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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New York Times Report Thrusts Trump Taxes Into 2020 Election Spotlight

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Nearly four years after then-presidential candidate Donald Trump first faced questions about his income tax returns, the issue has returned to the forefront of the 2020 election as Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden prepare for their first debate Tuesday night. The New York Times Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden gives a speech on the Supreme Court at The Queen Theater, Sept. 27, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.Biden did not make any public comment about Trump’s taxes Sunday, but like Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, the former Vice President has challenged Trump to make his tax returns public.In July,more

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Trump Questions Biden’s Debate Performances

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U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he will demand that his Democratic challenger in the November 3 national election, former Vice President Joe Biden, take a drug test before or after their debate this Tuesday night, suggesting that Biden’s uneven performance in previous political debates this year was because he was drugged. Trump’s unfounded accusation, which he has leveled in recent weeks, came as he continues to trail Biden in national polling, as he has for months. Trump is facing the possibility of becoming the third U.S. president in the last four decades to lose a bid for reelection to a second four-year term. “Imore

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Trump Demands Biden Drug Test, as They Head to Tuesday Debate 

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U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he will demand that his Democratic challenger in the November 3 national election, former Vice President Joe Biden, take a drug test before or after their debate this Tuesday night, suggesting that Biden’s uneven performance in previous political debates this year was because he was drugged. Trump’s unorthodox accusation, which he leveled previously in recent weeks, came as he continues to trail Biden in national polling, as he has for months. Trump is facing the possibility of becoming the third U.S. president in the last four decades to lose a bid for re-election to amore

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Barrett is a Committed Conservative Jurist, But How Will She Rule on Hot-Button Issues?

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By nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Saturday to replace the late liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Donald Trump unquestionably has chosen a committed conservative jurist.In announcing his choice in the White House Rose Garden, Trump described Barrett as “one of our nation’s most brilliant and gifted legal minds,” a woman with sterling credentials and “unyielding loyalty to the Constitution.”A one-time protégé of Antonin Scalia, the late conservative icon on the high court who opposed abortion and gay marriage, Barrett, more than Trump’s two earlier Supreme Court appointments — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — ismore

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Trump, Biden Prepare for Contested Election Over Mail-in Voting

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President Donald Trump’s continued attacks on the legitimacy of voting by mail and refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power has raised concerns that a bitterly contested presidential election in November could provoke a constitutional crisis.Experts predict nearly 80 million people will vote by mail this year, and recent polling indicates that nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans will send in absentee ballots.Trump, who is trailing in national presidential polls, has repeatedly – and without evidence – denounced mail-in voting as fraudulent and a scam. Many states have expanded absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic to reduce the potential formore

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US Colleges Struggle to Salvage Semester Amid Outbreaks

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Colleges across the country are struggling to salvage the fall semester amid skyrocketing coronavirus cases, dorm complexes and frat houses under quarantine, and flaring tensions with local community leaders over the spread of the disease.Many major universities are determined to forge ahead despite warning signs, as evidenced by the expanding slate of college football games occurring Saturday. The football-obsessed Southeastern Conference began its season with fans in stadiums. Several teams in other leagues have had to postpone games because of outbreaks among players and staff.Institutions across the nation saw spikes of thousands of cases days after opening their doors inmore

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Trump Nominates Barrett for Supreme Court Post

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday nominated Amy Coney Barrett to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, giving him an opportunity to make the court more conservative ahead of the November 3 presidential election.Calling Barrett “one of our nation’s most brilliant and gifted legal minds,” Trump, making the announcement in the White House Rose Garden, declared her “very eminently qualified.” The president said he believed it “should be a straightforward and prompt confirmation,” and urged lawmakers and media to refrain from personal and partisan attacks on Barrett.Answering questions later from reporters on the Southmore

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Consistent Conservative, Devout Catholic Could Serve on Court for Decades

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Amy Coney Barrett is a 48-year-old devout Catholic and an apparent abortion-rights opponent who is popular among conservative evangelical Christians, arguably President Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters.Barrett has authored more than 100 opinions since her 2017 confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which covers the states of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.Her opinions have consistently reflected her conservative values.She was a front-runner for Trump’s third nomination to the Supreme Court, to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died September 18. He nominated Neil Gorsuch in 2017 to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. Aftermore

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Trump Extends Drilling Ban Off North Carolina

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday extended a ban until 2032 on offshore oil drilling off the coast of North Carolina, weeks after a similar extension affecting drilling in the waters off Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.The Republican president ordered the extension in a memo to his interior secretary that did not exempt any of the Northeastern, Democratic-majority states that also have asked to be removed from the next five-year offshore oil and gas drilling leasing plan.The Trump administration, which has worked to expand U.S. oil and gas drilling and roll back Obama-era rules on pollution from fossil fuels, originallymore

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Ginsburg’s Casket Leaves Capitol After Mourners Pay Respects

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Mourners paid their last respects Friday to late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as her casket was carried down the steps of the U.S. Capitol after she became the first woman to lie in state there.Her flag-draped casket drew officials from across government along with friends and family who wanted to pay their respects.Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, were among those to attend a relatively brief and solemn ceremony in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall.Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, center, and his wife Jill Biden stand as the flag-draped casket ofmore

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Former Exam Administrator Pleads Guilty in College Scam

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A former college entrance exam administrator pleaded guilty Friday of taking bribes to help wealthy parents rig their kids’ test scores as part of a college admissions bribery scheme. Niki Williams, 46, a former employee of the Houston Independent School District, is among about 40 people who have admitted to charges in the case that exposed a scheme to get undeserving teens into college with fake athletic credentials or manipulated test scores.  Prosecutors say Williams, who administered the college entrance exams at the public high school where she worked, took money from Rick Singer, the admissions consultant at the center ofmore

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Ginsburg is First Woman, Jewish Person to Lie in State at US Capitol

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Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, paid their respects to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she became the first woman and first Jewish person to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol. Biden and his wife were among the last of the attendees to approach Ginsburg’s casket to bid her farewell at a relatively brief and solemn ceremony in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the gathering she had the “high honor to welcome Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to lie in state in the Capitol of the United States,” Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt delivered the eulogy.“All of the days of her life she pursued justice. Even in illness, she changed the course of American law,” Holtzblatt said.more

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‘Dark Money’ Groups Pump Millions Into Battle Over Supreme Court Vacancy

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Well-funded, secretive political groups are getting into the high-stakes battle over filling a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.Known as “dark money” groups because they aren’t required by law to disclose the names of their donors, these influential organizations are pumping millions of dollars into advertising campaigns to influence voter perceptions of what is expected to be one of the most contentious confirmation hearings in modern American history.Just hours after Ginsburg, the 87-year-old liberal icon, died of cancer last Friday, Demand Justice, a progressive dark money group with ties to the Democratic Party,more

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Proposed US Visa Changes Explained

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The Trump administration has proposed to eliminate “duration of status” on visas for international students, exchange visitors, and those working in international media. Officials are hoping to impose fixed end dates rather than allowing visas to be valid for as long as it takes them to get their degree or finish a research project. Currently, a holder of an F-1 visa can stay in the country until the student finishes a studies program or if the student keeps on meeting program requirements.The 256-page proposed rule released on Thursday by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), would mandate 4-year expiration datesmore

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