Coffee giant Starbucks temporarily closed 8,000 stores around the United States Tuesday afternoon, so it could train its 175,000 employees on racial tolerance. The move comes after the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia café sparked nationwide outrage. Some say the Starbucks incident spotlights lingering problems of racial discrimination in the U.S. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni reports. …

Starbucks closed 8,000 of its stores Tuesday to give 175,000 employees about four hours of anti-bias training. The sessions were part of the company’s response to the April 12 arrests of two black men at a Starbucks in Philadelphia.  Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson had not purchased anything and told a store manager they were waiting for a friend to join them. They were asked to leave and an employee called the police, which led to their arrest. The scene was recorded on cellphones and quickly spread on social media, prompting sharp criticisms of Starbucks along with protests and calls to boycott the coffee chain. Tuesday’s sessions involved asking employees to discuss with small groups of their colleagues aspects of race and bias and how they can make people feel like they belong. There were exercises of personal reflection asking people to think about when they have thought about their …

The U.S.-North Korea summit appears to be back on track, but Pyongyang is showing increased impatience at comments coming out of Washington that what leader Kim Jong Un really wants, even more than his nuclear security blanket, is American-style prosperity. It’s a core issue for Kim and a message President Donald Trump shouldn’t ignore as they work to nail down their summit next month in Singapore. Kim is as enthusiastic as Trump to see the summit happen as soon as possible, but the claim that his sudden switch to diplomacy over the past several months shows he is aching for U.S. economic aid and private-sector know-how presents a major problem for the North Korean leader, who can’t be seen as going into the summit with his hat in his hand. The claim is also quite possibly off target.  North Korea is far more interested in improving trade with China, its …

The Trump administration plans to shorten the length of validity for some visas issued to Chinese citizens, the State Department said Tuesday, as President Donald Trump works to counter alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property by Beijing. The changes begin June 11. The State Department said that under the new policy, U.S. consular officers may limit how long visas are valid, rather than the usual practice of issuing them for the maximum possible length. The State Department did not provide specifics. But a U.S. official said that according to instructions sent to U.S. embassies and consulates, Chinese graduate students will be limited to one-year visas if they are studying in fields like robotics, aviation and high-tech manufacturing. China identified those areas as priorities in its “Made in China” 2025 manufacturing plan. The instructions also say that Chinese citizens seeking visas will need special clearance from multiple U.S. agencies if they …

Starbucks, mocked three years ago for suggesting employees discuss racial issues with customers, asked workers Tuesday to talk about race with each other. It was part of the coffee chain’s anti-bias training, created after the arrest of two black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks six weeks ago. The chain apologized but also took the dramatic step of closing its stores early for the sessions. But still to be seen is whether the training, developed with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and other groups, will prevent another embarrassing incident.  “This is not science, this is human behavior,” said Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz. He called it the first step of many. The training was personal, asking workers to break into small groups to talk about their experiences with race. According to training materials provided by the company, they were also asked to pair up with a co-worker and list the …

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to meet with a top North Korean official in New York this week. The meeting comes as U.S. and North Korean officials discuss logistics for a possible Trump-Kim summit scheduled for June 12. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has the latest. …

Like much of what goes on in North Korea, little is truly known about Kim Yong Chol — the former spy chief who plans to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York this week. But observers of the reclusive North, including the Wilson Center’s Jean Lee, believe “Kim Yong Chol is the man who whispers in Kim Jong Un’s ear. Not only does he advise him on strategy, but he also conveys the leader’s demands.” Kim Yong Chol’s numerous titles and positions in North Korea make him one of the country’s most powerful individuals. His duties include director of intelligence and chief of South Korean relations. He was previously head of a top North Korean military intelligence agency. Seoul has accused him of masterminding the sinking of a South Korean navy ship in 2010, drowning 46 sailors. The United States believes Kim was responsible for an alleged 2014 …

The U.S. military will continue sailing ships near disputed islands in the South China Sea, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis insisted Tuesday, despite Beijing’s increased complaints about the operations. “They’re freedom of navigation operations. And you’ll notice there’s only one country that seems to take active steps to rebuff them or state their resentment of them,” Mattis said while en route to Hawaii. The South China Sea is expected to be a major focus this week when Mattis heads to Singapore to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual gathering of Asian defense and other leaders. Two U.S. Navy warships sailed Sunday near islands occupied by China in the Paracel Islands, off the coast of Vietnam. China sent two of its own warships to the area to warn the U.S. vessels to leave, Beijing said. U.S. officials say the freedom of navigation operations (FONOP) are regularly scheduled and occur globally. But the …

The Trump administration is pushing back against news reports that it has lost track of almost 1,500 immigrant children who came to the United States as unaccompanied minors. “The Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) Program was never intended … to be a foster care system. With more than 10,000 children in custody … the program has grown vastly beyond its original intention. HHS’s primary legal responsibility is to temporarily house and then release the UAC,” Steven Wagner, acting assistant assistant secretary at the Administration for Children and Families, told reporters in a Tuesday briefing. The news first broke in late April during Senate testimony by an official of the Department of Health and Human Services. In the month since, it has generated increasing public outrage over “missing children” and “toddlers being torn from their parents’ arms” on Twitter comments with the hashtag #WhereAreTheChildren.  And the story has given rise to some confusion. What …

President Donald Trump on Tuesday seized on an error by liberal activists who tweeted photos of young-looking immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in steel cages and blamed the current administration for separating immigrant children from their parents. The photos were taken by The Associated Press in 2014, when President Barack Obama was in office. The photo captions reference children who crossed the border as unaccompanied minors.   Early Tuesday, Trump tweeted: “Democrats mistakenly tweet 2014 pictures from Obama’s term showing children from the Border in steel cages. They thought it was recent pictures in order to make us look bad, but backfires. Dems must agree to Wall and new Border Protection for good of country…Bipartisan Bill!”   The immigration debate has reached a fever pitch in recent months following reports that since October about 700 children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border have been separated from their parents.   The number of …

The U.S. declared Tuesday that religious freedom is “under assault” across the globe. “The state of religious freedom is dire,” said Sam Brownback, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, as he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released the agency’s annual report concluding that many countries throughout the world crack down on religious adherents and punish them harshly for their beliefs. Even as the U.S. works toward a June 12 summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, the State Department report singled out the reclusive communist nation for abuses against believers. “The government continued to deal harshly with those who engaged in almost any religious practices through executions, torture, beatings, and arrests,” the report said. “An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners, some imprisoned for religious reasons, were believed to be held in the political prison camp system …

Hurricane Maria claimed more than 4,600 lives in Puerto Rico last year, more than 70 times higher than the U.S. government’s official death toll of 64, according to a study published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. The findings, based on a survey of thousands of Puerto Rican residents conducted by researchers from Harvard University and elsewhere, show the fatalities occurred between September 20 and December 31, 2017. The U.S. government’s emergency response to the storm had been criticized and President Donald Trump, was faulted when much of the U.S. territory remained without power for months. The researchers said their latest estimates may be too low and “underscore the inattention of the U.S. government to the frail infrastructure of Puerto Rico.” Maria inflicted about $90 billion in damage to Puerto Rico, which was already grappling with an anemic economy. Researchers have said Maria was the third costliest tropical …

Diving into the midterm elections, President Donald Trump is seeking to build a stable of Republicans who will help promote his agenda and serve as a check on Democrats aiming to win majorities in Congress. Trump is traveling to Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday to raise campaign cash for Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the party’s leading U.S. Senate hopeful in Tennessee, and headline a rally with his most loyal supporters.   Blackburn is expected to face Democratic former Gov. Phil Bredesen to replace Republican Sen. Bob Corker, who is retiring. The Tennessee campaign is among several races crucial to Trump’s plans to maintain control of the Senate, where Republicans are defending a narrow two-seat majority.   Trump is planning a series of political rallies and events in the coming months to boost Republicans and brand Democrats as obstructionists to his agenda. The president held a similar rally in Indiana earlier this …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet later this week with a North Korean four-star general in New York for talks related to a planned summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader, according to the White House. Kim Yong Chol, the vice chairman of the powerful Central Committee and North Korea’s former spy chief, departed Beijing on an Air China commercial flight Tuesday for John F. Kennedy International Airport. Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that Kim’s visit is a “solid response to my letter, thank you!” “Kim Yong Chol is the man who whispers in Kim Jong Un’s ear. Not only does he advise him on strategy but he also conveys the leader’s demands. He’ll be coming to New York to negotiate on Kim Jong Un’s behalf. It’s another very strong sign of commitment to this summit,” said Jean Lee, director of the Korea program at …

Starbucks is closing its more than 8,000 U.S. stores for a few hours Tuesday for anti-bias training, weeks after police arrested two African-American men in one of the coffee chain’s locations in the northeastern city of Philadelphia for allegedly trespassing. The coffee chain’s executives apologized for the April 14 arrests of Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson and contacted activists and experts in bias training to develop a curriculum for its 175,000 employees. The incident has raised the awareness of “unconscious bias training,” which police departments, companies and other organizations use to help address racism in the workplace. An alliance of researchers called the Perception Institute, which is consulting with Starbucks, says implicit biases are attitudes or stereotypes toward people without being conscious of it. The training sessions are intended to encourage workers to open up about implicit biases toward people of color, gender or other identities. The curriculum used in …