Biden Backs $3.5 Trillion Spending Plan; Republicans Blast Massive Package

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President Joe Biden made the case for his sweeping, two-track infrastructure initiative Wednesday on Capitol Hill, a day after leading Senate Democrats agreed on a $3.5 trillion plan billed as the biggest boost in decades for U.S. families. Biden joined fellow Democrats for a closed-door lunch where he sought their support and discussed strategy for passing both a FILE – Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 24, 2020.Biden urged senators to think about how the package would affect average Americans, said Senator Chris Murphy. “He just kept on telling usmore

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Pennsylvania State University System Merges 6 Schools Into 2

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Six of Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities will be consolidated into two new institutions under a unanimous vote Wednesday by the State System of Higher Education’s governing board.Bloomsburg, Mansfield and Lock Haven universities in northern Pennsylvania will form one institution; California, Clarion and Edinboro universities in western Pennsylvania the other. The change will be phased in, starting later in 2022.They will have new names that have not been selected, but the plan is to keep all six campuses open with their own identities and brands, including existing sports teams. Both new institutions will have their own presidents and top administrators.The universitymore

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On Australian Campuses, Chinese Students Fear Beijing’s Surveillance

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Chen Yun, a Chinese student at the University of Melbourne, has always been curious about different political systems. After she arrived in Australia, she started posting on social media about the push for democratic reforms in China.Then came the harassment. She started receiving emails warning that she should be “careful” because if she returns to China, someone would “give her a lesson.”“I thought I could talk about whatever I want after coming here. I thought I could show my support for democracy but I didn’t expect I actually don’t have that freedom,” she told VOA Mandarin, asking to use amore

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New Zealand Students to Build High-Performance Skis, Skateboards Using Leaves, Plants

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New Zealand students have developed sustainable materials made from cabbage tree leaves and flax that could soon be used to make high-performance skis, kayaks and skateboards. Their plan is to use them to replace traditional fiberglass and carbon fiber. Skateboards need to be tough. Two students at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury, Ben Scales and William Murrell, believe they can make them even more durable by using fiber from plants. After experimenting in their garage workshops, they created new, natural composite materials.  Scales, who is 21 and studies product design, says their first version is looking good. “The prototype is a harakeke bio-composite skateboard. So, it is 25 percent harakeke fiber and 75 percent recycled polylactic acid, which is a plastic derivedmore

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Senate Democrats Announce $3.5 Trillion Budget Agreement

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U.S. President Joe Biden heads to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with Senate Democrats after the lawmakers announced an agreement on a $3.5 trillion plan to expand spending on health care for the elderly, climate change and programs to help families, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. The package would be “the biggest investment in the middle class in decades,” Schumer said on Tuesday.  Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, told reporters the plan included provisions that would fully cover the cost of the programs. While Warner did not specify how the measure would be paid for, Biden has pushed for raising taxes on the wealthymore

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Biden Urges Passing of Voting Rights Law but Offers No Strategy

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U.S. President Joe Biden was in Philadelphia Tuesday to urge the passing of voting rights legislation that has stalled in Congress, but he did not outline a path to overcome Republican opposition. The speech came as Republicans in state legislatures sought to pass measures restricting access to voting. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.Produced by: Barry Unger    …

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Pandemic Halts Schooling for Afghan Students

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Students in Afghanistan have lacked access to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, as schools have remained closed and the virus has not been controlled.”The real tragedy is that over 3,000 students in Kabul who come from poor families simply do not have the ability to pursue online education during the pandemic when schools are closed,” said Aziz Royesh, a teacher and founder of the A doctor fills a syringe with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center, in Kabul, Afghanistan, July 11, 2021.Not all have internet, electricityStudents in big cities such as Kabul and Herat havemore

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Biden Calls Republican State Election Law Changes ‘Assault on Liberty’

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U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday assailed Republican-led states pushing to tighten voting rules, calling it an “unfolding assault … on liberty.” Republicans say they are tightening voting rules so that no election fraud occurs in the future and that Americans can have confidence that votes are fairly counted. But Biden, in perhaps the most emotional speech of his six-month presidency, contended that the 28 laws already adopted in 17 states “make it harder for Americans to vote.” “This is election subversion,” he declared. “It’s simply unconscionable.”Without naming him, Biden rebuked former President Donald Trump for his continuing claims that he was cheatedmore

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Biden Delivers Speech on Voting Rights in Philadelphia

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President Joe Biden on Tuesday spoke in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the U.S. constitution, to charge that Republican maneuvering is putting democracy in the worst peril since the Civil War.The speech in the city where the founding document of the U.S. democratic system was drawn up and signed in 1787 was Biden’s highest profile foray yet into a controversy that both Republicans and Democrats describe in dire terms.According to the White House and congressional Democrats, Republicans are using state legislatures to restrict voting rights across the country under the guise of increasing election security.Republicans — led by former president Donald Trumpmore

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Texas Democrats Leave State to Try to Stop GOP Voting Bill

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Democrats in the Texas Legislature bolted Monday for Washington, and said they were ready to remain there for weeks in a second revolt against a GOP overhaul of election laws, forcing a dramatic new showdown over voting rights in America.  Private planes carrying a large group of Democrats took off from an airport in Austin, skipping town just days before the Texas House of Representatives was expected to give early approval to sweeping new voting restrictions in a special legislative session. Hours after they took off, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott told an Austin television station he would keep calling special sessions through next year ifmore

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Black Teen Runs Hoops Around Spelling Bee Competitors

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An African-American teenager from Louisiana has won the National Spelling Bee, only the second Black competitor to win the prestigious annual contest.Zaila Avant-garde, 14, jumped and twirled with joy upon being declared the winner after nailing the spelling of “murraya,” a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian citrus trees.“I was pretty relaxed on the subject of murraya, and pretty much any other word I got,” Zaila said.Zaila said she hopes to inspire other African Americans who might not understand the appeal of spelling or can’t afford to pursue it. The only previous Black winner of the bee was also themore

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Protester Faces Uphill Battle to Promote Hong Kong Awareness

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Alex Lee has embarked on a cross-country bike trip — beginning in Los Angeles, California, and headed to Boston, Massachusetts — in hopes of inspiring the next generation of pro-democracy advocates in China.He is spreading his message in the U.S., Lee noted, because the free press is likely to report on his journey, and there are many Chinese people in America. He also wants to show Americans there are Chinese people like him who do not stand with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), he said.Lee, 36, grew up in a small coastal city near Beijing, with limited free access tomore

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Biden Fires Social Security Chief From Trump Administration 

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President Joe Biden on Friday fired the commissioner of Social Security after the official refused to resign, and Biden accepted the deputy commissioner’s resignation, the White House said.Biden asked Commissioner Andrew Saul to resign, and his employment was terminated after he refused the Democratic president’s request, a White House official said.Deputy Commissioner David Black agreed to resign, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.Both officials had been put in place under President Donald Trump, a Republican.Biden named Kilolo Kijakazi as acting commissioner while the administration searches for a permanent commissioner and deputy commissioner.Kijakazi currentlymore

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US Civil Rights Leaders Vow to Keep Up Fight for Voting Rights 

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U.S. civil rights leaders emerged Thursday from a White House meeting with President Joe Biden vowing a “summer of activism” to battle new voting restrictions enacted in Republican-led states in recent months.Vice President Kamala Harris also said Thursday that the Democratic Party would invest $25 million in voter registration and education efforts.Harris, whom the president assigned to lead the administration’s efforts on voting rights, made the announcement at her alma mater, Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington.Vice President Kamala Harris speaks about voting rights at Howard University in Washington, July 8, 2021.Biden and Harris met with civil rightsmore

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US Withdraws Unpopular Student Visa Rule  

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The Biden administration has withdrawn a highly unpopular proposed rule for international students that would have set student visas to shorter fixed terms.The proposal would have required international students to apply for visa extensions to complete their studies. Public comments about the proposed rule, published late last year, complained that the cost of application fees and related requirements would burden foreign students and scholars.Also, if students had been from a country with a visa overstay rate above 10% or a country on the U.S. State Department’s State Sponsors of Terrorism list, they would have been limited to a fixed two-yearmore

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Chinese Social Media Giant WeChat Shuts LGBT Accounts

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 China’s most popular social media service has deleted accounts on LGBT topics run by university students and nongovernment groups, prompting concern the ruling Communist Party is tightening control over gay and lesbian content.WeChat sent account holders a notice they violated rules but gave no details, according to the founder of an LGBT group, who asked not to be identified further out of fear of possible official retaliation. She said dozens of accounts were shut down about 10 p.m. Tuesday.It wasn’t clear whether the step was ordered by Chinese authorities, but it came as the ruling party has tightened political controlsmore

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Trump Sues Twitter, Facebook and Google, Claiming Censorship

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump has announced class-action lawsuits against three major tech companies, accusing them of wrongfully censoring him and other conservatives.“We’re asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to order an immediate halt to social media companies’ illegal, shameful censorship of the American people,” said Trump on Wednesday.Trump is the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and Google (which owns YouTube), as well as their chief executive officers, respectively, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai, whom Trump sarcastically described as “three real nice guys.”There has been no immediate comment frommore

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Blinken Meets Uyghurs, Seeks Advice on Handling China

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken met virtually on Tuesday with Uyghur Muslims who were detained in camps in China’s Xinjiang region to hear about their experiences and seek advice on how best to pressure China to halt repression there. The State Department said Blinken wanted to hear directly from the seven former detainees, relatives of others and advocates about conditions that they and the Uyghur community more broadly face. “The secretary thought it important to meet with these individuals to hear firsthand their stories, to hear firsthand their impression of the ongoing atrocities in Xinjiang and the internment of a million Uyghurs,”more

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Cambodian Cadets at American Military Academies Lose US Funding

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Cambodia’s government is stepping in to pay tuition for six Cambodian cadets whose scholarships at four U.S. military academies were rescinded amid increasingly strained ties between Phnom Penh and Washington.     “Following Cambodia’s curtailment of cooperation in several areas of traditional bilateral military-military engagement, the country lost its eligibility for the U.S. military service academy program,” said Arend Zwartjes, the U.S. Embassy spokesperson in Phnom Penh, in an email to VOA in mid-June.     The students, called cadets at military academies but referred to as midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, were selected for the scholarship program bymore

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Biden Goes for Cherries Not Speeches on Campaign-style Michigan Trip

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President Joe Biden focused on cherries Saturday during a trip to Michigan — and cherry pie and cherry ice cream — and voters who were mask-free as coronavirus restrictions have eased. It had all the hallmarks of a campaign stop that he couldn’t make last year.Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer greeted Biden when he arrived midday in Traverse City, which is hosting the National Cherry Festival, an event that attracted Presidents Herbert Hoover and Gerald Ford in the past.They skipped the festival in favor of a cherry farm in nearby Antrim County, where Biden pitched his immigration plans while chatting withmore

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Wealthy Americans Scramble as Biden Targets Protected Assets for Taxation 

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As U.S. President Joe Biden looks for revenue sources to fund his proposed social spending programs, America’s richest people are facing the possibility that popular methods of passing enormous wealth from generation to generation while avoiding taxes could be disappearing.The Biden administration has made no secret of its belief that capital gains — money earned from the sale of assets, like stocks, that have appreciated in value — don’t deserve to be taxed at a lower rate than earnings from labor as they are under current law.Capital gains are taxed at a maximum of 20%, compared with a maximum federalmore

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Tuition Decreases, Donations Bring Students Relief

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After decades of tuition increases at U.S. colleges and universities that have led to increased student debt and pushback from students and their families, some schools are reducing costs. At the University of Michigan — ranked among the top public universities in the U.S. — free tuition will be extended at its Flint and Dearborn campuses. Called the Go-Blue guarantee, the offer applies to new full-time students residing in Michigan with a 3.5 grade-point average (GPA) on a 4.0 scale, with a family income of $65,000 or less or assets of less than $50,000. The University of Michigan has 6,666 international students,more

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Women Make Up 60% of White House Staff, Diversity Total at 44%

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Women make up 60% of the White House staff appointed by President Joe Biden, while people from racially or ethnically diverse communities account for 44%, the White House said Thursday as it released an annual personnel report to Congress. The White House said the report — which includes the names, titles and salaries of all political appointees — showed that the Biden administration was the most diverse in U.S. history, in line with the Democratic president’s commitment to build an administration that looks like America. The report also showed a pay gap between men and women of just under 1%, with themore

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NCAA Expands Income Opportunities for Student-Athletes

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U.S. college athletes nationwide are now allowed to profit from the use of their name, image and likeness, the NCAA announced Wednesday.The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s board of directors voted to overturn an increasingly controversial rule that prohibited athletes from leveraging their popularity for business pursuits, marking a historic shift toward an era of increased financial opportunities for student athletes.The policy is set to take effect Thursday, the same day 12 states will enact laws legalizing such opportunities. As momentum behind the legislation built, the NCAA scrambled to avoid a piecemeal adoption of rules, which could have created a recruitingmore

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