Last week, the PRESS Act, which aims to protect journalists from unnecessary government surveillance and being forced to reveal sources, failed to pass the U.S. Senate last week after being unanimously passed in the House. VOA Mandarin takes a look into the act, why it is being blocked and a case that highlights its importance.…
Thousands of Amazon.com workers will walk off the job on Thursday at 6 a.m. EST, in the crucial final days before Christmas, after union officials said the retailer failed to come to the bargaining table. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said unionized workers at facilities in New York City; Skokie, Illinois; Atlanta, San Francisco and…
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday called on U.S. lawmakers to reject a stopgap bill to keep the government funded past Friday, raising the likelihood of a partial shutdown. Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance called on lawmakers to pass a different temporary spending bill than the one unveiled on Tuesday, free from what they called…
NEW YORK — A Manhattan resident has pleaded guilty to helping establish a secret police station in New York City on behalf of the Chinese government. Chen Jinping, 60, entered the guilty plea on a single count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday. Matthew…
STATE DEPARTMENT — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a “substantive” face-to-face meeting Wednesday morning with Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has been selected by President-elect Donald Trump as his nominee for the next U.S. secretary of state. The meeting comes as Trump’s team prepares for the transition process. “It was a…
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday by a quarter-point — its third cut this year — but also signaled that it expects to reduce rates more slowly next year than it previously envisioned, largely because of still-elevated inflation. The Fed’s 19 policymakers projected that they would cut their benchmark rate…
WASHINGTON — The U.S. cybersecurity watchdog CISA is telling senior American government officials and politicians to immediately switch to end-to-end encrypted messaging following intrusions at major American telecoms blamed on Chinese hackers. In written guidance released on Wednesday, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said “individuals who are in senior government or senior political positions”…
GENEVA — International human and animal health experts warn the H5N1 avian influenza is evolving quickly and posing a global health threat as the virus is increasingly crossing species barriers and infecting a wide range of domestic and wild mammals. “These developments pose significant challenges to animal, human and environmental health,” Dr. Gregorio Torres, veterinarian…
WASHINGTON — Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell on Wednesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a bid by TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance to block a law intended to force the sale of the short-video app by January 19 or face a ban on national security grounds. The court has scheduled arguments…
WASHINGTON — The United States has transferred two Malaysian detainees at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. military prison to their home country after they pleaded guilty to charges related to deadly 2002 bombings in Bali and agreed to testify against the alleged ringleader of that and other attacks, the Pentagon said Wednesday. Prosecutors say Mohammed Farik…