Defense ministers from the United States, Australia, Japan and the Philippines met for a second round of quadrilateral talks in less than a year this week amid further aggression from the Chinese military. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports on the allies' growing military ties. [Read more]
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden has called for the release of all imprisoned journalists — including three American reporters — who have been jailed over their work, in a Friday statement commemorating World Press Freedom Day.
“Journalism should not be a crime anywhere on Earth,' Biden said in the statement. “On World P [Read more]
NASA may soon have another way to get astronauts into space. Plus, the agency reconnects with an old friend and how to train a dog for a walk ... on the moon. VOA's Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. [Read more]
phoenix — Democratic Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has relegated a Civil War-era ban on most abortions to the past by signing a bill Thursday to repeal it.
Hobbs said the move was just the beginning of a fight to protect reproductive health care in Arizona. The repeal of the 1864 law that the state Supreme Court recently reinstated [Read more]
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China on Friday launched a lunar probe to land on the far side of the moon and return with samples that could provide insights into differences between the less-explored region and the better-known near side.
It is the latest advance in China's increasingly sophisticated space exploration program, which is now compet [Read more]
A majority of younger voters in this U.S. presidential election say they wish they had someone other than Joe Biden or Donald Trump to choose from. Some of that has to do with the candidates' ages. But who are the younger voters backing one of the two? VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns reports. [Read more]
"Threats to democracy" have overtaken the economy and immigration as the chief concern of U.S. voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to a recent Ipsos poll. VOA's Veronica Balderas Iglesias breaks down the results. [Read more]
Seoul, South Korea — South Korean calls to acquire nuclear weapons, which were subdued for the past year following steps to strengthen the U.S.-South Korea alliance, are once again bubbling to the surface ahead of the possible return of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump, who appears locked in a tight race with President Joe B [Read more]
WASHINGTON — Hackers who breached UnitedHealth's tech unit in February potentially stole data from a third of Americans, the largest U.S. health insurer's CEO told a congressional committee on Wednesday.
Two congressional panels grilled CEO Andrew Witty about the cyberattack on the company's Change Healthcare unit, which processes ar [Read more]
STAVANGER, Norway — A convicted sex offender is asking the Norwegian Supreme Court to declare social media access is a human right.
The case before the court Thursday involves a man who molested a minor and used the Snapchat messaging app to connect with young boys.
The unnamed offender was sentenced last year to 13 months in priso [Read more]
Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine has an AI-generated spokesperson called Victoria who will make official statements on behalf of its foreign ministry.
The ministry said on Wednesday that it would "for the first time in history" use a digital spokesperson to read its statements, which will still be written by humans.
Dressed in a dark suit, [Read more]
islamabad — Pakistan on Friday witnessed the launch of its first lunar satellite aboard China's historic mission to retrieve samples from the little explored far side of the moon in a technologically collaborative mission that signals deepening ties between the countries.
China's largest rocket, a Long March-5, blasted off from the W [Read more]
Washington — U.S. consumers appear less optimistic about the jobs market and more worried about future financial conditions, bringing a closely watched confidence metric to its lowest level since July 2022, a survey showed Tuesday.
The consumer confidence index fell to 97.0 in April, said The Conference Board, significantly below the [Read more]
The average income of people around the world will be cut by one-fifth because of climate change by the middle of the century, according to a new report by Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published in the journal Nature. Henry Ridgwell has more. [Read more]
WASHINGTON — The nation's employers pulled back on their hiring in April but still added a decent 175,000 jobs in a sign that persistently high interest rates may be starting to slow the robust U.S. job market.
Friday's government report showed that last month's hiring gain was down sharply from the blockbuster increase of 315,000 [Read more]
