Medical experts in Kenya are banking on human breast milk to save the lives of newborn babies.  Nairobi’s Pumwani Maternity Hospital has set up East Africa’s first breastmilk bank, the second in Africa, to provide donated milk to babies in need. As Sarah Kimani reports from Nairobi, the milk bank appears to be having an impact.   …

Canadian police said Wednesday they believe two fugitives suspected of killing a North Carolina woman and her Australian boyfriend as well as another man have been found dead in dense brush in northern Manitoba. Authorities located two male bodies and are confident they are 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky, said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy. She said an autopsy will confirm their identities and causes of death. Critical evidence found last week when police discovered items directly linked to the suspects on the shoreline of the Nelson River helped locate the bodies, MacLatchy said. Following that discovery, authorities were able to narrow down the search. Police sent in specialized teams and began searching high-probability areas. On Wednesday morning, police located the two bodies within 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from where the items were found and approximately 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) from where they left a burnt-out vehicle on July 22. “We are confident that these are the bodies of the two suspects wanted in connection with the homicides in British Columbia,” MacLatchy said. McLeod and Schmegelsky were charged with second-degree murder in the death of Leonard Dyck, a University of British Columbia lecturer whose body …

The first step in a sweeping crackdown on crime ranging from drugs to sex trafficking in a notorious San Francisco neighborhood yielded 32 arrests of mostly Honduran nationals tied to two international operations that poured heroin and cocaine into the community, U.S. prosecutors announced Wednesday. It’s not uncommon to see people shooting up or snorting powder in the Tenderloin neighborhood, which contains City Hall, several federal buildings, a large population of homeless and is just minutes from tourist-heavy Union Square. The neighborhood has long been a public safety problem in a city famous for its permissiveness, and leaders are divided on how to address the drug epidemic. Public safety initiative But in his first news conference since being appointed by President Donald Trump in January, U.S. Attorney David Anderson said he could no longer stand by as tourists, government workers and residents wade through a daily slog of crime. He said an enforcement initiative by more than 15 federal agencies would not affect “innocent,” homeless people or drug users but would tackle high-level drug dealing, fraud, identity theft and firearms. “My belief is that the Tenderloin, in fairness, deserves the rule of law every bit as much as other fine neighborhoods …

The grieving father of Yingying Zhang, the Chinese scholar murdered near the University of Illinois, says he realizes he may never recover his daughter’s body for burial. “There is nothing we want more than to find our daughter and bring her home,” Ronggao Zhang said through an interpreter in Urbana, Illinois, Wednesday. “We understand that may be impossible.” Zhang’s killer, Brendt Christensen, is serving life in prison with no chance of parole. After months of the Zhang family begging him to reveal where her body is, Christensen told his lawyers what he did with her remains after he raped, stabbed, beat and dismembered her. Christensen claims he put Zhang’s clothes, cellphone, books and body parts in three bags and then threw them into garbage dumpsters around Champaign, Illinois, where the university is located. Authorities say the contents of the dumpsters were emptied into garbage trucks, crushed and buried in a private landfill, where they are thought to be under 9 meters of trash. Zhang family attorneys said it would be complicated and nearly impossible to search the landfill. They also say if anything is left of Zhang, the remains would be very small and have likely decomposed. The lawyers said …

Expanding access to a promising but costly treatment, Medicare said Wednesday that it would cover for some blood cancers a breakthrough gene therapy that revs up a patient’s own immune cells to destroy malignancies.  Officials said Medicare would cover CAR-T cell therapies for certain types of lymphoma and leukemia, uses that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The cost can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient, not counting hospitalization and other expenses. Medicare Administrator Seema Verma said the decision would provide consistent and predictable access nationwide, opening up treatment options for some patients “who had nowhere else to turn.” Turbocharge, reprogram cells  CAR-T uses gene therapy techniques to turbocharge the patient’s own immune system cells, reprogramming them to harbor a “receptor” that zeroes in on cancer, and then to grow hundreds of millions of copies. The revved-up immune cells are returned to the patient’s bloodstream and can continue to fight cancer for months or years. Although side effects can be severe, studies have shown the treatment to be highly effective against certain types of cancers. Researchers are working to add more types to that list. Medicare has been weighing the decision for months. The program often sets the …

Samsung unveiled a new version of the Galaxy Note smartphone on Wednesday with fast 5G network connection and improved camera features, hoping the premium model helps it revive slumping profit and widen the gap with struggling rival Huawei. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has emerged as the biggest beneficiary  of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.’s trouble in the second quarter with a nearly 7% jump in smartphone sales, as the Chinese firm sold fewer phones in the global market after it was put on a U.S. trade blacklist in May. With emphasis on improved video and photography features, which helped Huawei become the world’s No. 2 smartphone vendor, Samsung hopes the Galaxy Note 10 will appeal to YouTubers and fans of social media. Along with its first foldable phone, the big-screen Note 10, unveiled at an event in New York on Wednesday, is the South Korean tech firm’s most important new product planned in the second half of this year to expand its mobile sales. With two screen sizes of 6.3 inches and 6.8 inches, the Note 10 boasts enhanced video effects such as augmented reality and stabilization modes, and a front-facing camera centrally located at the top of the display for …

U.S. officials said that some 680 undocumented migrants were detained in raids Wednesday at food processing plants in the southeastern United States, part of President Donald Trump’s announced crackdown on illegal immigration. Most of those detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were Hispanic migrants, officials said. “Special agents executed administrative and criminal search warrants resulting in the detention of approximately 680 illegal aliens,” said Mike Hurst, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi. “They have to follow our laws, they have to abide by our rules, they have to come here legally or they shouldn’t come here at all,” Hurst said at a news conference. Workers exit a Koch Foods Inc. processing plant as U.S. immigration officials conducted a raid in Morton, Miss., Aug. 7, 2019. The U.S. attorney did not spare the employers.  “To those who use illegal aliens for competitive advantage or to make a quick buck, we have something to say to you: If we find that you have violated federal criminal law, we’re coming after you,” he said. Matthew Albence, the interim ICE head, said the raids were the result of a year-long investigation. He said that the children of detained parents will …

GUATEMALA CITY — Conservative Alejandro Giammattei could prevail in Guatemala’s presidential runoff Sunday if misgivings about his opponent among urban voters outweigh her support in the Central American nation’s poor Mayan highlands.  Whoever takes office in January will face a testy relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, who last month strong-armed the outgoing government into signing an agreement that will turn Guatemala into a buffer zone for U.S.-bound migrants.  Giammattei and his center-left rival, former first lady Sandra Torres, both criticized the deal, but Trump’s threats of economic sanctions are unlikely to leave either of them much room to maneuver if the next administration does not honor it.  Potentially complicating such tough decisions, neither candidate is hugely popular.  Torres, 63, has high negative ratings in the densely populated urban areas, in part because of her connections to an investigation being conducted into alleged illicit electoral financing in a previous campaign.  Her base is in rural areas such as the highlands where she is remembered for social programs during her former husband’s administration.  Turnout is expected to be low and the winner is unlikely to command a strong mandate, especially after electoral authorities excluded other popular candidates from the first round in June — conservative candidate Zury Rios on the ground that close relatives of coup leaders are barred from top office, and anti-corruption crusader Thelma Aldana because of an arrest warrant against …

The Democratic-led U.S. House Judiciary Committee asked a federal court on Wednesday to compel former White House Counsel Don McGahn to testify about President Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to impede the federal probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, the committee contends that McGahn’s testimony is needed to decide whether to move forward with impeachment proceedings against the Republican president over actions that Democrats view as criminal attempts to obstruct then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month investigation. Latest step by Democrats The move represents the latest step toward impeachment by Democrats in the House of Representatives, who last week cited their impeachment drive in a court petition seeking access to Mueller’s grand jury evidence. Democrats predict that the lawsuit, if successful, will dismantle a White House strategy to stonewall congressional probes by directing current and former Trump aides not to testify or provide documents to investigators. McGahn, who emerged as the star witness in the 448-page Mueller report released in April, is viewed by Democrats as a potentially devastating witness against Trump similar to former White House Counsel John Dean, who testified against President Richard Nixon, in the Watergate era. …

Lyft Inc posted a jump in revenue on Wednesday in its second-quarter results, allowing the ride-hailing company to lift its forecasts as more riders used the service and price competition with rival Uber eased. The company boosted its revenue outlook for the year to above Wall Street estimates and estimated third-quarter sales would exceed expectations, sending shares up as high as 11% after hours before they came down to a 1.8% increase. A loss of $2.23 per share in the quarter was worse than the $1.74 per-share loss expected, on average, by analysts, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Lyft also said its lock-up period — the time after a public offering in which large shareholders are prohibited from selling shares — would come early, Aug. 19 instead of Sept. 24. Shares of Uber Technologies Inc rose after Lyft posted results, rising 2.6% in after-hours trade. FILE – A man rides a Lyft Scooter near the White House in Washington, March 29, 2019. Lyft’s 72% jump in revenue was fueled by more active riders, who spent about a quarter more than they had a year ago. “Wall Street has been eager for us to demonstrate our path for profitability,” Chief …

One month after then-President Boris Yeltsin plucked a security agency official named Vladimir Putin from obscurity and made him prime minister, an explosion leveled a nine-story apartment building on Moscow’s outskirts. The predawn blast on Sept. 9, 1999, reduced the building to a smoking pile of rubble, killing more than 100 people. A second building, less than 6 kilometers away, was rocked by an explosion on Sept. 13, killing 119. Days earlier, a car bomb exploded in a small town bordering the war-ravaged region of Chechnya, where reignited fighting was already spilling into neighboring regions. That blast, outside the apartment building in the town of Buynaksk, killed dozens. It was followed seven days later by a truck bomb that destroyed a nine-story building in another southern city, Volgodonsk, killing 17. On Sept. 23, Putin asserted terrorists in Chechnya were to blame and ordered a massive air campaign within the North Caucasus region. When asked a day later about the campaign targeting what he called terrorists, Putin responded with the phrase that inaugurated his rise to preeminence. “We will pursue them everywhere,” he said, using a crude slang expression. “Excuse me for saying so: We’ll catch them in the toilet. We’ll …

The rapid rise of tiny loans aimed at helping poor Cambodians has led to more debt, with many borrowers forced to sell land, migrate or put their children to work, human rights groups said on Wednesday. The Southeast Asian nation has about 2.4 million borrowers with $5.4 billion in outstanding microloans, and among the world’s biggest average loan sizes, according to a report from human rights groups Licadho and Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT). High interest rates, the use of land titles as collateral, and pressure to repay loans have led to a “predatory form of lending” by microfinance institutions (MFIs), they said. “MFIs, as they currently operate, pose a direct threat to the land tenure security of millions of people in Cambodia,” they said in the report. “In most cases, the land that was lost was income-generating. Loss of land therefore jeopardizes a family’s livelihood and identity.” The National Bank of Cambodia did not respond to emails seeking comment. An official at industry group the Cambodia Microfinance Association (CMA) said all members followed the law, as well as CMA’s lending guidelines to check over-indebtedness. “CMA and other stakeholders watch the growth in the sector carefully and take appropriate measures to …

Moscow’s children’s rights ombudsman and other public figures have reacted with outrage to Russian prosecutors’ moves to remove a 1-year-old boy from his parents because they allegedly took him to an unauthorized protest. Prosecutors claimed that Dmitri and Olga Prokazov endangered the child by taking him to the July 27 rally in the Russian capital that was violently dispersed by police, and that they handed him to another man who is now being sought on charges of organizing mass riots. The case against the parents follows a tough police crackdown on rallies protesting the exclusion of opposition candidates from September’s city council election. Police detained more than 1,400 people during the July 27 protest and rounded up a further 1,001 during another demonstration on Saturday, according to an independent monitoring group. Children’s rights ombudsman Yevgeny Bunmovich harshly criticized the prosecutors’ action, denouncing what he called “political blackmail involving children.” He said he has written to Moscow’s prosecutor urging him to drop the charges. Members of the presidential human rights council also criticized the prosecutors’ action, which comes amid a slew of criminal cases launched in the wake of protests that challenged the Kremlin. Most of those detained were released within …

A Myanmar court on Wednesday sentenced a veteran Australian media publisher to 13 years in jail after a police raid uncovered a stash of drugs at his home last year. Ross Dunkley, 60, has long had links with the media industry across Southeast Asia, co-founding English language newspaper The Myanmar Times when the country was in the tight grip of a military dictatorship. He also used to be a co-owner of Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Post. Police arrested him, his business partner John McKenzie and seven Myanmar nationals during a June 2018 raid on his home in the commercial capital Yangon. Officers uncovered a stash of crystal methamphetamine, low-grade “yaba” pills, three opium cakes, marijuana and a small amount of heroin, police said. One man and one woman, who were working as house helpers for Dunkley, were later released. “Ross Dunkley and John McKenzie are sentenced to 13 years,” judge Myint Myint Maw told Yangon’s Western District court Wednesday. Five Myanmar women also on trial broke down in tears as they were each sentenced to 11 years, while watching relatives shouted out in anger. Dunkley appeared shaken and declined to speak to reporters as he was led away from the court …

Eid Al Salwaawi, 69, paints murals of the rituals of the haj pilgrimage on the walls of a house in Cairo’s Sayeda Zainab neighbourhood. Sometimes he volunteers to paint scenes that celebrate the haj and religious stories and lessons, other times he is paid. Every year, Muslims travel from around the world to the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia to complete the haj, one of the five pillars of their faith. This year’s haj will conclude on Sunday. The artist Eid Al Salwaawi paints murals about the holy Kaaba and the rituals of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, in Cairo, Egypt, July 17, 2019. Salwaawi said the haj scenes he saw on the walls of houses in his home village as a child in northern Aswan captured his imagination. “So I draw camel caravans and soldiers wearing traditional hats guarding them,” he said. He uses simple tools like a handmade palm frond brush and a mixture of paint, vinegar, rosewater, gum Arabic and glue. One mural depicts women as they embark on the pilgrimage, dressed in bright colours, another shows a caravan carrying the tapestry that covers the Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam. It was built by the …

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, as part of his first international tour since accepting the Cabinet post last month.   Mongolia is not a traditional destination of U.S. defense secretaries. Chuck Hagel was the last defense secretary to visit in 2014. The nation, sandwiched between China and Russia, is located in a “neighborhood that has a lot of mischief going on around its perimeter,” Rudy deLeon, a defense policy expert with the Center for American Progress and a former deputy secretary of defense, told VOA. That is, in part, a major reason why Mongolia has had a “pretty consistently upward” trajectory of importance to the United States in recent years, according to a senior U.S. defense official. “Given its location, given its interest in working more with us…all those things are a reason why I want to go there and engage,” Defense Secretary Esper told reporters traveling with him this week. Since January 2018, the Pentagon has been implementing a National Defense Strategy (NDS) which prioritizes U.S. protection from near-peer competitors China and Russia. One of the key action items of the NDS is to cultivate more robust partnerships to expand the United States’ network of …

A massive car bomb exploded near a police compound in the Afghanistan capital, Kabul, Wednesday, causing a number of casualties and extensive damage to nearby buildings. The Taliban swiftly took responsibly for carrying out the attack against what it claimed was an Afghan police recruitment center in a western part of the capital. Local media reported at least 18 people were killed and more than 100 others wounded in the attack. The Afghan health ministry said mostly civilians, including women and children, were among more than 100 injured taken to hospitals from the site of the attack. The deadly violence comes a day after the Taliban warned Afghans against participating in the upcoming presidential election. Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said the bomber detonated his explosives-packed vehicle when security forces intercepted him at a checkpoint just outside the police station. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed civilians were neither present nor are they allowed to enter the high-security area where the recruitment center was located. Residents said a huge plume of smoke could be seen over the city following the powerful blast. Footage aired by Afghan television stations showed several buildings had been completely destroyed. IS cells busted in Kabul …

Papua New Guinea’s new leader has asked China to refinance its entire 27 billion kina ($7.8 billion) government debt and enter into free trading arrangements with Pacific island nations, even as competition for influence in the region intensifies between Beijing and Washington. PNG Prime Minister James Marape said in a statement issued out of Port Moresby on Monday that the requests were raised during a recent meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Xue Bing. PNG, a country rich in natural gas, crude oil, gold and copper, among other commodities, has fallen into large budget deficits in recent years. The government said in a fiscal update earlier this year “cash became tight” due in part to delays over a proposed $300 million budget loan from China. The island nation’s total public debt accounts for just over 30% of its annual gross domestic product, according to a mid-year budget document, though it does not provide regular updates on how much of that is owed to China. The request to Beijing coincides with aggressive warnings from U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper who said on Sunday that China was using “predatory economics” to destabilize the Indo-Pacific. Reuters’ analysis of Pacific nation …

A quarter of the world’s people are just a few dry spells away from facing dangerous water shortages, a U.S. think tank warned on Tuesday, with India home to the bulk at risk of running dry. Seventeen countries face “extremely high water stress” because they consume 80 percent of their available water annually, a situation worsened by more frequent dry shocks tied to climate change, the World Resources Institute (WRI) said. “We’re currently facing a global water crisis,” said Betsy Otto, director of WRI’s global water program. New data in WRI’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas showed the lion’s share of the most thirsty countries are located in the largely arid Middle East and North Africa region. Qatar is the most water-stressed country, followed by Israel and Lebanon. India ranked 13th among “extremely high” water-stressed nations. But with a population of more than 1.3 billion, it has over three times more people than the other 16 countries combined whose agriculture, industry and municipalities depend on avoiding water “bankruptcy.” In recent weeks, India’s sixth-largest city, Chennai, was the latest metropolis worldwide to warn its taps could run dry, as reservoir levels plunged. That followed similar countdowns to water “Day Zero” in South …

One day after the U.S. imposed a full economic embargo on Venezuela, National Security Advisor John Bolton says the U.S. can now sanction anyone who supports the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro’s government denounced the sanctions as a “grave aggression” that will lead to “the failure of political dialogue.” VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from the State Department. …

U.S. financial markets struggled to rebound Tuesday after their biggest drop since December. U.S. President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser says the White House has the upper hand in deepening trade and monetary disputes with China — an assertion made after Beijing announced it will no longer buy U.S. agricultural products. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.   …

Ayaz Gul in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report. As Kashmir remained locked down for a second straight day, India’s parliament approved scrapping the special status that gave Kashmir significant autonomy, and passed a bill to split the state.  Plunged in a communications blackout and a virtual shutdown, it has been difficult to ascertain the reaction local residents to the radical steps. Curfew-like restrictions continued on Tuesday. Troops patrolled deserted streets with barbed wire barricades in the capital, Srinagar, while the internet, mobile and landlines remained suspended to stem protests in the region wracked by a violent separatist struggle for three decades.    The measures passed by an overwhelming majority in the lower house of parliament are being seen as a message that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take a tough stance on Kashmir and with rival Pakistan, with whom India has a long-running dispute over control of the Himalayan region.  After the vote, Modi called it a “momentous occasion in our parliamentary democracy.” In a tweet he said, “Together we are, together we shall rise, and together we will fulfill the dreams of 130 crore Indians!” The steps fulfill a long-standing pledge of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party …

The Buddhist enclave of Ladakh cheered India’s move to break it away from Jammu and Kashmir state, a change that could spur tourism and help New Delhi counter China’s influence in the contested western Himalayas. Beijing, though, criticized the announcement, made on Monday by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of a wider policy shift that also ended Jammu and Kashmir’s right to set its own laws. In a statement on Tuesday, China said the decision was unacceptable and undermined its territorial sovereignty. Ladakh is an arid, mountainous area of around 59,146 square kilometers (22,836 square miles), much of it uninhabitable, that only has 274,000 residents. The rest of Jammu and Kashmir is roughly 163,090 square kilometres (62,969 square miles) with a population of some 12.2 million. China and India still claim vast swaths of each other’s territory along their 3,500 km (2,173 mile) Himalayan border. FILE – The sun sets in Leh, the largest town in the region of Ladakh, nestled high in the Indian Himalayas, India, Sept. 26, 2016. The Asian rivals had a two-month standoff at the Doklam plateau in another part of the remote Himalayan region in 2017. “The fact that India …

Small-satellite launch firm Rocket Lab announced on Tuesday a plan to recover the core booster of its Electron rocket using a helicopter, a bold cost-saving concept that, if successful, would make it the second company after Elon Musk’s SpaceX to reuse an orbital-class rocket booster. “Electron is going reusable,” Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck said during a presentation in Utah, showing an animation of the rocket sending a payload into a shallow orbit before speeding back through Earth’s atmosphere. “Launch frequency is the absolute key here.” The Auckland, New Zealand-based company is one of a growing cadre of launch companies looking to slash the cost of sending shoebox-sized satellites to low Earth orbit, building smaller rockets and reinventing traditional production lines to meet a growing payload demand. Electron, which has flown seven missions so far, can send up to 496 pounds (225 kg) into space for roughly $7 million. Medium-class launchers such as Los Angeles-based Relativity Space can send up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) into space for $10 million while Cedar Park, Texas-based firm Firefly can do it for $15 million. FILE – A SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center …