Some contestants traced letters on their palms, while other word whizzes in the Scripps National Spelling Bee searched the ceiling for inspiration on Wednesday as they edged closer to the $40,000 top prize. The youngest-ever competitor, Edith Fuller, who turned 6 on April 22, was among the 259 youths still spelling at midday from a starting field of 291. “It feels really exciting,” Fuller, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, told reporters who asked what it was like to be the youngest speller at the 90th national bee. Wearing a navy blue dress with a black bow in her wavy blond hair, Fuller said she planned to compete again next year “if I don’t win this time.” Her mother said she quizzed her daughter on words up to five times a day but limited each session to 20 minutes. “She does all the work in her mind,” said Annie Fuller, who home-schools her …

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said hoaxes and false news stories on Facebook contributed to her loss in last year’s U.S. presidential election, adding to a list of factors she blames for her defeat. The former Democratic candidate said earlier this month that interference by Russian hackers and then-FBI director James Comey helped tip the election to Republican President Donald Trump. Speaking at a technology conference near Los Angeles, Clinton on Wednesday mentioned Facebook by name and said that fake stories spread on the social network influenced the information that people relied on. “The other side was using content that was just flat-out false and delivering it in a very personalized way, both sort of above the radar screen and below,” Clinton said during an on-stage interview at the Code conference. A representative for Facebook could not immediately be reached for comment. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said just after the …

The European Commission president on Wednesday said that it was the “duty of Europe” to stand up to the U.S. if President Donald Trump decided to pull his country out of the Paris climate change accord. Jean-Claude Juncker said that “the Americans can’t just get out of the agreement,” adding that “it takes three to four years” to pull out. Juncker went on to say that the Group of Seven leaders “tried to explain this in clear, simple sentences to Mr. Trump” at a recent summit in Italy. He said that even though “it looks like that attempt failed” … the “law is the law.” In a gibe at the U.S. administration, Juncker told the audience at an event of the Confederation of German Employers in Berlin that “not everything that is written in international agreements is fake news.” Juncker said: “If the U.S. president pulls out of the Paris …

If President Donald Trump pulls the United States out of the international agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, what could that mean for the Earth? Here’s a guide to what’s in the Paris agreement, what’s going on with global warming, and what might happen if the rest of the world keeps fighting man-made climate change and the U.S. stays partially or completely on the sidelines. What is the Paris Agreement trying to do? The 2015 agreement aims to prevent the Earth from heating up by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the start of the industrial age. But the world has already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution, so this is more about preventing an additional 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit of warming. How? Each nation submitted its own goals for curbing heat-trapping emissions. Those pledges added up to preventing 117 billion tons of carbon …

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday halted methane emission standards for oil and gas companies in its latest move to unwind Obama administration climate change rules, amid reports that the United States will withdraw from a global climate change agreement. The agency issued a 90-day stay of the 2016 New Source Performance Standards for the oil and gas industry, which require companies to capture fugitive emissions, obtain engineer certifications and install leak detention devices while it reconsiders the rule. The rule, completed last year under former President Barack Obama, was due to go into effect on June 3. The EPA said it expects to prepare a proposed rule and launch a public comment period after the stay. Environmental groups vowed on Wednesday to block the EPA move in court. “The Trump administration is giving its friends in the oil and gas industry a free pass to continue polluting our …

U.S. President Donald Trump discussed trade with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc during a White House visit on Wednesday and welcomed the signing of business deals worth billions of dollars and the jobs they would bring. General Electric said earlier it had signed deals with Vietnam worth about $5.58 billion for power generation, aircraft engines and services, its largest ever single combined sale with the country. “They just made a very large order in the United States — and we appreciate that — for many billions of dollars, which means jobs for the United States and great, great equipment for Vietnam,” Trump told reporters at the White House. Phuc said on Tuesday he would sign deals for U.S. goods and services worth $15 billion to $17 billion during his Washington visit, mainly for high-technology products and for services. Protesters greet Phuc Hundreds of people upset by Vietnam’s human rights …

Twelve years ago today, May 31 — and 31 years after the resignation of President Richard Nixon —  the principal leaker in the Watergate scandal, known as “Deep Throat,” revealed his identity in an article published in Vanity Fair magazine.  Mark Felt’s coming forward stunned both Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose reporting in The Washington Post newspaper helped bring down Nixon’s presidency. Both went to great lengths to conceal Felt’s identity, and they promised to keep it a secret until his death.       Although his name was circulated in the years after Nixon resigned, Felt consistently denied being Deep Throat. “I never leaked information to Woodward and Bernstein or to anyone else,”  he wrote in his 1979 memoir.  Just six years before his 2005 admission, Felt, then aged 91, was quoted as saying, “It would be contrary to my responsibility as a loyal employee of the FBI to leak information.” During the …

The White House spokesman, during a truncated, off-camera briefing Wednesday, brushed aside a question about a report that fired FBI Director James Comey plans to testify publicly that President Donald Trump pressured him to end an investigation into a top Trump aide’s ties to Russia. “We are focused on the president’s agenda,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer answered. “Going forward, all questions on these matters will be referred to outside counsel Marc Kasowitz.”  The New York City litigator was retained by Trump last week to represent the president in all matters concerning the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Special counsel Deferring all questions on an investigative matter is not unprecedented. During the presidency of Bill Clinton, spokesman Mike McCurry eventually did not answer questions about campaign finance investigations and other legal issues. Special counsel Lanny Davis handled those. For Trump and Spicer in the age …

ExxonMobil’s chief executive said on Wednesday the company would reconsider how it communicates the risks its faces from climate change after shareholders approved a measure calling for increased transparency. The non-binding proposal passed with 62 percent of ballots cast in a rare defeat for Exxon’s management, which had recommended a vote against the measure. The company argued that it already provides sufficient information on the potential impact of changing technologies and energy demand on its asset portfolio. The results likely reflected a shift in how big shareholders voted on the measure, as the same proposal last year received only 38.1 percent of shares voted. Asset manager BlackRock Inc backed the proposal, according to a source familiar with the matter. BlackRock holds about 6 percent of Exxon shares. Among other top Exxon shareholders, spokespeople for State Street Corp and Vanguard Group declined to comment on the vote on Wednesday. “It’s a …

Days after the latest North Korean missile test, the United States successfully conducts its own test involving a simulated attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile. U.S. officials call the drill a critical milestone in U.S. defense. Jesusemen Oni reports. …

Days after President Donald Trump’s first overseas trip, the contentious relationship between the news media and the White House was on full display. Embattled White House press secretary Sean Spicer abruptly cut short the first post-trip press briefing after once again lecturing reporters about their treatment of the president. It comes as reports circulate of an impending shakeup among White House communications staff, as VOA’s Bill Gallo report. …

U.S. President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has agreed to hand over documents to the Senate intelligence committee in connection with its investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence last year’s U.S. presidential election. Flynn had previously refused a subpoena from the committee, with his lawyers asserting the request was too broad in what it was seeking.  The committee filed a more narrow subpoena, and Flynn is now expected to provide some personal documents and those related to two businesses by next week. The House intelligence committee is conducting its own investigation, and on Tuesday Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, turned down a request to provide information, calling it “poorly phrased, overly broad and not capable of being answered.” The U.S. Justice Department has appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel in another investigation that also includes whether Trump campaign aides colluded with Russia. Trump …

President Donald Trump has been handing out his cellphone number to world leaders and urging them to call him directly, an unusual invitation that breaks diplomatic protocol and is raising concerns about the security and secrecy of the U.S. commander in chief’s communications. Trump has urged leaders of Canada and Mexico to reach him on his cellphone, according to former and current U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the practice. Of the two, only Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has taken advantage of the offer so far, the officials said. Trump also exchanged numbers with French President Emmanuel Macron when the two spoke immediately following Macron’s victory earlier this month, according to a French official, who would not comment on whether Macron intended to use the line. All the officials demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal the conversations. Neither the White House nor Trudeau’s office responded to …

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Tuesday that he would sign deals for U.S. goods and services worth $15 billion to $17 billion during his visit to Washington, mainly for high-technology products and for services. “Vietnam will increase the import of high technologies and services from the United States, and on the occasion of this visit, many important deals will be made,” Phuc told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce dinner. Phuc, who is due to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday at the end of a three-day visit to the United States, did not provide further details of the transactions. GE Power Chief Executive Officer Steve Bolze told the dinner that General Electric Co. would sign deals worth about $6 billion with Vietnam, but also offered no details. Phuc’s comments came after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expressed concern about the rapid growth of the U.S. trade …

As the U.S.-led coalition ratchets up operations in Syria, there are concerns that it will result in a rerun of what happened in Iraq, where $1 billion in weapons supplied to local fighters is unaccounted for. Weapons, training and airstrikes by the coalition have aided ground forces in both Iraq and Syria, allowing Iraq’s military, Iraqi Kurdish fighters and Syrian Kurdish fighters to retake some 55,000 square kilometers (21,235 square miles) of territory from the Islamic State extremists in the nearly three-year fight. However, many in both countries are concerned about how the forces bolstered by the coalition will leverage their influence and arms once the militants are vanquished. Numerous Iraqi groups that benefited from the training and arms have been accused of human rights violations. The Trump administration’s decision to provide Syria’s Kurds with more advanced weapons has raised concerns among the various players in Syria’s complicated battlefield. U.S. …

Democracy and political legitimacy are increasingly under threat from attacks by politicians like U.S. President Donald Trump on “fake news” and free speech, former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden told a conference on Tuesday. “The costs of autocracy is illegitimacy, and though none of us have wished for this, it is increasingly near,” Snowden told the Estoril Conferences, a meeting held this week in Portugal on human rights and migration. Snowden was speaking through video link from Moscow, where he has been in asylum since 2013 after he revealed secret details of surveillance programs by U.S. intelligence agencies. Many civil rights activists see him as a hero, but at home in the United States he is wanted to stand trial for espionage. ’Crossroads of history’ He said the world stood at the “crossroads of history,” warning that the direction it is heading now is “paved with fear, therein …

Nikki Haley crouched low in the trailer of an 18-wheeler, taping up a box of lentils and wheat for besieged Syrians, her hands-on diplomacy a world apart from the gleaming new NATO headquarters where President Donald Trump was debuting his “America First” doctrine overseas. Haley, Trump’s U.N. ambassador, had started the day in Turkey’s capital, opened a refugee school in the south of the country, then traveled hours in an armored vehicle to the Syrian border. Her afternoon stop had to be short. She had a packed schedule, and at a nearby refugee camp she was soon kicking soccer balls with stranded Syrians and noshing on shawarma. As she hopped a flight to Istanbul, Trump was arriving in Brussels to scold European allies for relying too much on U.S. defense spending. Haley’s mission represented another side of Trump’s “America First,” assuring nations on the border of the world’s worst crisis …

Lowering expectations, Iowa’s two Republican senators say the long-promised repeal of “Obamacare” is unlikely, and any final agreement with the Republican-controlled House is uncertain. The comments Tuesday by Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst come as the Republican-controlled Senate moves forward on its work to dismantle the 2010 health care bill while facing conflicting demands within their own party and lockstep Democratic opposition. Both senators are active players in the health care debate. “You can’t repeal it in its entirety,” Ernst told reporters after a joint appearance with Grassley in suburban Des Moines. Frank admission It was a frank admission from loyal conservatives representing a state Republican Donald Trump carried in November. The Senate’s filibuster rule means that Republicans — who control the Senate with 52 seats — can’t repeal the entire law. “You’ve got to have 60 votes and we don’t have 60 votes at this point,” Grassley said. …

Unease about white supremacist activity in Portland deepened after the fatal stabbings of two men who tried to shield young women from an anti-Muslim tirade, and some people worry that the famously tolerant community could see a resurgence of the hostilities that once earned it the nickname “Skinhead City.” The attack aboard a light-rail train happened Friday, the first day of Ramadan, the holiest time of the year for Muslims. Authorities say Jeremy Joseph Christian started verbally abusing two young women, including one wearing a hijab. When three men on the train intervened, police say, Christian attacked them, killing two and wounding one. Christian, 35, was defiant during his brief initial court appearance Tuesday, shouting: “You call it terrorism I call it patriotism!” He made repeated outbursts saying “you’ve got no safe place!” and “death to the enemies of America!” Aggravated murder, other charges Christian, who faces aggravated murder and …