Key U.S. Democratic lawmakers remained at odds Sunday on how to approve both infrastructure improvements in the country and the biggest social safety net expansion in five decades, but the leading progressive signaled there was room for compromise. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has for months pushed for a $3.5 trillion plan calling for climate…
read more“The pandemic has destabilized societies, economies, and governments. It has shown that there is no global security without global health security,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a recent address to ambassadors and representatives to the European Union’s political and security committee. “The fastest and best way to end this pandemic is…
read moreU.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Paris, his first trip to France following an enhanced trilateral security partnership known as AUKUS (Australia, U.K., and the U.S.) that heightened tensions between the transatlantic allies. Experts said they expect Blinken, who has strong personal ties to France, to use the upcoming trip to try…
read moreA joint European-Japanese spacecraft got its first glimpse of Mercury as it swung by the solar system’s innermost planet while on a mission to deliver two probes into orbit in 2025. The BepiColombo mission made the first of six flybys of Mercury at 11:34 p.m. GMT Friday, using the planet’s gravity to slow the spacecraft down. …
read moreThe future of abortion rights is in the hands of a conservative Supreme Court that is beginning a new term Monday that also includes major cases on gun rights and religion. The court’s credibility with the public also could be on the line, especially if a divided court were to overrule the landmark Roe v.…
read moreIn a normal year, the smokehouses and drying racks that Alaska Natives use to prepare salmon to tide them through the winter would be heavy with fish meat, the fruits of a summer spent fishing on the Yukon River like generations before them. This year, there are no fish. For the first time in memory,…
read moreDelegates heading to the COP26 U.N. climate summit in Glasgow agreed they must deliver on the $100 billion per year pledge to help most vulnerable nations tackle climate change, COP26 president Alok Sharma said on Saturday. Speaking after days of meetings at the pre-COP26 climate event in Italy, Sharma said there was a consensus…
read moreThe abortion rights battle takes to the streets across America Saturday, with hundreds of demonstrations planned as part of a new “Women’s March” aimed at countering an unprecedented conservative offensive to restrict the termination of pregnancies. The fight has become even more intense since Texas adopted a law on September 1 banning almost all…
read moreTwitter has appealed a French court decision that ordered it to give activists full access to all of its relevant documents on efforts to fight hate speech, lawyers and a judicial source said on Saturday. In July, a French court ordered Twitter to grant six French anti-discrimination groups full access to all documents relating…
read moreDroughts that cause leaves to turn brown and wither before they can reach peak color. Heat waves prompting leaves to fall before autumn even arrives. Extreme weather events like hurricanes that strip trees of their leaves altogether. For a cheery autumnal activity, leaf peeping is facing some serious threats from the era of climate change.…
read moreSince China’s government declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal last week and banned citizens from working for crypto-related companies, the price of bitcoin went up despite being shut out of one of its biggest markets. Experts say large-scale Chinese miners of cryptocurrency — the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum — will take their high-powered, electricity-guzzling servers…
read moreAt the virtual COVID-19 summit on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an additional donation of 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to low-income and lower-middle-income countries, bringing total U.S. pledged donations to 1.1 billion shots. “I made — and I’m keeping — the promise that…
read moreDuring the three-day World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen, China, this week, the country’s biggest tech tycoons rushed to show their support for Beijing’s “common prosperity” initiative. Their enthusiasm for the initiative comes amid a yearlong crackdown on the country’s tech industry, where several high-profile companies have faced investigations and fines. Formerly high-flying celebrity CEOs…
read moreA joint mission of the European and Japanese space agencies, the spacecraft BepiColombo is set to make a close, initial flyby of Mercury on Friday as part of a seven-year mission to put two probes in orbit around the solar system’s closest planet to the sun. In a statement on its website, the European Space…
read moreMembers of the White House COVID-19 Response Team said Friday that recent trials showing the effectiveness of the U.S. drug company Merck’s experimental new COVID-19 pill were certainly good news, but they stressed that vaccines would remain the best way to end the pandemic. During the response team’s virtual briefing, top U.S. infectious-disease expert Dr.…
read morePresident Joe Biden was scheduled to meet Friday with his fellow Democrats in Congress, progressives and moderates in his party remained divided over two massive spending bills that account for much of his domestic agenda. Democrats have struggled to coalesce around those two bills. Progressives have vowed to block a $1 trillion infrastructure bill without…
read moreU.S. President Joe Biden faces opposition from within his own party in Congress to pass his signature Build Back Better legislation. The $3.5 trillion package would dramatically expand child care, health care and clean energy in America. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports. …
read morePresident Joe Biden’s administration urged a judge Friday to block a near-total ban on abortion imposed by Texas — the strictest such law in the nation — in a key battle in the ferocious legal war over abortion access in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court on September 1 allowed the Republican-backed law…
read moreAbout two centuries ago, American local, state and federal governments poured millions of dollars into building canals to move the nation’s people and goods. By 1840, there were 3,000 miles of canals in the United States. But, within 20 years, the rise of the railroads would make canals practically obsolete. In the 1840s, several U.S. states…
read moreGeneticists, led by Harvard Medical School’s George Church, aim to bring the woolly mammoth back to life by 2027. But some experts aren’t sure it’s such a good idea. Karina Bafradzhian has the story. …
read moreAs COVID-19 has spread in Nigeria, Africa’s most populated country, so have myths about the virus, especially among children. A Nigerian author has written a children’s book to help them understand the pandemic and ways to avoid being infected. A team of educators arrives at a government school in Abuja. Equipped with books, face masks…
read moreA popular Chinese-made phone has a built-in censorship tool that can blacklist search terms on the web, according to research by the Lithuanian government. The country is urging owners of the phones to replace them, as Henry Ridgwell reports. …
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