Beijing, China (AP) — China has launched its most ambitious Mars mission yet in an attempt to join the United States in successfully landing a spacecraft on the red planet. The rocket carrying the orbiter and rover took off under clear skies from an island south of China’s mainland. Hundreds of space enthusiasts cried out…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are actually undercutting the pandemic response. The bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves,…
Melbourne, Australia — Australia’s hard-hit Victoria state reported a record 484 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday and health authorities warned that numbers could continue to rise. With Australia’s second-largest city Melbourne now in lockdown for two weeks, authorities had hoped the infection rate would begin to plateau. Instead, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton says “we’re…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department says hackers working with the Chinese government targeted firms developing coronavirus vaccines and stole hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property and trade secrets from companies worldwide. The indictment says the hackers in recent months researched vulnerabilities in the computer networks of Massachusetts and Maryland companies known…
Hong Kong (AP) — Supporters of Hong Kong’s protest movement are adapting their methods since China imposed a feared national security law on the city. To make their voices heard without violating the law, protesters are amending their slogans and protest songs, and even holding up blank pieces of paper to express opposition to the…
Beijing, China (AP) — China’s latest coronavirus outbreak has spread to a second city in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. One of the 17 new cases was in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, while the others were in the regional capital. Urumqi is where all other cases have been reported since the outbreak…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer, but has no plans to retire from the Supreme Court. The 87-year-old Ginsburg said her treatment so far has succeeded in reducing lesions on her liver and that she will continue chemotherapy sessions every two weeks “to keep…
Warner Robins, GA (AP) — As normalcy returns to many segments of the U.S. that were locked down as the coronavirus spread, most nursing homes remain frozen in the same position since March. Though some states are inching toward normalcy for residents of those facilities, most are still barring visitors and severely curtailing activities inside.…
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than a million Americans sought unemployment benefits last week. That’s the word from a Labor Department report that indicates companies are cutting more jobs as the coronavirus surges through the Sunbelt and some of the nation’s most populous states. Layoffs in Florida, Georgia and California rose by tens of thousands. The…
Terre Haute, IN (AP) — The Supreme Court has cleared the way for a second federal execution in as many days. The high court by a 5-4 vote early Thursday lifted two court orders keeping the execution of Wesley Ira Purkey on hold. Purkey was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 16-year-old girl before…