U.S. President Donald Trump told the New York Times that if a special prosecutor investigating Russia’s influence on last year’s presidential election and possible collusion with his campaign expands the probe to look at Trump’s family finances unrelated to Russia, that would cross the line of what is acceptable. “I would say yes,” Trump said…
read moreWhile Western drivers like the “new car smell” of a vehicle fresh off the production line, Chinese would rather their cars didn’t smell of anything — a cultural divide that’s testing carmakers seeking an edge to revive sales in the world’s biggest auto market. At Ford Motor Co., for example, 18 smell assessors, dubbed “golden…
read moreVenezuela’s severe economic crisis will worsen if President Nicolas Maduro presses ahead with a controversial new congress that would further undermine investor confidence in the OPEC nation, the head of the country’s biggest business guild said. Despite months of protests by the majority-backed opposition and widespread international condemnation, the ruling Socialist Party is holding a…
read moreArgentina said Wednesday that it has sent the regional bloc Mercosur its ratification of the group’s 2010 trade agreement with Egypt, and the pact will go into force within a month. The trade deal, which covers food, cars, auto parts and industrial supplies, was signed by Egypt and Mercosur members Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay…
read morePresident Donald Trump has declined an invitation to address the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Wednesday. The White House did not offer any details on why Trump would not speak to the 108-year-old civil rights group. “My understanding is that the invitation…
read moreThe White House has declined to release any details of a G-20 summit dinner conversation earlier this month between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “This was a social dinner and that was the nature of the evening,” White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters who pressed her on Wednesday about the…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said a voter fraud commission launched under his administration will be “very transparent” and the results will be made available publicly, once a report is written. The panel’s work will be “very open for everyone to see” Trump said during the commission’s first meeting. “You will approach this important…
read moreThe U.S. Supreme Court has put a temporary halt to U.S. refugee admissions until an appeals court rules on the matter. In a ruling Wednesday, the nation’s highest court upheld a request from the Trump administration to bar refugees as part of his travel order limiting travelers from six majority Muslim countries. But the government…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump is emphatically telling the Republican majority in the Senate it needs to keep its seven-year promise to voters to repeal the country’s health care law championed by former President Barack Obama. Trump invited all 52 Republican senators to the White House for lunch Wednesday to talk about health care, a day…
read moreAsia’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, suddenly finds himself cornered. The giant Dalian Wanda Group, which he heads, is facing a range of regulatory investigations and actions from the Chinese authorities. The latest move involves asking banks to stop financing overseas forays of the Wanda Group, which owns an array of foreign assets, including a Hollywood…
read moreCareem, a Middle Eastern rival to Uber, has become the first ride-hailing firm to operate in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Dubai-based Careem, whose name is a play on the Arabic word for generous or noble, launched in Ramallah in June, aiming to bring digital simplicity to the Palestinian territory. There is certainly a market for…
read moreFormer Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman Jr. has served in the administrations of four U.S. presidents and now is being considered by the fifth. On Tuesday, the White House announced that President Donald Trump will nominate Huntsman as U.S. Ambassador to Russia. Born in March 1960, Huntsman is the motorcycle-driving son of billionaire Jon Huntsman…
read moreThe government of Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is no longer considering cutting the value-added tax (VAT) rate due to slumping government revenues as the economy slows, the country’s prime minister said Tuesday. Trimming the VAT rate gradually to 15 percent from 18 percent had been part of Kuczynski’s economic platform as he took office…
read moreWith corruption charges delaying his unpopular proposal for the overhaul of Brazil’s costly pension system, President Michel Temer is trying to quickly push through a mini tax reform, a presidential aide told Reuters on Tuesday. The simplification of the PIS/Cofins federal social security contributions levied on gross receipts would face easier passage in Congress and…
read moreHouse Republicans are moving next week to fund President Donald Trump’s $1.6 billion request to begin construction of his oft-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Aides said Tuesday evening that GOP leaders have decided to attach the money — to build 74 miles of fencing and levee wall in the Rio Grande Valley in…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump is looking for ways to defend American-made products by certifying legitimate U.S. goods and aggressively going after imported products unfairly sporting the “Made in America” label, the White House said on Tuesday. Trump, who campaigned on reviving the U.S. manufacturing sector, vowed on Monday that his administration would crack down on…
read moreAmazon has begun selling ready-to-cook meal packages for busy households in a bid to expand its groceries business. Amazon-branded meal kits come with raw ingredients needed to prepare such meals as chicken tikka masala and falafel patties. They can help households save time; a kit for salmon with soba noodles can be prepared in…
read moreDespite opposition from Republican moderates and conservatives, House leaders are pressing ahead with a budget plan whose success is critical to the party’s hopes to deliver on one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities — a GOP-only effort to overhaul the tax code. The importance of the measure has been magnified by the cratering in…
read moreRepublicans sought to regroup Tuesday after their quest to scale back the U.S. government’s role in health care collapsed, leaving in place former President Barack Obama’s health care law, popularly known as Obamacare. “I’m certainly disappointed. For seven years, I’ve been hearing ‘repeal and replace’ from Congress,” said a visibly angry President Donald Trump. “And…
read moreAnother person has been identified who was at a June 2016 meeting President Donald Trump’s eldest son set up on the promise that a Russian government attorney would hand him incriminating material about Trump’s opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Ike Kaveladze, a senior vice president at the company founded by a Russian oligarch who initiated the…
read moreIn 2016, Ilhan Omar made history when she was elected to Minnesota’s House of Representatives, becoming the first Somali-American to win a state office in the United States. Omar had humble beginnings, as her family was uprooted from her home country as a child during Somalia’s civil war in the 1990s. She came to America…
read morePresident Donald Trump took the oath of office six months ago Thursday, vowing to rescue the country from what he said was an “American carnage” of shuttered factories and too many people trapped in poverty. “The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action,” Trump pledged in his inaugural address.…
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