WASHINGTON (AFP) -- President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris arrived at the US Capitol on Wednesday for their official inauguration ceremony. Biden, 78, is to be sworn in at noon (1700 GMT) by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as the 46th president of the United States. Harris, 56, will be the first woman to become vice president. Donald Trump left Washington thre...

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden's choice to be secretary of state, will vow Tuesday that the United States will "outcompete" a rising China while reviving frayed alliances, in a sea change from Donald Trump's go-it-alone "America First" approach. On the eve of Biden's inauguration, Blinken was set to say at his confirmation hearing that the United States will seek t...

WASHINGTON -- Joe Biden is set to be inaugurated as the next US president this week in probably a never-before-seen ceremony that will highlight the dangers from the worst pandemic and a political divide facing the United States. Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the US on Wednesday. As is customary, the inauguration ceremony will be held at around noon on the steps of the US Capi...

World facing catastrophic temperature rises this century, UN chief says

An American woman was put to death by lethal injection Wednesday, becoming the first female to be executed by US federal authorities in nearly seven decades. Lisa Montgomery's execution came in the final days of the government of US President Donald Trump, which pushed forward with her execution despite a legal battle that the Supreme Court ended with a ruling in the early hours of Wednesday. M...

At more than 13 billion light-years away, quasar and black hole formed 670 million years after Big Bang

International team’s visit to China not about ‘playing blame game’: WHO

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- A major technical fault in Pakistan's power generation and distribution system caused a massive power outage that plunged the country into darkness overnight, the energy minister said. Hours after the late Saturday outage, Energy Minister Omar Ayub said on Twitter that power was being restored in phases, starting with Islamabad. He said later Sunday that power had been restored...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Saturday that the State Department is voiding longstanding restrictions on how US diplomats and others have contact with their counterparts in Taiwan, another move that is expected to upset China as the Trump administration winds to an end. The Trump administration has sought to strengthen bilateral relations with Taiwan. It announced T...

BERLIN (AFP) -- The total number of Germany's coronavirus deaths crossed 40,000 on Sunday, as Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the coming weeks would be "the hardest" yet. Germany recorded 465 deaths over the past 24 hours, the Robert Koch Institute for disease control said, raising the toll since the start of the pandemic to 40,343. More than 1.9 million people have been infected so far, w...

JAKARTA (AP) -- A jet carrying 62 people lost contact with air traffic controllers minutes after taking off from Indonesia’s capital on a domestic flight on Saturday, and debris found by fishermen was being examined to see if it was from the missing plane, officials said. Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said Sriwijaya Air’s Flight SJ182 was delayed for an hour before it took off at 2:3...

BEIJING (AFP) -- China confirmed Saturday that preparations were still ongoing for a World Health Organization mission to Wuhan to investigate the origins of Covid-19, following a rare rebuke from the UN body over a delay to the long-planned trip. The comments came after the WHO chief said on Tuesday he was “very disappointed” that Beijing had yet to finalise permission even as the team of exper...

WILMINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Joe Biden says that President Donald Trump isn't “fit for the job,” but he repeatedly refused to endorse growing Democratic calls to impeach him a second time. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to members of her chamber that lawmakers could move as early as next week to impeach Trump for inciting a violent mob that overran the US Capitol if the presid...

Asian shares were mostly higher Friday on hopes for additional economic stimulus after President-elect Joe Biden takes office. A new state of emergency in the Tokyo region to combat surging coronavirus cases did little to dampen market optimism. The benchmark Nikkei 225 surged 2.4 percent to close at 28,139.03, its highest finish in more than 30 years. The emergency declaration, announced by Pr...

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ), a Korean American congressman, received wide attention and praise on Thursday for helping clean up the mess from the previous day's insurrection at the US Capitol. Thousands of angry protesters stormed the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday while the Senate and the House of Representatives were trying to certify the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential election....