Life

Thailand air pollution leads millions to seek medical help

BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — About 2.4 million people in Thailand have sought hospital treatment for medical problems linked to air pollution since the start of the year, health officials said, as toxic smog chokes parts of the country. Bangkok and the northern city of Chiang Mai were among the most polluted cities in the world on Thursday morning, according to air quality monitoring firm IQAir. The poor air quality has seen 2.4 million people seek […]

SpaceX to make second bid to launch Starship on test flight

Starbase, United States (AFP) by Patrick Fallon with Chris Lefkow in Washington SpaceX is to make a second attempt on Thursday to carry out the first test flight of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, designed to send astronauts to the Moon, Mars and beyond. A planned liftoff Monday of the gigantic rocket was aborted less than 10 minutes ahead of the scheduled launch because of a pressurization issue in the first-stage booster. The […]

67 million children missed out on vaccines because of Covid: UNICEF

United Nations, United States (AFP) by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Some 67 million children partially or fully missed routine vaccines globally between 2019 and 2021 because of lockdowns and health care disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the United Nations said Wednesday. “More than a decade of hard-earned gains in routine childhood immunization have been eroded,” read a new report from the UN’s children’s agency, UNICEF, adding that getting back on track “will be challenging.” Of the […]

AI-generated song imitating Drake yanked from streaming services

Montreal, Canada (AFP) — A new song created using AI software to imitate Canadian singers Drake and The Weeknd has been removed from streaming services after quickly racking up millions of listens and sparking debate over the new technology. Released last Friday, “Heart On My Sleeve” was briefly available on platforms including Spotify and Apple Music before Universal Music Group (UMG) — which publishes both artists through its Republic Records subsidiary — said it violates […]

Water rationed in Catalonia as drought bites deeper

  L’ Espluga de Francolí, Spain | AFP | by Rosa SULLEIRO For months, residents of L’Espluga de Francoli have been saving water in bottles and foregoing showers to cope with long hours of daily water rationing as northeastern Spain suffers one of its worst droughts in decades. While this small Catalan town has suffered supply problems for years due to the depleted state of its water table, the current drought has made things worse. […]

Trinity the T-Rex claws in more than $6 million

(AFP) Zurich, Switzerland by James RYBACKI A composite Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton called Trinity, made up of bones from three different T-Rexes, sold for 5.5 million Swiss francs ($6.1 million) in a rare auction on Tuesday. The skeleton was sold at the Koller auction house in Zurich after being shipped from the United States in nine giant crates. Trinity fetched a hammer price of 4.8 million Swiss francs, rising to 5.5 million with the buyer’s premium […]

New York parking garage collapses, at least one dead and four injured

New York, United States | AFP | Tuesday 4/19/2023 At least one person died and four were rushed to hospital after a multi-story parking garage in New York City collapsed on Tuesday, emergency responders said. Aerial video footage circulating on social media showed cars piled on top of one another in a jumble of cracked concrete in the financial district of Lower Manhattan. The building on Ann Street “pancaked, collapsed, all the way to the […]

AI work sparks fierce debate after winning photo award

Paris, France | AFP | Tuesday 4/18/2023 ADDS new statement from awards organiser, detail A German artist has sparked an angry row after winning a prestigious photography prize with an entry that was generated by artificial intelligence. Boris Eldagsen eventually rejected the gong from the Sony World Photography Awards after concluding that such competitions were not yet equipped to handle AI entries. The awards organisers initially accused the artist of “misleading” behaviour, but removed the […]

Toxic alcohol kills at least 27 in ‘dry’ Indian state

PATNA, India (AFP) — Toxic hooch has killed at least 27 people in the eastern Indian state of Bihar where alcohol is banned, officials said Tuesday, with unconfirmed reports putting the death toll at 40. Selling and consuming liquor is prohibited in several parts of India, driving a thriving black market for potent and sometimes lethal backstreet moonshine that kills hundreds every year. Initial investigations into the latest tragedy showed that poisonous methyl alcohol was […]

SpaceX postpones test flight of Starship, world’s biggest rocket

by Patrick Fallon with Chris Lefkow in Washington SpaceX on Monday postponed the first test flight of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, designed to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars and beyond. Liftoff of the gigantic rocket was called off just minutes ahead of the scheduled launch time because of a pressurization issue in the booster stage, SpaceX said. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said a pressure valve appeared to be frozen, forcing […]

‘Time doesn’t heal’: Ukraine’s war widows count the cost

by Jonathan BROWN and Elizabeth STRIY in Warsaw Agence France-Presse Kyiv, Ukraine (AFP) — Olga Slyshyk began to fear the worst in January this year when her husband, Mykhailo, a military engineer serving on the front line in eastern Ukraine, didn’t contact her on her birthday. It wasn’t unusual for the 40-year-old trained lawyer to be offline for days at a time, but Slyshyk knew he would reach out — one way or another — […]