The U.S. State Department held its first, much-anticipated briefing Tuesday since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, and faced a lot of reporters’ pent-up questions about the forging of American foreign policy in the new administration. Journalists and other long-time observers of the State Department have been asking when daily news briefings would resume, why they have heard so little from new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and why so many senior positions— including Tillerson’s deputy — have not been filled in the department.  Acting Spokesman Mark Toner rejected suggestions that the State Department has been marginalized in the new Trump administration: “Secretary Tillerson is very engaged with the White House, very engaged with the president — speaks to him frequently, was over there just yesterday, I believe, for a meeting. And I can assure everyone that the secretary’s voice, the State Department’s voice, is heard loud and clear in …

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration pledged on Tuesday to show “great strictness” over restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities imposed by a deal with major powers, but gave little indication of what that might mean for the agreement. The 2015 deal between Iran and six major powers restricts Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Trump has called the agreement “the worst deal ever negotiated.” His administration is now carrying out a review of the accord which could take months, but it has said little about where it stands on specific issues. The Trump administration also gave few clues about any potential policy shift on Tuesday in a statement to a quarterly meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors. “The United States will approach questions of JCPOA interpretation, implementation, and enforcement with great strictness indeed,” the statement to the International …

All 100 U.S. senators have signed a letter to the nation’s top three law enforcement officials asking for more federal help for Jewish centers and schools dealing with numerous bomb threats. “These cowardly acts aim to create an atmosphere of fear and disrupt the important programs and services offered by JCCs [Jewish community centers] to everyone in the communities they serve,” the letter said. The letter was sent to the heads of the FBI and Department of Homeland Security and to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The senators wrote that these law enforcement agencies can provide “crucial assistance” to JCCs and synagogues in providing security, deterring threats, and investigating and prosecuting those who make such threats. The senators also condemned vandalism at Jewish cemeteries in Philadelphia and St. Louis, calling it “completely unacceptable and un-American.” While House spokesman Sean Spicer said Tuesday that the Trump administration would continue to condemn the …

Todd Schmitz from Boscobel, Wisconsin, discusses his feeling on immigration with VOA. “Just be a little more diligent about watching who comes in and out,” he said. “I mean, the majority of people aren’t here to kill me and my family, or Americans. But there are a few that make it bad for everybody that try to come into America just to visit or whatever the case may be. I think there could be more, not necessarily more stringent laws, just laws that we already have to be enforced.” …

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin says U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has assured him that Washington will continue to support Kyiv in its standoff with Russia. Klimkin spoke to reporters after meeting at the State Department Tuesday with Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil CEO who now serves as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat. Their meeting came amid ongoing concerns in Ukraine, and among its supporters in the West, that Trump could soften the U.S. line on Russia, given his stated desire to repair relations with Moscow. Trump’s new administration, however, has so far publicly supported the continuation of sanctions imposed on Russia following its 2014 seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, and its support for separatists in the country’s east. Ukraine a ‘key partner’ of U.S. “[Tillerson] assured me that the United States would consistently continue to support Ukraine in its struggle against Russian aggression, that Ukraine is a key partner …

Facebook has launched a tool it says will help flag so-called fake news. The tool adds a “disputed news” flag on stories that have been deemed fake by what Facebook says are third parties, including Snopes, Politifact and Factcheck.org. Facebook announced the disputed news flag in December, but it appears it only has gone live in the past day or so, according to news reports. If a story is flagged by some of Facebook’s 1.86 billion users, the company will determine which to send to the third parties. If the story is fake, it will still be on Facebook, but will carry a notice that it was disputed along with an explanation about why. Disputed stories can still be shared, but users will be warned they are sharing fake news. According to USA Today, one fake news story about how President Trump’s Android phone was the source of White House …

Members of American Indian tribes from around the country are bringing their frustrations with the Trump administration and its approval of the Dakota Access oil pipeline to the nation’s capital. Tribal members were planning to gather at the National Mall on Tuesday to begin four days of activities culminating with a Friday march on the White House dubbed the “Native Nations March on DC.” Tribal members and supporters plan to camp each day on the National Mall, with teepees, a ceremonial fire, cultural workshops and speakers. Native American leaders also plan to lobby lawmakers to protect tribal rights. On Friday, a march of about 2 miles is planned from the Army Corps of Engineers office to the White House, where a rally is scheduled. Organizers didn’t immediately have an estimate on how many people or tribes planned to take part. “We are calling on all our Native relatives and allies …

Fifteen years ago, Glenn Spencer left behind his California life — and eventually his marriage — in pursuit of an obsession: “I came out to Arizona to help secure the border.” On his Cochise County, Arizona ranch — roughly a football field’s distance from the rust metal barrier that separates the United States and Mexico — Spencer lays a drone flat on the dust and puts his seismograph-based detection system to test. Within seconds, it disappears, humming quietly into an unforgiving sky. But Spencer never loses sight of his drone on a monitor. Underneath a mesh shade, he maneuvers a joystick like a young boy with his new toy. It may seem like a game, but Spencer’s man-hunting mission carries dire consequences for those who have risked it all crossing the Sonoran Desert. “The computer is looking at five miles of information, and then when something happens, the algorithm says, …

A pair of $250,000 autonomous buses began driving around an empty San Francisco Bay Area parking lot on Monday, preparing to move onto a local public road in California’s first pilot program for a self-driving vehicle without steering wheel or human operator. California and other states are weighing the opportunities of becoming a hub of testing a technology that is seen as the future of transportation and the risks from giving up active control of a large, potentially dangerous vehicle. In most tests of self-driving cars there is still a person seated at the steering wheel, ready to take over, although Alphabet Inc’s Waymo tested a car with no steering wheel or pedals in Austin, Texas, as early as 2015. The bus project in San Ramon, at the Bishop Ranch office park complex, involves two 12-passenger shuttle buses from French private company EasyMile. The project is backed by a combination …

President Donald Trump has offered to maintain federal funding for Planned Parenthood if the group stops providing abortions. Its president spurned the proposal and noted that federal money already is not allowed to be used for abortion. Trump confirmed Monday there had been discussions after The New York Times inquired about what it described as an informal proposal. In a statement to the newspaper, Trump said polling shows most Americans oppose public funding for abortion. “As I said throughout the campaign, I am pro-life and I am deeply committed to investing in women’s health and plan to significantly increase federal funding in support of nonabortion services such as cancer screenings,” he said. Trump added: “There is an opportunity for organizations to continue the important work they do in support of women’s health, while not providing abortion services.” Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards said in response: “We will …

A new U.S. executive order, temporarily halting the issuance of new visas for travelers from six countries, is to go into effect March 16, replacing an earlier controversial order in which visitors from the same countries and a seventh one — Iraq — were barred from entry to the U.S. VOA White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman reports. …

Rights groups say the new executive order U.S. President Donald Trump signed on Monday is no improvement over the original one issued in January and say they will move to block it. The new version removes the indefinite ban on Syrian refugees and drops Iraq from the list of seven majority-Muslim countries affected by the previous order. But it reinstates a temporary blanket ban on all refugees. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports that reactions to the new order are mixed. …

In cities across the United States, local communities are hosting dinners for refugees. It is a part of an initiative called “Refugees Welcome.” The goal is to break barriers by breaking bread together. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee attended a dinner in Los Angeles where Syrian refugees shared their experience of settling in the U.S. …

The Oklahoma City bombing 22 years ago was an act of domestic terror by Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh and his accomplice, Terry Nichols. The bombing destroyed one third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring 680 others. In his documentary, “Oklahoma City,” filmmaker Barak Goodman revisits the bombing as the first major domestic terrorist attack in the US on April 19, 1995. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more. …