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President Donald Trump has made an unannounced trip to Iraq to visit U.S. troops stationed there. The visit took place on the heels of Trump’s controversial move to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and plans for a drawdown in Afghanistan, and amid criticism that he has not visited troops abroad since becoming U.S. president. VOA White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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Retail sales in the U.S. for the 2018 holiday season were up more than 5 percent to more than $850 billion, according to data Mastercard released Wednesday, making 2018 the best holiday retail season in the last six years.

The Mastercard SpendingPulse report tracks retail spending across all payment types, including cash and checks, from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24.

The report said online sales also jumped more than 19 percent from last year.

Clothing and home improvement items were the seasonal favorite, while the sale of electronics fell.

The National Retail Federation had predicted holiday sales to increase between 4.3 and 4.8 percent from 2017, for a total of $717.45 billion to $720.89 billion.

Online giant Amazon said 2018 was a record year for its global holiday sales. Amazon said it shipped a billion products for free in the U.S. alone for its Amazon Prime customers.
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She showed up in Paris wearing a black catsuit, a reminder that nobody can command the Grand Slam stage quite like Serena Williams.

She reached the finals at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, proving again how well she can play no matter how little she practices.

Williams didn’t win those or any other tournaments, which in every other situation might have made for a forgettable year.

In 2018, it was a remarkable one.

Her rapid return to tennis after a health scare following childbirth was a victory in itself, and for that, Williams was voted The Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for the fifth time.

Williams received 93 points in balloting by U.S. editors and news directors announced Wednesday, while gymnast Simone Biles was second with 68. Notre Dame basketball player Arike Ogunbowale was third, while Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim and swimmer Katie Ledecky, the 2017 winner, rounded out the top five.

All of those players won a title or titles in 2018, while Williams had to settle for just coming close a couple of times.

Now 37 and a new mother facing some players who weren’t even born when she turned pro in 1995, Williams isn’t the same person who ruthlessly ran her way to 23 Grand Slam singles titles — the last of which came at the 2017 Australian Open when she was pregnant.

“I’m still waiting to get to be the Serena that I was, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be that, physically, emotionally, mentally. But I’m on my way,” Williams said on the eve of the U.S. Open final. “I feel like I still have a ways to go. Once I get there, I’ll be able to play even hopefully better.”

The Male Athlete of the Year will be announced Thursday.

The women’s award has been won more only by Babe Didrikson Zaharias, whose six wins included one for track and five for golf.

Williams’ previous times winning the AP honor, in 2002, 2009, 2013 and 2015, were because of her dominance.

This one was about her perseverance.

Williams developed blood clots after giving birth to daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. on Sept. 1, 2017, and four surgeries would follow. She returned to the WTA Tour in March and played in just a pair of events before the French Open, where she competed in a skin-tight, full-length black catsuit .

She said the outfit — worn partly for health reasons because of the clots — made her feel like a superhero, but her game was rarely in superstar shape. She had to withdraw in Paris because of a right pectoral injury and didn’t play again until Wimbledon, where she lost to Angelique Kerber in the final.

Williams came up short again in New York, where her loss to Naomi Osaka in the final will be remembered best for her outburst toward chair umpire Carlos Ramos, who had penalized Williams for receiving coaching and later penalized her an entire game for calling him a “thief” while arguing.

That loss leaves her one major title shy of Margaret Court’s record as she starts play next year in a WTA Tour that will look different in part because of new rules coming about after issues involving Williams. Players returning to the tour may use a “special ranking” for up to three years from the birth of a child, and the exemption can be used for seedings at big events. Also, the tour says players can wear leggings or compression shorts at its tournaments without a skirt over them.

Williams insists she is still driven to play and win as much if not more than before she was a mother. That drive is the focus of a Nike ad showing her in action.

“Getting this far, crazy,” it says. “Stopping now, crazier.”

Williams won’t.

“I’m still on the way up,” she said. “There’s still much more that I plan on doing.”

The rest of the top five:

Simone Biles, gymnastics . The American won four golds and six medals overall in the world championships in Qatar, giving her 20 in her career to tie Russia’s Svetlana Khorkina for the most by a female gymnast.

Arike Ogunbowale, women’s basketball . She hit one jumper to knock off previously unbeaten Connecticut in the Final Four, then a 3-pointer in the championship game to lift Notre Dame over Mississippi State.

Chloe Kim, snowboarding . At 17, the Californian won the halfpipe Olympic gold medal in South Korea, where her parents were from before they immigrated to the United States.

Katie Ledecky, swimming . The 21-year-old U.S. Olympian tuned up for the 2020 Games in Tokyo by winning five medals in the city at the Pan Pacific Championships.
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We like to say we’re addicted to our phones or an app or some new show on a streaming video service.

But for some people, tech gets in the way of daily functioning and self-care. We’re talking flunk-your-classes, can’t-find-a-job, live-in-a-dark-hole kinds of problems, with depression, anxiety and sometimes suicidal thoughts part of the mix.

Suburban Seattle, a major tech center, has become a hub for help for so-called “tech addicts,” with residential rehab, psychologists who specialize in such treatment and 12-step meetings.

“The drugs of old are now repackaged. We have a new foe,” Cosette Rae says of the barrage of tech. A former developer in the tech world, she heads a Seattle area rehab center called reSTART Life, one of the few residential programs in the nation specializing in tech addiction.

Use of that word — addiction — when it comes to devices, online content and the like is still debated in the mental health world. But many practitioners agree that tech use is increasingly intertwined with the problems of those seeking help.

An American Academy of Pediatrics review of worldwide research found that excessive use of video games alone is a serious problem for as many as 9 percent of young people. This summer, the World Health Organization also added “gaming disorder” to its list of afflictions. A similar diagnosis is being considered in the United States.

It can be a taboo subject in an industry that frequently faces criticism for using “persuasive design,” intentionally harnessing psychological concepts to make tech all the more enticing.

​One addict’s story

One 27-year-old man, found through a 12-step program for tech addicts, works in the very industry that peddles the games, videos and other online content that has long been his vice. He does cloud maintenance for a suburban Seattle tech company and constantly finds himself fending off temptation.

“I’m like an alcoholic working at a bar,” he laments. He spoke on the condition that he not be identified, fearing he might harm his career in an industry he’s long loved.

As a toddler, he sat on his dad’s lap in their Seattle area home as they played simple video games on a Mac Classic II computer. By early elementary school, he got his first Super Nintendo system and spent hours playing Yoshi’s Story, a game where the main character searched for “lucky fruit.”

As he grew, so did one of the world’s major tech hubs. Led by Microsoft, it rose from the nondescript suburban landscape and farm fields here, just a short drive from the home he still shares with his mom, who split from her husband when their only child was 11.

As a teen, he took an interest in music and acting but recalls how playing games increasingly became a way to escape life. “I go online instead of dealing with my feelings,” he says.

He’d been seeing a therapist for depression and severe social anxiety. But attending college out of state allowed more freedom and less structure, so he spent even more time online. His grades plummeted, forcing him to change majors, from engineering to business.

After graduating in 2016 and moving home, he’d go to a nearby restaurant or the library to use the Wi-Fi, claiming he was looking for a job but having no luck.

Instead, he was spending hours on Reddit, an online forum where people share news and comments, or viewing YouTube videos. Sometimes, he watched online porn.

​’Detox’

Others who attend a 12-step meeting of the Internet & Tech Addiction Anonymous know the struggle.

“I had to be convinced that this was a ‘thing,”‘ says Walker, a 19-year-old from Washington whose parents insisted he get help after video gaming trashed his first semester of college. He agreed to speak only if identified by first name, as required by the 12-step tenets.

Help is found at facilities like reSTART. Clients “detox” from tech at a secluded ranch and move on to a group home.

They commit to eating well and regular sleep and exercise. They find jobs, and many eventually return to college. They also make “bottom line” promises to give up video games or any other problem content, as well as drugs and alcohol, if those are issues. They use monitored smartphones with limited function — calls, texts and emails and access to maps.

The young tech worker didn’t go to reSTART. But he, too, has apps on his phone that send reports about what he’s viewing to his 12-step sponsor, a fellow tech addict named Charlie, a 30-year-old reSTART graduate.

At home, the young man also persuaded his mom to get rid of Wi-Fi to lessen the temptation.

He still relapses every couple months, often when he’s tired or upset or very bored. He tells himself that his problem isn’t as bad as other tech addicts.

“Then,” the young man says, “I discover very quickly that I am actually an addict, and I do need to do this.”

Having Charlie to lean on helps. “He’s a role model,” he says.

“He has a place of his own. He has a dog. He has friends.”

That’s what he wants for himself.
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Millions of American parents could be putting their plans for a comfortable retirement at risk by continuing to act as the family bank for their adult children.

“Parenting is a lifelong financial commitment,” Surya Kolluri, a managing director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told VOA via email. “Parents spend twice as much on adult children as they contribute to their retirement accounts.”

More than three-fourths — 79 percent — of parents with adult children provide financial assistance to their offspring, contributing to living expenses like rent, groceries and cellphone bills, according to a recent study from Merrill Lynch.

In many cases, that parental generosity threatens to worsen a looming retirement crisis, according to labor economist and retirement expert Teresa Ghilarducci, who says 40 percent of middle-class people now approaching retirement will be poor or near poor by the time they’re 62.

“All Americans at every level of income will have some trouble preparing for the retirement especially if their lives are long and their health care needs are substantial,” Ghilarducci said via email. “But people at the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution are going to find that the rely on Social Security for most of their income and that won’t be enough.”

The study found U.S. parents spend a total $500 billion on adult children annually.

And that doesn’t even include the sizable checks parents write to cover one-time, big-ticket expenses like weddings and home purchases. About 6 in 10 parents help pay for their adult children’s weddings, and one-fourth help a child buy their first home.

A vast majority of parents — 82 percent — say they’re willing to make a major financial sacrifice for their adult offspring.

“Pulling money from retirement accounts to help out adult children may seem like a generous move for adult children but it’s actually a decision that may hurt your adult children in the long run,” Ghilarducci says. “Without the back-up funds to pay a home mortgage or pay off your house, you may have to move into their house to rely on them for medical needs.”

Half of all parents in the study say they are willing to draw on savings, and 43 percent would downgrade their lifestyles to help their kids. One-fourth would take on debt and withdraw cash from retirement accounts. Asian, African American and Latino parents are more likely to say they would sacrifice their own financial security for their children.

Mothers can be especially susceptible to helping children at their own expense.

“Research shows women are more vulnerable to take from their retirement security to help children with college, divorce expenses, child support,” Ghilarducci says. “Women should put their 401(k) in a locked box and view it as off-limits.”

But many of these generous parents might be having second thoughts.

In the study, almost half say they regret not setting clearer boundaries with their children about what financial support they are willing to provide.

“Educating children on finances isn’t without challenges,” Kolluri says. “For example, while 59 percent of parents believe they taught their children the benefits of investing, only 31 percent of teenagers reported having learned about it from their parents. While parents should aim to serve as financial role models for their children, they should also look to their family and peers for advice on how to best educate children about important personal finance topics at any age.”
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A tumultuous year in Afghanistan is ending with a renewed push and newfound hopes that the start of a dialogue with the Taliban may be in sight. The U.S. increased its air campaign in the country, leading to a rise in civilian casualties, but the Taliban gained territory. U.S. generals think Afghan military’s losses are unsustainable. Ayesha Tanzeem looks at the ups and downs of Afghanistan in 2018.
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President Donald Trump on Tuesday expressed confidence in Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin amid worries over a weakening economy and a stock market slump, but repeated his criticism of the U.S. Federal Reserve, saying it has raised interest rates too quickly.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office after a Christmas video conference with U.S. troops deployed abroad, Trump also said U.S. companies were “the greatest in the world” and presented a “tremendous” buying opportunity.

Asked if he has confidence in Mnuchin, Trump said: “Yes, I do. Very talented guy. Very smart person,” he said. His comments came after Mnuchin on Monday held a conference call with U.S. regulators to discuss plunging U.S. stock markets.

The call did more to rattle markets than to assure them. All three major U.S. stock indexes ended down more than 2 percent on the day before the Christmas holiday. The S&P 500 has lost about 19.8 percent from its Sept. 20 closing high, just shy of the 20 percent threshold that commonly defines a bear market.

Mnuchin also spoke on Sunday with the heads of the six largest U.S. banks, who confirmed they have enough liquidity to continue lending and that “the markets continue to function properly.”

Investors said his move to convene a call with the president’s Working Group on Financial Markets, known as the “Plunge Protection team,” may have weighed on sentiment.

On Tuesday, Trump praised U.S. companies and said their lower stock prices present an opportunity for investors. “I have great confidence in our companies. We have companies, the greatest in the world, and they’re doing really well. They have record kinds of numbers. So I think it’s a tremendous opportunity to buy.”

U.S. stocks have dropped sharply in recent weeks on concerns over weaker economic growth. Trump has largely laid the blame for economic headwinds on the Fed, openly criticizing its chairman, Jerome Powell, whom he appointed.

“They’re raising interest rates too fast because they think the economy is so good. But I think that they will get it pretty soon,” Trump said, repeating his criticism.

Media reports have suggested Trump has gone as far as discussing firing Powell, and he told Reuters in August that he was “not thrilled” with the chairman.

On Monday, Trump said “The only problem our economy has is the Fed.”

The Fed hiked interest rates again last week, as had been widely expected.
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Another Guatemalan child has died while in the custody of U.S. border patrol agents.

The unnamed 8-year-old boy passed away just after midnight Christmas Day — the same day a 7-year-old girl was laid to rest in her impoverished Guatemalan village.

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol service says while the boy and his father were in its custody Monday, agents noticed the child was showing signs of “potential illness.”

Doctors at a hospital in Alamogordo, New Mexico, diagnosed him with a cold and fever and released him with prescriptions.

The child became nauseous and started vomiting Monday night. He was returned to the hospital where he died shortly after midnight.

The cause of the child’s death is unknown. The Border Patrol promises an “independent and thorough review.” It has also notified Homeland Security and the Guatemalan government.

Meanwhile, in the tiny Guatemalan village of San Antonio Secortez, a funeral was held for Jakelin Caal.

Jakelin died December 8 while also in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol. Jakelin and her father, Nery Caal, crossed into the U.S. as part of one of the caravans of Central American migrants.

Among the white balloons and flowers surrounding her casket was a hand-written message to Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales saying, “We ask you for jobs, electricity, potable water, roads…so we don’t have to emigrate.”

Nery Caal entered the U.S. in the hopes of finding work, which does not exist across much of Guatemala.

It is still unclear exactly how Jakelin became ill.

She was apparently well when agents arrested her and her father along with other migrants when they crossed the U.S. border into New Mexico on December 6.

She became sick on the bus ride to a border patrol station and arrived with a 41-degree Celsius fever.

Emergency medical teams flew her to a hospital in El Paso, Texas, where she died two days later. Her brain was swollen and her liver had failed.

U.S. agents say the child likely had little to eat and drink before arriving at the U.S. border.

Critics of U.S. immigration policy point to the child deaths as examples of the harsh treatment many migrants can expect when they cross the U.S. borders.

“The Trump administration is deliberately and unlawfully turning asylum-seekers away from points of entry and delaying the processing of individuals seeking protection to an unbearable crawl, forcing families to take desperate measures to seek safety,” the human rights group Amnesty International said Tuesday.

President Donald Trump has said all immigrants are welcome to the U.S. but must come to the country legally.
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President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump took calls from children anxious to find out where Santa is on his gift-giving journey.

In one conversation, Trump asked a 7-year-old named Coleman, “Are you still a believer in Santa?” He listened for a moment before adding, “Because at 7, it’s marginal, right?” Trump listened again and chuckled before saying, “Well, you just enjoy yourself.”

Mrs. Trump told a caller that Santa was in the Sahara. Several minutes later, she reported that Santa was far away in Morocco but would be at the caller’s home on Christmas morning.

Mrs. Trump later tweeted that helping children track Santa “is becoming one of my favorite traditions!”

The NORAD Tracks Santa program became a Christmas Eve tradition after a child mistakenly called the forerunner to the North American Aerospace Defense Command in 1955 and asked to speak to Santa.

The program wasn’t affected by the government shutdown. It’s run by volunteers at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado using pre-approved funding.

The Trumps later traveled to Washington National Cathedral to attend the Solemn Holy Eucharist of Christmas Eve. The cathedral’s website said the program included readings from Holy Scripture, favorite congregational hymns and seasonal choral and instrumental music as well as Holy Communion. Passes were required.

Trump most likely would have been attending Christmas services at a church near his estate in Palm Beach, Florida. But he scrapped plans to head to Florida for the holidays after parts of the government were forced to shut down indefinitely in a budget stalemate with Congress.
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A Turkish official said Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump has accepted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s invitation to visit the country.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters after a Cabinet meeting that Trump wants to make the trip in 2019 but a date hasn’t been set.

The White House confirmed the invitation for Trump to visit next year, adding: “While nothing definite is being planned, the president is open to a potential meeting in the future.”

Kalin said Erdogan extended the invitation during a weekend phone call between the presidents on the withdrawal of American troops from Syria.

Trump tweeted Sunday that he had a “long and productive” call with Erdogan in which they discussed “the slow & highly coordinated” pullout of U.S. military personnel.

 
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A federal judge on Monday ordered North Korea to pay more than $500 million in a wrongful death suit filed by the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died shortly after being released from that country.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell harshly condemned North Korea for “barbaric mistreatment” of Warmbier in agreeing with his family that the isolated nation should be held liable for his death last year. She awarded punitive damages and payments covering medical expenses, economic loss and pain and suffering to Fred and Cindy Warmbier, who alleged that their son had been held hostage and tortured.

Warmbier was a University of Virginia student who was visiting North Korea with a tour group when he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March 2016 on suspicion of stealing a propaganda poster. He died in June 2017, shortly after he returned to the U.S. in a coma and showing apparent signs of torture while in custody.

In holding the North Korean government liable, Howell accused the government of seizing Warmbier for “use as a pawn in that totalitarian state’s global shenanigans and face-off with the United States.”

“Before Otto traveled with a tour group on a five-day trip to North Korea, he was a healthy, athletic student of economics and business in his junior year at the University of Virginia, with ‘big dreams’ and both the smarts and people skills to make him his high school class salutatorian, homecoming king, and prom king,” the judge wrote. “He was blind, deaf, and brain dead when North Korea turned him over to U.S. government officials for his final trip home.”

The arrest and death of Warmbier came during a time of heightened tension between the U.S. and North Korea over the country’s nuclear weapons program. President Donald Trump held a first-of-its-kind summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June 2018 and plans another next year.

The judgment may be mostly a symbolic victory since North Korea has yet to respond to any of the allegations in court and there’s no practical mechanism to force it do so. But the family may nonetheless be able to recoup damages through a Justice Department-administered fund for victims of state-sponsored acts of terrorism, and may look to seize other assets held by the country outside of North Korea.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier, who are from a suburb of Cincinnati, said they were thankful the court found the government of Kim Jong Un “legally and morally” responsible for their son’s death.

“We put ourselves and our family through the ordeal of a lawsuit and public trial because we promised Otto that we will never rest until we have justice for him,” they said in a statement. “Today’s thoughtful opinion by Chief Judge Howell is a significant step on our journey.”

The lawsuit, filed in April, describes in horrific detail the physical abuse Warmbier endured in North Korean custody.

When his parents boarded a plane to see him upon arrival in the U.S., they were “stunned to see his condition,” court documents say.

The 22-year-old was blind and deaf, his arms were curled and mangled and he was jerking violently and howling, completely unresponsive to his family’s attempts to comfort him. His once straight teeth were misaligned, and he had an unexplained scarred on his foot. An expert said in court papers that the injuries suggested he had been tortured with electric shock.

A neurologist later concluded that the college student suffered brain damage, probably from a loss of blood flow to the brain for five to 20 minutes.

North Korea has denied that Warmbier was tortured and has said he contracted botulism in custody, though medical experts said there was no evidence of that.

The complaint also said Warmbier was pressed to make a televised confession, then convicted of subversion after a short trial. He was denied communication with his family. In June 2017, his parents were informed he was in a coma and had been in that condition for one year.

Though foreign nations are generally immune from being sued in U.S. courts, Howell cited several exceptions that she said allowed the case to move forward and for her to hold North Korea liable. Those include the fact that North Korea has been designated by the U.S. as a sponsor of terrorism, that the Warmbiers are U.S. citizens and that North Koreans’ conduct amounts to torture and hostage taking.

The penalty awarded by Howell to the Warmbiers and to Otto Warmbier’s estate includes punitive damages as well as damages for economic losses, pain and suffering and medical expenses.

The lawsuit was brought on the Warmbiers’ behalf by Richard Cullen, a prominent Virginia lawyer and former U.S. attorney. He told The Associated Press that while “nothing will ever bring Otto back to the Warmbiers or erase their memories of his horrid last 18 months,” the judge’s order was “very good news for his family and friends.”
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