Whether it’s abstinence, avoiding nightclubs, limiting sexual partners or pushing for a swift vaccine rollout, Spain’s gay community is on the front line of the monkeypox virus and is taking action.  “With this monkey thing, I prefer to be careful. … I don’t have sex anymore, I don’t go to parties anymore, and that’s until I’m vaccinated and have some immunity,” said Antonio, a 35-year-old from Madrid who declined to give his last name.  Antonio, who often went to nightclubs and sometimes to sex parties, decided to act as cases continued to increase.  Spain on Saturday reported its second monkeypox-related death.  Outside of Africa, the only other such death has been in Brazil.  More than 18,000 cases have been detected throughout the world outside of Africa since the beginning of May, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).  Spain is one of the world’s worst-hit countries. The health ministry’s emergency …

New York has declared a public health emergency due to a monkeypox outbreak.  Mayor Eric Adams and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan made the announcement Saturday. The two officials said in a joint statement that “New York City is currently the epicenter of the outbreak, and we estimate that approximately 150,000 New Yorkers may currently be at risk for monkeypox exposure.” “Over the past few weeks, we have moved as quickly as possible to expand outreach and access to vaccines and treatment to keep people safe,” the officials said.  “We will continue to work with our federal partners to secure more doses as soon as they become available. This outbreak must be met with urgency, action, and resources, both nationally and globally, and this declaration of a public health emergency reflects the seriousness of the moment.” On Friday, New York state Governor Kathy Hochul issued …

The bedsheets are big. Some are light pink, others hot pink or purple, connected and stretched taut by people holding wooden poles. Together, the sheets form a barrier across the parking lot. The activists, who are supporting a woman’s right to an abortion, wear bright pink vests with PRO-CHOICE in black emblazoned on the front. This is the front line of protection for pregnant women who drive to this women’s center for an abortion. The sheeting forms a tunnel for them to leave their cars and enter the center, unseen by anti-abortion protesters trying to stop them. ‘There’s very little conversation’ This is the daily scene at the Bristol Regional Women’s Center.   The abortion-rights activists stay inside the center parking lot; the anti-abortion protesters stand on the sidewalk. They walk next to a busy street with posters reading “Love Your Baby and Yourself” or “Babies are Murdered Here” next …

Two of the hardest-hit U.S. regions have raised the alert level over the monkeypox outbreak. San Francisco declared a public health emergency Thursday. The city accounts for 281 of California’s nearly 800 cases. The declaration gives health officials access to additional resources to deal with the outbreak. New York, with nearly 1,400 cases statewide, made a similar declaration Thursday. Worldwide, more than 21,000 cases have been reported in 78 countries, nearly all of them outside West and Central Africa, where the virus is endemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) raised the threat level to its highest ranking last weekend. The U.S. case count is nearing 5,000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The federal government has not declared an emergency but announced plans Thursday to distribute nearly 800,000 additional doses of monkeypox vaccine. U.S. health officials said they had already distributed 340,000 doses, but many …

U.S. regulators said Friday they are no longer considering authorizing a second COVID-19 booster shot for all adults under 50 this summer, focusing instead on revamped vaccines for the fall that will target the newest viral subvariants. Pfizer and Moderna expect to have updated versions of their shots available as early as September, the Food and Drug Administration said in a statement. That would set the stage for a fall booster campaign to strengthen protection against the latest versions of omicron. The announcement means the U.S. won’t pursue a summer round of boosters using the current vaccines for adults under 50, as some Biden administration officials and outside experts previously suggested. They had argued that another round of shots now could help head off rising cases and hospitalizations caused by the highly transmissible omicron strains. Currently, all Americans ages 5 and over are eligible for a booster shot five months …

Scientists say wildfires in the American West are bigger, hotter and more destructive than in the past. …

Human-caused climate change made last week’s deadly heat wave in England and Wales at least 10 times more likely and added a few degrees to how brutally hot it got, a study said. A team of international scientists found that the heat wave that set a new national record high at 40.3 degrees Celsius was made stronger and more likely by the buildup of heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. They said Thursday that temperatures were 2 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer in the heat wave than they would have been without climate change, depending on which method scientists used. The study has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal yet but follows scientifically accepted techniques, and past such studies have been published months later. “We would not have seen temperatures above 40 degrees in the U.K. without climate change,” study senior author Friederike …

Los Angeles County dropped a plan to impose a universal indoor mask mandate this week as COVID-19 infections and rates of hospitalizations have stabilized, a top health official said Thursday.  Health director Barbara Ferrer said two weeks ago that the nation’s most populous county could again require face coverings if trends in hospital admissions continued under criteria set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  On Thursday, she said the county had dodged imposition of the broad mask rule. The county remains at the “high” CDC level of community transmission, but it could drop to “medium” in coming weeks.  Ferrer made the announcement during a briefing at which she displayed flat and declining data graphs. She said transmission had dropped steadily since July 23, “potentially signaling the beginning of a downward trend in cases.” Hospitalizations are also down.  “We’re on a decline right now, and it’s hard for …

President Joe Biden’s administration is launching a renewed push for COVID-19 booster shots for those eligible, pointing to the enhanced protections they offer against severe illness as the highly transmissible BA.5 variant spreads across the country.  The initiatives include direct outreach to high-risk groups, especially seniors, encouraging them to get “up to date” on their vaccinations, with phone calls, emails and new public service announcements.  Americans ages 5 and older should all get boosters five months after their initial primary series, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also says those age 50 and older, or those who are immunocompromised, should get their second boosters four months after their first. According to the CDC, tens of millions of eligible Americans haven’t received their first boosters, and only 30% of those who have received their first boosters have also received their second.  The CDC has released a “booster …

Russia announces plans to sever a long-term space partnership. Plus, a private spaceflight company extends its record of successful launches, and NASA scores a win for its upcoming moon mission. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.  …

The World Health Organization is calling for greater investment in the development of new vaccines to keep pace with the rapidly evolving variants of the coronavirus. As world attention is focused on the monkeypox outbreak, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. He says new tools must be developed to curb this deadly disease while public health measures that are known to work must be maintained and strengthened. He says one of the most effective ways to save lives is to vaccinate the right groups first. By this he means health workers, older people, and other at-risk groups such as those with underlying health conditions. He notes COVID-19 cases and deaths have been increasing for the last five weeks. The latest WHO report puts the number of confirmed global cases at nearly 566 million, including more than 6.3 million deaths. Tedros says several countries …

Every week, tons of electronic waste cross the border from Israel to the West Bank. Thousands of Palestinian families make a living off the waste by burning it to extract copper they can sell. But the burning is taking a toll on residents’ health. Linda Gradstein reports. Camera: Ricki Rosen. …

The United Nations AIDS program says progress is stalling on ending HIV/AIDS as a public health crisis by 2030 and action is needed to get it back on track. The UNAIDS program issued its assessment in a new report pointing to recent data that showed 1.5 million people were newly infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That is over a million more new infections than the global estimate set by the United Nations. The report found that in the span of a year, the AIDS pandemic took one life every minute, around 650,000 deaths. Mary Maby, the director for impact with UNAIDS, called those deaths preventable. She notes effective HIV treatment and tools to prevent, detect, and treat opportunistic infections are available but are not provided equitably across the world. Among those disproportionately affected by new infections, she says, are young women and adolescent girls. “Adolescent girls and …

When images beamed back to Earth by NASA’s largest, most powerful space telescope were released earlier this month, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio shared one of them on Twitter accompanied by a Bible verse: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” The Webb telescope is orbiting the sun nearly two million kilometers from Earth. The observatory is on a mission to locate the universe’s first galaxies using extremely sensitive infrared cameras. The initial images released to the public provided the first-ever glimpse of ancient galaxies lighting up the sky. The reaction to Rubio’s post was inundated with remarks like, “You do realize you can only see that due to science?” And, “If only you were scientifically literate enough to understand all of the ways that this image disproves your mythology.” Reason versus superstition? The skeptical comments are emblematic of the long-standing, ongoing debate about whether science and religion can be reconciled. …

On the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the U.S. remains one of a handful of countries that have not ratified the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) — an international treaty the U.S. legislation inspired.   The ADA, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990, prohibits discrimination based on disability in public accommodations, employment, transportation and community living, and provides recourse for people with disabilities who faced discrimination.     “It’s hard for the newer generation to imagine the injustices suffered before the ADA,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday in a House Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus event to celebrate the ADA’s anniversary. Biden, who is still in isolation from his COVID-19 diagnosis, delivered his remarks virtually.   “If you’re disabled, stores can turn you away, and employers can refuse to hire you. If you use a …

Aid workers say deep poverty and harsh living conditions lead to hopelessness among Idlib’s youth …

The World Health Organization is urging people who may have been exposed to or at risk of monkeypox to get vaccinated against the disease as a preventive measure.  Since it declared monkeypox a global health threat last week, the WHO says the disease has continued to spread around the world, with cases topping 16,000 in at least 75 countries.  The WHO says the outbreak is mainly concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners. It warns against stigmatizing a whole group of people, as this could cause the outbreak to accelerate exponentially by driving the disease underground.  The WHO technical leader on monkeypox, Rosamund Lewis, says the outbreak can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups. She says mass vaccination is not required, but the WHO recommends vaccination for those who have been exposed or are at risk.  “When someone is …