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☆ Singapore overtakes Hong Kong as the most expensive Asia-Pacific city for private homes
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Goh Chiew Tong | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Tobiasjo | E+ | Getty ImagesSingapore's private homes are now the most expensive in Asia-Pacific, having overtaken Hong Kong, according to a new report. Private rental homes in Singapore also had the highest monthly rent in the region at $2,600 — "far exceeding" other cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Hong Kong, according to the report. Hong Kong vs. SingaporeHome prices in Hong Kong "dropped substantially" in 2022, ULI said, citing the significant increase in mortgage interest rates as Hong Kong keeps pace with the U.S. Federal Reserve. Rental pricesSingapore's private rental homes have the highest monthly rent in the region, having increased by nearly 30% in 2022. Home attainabilityDespite Singapore's private homes being the most expensive in the region, the city state also has the highest homeownership rate at 89.3%.

Persons: ULI, Hong, Kong's, David Faulkner, homeownership, Ho Organizations: Yacht, Urban Land Institute, ULI, Asia Pacific Centre for Housing, Singapore, U.S . Federal, Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, Urban Land Institute Asia Pacific Centre, Housing, Hong, Housing Private, CNBC, Housing Development Board, Board Locations: Singapore, Keppel, Asia, Pacific, Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, U.S, Shenzhen, Beijing, Brisbane, Covid, Australia, China, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, Da Nang

☆ Red light therapy: How it affects sleep
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Kristen Rogers | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —Red light therapy has been found to be helpful for skin health, wound healing, hair growth among people with alopecia and pain management. “That’s why when we talk about blue light or red light, we’re not talking about a red-colored light bulb. A 2019 study led by Figueiro looked into whether delivering red light to closed eyes during sleep — using a red light mask — and to open eyes upon waking — via red light goggles — reduced sleep inertia among 30 adults. In other words, it might be that any benefits come from replacing the light you’re exposed to before sleep with red light, rather than adding the latter during sleep. The bottom line is that when it comes to sleep, “what’s better than red light is no light,” Dasgupta said.

Persons: ”, Raj Dasgupta, “, ” Dasgupta, ‘, Dasgupta, Joshua Tal, Mariana Figueiro, Figueiro, who’s, ” Figueiro Organizations: CNN, US Centers for Disease Control, University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, Health Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine Locations: China, New York City, Mount Sinai

☆ What makes us human? Primate genome study offers some clues
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

While some genetic variations previously thought to be exclusive to people were found in other primate species, the researchers pinpointed others that were uniquely human involving brain function and development. They also used the primate genomes to train an artificial intelligence algorithm to predict disease-causing genetic mutations in humans. Human-related threats such as habitat destruction, climate change and hunting have left about 60% of primate species threatened with extinction and about 75% with declining populations. "The vast majority of primate species have significantly more genetic variation per individual than do humans," said genomicist and study co-author Jeffrey Rogers of the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. The genome data can help identify the primate species in the most dire need of conservation efforts.

Persons: Thomas Mukoya, genomicist Lukas Kuderna, gibbons, Kuderna, Jeffrey Rogers, Will Dunham, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: REUTERS, WASHINGTON, Barcelona Biomedical Research Park's Institute, Evolutionary, Illumina Inc, Baylor College of Medicine, Thomson Locations: Kinigi, Rwanda, Barcelona, Spain, Americas, Africa, Madagascar, Asia, Texas, China, Laos, Vietnam

Some popular big cities are losing residents, US Postal Service change-of-address requests indicate. Requests made in 2023 also show that smaller spots outside big cities have tended to gain residents. Smaller spots outside larger urban hubs, meanwhile, are attracting more residents than they're losing. Many people move over the summer to avoid pulling kids out of school midyear, so end-of-year change-of-address data may shed light on other patterns. Also, bigger cities are more likely to both lose and gain people because of their larger populations; the USPS doesn't adjust its numbers according to population.

☆ Marijuana harms development in first trimester of pregnancy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Sandee Lamotte | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

“Low birth weight is one of the strongest predictors of a child’s health and development long-term,” she said. “What we are telling women is that it’s not an absolute certainty that your baby’s growth will be impacted if you are using marijuana. “My advice to women is to avoid using marijuana at all during pregnancy and if possible stop using prior to becoming pregnant,” Bailey said. Marijuana use can harm fetal development in the first trimester, a time when many people may not know they are pregnant. Prior research has “pretty well established” that smoking cigarettes during pregnancy has a bigger impact on birth weight than exposure to marijuana,” Bailey said.

☆ Human DNA can now be pulled from thin air and sequenced
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Scientists have been able to collect and analyze detailed genetic data from human DNA from all these places, raising thorny ethical questions about consent, privacy and security when it comes to our biological information. Environmental DNA has been obtained from air, soil, sediment, water, permafrost, snow and ice cores and the techniques are primarily being used to help track and protect endangered animals. However, the ability to capture human DNA from the environment could have a range of unintended consequences — both inadvertent and malicious, they added. They termed this information “human genetic bycatch” and decided to study the phenomenon in greater depth. We cannot avoid shedding DNA in the public space,” Moreau, who was not involved in this study, said via email.

☆ How a shockingly resilient jobs market saved the US from a recession
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Madison Hoff | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Several measures from Friday's jobs report show the labor market is stronger than it's been in decades. But Terrazas pointed to potential concerns in the labor market and for interest rates. "If it's the former, it's just a matter of time before gravity catches up with the labor market," Terrazas said. Overall though, the different robust labor market data suggests the US could maybe avoid a recession as has been the case so far in 2023. Despite potential risks in the job market, Pollak believes there's a possibility that the US continues to avoid a recession.

LONDON, May 5 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization on Friday declared an end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency, marking a major step toward the end of the pandemic that has killed more than 6.9 million people, disrupted the global economy and ravaged communities. "It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that the end of the emergency did not mean COVID was over as a global health threat. The WHO's emergency committee first declared that COVID represented its highest level of alert on Jan. 30, 2020. The status helps focus international attention on a global health threat, as well as bolstering collaboration on vaccines and treatments. The decision to end the global health emergency status was supported by a majority of the committee, said Didier Houssin, head of the agency's COVID emergency committee.

☆ Home Insurance Premiums Rise as Americans Flock to Weather-Worn States
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Debra Kamin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

In South Dakota, 8,424 new residents moved into the sparsely populated state in 2022, while insurance costs have jumped 39 percent since 2015. In dry, sunny Arizona, where nearly 71,000 new residents flocked in 2022, costs grew 28 percent. Conversely, states that lost significant numbers of residents saw insurance rates rise much more gradually. New York lost the most population in 2022 — nearly 300,000 residents — but saw home insurance jump only 17 percent, several points below average. While mortgage lenders typically require homeowners to carry home insurance, most policies do not cover floods.

☆ Der Spiegel cartoon of India reopens old wounds in world's new most populous country
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Rhea Mogul | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

The illustration, published last month in German news magazine Der Spiegel, shows a throng of jubilant Indians on an old and overcrowded locomotive – many standing on the roof – as it overtakes a sleek Chinese bullet train. But more than three quarters of a century later, critics of the Der Spiegel cartoon say it is unfair to view India through the lens of poverty. CNN has reached out to Der Spiegel for comment. Sankhadeep Banerjee/NurPhoto/Getty Images‘Suck up to China’The Der Spiegel cartoon “plays with very old fashioned clichés,” Germany’s ambassador to India, Philipp Ackermann, told Indian news agency ANI. “Der Spiegel caricaturing India in this manner has no resemblance to reality,” Gupta, the senior government adviser wrote on Twitter.

☆ Russia says it has been 'saving' children from Ukraine, not stealing them, despite widespread evidence of abductions
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Sinéad Baker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A Russian official said his country is "saving" children that it takes from Ukraine, not "stealing" them. "Russia is not denying that you are transporting children in their thousands from Ukraine into Russia. We've been accused of stealing children but of fact we were saving children, from Ukrainian army first and foremost." Ukraine's government said in March that, since Russia's invasion in February 2022, 16,226 Ukrainian children had been deported to Russia. "So what you did to them, if you read the Geneva Convention, is a war crime."

☆ China's CCTV slams Western hype of its population decline
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG, April 20 (Reuters) - Western media reports on China's population being overtaken by India deliberately ignores China's development, using the topic to "bad mouth" it and advocate decoupling, state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday. CCTV's sharply worded commentary said the subtext from Western media in recent years was that China's development was in "big trouble" and that when China's demographic dividend disappears, it would decline, and the global economy would also suffer. "The United States is stepping up efforts to contain China's development and advocate further decoupling and found new hype points from the United Nations report," CCTV said, adding that the West simply equated population size with development achievements. "Such hype lacks a basic understanding of the law of population development. "Population is important but talents are also important...China has taken active measures to respond to population aging," Wang told reporters on Wednesday.

☆ Will This Be the ‘Indian Century’? Four Key Questions
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Alex Travelli | Weiyi Cai | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +11 min

Annual population growth 3% Growing population Projected Projected 2% India’s population is projected to grow until the 2060s. 1% 0 Declining population -1% 1960 2000 2040 2080 3% Projected 2% China’s population declined for the first time in 2022. Fertility rate 8 children per woman Projected Projected 6 India 4 India’s fertility rate ensures a roughly stable population. Age 100+ Male Female Male Female 95–99 90–91 85–89 80–81 75–79 70–71 Nearly 80% of India’s population is younger than 50. 20–21 15–19 10–11 5–9 0–4 Age 100+ Male Female 95–99 90–91 85–89 80–81 Nearly 80% of India’s population is younger than 50.

☆ New study suggests Black women should be screened earlier for breast cancer
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Jacqueline Howard | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

CNN —A new study on breast cancer deaths raises questions around whether Black women should screen at earlier ages. Even though Black women have a 4% lower incidence rate of breast cancer than White women, they have a 40% higher breast cancer death rate. “When the breast cancer mortality rate for Black women in their 40s is 27 deaths per 100,000 person-years, this means 27 out of every 100,000 Black women aged 40-49 in the US die of breast cancer during one year of follow-up. They also wrote that health policy makers should pursue equity, not just equality, when it comes to breast cancer screening as a tool to help reduce breast cancer death rates. Having dense tissue in the breast can make it more difficult for radiologists to identify breast cancer on a mammogram, and women with dense breast tissue have a higher risk of breast cancer.

☆ The US still waits for its high-speed rail revolution
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Ben Jones | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +15 min

So why doesn’t the United States have a high-speed rail network like those? Many Americans have no concept of high-speed rail and fail to see its value. William C. Vantuono, editor-in-chief of Railway Age“Many Americans have no concept of high-speed rail and fail to see its value. Corridors for the greatest potentialBrightline West and CHSR offer templates for the future expansion of high-speed rail in North America. “Where those conditions apply in Europe and Asia, high-speed rail reduces air’s share of the market from 100% to near zero.

☆ Analysis: Italian first! Meloni's nationalists defend cultural identity at risk of irking EU
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Angelo Amante | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/2] General view of the Colosseum next to a subway's construction sites in Rome, Italy, February 16, 2023. Almost six months after taking office, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government is pushing out bills that promise to promote national identity, defend the traditional family, protect cultural heritage and hold back migrants. Recent proposals include a bill to safeguard the Italian language and a ban on lab-grown food. "Italian mines are made up of culture, gastronomy, language, arts, fashion, history, archaeology and monuments. "Identity messages are meant to tell the electorate that Brothers of Italy will not give up its line," analyst Panarari said.

MOSCOW, April 4 (Reuters) - Russia's commissioner for children's rights on Tuesday dismissed International Criminal Court (ICC) allegations that she was responsible for unlawfully deporting children from Ukraine as false. The Hague-based ICC on March 17 issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Children's Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the war crime of unlawfully deporting children from areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces. The ICC said it had information that hundreds of children had been taken from orphanages and children's care homes in areas of Ukraine claimed by Russia. CHILDRENSince the invasion, Ukraine has cast Russia as a brutal imperial aggressor that has committed war crimes, including the theft of children. Putin allies have cast the ICC, which countries including China and the United States do not recognise, as a "legal nonentity."

☆ This one map shows the fastest-growing and fastest-shrinking counties in the US
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Madison Hoff | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Census Bureau released county-level population estimates for July 1, 2022, along with net migration and natural change estimates for counties, on Thursday. Additionally, among these 10 large counties with the highest percent increases were five Texas counties. Dawson County and Lumpkin County in Georgia were the two Georgia counties that were among the 10 fastest-growing large counties. The following are the large counties that saw the largest percent declines during this time frame. However, Lassen County in California had the greatest percent decline among these large counties, falling by 6.0%.

San Francisco, like some of the country’s other big cities, saw its population decline slow down from mid-2021 to mid-2022. Big cities lost fewer residents last year as more immigrants moved in, fewer people died and more babies were born there, according to new census data that shows the urban exodus that gained steam early in the pandemic is cooling. The suburbs of big cities and small and medium-size metropolitan areas continued to claim most of the country’s growth, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of population estimates released Thursday for the year that ended June 30. Rural areas and small towns collectively remained nearly flat.

☆ COVID led to sharp rise in vaccine compensation schemes, but gaps remain -Oxford
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Maggie Fick | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Regulators globally have shown that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and adverse events are extremely rare. But in those rare cases, the pandemic exposed problems in some countries -- such as in the United States -- with vaccine compensation schemes when large proportions of populations are inoculated. In January 2020, when the pandemic began, only 26 vaccine compensation schemes existed. She named Brazil as a country that has no compensation scheme, for example. The draft pandemic treaty which is being negotiated by World Health Organization member states calls for a global compensation scheme for vaccine injuries.

Working stocks in underground storage amounted to 1,900 billion cubic feet on March 17, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the highest for the time of year since 2020 and before that 2017. Stocks were 242 billion cubic feet (+15% or +0.54 standard deviations) above the prior ten-year seasonal average (“Weekly natural gas storage report”, EIA, March 23). The seasonal storage surplus was a total transformation from a deficit of 263 billion cubic feet (-8% or -0.98 standard deviations) on Jan. 1 and 427 bcf (-13% or -1.52 standard deviations) on Sept. 9. But liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports increased to a record 3,866 billion cubic feet, an even faster increase of 8.6% compared with 2021. Related columns:- U.S. gas prices near record low amid over-production (Feb. 22)- U.S. gas prices slump to maximise power burn (Feb. 10)- U.S. gas prices slump on production surplus (Jan. 12)John Kemp is a Reuters market analyst.

US President Joe Biden said an international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin was "justified." The warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court, which the US and Russia don't recognize. On Friday, the ICC released a report accusing the Russian president of "war crimes," declaring him an international pariah by issuing an arrest warrant against him. Russia does not recognize the ICC, and the US's relationship with the court has been fraught, according to Human Rights Watch. We support accountability for perpetrators of war crimes," the spokesperson added.

☆ International Criminal Court cements Putin's pariah status with arrest warrant for alleged war crimes — illegally snatching kids from Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Jake Epstein | John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin has allegedly committed war crimes in Ukraine, the ICC said in a Friday statement. He's been accused by the court of orchestrating involvement in illegally transferring children from Ukraine to Russia. The Netherland's based court alleged these crimes have been carried out since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. The UN said many of the actions, including the transfer and deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia, "amount to war crimes."

REUTERS/Eric ThayerMarch 2 (Reuters) - The Biden administration on Thursday added 37 companies to a trade blacklist, including units of Chinese genetics company BGI (300676.SZ) and Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur, in a move that promises to further ratchet up tensions with Beijing. The Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, added BGI Research and BGI Tech Solutions (Hongkong), over allegations that the units pose a "significant risk" to contributing to Chinese government surveillance. The Commerce Department accused Inspur of acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S. goods to support China's military modernization efforts. Commerce added 26 other Chinese entities to the list - which makes it hard for targeted companies to receive shipments of U.S. goods from suppliers. In 2020, the Commerce Department added two units of BGI Group, the world’s largest genomics company, to its economic blacklist over allegations it conducted genetic analyses used to further the repression of China’s minority Uyghurs.

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