VOA常速英语:世卫专家称武汉实验室泄露新冠病毒毫无根据

A member of the World Health Organization-led team searching for clues to the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, said Thursday that work needed to be done to trace genetic elements of the virus in bat caves. Emily Wither of Reuters reports. Peter Daszak, a zoologist and animal disease expert, said the team in Wuhan had been receiving new information about how the virus led to a pandemic. He said there was no evidence to suggest it emerged from a lab, but they were examining the potential link to bats. "The real work we are doing here is to trace back from the first cases back to an animal reservoir." One scenario being scrutinized more closely by the team is the possibility that the virus could have been circulating long before it was first identified in Wuhan at the end of 2019. The investigators have so far visited hospitals, research facilities and the seafood market where the first outbreak was identified. That's Reuters Emily Wither.

Tokyo Olympics chief Yoshiro Mori apologized on Thursday for sexist comments he repeatedly made about women talking too much, but said he would not resign. Reuters Emer McCarthy has more. There have been calls for Yoshiro Mori to step down after he said that female board members talked too much. The 83-year-old made the comments at a Japanese Olympic Committee meeting this week, according to a report in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. In a hastily called press conference on Thursday, the former Japanese prime minister said his comments were wrong. The saga is likely to alienate a Japanese public that's already wary about hosting the Games during the health crisis. A recent poll showed that 80 percent of the public thought it shouldn't go ahead as scheduled in July. That's Reuters Emer McCarthy.

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits has dropped but it remains historically high. We get more from AP's Mike Hempen. The Labor Department says 779,000 people applied for jobless aid last week, down 33,000 from the previous week. However, before the virus surfaced in March, applications never topped 700,000. The latest unemployment data showed just under 18 million people were still receiving jobless benefits in mid-January. But once vaccinations become more widely distributed and administered in coming months, economists expect growth to pick up at a sustained clip. Mike Hempen, Washington. You can find more on our website VOAnews.com. Reporting by remote, I'm David Byrd, VOA news.