There’s a glimmer of hope for the American bee population. But, according to a new study, the outlook for this critical insect is mostly grim. Researchers report a slowing of the rate of decline in the bee population over the past year, dropping to its lowest since 2011-2012. But, both commercial and small-scale beekeepers lost 33 percent of their honey bee colonies between April 2016 and April 2017. “While it is encouraging that losses are lower than in the past, I would stop short of calling this ‘good’ news,” said …

Our brains have always been a marker for how we age. And for humans, that mental aging process starts in our 20s. But British researchers are now giving each brain an “age,” and discovering that the brain’s age may be affecting overall human health. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. … From: MeNeedIt

An Indian film that addresses social themes and stars actor Aamir Kahn has captivated audiences in China. The film is thriving, despite the fact that India was the only major country to boycott Beijing’s Belt and Road Forum earlier this month. But the irony and sharp contrast of those two developments was largely lost on the millions of Chinese viewers who have helped keep the Hindi language film land in the top slot, despite the fact that it has subtitles and no voice-over dubbing.   Analysts, film critics, and social …

The U.S. economy expanded at a slightly faster pace than first estimated during the first quarter of this year. The Commerce Department’s Friday report shows expansion at a 1.2 percent annual rate in January, February and March. That is nearly twice as fast as the preliminary estimate, but slower than the end of last year, and much more slowly than the 3 percent rate of expansion that the Trump administration says it will achieve. Officials routinely revise growth estimates as more complete data becomes available. Many experts say the economy …

Africa loses an estimated $50 billion a year to illicit financial flows, leaving governments strapped for cash and dependent on development aid. The continent is “hemorrhaging” money because of the failure of countries to enact strong legislation to check money flows, says Rose Acha, Cameroon’s supreme state audit minister and secretary general of the African Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. Instead, uncontrolled transactions are common. “Whatever the source of your money, we don’t know, but we welcome those who want to deposit money,” said Faison Winifred of Investment Fund, a …

Two truck owners have filed a class-action lawsuit against General Motors, alleging the company rigged diesel pickups to cheat government emissions tests. The suit was filed Thursday in federal court in Detroit, home of the country’s largest car builder. GM is accused of installing three devices on hundreds of thousands of trucks, allowing them to spew less pollution in tests than they would on the road, under real-life driving conditions. Plaintiffs Andrei Fenner of Mountain View, California, and Joshua Herman of Sulphur, Louisiana, said they wouldn’t have purchased, or wouldn’t …