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US Supreme Court Examines Government Efforts to Curb Online Misinformation

Washington — The US Supreme Court was hearing arguments on Monday in a social media case involving free speech rights and government efforts to curb misinformation online. The case stems from a lawsuit brought by the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to get platforms to combat vaccine and election misinformation. A lower court last year restricted some top officials and agencies of President Joe Biden’s administration from meeting and communicating with social media companies to moderate their content. …


Back to the Moon – Part 1

After the Apollo program ended, the US took a long hiatus from lunar exploration. What happened during this time, and what has NASA been doing? This documentary by the Voice of America’s Russian service explores the multiple attempts to return to the Moon, the space developments that laid the foundation for future concepts, and the birth of the Artemis lunar program. …


US Sanctions Network Smuggling American Tech to Iran’s Central Bank

Washington — The U.S. Treasury Department unveiled sanctions against a network of companies and individuals for facilitating illegal technology transfers from dozens of U.S. firms to Iranian entities, including the country’s central bank.  The sanctions relate to Informatics Services Corporation (ISC), the technology arm of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), the Treasury Department said in a statement Friday.   It also sanctioned a number of alleged ISC subsidiaries and front companies based in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and three individuals allegedly linked to them including Pouria Mirdamadi, a French-Iranian …


World’s Largest Drone Maker Expands in US Amid Rights Abuse Allegations  

washington — Chinese drone maker DJI is expanding in the U.S. with its first flagship store in New York City amid allegations of links to human rights abuses and ties to China’s military. DJI’s “first concept” North American store on New York’s Fifth Avenue welcomes customers into a futuristic, minimalist space to shop. The company describes itself on its website as “the world’s leader in civil drones and creative camera technology.” “We continue to see growing consumer demand throughout North America as we expand our consumer product portfolio,” said Christina Zhang, …


Spacex Hoping to Launch Starship Farther in 3rd Test Flight

BOCA CHICA, Texas — SpaceX’s Starship, a futuristic vehicle designed to eventually carry astronauts to the moon and beyond, was poised for a third uncrewed test launch Thursday that Elon Musk’s company hopes will carry it farther than before, even if it ends up exploding once again in flight. The spacecraft, mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster, was due for liftoff as early as 8 a.m. EDT from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site on the Gulf of Mexico near Boca Chica, Texas. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration just granted a …


Japan Private Rocket Explodes Just After Launch

Tokyo — A rocket made by a Japanese company exploded just after launch on Wednesday, with public broadcaster NHK showing footage of the fiery failure. Tokyo-based startup Space One had been aiming to become the first Japanese private firm to successfully place a satellite into orbit. Its 18-meter solid-fuel Kairos rocket blasted off from the startup’s own launch pad in Wakayama prefecture in western Japan, carrying a small government test satellite. But seconds after the launch, the rocket erupted into a ball of flame, with black smoke filling the launch pad …


US House Expected to Pass Bill Forcing Chinese Company to Give Up TikTok

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve legislation Wednesday that would force the popular TikTok video app to either separate from its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance or sell the U.S. version of the software. The bipartisan Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act “gives TikTok six months to eliminate foreign adversary control — which would include ByteDance divesting its current ownership — to remain available in the United States,” said Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States …


Trump: TikTok Poses National Security Threat, but Banning It Would Help Facebook

NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump said Monday that he still believes TikTok poses a national security risk but is opposed to banning the hugely popular app because doing so would help its rival, Facebook, which he continues to lambast over his 2020 election loss. Trump, in a call-in interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” was asked about his comments last week that seemed to voice opposition to a bill being advanced by Congress that would effectively ban TikTok and other ByteDance apps from the Apple and Google app stores as …


China Tightens Grip Over Internet During Key Political Meeting

Beijing, China — China has intensified efforts to block software that enables internet users to access banned websites during a top political meeting this week, a leading provider of firewall-leaping software told AFP. Beijing operates some of the world’s most extensive censorship over the internet, with web users in mainland China unable to access everything from Google to news websites without using a virtual private network (VPN).  And as thousands of delegates gather in Beijing this week for the annual “Two Sessions” meeting, VPN software has increasingly struggled to circumvent the …


Russian Hackers Breach Microsoft Core Software Systems

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — Microsoft said Friday it’s still trying to evict the elite Russian government hackers who broke into the email accounts of senior company executives in November and who it said have been trying to breach customer networks with stolen access data. The hackers from Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service used data obtained in the intrusion, which Microsoft disclosed in mid-January, to compromise some source-code repositories and internal systems, the software giant said in a blog and a regulatory filing. A company spokesperson would not characterize what source code was …


NASA, US Navy Prepare Astronauts for Moon Mission

Although NASA has delayed the launch of a crewed mission to orbit the moon until 2025 at the earliest, four selected astronauts are training in preparation for the first such journey in more than 50 years. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh caught up with the crew of Artemis II during training and has more from San Diego. …


NASA, US Navy Prepare Astronauts for Moon Mission

San Diego, California — The USS San Diego is a warship designed to deliver troops and equipment into combat zones, something the crew routinely trains for from their base in San Diego, California, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. But a closer look at the patches and colors of some of the uniforms on board recently are clues that one of their current missions has objectives about as far away from a theater of war as one can get. “This is a unique opportunity, but this is well within the …


Europe’s Digital Markets Act is Forcing Tech Giants to Make Changes

LONDON — Europeans scrolling their phones and computers this week will get new choices for default browsers and search engines, where to download iPhone apps and how their personal online data is used. They’re part of changes required under the Digital Markets Act, a set of European Union regulations that six tech companies classed as “gatekeepers” — Amazon, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok owner ByteDance — will have to start following by midnight Wednesday. The DMA is the latest in a series of regulations that Europe has passed …


Meta’s Facebook, Instagram Back Up After Global Outage

Washington — Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram were back up on Tuesday after a more than two-hour outage that was caused by a technical issue and impacted hundreds of thousands of users globally. The disruptions started at around 10:00 a.m. ET (1500 GMT), with many users saying on rival social media platform X they had been booted out of Facebook and Instagram and were unable to log in. “We are aware of the incident and at this time, we are not aware of any specific malicious cyber activity at this time,” a …


Nigeria Takes Bold Steps to Erase Digital Gender Gap

The World Bank says digital entrepreneurship is paving the way for economic empowerment across Nigeria and reducing poverty through internet access. In a January report, the Bank says internet access reduced extreme poverty by 7% in the West African country. But it noted a digital gender gap where women are less likely than men to have internet access. Gibson Emeka reports from Abuja in this report narrated by Mary Alice Salinas. …