The Biden administration on Monday announced a White House initiative to improve how the federal government approaches and funds research into the health of women, who make up more than half of the U.S. population but remain understudied and underrepresented in health research. 

That underrepresentation can lead to big gaps in research and potentially serious consequences for the health of women across the country, Biden administration officials and others told reporters during a White House conference call to announce the new effort. 

The White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research will be led by first lady Jill Biden and the White House Gender Policy Council. 

President Joe Biden said he’s long been a believer in the “power of research” to help save lives and get high-quality health care to the people who need it. Surrounded by the first lady and other officials who will have a role in the government-wide effort, Biden signed paperwork Monday in the Oval Office to direct federal departments and agencies to begin their work. 

“To achieve scientific breakthroughs and strengthen our ability to prevent, detect and treat diseases, we have to be bold,” the president said in a written statement. He said the initiative will “drive innovation in women’s health and close research gaps.” 

Jill Biden said during the conference call that she met earlier this year with former California first lady and women’s health advocate Maria Shriver, who “raised the need for an effort inside and outside government to close the research gaps in women’s health that have persisted far too long.” 

“When I brought this issue to my husband, Joe, a few months ago, he listened. And then he took action,” the first lady said. “That is what he does.” 

Jill Biden has worked on women’s health issues since the early 1990s after several of her friends were diagnosed with breast cancer, and she created a program in Delaware to teach high school girls about breast health care. 

Shriver said she and other advocates of women’s health have spent decades asking for equity in research but that the Democratic president and first lady “understand that we cannot answer the question of how to treat women medically if we do not have the answers that only come from research.” 

Shriver said women make up two-thirds of those afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis and represent more than three-fourths of those who are diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. 

Women suffer from depression and anxiety at twice the levels of men, and women of color are two to three times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women, she said. Millions of other women grapple daily with the side effects of menopause. 

“The bottom line is that we can’t treat or prevent them from becoming sick if we have not invested in funding the necessary research,” Shriver said on the call. “That changes today.” 

Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said the leaders of government departments and agencies important to women’s health research will participate, including those from the departments of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Defense and the National Institutes of Health, among others. 

Women’s health issues were raised by most of the women on the Senate health committee during its recent confirmation hearing on Dr. Monica Bertagnolli’s nomination to become permanent director of the National Institutes of Health, one of the world’s leading biomedical research agencies. Bertagnolli gave a broad answer in which she said far too little is known about women’s health through all stages of life. 

President Biden’s memorandum directs members to report back within 45 days with “concrete recommendations” to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of women’s health issues. It also asks them to set “priority areas of focus,” such as research ranging from heart attacks in women to menopause, where additional investments could be “transformative.” 

The president also wants collaboration with the scientific, private sector and philanthropic communities. 

Carolyn Mazure will chair the research effort. Mazure joined the first lady’s office from the Yale School of Medicine, where she created its Women’s Health Research Center. 
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In the Western United States, foresters are working to minimize threats from wildfires by thinning nearly 20 million hectares of forests. From the Rocky Mountain state of Colorado, Shelley Schlender reports on how scientists are using mushrooms to reduce wildfire risks organically.
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Residents of a fishing town in southwestern Iceland left their homes Saturday after increasing concern about a potential volcanic eruption caused civil defense authorities to declare a state of emergency in the region.

Police decided to evacuate Grindavik after recent seismic activity in the area moved south toward the town and monitoring indicated that a corridor of magma, or semi-molten rock, now extends under the community, Iceland’s Meteorological Office said. The town of 3,400 is on the Reykjanes Peninsula, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the capital, Reykjavik.

“At this stage, it is not possible to determine exactly whether and where magma might reach the surface,” the Meteorological Office said.

Authorities also raised their aviation alert to orange, indicating an increased risk of a volcanic eruption. Volcanic eruptions pose a serious hazard to aviation because they can spew highly abrasive ash high into the atmosphere, where it can cause jet engines to fail, damage flight control systems and reduce visibility.

A major eruption in Iceland in 2010 caused widespread disruption to air travel between Europe and North America, costing airlines an estimated $3 billion as they canceled more than 100,000 flights.

The evacuation comes after the region was shaken by hundreds of small earthquakes every day for more than two weeks as scientists monitor a buildup of magma some 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) underground.

Concern about a possible eruption increased in the early hours Thursday when a magnitude 4.8 earthquake hit the area, forcing the internationally known Blue Lagoon geothermal resort to close temporarily.

The seismic activity started in an area north of Grindavik where there is a network of 2,000-year-old craters, geology professor Pall Einarrson, told Iceland’s RUV. The magma corridor is about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) long and spreading, he said.

“The biggest earthquakes originated there, under this old series of craters, but since then it [the magma corridor] has been getting longer, went under the urban area in Grindavík and is heading even further and towards the sea,” he said. 
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Hundreds of environmental activists marched in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Saturday demanding drastic curbs on plastic production, ahead of a meeting to negotiate a global plastics treaty.

Representatives of more than 170 nations will meet in Nairobi Monday to negotiate what concrete measures should be included in a binding worldwide treaty to end plastic pollution.

Marchers waved placards reading “Plastic crisis = climate crisis” and “End multigenerational toxic exposure.”

They chanted “let polluters pay the price” as they walked slowly behind a ceremonial band from central Nairobi to a park in the west of the capital.

Nations agreed last year to finalize by 2024 a world-first U.N. treaty to address the scourge of plastics found everywhere from mountain tops to ocean depths and within human blood and breast milk.

Negotiators have met twice already but Nairobi is the first opportunity to debate a draft treaty published in September that outlines the many pathways to tackling the plastic problem.

The Nov. 13-19 meeting is the third of five sessions in a fast-tracked process aiming to conclude negotiations next year so the treaty can be adopted by mid-2025.

At the last talks in Paris, campaigners accused large plastic-producing nations of deliberately stalling after two days were lost debating procedural points.

This time around, the sessions have been extended by two days but there are still concerns a weaker treaty could emerge if time for detailed discussion is swallowed up going in circles.

Global plastic production has more than doubled since the start of the century to reach 460 million tons and it could triple by 2060 if nothing is done. Only nine percent is currently recycled.

Microplastics have been found everywhere from clouds to the deepest sea trenches, as well as throughout the human body.

The effects of plastics on human health remain poorly understood but there is growing concern among scientists.

Plastic also contributes to global warming, accounting for 3.4% of global emissions in 2019, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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The proportion of U.S. kindergartners exempted from school vaccination requirements has hit its highest level ever, 3%, U.S. health officials said Thursday.

More parents are questioning routine childhood vaccinations that they used to automatically accept, an effect of the political schism that emerged during the pandemic around COVID-19 vaccines, experts say.

Even though more kids were given exemptions, the national vaccination rate held steady: 93% of kindergartners got their required shots for the 2022-23 school year, the same as the year before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Thursday. The rate was 95% in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The bad news is that it’s gone down since the pandemic and still hasn’t rebounded,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, a University of Colorado pediatric infectious diseases specialist. “The good news is that the vast majority of parents are still vaccinating their kids according to the recommended schedule.”

All U.S. states and territories require that children attending child care centers and schools be vaccinated against a number of diseases, including, measles, mumps, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and chickenpox.

All states allow exemptions for children with medical conditions that prevents them from receiving certain vaccines. And most also permit exemptions for religious or other nonmedical reasons.

In the last decade, the percentage of kindergartners with medical exemptions has held steady, at about 0.2%. But the percentage with nonmedical exemptions has inched up, lifting the overall exemption rate from 1.6% in the 2011-12 school year to 3% last year.

Last year, more than 115,000 kindergartners were exempt from at least one vaccine, the CDC estimated.

The rates vary across the country.

Ten states — all in the West or Midwest — reported that more than 5% of kindergartners were exempted from at least one kind of required vaccine. Idaho had the highest percentage, with 12% of kindergartners receiving at least one exemption. In contrast, 0.1% had exemptions in New York.

The rates can be influenced by state laws or policies can make it harder or easier to obtain exemptions, and by local attitudes among families and doctors about the need to get children vaccinated.

“Sometimes these jumps in exemptions can be very local, and it may not reflect a whole state,” said O’Leary, who chairs an American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious diseases.

Hawaii saw the largest jump, with the exemption rate rising to 6.4%, nearly double the year before.

Officials there said it’s not due to any law or policy change. Rather, “we have observed that there has been misinformation/disinformation impacting people’s decision to vaccinate or not via social media platforms,” officials at the state’s health department said in a statement.

Connecticut and Maine saw significant declines, which CDC officials attributed to recent policy changes that made it harder to get exemptions.

Health officials say attaining 95% vaccination coverage is important to prevent outbreaks of preventable diseases, especially of measles, which is extremely contagious.

The U.S. has seen measles outbreaks begin when travelers infected elsewhere came to communities with low vaccination rates. That happened in 2019 when about 1,300 measles cases were reported — the most in the U.S. in nearly 30 years. Most of the cases were in were in Orthodox Jewish communities with low vaccination rates.

One apparent paradox in the report: The national vaccination rate held steady even as exemptions increased. How could that be?

CDC officials say it’s because there are actually three groups of children in the vaccination statistics. One is those who get all the shots. A second is those who get exemptions. The third are children who didn’t seek exemptions but also didn’t get all their shots and paperwork completed at the time the data was collected.

“Last year, those kids in that third group probably decreased,” offsetting the increase in the exemption group, the CDC’s Shannon Stokley said.
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Global cases of tuberculosis continued to rise last year, as disruption to health services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic set back efforts to fight the disease, according to the latest annual report from the World Health Organization. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Iceland declared a state of emergency on Friday after a series of powerful earthquakes rocked the country’s southwestern Reykjanes peninsula in what could be a precursor to a volcanic eruption. 

“The National police chief … declares a state of emergency for civil defense due to the intense earthquake (activity) at Sundhnjukagigar, north of Grindavik,” the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management said in a statement. 

“Earthquakes can become larger than those that have occurred, and this series of events could lead to an eruption,” the administration warned. 

The Icelandic Met Office (IMO) said an eruption could take place “in several days.” 

The village of Grindavik, home to around 4,000 people, is located some three kilometers (1.86 miles) southwest of the area where Friday’s earthquake swarm was registered. 

It has evacuation plans in place in case of an eruption. 

Thousands of tremors since October

Around 1730 GMT, two strong earthquakes were felt as far away as the capital Reykjavik some 40 kilometers away, and along much of the country’s southern coast, rattling windows and household objects. 

According to preliminary IMO figures, the biggest tremor had a magnitude of 5.2, north of Grindavik. 

Police closed a road running north-south to Grindavik on Friday after it was damaged by the tremors. 

Some 24,000 tremors have been registered on the peninsula since late October, according to the IMO, with “a dense swarm” of nearly 800 quakes registered between midnight and 1400 GMT Friday. 

The IMO noted an accumulation of magma underground at a depth of about five kilometers (3.1 miles). Should it start moving towards the surface, it could lead to a volcanic eruption. 

“The most likely scenario is that it will take several days rather than hours for magma to reach the surface,” it said. “If a fissure were to appear where the seismic activity is at its highest now, lava would flow to the southeast and to the west, but not towards Grindavik.” 

Nonetheless, the Department of Civil Protection said it was sending the patrol vessel Thor to Grindavik “for security purposes.” 

Emergency shelters and help centers were to open in Grindavik later Friday, as well as three other locations in southern Iceland, for information purposes and to assist people on the move. 

On Thursday, the Blue Lagoon, a popular tourist destination located near Grindavik famed for its geothermal spas and luxury hotels, closed as a precaution following another earthquake swarm. 

Also nearby is the Svartsengi geothermal plant, the main supplier of electricity and water to 30,000 residents on the Reykjanes peninsula. 

The plant has contingency plans in place to protect the plant and its workers in the event of an eruption. 

Since 2021, three eruptions have taken place on the Reykjanes peninsula, in March 2021, August 2022 and July 2023.  

Those three were located far from any infrastructure or populated areas. 

Cycle could could last decades, centuries

Iceland has 33 active volcanic systems, the highest number in Europe. 

The North Atlantic island straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a crack in the ocean floor separating the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. 

Prior to the March 2021 eruption in an uninhabited area around Mount Fagradalsfjall, the Reykjanes volcanic system had remained dormant for eight centuries. 

Volcanologists believe the new cycle of increased activity could last for several decades or centuries. 

An April 2010 massive eruption at another Iceland volcano, the Eyjafjallajokull in the south of the island, forced the cancellation of some 100,000 flights, leaving more than 10 million travelers stranded. 
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Global cases of tuberculosis — also known as TB — continued to rise last year as disruption to health services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic set back efforts to fight the disease, according to the latest report from the World Health Organization.

Tuberculosis, an infectious disease that usually attacks the lungs, is both preventable and curable. It caused an estimated 1.3 million deaths in 2022 — a 19% drop from the year before, said the annual WHO report published last week.

However, there was a small increase in the number of global TB cases to an estimated 10.6 million. Some 40% of people living with TB are undiagnosed and untreated.

The disease is just behind COVID-19 as the world’s deadliest infectious illness, with India, Indonesia and the Philippines particularly affected.

COVID disruption

The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020, saw health services overwhelmed in many parts of the world. TB diagnosis and treatment levels plummeted, said Dr. Lucica Ditiu, the executive director of the Geneva-based Stop TB Partnership.

“Unfortunately, the incidence of TB is growing. We used to have a decline of 2% per year. And then due to COVID, we have now an increase for the last two years — 2021 and 2022 — of almost 4%,” she told VOA.

The World Health Organization estimates COVID-related disruptions resulted in almost half a million excess deaths from TB in the three years from 2020 to 2022.

Childhood TB

The report also reveals a concerning lack of progress in some areas, according to Ditiu.

“We see … a pretty difficult situation for people with drug-resistant TB as well as childhood TB. So [with] drug-resistant TB, just short of 200,000 were diagnosed and put in treatment,” she said. “And exactly as the WHO said, two out of five people with drug-resistant TB had access to drug-resistant TB treatment. It’s actually the access to diagnosis which is limiting that.”

Ditiu said there are an estimated 1.3 million children with TB, about 12% of the world total. Children make up 16% of those who die from TB, she said.

Improved diagnosis

However, the focus on fighting tuberculosis appears to be getting back on track. The total number of cases diagnosed globally last year was 7.5 million, the highest ever recorded.

“This shows that the countries buckled up to recover after COVID – and even jump above the level before COVID,” Ditiu said.

Vaccine hopes

A promising TB vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline, known as M72, is currently in the final stage of trials. Sixteen other vaccines are undergoing earlier stages of testing.

“We need a vaccine. So that will be the game changer,” said Ditiu.

The 19% fall in deaths from TB from 2018 to 2022 is still far short of the World Health Organization’s target of a 75% reduction by 2025.

Funding also fell short, reaching less than half of the WHO target of at least $13 billion on TB diagnosis, treatment and prevention services in 2022.

Governments committed to spending $22 billion a year on TB by 2027 at a special U.N. meeting in September.
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The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration — NOAA — reports the U.S. has seen 25 separate weather or climate “disasters” — events causing damage or losses exceeding $1 billion — so far this year, the highest number since the agency began tracking such events 43 years ago.  

In a report issued this week, NOAA said severe thunderstorms moving through Oklahoma and other southern Plains states September 23 and 24 brought high winds and large hail, causing enough damage to rank as the 25th weather disaster so far in 2023. 

The agency said disasters through October of this year included 19 severe storms, two flooding events, a winter storm in the northeastern U.S., a drought and heat wave in the central and southern states, one wildfire (on Maui in August), and one tropical cyclone (Hurricane Idalia in Florida). 

NOAA said these events took the lives of 464 people and had a severe economic impact on the regions where they occurred. The total cost in damages from these events was more than $73 billion. The year-to-date tally exceeds 2020, which saw 19 disasters through October.  

NOAA reports the annual average number of such disaster events between 1980 and 2022 was 8.1 per year. The agency reports the annual average jumped in the most recent five years (2018-2022) to 18 disasters per year. 

Since 1980, the U.S. has sustained 373 separate weather and climate events resulting in overall damages or costs reaching or exceeding $1 billion, according to NOAA. The total cost of these 373 events exceeds $2.645 trillion. 
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U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said talks this week with his Chinese counterpart resulted in “some agreement” on climate issues that leave him optimistic about the U.N. climate summit scheduled for later this month in Dubai. 

Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, Kerry said Friday that he met for four days this week with Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua in California. He described their talks as “productive” and, without providing details, said they had reached “some agreement on reducing emissions and the direction we have to go.” 

Kerry said, “I am hopeful about that,” adding that details of the agreements would be released soon. 

The U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP28, is scheduled for the end of this month. The climate conference seeks to meet and expand on climate goals established during the Paris agreement of 2015, in which some 200 nations agreed to limit the rise of global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or about pre-industrial age levels. 

Kerry said the goal, as in the previous climate conferences, “is to open up the opportunity to keep 1.5 degrees alive.” 

Any agreements between the United States and China — the world’s two largest polluters — would be integral to the success of the conference. 

The U.S. climate envoy said the use of fossil fuels — coal in particular — is likely to be a central part of the discussion at the conference. China is the world’s largest user of fossil fuels and relies on coal for most of its energy production. 

In comments at the Singapore forum Friday, Kerry said, “It is irresponsible to be funding or building a coal-fired power plant anywhere in the world. And who is allowed to get away with doing that, when it is not the only option for what we could be doing.” 

Reuters reports Xie told a diplomatic climate forum in September that phasing out fossil fuels is “unrealistic” for China. 

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
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Warmer ocean temperatures are hurting coral reefs off the U.S. state of Florida. For VOA, Genia Dulot took a look at what’s happening underwater.
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Rain in New Delhi and its suburbs brought relief Friday morning to the Indian capital, where authorities were mulling seeding clouds to improve the toxic air gripping the city.

New Delhi, which was the most polluted in the world until Thursday, saw its air quality index (AQI) improve to 127 early Friday – a welcome change from the “hazardous” 400-500 level seen during the past week, according to the Swiss group IQAir.

India’s weather department has forecast intermittent rain over the city and adjoining areas until early noon on Friday. Light showers are also expected in neighboring states like Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan.

On Friday morning, New Delhi was the 10th most polluted city in the world, while Kolkata, in India’s east, topped the global chart with an AQI of 303.

Meanwhile, air in the financial capital of Mumbai has markedly improved due to showers in nearby coastal areas.

This year, attention on the worsening air quality has cast a shadow over the cricket World Cup hosted by India.

Scientists and authorities were planning to seed clouds in New Delhi around Nov. 20 to trigger heavy rain, the first such attempt to clean the air.

A thick layer of smog envelops the city every year ahead of winter as heavy, cold air traps dust, vehicle emissions and smoke from burning crop stubble in Punjab and Haryana.

Friday’s rain comes two days before the Diwali festival, when many people defy a ban on firecrackers, causing a spike in air pollution.

The local government of the city of 20 million people, spread over roughly 1,500 square kilometers, has already closed all schools, stopped construction activities, and said it will impose restrictions on vehicle use to control pollution.
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Surgeons have performed the world’s first transplant of an entire human eye, an extraordinary addition to a face transplant — although it’s far too soon to know if the man will ever see through his new left eye. 

An accident with high-voltage power lines destroyed most of Aaron James’ face and one eye. His right eye still works. But surgeons at NYU Langone Health hoped replacing the missing one would yield better cosmetic results for his new face, because it would support the transplanted eye socket and lid. 

The NYU team announced Thursday that so far, it’s doing just that. James is recovering well from the dual transplant last May, and the donated eye looks remarkably healthy. 

“It feels good. I still don’t have any movement in it yet. My eyelid, I can’t blink yet. But I’m getting sensation now,” James told The Associated Press as doctors examined his progress recently. 

“You got to start somewhere, there’s got to be a first person somewhere,” said James, 46, of Hot Springs, Arkansas. “Maybe you’ll learn something from it that will help the next person.” 

Today, transplants of the cornea — the clear tissue in front of the eye — are common to treat certain types of vision loss. But transplanting the whole eye — the eyeball, its blood supply and the critical optic nerve that must connect it to the brain — is considered a moonshot in the quest to cure blindness. 

Whatever happens next, James’ surgery offers scientists an unprecedented window into how the human eye tries to heal. 

“We’re not claiming that we are going to restore sight,” said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, NYU’s plastic surgery chief, who led the transplant. “But there’s no doubt in my mind we are one step closer.” 

Some specialists had feared the eye would quickly shrivel like a raisin. Instead, when Rodriguez propped open James’ left eyelid last month, the donated hazel-colored eye was as plump and full of fluid as his own blue eye. Doctors see good blood flow and no sign of rejection. 

Now researchers have begun analyzing scans of James’ brain that detected some puzzling signals from that all-important but injured optic nerve. 

One scientist who has long studied how to make eye transplants a reality called the surgery exciting. 

“It’s an amazing validation” of animal experiments that have kept transplanted eyes alive, said Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg, chair of ophthalmology at Stanford University. 

The hurdle is how to regrow the optic nerve, although animal studies are making strides, Goldberg said. He praised the NYU team’s “audacity” in even aiming for optic nerve repair and said he hopes the transplant will spur more research. 

“We’re really on the precipice of being able to do this,” Goldberg said. 

James was working for a power line company in June 2021 when he was shocked by a live wire. He nearly died. Ultimately, he lost his left arm, requiring a prosthetic. His damaged left eye was so painful it had to be removed. Multiple reconstructive surgeries couldn’t repair extensive facial injuries including his missing nose and lips. 

James pushed through physical therapy until he was strong enough to escort his daughter Allie to a high school homecoming ceremony, wearing a face mask and eye patch. Still, he required breathing and feeding tubes, and he longed to smell, taste and eat solid food again. 

“In his mind and his heart, it’s him — so I didn’t care that, you know, he didn’t have a nose. But I did care that it bothered him,” said his wife, Meagan James. 

Face transplants remain rare and risky. James’ is only the 19th in the United States, the fifth Rodriguez has performed. The eye experiment added even more complexity. But James figured he’d be no worse off if the donated eye failed. 

Three months after James was placed on the national transplant waiting list, a matching donor was found. Kidneys, a liver and pancreas from the donor, a man in his 30s, saved three other people. 

During James’ 21-hour operation, surgeons added another experimental twist: When they spliced together the donated optic nerve to what remained of James’ original, they injected special stem cells from the donor in hopes of spurring its repair. 

Last month, tingles heralded healing facial nerves. James can’t yet open the eyelid and wears a patch to protect it. But as Rodriguez pushed on the closed eye, James felt a sensation — although on his nose rather than his eyelid, presumably until slow-growing nerves get reoriented. The surgeon also detected subtle movements beginning in muscles around the eye. 

Then came a closer look. NYU ophthalmologist Dr. Vaidehi Dedania ran a battery of tests. She found expected damage in the light-sensing retina in the back of the eye. But she said it appears to have enough special cells called photoreceptors to do the job of converting light to electrical signals, one step in creating vision. 

Normally, the optic nerve then would send those signals to the brain to be interpreted. James’ optic nerve clearly hasn’t healed. Yet when light was flashed into the donated eye during an MRI, the scan recorded some sort of brain signaling. 

That both excited and baffled researchers, although it wasn’t the right type for vision and may simply be a fluke, cautioned Dr. Steven Galetta, NYU’s neurology chair. Only time and more study may tell. 

As for James, “we’re just taking it one day at a time,” he said. 
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Recent heavy rain and flooding killed 15 people in Kenya and displaced thousands of others, the Kenya Red Cross Society says.

The heavy rainfall also killed livestock and destroyed businesses and farmland, said Peter Murgor, a disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation manager with the Kenya Red Cross Society.

“Schools [are] being affected … and even hospital facilities in some of the places that have been marooned are also affected,” Murgor told VOA.

The situation could get worse, Murgor said.

In its forecast for this year’s last quarter, the Kenya Meteorological Department had warned the country will experience above-average rainfall, driven by warmer sea surface temperatures over the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.

“We are informed by the [weather forecaster] that November normally is the peak,” Murgor told VOA. “If November is the peak and we are just at the beginning of November, chances are … the situation is likely to worsen in the month towards the end, probably seeing a bit more people being displaced, probably seeing a bit more loss of livelihoods.”

Nearly half of the 47 counties in Kenya are at risk, he said, with the northeastern part of the country being the most affected.

Heavy rains also have affected neighboring Uganda, Ethiopia and Somalia, where the government declared a state of emergency after 29 people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced as a result of the extreme weather.

Meanwhile, in Kenya, Murgor said flash floods would likely cause more problems.

“We are likely to see a rise in disease outbreak as a secondary impact of the flooding,” he said. “But from the Kenya Red Cross prospect, we are working together with the ministry of health, with the government, with stakeholders, trying to see how to mitigate against the effect, how to anticipate and then try to act early [and] work with farmers to do post-harvest loss management.”

He also said that in cases in which early warnings are possible, communities would be alerted about possible floods so people can move to safer ground. 
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Crying in a hospital bed with a nebulizer mask on his tiny face, 1-month-old Ayansh Tiwari has a thick, hacking cough. His doctors blame the acrid air that blights New Delhi every year.

The spartan emergency room of the government-run Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya hospital in the Indian capital is crowded with children struggling to breathe — many with asthma and pneumonia, which spike as air pollution peaks each winter in the megacity of 30 million people.

Delhi regularly ranks among the most polluted major cities on the planet, with a melange of factory and vehicle emissions exacerbated by seasonal agricultural fires.

“Wherever you see there is poisonous smog,” said Ayansh’s mother Julie Tiwari, 26, as she rocked the baby on her lap, attempting to calm him.

“I try to keep the doors and windows closed as much as possible. But it’s like breathing poison all the time. I feel so helpless,” she told AFP, fighting back tears.

On Thursday, the level of PM2.5 particles — the smallest and most harmful, which can enter the bloodstream — topped 390 micrograms per cubic meter, according to monitoring firm IQAir, more than 25 times the daily maximum recommended by the World Health Organization.

Government efforts have so far failed to solve the country’s air quality problem, and a study in the Lancet medical journal attributed 1.67 million premature deaths to air pollution in the world’s most populous country in 2019.

‘Maddening rush’

“It’s a maddening rush in our emergency room during this time,” said Dhulika Dhingra, a pediatric pulmonologist at the hospital, which serves poor neighborhoods in one of Delhi’s most polluted areas.

The foul air severely impacts children, with devastating effects on their health and development.

Scientific evidence shows children who breathe polluted air are at higher risk of developing acute respiratory infections, a UNICEF report said last year.

A study published in the Lung India journal in 2021 found nearly one out of every three schoolchildren in Delhi had asthma and airflow obstruction.

Children are more vulnerable to air pollution than adults because they breathe more quickly and their brains, lungs and other organs are not fully developed.

“They can’t sit in one place, they keep running and with that, the respiratory rate increases even more. That is why they are more prone to the effects of pollution,” said Dhingra.

“This season is very difficult for them because they can hardly breathe.”

Vegetable vendor Imtiaz Qureshi’s 11-month-old son, Mohammad Arsalan, was admitted to the hospital overnight with breathing issues.

“We have to live day in and day out in this air,” said the distraught 40-year-old, who pulls his cart through the streets every day.

“If I go out, the air will kill me. If I don’t, poverty will kill me.”

‘Toxic environment’

The hospital provides treatment and medicine free of cost — none of its patients can afford private health care, and many cannot buy even a single air purifier for their one-room homes in the city’s sprawling slums.

Pediatrician Seema Kapoor, the hospital’s director, said patient inflows had risen steadily since the weather cooled, trapping pollutants closer to the ground.

“About 30-40% of the total attendance is primarily because of respiratory illnesses,” she said.

Pulmonologist Dhingra said the only advice they can offer parents is to restrict their children’s outdoor activities as much as possible.

“Imagine telling a parent not to let the child go out and play in this toxic environment.”

The Delhi government has announced emergency school closures, stopped construction and banned diesel vehicles from entering the city in a bid to bring down pollution levels.

But stubble burning by farmers in the neighboring agrarian states, which contributes significantly to Delhi’s pollution, continues unabated, drawing a rebuke from the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Delhi’s choked air is resulting in the “complete murder of our young people,” said the court.

Housewife Arshi Wasim, 28, brought her 18-month-old younger daughter Nida Wasim to the hospital with pneumonia.

“She coughs non-stop,” she said. “She doesn’t take milk or even water because her lungs are choked. Sometimes we have to give her oxygen and rush her to the doctor two or three times a day.

“Every year it’s the same story.”
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Transsexual people can be godparents at Roman Catholic baptisms, witnesses at religious weddings and receive baptism themselves, the Vatican’s doctrinal office said on Wednesday, responding to questions from a bishop. 

The department, known as the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, was vague, however, in response to a question about whether a same-sex couple could have a church baptism for an adopted child or one obtained through a surrogate mother. 

Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro, Brazil, sent the doctrinal office six questions in July regarding LGBTQ people and their participation in the sacraments of baptism and matrimony. 

The three pages of questions and answers were signed by the department’s head, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez, and approved by Pope Francis on October 31. They were posted in Italian on the department’s website Wednesday. 

Francis, 86, has tried to make the church more welcoming to the LGBTQ community without changing church teachings, including one saying that same-sex attraction is not sinful but same-sex acts are. 

In response to a question of whether transsexual people can be baptized, the doctrinal office said they could with some conditions and as long as there is “no risk of causing a public scandal or disorientation among the faithful.” 

It said a transsexual people could be godparents at a baptism at the discretion of the local priest, as well as a witness at a church wedding, but the local priest should exercise “pastoral prudence” in his decision. 

A person in a same-sex relationship could also be a witness at a Catholic wedding, the office said, citing current church canonical legislation that contained no prohibition against it. 

The response was less clear regarding persons in same-sex relationships and their role in baptism, which is the initiation into the church for infants, children or adults. 

The Brazilian bishop sought guidance on whether a same-sex couple who had adopted a child or obtained it from a surrogate mother could have that child baptized in a Catholic ceremony. 

The response said that for the child of a same-sex couple to be baptized, there had to be “a well-founded hope that it would be educated in the Catholic religion.” 

There was a similarly nuanced response to a question about whether a person in a same-sex relationship could be a godparent at a church baptism. It said the person had to “lead a life that conforms to the faith.” 
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A new study by the World Health Organization and International Labour Organization finds nearly 1 in 3 deaths from non-melanoma skin cancer are caused by working in the sun.

“We know that around the world, 1.6 billion workers are exposed to solar ultraviolet radiation globally. Depending on where you live, you will have more or less protection,” said Maria Neira, director of the WHO department of environment, climate change and health.

“The number of those deaths from occupational non-melanoma skin cancer burden has doubled over the last 20 years and, of course, unfortunately, we can expect to see many cases in the future. It takes a number of years to develop a cancer,” she said.

The joint study issued Wednesday provides data for 183 countries and produces the first comprehensive global picture of the extent of this growing occupational health problem. Authors of the study say governments can use their data to identify unsafe workplaces and design policies to protect workers from the harmful effects of the sun’s rays.

According to the joint estimates, 1 in 4 of the 1.6 billion people of working age was exposed to UV radiation while working outdoors in 2019 and nearly 19,000 died from non-melanoma skin cancer.

“We pooled a large number of case control studies, epidemiological evidence in three regions of the world, 90,000 people, and found there was a 60% increased risk” of developing non-melanoma skin cancer among working people exposed to solar UV radiation, said Frank Pega, a technical officer in the WHO department of environment, climate change and health, and the report’s lead author.

“It is not only a question of life and death,” he said, “but actually skin cancer is extremely disabling. Skin cancer poses a lot of lesions on your skin and your face, and your arms and is highly visible. It is a really big burden for people — half a million lives lost every year to this horrible risk factor.”

The report says occupational exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation is estimated to have decreased by almost one-third between 2000 and 2019. However, it noted that during this same period, “there has been an 88% increase in non-melanoma skin cancer deaths and a 77% increase in non-melanoma skin cancer” due to occupational ultraviolet radiation.

Pega said that these large work-related occupational skin cancer deaths were very unusual in that they were almost equally distributed around the world.

“Skin cancer normally is concentrated in high income countries, in the European and North American regions and in Australasia. But this burden is different. It actually affects low and middle-income countries.

“So, it is really a global health issue, and it actually is equally present in Africa as it is in Europe, North America and Southeast Asia,” he said. “So that is very new and that is something that we have to think about.”

The WHO and ILO are calling for action to mitigate this serious workplace hazard.

“There are effective solutions to protect workers from the sun’s harmful rays, and prevent their deadly effects,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general.

Echoing the WHO chief’s sentiments, Joaquim Pintado Nunes, head of the ILO’s Labor Administration, inspection and occupation safety and health branch, said, “We know that preventing death from this kind of exposure is quite cost effective and does not require much.”

“For example, organizing work in a way to avoid workers to be exposed and working under the sun at given hours of the day, providing shade for the workers, hydrating also the workers while they work, providing clothing that will also cover the skin to protect it from the sun,” he said. “I would say with a very minor investment, this impressive number of 19,000 deaths could, as a matter of fact, be prevented.”

While agreeing with the substance of these measures, Pega observed that a large category of workers is cut out of these protections because of inequalities baked into the system.

“We cannot forget informal economy workers,” he said. “These are 61% of all workers globally and they are likely much more commonly to be outdoor workers. So, they will be most affected, and often not have any protections from employers because they do not have one or actually any protections from labor, labor laws or labor institutions because there is no employer to work with.”

WHO and ILO warn these deaths will continue to increase unless governments, employers, and workers’ representatives cooperate to enact life-saving policies that will protect workers from the sun’s harmful rays.
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A new United Nations report says the amount of fossil fuels produced in 2030 will far exceed the levels needed for the world to alleviate global warming. 

The study by the U.N. Environment Program says 20 of the world’s major fossil fuel producing nations are on track to produce about 110% more oil, gas and coal in 2030 than the amounts consistent with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees celsius.

Holding down global temperatures to a 1.5 degree increase compared with pre-industrial levels was a key goal of the global climate pact signed in Paris in 2015. 

The 20 countries in the report include Australia, Brazil, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, which account for 82% of fossil fuel production and 73% of consumption.  

The report says none of them have committed to reducing production of oil, gas and coal to levels that would meet the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold. Many of those countries have continued to offer government subsidies or tax breaks to fossil fuel companies, while others produce oil through state-owned enterprises. 

The report was also produced by experts with the Stockholm Environment Institute, the  

International Institute for Sustainable Development, and research groups Climate Analytics and E3G.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.  
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This year is “virtually certain” to be the warmest in 125,000 years, European Union scientists said on Wednesday, after data showed last month was the world’s hottest October in that period.

Last month smashed through the previous October temperature record, from 2019, by a massive margin, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.

“The record was broken by 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is a huge margin,” said C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess, who described the October temperature anomaly as “very extreme.”

The heat is a result of continued greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, combined with the emergence this year of the El Nino weather pattern, which warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Globally, the average surface air temperature in October was 1.7 degrees Celsius warmer than the same month in 1850-1900, which Copernicus defines as the pre-industrial period.

The record-breaking October means 2023 is now “virtually certain” to be the warmest year recorded, C3S said in a statement. The previous record was 2016, another El Nino year.

Copernicus’ dataset goes back to 1940. “When we combine our data with the IPCC, then we can say that this is the warmest year for the last 125,000 years,” Burgess said.

The longer-term data from the U.N. climate science panel IPCC includes readings from sources such as ice cores, tree rings and coral deposits.

The only other time before October a month breached the temperature record by such a large margin was in September 2023.

“September really, really surprised us. So after last month, it’s hard to determine whether we’re in a new climate state. But now records keep tumbling and they’re surprising me less than they did a month ago,” Burgess said.

Michael Mann, a climate scientist at University of Pennsylvania, said: “Most El Nino years are now record-breakers, because the extra global warmth of El Nino adds to the steady ramp of human-caused warming.”

Climate change is fueling increasingly destructive extremes. This year, that included floods that killed thousands of people in Libya, severe heatwaves in South America, and Canada’s worst wildfire season on record.

“We must not let the devastating floods, wildfires, storms, and heatwaves seen this year become the new normal,” said Piers Forster, climate scientist at University of Leeds.

“By rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, we can halve the rate of warming,” he added.

Despite countries setting increasingly ambitious targets to gradually cut emissions, so far that has not happened. Global CO2 emissions hit a record high in 2022.
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After a century-long absence, gray wolves have returned to California forests. Though some wildlife experts are thrilled to see the their return, some farmers and ranchers worry the wolves present a threat to their animals. From Tulare County, California, VOA’s Robin Guess reports. Camera: Matt Dibble, Roy Kim.
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Alarmed by yet another jump in syphilis cases in newborns, U.S. health officials are calling for stepped-up prevention measures, including encouraging millions of women of childbearing age and their partners to get tested for the sexually transmitted disease.

More than 3,700 babies were born with congenital syphilis in 2022 — 10 times more than a decade before and a 32% increase from 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. Syphilis caused 282 stillbirth and infant deaths, nearly 16 times more than the 2012 deaths.

The 2022 count was the most in more than 30 years, CDC officials said, and in more than half of the congenital syphilis cases, the mothers tested positive during pregnancy but did not get properly treated.

The rise in congenital syphilis comes despite repeated warnings by public health agencies, and it’s tied to the surge in primary and secondary cases of syphilis in adults, CDC officials said. It’s also been increasingly difficult for medical providers to get benzathine penicillin injections — the main medical weapon against congenital syphilis — because of supply shortages.

“It is clear that something is not working here, that something has to change,” the CDC’s Dr. Laura Bachmann said. “That’s why we’re calling for exceptional measures to address this heartbreaking epidemic.”

The federal agency wants medical providers to start syphilis treatment when a pregnant woman first tests positive, rather than waiting for confirmatory testing, and to expand access to transportation so the women can get treatment. The CDC also called for rapid tests to be made available beyond doctors’ offices and STD clinics to places such as emergency rooms, needle-exchange programs and prisons and jails.

Federal officials again advised sexually active women of childbearing age and their partners to get tested for syphilis at least once if they live in a county with high rates. According to a new CDC map and definition, 70% of U.S. adults live in a county with high rates. That’s likely tens of millions of people, according to an Associated Press estimate based on federal data.

The CDC’s recommendations are just that; there is no new federal money going out to state and local health departments to bolster testing or access. Some state health departments have already said they’re stretched thin when it comes to treatment and prevention, although Illinois announced last week it was starting a phone line for health care providers to help with record searching, consultation and assistance with mandatory reporting.

Syphilis is a bacterial infection that for centuries was a common but feared sexually transmitted disease. New infections plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when antibiotics became widely available and fell to their lowest mark in the late 1990s. By 2002, cases began rising again, with men who have sex with other men being disproportionately affected, although the STD is spreading among several demographics.

In congenital syphilis, mothers pass the disease on to their babies, potentially leading to the death of the child or health problems for the child such as deafness, blindness and malformed bones. Case rates have been rising across racial and ethnic groups.

Dr. Mike Saag, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said syphilis can be “a silent infection” in women because it’s tricky to diagnose without a blood test — not everyone gets painless sores, wart-like lesions or other visible symptoms.

The CDC has long recommended that all pregnant women should be tested for syphilis at their first prenatal visit, but poor access to prenatal care — largely in rural areas of the U.S. — can make that difficult. Nearly 40% of last year’s congenital syphilis cases involved mothers who didn’t have prenatal care, the CDC said.

If syphilis is diagnosed early in a pregnancy, the threat of passing it to the baby can be removed by a single penicillin shot. But experts say the later one gets into pregnancy, the more likely one will need multiple shots, and they have to be completed at least 30 days before delivery.

“I have had patients who have been on (a three-shot) regimen who then miss a shot,” said Dr. Nina Ragunanthan, an OB/GYN at the Delta Health Center in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. “So they are trying to get their shots, but if they don’t get the three in a row, because of transportation issues, because of job issues, child care issues, any number of reasons that prevent them from coming back, they don’t complete their treatment.”

Plus, the shortage of shots makes the task of getting syphilis numbers down difficult, health officials across the U.S. told the AP. Patients who are not pregnant can use the antibiotic doxycycline to treat syphilis, but health officials are concerned that the 14- to 28-day timeline of treatment is difficult to complete, leaving infected people uncured.

Pfizer is the nation’s sole supplier of penicillin shots. Earlier this year, company officials said penicillin was in short supply because of increased demand. Pfizer also said the shortage may not be resolved until next year.

The CDC said the shortage didn’t affect the 2022 congenital syphilis case numbers and that, despite the shortage, it isn’t aware of patients not getting their needed shots.
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When Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle five years ago, it left boats, cars and trucks piled up to the windows of Bonny Paulson’s home in the tiny coastal community of Mexico Beach, Florida, even though the house rests on pillars 14 feet above the ground. But Paulson’s home, with a rounded shape that looks something like a ship, shrugged off Category 5 winds that might otherwise have collapsed it. 

“I wasn’t nervous at all,” Paulson said, recalling the warning to evacuate. Her house lost only a few shingles, with photos taken after the storm showing it standing whole amid the wreckage of almost all the surrounding homes.

Some developers are building homes like Paulson’s with an eye toward making them more resilient to the extreme weather that’s increasing with climate change, and friendlier to the environment at the same time. Solar panels, for example, installed so snugly that high winds can’t get underneath them, mean clean power that can survive a storm. Preserved wetlands and native vegetation that trap carbon in the ground and reduce flooding vulnerability, too. Recycled or advanced construction materials that reduce energy use as well as the need to make new material.

A person’s home is one of the biggest ways they can reduce their individual carbon footprint. Buildings release about 38% of all energy-related greenhouse gas emissions each year. Some of the carbon pollution comes from powering things like lights and air conditioners and some of it from making the construction materials, like concrete and steel.

Deltec, the company that built Paulson’s home, says that only one of the nearly 1,400 homes it’s built over the last three decades has suffered structural damage from hurricane-force winds. But the company puts as much emphasis on building green, with higher-quality insulation that reduces the need for air conditioning, heat pumps for more efficient heating and cooling, energy-efficient appliances, and of course solar.

“The real magic here is that we’re doing both,” chief executive Steve Linton. “I think a lot of times resilience is sort of the afterthought when you talk about sustainable construction, where it’s just kind of this is a feature on a list … we believe that resilience is really a fundamental part of sustainability.”

Other companies are developing entire neighborhoods that are both resistant to hurricanes and contribute less than average to climate change.

Pearl Homes’ Mirabella community in Bradenton, Florida, consists of 160 houses that are all LEED-certified platinum, the highest level of one of the most-used green building rating systems.

To reduce vulnerability to flooding, home sites are raised 3 feet above code. Roads are raised, too, and designed to direct accumulating rainfall away and onto ground where it may be absorbed. Steel roofs with seams allow solar panels to be attached so closely it’s difficult for high winds to get under them, and the homes have batteries that kick in when power is knocked out.

Pearl Homes CEO Marshall Gobuty said his team approached the University of Central Florida with a plan to build a community that doesn’t contribute to climate change. “I wanted them to be not just sustainable, but resilient, I wanted them to be so unlike everything else that goes on in Florida,” Gobuty said. “I see homes that are newly built, half a mile away, that are underwater … we are in a crisis with how the weather is changing.”

That resonates with Paulson, in Mexico Beach, who said she didn’t want to “live day to day worried about tracking something in the Atlantic.” Besides greater peace of mind, she says, she’s now enjoying energy costs of about $32 per month, far below the roughly $250 she said she paid in a previous home.

“I don’t really feel that the population is taking into effect the environmental catastrophes, and adjusting for it,” she said. “We’re building the same old stuff that got blown away.”

Babcock Ranch is another sustainable, hurricane-resilient community in South Florida. It calls itself the first solar-powered town in the U.S., generating 150 megawatts of electricity with 680,000 panels on 870 acres. The community was also one of the first in the country to have large batteries on site to store extra solar power to use at night or when the power is out.

Syd Kitson founded Babcock Ranch in 2006. The homes are better able to withstand hurricane winds because the roofs are strapped to a system that connects down to the foundation. Power lines are buried underground so they can’t blow over. The doors swing outward in some homes so when pressure builds up from the wind, they don’t blast open, and vents help balance the pressure in garages.

In 2022 Hurricane Ian churned over Babcock Ranch as a Category 4 storm. It left little to no damage, Kitson said.

“We set out to prove that a new town and the environment can work hand-in-hand, and I think we’ve proven that,” said Kitson. “Unless you build in a very resilient way, you’re just going to constantly be repairing or demolishing the home.”

The development sold some 73,000 acres of its site to the state for wetland preservation, and on the land where it was built, a team studied how water naturally flows through the local environment and incorporated it into its water management system.

“That water is going to go where it wants to go, if you’re going to try and challenge Mother Nature, you’re going to lose every single time,” said Kitson. The wetlands, retention ponds, and native vegetation are better able to manage water during extreme rainfall, reducing the risk of flooded homes.

In the Florida Keys, Natalia Padalino and her husband, Alan Klingler, plan to finish building a Deltec home by December. The couple was concerned about the future impacts global warming and hurricanes would have on the Florida Keys and researched homes that were both sustainable and designed to withstand these storms.

“We believe we’re building something that’s going to be a phenomenal investment and reduce our risk of any major catastrophic situation,” Klingler said.

“People have been really open and receptive. They tell us if a hurricane comes, they’re going to be staying in our place,” Padalino said.
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