Beto O’Rourke, the youthful Texan who gained a national following with his long-shot election battle against U.S. Senator Ted Cruz last year, told a Texas TV station Wednesday he would seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. “I’m really proud of what El Paso did and what El Paso represents,” O’Rourke said in a text to…
read moreDemocrats in the U.S. House of Representatives gave a cool reception to the replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement on Wednesday as the top U.S. trade negotiator opened a campaign to win broad support for the accord in Congress. Several Democrats said a closed-door meeting between United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and…
read moreFacebook says it is aware of outages on its platforms including Facebook, Messenger and Instagram, and is working to resolve the issue. According to downdector.com, which monitors websites, the outages started around 12 p.m. E.T. on Wednesday in parts of the U.S., including the East and West Coast, parts of Europe and elsewhere. Both Facebook’s…
read moreSpotify has filed a complaint with European Union antitrust regulators against Apple, saying the iPhone maker unfairly limits rivals to its own Apple Music streaming service. Spotify, which launched a year after the 2007 launch of the iPhone, said on Wednesday that Apple’s control of its App Store deprived consumers of choice and rival providers of audio streaming services to the…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort is due to be sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Washington on two conspiracy charges. Judge Amy Berman Jackson can order Manafort to spend up to 10 years in prison. Last week, another federal judge sentenced Manafort to 47 months for tax and bank fraud. It…
read moreDemocrats are largely lining up behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her wait-and-see strategy on any impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Moderate and even some of the most liberal House Democrats said they were supportive of the speaker after she told The Washington Post that she’s not for impeachment, at least for now.…
read moreGoogle, Amazon and Apple have capitalized on technology that makes virtual personal assistants possible. Now a new application allows the user to have a virtual conversation with a video recording of a real person. How does that work and why is it needed? VOA’s Elizabeth Lee explains. …
read moreFormer Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn is not ready to be sentenced yet because “there may be additional cooperation” he can offer as he tries to reduce his potential punishment, according to a court filing Tuesday night. Flynn has been cooperating with prosecutors in Virginia in an ongoing case against two former…
read moreThe United States is working on a plan to lift tariffs from Mexican and Canadian steel and aluminum but preserve the gains that domestic producers have received from the duties so far, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Tuesday. “What I’m trying to do is a have a practical solution to a real problem…
read moreMexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday denied any delay to a flagship refinery project in his home state after the deputy finance minister was quoted as saying $2.5 billion for its construction will be moved to state oil firm Pemex. The planned investment for the Dos Bocas refinery “can go to exploration and…
read moreThe United States is preparing to impose “very significant” Venezuela-related sanctions against financial institutions in the coming days, U.S. special envoy Elliott Abrams said on Tuesday. Abrams did not elaborate on the fresh measures but his warning came a day after the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Russian bank Evrofinance Mosnarbank for helping Venezuelan state…
read moreOne of General Motors’ first self-driving test vehicles is going on display at an automotive history museum in suburban Detroit. The Henry Ford history attraction announced Tuesday that it has acquired a modified pre-production Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle. The GM-donated vehicle originally made its debut testing on the streets of San Francisco in 2016. Now…
read moreAt the ripe old age of 30 and with half the globe using it, the World Wide Web is facing growing pains with issues like hate speech, privacy concerns and state-sponsored hacking, its creator says, trumpeting a call to make it better for humanity. Tim Berners-Lee on Tuesday joined a celebration of the Web and…
read moreFormer US vice president Joe Biden dropped teasing hints Tuesday that he could soon announce a 2020 White House campaign, telling an enthusiastic crowd that he may need their energy “in a few weeks.” The Democratic elder statesman has been mulling a challenge against President Donald Trump for months. While he tops nearly all early…
read moreMaryland Gov. Larry Hogan will speak in New Hampshire next month as he weighs a primary challenge to President Donald Trump. The Republican Hogan, who remains popular in liberal leaning Maryland and won re-election last fall, will speak at “Politics & Eggs” on April 23. The program from the New England Council and the…
read moreThe U.S. is weighing a complaint at the World Trade Organization against “discriminatory” new taxes on digital giants such as a Facebook and Google which are being planned by France and other EU nations, a top US trade official said Tuesday. “We think the whole theoretical basis of digital service taxes is ill-conceived and the…
read moreFor the first time in recent years, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s annual Government Work Report did not mention Made in China 2025, the country’s ambitious plan to achieve high-tech dominance, and that has analysts asking whether Beijing is going to completely overhaul the plan or keep it going quietly behind the scenes. Made in China…
read moreFrance, Britain, Germany, Malaysia and Oman are the latest countries to suspend the Boeing 737 Max 8 passenger jet from operating in their respective airspaces, joining a growing list of countries taking precautionary measures involving the plane after its second fatal crash in five months. Airlines in countries across the globe, including China, Turkey,…
read moreHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi is setting a high bar for impeachment of President Donald Trump, saying he is “just not worth it” even as some on her left flank clamor to start proceedings. Pelosi said in an interview with The Washington Post that “I’m not for impeachment” of Trump. “Unless there’s something so compelling and…
read moreSpecial Counsel Robert Mueller and the team he assembled to investigate U.S. President Donald Trump and his associates have been funded through the end of September 2019, three U.S. officials said on Monday, an indication that the probe has funding to keep it going for months if need be. The operations and funding of Mueller’s…
read moreVenezuela’s state-run oil firm PDVSA has been unable to resume crude exports from its primary port since last week’s massive power outage, essentially crippling the OPEC nation’s principal industry, people familiar with the matter said on Monday. Power remained patchy in most of the country after a blackout on Thursday that the government of President…
read moreBrazil on Monday thanked the global body that oversees internet addresses for extending until April a deadline for Amazon basin nations to reach a deal with Amazon.com in their seven-year battle over the .amazon domain name. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) meeting this week in Kobe, Japan, decided to put off…
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