Emergency crews labored around the clock Monday to prevent the collapse of a wastewater reservoir’s leaky containment wall near Tampa Bay, Florida, making steady progress after officials warned of an imminent threat of flooding over the weekend. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked with local public safety teams to drain …

The officer who Cassandra Quinto-Collins says kneeled on her son’s neck for over four minutes assured her it was standard protocol for sedating a person experiencing a mental breakdown. “I was there watching it the whole time,” Quinto-Collins told The Associated Press. “I just trusted that they knew what they were …

The death toll from the natural disasters spawned by torrential rains across eastern Indonesia has risen to 55, according to new figures issued Monday by the country’s disaster relief agency. Landslides wiped out dozens of homes in Lamenele village on Flores Island in East Nusa Tenggara province shortly after midnight Saturday, with flash …

NASA’s Ingenuity mini-helicopter has been dropped on the surface of Mars in preparation for its first flight, the U.S. space agency said.The ultra-light aircraft had been fixed to the belly of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on the Red Planet on February 18.”Mars Helicopter touchdown confirmed!” NASA’s Jet Propulsion …

Nine-year-old Nadja Pivoff from Boston, Massachusetts, has been drawing since she could hold a pencil.  It’s been especially important to her during the COVID lockdown, as Genia Dulot reports from Boston. Camera: Genia Dulot …

North Atlantic right whales gave birth over the winter in greater numbers than scientists have seen since 2015, an encouraging sign for researchers who became alarmed three years ago when the critically endangered species produced no known offspring at all.Survey teams spotted 17 newborn right whale calves swimming with their …

While it may not yet be planting season outside, inside some New Jersey shipping containers, it’s always spring. Vladimir Lenski has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Producer: Marcus Harton.Cameras: Max Avloshenko, Dmitrii Vershinin.    …

A retired Iraqi judge who presided over the trial of Iraq’s late dictator Saddam Hussein has died after battling COVID-19, the country’s top judicial body said Friday.According to Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa, 52, died in a hospital in Baghdad where he was being treated for complications …

The Biden administration, which had set a goal of 100 million shots in President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office, hit another milestone Friday. The U.S. became the first nation to vaccinate 100 million people.However, cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, remain on the rise in …

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday that fully vaccinated people can safely travel within the United States without getting tested before or after their journeys.CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced the new guidelines during the White House COVID-19 response team briefing and was quick to add …

A handful of coins unearthed from a pick-your-own-fruit orchard in rural Rhode Island and other random corners of New England may help solve one of the planet’s oldest cold cases.The villain in this tale: a murderous English pirate who became the world’s most-wanted criminal after plundering a ship carrying Muslim …

Japanese Nobel laureate Isamu Akasaki, who won the physics prize for pioneering energy-efficient LED lighting — a weapon against global warming and poverty — has died aged 92, his university said Friday.   Akasaki won the 2014 prize with two other scientists, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura. Together they developed …

After spending much of the past year in lockdown, Tel Aviv makeup artist Artyom Kavnatsky was ready to get back to work. But when he showed up for a recent photo shoot, his employer turned him away. The reason? He had not been vaccinated against the coronavirus.“He didn’t take me …

India’s health ministry Friday reported 81,466 new COVID cases in the previous 24-hour period. The new tally is the South Asian country’s highest daily count in six months. The western state of Maharashtra has more than half of the new cases with 43,183.India has 12.3 million COVID infections. Only the …

A California community that has been a bellwether of the coronavirus pandemic’s rampage across the United States warned on Thursday that the number of cases of more contagious COVID-19 variants is increasing to worrisome levels.”The region’s progress in curbing the pandemic remains precarious,” the health department in Santa Clara County, …

SpaceX had another rough day but still names the members of its all-civilian crew. Plus, a new study examines the effects of long-term space travel on the human body. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has The Week in Space.Producer: Arash Arabasadi.    …

Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, Thursday stressed the need for Germany to stock up on COVID-19 vaccine for possible repeat shots next year, and said the nation should do so with or without the rest of the European Union.Spahn made the remarks during a Berlin virtual news briefing on the …

Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, Thursday stressed the need for Germany to stock up on COVID-19 vaccine for possible repeat shots next year, and said the nation should do so with or without the rest of the European Union.Spahn made the remarks during a Berlin virtual news briefing on the …

The World Health Organization says Europe’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts are  “unacceptably slow” in the face of a new surge of the virus and new, more contagious variants.  Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO’s European director, issued a statement Thursday urging the continent’s leaders to “speed up the process by ramping up manufacturing, reducing …

A joint report by the World Health Organization and China this week concluded it is “extremely unlikely” that COVID-19 escaped from a Chinese laboratory, despite the theory receiving renewed attention following the comments of a former top U.S. health official.The long-awaited WHO report released Tuesday said the lab leak theory …

A man in Africa who developed Ebola despite receiving a vaccine recovered but suffered a relapse nearly six months later that led to 91 new cases before he died. The report adds to evidence that the deadly virus can lurk in the body long after symptoms end, and that survivors …

President Emmanuel Macron ordered France into its third national lockdown Wednesday in an effort to slow a third wave of COVID-19 infecting his country.Among the lockdown measures, Macron closed all schools for three weeks beginning next Monday.Macron had hoped to avoid a lockdown and the effect it would have on …

The famous pink cherry blossoms of Kyoto reached full bloom this year on March 26, the earliest date in the 12 centuries since records began, according to a Japanese university.The earlier flowering indicates climate change, said Yasuyuki Aono, a professor of environmental science at Osaka Prefectural University, who has compiled …

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Wednesday that COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States during 2020, and it boosted the overall U.S. death toll by nearly 16% from the previous year.During the White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing, CDC Director …

World Health Organization experts fear the race to produce large quantities of COVID-19 vaccine could cut into the supply of global measles vaccines.   Critical topics relating to immunization globally were discussed during a regular meeting last week by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts, known as SAGE. Recommendations were …