The crew of the International Space Station welcomed U.S. astronauts Douglas Hurley and Bob Behnken after their privately built SpaceX capsule docked Sunday. NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner shook hands with their new station-mates as they climbed aboard. “Welcome to Bob and Doug. I will…
read morePresident Donald Trump posted identical messages on Twitter and Facebook this week. But while the two social platforms have very similar policies on voter misinformation and glorifying violence, they dealt with Trump’s posts very differently, proof that Silicon Valley is far from a united front when it comes to political decisionsTwitter placed a warning label…
read moreJune 2nd was supposed to be the finish line for what seemed like an endless 2020 US presidential primary campaign, but the coronavirus pandemic changed all of that. Steve Redisch tells us more. …
read moreIndia reported more than 8,000 new cases of the coronavirus in a single day, another record high that topped the deadliest week in the country.Confirmed infections have risen to 182,143, with 5,164 fatalities, including 193 in the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said Sunday.Overall, more than 60% of the virus fatalities have been reported…
read moreU.S. officials are predicting an “enhanced” Atlantic hurricane season that may create new challenges for Americans already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic.Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials briefed President Donald Trump on Thursday, outlining preparations for the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season.The season, which officially begins Monday, has already seen two named tropical storms, Arthur and…
read moreTwo American astronauts lifted off into space Saturday afternoon, for the first time on a private rocket, nearly a decade after the last launch of astronauts from American territory.Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken lifted off at 3:22 p.m. EDT, right on schedule, from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a rocket…
read moreThe U.S. is set to resume launching astronauts into space Saturday, for the first time on a private rocket, nearly a decade after the last launch of astronauts from American territory.Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will blast into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center on the SpaceX rocket, the first by a private company,…
read moreA final decision on a launch attempt for SpaceX’s milestone mission to the International Space Station on Saturday afternoon will take place after assessing the weather that morning, NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said Friday.Fears of a lightning strike postponed the initial takeoff attempt Wednesday of what would have been the first crewed rocket launch from…
read moreThe Trump administration’s new national intelligence director waded into political waters in his first week on the job, declassifying documents that allies of the president say bolster their contention that former national security adviser Michael Flynn was wrongly pursued.The extraordinary decision to release transcripts of Flynn’s calls with a foreign country’s ambassador, a closely guarded…
read moreThe World Health Organization accuses the tobacco industry of devious tactics to get children and young people hooked on their deadly tobacco and nicotine products. In advance of World No Tobacco Day (May 31), the WHO is launching a campaign to alert young people to the dangers they face from the industry’s manipulative practices.More than…
read moreThe White House has taken the unusual step of deciding not to release an updated economic forecast as planned this year, a fresh sign of the administration’s anxiety about how the coronavirus has ravaged the nation just months before the election. The decision, which was confirmed Thursday by a senior administration official who was not…
read moreWading into a politically charged issue, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday preached the importance of wearing masks in public as the nation’s economy reopens from the “cataclysmic” damage inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic. During a tour of hospitals this week in his home state of Kentucky, the Republican leader has stressed wearing masks…
read moreNorth Carolina’s governor said Thursday that his administration hasn’t received the written safety plan for the upcoming Republican National Convention requested by his health secretary in response to President Donald Trump’s demands for a full-scale event. Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said during a media briefing that RNC organizers have yet to turn over…
read moreOver the past two months, as air travel ground to a halt, Mishel Zrian has crisscrossed the Atlantic and the United States dozens of times, sleeping in empty airports and unable to return home to see his family in Israel, all in a race against time to deliver life-saving transplants. Zrian is a courier hired…
read moreTwitter has added a warning to one of President Donald J. Trump’s tweets about protests in Minneapolis, saying it violated the platform’s rules about “glorifying violence.” Trump, a prolific Twitter user, has been at war with the company since earlier this week, when it applied fact checks to two of his tweets about mail-in ballots.…
read moreThere are more than 5.8 million infections of COVID-19 around the world, with more than 360,000 deaths. Some countries are starting to loosen restrictions initiated to halt the spread of the devastating disease, while the number of cases is skyrocketing in other places. The Americas are the new epicenter of the outbreak. The U.S. has more than…
read moreScientists and environmentalists are urging an international moratorium on deep-sea mining after releasing a report indicating its impact on the Pacific Ocean and island states would be severe, extensive and last for generations.The report also said mining for polymetallic nodules, potato-sized lumps found in the seabed that contain metals used in battery manufacturing and high-tech…
read moreThe United States almost sent two astronauts into orbit from American soil for the first time in nearly a decade. Circumstances on the ground and in the skies changed flight plans for the public-private partnership between NASA and commercial flight company, SpaceX. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi spoke with NASA to understand what happened and what happens…
read moreThe U.N. World Food Program (WFP) is warning that at least 14 million people could go hungry in Latin America, with the COVID-19 outbreak continuing to rise as jobs and economies decline under the weight of the pandemic.The WFP Latin America regional director, Miguel Barreto, has dubbed COVID-19 the “hunger pandemic. He said social protection…
read moreFourteen Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee are requesting that Federal Trade Commission regulators investigate the popular video app TikTok for violations of children’s privacy.The Energy and Commerce Committee conducts oversight on the FTC’s privacy unit. The lawsuit filed Thursday follows claims submitted by the Center for Digital Democracy,…
read moreQUESTION: What is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act?ANSWER: Section 230 “is one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation” on the internet, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a U.S.-based global nonprofit digital rights group.The original purpose of the 1996 Communications Decency Act was to restrict free speech…
read moreLarry Kramer, the grandfather of fierce protests demanding action to fight the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and ’90s, died Wednesday at age 84. The author and activist founded the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, known as ACT UP, in 1987.ACT UP mounted dramatic and angry demonstrations credited with raising awareness of the plight of…
read more
