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 accessed and what capability the hackers gained to further compromise customer and Microsoft systems. Microsoft said Friday that the hackers stole “secrets” from email communications between the company and unspecified customers — cryptographic secrets such as passwords, certificates and authentication…
Pentagon Study Finds No Sign of Alien Life in Reported UFO Sightings
washington — A Pentagon study released Friday that examined reported sightings of UFOs over nearly the last century found no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence, a conclusion consistent with past U.S. government efforts to assess the accuracy of claims that have captivated public attention for decades. The study from the Defense Department's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office analyzed U.S. government investigations since 1945 of reported sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena, more popularly known as UFOs. It found no evidence that any of them were signs of alien life, or that the U.S. government and private companies had reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology and were hiding it. "All investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification," said the report, which was…
Activists See India as New Front in Fight Against Female Genital Mutilation
Washington — A U.N. report released Friday about the prevalence of female genital mutilation around the globe is drawing attention to the practice among the Dawoodi Bohra community, a Muslim minority sect based in India. India is not on the UNICEF list of 31 countries released Friday. But the extent of FGM in India, although small relative to its population and long shrouded in secrecy, is coming into the open. The ritual is mostly practiced by the Dawoodi Bohras, a subsect of the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam with an estimated 1 to 2 million followers around the globe. Recent surveys show that as many as 80% of Bohra girls undergo genital mutilation as a religious right of passage. “We are still significant, even if our numbers are few,” said Aarefa…
Methane-Tracking Satellite Launched Into Space
A new climate satellite takes off. Plus, a fresh crew arrives at the International Space Station, and NASA may want to hire you. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. ...
US-China Science, Tech Pact Is Renewed for Another Six Months
State Department — The United States and China have agreed to extend a science and technology agreement for another six months, the U.S. State Department said Thursday. “The Department of State on behalf of the U.S. government is negotiating to amend, extend and strengthen protections within the U.S.-PRC Science and Technology Agreement (STA). In February 2024, the United States and PRC agreed to an additional short-term six-month extension of the U.S.-PRC STA,” a spokesperson told VOA. “The short-term six-month extension keeps the agreement in force while we continue negotiations,” the spokesperson added. U.S. officials have said the STA provides consistent standards for government-to-government scientific cooperation between the U.S. and China. While the agreement supports scientific collaboration in areas that benefit the United States, U.S. officials acknowledge the challenges posed by China's…
Panama Farmers Embrace Butterfly Breeding Eco-Venture
Many ranchers in Panama are making the transition from breeding livestock to much smaller creatures – butterflies. Not only is it good for the planet, but for some, it’s proven to be an economic winner. Oscar Sulbaran reports in this story, narrated by Veronica Villafane. ...
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. ...
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 as a global leader in reining in the dominance of large tech companies. Tech giants have responded by changing some of their long-held ways of doing business — such as Apple allowing people to install smartphone apps outside of its…
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 spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said. At the peak of the outage, there were more than 550,000 reports of disruptions for Facebook and about 92,000 for Instagram, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. "Earlier today, a technical…
LogOn: Seattle Startup Builds Drones for First Responders
A Seattle startup’s drones are helping first responders by providing them with “eyes and ears” in hazardous environments. Natasha Mozgovaya in Seattle has the story. ...
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. ...
AI’s Newest Advance: Realistic High-Definition Video From a Few Words
The latest innovation in artificial intelligence is photo-realistic video created from just a few words. Deana Mitchell has the story. ...
Apple Fined Nearly $2 Billion by European Union Over Music Streaming Competition
London — The European Union leveled its first antitrust penalty against Apple on Monday, fining the U.S. tech giant nearly $2 billion for breaking the bloc's competition laws by unfairly favoring its own music streaming service over rivals. Apple banned app developers from "fully informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services outside of the app," said the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc's executive arm and top antitrust enforcer. "This is illegal, and it has impacted millions of European consumers," Margrethe Vestager, the EU's competition commissioner, said at a news conference. Apple behaved this way for almost a decade, which meant many users paid "significantly higher prices for music streaming subscriptions," the commission said. The 1.8 billion-euro fine follows a long-running investigation triggered by a complaint from Swedish streaming…
South Korea Takes Steps to Suspend Licenses of Striking Doctors
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s government began steps Monday to suspend the medical licenses of thousands of striking junior doctors, days after they missed a government-set deadline to end their joint walkouts, which have severely impacted hospital operations. Nearly 9,000 medical interns and residents have been on strike for two weeks to protest a government push to sharply increase the number of medical school admissions. Their action has led to hundreds of canceled surgeries and other treatments and threatened to burden the country’s medical service. Monday, officials were sent to dozens of hospitals to formally confirm the absence of the striking doctors as the government began steps to suspend their licenses for at least three months, Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo told a briefing. Park said authorities will later notify…
Indonesia Grapples With Obesity Issues
March 4 is World Obesity Day. Indonesia is facing a disparity in obesity rates among adults. Almost half of the country’s women are overweight or obese, nearly double the rate of Indonesian men according to data from the country's Ministry of Health. Dave Grunebaum looks at the issue. (Camera: Dave Grunebaum) ...
CDC Relaxes COVID Guidelines; Will Schools, Day Cares Follow Suit?
BOSTON — Four years after the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools and upended child care, the CDC says parents can start treating the virus like other respiratory illnesses. Gone are mandated isolation periods and masking. But will schools and child care centers agree? In case you've lost track: Before Friday, all Americans, including school children, were supposed to stay home for at least five days if they had COVID-19 and then mask for a set period of time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, with COVID deaths and hospitalizations dropping, the CDC says children can go back to school when their overall symptoms improve and they're fever-free for 24 hours without taking medication. Students are "encouraged" to wear a mask when they return. Still, the change may not…
As DR Congo Seeks to Expand Drilling, Some Worry Pollution Will Worsen
MOANDA, DR Congo — The oil drills that loom down the road from Adore Ngaka's home remind him daily of everything he's lost. The extraction in his village in western Congo has polluted the soil, withered his crops and forced the family to burn through savings to survive, he said. Pointing to a stunted ear of corn in his garden, the 27-year-old farmer says it's about half the size he got before oil operations expanded nearly a decade ago in his village of Tshiende. "It's bringing us to poverty," he said. Congo, a mineral-rich nation in central Africa, is thought to have significant oil reserves, too. Drilling has so far been confined to a small territory on the Atlantic Ocean and offshore, but that's expected to change if the government successfully…
First US Moon Lander in 50 Years Goes Silent
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — The first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since the Apollo astronauts fell silent Thursday, a week after breaking a leg at touchdown and tipping over near the lunar south pole. Intuitive Machines' lander, Odysseus, lasted longer than the company anticipated after it ended up on its side with hobbled solar power and communication. The end came as flight controllers received one last photo from Odysseus and commanded its computer and power systems to standby. That way, the lander can wake up in another two to three weeks — if it survives the bitterly cold lunar night. Intuitive Machines spokesman Josh Marshall said these final steps drained the lander's batteries and put Odysseus "down for a long nap." "Good night, Odie. We hope to hear from…
Ukrainian YouTuber Finds Her AI Clone Selling Russian Goods on Chinese Internet
washington — Speaking Mandarin and promoting love for China, countless videos of foreign-looking women made with artificial intelligence started popping up on Chinese social media platforms around the Lunar New Year earlier this month. The avatars in the videos are created with online images that are stolen, reproduced and repurposed so that even the women in real life recognize themselves in the videos. Olga Loiek is one of those women. She’s a 20-year-old Ukrainian who studies cognitive science at the University of Pennsylvania. A couple of months ago, Loiek started a YouTube channel where she talks about mental health and shares her philosophies about life. However, shortly after that, she started receiving messages from followers telling her that they had seen her on Chinese social media. There, she's not Olga Loiek…