Last month, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Bisa Williams became the highest-ranking U.S.official to visit Cuba in several years.

VOA: standard.2009.10.28

Exports tumbled and joblessness rose to its highest levels in several years.

VOA: standard.2009.09.09

A U.S.announcement Tuesday that special envoy Stephen Bosworth will visit Pyongyang before the end of the year nearly coincided with reports of the naval skirmish, the first of its kind in several years.

VOA: standard.2009.11.11

During the next several years, Hurston traveled in Florida and the Caribbean to collect and write stories about what she saw.

VOA: special.2009.02.22

Several years ago, people were objecting to the odor of poultry farms on the Delmarva Peninsula in the eastern United States.

VOA: special.2009.09.08

Over the years,researchers have identified several substances in the blood that can serve as what they call cardiac biomarkers.

VOA: special.2009.07.15

Voters in the last few years, and most recently in May, have rejected several ballot measures that would have raised taxes.

VOA: special.2009.07.31

Some years earlier, he had asked several people to invest in a gold mine he had in Death Valley.

VOA: special.2011.08.03

The report says temperatures are estimated to increase by several degrees Celsius in the next one hundred years.

VOA: special.2009.05.12

Researchers at the University of Bristol in England discovered similar movements among baby reef fish several years ago.

VOA: special.2010.08.10

She says her students over the past several years have increasingly used less formal English in their writing.

VOA: special.2010.01.28

Several popular songs in recent years were about cold-hearted men or cold-hearted women who, without feeling, broke the hearts of their lovers.

VOA: special.2009.12.13

The report says that, at maximum activity, the small increase in sunshine over several years causes a small temperature increase in Earth's atmosphere.

VOA: special.2009.09.29

He worked as a cattleman for several years, then wrote about the heroic life of the cowboy in a book called "The Virginian."

VOA: special.2010.03.18

He had a heart attack at his home in Florida after several years of failing health.

VOA: special.2010.07.26

He worked in Boston for a few years, drawing illustrations for stories in several newspapers.

VOA: special.2010.07.25

For several years, many people had recognized the need for changes in the banking system.

VOA: special.2010.09.23

Farms in many areas failed because little or no rain fell for several years.

VOA: special.2010.06.13

Several years later, he wrote a book called "The Coming Race War in America."

VOA: special.2009.11.01

Scientists can predict how this instrument might have sounded by studying a copy of a smaller bird bone flute found several years ago in the same area.

VOA: special.2009.08.18

Several years ago, scientists in Singapore investigated curcumin, from the curry spice turmeric.

VOA: special.2009.05.19

In the next several years, Tanya Pinto hopes to begin sponsoring an orphanage.

VOA: special.2009.08.10

Several years ago,two American researchers reported another reason for spice use in cooking.

VOA: special.2009.05.19

After several years of working in the colony, he himself developed leprosy.

VOA: special.2009.10.14

For example, researchers in Singapore completed one such study several years ago.

VOA: special.2010.06.01