CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — The Webb Space Telescope has discovered the earliest known merger of black holes. These two gigantic black holes and their galaxies consolidated just 740 million years after the universe-forming Big Bang. It’s the most distant detection ever made of merging black holes, scientists reported Thursday. One black hole is 50 million times…
read moreU.S. voters have several ways to cast their ballots in a presidential election, including by mail. Many Democrats have embraced mail-in voting, and now Republicans are being urged by party leaders, including former President Donald Trump, to use all voting options in the 2024 general election. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the details. Salome Ramirez…
read moreWashington — President Joe Biden has asserted executive privilege over audio of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur that’s at the center a Republican effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, the Justice Department told lawmakers on Thursday. It comes as the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and the Judiciary Committee…
read moreTAIPAI, TAIWAN — Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC said Thursday there was no damage to its facilities after an incident at its Arizona factory construction site where a waste disposal truck driver was transported to a hospital. Firefighters responded to a reported explosion Wednesday afternoon at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plant in Phoenix, the Arizona Republic reported,…
read moreNEW YORK — The number of fatal overdoses in the U.S. fell last year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data posted Wednesday. Agency officials noted that the data is provisional and could change after more analysis, and that they still expect a drop when the final counts are in. It would be only…
read morewhite house — There are few things the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Joe Biden agree on. One is the presidential candidacy of activist-lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Both the Biden and Trump camps see Kennedy as a potential spoiler in this November’s election. About half of registered voters have told pollsters that if given…
read moreAs Russia ramps up its offensive in eastern Ukraine, officials with the U.S. command in Eastern Europe say it’s urgent for NATO to be ready for a possible confrontation. VOA’s Eastern Europe bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze talked to the U.S. and Polish commanders during a U.S. Army transfer of authority ceremony in Boleslawiec, Poland. VOA…
read moreWASHINGTON — The White House will send an unofficial delegation to Taiwan this weekend for the inauguration of the island’s democratically elected president, the Biden administration announced Wednesday, in a move that is certain to upset China but unlikely to draw excessive responses from Beijing as the two countries try to stabilize relations. A senior White…
read moreNEW YORK — A sprightly miniature poodle named Sage was crowned “Best in Show” on Tuesday at the 148th annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, winning the grand prize in the most prestigious competition among pure-bred canines in the United States. Sage, the finalist representing 21 breeds classified as non-sporting dogs, triumphed over more than 2,500…
read moreSYDNEY — Researchers in New Zealand say that artificial intelligence, or AI, can help solve problems for patients and doctors. A new study from the University of Auckland says that an emerging area is the use of AI during operations using so-called “computer vision.” The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, says that artificial…
read moreWASHINGTON — The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides said Tuesday. It’s the first arms shipment to Israel to be announced by the administration since it put another arms transfer — consisting of 3,500 bombs —…
read moreANNAPOLIS, Md. — West Virginia Governor Jim Justice and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan won Republican Senate nominations on Tuesday as voters across neighboring states with antithetical politics decided contests with big implications for the Senate majority fight this fall. At the same time, Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump tried to project…
read morePresident Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has launched a digital ad aimed at Latino voters, seeking to remind them of former president Donald Trump’s controversial “zero tolerance” family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros has more. …
read moreA groundbreaking clinical trial is underway in South Africa, marking a pivotal moment in the fight against tuberculosis. The new vaccine could become the first to help prevent pulmonary TB, the most common form of the disease, in adolescents and adults. It would be the first new TB vaccine in more than a century. Zaheer…
read moreWILMINGTON, Delaware — Hunter Biden’s federal gun case will go to trial next month, a judge said Tuesday, denying a bid by lawyers for the president’s son to delay the prosecution. U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika rejected Hunter Biden’s request to push the trial until September, which the defense said was necessary to give the defense…
read moreCAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — Protesters against the war between Israel and Hamas were voluntarily taking down their tents in Harvard Yard on Tuesday after university officials agreed to discuss their questions about the endowment, bringing a peaceful end to the kinds of demonstrations that were broken up by police on other campuses. The student protest group Harvard…
read moreWashington — The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday put sanctions on a Russian citizen and three Russia-based companies it said were trying to evade U.S. sanctions in a scheme that could have unfrozen more than $1.5 billion belonging to Russian metals tycoon Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska, who himself was placed under U.S. sanctions in April 2018, branched out…
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