Tag: president

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Kamala Harris on Thursday pledged the nation’s backlog of rape kits needing review would be processed by the end of her first four-year term if elected president. Harris estimated she would invest $1 billion to eliminate the backlog, which she said would cover an estimated 225,000 kits that remain untested. Rape kits are collected when a victim reports an assault and DNA or other physical evidence is collected. State...

ISTANBUL — The first shipment of a Russian missile defense system has arrived in Turkey, the Turkish Defense Ministry said Friday, moving the country closer to possible U.S. sanctions and a new standoff with Washington. The S-400 consignmentwas delivered to the Murted Air Base outside the capital Ankara, the ministry said, in a statement. "The delivery of parts belonging to the system will continue in the coming days," Turkey's Defense Industry Directorate said separately. "Once the system is completely ready, it...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta has resigned, believing that he has become a distraction to the administration because of his handling of the sex abuse case against financier Jeffrey Epstein a decade ago. Trump announced Acosta’s departure to reporters as he left the White House on Friday on a trip to Wisconsin. Acosta joined him on the lawn and Trump praised him for doing a good job as Labor...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta resigned on Friday amid fresh scrutiny of his handling of the sex abuse case against financier Jeffrey Epstein, becoming President Donald Trump’s latest adviser to leave the administration in controversy. Acosta, joining Trump at the White House before the president left for a trip to Wisconsin, said he did not want to be a distraction to the administration’s work because of his leadership of the Epstein case more than a decade...

French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled France's latest nuclear-powered 'Barracuda' class submarine on Friday, a €9 billion stealth vessel programme Paris says is key to maintaining its naval presence for decades to come. "France is a country of the longterm that knows that the biggest successes are those that come over time from experience of proven know-how over the years," Macron said as he unveiled the submarine. Addressing those who worked on the submarines, Macron said: "they are not just submarines that...

(Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected emergency bids to temporarily set aside its recent decision allowing the Trump administration to enforce a “gag rule” that could strip Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers of federal funding for family planning. By a 7-4 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals let stand its June 20 decision lifting injunctions blocking enforcement of the rule, which makes clinics ineligible for Title X family planning funds if they provide...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In four hours of debate among Democratic contenders for the U.S. presidency, the word “deficit” was never uttered and the government’s debt was mentioned only once. The reality is that Democrats are reluctant to make a campaign issue out of one of America’s most vexing problems — the ballooning annual budget deficits and overall debt under President Donald Trump. That’s because some of their most popular policies going into the 2020 election would present...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration said on Tuesday he would veto a $733 billion defense bill being considered by the House of Representatives, saying it provides less money than he wants for the military and disagreeing with some of its policy provisions. The version of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, up for a vote in the Democratic-led House sets $733 billion in military spending, $17 billion less than Trump’s fiscal-year 2020 budget request. The...

The relationship app is 'designed to be deleted' The first openly-LGBTI candidate in the 2020 US presidential race, Pete Buttigieg, has revealed he met his husband Chasten Glezman on dating app Hinge. The mayor of South Bend called the relationship app a ‘very millennial thing’ on CNN’s Van Jones show. Hinge uses Facebook to facilitate connections and prompts users to continue conversations. It takes the slogan ‘designed to be deleted’. ‘I saw this light, something in his eyes’ Buttigieg said of his now-husband....

"I realized that you only get to be one person." Pete Buttigieg sat down with Rachel Maddow for a wide ranging interview, including opening up about how difficult it was to be closeted and what it took for him to come out. Buttigieg came out in 2015, while serving as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a position he still holds today. Maddow noted that she had come out while still in college, becoming the first openly gay American Rhodes Scholar. She...

The religious right is upset that out presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has taken the nation by storm. Evangelical leaders are claiming the small town Indiana mayor isn’t actually a Christian because he is gay. They’re particularly perturbed he’s had the temerity to challenge holier-than-thou Vice President Pence’s conservative brand of evangelical Christianity and President Donald Trump’s lack of “Christian values” despite being embraced by the religious right. Buttigieg has made it a point to mention his faith during his media appearances...

This is up from 43% in 2006 A majority of all American voters said they’re ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘comfortable’ with a gay or lesbian president. According to a new poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, voters’ attitudes have shifted dramatically toward LGBTI politicians in the last decade. They conducted their most recent poll this past February. Among all voters, a majority (68%) expressed being ‘comfortable/enthusiastic’ with a gay or lesbian president. This is up over 20 points, from the last NBC/WSJ...

11-year-old Ella Briggs is the first out “Kid Governor” of Connecticut and she ran on a pro-LGBTQ platform in the election for fifth graders. The award-winning statewide initiative teaches the children civics and the winner is “sworn in” at the Old State House in the capital. Now Briggs has her eyes set on higher office. She says she will be the country’s “first lesbian president.” “I will begin important conversations with students and adults all over this great state. We will...

It was one of his first actions after his inauguration Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, has stayed true to his word and signed executive orders targeting the LGBTI community. The ‘proud homophobe’ used his first day in office to sign the orders. They will affect the LGBTI community, indigenous groups and descendants of slaves. Just hours after his inauguration Bolsonaro removed LGBTI issues from consideration at the new human rights ministry, according to the Associated Press. He did not name another agency...