In a rare leak from the highest court in the U.S., Politico reported it has obtained a draft Supreme Court opinion showing a majority of the court in favor of striking down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The document, labeled as a “1st Draft” by Justice Samuel Alito and circulated…
read moreIs former U.S. President Donald Trump a Republican political kingmaker or just a political meddler? The first answers are coming in the month of May. The United States is about to get its first significant reading on how much political clout Trump retains over the Republican Party 16 months after he played a role…
read moreBRINC, a company based in Seattle, Washington, is producing special drones to assist Ukraine’s armed forces. The drones are used in search and rescue missions and can provide eyes in places where it’s too dangerous to send people. Khrystyna Shevchenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Videographer: Khrystyna Shevchenko …
read moreThe European Union on Monday accused Apple of abusing its dominant Apple Pay market position to prevent other companies from competing in contactless payment technologies. “Apple has built a closed ecosystem around its devices and its operating system, iOS. And Apple controls the gates to this ecosystem, setting the rules of the game for anyone…
read morePresident Joe Biden saluted his “friend of five decades” Walter Mondale on Sunday, traveling to the University of Minnesota to remember the former vice president and Democratic Party elder whose memorial service was delayed for a year due to the pandemic. Mondale died in April 2021 at age 93. He is credited with transforming the…
read moreHealth officials are still trying to identify the cause of cases of acute and severe hepatitis that have infected scores of children in 16 countries, mainly in Europe. Over 170 cases of acute severe hepatitis in children aged between 1 month and 16 years have been reported from 16 countries, 12 in Europe. Most cases…
read moreMany Chinese are marking a quiet May Day holiday this year as the government’s zero-COVID approach restricts travel and enforces lockdowns in multiple cities. All restaurants in Beijing are closed to dine-in customers from Sunday through the end of the holiday on Wednesday, open only for takeout and delivery. Parks and tourist attractions in the…
read moreThe White House press corps’ annual gala returned Saturday night along with the roasting of Washington, the journalists who cover it and the man at the helm: President Joe Biden. The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, sidelined by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, featured Biden as the first president in six years to accept…
read moreSatellites have detected methane emissions from belching cows at a California feedlot, marking the first time emissions from livestock – a major component of agricultural methane – could be measured from space. Environmental data firm GHGSat this month analyzed data from its satellites and pinpointed the methane source from a feedlot in the agricultural Joaquin…
read moreMeteorologists warn the extreme heat gripping India and Pakistan is likely to have many cascading effects on human health, ecosystems, agriculture, water, energy, and the economy. For the past few days, hundreds of millions of people have been sweltering under temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius in widespread areas of India and Pakistan. The…
read moreU.S. President Joe Biden will resume a Washington tradition by speaking at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday night, the first president to speak at the annual event since 2016. After being canceled for two years due to COVID-19 pandemic and boycotted by Donald Trump during his presidency, the event returns with gusto…
read moreChris Mei has been stuck in his Shanghai flat for a month save for PCR testing and occasional volunteer work delivering food to neighbors. That will change in a couple of days when he boards his flight for a long-scheduled trip home to Portland, Oregon. He uses Zoom to do factory inspections for his 2-year-old…
read moreBeijing residents will need clear COVID tests to enter public spaces, officials said Saturday, announcing fresh virus controls at the start of a Labor Day holiday muted by creeping infections in the capital. The five-day break is typically one of China’s busiest travel periods, but the country’s worst COVID resurgence since early in the pandemic…
read moreA blindfold calms the large black and white augur buzzard as two men glue a prosthetic leg into an insert on her body to replace the one that she lost. The female is one of many injured birds of prey that turn up at Simon Thomsett’s Kenyan rehabilitation center, most of which, like her, have…
read moreA San Francisco area-based nonprofit is working to send easily operated, simply maintained and low-cost incubators to Ukraine. After learning that 260,000 women in Ukraine are pregnant, with many now giving birth in bomb shelters or without access to modern medical care, Embrace Global is working to send 3,000 of its incubators to war ravaged…
read moreA Colorado prison inmate who worked at a poultry farm culling infected birds has become the first person in the U.S. to test positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment confirmed the case Thursday. H5N1 has been spreading rapidly among birds in the U.S. since February…
read moreAfter years of preparation and testing, a new NASA spacecraft is almost ready for its mission to an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists hope the journey will uncover clues into the origins of Earth. For VOA, Villafañe visited NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to see the spacecraft and speak with mission…
read moreGoogle has expanded options for keeping personal information private from online searches. The company said Friday it will let people request that more types of content such as personal contact information like phone numbers, email and physical addresses be removed from search results. The new policy also allows the removal of other information that may…
read moreChina has suspended cross-border freight train services with North Korea following consultations after COVID-19 infections in its border city of Dandong, the foreign ministry said Friday. The suspension came within four months after North Korea eased border lockdowns enforced early in 2020 against the coronavirus, measures global aid groups have blamed for its worsening economic…
read moreThe Biden administration is asking Congress for additional legal authority to make it easier for the U.S. government to seize Russian government and oligarch assets and transfer the proceeds to Ukraine. The White House released the package of legislative changes Thursday as President Joe Biden asked Congress for $33 billion in additional aid for Ukraine…
read moreSouth Korea said Friday it will lift its outdoor mask mandate next week in response to a steady drop in COVID-19 cases after an omicron-fueled surge. The announcement comes after Seoul dropped almost all other social-distancing measures earlier this month, ending two years of strict requirements that put a massive strain on the country’s small…
read moreMission accomplished for the latest SpaceX and NASA trip to the International Space Station. Plus, the first-ever all-private charter to the ISS ends and … see what it looks like to catch a four-story rocket out of the sky. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. …
read more