Across the Eastern United States, billions of Brood X cicadas are emerging after 17 years underground. The noisy insects with the bright red eyes overwhelm predators by emerging in densities of 1 million per acre, scientists say. And the hum of mating males has been likened to the buzz of a chain saw. Cicadas have long fascinated one Washington, D.C.-based newspaper columnist, who has invited readers to muse poetic about cicadas. VOA’s Laurel Bowman has that story. Camera: Laurel Bowman …
Cicadas Delay Planeload of Reporters Following Biden to Europe
A chartered airplane scheduled to take the U.S. presidential press corps from Washington to Europe was delayed for at least five hours late Tuesday after cicadas — large flying insects that are currently out in huge numbers in the region — apparently clogged the plane’s engines.Media reports say the flight, for members of the media to cover U.S. President Joe Biden’s trip to Europe, had been scheduled to depart Dulles Airport, in Virgina, at about 9 p.m. local time. But, the reports say, the press corps gathered at a nearby hotel, were told the plane had been delayed due to “cicada issues,” and would not leave until at least 2:40 a.m.A spokeswoman for Delta Airlines, which operated the charter, confirmed to The Washington Post that cicadas inside the engines had prevented the plane from taking off, requiring a new airplane and pilot. It was unclear how many cicadas got into engines and how they disrupted the mechanism.The Washington area is among 14 states, mostly in the eastern United States, periodically swarmed by cicadas. Billions of the insects emerged last month after 17 years underground in larval form to molt and find mates by making a loud buzzing with their wings. When they are in large groups, the sound can be deafening and heard for miles.Though completely harmless, the bugs are seemingly everywhere and on everything in the Washington region. Even President Joe Biden was not spared, getting buzzed by a cicada as he was boarding Air Force One early Wednesday, …
US Surgeons Help Russian Boy Born Deaf, Without Ears
Four-year-old Kirill Zherebtsov was born deaf and without ears. He was scheduled for a special surgery in California but a day before his flight, his mother died unexpectedly. What happened next is a story in resilience. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian …
Australian Scientists Confirm Discovery of New Dinosaur Species
Officials in Australia have confirmed the discovery of a previously undiscovered species of dinosaur, the largest ever found on the continent, and one of the largest to have ever lived.A study published Monday in the scientific journal Paleontology and Evolutionary Science describes how bones originally discovered in 2006 have been officially designated as Australotitan Cooperensis, a giant sauropod, a type of long-necked plant-eating dinosaur.Queensland Museum paleontologist Scott Hocknull told reporters Tuesday the animal stood five to six-and-a-half meters high and was 25 to 30 meters long from head to tail.The dinosaur is known as Australotitan for short, and affectionately as “Cooper” by the members of the team that conducted the study. The bones were originally discovered on a family farm in 2006 about 1,000 kilometers west of Brisbane in the Eromanga Basin.The team of paleontologists, geologists and volunteers spent 15 years studying the bones using 3-D digital scanning technology to compare the dinosaur with its close relatives, to determine and confirm what they had found. Hocknull said, “We compared Australotitan’s bones to all of these gigantic sauropods and it’s in the top 10 to 15.”The bones had been on display in the museum since 2007 pending the results of the study.That part of the titanosaur family lived about 100 million years ago. The Queensland Museum says they were the last surviving group of long-necked sauropod dinosaurs and the largest known land-dwelling animals to have ever lived. …
Britain Grappling with Decision to Ease COVID Restrictions
When to unlock? Britain’s Boris Johnson is coming under mounting pressure from Conservative lawmakers and their allies in the media to keep to a previously outlined timetable that would see virtually all pandemic restrictions relaxed on June 21 in England. But a sudden surge in coronavirus infections has triggered fierce counter-lobbying from the government’s scientific advisers, who want a delay to the final easing of restrictions to assess the latest data and to ensure that variants, including the now-dominant Delta variant, first detected in India, aren’t resistant to vaccines. FILE – Pedestrians walk past a sign warning members of the public about a “Coronavirus variant of concern,” in Hounslow, west London, Britain, June 1, 2021.Ministers have been hinting for days of a delay in what was earmarked as the final unlocking phase, and government officials say they are in a race between vaccinating people and the Delta variant. Businesspeople are also expressing frustration at any delay. Those angered by talk of delay include Andrew Lloyd-Webber, theater impresario and the composer of musicals, “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Cats.” He issued a threat to the government Wednesday, vowing to risk arrest by reopening his London theaters on June 21. If the final stage of unlocking was postponed, “We will say, ‘come to the theater and arrest us,’” he told local media. The Delta variant is at least 40% more infectious than the previous strain dominating Britain, say government advisory panels, and the surge in cases is being seen largely among the unvaccinated under-30-year-olds. …
With Trump Suspension, Facebook Tells World Leaders: Your Speech Will Not Get a Pass
Facebook’s recent decision to ban former president Donald Trump for two years sends a message to world leaders that Facebook is stepping up its role as sheriff on its service. Tina Trinh reports.Produced by Tina Trinh …
Senate Passes Bill to Boost US Tech Industry, Counter Rivals
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Tuesday that aims to boost U.S. semiconductor production and the development of artificial intelligence and other technology in the face of growing international competition, most notably from China. The 68-32 vote for the bill demonstrates how confronting China economically is an issue that unites both parties in Congress. That’s a rarity in an era of division as pressure grows on Democrats to change Senate rules to push past Republican opposition and gridlock. The centerpiece of the bill is a $50 billion emergency allotment to the Commerce Department to stand up semiconductor development and manufacturing through research and incentive programs previously authorized by Congress. The bill’s overall cost would increase spending by about $250 billion with most of the spending occurring in the first five years. Supporters described it as the biggest investment in scientific research that the country has seen in decades. It comes as the nation’s share of semiconductor manufacturing globally has steadily eroded from 37% in 1990 to about 12% now, and as a chip shortage has exposed vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain. FILE – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks at the Capitol in Washington, March 6, 2021.”The premise is simple — if we want American workers and American companies to keep leading the world, the federal government must invest in science, basic research and innovation, just as we did decades after the Second World War,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.”Whoever wins the race to the technologies of the future is going …
How a Fake FBI-Encrypted Device Ensnared Criminals Around the World
The global sting operation billed as “Trojan Shield” that led to the arrests of hundreds of criminals this week began with the takedown of an encrypted device maker catering to drug traffickers around the world. In 2018, the FBI dismantled Canada-based Phantom Secure, forcing its customers — at the time estimated at more than 10,000 — to look for other encrypted apps. To fill the void, the FBI in late 2019 recruited a “confidential human source” to launch its own hardened encrypted device company called ANOM, putting a new, secure communications product on the market. The informant in turn introduced the device to his network of trusted distributors, allowing the use of the device to grow organically, according to an FBI affidavit. The ANOM app quickly took off in the criminal underworld. So confident were ANOM’s distributors and administrators in the secrecy of the devices that “they openly marketed them to other potential users as designed by criminals for criminals,” Andy Grossman, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, said at a press conference Tuesday in San Diego, announcing charges against 17 foreign nationals accused of administering and distributing the app. The ANOM logo is displayed on the screen of a smartphone in Paris, June 8, 2021.Law enforcement officials stand in front of an Operation Trojan Shield logo at a news conference, in San Diego, June 8, 2021.The data was then provided to the FBI, which reviewed the communications for criminal activity and shared them with law enforcement agencies …
Pipeline Executive Felt Cornered by Ransomware Attack
The top executive for the biggest fuel pipeline operator in the United States told lawmakers he felt like he had no choice but to pay off hackers after a ransomware attack shut down operations along the East Coast. Testifying Tuesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Colonial Pipeline Chief Executive Joseph Blount took responsibility for agreeing to pay the Russian-based DarkSide Network approximately $5 million to minimize potentially disastrous delays to fuel delivery. “I know how critical our pipeline is to the country, and I put the interests of the country first,” Blount said. “It was the hardest decision I’ve made in my 39 years in the energy industry,” he added. “We wanted to stay focused on getting the pipeline back up and running. I believe with all my heart it was the right choice to make.” The May 7 DarkSide ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline spawned fuel shortages and panic-buying across parts of the U.S., pushing prices higher as drivers hunted for gas stations that had not run out of fuel. FILE – A man with a gas container greets a motorist waiting in a lengthy line to enter a gasoline station during a surge in the demand for fuel following the cyberattack that crippled the Colonial Pipeline, in Durham, North Carolina, May 12, 2021.U.S. law enforcement, including cyber experts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), routinely warn companies against paying ransoms to hackers. But Blount said that even though the company was in contact with the FBI, he felt …
UN: Like COVID-19, Inequalities Drive AIDS Epidemic
The head of UNAIDS said Tuesday that inequalities are a chief driver of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, just as they are with COVID-19. “Inequalities in power, status, rights and voice are driving the HIV pandemic,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. “Inequalities kill.” Since the first cases were reported 40 years ago, UNAIDS says 77.5 million people have been infected with HIV, and nearly 35 million have died from AIDS. Byanyima told a high-level meeting of the U.N. General Assembly that nations must end the inequalities that perpetuate HIV/AIDS if they want to meet their target of ending the epidemic by 2030. “Today we are setting bold, ambitious goals to reach 95% of those in need with HIV treatment and prevention,” she said. “To get there we need to re-imagine HIV services, making them easy to access and designed around people’s lives.” Byanyima said the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how political will can help push science and that the same sort of push needs to be made for HIV/AIDS treatments, prevention, care and vaccines. FILE – Charlize Theron attends a movie screening in Los Angeles, California, July 31, 2020.U.N. Messenger of Peace Charlize Theron addressed the meeting in a video message Tuesday. The South African actress said it is often the most vulnerable people who are the least likely to have access to the services they need. “Because the fact remains, that whether you live or die from AIDS is still too often determined by who you are, who you love and where you live,” Theron said. U.N. member states …
Europe’s Spring Coldest Since 2013, UN Climate Agency Says
The World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations climate agency, reported Tuesday that Europe saw its coldest March through May since 2013, with temperatures 0.45 C below the 1991-2020 average.During a briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis cautioned that Europe’s cool start did not reflect any pause in the world’s climate change problems.In fact, data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service show that the global average temperature for May was 0.26 C higher than the 1991-2020 mean, according to the U.N. News website. Greenhouse Gases Threaten Ocean Ecosystems: WMOThe ocean absorbs around 23 percent of the annual atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide and acts as a buffer against climate changeAlso according to U.N. News: “Temperatures were well above average over western Greenland, north Africa, the Middle East and northern and western Russia while below-average May temperatures were reported over the southern and central United States, parts of northern Canada, south-central Africa, most of India, eastern Russia, and eastern Antarctica.” Nullis said there was also “quite a considerable rise” in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory, an atmospheric monitoring station operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in Hawaii.She said, “The fact CO2 does have such a long lifetime in the atmosphere does mean that future generations — and we’re not just talking about one or two, we’re talking about many generations — will be committed to seeing more impacts of climate change.” Nullis warned rising CO2 …
Pfizer to Expand Vaccine Testing on Children Under 12
Pfizer says it will expand testing of its COVID-19 vaccine to children younger than 12. The drug company, along with its German partner BioNTech, will enroll 4,500 children volunteers at more than 90 places in the U.S., Finland, Poland and Spain. The children, ages 5 to 11, will be given two doses of 10 micrograms each, which is about a third of the dose used on teens and adults. Some will receive placebo shots. Testing on infants as young as 6 months will start within weeks. They will receive 3-microgram doses. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine already has been given authorization for emergency use for those 12 and older in the U.S. and Europe. …
Aqua Gym Rides Wave of Enthusiasm on Senegal Beach
A seaside aqua fitness workout isn’t just about exercise, water, sun and sea breezes. It also provides a way to recover from injury and to find camaraderie, as Allison Lékogo Fernandes discovered, filing this report from Senegal.Camera: Mbaye Ndir …
Internet Outage Hits Major Websites
A number of major websites could not be reached early Tuesday because of an outage at the cloud services company Fastly.The affected sites included news agencies CNN, The Guardian and The New York Times, streaming platform Twitch, and the British government website. All were back online within a period of hours.The outage also forced CNN’s website offline in the Asian cities of Hong Kong and Singapore. There was little mention of the outage on social media platforms in China, where most foreign media websites are permanently blocked.About an hour after acknowledging the problem, Fastly said, “The issue has been identified, and a fix has been applied.”The company said a service configuration issue caused the disruptions, suggesting it was an internal glitch.Based in San Francisco, California, Fastly is a content-delivery network that provides cloud computing servers to many popular internet sites.The servers store images, video and other content in various places around the world to be closer to users. Closer proximity to the servers enables users to access content more quickly.The outage occurred about a month after a cyberattack caused the largest fuel pipeline operator in the United States to stop operating for six days. …
US Snatches Back Ransom from Colonial Pipeline Hackers
U.S. law enforcement officials say they have hit back at the Russian-based criminal network that caused gas pipelines to shut down across parts of the country last month, seizing much of the multimillion-dollar ransom payment before it could be used.The Justice Department announced Monday it recovered $2.3 million of the approximately $5 million Colonial Pipeline paid to the DarkSide Network following the ransomware attack, which resulted in fuel shortages along the U.S. East Coast.“We turned the tables on DarkSide,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, describing the seizure as a “significant development.”“Ransomware attacks are always unacceptable, but when they target critical infrastructure, we will spare no effort in our response,” she added.Tanker trucks are parked near the entrance of Colonial Pipeline Company, May 12, 2021, in Charlotte, N.C.Colonial Pipeline, the target of DarkSide’s May 7 attack, is the top fuel pipeline operator in the U.S., responsible for about half of the fuel supply for the East Coast.Following the attack, the company made the decision to meet DarkSide’s demands, paying out about $5 million in Bitcoin cryptocurrency. But U.S. government officials said Colonial also worked closely with law enforcement agencies, who were able to track the payment to a virtual wallet.Specifically, officials said they were able to obtain a virtual key that unlocked the contents of the wallet.As a result, the Justice Department said it was able to recover about 80% of the cryptocurrency, which has dropped in value in recent weeks, before DarkSide could access it.“We deprived a cybercriminal enterprise …
Apple’s ‘Private Relay’ Will Not Be Available in China, Elsewhere
Apple on Monday said a new “private relay” feature designed to obscure a user’s web browsing behavior from internet service providers and advertisers will not be available in China for regulatory reasons.The feature was one of a number of privacy protections Apple announced at its annual software developer conference Monday.It will also be unavailable in Belarus, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines, Apple said.The “private relay” feature first sends web traffic to a server maintained by Apple, where it is stripped of its IP address. From there, Apple sends the traffic to a second server maintained by a third-party operator who assigns the user a temporary IP address and sends the traffic onward to its destination website.The use of an outside party in the second hop of the relay system is intentional, Apple said, to prevent even Apple from knowing both the user’s identity and what website the user is visiting.Apple has not yet disclosed which outside partners it will use in the system but said it plans to disclose them in the future. The feature will not likely become available to the public until later this year. …
Carbon Dioxide Levels Hit 50% Higher Than Preindustrial Age
The annual peak of global heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air has reached another dangerous milestone: 50% higher than when the industrial age began.And the average rate of increase is faster than ever, scientists reported Monday.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the average carbon dioxide level for May was 419.13 parts per million. That’s 1.82 parts per million higher than May 2020 and 50% higher than the stable pre-industrial levels of 280 parts per million, said NOAA climate scientist Pieter Tans.Carbon dioxide levels peak every May just before plant life in the Northern Hemisphere blossoms, sucking some of that carbon out of the atmosphere and into flowers, leaves, seeds and stems. The reprieve is temporary, though, because emissions of carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and natural gas for transportation and electricity far exceed what plants can take in, pushing greenhouse gas levels to new records every year.”Reaching 50% higher carbon dioxide than preindustrial is really setting a new benchmark, and not in a good way,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who wasn’t part of the research. “If we want to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, we need to work much harder to cut carbon dioxide emissions and right away.”Climate change does more than increase temperatures. It makes extreme weather — storms, wildfires, floods and droughts — worse and more frequent, and causes oceans to rise and get more acidic, studies show. There are also health effects, including heat deaths and increased pollen. In 2015, …
US Highlights Commitment to Women’s Reproductive Rights
The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations met Monday with the head of the U.N. Population Fund in the first such high-level engagement in more than four years.The U.S. Mission to the United Nations said Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield highlighted the resumption of extensive support to the organization, which provides life-saving health care to millions of women and girls around the world.“I’m delighted to announce the resumption of U.S. humanitarian funding for UNFPA, including support for the Rohingya refugee crisis, Afghanistan, Sudan and those fleeing the Tigray region,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted after the meeting. To mark our renewed commitment to @UNFPA, I met today with Executive Director Natalia Kanem. I’m delighted to announce the resumption of U.S. humanitarian funding for UNFPA, including support for the Rohingya refugee crisis, Afghanistan, Sudan and those fleeing the Tigray region. pic.twitter.com/aMJ9cAbgpL— Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (@USAmbUN) June 7, 2021In April 2017, the Trump administration withdrew funding to UNFPA, saying it “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization” in China. For decades, China had a “one-child policy” for couples, which it revised in 2016 to a “two-child policy.” The country had been accused of using forced sterilization and abortions to enforce the restrictions. Last week, it relaxed the policy further, saying it would allow families to have up to three children, due to decreasing birth rates.The United Nations rejected the Trump administration’s accusation, but that did not persuade Washington to restore the nearly $76 million the U.S. contributed to the agency’s core …
India PM Vows Larger Federal Role in Vaccine Procurement
In a nationwide address Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the federal government would take a larger role in obtaining vaccines for Indian states.“Government of India itself will buy 75% of the total vaccine production from vaccine manufacturers and give it free to the state governments.”FILE PHOTO: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a gathering in Ahmedabad, India, March 12, 2021.According to the New York Times, less than 4% of Indians have been fully vaccinated.India’s health ministry on Monday reported 100,636 new COVID-19 infections, the lowest tally in 61 days, and 2,427 deaths in the previous 24-hour period.In other COVID-19 news, Britain’s health minister Matt Hancock said Sunday the delta variant of the coronavirus, first identified in India, may be up to 40% more transmissible than the alpha variant.The delta variant has become the dominant strain in Britain, replacing the alpha variant first identified in Kent, Hancock told reporters. It is possible the delta variant could threaten plans to lift lockdown restrictions by June 21, he said.Hancock stressed the importance of Britons getting their vaccinations. Early data show the vaccine is effective against the delta variant after people have received both doses, he said.People queue outside a vaccination center for those aged over 18 years old at the Belmont Health Center in Harrow, amid the coronavirus outbreak, in London, June 6, 2021.Currently, 40% of the United Kingdom’s population has been fully vaccinated, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. New cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, …
FDA Approves Controversial New Alzheimer’s Drug
The first new drug against Alzheimer’s disease in nearly two decades received a conditional and controversial green light from U.S. drug regulators on Monday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved biotech company Biogen’s antibody drug aducanumab. The drug reduces the amyloid plaques that riddle the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. But the approval drew sharp criticism from experts who note that the company has not proved that it slows the debilitating cognitive decline in patients with the disease. The FDA will require Biogen to continue testing the drug after it is released and ultimately demonstrate that patients actually do fare better on the drug. In the meantime, the company said the drug will cost each patient $56,000 per year, but is likely to be covered by most insurers, including Medicare. FILE – A sign marks a Biogen facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Jan., 26, 2017.Alzheimer’s, a degenerative neurological disease, is responsible for roughly two-thirds of the 50 million cases of dementia worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Aducanumab, marketed as Aduhelm, is the first approved treatment to target the underlying disease process of Alzheimer’s rather than just treat the symptoms. In two clinical trials, aducanumab reduced amyloid plaques by 59% to 71% after 18 months. However, those studies were stopped early because they did not show that patients taking aducanumab were declining in brain function any slower than patients who were not taking it. Biogen reevaluated the data from a subset of patients in one trial and found a slight improvement …
Heart Disease Seen in Some Younger COVID-19 Patients
Health professionals continue to see heart disease in some young people who have had COVID-19, those who have been vaccinated against the virus, and among student athletes, in general.Cardiomyopathy is an inflammation and weakening in the walls of the heart. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta has reviewed vaccine safety data weekly since the start of the U.S. vaccination program and cautions that cases among those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine are “mild and few.” The agency says the condition appears in males more than females, more often following the second shot in a two-dose regimen, and usually around four days after the vaccination.Coronavirus-related cardiomyopathy was first observed last year in younger people when college athletes resumed play as the pandemic spread in the United States. College sport events generate significant revenues for colleges and universities, and some big schools that draw thousands into stadiums returned players to campus with the hope of public events resuming sooner than later.In a study of college athletes conducted since last September, a higher incidence of cardiomyopathy, also called myocarditis, has been seen in athletes who contracted the coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2. Symptoms include shortness of breath, weakness, tiredness, dizziness and abnormal heart rhythm, according to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. “Myocarditis is a leading cause of sudden death in competitive athletes,” researchers wrote in JAMA Cardiology in May, adding, “Myocardial inflammation is known to occur with SARS-CoV-2,” the medical name for the coronavirus. Another study published in the Journal of …
Amazon Founder Bezos Announces Plans to Go to Space
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced Monday that he and his brother will be on board the first manned spaceflight from his aerospace company Blue Origin when it launches a rocket ship into space on July 20. Bezos made the announcement from his Instagram account which included a video featuring pictures from his childhood. He wrote, “Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.” July 20th is also the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the first time a human walked on the moon. Blue Origin is also auctioning off a passenger seat on the New Shepard space vehicle. In a news release Monday, the company said bidding has reached $2.8 million with nearly 6,000 people from 143 countries. The capsule is designed to carry as many as six passengers. The company said the winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and to help invent the future of life in space. Bezos said in February that he will step down as Amazon’s chief executive on July 5. Andy Jassy, the head of Amazon Web Services, will become chief executive, while Bezos will become executive chairman. …
Greece Deploys Drones to Stop Partygoers From Breaching COVID Rules
Authorities on Greece’s most popular tourist island, Mykonos, will deploy more than a dozen drones to spot those who defy safety protocols aimed at preventing the spread and resurgence of COVID-19. The decision, known as “Operation Mykonos,” comes after a string of local so-called “Corona-parties” organized by entrepreneurs at private villas and estates in recent weeks to bypass safety rules banning the operation of nightclubs. It also comes as the beleaguered government of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis scrambles to revive its battered tourism sector, luring foreign travelers — mainly from the United States, Europe, Israel, and Russia — with the promise of a safe summer holiday stay under the Greek sun. Foreign travelers are required to abide by local lockdowns, curfews, and safety protocols during their stays. FILE – People gather as the sun sets at the windmills on the Aegean Sea island of Mykonos, Greece, Aug. 16, 2020.Under “Operation Mykonos,” authorities will deploy 15 drones to fly over private villas or establishments in Mykonos that in recent weeks were host to parties packed with hundreds of locals and foreigners. Ten-member strong teams of officers will also be formed to raid the establishments upon notice, arresting and fining the offenders, authorities told VOA. Fines range between $365 to over $6,000. Officials tell VOA the measures, coupled with heightened police controls, inspections and added surveillance cameras across Mykonos, will serve as a blueprint for other popular hotspots among foreign travelers. These include Rhodes, Santorini and Paros, according …
Nuclear Power Cautiously Embraced for Biden’s Green Goals
Environmentalists, for decades, have had mixed feelings about nuclear power. Now, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has decided to cautiously embrace the energy resource — despite lingering safety concerns — to help achieve its goal of a net zero carbon economy for America by the year 2050. VOA’s White House bureau chief Steve Herman reports from the North Anna Power Station in Mineral, Virginia. …