American health authorities proposed a further easing on Friday of AIDS-era restrictions on blood donations by gay and bisexual men.. Under the current policy, gay and bisexual men, even those in monogamous relationships, must abstain from sex for three months to be eligible to donate blood.
The "love hormone" oxytocin has long been thought key to behaviours including pairing up with a partner and nurturing offspring, but a new study in prairie voles is raising doubts.. Prairie voles are one of the few mammals that mate for life, and are often used to study social behaviours like pair-forming in animals.
French prosecutors said on Friday they would investigate the appearance of vast quantities of tiny toxic plastic pellets along the Atlantic coast that endanger marine life and the human food chain.. Fish and birds often mistake them for food and, once ingested, the tiny granules can make their way into the diet of humans.
The World Health Organization's emergency committee on Covid-19 was meeting Friday to discuss whether the pandemic still merits the highest level of global alert.. Last time the committee met in October it concluded that the pandemic still constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) -- the WHO's highest level of alert. rjm/nl/ea
Japan's health ministry will soon decide whether to make abortion pills available for the first time after the proposal cleared a major hurdle with endorsement by a government panel on Friday.. A ministry official told AFP that an expert panel had reviewed the proposal and "saw no problem with approving it".
Japan's government will drop its recommendation to wear masks indoors and downgrade its medical classification for Covid-19, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday.. The change means that from May 8 -- after Japan's "Golden Week" holiday period -- Covid-19 patients and their close contacts will no longer have to isolate.
Teacher Oleksandr Pogoryelov occasionally strolls up the sloping road to the school in his village in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine where he taught for more than two decades.. Parents have been supportive, he said, but the village is emblematic of tensions in many communities in the Donetsk region, where pro-Russian separatists had been fighting Ukrainian forces for years.
The Kurdish herbalist reaches for a sachet as fragrant as a wild meadow, garnished with linden, rosehip, slivers of dried ginger, cinnamon stick and a touch of mystery.. The city centre had to be rebuilt yet again in the wake of violent clashes between Kurdish militants and government forces in 2015-16.
At a packed festival in central Jakarta, hijab-clad sexagenarian singer Rien Djamain bursts into an upbeat track about nuclear destruction to a crowd of thousands, mostly young Indonesians.. They are attracted not only to the musical aesthetics but also musical comedy," he told AFP. Dangdut music has been increasing in popularity, with acts now playing at festivals across Indonesia, performing for young audiences alongside rock bands, in addition to gigs for their usual crowds in smaller villages.
The deadly church attack in Algeciras has rekindled Spanish concerns about the jihadist threat, which experts say is still present although the country has been relatively spared from attacks in recent years.. - Five quiet years - The bloodshed sent shock waves through Spain, where the memory of such attacks has largely faded as the country has been largely spared over the past five years, unlike its European neighbours.
