The U.S. said on Tuesday it had seized RaidForums, a popular website used by hackers to buy and sell stolen data, and at the same time unsealed charges against the website’s founder and chief administrator Diego Santos Coelho. Coelho, 21, of Portugal, was arrested in the United Kingdom on Jan. 31, and remains in custody…
read moreThe world of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs is getting a boost from companies and celebrities, who are making the digital products. But the nascent technology comes with risks. Tina Trinh reports. …
read moreMandatory evacuation comes as authorities in Chinese financial hub gradually eases strict lockdown orders in some neighborhoods …
read moreU.S. President Joe Biden announced his administration’s efforts to regulate so-called ghost guns on Monday, including banning the manufacturing of kits that consumers can assemble themselves to make a gun that lacks a serial number, making it untraceable. Gun rights groups pledged to fight the rule. “Law enforcement is sounding the alarm,” Biden said at…
read moreThe World Health Organization said on Monday it is tracking a few dozen cases of two new sub-variants of the highly transmissible omicron strain of the coronavirus to assess whether they are more infectious or dangerous. It has added BA.4 and BA.5, sister variants of the original BA.1 omicron variant, to its list for monitoring.…
read moreSteps meant to address use of guns lacking serial numbers …
read moreTwitter Inc’s biggest shareholder, Elon Musk, has decided not to join its board, Chief Executive Parag Agrawal said late on Sunday. Musk, who calls himself a free-speech absolutist and has been critical of Twitter, disclosed a 9.1% stake on April 4 and said he plans to bring about significant improvements at the social media platform. …
read moreFacing an existential threat from climate change, Mumbai, India’s financial hub has embarked an ambitious climate action plan that aims to make the city carbon-neutral by 2050. It is the first city to set a timeline to reach zero emissions in South Asia, one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to rising temperatures. In recent…
read moreFor many in the U.K., the pandemic may as well be over. Mask requirements have been dropped. Free mass testing is a thing of the past. And for the first time since spring 2020, people can go abroad for holidays without ordering tests or filling out lengthy forms. That sense of freedom is widespread even…
read moreIn the days after a group of West Point cadets on spring break were sickened by fentanyl-laced cocaine at a South Florida house party, community activists sprang into action. They blitzed beaches, warned spring breakers of a surge in recreational drugs cut with the dangerous synthetic opioid and offered an antidote for overdoses, which have…
read moreThe first all-private team of astronauts ever launched to the International Space Station (ISS) arrived safely at the orbiting research platform Saturday to begin a weeklong science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight. The rendezvous came about 21 hours after the four-man team representing Houston-based startup company Axiom Space, Inc. lifted off Friday…
read moreWhen Daylight Saving Time starts in most U.S. states every spring, clocks are set ahead one hour to make daylight last later each day through fall. Now, the U.S. Congress wants to make the shift permanent. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks into the so-called Sunshine Protection Act. …
read moreShanghai is China’s most populous city, a place marked by its expansive worldview and keen sense of its own identity. But now it is chafing at Beijing’s rigid containment methods designed in accordance with the national zero-COVID policy. Since a wave of infections struck the metropolis of some 25 million people last month, Shanghai officials…
read moreSaudi Arabia said Saturday it will permit 1 million Muslims from inside and outside the country to participate in this year’s hajj, a sharp uptick after pandemic restrictions forced two years of drastically pared-down pilgrimages. The hajj ministry “has authorized 1 million pilgrims, both foreign and domestic, to perform the hajj this year,” it said…
read moreAn international donor conference on Friday raised $4.8 billion for the U.N.-backed COVAX plan to deliver coronavirus jabs to poorer countries, organizers said. “The pandemic is not over, far from it. Until we beat COVID-19 everywhere, we beat it nowhere. That is a fact, and a responsibility for all of us,” said German Chancellor Olaf…
read moreThe United Nations warned Friday that an old, neglected oil tanker carrying more than a million barrels of oil is a ticking “time bomb” at “imminent risk” of a major spill off the coast of Yemen that could cost $20 billion to clean up. “If it were to happen, the spill would unleash a massive…
read moreAs the U.S. tries to emerge from the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic, health experts and law enforcement officials are concerned about another health crisis: a sharp rise in the number of drug related overdoses attributed to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued a bulletin earlier this week to federal,…
read moreWithout a single dollar of the $5 billion it requested for its global COVID-19 response approved, the Biden administration’s key program to help vaccinate the world is in danger of grinding to a halt. Even as the administration marked World Health Day on Thursday with a commitment to build a safer, healthier and more equitable…
read moreA federal appeals court on Thursday upheld President Joe Biden’s requirement that all federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed a lower court and ordered dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the mandate. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who…
read moreDisease caused by the omicron variant is on average around two days shorter than the delta variant, a large study of vaccinated Britons who kept a smartphone log of their COVID-19 symptoms after breakthrough infections found. “The shorter presentation of symptoms suggests — pending confirmation from viral load studies — that the period of infectiousness…
read moreThe first-ever married couple to fly on a commercial spacecraft speaks with VOA. Plus, an all-amateur flight crew prepares for a trip to the International Space Station, and a milestone in space-based racial equality. Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. …
read moreChinese e-commerce company JD.com said Thursday that its founder Richard Liu has left his position as CEO, the latest Chinese billionaire founder to step aside amid increased government scrutiny of the country’s technology industry. Liu will hand over the reins to JD.com’s president Xu Lei, according to a company statement. Liu will remain as the…
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