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The Biden administration has withdrawn a highly unpopular proposed rule for international students that would have set student visas to shorter fixed terms.The proposal would have required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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US House Votes to Investigate January 6 Attack on Capitol 

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The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to create a select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by hundreds of supporters of former President Donald Trump as lawmakers were certifying that Democrat Joe Biden had defeated him in last November’s election.  The vote, formalizing creation of the committee that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced last week, was 222-190, split almost entirely along party lines. Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger voted with the Democratic majority.Under the House resolution creating the committee, it will have 13 members, eight of them appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosimore

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Young YouTubers, TikTokkers Create Channels of Revenue

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Some content creators on social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube report making millions of dollars for videos on subjects like eating the spiciest foods, dancing to popular music or doing something potentially dangerous but somehow hilarious to millions of viewers.Really? “You know, everyone wants to make a lot of money doing something that they love to do. It’s like a dream job,” said Max Reisinger, a recent high school graduate from Chapel Hill High School in North Carolina who has attracted nearly 400,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel. “That’s how I viewed it when I started,” he said.In his second yearmore

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Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Dies at 88

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Donald Rumsfeld, a forceful U.S. defense secretary who was the main architect of the Iraq war until President George W. Bush replaced him as the United States found itself bogged down after 3.5 years of fighting, has died at age 88, his family said in a statement on Wednesday.”It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld, an American statesman and devoted husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather,” the statement said. “At 88, he was surrounded by family in his beloved Taos, New Mexico.”The statement did not say when Rumsfeld died.Rumsfeld, who ranksmore

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Chinese Students in Australia Call Out Intimidation from Officials at Home

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Human Rights Watch says Chinese students enrolled in Australian universities have  been so intimidated by authorities back home they are self-censoring their actions and behaviors.The organization issued a report Wednesday highlighting incidents of harassment directed at Chinese students, based on interviews with 24 students from mainland China and Hong Kong, who expressed pro-democracy views. They said their pro-Beijing classmates threatened to expose their addresses and other personal information online, a process known as doxxing, or report their activities to the Chinese Embassy.The report also mentioned three cases where police in China warned family members about a student’s activities in Australia.more

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US House Voting to Investigate January 6 Attack on Capitol 

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The House of Representatives is poised Wednesday to create a select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by hundreds of supporters of former President Donald Trump as lawmakers were certifying that Democrat Joe Biden had defeated him in last November’s election.  The vote, formalizing creation of the committee that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced last week, is likely to occur almost entirely along party lines, with the slim Democratic House majority voting in favor and most Republicans against. Under the House resolution creating the committee, it would include 13 members, eight of them appointed by Pelosimore

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Charges Expected Thursday for Trump’s Company, Top Executive

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Donald Trump’s company and his longtime finance chief are expected to be charged Thursday with tax-related crimes stemming from a New York investigation into the former president’s business dealings. That’s according to people familiar with the matter who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.  The charges against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, appear to involve non-monetary benefits the company gave to top executives, possibly including use of apartments, cars and school tuition. The charges arise from a probe led by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., a Democrat leaving office at themore

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Biden, Western Governors to Discuss Wildfire Response

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U.S. President Joe Biden is holding talks Wednesday with a group of governors from eight Western states about wildfire preparedness as much of the region deals with drought. Biden and other administration officials will be speaking from the White House with the governors joining by video. WATCH LIVE at 11:00 EST White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters last week the meeting will “focus on how the federal government can improve wildfire preparedness and response efforts, protect public safety, and deliver assistance to our people in times of urgent need.” Those attending include Democratic governors Gavin Newsom of California, Jared Polis of Colorado, Michelle Lujanmore

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COVID-19 Leaves Long-Term Scars on Europe’s Youth 

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European borders and economies are opening up this summer, thanks to falling coronavirus cases and rising vaccination numbers. But experts warn the pandemic’s scars could be long term and profound—especially for young people, a generation Europe cannot afford to lose. Things are looking up for young Parisians. Bars and restaurants have reopened, also schools and universities, for the last weeks before summer vacations.  Young people having coffee in Paris. France reopened bars and restaurants mid-may as coronavirus cases dropped. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)At a community room with other students, Sorbonne University student Katarzyna Mac is studying for final exams. She is grateful thatmore

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Biden Pushes for Adoption of Infrastructure Package

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U.S. President Joe Biden heads to the midwestern state of Wisconsin Tuesday, making a pitch for congressional passage of a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure package to repair the country’s crumbling roads and bridges, and at the same time boost blue-collar employment.   Biden is visiting the small city of La Crosse, population 52,000, and will tour its public transit center before speaking about what he sees as the merits of the infrastructure package he negotiated last week with a group of 10 centrist U.S. senators, five Republicans and five Democrats. He told a group of Democratic donors Monday night the spendingmore

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Can Money Absolve Sins of the Past?

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The issue of reparations — making amends for historical wrongs perpetrated against a group or population — has always been highly controversial. But to the victims of atrocities like genocide and slavery, offering such compensation should be a no-brainer. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo looks at examples of reparations as they relate to the debate over reparations for African Americans in the U.S.Henry Ridgwell   contributed to this report. …

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