MADRID, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Spurred on by soaring demand for seafood, a Spanish company plans to open the first commercial octopus farm next year but as scientists discover more about the enigmatic animals some warn it could be an ethical and environmental disaster. “This is a global milestone,” said Roberto Romero,[Read More…]
HONG KONG, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Insurance agent Emily Kwong, 30, is struggling to home-school her five-year-old daughter and is worried she has learned nothing due to Hong Kong’s strict COVID-19 restrictions that have forced toddlers and teens into online classes. Now plans by the government to close schools early in March are[Read More…]
LONDON, Feb 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The risk of catastrophic wildfires is growing around the world as climate change fuels sizzling, tinder-dry conditions, increasing the need for fire-prone countries to adopt preventative measures, scientists warned Wednesday. Smart, proactive policies – such as setting fires at the end of rainy periods to[Read More…]
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 21 (Reuters) – South Africa’s health department said on Monday that it was changing COVID-19 vaccination rules to try to increase uptake, as inoculations have slowed and the country has ample vaccine stocks. The government is shortening the interval between the first and second doses of the Pfizer PFE.N vaccine from 42[Read More…]
WINDSOR, England, Feb 21 (Reuters) – After the shame of Prince Andrew’s U.S. sex abuse lawsuit and Prince Charles embroilment in a cash for honors scandal, Queen Elizabeth catching COVID-19 has rounded off a week of terrible news for the British royals. Buckingham Palace said on Sunday the monarch, who turns 96[Read More…]
Feb 15 (Reuters) – Facebook agreed to pay $90 million to settle a decade-old privacy lawsuit accusing it of tracking users’ internet activity even after they logged out of the social media website. A proposed preliminary settlement was filed on Monday night with the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, and[Read More…]
LONDON, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Long COVID is less likely to affect vaccinated people than unvaccinated people, a new review of 15 studies by the UK Health Security Agency released on Tuesday has concluded. UKHSA said the people who received two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech PFE.N, BNTX.O, AstraZeneca AZN.Lor Moderna MRNA.O vaccine, or one dose of the single-shot[Read More…]
Feb 14 (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to invoke rarely used special measures to end protests that have shut some border crossings and paralyzed downtown Ottawa, sources said on Monday. Read full story The “Freedom Convoy” protests, started on Jan. 28 by Canadian truckers opposing a vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate for cross-border[Read More…]
VATICAN CITY, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Ukraine is open to a Vatican mediation of its conflict with Russia and wants Pope Francis to visit as soon as possible, even in the current situation, Kyiv’s new ambassador to the Holy See said on Monday. Speaking to Reuters in a telephone interview from Kyiv,[Read More…]
WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) – The Texas attorney general’s office sued Meta’s FB.O Facebook on Monday, alleging that the social media giant violated state privacy protections with facial-recognition technology that collected the biometric data of millions of Texans without their consent. The lawsuit accuses Facebook of capturing biometric information from photos and videos that[Read More…]
