Microsoft said Thursday that it would team up with communities in six U.S. states to invest in technology and related jobs in rural and smaller metropolitan areas. Company President Brad Smith launched the TechSpark program Thursday in Fargo, a metropolitan area of more than 200,000 people that includes a Microsoft …
Oil and natural gas operators began evacuating staff and halting production at U.S. Gulf of Mexico platforms Thursday ahead of Tropical Storm Nate, the second storm in as many months to rattle the Gulf Coast energy corridor. Nate, which has killed at least 10 people in Costa Rica and Nicaragua …
Transgender people are no longer protected by federal civil rights laws banning workplace discrimination, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday. In a memo to federal prosecutors, Sessions wrote that it is a matter of “law, not policy,” that the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not extend to gender identity. The …
Congressional Republicans moved to hasten an overhaul of the U.S. tax code on Thursday, while Federal Reserve officials warned in rare public remarks that President Donald Trump’s tax plan could lead to inflation and unsustainable federal debt. In a procedural step forward, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved by a …
As electric-powered cars are rapidly gaining popularity, the last frontier in private transportation is also opening up to alternative, eco-friendly power. Thanks to advances in battery and electric motor technology, several manufacturers are experimenting with light planes that are quiet, easy to maintain and cheap to fly. VOA’s George Putic …
General Motors’s self-driving unit, Cruise Automation, has more than doubled the size of its test fleet of robot cars in California during the past three months, a GM spokesman said on Wednesday. As the company increases the size of its test fleet, it has also reported more run-ins between its …
At 52 years old, with two grown children, Newton Gunathileka thought he should be working less by this point. Instead he has never worked so hard — and earned so little. Gunathileka, from the Sri Lankan village of Periyakulam, in the North Western Puttalam District, is among hundreds of thousands …
Greece welcomed Wednesday a decision by senior archaeologists to conditionally permit a major tourism project in Athens, saying it cleared the way for the country to turn the site into one of Europe’s biggest coastal resorts. The 8-billion-euro ($9.4 billion) project to develop the disused Hellenikon airport site is a …
Horse manure will generate electricity for an international horse show in Finland this month in a new form of alternative energy, Finnish utility Fortum said Wednesday. It said the Helsinki horse show in mid-October will be the first at which the event’s electricity needs, from scoreboards to lighting, are met …
South Korea indicated Wednesday it was open to talks on revising a 2012 trade pact with the United States after initial differences that followed President Donald Trump’s threat to terminate the accord unless it was renegotiated. After a day of talks in Washington, South Korea’s trade ministry said in a …
Yahoo on Tuesday said that all 3 billion of its accounts were hacked in a 2013 data theft, tripling its earlier estimate of the size of the largest breach in history, in a disclosure that attorneys said sharply increased the legal exposure of its new owner, Verizon Communications. The news …
Ford Motor Co.’s new CEO plans to cut $14 billion in costs, drop some car models and focus the company’s resources on trucks, SUVs and electric vehicles as part of a renewed effort to win over skeptical investors. Jim Hackett, who became Ford’s CEO in May, met with around 100 …
North Korea’s U.N. ambassador accused the United States on Tuesday of imposing “an economic blockade” on his country and deploying nuclear assets on the Korean Peninsula aimed at toppling leader Kim Jong Un. Ja Song Nam said the U.S. push for countries to implement what he called “illegal and unjustifiable” …
The recovery of eastern Caribbean islands hardest hit by recent hurricanes, including Dominica, Barbuda, Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands and Anguilla, could cost up to $1 billion, a senior U.N. official said Tuesday. “It’s going to be a large-scale rebuilding effort that will take time,” said Stephen O’Malley, …
The mass shooting in Las Vegas, in which at least 59 people were killed and more than 500 injured, was the saddest day ever recorded on Twitter, according to Hedonometer, a tool that measures sentiment on social media platforms. The barometer, which measures the happiness of millions of Twitter users …
The European Court of Justice has been asked to consider whether Facebook’s Dublin-based subsidiary can legally transfer users’ personal data to its U.S. parent, after Ireland’s top court said Tuesday that there are “well-founded concerns” the practice violates European law. In a case brought after former U.S. defense contractor Edward …
The European Union insisted Tuesday that Brexit negotiations with Britain will not move on to the question of future relations until enough progress has been made on divorce issues, such as how much the country’s exit bill should be. Britain desperately wants talks to move on to future trade and …
After several years of struggling to make a living doing odd jobs in and around his village, 26-year-old Pushkar Singh came to New Delhi from the northern Uttarakhand state three months ago to hunt for a job. The high school dropout is willing to do anything — cook, work as a …
With more and more consumers shopping online, do brick-and-mortar stores stand a chance? At a pop-up shop in New York City, the future of retail is about embracing digital trends rather than resisting them. VOA reporter Tina Trinh explains. …
Google is ending a decade-old policy that required publishers to provide some free stories to Google users — though it’s not clear how many readers will even notice, at least for the moment. Publishers had been required to provide at least three free stories a day under the search engine’s …
Even though gasoline-powered SUVs are what people are buying now, General Motors is betting that electric vehicles will be all the rage in the not-to-distant future. The Detroit automaker is promising two new EVs on Chevrolet Bolt underpinnings in the next 1 ½ years and more than 20 electric or …
Facebook Inc plans to hire 1,000 more people to review ads and ensure they meet its terms, as part of an effort to deter Russia and other countries from using the social media network to interfere in others’ elections, it said on Monday. Facebook said last month that it believed …
U.S. factory activity surged to a more than 13-year high in September amid strong gains in new orders and raw material prices, pointing to underlying strength in the economy even as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are expected to dent growth in the third quarter. The economic outlook was also bolstered …
In most of the world, more men are connected to the internet than women. But in Africa, this gender gap has been widening, according to ITU, the U.N. agency tracking the ICT sector. Nanjira Sambuli, who works with the World Wide Web Foundation in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, …
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a bid by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. to force customers who have filed proposed class-action lawsuits against the company to arbitrate their claims instead of bringing them to court. The justices left intact a lower court’s ruling that purchasers of certain …
Social media giant Facebook is expected to provide Congress on Monday with more than 3,000 ads that ran around the time of the 2016 presidential election and are linked to a Russian ad agency. Company officials will meet with the House and Senate intelligence committees and the Senate Judiciary Committee …