Much of the United States was in the icy grip of an “unprecedented” winter storm on Monday as frigid Arctic air sent temperatures plunging, forcing hundreds of flight cancellations, making driving hazardous and leaving millions without power in Texas.Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for the southern state, and the National Weather Service (NWS) said more than 150 million Americans were under winter weather advisories.”I urge all Texans to remain vigilant against the extremely harsh weather,” Abbott said in a statement.The NWS described conditions as an “unprecedented and …

Crowds of seals lie on the sand, some wriggling towards the water, on the northern French coast where they are staging a comeback. Drone images show around 250 wild grey seals, adults and cubs, frolicking at low tide near the town of Marck. Seals started to disappear from the Cote d’Opale in the 1970s, under pressure from fishermen who saw them as rivals for their catch. Seals, which have no natural predators in the English Channel, have been a protected species in France since the 1980s and as a result they have begun …

The World Health Organization announced Monday that it has approved two versions of the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, a move that will boost global supplies in the coming weeks. AstraZeneca-SKBio in South Korea and the Serum Institute of India produce the vaccines, which the WHO says are safe for all persons above 18 years old. It took the global health body less than a month to assess data on the quality, safety and efficacy of the drugs and grant the emergency use approval. The World Health Organization will now distribute …

As the Australian state of Victoria enters its third day of a snap COVID-19 lockdown, the national medical association is calling for urgent changes to infection control in hotel quarantine.  Australian travelers returning from overseas must go into isolation for at least 14 days on arrival, but doctors are worried that the airborne transmission of the virus is not being taken seriously enough.   Biosecurity is a growing concern for Australia’s hotel quarantine system after new and highly contagious variants of COVID-19 were detected among returned travelers.   A five-day lockdown imposed in …

What happens after you received both doses of the COVID vaccine? Lesia Bakalets looked into how much life changes, if at all. Anna Rice narrates her story.  …