TODAY’S MASS EXPLAINER | Jesus delivers a powerful warning about the fruits of faith Pope Leo XIV receives the President of Montenegro. PHOTO/VATICAN By PATRICK MAYOYO Catholics around the world are being confronted today with a striking message about responsibility, justice, prayer and the need to produce good fruit, as the readings of the Mass…
UV exposure is a major preventable skin cancer risk. Use sunscreen, cover up, seek shade, take extra care outdoors. A changing or non-healing skin lesion should be checked. As we head into the warmer summer months and spend more time outdoors, protecting our skin from sun damage becomes increasingly important. Skin cancer can begin with…
The African Union (AU) Commission has issued an urgent call for de-escalation in the Red Sea region, expressing grave concern over attacks targeting regional economic infrastructure and ongoing threats to international commercial shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. In a statement released on September 17, the AU Commission condemned attacks launched by Houthi forces against…
A looming super El Niño makes Africa’s leap from fossil fuels to a renewables-dominated energy mix urgent. The heatwave that swept Europe this summer claimed at least 35 000 lives. Other parts of the world were also affected, with heatwaves in India, wildfires in Indonesia and a glacial melt-related flood disaster in Nepal, all of…
Microbial ecology (the study of how tiny microbes interact with each other and their environment) underpins the health of every ecosystem on Earth. The microbes living in soil recycle nutrients, support plant growth and help ecosystems respond to environmental change. In this explainer, microbial ecologist Marc Van Goethem tells us why microbes are critical to…
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck eastern Indonesia on Saturday killed at least 38 people, a disaster management official said, revising an earlier toll. “Thirty-eight people have been confirmed dead, two were seriously injured, 11 sustained minor injuries, and approximately 2,000 people have evacuated on their own,” National Disaster Mitigation Agency chief Suharyanto told a news…
One person has been killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, the country’s health ministry says, after the Israeli military said it was responding to a “blatant violation of the ceasefire” by the Iran-backed group Hezbollah. A man died and 12 other people were injured when the roof of a prayer hall at the…
This event is the latest in a string of worrying and weird examples of AI agents going rogue. In recent research, the UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI) found frontier AI models are so fixated on completing tasks they “cheated” in tests to achieve their goals. The research from AISI came with this worrying warning: “A…
At the site of one missile strike, in the Podilskyi district of Kyiv, rescue teams have been working in the ruins of an apartment block with a big hole blown through its middle. Specialists have been using sniffer dogs to try to find the missing among the wreckage as cranes lift giant slabs of concrete…
Justin Mackenzie, managing director of VO Connect. Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer sitting in strategy decks. It is already showing up in support desks, sales teams, finance workflows and customer-facing operations. Microsoft’s latest AI diffusion data places South Africa ahead of every other African market measured, with more than 23% of the working-age population…
