make beers that are 420-themed, but not laced, including SweetWater Brewing in Atlanta, which is throwing a 420 music festival this weekend and whose founders went to the University of Colorado.

Lagunitas Brewing in Petaluma, California, releases its “Waldos’ Special Ale” every year on 4/20 in partnership with the term’s coiners. That’s where the Waldos will be this Saturday to sample the beer, for which they picked out “hops that smell and taste like the dankest marijuana,” one Waldo, Dave Reddix, said via email.

4/20 has also become a big industry event, with vendors gathering to try each other’s wares.

THE POLITICS

The number of states allowing recreational marijuana has grown to 24 after recent legalization campaigns succeeded in Ohio, Minnesota and Delaware. Fourteen more states allow it for medical purposes, including Kentucky, where medical marijuana legislation that passed last year will take effect in 2025. Additional states permit only products with low THC, marijuana’s main psychoactive ingredient, for certain medical conditions.

But marijuana is still illegal under federal law. It is listed with drugs such as heroin under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has no federally accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.

The Biden administration, however, has taken some steps toward marijuana reform. The president has pardoned thousands of people who were convicted of “simple possession” on federal land and in the District of Columbia.

The Department of Health and Human Services last year recommended to the Drug Enforcement Administration that marijuana be reclassified as Schedule III, which would affirm its medical use under federal law.

According to a Gallup poll last fall, 70% of adults support legalization, the highest level yet recorded by the polling firm and more than double the roughly 30% who backed it in 2000.

Vivian McPeak, who helped found Seattle’s Hempfest more than three decades ago, reflected on the extent to which the marijuana industry has evolved during his lifetime.

“It’s surreal to drive by stores that are selling cannabis,” he said. “A lot of people laughed at us, saying, ‘This will never happen.’”

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

McPeak described 4/20 these days as a “mixed bag.” Despite the legalization movement’s progress, many smaller growers are struggling to compete against large producers, he said, and many Americans are still behind bars for weed convictions.

“We can celebrate the victories that we’ve had, and we can also strategize and organize to further the cause,” he said. “Despite the kind of complacency that some people might feel, we still got work to do. We’ve got to keep burning that shoe leather until we get everybody out of jails and prisons.”

For the Waldos, 4/20 signifies above all else a good time.

“We’re not political. We’re jokesters,” Capper has said. “But there was a time that we can’t forget, when it was secret, furtive. … The energy of the time was more charged, more exciting in a certain way.

“I’m not saying that’s all good — it’s not good they were putting people in jail,” he continued. “You wouldn’t want to go back there.”
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