Headline

Attacks on Saudi Oil Field Knock Out Half of Its Output
2019-09-15 07:21:05 UTC
RIYADH/DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group said it attacked two plants at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry on Saturday, knocking out more than half the Kingdom’s output, in a move expected to send oil prices soaring and increase tensions in the Middle East. The attacks will cut the kingdom’s output by 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd), according to a statement from state-run oil company Saudi Aramco, or more than 5% of global oil supply. The pre-dawn strikes follow earlier cross-border attacks on Saudi oil installations and on oil tankers in Gulf waters, but these were the most brazen yet, temporarily c...
Trump Abruptly Fired His National Security Adviser Bolton
2019-09-10 17:48:46 UTC
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump fired abruptly his national security adviser John Bolton, saying on Tuesday he had serious policy disagreements with his hardline aide. “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration,” Trump tweeted, adding that he would name a replacement next week. Bolton offered a slightly different version of events than Trump, saying: "I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, 'Let's talk about it tomorrow.'" Bolton reiterated the point that it was he who ...
House Panel to Vote on Trump's Impeachment Probe
2019-09-10 01:58:21 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee said on Monday it will consider steps this week to formalize an investigation that could lead to the impeachment of President Donald Trump. The panel, which hopes to decide whether to recommend Trump’s impeachment to the full House by year-end, will meet on Thursday to consider a resolution that Democratic panel aides said would better align the inquiry with formal ones of the past. House Democrats have broadly ramped up investigation of Trump as they returned from summer recess on Monday and unveiled an inquiry into reports that he pressured ...
Recession Fears Escalate
2019-08-14 19:02:04 UTC
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street stumbled on Wednesday as investors fled equities for safe-haven assets, seeking shelter amid gathering signs that a recession could be on the horizon. All three major U.S. indexes were sharply lower as short- and long-dated Treasury yields inverted for the first time in 12 years, a potential signal of imminent recession. Elsewhere, ominous indicators suggested a faltering global economy, hobbled by the intensifying U.S.-China trade war, Brexit jitters and geopolitical concerns. Germany reported a contraction in second-quarter GDP, and China’s industrial growth in July hit a 17-year low. “Every cent...
US, UK Seek Quick Post-Brexit Trade Deal
2019-08-13 18:20:56 UTC
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and the United States are discussing a partial trade accord that could take effect on Nov. 1, the day after Britain is due to leave the European Union, a senior Trump administration official said on Tuesday. The official also said visiting U.S. national security adviser John Bolton and British trade minister Liz Truss had discussed the possibility of the two countries’ leaders signing a road map declaration toward a trade deal at this month’s G7 summit meeting in France. The official told reporters that Bolton and British finance minister Sajid Javid had discussed the possibility of a temporary trade agreem...
US Seeks to Cut Legal Immigration by Half
2019-08-13 01:28:48 UTC
(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled a sweeping rule on Monday that some experts say could cut legal immigration in half by denying visas and permanent residency to hundreds of thousands of people for being too poor. The long-anticipated rule, pushed by Trump’s leading aide on immigration, Stephen Miller, takes effect Oct. 15. It would reject applicants for temporary or permanent visas if they fail to meet high enough income standards or if they receive public assistance such as welfare, food stamps, public housing or Medicaid. “The Trump administration is trying to bypass Congress and implement its own m...
US will "Enthusiastically Support a No-Deal Brexit"
2019-08-12 19:04:58 UTC
LONDON (Reuters) - The United States would enthusiastically support a no-deal Brexit if that is what the British government decided to do, U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said on Monday during a visit to London aimed at reassuring Britain over UK-U.S. ties. Bolton told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that President Donald Trump wants to see a successful British exit from the European Union on Oct. 31 and that Washington will be ready to work fast on a U.S.-UK free trade agreement. Johnson wants the EU to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s exit ahead of an Oct. 31 departure date, but the EU says it will not alter the p...
No-Deal Brexit Would Cause Severe Damage to UK
2019-07-29 03:42:16 UTC
A no-deal Brexit would cause “severe” damage to UK businesses, according to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the lobby group, told BBC that quitting the EU without an agreement should be an option “that is not even considered”. Claims that firms are ready for a no-deal scenario are “just not true”, she added. <blockquote><img alt="No-deal_brexit_would_cause_severe_damage_to_uk" src="/system/images/22503/original/No-Deal_Brexit_Would_Cause_Severe_Damage_to_UK.jpg?1564271696" /><i> Carolyn Fairbairn is director-general of the Confederation of British Industry - CBI - and former non-ex...
Trump Is "Spewing Fascist Ideology"
2019-07-18 18:51:16 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chants of “send her back” by supporters of President Donald Trump, attacking Somali-born U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, triggered a wave of concern among congressional Republicans on Thursday, while Omar said Trump was “spewing fascist ideology.” Alarmed that the inflammatory chant might become a theme of the 2020 election campaign, Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives discussed the potential political risks at a breakfast with Vice President Mike Pence, according to Representative Mark Walker of North Carolina. “We cannot be defined by this,” said Walker, telling reporters that he raised th...
Trump Stoking Hatred and Racism in Reelection Campaign
2019-07-18 06:12:54 UTC
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump has placed racial animus at the center of his reelection campaign, and even some of his critics believe it could deliver him a second term. Every successful modern presidential campaign has been built on the notion of addition, winning over voters beyond core supporters. But Trump has chosen division on the belief that the polarized country he leads will simply choose sides over issues like race. He intensified his attacks on Wednesday, blasting four young congresswomen of color during a rally in Greenville, North Carolina. The crowd responded by chanting, “Send her back!” echoing Trump’s weeken...
House Condemns Trump's Racist Attack on Congresswomen
2019-07-17 05:39:58 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to condemn President Donald Trump for “racist comments” against four minority Democratic congresswomen, a symbolic vote aimed at shaming Trump and his fellow Republicans who stood by him. Tempers flared in the hours leading up to the vote that mainly split along party lines, the culmination of three days of outrage sparked by a Trump tweetstorm that diverted attention from all other business in Washington. Trump had told the group of congresswomen to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” All four lawmakers ...
Trump Slammed for Racist Attack on Congresswomen
2019-07-14 23:11:34 UTC
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday told a group of mostly American-born Democratic congresswomen to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” a comment that was condemned by Democrats as racist. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand told reporters at an event in Iowa that Trump is "racist" and that he was "demeaning female members of the House of Representatives based on the color of her skin and their cultural heritage," while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote in a tweet that, "When I call the president a racist, this is what I'm talking about." Trump said in a series of thr...
Never-Ending War
2019-07-05 03:58:47 UTC
Jalalabad, Afghanistan (AFP) -- Of all the sad, wrenching things I have seen as a journalist in Afghanistan, Niaz Bibi's house was probably one of the saddest. At the age of 70, Bibi has found herself as the main parent of some 40 kids -- the children of her three sons and three grandsons who had been killed by the Islamic State. Bibi does the best she can, but she is so poor that they all live in conditions not much better than a jail. "Have you seen my father?" some of the children asked me when I came to the house. They didn't know their fathers were dead. They thought they were just away somewhere. They looked at their photos and...
Wyoming: It’s Not Ok to Be Gay, Join the KKK
2019-06-30 19:14:57 UTC
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The leaflets distributed by students at a junior high school told pre-teens to “Join the KKK” and that “It’s not OK to be gay.” In the capital of the state known for the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard, school officials have worked to respond to the spring incident. They’re holding community meetings and plan to hire a “diversity and cultural awareness” counselor while providing additional employee training. “We’ve got a pretty good plan to try to work on all of that,” said Boyd Brown, superintendent of Laramie County School District No. 1. Others aren’t so confident the Cheyenne school dis...
Mexico to Provide 40,000 Jobs to Migrants
2019-06-28 18:19:59 UTC
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico is finalizing a deal to provide 40,000 factory jobs to migrants in northern states, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday, addressing a key need for the thousands waiting in Mexico as their U.S. asylum cases are decided. Speaking at his daily press conference, Lopez Obrador said he expected an agreement with factories to be signed next week. “This agreement is going to be signed, there will be no legal problem,” he said. “We are arranging this so that they can be hired without much processing.” Mexico’s border states have been inundated with migrants who must often wait weeks to seek U.S....
Steve Jobs Design Chief to Start Own Firm
2019-06-28 00:58:11 UTC
(Reuters) - Jony Ive, a close creative collaborator with Apple Inc co-founder Steve Jobs whose iPhone and other designs fueled Apple’s rise to become a $1 trillion company, will leave later this year to form an independent design company. Apple said Ive will continue work on its products at his new venture, but shares fell as much as 1.5% to $197.44 in after-market trading, wiping about $9 billion from the firm’s value. Ive spent nearly three decades at Apple, playing a leading role in the design of the candy-colored iMacs that helped Apple re-emerge from near death in the 1990s to the iPhone, regarded by many business experts as one...
Drowned Man’s Mother Feels a Hole That “Nobody Can Fill”
2019-06-26 18:04:49 UTC
SAN MARTIN, El Salvador (AP) — The mother of a man who drowned alongside his 23-month-old daughter while trying to cross the Rio Grande into Texas says she feels a hole that “nobody can fill.” Rosa Ramírez says she begged Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez not to leave, and if he had to, to leave young Valeria with her. The two were swept away by the current Sunday near Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas. A photo of the discovery of their bodies shows the girl tucked into Martínez’s shirt for protection and her arm draped over his neck. Ramirez told AP on Wednesday that the image is “tough” and “shocking.” But at the same time ...
Mueller Agrees to Testify Publicly on July 17
2019-06-26 01:55:23 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats say Robert Mueller has agreed to testify publicly July 17 before the House Judiciary and intelligence committees after both panels issued subpoenas to him Tuesday evening. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff say in a joint statement that the special counsel has agreed to testify about the Trump-Russia report he issued in April. The Justice Department declined to comment. The committees have been in negotiations with Mueller for more than two months about his testimony. But he has been hesitant to testify and speak about the investigation b...
US Abruptly Calls Off Retaliation Strike Against Iran
2019-06-21 05:39:58 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. official said the military made preparations Thursday night for limited strikes on Iran in retaliation for the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone, but approval was abruptly withdrawn before the attacks were launched. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the operation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the targets would have included radars and missile batteries. The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump had approved the strikes, but then called them off. The newspaper cited anonymous senior administration officials. The White House on Thursday night declined reque...
US Drone Shot Down After Entering Iran’s Airspace
2019-06-20 05:51:04 UTC
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have shot down a U.S. “spy” drone in the southern province of Hormozgan, the Guards’ news website Sepah News said on Thursday. State news agency IRNA carried the same report, identifying the drone as an “RQ-4 Global Hawk’. “It was shot down when it entered Iran’s airspace near the Kouhmobarak district in the south,” the Guards’ website added. The RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system (UAS) can fly at high altitudes for more than 30 hours, gathering near-real-time, high-resolution imagery of large areas of land in all types of weather, maker Northrop Grumman says on its websit...
US Ranks Last in the world for Maternity Leave
2019-06-13 18:25:15 UTC
NEW YORK, 13 June 2019 — Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Estonia and Portugal offer the best family-friendly policies among 31 rich countries with available data, according to a new UNICEF repot. Switzerland, Greece, Cyprus, United Kingdom and Ireland rank the lowest. The United States is the only country included in the analysis with no national paid leave policy for mothers or fathers, ranking it the worst for maternity leave. Produced by UNICEF’s Office of Research – The <a href="https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/sweden-norway-iceland-and-estonia-rank-highest-family-friendly-policies-oecd-and-eu"><em>report</em></a> ranks co...
US Economic Growth Continues to Slow
2019-06-07 16:37:19 UTC
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. economy is growing at a 1.4% annualized rate in the second quarter based on data that showed a weaker-than-forecast payrolls growth in May, the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow forecast model showed on Friday. This was a tad slower than the 1.5% pace estimated by Atlanta Fed’s GDP program on Thursday. — US HIRING SLOWS WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. hiring stumbled in May as employers added just 75,000 jobs, a sign that businesses have become more cautious in the face of weaker global growth and widening trade conflicts. Last month’s modest job gain followed a much healthier increase of 224,000 in Apr...
Democrats Move to Hold Barr, McGahn in Contempt of Congress
2019-06-06 20:32:52 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives committee, seeking to advance probes of President Donald Trump, unveiled a measure on Thursday that would authorize court action to enforce congressional subpoenas of Attorney General William Barr and former White House Counsel Don McGahn over the Mueller report. The Rules Committee resolution was expected to go to a vote on the House floor on Tuesday, according to Democratic aides. If approved, the measure would put another aspect of the growing confrontation between Trump and House Democrats before the courts. The resolution also sets the terms for possible court action by othe...
US Senators Seek to Block Trump Saudi Arms Sales
2019-06-05 21:52:21 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican and Democratic U.S. senators said on Wednesday they would introduce legislation to block President Donald Trump’s plan for $8 billion in military sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates without congressional review. Backers said the introduction of the 22 “resolutions of disapproval,” one for each of the 22 arms deals cleared by the Trump administration, was intended to “protect and reaffirm Congress’ role of approving arms sales to foreign governments.” The announcement followed furious rejection in Congress late last month of the administration’s declaration that a growing threat from Ir...
Poll: Biden, Sanders lead Trump in battleground state Michigan
2019-06-05 16:37:33 UTC
KALAMAZOO, Mich. (Reuters) - In an early sign of the potential weakness of U.S. President Donald Trump’s path to reelection, two Democratic presidential primary frontrunners are outshining the incumbent Republican in a poll of Michigan voters released on Wednesday. Michigan is set to be a key battleground state in the November 2020 election and will be critical to Trump’s hopes of getting reelected to another four-year term. The poll of likely voters found both former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders leading Trump by 12 percentage points if the vote were to be held today. Only 36% of likely voters in Michig...