YCLOAK

Geneva — The World Health Organization said on Tuesday it had been able to start its polio campaign in central Gaza and vaccinate tens of thousands of children despite Israeli strikes in the designated protected zone hours before.

As part of an agreement between the Israeli military and Palestinian militant group Hamas, humanitarian pauses in the year-long Gaza war had been due to begin early on Monday to reach hundreds of thousands of children.

However, hours before then, the U.N. humanitarian office said Israeli forces struck tents near al Aqsa hospital, inside in the zone, where it said four people were burned to death.  

The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said one of its schools in the central Gazan city of Nuseirat, intended as a vaccination site, was hit overnight between Sunday and Monday, killing up to 22 people.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told a Geneva press briefing that over 92,000 children, or around half of the children targeted for polio vaccines in the central area, had been inoculated on Monday.

“What we have received from colleagues is that the vaccination went without a major issue yesterday, and we hope It will continue the same way,” he said.

Other humanitarian agencies have previously voiced concerns about the viability of the polio campaign in northern Gaza, where an Israeli offensive is under way.

Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month, after a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus in August, in the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A NASA spacecraft rocketed away Monday on a quest to explore Jupiter’s tantalizing moon Europa and reveal whether its vast hidden ocean might hold the keys to life.

It will take Europa Clipper 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter, where it will slip into orbit around the giant gas planet and sneak close to Europa during dozens of radiation-drenched flybys.

Scientists are almost certain a deep, global ocean exists beneath Europa’s icy crust. And where there is water, there could be life, making the moon one of the most promising places out there to hunt for it.

Europa Clipper won’t look for life; it has no life detectors. Instead, the spacecraft will zero in on the ingredients necessary to sustain life, searching for organic compounds and other clues as it peers beneath the ice for suitable conditions.

SpaceX started Clipper on its 3 billion-kilometer (1.8 million-mile) journey, launching the spacecraft on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. An hour later, the spacecraft separated from the upper stage, floated off and called home.

“Please say goodbye to Clipper on its way to Europa,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s flight director Pranay Mishra announced from Southern California.

“The science on this is really captivating,” NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free told The Associated Press back at the launch site. Scientists are still learning about the depths of our own ocean, “and here we are looking that far out.”

The $5.2 billion mission almost got derailed by transistors.

NASA didn’t learn until spring that Clipper’s transistors might be more vulnerable to Jupiter’s intense radiation field than anticipated. Clipper will endure the equivalent of several million chest X-rays during each of the 49 Europa flybys. The space agency spent months reviewing everything before concluding in September that the mission could proceed as planned.

Hurricane Milton added to the anxiety, delaying the launch by several days.

“What a great day. We’re so excited,” JPL Director Laurie Leshin said after liftoff.

About the size of a basketball court with its solar wings unfurled, Clipper will swing past Mars and then Earth on its way to Jupiter for gravity assists. The nearly 5,700-kilogram (13,000-pound) probe should reach the solar system’s biggest planet in 2030.

Clipper will circle Jupiter every 21 days. One of those days will bring it close to Europa, among 95 known moons at Jupiter and close to our own moon in size.

The spacecraft will skim as low as 25 kilometers (16 miles) above Europa — much closer than the few previous visitors. Onboard radar will attempt to penetrate the moon’s ice sheet, believed to be 15 kilometers to 24 kilometers (10 miles to 15 miles or more) thick. The ocean below could be 120 kilometers (80 miles) or more deep.

The spacecraft holds nine instruments, with its sensitive electronics stored in a vault with dense zinc and aluminum walls for protection against radiation. Exploration will last until 2034.

“Ocean worlds like Europa are not only unique because they might be habitable, but they might be habitable today,” NASA’s Gina DiBraccio said on the eve of launch.

If conditions are found to be favorable for life at Europa, then that opens up the possibility of life at other ocean worlds in our solar system and beyond, according to scientists. With an underground ocean and geysers, Saturn’s moon Enceladus is another top candidate. 
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA spacecraft is ready to set sail for Jupiter and its moon Europa, one of the best bets for finding life beyond Earth.

Europa Clipper will peer beneath the moon’s icy crust where an ocean is thought to be sloshing fairly close to the surface. It won’t search for life, but rather determine whether conditions there could support it. Another mission would be needed to flush out any microorganisms lurking there.

“It’s a chance for us to explore not a world that might have been habitable billions of years ago, but a world that might be habitable today — right now,” said program scientist Curt Niebur.

Its massive solar panels make Clipper the biggest craft built by NASA to investigate another planet. It will take 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter and will sneak within 16 miles (25 kilometers) of Europa’s surface — considerably closer than any other spacecraft.

Liftoff is targeted for this month aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Mission cost: $5.2 billion.

Europa, the superstar among Jupiter’s many moons

One of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, Europa is almost the size of our own moon. It’s encased in an ice sheet estimated to be 10 miles to 15 miles or more (15 kilometers to 24 kilometers) thick. Scientists believe this frozen crust hides an ocean that could be 80 miles (120 kilometers) or more deep. The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted what appear to be geysers erupting from the surface. Discovered by Galileo in 1610, Europa is one of the four so-called Galilean moons of Jupiter, along with Ganymede, Io and Callisto.

Seeking conditions that support life

What type of life might Europa harbor? Besides water, organic compounds are needed for life as we know it, plus an energy source. In Europa’s case that could be thermal vents on the ocean floor. Deputy project scientist Bonnie Buratti imagines any life would be primitive like the bacterial life that originated in Earth’s deep ocean vents. “We will not know from this mission because we can’t see that deep,” she said. Unlike missions to Mars where habitability is one of many questions, Clipper’s sole job is to establish whether the moon could support life in its ocean or possibly in any pockets of water in the ice.

Supersized spacecraft

When its solar wings and antennas are unfurled, Clipper is about the size of a basketball court — more than 100 feet (30 meters) end to end — and weighs nearly 13,000 pounds (6,000 kilograms). The supersized solar panels are needed because of Jupiter’s distance from the sun. The main body — about the size of a camper — is packed with nine science instruments, including radar that will penetrate the ice, cameras that will map virtually the entire moon and tools to tease out the contents of Europa’s surface and tenuous atmosphere. The name hearkens to the swift sailing ships of centuries past.

Circling Jupiter to fly by Europa

The roundabout trip to Jupiter will span 1.8 billion miles (3 billion kilometers). For extra oomph, the spacecraft will swing past Mars early next year and then Earth in late 2026. It arrives at Jupiter in 2030 and begins science work the next year. While orbiting Jupiter, it will cross paths with Europa 49 times. The mission ends in 2034 with a planned crash into Ganymede — Jupiter’s biggest moon and the solar system’s too.

Europa flybys pose huge radiation risk

There’s more radiation around Jupiter than anywhere else in our solar system, besides the sun. Europa passes through Jupiter’s bands of radiation as it orbits the gas giant, making it especially menacing for spacecraft. That’s why Clipper’s electronics are inside a vault with dense aluminum and zinc walls. All this radiation would nix any life on Europa’s surface. But it could break down water molecules and, perhaps, release oxygen all the way down into the ocean that could possibly fuel sea life.

Earlier this year, NASA was in a panic that the spacecraft’s many transistors might not withstand the intense radiation. But after months of analysis, engineers concluded the mission could proceed as planned.

Other visitors to Jupiter and Europa

NASA’s twin Pioneer spacecraft and then two Voyagers swept past Jupiter in the 1970s. The Voyagers provided the first detailed photos of Europa but from quite a distance. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft had repeated flybys of the moon during the 1990s, passing as close as 124 miles (200 kilometers). Still in action around Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has added to Europa’s photo album. Arriving at Jupiter a year after Clipper will be the European Space Agency’s Juice spacecraft, launched last year.

Ganymede and other possible ocean worlds

Like Europa, Jupiter’s jumbo moon Ganymede is thought to host an underground ocean. But its frozen shell is much thicker — possibly 100 miles (160 kilometers) thick — making it tougher to probe the environment below. Callisto’s ice sheet may be even thicker, possibly hiding an ocean. Saturn’s moon Enceladus has geysers shooting up, but it’s much farther than Jupiter. Ditto for Saturn’s moon Titan, also suspected of having a subterranean sea. While no ocean worlds have been confirmed beyond our solar system, scientists believe they’re out there — and may even be relatively common.

Messages in a cosmic bottle

Like many robotic explorers before it, Clipper bears messages from Earth. Attached to the electronics vault is a triangular metal plate. On one side is a design labeled “water words” with representations of the word for water in 104 languages. On the opposite side: a poem about the moon by U.S. poet laureate Ada Limon and a silicon chip containing the names of 2.6 million people who signed up to vicariously ride along.
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WASHINGTON — As if the largest bug to ever live – a monster about 2.7 meters long with several dozen legs – wasn’t terrifying enough, scientists could only just imagine what the extinct beast’s head looked like.

That’s because many of the fossils of these creatures are headless shells that were left behind when they molted, squirming out of their exoskeletons through the head opening as they grew ever bigger — 2.4 to 2.7 meters and more than 50 kilograms.

Now, scientists have produced a mug shot after studying fossils of juveniles that were complete and very well preserved, if not quite cute.

The giant bug’s topper was a round bulb with two short bell-shaped antennae, two protruding eyes like a crab, and a rather small mouth adapted for grinding leaves and bark, according to new research published Wednesday in Science Advances.

Called Arthropleura, these were arthropods — the group that includes crabs, spiders and insects – with features of modern-day centipedes and millipedes. But some of them were much, much bigger, and this one was a surprising mix.

“We discovered that it had the body of a millipede, but head of a centipede,” said study co-author and paleobiologist Mickael Lheritier at the University Claude Bernard Lyon in Villeurbanne, France.

The largest Arthropleura may have been the biggest bugs to ever live, although there is still a debate. They may be a close second to an extinct giant sea scorpion.

Researchers in Europe and North America have been collecting fragments and footprints of the huge bugs since the late 1800s.

“We have been wanting to see what the head of this animal looked like for a really long time,” said James Lamsdell, a paleobiologist at West Virginia University, who was not involved in the study.

To produce a model of the head, researchers first used CT scans to study fossil specimens of fully intact juveniles embedded in rocks found in a French coal field in the 1980s.

This technique allowed the researchers to scrutinize “hidden details like bits of the head that are still embedded in the rock” without marring the fossil, Lamsdell said.

“When you chip away at rock, you don’t know what part of a delicate fossil may have been lost or damaged,” he said.

The juvenile fossil specimens only measured about 6 centimeters and it’s possible they were a type of Arthropleura that didn’t grow to enormous sizes. But even if so, the researchers said they are close enough kin to provide a glimpse of what adults looked like – whether giant or of a less nightmarish size — when they were alive 300 million years ago.
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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Thirteen pregnant Philippine women accused of illegally acting as surrogate mothers in Cambodia after being recruited online could face prison terms after giving birth, a senior Interior Ministry official said Saturday. 

Interior Ministry Secretary of State Chou Bun Eng, who leads the country’s fight against human trafficking and sexual exploitation, said police found 24 foreign women, 20 Philippine and four Vietnamese, when they raided a villa in Kandal province, near the capital of Phnom Penh, on September 23. 

Thirteen of the Philippine women were found to be pregnant and were charged in court on October 1 under a provision in the law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation, she said. 

The law was updated in 2016 to ban commercial surrogacy after Cambodia became a popular destination for foreigners seeking women to give birth to their children. 

Developing countries have been popular for surrogacy because costs are much lower than in countries such as the United States and Australia, where surrogate services could cost around $150,000. 

The surrogacy business boomed in Cambodia after it was put under tight restrictions in neighboring Thailand, as well as in India and Nepal. 

In July 2017, a Cambodian court sentenced an Australian woman and two Cambodian associates to 1 1/2 years in prison for providing commercial surrogacy services. 

The new case is unusual because surrogates normally are employed in their own countries, not transported elsewhere. 

Cambodia already has a bad reputation for human trafficking, especially in connection with online scams in which foreigners recruited for work under false pretenses are kept in conditions of virtual slavery and help perpetrate criminal fraud online against targets in many countries. 

Details of the new surrogacy case remain murky, and officials have not made clear whether the women were arrested or whether anyone involved in organizing the scheme has been identified. 

Chou Bun Eng told The Associated Press that the business that recruited the surrogates was based in Thailand, and their food and accommodation in Cambodia were arranged from there. She said the authorities had not yet identified the business. 

She said the seven Philippine women and four Vietnamese women who were caught in the raid but who were not pregnant would be deported soon. 

The 13 pregnant women have been placed under care at a hospital in Phnom Penh, said Chou Bun Eng. She added that after they give birth, they could be prosecuted on charges that could land them in prison for two to five years. 

She said that Cambodia considered the women not to have been victimized but rather offenders who conspired with the organizers to act as surrogates and then sell the babies for money. Her assertion could not be verified, as the women could not be contacted, and it is not known if they have lawyers. 

The Philippine Embassy in Cambodia, in response to a local news account of the affair, issued a statement Wednesday confirming most of the details related to what it called the “rescue of 20 Filipino women.” 

“The Philippine Embassy ensured that all 20 Filipinos were interviewed in the presence of an Embassy representative and an interpreter in every step of the investigation process,” it said. 
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washington — The Federal Aviation Administration approved a license Saturday for the launch of SpaceX’s Starship 5 on Sunday after earlier saying it did not expect to make a decision until late November.

Reuters first reported this week the faster than expected timetable after the FAA in September had suggested a much longer review. 

SpaceX is targeting Sunday for the launch and said a 30-minute launch window opens at 7 a.m. CT (1200 GMT) 

The FAA said Saturday that SpaceX had “met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements for the suborbital test flight” for the fifth test of the Starship and has also approved the Starship 6 mission profile. 

The Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket are fully reusable systems designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon and beyond. 

The fifth test flight of the Starship/Super Heavy from Boca Chica, Texas, includes a return to the launch site of the Super Heavy booster rocket for a catch attempt by the launch tower, and a water landing of the Starship vehicle in the Indian Ocean west of Australia. 

The FAA said if SpaceX chooses an uncontrolled entry “it must communicate that decision to the FAA prior to launch, the loss of the Starship vehicle will be considered a planned event, and a mishap investigation will not be required.” 

On Friday, the FAA approved the return to flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle after it reviewed and accepted the SpaceX-led investigation findings and corrective actions for the mishap that occurred September 28. 

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has harshly criticized the FAA, including for proposing a $633,000 fine against SpaceX over launch issues and for the delay in approving the license for Starship 5, which the company said has been ready to launch since August. Musk has called for the resignation of FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker and threatened to sue the agency. 
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The American Psychiatric Association says that as elections approach, stress levels go up, regardless of political affiliation. The constant stream of news, stressful arguments and concerns about the country’s future all put pressure on mental well-being. Some psychologists call it election stress disorder. Maxim Adams has the story. Videographer: Andre Sergunin
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YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Humanitarian groups in Cameroon are visiting homes and villages in remote areas this week to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, advising women to go to hospitals for free screening and treatment.

About 60% of the more than 7,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer in Cameroon this year have died because they were late in getting to hospitals, officials say. Breast cancer deaths are highly unreported because families abandon women to die at home.

Thirty-year-old history student Emilie Nadege Atangana told a group of women and girls at the University of Yaounde 1 campus how she was psychologically and emotionally traumatized after receiving a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2020.

Most of her relatives, friends and fellow students said she would not live long and abandoned her, she said.

Atangana said she found hope when medical staff members of the Yaounde Gynaecology, Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital told her that 90% of early-stage breast cancers are curable.

Cameroonian government officials and humanitarian groups say cancer survivors such as Atangana have been sent to towns and villages as part of activities marking “Pink Month.”

The World Health Organization designates October as Pink Month, a time to teach people about cancer, including early identification and signs and symptoms.

Forty-two-year-old Mesode Ngwese Agbaw, a cancer survivor, said people should stop hiding cancer patients at home to die because of the false belief that cancer cannot be treated.

“You don’t need to hide alone with your pain,” she said. “Share it with somebody, and the people will be ready to help you. I was operated on and after the operation, I have been following treatment and till now, I am fine.”

This year’s theme for the month in Cameroon is “No one Should Face Breast Cancer Alone and Yes, No One is Expected to Fight Breast Cancer Alone.”

Ruth Amin, a public health specialist and project manager at the Yaounde-based Lifafa Research Foundation, said that sending people suspected of having breast cancer to hospitals would prevent many of the deaths caused because the women were abandoned or got to a hospital too late.

“We are calling on the men to support their spouses, to support their mothers, to support their sisters in raising awareness, in carrying them to the hospitals to be clinically examined by professionals,” she said.

“Women should speak up,” she said. “Women should go toward the health facilities to get examined because the earlier they are being diagnosed, the easier it would be for them to be treated.”

Amin spoke to VOA via a messaging app from Buea, a southern commercial city where humanitarian caravans were educating residents about breast cancer on Saturday.

Cameroon says it has equipped all hospitals with qualified medical staff members and equipment to diagnose breast cancer.

The World Health Organization estimates that Cameroon has about 20,000 new cancer cases, including breast cancers, each year, with 65% related deaths.
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chicago — With a neon-green net in hand, Annette Prince briskly walks a downtown Chicago plaza at dawn, looking left and right as she goes.

It’s not long before she spots a tiny yellow bird sitting on the concrete. It doesn’t fly away, and she quickly nets the bird, gently places it inside a paper bag and labels the bag with the date, time and place.

“This is a Nashville warbler,” said Prince, director of the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, noting that the bird must have flown into a glass window pane of an adjacent building. “He must only weigh about two pennies. He’s squinting his eyes because his head hurts.”

For rescue groups like the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, this scene plays out hundreds of times each spring and fall after migrating birds fly into homes, small buildings and sometimes Chicago’s skyscrapers and other hulking buildings.

A stark sign of the risks came last fall, when 1,000 migrating birds died on a single night after flying into the glass exterior of the city’s lakefront convention center, McCormick Place. This fall, the facility unveiled new bird-safe window film on one of its glass buildings along the Lake Michigan shore.

The $1.2 million project installed tiny dots on the exterior of the Lakeside Center building, adorning enough glass to cover two football fields.

Doug Stotz, senior conservation ecologist at the nearby Field Museum, hopes the project will be a success. He estimated that just 20 birds have died after flying into the convention’s center’s glass exterior so far this fall, a hopeful sign.

“We don’t have a lot of data since this just started this fall, but at this point, it looks like it’s made a huge difference,” Stotz said.

But for the birds that collide with Chicago buildings, there is a network of people waiting to help. They also are aiming to educate officials and find solutions to improve building design, lighting and other factors in the massive number of bird collision deaths in Chicago and worldwide.

Prince said she and other volunteers walk the streets downtown to document what they can of the birds that are killed and injured.

“We have the combination of the millions of birds that pass through this area because it’s a major migratory path through the United States, on top of the amount of artificial lighting that we put out at night, which is when these birds are traveling and getting confused and attracted to the amount of glass,” Prince said.

Dead birds are often saved for scientific use, including by Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. Rescued birds are taken to local wildlife rehabilitation centers to recover, such as the DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center in suburban Illinois.

On a recent morning, veterinarian Darcy Stephenson at DuPage gave a yellow-bellied sapsucker anesthetic gas before taping its wings open for an X-ray. The bird arrived with a note from a rescue group: “Window collision.”

Examining the results, she found the bird had a broken ulna — a bone in the wing.

The center takes in about 10,000 species of animals annually and 65% of them are avian. Many are victims of window collisions and during peak migration in the fall, several hundred birds can show up in one day.

“The large chunk of these birds do actually survive and make it back into the wild once we’re able to treat them,” said Sarah Reich, head veterinarian at DuPage. “Fractures heal very, very quickly in these guys for shoulder fractures. Soft tissue trauma generally heals pretty well. The challenging cases are going to be the ones where the trauma isn’t as apparent.”

Injured birds go through a process of flight testing, then get a full physical exam by the veterinary staff and are rehabilitated before being set free.

“It’s exciting to be able to get these guys back out into the wild, especially some of those cases that we’re kind of cautiously optimistic about or maybe have an injury that we’ve never treated successfully before,” Reich said, adding that these are the cases “clinic staff get really, really excited about.”
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The power of simple prayer to heal illness is not clear, according to scientists, and is difficult to study. Whatever your faith, when you’re sick, you should seek treatment from a doctor. But in Nigeria, some people choose spiritual healers and miracle cures over orthodox medicine and hospitals. That creates some dangerous situations. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
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NEW YORK — Prepare to spot a rare, bright comet.

The space rock is slinging toward Earth from the outer reaches of the solar system and will make its closest pass Saturday. It should be visible through the end of October, clear skies permitting.

Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas should be bright enough to see with the naked eye, but binoculars and telescopes will give a better view.

“It’ll be this fuzzy circle with a long tail stretching away from it,” said Sally Brummel, planetarium manager at the Bell Museum in Minnesota.

What is a comet?

Comets are frozen leftovers from the solar system’s formation billions of years ago. They heat up as they swing toward the sun, releasing their characteristic streaming tails.

In 2023, a green comet that last visited Earth 50,000 years ago zoomed by the planet again. Other notable flybys included Neowise in 2020, and Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the mid to late 1990s.

Where did comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas come from?

The comet, also designated C/2023 A3, was discovered last year and is named for the observatories in China and South Africa that spied it.

It came from what’s known as the Oort Cloud well beyond Pluto. After making its closest approach about 71 million kilometers of Earth, it won’t return for another 80,000 years — assuming it survives the trip.

Several comets are discovered every year, but many burn up near the sun or linger too far away to be visible without special equipment, according to Larry Denneau, a lead researcher with the Atlas telescope that helped discover the comet.

How to view the comet

Those hoping to spot comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas should venture outside about an hour after sunset on a clear night and look to the west.

The comet should be visible from both the northern and southern hemispheres.
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UNITED NATIONS — More than 370 million girls and women alive today, or one in every eight worldwide, experienced rape or sexual assault before the age of 18, the United Nations children’s agency said Wednesday.

The number rises to 650 million, or one in five, when taking into account “non-contact” forms of sexual violence, such as online or verbal abuse, UNICEF reported, in what it called the first global survey of the problem.

The report said that while girls and women were worst affected, 240 million to 310 million boys and men, or around 1 in 11, have experienced rape or sexual assault during childhood.

“The scale of this human rights violation is overwhelming, and it’s been hard to fully grasp because of stigma, challenges in measurement, and limited investment in data collection,” UNICEF said in releasing the report.

It comes ahead of an inaugural Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children in Colombia next month.

UNICEF said its findings highlight the urgent need for intensified global action, including by strengthening laws and helping children recognize and report sexual violence.

UNICEF said sexual violence cuts across geographical, cultural, and economic boundaries, but sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of victims, with 79 million girls and women, or 22% affected. Eastern and South-Eastern Asia follow with 75 million, or 8%.

In its data for women and girls, UNICEF estimated 73 million, or 9%, were affected in Central and Southern Asia; 68 million, or 14%, in Europe and Northern America; 45 million, or 18%, in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 29 million, or 15%, in Northern Africa and Western Asia.

Oceania, with 6 million, had the highest number affected by percentage, at 34%.

Risks were higher, rising to 1 in 4, in “fragile settings,” including those with weak institutions, U.N. peacekeeping forces, or large numbers of refugees, the report found.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell called sexual violence against children “a stain on our moral conscience.”

“It inflicts deep and lasting trauma, often by someone the child knows and trusts, in places where they should feel safe.”

UNICEF said most childhood sexual violence occurs during adolescence, especially between ages 14 and 17, and those who suffer it face higher risks of sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and mental health issues.

“(T)he impact is further compounded when children delay disclosing their experiences … or keep the abuse secret altogether,” UNICEF said.

It said increased investment in data collection was needed to capture the full scale the problem, given persistent data gaps, particularly on boys’ experiences.

UNICEF said it based its estimates of girls’ and women’s experiences on nationally representative surveys conducted between 2010 and 2022 in 120 countries and areas. It said estimates for boys and men were derived from a broader range of data sources and applied some indirect methods.
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As representatives of the signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity prepare to meet in Cali, Colombia, this month, residents of some Colombian islands in the Caribbean are calling for action because rising seas are threatening their homes, families, and way of life. Austin Landis traveled to Santa Cruz del Islote to hear their story. Camera: Jorge Calle.
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STOCKHOLM — Scientists David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the award-giving body said on Wednesday, for their work on the structure of proteins.

The prize, widely regarded as among the most prestigious in the scientific world, is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and is worth $1.1 million.

“One of the discoveries being recognized this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences,” the academy said in a statement.

Half the prize was awarded to Baker “for computational protein design” while the other half was shared by Hassabis and Jumper “for protein structure prediction,” the academy said.

The third award to be handed out every year, the chemistry prize follows those for medicine and physics announced earlier this week.

The Nobel prizes were established in the will of dynamite inventor and wealthy businessman Alfred Nobel and are awarded to “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

First handed out in 1901, 15 years after Nobel’s death, it is awarded for achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. Recipients in each category share the prize sum that has been adjusted over the years.

The economics prize is a later addition funded by the Swedish central bank.

Chemistry, close to Alfred Nobel’s heart and the discipline most applicable to his own work as an inventor, may not always be the most headline-grabbing of the prizes, but past recipients include scientific greats such as radioactivity pioneers Ernest Rutherford and Marie Curie.

Last year’s chemistry award went to Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Aleksey Ekimov for their discovery of tiny clusters of atoms known as quantum dots, widely used today to create colors in flat screens, light emitting diode (LED) lamps and devices that help surgeons see blood vessels in tumors.

Alongside the cash prize, the winners will be presented a medal by the Swedish king on Dec. 10, followed by a lavish banquet in Stockholm city hall.
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Abuja, Nigeria — Cholera is surging in Nigeria, health officials said this week, with the number of cases and deaths increasing by more than 200% this year.

The Nigerian Center for Disease Control said in this week’s epidemiological report that the country has recorded nearly 11,000 cases of cholera this year — a 220% increase compared with the same point in 2023.

The report said fatalities over the same periods have increased from 106 to 359 — a rise of 239%.

The state of Lagos accounted for 43% of the nation’s cases, while Kano, Katsina, Jigawa and Borno also recorded significant numbers.

Last month, the worst flooding in 30 years ravaged conflict-ridden Borno state, worsening an already dire humanitarian situation there. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and moved to overcrowded camps.

“We’re now facing a significant public health challenge that demands urgent attention and action,” Borno Health Commissioner Baba Mallam Gana said. “This outbreak is concerning, especially in the aftermath of a flooding incident.

“The floods have created ideal conditions for the spread of waterborne diseases like cholera by contaminating water sources and disrupting sanitation systems,” he said.

Cholera is a bacterial disease, usually spread by contaminated food or water. It causes severe diarrhea and dehydration.

The Nigerian CDC launched a national emergency response along with state authorities to bring numbers down, but the number of cases is surging, Gana said.

“We must now act swiftly to prevent further spread of this disease,” he said.

As part of the flood intervention responses, Gana said, the Borno public health emergency center was converted into a control center to coordinate surveillance, risk communication and community engagement, as well as essential health services, infection prevention, water sanitation and hygiene.

Nigeria’s Health Ministry is sending hundreds of thousands of doses of cholera vaccine to the affected areas. Borno alone received 300,000 doses, and state authorities say the vaccine has been distributed to camps for those displaced by the floods.
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new york — Humanity is hitting the upper limit of life expectancy, according to a new study.

Advances in medical technology and genetic research — not to mention larger numbers of people making it to age 100 — are not translating into marked jumps in lifespan overall, according to researchers who found shrinking longevity increases in countries with the longest-living populations.

“We have to recognize there’s a limit” and perhaps reassess assumptions about when people should retire and how much money they’ll need to live out their lives, said S. Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois-Chicago researcher who was lead author of the study published Monday by the journal Nature Aging.

Mark Hayward, a University of Texas researcher not involved in the study, called it “a valuable addition to the mortality literature.”

“We are reaching a plateau” in life expectancy, he agreed. It’s always possible some breakthrough could push survival to greater heights, “but we don’t have that now,” Hayward said.

What is life expectancy?

Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, assuming death rates at that time hold constant. It is one of the world’s most important health measures, but it is also imperfect: It is a snapshot estimate that cannot account for deadly pandemics, miracle cures or other unforeseen developments that might kill or save millions of people.

In the new research, Olshansky and his research partners tracked life expectancy estimates for the years 1990 to 2019, drawn from a database administered by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. The researchers focused on eight of the places in the world where people live the longest — Australia, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland.

The U.S. doesn’t even rank in the top 40. But is also included “because we live here” and because of past, bold estimates that life expectancy in the U.S. might surge dramatically in this century, Olshansky said.

Who lives the longest?

Women continue to live longer than men and life expectancy improvements are still occurring — but at a slowing pace, the researchers found. In 1990, the average amount of improvement was about 2½ years per decade. In the 2010s, it was 1½ years — and almost zero in the U.S.

The U.S. is more problematic because it is harder hit by a range of issues that kill people even before they hit old age, including drug overdoses, shootings, obesity and inequities that make it hard for some people to get sufficient medical care.

But in one calculation, the researchers estimated what would happen in all nine places if all deaths before age 50 were eliminated. The increase at best was still only 1½ years, Olshansky said.

Eileen Crimmins, a University of Southern California gerontology expert, said in an email that she agrees with the study’s findings. She added, “For me personally, the most important issue is the dismal and declining relative position of the United States.”

Why life expectancy may not be able to rise forever

The study suggests that there’s a limit to how long most people live, and we’ve about hit it, Olshansky said.

“We’re squeezing less and less life out of these life-extending technologies. And the reason is, aging gets in the way,” he said.

It may seem common to hear of a person living to 100 — former U.S. President Jimmy Carter hit that milestone last week. In 2019, a little over 2% of Americans made it to 100, compared with about 5% in Japan and 9% in Hong Kong, Olshansky said.

It’s likely that the ranks of centenarians will grow in the decades ahead, experts say, but that’s because of population growth. The percentage of people hitting 100 will remain limited, likely with fewer than 15% of women and 5% of men making it that long in most countries, Olshansky said.
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GENEVA  — Billions of people are facing a future of water scarcity as global rivers dry up, glaciers melt, and intense heat and other extreme weather events caused by climate change create critical changes in water availability around the world, according to the State of Global Water Resources report issued Monday by the World Meteorological Organization. 

“Water is the canary in the coal mine of climate change,” said Celeste Saulo, WMO secretary-general. “Water is the basis of life on this planet, but it can also be a force of destruction.”  

She told journalists at a briefing in Geneva that “water is becoming increasingly unpredictable, what we call an erratic hydrological cycle, leading to extreme rainfall, sudden floods, and severe droughts.”   

“Climate change is one of the causes of these extreme behaviors,” she said, noting that these extreme events “wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies.” 

“Melting ice and glaciers threaten long-term water security for many millions of people. And yet we are not taking the necessary urgent action,” she warned. 

“To mitigate the impact of such potential catastrophes, we must gather reliable data. After all, we cannot appropriately manage what we do not measure,” she said, adding that scientific data gathered by WMO “indicates the situation will worsen over the coming years.” 

The report finds 2023 was the driest year for global rivers in 33 years, marking the last of five consecutive years of widespread below-normal conditions for river flows, thereby reducing “the amount of water available for communities, agriculture and ecosystems, further stressing global water supplies.” 

It notes that 2023 was also the second consecutive year in which all regions in the world with glaciers reported ice loss, the year in which “glaciers suffered the largest mass loss ever registered in 50 years.” 

“The glaciers are retreating rapidly,” said Stefan Uhlenbrook, WMO director of hydrology, water and cryosphere. “The latest data for this year actually shows that in the Swiss Alps, at least, it has been continuing and more glaciers have been reduced. 

“If a glacier is melting more and more, that means more water becomes available downstream,” he said. “However, if the glacier is gone in a few more decades, it will be very dramatic because then the summer high flows from the melting glaciers will disappear because there is no storage anymore. 

“If the glacier disappears, that changes completely the hydrological regime. It changes completely the conditions for ecosystems. It changes completely the availability of water for farmers. So, it has really severe consequences,” he said. 

One manifestation of this was seen last week when Switzerland and Italy redrew part of their shared border in the Alps because melting glaciers due to climate change had moved their long-defined national border. 

The report says 3.6 billion people currently face inadequate access to water at least one month a year, and this is expected to increase to more than 5 billion by 2050.   

While no region is spared from disastrous hydrological extreme events, it says floods and droughts affected Africa most in terms of human casualties. The report says major flooding in Libya due to two collapsed dams, triggered by Storm Daniel, killed more than 11,000 people. Floods also impacted the Greater Horn of Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Mozambique and Malawi. 

“Jordan is one of the most water scarce countries because of the high population density and the very arid conditions,” Uhlenbrook observed, adding that many parts of Asia, North and South America, and Russia among other regions are “very vulnerable to the changes we see from climate change.” 

“We see the increasing variability of the hydrological cycle causing tension and stress and providing the source of conflict in many parts of the world,” he said. 

The WMO report is calling for urgent action and international cooperation to address the scarce water issues. It says cooperation through data sharing and building of trust between nations is critical for managing shared water resources. 

“We must fill the gaps in our understanding. We need to expand our hydrological monitoring, especially in regions where data is scarce. We cannot afford blind spots when it comes to our water resources,” WMO chief Saulo said. “I urge nations to invest in hydrological monitoring and commit to sharing this critical data, because without it, we are navigating without a map.” 

She underscored the importance of early warning systems in addressing climate-induced disasters such as floods and extreme weather events. “These global challenges transcend borders and conflicts because water is once again the basis of life on Earth, so we must work together to address the water issues,” she said. 
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A spacecraft blasted off Monday to investigate the scene of a cosmic crash. 

The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft rocketed away on a two-year journey to the small, harmless asteroid rammed by NASA two years ago in a dress rehearsal for the day a killer space rock threatens Earth. Launched by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral, it’s the second part of a planetary defense test that could one day help save the planet. 

The 2022 crash by NASA’s Dart spacecraft shortened Dimorphos’ orbit around its bigger companion, demonstrating that if a dangerous rock was headed our way, there’s a chance it could be knocked off course with enough advance notice. 

Scientists are eager to examine the impact’s aftermath up close to know exactly how effective Dart was and what changes might be needed to safeguard Earth in the future. 

“The more detail we can glean the better as it may be important for planning a future deflection mission should one be needed,” University of Maryland astronomer Derek Richardson said before launch. 

Researchers want to know whether Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — left a crater or perhaps reshaped the 150-meter (500-foot) asteroid more dramatically. It looked something like a flying saucer before Dart’s blow and may now resemble a kidney bean, said Richardson, who took part in the Dart mission and is helping with Hera. 

Dart’s wallop sent rubble and even boulders flying off Dimorphos, providing an extra kick to the impact’s momentum. The debris trail extended more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) into space for months. 

Some boulders and other debris could still be hanging around the asteroid, posing a potential threat to Hera, said flight director Ignacio Tanco. 

“We don’t really know very well the environment in which we are going to operate,” said Tanco. “But that’s the whole point of the mission is to go there and find out.” 

European officials describe the $400 million (363 million euro) mission as a “crash scene investigation.” 

Hera “is going back to the crime site and getting all the scientific and technical information,” said project manager Ian Carnelli. 

Carrying a dozen science instruments, the small car-sized Hera will need to swing past Mars in 2025 for a gravity boost, before arriving at Dimorphos by the end of 2026. It’s a moonlet of Didymos, Greek for twin, a fast-spinning asteroid that’s five times bigger. At that time, the asteroids will be 195 million kilometers (120 million miles) from Earth. 

Controlled by a flight team in Darmstadt, Germany, Hera will attempt to go into orbit around the rocky pair, with the flyby distances gradually dropping from 30 kilometers (18 miles) all the way down to 1 kilometer (a half-mile). The spacecraft will survey the moonlet for at least six months to ascertain its mass, shape and composition, as well as its orbit around Didymos. 

Before the impact, Dimorphos circled its larger companion from 1,189 meters out. Scientists believe the orbit is now tighter and oval-shaped, and that the moonlet may even be tumbling. 

Two shoebox-sized Cubesats will pop off Hera for even closer drone-like inspections, with one of them using radar to peer beneath the moonlet’s boulder-strewn surface. Scientists suspect Dimorphos was formed from material shed from Didymos. The radar observations should help confirm whether Didymos is indeed the little moon’s parent. 

The Cubesats will attempt to land on the moonlet once their survey is complete. If the moonlet is tumbling, that will complicate the endeavor. Hera may also end its mission with a precarious touchdown, but on the larger Didymos. 

Neither asteroid poses any threat to Earth — before or after Dart showed up. That’s why NASA picked the pair for humanity’s first asteroid-deflecting demo. 

Leftovers from the solar system’s formation 4.6 billion years ago, asteroids primarily orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter in what’s known as the main asteroid belt, where millions of them reside. They become near-Earth objects when they’re knocked out of the belt and into our neck of the woods. 

NASA’s near-Earth object count currently tops 36,000, almost all asteroids but also some comets. More than 2,400 of them are considered potentially hazardous to Earth. 
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Washington — The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a bid by President Joe Biden’s administration to enforce in Texas federal guidance requiring hospitals to perform abortions if needed to stabilize a patient’s emergency medical condition.  

The justices turned away the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s decision that halted enforcement of the guidance in Texas, where a Republican-backed near-total ban on abortion is in effect, and against members of two anti-abortion medical associations.  

The Biden administration issued the guidance in July 2022 to protect access to abortion after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority the previous month overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide.  

The guidance reminded healthcare providers across the country of their obligations under a 1986 federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to ensure Medicare-participating hospitals offer emergency care stabilizing patients regardless of their ability to pay. Medicare is the government healthcare program for the elderly. Hospitals that violate EMTALA risk losing Medicare funding.  

The guidance made clear that under that law physicians must provide a woman an abortion if needed to resolve a medical emergency and stabilize the patient even in states where the procedure is banned, and that the measure preempts state bans that offer no exceptions for medical emergencies or with exceptions that are too narrow.

Texas law prohibits abortions unless the pregnancy places the woman at risk of death or “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

Republican-governed Texas and two anti-abortion medical associations – the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, sued the administration, arguing that the guidance unlawfully purports to compel healthcare providers to perform abortions.

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix in 2022 blocked enforcement of the guidance, finding that it is an unlawful interpretation of the EMTALA statute, and would allow abortions beyond what is permitted by Texas law.

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan. 2 upheld Hendrix’s decision, ruling that “EMTALA does not mandate any specific type of medical treatment, let alone abortion.” The 5th Circuit’s decision came a month after the top court in Texas ruled against a woman who was seeking an emergency abortion of her non-viable pregnancy.  

Abortion rights advocates have challenged the scope of abortion ban exceptions in several states due to uncertainty, including among physicians, about what medical emergencies during pregnancy would permit health providers to perform the procedure.

In a similar case in June, the Supreme Court permitted, for the time being, abortions to be performed in Idaho when pregnant women are facing medical emergencies.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in the Idaho case revived a federal judge’s decision that EMTALA takes precedence over Idaho’s Republican-backed near-total abortion ban when the two conflict. While the justices lifted a block they had placed on the judge’s ruling in the case, they did not resolve the dispute on its merits, opting instead to dismiss it as “improvidently granted.”
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STOCKHOLM — The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded Monday to Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA, tiny pieces of genetic material that alter how genes work at the cellular level and could lead to new ways of treating cancer. 

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, which awarded the prize, said the duo’s discovery is “proving to be fundamentally important” in understanding how organisms develop and function. 

MicroRNA have opened up scientists’ approaches to treating diseases like cancer by helping to regulate how genes work at the cellular level, according to Dr. Claire Fletcher, a lecturer in molecular oncology at Imperial College London. 

Fletcher said microRNA provide genetic instructions to tell cells to make new proteins and that there were two main areas where microRNA could be helpful: in developing drugs to treat diseases and in serving as biomarkers. 

“MicroRNA alters how genes in the cell work,” said Fletcher, who is an outside expert not associated with the Nobel prize. 

“If we take the example of cancer, we’ll have a particular gene working overtime, it might be mutated and working in overdrive,” she said. “We can take a microRNA that we know alters the activity of that gene and we can deliver that particular microRNA to cancer cells to stop that mutated gene from having its effect.” 

Ambros performed the research that led to his prize at Harvard University. He is currently a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Ruvkun’s research was performed at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School, where he’s a professor of genetics, said Thomas Perlmann, Secretary-General of the Nobel Committee. 

Perlmann said he spoke to Ruvkun by phone shortly before the announcement. 

“It took a long time before he came to the phone and sounded very tired, but he quite rapidly was quite excited and happy, when he understood what it was all about,” Perlmann said. 

Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Hungarian-American Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman for discoveries that enabled the creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 that were critical in slowing the pandemic. 

The prize carries a cash award of ($1 million from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. 

The announcement launched this year’s Nobel prizes award season. 

Nobel announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Oct. 14. 

The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. 

Fletcher said there are clinical trials ongoing to see how microRNA approaches might help treat skin cancer, but that there aren’t yet any drug treatments approved by drug regulators. She expected that might happen in the next five to 10 years. 

She said microRNA represent another way of being able to control the behavior of genes to treat and track various diseases. 

“The majority of therapies we have at the moment are targeting proteins in cells,” she said. “If we can intervene at the microRNA level, it opens up a whole new way of us developing medicines and us controlling the activity of genes whose levels might be altered in diseases.” 
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