Chief lieutenants in the Koch brothers’ political network lashed out at the Senate Republican health care bill on Saturday, becoming a powerful outside critic as GOP leaders try to rally support for their plan among rank-and-file Republicans. “This Senate bill needs to get better,” said Tim Phillips, who leads Americans …

A deadly heat wave that has claimed at least six lives in parts of the American Southwest continues. While temperatures cooled off Friday in Los Angeles, residents are bracing for a long, hot summer. Planes were grounded for a time in Phoenix earlier this week, as temperatures in parts of …

A deadly heat wave continues in parts of the American Southwest. In Los Angeles, temperatures cooled off Friday, but residents are bracing for a long, hot summer.VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan reports. …

The Zika virus made headlines last year because it caused microcephaly in many babies whose mothers were pregnant while they had the virus. Microcephaly keeps the brain from developing normally in children but is relatively harmless to adults. That got cancer researchers thinking about the possibility the virus could be …

Water temperatures in the northwestern Mediterranean are increasing much faster than global averages, threatening the survival of several species, French researchers said. Weekly water temperature readings by researchers at the Villefranche-sur-Mer oceanography laboratory have shown that Mediterranean surface water temperatures have increased by 0.7 degree between 2007 and 2015. The …

The U.N. Children’s Fund warns cholera cases and deaths in war-torn Yemen continue to mount and could reach 300,000 by the end of August. UNICEF puts the current number of suspected cases at nearly 200,000, including more than 1,200 deaths — with a quarter of those being children. UNICEF says …

Ron Finley has been called a “guerrilla gardener” and the “gangsta gardener,” an edgier description of a man who once defied local authorities to bring nature to the inner city. Finley’s efforts to plant edible gardens on public property have earned him court citations, but they also brought a victory …

A new study by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says that safe burial practices may have helped prevent the transmission of thousands of cases of Ebola during the epidemic in West Africa between 2013 and 2016. More than 11,300 people died from Ebola in Liberia, …

Farming on empty land in one of America’s biggest cities used to be discouraged. But urban gardeners in Los Angeles spent years pressing local politicians to let them grow food in vacant lots, and now their efforts are bearing fruit. Mike O’Sullivan reports on the people planting food forests in …

One of the challenges to designing prosthetics, or exoskeletons for the disabled, is that everyone is different. Technology designed to help a person walk or get around doesn’t work very well when it is built to be one-size-fits-all. But scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have figured out a quick, easy …

Grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park will be stripped of Endangered Species Act safeguards this summer, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced on Thursday in a move conservation groups vowed to challenge in court. Dropping federal protection of Yellowstone’s grizzlies, formally proposed in March 2016 under the Obama …

The United Nations reports about 250 million people, or 5 percent of the global adult population, used drugs in 2015, and of those, about 29.5 million suffered from drug-use disorders, including addiction. The World Drug Report 2017  launched Thursday by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that …

The benefits of a Mediterranean diet are widely chronicled, but new research shows extra-virgin olive oil, a key part of the diet, may protect “against cognitive decline.” Specifically, researchers at Temple University in Philadelphia say extra-virgin olive oil “protects memory and learning ability and reduces the formation of amyloid-beta plaques …

Simplice Lenguy told his wife to leave him behind as people fled when fighting broke out in Central African Republic’s capital.   “I said, ‘Take the children. You go to the camp. I am handicapped. I can’t flee like the others. If something happens to me, at least my family …

An estimated 8-12 million Americans have a medical condition called Peripheral Artery Disease or PAD. The condition is caused by plaque buildup in the arteries and can be extremely painful. But some space age technology could provide relief. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports, and Faith Lapidus narrates. …

Researchers at a British University have embarked on a decade-long experiment that will pump a forest full of carbon dioxide to measure how it copes with rising levels of the gas, a key driver of climate change. The Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) experiment at the University of Birmingham’s …

The first total solar eclipse across the continental United States in a century is expected to spark watching parties and traffic jams as it darkens skies from Oregon to South Carolina, authorities said Wednesday. During the August 21 eclipse, the moon will pass between the sun and Earth, blocking the …

Girls’ school attendance in East Africa almost doubles when students of both sexes are taught about sex, relationships and money, a charity said on Monday, highlighting how the attitudes of boys influence the educational success of girls. Asante Africa Foundation said girls’ attendance increased by 80 percent in Kenyan and …

A new study suggests a link between breast-feeding and a lowered risk of heart disease in older women. The research by Chinese investigators found that women who breast-fed may have lowered their risk of heart disease or stroke by an average of 10 percent when they became older. Researchers at …

One of the biggest icebergs on record is like a “niggling tooth” about to snap off Antarctica and will be an extra hazard for ships around the frozen continent as it breaks up, scientists said on Wednesday. An area of the Larsen C ice shelf, about as big as the …

A blood network in the Pacific Northwest has developed a kit for transfusions in remote places that it says “takes the banking out of blood banking.” A blood transfusion can often be the difference between life and death. Hospitals have stored blood on hand for people gravely injured in car …

Celebrity physicist Stephen Hawking says humans should return to the Moon by 2020 and Mars by 2025 in order to unite humanity in the shared purpose of spreading out beyond Earth. “Spreading out into space will completely change the future of humanity,” the Cambridge professor said at the Starmus Festival …

To judge by their popularity in online videos, cats rule the pet kingdom. In fact, there are more pet cats in the United States than dogs, in part because most cat households are home to multiple cats. Some new DNA evidence suggests that long before they began showing up on …

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports the planet Earth is experiencing another exceptionally warm year with record-breaking temperatures occurring in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the United States. At least 60 people have been killed in the devastating forest fires in central Portugal. The World Meteorological Organization says …

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports the cholera outbreak in Yemen has spread to practically every part of the war-torn country.  Suspected cases of cholera and acute watery diarrhea now top 170,000, with 1,170 deaths. WHO reports cholera has spread to 20 of Yemen’s 22 governorates in just two months. …