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With 'near time' identified as a problem, parents urged to boosting outdoor timeNew research shows the rate of myopia among children and teens worldwide has tripled over the past three decades, with a particularly steep increase noted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A paper in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, which reviewed 276 studies published to June 2023 from around the world, concluded that more than one in three of all children and teens are nearsighted, triple what it was in 1990. "Emerging evidence suggests a potential association between the pandemic and accelerated vision deterioration among...

ROME — Pope Francis has urged members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting at Davos this week to promote “far-sighted and ethically sound” models of globalization. The World Economic Forum “aims to guide and strengthen political will and mutual cooperation,” the pontiff told them, and “provides an important opportunity for multi-stakeholder engagement to explore innovative and effective ways to build a better world.” The process of globalization has by now “clearly demonstrated the interdependence of the world’s nations and peoples,” the pope said, and thus has “a fundamentally moral dimension.”