Headlines
Spain, with one of the highest death tolls from coronavirus, enacted strict social-distancing measures in mid-March. But with the number of infections and deaths now slowing down, the Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced the kingdom is cautiously moving to relax those measures~VOA NEWS
Within the region, Tunisia enjoys a relatively high degree of political freedom. However, the past two years have seen a number of criminal prosecutions related to freedom of expression – many of which have used outdated laws from the era of ousted President Ben-Ali to prosecute critics for defamation and insulting state officials and institutions
Several countries around the world, including Germany and South Korea, and a number of U.S. states are easing their coronavirus lockdown restrictions this week. But experts caution that a number of conditions need to be in place before people leave their homes and head back out to churches, shops, restaurants and beaches
Medical students from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. have launched a volunteer organization called Med Supply Drive to help doctors get very needed medical supplies during the coronavirus pandemic. The students collect as many face masks, gloves, disinfectants and hand sanitizers as they can from tattoo parlors and labs to pass along to doctors who are working round the clock to save people
With more Americans cooking at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, grocery stores face higher consumer demand for food and other products precisely when the nation’s supply chain is being strained. While shortages of some basic goods have raised concerns about the U.S. food supply, VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports from the state of Wisconsin – America’s dairy capital – that bare store shelves don’t necessarily mean the nation is running out of food
As the coronavirus continues to threaten millions of lives across the globe, many people are trying to step up and help. A small girls robotics team in Afghanistan has shifted its focus from designing and making robots for competitions to replicating designs for ventilators.
there were doughnuts, now there’s a video game inspired by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the United States made famous during the coronavirus pandemic with his frequent television appearances. The video game is created by a Brooklyn-based startup Beat the Bomb. “Fauci’s Revenge” is free to play online and is also a fundraiser, with donations going toward New York City hospitals
As Europe counts the human and economic costs of the coronavirus lockdowns, Hungary appears to have gotten off lightly. It has nearly 2,100 reported cases and 213 deaths so far, compared to tens of thousands in the worst-hit countries. Nevertheless, economists predict the country’s GDP will shrink by close to 10 percent. As Henry Ridgwell reports, many workers are having to adapt quickly to the dramatically changing labor market in the nation of nearly 10 million people
Health experts had warned of a possible surge in cases if millions of people travel to their home villages. Indonesia has more than 6,700 confirmed coronavirus cases with about 600 deaths
Many families around the world are now separated by quarantines and closed airports as the world reacts to the coronavirus. But for families from war-torn countries, that separation is sometimes the least of their problems. VOA’s Heather Murdock has this report from her home in Istanbul