Lifestyle

Vanilla spice: arid Israel produces potent tropical pods

In his busy Tel Aviv restaurant, chef Yair Yosefi adds a magic ingredient to his signature cake: Israel's first commercially produced vanilla providing what devotees claim is perhaps the strongest ever flavour.. Asked about the quality of the Israeli-aged vanilla, chef Yosefi said the proof was in the pudding, given the flurry of orders for his dacquoise cake and his bistro, Brut. 

Florida hurries to catch fast-spreading snail invasion

It might not be speedy, but it's big, hungry and fast at reproducing: the giant African snail, a potential health risk to humans, has once again invaded the southern US state of Florida.. The giant African snail has been eradicated from other parts of Florida twice before, first in 1975 and then again in 2021.

Gaza's women and girls see no escape from violence

Seventeen-year-old Istabraq Baraka fell pregnant soon after her wedding in the Gaza Strip.. "The law is not on women's side all the time in the Gaza Strip," said Aziza Elkahlout, a spokeswoman for the social development ministry which runs one of the refuges.

Biden's Covid symptoms 'continue to improve': W.House doctor

US President Joe Biden's Covid symptoms "continue to improve" and he is tolerating treatment well, his White House physician said Saturday, two days after the 79-year-old tested positive for the virus.. The White House has emphasized since Biden's diagnosis that the president was fully vaccinated and twice boosted.

Thailand's first monkeypox patient found after fleeing to Cambodia

A Nigerian man who went on the run after becoming Thailand's first monkeypox case was found in Phnom Penh Saturday and taken to hospital, the Cambodian Health Ministry said.. After searching several locations Saturday, Cambodian police found the runaway at a Phnom Penh guest house and he has since been sent to the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital for medical treatment.

China confirms top officials vaccinated as it seeks to reassure vaccine-sceptic

Chinese anti-Covid vaccines are safe and have been given to the country's top leaders, Beijing's health authorities said Saturday, in a bid to reassure the population about their quality in the face of dwindling inoculation rates.. "This demonstrates that our leaders take the prevention and control of Covid-19 very seriously, and have great confidence in Chinese anti-Covid vaccines," he added.

China court tosses case of single woman barred from freezing eggs

A Chinese woman who was denied permission to freeze her eggs on the grounds that she was unmarried has had her case dismissed by a Beijing court.. But a Beijing court ruled the hospital's refusal to freeze Xu's eggs was not illegal and "does not constitute an infringement of (her) rights", a judgment made public on Friday showed.

WHO to say if it will trigger highest alert on monkeypox

Faced with a surge in monkeypox cases, the head of the World Health Organization is  Saturday expected to declare if the agency has decided to  classify the outbreak as a global health emergency -- the highest alarm it can sound.. On June 23, the WHO convened an emergency committee (EC) of experts to decide if monkeypox constitutes a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) -- the UN health agency's highest alert level.