Some countries depend heavily on fossil fuels for power, including the Philippines. But now a kind of solar energy “flower” is among the clean power alternatives there. The Smartflower can produce 40 percent more energy than a traditional rooftop solar design. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more about it. …
Detroit, Michigan, knows hardship and recovery. One of the hardest hit areas in the country during the Great Recession, the Midwestern Rust Belt city has since found an ingredient to its economic revitalization through empowerment of its immigrant communities. But not everyone is convinced that the solution is viable or …
Around the world, support is growing for electric cars. Automakers are delivering more electric models with longer range and lower prices, such as the Chevrolet Bolt and the Tesla Model 3. China has set aggressive targets for electric vehicle sales to curb pollution; some European countries aim to be all-electric …
U.S. President Donald Trump will call Monday for his chief trade adviser to investigate China’s intellectual property practices, the website Politico reported, citing an unnamed administration official. Trump had been expected to order a so-called Section 301 investigation under the 1974 Trade Act earlier this month, but action had been …
U.S. stock market indexes posted gains in Friday’s trading, a change in direction after several down days amid tensions between President Donald Trump and North Korea. In New York, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and the Dow Jones industrial average each advanced about one-tenth of a percentage point, while …
Rising tensions between the United States and North Korea brought a wave of falling stock prices recently as worried investors moved money out of equities and into the perceived safety of gold, Swiss currency and similar products. At one point, this change of investment strategy cut $1 trillion from the …
U.S. electric car manufacturer Tesla is close to testing a long-haul self-driving electric truck that could drive in convoys following a lead vehicle. The company is reportedly also in contact with Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles about the possibility of testing the truck on the state’s roads. Earlier this year …
Google’s workforce needs to “represent the world in totality,” said Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, at an international girls coding competition held on the company’s campus here Thursday night. His comments come as the search engine giant grapples with a high profile internal debate over the number and influence of …
Israel has been known as the land of milk and honey since Biblical times – but the land of single malt whiskey? One appropriately named distillery is trying to turn Israel into a whiskey powerhouse. Smooth, honey-brown whiskey is not the first thing that comes to mind when most people …
Researchers in the United States have unveiled a prototype of a battery-free mobile phone using technology they hope will eventually be integrated into mass-market products. The phone is the work of a group of researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle and operates by harvesting tiny amounts of power …
Four U.S. Senate Republicans from oil-refining states Thursday urged the Trump administration not to block oil shipments from Venezuela as part of U.S. sanctions against the country, saying it could raise costs for U.S. fuel consumers. The United States sanctioned President Nicolas Maduro and other Venezuelan officials after Maduro established …
Arctic fjords that hid Soviet nuclear-powered submarines during the Cold War are now being used as a weapon in the sanctions war with Europe – to rear fish that Russia can no longer import. Three years ago, Russia banned food imports from the West in response to a series of …
Artificial intelligence robots are turbocharging the race to find new drugs for the crippling nerve disorder ALS, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease. The condition attacks and kills nerve cells controlling muscles, leading to weakness, paralysis and, ultimately, respiratory failure. There are only two drugs approved by the U.S. Food and …
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis kicked off his first official visit to the U.S. technology industry on Thursday with a tour of Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, the first stop on a two-day outreach campaign intended to highlight the Pentagon’s commitment to tech innovation. Mattis was scheduled to visit Mountain View, …
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has determined there is reasonable cause that the civil rights of Somali-American Muslims were violated when agri-business giant Cargill refused to allow them to pray at a meatpacking plant it owns in the western state of Colorado. The finding was reached almost two years …
A hundred teenage girls from seven countries are gathered in Malawi for a ‘Women in Science’ camp. Lameck Masina has the story from the Malawi University of Science and Technology in the Thyolo district of southern Malawi. …
U.S. lawmakers will have three weeks to raise America’s $20 trillion borrowing limit and avert a potential debt default when Congress gets back to work next month — the first such deadline to occur during the Trump administration. If recent history is a guide, raising the debt ceiling will be …
Egypt’s official statistics agency says the country’s inflation rate has jumped to 33 percent in July – up from 29.8 percent in June. The announcement comes as Egyptians struggle in the face of steep price hikes as part of the government’s economic reform plan. The Central Agency for Public …
A Chinese law firm has filed a complaint against Apple on behalf of 28 local developers alleging the firm breached antitrust regulations. The complaint, lodged by Beijing-based Dare & Sure Law Firm, accuses Apple of charging excessive fees and removing apps from its local store without proper explanation, Lin Wei, …
China has sent an unbreakable code from a satellite to the Earth, marking the first time space-to-ground quantum key distribution technology has been realized, state media said Thursday. China launched the world’s first quantum satellite last August, to help establish “hack-proof” communications, a development the Pentagon has called a “notable …
Facebook on Wednesday made its biggest move to date to compete in the television market by expanding its video offerings with programming ranging from professional women’s basketball to a safari show and a parenting program. The redesigned product, called “Watch,” will be available initially to a limited group in the …
The extreme volatility of Venezuela’s exchange rate has the crisis-hit country’s shop owners hurriedly marking up their merchandise and consumers balking at the higher price tags. Just last week, the bolivar currency fell around 70 percent on the black market, according to DolarToday, the opaque U.S.-based website that dictates the …
The Trump administration’s decision on Wednesday to slap sanctions on eight members of Venezuela’s all-powerful constitutional assembly brings to 30 the number of government loyalists targeted for human rights abuses and violations of democratic norms since anti-government protests began in April. But even as the list of targeted individuals grows …
China’s new military and logistical base in Djibouti has put other foreign powers on edge, but observers believe China’s strategy in the region is more about economic growth than military might. After months of anticipation since announcing plans for its first foreign base, China opened what it calls a logistical …
An artist tired of seeing hateful tweets ignored by Twitter has managed to get the social network to remove or hide some of them — by spray-painting the offending posts in front of the company’s German headquarters. Shahak Shapira said he reported some 300 tweets containing possible illegal content to …
A former Google software engineer, who wrote an internal memo criticizing the company’s diversity policies, has filed a labor complaint, saying he was wrongfully fired. In a statement emailed to news agencies, James Damore said he filed the complaint with the National Labor Relations Board prior to his termination and …