Headline

Pope Francis declares “all-out battle” against sexual abuse
2019-02-24 16:59:12 UTC
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis ended his conference on the sexual abuse of children by clergy on Sunday by calling for an “all-out battle” against a crime that should be “erased from the face of the earth”. In his closing address to the almost 200 Church leaders he had summoned to Rome, Francis said national guidelines on preventing and punishing abuse would be strengthened and the Church’s definition of minors in cases of possession by clergy of pornography would be raised from the current age of 14. At least two Vatican officials have been convicted in recent years of possessing child pornography. Shortly after the confer...
Buffett rebukes Trump for taking credit for US economic growth
2019-02-23 19:58:52 UTC
(Reuters) - Warren Buffett on Saturday appeared to fault U.S. President Donald Trump for taking too much credit for the nation’s economic growth, while acknowledging that market conditions are making it tough for his Berkshire Hathaway Inc to find more big companies to buy. Buffett lamented these states of affairs in his widely read annual letter to Berkshire shareholders. Accompanying the letter was more bad news, that sinking stock prices and a big writedown for the company’s Kraft Heinz Co investment fueled a $25.39 billion fourth-quarter net loss, and caused Berkshire to post its lowest annual profit since 2001. But many of ...
Democrats pursue subpoenas on US migrant family separation policy
2019-02-23 19:35:34 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In what is likely to be their first public use of subpoena power since taking over the U.S. House of Representatives in January, Democrats were set to vote on Tuesday on subpoenaing documents on the Trump administration’s migrant family separation policy. If approved, the subpoenas by the House Oversight Committee would show Democrats beginning to invoke the investigative clout they obtained when voters in November handed them majority control of the House and took it away from Republicans. Democrats are initiating a series of investigations of President Donald Trump, his personal finances and business interest...
Putin says Russia ready to place new nuclear missile near US territory
2019-02-21 21:52:11 UTC
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis if the United States wanted one and threatened to place hypersonic nuclear missiles on ships or submarines near U.S. territorial waters. The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a U.S. missile deployment in Turkey by sending ballistic missiles to Cuba, sparking a standoff that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. More than five decades on, tensions are rising again over Russian fears that the United States might deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe, as a landmark Cold ...
Sanders to Ask Why Drug, Once Free, Now Costs $375k
2019-02-04 16:47:41 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter to Catalyst Pharmaceuticals on Monday asking it to justify its decision to charge $375,000 annually for a medication that for years has been available to patients for free. The drug, Firdapse, is used to treat Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome (LEMS), a rare neuromuscular disorder, according to the letter, made available to Reuters by the senator’s office. The disorder affects about one in 100,000 people in the United States. The government is intensifying its scrutiny of the pharmaceutical industry and rising prescription drug prices, a top voter concern and a priority...
U.S. President: 'I Never Worked For Russia'
2019-01-14 22:43:31 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he never worked for Russia, his first direct denial after a media report that the FBI in 2017 investigated whether he acted against U.S. interests. Trump also disputed a Washington Post report that he had concealed details about his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and confiscated his interpreter’s notes. Congressional Democrats raised the possibility of subpoenaing the translator. The New York Times reported on Friday that the FBI opened the investigation after Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey raised concerns that the president posed a threat t...
Pelosi Plans New Legislation to Reopen Parts of US Government
2019-01-06 03:12:02 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats would pass new legislation to try to reopen parts of the government next week after talks between the Trump administration and Democratic negotiators on Saturday failed to end a two-week partial government shutdown. President Donald Trump is demanding $5.6 billion to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico but Democrats in control of the House of Representatives this week passed a bill to reopen the government without providing additional funding for the wall. Trump says he will not sign the bill until he gets the money for the wall. After a meeting aimed...
Britain Will Be Worse Off In Any Scenario Outside The EU: Brexit
2018-11-28 20:47:57 UTC
LONDON (AFP) — Britain will be economically worse off in any scenario outside the EU, the government said Wednesday, as the Bank of England warned that a no-deal Brexit would trigger a financial crisis. The government's plans for post-Brexit ties with the European Union would still cost the economy around 3.9 percent of gross domestic product over 15 years, a government report found. Finance minister Philip Hammond said the departure deal agreed Sunday between Britain and the EU was the optimum way to minimise the cost of leaving the bloc. The report comes as Prime Minister Theresa May took the divorce deal to a sceptical Scotland...
Catastrophic Effects of Climate Change
2018-11-25 02:46:14 UTC
(Reuters) - Climate change will cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century, hitting everything from health to infrastructure, according to a government report issued on Friday that the White House called inaccurate. The congressionally mandated report, written with the help of more than a dozen U.S. government agencies and departments, outlined the projected impact of global warming on every corner of American society in a dire warning that is at odds with the Trump administration’s pro-fossil-fuels agenda. “With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic secto...
Finland's President to Trump: We Don't Rake Forests
2018-11-19 23:34:38 UTC
During a visit to wildfires-hit California, the US president had said Finland routinely raked its forests to foil fires. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto responded, saying he was not sure where Trump got the idea. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto was left raking his memory to figure out where US President Donald Trump got the idea that raking is part of his Finland's routine to avoid forest fires. Niinisto told Finland's Ilta-Sanomat newspaper that he and Trump had discussed California wildfires during their brief meeting in Paris on November 11. <img alt="Finland's_president_to_trump-_we_don't_rake_forests" src="/system...
Democrat Kyrsten Sinema wins Arizona US Senate seat
2018-11-13 02:13:52 UTC
PHOENIX (AP) — Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat Monday in a race that was among the most closely watched in the nation, beating Republican Rep. Martha McSally in the battle to replace GOP Sen. Jeff Flake. The three-term congresswoman won after a slow vote count that dragged on for nearly a week after voters went to the polls on Nov. 6. She becomes Arizona’s first Democratic U.S. senator since 1994. Her win cemented Arizona as a swing state after years of Republican dominance. Sinema portrayed herself as a moderate who works across the aisle to get things done. McSally, a former Air Force pilot who embrac...
Democrats Warn Against Mueller Probe Interference
2018-11-08 00:15:59 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The ouster of Attorney General Jeff Sessions by President Donald Trump on Wednesday drew immediate criticism from Democrats who warned Trump against moving to squash a probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The probe, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller under the supervision of the Justice Department, has clouded the Trump presidency. The president had long complained about Sessions recusing himself from supervising Mueller. The removal of the top U.S. law enforcement officer raised questions among Democrats concerned about the acting replacement Trump named for Sessions and what mo...
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Easily Won Re-Election
2018-11-07 01:46:30 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — Votes were being counted across half the country Tuesday evening as the energy and outrage of the Democratic resistance faced off against the brute strength of President Donald Trump’s GOP in a fight for control of Congress and statehouses across the nation. Fundraising, polls and history were not on the president’s side. But two years after an election that proved polls and prognosticators wrong, an air of uncertainty — and stormy weather across parts of the country — clouded the outcome of high-stakes elections from Florida to Alaska and everywhere in between. Sens. Bernie Sanders of ...
Hateful U.S. Politics Target Minorities and Immigrants
2018-11-02 17:57:53 UTC
Last week, several top Democrats were targeted by pipe bombs, two black Americans were killed in what appeared to be a racially-motivated murder, and a terror attack against Jewish Americans in their place of worship that left 11 people dead. Are American growing more violent? Are they regressing into something akin to what we saw in the 1960s, an era marked by assassinations, civil unrest, and political chaos? Has the cocktail of guns, polarization, and alienation made mass shootings a permanent feature of American life? Read the responses of seven experts below: <blockquote><hr class='grey-line'><h4>Joanne Freeman, author of <a ...
Democrats more energized ahead of midterms
2018-11-01 01:27:30 UTC
The entertainment icon Oprah Winfrey, who offered crucial support to President Barack Obama during his 2008 rise, will campaign Thursday for Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who is attempting to become the nation’s first black female governor. Obama plans to campaign Friday for Abrams in Atlanta and in Miami to boost Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, who is running for governor. On Sunday, the former president will be in Gary, Indiana, for Sen. Joe Donnelly, who is among the most endangered Senate Democrats, and in his hometown of Chicago for J.B. Pritzker, who is the favorite in Illi...
Hate Crimes in Trump Era
2018-10-29 01:42:06 UTC
The 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc, the suspected mad bomber who sent possible explosive devices to Democrat leaders attended repeated campaign rallies for Donald Trump and embraced a range of virulent right-wing fringe causes. He’s a true believer in Trump, according to his social media pages. In another crime, the suspect in the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue expressed hatred of Jews during the rampage and told officers afterward that Jews were committing genocide and that he wanted them all to die, according to charging documents. Trump delivered these lines after the attack: "There must be no tolerance for anti-Semitism in Amer...
A "MAGA" Terrorist Identified As Mail Bomb Suspect
2018-10-26 21:17:34 UTC
The 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc, the suspected mad bomber who sent possible explosive devices to Democrat leaders attended repeated campaign rallies for Donald Trump and embraced a range of virulent right-wing fringe causes. He’s a true believer in Trump, according to his Facebook Page. The Brooklyn born suspect was arrested at an auto parts store in the nearby city of Plantation. Court records show Sayoc has a history of arrests for theft, illegal possession of steroids and a 2002 charge of making a bomb threat. When he filed for bankruptcy in 2012, he recently lived with his mother. <blockquote><img alt="A_%22maga%22_terrorist_id...
FBI investigating 10 suspicious packages
2018-10-25 19:15:53 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — The mail-bomb scare widened Thursday as law enforcement officials seized three more suspicious packages — two addressed to former Vice President Joe Biden and one to actor Robert De Niro — and said they were similar to crude pipe bombs sent to former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and CNN. None of the devices exploded, and no one was injured. But the packages, sent to prominent Democrats critical of President Donald Trump, heightened nationwide tensions and fears two weeks before major congressional midterm elections. <blockquote><img alt="Fbi_investigating_10_suspicious_packages" src="/system/images/22293/or...
Terror by mail: Pelosi and Schumer accuse Trump of condoning violence
2018-10-24 23:38:20 UTC
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The top two Democrats in Congress on Wednesday (Oct 24) accused President Donald Trump of fanning the flames of political unrest and dividing Americans, as tensions soared on a day of foiled pipe-bomb attacks on high-profile Democrats. Trump, addressing the threats less than two weeks before crucial midterm elections, said acts of political violence "have no place in the United States," but Pelosi and Schumer said the president's words "ring hollow until he reverses his statements that condone acts of violence." <hr class='grey-line'> <i><blockquote> <h2>Joint Statement from Leaders Pelosi and Schumer on Pres...
Is Trump Secretly A White Nationalist?
2018-10-24 17:57:45 UTC
CNN's Acosta: Americans Are Wondering If President Trump Is Secretly A White Nationalist. CNN's Jim Acosta talked about the tussle he had Tuesday afternoon with President Trump in the Oval Office over the migrant caravan crisis in an appearance on 'Anderson Cooper 360.' Acosta grilled the president on his claim that Middle Easterners are in the caravan. Acosta said just because there may be Middle Easterners traveling in the caravan, "it doesn't necessarily mean" there are terrorists among them. He lamented, once again, that the president and vice president may be offended Middle Eastern Americans who are "peace-loving people." "T...
Migrant caravan: Trump deliberately lying to American people
2018-10-24 01:02:20 UTC
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence misstated federal statistics Tuesday when trying to help President Donald Trump make the case that terrorists are among thousands of migrants moving through Mexico toward the U.S. border. Trump himself acknowledged he’s got no proof terrorists are in the mix. A look at their remarks: PENCE: “In the last fiscal year, we apprehended more than 10 terrorists or suspected terrorists per day at our southern border from countries that are referred to in the lexicon as other than Mexico. That means from the Middle East region.” — remarks at a Washington Post event.</p><bl...
Analysis: With ‘America First,’ where do human rights rank?
2018-10-18 23:04:28 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — If it’s an “America First” presidency, where does that rank human rights? President Donald Trump’s refusal to put public pressure on Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is raising a question that has dogged his foreign policy. In dealing with Russia, across Asia and, this week, in the Mideast, Trump has often appeared comfortable downplaying concerns about rights abuses and dismissing the importance of U.S. moral leadership. The onetime real estate mogul is as likely to let U.S. financial or security interests guide his choices and his words. In an Associated Press interview Tuesday, Tr...
Trump's WH advisers get into heated shouting match
2018-10-18 23:11:51 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two of President Donald Trump’s top advisers got into a heated exchange outside the Oval Office on Thursday as passions boiled over about how to handle illegal immigration, two sources familiar with the incident said. The two advisers were White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who is a former secretary for Homeland Security, and Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, the sources said. One source described the argument as a “tense exchange” but said that it had blown over, and that it involved the job performance of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, a former deputy to Kelly. Another source ...
Nancy Pelosi outlined 5 agenda items if Democrats retake House
2018-10-16 23:02:56 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — Projecting confidence about her party’s chances, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi outlined five of the top 10 agenda items Democrats will pursue if they retake the House in next month’s election. Lowering health care costs, rebuilding infrastructure and running the House chamber with more transparency and openness are near the top of the Democratic agenda, Pelosi said during a talk Tuesday at Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Democrats would also prioritize giving legal status to young immigrants, known as Dreamers, and strengthening background checks on gun purchases, she said. Democrats need to gain 23 seats to wrest c...
Alec Baldwin Urges To Vote: It's time To Overthrow The Government of Donald Trump
2018-10-15 16:09:39 UTC
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Actor Alec Baldwin followed up his latest parody portrayal of President Donald Trump with a serious call Sunday night for voters to use the Nov. 6 midterm elections to peacefully “overthrow” the government. After reprising his role as Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” Baldwin flew to New Hampshire, where he was the keynote speaker at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s annual fall fundraising dinner. “The way we implement change in America is through elections. We change governments here at home in an orderly and formal way,” he said. “In that orderly and formal way and lawful way, we need to overthrow the gove...