A new study by longtime China experts in the U.S. has concluded that Beijing is engaging in an increasingly aggressive campaign to influence and shape perceptions about China held by American politicians, university scholars and students, as well as executives at major corporations. “Except for Russia, no other country’s efforts to influence American politics and society is as extensive and well-funded as China’s,” according to the report by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations. The report, called “Chinese Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance,” details a wide range of Chinese activities in the U.S. to “advance its influence-seeking objectives.” It includes lobbying “influential civil society groups,” but also accessing critical U.S. infrastructure and technology and engaging in “covert, coercive or corrupting” behavior, such as pressuring Chinese students studying on U.S. campuses to spy on other Chinese students at the same schools. The report …

Several Democratic women, including Senators Kamala Harris (California), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Kirsten Gillibrand (New York) and possibly even 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton, are potential presidential contenders in 2020, but it could be more of an uphill battle for them than for their male counterparts. That’s because just over half of Americans are totally comfortable with the idea of a woman president, according to a new report by the consulting firm Kantar Public.  The report finds that while 63 percent of Americans are perfectly fine with the idea of a woman heading a major corporation, just 52 percent are as comfortable with a scenario featuring a female president. Men are more inclined to judge a person’s leadership suitability based on gender, while women are more likely to think men and women are equally suited to leadership, according to the report, which finds that 60 percent of women would be OK with …

The Trump administration is considering new background checks and other restrictions on Chinese students in the United States over growing espionage concerns, U.S. officials and congressional sources said. In June, the U.S. State Department shortened the length of visas for Chinese graduate students studying aviation, robotics and advanced manufacturing to one year from five. U.S. officials said the goal was to curb the risk of spying and theft of intellectual property in areas vital to national security.  But now the Trump administration is weighing whether to subject Chinese students to additional vetting before they attend a U.S. school. The ideas under consideration, previously unreported, include checks of student phone records and scouring of personal accounts on Chinese and U.S. social media platforms for anything that might raise concerns about students’ intentions in the United States, including affiliations with Government organizations, a U.S. official and three congressional and university sources told …

A bolstered Republican Senate majority will facilitate U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to remake the federal judiciary even as Congress as a whole returns to political gridlock beginning next year, observers say.   While Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in midterm elections earlier this month, Republicans boosted their Senate majority from 51 to 54 seats in the 100-member chamber, with only one contest, in Republican-leaning Mississippi, yet to be decided.   Beginning in January, Democrats will be able to use their House majority to block any legislation to which they object. But in one critical area, judicial nominees, Republicans will have a stronger hand to confirm Trump’s picks for lifetime appointments to the federal bench and make the judiciary far more ideologically conservative for years, perhaps decades, to come.   “While most things the Senate does need to get 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, nominations only …

Until the Russian attack Sunday on Ukrainian vessels in the Black Sea, the White House and the Kremlin had at least been agreed on one thing: the agenda for Saturday’s scheduled face-to-face between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, their second summit meeting. Arms control, security issues as well as the Middle East and North Korea were all set to figure prominently, senior U.S. and Russian aides told reporters in the run-up to the meeting. Russian officials say the Kremlin had earmarked as their key issue Trump’s recent decision to abandon a landmark Cold War-era agreement prohibiting the U.S. and Russia from possessing ground-launched short-range nuclear missiles. For the White House, securing a public commitment from the Russians to enforce United Nations sanctions on North Korea before next month’s planned summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was a key objective, according to …

President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty Thursday to a new charge of lying to Congress about a Russian real estate venture Trump sought to develop during his presidential campaign. The charge was filed by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading a probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Cohen, who previously pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws, directed efforts to construct a Trump-branded complex in Moscow. He admitted to a federal judge in New York he lied about the timing of negotiations and other information in order to be consistent with Trump’s “political message” and “to be loyal to Individual One,” a reference to Trump during the court session. Among the lies Cohen told the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017 was that discussions of the project ended by January 2016 when they actually continued until June of that year. Cohen said he …

A U.S. congressman is calling on President Donald Trump to raise the issue of China’s mass internment of Muslim ethnic minorities when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week.   Republican Congressman Christopher Smith co-chairs the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China with Republican Senator Marco Rubio. The two lawmakers have proposed a bill in their respective chambers condemning the gross violations of human rights against the Uighurs in the remote western Xinjiang region. Beijing has faced growing international criticism over the incarceration of Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities, which it claims is necessary to combat religious extremism.   But former detainees have described the facilities as political indoctrination camps where they were forced to condemn Islam and declare loyalty to the ruling Communist Party. In an interview with VOA’s Mandarin Service Wednesday, Congressman Smith said their legislation would call on President Trump to use the Global Magnitsky …

Suicides and drug overdoses helped lead a surge in U.S. deaths last year, and drove a continuing decline in how long Americans are expected to live. Overall, there were more than 2.8 million U.S. deaths in 2017, or nearly 70,000 more than the previous year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. It was the most deaths in a single year since the government began counting more than a century ago. The increase partly reflects the nation’s growing and aging population. But it’s deaths in younger age groups — particularly middle-aged people — that have had the largest impact on calculations of life expectancy, experts said. The suicide death rate last year was the highest it’s been in at least 50 years, according to U.S. government records. There were more than 47,000 suicides, up from a little less than 45,000 the year before. ​A general decline For decades, …

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Argentina this week for what some see as the most important meeting in years between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies. After months of bitter bickering between their governments over trade and security that has raised questions about the very future of a complex but economically pivotal relationship, the two leaders took a step back from the edge with an ice-breaking telephone call early this month. They expressed optimism about resolving their damaging trade war ahead of the meeting on Saturday, but there have been few tangible signs of progress. They will be in Buenos Aires for the summit of the leaders of the 20 major economies. Even so, differences among Trump’s top advisers over China policy and his personal unpredictability and fondness for …

The Trump administration has put the safety of thousands of teens at a migrant detention camp at risk by waiving FBI fingerprint checks for their caregivers and short-staffing mental health workers, according to an Associated Press investigation and a new federal watchdog report. None of the 2,100 staffers at a tent city holding more than 2,300 teens in the remote Texas desert are going through rigorous FBI fingerprint background checks, according to a Health and Human Services inspector general memo published Tuesday. “Instead, Tornillo is using checks conducted by a private contractor that has access to less comprehensive data, thereby heightening the risk that an individual with a criminal history could have direct access to children,” the memo says. In addition, the federal government is allowing the nonprofit running the facility, BCFS Health and Human Services, to sidestep mental health care requirements. Under federal policy, migrant youth shelters generally must …

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that new auto tariffs were “being studied now,” asserting they could prevent job cuts such as the U.S. layoffs and plant closures that General Motors Co. announced this week.    Trump said on Twitter that the 25 percent tariff placed on imported pickup trucks and commercial vans from markets outside North America in the 1960s had long boosted U.S. vehicle production.    “If we did that with cars coming in, many more cars would be built here,” Trump said, “and G.M. would not be closing their plants in Ohio, Michigan & Maryland.”    The United States has a 2.5 percent tariff on imported cars and sport utility vehicles from markets outside North America and South Korea. The new North American trade deal exempts the first 2.6 million SUVs and passenger cars built in Mexico and Canada from new tariffs.    Several automakers said privately on …

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed to G-20 leaders ahead of their meetings this week to cooperate more to address some of the planet’s most pressing issues.  “Threats to human prosperity are becoming increasingly acute,” Guterres wrote in a five-page letter dated Nov. 16 and released by the U.N. on Wednesday. “More, rather than less, cooperation is needed,” he said. Guterres detailed threats from global hunger to climate-related disasters to the need for empowering women and harnessing technology for good. He said multilateralism must be “preserved and renewed,” and he urged international support for the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which he said “provide us with an agreed blueprint to tackle the most daunting challenges of our times.”  Watch: What is the G-20? The U.N. General Assembly adopted the SDGs in 2015. The 17 global goals provide a framework for ending extreme poverty and hunger, improving health and education, and …

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell boosted U.S. stock markets on Wednesday when he said interest rates were “just below” estimates of a level that neither brakes nor boosts a healthy economy. Many took his comments as a signal that the Fed’s three-year tightening cycle is ending.  The S&P 500 and Dow posted their biggest percentage gains in eight months, while the Nasdaq saw its largest advance in just over a month following Powell’s speech to the Economic Club of New York.  Powell said that while “there was a great deal to like” about U.S. prospects, “our gradual pace of raising interest rates has been an exercise in balancing risks.”  Earlier in the day, in its first-ever financial stability report, the Fed cautioned that trade tensions, Brexit and troubled emerging markets could rock a U.S. financial system where asset prices are “elevated.”  ‘Close to neutral’ “[Powell is] now acknowledging he’s close to …

A woman accused of being a secret agent for the Russian government appears to be coming closer to a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors or other resolution of her criminal case.  Court documents filed Wednesday say Maria Butina’s lawyers and federal prosecutors “remain optimistic about a pretrial resolution” of her case. A hearing is scheduled for next month.  The 30-year-old gun-rights activist is accused of relaying intelligence on American officials and political organizations to a Russian government official. She’s pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Russia.  Butina has denied any wrongdoing and mounted an aggressive defense since she was jailed in July.  Her lawyer has said Butina is a student interested in American politics and in better U.S.-Russian relations.   …

Nancy Pelosi was nominated by fellow House Democrats to be speaker on Wednesday, but she still faces a showdown vote when the full House convenes in January.  Pelosi entered the closed-door caucus election in an unusual position — running unopposed despite the clamor by some Democrats for new leadership. Votes were still being counted, but she was assured of victory.  “Are there dissenters? Yes,” the California Democrat told reporters as voting was underway. “But I expect to have a powerful vote going forward.” Pelosi was nominated as her party’s choice for speaker by Rep. Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts, with no fewer than eight colleagues set to second the choice, including Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights leader, and three newly elected lawmakers. As House Democrats met in private in the Capitol, they faced a simple “yes” or “no” choice on the ballots.  A sign of the party’s mood …

After nearly a year in detention, a months-long hunger strike, and a deportation order, 40-year-old Mergensana Amar died in U.S. immigration custody this month. He was removed from life support 10 days after he was found unconscious in his cell at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, and seven days after his last glimmer of brain activity. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Monday that the Russia native died of “anoxic brain injury due to asphyxiation,” the agency reported this week. Washington’s Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Amar’s death suicide by hanging.  Amar was found in his cell on Nov. 15, and was declared brain dead on Nov. 18, according to ICE. He remained on life support until Nov. 24, however ICE has listed his official date of death as Nov. 18. Amar entered the U.S. without proper documentation, according to ICE. He was on a hunger …

A military investigation unit says prison inmates used online “sextortion” to take more than a half-million dollars from hundreds of American service members.   Agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service executed arrest warrants and served summonses Wednesday on a sextortion ring that had preyed on 442 troops from across the United States since 2015. Inmates used social media and online dating sites to pose as women and sent nude pictures to service members, according to the NCIS release.   Prisoners would then assume the role of the female’s father or another position of authority. The inmate impersonating the authority figure would claim the woman was a juvenile and demand money in exchange for not pursuing charges through law enforcement channels. “Military members would then pay, fearful they might lose their careers over possessing what they were being led to believe was child pornography,” the NCIS release said. The warrants …

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that a pardon for his onetime 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who is facing years in prison for financial fraud, was “not off the table.”  Trump told the New York Post in a White House interview that he had never discussed pardoning the 69-year-old longtime lobbyist.  “But I wouldn’t take it off the table,” Trump said. “Why would I take it off the table?”  In August, a jury in northern Virginia, just outside Washington, found Manafort guilty of eight counts of tax and bank fraud stemming from his work as a political consultant in Ukraine that predated six months of work, including three as chairman, on Trump’s successful 2016 run for the White House.  Manafort later pleaded guilty in Washington to two new counts — conspiracy against the U.S., which involved financial crimes, and conspiracy to obstruct justice — and agreed to cooperate with special counsel …