China’s Zhejiang, a big industrial province near Shanghai, is battling around a million new daily COVID-19 infections, a number expected to double in the days ahead, the provincial government said Sunday. Despite a record surge of cases nationwide, China reported no COVID deaths on the mainland for the five days …

Three years ago, scientists in Wuhan, China first reported infections from a novel coronavirus. Since then, the world has developed and delivered 13 billion shots against COVID-19. It is an unprecedented achievement, but it has been tarnished by unequal access. The global program aimed at improving vaccine equity has announced …

World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave a grim assessment of the many health challenges and threats people around the world have faced this year. Topping the list was the COVID-19 pandemic that has sickened and killed millions of people for a third year. He noted a global outbreak …

An arctic blast has brought extreme cold, heavy snow and intense wind across much of the U.S. — just in time for the holidays.  The weather system, dubbed a “bomb cyclone,” is disrupting travel and causing hazardous winter conditions. Where is this winter weather coming from, and what’s in store …

Hong Kong is forecast to grow economically next year after the city’s leader announced the removal of nearly all COVID-19 restrictions on international arrivals and said it would reopen its border with China. But experts say the coronavirus pandemic and geopolitics have hampered Hong Kong’s international status after nearly three …

Shanghai authorities urged residents to stay at home this weekend, seeking a toned-down Christmas in the nation’s most populous city as COVID-19 rages nationwide after tough curbs were lifted. A branch of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission on Saturday urged young people in particular to avoid crowded gatherings, due to …

Half a million people in a single Chinese city are being infected with COVID-19 every day, a senior health official has said, in a rare and quickly censored acknowledgement that the country’s wave of infections is not being reflected in official statistics. China this month has rapidly dismantled key pillars …

The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and high levels of opioid overdose deaths drove life expectancy in the United States down for the second consecutive year in 2021, with a child born in that year expected to live 76.4 years, the lowest figure since 1996, according to data from the …

Canada’s Western Hudson Bay polar bear population has fallen 27% in just five years, according to a government report released this week, suggesting climate change is affecting the animals. Every autumn, the bears living along the western edge of the Bay pass through the sub-Arctic tourist town of Churchill, Manitoba, …

The United Nations says high food prices in 2022 led to a crisis of affordability that has pushed millions more people into hunger. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer talks to experts about the situation and what to expect in 2023. …

One of the world’s largest marine citizen science projects has surveyed its 500th section of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef since the effort began in 2020. This year’s Great Reef Census, which runs from September to December, has revealed severe damage to the coral, while other parts of the 2,300-kilometer World …

Russia’s space agency said it is considering a plan to send an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) to bring home three crew members ahead of schedule, after their Soyuz capsule sprang a coolant leak while docked to the orbiting outpost. Roscosmos and NASA officials said at a …

A former judge of the Supreme People’s Court, the highest court in China, is calling for the suspension or revocation of cases against some 80 people found guilty of violating “zero-COVID” policy regulations since the advent of omicron, a less deadly variant that began spreading in December 2021. China implemented …

As farmers in the United States are coping with rising input costs, some are turning to environmentally beneficial methods to curb expenses and make money while sequestering a driver of climate change. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Glasgow, Illinois. …

The World Health Organization is concerned about a spike in COVID-19 infections in China and is supporting the government to focus its efforts on vaccinating people at the highest risk across the country, the head of the U.N. agency said on Wednesday. Infections have recently spiked in the world’s second-largest …

It could be the end of the red dusty line for NASA’s InSight lander, which has fallen silent after four years on Mars. The lander’s power levels have been dwindling for months because of all the dust coating its solar panels. Ground controllers at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory knew the …

Negotiators reached a historic deal at a U.N. biodiversity conference early Monday that would represent the most significant effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical financing to save biodiversity in the developing world. The global framework comes on the day the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or …

Scientists have uncovered new clues about a curious fossil site in Nevada, a graveyard for dozens of giant marine reptiles. Instead of the site of a massive die-off as suspected, it might have been an ancient maternity ward where the creatures came to give birth. The site is famous for …

Hollywood Cat is no longer. The Los Angeles area’s most famous mountain lion, an aged wild male feline sighted around the city’s Griffith Park, was euthanized Saturday, wildlife officials said. For years, it was known to prowl around the hillside “Hollywood” sign visible around much of Los Angeles, a fitting …

Uganda on Saturday lifted a two-month lockdown on two districts at the epicenter of the country’s Ebola epidemic, amid cautious hope that the outbreak could end soon. Since authorities declared an Ebola outbreak Sept. 20, the East African nation has registered 142 confirmed cases and 56 deaths, with the disease …

Negotiators at a United Nations biodiversity conference Saturday have still not resolved most of the key issues around protecting the world’s nature by 2030 and providing tens of billions of dollars to developing countries to fund those efforts. The United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to wrap up …

he World Health Organization warns billions of people who lack access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene are at risk of deadly infectious diseases. The finding appears in the WHO and U.N.-Water’s Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS) report issued this week. Data collected from 121 …

The World Health Organization says climate change is behind an unprecedented surge in the number of cholera outbreaks around the world this year. At least 30 countries have reported outbreaks of the deadly disease this year, about a third higher than normally seen. Philippe Barboza, WHO’s team leader for cholera …

Russian and NASA engineers were assessing a coolant leak on Thursday from a Soyuz crew capsule docked with the International Space Station that could have been caused by a micrometeorite strike. Dramatic NASA TV images showed white particles resembling snowflakes streaming out of the rear of the vessel for hours. …

The United States is monitoring for new coronavirus variants as it braces for a potential outbreak of COVID-19 infections following Beijing’s easing of strict controls that kept the pandemic at bay in China. “We have a very robust surveillance program that we use for travelers as people come in, in …