WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND — Cities around the world are readying to ring in the New Year with celebrations highlighting local cultures and traditions, after a year roiled by ongoing conflict and political instability. Countries in the South Pacific Ocean will be the first to welcome 2025, with midnight in New Zealand striking 18 hours before the…
read moreNEW CANEY, TEXAS — Cleanup was under way Monday after a strong storm system spawned hail, rain, high winds and tornadoes across the southern United States over the weekend, killing at least four people. As of Monday afternoon, more than 30 tornadoes had been confirmed as crews worked through about 50 reports of tornado damage spanning…
read moreIt was a life that took him from peanut farming to the presidency. While former President Jimmy Carter ‘s time in the White House lasted only one term, the decades afterward were defined by humanitarian work that affected people all around the world. Founding the Carter Center with his wife, Rosalynn, he became a global…
read moreJARWENG, SOUTH SUDAN — Nobel Prize-winning peacemaker Jimmy Carter spent nearly four decades waging war to eliminate an ancient parasite plaguing the world’s poorest people. Rarely fatal but searingly painful and debilitating, Guinea worm disease infects people who drink water tainted with larvae that grow inside the body into worms up to 3 feet long. The…
read moreAmericans are sharing reflections on the country’s 39th president, Jimmy Carter, following his death Sunday at age 100. VOA’s Scott Stearns has some of their remembrances. …
read moreSACRAMENTO, California — Insurance companies that stopped providing home coverage to hundreds of thousands of Californians in recent years as wildfires became more destructive will have to again provide policies in fire-prone areas if they want to keep doing business in California under a state regulation announced Monday. The rule will require home insurers to offer…
read moreAs former President Donald Trump is set to return to the White House, Reuters reported on Dec. 24 that China will issue a record 3 trillion yuan in government bonds next year in an effort to rescue its crisis-stricken economy and mitigate the impact of potential significant tariff hikes by Trump. This marks the latest…
read moreWashington — President Joe Biden has declared Jan. 9 a national day of mourning for former President Jimmy Carter and announced Monday that all federal government offices would be closed that day as a show of respect for the 39th U.S. president, who died Sunday at the age of 100. “I call on the American people…
read moreFor 17 years, VOA Correspondent Kane Farabaugh has covered the life and legacy of Jimmy Carter, developing a close friendship with America’s 39th president. He shares his personal reflections about the late world leader and influential humanitarian. …
read moreU.S. gun violence prevention measures have been strengthened under the Biden Administration, but big policy changes are expected once President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias spoke with gun owners and gun safety advocates about the matter. …
read moreNEW YORK — Linda Lavin, a Tony Award-winning stage actress who became a working class icon as a paper-hat wearing waitress on the TV sitcom “Alice,” has died. She was 87. Lavin died in Los Angeles on Sunday of complications from recently discovered lung cancer, her representative, Bill Veloric, told The Associated Press in an email. …
read moreSports teams in former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s home state of Georgia expressed their condolences Sunday, honoring a former leader who also served as the state’s governor and had an extensive record as an athlete and sports fan. The Atlanta Falcons football team held a moment of silence before their game Sunday night. The team’s…
read moreOfficials assessed the damage on Sunday after a strong storm system moved across the southern United States over the weekend, spawning tornadoes and killing at least four people. There were at least 45 reports of tornado damage across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather…
read moreWorld leaders and U.S. politicians reacted to news that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who as president brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, has died at age 100. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden “Today, America and the world lost an extraordinary…
read moreHighlights from the life of the 39th U.S. president who died Dec. 29, 2024, in his home in Plains, Georgia. …
read morePresident-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, is a well-known China critic. Despite being sanctioned by the Beijing government in 2020, Rubio says he’s confident of ‘finding a solution’ to engage with China if confirmed. VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching reports on Rubio’s legislative record and…
read moreTwo family films dominated the holiday box office this week, with “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” winning the three-day weekend over “Mufasa” by a blue hair. Paramount’s Sonic movie earned $38 million, while “Mufasa” brought in $37.1 million from theaters in the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates Sunday. On a normal weekend counting Friday,…
read moreHouston, Texas — A strong storm system threatened to whip up tornadoes in parts of the U.S. Southeast on Sunday, a day after severe weather claimed at least two lives as twisters touched down in Texas and Mississippi. The National Weather Service’s severe storm tracker indicated the system was moving east through Alabama into Georgia shortly…
read moreSEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he will implement the “toughest” anti-U.S. policy, less than a month before Donald Trump takes office as U.S. president, the country’s state media reported Sunday. Trump’s return to the White House raises prospects for high-profile diplomacy with North Korea. During his first term, Trump met…
read moreAbortion has become more common despite bans or deep restrictions in most Republican-controlled states, and the legal and political fights over its future are not over yet. It’s now been two and a half years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door for states to implement bans. The policies…
read moreSEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a key policy-setting meeting of the country’s ruling party last week ahead of the new year, state media KCNA reported Sunday. The “strongest” response strategy toward the United States was declared during the party meeting for the country’s safety and national interests, the report said,…
read moreSevere weather disrupted holiday travel on Saturday across the United States with deadly tornadoes in the Southeast and heavy snow and wind on the West Coast delaying or canceling thousands of flights across the country. More than 7,000 flights in the U.S. were delayed on Saturday, according to the tracking site FlightAware, and more than…
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