Month: December 2021
‘Serious’ talk between Joe Biden, Putin sets stage for diplomacy
U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanged warnings about Ukraine on Thursday but were optimistic that diplomatic talks in January could ease rising tensions. In a 50-minute call, their second conversation this month, Biden said he had to see Russia downsize its military near Ukraine, while Putin…
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Truck driver’s 110-year sentence reduced after US outcry
A truck driver, Rogel Aguilera Mederos, whose 110-year prison term caused outrage over a fatal accident, had his sentence reduced to 10 years on Thursday. More than 4.5 million people, including reality TV star Kim Kardashian, called for a reduction in Rogel Aguilera Mederos’s sentence. Aguilera Mederos, a Cuban immigrant,…
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South Africa lifts curfew as it says COVID-19 fourth wave peaked
South Africa lifted the nightly curfew at 4 a.m. The course of the pandemic, vaccination rates in the country and available capacity in the health sector, according to a press release from Mondli Gungubele, Minister of the Presidency, South Africa is currently at the lowest of its five phases of…
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Experts warn Omicron ‘blizzard’ to disrupt U.S. for next month
Health experts warned Americans on Thursday that a rising tide of COVID19 cases, led by the Omicron variant, threatened major disruptions in their lives, from schools to shopping, and urged them to prepare now for a challenging month. The United States had a record seven-day average of new cases, with…
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CES 2022 will close a day early because of COVID concerns
CES has dropped the last day of its 2022 tech conference in Las Vegas, and the show will now end on January 7th, the Consumer Technology Association announced today. The shorter schedule is “an additional safety measure” in the face of a surge of COVID-19 diagnoses. Over the last two…
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Biden administration will continue ISS cooperation through 2030
The US will continue to work with other countries’ space programs on the International Space Station through 2030, NASA announced today. That will allow for an uninterrupted transition to a planned commercial space station (or stations!) in the late 2020s. Funds for the ISS have already been approved through 2024.…
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