The U.S. Capitol complex was shut down temporarily on Monday out of an abundance of caution after a small fire broke out nearby, the U.S. Secret Service said, underscoring security jitters days before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. “There is no threat to the public,” the Secret Service said in a tweet.Public safety and law enforcement…
read moreMalawian President Lazarus Chakwera has introduced new lockdown measures to contain a jump in confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19. The restrictions include school closures, a night-time curfew, and no gatherings over 50 people. The measure comes five days after Chakwera declared a state of national disaster in response to the recent spike in…
read moreThe director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warns the inequitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines between rich and poor countries will prolong the global pandemic. Tedros delivered this stark warning Monday at the opening of a week-long meeting of the WHO Executive Board. WHO chief Tedros called the development and approval of safe,…
read moreAmericans are getting ready to inaugurate President-elect Joe Biden after one of the nation’s most contentious elections and a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump. Mike O’Sullivan reports on the mood of the nation as the United States transitions into its next political phase. Camera: Genia Dulot, Natasha…
read moreWith U.S.-President-elect Joe Biden set to be inaugurated Wednesday, the FBI is conducting security screening of the 25,000 members of the National Guard assigned to Washington to protect the event amid worries of a potential insider attack. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told the Associated Press that he and other leaders have not seen evidence of any…
read moreExcept for rare cases, the inauguration of a new president symbolizes the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power. VOA’s Steve Redisch explains how and why Wednesday’s swearing-in of Joe Biden will be far from ordinary. …
read moreSmall groups of right-wing protesters — some of them carrying rifles — gathered outside heavily fortified statehouses around the country Sunday as National Guard troops and police kept watch to prevent a repeat of the violence that erupted at the U.S. Capitol.There were no immediate reports of any clashes.Security was stepped up in recent days…
read moreAfter almost a year of staring at each other’s living rooms or other spaces in virtual meetings due to the coronavirus pandemic, members of a Swiss startup have come up with a new idea: sending holographic emissaries to a virtual meeting space. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. …
read moreJordan has become one of the world’s first countries to start coronavirus vaccinations for United Nations-registered refugees, according to the U.N. refugee agency and the royal palace. As part of the kingdom’s national vaccination drive that began last week, anyone living there, including refugees and asylum seekers, is entitled to receive the shot free of…
read moreVice President-elect Kamala Harris will be sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Wednesday, a history-making event in which the first Black, South Asian and female vice president will take her oath of office from the first Latina justice.Harris chose Sotomayor for the task, according to a person familiar with the decision. She’ll…
read moreJohn Hopkins University reported early Sunday there are 94.5 million global COVID-19 cases. The United States leads the world in the number of cases with 23.7 million infections, followed by India with 10.5 million and Brazil with 8.4 million.Los Angeles County in California has become the first U.S. county to record 1 million COVID-19 cases.…
read moreChina on Saturday finished building a 1,500-room hospital for COVID-19 patients to fight a surge in infections the government said are harder to contain and that it blamed on infected people or goods from abroad.The hospital is one of six with a total of 6,500 rooms being built in Nangong, south of Beijing in Hebei…
read moreThe Australian Open will go ahead as planned, despite the discovery of three coronavirus cases that have put 47 players into quarantine for two weeks, the tennis tournament’s director, Craig Tiley, said Saturday.Australia’s international borders are closed, but there are exceptions.For the international tennis tournament, players and their coaches flew into the country on 17…
read moreIn the 10 days since the violent Jan. 6 rampage at the U.S. Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters, a fuller picture has emerged about the rioters, with researchers identifying members of more than a dozen extremist groups that took part in the riots.The storming of the Capitol drew extremists that included adherents of the…
read moreIn his first hours as president, Joe Biden plans to take executive action to roll back some of the most controversial decisions of his predecessor and to address the raging coronavirus pandemic, his incoming chief of staff said Saturday.The opening salvo would herald a 10-day blitz of executive actions as Biden seeks to act swiftly…
read moreAll four engines of the core stage of NASA’s deep space exploration rocket built by Boeing were ignited for the first time Saturday, but only briefly.Mounted in a test facility at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, the Space Launch System’s (SLS) 212-foot-tall core stage roared to life at 4:27 p.m. local time (2227 GMT) for…
read moreWashington is locked down and U.S. law enforcement officials are geared up for pro-Trump marches in all 50 state capitals this weekend, erecting barriers and deploying thousands of National Guard troops to try to prevent the kind of violent attack that rattled the nation January 6. The FBI warned police agencies of possible armed protests outside…
read moreTwo years ago, in January 2019, the World Health Organization said vaccine hesitancy was among the top 10 threats to global health. That was before COVID-19 spread around the globe. VOA’s Carol Pearson tells us how doctors are working to overcome that hesitancy. …
read moreThe Trump administration on Friday carried out its 13th federal execution since July, an unprecedented run that concluded just five days before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden — an opponent of the federal death penalty.Dustin Higgs, convicted in the killings of three women in a Maryland wildlife refuge in 1996, was the third to…
read moreThe FBI is issuing new security warnings ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, citing potential armed protests in state capitals nationwide. Meanwhile, Congress is considering proposals to establish a national bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building. Patsy Widakuswara has this report. Producer: Bakhtiyar Zamanov …
read moreThousands upon thousands of troops are preparing to pour into an increasingly fortified Washington ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, as the district begins to remind some officials of beleaguered capitals such as Baghdad or Kabul, rather than the seat of government for the leader of the free world.Military officials said Friday that 18,000 armed…
read moreU.S. President-elect Joe Biden named pioneering geneticist Eric Lander as the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy on Friday, elevating the post to Cabinet-level status for first time.Lander, a Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who helped lead the Human Genome Project, will also serve in the role of presidential science…
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