An underground Catholic movement started in 2002 with the secret ‘ordination’ of seven women in Germany by official male bishops. The movement has grown to 250 women globally, despite the Catholic Church’s rules preventing women from becoming priests. VOA senior …
U.S. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will host a Hanukkah reception at the White House Monday evening. There will be a menorah lighting and the menorah, created by the Whie House carpentry shop, will become the first …
More than half of 17.5 million users who responded to a poll that asked whether billionaire Elon Musk should step down as head of Twitter voted yes when the poll closed on Monday. There was no immediate announcement from Twitter, …
“Avatar: The Way of Water ” didn’t make quite as big of a splash as many assumed it would, but James Cameron’s big budget spectacle still helped breathe life into the box office this weekend. The sequel earned $134 million …
Twitter users will no longer be able to link to certain rival social media websites, including what the company described Sunday as “prohibited platforms” Facebook, Instagram and Mastodon. It’s the latest move by Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk to crack …
When Igor Ponochevny drew his first political cartoon, he was living in Russia and working at a bank. Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014 inspired him to draw under the pen name Alyosha Stupin. VOA Russian spoke with …
Hollywood Cat is no longer. The Los Angeles area’s most famous mountain lion, an aged wild male feline sighted around the city’s Griffith Park, was euthanized Saturday, wildlife officials said. For years, it was known to prowl around the hillside …
A prominent video game creator who helped lead Facebook’s expansion into virtual reality has resigned from the social networking service’s corporate parent after becoming disillusioned with the way the technology is being managed. John Carmack cut his ties with Meta …
Uganda on Saturday lifted a two-month lockdown on two districts at the epicenter of the country’s Ebola epidemic, amid cautious hope that the outbreak could end soon. Since authorities declared an Ebola outbreak Sept. 20, the East African nation has …
Taiwan’s government said on Saturday it would fine Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, for an unauthorized investment in a Chinese chip maker even after the Taiwanese firm said it would be selling the stake. Taiwan has turned a …
Negotiators at a United Nations biodiversity conference Saturday have still not resolved most of the key issues around protecting the world’s nature by 2030 and providing tens of billions of dollars to developing countries to fund those efforts. The United …
Outside a funeral home in eastern Beijing, dozens of people were bundled up in parkas and hats against the freezing temperatures Friday evening as workers in full protective suits wheeled out coffins one by one. When an employee with a …
he World Health Organization warns billions of people who lack access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene are at risk of deadly infectious diseases. The finding appears in the WHO and U.N.-Water’s Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and …
The World Health Organization says climate change is behind an unprecedented surge in the number of cholera outbreaks around the world this year. At least 30 countries have reported outbreaks of the deadly disease this year, about a third higher …
China is spending $143 billion to combat U.S. moves to cut off its supply of semiconductor technology. The funds will be used to provide financial subsidies and incentives to help China’s chipmakers develop and acquire semiconductor technology to withstand the …
VOA chief national correspondent Steve Herman was among several journalists to be suspended from Twitter late Thursday. Followers of the former White House bureau chief’s Twitter account were greeted with a blank screen and message saying, “Account suspended.” Accounts for …
Russian and NASA engineers were assessing a coolant leak on Thursday from a Soyuz crew capsule docked with the International Space Station that could have been caused by a micrometeorite strike. Dramatic NASA TV images showed white particles resembling snowflakes …
The United States is monitoring for new coronavirus variants as it braces for a potential outbreak of COVID-19 infections following Beijing’s easing of strict controls that kept the pandemic at bay in China. “We have a very robust surveillance program …
China raced to vaccinate its most vulnerable people on Thursday in anticipation of waves of COVID-19 infections, with some analysts expecting the death toll to soar after it eased strict controls that had kept the pandemic at bay for three …
A week after China dramatically eased its three-year-long zero-COVID policy of lockdowns and near-daily PCR testing, the country is experiencing its biggest wave of COVID-19 infections since the pandemic began in 2020. But Ray Yip, an American epidemiologist and a …
National Health Service nurses in Britain will strike on Thursday in their first-ever national walkout as a bitter dispute with the government over pay ramps up pressure on already-stretched hospitals at one of the busiest times of year. An estimated …
What’s a dust devil sound like on Mars? A NASA rover by chance had its microphone on when a whirling tower of red dust passed directly overhead, recording the racket. It’s about 10 seconds of not only rumbling gusts of …
Eddie Murphy will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 80th Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced Wednesday. The honorary award for the comedian and actor adds to a broadcast that’s taking shape after two years of …
A hacker who reportedly posed as the chief executive of a financial institution claims to have obtained access to the more than 80,000-member database of InfraGard, an FBI-run outreach program that shares sensitive information on national security and cybersecurity threats …