China’s Zhejiang, a big industrial province near Shanghai, is battling around a million new daily COVID-19 infections, a number expected to double in the days ahead, the provincial government said Sunday. Despite a record surge of cases nationwide, China reported no COVID deaths on the mainland for the five days through Saturday, the Chinese Center […]

World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave a grim assessment of the many health challenges and threats people around the world have faced this year. Topping the list was the COVID-19 pandemic that has sickened and killed millions of people for a third year. He noted a global outbreak of monkeypox, now known as […]

An arctic blast has brought extreme cold, heavy snow and intense wind across much of the U.S. — just in time for the holidays. The weather system, dubbed a “bomb cyclone,” is disrupting travel and causing hazardous winter conditions. Where is this winter weather coming from, and what’s in store for the coming days? What’s […]

  Canada’s Western Hudson Bay polar bear population has fallen 27% in just five years, according to a government report released this week, suggesting climate change is affecting the animals. Every autumn, the bears living along the western edge of the Bay pass through the sub-Arctic tourist town of Churchill, Manitoba, as they return to […]

The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and high levels of opioid overdose deaths drove life expectancy in the United States down for the second consecutive year in 2021, with a child born in that year expected to live 76.4 years, the lowest figure since 1996, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and […]