The post In a cycle of extreme weather, drought in southern Africa leaves some 20 million facing hunger appeared first on Best News.
]]>“I don’t want to lose a single drop,” she said.
Her relief at the handout — paid for by the United States government as her southern African country deals with a severe drought — was tempered when aid workers gently broke the news that this would be their last visit.
Ncube and her 7-month-old son she carried on her back were among 2,000 people who received rations of cooking oil, sorghum, peas and other supplies in the Mangwe district in southwestern Zimbabwe. The food distribution is part of a program funded by American aid agency USAID and rolled out by the United Nations’ World Food Programme.
They’re aiming to help some of the 2.7 million people in rural Zimbabwe threatened with hunger because of the drought that has enveloped large parts of southern Africa since late 2023. It has scorched the crops that tens of millions of people grow themselves and rely on to survive, helped by what should be the rainy season.
They can rely on their crops and the weather less and less.
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The drought in Zimbabwe, neighboring Zambia and Malawi has reached crisis levels. Zambia and Malawi have declared national disasters. Zimbabwe could be on the brink of doing the same. The drought has reached Botswana and Angola to the west, and Mozambique and Madagascar to the east.
A year ago, much of this region was drenched by deadly tropical storms and floods. It is in the midst of a vicious weather cycle: too much rain, then not enough. It’s a story of the climate extremes that scientists say are becoming more frequent and more damaging, especially for the world’s most vulnerable people.
In Mangwe, the young and the old lined up for food, some with donkey carts to carry home whatever they might get, others with wheelbarrows. Those waiting their turn sat on the dusty ground. Nearby, a goat tried its luck with a nibble on a thorny, scraggly bush.
Ncube, 39, would normally be harvesting her crops now — food for her, her two children and a niece she also looks after. Maybe there would even be a little extra to sell.
The driest February in Zimbabwe in her lifetime, according to the World Food Programme’s seasonal monitor, put an end to that.
“We have nothing in the fields, not a single grain,” she said. “Everything has been burnt (by the drought).”
The United Nations Children’s Fund says there are “overlapping crises” of extreme weather in eastern and southern Africa, with both regions lurching between storms and floods and heat and drought in the past year.
In southern Africa, an estimated 9 million people, half of them children, need help in Malawi. More than 6 million in Zambia, 3 million of them children, are impacted by the drought, UNICEF said. That’s nearly half of Malawi’s population and 30% of Zambia’s.
“Distressingly, extreme weather is expected to be the norm in eastern and southern Africa in the years to come,” said Eva Kadilli, UNICEF’s regional director.
While human-made climate change has spurred more erratic weather globally, there is something else parching southern Africa this year.
El Niño, the naturally occurring climatic phenomenon that warms parts of the Pacific Ocean every two to seven years, has varied effects on the world’s weather. In southern Africa, it means below-average rainfall, sometimes drought, and is being blamed for the current situation.
The impact is more severe for those in Mangwe, where it’s notoriously arid. People grow the cereal grain sorghum and pearl millet, crops that are drought resistant and offer a chance at harvests, but even they failed to withstand the conditions this year.
Francesca Erdelmann, the World Food Programme’s country director for Zimbabwe, said last year’s harvest was bad, but this season is even worse. “This is not a normal circumstance,” she said.
The first few months of the year are traditionally the “lean months” when households run short as they wait for the new harvest. However, there is little hope for replenishment this year.
Joseph Nleya, a 77-year-old traditional leader in Mangwe, said he doesn’t remember it being this hot, this dry, this desperate. “Dams have no water, riverbeds are dry and boreholes are few. We were relying on wild fruits, but they have also dried up,” he said.
People are illegally crossing into Botswana to search for food and “hunger is turning otherwise hard-working people into criminals,” he added.
Multiple aid agencies warned last year of the impending disaster.
Since then, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has said that 1 million of the 2.2 million hectares of his country’s staple corn crop have been destroyed. Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera has appealed for $200 million in humanitarian assistance.
The 2.7 million struggling in rural Zimbabwe is not even the full picture. A nationwide crop assessment is underway and authorities are dreading the results, with the number needing help likely to skyrocket, said the WFP’s Erdelmann.
With this year’s harvest a write-off, millions in Zimbabwe, southern Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar won’t be able to feed themselves well into 2025. USAID’s Famine Early Warning System estimated that 20 million people would require food relief in southern Africa in the first few months of 2024.
Many won’t get that help, as aid agencies also have limited resources amid a global hunger crisis and a cut in humanitarian funding by governments.
As the WFP officials made their last visit to Mangwe, Ncube was already calculating how long the food might last her. She said she hoped it would be long enough to avert her greatest fear: that her youngest child would slip into malnutrition even before his first birthday.
Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.
The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
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]]>The post Raposo's late goal gives Whitecaps 3-2 win over Timbers appeared first on Best News.
]]>Ryan Gauld and Fafa Picault scored first-half goals in Vancouver’s first win at home this season.
Brazilian Evander and Felipe Mora scored for the Timbers (2-3-1), who have lost three straight.
Gauld scored on a rebound off a Portland defender that got by goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau to give the Whitecaps (3-1-1) the lead in just the second minute. Picault added another goal, his second of the season, for Vancouver in the 29th.
After Evander’s goal in the 52nd, Mora scored on a header in the 77th to pull the Timbers into a 2-2 draw.
Raposo came into the game as a substitute in the 81st minute.
The game counted toward the Cascadia Cup, a trophy created by supporters for the winner of the three-way competition between the Timbers, the Whitecaps and the Seattle Sounders.
The Timbers and the Whitecaps have met 35 times since they joined Major League Soccer in 2011. Portland leads the series 16-12-7.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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]]>The post Johnston, Oettinger lead Stars to 3-0 win over Kraken appeared first on Best News.
]]>Joe Pavelski and Roope Hintz also scored to help the Stars remain on top of the Central Division and Western Conference Standings, three points up on Colorado. Dallas, which clinched its third straight playoff berth with win over Vancouver two nights earlier, trails the New York Rangers by one point in the race for the Presidents’ Trophy.
“You want to be playing well right now and winning games,” Pavelski said. “And you have to string them together. You can win a bunch of games and it feels like you make up no ground. The focus is just keep winning — keep doing it the right way and keep building our game toward the playoffs and make sure we’re ready.”
Oettinger got his ninth career shutout and improved to 30-13-4 on the season.
“He’s been awesome,” Johnson said. “It gives you a lot of confidence when he’s playing like that. He’s been huge. He’s been huge all year.”
Joey Daccord finished with 27 saves for the Kraken, who had won two straight after eight consecutive losses. Seattle will finish the regular season as the only NHL team winless at home on Saturdays.
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“In terms of effort, the effort was definitely there,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “Are they a good opponent? Absolutely. They’re fighting for the Presidents’ Trophy for a reason. It’s still disappointing to walk away with a loss. Not disappointed in the effort, but we’re here to win.”
Johnston scored with 1:48 remaining in the second period to give Dallas a 1-0 lead.
“We stayed patient and we found a goal,” Pavelski said. “It came. We didn’t cheat for it. When we found that one, our game seemed to get a little bit better.”
Adam Larsson was assessed a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct early in the third period. Pavelski then increased the lead with a power-play goal 26 seconds into the third period. Seattle hadn’t allowed a power-play goal in four games before Saturday, going 8 for 8 on the penalty kill during that span.
“We kept it close,” Seattle’s Oliver Bjorkstrand said. “It’s just a matter of us pushing the tempo and trying to create chances. They’re a hard team to play against. They play well defensively. I think maybe we just need to get more shots through and a little bit more traffic.”
Hintz scored an empty netter with 1:17 left to seal the win.
“We had good legs,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “We had good energy. It was a tough 60 minutes. They made it tough for us, but we stuck with it.”
Stars: vs. Edmonton on Wednesday.
Kraken: at San Jose on Monday.
AP NHL: https://binaryoptionbrokerz.com/hub/NHL
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]]>The post Gabriel Pec scores first MLS goal as Galaxy beats Sounders 1-0 appeared first on Best News.
]]>LA (3-0-3) leads the Western Conference and is tied with Cincinnati atop the MLS with 12 points.
Pec blasted a one-touch shot that ricocheted off the hands of goalkeeper Stefan Frei and into the net in the fourth minute and the Galaxy led the rest of the way.
Seattle (0-3-2) had 52% possession and outshot LA 17-9. The Sounders were shutout for the second time, and have scored just four goals, this season.
McCarthy finished with three saves, including the stop of a header by Danny Musovski in the 65th minute, and Frei had two.
___ AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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]]>The post Cardinals beat Dodgers 6-5 in 10 innings after Betts homers again in the ninth appeared first on Best News.
]]>The Cardinals turned a hit batter, a catcher’s interference and a balk into a five-run seventh inning and led 5-3 in the ninth. The Dodgers tied it against Ryan Helsley (1-0) on a one-out home run from Betts and a game-tying single from Max Muncy with two outs. Betts has a home run in four consecutive games.
Right-hander Lance Lynn pitched four scoreless innings in his first outing for St. Louis since 2017, then was pulled following a rare Dodger Stadium rain delay that lasted 35 minutes. It was believed to be the first rain delay at the ballpark since April of 2017.
Dodgers right-hander Kyle Hurt (0-1) gave up a run in 2 2/3 innings. Helsley gave up two runs on four hits in the ninth before Giovanny Gallegos pitched the 10th for his first save.
Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto went five scoreless innings for Los Angeles in his home debut, pitching on both sides of the rain delay. He bounced back from his dismal MLB debut on March 21, when he gave up five runs in just one inning against the San Diego Padres at Seoul, South Korea.
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Will Smith had a pair of RBI singles and Freddie Freeman added an RBI single for the Dodgers.
The game was scoreless when the delay began at the end of the fourth inning. Yamamoto returned with another scoreless innings before the Dodgers took a 2-0 lead on back-to-back RBI hits from Freeman and Smith.
The Cardinals went to work in the seventh, loading the bases on Nolan Gorman’s walk, while Nolan Arenado was hit by a pitch and Matt Carpenter loaded the bases on Smith’s catcher’s interference.
After Carpenter scored the go-ahead run following Joe Kelly’s balk with Victor Scott II at the plate, Brendan Donovan hit a two-run double to right for a 5-2 lead.
Dodgers: LHP Clayton Kershaw, who isn’t expected to pitch until the second half after offseason shoulder surgery, played catch from 120 feet in the outfield Saturday as he continues his throwing program. … RHP Brusdar Graterol (shoulder) is expected to pitch from a mound next week as he continues his rehab after starting the season in the injured list.
Cardinals: LHP Steven Matz will make his season debut after going 4-7 with a 3.86 ERA in 25 appearances (17 starts) last season.
Dodgers: RHP Gavin Stone will make his season debut after he went 1-1 with a 9.00 ERA in eight appearances (four starts) last season and winning a rotation spot in spring training.
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]]>The post Nazem Kadri has goal and an assist, Flames beat Kings 4-2 to end 5-game losing streak appeared first on Best News.
]]>Martin Pospisil, Blake Coleman and MacKenzie Weegar also scored and Andrei Kuzmenko had assists. At 34-34-5, the Flames are outing of playoff contention.
Adrian Kempe had a goal and an assist for Los Angeles. Anze Kopitar also scored and former Flames goalie David Rittich stopped 31 shots.
Five of the six goals came on power plays, with Calgary going 3 for 5 with the man advantage and Los Angeles 2 for 4. The Kings, at 38-24-11, hold the final wild-card berth in the Western Conference with nine games remaining — five points ahead of St. Louis.
The Flames outshot the Kings 20-4 over the first 30 minutes. Weegar blocked six shots in the first two periods and scored a power-play goal in the third.
The Flames were without forward Andrew Mangiapane for a second straight game because of an undisclosed injury. The Kings were without Philip Danault because of an upper-body injury.
Kings: At Winnipeg on Monday night.
Flames: Host Anaheim on Tuesday night.
AP NHL: https://binaryoptionbrokerz.com/hub/NHL
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]]>The post KC Current wins third straight NWSL game; Chawinga and Kundananji score historic goals appeared first on Best News.
]]>Deyna Castellanos scored her first NWSL goal for Bay FC (1-2-0) in the first half, but Diana Ordóñez’s pair in the second half put the Dash (1-1-1) in front.
Racheal Kundananji equalized in the 93rd minute before Solaun’s last-minute goal gave Houston its first win of the season.
In the 19th minute, Asisat Oshoala’s goal was blocked and fell to Castellanos, who slammed her shot into the upper left corner.
Ordóñez scored her first goal in the 66th. She won the ball near half and dribbled it toward the goal. She then found María Sánchez to her left, who took a few touches to create space and sent a cross into the box that Ordóñez headed in.
Ordóñez got her second in the 87th minute. Houston was awarded a penalty due to a handball in the box. Ordóñez stepped up to take the kick, which was initially saved by Lysianne Proulx but fell back to the forward, who made no mistake with her second chance.
In the 93rd minute, Kundananji cut into the box and unleashed a shot into the upper left corner to level the match. She became the first Zambian player to score in an NWSL match. Kundananji, acquired by Bay FC through a record transfer fee, grabbed a Zambian flag on the sideline to celebrate.
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Then, in the 100th minute, a Bay FC clearance bounced toward Solaun, whose left-footed shot took a slight deflection and slipped into the left corner to seal the win for the Dash.
Kansas City remained perfect this season with a 4-2 victory over Angel City on Saturday at the Current’s new CPKC Stadium.
The Current are 3-0-0 and sit atop the National Women’s Soccer League.
Vanessa DiBernardo opened the scoring for the Current in the 7th minute. Teammate Bia Zaneratto won the ball high up the field and crossed it to Temwa Chawinga in the middle, who flicked the ball to her right with the outside of her foot. DiBernado shot it into the upper right corner.
The Current scored again just before halftime when Alexa Spaanstra headed in DiBernardo’s cross on the far post.
Sydney Leroux headed in Claire Emslie’s cross in the 50th minute for Angel City, but the Current responded a minute later. After her teammate won a clearance, Zaneratto collected the ball and passed to Chawinga on her right. The forward sent a powerful shot into the back of the net, becoming the first Malawian player to score in the NWSL.
Angel City (0-2-1) put some pressure on the Current to close out the match. In the 79th minute, Madison Curry pounced on a loose ball from a corner kick, bringing Angel City to within one.
A few minutes later, Rocky Rodriguez scored what looked to be the tying goal on a similar play off a corner, but a video review disallowed the goal for offside.
The Current got an insurance goal late in the match when Angel City goalkeeper Angelina Anderson came far off her line to punch a ball away, but it fell to Zaneratto, who slipped her shot into the upper right corner.
Veteran midfielder Desiree Scott subbed into the match late, marking her return after being sidelined with an injury all of 2023.
Uchenna Kanu scored a pair of goals in the first six minutes for Racing Louisville, but the Portland Thorns came from behind for a 2-2 draw on Saturday.
Portland midfielder Sam Coffey scored the tying goal late in stoppage time after Morgan Weaver’s goal in the 52nd minute.
Kanu, a Nigerian forward who joined Racing Louisville (0-3-0) last season, scored in the third and sixth minutes. It was the fastest brace in league history.
It was Louisville’s third straight draw to open the season.
“It’s frustrating for the girls, we’re not losing (but) drawing all these games won’t win you anything,” Racing defender Abby Erceg said.
The Thorns (0-1-2) remain winless.
Brianna Pinto’s first-half goal helped the North Carolina Courage earn a 1-0 home win against reigning NWSL champion Gotham FC .
The Courage improved to 2-1-0 on the season.
Just before halftime, defender Ryan Williams found Bianca St-Georges down the right side, who crossed the ball into the box. Ashley Sanchez centered it to the middle with her head, and Pinto flicked the ball into the left corner.
Gotham (1-1-0) had eight shots in the second half but finished with just one shot on target.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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]]>The post Hinestroza scores first MLS goal, Crew ties Nashville 2-2 appeared first on Best News.
]]>Hinestroza, a 21-year-old rookie, capped the scoring with a header off a chip-shot cross played by Yaw Yeboah.
Sean Zawadzki opened the scoring when he netted his first goal of the season for Columbus (3-1-2) in the 17th minute. Zawadzki hovered near the far corner of the area and then slipped in front of defender at the last minute to head home a corner kick played by Diego Rossi.
Hany Mukhtar nonchalantly side-footed a volley off a entry played by Jacob Shaffelburg into the net in stoppage time. Aníbal Godoy put away a bicycle kick — off another cross by Shaffelburg — from the center of the area a couple minutes later to give Nashville (1-1-4) a 2-1 lead at halftime.
Columbus had 64% possession but had four shots on target to Nashville’s five.
Elliot Joseph Panicco had three saves for the Crew.
Patrick Schulte stopped two shots for Nashville.
___ AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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]]>The post China's manufacturing activity expands in March after a 5-month lull appeared first on Best News.
]]>The official purchasing managers index, or PMI, rose from 49.1 in February to 50.8 in March. The PMI is on a scale up to 100, where 50 marks the cutoff between expansion and contraction.
The monthly manufacturing PMI has mostly been under 50 over the past 12 months: Other than this month, factory activities only recorded an expansion in September.
National Bureau of Statistics senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said the market became more active as companies resumed and sped up production after the Lunar New Year holiday. Many factories stopped running during the holiday, with social media posts suggesting workers at some companies were off for as many as 140 days starting in late 2023 due to the lack of new orders.
Zhao said the survey also showed some problems for companies remained, including increasing competition in industries and a lack of market demand.
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During the annual session of the National People’s Congress in March, China said it would encourage consumers to scrap old appliances and trade in their cars for electric vehicles to help spur more domestic demand. And it said 10.4 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) would go to upgrading industries and modernizing manufacturing.
Zhao said the policies promoting the trade-ins of consumer goods and large-scale equipment upgrades still needed further implementation to support the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry.
According to the survey released Sunday, the non-manufacturing PMI rose to 53 from 51.4 in February. The reading is the highest since June 2023.
The recovery of the world’s second-largest economy following the shocks of the pandemic faced many obstacles, one of the largest being a downturn in the real estate industry after authorities moved to curb excess borrowing by property developers.
The ruling Communist Party’s target is to grow the economy by about 5% this year, an ambition that economists say may be hard to attain.
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]]>The post New $20 minimum wage for fast food workers in California set to start Monday appeared first on Best News.
]]>Democrats in the state Legislature passed the law last year in part as an acknowledgement that many of the more than 500,000 people who work in fast food restaurants are not teenagers earning some spending money, but adults working to support their families.
That includes immigrants like Ingrid Vilorio, who said she started working at a McDonald’s shortly after arriving in the United States in 2019. Fast food was her full-time job until last year. Now, she works about eight hours per week at a Jack in the Box while working other jobs.
“The $20 raise is great. I wish this would have come sooner,” Vilorio said through a translator. “Because I would not have been looking for so many other jobs in different places.”
The law was supported by the trade association representing fast food franchise owners. But since it passed, many franchise owners have bemoaned the impact the law is having on them, especially during California’s slowing economy.
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Alex Johnson owns 10 Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and Cinnabon restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. He said sales have slowed in 2024, prompting him to lay off his office staff and rely on his parents to help with payroll and human resources.
Increasing his employees’ wages will cost Johnson about $470,000 each year. He will have to raise prices anywhere from 5% to 15% at his stores, and is no longer hiring or seeking to open new locations in California, he said.
“I try to do right by my employees. I pay them as much as I can. But this law is really hitting our operations hard,” Johnson said.
“I have to consider selling and even closing my business,” he said. “The profit margin has become too slim when you factor in all the other expenses that are also going up.”
Over the past decade, California has doubled its minimum wage for most workers to $16 per hour. A big concern over that time was whether the increase would cause some workers to lose their jobs as employers’ expenses increased.
Instead, data showed wages went up and employment did not fall, said Michael Reich, a labor economics professor at the University of California-Berkeley.
“I was surprised at how little, or how difficult it was to find disemployment effects. If anything, we find positive employment effects,” Reich said.
Plus, Reich said while the statewide minimum wage is $16 per hour, many of the state’s larger cities have their own minimum wage laws setting the rate higher than that. For many fast food restaurants, this means the jump to $20 per hour will be smaller.
The law reflected a carefully crafted compromise between the fast food industry and labor unions, which had been fighting over wages, benefits and legal liabilities for close to two years. The law originated during private negotiations between unions and the industry, including the unusual step of signing confidentiality agreements.
The law applies to restaurants offering limited or no table service and which are part of a national chain with at least 60 establishments nationwide. Restaurants operating inside a grocery establishment are exempt, as are restaurants producing and selling bread as a stand-alone menu item.
At first, it appeared the bread exemption applied to Panera Bread restaurants. Bloomberg News reported the change would benefit Greg Flynn, a wealthy campaign donor to Newsom. But the Newsom administration said the wage increase law does apply to Panera Bread because the restaurant does not make dough on-site. Also, Flynn has announced he would pay his workers at least $20 per hour.
Beam reported from Sacramento, California.
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