President-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response. Separately, Biden picked a Harvard infectious disease expert, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If confirmed…
read moreRepublican Senator Kelly Loeffler danced around questions about whether President Donald Trump lost the November 3 election in a debate with her Democratic challenger on Sunday before two Georgia runoffs that will decide control of the U.S. Senate. Facing off with the Rev. Raphael Warnock on a debate stage in Atlanta, Loeffler repeatedly called the political…
read moreRepublicans and Democrats are working to get Georgia residents to vote in the January 5 runoff election that will decide control of the U.S. Senate. But Republicans are also divided about the results of the November 3 presidential race, with President Donald Trump still asserting widespread voter fraud. Michelle Quinn reports.Video editor: Mary Cieslak …
read morePresident-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response. If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra, 62, will be the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a…
read moreThe Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine against the coronavirus must be stored at extremely cold temperatures, raising some concerns about the difficult task of moving it across the United States for inoculations. But dry ice companies across the U.S. say they’re up for the challenge. Esha Sarai spoke with one such company in Baltimore, Maryland. …
read moreWood and charcoal burning account for 50% of Senegal’s household energy consumption, contributing to air pollution and deforestation. To reduce ecological damage, an association called Nebeday, which means “tree” in Wolof, the predominant local language in Senegal, hires villagers to produce an innovative energy alternative. Half of Senegal’s households rely on wood or wood charcoal.…
read moreOfficials in Georgia on Sunday rebuffed Republican President Donald Trump’s contention that Democratic challenger Joe Biden fraudulently won the southern U.S. state, declaring that the president-elect’s claim to Georgia’s 16 electoral votes would stand.Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official, told ABC News’s “This Week” show that as a conservative Republican he was “disappointed” that…
read moreWood and charcoal burning account for 50% of household energy consumption in Senegal, contributing to air pollution and deforestation. To reduce ecological damage, an association called Nebeday, which means “tree” in Wolof, the predominant local language in Senegal, hires villagers to produce biochar. Estelle Ndjandjo reports from Dakar.Camera: Estelle Ndjandjo …
read moreJapanese space officials said they are excited about the return of a capsule that safely landed in Australian Outback on Sunday while carrying soil samples from a distant asteroid so they can start analyzing what they say are treasures inside.The capsule’s delivery by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft completes its six-year sample-return mission and opens the door…
read moreWhen children and teens are overwhelmed with anxiety, depression or thoughts of self-harm, they often wait days in emergency rooms because there aren’t enough psychiatric beds in the U.S.The problem has only grown worse during the pandemic, reports from parents and professionals suggest.With schools closed, routines disrupted and parents anxious over lost income or uncertain…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump traveled to the key southeastern state of Georgia on Saturday to campaign for two Republican senators running against Democratic challengers in the January runoff election that will decide which party controls the Senate, but he mostly repeated his claims of widespread vote fraud.”You know we won Georgia, just so you understand,”…
read moreCoronavirus infections across the U.S. continue to rise as the country moves deeper into a holiday season when eagerly anticipated gatherings of family and friends could push the numbers even higher and overwhelm hospitals.Vast swaths of southern and inland California imposed new restrictions on businesses and activities Saturday as hospitals in the nation’s most populous…
read moreThe Trump administration has chosen not to extend again an order requiring ByteDance, a Chinese company, to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets, but talks will continue over the video-sharing app’s fate, two sources briefed on the matter said.A Treasury Department representative said late Friday that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was…
read moreScientists are seeing promising early results from the first studies testing gene editing for painful, inherited blood disorders that plague millions worldwide, especially Black people.Doctors hope the one-time treatment, which involves permanently altering DNA in blood cells with a tool called CRISPR, may treat and possibly cure sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.Partial results were…
read moreA Nigerian yellow fever outbreak detected early last month is worsening and causing many cases and deaths across five of the country’s 36 states. The World Health Organization says 530 suspected cases, including 172 deaths, have been reported in Delta, Enugu, Benue and Ebonyi states in southern Nigeria and Bauchi in the north. Bringing this epidemic…
read moreJapan’s space agency said the Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully separated a capsule and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from a distant asteroid that could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on our planet.The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the capsule successfully detached Saturday afternoon from 220,000 kilometers away in…
read moreRussia has begun its COVID-19 vaccination program. Seventy clinics in Moscow began inoculating people Saturday with the Sputnik-V COVID-19 shot, the city’s coronavirus task force said.The vaccine is being made available to health care workers, social workers and people who work in schools because they run the highest risk of exposure to the coronavirus. People…
read moreDonald Trump’s campaign said it filed a lawsuit in Georgia state court on Friday seeking to invalidate the presidential election results there, the latest in a series of legal challenges aimed at reversing his loss that have so far gone nowhere.The Trump campaign said in a statement its new lawsuit would include sworn statements from…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump signed into law Friday a bill that lets U.S. justice officials pursue criminal penalties against those involved in doping conspiracies at international events involving American athletes, sponsors or broadcasters.The Rodchenkov Act, named after the whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov who helped expose Russia’s state-sponsored doping, empowers prosecutors to seek fines of up to…
read moreCalifornia certified its presidential election Friday and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House.Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s formal approval of Biden’s win in the state brought Biden’s tally of pledged electors so far to 279, according to a…
read moreVice President Mike Pence is trying to help Republicans project a unified front in two high-stakes Senate runoffs as he campaigns in Georgia a day ahead of President Donald Trump’s potentially volatile visit to the state that will determine which party controls the Senate in January. The vice president is campaigning Friday with Senators David Perdue…
read moreOfficials with the World Health Organization cautioned Friday that approval of a vaccine for use in Britain this week does not mean the COVID-19 pandemic is over.Speaking at the organization’s regular briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said many places around the world are facing very high transmission rates of coronavirus, and even…
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