Older Americans and people with weak immune systems can get an extra COVID-19 booster dose this spring. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday signed off on a more flexible booster schedule for people who remain at the highest risk from COVID-19 — giving them the choice of a second “bivalent” Pfizer or Moderna booster, the most up-to-date formula. “Many in the population are experiencing vaccine fatigue but there is a subset who are eager to receive additional doses,” CDC’s Dr. Sara Oliver told an agency advisory panel that expressed support for the change. The move came a day after the Food and Drug Administration took steps to make coronavirus vaccinations simpler for everyone. From now on, anyone getting a Pfizer or Moderna dose — whether it’s a booster or their first-ever vaccination — will get an updated version rather than the outdated original shots. Here are some …

The Supreme Court is deciding whether women will face restrictions in getting a drug used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, while a lawsuit continues. The justices are expected to issue an order on Wednesday in a fast-moving case from Texas in which abortion opponents are seeking to roll back Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug, mifepristone. The drug first won FDA approval in 2000, and conditions on its use have been loosened in recent years, including making it available by mail in states that allow access. The Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, the maker of the drug, want the nation’s highest court to reject limits on mifepristone’s use imposed by lower courts, at least as long as the legal case makes it way through the courts. They say women who want the drug and providers who dispense it will face …

A group of American plastic surgeons has been working in  Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s invasion, helping  wounded soldiers and civilians recover from war injuries. Omelyan Oshchudlyak has the story. Camera: Yuriy Dankevych     …

Virtual medicine, or medical extended reality, uses virtual reality headsets and imaging software to supplement conventional medical treatments. Practitioners from around the world shared best practices at a recent conference in Los Angeles. Mike O’Sullivan reports. …

Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, announced a provisional approval of the R21 vaccine during a media briefing on Monday. The regulatory agency’s consent came days after Ghana approved the vaccine. NAFDAC said the vaccine is 70 to 80 percent efficient in preventing the mosquito-borne disease and could protect millions of children. The agency’s director general, Mojisola Adeyeye, spoke to journalists in Abuja. “The vaccine is indicated for prevention of clinical malaria on children from five months to 36 months of age,” Adeyeye said. NAFDAC did not say when the vaccine will be rolled out, but Adeyeye said Nigeria will conduct in-country clinical trials and pharmacovigilance study. The WHO says some 600,000 people die of malaria every year, most of them in Africa, many of them young children. Nigeria accounts for the highest numbers of cases and deaths from malaria globally. Health experts say the vaccine …

Mozambique has asked the World Health Organization to supply an additional 2 million doses of a cholera vaccine as the country struggles to control a spreading outbreak.  The head of the Department of National Health Surveillance at the Ministry of Health, Domingos Guihole, told VOA that the government awaits the WHO’s response to the cholera vaccine request, admitting difficulties due to the high global demand for vaccines. “At this moment in Mozambique, the cholera situation is not good,” Guihole said. “It is not good because we have 10 provinces affected by cholera. We have 53 districts in the whole country, 45 of which have active cholera disease.” The official said the intent is to vaccinate the population in high-risk areas, such as the northern province of Nampula and Zambezia in the central part of the country. Both provinces were hit hard by Cyclone Freddy, which tore across Mozambique twice inside …

Billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday he will launch an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that he calls “TruthGPT” to challenge the offerings from Microsoft and Google. He criticized Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the firm behind chatbot sensation ChatGPT, of “training the AI to lie” and said OpenAI has now become a “closed source,” “for-profit” organization “closely allied with Microsoft.” He also accused Larry Page, co-founder of Google, of not taking AI safety seriously. “I’m going to start something which I call ‘TruthGPT’, or a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe,” Musk said in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson aired on Monday. He said TruthGPT “might be the best path to safety” that would be “unlikely to annihilate humans.” “It’s simply starting late. But I will try to create a third option,” Musk said. Musk, OpenAI, Microsoft and Page did not immediately respond to …

Kenya is using the launch of its first operational observation satellite to promote space education and science through space clubs in schools. Kenya launched an operational 3U nanosatellite April 15 aboard the SpaceX Falcon Force base in the U.S. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi, Kenya. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo …

Scientists found coastal species of shellfish and anemones living and breeding on floating islands of garbage in the Pacific thousands of miles from home, a study revealed Monday.  Environmentalists have for years been eyeing what they call the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” — masses of plastic rubbish combining bottles, fishing nets and much more. U.S. researchers who sampled rubbish from the northeastern Pacific between California and Hawaii said they found 37 kinds of invertebrates that originated from coastal areas, mostly from countries such as Japan on the other side of the ocean. “The high seas are colonized by a diverse array of coastal species, which survive and reproduce in the open ocean,” they wrote in the study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution. “Coastal species persist now in the open ocean as a substantial component of a neopelagic [new, sea-dwelling] community sustained by the vast and expanding sea of plastic …

Two years ago, Paul’s teacher noticed that the 10-year-old boy could no longer see anything on the board at the front of the class. An ophthalmologist confirmed that Paul was one of the soaring number of children worldwide with myopia, also known as nearsightedness, an eye condition projected to affect half of the world’s population by 2050. But the ophthalmologist in the western French city of Nantes had some good news: specially designed glasses had just become available that could slow down the progression of Paul’s myopia. “After a year, the results were quite positive because his eyesight seemed to have stabilized,” Paul’s mother Caroline Boudet told AFP. Previous research has suggested that myopia progresses 60% slower in children wearing the “Miyosmart” glasses compared to normal prescription glasses. A six-year clinical study also found that the disorder did not start speeding up again if the children stopped using the glasses. …

The Group of Seven rich nations on Sunday set big new collective targets for solar power and offshore wind capacity, agreeing to speed up renewable energy development and move toward a quicker phase-out of fossil fuels. But they stopped short of endorsing a 2030 deadline for phasing out coal that Canada and other members had pushed for, and left the door open for continued investment in gas, saying that sector could help address potential energy shortfalls. “In the midst of an unprecedented energy crisis, it’s important to come up with measures to tackle climate change and promote energy security at the same time,” Japanese industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told a news conference. “While acknowledging that there are diverse pathways to achieve carbon neutral, we agreed on the importance of aiming for a common goal toward 2050,” he said. G7 ministers finish two days of meetings on climate, energy and environmental …

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris made an appearance at an abortion rights rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, one of a number of such rallies held around the country following recent court rulings limiting access to abortion. “When you attack the rights of women in America, you are attacking America,” Harris told the crowd. On Friday, the Supreme Court temporarily kept in place federal rules for use of the abortion drug mifepristone, after lower court rulings sought to restrict the use of the drug, which women have been using for years. The justices are being asked to only focus on what parts of an April 7 ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas, as modified by an appellate ruling Wednesday, can be in force while the case continues. The order expires late Wednesday. The Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, the maker of the pill, asked the …

For 35 years, the Emsland nuclear power plant in northwestern Germany has reliably provided millions of homes with electricity and many with well-paid jobs in what was once an agricultural backwater. Now, it and the country’s two other remaining nuclear plants are being shut down. Germany long ago decided to phase out both fossil fuels and nuclear power over concerns that neither is a sustainable source of energy. The final countdown Saturday — delayed for several months over feared energy shortages because of the Ukraine war — is seen with relief by Germans who have campaigned against nuclear power. Yet with energy prices stubbornly high and climate change a growing concern, some in the country and abroad are branding the move reckless. As Germany closes nuclear stations, other governments in Europe have announced plans to build new ones or have backtracked on commitments to shut down existing plants. “The Emsland …

A trio of health care bills enshrining access in Colorado to abortion and gender-affirming procedures and medications became law Friday as the Democrat-led state tries to make itself a safe haven for its neighbors, whose Republican leaders are restricting care.  The main goal of the legislation signed by Democratic Governor Jared Polis is to ensure people in surrounding states and beyond can go to Colorado to have an abortion, begin puberty blockers or receive gender-affirming surgery without fear of prosecution. Bordering states of Wyoming and Oklahoma have passed abortion bans and Utah has severely restricted transgender care for minors.  Many states with abortion or transgender care bans are also criminalizing traveling to states for the purpose of accessing legal health care.  The contradicting laws are setting the stage for interstate disputes comparable to the patchwork of same-sex marriage laws that existed until 2015, or the 19th-century legal conflict over whether …

The Supreme Court said Friday that it was temporarily keeping in place federal rules for use of an abortion drug, while it takes time to more fully consider the issues raised in a court challenge.  In an order signed by Justice Samuel Alito, the court asked both sides to weigh in by Tuesday over whether lower court rulings restricting the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug, mifepristone, should be allowed to take effect while the case works its way through federal courts. The order suggests the court will decide that issue by late Wednesday.  The justices are being asked at this point only to determine what parts of an April 7 ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas, as modified by an appellate ruling Wednesday, can be in force while the case continues.  The Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, the maker of the pill, …

Taifa 1, Kenya’s first operational 3U nanosatellite, was set to launch aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in the U.S. state of California on Friday after being delayed twice. But the launch was scrubbed at the last minute because of unfavorable weather.   Teddy Warria, with Africa’s Talking Limited, a high-tech company, traveled to the University of Nairobi in Kenya from Kisumu, 563 kilometers west of Nairobi. He said he’ll stay as long it takes to witness the historic day.   “It shows us through science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and if we apply the lessons learned from STEM, we can go as far as our minds and imagination can take us,” Warria said.  Regardless of the delay, Charles Mwangi, the acting director of space sector and technology development at the Kenya Space Agency, said the satellite is quite significant.  “… [I]t’s initiating conversations …

A European spacecraft rocketed away Friday on a decadelong quest to explore Jupiter and three of its icy moons that could have buried oceans. The journey began with a morning liftoff by Europe’s Ariane rocket from French Guiana in South America. Arianespace’s chief executive Stephane Israel called it “an absolutely perfect launch.” But there were some tense minutes later as controllers waited for signals from the spacecraft nearly an hour into the flight. When contact was confirmed, European Space Agency’s Bruno Sousa declared from Mission Control in Germany: “The spacecraft is alive!” It will take the robotic explorer, dubbed Juice, eight years to reach Jupiter, where it will scope out not only the solar system’s biggest planet but also Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. The three ice-encrusted moons are believed to harbor underground oceans, where sea life could exist. Then in perhaps the most impressive feat of all, Juice will attempt …