The 300-million-year-old shark’s teeth were the first sign that it might be a distinct species.The ancient chompers looked less like the spearlike rows of teeth of related species. They were squatter and shorter, less than an inch long, around 2 centimeters.”Great for grasping and crushing prey rather than piercing prey,” said discoverer John-Paul Hodnett, who was a graduate student when he unearthed the first fossils of the shark at a dig east of Albuquerque in 2013.This week, Hodnett and a slew of other researchers published their findings in a bulletin …

The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 cases are increasing globally at a worrying rate, with the number of new cases doubling each week, a pace approaching the highest rate of infection since the pandemic began.The WHO said Friday there were 541,960 new cases in the past week. On February 22 — the week new cases began to tick up after six weeks of decline – 194,469 new cases were reported.  At a virtual briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said countries that …

Nigerian authorities are stepping up efforts to vaccinate more people against COVID-19 after a slow rollout blamed on misinformation. Authorities aim to vaccinate over 80 million Nigerians by year’s end but are running far behind schedule.  An Abuja vaccination center, which opened March 16, one week after Nigeria’s official vaccine rollout, vaccinates between 50 and 100 people daily. It is one of many vaccination locations in the Nigerian capital. Abuja resident Olu Agunbiade visited the center to get his first shot and says receiving the vaccine makes him feel safer.  “I can venture out into the world with a form of …

Health officials in India said they counted more than 200,000 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, an all-time daily high for the South Asian nation.The surge in cases has India scrambling to find hospital beds and oxygen. The escalating tally has also forced India, a major vaccine producer, to delay global shipments of COVID vaccines and instead redirect them for use at home.New Delhi health official S.K. Sarin, told the Associated Press that the case surge is “alarming.”Some public health officials also say they believe a Hindu festival at which hundreds of …

Zimbabwe’s government this month reported a major increase in teenage pregnancies in January and February.  Advocates are blaming the rise from previous years on coronavirus lockdowns and poverty. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, Zimbabwe.Zimbabwe’s government says nearly 5,000 teenage girls became pregnant in January and February and about 1,800 entered early marriages during the same period.According to a government report, most of the girls live in poor suburbs such as Epworth, about 30 kilometers southeast of Harare.Here, since 2018, 17-year-old Natsiraishe Maritsa, founder of the Vulnerable Underaged People’s Auditorium Initiative, …

It has been 30 years or so since residents in New Mexico’s largest city last saw their stretch of the Rio Grande go dry. There’s a possibility it could happen again this summer. Federal water managers released their annual operating plan for the Rio Grande on Thursday, and it doesn’t look good. Flows have been meager so far this year because of below-average snowpack in the mountains along the Colorado-New Mexico border that feed the river. Spring precipitation has done little to fill the void. Reservoirs are at a fraction of their capacity …

Nigerian authorities are stepping up efforts to vaccinate more people against COVID-19 after a slow rollout blamed on misinformation. Authorities aim to vaccinate over 80 million Nigerians by year’s end but are running far behind schedule. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja. Camera: Emekas Gibson …