Britons desperately wanting some clarity in the country’s interminable Brexit saga were disappointed Wednesday when lawmakers plunged the country’s proposed exit from the European Union, after half-a-century of membership, into further disarray, failing to find a majority for any way forward after a series of so-called indicative votes. The hope had been a majority might…
read moreBritish cybersecurity inspectors have found significant technical issues in Chinese telecom supplier Huawei’s software that they say pose risks for the country’s telecom companies. The annual report Thursday said there is only “limited assurance” that long-term national security risks from Huawei’s involvement in critical British telecom networks can be adequately managed. The report…
read moreIceland’s budget carrier WOW Air said it had ceased operations and cancelled all flights on Thursday, potentially stranding thousands of passengers. The collapse of the troubled airline, which transports more than a third of those traveling to Iceland, comes after buyout talks with rival Icelandair collapsed earlier this week. “All WOW Air flights have been…
read moreEducation Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday defended a proposal to eliminate funding for the Special Olympics, pushing back against a storm of criticism from athletes, celebrities and politicians who rallied to support the organization. DeVos became a target on social media after Democrats slammed her plan to remove the group’s funding as part of…
read moreU.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts to diplomacy and foreign aid from strong criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in hearings Wednesday. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Elliot Engel told Pompeo the president’s budget was “dead” as soon as it arrived on Capitol Hill.…
read moreA second U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday sought to examine the motives of federal agents and investigators who launched the Trump-Russia probe as a Republican effort gathered momentum to seek retribution on behalf of President Donald Trump. Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson told Reuters he planned to join Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a fellow Republican,…
read moreMost of us don’t give much thought to getting dressed every day, but for the elderly and disabled, seemingly simple tasks like buttoning a shirt can prove complicated. Fashion design students recently looked at low-tech ways to make clothes smarter. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports. …
read moreFacebook has announced it is banning praise, support, and representation of white nationalism and separatism on its platform and on Instagram, which it also owns. The company made the announcement Wednesday in a blog post, saying, “It’s clear that these concepts are deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place on our services.”…
read moreTop lawmakers are blasting the Trump administration’s proposal to slash funding for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified Wednesday on Capitol Hill about the plan to cut his agency’s budget by 23 percent. He says difficult choices were made when crafting the 2020 proposal…
read moreBarbara Bush says Donald Trump caused her “angst” during the 2016 election and led her to question whether she was still a Republican in the months before she died. The late former first lady’s thoughts about Trump were revealed in excerpts published Wednesday in USA Today of an upcoming biography, The Matriarch. In a February…
read moreIn 2016, President Donald Trump compared Hillary Clinton’s campaign to the lumbering federal bureaucracy. Now he’s building one of his own. From an office tower across the Potomac River from Washington, from the bowels of the Republican National Committee’s headquarters on Capitol Hill and from field offices across the country, Trump is assembling an army…
read moreComputers have become so smart during the past 20 years that people don’t think twice about chatting with digital assistants like Alexa and Siri or seeing their friends automatically tagged in Facebook pictures. But making those quantum leaps from science fiction to reality required hard work from computer scientists like Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton and…
read moreIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says the country has shot down a satellite in low orbit, entering an exclusive club of nations that have developed anti-satellite weapons. In an unexpected address to the nation Wednesday, Modi called it a major breakthrough in the country’s space capability. A missile fired from eastern India brought down the…
read moreIn Japan, every emperor’s era has its own name – appearing in places such as coins, official paperwork and newspapers – and with abdication coming at the end of April, speculation is swirling about what the new “gengo” will be. Although the Western calendar has become more widespread in Japan, many people here count years…
read moreNearly one in three people living in West and Central Africa fear losing their homes and land in the next five years, according to a survey of 33 countries, making it the region where people feel most insecure about their property. More than two in five respondents from Burkina Faso and Liberia worry their home…
read moreThan Ei lived in the Thilawa area near Yangon for years, growing vegetables in her backyard and sending her two children to school with money from her husband’s construction job. Then came the government order to move. Than Ei’s family was among 68 households relocated in 2013 to make way for the Thilawa Special Economic…
read moreU.S. labor officials on Tuesday pressed lawmakers to strengthen enforcement of the provisions of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) intended to protect workers, the latest sign that the trade deal could face hurdles to passage in the Democrat-led House of Representatives. Renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was one of President Donald…
read morePresident Donald Trump and House Republicans stepped up their efforts to win congressional approval for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade accord on Tuesday, selling the plan as offering big benefits for American workers. But prospects remain uncertain as Democrats are in no hurry to secure a political victory for the president. GOP lawmakers emerged from a meeting…
read moreLawyers for Elon Musk and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will square off in a Manhattan courtroom next week over whether the Tesla chief executive should be held in contempt over one of his tweets. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan scheduled oral argument on an SEC contempt motion for April 4 at 2 p.m.…
read moreFormer Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, the first person charged in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, said on Tuesday his lawyers have applied for a pardon and that he may withdraw his guilty plea. “My lawyers have applied for a pardon from the president for me,” Papadopoulos said in an interview with Reuters, adding…
read moreThe U.S. government’s multi-pronged effort to persuade European allies to bar the Chinese firm Huawei from supplying key elements of state-of-the-art 5G mobile data networks appears to have foundered, raising questions not only about the future of key intelligence-sharing relationships but also about the future of mobile technology in the U.S. itself. U.S. officials used…
read moreLeading House Democrats, backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are unveiling broad legislation to shore up the Affordable Care Act. It’s an attempt to deliver on campaign promises about health care and to — just maybe— change the conversation. In a capital city consumed with the political storm over special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report ,…
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