Beijing — Beijing Tianbing Technology Company said Sunday that the first stage of its Tianlong-3 rocket under development had detached from its launch pad during a test due to structural failure and landed in a hilly area of the city of Gongyi in central China. There were no reports of casualties after an initial investigation, Beijing Tianbing, also known as Space Pioneer, said in a statement on its official WeChat account. Parts of the rocket stage were scattered within a “safe area” but caused a local fire, according to a separate statement by the Gongyi emergency management bureau. The fire has since been extinguished and no one has been hurt, the bureau said. The two-stage Tianlong-3 (“Sky Dragon 3”) is a partly reusable rocket under development by Space Pioneer, one of a small group of private-sector rocket makers that have grown rapidly over the past five years. Falling rocket debris in …

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Beryl strengthened into what experts called an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm as it approaches the southeast Caribbean, which began shutting down Sunday amid urgent pleas from government officials for people to take shelter. Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Beryl’s center is expected to pass about 112 kilometers south of Barbados on Monday morning, said Sabu Best, director of Barbados’ meteorological service. “This is a very serious situation developing for the Windward Islands,” warned the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which said that Beryl was “forecast to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge.” Beryl was located about 570 kilometers east-southeast of Barbados. It had maximum sustained winds of 215 kph and was moving west at 33 kph. It is a compact storm, with hurricane-force winds extending 30 kilometers from its center. Beryl is expected …

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NEW DELHI — The Nigerian student only popped out to repair his phone, but he ended up in a New Delhi hospital, the latest victim of a brutal heat wave that has cost scores of lives, sent birds plummeting from the sky and tormented India’s poorest workers. On that sweltering June day, the business administration student collapsed in the street and strangers rushed him to the nearby Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital, one of the country’s largest. When he was admitted, his body temperature had soared to more than 41 degrees Celsius and he was very dehydrated, said Seema Wasnik, head of RML’s emergency medicine department. She immediately recognized the classic signs of heatstroke. More than 40,000 suspected heatstroke cases were recorded in India as a prolonged heat wave pushed temperatures above 40 C on most days since May, with some areas hitting peaks of nearly 50 C. The young Nigerian …

BADINGILO and BOMA NATIONAL PARKS, South Sudan — Seen from the air, they ripple across the landscape — a river of antelope racing across the vast grasslands of South Sudan in what conservationists say is the world’s largest land mammal migration. The country’s first comprehensive aerial wildlife survey, released Tuesday, found about 6 million antelope. The survey over a two-week period last year in two national parks and nearby areas relied on spotters in airplanes, nearly 60,000 photos and tracking more than a hundred collared animals over about 120,000 square kilometers. The estimate from the nonprofit African Parks, which conducted the work along with the government, far surpasses other large migratory herds such as the estimated 1.36 million wildebeests surveyed last year in the Serengeti straddling Tanzania and Kenya. But they warned that the animals face a rising threat from commercial poaching in a nation rife with weapons and without strong …

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Beryl strengthened into a hurricane Saturday as it churned toward the southeast Caribbean, with forecasters warning it was expected to strengthen into a dangerous major hurricane before reaching Barbados late Sunday or early Monday.  A major hurricane is considered a Category 3 or higher, with winds of at least 178 kph. Beryl is now a Category 1 hurricane.  A hurricane warning was issued for Barbados, and a hurricane watch was in effect for St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, while a tropical storm watch was issued for Martinique, Dominica and Tobago.   “It’s astonishing to see a forecast for a major (Category 3+) hurricane in June anywhere in the Atlantic, let alone this far east in the deep tropics. #Beryl organizing in a hurry over the warmest waters ever recorded for late June,” Florida-based hurricane expert Michael Lowry posted on X.  Beryl’s center …

ABUJA, Nigeria — Yunusa Bawa spends a lot of time talking about the vaccine for the human papillomavirus that is responsible for nearly all cases of cervical cancer. But on most days, only two or three people allow their daughters to be vaccinated in the rural part of Nigeria where he works. The challenge in Sabo community, on the outskirts of the capital of Abuja, is the unfounded rumor that the HPV vaccine will later keep young girls from giving birth. “The rumor is too much,” said Bawa, 42. As more African countries strive to administer more HPV vaccines, Bawa and other health workers tackle challenges that slow progress, particularly misinformation about the vaccine. The World Health Organization’s Africa office estimates that about 25% of the population still has doubts about it — reflecting concerns seen in some other parts of the world in early campaigns for the vaccine. A common …

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza — Children in sandals trudge through water contaminated with sewage and scale growing mounds of garbage in Gaza’s crowded tent camps for displaced families. People relieve themselves in burlap-covered pits, with nowhere nearby to wash their hands. In the stifling summer heat, Palestinians say the odor and filth surrounding them is just another inescapable reality of war — like pangs of hunger or sounds of bombing. The territory’s ability to dispose of garbage, treat sewage and deliver clean water has been virtually decimated by eight brutal months of war between Israel and Hamas. This has made grim living conditions worse and raised health risks for hundreds of thousands of people deprived of adequate shelter, food and medicine, aid groups say. Hepatitis A cases are on the rise, and doctors fear that as warmer weather arrives, an outbreak of cholera is increasingly likely without dramatic changes to living conditions. …

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Nigeria is one of the world’s leading producers of ginger, but a massive outbreak of fungal disease last year caused millions of dollars of damage. The Nigerian government has launched an emergency recovery intervention to help ginger farmers. Timothy Obiezu reports from Kaduna. …

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WASHINGTON — Catastrophic Canadian wildfires last year pumped more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than India did by burning fossil fuels, setting ablaze an area of forest larger than the U.S. state of West Virginia, new research finds. Scientists at the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland calculated how devastating the impacts were of the monthslong fires in Canada in 2023 that sullied the air around large parts of the globe. They figured it put 2.98 billion metric tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air, according to a study update published in Thursday’s Global Change Biology. The update is not peer-reviewed, but the original study was. The fire spewed nearly four times the carbon emissions as airplanes do in a year, study authors said. It’s about the same amount of carbon dioxide that 647 million cars put in the air in a year, based on U.S. Environmental …

Jakarta, Indonesia — Indonesia aims to launch 19 satellites into low-Earth orbit next year, part of an ambitious plan to move the country into the forefront of the world’s growing space industry and reduce its reliance on other countries for its satellite data. The broader program, known as the 2045 space map, is set to begin next year. Officials hope to boost Indonesia’s economy and drive foreign direct investment by leveraging its unique geography as a near-equatorial, fuel-efficient launch point for space travel and research. While the satellite launches would support key economic sectors such as agriculture and mining with remote-sensing technology to track weather patterns, mining emissions and mineral-rich areas, the longer-term plan includes development of a leading-edge spaceport to reduce reliance on foreign launch sites. But according to officials at BRIN, Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency, there’s still no confirmation of which company or government agencies would be …

Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a nationwide settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that would have shielded members of the Sackler family who own the company from civil lawsuits over the toll of opioids but also would have provided billions of dollars to combat the opioid epidemic. After deliberating more than six months, the justices in a 5-4 vote blocked an agreement hammered out with state and local governments and victims. The Sacklers would have contributed up to $6 billion and given up ownership of the company but retained billions more. The agreement provided that the company would emerge from bankruptcy as a different entity, with its profits used for treatment and prevention. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said “nothing in present law authorizes the Sackler discharge.” Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. “Opioid victims and other future …

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is putting the Environmental Protection Agency’s air pollution-fighting “good neighbor” plan on hold while legal challenges continue, the conservative-led court’s latest blow to federal regulations. The justices in a 5-4 vote on Thursday rejected arguments by the Biden administration and Democratic-controlled states that the plan was cutting air pollution and saving lives in 11 states where it was being enforced and that the high court’s intervention was unwarranted. The rule is intended to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution. It will remain on hold while the federal appeals court in Washington considers a challenge to the plan from industry and Republican-led states. The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has increasingly reined in the powers of federal agencies, including the EPA, in recent years. The justices have restricted the EPA’s authority to fight air …

SAN DIEGO — A pair of giant pandas are on their way from China to the U.S., where they will be cared for at the San Diego Zoo as part of an ongoing conservation partnership between the two nations, officials said Wednesday. Officials with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance were on hand in China for a farewell ceremony commemorating the departure of the giant pandas, Yun Chuan and Xin Bao. The celebration included cultural performances, video salutations from Chinese and American students and a gift exchange among conservation partners, the zoo said in a statement. After the ceremony, the giant pandas began their trip to Southern California. “This farewell celebrates their journey and underscores a collaboration between the United States and China on vital conservation efforts,” Paul Baribault, the wildlife alliance president, said in a statement. “Our long-standing partnership with China Wildlife Conservation Association has been instrumental in advancing giant …

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WASHINGTON — Reality TV star Paris Hilton called for greater federal oversight of youth care programs at a U.S. House of Representatives committee hearing on Wednesday as she described her traumatic experience in youth care facilities. Hilton, 43, the great-granddaughter of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton, has spoken publicly about the emotional and physical abuse she endured when she was placed in residential youth treatment facilities as a teen. In remarks to the committee on Wednesday, she described being taken from her bed in the middle of the night at age 16 and transported across state lines to a residential facility where she experienced physical and sexual abuse. “This $23 billion industry sees this population [of vulnerable children] as dollar signs and operates without meaningful oversight,” she said. “There’s no education in these places; there’s mold and blood on the walls,” she said in response to lawmaker questions. “It’s horrifying what …

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appears poised to allow emergency abortions in Idaho when a pregnant patient’s health is at serious risk, according to Bloomberg News, which said a copy of the opinion was briefly posted Wednesday on the court’s website.  The document suggests the court will conclude that it should not have gotten involved in the case so quickly and will reinstate a lower court order that had allowed hospitals in the state to perform emergency abortions to protect a pregnant patient’s health, Bloomberg said. It does not appear likely to fully resolve the issues at the heart of the case.  The Supreme Court acknowledged that a document was inadvertently posted Wednesday. That document was quickly removed.  “The Court’s Publications Unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court’s website. The Court’s opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States will be issued in due course,” …