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Despite initial concerns about an untested new leader, the world’s largest economy will end the year on a high note. The US economy is expanding at the fastest pace in more than two years, buoyed in part by low unemployment, soaring stock prices and a broad economic recovery around the globe. The momentum is expected to carry into 2018, but, as Mil Arcega reports, economists say the new year is likely to bring new challenges.
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More than two weeks after losing a special election to the U.S. Senate, Alabama Republican Roy Moore has filed a last-minute court challenge to prevent state election officials from certifying his Democratic opponent’s victory.

Moore filed a complaint in a state courthouse late Wednesday afternoon, just hours before Doug Jones is set to be officially declared the winner of the December 12 election, which Jones won by just over 20,000 votes.

The complaint alleges Moore lost due to “systematic voter fraud,” citing higher than expected turnout in Jefferson County, the state’s most populous area, along with irregularities in 20 voting precincts in the county.

Moore’s lawyers are demanding an investigation into their claims, and for the state to hold a new election. Moore has rejected calls to concede the race to Jones.

John Merrill, Alabama’s secretary of state, says he has not uncovered any evidence of voter fraud. If Jones’s victory is certified Thursday, he will be sworn in sometime next week to succeed Jeff Sessions, who became attorney general in President Donald Trump’s cabinet earlier this year.

Jones is the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from the heavily Republican state in 25 years.

Moore is a former Alabama state supreme court judge known for his staunch religious views. His campaign was derailed when The Washington Post published allegations made by several women of sexual misconduct when they were teenagers, and Jones was a grown man in his 30s.

 
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Most Americans will spend the rest of the year dealing with arctic temperatures and biting winds. The Eastern and Central United States are gripped by the cold weather, which is expected to continue through the first week of 2018. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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The Nigerian air force said on Wednesday the United States had agreed to sell fighter planes to Nigeria, as the West African country continues its eight-year

conflict with Islamist insurgency Boko Haram.

The sale of the 12 A29 Super Tucano aircraft, with weapons and services, is worth $593 million.

The U.S. ambassador to Nigeria presented the letters of offer and acceptance, the official agreement to make the sale, to the country’s air force earlier on Wednesday, the air force statement said.

The agreements are expected to be signed and necessary payments made before Feb. 20, the statement said, adding that the U.S. State Department has already approved the sale.

Reporting by Paul Carsten; Editing by Alison Williams.
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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday U.S. President Donald Trump would fail in his hardened stance towards Iran, saying Tehran was stronger than during the time of the “more powerful and smarter” Ronald Reagan.

“Reagan was more powerful and smarter than Trump, and he was a better actor in making threats, and he also moved against us and they shot down our plane,” Khamenei said in a speech carried on state television.

In 1988, a U.S. warship shot down an Iranian passenger plane over the Gulf, killing all 290 aboard, in an incident which Washington said was a mistake. Tehran said it was a deliberate attack on Iran, then at war with neighboring Iraq.

“But Reagan is gone and, according to our beliefs, he now faces God’s retribution … while Iran has made great advances in all areas since Reagan’s time,” Khamenei added.

“This trend will continue under the current American president and any hopes on their part that the Islamic Republic would back off or weaken is futile.”

Trump refused in October to certify that Tehran is complying with its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and warned he might ultimately terminate the agreement.

He announced the shift in U.S. policy in a speech in which he detailed a more aggressive approach to Iran over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its support for militant groups in the Middle East.

Under the nuclear deal, sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for Tehran rolling back technologies with nuclear bomb-making potential.
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A New York literature professor held in the Central African nation of Cameroon since early this month after writing an article that criticized the government was released Wednesday, his lawyer said.

Stony Brook University Professor Patrice Nganang was expelled from Cameroon and has been told not to return to the country where he was born, lawyer Emmanuel Simh said.  

Nganang, 37, who has dual citizenship in Cameroon and the United States, had faced a January 19 hearing after being detained December 7. The court in Yaounde early Wednesday announced he would be let go and that all charges against him were dropped.

The charges included issuing a death threat; insulting constitutional bodies, specifically the military; and inciting violence in a Facebook post, according to the New York City-based Committee to Protect Journalists and other supporters.

Nganang, an essayist and novelist, wrote an article for weekly news magazine Jeune Afrique that was critical of how Cameroon’s government has handled a sometimes violent secessionist movement in some English-speaking areas of the country.

The English-speaking minority in Cameroon has complained about discrimination by French speakers. Dozens have been arrested and killed in protests supporting independence for some Anglophone regions.

Tensions have mounted since November 2016, when lawyers and teachers called for a strike to stop what they believe is the overuse of the French language. Violence erupted when separatists joined in and started asking for complete independence.

Human rights groups, which have accused Cameroon authorities of trying to silence opposition voices, had urged Nganang’s release.

“We can only be very happy, when we have an unlawfully and arbitrarily detained client, to see him released,” Simh said.

Nganang’s wife, Nyasha Bakare, told The Associated Press by email Wednesday that her husband had begun his trip back to the United States and would arrive in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

“We are so very happy that this 21-day ordeal is over,” Bakare wrote from Zimbabwe’s capital of Harare, where she was with the couple’s 8-year-old daughter.

Bakare has said Nganang was on his way to join them in Zimbabwe for the holidays when he was detained at the airport in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde. The family will reunite in New Jersey on Friday, she said.              

“As I write this from Zimbabwe, where I recently witnessed firsthand the fall of a dictator, Robert Mugabe, who was only two years longer in office than Cameroon’s Paul Biya has been, I have to continue to hope that tyrannies in Africa will soon come to an end,” Bakare wrote.

Robert Harvey, a distinguished professor at Stony Brook University who helped lead a campaign to get Nganang released, said his colleague’s supporters were overjoyed by the news.

“It’s just wonderful, we’re all ecstatic,” Harvey said. He described Nganang as a professor “who believes profoundly in the power of literature to improve us as human beings.”

Nganang has been teaching in the United States since 2000 and at Stony Brook University on eastern Long Island since 2007, according to Harvey. He is scheduled to work as a visiting professor at Princeton University in the spring. He has published scholarly essays, novels and books of poetry.

Last week, a military appeals court in Cameroon acquitted and freed Ahmed Abba, a correspondent for Radio France International’s Hausa service, who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for not denouncing acts of terrorism and laundering proceeds of terrorist acts.

Cameroon had also faced international pressure over his conviction.

 
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The sauvignon blanc boasts brassy, citrus notes, but with one whiff, it’s apparent this is no normal Sonoma County wine. It’s infused with THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that provides the high. 

Move over, pot brownies. The world’s largest legal recreational marijuana market kicks off Monday in California, and the trendsetting state is set to ignite the cannabis culinary scene. 

Chefs and investors have been teaming up to offer an eye-boggling array of cannabis-infused food and beverages, weed-pairing supper clubs and other extravagant pot-to-plate events in preparation for legalization come Jan. 1. 

Legal pot in states like Oregon, Washington and Colorado and California’s longstanding medical marijuana market already spurred a cannabis-foodie movement with everything from olive oil to heirloom tomato bisques infused with the drug.

Cannabis-laced dinners with celebrity chefs at private parties have flourished across Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego in recent years, but a medical marijuana card was required to attend. 

With that requirement gone, the edibles market is expected to boom, though manufacturers face a host of regulations, and doctors fear the products could increase emergency room visits and entice youth. Marijuana industry analysts predict edibles for the recreational marijuana market will top $100 million in sales in 2018. 

“Californian’s culinary expertise is far more refined from college kids making pot brownies in a dorm,” said John Kagia of Frontier Data, a cannabis market research firm. 

Expect a slew of vegan and gluten-free choices and low-dose snacks from trail mixes to chocolates. And they may well be served at a gym or Pilates studio.

“This is the dawn of the Amsterdam-style cafe in the U.S.,” Kagia said. “We expect to see spaces that are targeted to cannabis consumers that capitalize on the arts and entertainment offerings of California and really create unique and elevated experiences.”

That includes ethnic options in a state with the largest immigrant population in the U.S. 

“Now you see all kinds of cuisines,” said Cristina Espiritu of the 420 Foodie Club, which has promoted cannabis food events in Southern California that have included everything from Mediterranean dishes to Filipino specialties. “There’s going to be infused tacos, infused burritos. I think because of the diversity and creativity in California, this is going to explode.”

But Espiritu worries regulations could make certain aspects of the culinary experience accessible only to the elite in places like Beverly Hills.

Kitchens for those making edibles to sell must be licensed. And organizers must pay $5,000 a year for a license to host up to 10 events, and depending on the size, they may be required to hold them at a fairground. Cities can pose additional fees and ban an event altogether. 

Regulations prohibit manufacturers from producing cannabis products for retail sale that include perishable items that could pose a health risk, such as dairy, seafood, fresh meat, or food or beverages appealing to children. It’s still unclear if those rules would apply to a chef-hosted dinner or cooking class that people have paid for.

Edible products must be produced in serving sizes with no more than 10 milligrams of THC and no more than 100 milligrams of THC for the total package.

Drug policy expert and Stanford Law School professor Robert J. MacCoun said the regulations are too lax. Edibles already being sold in the medical marijuana industry vary widely in their potency, so people get more stoned than they planned and can end up in emergency rooms. 

The bright packages appeal to children, who often are too young to read warning labels, MacCoun said. He thinks edibles should be restricted to plain brown or white packaging.

“Everyone sees this as a kind of new gold rush in the way that it will make a lot of money, but I think we need to be more careful about how this rolls out,” he said.

Many see California’s recreational marijuana business mirroring its wine industry, with people seeking weed pairings, cannabis farm tours and products made from organic, local plants. 

Rebel Coast Winery’s THC-infused sauvignon blanc is made from Sonoma County grapes, but the alcohol is removed in compliance with regulations that prohibit mixing pot with alcohol. 

It smells like marijuana, meeting another requirement that it not be confused with a food or beverage that does not contain pot.

Founder Alex Howe is planning high-end dinner parties in Los Angeles in early 2018 to debut the $59.99 bottle of wine. Each bottle contains 16 milligrams of THC, and the company says on average, people feel the effects in under 15 minutes. 

“We really wanted to mimic that ritual of opening a bottle of wine at dinner, or at a party with friends or while watching a movie, which is something so familiar to people, especially in California,” he said.
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Three large U.S. cities are suing the Defense Department for allegedly failing to provide “significant numbers” of records to the FBI’s national background check system for gun ownership.

New York, San Francisco and Philadelphia filed the lawsuit after the U.S. Air Force disclosed that it had failed to report the criminal record of a man who shot and killed 26 people at a Texas church in November.

“This failure on behalf of the Department of Defense has led to the loss of innocent lives by putting guns in the hands of criminals and those who wish to cause immeasurable harm,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “New York City is joining Philadelphia and San Francisco to stand up to the Department of Defense and demand they comply with the law and repair their drastically flawed system.”

The Air Force is investigating why the 2012 domestic violence conviction of the Texas church shooter, Devin Kelley, 26, was not properly entered into the FBI’s database that could have stopped him from legally buying the rifle he used in the attack at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

A report released by the Defense Department’s inspector general this month found the U.S. military overall had failed to submit fingerprint data for 24 percent of the convicted offenders reviewed.
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Before becoming president, Donald Trump railed against US wars overseas, saying it was better to spend money at home than, in his words, “waste” it overseas. But as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports, Trump has at times struggled to carry out what he calls his “America First” approach to the world during his first year as president.
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A North Korean ambassador to the United Nations says the U.S. claim that Pyongyang was behind the Wannacry ransomware attack earlier this year is a baseless provocation and demanded Washington back up its accusations with evidence.

The North’s U.N. ambassador in charge of U.S.-related issues says North Korea believes Washington is using the allegation to create an “extremely confrontational atmosphere.”

Pak Song Il told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from New York late Monday: “If they are so sure, show us the evidence.”

The WannaCry ransomware attack infected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide and crippled parts of Britain’s National Health Service in May.
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Despite the best efforts of some Philadelphia schoolchildren, Mother Nature blew in and scuttled the annual re-enactment of George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War.

Organizers said high winds forced them to cancel Monday’s planned crossing, the highlight of a historical re-enactment that draws thousands of people to the banks of the river in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, and Titusville, New Jersey.

“We were advised by the (marine patrol) out in the boats that they didn’t think it was safe to cross,” said Andy Smith, spokesman for Friends of Washington Crossing Park.

The National Weather Service said winds had been gusting to 45 or 50 mph or even a bit more in southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The winds could have been even stronger on the water with a lack of trees and a channeling effect, meteorologist Chad Shafer said.

“Re-enactors are always disappointed when they can’t cross, but safety is always the most important thing,” Smith said by phone as a fife and drum played in the background. “We don’t want to put anyone in danger out on the water.”

Other activities went on as scheduled, including Washington’s rallying of his troops, historical speeches and processions.

Originally, it was low water that had posed a threat to the annual re-enactment in wooden Durham boats. But Philadelphia Waterborne, a nonprofit that teaches boat-building skills to middle- and high-school students, came through with six handmade, 12-foot rowboats that could have made it across.

Organizers noted that there was historical authenticity to this year’s planned change; while Durham boats were used in the original 1776 crossing, historians agree that Washington probably used various river craft to make his daring crossing that turned the tide of the Revolutionary War.

Boats ferried 2,400 soldiers, 200 horses and 18 cannons across the river during the original crossing. Washington’s troops marched eight miles downriver before battling Hessian mercenaries in the streets of Trenton. Thirty Hessians were killed, and two Continental soldiers froze to death on the march.
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Christians around the world are celebrating Christmas. But in the Holy Land, Israeli-Palestinian tensions have put a damper on festivities.

Bells at the Church of the Nativity summoned the faithful to celebrate Christmas at the traditional birthplace of Jesus in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. But turnout was sparse in the wake of three weeks of Palestinian protests against U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

WATCH: Trump’s Declaration Overshadows Christmas in Bethlehem

Palestinian Michael Kumsiyeh sat in his empty souvenir shop in Manger Square and put the blame squarely on Trump.

“He makes a problem. He doesn’t make any solution. He doesn’t find any solution for the problem,” said Kumsiyeh.

Café owner Hader Kanaan said customers are few and far between.

“This Christmas this year is very sad. No celebration. Nobody happy. Bad situation. Everything [is] bad,” he said.

Some tourists cancelled their trips to Bethlehem, but others were not deterred.

“I wasn’t afraid to come. I’m not afraid being here at all. I’m pleased to see the security,” said Gail Perkins, who came from Los Angeles in the United States.

She said there no better place to be on Christmas than Bethlehem.

“It kind of makes the biblical stories that I’ve known all my life come alive because I can see the countryside, hear the language and smell the food,” she said.

Many pilgrims waited a lifetime to visit Bethlehem, but the Palestinians who live here are still waiting for better times.

IN PICTURES: Christmas Celebrations Around the World

 
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