U.S. Democratic Representative Luis Gutierrez, who has announced he will not seek re-election to Congress in 2018, said Wednesday he wanted to concentrate his energies “on the national level” and indicated he might be interested in a presidential run in 2020. Fox News reported earlier Wednesday that Gutierrez was weighing such a bid. When asked…
read moreMexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said Wednesday that Trump administration demands for a U.S.-specific automotive content requirement in NAFTA were “not viable,” and he declined to specify when Mexico would formally respond. At a news conference following a series of meetings with senior U.S. trade officials and lawmakers in Washington, Guajardo said that Mexico was…
read moreFacebook Inc. said on Wednesday it was temporarily disabling the ability of advertisers on its social network to exclude racial groups from the intended audience of ads while it studies how the feature could be used to discriminate. Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, told African-American U.S. lawmakers in a letter that the company was…
read moreBroadcast reporters for Russian state-funded TV channel RT will no longer be able to report daily from the U.S. Capitol. A committee that governs Capitol Hill access for broadcast journalists has withdrawn credentials for RT after the company complied earlier this month with a U.S. demand that it register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.…
read moreOpposition has grown among Americans to a Republican tax plan before the U.S. Congress, with 49 percent of people who were aware of the measure saying they opposed it, up from 41 percent in October, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. Congressional Republicans are trying to rush their tax legislation to a vote…
read moreColombia’s palm oil industry and big businesses have pledged to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains as the country battles to reverse the growing destruction of its tropical rainforests. The commitment signed this week makes Colombia the first country in the world to launch its own chapter of the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020, a global…
read moreThe number of international visitors to the United States through June fell sharply from last year, according to government data released Wednesday. And the number of business travelers fell by much more than the drop in tourists, according to the monthly report from the Commerce Departments National Travel and Tourism Office. Total foreign visitors fell…
read moreTurkey’s deteriorating finances are hurting the country’s banks whose reliance on dollar funding makes them vulnerable to the worst-case scenario: a sudden halt or reversal of foreign investment flows. International investors are growing nervous about Turkey for a variety of reasons. But U.S. legal action against a number of Turkish individuals over alleged Iran sanctions…
read moreThis week, more than 1,000 entrepreneurs, business executives and government officials are in Hyderabad India to discuss ways to empower people to start businesses and build networks. The focus of the 8th annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit is women, who still lag behind men when it comes to founding businesses and getting funding. Michelle Quinn reports…
read moreIrwin Steven Goldstein, President Donald Trump’s selection for under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, is a communications and marketing executive with experience at large corporations as well as in government. Goldstein was confirmed by a Senate voice vote and in the middle of November and is expected to start working at…
read moreU.S. ethanol producers, looking to relieve a growing domestic glut, are hunting for new international fuel markets to replace China and Brazil after trade disputes slashed exports to those top buyers. Without new markets, U.S. producers may have to pare output after spending hundreds of millions of dollars on biofuel production plants in recent years.…
read moreEni US could begin work on oil exploration in federal waters off Alaska as soon as next month after the Trump administration on Tuesday approved permits for leases the company has held for a decade, the Interior Department said. The department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, issued Eni US, a unit of Italy’s Eni,…
read moreVenezuelan leftist President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday evening held a ceremony to swear in a military officer as the new head of state oil company PDVSA in the presence of the military’s top brass and cheering red-shirted oil workers. In a surprise move, the unpopular Maduro on Sunday tapped Major General Manuel Quevedo to lead…
read moreThe chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, accused social media company Twitter of being politically biased Tuesday as he defended his plan to roll back rules intended to ensure a free and open internet. Pai, a Republican named by President Donald Trump to head up the FCC, unveiled plans last week to scrap…
read moreA U.S. District Court judge in Washington ruled Tuesday in favor of President Donald Trump in his bid to install White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Judge Timothy Kelly declined to stop, on an emergency basis, the president from making Mulvaney the acting director of…
read moreAs India starts to use blockchain technology for land deals, it must protect the rights of the most vulnerable with policies for the responsible use of big data, analysts said. At least two Indian states are testing blockchain — a ledger system tracking digital information — to record land deals and bring transparency to a…
read moreThe state of Hawaii on Tuesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court not to allow President Donald Trump’s latest travel ban, partly blocked by lower courts, to go into full effect. The ban would bar U.S. entry to people from six Muslim-majority countries. Lawyers for the Democratic-governed state, which filed a legal challenge to the ban,…
read moreThe top U.S. general in Afghanistan said on Tuesday that he had not seen a change in Pakistan’s support for militants so far, despite President Donald Trump taking a tougher line against Islamabad. U.S. officials have long been frustrated by what they see as Pakistan’s reluctance to act against groups such as the Afghan Taliban…
read moreSecretary of State Rex Tillerson says he is “offended” by a growing number of harshly critical reports about his leadership of the State Department. He denies he’s “hollowing out” the ranks of U.S. diplomats by forcing people out. Tillerson’s comments Tuesday came amid a crescendo of criticism from former diplomats, lawmakers, academics and others that…
read moreChobani, the company that helped kick-start the Greek yogurt craze, is shrinking those words on its label as it may expand beyond that food in an increasingly crowded yogurt market. The new look, which will show up in supermarkets this week, removes “Greek Yogurt” from underneath the Chobani name. The yogurt inside will stay the…
read moreThe coal industry and environmentalists squared off Tuesday at a public hearing over the Trump administration’s planned repeal of an Obama-era plan to limit planet-warming carbon emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency was holding the only scheduled hearing on the reversal in Charleston, West Virginia, capital of a state heavily dependent on coal mining. The hearing…
read moreSen. Al Franken apologized Monday to “everyone who has counted on me to be a champion for women” as the Minnesota Democrat fought to bolster his support with his first Capitol public appearance since being drawn into a wave of sexual harassment accusations buffeting Congress. Franken spoke as lawmakers began returning from an extraordinary weeklong…
read more
