The Chinese company that owns popular video-sharing app TikTok is exploring all possibilities to ensure that its subsidiary can continue operating in the United States, according to a memo sent out Monday by Chief Executive Officer Zhang Yiming.Beijing-based ByteDance has come under pressure from Washington to sell off its U.S. TikTok operations over concerns that…
read moreThe U.N. Secretary-General warned Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic has caused the largest disruption to education in history and risks creating a “generational catastrophe” if governments do not make education a priority. “Now we face a generational catastrophe that could waste untold human potential, undermine decades of progress and exacerbate entrenched inequalities,” António Guterres said in a video message.In…
read moreThe Chinese-owned social media app TikTok “is going to be out of business in the United States” on Sept. 15, unless Microsoft or another U.S. company concludes a purchase deal that satisfies the U.S. government, President Donald Trump said on Monday. The president also is insisting the U.S. Treasury should get a cut of the sale price for allowing…
read moreEgypt is reopening churches for the first time in nearly four months, after a major decline in the number of recorded coronavirus cases in recent days. The number of new cases is also down in Sudan, while Libya, Tunisia and Algeria have been witnessing an increase.Worshippers gathered for the first church service in nearly four…
read moreNorway says it will stop all cruise ships with more than 100 people on board from disembarking at Norwegian ports after a coronavirus outbreak on a vessel left 41 people infected. Health Minister Bent Hoie announced the ban Monday, saying the new rules will apply for the next 14 days. He said ships that have…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that he would ban the popular video app TikTok by Sept. 15 unless U.S company Microsoft acquires it before then. The Republican president said last week that he would ban the app, which is owned by Chinese company Bytedance, because of security concerns.Trump Sets Clock Ticking for TikTokUS president has threatened…
read moreLawmakers in Nevada have agreed to send ballots to all voters in the western U.S. state for November’s presidential election, a move that drew an immediate rebuke from President Donald Trump as unfair to Republicans.The legislation, which is expected to be signed by Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak, would make Nevada the eighth state to automatically…
read moreSeveral prominent Republicans have formed political action committees whose objective is to defeat Republican President Donald Trump in November’s U.S. general election. VOA’s Steve Redisch examines this rare revolt against a party’s own leader. Producer: Miguel Amaya …
read moreEgypt’s minister of international cooperation has extended an invitation to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk after a Musk post on Twitter that the pyramids were built by extraterrestrial beings. Musk tweeted Saturday: “Aliens built the pyramids obv.” Aliens built the pyramids obv— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) A camel in front of the Pyramids at Giza, Egypt, July 13, 2013. (A. Arabasadi/VOA)Egypt Today…
read moreMicrosoft Corp said Sunday it would continue talks to acquire popular short-video app TikTok from Chinese internet giant ByteDance. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump has agreed to give ByteDance 45 days to negotiate the sale, two people familiar with the matter said Sunday. Microsoft, which is aiming to conclude talks by Sept. 15, released…
read moreThe vote to renominate President Donald Trump is set to be conducted in private later this month, without members of the press present, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Convention said Saturday, citing the coronavirus.However, a Republican National Committee official contradicted that assessment Sunday, emphasizing that no final decisions have been made and that logistics…
read moreTwo U.S. astronauts returned to Earth on Sunday, splashing safely into the Gulf of Mexico after a two-month mission to the International Space Station aboard the commercially developed SpaceX spacecraft Crew Dragon.Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley landed at midafternoon off the western coast of Florida, avoiding the dangers of Tropical Storm Isaias moving along…
read moreThe White House and top congressional Democrats remained at odds Sunday over the scope of more assistance for 30 million American workers left unemployed by the coronavirus pandemic. In back-to-back appearances on ABC’s “This Week” show, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, sparred over how…
read moreWho gets to be first in line for a COVID-19 vaccine? U.S. health authorities hope by late next month to have some draft guidance on how to ration initial doses, but it’s a vexing decision.”Not everybody’s going to like the answer,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently told one of…
read moreThe vote to renominate President Donald Trump is set to be conducted in private later this month, without members of the media present, a spokesperson for the Republican National Convention said, citing the coronavirus.While Trump called off the public components of the convention in Florida last month, citing spiking cases of the virus across the…
read moreFacebook announced Saturday that it had obeyed a Brazilian judge’s order for a worldwide block on the accounts of 12 of President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters who are under investigation for allegedly running a fake news network.Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes said Friday night that the company had failed to fully comply with a previous…
read moreConnie Culp, the recipient of the first partial face transplant in the U.S., has died at 57, almost a dozen years after the groundbreaking operation.The Cleveland Clinic, where her surgery had been performed in 2008, said Saturday that Culp died Wednesday at the Ohio clinic of complications from an infection unrelated to her transplant.Dr. Frank…
read moreLawmakers participating in rare weekend talks on a huge coronavirus relief measure reported progress Saturday, as political pressure mounted to restore a newly expired $600-per-week supplemental unemployment benefit and send funding to help schools reopen.This was the longest meeting we had and it was more productive than the other meetings,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck…
read moreA pair of NASA astronauts face the final and most important part of their SpaceX test flight: returning to Earth with a rare splashdown.Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken took part in a farewell ceremony Saturday at the International Space Station, several hours ahead of their planned departure on a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Despite approaching Hurricane…
read moreThere are more than 17.6 million worldwide COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins statistics. The U.S. continues to lead in the number of infections with more than 4.5 million, followed by Brazil with 2.6 million cases, and India with almost 1.7 million.Mexico has replaced Britain as the country with the third largest number of deaths…
read morePresident Donald Trump went to one of his private golf courses Saturday in Virginia after threatening to halt operations in the United States of a popular Chinese-owned video sharing social media app. “As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” he told reporters Friday on Air Force One traveling with him…
read moreAmid the chaos of the pandemic’s early days, doctors who faced the first coronavirus onslaught reached across oceans and language barriers in an unprecedented effort to advise colleagues trying to save lives in the dark.With no playbook to follow and no time to wait for research, YouTube videos describing autopsy findings and X-rays swapped on…
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