VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, who says he regularly prays “Lord, give me a sense of humor,” will welcome comedians from around the world to a cultural event in Italy to “celebrate the beauty of human diversity,” the Vatican said Saturday. Whoopi Goldberg, Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien and Chris Rock will be among more than 100…
read moreThe United States cricket team beat Pakistan — a former world champion — on Thursday, achieving one of the biggest upsets in T20 Cricket World Cup history. This year’s tournament is being hosted by the United States and the West Indies. Saqib Ul Islam has more from the games in Dallas, Texas. …
read moreWASHINGTON AND LONDON — Three U.S. lawmakers have called for more scrutiny of NewsBreak, a popular news aggregation app in the United States, after Reuters reported it has Chinese origins and has used artificial intelligence tools to produce erroneous stories. The Reuters story drew upon previously unreported court documents related to copyright infringement, cease-and-desist emails and…
read moreWASHINGTON — Pro-Palestinian activists demanding an end to the war in the Gaza Strip and to U.S. support for Israel plan to surround the White House during a weekend protest, prompting additional security measures, including anti-scale fencing. Advocacy and activist groups such as CODEPINK and the Council on American Islamic Relations said Friday that demonstrations are…
read moreGENEVA — Scientific evidence documented in a series of articles presented by the World Health Organization this week highlights the harmful impact of climate change at key stages of the human life cycle. “These provide important scientific evidence on how the health of pregnant women, newborns, children, adolescents and older people is affected by air pollution…
read morePHOENIX — The season’s first heat wave is already baking the Southwest with triple-digit temperatures as firefighters in Phoenix — America’s hottest big city — employ new tactics in hopes of saving more lives in a county that saw 645 heat-related deaths last year. Starting this season, the Phoenix Fire Department is immersing heatstroke victims in…
read moreMONTGOMERY, Alabama — Parts of the north side of Montgomery are defined by what it has lost: restaurants, grocery stores and a convenient pharmacy, the latter of which closed five years ago. People who still live in the historically Black neighborhood of Newtown, like Sharon Harris, are frustrated. She goes to a different location of the…
read moreLUSAKA, Zambia — A Zambian court on Friday sentenced 22 Chinese nationals to long prison terms for cybercrimes that included internet fraud and online scams targeting Zambians and other people from Singapore, Peru and the United Arab Emirates. The Magistrates Court in the capital, Lusaka, sentenced them for terms ranging from seven to 11 years. The…
read moreNEW YORK — The mysterious death of a man in Mexico who had one kind of bird flu is unrelated to outbreaks of a different type at U.S. dairy farms, experts say. Here’s a look at the case and the different types of bird flu. What happened in the Mexico bird flu case? A 59-year-old man…
read moreseattle, washington — Retired Major General William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.…
read moreState College, Pennsylvania — Looking out over a sea of graduates at Penn State Law school’s recent commencement, one could be forgiven for thinking it was in Central Asia. One after another, 47 Uzbek men and women were called up on stage to be conferred an LLM (Master of Laws) degree by this American institution founded…
read morekarachi, pakistan — British author George Orwell once said, “Sports is war minus the shooting.” In modern sport, when we speak about the greatest rivalries, a cricket match between archrivals India and Pakistan truly lives up to the saying. One such battle will occur Sunday in the T20 Cricket World Cup at the newly built Nassau…
read moreWASHINGTON — America’s employers added a strong 272,000 jobs in May, accelerating from April and a sign that companies are still confident enough in the economy to keep hiring despite persistently high interest rates. Last month’s sizable job gain suggests that the economy is still growing steadily, propelled by consumer spending on travel, entertainment and other…
read moreImmigrants make up almost 14% of US population …
read morePARIS — U.S. President Joe Biden will meet Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris on Friday with a package of $225 million in weapons on the sidelines of D-Day anniversary events. It will be their first face-to-face talks since Zelenskyy visited Washington in December, when the two wrestled with Republican opposition to more Ukraine aid. They…
read moreWars in the Middle East and Europe — and the U.S. rivalry with China — will remain key issues to U.S. diplomats no matter who wins the November presidential elections. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at the foreign policy priorities of the two candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. …
read moreWhile marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, during World War II, U.S. President Joe Biden says global challenges are still present and urged unity in resisting Russian aggression today. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Omaha Beach, Normandy. …
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