Editor Choice

Germany to halt all arms exports to Saudi
2018-10-22 21:35:32 UTC
ORTENBERG, Germany (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday called the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a “monstrosity” and vowed to halt all German arms exports to Riyadh until the case is cleared up. Merkel, in her harshest comments to date, decried what she called “the monstrosity there in the Saudi consulate in Turkey” during a campaign rally in the town of Ortenberg before a regional election in the state of Hesse on Sunday. “It must be cleared up. As long as it’s not cleared up, there will be no arms exports to Saudi Arabia. I assure you of that very decidedly,” Merkel said...
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...
"Shade - A Tale of Two Presidents" : Obama's former photographer
2018-10-16 23:23:47 UTC
<p><span style="color: rgb(71, 85, 119); font-size: 18px;"><strong>Pete Souza, the former White House photographer under President Obama, has released "Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents," a book filled with archived pictures that may induce nostalgia.</strong></span></p><p><br></p><p>Although pictures may be worth a thousand words, in the Instagram age, it is often the contrast between the image depicted and the few words accompanying them that tell the real story.</p><p>Pete Souza, the former White House photographer during the eight-year tenure of President Barack Obama, knows that all too well. The man who accompanied Obama arou...
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 ...
Dominated by men: Amazon scraps tool that showed bias against women
2018-10-11 21:53:47 UTC
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) machine-learning specialists uncovered a big problem: their new recruiting engine did not like women. The team had been building computer programs since 2014 to review job applicants’ resumes with the aim of mechanizing the search for top talent, five people familiar with the effort told Reuters. Automation has been key to Amazon’s e-commerce dominance, be it inside warehouses or driving pricing decisions. <blockquote><h2>Amazon’s experimental hiring tool</h2>The company’s experimental hiring tool used artificial intelligence to give job candidates scores ranging from one to fiv...
Angela Merkel, Most Respected Global Leader
2018-10-03 00:02:37 UTC
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the most respected global leader and the image of the United States has gotten worse since Donald Trump took office, a leading survey showed. The survey of 25 nations by the Pew Research Center also showed that respondents from across the globe have less confidence in Trump’s ability to lead than they do in Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has pulled the United States out of international agreements like the Paris climate accord and Iran nuclear deal, cozied up to authoritarian leaders like Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and criticized ...
California Gov. Jerry Brown signs gun control bills into law
2018-09-29 20:39:10 UTC
(Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown signed several gun control bills into law on Friday, including one measure that raises the minimum age for buying rifles and shotguns from 18 to 21. The new laws come seven months after a gunman opened fire with a semiautomatic assault-style rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 14 students and three adults, the second-deadliest mass shooting at a public school in U.S. history. The rampage, which authorities say was carried out by a former student who was 19, has spurred unprecedented activism by victims and their families to prevent future gun violence...
Brexit: UK politicians remain deeply divided
2018-09-28 18:31:42 UTC
More than two years since the 2016 EU referendum, the United Kingdom, its politicians and its business leaders remain deeply divided over Brexit while Prime Minister Theresa May has yet to clinch a divorce deal with the EU. Opponents of Brexit are exploring ways to stop what they say is Britain’s biggest mistake since World War Two. Miller is leading a campaign to have another referendum, but she said if the government manages to successfully navigate an exit deal then politicians must be allowed to focus on domestic issues without the distractions of a debate about Britain’s relationship with Europe. “Whatever happens at the end ...
Milk and mushrooms may prevent metabolic diseases
2018-09-26 21:37:16 UTC
<blockquote>Recent research conducted at Pennsylvania State University in the US studied the effect of mushrooms on glucose production in the body. Mushrooms are a probiotic food, which means they positively influence the bacteria in the gut. In a study with mice, researchers discovered that the regular consumption of white button mushrooms boosted the growth of certain bacteria which produce substances that influence glucose production. The researchers believe that white button mushrooms may be especially helpful for people with diabetes, due to the fungi's role in glucose production. Like mushrooms, milk also seems to regulate b...
UNHCR: 4 million refugee children can't go to school
2018-09-23 22:16:47 UTC
Four million refugee children around the world are excluded from education, according to a United Nations report. A solution should be to allow refugees to attend regular schools, the UNHCR has demanded. With more and more children forced to leave their homes, the number of refugees out of education has topped four million, according to the UN's Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The figure represents more than half of all school-age refugees around the world, according to the report named "Turn the Tide: Refugee Education in Crisis." <blockquote><h2>Key takeaways from the report</h2><blockquote><I> • There are now 7.4 million school-age refu...
Green crabs from Nova Scotia threaten coastal ecosystem
2018-09-19 05:21:29 UTC
BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) — Canadians are known as friendly folks, but these crabby brutes migrating from Canadian waters are better suited for the hockey rink. Green crabs from Nova Scotia are the same species as their cousins that already inhabit Maine waters, but are ornerier and angrier, threatening to accelerate harm to the coastal ecosystem by gobbling up soft-shell clams and destroying native eel grass, a researcher said. The docile green crabs shrink from a threat, while the newcomers are more apt to wave their pincers and charge. “What we’re seeing is this insane level of aggressiveness,” said Markus Frederich, a professor at...
Migraine is misunderstood by those who don't suffer symptoms
2018-09-19 05:10:47 UTC
Migraine is a debilitating neurological disease that is often misunderstood by those who do not suffer symptoms, according to the Migraine Impact Report, a new survey recently released by Eli Lilly and Company and conducted by Nielsen. The report showed that respondents without the disease underestimate the pain and duration of a typical migraine. Ninety one percent of respondents with migraine further agreed that those who do not experience migraine pain do not have a complete understanding of the severity of the disease. <blockquote><img alt="Migraine_is_misunderstood_by_those_who_do_not_suffer_symptoms" src="/system/images/22229...
London mayor calls for second referendum on Brexit
2018-09-16 18:23:03 UTC
LONDON (Reuters) - London mayor Sadiq Khan has called for another referendum on Britain’s European Union membership, saying the prime minister’s handling of Brexit negotiations had become “mired in confusion and deadlock” and was leading the country down a damaging path. Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. But with Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plans still not accepted, some lawmakers, as well as union and business leaders, are arguing for people to have a final say on any deal with Brussels. May has repeatedly ruled out a second referendum. She says members of parliament will get to vote on whether to accept any final ...
Wealthiest GOP Donor In Ohio Quits Party: ‘I Won’t Support This Nonsense Anymore’
2018-09-16 06:48:31 UTC
Ohio’s wealthiest Republican donor, Leslie H. Wexner, has left the party, saying he is fed up with its antics, the Columbus Dispatch reported. “I’m an independent,” Wexner said at an event for Ohio business leaders Thursday night, noting that he had been a Republican since his college days. “I won’t support this nonsense in the Republican Party.” Wexner is the founder and CEO of L Brands, a company whose holdings include Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works. He’s been a long time and major donor to Republican politicians and committees. Wexner gave $250,000 in 2012 to a super-PAC backing Mitt Romney’s campaign; in 2016, he and his...
Low unemployment rates are inevitably followed by recessions
2018-09-13 04:51:55 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Reserve officials tout a decade of falling unemployment as among their major victories in fighting the economic crisis of 2007 to 2009. Now they are beginning to worry they have been too successful. When unemployment falls as low as it is currently, Boston Federal Reserve bank president Eric Rosengren said in a new paper released Thursday as part of a review of Fed policy, recession has inevitably followed, with the central bank showing no success in fine-tuning the economy to a stable rest at full employment. Policy forecasts have often projected such a “soft landing,” he noted, and with unemploym...
German, French and British jets to show European efforts integrating air defenses
2018-09-13 04:11:53 UTC
ON BOARD A BELGIAN AIR FORCE PLANE (Reuters) - British, French and German fighter jets simulated flight interceptions over Western Europe on Wednesday as part of NATO drills to deter Russian planes from entering allied airspace and to showcase European efforts to integrate their air defenses. Fighter pilots carrying air-to-air missiles from 10 NATO nations took turns to simulate the interception of a Belgian air force transport plane en route to Spain, performing visual inspections of the aircraft’s status by hovering off the wings at speeds of 900 km/hour (560 mph). Some 60 NATO jets, mainly from European allies, are on alert to def...
Ireland doesn't give UK a free-ride back-door to EU
2018-09-12 19:06:52 UTC
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union officials are working on re-drafting a sensitive Irish protocol to the draft Brexit treaty with Britain, as part of what EU negotiator Michel Barnier has called efforts to “de-dramatize” the issue and get a deal, EU officials said on Wednesday. Officials and diplomats close to the negotiations told Reuters previously this month that work was under way to find wording that could ease British fears that the “backstop” to avoid a hard land border for Northern Ireland would pull the province away from its constitutional anchor to the United Kingdom. British officials have said their problems with the E...
U.S. industry groups to fight Trump's economic policies
2018-09-12 05:08:07 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After months of waging a behind-the-scenes war against President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs that have escalated far beyond what business groups once imagined, more than 60 U.S. industry groups are launching a coalition on Wednesday to take the fight public. Emergence of the group, Americans for Free Trade, comes after Trump has warmed to the use of tariffs, implementing billions of dollars worth in an effort to use them as a threat to win concessions or in the belief they will create U.S. jobs. “A lot of other interest groups thought they wouldn’t go this long or go this deep, but the layering effect (of tari...
Garland to probe perjury allegations against Kavanaugh
2018-09-11 18:29:22 UTC
Merrick Garland may play a role in the vacant Supreme Court seat after all. A liberal group has filed a criminal complaint against Brett Kavanaugh for allegedly perjuring himself in front of the Senate judiciary committee. Garland, who is the chief judge of the D.C. federal circuit, was asked to rule upon the complaint or appoint a special panel of jurists to investigate the allegations. The Democratic Coalition, a group led by Jon Cooper and Scott Dworkin, claim that Kavanaugh lied under oath before the Senate back in 2004 and 2006 when he said he was unaware he read and used stolen emails in 2002. Kavanaugh was going through the heari...
Obama to students: Vote, 'our democracy depends on it'
2018-09-07 21:13:53 UTC
(Reuters) - Former U.S. President Barack Obama assailed President Donald Trump and Republicans on Friday, urging Democrats to deliver a check on the administration’s “abuses of power” and restore a sense of sanity to politics by voting in November’s elections. In an unusually blistering attack on his successor, Obama said Americans were living in dangerous times and accused Republicans of threatening democracy, dividing the country, undermining global alliances and cozying up to Russia. “In two months we have the chance, not the certainty, but the chance to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics,” he said in a speech at the...
Britons would choose to stay in EU if given the option
2018-09-05 23:29:59 UTC
LONDON (Reuters) - Britons would choose to stay in the European Union if given the option, according to an opinion poll on Wednesday that showed a six-point swing away from Brexit and the highest support for EU membership in such a survey since the 2016 referendum. The author of the poll urged caution over the finding, however, saying the interview panel was skewed towards remain, and that some of the shift was among those who did not take part in the original Brexit referendum. In the June 23, 2016 referendum, 17.4 million voters, or 51.9 percent of the votes cast, backed leaving the EU while 16.1 million voters, or 48.1 percent of ...
Obama returns from sidelines into a contentious election season
2018-09-05 22:41:09 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Barack Obama plans to come off the sidelines to campaign for Democratic candidates across the country this fall, injecting himself into a contentious election season in which control of Congress is at stake. On Saturday, the two-term president will stump in southern California on behalf of seven candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, his office said. That state is critical to Democrats’ hopes to capture 23 seats and take control of the House in November’s congressional elections. Those seven are running in districts currently held by Republican incumbents but won by Democratic p...
Mercedes-Benz launches 'all-electric SUV with 450 km range'
2018-09-04 18:13:12 UTC
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Mercedes showed on Tuesday how it is “aggressively” gunning for top spot in upscale battery cars market currently dominated by Tesla, as it unveiled the EQC, its first fully electric car, at an event in Stockholm. The event marks the start of the German onslaught against the American upstart and showcased a SUV with a 450 kilometer range, distinctively full-width rear light and clean-cut interiors that Mercedes hopes will find favor with luxury customers and tech-savvy millennials alike. Daimler aims to have up to 10 electrified car variants by 2022, a target reiterated on Tuesday by Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche, ...
Brexit could tip Scotland to seek independence
2018-09-04 00:35:44 UTC
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s exit from the European Union could tip public opinion in Scotland in favor of seeking independence, an opinion poll showed on Sunday. Scotland voted against independence in 2014, but a subsequent referendum on leaving the EU has reignited debate over its long-term future as one of Britain’s four constituent parts alongside England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. In 2016, a majority of Scottish voters backed staying in the EU, while Britain as a whole, voted to leave, meaning that Britain is now due to leave the EU on March 29 2019. The poll showed that if Britain leaves the EU as planned, 47 percent of S...
EU: We will not let US "determine our trade policies"
2018-08-31 22:46:02 UTC
BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Union will respond in kind if U.S. President Donald Trump reneges on his pledge not to impose car tariffs, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said as trade tensions between Europe and the United States rose again. Juncker told German broadcaster ZDF on Friday that the EU would not let anyone determine its trade policies. If Washington decided to imposed tariffs on vehicles after all, he said, “then we will also do that”. Trump rejected on Thursday an EU offer to eliminate tariffs on cars and said the EU’s trade policies are “almost as bad as China”, Bloomberg News reported. SPONSORED ...