Politics After Days Of Silence, China Congratulates Biden And Harris A spokesman for China's foreign ministry offered congratulations at his regular daily briefing. China had been one of the last major nations to hold out recognizing Biden will be the next president. Mark Katkov
Health China Is Inoculating Thousands With Unapproved COVID-19 Vaccines. Why? Although the leading vaccine candidates are not yet officially approved, the drug companies are administering them to hundreds of thousands of people. Emily Feng John Ruwitch
Environment 'A Decarbonized Society': Japan Pledges To Be Carbon Neutral By 2050 The country joins the European Union and other countries that have pledged to reduce their carbon footprint to zero over the next few decades. Reese Oxner
Health China Joins WHO-Led Global Coronavirus Vaccine Effort As U.S. Sits It Out The Chinese foreign ministry said it took this step "to uphold the concept of a shared community of health for all and to honor its commitment to turn COVID-19 vaccines into a global public good." John Ruwitch
Education Parents Keep Children Home As China Limits Mongolian Language In The Classroom As it has long done with the Tibetan and Uighur languages, Beijing is reducing instruction in Mongolian in favor of Mandarin Chinese in ethnic Mongolian areas of the country. Emily Feng
World U.S. Orders China's Houston Consulate To Close The State Department, in a statement early Wednesday morning, said the move is "in order to protect American intellectual property and American's (sic) private information." Emily Feng
Health 'Meaningless' FDA Certificates Are Used To Tout Dubious Face Masks Companies that made hats, socks and teddy bears have started producing surgical masks to protect people from COVID-19. Some sellers exaggerate their standing with the Food and Drug Administration. Sydney Lupkin
Technology Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts At China's Request The video conferencing company says Beijing had asked that four meetings and associated users be terminated. Two of the users were based in the U.S. and the third in Hong Kong. Jason Slotkin
Health How Will The U.S. And WHO Fare Without Each Other? Global health experts weigh in on the short- and long-term consequences of the U.S. breaking ties with the World Health Organization. Pien Huang
Health Trump Says U.S. Will Withdraw From WHO. Does He Have The Authority To Do It? In a press conference on Friday, the president said he would immediately severe ties — and funding — to the World Health Organization because of its relationship with China. Pien Huang
