A Ghanian entrepreneur is helping prepare students in rural areas for the modern economy by teaching them about robotics. His roaming classes have been so successful that Ghana’s Ministry of Education has adopted the lessons in schools. Victoria Amunga reports from Accra, Ghana. Camera – Senanu Tord. Video editor – Henry Hernandez. …

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects that 100,000 Americans died of drug overdose between May 2020 and April 2021 — a nearly 30% increase over the previous year.  While not an official count, the CDC says it can confirm 98,000 deaths so far during the period and estimates the total number will likely be around 100,300 after causes of death are made official. It can take months to investigate and finalize drug fatalities.  Experts say the increased availability of the deadly opioids, particularly fentanyl, is a major …

News outlets say the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is planning to spend $5 billion to purchase Pfizer’s new experimental antiviral pill designed to treat COVID-19, enough to cover 10 million courses of treatment.  The revelation comes a day after the U.S. drugmaker announced it had signed a deal with Geneva-based Medicines Patent Pool, a United Nations-backed public health group, to authorize generic drugmakers to produce its experimental COVID-19 pill for 95 countries.  The deal will make the pill available for low- and middle-income countries comprising about 53% of the world’s population.   Pfizer says its new …

With the Indian capital enveloped in a haze of toxic smog, authorities ordered six thermal plants in the city’s vicinity to shut temporarily, closed schools and colleges indefinitely and imposed work-from-home restrictions to control pollution levels that turned severe on several days this month. A panel of the federal environment ministry has also banned construction activity until the end of the week and barred trucks, except those carrying essential commodities, from entering the city as part of the series of emergency measures. Environmentalists pointed out that these steps would only …

The port of Vancouver, Canada’s largest, said on Tuesday that all rail access had been cut by floods and landslides farther east that killed at least one person and left two others missing.  Two days of torrential rain across the Pacific province of British Columbia touched off major flooding and shut rail routes operated by Canadian Pacific Rail and Canadian National Railway, Canada’s two biggest rail companies.  “All rail service coming to and from the Port of Vancouver is halted because of flooding in the British Columbia interior,” port spokesperson …