As graduation approaches for university and college students in the United States, students are preparing for one of the most important milestones of their lives. But this year, COVID-19 has taken the pomp out of this year’s celebrations. Yanet Chernet explains, narrated by Kathleen Struck. …
Leave a commentTop House Republican Kevin McCarthy on Sunday publicly endorsed Rep. Elise Stefanik for the post of No. 3 leader, cementing party support of the Donald Trump loyalist over Rep. Liz Cheney, an outspoken critic of the former president for promoting discredited claims that the 2020 election was stolen. House Republicans could vote as early as Wednesday to remove Cheney, the highest-ranking woman in the Republican leadership and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and replace her with Stefanik, whose ascension has received Trump’s backing. Asked in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” whether he supported Stefanik, R-N.Y., for the job of Republican Conference chair,more
Leave a commentSome Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators continue to falsely claim that President Joe Biden’s climate plan will force Americans to eat far less red meat. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara looks at how burgers have become the latest battlefield in the country’s culture war. …
Leave a commentSome Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators continue to falsely claim that President Joe Biden’s climate plan will force Americans to eat far less red meat. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara looks at how burgers have become the latest battlefield in the country’s culture war. …
Leave a commentPresident Joe Biden is facing a fresh challenge to his oft-repeated commitment to diversity in his administration: assembling a diplomatic corps that gives a nod to key political allies and donors while staying true to a campaign pledge to appoint ambassadors who look like America. More than three months into his administration, Biden has put forward just 11 ambassador nominations and has more than 80 such slots to fill around the globe. Administration officials this week signaled that Biden is ready to ramp up ambassador nominations as the president prepares for foreign travel and turns greater attention to global effortsmore
Leave a commentTwitter confirmed Thursday that it pulled the plug on several accounts trying to skirt its ban on former President Donald Trump by promoting his blog posts. The ex-president launched a page on his website earlier this week promising comment “straight from the desk of Donald J Trump.” The page was made public just before Facebook’s independent oversight board on Wednesday upheld the platform’s ban on Trump. Twitter accounts with names playing on Trump themes and seeking to amplify the Trump website posts were taken offline, according to the platform. “As stated in our ban evasion policy, we’ll take enforcement action on accounts whose apparentmore
Leave a commentWorld leaders welcomed the Biden administration’s announced support for waiving patent restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines, the so-called TRIPS waiver, at the World Trade Organization. While this could be a breakthrough in the global fight against the pandemic, as White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, it’s just the first step in a long and complicated process. …
Leave a commentPoliticians usually prefer to pose and smile in front of public works projects of pride. U.S. President Joe Biden did the opposite on Thursday — holding photo opportunities with a poorly maintained bridge as the backdrop and then touring a decrepit water treatment plant, with cameras in tow.“We’re standing here in the shadow of the I-10 bridge, which I’ve gone over several times myself in the past. And it’s a perfect example how we’ve neglected as a nation to invest in the future of our economy and the future of our people,” said Biden in Lake Charles, Louisiana, after hemore
Leave a commentStudent journalists across 23 campuses of California State University have played a crucial role in keeping other students informed during the COVID pandemic. VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan reports that the student newsrooms are now linked through an online newswire, permitting students to pool resources and share information across the expansive state. …
Leave a commentFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed into law a voter restriction bill, making it the latest election battleground state in the south to adopt Republican-backed restrictions since the November presidential election. DeSantis and his fellow Republicans in the state legislature said the law was necessary to prevent voter fraud, despite the lack of voting irregularities last November. The new law restricts when ballot drop boxes can be used during an early voting period, who can retrieve ballots, and the number of ballots that can be collected. Voters requesting absentee ballots now face new identification requirements, andmore
Leave a commentIndian students in the United States say they feel helpless amid the massive wave of coronavirus infections back home.”I have very old grandparents and we just had one of my grandparents’ siblings die of COVID, so there is a lot of tension in the air with that,” said George Mason University senior Shabrina Parikh. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus. India’s second coronavirus wave has become a devastating crisis, with about 21 million cases and more than 230,000 deaths, according to the latest A man receives a dose of COVISHIELD, a coronavirus vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute of India,more
Leave a commentStudent journalists across 23 campuses of California State University have played a crucial role in keeping other students informed during the COVID pandemic. VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan reports that the student newsrooms are now linked through an online newswire, permitting students to pool resources and share information across the expansive state. …
Leave a commentStudent journalists across 23 campuses of California State University have played a crucial role in keeping other students informed during the COVID pandemic. VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan reports that the student newsrooms are now linked through an online newswire, permitting students to pool resources and share information across the expansive state. …
Leave a commentWhen the coronavirus pandemic struck New York City, LaGuardia Community College professor Lucia Fuentes assigned students in her honors biology class to compile all the information they could find about COVID-19. The result? An online multilingual brochure based on research from peer-reviewed journals, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that has become a valuable resource for immigrants in the United States and their families abroad. “Science is complicated and we have to make it more accessible,” Fuentes said. “This is why… I thought it would be a good thing for the students, and thatmore
Leave a commentA federal judge has ordered the release of a legal memorandum the Trump-era Justice Department prepared for then-Attorney General William Barr before he announced his conclusion that President Donald Trump had not obstructed justice during the Russia investigation. The Justice Department had refused to give the March 24, 2019, memorandum to a government transparency group that requested it under the Freedom of Information Act, saying the document represented the private advice of lawyers and was produced before any formal decision had been made and was therefore exempt from disclosure under public records law. But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson,more
Leave a commentU.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday there is growing concern among Republican lawmakers about the ability of Congresswoman Liz Cheney to lead the party’s caucus in the chamber while she continues to assail former President Donald Trump for inciting his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6. “I have heard from members concerned about her ability to carry out her job as conference chair, to carry out the message” supporting Republicans trying to win control of the House from Democrats in next year’s congressional elections, McCarthy told the Fox News Channel. FILE – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy,more
Leave a commentWith the first one hundred days of his presidency now behind him, Joe Biden faces formidable battles to pass the rest of his legislative agenda on Capitol Hill. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports on the obstacles Democrats face to pass nearly $4 trillion in legislation.Producer: Katherine Gypson …
Leave a commentU.S. President Joe Biden, who initially decided to keep intact his predecessor’s historically low number of annual refugee admissions, Monday announced he is quadrupling this year’s total. “I am revising the United States’ annual refugee admissions cap to 62,500 for this fiscal year,” the president said in a statement Monday afternoon. “This erases the historically low number set by the previous administration of 15,000, which did not reflect America’s values as a nation that welcomes and supports refugees. The new admissions cap will also reinforce efforts that are already under way to expand the United States’ capacity to admit refugees,more
Leave a commentPresident Joe Biden traveled Monday to coastal Virginia to promote his plans to increase spending on education and children, part of his $1.8 trillion families proposal announced last week. Visiting Tidewater Community College with first lady Jill Biden, the president discussed his $109 billion proposal to provide Americans with two years of tuition-free community college. He’s also seeking more than $80 billion for Pell Grants to help college affordability and $62 billion for programs that could improve completion rates at community colleges and institutions that predominantly serve disadvantaged students. The president said that education was the key to the country’s dominance andmore
Leave a commentFormer U.S. President Donald Trump lost his reelection contest to Democrat Joe Biden six months ago Monday, but he is still claiming he was cheated out of another term in the White House, leaving some Republican officials at odds with one another and Trump over the legitimacy of Biden’s victory.”The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!” Trump said in a new statement.The former president’s commentary from his Atlantic Ocean mansion in Florida appropriated the “big lie” sentiment his political opponents have used to describe his claims that he won. Trumpmore
Leave a commentThe U.S. Mission in Nigeria will prioritize student visa applications for Nigerians to ensure they are interviewed for their visa applications in time for their programs start date this fall, the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Nigeria said.The embassy in Abuja and consulate general in Lagos will assist student visa applications in a timely fashion while observing safety procedures because of COVID-19, the embassy stated in a press release April 30.”Time for me to bag that gender studies degree,” student Justin Irabor tweeted about getting to study in the U.S.time for me to bag that gender studies degree. https://t.co/cPfCgVzh3b —more
Leave a commentU.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken leaves for Europe on Sunday, where he will hold meetings in London and Kyiv.Blinken’s first stop will be London, where he will meet with the foreign secretaries from the Group of Seven countries. Later in the week, he will travel to Kyiv to show U.S. support for Ukraine’s government as it faces threats to its sovereignty from Russia.The meetings in London with the G-7 ministers are in preparation for the meeting of the G-7 leaders in June in Cornwall.The ministers are also expected to discuss their handling of challenges they are all facing, includingmore
Leave a commentPresident Joe Biden, once a regular Amtrak rider, helped the nation’s passenger rail system celebrate 50 years of service Friday.As a U.S. senator, Biden was a fixture on Amtrak trains between his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and Washington when the Senate was in session. He continued riding Amtrak as vice president. He has sometimes been referred to as “Amtrak Joe.”But with a presidential train trip challenging because of security concerns, Biden instead flew to Philadelphia for Amtrak’s celebration at its busy 30th Street Station. He was introduced by a conductor who worked the route when Biden was a regular passenger.more
Leave a commentFlorida’s Legislature on Thursday passed a bill that makes it harder to access drop boxes and mail-in ballots, the latest Republican-led state to push for what activists say is voter suppression.Republicans cite former President Donald Trump’s claims that President Joe Biden stole the November election as reasons for the sweeping measures. Judges discredited such claims, made without evidence, in more than 60 lawsuits that failed to overturn the election result.Democrats say the Republican measures are designed to lessen the impact of Black voters, whose heavy turnout helped propel Biden to victory and delivered Democrats two U.S. Senate victories in Georgiamore
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