U.S. missile attacks against Syria sent a stern warning to North Korea and China that the United States is ready to use military force if necessary, said a senior official from the Obama administration. President Donald Trump Thursday ordered targeted missile strikes on a Syrian airfield in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack blamed on…
read moreKostas Argyros’s unpaid electricity bills are piling up, among a mountain of debt owed to Greece’s biggest power utility. His family owe 850 euros to the Public Power Corporation (PPC), a tiny fraction of the state-controlled firm’s 2.6 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in unpaid bills. Argyros picks up only occasional work as an odd-job man.…
read moreFor the first time in at least a decade, Mexico’s army is allowing the United States and the United Nations to observe opium poppy eradication, a step toward deeper cooperation to fight heroin traffickers, three sources in Mexico said. The opening could bring Mexico more in line with other drug producing countries like Afghanistan, Colombia…
read moreA torrid summer and devastating fires across central Chile’s wine belt have forced an earlier harvest this year, but there are no signs that volume or flavor will be affected, local industry experts said on Thursday. High temperatures can lead to excessive sugar and alcohol in the grapes and the harvest needed to take place…
read moreSerbian President-elect Aleksandar Vucic likes to use the past to explain the future. In 1947, as Josip Broz Tito was consolidating Yugoslavia, he built a railway through Bosnia that linked Serbs, Croats and Muslim Bosniaks, friend and foe after World War II. “Tito wasn’t stupid,” Vucic told Reuters. “People had to work together, build together,…
read morePresident Donald Trump on Friday chose Kevin Hassett, an economics adviser to past Republican presidential candidates, to be chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Hassett will play a critical role in analyzing the performance of the economy and impact of policy changes. Hassett is the research director for domestic policy at the…
read moreThe U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations told an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Friday that Washington was “fully justified” in striking a Syrian airfield overnight. “The United States took a very measured step last night,” Nikki Haley said, referring to the retaliatory missile strikes. “We are prepared to do more, but we…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping to make a state visit Beijing this year, although no date has been set. The news came in a briefing Friday by three U.S. Cabinet secretaries as Trump and Xi met at Trump’s resort home, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, and was confirmed by…
read morePresident Donald Trump’s decision to authorize cruise-missile strikes on a Syrian government air base has drawn rare bipartisan support from congressional leaders. However, a number of lawmakers from both parties also expressed concern, saying that if the president plans any escalation of military action, Congress has a constitutional role to play. Senate Majority Leader Mitch…
read moreThe U.S. Senate voted 54-45 Friday to confirm President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, in a vote decided largely along party lines. Vice President Mike Pence was present in the Senate chamber to preside over the confirmation vote. The vote came a day after Republicans used their majority to exercise the “nuclear option,”…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he ordered a targeted military strike against an airfield controlled by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. A deadly chemical attack was launched this week from that base. Here are the reactions of some members of Congress: House Speaker Paul Ryan “This action was appropriate and just. Resolving the years-long…
read moreThe U.S. attack on a Syrian air base Friday morning came after years of heated debate and deliberation in Washington over intervention in the bloody civil war. Chemical weapons have killed hundreds of people since the start of the conflict, with the U.N. blaming three attacks on the Syrian government and a fourth on…
read moreThe Senate is poised to confirm President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Judge Neil Gorsuch, after Republicans forced a historic change in the rules governing the chamber. As VOA’s Michael Bowman reports from Capitol Hill, no longer will the minority party have the power to block a high court nominee on its own. …
read moreThere is now a new leader for the House of Representatives investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The embattled chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has stepped aside because of an ethics probe in connection to his unorthodox behavior last month in viewing classified documents at the White House and then briefing President…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump said to light laughter at a Thursday evening dinner he hosted for Chinese President Xi Jinping that after a long discussion, “I have gotten nothing, absolutely nothing” from his guest. But Trump added that the two leaders, who chatted earlier at the president’s Florida resort, had quickly “developed a friendship,” and…
read moreU.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross held out hope Thursday that the Trump administration will revive the U.S. Export-Import bank’s full lending powers, saying the institution is part of its “trade toolbox” to boost exports. The U.S. government trade lender has been hobbled for the better part of two years by conservative Republicans in Congress who…
read moreWhen the U.S. president hosts a foreign leader at his home, it can be seen as a sign of hospitality, an indicator of warm relations, and a chance to put American culture on display. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously hosted the king and queen of England at his Hyde Park estate, where he served hot…
read moreConservative activist groups that generally support Republicans but oppose a pro-export, anti-import Republican tax proposal released a study on Thursday estimating its impact on individual U.S. states, underscoring the party’s division over taxes. The two activist groups, backed by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, reported that seven states won by President Donald Trump in…
read moreThe White House said Thursday that President Donald Trump plans to nominate a Lyft executive as under secretary of transportation for policy. Derek Kan is general manager for San Francisco-based ride services company Lyft in Southern California. He previously was policy adviser to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the husband of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.…
read moreWhite House economic adviser Gary Cohn said he backed bringing back the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that would revamp Wall Street banks by splitting their consumer-lending businesses from their investment arms. The National Economic Council director, also a former Goldman Sachs president, expressed support to lawmakers for a banking system where firms would focus…
read moreStrong trade ties between the United States and nations in Southeast Asia are under a cloud as a U.S. investigation into trade imbalances gets underway. Regional governments say the apparent policy shift has spurred concern and anxiety. A 90-day investigation by the U.S. Commerce Department of countries with large trade surpluses with the United States…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was considering packaging a $1 trillion infrastructure plan with either healthcare or tax reform legislation as an incentive to get support from lawmakers, especially Democrats. Trump also said in an interview with the New York Times he may move up the unveiling of a plan to rebuild…
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