Questions have emerged in Washington over the future of America’s role in Syria after President Donald Trump noted progress in the fight against Islamic State and predicted a U.S. withdrawal from the Syrian conflict “very soon.” VOA’s Michael Bowman has this report. …… more
Red paint was splashed across the sign outside President Donald Trump’s golf club near his Florida estate. Images posted online by The Palm Beach Post show a worker cleaning red paint Sunday morning from the stone sign at the entrance to the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Palm Beach Sheriff’s… more
Having robots to do the dirty, tedious parts of the job is a dream come true in the construction business. Automation technology developers say robotics are transforming the industry, making it safer, and helping companies take on more projects and finish them faster. Faiza Elmasry has the story. Faith Lapidus narrates. …… more
More than 1 billion people around the world have some sort of disability. Rong Shi of VOA’s Mandarin service toured an exhibit in New York that showcases the latest gadgets and inventions designed to help those with a range of physical, sensory or cognitive abilities lead more independent lives and engage more fully in the… more
The fallout continues for Facebook over how it handles user data and privacy. U.S. and European lawmakers are calling for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify, and regulators have opened investigations. Michelle Quinn reports on how the social media giant is facing a tipping point when it comes to dealing with user privacy. …… more
South Korea and the United States kicked off their annual joint military exercises Sunday after they were delayed about a month for the Winter Olympics and to help create conditions for a resumption of talks between North and South Korea. The Foal Eagle field exercise, which usually involves combined ground, air, naval and special operations… more
Students at a predominantly black university in Washington, D.C., continued their sit-in at the school’s administration building Saturday. The sit-in at Howard University began after news that six university employees had been fired for “gross misconduct and neglect of duties.” Students learned an investigation found financial aid funds for students in need had been misappropriated,… more
A vehicle in a fatal crash last week in California was operating on Autopilot, making it the latest accident to involve a self-driving vehicle, Tesla has confirmed. The electric car maker said the driver, who was killed in the accident, did not have his hands on the steering wheel for six seconds before the crash,… more
The U.S. government on Friday asked a judge to sentence Macau billionaire Ng Lap Seng to more than six years in prison, after his conviction last July for bribing two U.N. ambassadors to help him build a multibillion-dollar conference center. Prosecutors made their request in a filing with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan and… more
A Louisiana police chief said Friday that he had fired the white officer who fatally shot a black man during a struggle outside a convenience store nearly two years ago, a killing that set off widespread protests. Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul announced Officer Blane Salamoni’s firing less than a week after Louisiana’s attorney general… more
A new poll shows that only 1 in 10 African-Americans thinks the United States has achieved all the goals of the civil rights movement, nearly 50 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The poll by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released Friday shows that a majority of… more
Russian ships are skulking around underwater communications cables, causing the U.S. and its allies to worry the Kremlin might be taking information warfare to new depths. Is Moscow interested in cutting or tapping the cables? Does it want the West to worry it might? Is there a more innocent explanation? Unsurprisingly, Russia isn’t saying. But… more
Was a leaked internal Facebook memo aimed at justifying the social network’s growth-at-any-cost strategy? Or simply a way to open debate on difficult questions over new technologies? The extraordinarily blunt memo by a high-ranking executive — leaked this week and quickly repudiated by the author and by Facebook — warned that the social network’s goal… more
While wind turbines and solar cells generate power only when there is wind and sun, most rivers always flow and most ocean shores always experience tidal currents. At a recent energy summit organized by the U.S. Energy Department, a company from Maine displayed an innovative submersible generator that effectively harvests power from shallow rivers and… more
Under Armour Inc. said Thursday that data from 150 million MyFitnessPal diet and fitness app accounts were compromised in February, in one of the biggest hacks in history, sending shares of the athletic apparel maker down 3 percent in after-hours trade. The stolen data include account user names, email addresses and scrambled passwords for the… more
A Facebook Inc. executive said in an internal memo in 2016 that the social media company needed to pursue adding users above all else, BuzzFeed News reported Thursday, prompting disavowals from the executive and Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg. The memo from Andrew Bosworth, a Facebook vice president, had not been previously reported as Facebook faces inquiries over… more
The United States is on track to meet the targets of the Paris climate agreement despite President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw from the accord, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday. Guterres said emissions-cutting plans put in motion by American businesses, regional governments and cities meant that the goals set by the former U.S. administration,… more
A committee of British lawmakers published written evidence on Thursday provided by a whistleblower who says information about 50 million Facebook users ended up in the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica said the documents did not support whistleblower Christopher Wylie’s testimony to the committee this week. Wylie, who formerly worked for Cambridge… more
A Los Angeles judge Thursday ordered coffee companies to abide by California state law and put cancer warning labels on their products. A nonprofit group called the Council for Education and Research on Toxics is suing such popular coffee roasters and retailers as Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s. They say the companies fail to warn… more
New York City will offer free cybersecurity tools to the public as part of a new effort to improve online safety, officials said Thursday, a week after Atlanta was hit with a ransomware attack that knocked some municipal systems offline. The program, dubbed NYC Secure, will launch a free smartphone protection app to warn users… more
Emails released Wednesday between Arizona Governor Doug Ducey’s staff and Uber executives shed new light on the relationship between the first-term Republican and the company whose autonomous vehicle recently was involved in a fatal crash. Accounts of the previously unseen emails released by the governor’s office were first reported by The Guardian newspaper. which had… more
The Trump administration is hopeful it can reach a deal on a new North American Free Trade Agreement before the July 1 presidential election in Mexico and U.S. midterm congressional elections in November. “I’d say I’m hopeful — I think we are making progress. I think that all three parties want to move forward. We… more
The U.N. secretary-general on Wednesday appointed a former U.S. career diplomat to be the organization’s political chief. Antonio Guterres named Rosemary DiCarlo as undersecretary-general for political affairs. She is the first woman to hold the position. Since August 2015, DiCarlo has been president of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and a senior fellow… more
While working for a big consulting firm in Lagos, Nigeria, Afua Osei repeatedly encountered women who wanted to advance professionally but didn’t know how. They needed guidance and mentoring. So, Osei and her colleague Yasmin Belo-Osagie started She Leads Africa, a digital media company offering advice, information, training and networking opportunities to help “young African… more
Visiting Subway’s website on a personal computer might not seem to have anything to do with checking the NFL’s app on a phone. But these discrete activities are the foundation for a new service to help marketers follow you around. Adobe, a company better known for Photoshop and PDF files, says the new initiative announced… more
Three Facebook Messenger app users have filed a lawsuit claiming the social network violated their privacy by collecting logs of their phone calls and text messages. The suit, filed Tuesday in federal court in northern California, comes as Facebook faces scrutiny over privacy concerns. Facebook acknowledged on Sunday that it began uploading call and text… more