A vehicle in a fatal crash last week in California was operating on Autopilot, making it the latest accident to involve a self-driving vehicle, Tesla has confirmed. The electric car maker said the driver, who was killed in the accident, did not have his hands on the steering wheel for six seconds before the crash, despite several warnings from the vehicle. Tesla Inc. tells drivers that its Autopilot system, which can maintain speed, change lanes and self-park, requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel in order to take control of the vehicle to avoid accidents.  Tesla said its vehicle logs show the driver took no action to stop the Model X SUV from crashing into a concrete lane divider. Photographs of the SUV show that the front of the vehicle was demolished, its hood was ripped off  and its front wheels were scattered …

In early January, Roy Jones was making $14 an hour, $5 above Nebraska’s minimum wage as a representative dealing with customers on social media for Marriott International Group, the international hotelier. For Jones, a 49-year-old Omaha resident, it was a dream job despite the bot-generated tweets that flowed unceasingly onto what he described as the company’s Tweetdeck-like interface January 9. Sometimes there were “more than 3,000 tweets in front of me, I’m just processing them,” Jones told VOA Mandarin earlier this week. On what Jones called a hectic shift, there was a tweet from Friends of Tibet, a pro-Tibetan independence organization, congratulating Marriott for recognizing Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan as countries. The company, which has more than 300 hotels in China, had named the three in a survey sent to customers that asked in which country they lived and gave options including Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong. A Marriott …

Chef Rob Morasco didn’t set out to make a planet-friendly burger. But the 25 percent mushroom burger he created at food service company Sodexo not only has a lower carbon footprint, it’s also lower in calories, fat and salt. It’s juicier, too. “When you bite into it, it’s kind of like a flavor explosion,” Morasco said. “And you don’t taste the mushrooms, either.” And because mushrooms are cheaper than beef, he could answer customer demand for antibiotic- and hormone-free burgers “without having to jack up the price,” he said. Mushroom-blended burgers have been catching on among both chefs and environmentalists. In March, Sonic Drive-In became the first fast-food chain to offer them. WATCH: These Burgers Are Better for the Planet, but You’d Never Know It ​2 million cars Americans eat about 10 billion hamburgers each year, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI). All those burgers take a toll on …

A Mormon conference this weekend in Utah will usher in a new era of church leadership that comes as the faith grapples with heightened scrutiny about its handling of sexual abuse reports and one-on-one interviews between local lay leaders and youth. Church President Russell M. Nelson will preside over the twice-annual gathering for the first time since taking office, and two new members will be chosen for an all-male top governing body. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this week announced updated guidelines for the reporting of sexual abuse following news that a former prominent missionary leader was accused of sexually assaulting two women in the 1980s. The new guidelines call on lay leaders to never disregard a report of abuse or encourage a person to stay in an abusive home. They also say children can bring a parent or other adult to one-on-one interviews with local church …

As the world’s population heads toward 10 billion by midcentury, experts are wrestling with how to feed the world without wrecking the planet. It’s not easy to find foods with lower environmental impact that still taste as good as the ones they are intended to replace. But chefs and environmentalists are both cheering one new menu item: the mushroom-blended burger. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more. …

A federal court in Washington told the Trump administration Friday that the government can’t interfere with the ability of pregnant immigrant teens being held in federal custody to obtain abortions. A judge issued an order Friday evening barring the government from “interfering with or obstructing” pregnant minors’ access to abortion counseling or abortions, among other things, while a lawsuit proceeds. The order covers pregnant minors being held in federal custody after entering the country illegally. Lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for sheltering children who illegally enter the country unaccompanied by a parent, have said the department has a policy of “refusing to facilitate” abortions. And the director of the office that oversees the shelters has said he believes teens in his agency’s care have no constitutional right to abortion. ACLU lawsuit The American Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit on behalf of the …

A financially distraught yellow cab driver from Romania recently hanged himself in his New York garage, marking the fourth suicide among city taxi drivers in as many months. In the tragedy’s aftermath, members of New York’s taxicab drivers union are renewing their calls for a cap on the number of app-based for-hire vehicles, such as Uber and Lyft, which they say are driving workers of a once-thriving industry into the ground. VOA’s Ramon Taylor reports. …

The U.S. is welcoming an upcoming summit between the leaders of North and South Korea, ahead of a planned meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. As VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, the Trump administration has expressed optimism Pyongyang will take steps toward denuclearization but is calling for the U.S.-led maximum pressure campaign to continue until that happens. …

Hundreds of Kentucky teachers called in sick Friday to protest last-minute changes to their pension system, forcing nearly two dozen districts to close while angry educators rallied outside the governor’s office to demand he not sign the bill. With thunderous chants of “shut it down” echoing throughout the Capitol Rotunda, Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear used a megaphone to announce he would sue to block the bill’s implementation if Republican Gov. Matt Bevin signs it into law. Bevin had not signed the bill as of Friday afternoon. Thursday night, he tweeted public employees owe lawmakers a “debt of gratitude” for passing the bill. ​Growing educator unrest The show of force comes amid growing unrest among public educators nationwide, led by thousands of West Virginia teachers who walked off the job for nine days earlier this year to secure a 5 percent pay raise. Teacher unrest spread to another deep red …

A centuries-old pilgrimage to a tiny adobe church in northern New Mexico attracted thousands of visitors Friday, some walking through the night along desert highways on their journey. The Easter-week tradition dates back more than two centuries. Many participants trek more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Santa Fe or beyond. At the shrine, the faithful filed through an adjacent room that holds a small pit of dirt that some say has curative powers. Visitors knelt to scoop dirt into plastic bags, ambling by the hundreds through a passageway lined with cast-off crutches that bear testimony to healing. ​’There are healing powers here’ Elementary school teacher Anne Probst walked the final eight miles (12 kilometers) of the journey to Chimayo, bearing a hand-carved statue of the crucifixion on her back that her ailing father made. Her family has been making the trip to Chimayo from Santa Fe for decades. This …

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump tweeted: “Great briefing this afternoon on the start of our Southern Border WALL!” The tweet came amid much reporting about the president’s efforts to get the military to fund construction of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border because the recent omnibus spending bill did not fully fund the  wall.  The result has led to confusion about what is funded and what is actually being built. Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) provided some answers. The omnibus spending bill, passed by Congress a week ago, provides funding for approximately 161 kilometers (100 miles) of “border wall system,” CBP Deputy Commissioner Ronald Vitiello told reporters. Most of this will be used to replace or repair existing barriers along the border. Only a small portion will be used to build new wall.  “As [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has pointed out, it does not fully fund …

As part of the global coalition against Islamic State, the United States this week increased its special operations troops in the flashpoint town of Manbij in northern Syria. In an email Thursday to VOA, Col. Thomas F. Veale, a U.S. military spokesperson and public affairs director for the coalition, said the recent deployment is a protection measure to ensure the safety of coalition troops in the area. “Coalition forces are establishing a joint coordination mechanism for operations there, through the coalition’s official relationship with the Manbij Military Council,” Veale said. Manbij, in northern Syria, has recently become another major point of disagreement between the U.S. and its NATO ally, Turkey, over the presence of the Kurdish militant group People’s Protection Units, also known as the YPG. Turkey says the YPG is a terrorist organization, alleging the group is linked to Kurdish separatists inside Turkey, known as the PKK, which was …

Upon learning that New York taxicab veteran Nicanor Ochisor had hanged himself in his garage, Nigerian-native driver Emanuel Agbai was hardly at a loss for words. “I’m even surprised that there are no more drivers committing suicide or going on some sort of rampage at this time,” Agbai told VOA. “This business has been so destroyed.” Ochisor, a Romanian immigrant who worked in the industry for nearly 30 years, ended his life on March 16, the fourth professional taxi driver to do so in New York City in as many months. Like Agbai, Ochisor owned a medallion, a license required for all of New York’s yellow taxi cabs. A prized possession worth over $1 Million in 2014, its price has dropped to roughly one-fifth that amount today, coinciding with the rise of app-based services like Uber and Lyft. Drivers who borrowed to purchase medallions now face an out-sized debt. “We …

An Orlando jury on Friday cleared the widow of the Pulse nightclub gunman of all charges in the massacre that killed 49 people, finding her not guilty of federal counts that she tried to mislead investigators and aided her husband in the attack. Noor Salman, 31, could have faced up to life in prison had she been convicted of federal charges of obstruction of justice and aiding Mateen in providing support to the Islamic State militant group. Instead the jury in U.S. District Court acquitted Salman after roughly 12 hours of deliberation since Wednesday. Mateen died in an exchange of gunfire with police at Pulse, a gay nightspot. At the time, Salman was home with the couple’s then 3-year-old son. “We knew from day one she was innocent,” Salman’s aunt Susan Adieh told reporters just after the verdict. The acquittal is likely to be an emotional blow for the survivors …

Bill Cosby’s lawyers first pressured the judge in his sexual assault retrial to quit, and now they are counting on him to make rulings critical to their plan to portray the accuser as a greedy liar who framed the comedian to get rich.   Judge Steven O’Neill could rule as early as Friday on whether the defense can call a witness who claims Andrea Constand spoke about falsely accusing a celebrity before going to police with allegations Cosby drugged and molested her at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.   Prosecutors said the theory that Constand wanted to set Cosby up is undermined by his testimony in a 2005 deposition that she only visited his home when invited and that he gave her pills without her asking.   The judge also will decide how much jurors will hear about Cosby’s financial settlement with Constand.   Cosby’s lawyers argued that the …

The U.S. government plans to collect social media history from nearly everyone who seeks entry into the United States, State Department proposals showed on Friday as part of President Donald Trump’s policy of “extreme vetting.” Most immigrant and non-immigrant visa applicants – about 14.7 million people – will be asked to list on a federal application form all of the social media identities that they have used in the past five years – information that will be used to vet and identify them, according to the proposals. The State Department will publish the proposals in a notice in the Federal Register on Friday seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget. The public has 60 days to comment on the requests. The proposals support President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge in 2016 to crack down on illegal immigration for security reasons and his call for “extreme vetting” of foreigners entering …

A century after World War I ended, discarded munitions from that and other wars continue to make their way onto beaches around the country. Items ranging from tiny fuses to full-scale mines are displaced by beach replenishment projects, sucked from the ocean floor and pumped ashore, or by strong storms that uncover them. The most recent discovery came earlier this month when seven WWI rifle grenades were found on the beach in Mantoloking, New Jersey, which is undergoing a beach replenishment project to undo damage from Superstorm Sandy more than five years ago. Many of the items were simply dumped overboard at the end of World Wars I and II; others remain from military drills or target practice. They’ve been discovered in at least 16 states from New Jersey to Hawaii. “Surprisingly or not, this stuff continues to turn up,” said Niall Slowey, an oceanography professor at Texas A&M University, …

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency lived in a Capitol Hill condominium linked to a prominent Washington lobbyist whose firm represents a roster of fossil fuel companies. ABC News first reported Thursday that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had been living in a building on a leafy street about a block from the U.S. Capitol. Records show three units inside the building are listed as belonging to a corporation co-owned by the wife of J. Steven Hart, the chairman and CEO of the powerhouse lobbying firm Williams and Jensen PLLC. It was not immediately clear how much Pruitt was paying for the home. The firm’s clients include Exxon Mobil Corp. and the major liquefied natural gas exporter Cheniere Energy Inc. A Republican who previously served as the state attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt has long been a champion of the oil and gas industry. In the year he has served …

The house where Rosa Parks sought refuge after fleeing the South will be briefly displayed in Rhode Island, after a trans-Atlantic odyssey conceived by an artist and a Parks family member determined to preserve the civil rights activist’s legacy. Volunteers are working to assemble the house so it can be displayed for free Saturday and Sunday, Easter weekend. Parks moved to Detroit in 1957, two years after refusing to give up her bus seat. Years later, her niece bought the house off a demolition list for $500 then donated it to an artist who reassembled it in Germany.   He returned it to America for a Brown University exhibition, but the show was canceled. The house will have to be disassembled after the weekend, and it’s not clear where it will go. …

The U.S. government plans to collect social media history from nearly everyone who seeks entry into the United States, State Department proposals showed Friday as part of President Donald Trump’s policy of “extreme vetting.” Most immigrant and non-immigrant visa applicants — about 14.7 million people — will be asked to list on a federal application form all of the social media identities that they have used in the past five years — information that will be used to vet and identify them, according to the proposals. The State Department will publish the proposals in a notice in the Federal Register on Friday seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget. The public has 60 days to comment on the requests. The proposals support Trump’s campaign pledge in 2016 to crack down on illegal immigration for security reasons and his call for “extreme vetting” of foreigners entering the United States. …

The Kremlin has given marching orders to “unfriendly diplomats” from several Western countries in retaliation for the collective Western expulsion of Russian diplomats. Britain’s diplomatic staff appears to have been targeted with the largest cut, with the British ambassador being told he has a month to reduce his staff to the exact same number as the Russian diplomatic corps in Britain.   The retaliatory measure comes a day after Russia kicked out 60 U.S. diplomats and closed the St. Petersburg consulate. The envoys or deputies of Germany, the Netherlands, Ukraine, France, Italy, Poland, Croatia, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, Canada and the Czech Republic were all seen arriving in official cars at the Foreign Ministry building in central Moscow. Missile launch Meanwhile, Russia test-fired its newly developed intercontinental ballistic missile twice on Friday, the country’s defense ministry said in a tweet, linking to a video of a Sarmat being launched. The latest ICBM is set …