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In Wake of Iowa Turmoil, Pa. Preps Millions of Voters for New Machines
After the country watched the Iowa Caucuses devolve into chaos Monday at the official start of the presidential primary campaign, the pressure has grown for election officials across Pennsylvania to maintain confidence in elections.
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Coronavirus Concern Triggers New Guidance for Travelers
The U.S. Department of State has issued new guidance for travelers due to concerns about an outbreak of a pneumonia-like virus in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and U.S. health officials are recommending that people avoid all nonessential travel to the city. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a Level 3 travel warning (“avoid nonessential...
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Trump Policy Puts Migrants in Danger in Mexico, Advocates Say
Constance Wannamaker wanted to scream and cry at the same time. The Texas immigration attorney had just heard what should have been great news: Her client, a 21-year-old Guatemalan woman, was getting released from the El Paso Processing Center after weeks in detention. But that’s just a sliver of the story.
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As K-9 Deaths Climb Overseas, State Department Halts Sending New Bomb-Sniffing Dogs
Many K-9s deployed overseas as part of a State Department program intended to help partner countries detect and prevent terror attacks suffer or die from neglect by their foreign handlers, according to a report from the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General.
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Trump Administration Quietly Releases Lebanon Military Aid
The Trump administration has quietly released more than $100 million in military assistance to Lebanon after months of unexplained delay that led some lawmakers to compare it to the aid for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry. The $105 million in Foreign Military Financing funds for the Lebanese Armed Forces was released just before the Thanksgiving holiday and...
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How Did Mina Chang Get a State Department Job in the First Place?
Mina Chang figured out how to work the levers in Dallas and in the nation’s capital, making connections with key figures and cultivating an online image, until her overblown credentials and claims crumbled under scrutiny. Chang resigned last week from a senior State Department post after an NBC News investigation revealed she made misleading claims about her charity work and...
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Philadelphia's Voting Machines Challenged in Federal Court
A federal court was asked Tuesday to force Pennsylvania to rescind its certification of a voting machine newly purchased by Philadelphia and at least two other counties in the state ahead of 2020’s presidential election.
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US Criticizes China for Abuses Against Minorities Revealed by Leaked Cables
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that a cache of leaked documents proves that Chinese authorities are engaged in massive and systemic repression of Muslims and other minorities in western China, as a number of foreign governments expressed serious concern about the scale of the campaign. Pompeo said the documents underscored “an overwhelming and growing body of evidence” that...
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US Citizen Jailed in Lebanon as Country Deals With Crisis
In September, Amer Fakhoury closed his New Hampshire restaurant to take his first vacation in years to visit family in his native Lebanon — a country he hadn’t been to for nearly two decades. He hasn’t returned to the United States. Soon after his arrival in Lebanon, the 57-year-old American citizen was detained by authorities and remains jailed there. Doctors...
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New Documents Show Contacts Between Giuliani and Pompeo
Newly released documents show Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was in contact with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the months before the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was abruptly recalled. The State Department released the documents Friday to the group American Oversight in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. They show that Pompeo talked with Giuliani on...
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Mystery Grows Over Trump Administration Hold on Lebanon Aid
The Trump administration is withholding more than $100 million in U.S. military assistance to Lebanon that has been approved by Congress and is favored by his national security team, an assertion of executive control of foreign aid that is similar to the delay in support for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on...
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Risk Audit Underway to Validate Philadelphia's Nov. 5 Election Results
A “risk-limiting audit” of Philadelphia’s Nov. 5 general election is being conducted by state and local election officials Thursday that will determine if the results are valid.
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Key Moments From Impeachment Hearings With Gordon Sondland, Laura Cooper
Here are the key moments from Wednesday’s public impeachment hearings, which included testimony from Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union; Laura Cooper, assistant deputy secretary of defense; and David Hale, undersecretary of state for political affairs.
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WATCH: David Hale's Opening Statement From Impeachment Hearing
David Hale, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, makes his opening statement during an afternoon impeachment hearing on Nov. 20, 2019.
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Ukraine Asked About Aid on Day of Trump Call: Official
In a blow to GOP defenses of President Donald Trump, a Defense Department official said Wednesday the Ukrainian government asked “what was going on” with U.S. military aid as early as July 25 — the very day that Trump asked Ukraine’s president to investigate Democrats. Testifying in an evening hearing, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper told lawmakers her...
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Cooper Sheds New Light on Ukrainian Assistance Timeline
Assistant Deputy Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper testified on Wednesday and revealed a new timeline for when Ukrainian officials began to inquire about previously allocated military aid being withheld.
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Diplomat Says of Trump Ukraine Call: ‘I Remember It Vividly'
The phone call State Department official David Holmes overheard between President Donald Trump and Ambassador Gordon Sondland lasted just two minutes. But it won’t be easily forgotten. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Holmes told Trump impeachment investigators, “someone calling the President from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful...
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US Angers Palestinians With Reversal on Israeli Settlements
The Trump administration on Monday said it no longer considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be a violation of international law, reversing four decades of American policy and further undermining the Palestinians’ effort to gain statehood. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. is repudiating the 1978 State Department legal opinion that held that civilian settlements...
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Senior Trump Administration Official Mina Chang Resigns After NBC News Report
Senior Trump administration official Mina Chang resigned from her job at the State Department two and a half hours after NBC News went to her spokesperson to ask about newly discovered false claims she had made about her charity work. NBC News had previously reported that Chang, the deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stability...
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US Draws Fewer New Foreign Students for 3rd Straight Year
The number of foreign students coming to U.S. colleges and universities continued to fall last year, according to a new report, but the Trump administration says the drop should be blamed on high tuition costs and not students’ concerns over the nation’s political atmosphere. An annual report from the Institute of International Education found that the number of newly enrolled...