President Donald Trump has authorized sanctions for two top Turkish officials in connection with Ankara’s refusal to release an American pastor detained in Turkey. Turkish authorities have arrested the evangelical pastor on allegations of espionage and connections to a terrorist group. The U.S. move Wednesday threatens to imperil already tense relations between the two NATO allies. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more. …
A small theater in the heart of a Latino neighborhood in Los Angeles is giving voice to the immigrant community there. The place has provided a stage for new artists at risk of social exclusion. Some of them had been catapulted to the Hollywood sets. Arturo Martinez has this report narrated by Cristina Caicedo Smit. …
One day after Facebook shut down 32 fake social media accounts that spewed politically divisive messages, U.S. lawmakers were warned that Russian efforts to confuse and polarize the American people are as robust and pernicious as ever. VOA Senate correspondent Michael Bowman reports both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are concerned. …
California fire captain Robert Veverka and his crew arrived in Redding, California, last Thursday night as gale-force winds whipped the Carr Fire into a flaming tornado. They spent the next 30 hours trying to save homes from the flames. Veverka and his team from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention (Cal Fire) had just come from another wildfire, using part of their 24-hour break between shifts to travel to Redding. That is becoming the new normal for firefighters, said Veverka, “Right now, it’s pretty much guaranteed we’ll go from fire to fire to fire, until everything is out,” the 34-year-old Veverka said in a phone interview. “Once you hit the three- or four-week mark, you’re just constantly exhausted.” The Carr Fire in Northern California, the largest and most destructive of 16 major blazes in the state, is exhausting firefighting resources in what authorities are calling one of the …
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones wasn’t in court Wednesday as his attorneys argued that the Infowars host who has called the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax didn’t defame one victim’s parents who say they’ve been tormented by his followers and forced to move seven times. The hearing included more than a half-hour of an Infowars episode played for a Texas judge, who at one point told onlookers to remain silent after some gasped when a lawyer for the parents said Infowars showed maps to the home of Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner. Their 6-year-old son, Noah Pozner, was among the 20 children and six adults killed in the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting. They have sued Jones for defamation in a case that centers on the host falsely claiming on Infowars that De La Rosa taped an interview with CNN in front of a studio green screen and …
A business executive who controlled multiple energy companies that supplied equipment to Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has been arrested in the latest case to spill out of a broad U.S. bribery investigation. Jose Manuel Gonzalez Testino, 48, was arrested on Tuesday at Miami International Airport on charges he conspired to make corrupt payments to a PDVSA official in exchange for favorable business treatment, the U.S. Justice Department said. He was arrested based on a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Houston and appeared on Wednesday before a federal magistrate judge in Miami, according to court records. A lawyer for Gonzalez, a dual U.S.-Venezuelan citizen, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. PDVSA also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gonzalez is the 17th person to face U.S. charges as part of a larger investigation by the Justice Department into bribery at Petroleos de …
More British businesses should be made to report the difference in how much they pay male and female staff, lawmakers said Thursday, citing “obscene” gender pay gaps in some companies. Businesses and charities with more than 250 workers must publish figures on their gender pay gap each year under a law introduced last year, but they account for less than half Britain’s workforce. On Thursday a parliamentary committee said smaller firms tended to be more unequal, urging the government to extend the reporting requirement to all businesses with more than 50 employees. Shine a light wider “Companies are failing to harness fully the talents of half the population,” said Rachel Reeves chairwoman of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. The first round of reporting completed this year helped to shine a light on how men dominate the highest paid jobs in Britain, the committee said in a report. Yet …
The Federal Reserve is leaving its benchmark interest rate unchanged while signaling further gradual rate hikes in the months ahead as long as the economy stays healthy. The Fed’s decision left the central bank’s key short-term rate at 1.75 percent to 2 percent – the level hit in June when the Fed boosted the rate for a second time this year. The Fed projected in June four rate hikes this year, up from three in 2017. Private economists expect the next hike to occur at the September meeting. In a brief policy statement, the Fed notes a strengthening labor market, economic activity growing at “a strong rate,” and inflation that’s reached the central bank’s target of 2 percent annual gains. Officials see economic risks as roughly balanced. …
European Union imports of U.S. soybeans were already rising substantially before a top EU official told President Donald Trump last week that the bloc would buy more. EU Commission figures released Wednesday show that 37 percent of the bloc’s soybean imports last month were coming from the U.S., compared with 9 percent in July 2017. Amid a looming trade war over tariffs, Trump and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker agreed on July 25 to start talks intended to achieve “zero tariffs” and “zero subsidies” on non-automotive industrial goods. The EU also agreed to buy more U.S. soybeans and build more terminals to import liquefied natural gas from the United States. “The European Union can import more soybeans from the U.S. and this is happening as we speak,” Juncker said. But a high level EU official said the increase in soybean purchases from the U.S. is due only to economics, as they …
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is flying to Hawaii on Wednesday to receive 55 boxes of bones recently handed over by North Korea. The remains are believed to belong to servicemen from the U.S. and other United Nations member countries who fought alongside the U.S. during the Korean War. Here’s a look at what will happen next: Where will the remains be taken? The remains will go to a lab in Hawaii run by the military agency that identifies missing servicemen and women from past conflicts. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identifies remains from battlefields around the world. The agency also has a lab at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, though the remains arriving this week will be analyzed at Hawaii’s Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. The agency also sends DNA samples for analysis to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Many …
The Trump administration is clearing the way for insurers to sell short-term health plans as a bargain alternative to pricey Obama-law policies for people struggling with high premiums. But the policies don’t have to cover existing medical conditions and offer limited benefits. It’s not certain if that’s going to translate into broad consumer appeal among people who need an individual policy. Officials say the plans can now last up to 12 months and be renewed for up to 36 months. But there’s no federal guarantee of renewability. Plans will carry a disclaimer that they don’t meet the Affordable Care Act’s requirements and safeguards. More details were expected Wednesday. “We make no representation that it’s equivalent coverage,” said Jim Parker, a senior adviser at the Health and Human Services Department. “But what we do know is that there are individuals today who have been priced out of coverage.” …
President Donald Trump wrongly claimed that shoppers need to show photo identification to buy groceries and accused Democrats of obstructing his agenda and his Supreme Court nominee during a raucous rally aimed at bolstering two Florida Republicans ahead of the state’s primary. Trump, addressing thousands of supporters Tuesday night in one of the nation’s top electoral battlegrounds, also mounted a rigorous defense of his trade agenda, accusing China and others of having “targeted our farmers.” “Not good, not nice,” he told the crowd as tensions with China continue to escalate, adding: “You know what our farmers are saying? `It’s OK, we can take it.” The Trump administration last week announced plans for $12 billion in temporary aid to help farmers deal with retaliatory tariffs from U.S. trading partners in response to Trump’s policies. The freewheeling rally lasted more than an hour and included numerous attacks on the media, as well …
Firefighters struggling to contain destructive Northern California wildfires found themselves facing a new blaze that erupted Tuesday and drove through a rural area near a national forest. About 60 homes in an old ranching and farming area near Covelo, which is about 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of San Francisco, were ordered evacuated as the blaze erupted late in the afternoon. Gusty winds quickly drove it through about a square mile of brush and grasslands, oak, pine and timber near Mendocino National Forest, Mendocino County Undersheriff Matthew Kendall said. “We’re advised that the fire was threatening structures,” he said. However, there were no immediate reports of homes being burned. Firefighting aircraft were called in but it was unclear when they might arrive because many already were engaged in other fires, Kendall said. Some 40 miles (64 kilometers) to the south, twin fires straddling Mendocino and Lake counties have destroyed at …
China’s government has warned it will retaliate if Washington imposes new trade penalties following a report the Trump administration will propose increasing the tariff rate on an additional $200 billion of Chinese imports. A foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, warned Tuesday that Beijing will “definitely fight back” to defend its “lawful rights and interests.” He gave no details of possible retaliatory measures. Bloomberg News reported, citing three unidentified sources, the Trump administration would propose imposing 25 percent tariffs on a $200 billion list of Chinese goods, up from the planned 10 percent. The two sides have imposed 25 percent tariffs on billions of dollars of each other’s goods in a dispute over China’s technology policy. …
3D printers are being used extensively in industry, research, teaching and hobbies, printing with metal, plastic and even edible material such as dough. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, are experimenting with another kind of 3D printing – with yarn. VOA’s George Putic reports. …
A group of New York state grandmothers embarked on a six-day, six-city caravan tour to the U.S.-Mexico border to demand an immediate return of all immigrant children to their families, and to protest a policy of indefinite family detention. Their message, through rallies, vigils, potlucks and song, is simple: if an older person can trek the country to demand change, so can you. VOA’s Ramon Taylor reports from New York. …
A U.S. federal judge has blocked a Texas man from putting plans on the internet showing people how to make their own plastic guns right in their homes as President Donald Trump questioned whether the action should have been approved by his administration to begin with. It’s a controversy drawing comments from states, the Senate, and President Trump himself. VOA’s Bill Gallo reports. …
With only three months left before U.S. midterm elections, U.S. lawmakers, government officials and private industries are working to protect U.S. voters from hackers and foreign propaganda that seeks to sway their political opinion. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have condemned Russia’s meddling in the U.S. presidential election two years ago and call for action to protect U.S. cybersecurity. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more. …
U.S. scientists have determined that the Gulf of Mexico’s annual “dead zone” — an area with low oxygen that can kill fish and marine life — is the fourth smallest since they started mapping the area in 1985. Scientists supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a report Tuesday that the area is only about 40 percent the average size predicted earlier this year based on nitrogen and other nutrients flowing down the Mississippi river. “Although the area is small this year, we should not think that the low-oxygen problem in the Gulf of Mexico is solved. We are not close to the goal size for this hypoxic area,” said lead scientist Nancy Rabalais of Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. This year’s dead zone off Louisiana is about 7,040 square kilometers, rather than the 15,000 square kilometers predicted by the NOAA. …
When Abid Ali risked his life in a rubber dinghy in 2015 as he fled Pakistan for Europe, he didn’t think that three years later he would be making bags, backpacks and sneakers out of similar boats in a small workshop in Berlin. Ali, a tailor, is working with non-profit organization Mimycri to upcycle the rubber from abandoned refugee boats found on beaches in Greece after often perilous sea crossings via Turkey. Since Germany received more than a million migrants fleeing war and prosecution in the Middle East, Africa and central Asia in 2015, migration has become a major issue in Germany that is testing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition. By making fashion accessories out of the rubber dinghies used by refugees, Mimycri wants to create jobs for migrants and give them a chance to show Germans their talents. In Mimycri’s Berlin workshop, Ali carefully measures out a large piece …
