U.S. lawmakers will aggressively question U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in his first appearance before Congress on Friday about recent cost-cutting measures that Democrats say appeared to be an attempt to boost President Donald Trump’s re-election chances. Under pressure from the public and lawmakers, DeJoy on Tuesday suspended all mail service changes until after the Nov.…
read moreU.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy announced Thursday that he has tested positive for the coronavirus and is experiencing some COVID-19 symptoms. He said he is quarantining in Louisiana. The Republican senator, 62, who is running for reelection on Nov. 3, is experiencing “mild symptoms that began this morning,” from COVID-19, the illness caused by…
read moreU.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he has a plan to help the U.S. fight the coronavirus outbreak.“After all this time the president still does not have a plan,” Biden said. “Well, I do.”Biden said Thursday in his acceptance speech at the virtual Democratic convention that his plan would include a national mask-wearing mandate…
read moreIn accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president Thursday, Joe Biden set out to make President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic the central issue in the November election. VOA’s Brian Padden reports on the conclusion of the virtual Democratic National Convention, which also strove to showcase party diversity and unity in opposition to…
read moreJoe Biden, after nearly a half-century on the American political scene, Thursday night accepted the Democratic nomination to seek the U.S presidency in the November 3 election, telling Americans it was time to oust Republican President Donald Trump after one term in the White House.“United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in…
read moreChina’s Sinopharm Laboratory will begin human clinical trials for a possible vaccine against COVID-19 in Peru on Monday.Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra announced Thursday that 6,000 volunteers will participate in the trials.Vizcarra expects a second clinical trial, by the firm AstraZeneca in association with Oxford University, will begin by the end of August.Vizcarra said Peru will…
read moreSometime next year, genetically modified mosquitoes will be released in the Florida Keys in an effort to combat persistent insect-borne diseases such as Dengue fever and the Zika virus.The plan approved this week by the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District calls for a pilot project in 2021 involving the striped-legged Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is…
read moreSeventy-four former Republican national security officials say they are voting for Democrat Joe Biden for president because they believe Donald Trump is engaging “in corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as president.” Most of those who signed the letter, released Thursday by the advocacy group Defending Democracy Together, put their names on a similar statement…
read moreU.S. space weather forecasters say the Earth on Thursday received a glancing blow from a “coronal mass ejection” (CME) – effectively, a solar eruption – first detected on the surface of the sun four days ago. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency responsible for monitoring the weather for much of North…
read moreThe man-made mega constellation orbiting Earth grew again this week after another history-making commercial launch. Satellite images document a quarter century of melting ice on Earth, plus images of our home planet from space and of space from our home planet. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi …
read moreJoe Biden formally accepts the Democratic Party’s nomination for the U.S. presidency Thursday evening in a speech that is expected to lay out his vision for the country as he seeks to defeat President Donald Trump in the November 3 election. Biden’s speech on the fourth and final night of the Democratic National…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump is taking his reelection campaign Thursday to Old Forge, Pennsylvania, a town less than nine kilometers from Joe Biden’s birthplace, hours before Biden formally accepts the Democratic nomination for president.Trump’s campaign said his speech in the Keystone State would address what it calls “a half century of Joe Biden failing America.”Trump’s visit to the battleground state comes as recent opinion polls have him trailing Biden. Biden will deliver his acceptance speech hours later from his home in…
read moreA U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by President Donald Trump that sought to block enforcement of a grand jury subpoena for eight years of his personal and corporate tax records.U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said granting the relief Trump sought would be an “undue expansion” of presidential immunity.Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Trump,…
read moreSteve Bannon, a former advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, and three other men behind an online crowdfunding campaign to build portions of a U.S.-Mexico border wall were arrested and charged on Thursday with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors, the Justice Department announced.Bannon, who served as CEO of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and later…
read moreThe World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Europe office said it has begun discussions with Russia regarding the COVID-19 vaccine that the nation approved last week without the advanced trials normally required to prove a vaccine works.In a virtual news conference from the organization’s Copenhagen office, the WHO Europe’s senior emergency official Catherine Smallwood said there have…
read moreGun violence, climate change and COVID-19, issues highlighted on night three of the Democratic National Convention Wednesday, when Senator Kamala Harris of California accepted the vice-presidential nomination as running mate to candidate Joe Biden. Mike O’Sullivan reports, viewers heard a litany of complaints against Republican President Donald Trump, all conveyed through a virtual format. …
read moreDemocratic vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris of California urged people to fight for “the America we know is possible,” as she made history in accepting her party’s nomination to appear alongside presidential candidate Joe Biden on the ballot in November.Harris, 55, a former prosecutor, is the fourth woman to be on a major U.S.…
read moreWhile medical school students gain key healing skills as their education progresses, one important quality seems to wane: empathy.According to a study from FILE – Medical students hug during a demonstration, June 5, 2020, in Salt Lake City, Utah.DOs are fully licensed physicians who practice in all areas of medicine, according to the American Association…
read moreFormer U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday that for nearly four years, President Donald Trump “has shown no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.”Speaking on the third night of the Democratic National Convention, where the party has nominated Obama’s…
read morePolitical conventions have always been considered a four-day television commercial for political parties and their presidential candidates. The 2020 Democratic National Convention is taking that to a new level with its virtual convention.Forced by the coronavirus pandemic to rethink how to stage a convention, Democrats changed what was once a slickly produced live event with…
read moreKamala Harris has faced down violent suspects as a prosecutor in criminal trials and sharply questioned Supreme Court nominees in contentious hearings as a U.S. senator from California. But she is on an even bigger stage Wednesday night as she accepts the Democratic nomination to be the vice presidential running mate of former Vice…
read moreRapper and music producer Kanye West’s campaign ran into trouble Tuesday on his first day of trying to get on the presidential ballot in his home state of Wyoming. People gathering signatures on behalf of West and another presidential candidate got too close to polling locations during the state’s primary, election officials said. The signature-gatherers…
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