Festive floats and giant balloons are on the move in New York City for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, an annual, nationally-televised spectacle. Blustery weather had threatened to ground the balloons, a crowd favorite not permitted to fly in strong winds. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio drew cheers from …
Marko Kepi, an Albanian-American activist, is heading a fundraising campaign to aid victims of Wednesday’s earthquake. …
Albanian Defense Minister Olta Xhacka becomes emotional while reading names of victims of the strongest earthquake to hit Albania in more than three decades. …
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law congressional legislation backing protesters in Hong Kong despite angry objections from Beijing, with which he is seeking a deal to end a damaging trade war. The new legislation, approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate and by all but one lawmaker in …
U.S. prosecutors have arrested a Hawaii man they accuse of sending hundreds of unwanted service providers and others to a Utah home, including plumbers and prostitutes. Loren Okamura was arrested Friday in Hawaii following his indictment last month on charges of cyberstalking, interstate threats and transporting people for prostitution, court …
Pennsylvania enacted legislation Tuesday to give future victims of child sexual abuse more time to file lawsuits and to end time limits for police to file criminal charges. Gov. Tom Wolf signed new laws he said will help repair “faults in our justice system that prevent frightened, abused children from …
Donald Trump on Tuesday followed a White House Thanksgiving tradition by pardoning “Butter,” the turkey, and his alternate, “Bread.” The president also honored his own tradition of cracking jokes while granting clemency to the poultry. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story. …
Pope Francis on Tuesday closed his visit to Japan by telling students at a Catholic university of the need to work toward a “hope-filled future” that is more inclusive by addressing the disconnects in society. In his address at Sophia University, the pope said he sensed in Japan a desire …
The majority of Americans, including a growing share of moderate Republicans, are dissatisfied with U.S. government efforts to curb global warming, researchers said on Monday. In a survey by the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based non-partisan think-tank, two-thirds of Americans said U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration was “doing too little” …
Russia faces a four-year ban from global sporting events, including next year’s Tokyo Olympics, because of a continued failure to cooperate with anti-doping investigators. The ban recommendation made Tuesday by the compliance panel of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), came after investigators found evidence of a further drug cover-up by …
Activists on Monday criticized as insufficient new French government efforts to fight one of Europe’s highest rates of so-called femicides, or the killing of women by their partners. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Monday announced millions of dollars in measures to protect women from spousal killings. They include beefing …
Got secrets? They’ll be safe in here. VOA Explains what a SCIF is. …
Kosovo prosecutors have filed terrorism charges against three women repatriated from Syria for allegedly joining terror groups there. Prosecutors said Monday that the three women had left Kosovo in 2013, 2014 and 2015 to join the Islamic State group in Syria and Al-Nusra in Iraq. Spouses of two …
In the parts of Beirut where protesters camp out, financial institutions remained shuttered this week, with cartoons of pigs with dollar-sign eyes spray-painted on the walls next to graffiti calling for revolution. In other parts of the city, the banks cautiously reopened, after being mostly closed for more than a …
President Donald Trump was to pay respects Thursday to a pair of Army officers who were killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Trump has said the responsibility of receiving the remains of fallen U.S. soldiers is “the toughest thing I have to do” as president. As the final day …
One of the Islamic State’s most feared affiliates has suffered a significant setback, though U.S. officials caution reports that the terror group was “obliterated” are overblown. U.S. officials confirmed Thursday that Islamic State-Khorasan, as the terror group’s Afghan affiliate is called, collapsed in the country’s eastern Nangarhar province following …
The fifth Democratic presidential candidate debates took place Wednesday in Atlanta. The candidates answered questions on a range of issues, including the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, foreign policy and health care. Here are some comments from each candidate: Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the U.S. Democratic presidential …
Susan Choi’s novel “Trust Exercise,” in which a high school romance is spun out into a web of memories and perspectives, has won the National Book Award for fiction. Sarah M. Broom’s family memoir “The Yellow House” won in nonfiction and Martin W. Sandler’s “1919 The Year That Changed America” …
Wednesday was the most explosive day yet in the House impeachment hearings and perhaps a crucial moment for the Trump White House when U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland testified that there was a quid pro quo between President Donald Trump and Ukraine. Trump has been denying allegations that …
U.S. Democrats hold their fifth presidential debate Wednesday in Atlanta, Georgia. Ten Democratic contenders will debate each other in a presidential race that of late has been largely overshadowed by the impeachment drama in Washington involving President Donald Trump. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more on the Democratic race …
From 2008 on, Vietnam was mostly protected from the global financial crisis, not because its banks were stronger than the U.S. banks that created the crisis, but because it was less integrated into global trade back then. More than a decade later, Vietnam does far more trade with foreign countries …
Amnesty International says Iranian security forces have killed at least 106 people in nationwide anti-government protests since Friday, four times the death toll of Iran’s last mass protests two years ago. In a Tuesday interview with VOA Persian, the London-based rights group’s Iran researcher Raha Bahreini said Amnesty determined that …
DARPA, the main research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Defense, is funding researchers to develop wearable devices that would have military applications such as using the mind to control unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs, commonly known as drones. Instead of using brain implants to achieve this, DARPA …
Google’s head of philanthropy says the company is having “a lot of conversations” internally amid worries about the tech giant’s bottomless appetite for consumer data and how it uses its algorithms. Vice President Jacqueline Fuller wouldn’t comment on specific data privacy controversies dogging Google lately, but says she …
The U.S. House of Representatives is holding its second week of public hearings on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump with testimony by eight aides and officials, including the top diplomat to the European Union, Tuesday through Thursday. Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, and Lt. …
When President Donald Trump boarded Air Force One to fly to a Kentucky campaign rally two weeks ago, a plan was in place for him to give final approval to a plan to ban most flavored e-cigarettes. By the time Trump landed back at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington a …