WASHINGTON — Annual inflation in the United States cooled last month yet remained elevated in the latest sign that the pandemic-fueled price surge is gradually and fitfully coming under control.  Tuesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the consumer price index rose 0.3% from December to January, up from a 0.2% increase the previous month. Compared with a year ago, prices are up 3.1%.  That is less than the 3.4% figure in December and far below the 9.1% inflation peak in mid-2022.  The latest reading is well above the Federal …

NEW YORK — How much choice is too much? Apparently for Coca-Cola, it’s about 400 different types of drinks. That’s why the beverage company recently decided to discontinue half of them, shedding brands like Tab, Zico coconut water, Diet Coke Fiesty Cherry and Odwalla juices but still leaving about 200 others to choose from. It’s a move that other businesses are making as well, reducing the variety of offerings from mayonnaise to cereals to cars and instead focusing on what they think will sell best. Stew Leonard’s, a supermarket chain that …

WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan this week as part of an election-year push aimed at showcasing what she calls “the strongest economic comeback of our lifetimes.” Yellen will visit Pittsburgh on Feb. 13 and Detroit on Feb. 14 for events with elected officials and community leaders focused on the Biden administration’s efforts to lower health care costs, support small businesses and boost economic opportunity, the Treasury said. The trips build on Yellen’s visits to Illinois and Wisconsin in January …

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — The International Monetary Fund said on Sunday Middle East economies were lagging below growth projections due to oil production cuts and the Israel-Gaza conflict, even as the global economic outlook remained resilient. Despite uncertainties, “the global economy has been surprisingly resilient,” IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva told the Arab Fiscal Forum in Dubai, while warning of a potential wider impact on regional economies of continued conflict in Gaza. In a regional economic report last month, the IMF revised its GDP growth forecast for the Middle East …

HAVANA — Cuba has charged 30 people with stealing 133 tons of chicken and selling them on the street in a rare major heist at a time of food shortages in the communist-run nation.  Thieves took the meat, in 1,660 white boxes, from a state facility in the capital, Havana, and used the sale proceeds to buy refrigerators, laptops, televisions and air conditioners, according to a Cuban state TV broadcast late Friday.  The chicken had been earmarked for Cuba`s “rationbook” system introduced after the late Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution to provide …

About 10,000 people born between 1946 and 1964 leave the workforce each day …

Having enough feed for livestock is critical to the food security of many African countries. Some farmers are considering adopting a Chinese-engineered grass called Juncao, advertised as high-yielding and fast-maturing. Some scientists advise caution. Francis Ontomwa has more from Kajiado, Kenya. Video: Amos Wangwa. …

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Baghdad, Iraq — Iraq has banned eight local commercial banks from engaging in U.S. dollar transactions, taking action to reduce fraud, money laundering and other illegal uses of U.S. currency days after a visit by a top U.S. Treasury official. The banks are banned from accessing the Iraqi central bank’s daily dollar auction, a main source of hard currency in the import-dependent country that has become a focal point of a U.S. crackdown on currency smuggling to neighboring Iran. A rare ally of both the United States and Iran with more …

washington — The International Monetary Fund says China’s economic decline is likely to continue over the next four years as the world’s second largest economy deals with a range of challenges from a rapidly aging population, higher unemployment and a property crisis. In a report released on Friday, the global financial policy body – also known as the IMF – projected China’s economic growth would drop to 4.6% this year, down from its 5.2% growth in 2023, and fall further to 3.4% by 2028. The property market, which has historically represented …

Taipei, Taiwan — A new report finds that some global carmakers are applying weaker human rights and responsible-sourcing standards to their joint ventures in China due to pressure from the Chinese government. The lax standards increase the risk of exposing supply chains to forced labor from China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region, where more than 1 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been subject to mass internment and other forms of persecution. According to the report from Human Rights Watch, titled Asleep at the Wheel, several major global carmakers, including Volkswagen, Tesla, …

WASHINGTON — The nation’s employers delivered a stunning burst of hiring to begin 2024, adding 353,000 jobs in January in the latest sign of the economy’s continuing ability to shrug off the highest interest rates in two decades. Friday’s government report showed that last month’s job gain — far above what economists had predicted — topped the December gain of 333,000, a figure that was itself revised sharply higher. The unemployment rate stayed at 3.7%, just above a half-century low. Wages rose unexpectedly fast in January, too. Average hourly pay climbed …

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ST. PETERSBURG, Florida — The “cone of uncertainty” produced by the National Hurricane Center to forecast the location and ferocity of a tropical storm is getting an update this year to include predictions for inland areas, where wind and flooding are sometimes more treacherous than damage to the coasts.  The Miami-based hurricane center said Thursday on the X social media platform that the new, experimental forecast tool will be ready around August 15, just before the traditional peak of the hurricane season that begins June 1.  “This experimental graphic will help …

Countries waging wars are more focused on winning battles than mitigating their environmental impact. But researchers — who say the environmental impact of active conflicts is substantial — are trying to measure wars’ effects. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports. Carla Babb contributed. …

Geneva — New cancer cases are projected to rise by 77% to more than 35 million in 2050 from an estimated 20 million new cases and 9.7 million deaths in 2022, according to new data released Thursday by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The report, which is being issued ahead of World Cancer Day February 4, projects the greatest relative increases in cancer cases will occur in lower human development index (HDI) settings. That is a reference to a tool developed by …

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Indigenous African grains such as millet and sorghum are known to be nutritious but are not popular with many, especially the Gen Zers who view the grains as food for the poor. To change this narrative, a Kenyan entrepreneur is using the grains to make snacks and breakfast cereals to promote consumption of indigenous grains and foster environmental sustainability, as Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Video by Amos Wangwa. …

Nairobi — A polio vaccination campaign that was planned for November but postponed due to heavy rains and floods is finally taking place in three high risk counties in the northeastern part of Kenya. This comes after 13 cases of the so-called circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (CVDPV2) were discovered last year in the area.  This is the third round of polio vaccination targeting three high-risk counties of Mandera, Wajir and Garissa. The goal, according to Kenya’s ministry of health and its partners, is to reach about 750,000 children under the …

new york — The U.S. syphilis epidemic isn’t abating, with the rate of infectious cases rising 9% in 2022, according to a new federal government report on sexually transmitted diseases in adults. But there’s some unexpected good news: The rate of new gonorrhea cases fell for the first time in a decade. It’s not clear why syphilis rose 9% while gonorrhea dropped 9%, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, adding that it’s too soon to know whether a new downward trend is emerging for the latter. …

GENEVA — The World Health Organization says great progress has been made in the global elimination of industrially produced trans fat, with nearly half the world’s population protected against the harmful effects of this toxic product. “Five years ago, WHO called on countries and the food sector to eliminate industrially produced trans fats from the food supply. The response has been incredible,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday. “So far, 53 countries have implemented best practice policies, including bans and limits on trans fats, with three more countries on the …

Blantyre, Malawi — The Malawi government and the World Health Organization launched a new COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Monday in 10 of the country’s 29 districts. This is partly in response to new cases confirmed in the past three weeks in several districts across the country. Nsanje District in southern Malawi currently leads in the number of COVID-19 cases recorded this year. George Mbotwa, spokesperson for the district health office, said the district has registered 17 new cases in the past three weeks and some are health workers. “Initially there were …

PETALUMA, Calif. — Last month, Mike Weber got the news every poultry farmer fears: His chickens tested positive for avian flu. Following government rules, Weber’s company, Sunrise Farms, had to slaughter its entire flock of egg-laying hens — 550,000 birds — to prevent the disease from infecting other farms in Sonoma County north of San Francisco. “It’s a trauma. We’re all going through grief as a result of it,” said Weber, standing in an empty hen house. “Petaluma is known as the Egg Basket of the World. It’s devastating to see …

AZUA, Dominican Republic —  It was a busy Saturday morning at Marcia González’s church. A bishop was visiting, and normally she would have been there helping with logistics, but on this day she was teaching sex education at a local school. “I coordinate activities at the church and my husband is a deacon,” González said. “The bishop comes once a year and children are being confirmed, but I am here because this is important for my community.” For 40 years, González and her husband have pushed for broader sex education in …

los angeles — Data gathered by NASA’s Perseverance rover have confirmed the existence of ancient lake sediments deposited by water that once filled a giant basin on Mars called Jezero Crater, according to a study published Friday. The findings from ground-penetrating radar observations conducted by the robotic rover substantiate previous orbital imagery and other data leading scientists to theorize that portions of Mars were once covered in water and may have harbored microbial life. The research, led by teams from the University of California at Los Angeles  and the University of Oslo, …