TOKYO – The official price tag for the Tokyo Olympics in $15.4 billion, which a University of Oxford study says is the most expensive on record. What else could those billions buy? The ballpark figure for building a 300-bed hospital in Japan is $55 million. So you could put up almost 300 of these. The average…
The U.S. averaged more than 107,000 new COVID-19 cases a day for the first week of August, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center on Saturday. For comparison, on June 7, the U.S. reported just more than 10,000 new COVID-19 cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The increase in coronavirus…
The White House reported Friday that the United States has now officially fully vaccinated half of its population, thanks to surge in vaccinations during the past week. White House COVID-19 Data Director Cyrus Shahpar tweeted Friday: He also said the seven-day average of newly vaccinated Americans was up 11% from last week and 44% over…
Want to find your inner Matt Damon and spend a year pretending you are isolated on Mars? NASA has a job for you. To prepare for eventually sending astronauts to Mars, NASA began taking applications Friday for four people to live for a year in Mars Dune Alpha. That’s a 1,700-square-foot Martian habitat, created…
GENEVA – World Bank-U.N. refugee agency survey in eight developing countries finds the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened conditions for forcibly displaced people, pushing them to take extreme measures to survive. The data was collected from 90,000 phone interviews in Bangladesh, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kenya, Uganda and Yemen. An analysis of the…
GENEVA – The World Health Organization says shipments of coronavirus vaccine to Africa are picking up while the continent continues to grapple with an upsurge in COVID-19 infections. After a slight dip in cases last week, the third wave of COVID-19 has come roaring back, with infections rising by nearly 19 percent to more than…
Computer giant Microsoft became the latest large employer to require workers to provide proof of a coronavirus vaccination before entering its offices in the United States. The Seattle Times reported the Redmond, Washington, company sent an email to its employees Tuesday, saying it would have a process to accommodate those employees who have medical conditions…
