Japan will withdraw from the International Whaling Commission and resume commercial whaling in July. Wednesday’s announcement was met with opposition from animal rights groups, who say that Tokyo is violating international law. Japan says whaling will only be in its own waters and exclusive economic zone. Arash Arabasadi reports. …

Female circumcision — a practice that opponents call female genital mutilation — has been a coming-of-age ritual among the Maasai tribe of Kenya for generations. But it is becoming less common, in part because of one man who is trying to persuade tribe members to abandon the practice. Douglas Meritei …

Although space travel exposes astronauts to forms of radiation that are uncommon on Earth, and that are linked to cancers and heart problems, a U.S. study suggests this doesn’t significantly shorten their lives. Researchers compared nearly 60 years of data on U.S. male astronauts and a group of men who are similarly extra-fit, affluent and …

Israel’s Parliament has unanimously approved a law to permit exports of medical marijuana, allowing Israel to tap the lucrative global market. Israel will become the third country, after the Netherlands and Canada, to take its medical cannabis global. The Israeli medical cannabis company iCAN predicts the global industry will reach …

A Russian cosmonaut who explored a mysterious hole in a capsule docked to the International Space Station says Russian law enforcement agencies are investigating what caused the opening. Sergei Prokopyev said Monday investigators were looking at samples he and crewmate Oleg Kononenko collected during a December 12 spacewalk. Prokopyev and …

South Africa has the world’s largest antiretroviral therapy program with over 4 million people receiving treatment. But the ARV drug therapy, regarded by many as a panacea for HIV, is complicated and comes with its a number of side effects, both physical and mental. As VOA’s Zaheer Cassim explains from …

One of the most common birth defects in the world is a cleft lip. It’s essentially a gap in the upper lip where the skin didn’t grow together. Babies with cleft lips may also have a cleft palates, where the roof of the mouth is split. Both can be repaired …

Residents of a high-end neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro woke up to the unpleasant smell of 13 tons of rotting dead fish floating in the city’s Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon. Biologists believe the extreme heat caused by El Nino killed the fish overnight and caused them to wash ashore Friday. …

The world’s only known albino orangutan climbed trees, foraged for food and began building a nest after being released into a remote Borneo jungle more than a year after conservation officials found her starving and dehydrated in an Indonesian village. The Borneo Orangutan Survival foundation says the great ape, called …

Forests are often called the lungs of the planet because they produce so much oxygen. But they also store huge amounts of carbon. NASA scientists want to know exactly how much carbon, and so they have just launched a satellite that will finally give them an exact measurement. VOA’s Kevin …

Pregnant women have been systematically overlooked in the development and deployment of new vaccines, undermining their health and their communities’ safety, according to guidelines released this month by an international team of researchers, scientists and health care providers. The report, developed by the Pregnancy Research Ethics for Vaccines, Epidemics and …

A congressional report on prescription pill dumping in West Virginia blames U.S. prescription drug distributors and the Drug Enforcement Administration for not doing enough to help mitigate the nation’s opioid addiction and overdose crisis. The 324-page report released Wednesday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee followed an 18-month investigation …

Thunderstorms forced Elon Musk’s SpaceX to postpone Thursday’s launch of a navigation satellite for the U.S. military, which was poised to be the rocket company’s first national security space mission for the United States. SpaceX said its Falcon 9 rocket and payload, a roughly $500 million GPS satellite built by …

You don’t need to hang the mistletoe higher, but you might want to skip the holiday cookies. A report released Thursday shows U.S. adults aren’t getting any taller but they are still getting fatter. The average U.S. adult is overweight and just a few pounds from obese, thanks to average …

Even before Daniel Truglio was born, his parents knew he had a cleft lip and a cleft palate. John Truglio, Daniel’s father, said he and his wife, Roblyn, were nervous and scared. “The first thing I thought about was, ‘Here? In the United States? Is it possible? That only happens …

An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday narrowly recommended prescribing the opioid overdose reversal drug, naloxone, along with addictive painkillers. The panel voted 12-11 in favor of labeling changes for opioids that recommend co-prescribing the overdose antidote, concluding a two-day discussion on ways to make …

Plastic knives just won’t cut it any longer, if the European Union has its way. The 28-nation bloc moved closer to banning single-use straws, plates, cutlery and cotton swabs, after officials from EU member states and the European Parliament on Wednesday backed recommendations by its executive branch designed to reduce …

One of the most common birth defects throughout the world is a cleft lip. Babies born with a cleft lip may also have a cleft palate, where the roof of the mouth is split. These birth defects can be repaired surgically. But unless that is done, it can result in …

Fifty years ago on Christmas Eve, a tumultuous year of assassinations, riots and war drew to a close in heroic and hopeful fashion with the three Apollo 8 astronauts reading from the Book of Genesis on live TV as they orbited the moon. To this day, that 1968 mission is …

Sue, the largest, most complete and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex ever unearthed, gets to show off its new lair this week at the Field Museum in Chicago. The museum on Friday will unveil the 40-1/2-foot-long (12.3-meter) Sue, one of the world’s best-known dinosaur fossils, in the giant meat-eater’s new permanent exhibition …

Elon Musk’s SpaceX halted Tuesday’s launch of a long-delayed navigation satellite for the U.S. military, postponing for at least a day the space transportation company’s first designated national security mission for the United States. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a roughly $500 million global positioning system (GPS) satellite built by …

A microscopic examination of fossils from China has revealed that the fur-like body covering of pterosaurs, the remarkable flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs, was actually made up of rudimentary feathers. The surprising discovery described by scientists on Monday means that dinosaurs and their bird descendants were not the only …

Astronomers have spotted the farthest known object in our solar system — and they’ve nicknamed the pink cosmic body “Farout.”   The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center announced the discovery Monday.   “Farout” is about 120 astronomical units away — that’s 120 times the distance between Earth and the …

The European Union agreed Monday to a goal of cutting carbon emissions from cars by 37.5 percent in a decade, finally settling differences between vehicle-producing countries and environmentally-conscious lawmakers. The 28-nation bloc has been divided for months over how strict to be on CO2 emissions from vehicles as part of …

Israeli scientists making final preparations to launch the country’s first spacecraft to the moon added a special passenger on Monday that will accompany the journey. A time capsule of three digital discs containing thousands of files was ceremoniously placed within the space pod by organizers wearing white dust coats at …