Author: Fworld

VOA’s White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman in Osaka, Japan, contributed to this report. U.S. President Donald Trump met Friday morning with several world leaders on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Japan.  Trump started his day with summit host Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, followed by short discussions with Indian …

A second small city in Florida has agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom to cybercriminals who disabled its computer system.  Days after ransomware crippled the city of about 12,000 residents, officials of Lake City agreed this week to meet the hackers’ ransom demand: 42 Bitcoin or about $460,000.  Last week, River …

Fifty years ago today (June 27, 1969),  police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village. The violent protests that followed galvanized the gay rights movement in America. A half-century later, society’s attitudes toward the LGBTQ community has evolved, as highlighted in a groundbreaking exhibit at the Newseum in Washington, DC. …

U.S. President Donald Trump arrived Thursday in Osaka, Japan, where he is attending a summit with other leaders from the Group of 20. On the sidelines of the main event, Trump is scheduled to hold a number of bilateral meetings, including those with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday and …

Lee Juhyun contributed to this report. SEOUL — U.S. President Donald Trump insists his North Korea policy is “doing great.” South Korean President Moon Jae-in says talks with Pyongyang are “making steady progress.” Ahead of Trump’s visit to South Korea later this week, the only side that seems to disagree about how great things are going …

U.S. President Donald Trump blasted former special counsel Robert Mueller, who agreed to provide open testimony before congressional committees next month. “The Mueller thing never stops,” Trump said on the White House South Lawn before his departure to the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. “How many times do we have to hear it? It never …

Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for U.S. President Donald Trump, will be arraigned Thursday in a New York court in Manhattan on state criminal charges, after having been convicted last year on federal fraud charges. Manafort, 70, is scheduled to appear before Justice Maxwell Wiley of the state Supreme Court at 2:15 p.m. EDT …

Mark Brooks is no stranger to golf. In fact, he says, “I chose golf, I certainly had designs on maybe doing something else if golf didn’t work out, but it has worked out for me and it is an interesting game.”   Mark Brooks plays on the Champions Tour of the Professional Golfers Association. Brooks …

VOA’s Victoria Macchi contributed to this report. WASHINGTON — More than 200 children held in a border facility described as unsafe and unsanitary last week were transferred to the care of another U.S. agency by Tuesday, U.S. health authorities confirmed. In a statement emailed to VOA, U.S. Health and Human Services acknowledged it worked with U.S. …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday during a visit to Afghanistan that the Trump administration is aiming for a peace deal in the war-ravaged country by September. His visit came as American and Taliban negotiators are scheduled to meet in Qatar later this week (June 29) for the next round of talks in …

Top U.S. officials are saying no one should expect any major deals when President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet later this week at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. The officials say the main purpose of the meeting is to reach agreement to restart trade negotiations that broke off in May. Eleven …

Senior U.S. officials say they are already busy buttressing the nation’s defenses against foreign interference for the 2020 presidential election. Only they admit the public may be kept in the dark about attacks and intrusions. Intelligence and election security officials have warned repeatedly that Russia, among other state and nonstate actors, remains intent on disrupting …

The U.S. Treasury inspector general says he will look into why the Trump administration decided to scrap plans to put escaped slave turned abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the move last month, saying the change is because of “counterfeiting issues.” But Democratic Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said …

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration Monday when it said a century-old law banning so-called obscene or immoral trademarks is unconstitutional. All nine justices agreed that the 1905 Lanham Act violated the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. “There are a great many immoral and scandalous ideas in the world, even more …

VOA’s national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. The United States is set to introduce new sanctions against Iran on Monday, seeking to put additional pressure on the country’s economy in order to extract changes in behavior from its government. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the new measures “significant,” but declined to …

A group of Oregon state Republican senators have gone into hiding to stop the passage of a landmark climate change legislation. The western state’s House bill 2020 would set limits to carbon emissions with permits auctioned off to polluting industries. Republicans say the bill would hurt rural Oregonians. Democrats have a majority in both chambers …

Four years ago on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same sex couples have the right to marry, a right guaranteed by the Constitution’s equal protection clauses. The landmark ruling accelerated a growing public acceptance of LGBTQ marriage, which includes lesbian, gay and other diverse sexual orientations. But as VOA’s Brian Padden …

U.S. President Donald Trump says he is “not looking for war” with Iran and willing to negotiate with its leaders without preconditions, but that under no circumstances can the Islamic Republic be allowed to mass a nuclear weapons arsenal. Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press show that if the U.S. went to war with Iran, …

U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he wants to give opposition Democratic lawmakers “every last chance” to stiffen the country’s asylum laws and immigration policies before launching nationwide raids to deport undocumented migrants. Trump, without identifying the details of what he wants, said the lawmakers who oppose his tough immigration stance could “quickly negotiate simple …

U.S. President Donald Trump won under the U.S. electoral college system but lost the popular vote. His approval ratings have consistently been below 50 percent. Yet in a recent interview with TIME Magazine, Trump said he doesn’t need to reach out to independent voters because his “base is so strong.”  Who makes up Trump’s base, …

Iran has increased its offensive cyberattacks against the U.S. government and critical infrastructure as tensions have grown between the two nations, cybersecurity firms say.  In recent weeks, hackers believed to be working for the Iranian government have targeted U.S. government agencies, as well as sectors of the economy, including oil and gas, sending waves of …

Oregon state Republicans would rather go AWOL than let a climate bill pass that they say would raise costs for rural Oregonians.  A bill requiring polluters to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions seemed poised to clear the state’s Democrat-controlled Legislature this week. But as the measure headed to a vote in the northwest U.S. …

A skydiving plane crashed and burst into flames just after takeoff from a small seaside airfield on the island of Oahu, killing 11 people, officials said Saturday.    Authorities initially reported that nine people died in the crash Friday evening and that three of them were customers of a skydiving company and six were employees.  …

Muslims started settling in America in the 1600s. From the Northeast to Midwest, they have left their mark on U.S. history. Even in some Midwestern states where few Muslims live, there are historic milestones of their presence. Muslim homesteaders in Ross, North Dakota, built a mosque in the 1920s, making it one of the first …

Capitol Hill correspondent Katherine Gypson and VOA Persian’s Katherine Ahn contributed to this report from Washington. The United States was “cocked & loaded,” ready to strike three sites in Iran in retaliation for the downing of a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz but called off the attacks at the last possible moment to spare Iranian …

Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services rejected a license renewal Friday for a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, but the clinic can temporarily continue to provide abortions. The rejection was the latest development in a long legal battle over the state’s last remaining abortion clinic. The health department told Planned Parenthood of the …