author - oman observer

WASHINGTON — Five Americans who had been imprisoned in Iran were allowed to leave the country Monday, President Joe Biden said, after two years of high-stakes negotiations in which the United States...

It had been clear for years that the dams protecting Derna, on Libya’s Mediterranean coast, were in danger of giving way. Torrential rains were not new. Decade after decade, they had pounded the...

Snakes can’t really unhinge their jaws, but for some, that doesn’t get in the way of swallowing large prey. And new research indicates that relative to their size, the snakes that can gulp down...

During the first two years of the pandemic, from March 2020 to March 2022, there were approximately 90,000 more deaths in the United States attributed to cardiovascular disease than were expected for...

AZGOUR, Morocco — With debris and fallen rock blocking roads to Moroccan villages hit hardest by an earthquake, many residents began burying their dead and foraging for scarce supplies on Sunday as...

The earthquake that struck Morocco on Friday night hit near Marrakech, a popular tourist destination, sending both residents and visitors scrambling for safety. Oussama Ait Chari, a guide who works...

GOMA, Congo — The world is racing ahead with enormous investments in renewable energy, for the first time this year plowing more money into solar power than oil. But the world’s poorest...

KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that he was replacing his minister of defense, the biggest shake-up in the leadership of Ukraine’s war effort since Russia’s full-scale...

It was the first day of school in geography teacher Larysa Kulyaba’s classroom in western Ukraine, but the number she wrote on the chalkboard Friday was not part of her traditional curriculum. The...

Young people around the world are increasingly taking their governments to court for failing to reduce climate pollution, and on rare occasions, they are winning. This week, their efforts received...

JINDIRES, Syria — On the spot where a three-story building completely collapsed after a devastating earthquake struck northwestern Syria in February, a small tent encampment has sprung up. Residents...

CAIRO — Ancient tombs have been shattered. Gardens have vanished, and with them many of Cairo’s trees. A growing number of historic but shabby working-class neighborhoods have all but...

The Thar Desert today is a scorching region in western India’s Rajasthan state. But in the Mesozoic Era, it was a tropical shoreline along the Tethys Ocean, inhabited by dinosaurs and marine...

In a dramatic rescue, Pakistani security forces on Tuesday said they had plucked eight people including several schoolchildren from a stranded cable car left hanging hundreds of feet above a mountain...

Exercise scientists long ago debunked the notion that you need to hit 10,000 steps each day to stay healthy and live longer. Even a little movement is good, they argue, though more is better. Now, a...

Concern is rising about the COVID-19 variant EG.5. This month, it became the dominant variant in the United States, and the World Health Organization classified EG.5 as a “variant of interest,”...

SYDNEY — To win a World Cup, everything usually has to be perfect. The manager and the players have to exist in harmony. The squad has to be in a delicate balance: between talent and tenacity, youth...

SEOUL, South Korea — A model Chinese property developer in a sector replete with risk-takers is teetering on the edge of default. Short of cash, one of China’s biggest asset managers has missed...

LONDON — A British nurse was found guilty Friday in the deaths of seven newborns and the attempted murders of six others, according to the police department responsible for the investigation, ending...

Getting older doesn’t have to mean moving less. The key to long-standing fitness, experts say, is envisioning the kind of athlete you want to be 20, 30, even 40 years from now, and training smartly...