U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions Thursday said he would continue in his job, a day after President Donald Trump harshly criticized him in an interview with The New York Times. As VOA’s Bill Gallo reports, the president’s frustration stems from Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s presidential…
read morePresident Donald Trump’s aides are said to be investigating special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, looking for ways to discredit his Russia inquiry, news reports revealed late Thursday. The president has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, The Washington Post reported, quoting one…
read moreThe government of Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said on Thursday that it was firing its special counsel in a corruption probe of Brazilian builder Odebrecht, sparking accusations of interference. Justice Minister Marisol Perez said she dismissed special attorney Katherine Ampuero for blocking Odebrecht’s sale of its irrigation company Olmos. Perez said the decision put…
read moreSears will begin selling its appliances on Amazon.com, including smart appliances that can be synced with Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa. The announcement Thursday sent shares of Sears soaring almost 11 percent. The tie-up with the internet behemoth could give shares of the storied retailer one of its biggest one-day percentage gains ever. Sears, which…
read moreA judge in Brazil on Thursday ordered the seizure of more than $2.8 million in pension funds from former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in connection with his corruption conviction. The funds were in one of Silva’s individual accounts and in another linked to his company LILS, which administers assets from his lectures, according…
read moreLast winter, the U.S. tourism industry fretted that Trump administration policies might lead to a “Trump slump” in travel. But those fears may have been premature. International arrivals and travel-related spending are up in 2017 compared with the same period in 2016. There might even be a “Trump bump,” says Roger Dow, CEO of the…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump Wednesday promised a “very transparent” and open-minded investigation into voter fraud, as his presidential advisory commission on election integrity held its first public meeting. As VOA’s Bill Gallo reports, many of Trump’s critics reject the commission out of hand, saying it is meant to find evidence of Trump’s belief in widespread…
read moreA study by the Economic Policy Institute says the chief executive officers of America’s largest firms were paid an average of $15.6 million each in 2016. In a report published Thursday, authors Lawrence Mischel and Jessica Schieder say that amount is 271 times as much as a “typical” worker’s earnings at those same corporations. That…
read moreSix months into his presidency, Donald Trump has a mixed record on his pledges to reverse much of his predecessor’s foreign policy legacy. He has withdrawn from the Paris climate accord, dropped the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact and vocally supported better relations with Russia. But as VOA White House correspondent Peter Heinlein reports, many…
read moreIndia’s top builders have pledged to make at least a fifth of their new housing developments sustainable by 2022, as the country looks to tap sectors other than renewable energy to meet its ambitious climate goals. The campaign is led by the Sustainable Housing Leadership Consortium (SHLC) comprising builders Godrej Properties, Mahindra Lifespaces, Shapoorji Pallonji,…
read moreU.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…
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