Eurozone ministers on Monday held back granting Greece debt relief because the government failed to implement reforms promised during the massive bailout that ended last year, officials said. Greece exited its third and final international bailout in August, a turning point in its progress out of the catastrophe that engulfed the country during the financial…
read moreDemocrats and Republicans are inviting NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to address a joint meeting of Congress next month around the 70th anniversary of the trans-Atlantic alliance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with agreement from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other members of Congress, is expected to extend the invitation, the leaders’ offices said. The address…
read moreThe federal election oversight agency has levied a record fine against the Super PAC that backed former presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, who ran as a Republican in 2016, and a Chinese-owned corporation, according to a watchdog group that filed the initial complaint. The Campaign Legal Center had asked the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to impose…
read moreIraq and Iran signed several preliminary trade deals on Monday, Iraqi officials said, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani began his first visit seeking to bolster Tehran’s influence and expand commercial ties to help offset renewed U.S. sanctions. The deals, among them a plan to build a railway linking the neighbors, emerged soon after the start…
read moreBarking orders at a digital device that responds in a woman’s voice can reinforce sexist stereotypes, according to academics and creatives who launched the first gender-neutral artificial intelligence voice Monday. Responding to such concerns, a Denmark-based team has created a voice nicknamed Q that was presented at the South by Southwest (SXSW) creative festival in…
read moreBhadri Sarki used to walk for more than an hour to fetch enough water to irrigate just one apple tree. But since a solar-powered water pump was installed in her village, about 350 km (217 miles) northwest of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, she can hydrate her whole orchard in a few hours. “We have a sufficient…
read morePresident Donald Trump plans to seek another $8.6 billion for a border wall in his new budget to be released Monday, White House officials say. This new request would be on top of the nearly $7 billion Trump has ordered to be used to build a wall under his state of emergency declaration. The budget…
read moreInvestigators rushed to the scene of a devastating plane crash in Ethiopia on Sunday, an accident that could renew safety questions about the newest version of Boeing’s popular 737 airliner. The Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed shortly after taking off from the capital of Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on…
read moreWashington is increasingly focused on Venezuela, where a power struggle rages between embattled President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is recognized by more than 50 nations, including the U.S., as interim president. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports U.S. officials believe Maduro’s days are numbered but are downplaying the possibility of U.S. military intervention…
read moreAfter months of Brexit deadlock, this is it: decision time. At least for now. With Britain scheduled to leave the European Union in less than three weeks, U.K. lawmakers are poised to choose the country’s immediate direction from among three starkly different choices: deal, no deal or delay. A look at what might happen:…
read moreMark Zuckerberg’s abrupt Wednesday declaration of a new “privacy vision” for social networking was for many people a sort of Rorschach test. Looked at one way, the manifesto read as an apology of sorts for Facebook’s history of privacy transgressions, and it suggested that the social network would de-emphasize its huge public social network in favor…
read moreIn a technology that’s been heralded as a breakthrough in conservation, remote recording devices are ‘eavesdropping’ on one of the rarest birds in New Zealand to monitor how they are adjusting after being released into a protected reserve. Faith Lapidus reports. …
read moreU.S. scientists say they are using a unique method of analyzing DNA and researching genealogy to help investigators solve decades-old murder cases. Maxim Moskalkov visited Parabon Nanolabs in Reston, Virginia to learn more. …
read morePresident Donald Trump was just doing what he could to raise spirits when he signed Bibles at an Alabama church for survivors of a deadly tornado outbreak, many religious leaders say, though some were offended and others said he could have handled it differently. Hershael York, dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary School of Theology in Louisville,…
read moreA federal judge’s unexpected sentencing of Paul Manafort to less than four years in prison has been decried by some critics as a mere slap on the wrist, reigniting a debate over racial and class disparities in the American criminal justice system. On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis sentenced Manafort to 47 months…
read moreFederal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Friday that the healthy U.S. economy and low inflation are allowing the central bank to take a “patient, wait-and-see approach” on interest rates. Speaking at Stanford University, Powell said the Fed is well along in its effort to normalize Fed operations by scaling back the extraordinary efforts it employed…
read moreWhen President Donald Trump proposes his 2020 federal budget Monday, official Washington will likely have a quick look, shrug and move on, marking another stage in the quiet decay of the U.S. government’s traditional policy-making processes. There was a time when the release of the president’s budget was a red-letter day on the calendar of…
read moreThe Democratic-controlled House on Friday approved legislation aimed at reducing the role of big money in politics, ensuring fair elections and strengthening ethics standards. But it stands little chance in the Republican-run Senate, where the GOP leader has pledged it will not come up for a vote, and the White House issued a veto threat.…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump is claiming vindication in the sentencing of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, after a U.S. federal judge ruled Manafort should serve 47 months in prison for tax and bank fraud. “I feel very badly for Paul Manafort. I think it’s been a very, very tough time for him,” said Trump…
read moreWhite House communications director Bill Shine has resigned as Donald Trump’s top White House communications aide, the White House said Friday. Shine, a former Fox News executive, resigned Thursday and will serve as a senior campaign adviser to Trump ahead of the 2020 presidential election, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement. A source…
read moreHiring tumbled in February, with U.S. employers adding just 20,000 jobs, the smallest monthly gain in nearly a year and a half. The slowdown in hiring, though, might have been depressed by harsh winter weather and the partial shutdown of the government. Last month’s weak gain came after employers had added a blockbuster 311,000 jobs…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump says he will not sign a trade deal with China unless it is a “very good deal.” Trump made the comments Friday as he left the White House to tour tornado damage in the southern U.S. state of Alabama. The United States and China have been battling over trade tariffs since…
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