General

As Chinese social media circulated photos and videos showing crowded fever clinics and people lining up outside of hospitals, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) reported no new COVID-related deaths on Wednesday and 3,101 new confirmed cases nationwide. The day before, the NHC reported seven deaths in total over the first two days of recording all COVID deaths in the nation of 1.4 billion people. A person working in a crematorium in Beijing who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation told VOA Mandarin on December 21 that the wait list for cremations is stretching into January. The disconnect

Harvey Weinstein was found guilty Monday of rape at a Los Angeles trial in another #MeToo moment of reckoning, five years after he became a magnet for the movement. After deliberating for nine days spanning more than two weeks, the jury of eight men and four women reached the verdict at the second criminal trial of the 70-year-old onetime powerful movie mogul, who is two years into a 23-year sentence for a rape and sexual assault conviction in New York. Weinstein was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and another sexual misconduct count involving a woman known as Jane

It could be the end of the red dusty line for NASA’s InSight lander, which has fallen silent after four years on Mars. The lander’s power levels have been dwindling for months because of all the dust coating its solar panels. Ground controllers at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory knew the end was near, but NASA reported that InSight unexpectedly didn’t respond to communications from Earth on Sunday. “It’s assumed InSight may have reached the end of its operations,” NASA said late Monday, adding that its last communication was Thursday. “It’s unknown what prompted the change in its energy.” The team

Scientists have uncovered new clues about a curious fossil site in Nevada, a graveyard for dozens of giant marine reptiles. Instead of the site of a massive die-off as suspected, it might have been an ancient maternity ward where the creatures came to give birth. The site is famous for its fossils from giant ichthyosaurs — reptiles that dominated the ancient seas and could grow up to the size of a school bus. The creatures — the name means fish lizard — were underwater predators with large paddle-shaped flippers and long jaws full of teeth. Since the ichthyosaur bones in

Negotiators reached a historic deal at a U.N. biodiversity conference early Monday that would represent the most significant effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical financing to save biodiversity in the developing world. The global framework comes on the day the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to end in Montreal. China, which holds the presidency at this conference, released a new draft on Sunday that gave the sometimes-contentious talks much-needed momentum. “We have in our hands a package which I think can guide us as we all work together to halt and reverse

Twitter users will no longer be able to link to certain rival social media websites, including what the company described Sunday as “prohibited platforms” Facebook, Instagram and Mastodon. It’s the latest move by Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk to crack down on certain speech after he shut down a Twitter account last week that was tracking the flights of his private jet. “We know that many of our users may be active on other social media platforms; however, going forward, Twitter will no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms on Twitter,” the company said in a statement.

Hollywood Cat is no longer. The Los Angeles area’s most famous mountain lion, an aged wild male feline sighted around the city’s Griffith Park, was euthanized Saturday, wildlife officials said. For years, it was known to prowl around the hillside “Hollywood” sign visible around much of Los Angeles, a fitting setting for a celebrity cat. It earned the nickname Hollywood Cat, but the mountain lion — estimated to be around 11 years old — is officially called P-22. State and federal wildlife officers decided earlier this month to capture it due to its erratic behavior, perhaps associated with being struck

Negotiators at a United Nations biodiversity conference Saturday have still not resolved most of the key issues around protecting the world’s nature by 2030 and providing tens of billions of dollars to developing countries to fund those efforts. The United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to wrap up Monday in Montreal and delegates were racing to agree on language in a framework that calls for protecting 30% of global land and marine areas by 2030, a goal known as “30 by 30.” Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas globally are protected. They also have to