VOA常速英语:英国紧急开始挨家挨户排查南非变种病毒

A Russian court has sentenced opposition politician Alexei Navalny to three and a half years in prison, defying condemnation abroad and public outcry at home to send one of the Kremlin's most vocal critics to jail.Navalny previously spent 10 months under house arrest during an earlier phase of the trial. Tuesday's verdict means Navalny will now spend the next two years and eight months in a Russian penal colony.

U.N. Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews said Tuesday the military takeover in that country, also known as Burma, is "unacceptable" and requires a strong and unequivocal international response. Andrews told VOA that the takeover is, quote, "an assault on an entire people." He called it "outrageous," and said, "the international community should respond directly, forcefully and responsibly." Myanmar's military seized power on Monday, declaring a yearlong state of emergency and detaining de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, among others. The power grab took place following days of tension between the military and the ruling National League for Democracy, which won the November elections. The military has refused to accept the results, alleging massive election fraud. Andrews called the takeover, quote, "the theft of a democracy."

House Democratic impeachment managers and lawyers for former U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday laid out their arguments in separate briefs ahead of the former president's Senate trial next week on charges of inciting a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol January 6. The House Democratic prosecutors charged that Trump endangered the lives of practically all members of Congress and jeopardized the democratic process when he urged a mob of supporters who had massed near the U.S. Capitol building to try to prevent the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's election victory over Trump. Trump's defense lawyers reject the charges and contend that the impeachment trial is unconstitutional. They say there is no precedent for trying a president after he's left office.

Britain launched an emergency program of door-to-door testing in several areas Tuesday, following the discovery of hundreds of cases of the coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa which scientists say could be more resistant to vaccines. Mobile testing units were deployed to several regions, including parts of London. Local authorities hoped to conduct 80,000 coronavirus tests. By Tuesday morning, 105 cases of the mutation first seen in South Africa had been identified in eight districts across Britain. Eleven of those cases did not have any direct link to international travel, suggesting the variant is being transmitted within the community. Via remote, I'm Marissa Melton. From Washington, this is VOA news.