For decades, it was virtually unknown outside a small circle of investors, corporate lawyers and government officials. But in recent years, the small interagency body known as the Committee for Investment in the United States has grown in prominence, propelled by a U.S. desire to use it as an instrument of national security and…
read moreU.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Friday the Justice Department is preparing a redacted version of the special counsel’s nearly 400-page confidential report on the Russia investigation and will be in a position to release it by mid-April, if not sooner. In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees,…
read moreLyft Inc shares on Friday opened up 21.2 percent at $87.24 in its market debut on the Nasdaq after the company was valued at $24.3 billion in the first initial public offering (IPO) of a ride-hailing startup. On Thursday, Lyft said it priced 32.5 million shares, slightly more that it was offering originally, at $72,…
read moreWashington Governor Jay Inslee on Friday became the latest Democratic presidential candidate to release his tax returns, while bashing President Donald Trump for refusing such a disclosure. “It’s time for him to come clean with the American people,” Inslee said on Fox News’ Fox & Friends, adding that he was issuing his challenge on the…
read moreAt one atom thick, graphene is one of those miracle materials that many say is the stuff of the future. The future may be now as graphene’s potential is being realized as the key to quick efficient 5G networks, and the future of telecommunications. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump, at his first political rally since the end of the two-year Russia collusion investigation, unleashed a furious attack on cheerleaders of the probe into alleged ties between his 2016 election campaign and Moscow. The “group of major losers” went beyond personal attacks, according to Trump, and tried to tear up the…
read moreFederal legislation proposed Thursday would give state prison officials the ability they have long sought to jam the signals of cellphones smuggled to inmates within their walls. U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and U.S. Rep. David Kustoff of Tennessee introduced companion bills in both chambers, The Associated Press learned. The legislation could help solve…
read morePresident Donald Trump says he has overruled his education secretary and others and will fund the Special Olympics. “I’ve been to the Special Olympics. I think it’s incredible,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn Thursday. The Special Olympics give physically and mentally challenged athletes in the United States and elsewhere the chance to…
read moreInfluential figures in Washington are calling for the establishment of a bilateral free-trade agreement with Taiwan, even as U.S. and Chinese officials move toward a resolution of their long-running trade dispute. “We have a lot of issues with Beijing, and a lot of opportunities with Taiwan,” said Edwin J. Feulner in an interview with…
read moreFacebook was charged with discrimination by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because of its ad-targeting system. HUD said Thursday Facebook is allowing advertisers to exclude people based on their neighborhood by drawing a red line around those neighborhoods on a map and giving advertisers the option of showing ads only to men…
read moreBritons 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…
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