ARUSHA, Tanzania — The World Health Organization said Wednesday an outbreak of suspected Marburg disease has killed eight people in a remote part of northern Tanzania. 

“We are aware of 9 cases so far, including 8 people who have died,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. “We would expect further cases in coming days as disease surveillance improves.” 

Like Ebola, the Marburg virus originates in fruit bats and spreads between people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces, such as contaminated bed sheets. 

Without treatment, Marburg can be fatal in up to 88% of people who fall ill with the disease. Symptoms include fever, muscle pains, diarrhea, vomiting and in some cases death from extreme blood loss. There is no authorized vaccine or treatment for Marburg. 

WHO said its risk assessment for the suspected outbreak in Tanzania is high at national and regional levels but low globally. There was no immediate comment from Tanzanian health authorities. 

An outbreak of Marburg in Rwanda, first reported on Sept. 27, was declared over on Dec. 20. Rwandan officials reported a total of 15 deaths and 66 cases, with the majority of those affected healthcare workers who handled the first patients. 

An outbreak in 2023 of Marburg in Kagera, which shares a border with Rwanda, killed at least five people. 

 
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China says HMPV infections in the northern part of the country are declining. News of increased respiratory illnesses in China kindled international concerns about another potential pandemic. But, as VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports, medical experts say HMPV is nothing like COVID-19. VOA Mandarin contributed to this report.
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Elon Musk said a third person has received an implant from his brain-computer interface company Neuralink, one of many groups working to connect the nervous system to machines.

“We’ve got … three humans with Neuralinks and all are working well,” he said during a recent wide-ranging interview at a Las Vegas event streamed on his social media platform X.

Since the first brain implant about a year ago, Musk said the company has upgraded the devices with more electrodes, higher bandwidth and longer battery life. Musk also said Neuralink hopes to implant the experimental devices in 20 to 30 more people this year.

Musk didn’t provide any details about the latest patient, but there are updates on the previous ones.

The second recipient — who has a spinal cord injury and got the implant last summer — was playing video games with the help of the device and learning how to use computer-aided design software to create 3-D objects. The first patient, also paralyzed after a spinal cord injury, described how it helped him play video games and chess.

But while such developments at Neuralink often attract notice, many other companies and research groups are working on similar projects. Two studies last year in the New England Journal of Medicine described how brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, helped people with ALS communicate better.

Who’s working on brain-computer interface technology?

More than 45 trials involving brain-computer interfaces are underway, according to a U.S. database of studies. The efforts are aimed at helping treat brain disorders, overcoming brain injuries and other uses.

Many research labs have already shown that humans can accurately control computer cursors using BCIs, said Rajesh Rao, co-director of the Center for Neurotechnology at the University of Washington.

Rao said Neuralink may be unique in two ways: The surgery to implant the device is the first time a robot has been used to implant flexible electrode threads into a human brain to record neural activity and control devices. And those threads may record from more neurons than other interfaces.

Still, he said, the advantages of Neuralink’s approach have yet to be shown, and some competitors have eclipsed the company in other ways. For example, Rao said companies such as Synchron, Blackrock Neurotech and Onward Medical are already conducting BCI trials on people “using either less invasive methods or more versatile approaches” that combine neural recording with stimulation.

What are the benefits of BCIs?

Marco Baptista, chief scientific officer of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, called BCI technology “very exciting” with potential benefits to people with paralysis.

Through clinical trials, “we’ll be able to see what’s going to be the winning approach,” he said. “It’s a little early to know.”

Baptista said his foundation generally tries to support research teams financially and with expert help – though it hasn’t given any money to Neuralink.

“We need to really support high-risk, high-reward endeavors. This is clearly high-risk, high-reward. We don’t know how safe it’s going to be. We don’t know how feasible it’s going to be,” he said.

How are BCIs tested and regulated?

Neuralink announced in 2023 that it had gotten permission from U.S. regulators to begin testing its device in people.

While most medical devices go on the market without clinical studies, high-risk ones that undergo pre-market approval need what’s called an “investigational device exemption” from the Food and Drug Administration, said Dr. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies high-risk devices.

Neuralink says it has this exemption, but the FDA said it can’t confirm or disclose information about a particular study.

Redberg said the FDA tends to be involved in all steps from recruiting patients to testing devices to analyzing data. She said this regulatory process prioritizes safety.

She also pointed to another layer of protection: All research involving people needs an institutional review board, or IRB. It can also be known as an ethical review board or an independent ethics committee. Members must include at least one non-scientist as well as someone not affiliated with the institution or organization forming the board.

The role of such boards “is to assume there is reasonable risk and reasonable chance of benefit and that patients are informed of those before they enroll,” said Redberg.
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SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO — The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday struck down abortion restrictions by conservative cities and counties, helping to ensure the state remains a go-to destination for people from other states with bans.

The unanimous opinion, in response to a request from state Attorney General Raúl Torrez, reinforces the state’s position as having some of the most liberal abortion laws in the country.

Attorneys representing the cities of Hobbs and Clovis and Lea and Roosevelt counties had argued that provisions of a federal “anti-vice” law known as the Comstock Act block courts from striking down local abortion ordinances.

But Justice C. Shannon Bacon, writing for the majority opinion, said state law precludes cities and counties from restricting abortion or regulating abortion clinics.

“The ordinances violate this core precept and invade the Legislature’s authority to regulate access to and provision of reproductive healthcare,” she wrote. “We hold the ordinances are preempted in their entirety.”

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez praised the court’s ruling Thursday, saying that the core of the argument was that state laws preempted any action by local governments to engage in activities that would infringe on the constitutional rights of citizens.

“The bottom line is simply this: Abortion access is safe and secure in New Mexico,” he said. “It’s enshrined in law by the recent ruling by the New Mexico Supreme Court and thanks to the work of the New Mexico Legislature.”

New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martínez called access to health care a basic fundamental right in New Mexico.

“It doesn’t take a genius to understand the statutory framework that we have. Local governments don’t regulate health care in New Mexico. It is up to the state,” the Albuquerque Democrat said.

Opposition to abortion runs deep in New Mexico communities along the border with Texas, which has one of the most restrictive bans in the U.S.

But Democrats, who control every statewide elected office in New Mexico and hold majorities in the state House and Senate, have moved to shore up access to abortion — before and after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, eliminating the nationwide right to abortion.

In 2021, the New Mexico Legislature repealed a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures as felonies, ensuring access to abortion even after the Roe v. Wade reversal.

And in 2023, Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill that overrides local ordinances aimed at limiting abortion access and enacted a shield law that protects abortion providers from investigations by other states.

In September, construction began on a state-funded reproductive health and abortion clinic in southern New Mexico that will cater to local residents and people who travel from neighboring states.

The new clinic is scheduled for completion by early 2026 to provide services ranging from medical and procedural abortions to contraception, cervical cancer screenings and education about adoptions.

In Thursday’s opinion, justices said they “strongly admonish” Roosevelt County, in particular, for an ordinance that would have allowed individuals to file lawsuits demanding damages of more than $100,000 for violations of the county’s abortion ordinance.

The provision would have created “a private right of action and damages award that is clearly intended to punish protected conduct,” the court said in its opinion.

Erin Hawley, a vice president at Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based Christian legal advocacy group, is an attorney who argued on behalf of Roosevelt County in the case. On Thursday, she criticized the court’s decision and emphasized its limitations.

“Roosevelt County and other New Mexico localities should be able to enforce ordinances that comply with federal law and protect the lives of their citizens,” said Hawley, the wife of U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. “We’re grateful that the New Mexico Supreme Court did not abandon common sense and find a so-called right to abortion in the state constitution.”

It was not immediately clear whether the ruling can be appealed in federal court or influence broader efforts to apply Comstock Act restrictions on abortion. The New Mexico Supreme Court opinion explicitly declined to address conflicts with federal law, basing its decision solely on state provisions.

Austin, Texas-based attorney Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general and architect of that state’s strict abortion ban, said he looked forward “to litigating these issues in other states and bringing the meaning of the federal Comstock Act to the Supreme Court of the United States.” 
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CAPE CANAVERAL — A quarter of a century after its founding, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is finally ready for its maiden orbital voyage with a brand-new rocket the company hopes will shake up the commercial space race.

The launch initially scheduled for Sunday was pushed back a day due to “unfavorable” sea conditions, Blue Origin posted on X.

Named New Glenn after legendary astronaut John Glenn — the first American to orbit Earth in 1962 — the rocket stands 320 feet (98 meters) tall, roughly equivalent to a 32-story building — and is set to blast off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in a launch window that opens at 1 a.m. (0600 GMT) Monday.

“Pointy end up!” the company’s CEO, Dave Limp posted on X alongside photos of the gleaming white behemoth.

With the mission, dubbed NG-1, Bezos, the world’s second-richest man, is taking direct aim at the world’s wealthiest: Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.

These serve the commercial sector, the Pentagon, and NASA — including, crucially, ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

“SpaceX has for the past several years been pretty much the only game in town and so having a competitor… this is great,” G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, told AFP.

SpaceX, meanwhile, is planning the next orbital test of Starship — its gargantuan new-generation rocket — the same day, upping the sense of high-stakes rivalry.

If all goes to plan, shortly after launch, Blue Origin will attempt to land the first-stage booster on a drone ship named Jacklyn, in honor of Bezos’ mother, stationed about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.

Though SpaceX makes such landings a near-routine spectacle, this will be Blue Origin’s first shot at a touchdown on the high seas.

Meanwhile, the rocket’s upper stage will fire its engines toward Earth orbit, carrying a Defense Department-funded prototype spaceship called Blue Ring, which will remain aboard for the roughly six-hour test flight.

Limp emphasized that simply reaching orbit is the prime goal, while successfully recovering the booster would be a welcome “bonus.”

Blue Origin does have experience landing its New Shepard rockets — used for suborbital tourism — but they are much smaller and land on terra firma rather than a ship at sea.

Blue Origin has secured a NASA contract to launch two Mars probes aboard New Glenn. The rocket will also support the deployment of Project Kuiper, a satellite internet constellation designed to compete with Starlink.

Like Musk, Bezos has a lifelong passion for space. But whereas Musk dreams of colonizing Mars, Bezos envisions shifting heavy industry off-planet onto floating space platforms to preserve Earth, “humanity’s blue origin.”

He founded Blue Origin in 2000 — two years before Musk created SpaceX — but has adopted a more cautious pace, in contrast to his rival’s “fail fast, learn fast” philosophy.

“There’s been impatience within the space community over Blue Origin’s very deliberate approach,” Scott Pace, a space policy analyst at George Washington University and former member of the National Space Council, told AFP.

If New Glenn succeeds, Pace added, it will give the U.S. government “dissimilar redundancy” — valuable backup if one system fails.
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BANGKOK — Nearly all of the world’s 35,000 online pharmacies are being run illegally and consumers who use them risk getting ineffective or dangerous drugs, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s annual report on “notorious markets.” The report also singled out 19 countries over concerns about counterfeit or pirated products.

The report also named about three dozen online retailers, many of them in China or elsewhere in Asia that it said are allegedly engaged in selling counterfeit products or other illegal activities.

The report says 96% of online pharmacies were found to be violating the law, many operating without a license and selling medicines without prescriptions and safety warnings.

Their websites often look like legitimate e-commerce platforms, often with false claims that they are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, said the report, released Wednesday. The FDA and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration have both issued warnings about risks of buying prescription medicines from such sources.

It cited a survey by the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies’ Global Foundation that found nearly one in four Americans who have used online pharmacies reported having encountered substandard, fake or harmful medicines.

Last year, federal prosecutors reported that a network of illegal drug sellers based in the U.S., the Dominican Republic and India had packaged potentially deadly synthetic opioids into pills disguised as common prescription drugs and sold millions of them through fake online drugstores, federal prosecutors said Monday. At least nine people died of narcotics poisoning between August 2023 and June 2024 after consuming the counterfeit pills, the indictment said.

Apart from the risks of using drugs that may contain inert ingredients or those that could cause allergies, the medicines are sometimes made in unsanitary conditions, said the report, which did not give annual statistics for those who may have died or otherwise been harmed.

Progress in fighting counterfeit and pirated goods

The USTR’s annual report cited examples from inside the United States, but and also mentioned risks of imported ingredients including fentanyl from China. Many of the illicit online pharmacies are based outside the U.S.

The “Notorious Markets List” did laud progress in fighting counterfeit and pirated goods.

In one case, U.S. authorities, industry groups and the police collaborated in shutting down a Hanoi, Vietnam-based piracy ring, Fmovies, and other related piracy sites, in July and August.

The report said the world’s then-largest pirated movies site had drawn more than 6.7 billion visits from January 2023 to June 2024.

In another Vietnam-linked case, two people operating pirate television platform BestBuyIPTV were convicted and ordered to pay fines and forfeit property.

The report also cited crackdowns on online piracy in Brazil and the United Kingdom and busts of sellers of counterfeit purses, clothing and shoes in Kuwait.

But problems remain with cyberlockers that thwart efforts to restrict piracy of movies and other content and of so-called “bulletproof” internet service providers, or ISPs, that promise people using them leeway for using pirate sites, it said.

One such ISP is Avito, a Russian-based ad platform that allegedly lets sellers advertise counterfeit products.

Baidu Wangpan, a cloud storage service of China’s largest search engine provider, Baidu, was named for allegedly failing to enforce or being slow to act on copyright protection.

The report also pointed to social-commerce site Pinduoduo and to Douyin Mall, a Chinese online platform owned by Tiktok owner ByteDance. It said the shopping platforms have sought to build up protections but that they still host many counterfeit goods.

It also named Shopee, a Singapore-based online and mobile e-commerce site, saying some country-focused platforms serving Southeast Asia and South American had better track records in fighting piracy than others.

IndiaMART, an big business-to-business marketplace in India, still offers a slew of counterfeit products, it said.

While a large share of theft of intellectual property has moved online, the report also highlighted real world locations notorious for selling counterfeit products, including markets in Turkey, bazaars in the United Arab Emirates and Saigon Square Shopping Mall in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City.

The report said Bangkok’s MBK Center, a huge mall of about 2,000 stores, had actively cracked down on counterfeiting, though such products still can be found there. 
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Human Metapneumovirus (HMPV) has recently spread widely across China, overwhelming hospitals and evoking memories of the COVID-19 outbreak. HMPV is not a new virus; it has been known for years and typically has a low mortality rate. Nevertheless, epidemiologists are calling for greater transparency about the spread of the virus to help contain infections. While the health care system is under strain, experts stress that there is no need for panic. They recommend the public follow basic protective measures, particularly during the Spring Festival travel period, to help curb further spread of the virus.

Click here to read the full story in Mandarin.
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For the first time, a person in the United States has died after being infected with the bird flu. Louisiana health officials reported the death on Monday. The World Health Organization says the risk of infection for the general population remains low, but as VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports, some medical experts are still sounding the alarm.
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WASHINGTON — Nearly a quarter of animals living in rivers, lakes and other freshwater sources are threatened with extinction, according to new research published Wednesday.

“Huge rivers like the Amazon can appear mighty, but at the same time freshwater environments are very fragile,” said study co-author Patricia Charvet, a biologist at Brazil’s Federal University of Ceará.

Freshwater habitats – including rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, bogs and wetlands – cover less than 1% of the planet’s surface, but support 10% of its animal species, said Catherine Sayer, a zoologist at the International Union for Conservation of Nature in England.

The researchers examined around 23,500 species of dragonflies, fish, crabs and other animals that depend exclusively on freshwater ecosystems. They found that 24% were at risk of extinction – classified as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered – due to compounding threats from pollution, dams, water extraction, agriculture, invasive species, climate change and other disruptions.

“Most species don’t have just one threat putting them at risk of extinction, but many threats acting together,” said Sayer, a study-co-author.

The tally, published in the journal Nature, is the first time that researchers have analyzed the global risk to freshwater species. Previous studies have focused on land animals including mammals, birds and reptiles.

Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who was not involved in the study, called it “a long-awaited and hugely important paper.”

“Almost every big river in North America and Europe is massively modified” through damming, putting freshwater species at risk, he said.

In South America, the vast Amazon River ecosystem also faces threats from deforestation, wildfires and illegal gold mining, said Charvet.

Illegal fires to clear forest result in waves of ash polluting the river, and unlicensed gold miners dump mercury into the water, she said.

Rivers and wetlands “concentrate everything that happens around them,” she said. “If something goes really wrong, like an acid or oil spill, you can threaten an entire species. There’s nowhere else for these animals to go.”
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India TV’s claims that HMPV is a mysterious virus, or speculation that a new virus may have arisen out of China, are false.
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WASHINGTON — The Louisiana Department of Health said Monday that a U.S. patient hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu had died, the country’s first death from an outbreak of the virus that has sickened dozens of people and millions of poultry and cattle. 

Nearly 70 people in the U.S. have contracted bird flu since April, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of them livestock workers exposed to sick chickens or dairy cattle. 

The patient in Louisiana, the first person in the country to be hospitalized with the virus, contracted bird flu after exposure to a combination of backyard chickens and wild birds, said Louisiana health officials. The patient was hospitalized on Dec. 18, state health officials said. 

The patient was over 65 and had underlying medical conditions, the officials said. 

“While the current public health risk for the general public remains low, people who work with birds, poultry or cows, or have recreational exposure to them, are at higher risk,” the department said in a statement.  

The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — The new year will bring a pair of lunar eclipses, but don’t expect any sun-disappearing acts like the one that mesmerized North America last spring.

While the world will have to wait until 2026 for the next total solar eclipse, the cosmos promises plenty of other wow moments in 2025. It’s kicking off the year with a six-planet parade in January that will be visible for weeks. Little Mercury will join the crowd for a seven-planet lineup in February.

Five planets already are scattered across the sky — all but Mars and Mercury — though binoculars or telescopes are needed to spot some of them just after sunset.

“People should go out and see them sometime during the next many weeks. I certainly will,” said the Planetary Society’s chief scientist Bruce Betts.

Here’s a sneak peek of what’s ahead:

Eclipses

The moon will vanish for more than an hour over North and South America on March 14, followed two weeks later by a partial solar eclipse visible from Maine, eastern Canada, Greenland, Europe, Siberia and northwestern Africa.

The cosmic double-header will repeat in September with an even longer total lunar eclipse over Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, and a partial solar eclipse two weeks later near the bottom of the world.

Supermoons

Three supermoons are on tap this year in October, November and December.

The full moon will look particularly big and bright those three months as it orbits closer to Earth than usual.

November’s supermoon will come closest, passing within 356,980 kilometers. Last year featured four supermoons, wrapping up in November.

Planet parade

Six of our seven neighboring planets will line up in the sky to form a long arc around mid-January. All but Neptune and Uranus should be visible with the naked eye just after sunset, weather permitting.

The parade will continue for weeks, with some of the planets occasionally snuggling up. Mercury will make a cameo appearance by the end of February. The planets will gradually exit, one by one, through spring.

Northern and southern lights

The sun burped big time last year, painting the sky with gorgeous auroras in unexpected places.

Space weather forecasters anticipate more geomagnetic storms that could yield even more northern and southern lights.

That’s because the sun has reached its solar maximum during its current 11-year cycle that could continue through this year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Shawn Dahl urges everyone to stay on top of space weather news, so as not to miss any pop-up, razzle-dazzle shows.

Meteor showers

The Perseids and Geminids are perennial crowd-pleasers, peaking in August and December, respectively. But don’t count out the smaller, less dramatic meteor showers like the Lyrids in April, the Orionids in October and the Leonids in November.

The darker the locale and dimmer the moon, the better it will be for viewing. Meteor showers are generally named for the constellation in which they appear to originate. They occur whenever Earth plows through streams of debris left behind by comets and sometimes asteroids. 
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TOKYO — Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman who was the world’s oldest person according to Guinness World Records, has died, an Ashiya city official said Saturday. She was 116.

Yoshitsugu Nagata, an official in charge of elderly policies, said Itooka died on Dec. 29 at a care home in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture, central Japan.

Itooka, who loved bananas and a yogurt-flavored Japanese drink called Calpis, was born on May 23, 1908. She became the oldest person last year following the death of 117-year-old Maria Branyas, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

When she was told she was at the top of the World Supercentenarian Rankings List, she simply replied, “Thank you.”

When Itooka celebrated her birthday last year, she received flowers, a cake and a card from the mayor.

Born in Osaka, Itooka was a volleyball player in high school, and long had a reputation for a sprightly spirit, Nagata said. She climbed the 3,067-meter (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake twice.

She married at 20, and had two daughters and two sons, according to Guinness.

Itooka managed the office of her husband’s textile factory during World War II. She lived alone in Nara after her husband died in 1979.

She is survived by one son, one daughter and five grandchildren. A funeral service was held with family and friends, according to Nagata.

According to the Gerontology Research Group, the world’s oldest person is now 116-year-old Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas, who was born 16 days after Itooka.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration announced Friday that it will allocate $306 million to bolster the nation’s bird flu response before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The new funding will support national, state and local preparedness and monitoring programs, as well as research into potential medical countermeasures against the H5N1 virus.

“While the risk to humans remains low, we are always preparing for any possible scenario that could arise,” Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.

“Preparedness is the key to keeping Americans healthy and our country safe.”

The United States has reported 66 human cases of bird flu since the start of 2024, though experts believe the true number could be higher, with cases potentially going undetected among cattle and poultry workers.

While the virus has not been found to spread from person to person, the amount of bird flu circulating among animals and humans has alarmed scientists, because it might combine with seasonal influenza and mutate into a more transmissible form — potentially triggering a deadly pandemic.

The funding announcement comes amid concern over how the incoming Trump administration will handle the threat.

The president-elect told Time magazine recently he would abolish the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy established under Biden — though it is not clear if he has the authority to do so, since it was created by Congress.

His pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a vocal vaccine skeptic who has pledged to shake up the nation’s health agencies and promotes raw milk, thought to be a vector for bird flu.

Biden’s administration has also faced criticism for what some consider a subpar bird flu response.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, published a report last month citing an array of problems including “lagging data, incomplete surveillance, sluggish coordination, considerable mistrust, and insufficient planning and stockpiling of vaccines and therapies.”

Given these shortcomings, infectious disease epidemiologist Meg Schaeffer of the SAS Institute told AFP: “In my opinion, avian influenza is going to become either a pandemic or a virus…  that will become a very widespread and significant health issue for us in the next one to two years.”

She urged raw milk consumers in particular to “take a pause on that consumption.”

Adding to concerns, a virus sample from a critically ill patient in Louisiana has shown signs of mutating to better adapt to human airways, although there is no evidence it has spread beyond that individual, health authorities said last week.

Researchers are also closely monitoring the growing number of bird flu infections in cats, which could expose humans through close contact. 
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WASHINGTON/LONDON — Alcoholic drinks should carry a warning about cancer risks on their label, the U.S. surgeon general said Friday in a move that could signal a shift toward more aggressive tobacco-style regulation for the sector. 

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said alcohol consumption increases the risk of at least seven types of cancer, including breast, colon and liver cancer, but most U.S. consumers remain unaware of this. 

Murthy also called for the guidelines on alcohol consumption limits to be reassessed so that people can weigh the cancer risk when deciding whether or how much to drink. U.S. dietary guidelines currently recommend two or fewer drinks per day for men and one drink or less per day for women. 

“Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity,” Murthy’s office said in a statement accompanying the new report, adding the type of alcohol consumed does not matter. 

His advisory sent shares in alcohol companies including Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Anheuser-Busch and Heineken down, in some cases over 3%. 

Alcohol producers and industry associations did not immediately share comments. 

It is unclear when or if the surgeon general’s suggestions will be adopted. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is entering its final two weeks. Murthy could be succeeded by Janette Nesheiwat, a director of a New York chain of urgent care clinics and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for the role. 

Trump, whose brother died from alcoholism and who does not drink himself, has long warned about the risks of drinking. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, has been open about his past struggles with heroin and alcohol, and says that he attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. 

The decision to update the label will ultimately be made by Congress. 

Small print 

Murthy’s advisory harks back to early U.S. surgeon general action on tobacco, starting with a 1964 report that concluded smoking could cause cancer. The report kicked off decades of increasingly strict regulations, starting with U.S. laws on warning labels one year later and still ongoing today. 

Alcoholic drinks in the U.S. already carry warnings on their packaging, including that drinking alcohol while pregnant can cause birth defects and that it can impair judgment when operating machinery. These appear in small print on the back of the packaging. This label has not changed since its inception in 1988. 

Murthy’s recommendations call for an update to these existing labels, rather than new cigarette-style warnings that are today displayed prominently on the front of every packet. 

Analysts, however, pointed out that cigarette warning labels did little to curb smoking and ingrained habits are hard to change. 

“Warning labels won’t be an immediate deathblow to alcohol makers, but it will compound the long-term threats to the industry,” said Blake Droesch, analyst with eMarketer. 

In the U.S., among the largest markets for many western producers, companies face growing competition from alternatives like cannabis and the threat of lower volumes as some consumers, especially younger ones, drink less than previous generations. 

Beer makers especially have, however, enjoyed benefits from a shift toward healthier lifestyles, with low- or no-alcohol products enjoying rapid growth. Heineken’s 0.0 version, for example, grew double digits in 16 markets last year. 

The advisory said alcohol is responsible for 100,000 U.S. cancer cases and 20,000 cancer deaths each year, more than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash deaths. 

The new report recommends health care providers should encourage alcohol screening and treatment referrals as needed, and efforts to increase general awareness should be expanded.
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Juba, South Sudan   — More than 1.1 million doses of an oral cholera vaccine have arrived in South Sudan, as the government launched a program to inoculate more than 80 percent of the population. But the mass vaccination exercise faces numerous challenges, including a lack of access to the areas dealing with the worst cholera outbreaks.

Medics in South Sudan will attempt to vaccinate at least 9 million people against cholera, an exercise that targets mostly children and mothers.

More than 1.1 million doses of oral cholera vaccine arrived in the capital, Juba, and will be dispatched next week to hot spots areas like the town of Bentiu.

The country’s Ministry of Health reported last week that 199 people have died of cholera, with 13,000 more diagnosed so far with the bacteria.

Dr. Gabriel Boum Tap is an immunization officer at UNICEF in South Sudan.

“Of course, we had also received some vaccines before; only that they were not enough, because, you know, it’s not like the cholera vaccine is manufactured and is put in one place already,” he said.

At least one cholera case has been recorded in 29 of the 79 counties in South Sudan, with Bentiu, Renk and Juba most affected.

The first case was reported on September 23 in Renk, northeast of the capital.

But as the country prepares to roll out a mass vaccination exercise, the process faces some serious headwinds.

Thinjin Khoat is one of the victims of the cholera outbreak. He says he has seen people die of the disease, with many more trooping to local health centers seeking urgent medical attention.

“I was at one of the health facilities, and there was a suspected case of cholera. The patient was a 5-year-old. The patient was vomiting, and in the process, the health workers couldn’t get the vein. The patient is not able to get the oral fluid. … In that process, the patient died of dehydration,” he said.

Cholera is an acute diarrhea infection caused by consuming contaminated food or water. If not treated, it can be fatal within hours.

Khoat says accessibility to health care remains a major hindrance to the fight against the disease.

“Some of the community members, they don’t have access, because, you know, in Bentiu here, there is flooding. There are some areas that health workers cannot access because of the flood and also security issues,” he said.

According to Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, poor living conditions in South Sudan have created the perfect breeding ground for cholera.

Stephanie Ngai is MSF’s project coordinator for cholera response in Bentiu, located in Rubkona County, an area with a large refugee population.

“Here in Rubkona, the explosion on the outbreak very quickly overwhelmed the local systems that are responsible for coordinating the response and scaling up the interventions,” she said. ‘Other partners don’t have adequate funding to properly scale up the level needed, which is massive. And the overall response coordination has not been strong enough to manage the response and ensure that the needs are adequately met.”

The government says the vaccination exercise is expected to roll out next Monday with support from international partners such as MSF and the World Health Organization.

Buok Danhier, the immunization program manager for the Unity State Ministry of Health, says the various entities will split up duties in Rubkona.

“Rubkona has many payams [local districts]. Most of the payams are affected by flooding, and these are the ones that will be taken by WHO — the hard-to-reach areas. WHO and other partners are pledging to cover all those areas that are hard to reach and also very far from town. Bentiu IDP, Rukona and Bentiu town — these areas will be covered by MSF, and the recruitment process is ongoing,” said Danhier.

The vaccination exercise will target children 1 year and above.

WHO says up to 143,000 people worldwide die from cholera each year out of an estimated 4 million annual cases.
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LONDON — A worker digging up clay in a southern England limestone quarry noticed unusual bumps that led to the discovery of a “dinosaur highway” and nearly 200 tracks that date back 166 million years, researchers said Thursday. 

The extraordinary find made after a team of more than 100 people excavated the Dewars Farm Quarry, in Oxfordshire, in June expands upon previous paleontology work in the area and offers greater insights into the Middle Jurassic period, researchers at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham said. 

“These footprints offer an extraordinary window into the lives of dinosaurs, revealing details about their movements, interactions, and the tropical environment they inhabited,” said Kirsty Edgar, a micropaleontology professor at the University of Birmingham. 

Four of the sets of tracks that make up the so-called highway show paths taken by gigantic, long-necked, herbivores called sauropods, thought to be Cetiosaurus, a dinosaur that grew to nearly 18 meters in length. A fifth set belonged to the Megalosaurus, a ferocious 9-meter predator that left a distinctive triple-claw print and was the first dinosaur to be scientifically named two centuries ago. 

An area where the tracks cross raises questions about possible interactions between the carnivores and herbivores. 

“Scientists have known about and been studying Megalosaurus for longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries prove there is still new evidence of these animals out there, waiting to be found,” said Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. 

Nearly 30 years ago, 40 sets of footprints discovered in a limestone quarry in the area were considered one of the world’s most scientifically important dinosaur track sites. But that area is mostly inaccessible now and there’s limited photographic evidence because it predated the use of digital cameras and drones to record the findings. 

The group that worked at the site this summer took more than 20,000 digital images and used drones to create 3-D models of the prints. The trove of documentation will aid future studies and could shed light on the size of the dinosaurs, how they walked and the speed at which they moved. 

“The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaur’s feet squelched in and out,” said Duncan Murdock, an earth scientist at the Oxford museum. “Along with other fossils like burrows, shells and plants we can bring to life the muddy lagoon environment the dinosaurs walked through.” 

The findings will be shown at a new exhibit at the museum and also broadcast on the BBC’s Digging for Britain program next week.
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WASHINGTON — When the Quadrantid meteor shower peaks Friday, it will be the year’s first chance to see fireballs in the sky. 

A waning crescent moon means good visibility under clear and dark conditions. 

Most meteor showers are named for the constellations where they appear to originate from in the night sky. But the Quadrantids “take their name from a constellation that doesn’t exist anymore,” said NASA’s William Cooke. 

These meteors usually don’t have long trains, but the heads may appear as bright fireballs. The peak may reveal as many as 120 meteors per hour, according to NASA. 

Viewing lasts until Jan. 16. Here’s what to know about the Quadrantids and other meteor showers. 

What is a meteor shower? 

As the Earth orbits the sun, several times a year it passes through debris left by passing comets — and sometimes asteroids. The source of the Quadrantids is debris from the asteroid 2003 EH1. 

When these fast-moving space rocks enter Earth’s atmosphere, the debris encounters new resistance from the air and becomes very hot, eventually burning up. 

Sometimes the surrounding air glows briefly, leaving behind a fiery tail — the end of a “shooting star.” 

Special equipment is not needed to see the various meteor showers that flash across annually, just a spot away from city lights. 

How to view a meteor shower 

The best time to watch a meteor shower is in the early predawn hours, when the moon is low in the sky. 

Competing sources of light — such as a bright moon or artificial glow — are the main obstacles to a clear view of meteors. Cloudless nights when the moon wanes smallest are optimal viewing opportunities. 

And keep looking up, not down. Your eyes will be better adapted to spot shooting stars if you aren’t checking your phone. 

The Quadrantids will peak on a night with a slim crescent moon, just 11% full. 

When is the next meteor shower? 

The next meteor shower, the Lyrids, will peak in mid-April.
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Geneva — The World Health Organization on Monday implored China to share data and access to help understand how COVID-19 began, five years on from the start of the pandemic that upended the planet.

COVID-19 killed millions of people, shredded economies and crippled health systems.

“We continue to call on China to share data and access so we can understand the origins of COVID-19. This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the WHO said in a statement.

“Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics.”

The WHO recounted how on Dec. 31, 2019, its country office in China picked up a media statement from the health authorities in Wuhan concerning cases of “viral pneumonia” in the city.

“In the weeks, months and years that unfolded after that, COVID-19 came to shape our lives and our world,” the U.N. health agency said.

“As we mark this milestone, let’s take a moment to honor the lives changed and lost, recognize those who are suffering from COVID-19 and Long COVID, express gratitude to the health workers who sacrificed so much to care for us, and commit to learning from COVID-19 to build a healthier tomorrow.”

Earlier this month, the WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus addressed the issue of whether the world was better prepared for the next pandemic than it was for COVID-19.

“The answer is yes, and no,” he told a press conference.

“If the next pandemic arrived today, the world would still face some of the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities that gave COVID-19 a foothold five years ago.

“But the world has also learnt many of the painful lessons the pandemic taught us and has taken significant steps to strengthen its defenses against future epidemics and pandemics.”

In December 2021, spooked by the devastation caused by COVID, countries decided to start drafting an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

The WHO’s 194 member states negotiating the treaty have agreed on most of what it should include but are stuck on the practicalities.

A key fault-line lies between Western nations with major pharmaceutical industry sectors and poorer countries wary of being sidelined when the next pandemic strikes.

While the outstanding issues are few, they include the heart of the agreement: the obligation to quickly share emerging pathogens, and then the pandemic-fighting benefits derived from them such as vaccines.

The deadline for the negotiations is May 2025.
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PARIS — France connected the Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor to its grid on Saturday morning, state-run operator EDF said, in the first addition to the country’s nuclear power network in 25 years.

The reactor, which began operating in September ahead of the grid connection, is going online 12 years later than originally planned and at a cost of about $13 billion — four times the original budget.

“EDF teams have achieved the first connection of the Flamanville EPR to the national grid at 11:48 a.m. The reactor is now generating electricity,” EDF said in a statement.

The Flamanville 3 European Pressurized Reactor is France’s largest at 1.6 gigawatts and one of the world’s biggest, along with China’s 1.75 GW Taishan reactor, which is based on a similar design, and Finland’s Olkiluoto.

It is the first to be connected to the grid since COVAX 2 in 1999 but is being brought into service at a time of sluggish consumption, with France exporting a record amount of electricity this year.

EDF is planning to build six new reactors to fulfill a 2022 pledge made by President Emmanuel Macron as part of the country’s energy transition plans, although questions remain around the funding and timeline of the new projects.
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