Frustration is mounting in the medical community as the Trump administration again points to mental illness in response to yet another mass shooting. “The concept that mental illness is a precursor to violent behavior is nonsense,” said Dr. Louis Kraus, forensic psychiatry chief at Chicago’s Rush University Medical College. “The vast majority of gun violence…
read moreWhen the U.S. government approved Ricardo Magpantay, his wife and young children to immigrate to America from the Philippines, it was 1991. By the time a visa was available, it was 2005, and his children couldn’t come with him because they were now adults. More than a decade later, his children are still waiting. Magpantay…
read moreLatvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis assured the country and Europe “there is no sign of danger,” after anti-corruption police arrested the head of the Latvian central bank Saturday. “For now, neither I, nor any other official, has any reason to interfere with the work of the Corruption Prevention Bureau,” Kucinskis said. Neither Kucinskis nor the…
read moreWashington is refocused on the Russia probe after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians accused of mounting a massive social media trolling campaign to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports President Trump unleashed a tweetstorm claiming personal vindication in the Russia…
read morePresident Donald Trump said Sunday he believes Russia has been wildly successful in disrupting the U.S. political landscape with its interference in the 2016 election because of the subsequent months-long investigations it spawned. “If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S.,” Trump said in a Twitter comment,…
read moreFour automakers in Japan, including Mitsubishi and Isuzu, have road-tested a form of driverless technology. The big rigs are all equipped with a type of adaptive cruise-control system as a step toward removing the one feature you’d expect to see in the cab: a driver. Arash Arabasadi reports. …
read moreThe request was simple: organize or attend a sign-waving rally supporting Donald Trump. But some of the Florida Republicans on the receiving end of those requests now know that they didn’t come from Republican allies, but from Russian adversaries. Caught up in an elaborate Russian plot without their knowledge, a handful of these small-time Trump…
read more“We are going to be the last mass shooting,” vowed Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who spoke at a gun-control rally Saturday, three days after an armed former student killed 17 of her classmates and teachers. Gonzalez spoke bluntly to her audience, hundreds…
read morePresident Donald Trump will meet Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan at Trump’s Florida resort on Sunday to discuss legislative priorities, White House spokeswoman Jessica Ditto said. No further details were provided about the meeting or topics. Immigration may come up in the Trump-Ryan meeting. The U.S. Senate rejected a series of…
read moreA California man has pleaded guilty to inadvertently selling bank accounts to Russians who were indicted Friday by a federal grand jury for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to using stolen identities to set up bank accounts that were then used by the Russians, according to a February 12…
read moreThe Commerce Department is urging President Donald Trump to impose tariffs or quotas on aluminum and steel imports from China and other countries. Unveiling the recommendations Friday, Secretary Wilbur Ross said in the case of both industries “the imports threaten to impair our national security.” As an example, Ross said only one U.S. company now…
read moreSpecial Counsel Robert Mueller on Friday indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies, accusing them of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The indictment claims the Russians tried to help U.S. President Donald Trump and hurt his opponent, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports. …
read moreWhite House Chief of Staff John Kelly, under pressure to act, strengthened the process for security clearances for President Donald Trump’s aides on Friday in response to a scandal involving a former official accused of domestic abuse by two ex-wives. Saying that recent events had exposed some “shortcomings,” Kelly decreed that any interim security clearances…
read morePresident Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House next month. White House spokesman Raj Shah confirms that Netanyahu will meet with the president on March 5. The pair met last month in Davos, Switzerland weeks after the Trump administration rejected international criticism of its decision to recognize…
read moreThe special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election announced charges against the first group of Russians it says were behind the effort, unsealing an indictment against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities. The indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury on Friday, alleges that Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg,…
read moreThe U.S. attorney general is ordering an immediate review of how the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation respond to warnings about potential mass killers. The action followed an admission Friday by the FBI — the top national law enforcement agency — that it had ignored a tip about the gunman who killed 17 people and…
read moreA senior aide to Jared Kushner is leaving the White House to return to his family’s real estate company. Reed Cordish is a central figure in the Kushner-led Office of American Innovation. Cordish will be replaced by Brooke Rollins, a former aide to Texas ex-Gov. Rick Perry who heads the Texas Public Policy Foundation on…
read moreThe uncovering of one of the biggest frauds at a state-owned bank in India has rocked the country’s financial sector and brought scrutiny to a billionaire jeweler who counted Hollywood stars among his customers. The nearly $1.8 billion fraud reported at India’s second-largest state-owned bank is a blow to the government’s efforts to revive the…
read moreIraq’s prime minister was in Kuwait this week, selling his country as a promising investment opportunity. After years of war and sectarian violence, Iraq is moving toward stability and wants to attract the private sector to help fund its $88 billion reconstruction and recovery effort. From the Kuwaiti capital, VOA’s Margaret Besheer reports investors are…
read moreA senior State Department official cast doubt Thursday on the idea that the U.S. can carry out a limited military strike on North Korea, a proposal that has become known as the “bloody nose” strategy. VOA State Department Correspondent Nike Ching reports. …
read moreThe U.S. Senate rejected four immigration reform proposals Thursday, after lawmakers spent a week weighing competing plans addressing the protection of young undocumented immigrants, increased funding for border security and changing the rules for family-based immigration. VOA’s Congressional reporter Katherine Gypson has more on the political fallout from Capitol Hill. …
read moreThe suspect in the mass school shooting in Florida made his first court appearance Thursday. Nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz faces 17 charges of premeditated murder in connection with Wednesday’s shooting rampage in Parkland, Florida, which also sent 15 others to the hospital. The Florida shooting has rekindled the long-running debate over gun violence in the United…
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