Month: July 2021

Raffaella Carrà, for decades one of Italian television’s most beloved entertainers, a woman affectionately nicknamed the “queen of Italian TV,” died Monday at 78, Italian state TV quoted her family as saying. Rai state TV read a statement from the star’s family, announcing that she died in Rome after a long illness. No further details were …

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britons will no longer be required by law to wear face masks indoors once the government lifts coronavirus restrictions later this month.  Johnson confirmed Monday that the government aims to end its latest lockdown on July 19 despite a growing number of coronavirus cases caused by the highly transmissible …

A press watchdog group, Reporters Without Borders, named 37 world leaders Monday as media “predators” who “crack down massively” on press freedom, including for the first time a Western European leader, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.The Paris-based group, in its first such list in five years, included two women, Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister since …

Euro zone businesses expanded activity at the fastest rate in 15 years in June as the easing of more coronavirus restrictions brought life back to the bloc’s dominant service industry, a survey showed on Monday.   But that surge in growth has come at a cost as inflationary pressures mounted due to labor shortages and …

British royal Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, is self-isolating and has cancelled her engagements after someone she came into contact with subsequently tested positive for COVID-19, her office said on Monday.   “Last week the Duchess of Cambridge came into contact with someone who has subsequently tested positive for COVID-19,” a spokesperson for Kensington Palace …

From scanning residents’ faces to let them into their building to spotting police suspects in a crowd, the rise of facial recognition is accompanied by a growing chorus of concern about unethical uses of the technology.A report published on Monday by U.S.-based researchers showing that Russian facial recognition companies have built tools to detect a person’s race has raised fears among …

A strong explosion shook the Caspian Sea area where Azerbaijan has extensive offshore oil and gas fields and a column of fire rose late Sunday, but the state oil company said none of its platforms were damaged.  The cause of the blast was not immediately determined, but state oil company SOCAR said preliminary information indicated …

The Vatican says Pope Francis has gone to a Rome hospital for scheduled surgery for a stenosis, or restriction, of the large intestine. The brief announcement Sunday afternoon didn’t say when the surgery would be performed but it said there would be announcement when the surgery is complete. Just three hours earlier, Francis had cheerfully greeted …

A car with wings recently completed a test flight in Slovakia. Its designers say the successful journey brings us one step closer to flying cars, but experts aren’t so sure that’s happening any time soon. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.Produced by:  Arash Arabasadi …

Four people were found dead as a huge fire raged for a second day in Cyprus, razing tracts of forest in a blaze one official called the worst on record.The blaze, fanned by strong winds, affected at least 10 communities over an area of 50 square kilometers in the foothills of the Troodos mountain range, …

The European Union on Saturday deployed aerial assistance to help Cyprus contain a huge forest fire raging north of the cities of Limassol and Larnaca, a blaze one official called the worst on record.The blaze, fanned by strong winds, affected at least six communities in the foothills of the Troodos mountain range, an area of …

A Vatican judge on Saturday indicted 10 people, including a once-powerful cardinal, on charges including embezzlement, abuse of office, extortion and fraud in connection with the Secretariat of State’s 350 million-euro investment in a London real estate venture.The president of the Vatican’s criminal tribunal, Giuseppe Pignatone, set July 27 as the trial date, though lawyers …

One of Sweden’s biggest supermarket chains said Saturday it had to temporarily close around 800 stores nationwide after a cyberattack blocked access to its checkouts.”One of our subcontractors was hit by a digital attack, and that’s why our checkouts aren’t working any more,” Coop Sweden, which accounts for around 20 percent of the sector, said …

Ukrainian authorities found themselves buried in controversy Friday after official pictures showed women soldiers practicing for a parade in heels.Ukraine is preparing to stage a military parade next month to mark 30 years of independence following the Soviet Union’s breakup, and the defense ministry released photographs of fatigue-clad women soldiers marching in mid-heel black pumps.”Today, …

The German Standing Committee on Vaccination recommended this week that people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine as their first COVID shot should be inoculated with either the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine for their second shot in the battle against the delta variant of the coronavirus.The panel said the immune response to the mixed dose …

OPEC+ will resume talks on Monday after failing to reach a deal on oil output policy for a second day running on Friday because the United Arab Emirates blocked some aspects of the pact.The standoff could delay plans to pump more oil through to the end of the year to cool oil prices that have …

A ransomware attack paralyzed the networks of at least 200 U.S. companies Friday, according to a cybersecurity researcher whose company was responding to the incident.  The REvil gang, a major Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate, appears to be behind the attack, said John Hammond of the security firm Huntress Labs. He said the criminals targeted a software …