Around the world, governments are turning to technology to trace people who have been exposed to the coronavirus. There are two main approaches. Michelle Quinn has a look at how they aim to work. …
read moreGovernments around the world have used the COVID-19 pandemic as their reason for expanding digital surveillance and collecting more data from their citizens, according to a report published Wednesday.The annual FILE – People wearing face masks to protect against the coronavirus use their smartphones to enter their personal data before being allowed to enter a…
read moreScientists have discovered that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef lost more than half of its coral populations between 1995 and 2017. Researchers at the The Great Barrier Reef stretches across 2,300 kilometers down Australia’s northeastern coast and is home to a wide variety of marine life, making it the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem. The region…
read moreAnother pharmaceutical company halted testing of an experimental COVID-19 drug treatment because of safety concerns. U.S.-based Eli Lilly and Company announced Tuesday that the clinical trial of its coronavirus antiviral drug had been paused by independent monitors “out of an abundance of caution,” but did not go into details. The drug, which Eli Lilly is developing with Canadian-based biotech firm AbCellera, is…
read moreA federal judge on Wednesday extended the deadline for registering to vote in the U.S. state of Virginia by 48 hours. The order came one day after an accidentally severed fiber optic cable at a field project site caused the state’s online portal to shut down on the last day of registration before the November…
read moreWith their once-planned Thursday night debate canceled, Republican U.S. President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, instead are staging dueling town hall question-and-answer sessions with voters. NBC News said Wednesday it would broadcast an 8 p.m. prime-time town hall Thursday, with Trump facing voters in the southern city of Miami, Florida. ABC…
read moreApple unveiled four new iPhones equipped with technology for use with faster new 5G wireless networks, hoping that demand for higher data speeds will spark demand for new phones. That might not happen as quickly as Apple would like. In a virtual presentation Tuesday, the company announced four 5G-enabled versions of the new iPhone 12…
read moreThe U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday accused Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, author of a tell-all book about first lady Melania Trump, of breaking their nondisclosure agreement and asked a court to set aside profits from the book in a government trust. In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, Justice Department lawyers said…
read moreU.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett returns to the U.S. Capitol Wednesday for more questioning after a nearly 12-hour session Tuesday in which she declined to answer a range of questions from senators on how she might rule on legal disputes she would face if confirmed to fill a crucial vacancy on the country’s highest courtBarrett told members of…
read moreIt is Presidential Donald Trump’s first week back on the campaign trail since his COVID-19 diagnosis and after his doctor said he is no longer infectious to others. With three weeks left to go until election day, Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden are crisscrossing battleground states this week to energize their supporters. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.…
read moreAnother pharmaceutical company halted testing of an experimental COVID-19 drug treatment because of safety concerns. U.S.-based Eli Lilly and Company announced Tuesday that the clinical trial of its coronavirus antiviral drug had been paused by independent monitors “out of an abundance of caution,” but did not go into details. The drug, which Eli Lilly is developing with Canadian-based biotech firm AbCellera, is…
read moreA trio of space travelers has launched successfully to the International Space Station, for the first time using a fast-track maneuver to reach the orbiting outpost in just three hours. NASA’s Kate Rubins along with Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos lifted off as scheduled Wednesday morning from the Russia-leased Baikonur space launch…
read moreU.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett told the US Senate Tuesday she would not bring her own agenda to the bench if she is confirmed to the nation’s highest court. In the first full day of questioning from senators, Barrett deflected a range of inquiries on issues impacting a wide range of Americans, from abortion to…
read moreAustralia is trying to clarify reports of a Chinese ban on its coal imports. Industry sources have said Beijing told energy providers and steel firms to stop buying Australian coal. Trade tensions between the Asia-Pacific partners have deteriorated in recent years. Coal is one of the major Australian commodity exports to China, behind iron ore and…
read moreAs coronavirus infections surged in Malaysia this year, a wave of hate speech and misinformation aimed at Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar began appearing on Facebook. Alarmed rights groups reported the material to Facebook. But six months later, many posts targeting the Rohingya in Malaysia remain on the platform, including pages such as “Anti Rohingya Club” and…
read moreA mobile app launched last week in China that many there hoped would allow access to long banned Western social media sites abruptly disappeared from Chinese app stores a day after its unveiling.Tuber, an Andriod app backed by Chinese cyber security software giant Qihoo 360, first appeared to be officially available last Friday. It offered…
read moreIt is Presidential Donald Trump’s first week back on the campaign trail since his COVID-19 diagnosis and after his doctor said he is no longer infectious to others. With three weeks left to go until election day, Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden are crisscrossing battleground states this week to energize their supporters. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.…
read moreFormer Vice President Joe Biden took his campaign to a county in Florida he called crucial for victory in the presidential election just three weeks away. Broward County, the second most populous in the state, is “where this election will be determined,” Biden said Tuesday afternoon at a senior citizens’ center in Pembrook Pines. In 2016, Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by a 2-to-1 margin in…
read moreHot, dry conditions and intense winds across California are threatening to reinvigorate what has already been the worst fire season in state history, officials warned on Tuesday.Gusty winds in California’s north and extreme heat in its south are creating conditions that could fan wildfires that began earlier in the summer as well as spark new…
read moreThe U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday stopped the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident from continuing through the end of October. President Donald Trump’s administration had asked the nation’s high court to suspend a district court’s order permitting the 2020 census to continue through the end of the month. The Trump administration argued that the…
read moreBritain’s opposition Labor Party Leader Keir Starmer on Tuesday called on the government to implement a three-week temporary nationwide “circuit breaker” lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19 throughout Britain.Starmer made the proposal in a speech in London, one day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson introduced his three-tiered regional alert plan designed to simplify and…
read moreThe government elections agency in the U.S. state of Virginia said Tuesday its voter registration system was shut down by a fiber optic cable that had been accidentally severed on the last day of registration before the Nov. 3 general election. The shutdown affected connectivity for the citizens’ registration portal, the election registrar’s office and multiple other…
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