Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the Booker Prize on Monday for his second novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, about a dead war photographer on a mission in the afterlife. Karunatilaka received a trophy from Queen Consort Camilla …
Karim Benzema won the men’s Ballon d’Or for the first time on Monday after a brilliant season with Real Madrid capped by the Champions League and Spanish league titles. The 34-year-old Benzema had his best season ever at Madrid, being …
Long distance runners rely on endurance, determination and the ability to see. Today, steps are being taken to help runners with disabilities, including those who are blind or partially sighted, to compete. Andri Tambunan reports for VOA in this report …
Relentless drought in China, East Africa, the U.S. West and northern Mexico, devastating floods in Pakistan and Kentucky, scorching heat waves in Europe and the Pacific Northwest, destructive cyclones in southern Africa and intense hurricanes in the U.S. and Central …
The rapper formerly known as Kanye West is offering to buy right-wing friendly social network Parler shortly after being booted off Twitter and Instagram for antisemitic posts. Parlement Technologies, which owns the platform, and West, legally known as Ye, said …
The members of K-pop band BTS will serve their mandatory military duties under South Korean law, their management company said Monday, effectively ending a debate on exempting them because of their artistic accomplishments. Big Hit Music said the band’s oldest …
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says it will commit $1.2 billion to the effort to end polio worldwide. The money will be used to help implement the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s strategy through 2026. The initiative is trying to …
Elon Musk said Saturday his rocket company, SpaceX, would continue to fund its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, citing the need for “good deeds,” a day after he said it could no longer afford to do so. Musk tweeted: “the …
Sitting on a 7,000-hectare stretch of land in southwest Florida, Babcock Ranch has made a name for itself as the first solar-powered town in the United States. Its power comes from nearly 700,000 solar panels that supply energy to more than …
Basketball Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo is undergoing treatment in Atlanta for a brain tumor, the NBA announced Saturday. Mutombo has been one of the NBA’s global ambassadors for years, and recently appeared at Hall of Fame enshrinement events in …
Two women have been charged with criminal damage after climate change protesters threw soup on Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery, British police said Saturday. A video posted by the Just Stop Oil campaign group, which has …
An Iranian filmmaker said the Islamic republic barred him from travelling to the London Film Festival over his support for the protest movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini that he called a “great moment in history.” “I was …
In a remote village in India, a siren can be heard from the local temple every night at 7 p.m. — signaling the commencement of a daily “digital detox.” For the next 90 minutes, the population of 3,000 in Sangli …
Astronomers have observed the brightest flash of light ever seen, from an event that occurred 2.4 billion light-years from Earth and was likely triggered by the formation of a black hole. The burst of gamma rays — the most intense …
Robbie Coltrane, the baby-faced comedian and character actor whose hundreds of roles included a crime-solving psychologist on the TV series “Cracker” and the gentle half-giant Hagrid in the “Harry Potter” movies, has died. He was 72. Coltrane’s agent, Belinda Wright, …
Cybersecurity experts say that the October 10 attack on at least 14 U.S. airport websites, including those in Los Angeles and Chicago, appears to be the work of the Russian hacking group Killnet. As Mike O’Sullivan reports, the disruptions were …
Young researchers and students are competing in a disaster challenge at a natural hazards forum in the Australian city of Brisbane. The government-funded organization Natural Hazards Research Australia has said more Australians “than ever before are exposed to the damage …
Europe faces a higher-than-usual chance of a cold blast of weather before the end of the year, but the winter overall is likely to be warmer than average, the continent’s long-range weather forecaster said Thursday. Temperatures this winter will be …
Still, just 6.9% of those eligible have gotten the omicron-tailored vaccine …
A monkeypox outbreak has been confirmed in the town of Mbonge, health authorities in Cameroon say, but armed separatists are preventing workers from investigating suspected cases. Cameroon government officials say health workers have been deployed to the districts of Kumba …
Taiwan lifted all its COVID-19 entry restrictions Thursday, allowing tourists unfettered access to the self-ruled island after more than 2 1/2 years of border controls. Hong Kong and Taiwan, together with mainland China, required most visitors to complete a mandatory …
As Australia prepares to end mandatory coronavirus isolation rules Friday, new research shows that almost a third of adults have had symptoms of long COVID. In Canberra, a parliamentary health committee has heard clinics are being contacted by more patients …
Early in World War II, the U.S. Navy battled Nazi U-boats off the East Coast of the United States in an area that came to be known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” For VOA, Genia Dulot takes us on …
Case numbers in the global monkeypox outbreak have now topped 70,000, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced Wednesday as it warned that a decline in new cases did not mean people should drop their guard. The WHO said that case …