The first federal appeals court to hear a challenge to President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban appeared unconvinced that it should ignore the Republican’s repeated promises on the campaign trail to bar Muslims from entering the country. An attorney for the president urged the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday to focus on…
read moreCambodia’s rapidly normalizing economy will receive an additional boost when it hosts the regional World Economic Forum (WEF) for the first time this week with business leaders looking for opportunities to diversify the country’s fledgling industries. American lawyer and chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia, Brett Sciaroni, said Cambodia’s economy remained the…
read moreU.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said sacred tribal lands he toured Monday in America’s newest and most hotly contested monument should be preserved but he questioned whether the monument designation was the right way to do it. Zinke’s aerial and ground tour of the Bears Ears National Monument was part of a review ordered…
read moreThe International Monetary Fund called on Asian economies to learn from Japan’s experience and act early to cope with rapidly aging populations, warning that parts of the region risk “getting old before becoming rich.” Asia has enjoyed substantial demographic dividends in the past decades, but the growing number of elderly is set to create a…
read moreMexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo will travel to Washington next week for talks about sugar exports, he told reporters on Monday, in an attempt to break an impasse that threatens to trigger tit-for-tat duties on sweeteners. U.S.-Mexican trade relations are already under strain as U.S. President Donald Trump seeks to renegotiate the North American Free…
read moreFormer U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday she would prefer that President Donald Trump not criticize judges and the media but that U.S. democratic institutions can withstand such comments. Speaking in an interview, Rice also described Trump as having a somewhat “transactional” view of foreign relations but she broadly endorsed his approach…
read moreA much-challenged temporary travel ban issued by President Donald Trump faced another day in court Monday, with federal appellate judges grilling lawyers on both sides to determine whether a suspension of the executive order will be upheld. An attorney for the government argued before a panel of 13 judges from the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court…
read moreThe Senate has confirmed Heather Wilson as secretary of the Air Force. Senators approved Wilson’s nomination 76-22, making her President Donald Trump’s first service secretary nominee to be approved by the GOP-led chamber. Trump’s choices for secretaries of the Army and Navy have been forced to withdraw from consideration. Trump’s second choice…
read moreProtests over jobs and development in southern and central Tunisia have halted production at or shut the fields of two foreign energy companies in a new challenge to the country’s Prime Minister Youssef Chahed. For Tunisia, a small oil and gas producer compared to its OPEC neighbors Libya and Algeria with national production at around…
read moreCanada escalated a trade dispute with United States by making threats Washington called inappropriate in part because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is under pressure to secure support in a key region ahead of the country’s 2019 elections. Washington last month slapped tariffs on timber imports, prompting Trudeau to say he was considering a ban on…
read moreIt has been only six months since real estate developer Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States in one of the most divisive political campaigns in U.S. history. Trump has struggled to make major progress in his early months as president. One of those moments came last Thursday when Republicans narrowly…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump, who already has won confirmation of a conservative jurist to the Supreme Court, is set to name more conservative judges to lower courts. Aides say 10 of the people on Trump’s list include five nominees for U.S. appellate courts, the next level down from the nation’s highest court, where judges often…
read moreAs one group of squealing, chanting students smack a ball into the pavement in a heated game of four square, another finishes an after-school writing lesson inside Circleville Elementary School. Later in the library, an instructor guides other students in a role-playing activity on how to handle criticism from a sassy friend. The children already…
read moreKatie Ryerson and her father took a train from their hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to Omaha, Nebraska, for her first Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholder meeting, a weekend the conglomerate’s billionaire chief Warren Buffett calls “Woodstock for Capitalists.” They were part of a crowd expected to top last year’s estimated 37,000. Shareholders filled the downtown CenturyLink…
read moreAn Airbnb host who was renting out her Trump Tower apartment is among the first to pay a fine to New York City under a law banning advertising listings for short-term rentals. The host and owner of the Trump Tower apartment, Yelena Yelagina, paid a $1,000 fine to the city. A city official…
read morePresident Donald Trump’s son denied Monday that he told a sportswriter that the family’s real estate business got money from Russia to fund golf courses. In an early morning tweet, Eric Trump said the account from writer James Dodson was “completely fabricated.” His assertion came hours before a new round of testimony on Capitol…
read moreChina is extending its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to troubled Afghanistan, causing analysts to wonder if Beijing is trying to expand its role in the Middle East and also putting itself at the center of the international battle against terrorism. China’s connectivity program involves extending the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is part…
read moreAn Obama administration official who warned the Trump White House about contacts between one of its key advisers and Russia is set to speak publicly for the first time about the concerns she raised. Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is testifying Monday before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee investigating Russian interference in the 2016…
read moreThe U.S. Senate is beginning work on an issue that shifted control of Congress in 2010 and could do so again next year: America’s costly and complex health care system. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, the House of Representatives passed a Republican bill repealing former president Obama’s health care law, but the bill faces major hurdles…
read moreA U.S. Senate panel is taking a new look Monday into the extent of Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election, even as President Donald Trump continues to dismiss Moscow’s interference. The Senate Intelligence Committee is hearing testimony from Sally Yates, who was briefly acting attorney general, the country’s top law enforcement official, in the…
read moreWarren Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Saturday faulted Wells Fargo & Co for failing to stop employees from signing up customers for bogus accounts even after learning it was happening. Wells Fargo, whose largest shareholder is Berkshire, with a 10 percent stake worth roughly $27 billion, gave employees too much autonomy to engage…
read moreBerkshire Hathaway Inc Chairman Warren Buffett fumed Saturday that health care costs are eating away at the U.S. economy like “tapeworm” and said the Republican approach to overhaul Obamacare is a tax cut for the rich. The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday narrowly approved a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, a victory for…
read more