USA

FOREST RANCH, California — Fire crews worked Tuesday to hold on to the progress made against the largest blaze in California this year ahead of warming temperatures forecast for later this week.  Authorities said containment was 14% and lifted evacuation orders in some communities of Butte County, where the Park Fire started last week before spreading to a neighboring county and scorching an area bigger than …

Washington — In the moments before NASA’s DART spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos in a landmark planetary defense test in 2022, it took high-resolution images of this small celestial object and its larger companion Didymos.  These images have enabled scientists to unravel the complicated history of these two rocky bodies located in the vicinity of Earth and gain insight into the formation of what are …

BILLINGS, Montana — At least 973 Native American children died in the U.S. government’s abusive boarding school system, according to the results of an investigation released Tuesday by officials who called on the government to apologize for the schools. The investigation commissioned by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland found marked and unmarked graves at 65 of the more than 400 U.S. boarding schools that were established to …

Access to abortion is one of the main topics in this year’s U.S. presidential race. The Kamala Harris campaign is betting on support for abortion rights driving voters to the polls in November, while Donald Trump and the Republican party have toned down their anti-abortion public stances on the matter. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has more. …

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MORAINE, Ohio — A Chinese automotive glass maker says it was not the target of a federal investigation that temporarily shut down production last week at its Ohio plant, the subject of the Oscar-winning Netflix film “American Factory.”  The investigation was focused on money laundering, potential human smuggling, labor exploitation and financial crimes, Homeland Security agent Jared Murphey said Friday.  Fuyao Glass America said authorities told …

Washington — President Joe Biden, who belatedly opted against seeking reelection, will pay a visit on Monday to the library of the last president to make the same difficult choice, more than a half-century ago. Biden’s speech Monday at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, is designed to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, enacted under President Lyndon Johnson. While there, he’ll …

washington — After President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the Democratic nominee, Republicans quickly focused on Harris and her work on immigration issues, calling her a “border czar.” Congressman Guy Reschenthaler, a Republican from Pennsylvania, said at a House Rules Committee hearing Tuesday that Biden appointed Harris as the border czar 64 …

The construction industry is finding new uses for artificial intelligence. In a multi-story building project in the northwestern U.S. city of Seattle, autonomous robots are tasked with documenting progress and detecting potential hazards. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya has the story. …

Washington — President Joe Biden is unveiling a long-awaited proposal for changes at the U.S. Supreme Court, calling on Congress to establish term limits and an ethics code for the court’s nine justices. He also is pressing lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment that would limit presidential immunity.  The White House on Monday detailed the contours of Biden’s court proposal, one that appears to have little …

BEIJING — Joint statements between the United States and Japan “falsely accuse” China on maritime issues and point fingers at its normal military development and defense policy, China’s foreign ministry said on Monday. The ministry’s comment followed the U.S. and Japan’s criticism of what they called Beijing’s “provocative” behavior in the South and East China Seas, joint military exercises with Russia and the rapid expansion of …

DEARBORN, Mich — Osama Siblani’s phone won’t stop ringing. Just days after President Joe Biden withdrew his bid for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, top officials from both major political parties have been asking the publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News if Harris can regain the support of the nation’s largest Muslim population located in metro Detroit. His …

MESCALERO, New Mexico — Anne Marie Brillante never imagined she would have to choose between being Apache and being Catholic. To her, and many others in the Mescalero Apache tribe in New Mexico who are members of St. Joseph Apache Mission, their Indigenous culture had always been intertwined with faith. Both are sacred. “Hearing we had to choose, that was a shock,” said a tearful Brillante, …

New York — A manipulated video that mimics the voice of Vice President Kamala Harris saying things she did not say is raising concerns about the power of artificial intelligence to mislead with Election Day about three months away. The video gained attention after tech billionaire Elon Musk shared it on his social media platform X on Friday evening without explicitly noting it was originally released …

CHADDS FORD, Pa. — At first glance, it looks like an aerial photo of a cemetery destroyed by war, with charred coffins ripped from broken concrete vaults and arched marble tombstones flattened by a bomb blast. Then, the viewer begin to discern details: the coffins and vaults are actually parts of a keyboard. Instead of names and dates, the apparent tombstones are inscribed with words like …

HOUSTON — The gold bikini-style costume that Carrie Fisher wore as Princess Leia while making “Return of the Jedi” in the “Star Wars” franchise has sold for $175,000, according to the auction house that handled the sale. The costume was made famous when Fisher wore it at the start of the 1983 film when Leia was captured by Jabba the Hutt at his palace on Tatooine …

Forest Ranch, California — Wildfires across the western United States and Canada put millions of people under air quality alerts Sunday as thousands of firefighters battled the flames, including the largest wildfire in California this year. The so-called Park Fire had scorched more than 1,430 square kilometers of land in inland Northern California as of Sunday morning, darkening the sky with smoke and haze and contributing …

LOS ANGELES — Billions of dollars have been spent on efforts to get homeless people off the streets in California, but outdated computer systems with error-filled data are all too often unable to provide even basic information like where a shelter bed is open on any given night, inefficiencies that can lead to dire consequences. The problem is especially acute in Los Angeles, where more than …

TOKYO — The United States announced plans Sunday for a major revamp of its military command in Japan to deepen coordination with its ally’s forces, as the two countries labeled China the “greatest strategic challenge” facing the region.  The announcement followed security talks in Tokyo between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and their respective Japanese counterparts, Yoko Kamikawa and …

Moscow — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday warned the United States that if Washington deployed long-range missiles in Germany, then Russia would station similar missiles in striking distance of the West. The United States said on July 10 that it would start deploying long-range missiles in Germany from 2026 in preparation for a longer-term deployment that will include SM-6, Tomahawk cruise missiles and developmental hypersonic …

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