The independent U.S. presidential election debate agency said Wednesday that it would move soon to tighten the format of the encounters after critics panned Tuesday’s first debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden as the worst in American political history.The two candidates frequently interrupted each other or talked at the same time,…
read moreAfter consulting with Germany’s 16 regional governors, German Chancellor Angela Merkel Wednesday announced new restrictions on the size of gatherings to prevent the country’s coronavirus infection figures from accelerating.At a Berlin news briefing following her virtual meeting with the governors, Merkel said she wants to act regionally and address the virus where it is surging…
read moreThe world recently reached a tragic milestone of one million known deaths linked to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Experts say more testing is key to combating the virus’s spread. A biotech company in Taiwan has developed a robot capable of conducting thousands of COVID tests each day, making it possible to…
read moreA U.S. federal appeals court has upheld a ruling allowing Wisconsin’s absentee ballots in the November general election to be counted if they arrive up to six days after Election Day. The panel of three judges, all appointed by Republican presidents, agreed with a September lower court ruling that said if the ballots are postmarked by November 3, they can be accepted…
read moreReaction to Tuesday night’s presidential debate between Republican President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, his Democratic challenger, split along partisan lines but also featured sharp criticism of how the event, often a verbal free-for-all, played out. Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, tweeted after the debate that “For ninety minutes, @realDonaldTrump made…
read morePresident Donald Trump and Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden met Tuesday for the first presidential debate ahead of the Nov. 3 election. The 90-minute matchup was moderated by Fox News host Chris Wallace and held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Here are three takeaways from the debate: Interruptions Trump repeatedly talked over both Biden and moderator Wallace during the debate. The…
read moreRepublican U.S. President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, clashed in a contentious, chaotic presidential election debate Tuesday night, trying for 90 minutes to convince American voters that the other one was unfit to lead the United States for the next four years. They argued over the world-leading coronavirus death toll of 205,000 in the U.S., the integrity and honesty of the…
read moreThe COVID-19 death toll has climbed to more than one million people worldwide. And because of a recent surge of infections in many countries including in Europe and the United States, more coronavirus deaths are expected in the coming months. But there are also signs that death rates are dropping and people who contract the virus now are faring better than those infected early on. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo has more.Produced by: Bakhtiyar Zamanov …
read moreThe lead attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Tuesday revealed to a federal judge that she has discussed the ongoing criminal case with the president, an extraordinary admission that raises questions about political interference. U.S. Justice Department lawyers denied any corruption or political motives in efforts to get the…
read moreBy the time a patient comes to Dr. Clement Edusa with colon cancer, it is often too late.The medical director of the Sweden Ghana Medical Center will see cancer that has been misdiagnosed and spread, as the patient has sought out other treatments, including some from ill-equipped small clinics or herbalists.Edusa said while Ghana does…
read moreNeed to pay for some groceries? No problem, just wave your palm. That could be the new mode of payment at Amazon Go stores if current trials of its new technology in Seattle, Washington, are successful. The technology, known as Amazon One, is a “free, contactless service that lets you use your palm to pay,…
read moreA team of scientists studying data from a satellite orbiting Mars say they have discovered evidence of several lakes of what they believe is salty, liquid water beneath the surface of the planet’s south pole.The discovery, detailed in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy, expands upon a tentative finding in 2018, which…
read moreChinese-owned video sharing platform TikTok says it is creating a guide “to protect against misinformation” during the 2020 U.S. elections. In a blog post Tuesday, the company said its guide would connect “100 million Americans with trusted information about the elections from the National Association of Secretaries of State, BallotReady, SignVote, and more.” “Our The U.S. head…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, meets informally Tuesday with senators on Capitol Hill, kicking off an accelerated confirmation process that Republicans intend to complete before the November 3 presidential election in the face of Democratic opposition. Barrett, who would be Trump’s third conservative appointee to the nation’s highest court…
read moreA British jet suit company has teamed with a paramedic service to test the flying suits’ capabilities for emergency use in Britain’s mountainous northern lake district.Gravity Industries released video Tuesday of a recent test of its jet suit in simulated rescue situations in northwest Britain’s vast Lake District National Park in Cumbria.The jet suit company…
read moreA standoff between South Florida police and President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale ended after an officer who was friends with Parscale convinced him to surrender, officials said. Fort Lauderdale Officer Christopher Wilson wrote in a report that he had just finished a shift Sunday evening when a mutual friend called him and…
read moreThe number of people killed by COVID-19 has surpassed 1 million, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, which put the total number of infections worldwide at more than 33 million. Lamenting what he called “an agonizing milestone,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the world to overcome the challenge presented by the…
read moreT. Cole Newton began hosting presidential debate watch parties at his New Orleans, Louisiana bar in 2012. “It was a business decision as much as anything else,” Newton told VOA. “I knew my regulars would want to watch as much as I did, so we made an event out of it.” His bar is Twelve Mile Limit, a cross between a…
read moreRepublican President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, are set to debate Tuesday night, five weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 election, in the first of three planned face-to-face encounters over the next month. The high-stakes event in the midwestern city of Cleveland, Ohio, comes as Biden has maintained about…
read moreNew reported revelations that President Donald Trump paid little in federal taxes, along with the president’s unsubstantiated allegations of mail-in voting fraud, and the political battle to name a new conservative Supreme Court justice before the November election, have shifted media focus of the U.S. presidential campaign away from the coronavirus pandemic. VOA’s Brian Padden reports on how both Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are reacting to these issues as they prepare for the first of…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to distribute 150 million rapid coronavirus tests and urged governors to use them to reopen schools, amid reporting that a member of his coronavirus task force is concerned the president is receiving incorrect information about the pandemic.In a speech at the White House Rose Garden, Trump called the plan…
read moreU.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Monday that Democratic lawmakers unveiled a new, $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, which she said was a compromise measure that reduces the costs of the economic aid. In a letter to Democratic lawmakers released by Pelosi’s office, she said the legislation “includes new funding needed to avert…
read more