Los Angeles County dropped a plan to impose a universal indoor mask mandate this week as COVID-19 infections and rates of hospitalizations have stabilized, a top health official said Thursday. Health director Barbara Ferrer said two weeks ago that the …
President Joe Biden’s administration is launching a renewed push for COVID-19 booster shots for those eligible, pointing to the enhanced protections they offer against severe illness as the highly transmissible BA.5 variant spreads across the country. The initiatives include direct …
Russia announces plans to sever a long-term space partnership. Plus, a private spaceflight company extends its record of successful launches, and NASA scores a win for its upcoming moon mission. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. …
The World Health Organization is calling for greater investment in the development of new vaccines to keep pace with the rapidly evolving variants of the coronavirus. As world attention is focused on the monkeypox outbreak, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus …
Every week, tons of electronic waste cross the border from Israel to the West Bank. Thousands of Palestinian families make a living off the waste by burning it to extract copper they can sell. But the burning is taking a …
Twitter Inc. does not object to Elon Musk’s proposal to start a trial on October 17 over Musk’s bid to walk away from his $44 billion acquisition deal but the social media company wants a commitment to complete the trial …
Meta Platforms Inc. issued a gloomy forecast after recording its first ever quarterly drop in revenue Wednesday, with recession fears and competitive pressures weighing on its digital ads sales. Shares of the Menlo Park, California-based company were down about 4.6% …
Located on the rooftops of commercial skyscrapers, apartment buildings and warehouses, micro solar plants are starting to play a larger role in America’s quest for a green electrical grid. Aron Ranen reports from New York City. …
Black women and Native American women are more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women in America, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vice President Kamala Harris has made maternal health a key piece …
The U.S. Senate has passed a $280 billion initiative that would boost domestic production of microchips and provide support for a key industry that competes with overseas countries including China. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports. …
The United Nations AIDS program says progress is stalling on ending HIV/AIDS as a public health crisis by 2030 and action is needed to get it back on track. The UNAIDS program issued its assessment in a new report pointing …
When images beamed back to Earth by NASA’s largest, most powerful space telescope were released earlier this month, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio shared one of them on Twitter accompanied by a Bible verse: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” …
On the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the U.S. remains one of a handful of countries that have not ratified the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) — an international …
Aid workers say deep poverty and harsh living conditions lead to hopelessness among Idlib’s youth …
The World Health Organization is urging people who may have been exposed to or at risk of monkeypox to get vaccinated against the disease as a preventive measure. Since it declared monkeypox a global health threat last week, the WHO …
The U.S. Senate voted 64-32 on Tuesday to advance legislation to dramatically boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing in a bid to make the domestic industry more competitive with China. The legislation provides about $52 billion in government subsidies for U.S. semiconductor …
Russia said Tuesday it will pull out of the International Space Station after 2024 to build its own orbiting outpost. The country’s space chief made the announcement during a meeting with President Vladmir Putin. Yuri Borisov, CEO of state space …
White House ramping up monkeypox testing, treatment and vaccines …
Paul Sorvino, an imposing actor who specialized in playing crooks and cops like Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas” and the NYPD sergeant Phil Cerretta on “Law & Order,” has died. He was 83. His publicist Roger Neal said he died Monday …
Regional authorities, medical professionals and residents of Ethiopia’s Afar region say they are in dire need of medical aid with hundreds of hospitals and health centers destroyed by conflict. The World Health Organization says it is struggling to fulfill the …
Britain will host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of winners Ukraine due to the ongoing conflict there, the competition’s organizers said on Monday. While decades-long tradition dictates that the winner of the contest gets to host it the …
A report Monday in the British newspaper The Guardian said a growing number of people in the Mahama refugee camp in Rwanda are registering in health centers for non-communicable diseases, or NCDs, that are usually seen in older people and …
Diana Kennedy, a tart-tongued British food writer devoted to Mexican cuisine, died Sunday. She was 99. Kennedy spent much of her life learning and preserving the traditional cooking and ingredients of her adopted home, a mission that even in her …
A bill to boost semiconductor production in the United States has managed to do nearly the unthinkable — unite the democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and the fiscally conservative right. The bill making its way through the Senate is a …