Thanks to a very special gift, one family is exceptionally grateful to be celebrating the New Year together this year. Bronwyn Benito tells us about a new surgical technique that makes it easier to give the gift of life. …
A California startup called OFFWORLD has ambitious plans that are out of this world. They are working on developing autonomous robots that would be able to mine the Moon and Mars. Alexey Gorbachev has the story narrated by Anna Rice. …
Illinois started the new year on a high note Wednesday, becoming the latest U.S. state to legalize recreational marijuana as the governor pardoned thousands for past low-level cannabis convictions.The Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act will allow residents 21 and older …
The world has a plastic pollution problem. That is the big picture. It has countries looking for creative solutions. Environmentalists say there’s no more time for talk. As VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, they say it’s time for action …
India plans to make a fresh attempt to land an unmanned mission on the moon in 2020 after a failed bid last year, the head of the country’s space program said Wednesday.Work is going “smoothly” on the Chandrayaan-3 mission to …
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the federal government will soon announce a new strategy to tackle underage vaping, promising, “We’re going to protect our families, we’re going to protect our children, and we’re going to protect the industry.”Trump was …
The world rang in a new year and decade Wednesday with fireworks, music and all-night parties.The celebrations included the usual massive gathering in New York’s Times Square where people counted down the remaining seconds of 2019 and cheered as 2020 …
East Africa has the highest rates of cervical cancer in the world, according to the World Health Organization. In October, Kenya launched a mass vaccination of girls against the human papillomavirus (HPV),which can lead to cervical cancer. For those who …
Carol Lee collaborates with University of Montpellier colleagues researching how tiny plankton cope in an ever-saltier Mediterranean sea and a freshwater-infused Baltic one. From the foothills of the French Pyrenees, Camille Parmesan experiments with cutting-edge climate modeling, hoping it may …
The more you give, the richer you become that’s the philosophical idea behine the gift economy. It’s an idea that’s catching on. At the famous Burning Man festival in Nevada for instance money has no worth. In his book “The …
Amid an alarming surge in vaping among teenagers, Congress recently approved an unprecedented measure to curb tobacco and e-cigarette use nationwide, especially among teens.Congress voted to increase the legal age to buy tobacco and vape products from 18 to 21 …
What would it be like to attend a concert with thousands of other people without leaving your home? Matt Dibble dons a VR headset to find out …
A recent study has revealed an increase in violence against women and children resulting from the conflict in Yemen. Research by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies shows women and girls in Yemen have been affected by rape, kidnapping and …
A pro-independence group in Spain’s Catalonia region is using a smartphone app to outwit authorities, as it steps up demonstrations following the jailing of several of the movement’s leaders. The group Democratic Tsunami released the app to coordinate demonstrations …
The year 2019 saw a totally preventable disease claim the lives of more than 140,000 people, mostly children and babies. It happened as unvaccinated children created a pathway for measles outbreaks globally. Some of the outbreaks are still continuing.Samoan Emite …
This New Year’s Eve, an estimated 1 million people will pack the streets of New York City’s Times Square to watch the famous ball drop. It’s a tradition that dates back to 1907, as visitors from around the world gather …
Chinese experts are investigating an outbreak of respiratory illness in the central city of Wuhan that some have likened to the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic.The city’s health commission said in a statement Tuesday that 27 people had fallen ill with a …
Ride-share company Uber and on-demand meal delivery service Postmates sued Monday to block a broad new California law aimed at giving wage and benefit protections to people who work as independent contractors.The lawsuit filed in U.S. court in Los Angeles …
China’s Huawei Technologies said Tuesday that its sales rose a lower-than-projected 18% in 2019 and predicted tough times ahead as the U.S. moves to restrict its business.The flash sales estimate came in an annual New Year’s message to employees. Chairman …
Chancellor Angela Merkel is telling Germans in her New Year message that “everything humanly possible” must be done to tackle climate change.Merkel said that there is good reason to be confident about the 2020s in her annual televised message, the …
The first space race pitted the United States against what was then the Soviet Union for the bragging rights of being first in space travel. The space race of the 21st century is a quest by many to land the …
There’s no doubt that many people around the world see – in magazines and on social media – unrealistic beauty standards and end up feeling unhappy with how they look. But Jessamyn Stanley has never let her body image get …
Brazil’s Ministry of Justice said on Monday it has fined U.S. tech giant Facebook Inc 6.6 million reais ($1.6 million) for improperly sharing user data.The ministry’s department of consumer protection said it had found that data from 443,000 Facebook users …
The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says verified attacks on children in conflict have risen threefold since 2010, making the past decade particularly deadly for children. As the decade draws to a close, UNICEF reports children continue to pay a deadly …