The U.S. on Wednesday sanctioned companies in China, Russia and Singapore it says were violating the trade embargo with North Korea, Washington’s latest effort to keep pressure on Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons development. The U.S. Treasury accused China’s …
Now that plastic straws may be headed for extinction, could Americans’ love of balloons be deflated? The joyous celebration of releasing balloons into the air has long bothered environmentalists, who say the pieces that fall back to earth can be …
U.S. retail sales rose more than expected in July as households boosted purchases of motor vehicles and clothing, suggesting the economy remained strong early in the third quarter. Other data on Wednesday showed worker productivity growing at its fastest pace …
One American university is putting electronic voice-controlled assistants in every student housing room on campus. Saint Louis University recently announced it will equip every student living space with Amazon’s Alexa system. The school in St. Louis, Missouri, will place about …
How do you know if a piece of art is real or fake? Ask a scientist. At New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, chemistry, physics and geology are all playing a part in the detective work of determining whether a …
Only four ingredients are needed to make one of the oldest staples of mankind. Mix water, hops, malt and yeast and you’re well on your way to making beer. But as Sadie Witkowski reports, it’s the smallest ingredient in beer …
Turkey on Wednesday announced tariff hikes on a range of U.S. goods in the latest back-and-forth move amid a deteriorating relationship between the two countries. The extra tariffs apply to imports of vehicles, alcohol, coal, rice and cosmetics. Turkish Vice …
India will send a manned flight into space by 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Wednesday as part of India’s independence day celebrations. He said India will become the fourth country after Russia, the United States and China to achieve …
New Zealand school teachers went on strike on Wednesday for the first time in more than 20 years, challenging the Labor government’s plans to balance promised fiscal responsibility against growing demands to increase public sector salaries. The government’s first budget …
Tonga Prime Minister Akalisi Pohiva has called for China to write-off debts owed by Pacific island countries, warning that repayments impose a huge burden on the impoverished nations. Chinese aid in the Pacific has ballooned in recent years with much …
Hailstorms inflict billions of dollars’ worth of damage yearly in North America alone, and the cost will rise as the growing population builds more homes, offices and factories, climate and weather experts said Tuesday. The role of climate change in …
Nicaragua’s National Assembly on Tuesday approved a drastic cut to the national budget because of the economic impact of months of anti-government unrest. The lawmakers adopted a 9.2 percent reduction of the 2018 budget, projecting $180 million less in spending …
Last year, Brazilian farmer Gustavo Lopes sized up his sugar cane plantation against his soybean fields. He looked at global trends, including rising U.S.-China trade tensions and a stubborn sugar-market glut. Then he tore up the last of his cane …
Cuba’s government said it provided free internet to the Communist-run island’s more than 5 million cellphone users on Tuesday, in an eight-hour test before it launches sales of the service. Cuba is one of the Western Hemisphere’s least connected countries. …
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has started using the experimental mAb114 Ebola treatment to counter the latest flare-up of the virus, health officials said Tuesday, the first time it has been deployed against an active outbreak. Forty-two people are believed to have …
Tesla’s board named a special committee of three directors on Tuesday to evaluate possibly taking the electric carmaker private, although it said it had yet to see a firm offer from the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk. The Silicon Valley …
World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the raging conflict in North Kivu makes the Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo more dangerous than the historic 2014-2015 epidemic in West Africa. More than 11,000 people died from the Ebola …
Forty-one people have died in the latest outbreak of Ebola in DRC, health authorities said on Tuesday, adding that doctors were using a novel drug to treat patients. Out of 57 recorded cases as of Monday, 41 were fatal, the …
Vienna has dislodged Melbourne for the first time at the top of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index, strengthening the Austrian capital’s claim to being the world’s most pleasant city to live in. The two metropolises have been neck …
Venezuela’s heavily subsidized domestic gasoline prices should rise to international levels to avoid billions of dollars in annual losses due to fuel smuggling, President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised address on Monday. “Gasoline must be sold at an international …
Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday his administration will invest more than $11 billion to boost refining capacity in order to curb growing fuel imports. Lopez Obrador, who will take office on Dec. 1, told reporters his …
Turkey’s currency, the lira, continues to slide as the country’s central bank failed to halt the decline Monday. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the United States of purposely trying to damage his country’s economy. More from VOA’s Bill …
The world will soon have its first batch of commercially available 3-D-printed concrete homes. A consortium of the Dutch municipality of Eindhoven, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), and three private firms has joined forces to build five of these unique …
Animal-assisted therapy is a growing field that uses animals to help people recover from or better cope with health problems, such as heart disease, cancer and mental health disorders. While the most common therapy animal is dogs, the use of …