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Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

AUSTIN, Tex. — Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike says a "significant number" of the millions of computers that crashed on Friday, causing global disruptions, are back in operation as its customers and regulators await a more detailed explanation of what went wrong.  A defective software update sent by CrowdStrike to its customers disrupted airlines, banks, hospitals and other critical services Friday, affecting about 8.5 million machines running Microsoft's Windows operating system. The painstaking work of fixing it has often required a company's IT crew to manually delete files on affected machines.  CrowdStrike said late Sunday in a blog post that it was starting to implement a new technique to accelerate remediation of the problem.  Shares of the Texas-based cybersecurity company have dropped nearly 30% since the meltdown, knocking off billions of dollars in market value.  The scope of the disruptions has also caught the attention of government regulators, including antitrust enforcers, though it remains to be seen if they take action against the company.  "All too often these days, a single glitch results in a system-wide outage, affecting industries from healthcare and airlines to banks and auto-dealers," said Lina Khan, chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, in a Sunday post on the social media platform X. "Millions of people and businesses pay the price. These incidents reveal how concentration can create fragile systems." 

Washington — The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee told Senator Bob Menendez, who was convicted of corruption last week, that it has taken the first step of a review that could end in his expulsion, the heads of the panel said on Monday. "The Committee anticipates completing the adjudicatory review promptly," Democratic Chairman Chris Coons and Republican Vice Chairman James Lankford said in the statement. The senator's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Menendez has remained defiant in the face of calls for his resignation, including from the governor of New Jersey, his home state, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, after he was convicted on 16 criminal counts including bribery in federal court in New York. Menendez, who has represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate since 2006, has said he will appeal the verdict. Menendez and his wife accepted cash, gold bars and car and mortgage payments as bribes from three businessmen in exchange for steering billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Egypt, where one of the businessmen had ties to government officials. Menendez, a Democrat, is running for reelection as an independent. His party has nominated U.S. Representative Andy Kim to fill his seat in November.

Nairobi — Kenyans watching the U.S. presidential race say they agree with President Joe Biden’s decision to not seek a second term. But some say that choosing a replacement capable of defeating his opponent, former president Donald Trump, is going to be a big task for the Democratic Party. On the streets of Nairobi, many people told VOA that while Joe Biden’s decision to step out of the race must not have been easy, it was the right decision for him to make. James Owor said he was expecting Biden to step out of the race. "A bit unsurprising just based on what I've seen in the news. He was obviously not very well. It might not be such a bad idea to take a back seat. He didn't seem to have the energy he had," he said. Biden’s announcement Sunday followed a rising chorus within the Democratic Party urging him to “pass the torch” amid his declining national poll numbers and concerns raised by his shaky performance in the debate against Trump last month. Brenda Okwaro said what President Biden has done is commendable because he put the needs of his country and party ahead of his need to retain power. "This is a move that should be emulated by our African presidents. You don't have to come to the race a second time and you know you are not going to deliver the expectations of the people who elected you. But if you feel you've done your best in your first term, you can just get out of the race, go home and rest and focus on other things. You can even give advice to people who are in leadership," she said. Africa is home to some of the longest-serving presidents in the world, several of whom, like Biden, are in their 80s. Cameroon’s Paul Biya is 91. Martin Andati said he believes that if Biden had stayed in the race, it would've been difficult for him to beat Republican nominee Donald Trump. "Biden had to drop out because all the odds are against him, he can't beat Trump. So, to salvage the image and give the Democratic Party an opportunity, he had no choice but to exit the race," he said. President Biden's announcement comes a little more than three months before the U.S. elections. Andati said he believes the Democrats still have a chance, but it all depends on who they pick to replace Biden, who has endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris. "The only challenge is that he exited and endorsed Kamala Harris. The numbers are not in favor of Kamala Harris. The question is do they retain Harris or what happens, those are the issues the Democratic party will have to grapple with," he said. Macharia Munene, a professor of history and international relations at United States International University in Nairobi, said that while it took Biden a little longer to drop out of the race, it was expected.  "The signs were that he was not up to par, and it took time before his friends and people he respects to come and tell him [it's] in the best interest of the country and himself, his own image was to step aside so that he's not embarrassed in November," said Munene. The friends who persuaded Biden to step aside reportedly included Kenya’s favorite former U.S. president, Barack Obama. Obama is not eligible for a comeback because of the two-term limit in the U.S. Constitution. Munene said he believes Democrats will nominate Harris. "The question will be who'll be her running mate in the hope they will make a dent on Trump's bandwagon. For Harris, it's a good opportunity if she does not win, she will not lose very badly. Then, it's a preparation for a future encounter in case she doesn't make it, she would've created a base for herself for the next time to run, maybe in 2028," said Munene. Democratic lawmakers, governors and financial donors have already expressed their support for Harris, who says she will work to earn the trust and backing of democratic delegates. The party’s candidate will be formally approved late next month when the party hosts its national convention.

State Department — A top State Department official says the United States supports non-political representation by Myanmar, also known as Burma, at this week’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations' foreign ministers' meetings in Vientiane, Laos.   This Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head to Asia to hold talks with ASEAN officials, including discussions on the ongoing crisis in Burma. Officials say Washington also continues to engage with the Burmese democratic opposition groups. In a phone briefing on Monday, Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told VOA that it is his understanding that there will be a representative from Burma at the meetings. “It will be at the permanent secretary, non-political level," Kritenbrink said. “We believe that any Burmese representation in the ASEAN meeting should be at a downgraded, non-political level, and that is what you will see in this coming week.” In January, Myanmar's military junta sent a senior official to attend an ASEAN foreign ministers' retreat in Laos. Since it launched a coup in 2021 that ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government, the junta has been barred from sending political appointees to high-level meetings of the Southeast Asian bloc. Marlar Than Htaik, the permanent secretary of the foreign ministry under the control of Myanmar's junta, attended meetings earlier this year on January 29. Last week, more than 300 Burmese civil society organizations and revolutionary forces endorsed a letter sent to ASEAN's secretary-general, Kao Kim Hourn, and other bloc officials. The letter urged ASEAN to exclude Myanmar’s military junta members from all meetings and events and to ensure Myanmar is represented by its democratically elected leaders. “We've spent probably even more time and effort in engaging the democratic opposition, various Burmese related groups inside and outside of Burma, and our commitment to those groups will continue going forward,” Kritenbrink told VOA. He added the U.S. will continue to implement "unprecedented sanctions and other measures" to cut off the junta leaders' ability to "acquire the funds necessary to continue to prosecute the atrocities.”    The U.S. also "strongly supports" the ASEAN five-point consensus on ending the Myanmar crisis. Shortly after the military coup began, the leaders of nine ASEAN member states and the Myanmar junta chief, General Min Aung Hlaing, agreed to an immediate end to violence in the country. They also agreed to the appointment of a special envoy to visit Myanmar and to meet with all parties and promote dialogue and humanitarian assistance from ASEAN. Despite those promises, the Southeast Asian bloc, has largely been divided over the conflict in Myanmar, analysts say.   “The most authoritarian members of ASEAN, which would be Laos and Cambodia, to an extent, are still sticking with the junta,” Priscilla Clapp, a senior adviser at the United States Institute of Peace, told VOA. Other members, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, have had some level of interaction with the Myanmar resistance.   “I would say that none of the ASEAN countries really understands fully what's happening on the ground in Burma,” Clapp said in a recent interview.   She added that since ASEAN operates by consensus, achieving unanimity when dealing with the junta is difficult, given the differences among individual governments.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Current Vice President Kamala Harris will run for president now that Joe Biden has withdrawn from the race, and much of the Democratic party has already lined up behind her. The move, however, is not without controversy. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on his way to Washington to address congress as tension between Israel and the Houthis in Yemen are increasing. The latest from Kyiv plus Doctors Without Borders has a dire warning for Sudan, and in Bangladesh the army is in the streets.

TALLINN, Estonia — The head of a banned Belarusian opposition party who had been behind bars for two years was released on Monday as the authoritarian country frees a trickle of political prisoners, according to the respected human rights group Viasna. Mikalai Kazlou, who led the United Civic Party, was serving a 2½-year sentence on allegations of organizing actions violating the public order. His arrest came amid a harsh crackdown on the opposition that began as mass demonstrations gripped the country. Those protests followed a presidential election in 2020 whose disputed results gave Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term. Many prominent opposition figures were imprisoned in the crackdown and others fled the country, including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was Lukashenko's prime challenger in the election. The Belarusian Supreme Court banned the United Civic Party a year after Kazlou's arrest. Lukashenko announced an amnesty in early July for some seriously ill political prisoners, and 19 have been released so far. But 1,377 remain imprisoned, according to Viasna. The prisoners include the group's founder, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski. Activists say authorities have created conditions akin to torture in prisons, depriving political prisoners of medical care, transfers and meetings with lawyers and relatives. Lukashenko's release of ill political prisoners indicates he may be trying to improve relations with the West ahead of seeking reelection next year, Belarusian analysts suggest. He also recently dropped visa requirements for European Union citizens arriving by rail and road.

Kyiv, Ukraine — This year, Ukraine's largest music festival struck a different chord. Gone were the international headliners, the massive performance halls and the hundreds of thousands of visitors. Instead, beloved local artists graced the stage this past weekend at the Atlas Festival — the first since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 — for a smaller but still ebullient crowd. The stage was erected in a shopping mall parking lot, the only option with a shelter large enough to contain the 25,000 people expected in the event of an air raid. Carefree youth danced, romanced and sang along, rubbing shoulders with hardened military commanders as famous singers who crooned lyrics imbued with national pride. Music was the main goal, but so was shattering the illusion that the capital is invulnerable to the bloody battles hundreds of miles away. "Such kind of festivals can't be separated from the life of the country. The country is at war. The core issues here should relate to the war," said Vsevolod Kozhemyako, a businessman and one of the founders of the 13th "Khartia" Brigade, now a part of Ukraine's National Guard and defending the front line in Kharkiv. "People who are still young and who don't join (the fight) should understand that they cannot live in a bubble," he said. And yet, a bubble is precisely how it feels to be in Kyiv, as the war approaches its third year. While Ukrainian soldiers are killed and wounded every day along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line in the east, the capital is a contrast with its busy bars and clubs. Every so often, Kyiv comes face to face with the war. Two weeks ago, a barrage of Russian missiles destroyed a children's hospital and a private clinic, in one of the deadliest attacks since the full-scale invasion. Residents have grappled with power cuts caused by Moscow's targeted destruction of Ukrainian energy generation at the height of a summer heat wave. In every corner of the music festival, visitors were confronted with the inescapable reality that theirs is a country trapped in a bloody war of attrition. Festival organizers hoped to raise $2.2 million (2 million euros) to help soldiers purchase supplies for the front line. In the mall's basement parking lot, various military units, from Khartia to the 3rd Assault, offered interactive games to lure donations and possible recruits. A first-person shooter game offered visitors a chance to improve target practice by gunning down shadowy virtual infantrymen. In another corner, medics brandished severed plastic limbs and offered emergency medical training. The festival concluded Sunday with a much-anticipated performance from Serhii Zhadan and his band Zhadan and the Dogs. Zhadan, a celebrated artist dubbed the poet of the Donbas, recently joined Khartia. "It's just a small break, an opportunity to take a breath," said Zhadan, minutes before he took to the stage for a roaring crowd. "The most important things, they are happening over there, at the front line." On stage, Zhadan started with one of his most beloved songs "Malvi" or "Mallow." The crowd sang along, word for word. "But what can you do with my hot blood," they chanted. "Who will come at us." 18-year old Viktoriia Khalis was excited to see his performance. She had been to the Atlas festival once before in 2021. The difference is stark, she said. "The main thing that has changed, unfortunately, now the festival is connected with donations," she said. But she also felt more connected to her homeland. "I feel this entire crowd is related to me. I feel unity." She was scared there would be another Russian air attack — a music festival with thousands of attendees would be a prime target — but said she couldn't miss a chance to see her favorite artists. For Nadiia Dorofeeva, one of Ukraine's most famous singers, every concert feels different. "Before, when I entered a stage I was thinking only about if I looked good, sang well and if the people got what they came for. But now, I dream of having no air alarms, I am seeing how people cry at my concerts." One of Dorofeeva's songs, "WhatsApp," is about a girl waiting for her beloved to return from war. "She washed the phone with tears/Like rainy glass," often moves listeners to tears. Among the attendees was Lt. Gen. Serhii Naiev, an assistant deputy chief in Ukraine's General Staff. "There are well-known artists on stage, they are performing their concerts and there are a lot of Ukrainians around who are donating their money, much-needed money for the armed forces of Ukraine," he said. "We understand that our partners are supporting us, but we also understand that we could do a lot by ourselves, to be stronger," he said.

Islamabad — Pakistan's police raided the imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan's political party office in Islamabad on Monday and arrested its spokesman for carrying out anti-state propaganda, the Interior Ministry said. In a statement, the ministry said officers also arrested Ahmad Janjua, a media coordinator for Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or PTI party. Janjua was arrested over the weekend in a separate raid. The arrests have drawn criticism from Gohar Ali Khan, the chairman of PTI, who said authorities also arrested some other workers of the party's media wing, in a series of police raids in recent weeks. Pakistani authorities often accuse the PTI of running a campaign against the country's institutions, a reference to the military, a charge the party denies. Khan has been embroiled in more than 150 cases since 2022 when he was ousted through a vote of no-confidence in the parliament. He has been held at a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi since last year after his arrest. 

President Joe Biden’s decision to not seek reelection has upended the U.S. presidential campaign just days after the opposing Republican Party formally chose Donald Trump as its nominee. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns reports on voters’ reactions to the shifting political landscape. Contributor: Nina Vishneva  Videographer: Michael Eckels

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

The unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S. grew to 11 million in 2022, but remained below the peak of 12.2 million in 2007.

The post What we know about unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. appeared first on Pew Research Center.

In 2022, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. reached a high of 46.1 million, accounting for 13.8% of the population.

The post How the origins of America’s immigrants have changed since 1850 appeared first on Pew Research Center.

In 2022, roughly 10.6 million immigrants living in the U.S. were born in Mexico, making up 23% of all U.S. immigrants.

The post What the data says about immigrants in the U.S. appeared first on Pew Research Center.

Sun Gao started playing table tennis at age five. The four-time Olympian (1992, 2000, 2004, 2008) 1- time Olympic silver medalist is one of the 2024 National Team Coaches for Team USA Table Tennis. Gao is also the Founder of California Table Tennis Club in Rosemead, CA. She continues to excel in table tennis and is Head Coach of US Women’s National Team.

Meet USA Archery Head Coach Kisik Lee. Lee shares his Olympic coaching knowledge across Korea, Australia, and the US. Renowned for innovative techniques, Lee's coaching influences archers worldwide. With the 2024 Paris Olympics approaching, American Olympians, including Brady Ellison, aim for success under Lee's guidance.