Asian countries are reporting record COVID-19 waves this year compared to 2020, as vaccination drives fall short and governments lose hope that mass closures and border controls can keep the coronavirus away, observers in the region say.Spread of the delta variant from India, infections among airline personnel and citizens who brought back the virus from trips spread COVID-19 in parts of Asia with recent outbreaks. Containment measures had relaxed in some spots after months of low caseloads while domestic travel picked up.Officials from Bangkok to Taipei sidelined vaccine procurement last …

U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he will continue “this encounter with China” to attempt to stem the flow of deadly drugs being smuggled into the United States via Mexico.Biden, during an appearance on a CNN “town hall”-style program from Cincinnati, said his administration is “dealing with the whole opioid issue” by significantly increasing the number of people in the Justice Department working on it.Fentanyl is considered 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin. The health crisis in America caused by synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, was frequently raised by Biden’s …

The U.S. has averaged more than 26,000 new COVID-19 cases per day over the past week — more than double the number it was a month ago — with the more contagious delta variant making up over 80% of cases. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara looks at the Biden administration’s strategy for dealing with the surge, as misinformation continues to drive anti-vaccination sentiments in certain groups. Producer: Kimberlyn Weeks …

Pfizer and BioNTech have reached an agreement with a South African company to produce their COVID-19 vaccine for distribution in Africa, the biotechnology companies said Wednesday.The Biovac Institute in Cape Town will manufacture 100 million doses of the vaccine annually starting in 2022. The company will mix vaccine ingredients it receives from Europe, place them in vials and package them for distribution to the 54 countries in Africa.The agreement may eventually help alleviate vaccine shortages on a continent where the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says less than …

Canada’s western province of British Columbia declared a state of emergency Tuesday, with wildfires expected to grow even larger in the coming days due to high heat and winds.   “We have reached a critical point,” said provincial public safety minister Mike Farnworth. “Based on the advice of emergency management and wildfire officials, and my briefing last night on the worsening weather, I am declaring a provincial state of emergency.”   The decision empowers officials to organize mass-scale evacuations and to provide emergency accommodation for evacuees, he added. Some 5,700 people were under evacuation orders in …

Ecologists in a vast region of wetlands and forest in remote Oregon have spent the past decade thinning young trees and using planned fires to try to restore the thick stands of ponderosa to a less fire-prone state. This week, the nation’s biggest burning wildfire provided them with an unexpected, real-world experiment. As the massive inferno half the size of Rhode Island roared into the Sycan Marsh Preserve, firefighters said the flames jumped less from treetop to treetop and instead returned to the ground, where they were easier to fight, moved …

The yearslong effort by state and local governments in the U.S. to force the pharmaceutical industry to help pay to fix a nationwide opioid addiction and overdose crisis took a major step forward Tuesday when lawyers for local governments announced they were on the verge of a $26 billion settlement with the nation’s three biggest drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson. Under the deal, Johnson & Johnson would not produce any opioids for at least a decade. And AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson share prescribing information under a …

The U.S. State Department is urging Americans not to travel to Britain because of the rising levels of new COVID-19 cases in the country.  The State Department raised its travel advisory for Britain to its highest level on Monday, following a similar action taken by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier in the day.   A Yeoman Warder, Barney Chandler gestures as he leads the first ‘Beefeater’ tour of the Tower of London in 16 months, at the Tower of London, July 19, 2021.Both agencies said if people …

A rocket carrying American businessman Jeff Bezos blasted off Tuesday from a remote desert launch site in Texas, as he becomes the second billionaire to self fund a trip to space this month.The 57-year-old founder of e-commerce giant Amazon and three companions were on board the New Shepard rocket built by his company Blue Origin, which he founded in 2000 with the goal of creating permanent space colonies where people will live and work.FILE – This undated file illustration provided by Blue Origin shows the capsule that the company will …

Venom from an Australian spider that is one of the world’s deadliest could save the lives of heart attack victims.A potentially life-saving treatment for victims of heart attacks has been found in a most unlikely source — the venom of one of the world’s deadliest spiders. The World Health Organization says cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally, taking an estimated 17.9 million lives each year.  Researchers from the University of Queensland have discovered that the poison from the Fraser Island funnel-web spider in eastern Australia contains what could …