Trump Supreme Court Nominee Meets with Republican Leadership

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U.S. lawmakers are preparing for an historic confirmation battle over President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, that will play out just weeks before the November 3 presidential election. The process started Tuesday with Barrett, who would be Trump’s third conservative appointee to the nation’s highest court if confirmed, heading to Capitol Hill for a series of key meetings with Republican Senators. “Judge Barrett represents the best of America personally, in terms of her great intellect and her great background,” Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday as he accompanied Barrett on Capitol Hill. “And we have every confidence that asmore

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Flynn Attorney Tells US Court She Discussed Criminal Case With Trump

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The lead attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Tuesday revealed to a federal judge that she has discussed the ongoing criminal case with the president, an extraordinary admission that raises questions about political interference. U.S. Justice Department lawyers denied any corruption or political motives in efforts to get the federal criminal case against Flynn dropped. In May, Attorney General William Barr stunned many in the legal community by ordering prosecutors to have the case dropped, a decision that came after Trump repeatedly complained that Flynn was being treated unfairly. U.S. Attorney General William Barr speaks duringmore

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Students Miss Milestones, But Learn to Adapt

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Yes, it’s a pandemic, and, yes, it certainly is better to be safe than sorry, but nonetheless, college students are lamenting the loss of major milestones — like starting college, moving on campus, celebrating turning 18 or 21 with friends, and graduation — interrupted by COVID, they say. “I couldn’t move into American University, haven’t moved to a new country, haven’t met my friends,” said Lexi Adler of Toronto, an incoming freshman at American University in Washington, D.C., who is waiting it out at home with her parents in Canada for now.Lexi Adler had hoped to attend American University inmore

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Bars Closed, New Orleans Scrambles to Watch Debates in New Ways

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T. Cole Newton began hosting presidential debate watch parties at his New Orleans, Louisiana bar in 2012. “It was a business decision as much as anything else,” Newton told VOA. “I knew my regulars would want to watch as much as I did, so we made an event out of it.” His bar is Twelve Mile Limit, a cross between a neighborhood dive and a cocktail bar, and he said it routinely fills up during their watch parties.   “Even during the primary debates, we’d be packed like a sports bar during a football game! Lots of beer, snacks, and hootin’ and hollerin’. We get way busier for debates than evenmore

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US Presidential Campaign Focus Shifts to Trump’s Taxes

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Newly reported revelations that President Donald Trump paid little in federal taxes, along with the president’s unsubstantiated allegations of mail-in voting fraud, and the political battle to name a new conservative Supreme Court justice before the November election, have shifted media focus of the U.S. presidential campaign away from the coronavirus pandemic. VOA’s Brian Padden reports on how both Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are reacting to these issues as they prepare for the first of three presidential debates on Tuesday, and how all this might impact the race. …

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Trump, Biden Face Off in Tuesday Night Debate

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Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, are set to debate Tuesday night, five weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 election, in the first of three planned face-to-face encounters over the next month.  The high-stakes event in the midwestern city of Cleveland, Ohio, comes as Biden has maintained about a 7-percentage-point advantage over Trump for weeks in national polls, threatening to make Trump the third U.S. president in the past four decades to lose reelection for a second four-year term in the White House.  However, the race is closer in several key battleground states,more

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US Supreme Court Nominee Barrett to Meet With Republican Senators

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, meets informally Tuesday with senators on Capitol Hill, kicking off an accelerated confirmation process that Republicans intend to complete before the November 3 presidential election in the face of Democratic opposition.   Barrett, who would be Trump’s third conservative appointee to the nation’s highest court if confirmed by the Senate, meets first with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.     She will also meet with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, Republican committee members Mike Crapo, Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee and other Republican senators.   The informal meetings are partmore

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Dutch Students Work Hard To Keep Virus Out of Shared Houses

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This is not the student life Iris Raats had hoped for when she was accepted at Leiden University to study law. With the coronavirus pandemic casting its long shadow over education in the Netherlands and around the world, most of her lectures are online and the vibrant social life in the country’s oldest university city has been reined in to contain the spread of the pandemic. Instead, socializing happens predominantly within the four walls of the house that the 19-year-old shares with 13 other students close to the city’s central railway station. “I’m very glad that I found … amore

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Police: Friend Convinced Trump Ex-Campaign Boss to Surrender

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A standoff between South Florida police and President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale ended after an officer who was friends with Parscale convinced him to surrender, officials said. Fort Lauderdale Officer Christopher Wilson wrote in a report that he had just finished a shift Sunday evening when a mutual friend called him and told him that a SWAT team was at Parscale’s home, and he was refusing to come out. When Wilson arrived at the Fort Lauderdale home, he was able to persuade Parscale to come outside. Body camera footage released Monday shows officers rushing Parscale and knockingmore

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Bars Closed, New Orleans Scrambles to Watch Debates in New Ways During COVID Shutdown

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T. Cole Newton began hosting presidential debate watch parties at his New Orleans, Louisiana bar in 2012. “It was a business decision as much as anything else,” Newton told VOA. “I knew my regulars would want to watch as much as I did, so we made an event out of it.” His bar is Twelve Mile Limit, a cross between a neighborhood dive and a cocktail bar, and he said it routinely fills up during their watch parties.   “Even during the primary debates, we’d be packed like a sports bar during a football game! Lots of beer, snacks, and hootin’ and hollerin’. We get way busier for debates than evenmore

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Presidential Campaign Focuses on Trump’s Taxes Again

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New reported revelations that President Donald Trump paid little in federal taxes, along with the president’s unsubstantiated allegations of mail-in voting fraud, and the political battle to name a new conservative Supreme Court justice before the November election, have shifted media focus of the U.S. presidential campaign away from the coronavirus pandemic. VOA’s Brian Padden reports on how both Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are reacting to these issues as they prepare for the first of three presidential debates on Tuesday, and how all this might impact the race. …

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Round 1 of 3: Trump, Biden Facing Off in Tuesday Night Debate

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Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, are set to debate Tuesday night, five weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 election, in the first of three planned face-to-face encounters over the next month.  The high-stakes event in the midwestern city of Cleveland, Ohio, comes as Biden has maintained about a 7-percentage-point advantage over Trump for weeks in national polls, threatening to make Trump the third U.S. president in the past four decades to lose reelection for a second four-year term in the White House.  However, the race is closer in several key battleground states,more

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