Paul Manafort will have his day in court this week.   The 69-year-old former Trump campaign chairman goes on trial Tuesday in Alexandria, Virginia, one of two criminal cases brought against him by special counsel Robert Mueller. On the surface, the criminal charges against Manafort — tax evasion, failure to report foreign bank accounts and fraudulently obtaining bank loans — are unrelated to the core of Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. The charges stem from Manafort’s decade-long lobbying and political consulting work for Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych.  While working for Yanukovych and his pro-Russia Party of Regions between 2006 and 2015, Manafort and his former business partner Rick Gates allegedly earned tens of millions of dollars in fees while hiding the income from the IRS.  To avoid paying hefty taxes, prosecutors say, they set up secret shell companies and offshore accounts to funnel their Ukrainian …

Ron Dellums, a fiery anti-war activist who championed social justice as Northern California’s first black congressman, died Monday from cancer, according to a longtime adviser. He was 82.   Dellums died at his home in Washington.   A former Marine who got his start in politics on the City Council of the liberal enclave of Berkeley, he defeated a labor-backed Democrat to win his first election to Congress in 1970. He retired in 1998 and was later elected mayor of his native Oakland in 2006.   “He was absolutely committed to what was right and what was just and believed that you had to do whatever you could to fight for that,” said Dan Lindheim, who learned of Dellums’ death from his wife, Cynthia Dellums.   A self-identified Democratic socialist, Dellums was at the center of most major liberal movements of the 1970s and 1980s. He led the drive to …

The wildfire burning almost unchecked in Northern California has claimed it’s sixth victim.  At a news conference Sunday, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said the victim, who was not identified, didn’t evacuate despite receiving an evacuation warning. Other victims included two children and two firefighters. He said seven others are still missing in the Carr Fire near Redding, a city of 90,000 about 370 kilometers northeast of San Francisco.  The National Weather Service has predicted continued hot and dry conditions, with wind gusts expected late Sunday afternoon. “Right now, it’s going everywhere. We still have a lot of open line,” said Anthony Romero, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.  The fire has already forced tens of thousands to flee from their homes. Local officials estimate at least 517 structures have been destroyed and another 135 damaged — a majority of them were homes.  Keswick, a …

Josip Peruzovic, the former pro wrestler known for playing beloved villain Nikolai Volkoff, has died. He was 70. His wife Lynn Peruzovic confirmed his death Sunday. She says he has had heart problems, and that when she went to give him medicine he was not responsive. World Wrestling Entertainment says Peruzovic was “one of the greatest villains sports-entertainment had ever seen.” He was known for singing the onetime Soviet Union’s national anthem before matches and for his tag team alliance with another wrestler known as The Iron Sheik. WWE says his career spanned the better part of 40 years and featured showdowns with wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan. In 2006, Peruzovic made an unsuccessful run for a House seat in the Maryland General Assembly. …

The trial of President Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chairman will open this week with tales of lavish spending, secret shell companies and millions of dollars of Ukrainian money flowing through offshore bank accounts and into the political consultant’s pocket. What’s likely to be missing: answers about whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential election, or really any mention of Russia at all. Paul Manafort’s financial crimes trial, the first arising from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, will center on his Ukrainian consulting work and only briefly touch on his involvement with the president’s campaign. But the broader implications are unmistakable. The trial, scheduled to begin Tuesday with jury selection in Alexandria, Virginia, will give the public its most detailed glimpse of evidence Mueller’s team has spent the year accumulating. It will feature testimony about the business dealings and foreign ties of a defendant Trump entrusted …

America’s dream of space exploration took its first official step 60 years ago Sunday when President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law authorizing the formation of NASA – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Although humanity had been staring at the stars and wondering since they were living in caves, it took the Cold War to fire man into space. The world was stunned when the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, launched Sputnik — the first man-made object to orbit the Earth. The United States was humiliated at being caught short — not just technologically, but militarily. Eisenhower ordered government scientists to not only match the Soviets in space, but beat them. NASA and its various projects — Mercury, Gemini and Apollo — became part of the language. Just 11 years after Eisenhower authorized NASA, American astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Six year later, an Apollo spacecraft linked …

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday he believes the 4.1 percent growth the U.S. recorded in the last three months is sustainable in the coming months despite skepticism expressed by independent economists. “There’s just a lot of good things going on,” Kudlow told CNN.  He said President Donald Trump “deserves a victory lap,” with “low tax rates, rolling back regulations, opening up energy, for example. Trade reform I think is already paying off. The fundamentals of the economy look really good.” He said “business investment spending is really booming. That’s a productivity creator. That’s a job creator. That’s a wage creator for ordinary mainstream folks, terribly important.” Kudlow said the five calendar quarters occurring fully during Trump’s 18-month presidency have now been recorded with average economic growth of 2.9 percent for the world’s largest economy. “I don’t see why we can’t run this for several quarters,” Kudlow said. …

Intrigue surrounding the U.S. Justice Department’s Russia probe has risen once again amid reports President Donald Trump’s former attorney is claiming Trump knew in advance of a 2016 meeting his top campaign staff and close family members held with Russians promising compromising material on then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. VOA’s Michael Bowman has this report. …

U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he recently told the publisher of The New York Times how he came to describe the mainstream news media as the “Enemy of the People,” but the news executive said he in turn told Trump his language was “inflammatory” and “increasingly dangerous” for journalists around the world. In a Twitter comment, Trump described his July 20 meeting at the White House with A.G. Sulzberger as “very good and interesting.” The U.S. leader said he “spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, ‘Enemy of the People.’ Sad!” Later Sunday afternoon, Trump sent multiple tweets attacking the media, and mentioning the “failing New York Times” and “the Amazon Washington Post.” Sulzberger, perhaps the most prominent publisher in the U.S., said that in keeping with the “long tradition” …

Small or giant, expensive and rare a pet store in Falls Church, Virginia, has a dozens of parrots and anything one might need to take care of them. Maxim Moskalkov paid a visit to the store that specializes in the exotic feathered friends. …

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Sunday to shut down the government if Congress does not fund construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to thwart illegal immigration. The U.S. leader claimed opposition Democrats need to give him “the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall!” and other tougher national immigration policy changes. But it was a splintered Republican majority bloc of lawmakers, along with unified Democratic opposition, that twice in recent weeks rejected immigration changes Trump supported. Trump, in a Twitter comment, called for the U.S. to “finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our Country! Trump’s call for a wall, a favorite vow from his 2016 presidential campaign, would likely cost more than $20 billion, but Congress so far has allocated only $1.5 billion for extra border security. Democrats have often assailed the wall proposal, along with some Republicans. …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is vowing not to back down to Washington’s demand to release American Pastor Andrew Brunson, who is on trial on terrorism charges. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday, threatened “severe sanctions” if Brunson was not released. “We will not take a step back when faced with sanctions, “Turkish state broadcaster TRT on Sunday quoted Erdogan, “They should not forget that they will lose a sincere partner.” The Turkish President is currently on a tour of African countries. Erdogan’s comment coincides with an escalation of anti-U.S. rhetoric. Five pro-government newspapers Sunday all carried the same headline, “We are not tied from our stomachs (by an umbilical cord) to the U.S.” “Turkey, won’t take a knee before anybody,” said Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu.   Ankara insists Brunson’s detention and trial is a matter for the courts. The American pastor is on trial on charges of supporting conspirators …

One hundred days from now, we should be better able to answer the following question: What does the country really think about the presidency of Donald J. Trump? Midterm congressional elections are on November 6th and party control of both the Senate and House of Representatives is at stake, not to mention the fate of the Trump presidency for the next two years. Opposition Democrats enjoy some key advantages three months out. When voters are asked which party they will support in the November elections, Democrats hold a seven point edge over Republicans in the latest polling average calculated by the non-partisan website Real Clear Politics. In a recent Quinnipiac poll, Democrats held a 51 to 39 percent generic ballot lead over Republicans, and other surveys have shown the Democratic advantage widening in recent weeks. Referendum on Trump Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on much but they do see eye-to-eye …

A black man yelled at former White House press secretary Sean Spicer in a bookstore and accused Spicer of calling him a racial slur when they were students at a prep school decades ago. Spicer was “taken aback” by the man’s “outrageous claim” and had no recollection of him or of being in school with him, his publicist said on Saturday. Spicer was at a book signing in Middletown on Friday to promote his new book reflecting on his time at the press podium for President Donald Trump. Alex Lombard, who was standing behind a small group of people waiting in line to meet Spicer and get him to sign the book, called out Spicer’s name and said they went to Portsmouth Abbey School together. Spicer waved to him and said, “Hey. Yeah. How are you?” Lombard, a Newport native who now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then accused Spicer of …

There are now 100 days left before U.S. midterm elections in November when control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress will be at stake. Polls give opposition Democrats an edge and both parties agree that President Donald Trump will be the key issue in this year’s election. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington. …

The five Capital Gazette employees killed in an attack in their newsroom last month were “friends of the people,” and “not one of them deserved to be seen as an enemy,” the executive editor of The Washington Post said Saturday at a benefit concert for the victims’ families and colleagues. While Martin Baron didn’t mention President Donald Trump by name while speaking to an audience from the concert stage, he clearly had the president in mind. Trump has repeatedly denounced the press as the “enemy” of the American people. Baron spoke of all five of the victims by name, and he described them as “friends of the people, the people of Annapolis and beyond.” “Not one of them deserved to be seen as an enemy because of the profession they choose or the place they worked,” Baron said to applause from the audience. “Not one of them deserved to be …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, responding to a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to slap sanctions on Ankara if it did not free an American pastor, said his country would stand its ground, Haberturk TV reported Sunday. The friendship between the United States and Turkey is on the line in this dispute, Erdogan said, according to TRT Haber and other media. “We will not take a step back when faced with sanctions,” Erdogan was quoted as saying. “They should not forget that they will lose a sincere partner.” American pastor Andrew Brunson, who was transferred to house arrest this week after 21 months of detention in a Turkish prison, has worked in Turkey for more than two decades. He has been accused of supporting the group Ankara says was behind a failed military coup in 2016, and of supporting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The pastor, who has denied the charges, faces up to 35 years in jail if found guilty. Diplomats have …

The death count from a rapidly growing Northern California wildfire rose to five Saturday after two young children and their great-grandmother who had been unaccounted for were confirmed dead. “My babies are dead,” Sherry Bledsoe said through tears after she and family members met with Shasta County sheriff’s deputies. Bledsoe’s two children, James Roberts, 5, and Emily Roberts, 4, were stranded with her grandmother, Melody Bledsoe, 70, when walls of flames swept through the family’s rural property Thursday on the outskirts of Redding. The three were among more than a dozen people reported missing after the furious wind-driven blaze took residents by surprise and leveled several neighborhoods. Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said he expected to find several of those people alive and just out of touch with loved ones. Officers have gone to homes of several people reported missing and found cars gone — a strong indication they fled. …

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he recognizes that gun, drug and gang violence “has plagued all of us.” Still, he believes the Constitution limits how far government can go to restrict gun use to prevent crime.  As a federal appeals court judge, Kavanaugh made it clear in a 2011 dissent that he thinks Americans can keep most guns, even the AR-15 rifles used in some of the deadliest mass shootings.  Kavanaugh’s nomination by President Donald Trump has delighted Second Amendment advocates. Gun law supporters worry that his ascendancy to America’s highest court would make it harder to curb the proliferation of guns. Kavanaugh has the support of the National Rifle Association, which posted a photograph of Kavanaugh and Trump across the top of its website.  The Supreme Court has basically stayed away from major gun cases since its rulings in 2008 and 2010 declared a right to have a …