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USA: SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft back to Earth with scientific research samples

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- SpaceX Dragon cargo resupply spacecraft returned to Earth on Friday with scientific research samples and hardware.

According to NASA, Dragon undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) at 5:05 p.m. Eastern Time (2205 GMT) on Thursday.

After about 20 hours of flight, Dragon made a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of the U.S. state of Florida on Friday.

USA: Social media platform X down for users globally - Downdetector

Dec 21 (Reuters) - Social media platform X and X Pro suffered outages globally early Thursday, according to Downdetector.com.

Users on X, formerly known as Twitter, were unable to view posts on the social media site with a message that said "Welcome to X!"

Users encountered loading issues on X Pro, formerly TweetDeck, with a message that said "Waiting for posts."

Over 47,000 U.S. users faced access issues with X and X Pro, according to Downdetector data.

Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources including users.

USA: Trevor Noah will host the 2024 Grammy Awards for the fourth year in a row

LOS ANGELES (AP) — As the age-old adage goes, don’t mess with success. The Grammy Awards aren’t, bringing Trevor Noah back as host in 2024.

Noah shared the news Wednesday night on his podcast “What Now? With Trevor Noah.”

For those keeping count, the 66th Grammys will mark his fourth consecutive year of hosting duties.

USA: Peek inside Joe Biden’s campaign fundraisers, where big money mingles with old jokes in swanky homes

LOS ANGELES (AP) — If you’re a Democrat with money to burn and friends in high places, you can spend thousands on tickets to a fundraiser with President Joe Biden. If not, keep reading to see what you’re missing.

With an election year around the corner, Biden is accelerating his fundraising to prepare for an astronomically expensive campaign. (Think billions, not millions.) In this rarefied world, money equals access, and supporters regularly pay top dollar for a personal glimpse of the world’s most powerful man.

USA: Peek inside Joe Biden’s campaign fundraisers, where big money mingles with old jokes in swanky homes

LOS ANGELES (AP) — If you’re a Democrat with money to burn and friends in high places, you can spend thousands on tickets to a fundraiser with President Joe Biden. If not, keep reading to see what you’re missing.

With an election year around the corner, Biden is accelerating his fundraising to prepare for an astronomically expensive campaign. (Think billions, not millions.) In this rarefied world, money equals access, and supporters regularly pay top dollar for a personal glimpse of the world’s most powerful man.

U.S.-sponsored trial of new drug regimen to treat tuberculous meningitis starts

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- A trial of a new drug regimen to treat tuberculous meningitis (TBM) has started enrolling adults and adolescents in several countries where tuberculosis is prevalent, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Thursday.

The trial, sponsored by the NIH, will compare a six-month regimen of four drugs with the nine-month, standard-of-care regimen for TBM.

The study aims to generate evidence that could improve treatment for people with TBM.

Defense head calls out those who advocate isolationism and ‘an American retreat from responsibility’

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday denounced those who advocate “an American retreat from responsibility” and said sustained U.S. leadership is needed to help keep the world as safe, free and prosperous as possible. He also urged Congress to end the partisan gridlock that has stalled the federal budget and war spending.

Most U.S. teen shooters obtain weapons from home: study

SACRAMENTO, the United States, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- Amid the debate on how school shooters obtain their firearms in the United States, a new study revealed that most of the weapons were stolen from family members or relatives.

The study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, analyzed 253 school shootings executed by 262 adolescents in the country between 1990 and 2016.

USA: Cyber Monday marks the year’s biggest online shopping day, and one more chance to save on gifts

(AP) --- Consumers are scouring the internet for online deals as they begin to cap off the five-day post-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza with Cyber Monday.

Even though e-commerce is now part and parcel of our everyday lives and much of the holiday shopping season, Cyber Monday –- a term coined back in 2005 by the National Retail Federation –- continues to be the biggest online shopping day of the year, thanks to the deals and the hype the industry has created to fuel it.

USA: Court document claims Meta knowingly designed its platforms to hook kids, reports say

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook parent Meta Platforms deliberately engineered its social platforms to hook kids and knew — but never disclosed — it had received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram but only disabled a fraction of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint described in reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

The complaint, originally made public in redacted form, was the opening salvo in a lawsuit filed in late October by the attorneys general of 33 states.

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