Egypt’s parliament on Monday removed jail penalties from a law controlling operations of non-governmental organizations, but rights groups rejected the changes as insufficient. Justified by officials to protect national security from meddling by foreign-funded charities, the 2017 law restricted NGOs’ activity to developmental and social work, with jail terms of up to five years for…
read moreFederal judges will decide how to proceed with bond hearings in two separate federal indictments against R. Kelly. The 52-year-old singer was arrested Thursday night while walking his dog on a 13-count indictment that includes sex crimes and obstruction of justice. A federal indictment was also unsealed in New York Friday that charges him with…
read moreA nonprofit foundation set up by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden that relies on health care world partnerships to speed a cure for cancer has suspended its operations. The Biden Cancer Initiative was founded two years ago by Biden and his wife, Jill, as a tribute to his son Beau, who died of cancer in…
read moreChina’s economic growth slowed to its lowest level in a decade last quarter amid a tariff war with Washington, adding to pressure on Beijing to reverse a deepening slump. The world’s second-largest economy expanded by 6.2% over a year earlier in the three months ending in June, down from the previous quarter’s 6.4%, government data…
read moreThe treatment of migrants in U.S. detention centers has generated friction between the Trump administration and opposition Democrats. Each side is casting blame on the other for the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. VOA’s Marcus Harton has more. …
read moreIn a series of Sunday morning tweets quickly deemed racist and xenophobic by critics, U.S. President Donald Trump has provoked fresh controversy with taunts at several new members of Congress. Trump on Twitter, targeted Progressive Democratic Congresswomen, telling them to “go back” and help fix the “crime infested” countries from which they came. So interesting…
read moreU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are set to launch nationwide raids Sunday aimed at arresting immigrants in the country who are facing deportation, so they can be sent back to their homelands. The campaign, confirmed Friday by President Donald Trump, is expected to focus on hundreds of families in nine major cities, including…
read moreBarry rolled into the Louisiana coast Saturday, flooding highways, forcing people to scramble to rooftops and dumping heavy rain that officials had feared could test the levees and pumps that were bolstered after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. After briefly becoming a Category 1 hurricane, the system weakened to a tropical storm as…
read moreNEW YORK — Authorities said a widespread power shortage in Manhattan on Saturday evening left businesses without electricity, elevators stuck and subway cars stalled. Power reportedly went out at much of Rockefeller Center, and the outage reached the city’s Upper West Side. The full extent of the outage, however, wasn’t clear. A diner on Broadway at…
read moreJERUSALEM — Israel’s education minister voiced support Saturday for so-called gay “conversion therapy,” drawing a disavowal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government’s religious-rightist tilt has worried liberals at home and backers abroad. Conversion therapy, an attempt to alter sexual orientation or gender identity through psychological, spiritual and, in extreme cases, physical means, has been widely discredited in the West and condemned by…
read moreNEW YORK — A planned forum on climate change for Democratic presidential candidates lost several major sponsors on Saturday in the wake of the left-leaning magazine The New Republic publishing — and later retracting — a vulgar and homophobic story related to gay presidential contender Pete Buttigieg. The New Republic was slated as a chief sponsor of a…
read morePennsylvania’s message was clear: The state was taking a big step to keep its elections from being hacked in 2020. Last April, its top election official told counties they had to update their systems. So far, nearly 60% have taken action, with $14.15 million of mostly federal funds helping counties buy brand-new electoral systems. But…
read morePresident Donald Trump was defiant and declarative, with all the hammer-on-anvil subtlety that has charted a now-familiar pattern of his presidency: create a crisis, retreat, declare victory, move on. “Not only didn’t I back down, I backed up,” Trump insisted Friday. However he may phrase it, though, Trump walked away from his earlier vow to…
read moreAs Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters vow to keep up their fight, churches remain on the front lines. Christian groups hold regular public gatherings and sing hymns at demonstrations, both as a way to protest and to de-escalate clashes between police and more aggressive protesters. As VOA’s Bill Gallo reports, many churches in Hong Kong fear…
read moreAs the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the historic mission to land humans on the surface of the moon, VOA’s Kane Farabaugh presents this reflection of the monumental achievement through the eyes of the NASA astronauts themselves. In exclusive interviews Farabaugh gathered, the men of the Apollo program reflect on the path to the…
read moreCongressional Democrats are pushing for new protections for asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. They unveiled legislation this week that reflects the lawmakers’ increasing anger and concern over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. But Republicans accuse Democrats of refusing to acknowledge an immigration crisis exists and making the problem worse. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson…
read moreThe Trump administration Friday asked the Supreme Court to lift a freeze on Pentagon money it wants to use to build sections of a border wall with Mexico. Two lower courts have ruled against the administration in a lawsuit over the funding. Last week, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of…
read moreA federal appeals court gave President Donald Trump a rare legal win in his efforts to crack down on “sanctuary cities” Friday, upholding the Justice Department’s decision to give preferential treatment in awarding community policing grants to cities that cooperate with immigration authorities. The 2-1 opinion overturned a nationwide injunction issued by a federal judge…
read moreChina is criticizing a short visit by Taiwan’s president to the United States, saying it violates the “one-China” principle. Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang urged the U.S. on Friday to cease official exchanges with Taiwan and not allow stopovers by President Tsai Ing-wen. Tsai is already in New York on a two-night stay en route…
read moreA reporter in Mississippi who was denied access to cover a candidate for governor because she is a woman is calling the rejection sexist and a violation of press freedom. The candidate, Robert Foster, said in an emailed statement he was just following the “Billy Graham” rule where a man is never alone with a…
read morePresident Donald Trump unloaded via Twitter on Republican former House Speaker Paul Ryan after Ryan’s comments critical of Trump appeared in excerpts from a new book. Ryan condemns Trump in “American Carnage,” by Tim Alberta of Politico, in excerpts running in various publications. Alberta wrote the former speaker, who retired from Congress in 2018, could…
read moreWhen he resigned as defense secretary last December, Jim Mattis thought it might take two months to install a successor. That seemed terribly long at the time. Seven months later, the U.S. still has no confirmed defense chief even with the nation facing potential armed conflict with Iran. That’s the longest such stretch in Pentagon…
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