Headline

Angela Merkel Lays Out Germany's Vision For Europe
2018-11-13 18:45:01 UTC
Strasbourg/ France — The German chancellor has addressed MEPs in Strasbourg, laying out Germany's vision for the future of Europe. Seven months ahead of EU parliamentary elections, she gave her personal assessment of where the bloc stands. As the clock winds down on her final term as chancellor, Angela Merkel began by looking back on the EU's achievements and highlighting Europe's diversity, which was also its strength, she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday. Merkel warned that Europe's values were under attack and she highlighted the principle of European solidarity: "We are experiencing that it is more and more d...
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...
Angela Merkel Ally Urges New Era in German Politics
2018-11-07 19:51:09 UTC
The battle to be the next leader of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats is heating up. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the candidate considered closest to the chancellor personally and politically, has now made her case. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the woman many consider the natural successor to Angela Merkel both in leadership style and political agenda, has set out why she should be the next head of Germany's embattled conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Wednesday's press conference in Berlin was a home game for the CDU general secretary, who staged it in the office representing Saarland, the small southwestern st...
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 ...
Brexit Pulls UK and Ireland Apart, Undermines Relationship
2018-11-05 04:16:25 UTC
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Brexit has undermined the Good Friday Agreement which ended thirty years of violence in Northern Ireland, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Saturday. “Brexit has undermined the Good Friday Agreement and is fraying the relationship between Britain and Ireland,” he told Irish state broadcaster RTE. The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit has been one of the major sticking points in Britain’s negotiations to leave the European Union in March next year. “Anything that pulls the communities apart in Northern Ireland undermines the Good Friday Agreement, and anything that pulls Britain and...
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...
Angela Merkel offering to step down as CDU head
2018-10-30 18:58:10 UTC
BERLIN (AP) — Angela Merkel set off Monday on what could be a three-year countdown to the end of her leadership of Germany, a stint that has made her the European Union’s longest-serving leader and a key figure in facing the continent’s many crises. Merkel announced that she will give up the leadership of her conservative Christian Democratic Union in December and won’t stand for a fifth term as chancellor — signaling the beginning of the end at the helm for the woman many had labeled the “leader of the free world.” That’s a title she herself objected to, saying leadership is never up to one person or country. But she has been a stal...
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...
European lawmakers vote to ban single-use plastics
2018-10-25 19:15:10 UTC
European lawmakers have approved measures to reduce plastics polluting seas and oceans. A proposed ban targets the top 10 single-use plastic products that litter Europe's beaches. The European Parliament on Wednesday approved measures that could lead to a ban on single-use plastic items, including straws, cotton swabs and disposable plastic plates and cutlery, by 2021. The parliament backed the proposals with a 571-53 majority. <blockquote> In May, the European Commission proposed EU-wide rules to target the top 10 single-use plastic items that litter Europe's beaches or are found in its seas, as well as lost and abandoned fishing gea...
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...
Anti-Trump anger may sweep the US midterm elections
2018-10-24 17:22:40 UTC
(Reuters) - Republican U.S. senators hold growing leads in key races in Texas and Nevada, a Reuters opinion poll showed, dampening Democratic hopes of taking a majority in that chamber in next month’s congressional elections. Eden Stramer, 23, a North Dakota Democrat, says the possibility of abortions becoming illegal again leaves her fuming. And Pattie Blair, 74, a Democratic voter in Phoenix, says anger washes over her every time she sees Trump on television. “It’s the most negative, blackest place to find yourself,” Blair said. “It’s like being in a bucket you can’t get yourself out of – a hand keeps pushing you back in every 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...
Brexit: EU to break a deadlock over the Irish border
2018-10-22 17:03:04 UTC
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union negotiators are looking at ways to promise Britain a customs deal that could stretch Brussels’ Brexit red lines but might break a deadlock over the Irish border, EU sources close to the talks have told Reuters. Accounts of how British and EU negotiators came close to a deal on Oct. 13 focus on how Prime Minister Theresa May balked at an EU demand for a “backstop” clause. This could put Northern Ireland in a special relationship with the EU that might distance it from the British mainland to avoid putting up customs posts on Britain’s only EU land border, with Ireland. But as the two sides try to re...
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 ...
UK can remain in EU single market until end of 2020
2018-10-25 19:02:53 UTC
BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Commission has offered to allow Britain to remain in the EU customs union and internal market beyond an agreed transitional arrangement until the end of December 2020, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Tuesday. “In a goodwill gesture to Britain, the commission has raised the possibility of extending the transitional period,” the newspaper reported, citing a German government document. It did not say what the new date was. <hr><i>Reporting by Joseph Nasr; Editing by Alison Williams</i><hr> <h2>European lawmakers vote to ban single-use plastics</h2> European lawmakers have approved measu...
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...
Brexit: The Irish border has become a sticking point
2018-10-15 16:25:14 UTC
LUXEMBOURG (AP) — Britain and the European were still both refusing to blink Monday over the question of the Irish border in Brexit talks — only two days ahead of a summit once seen as the moment when they would have to reach deal on Britain’s divorce from the bloc. A flurry of diplomatic meetings over the weekend had raised hopes for a Brexit agreement, but they were derailed by the issue that has dogged the talks for months — how to ensure that no hard border is created between the EU’s Ireland and Britain’s Northern Ireland once Brexit happens on March 29. The EU has proposed a “backstop” solution that would keep Northern Ireland ...
Facebook says hackers accessed data from 29 million accounts
2018-10-12 17:50:55 UTC
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook says hackers accessed data from 29 million accounts as part of the security breach disclosed two weeks ago. The exact number hadn’t been known before. Originally Facebook said 50 million accounts could have been affected, but Facebook didn’t know if they had been misused. The hackers accessed name, email addresses or phone numbers from those 29 million accounts. For 14 million of those accounts, hackers got even more data, such as hometown, birthdate, the last 10 places they checked into or 15 most recent searches. One million accounts were affected but hackers didn’t gain information. The social media servic...
US Stock Markets In A Free Fall
2018-10-11 21:54:02 UTC
NEW YORK — The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 fell sharply again Thursday after both indexes on Wednesday logged their largest losses on a percentage basis since Feb. 8. The S&P 500 has closed lower for five straight days. The Nasdaq declined on Thursday, a day after the tech-heavy index had its biggest percentage drop since June 2016. <blockquote> Stocks in Asia closed sharply lower on Thursday following the selloff on Wall Street. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 declined 3.9%, and the Shanghai Composite index sank 5.2%. Banks and health care companies are taking some of the worst losses while technology companies are slightly h...
Wall Street faces worst day since February
2018-10-11 21:53:35 UTC
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks on major world markets slid to a three-month low on Wednesday, with the benchmark S&P500 stock index falling more than 3.0 percent, its biggest one-day fall since February. Technology shares tumbled on fears of slowing demand, while bond yields ended lower after seeing multi-year highs earlier this week. Major equity indexes in Europe fell more than 1.0 percent, also pulled down by technology shares, and gold prices inched up as some investors sought refuge in the metal. “The S&P 500 is looking very weak and negative and that is putting fear into investors,” said Michael Matousek, head trader at U.S. Gl...
US: Deported migrant parents can lose custody of their kids
2018-10-09 17:44:47 UTC
Araceli Ramos sheds a tear as she describes her battle to be reunited with her 5-year-old daughter. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) AP — As the deportees were led off the plane onto the steamy San Salvador tarmac, an anguished Araceli Ramos Bonilla burst into tears, her face contorted with pain: “They want to steal my daughter!” It had been 10 weeks since Ramos had last held her 2-year-old, Alexa. Ten weeks since she was arrested crossing the border into Texas and U.S. immigration authorities seized her daughter and told her she would never see the girl again. What followed — one foster family’s initially successful attempt to wi...