Despite initial concerns about an untested new leader, the world’s largest economy will end the year on a high note. The US economy is expanding at the fastest pace in more than two years, buoyed in part by low unemployment, soaring stock prices and a broad economic recovery around the globe. The momentum is expected…
read moreMore than two weeks after losing a special election to the U.S. Senate, Alabama Republican Roy Moore has filed a last-minute court challenge to prevent state election officials from certifying his Democratic opponent’s victory. Moore filed a complaint in a state courthouse late Wednesday afternoon, just hours before Doug Jones was set to be…
read moreIf there is a single word that has dogged and defined Donald Trump’s presidency, it is Russia. VOA White House correspondent Peter Heinlein has a look at how Trump’s relationship with Russia, and the Kremlin’s role in his election, has hung over every moment of his term in office. …
read moreEager for more legislative achievements before Washington’s focus shifts to the midterm elections, President Donald Trump plans to start the new year by meeting with Republican congressional leaders to plot the 2018 legislative agenda, the White House said. After returning to Washington from Florida, where he is spending the holidays, Trump will host House Speaker…
read moreAfter living in Washington for nearly a year, President Donald Trump has yet to enjoy a single non-working meal at a restaurant that doesn’t pay him rent. He hasn’t taken in a performance at the Kennedy Center; hasn’t been to a sporting event; hasn’t toured most of the sights. It’s one of the peculiarities of…
read moreWhen President Donald Trump fired James Comey in May, he said he was acting on the recommendation of Justice Department leaders who had faulted the FBI director for publicly releasing “derogatory information” about Hillary Clinton at the conclusion of the email server investigation one year earlier. Yet with each tweet about the Clinton probe, Trump…
read moreUnited Parcel Service Inc is on track to return a record number of packages this holiday shipping season, a sign that e-commerce purchases surged to new heights over the past month. The world’s largest package delivery company and rival FedEx Corp get paid by retailers like Amazon.com Inc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc for handling e-commerce…
read moreAirbus is drawing up contingency plans to phase out production of the world’s largest jetliner, the A380 superjumbo, if it fails to win a key order from Dubai’s Emirates, three people familiar with the matter said. The moment of truth for the slow-selling airliner looms after just 10 years in service and leaves one of…
read moreFormer U.S. President Barack Obama and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton remain the world’s most admired man and woman among Americans, according to a new Gallup poll. The poll found Obama and Clinton have retained their most admired status as they have for the past 10 years, but by much narrower margins compared to…
read moreU.S. President Barack Obama told Britain’s Prince Harry one danger of the internet is “that people can have entirely different realities” and surround themselves in information that “reinforces their current biases.” Harry interviewed Obama in September for Wednesday’s broadcast on BBC Radio. The former U.S. leader, who left office in January after serving eight years,…
read moreThe global fight over land and resources is getting increasingly bloody and the race for control of valuable assets is expanding from forests and indigenous territories to the seas, space and databanks. Here are five hotspots for property rights in 2018: 1. Rising violence: From Peru to the Philippines, land rights defenders are under increasing…
read moreThere was no way Jose Ramon Garcia, a food transporter in Venezuela, could afford new tires for his van at $350 each. Whether he opted to pay in U.S. currency or in the devalued local bolivar currency at the equivalent black market price, Garcia would have had to save up for years. Though used to…
read moreWith a tweet in early January saying, “It won’t happen!” Donald Trump, who had not yet been inaugurated president of the United States, set upon a confrontational course to stop North Korea from developing a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. During the presidential campaign, Trump unnerved allies in Asia with his…
read moreEight Eastern U.S. states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency, demanding that it order tougher controls on some Midwestern states over air pollution blowing eastward. New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading the lawsuit, saying the Trump administration had failed to impose congressionally mandated anti-pollution standards on parts of the Midwest. “Millions of…
read moreA U.S. appeals court in Washington on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s decision to allow President Donald Trump’s commission investigating voter fraud to request data on voter rolls from U.S. states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) watchdog group, which filed the lawsuit,…
read moreThe sauvignon blanc boasts brassy, citrus notes, but with one whiff, it’s apparent this is no normal Sonoma County wine. It’s infused with THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that provides the high. Move over, pot brownies. The world’s largest legal recreational marijuana market kicks off Monday in California, and the trendsetting state is set…
read moreBefore becoming president, Donald Trump railed against US wars overseas, saying it was better to spend money at home than, in his words, “waste” it overseas. But as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports, Trump has at times struggled to carry out what he calls his “America First” approach to the world during his first year as…
read moreWith the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide at an all-time high, press freedom groups are drawing a direct line between President Donald Trump’s verbal slugfest with some of America’s most venerable news institutions and the adoption of his “fake news” mantra by autocrats and dictators around the world. “We’re seeing an unprecedented attack on both…
read moreAuthorities in eastern Libya have announced a conference in March to drum up support to rebuild the country’s second-largest city Benghazi heavily damaged during three years of fighting between military forces and Islamist fighters. The announcement signals a desire to demonstrate a return to normality in the port, where top military commander Khalifa Haftar declared…
read moreOil moved higher above $65 a barrel on Tuesday, within sight of its highest since mid-2015, supported by an explosion on a crude pipeline in Libya and voluntary OPEC-led supply cuts. The move towards restart of a key North Sea pipeline, Forties, capped the rally. The pipeline is being tested after repairs and full flows…
read moreAt the end of President Donald Trump’s first year in office, congressional Republicans head into 2018, a midterm election year, with one major bicameral legislative achievement to tout: an overhaul of the U.S tax code that polled poorly in most opinion surveys. Even so, Republicans have expressed confidence that Americans will value permanent tax cuts…
read morePresident Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress began the year with ambitious plans to remake major pieces of the nation’s broken immigration system. One of the president’s most high profile campaign promises was to build a wall along the United States’ southern border with Mexico. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson looks back at challenges the president…
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