SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — Google has completed its $2.1 billion acquisition of fitness-gadget maker Fitbit, a deal that could help the internet company grow even stronger while U.S. government regulators pursue an antitrust case aimed at undermining its power.
Thursday’s completion of the acquisition comes 14 months after Google announced a deal that immediately raised alarms.
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BRUSSELS (AP) — A late-stage side effect of the coronavirus pandemic has turned up in Belgium, where a group of teenagers is begging to go back to school.
Fed up with the COVID-19 restrictions keeping them at home most of the time, students in the last two years of a high school in the city of Liege launched an online petition asking for more in-person class time.
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WASHINGTON, United States (AP) — The world’s vital insect kingdom is undergoing “death by a thousand cuts,” the world’s top bug experts said.
Climate change, insecticides, herbicides, light pollution, invasive species and changes in agriculture and land use are causing Earth to lose probably 1% to 2% of its insects each year, said University of Connecticut entomologist David Wagner, lead author in the special package of 12 studies in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences written by 56 scientists from around the globe.
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BEIJING, China — More than 360 people have tested positive in a growing coronavirus outbreak south of Beijing in neighboring Hebei province. China’s National Health Commission reported Sunday that 69 new cases had been confirmed in the latest 24-hour period, including 46 in Hebei.
The outbreak has raised particular concern because of Hebei’s proximity to the nation’s capital. Travel between the two has been restricted, with workers from Hebei having to show proof of employment in Beijing to enter the city.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The police were badly outnumbered.
Only a few dozen guarded the West front of the Capitol when they were rushed by thousands of rioters bent on breaking into the building. Armed with metal pipes, pepper spray and other weapons, the mob pushed past the thin police line. One rioter hurled a fire extinguisher at an officer, according to video footage widely circulated on YouTube. “They’re getting into the Capitol tonight! They’re getting in,” the man filming shouts in delight.
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SANTA FE, United States (AP) — New Mexico Republican Party Chairman Steve Pearce said Thursday that democracy has been tarnished by unanswered questions about the 2020 vote count.
Pearce said in a statement that the state Republican Party recognizes Congress’ certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory but has many unanswered questions about the vote count, voting machines and drop boxes for absentee ballots.
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LONDON (AP) — A British judge on Wednesday denied bail to WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, ordering him to remain in a high-security prison while U.K. courts decide whether he will be sent to the United States to face espionage charges.
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser said Assange must remain in prison while the courts consider an appeal by U.S. authorities against her decision not to extradite him.
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GENEVA (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization said Tuesday that he is “disappointed” Chinese officials haven’t finalized the permissions to allow a team of experts into China to examine the origins of COVID-19.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a rare critique of Beijing, said members of the international scientific team began departing from their home countries over the last 24 hours as part of an arrangement between WHO and the Chinese government.
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LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) — This New Year’s Eve is being celebrated like no other in most of the world, with many bidding farewell to a year they’d prefer to forget.
From the South Pacific to New York City, pandemic restrictions on open air gatherings saw people turning to made-for-TV fireworks displays or packing it in early since they could not toast the end of 2020 in the presence of friends or carousing strangers.
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KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Neha loved the hymns that filled her church with music. But she lost the chance to sing them last year when, at the age of 14, she was forcibly converted from Christianity to Islam and married to a 45-year-old man with children twice her age.
She tells her story in a voice so low it occasionally fades away. She all but disappears as she wraps a blue scarf tightly around her face and head. Neha’s husband is in jail now facing charges of rape for the underage marriage, but she is in hiding, afraid after security guards confiscated a pistol from his brother in court.
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