A new study using rats suggests that how a person decides whether to step in and help another person who is in distress may be more a factor of biology than psychology and may show why some people show empathy and others do not. A long-held social-psychological concept holds that people in a group are […]

Pat Janyamethakul, a Thai student at Virginia Tech, wanted to attend college in the U.S. because of “the country’s reputation in higher education.” The senior says that earning a degree here would “set her apart” from her peers back in Thailand. Rafael Lima, a Brazilian student, has one more year to go at Wake Forest […]

WASHINGTON – The number of people infected with the coronavirus is rising sharply in the United States. But the number of people dying is flat. It sounds like good news. But experts warn against reading too much into it. The number of new cases has seen a steady rise since mid-June. The seven-day average now […]

Asian markets are on the rebound Thursday on the heels of Wall Street’s strong close the day before. The Nikkei index in Tokyo ended the day 0.4 percent higher. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was slightly down, 0.1 percent in late afternoon trading, while Shanghai’s Composite is up 1 percent. Elsewhere in the region, the […]

Facebook Inc. on Wednesday removed 50 personal and professional pages connected to U.S. President Donald Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone, who is due to report to prison next week. The social media platform said Stone and his associates, including a prominent supporter of the right-wing Proud Boys group in Stone’s home state of Florida, had […]

Asian markets were in mixed territory Wednesday as investors continued to be on edge over the rising rates of COVID-19 cases around the world. Tokyo’s Nikkei index closed out the day’s trading session 0.7 percent lower. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.4 percent in late afternoon trading, and Shanghai’s Composite index was up […]

LONDON – The coronavirus outbreak has worsened the hunger crisis in the world’s poorest corners, and up to 12,000 people could die each day from hunger linked to the social and economic effects of the pandemic, the humanitarian group Oxfam warned Thursday. Its report said mass unemployment, disruption to food production and declining aid as […]

The U.S. government has awarded a $1.6 billion contract to Novavax, Inc. to develop a coronavirus vaccine. The award to the Maryland-based company is the largest to date from the government’s “Operation Warp Speed” initiative to fast-track the development of vaccines and other treatments for COVID-19. Chief Executive Stanley Erck said the company aims to begin […]

 A surge of new COVID-19 cases around the world sent global markets into a slump Tuesday.  The FTSE in London is down 1.2%, the CAC-40 in Paris is one percent lower, and the DAX index in Frankfurt is down 1.1%.  Asian markets also took a mostly negative turn Tuesday, with the benchmark Nikkei index in […]

WASHINGTON – The White House has formally notified the United Nations that it is pulling the United States out of the World Health Organization, despite the surging number of COVID-19 cases in the country. President Donald Trump froze U.S. funding for the WHO in April and a month later announced his intentions to drop out. […]

As coronavirus cases around the world top 11.5 million, governments are struggling with how to reopen their economies, leading some to reimpose shutdowns or scale back previous reopening plans.    In Australia, officials announced Monday the closure of the border between Victoria and New South Wales, the country’s two most populous states, after a spike […]

Universities preparing for big declines in international enrollment and revenues will be further depressed by a federal decision to strip students of their visa status if they do not attend college and university in person this fall.  “Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other […]

HONG KONG – Social media platforms and messaging apps including Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Google and Twitter will deny law enforcement requests for user data in Hong Kong as they assess the effect of a new national security law enacted last week. Facebook and its messaging app WhatsApp said in separate statements Monday that they would […]