The head of the World Health Organization said Friday that with a COVID-19 vaccine on the horizon, nations must start investing and preparing for the next pandemic.“Despite years of warnings, many countries were simply not ready for COVID-19,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a special session of the U.N. General Assembly on the coronavirus.…
read moreNearly a year into the global coronavirus pandemic, doctors are monitoring patients they call COVID long haulers: people who suffer from symptoms months after they recovered from the immediate effects of the virus. Anna Nelson has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Natalia Latukhina, Vladimir Badikov, Dmitrii Vershinin …
read moreLess than seven weeks before his four-year term ends, questions are swirling around U.S. President Donald Trump.Will he concede defeat to President-elect Joe Biden?So far, Trump has not yet offered a concession, nor is one required. A concession is simply a polite tradition of U.S. presidential elections in which the losing candidate admits the obvious…
read moreJapanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has pledged $19.2 billion toward achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050. He made the remarks Friday during wide-ranging news conference that came a day before the Japanese parliament – the Diet – ends its legislative session, as is customary. Suga told reporters his proposal marks a big step forward in…
read moreJoe Biden said Thursday that he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president, stopping just short of the nationwide mandate he’s pushed before to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The move marks a notable shift from President Donald Trump, whose own skepticism…
read moreA powerful new telescope in Australia has mapped vast areas of the universe in record time. The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder was able to chart about 3 million galaxies in just 300 hours – 1 million of which have never been seen before.Galaxies are the building blocks of the universe. From a remote corner…
read moreThe U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit Thursday saying social media giant Facebook was discriminating against U.S. workers and hiring cheaper foreign workers instead.Many of the temporary workers the DOJ accused Facebook of giving hiring preferences to were foreign workers with H-1B visas.H1-B visas allow U.S. companies to hire foreign workers in “specialty…
read moreSwedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven announced Thursday that high schools would switch to distance learning beginning Monday through early January to slow the rate of COVID-19 infections in the country. Lofven made the announcement at a Stockholm news conference alongside Swedish Education Minister Anna Ekstrom. He said he hoped the move would have a “breaking effect”…
read moreFacebook will begin removing false claims about COVID-19 vaccines from its social media platform, the company said Thursday, as part of an ongoing campaign to combat the spread of misinformation about them.“This is another way that we are applying our policy to remove misinformation about the virus that could lead to imminent physical harm,” Facebook…
read moreVice President-elect Kamala Harris has named Tina Flournoy, a veteran Democratic strategist and aide to the Clintons, as her chief of staff, the transition team announced Thursday. Flournoy’s appointment as Harris’ top staffer adds to a team of advisers led by Black women. Harris, who is of Jamaican and Indian heritage, is the nation’s first…
read moreThe World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) European director Thursday called Britain’s approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine “phenomenal” but urged Europeans to remain vigilant. Speaking at his headquarters in Copenhagen, Dr. Hans Kluge said the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the vaccines on the verge of approval elsewhere, along with 50 candidate vaccines currently in human trials, provide…
read moreDr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, is meeting virtually Thursday with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team about the surging coronavirus pandemic in the country and the likely start soon of widespread vaccinations of millions of Americans.Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, was for months the face of…
read moreIBM security researchers say they have detected a cyberespionage effort using targeted phishing emails to try to collect vital information on the World Health Organization’s initiative for distributing COVID-19 vaccine to developing countries. The researchers said they could not be sure who was behind the campaign, which began in September, or if it was successful.…
read moreMore than 100 world leaders and high-ranking government officials will convene a two-day virtual special session of the United Nations General Assembly Thursday to discuss the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to craft a recovery strategy.Brendan Varma, a spokesman for General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir, said the special session is aimed at creating…
read moreTwitter has enacted stricter content rules, adding to its list of prohibited conduct any language that “dehumanizes people on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.”The social media company announced the update to its policy on Wednesday.Twitter said it would remove any offending posts that users report and would also work to detect content…
read moreVOA contributor Greta Van Susteren interviewed the National Institute of Health Director Frances Collins. Among the issues discussed are the COVID-19 vaccine and its development.Here is a transcript of that interview:Greta Van Susteren: Nice to talk to you, sir.Francis Collins: Nice to talk to you, Greta.Van Susteren: Well, we Americans know what NIH is and…
read morePresident Donald Trump’s threat to veto a defense bill if it does not repeal legal protections for social media companies faced stiff bipartisan opposition Wednesday, setting the stage for a confrontation with lawmakers scrambling to pass the massive bill by year’s end. Unusually, members of his Republican Party broke from Trump to join Democrats in objecting…
read moreThe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned Wednesday of a bleak winter ahead as the country continues to see nationwide surges of COVID-19 cases.”The reality is that December, January and February are going to be rough times,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in a livestream presentation hosted by the U.S. Chamber of…
read moreA mysterious object temporarily orbiting Earth is a 54-year-old rocket, not an asteroid after all, astronomers confirmed Wednesday.Observations by a telescope in Hawaii clinched its identity, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.The object was classified as an asteroid after its discovery in September. But NASA’s top asteroid expert, Paul Chodas, quickly suspected…
read moreIvanka Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser, was questioned under oath this week as part of a civil lawsuit alleging misuse of nonprofit funds for Donald Trump’s inauguration four years ago.District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine’s office disclosed in a court filing on Tuesday that the deposition had taken place that day.In a January…
read moreThe U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday that could prevent Chinese companies from listing their shares on U.S. exchanges unless they adhere to U.S. auditing standards.The measure passed by unanimous voice vote, after passing the Senate earlier this year, sending it to the White House, which said President Donald Trump is expected to…
read moreThe Transportation Department issued a final rule Wednesday covering animals on airlines. It decided that only dogs can fly as service animals, and companions that passengers use for emotional support don’t count. The rule aims to settle years of tension between airlines and passengers who bring their pets on board for free by saying they need…
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