John Legend is expected on a Massachusetts college campus this week to receive a social justice award.   The singer-songwriter becomes the first recipient of the Salem Advocate for Social Justice award when he accepts the honor Tuesday at Salem State University.   Legend is to perform and also discuss his work on criminal justice, education and other issues.   The Salem Award Foundation for Human Rights and Social Justice bestows the award to recognize those who champion social justice issues and advocate for people who are underrepresented.   This is the first year the award will be given. …

After more than three months in office without passing any major legislation, President Donald Trump faces a week that offers the possibility of averting a government shutdown and progress on health care. Trump has spent his first 100 days coming to terms with the slow grind of government even in a Republican-dominated capital, and watching some of his promises – from repealing the nation’s health care law to temporarily banning people from some Muslim nations – fizzle.   Last week lawmakers sent the president a stopgap spending bill to keep the government open through Friday. Aides say lawmakers closely involved in negotiating the $1 trillion package over the weekend have worked through many sticking points in hopes of making the measure public as early as Sunday night. The House and Senate have until Friday at midnight to pass the measure to avert a government shutdown. The aides required anonymity because …

Poland’s Foreign Ministry has suspended an honorary consul in the United States who allegedly posted on Facebook an altered picture of European Council President Donald Tusk dressed as a Nazi. Maria Szonert-Binienda headed Poland’s honorary consulate in Akron, Ohio. She denies the charges. Szonert-Binienda told the Associated Press someone hacked her Facebook account. “I did not make a photo of Donald Tusk as an SS man. I am against promoting SS symbols and ideologies. I am against using words like ‘fascism’ in the public political discourse today. I am against comparing our politicians to Hitler,” she said. Tusk is a former Polish prime minister. Szonert-Binienda’s husband is a member of the ruling conservative government commission that is re-investigating the 2010 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski. Kaczynski’s twin brother, Jaroslaw, is leader of the ruling Law and Justice Party, and a fierce political rival of Tusk. Jaroslaw Kaczynski …

U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, is retiring at the end of her term next year, saying it’s time to move on after 38 years in office. The 64-year-old Republican was elected last November to Florida’s redrawn 27th district, a stretch of southeast Miami-Dade County that is heavily Democratic. Hillary Clinton won it over Donald Trump by 20 percentage points, and Ros-Lehtinen was able to win it by 10 percentage points.   Her unexpected retirement will give Democrats an opportunity to pick up a South Florida congressional seat in 2018.   The Miami Herald first reported the retirement Sunday. The congresswoman’s spokesman Keith Fernandez confirmed the announcement with The Associated Press.   In Congress, Ros-Lehtinen staked her ground as a foreign-policy hawk, becoming the first woman to chair a standing congressional committee: the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. She currently chairs the subcommittee on …

At least 14 people have died as tornadoes and storms swept through the southern U.S. states of Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and Mississippi. East Texas was the worst hit, with a series of tornadoes there killing at least four people and leaving a trail of what officials called “extensive damage.” All four deaths were in an area east of Dallas, authorities said. At least 50 other people were injured, the local fire department said. In neighboring Arkansas, at least five people are dead, authorities said. A 65-year-old woman was killed by a falling tree in DeWitt, Arkansas, according to police.In the community of Springdale, a 10-year-old girl was swept away by floodwaters and killed. Police also were searching for two missing children who may have been in a car swept away by floodwaters. The Missouri Highway Patrol says a 72-year-old woman drowned despite her husband’s efforts to save her as their …

April 30 is International Jazz Day, with events and concerts being held throughout the world. It also marks the end of Jazz Appreciation Month in the United States. Sponsored by the National Museum of American History, it’s designed to stimulate and encourage people to participate, study and listen to a genre of music that is uniquely American. Jazz has a storied place in Voice of America’s 75-year history. For 40 years, millions of people worldwide listened to VOA’s Jazz Hour with Willis Conover. During the Cold War, Conover’s programs created a connection to the United States for millions of people living behind the Iron Curtain. Earlier this past week, Voice of America hosted The Frankie Addison Quintet to mark Jazz Appreciation Month and VOA’s part in keeping the free form music genre alive. Enjoy the music. …

U.S. President Donald Trump says he “would not be happy” if North Korea conducts another nuclear test, which would be its sixth. “I can tell you also, I don’t believe that the president of China, who is a very respected man, will be happy either,” Trump said of Chinese President Xi Jinping in an interview that aired Sunday on the CBS television network’s “Face the Nation” show. WATCH: President Trump on China and North Korea ​ Asked if “not happy” with another Pyongyang nuclear test meant he would undertake “military action” against the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump said, “I don’t know. I mean, we’ll see.” North Korea, which is trying to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland 9,000 kilometers away, conducted a new missile test Saturday, but South Korea said it once again failed. Trump, in a Twitter comment, said the …

Once they acclimate to their new environment, overcoming language, social and cultural barriers, refugees in the U.S. often thrive. Some translate their experiences into assets that are valuable to their new community, as did Parvin and Yadollah Jamalreza. VOA’s June Soh visited their popular tailoring shop in Charlottesville, Virginia. …

The U.S. Marine Corps has returned to Helmand, the restive province in southern Afghanistan where it fought years of bloody battles with the Taliban, to help train Afghan forces struggling to contain the insurgency. Many of the 300 Marines coming to Helmand as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support training mission are veterans of previous tours in the province, where almost 1,000 coalition troops, mostly U.S. and British, were killed fighting the Taliban. Marines face tough year When they left in 2014, handing over the sprawling desert base they knew as Camp Leatherneck to the Afghan army, the Marines never expected to return. The fact that they are back underlines the problems Afghan forces have faced since being left to fight alone. Despite a warning from U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis last week that 2017 would be a tough year, though, the tone as the deployment began was positive. “I …

Fatalities have been reported and dozens of people were taken to hospitals after a tornado hit a small city in East Texas, authorities said.   Canton Fire Department Capt. Brian Horton said during a news conference late Saturday that “a number of fatalities” were reported, but that it wasn’t yet clear how many, after powerful storms swept through the community earlier in the evening.   The storms left behind a trail of overturned vehicles, mangled trees and damaged homes in and around Canton, which is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Dallas. More than 50 hospitalized   ETMC Regional Heathcare Systems hospitals in the region received at least 54 patients following the storm, including one person in critical condition, spokeswoman Rebecca Berkley said. She said the other patients suffered injuries that weren’t life threatening.   Horton asked that people who didn’t need to be in the area to stay …

U.S. President Donald Trump has invited Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to Washington to discuss various issues, including the threat North Korea presents to regional security. After the two spoke by phone Saturday, a White House statement said, “It was a very friendly conversation, in which the two leaders discussed the concerns of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regarding regional security, including the threat posed by North Korea.” North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile early Saturday north of the capital, Pyongyang. Both Washington and Seoul said the test was not successful, but still drew widespread international condemnation. Pope Francis said Saturday the nuclear crisis in North Korea has “heated up too much,” and he warned that a war with the isolated nation would destroy a good part of humanity. The pope suggested Norway as a mediator of the crisis.  “Norway is always ready to help,” he told reporters onboard …

U.S. President Donald Trump has promised “a big decision” on the Paris climate agreement in the next two weeks. He spoke on his 100th day in office, at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He spoke in an arena that holds up to 10,000 people where his audience was supportive, greeting him with cheers of “USA! USA! USA!” Early in the president’s speech, a protester was tackled and removed from the audience.  “Get him out of here,” the president said, while the audience cheered again. The president expressed relief at not having to attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, an annual charity event in Washington occurring at the same time as his rally. He pointed to the media gallery covering his speech and said, “Look at the media back there. They would actually rather be here, I have to tell you,” he said. The crowd booed at the mention of the …

Twenty-five years ago, a jury acquitted four white police officers in the beating of black motorist Rodney King, sparking looting and violence that would turn into one of the deadliest race riots in American history. On Saturday, hundreds of people marked the anniversary with marches advocating peace and hope. A “Future Fest” began at Florence and Normandie avenues — the South Los Angeles intersection where rioting erupted — and was followed by a community festival. Organizer Eric Ares, 34, is a lifelong resident of the area. He remembers the electricity going out in his house at the start of the rioting, leaving his family essentially cut off from the outside world without lights or a TV. “For the next couple of nights, there was this fear going on,” he said. “We were huddled up in the living room.” When he did venture outside, Ares saw plumes of smoke coming from …

“Are y’all ready for an old-fashioned Troll Storm?” Andrew Anglin, white supremacist and follower of what has been branded the alt-right in American political thought, wrote those words on his blog The Daily Stormer on December 16, 2016. With that, the hate messages and death threats to Tanya Gersh and the people around her starting coming in — by email, by phone, on Twitter. Life for the Jewish real estate agent from Whitefish, Montana, her family, even her friends and co-workers, suddenly turned upside down. Hate messages “Merry Christmas, you Christ-killer.” “You are a disgusting, vile Jew. You filthy & depraved Jews never learn; it is your people’s behavior responsible for our resentment of you, which pales in comparison to your hatred for us.” “We are going to ruin you. … You will be driven to the brink of suicide. We will be there to take pleasure in your pain …

Washington’s once-glitzy “nerd prom” was briefly upstaged Saturday as comedians and Hollywood stars gathered for jokes and jests about President Donald Trump for a tongue-in-cheek event to counter the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Late-night TV star Samantha Bee pulled in celebrities for the first “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner’”: Alysia Reiner of “Orange Is the New Black,” Retta of “Parks and Recreation” and Matt Walsh of “Veep.” Bee’s show, a comedic tribute to American news organizations, featured actor Will Ferrell and other guests roasting Trump and his allies. The star power of the real correspondents’ dinner took a hit this year when Trump declined to attend, the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to skip it. In Reagan’s case, he was recovering from an assassination attempt. Trump did his own counter-programming, scheduling a rally Saturday night in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to mark his 100th day in office. The …

Agents from the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service showed up in Moscow in May 2009 with a specific mission: to nab one of the world’s most notorious hackers. But to do that, the Americans needed Russia’s help. They turned to the Federal Security Service (FSB), the country’s main intelligence agency, and shared operational information with officers from its computer-crimes unit, the Center for Information Security. The hacker, Roman Seleznyov, shut down his operations a month later in a move prompted, the U.S. believes, by a leak from the FSB. The credit-card fraudster, it turns out, had bragged in conversations intercepted a year earlier about his protection from the computer-crimes unit. US court The incident, detailed in the legal filings that resulted in a U.S. federal court recently sentencing Seleznyov to 27 years in prison, exposes an unintended consequence of Washington’s cybercrime cooperation with Russia: the United States finds itself …

Thousands of people gathered across the country to march in protest of President Donald Trump’s environmental policies, which have included rolling back restrictions on mining, oil drilling and greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. The demonstrators sat down for 100 seconds to mark Trump’s first 100 days in office. …

U.S. President Donald Trump will spend part of his 100th day in office Saturday in the politically friendly state of Pennsylvania, as anti-Trump protesters actively attempt to diminish the symbolic milestone. The president will sign an executive order at a shovel factory in central Pennsylvania, directing his administration to review the nation’s trade agreements. The order aims to determine whether the U.S. is being treated equitably by its trading partners in the 164-nation World Trade Organization. Trump will then host a rally for supporters in the state capitol of Harrisburg, an event that will coincide with an anti-Trump rally organized by Democrats and other organizations. Trump’s re-election campaign said the president will tout his accomplishments since taking office at the rally, which will be held in an arena that can hold up to 10,000 people. On Twitter, Trump posted he was eager to meet with his supporters. In his weekly …

During a recent visit to Wisconsin, President Donald Trump announced he was signing an Executive Order reviewing the visa program that brings many technical workers to the United States, known as the H1B visa. About 85,000 workers come to the United States annually using an H1B visa. More from VOA’s Kane Farabaugh …

Thousands of environmental activists marched in the U.S. capital Saturday to try to draw support for climate-related causes. The People’s Climate March was meant to coincide with President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, according to its organizers, who have condemned what they see as the administration’s lack of concern for environmental issues. “The Trump administration’s policies are a catastrophe for our climate and communities, especially low-income and communities of color, who are on the front lines of this crisis,” the People’s Climate Movement, a collection of about 50 liberal activist groups, said in a statement. Protesters marched from the Capitol to the White House, where they held a rally. Dozens of “sister” marches were expected in cities across the country. The group of partner organizations making up the event’s steering committee consisted mainly of environmental groups, but also included several trade unions, anti-war and minority advocacy groups, like the …