Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc will testify next week before a U.S. Senate panel on efforts by social media firms to remove violent content from online platforms, the panel said in a statement on Wednesday. The Sept. 18 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee follows growing concern in Congress about the use of social media by people committing mass shootings and other violent acts. Last week, the owner of 8chan, an online message board linked to several recent mass shootings, gave a deposition on Capitol Hill. The hearing “will examine the proliferation of extremism online and explore the effectiveness of industry efforts to remove violent content from online platforms. Witnesses will discuss how technology companies are working with law enforcement when violent or threatening content is identified and the processes for removal of such content,” the committee said. Facebook’s head of global policy management Monika Bickert, Twitter public policy director Nick Pickles and Google’s global director of information policy Derek Slater are due to testify. Facebook and Google both confirmed they will participate but declined to comment further. Twitter did not immediately comment. In May, Facebook said it would temporarily block users who break its rules from …

Growing inequality and climate change will not only derail progress toward global sustainability goals but also will threaten human existence, leading scientists said Wednesday at the United Nations.  The world is falling off track on ambitious global development goals adopted by U.N. members, a panel of scientists said in an independent assessment report released at U.N. headquarters.  Member nations unanimously adopted 17 sustainable development goals known as SDGs in 2015, setting out a wide-ranging “to-do” list tackling conflict, hunger, land degradation, gender equality and climate change by 2030.  The bleak assessment report was released ahead of a  sustainable-goals summit scheduled at the United Nations this month.  “Overall, the picture is a sobering one,” said Shantanu Mukherjee, policy chief at the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. “One element of this is increasing inequality. … Another is the pace at which nature is being degraded by human activity, whether it is climate change or biodiversity loss.”  The independent panel of scientists investigated the ways  and systems in which humans and the environment are linked and  interact, said Peter Messerli of the University of Bern,  Switzerland, the co-chair of the group of scientists.  “These systems are on a very worrying trajectory,  threatening the very existence of humanity,” he told reporters.  “We have not realized the urgency to act now.”  ‘This …

President repeats false claim that he spent time at ground zero alongside first responders …

A family of animal lovers is looking after 12 abandoned raccoons in a rural area of the Rostov region in southern Russia. These wild animals lost their hunting and survival skills when they were raised as pets by owners who could no longer keep them. VOA’s Jim Randle narrates our report. …

European Central Bank head Mario Draghi is likely preparing a new shot of stimulus to prop up economic growth and inflation, though doubts are growing about whether central banks like the ECB and the U.S. Federal Reserve can save the global economy by themselves. The ECB is likely to cut a key interest rate further below zero on Thursday and could take additional steps including launching bond purchases to pump newly created money into the economy, analysts say.   Some ECB officials have questioned how much good another large blast of stimulus will do. Uncertainty about how far the bank will go at Draghi’s next-to-last meeting sets up a dramatic finale to his eight-year term as head of the monetary authority for the 19 countries that use the euro. FILE – The European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, in Frankfurt, Germany, Sept. 6, 2012. Draghi gave clear hints in a speech in June and after the bank’s last meeting July 25 that more action was on the way to counter a slowdown in economic growth blamed in large part on the U.S.-China trade dispute, which has unsettled companies worldwide.   Analysts think the ECB will cut the rate on deposits …

An Egyptian court Wednesday sentenced 11 Muslim Brotherhood leaders to life in prison on espionage charges for allegedly passing state secrets to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.   Among those sentenced in Cairo criminal court was the outlawed Brotherhood’s chief, Mohamed Badie. It was the latest of several sentences against Badie, who received a life sentence last week on charges related to mass prison breaks during the 2011 uprising that brought down the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak..   The court formally dropped charges against the late former president, Mohamed Morsi, who collapsed and died in June during an earlier court session on the case. His death brought criticism from local and international rights groups who accused the government of deliberately denying medical care to political prisoners.   Morsi, a senior Brotherhood figure, became Egypt’s first freely-elected president in 2012. The military, led by then defense minister Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, toppled Morsi in 2013 amid massive protests against his brief, one-year rule.   Authorities have since branded the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and arrested thousands of its members.   Wednesday’s court session also saw three others sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on the same national security charges. Two …

After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush encouraged a reeling nation to light candles in honor of the victims. Elaine Greene and two friends joined the hordes in a candlelight vigil, but not before she stopped to grab an old flag that was behind her Maine home’s front door. With tears in her eyes, she raised the flag tentatively. Motorists honked their approval. The simple act has played out weekly ever since, through snow and ice, sickness and health, over 18 years. And it’s playing out for a final time Wednesday. Dubbed the “Freeport flag ladies,” the trio is reluctantly giving in to age and ending the Main Street tradition. Greene is the youngest at 74 and battles Crohn’s disease. Carmen Footer, 77, recently recovered from open heart surgery. JoAnn Miller, 83, has foot problems. “It was up to me to call it, and I called it,” Greene said. Greene described their calling as a mission of love, gratitude and patriotism, and it went far beyond waving their flags on a street corner near L.L. Bean. They mailed care packages to military personnel deployed overseas in the war on terrorism. They greeted military personnel at …

Thirty new students are from Arizona, and nearly 100 moved from California. But the small town of Prosper, Texas, is expecting more growth _ a lot more _ so it built a $53 million high school football stadium outside Dallas, just two years after finally getting a Walmart. The scoreboard is 63 feet (19 meters) tall, the biggest at any Texas high school, and on a Saturday night it blared Aerosmith’s “Dream On” as band mom Lisa DeMarco settled into one of the 12,000 seats. She’s heard “a few liberals” have moved in but doesn’t know any. “It’s a red state. I love the Second Amendment part of it, and I don’t like the fact there’s a lot of people talking blue,” said DeMarco, herself a newcomer from Georgia. By holding Thursday’s presidential debate in Houston, Democrats are out to show the rest of the country they can finally win again in Texas, propelled by fast-changing suburbs like Prosper that are beginning to trend more liberal after decades of Republican dominance. But for Democrats, the transformation may not come by 2020. For years in Texas, Democrats have counted on shifting demographics, especially a soaring Hispanic population and more left-leaning voters …

Eighteen years ago, more than TV viewers said the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack was the all-time most memorable moment shared by television viewers during the past 50 years, according to a 2012 study. Cohen Silver, who studies the impact of collective trauma, says some individuals with no direct connection to the 9/11 attacks exhibited symptoms that experts had previously assumed were the result of direct exposure to trauma. “Individuals who watched a great deal of television in the first week after 9/11 were more likely to exhibit post-traumatic stress symptomatology and physical health ailments years later,” she says. Those symptoms often included anxiety and fear, as well as the onset of physical health ailments such as cardiovascular issues.  “We learned from 9/11 that large-scale events could impact people beyond the directly affected communities, that the events that occurred in New York could impact people in Kansas,” Cohen Silver says. “The second message we’ve learned from 9/11 was the important role of the media in transmitting that awareness and that potential anxiety.” Students and others watch live television coverage of the 9/11 attacks on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, Sept. 11, 2001. In the 18 years since 9/11, the …

For the past 18 years, there is one question that has rarely strayed for long from the minds of a majority of people living in the United States: Are we safe? It is a question that was etched into the American psyche following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists flew two planes into New York’s World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon, while a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. “I looked out the window and I could see a mountain of concrete and steel just falling past the window, almost like in slow motion, like a curtain going down at a theater,” said Frank Razzano, who witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center’s South Tower from his New York hotel room. “I ran to the opposite side of the room and pressed myself against the wall and thought that those were the last few minutes that I was going to have on Earth,” he told VOA in 2013. Since that day, the need to keep the U.S. safe from attack has been a constant for Americans, no matter their personal politics. Top priority: protection from terrorism According to a Pew Research Center survey, from …

VOA’s Russian service and VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. WHITE HOUSE — An Iranian government spokesman says the departure of National Security Adviser John Bolton could allow U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to deal with Iran in a “less biased manner.” Ali Rabiei said Wednesday that Bolton was a “symbol of America’s hawkish policies” and animosity toward Iran. Officials, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, had repeatedly pointed to Bolton as a figure opposed to dialogue in resolving U.S.-Iran tensions. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that Trump’s firing of Bolton will not change the president’s foreign policy. “I don’t think any leader around the world should make any assumption that because one of us departs that President Trump’s foreign policy will change in a material way,” Pompeo said less than two hours after Trump announced on Twitter that he had ousted Bolton. Pompeo appeared on the White House podium along with U.S. Treasury Steven Mnuchin to discuss an executive order strengthening sanctions to combat terrorism. Trump Fires His National Security Adviser video player. FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump, left, conducts a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in …

A Scottish court ruled Wednesday that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s move to suspend parliament was unlawful. The judges did not order the suspension overturned, but rather said the matter needs to be decided by Britain’s Supreme Court. The government objected to the court’s ruling and said it would file an appeal. A five-week suspension of parliament went into effect Tuesday. Opposition lawmakers have strongly objected to what they have called a “coup” by Johnson as Britain faces an October 31 deadline to leave the European Union. Johnson has pledged to carry out Brexit with or without a deal defining the terms of the split, and said that when the suspension of parliament is over there would be enough time for lawmakers to approve any new divorce agreement he is able to reach with the European Union. Members of parliament passed legislation last week seeking to force Johnson to ask EU leaders for an extension if no agreement is reached in hopes of averting what they see as disastrous effects of a so-called no-deal Brexit. Britain on Election Footing as Crisis Pits Parliament v Prime Minister video player. Embed

China announced Wednesday it will exempt American industrial grease and some other imports from tariff hikes in a trade war with Washington but kept in place higher duties on soybeans and other major U.S. exports ahead of negotiations next month. The move adds to suggestions both governments might be settling in for extended conflict by fine-tuning import controls and trying to find alternative export markets and suppliers. Sixteen products including lubricants, fish meal for animal feed and some chemicals will be exempt from penalties of up to 25% imposed in response to President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes on Chinese imports, the Ministry of Finance said. Punitive duties on soybeans, the biggest U.S. export to China, and thousands of other imports were left unchanged. Trade talks in Washington Negotiators are preparing for talks in Washington aimed at ending the tariff war over trade and technology that threatens global economic growth. The plan for talks has helped to calm jittery financial markets, but economists warn there has been no sign of progress and neither government has offered concessions aimed at breaking a deadlock. Imports on Wednesday’s list are raw materials for farming or manufacturing, suggesting Chinese leaders want to limit damage to …

Britain’s parliament has been officially suspended, just weeks before the country is to crash out of the European Union. Opposition lawmakers have branded the move a coup by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and have vowed to take him to court if he refuses to request a Brexit extension from the European Union. Britain is to leave the bloc Oct. 31, but as Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the crisis has pitted parliament against the government and it is impossible to predict who will win.   …

Britain is getting set for a general election likely to be held in November, as the political crisis over the country’s exit from the European Union deepens. The British parliament was officially suspended or “prorogued” in the early hours of Tuesday, just weeks before the country is due to crash out of the European Union. Opposition lawmakers have branded the move a coup by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and have vowed to take him to court if he refuses to request a Brexit extension from the European Union. Britain is scheduled to leave the bloc Oct. 31, although legislation passed last week by opposition MPs seeks to force the prime minister to ask Brussels for an extension to the Brexit process if no exit deal can be reached. Britain on Election Footing as Crisis Pits Parliament v Prime Minister video player. A piece of paper with the word “silenced” sits on the British Parliament speaker’s chair at the House of Commons, in protest of the House’s suspension, in London, Sept. 10, 2019. Parliament suspended For now Parliament has been silenced, much to the indignation of opposition lawmakers. At 2 a.m. Tuesday several MPs interrupted the suspension ceremony by trying to …

Renée Zellweger said she felt a “sense of responsibility” to portray the late singer Judy Garland as authentically as possible in the movie “Judy,” which was shown at the Toronto Film Festival on Tuesday to a standing ovation. The film depicts the last six months of Garland’s life, arriving in London in 1968 as part of a sold-out concert tour meant to refurbish her financial state. Amidst a rocky custody battle with her fourth husband and accompanied on the tour by her fifth and final husband, Micky Dean, played by Finn Wittrock, Garland struggles with depression, anxiety and addiction. Zellweger called her portrayal of Garland a “continued sort of exploration” between the famous actress and singer’s public persona and her private experiences. “There are many parameters that are non-negotiable that have been said on the public record and through Judy’s own words and things. So you kind of feel a sense of responsibility to represent that as authentically as possible,” Zellweger said. “And then the rest was pretty difficult to know because we’re talking about very private moments that haven’t been shared and it’s sort of an interpretation of what the experiences of the person who was living under those …

The Washington Post reports that U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a crackdown on homelessness in California. In a report Tuesday, the newspaper quotes four unnamed administration officials who said the president wants the administration to get involved in getting homeless people off the streets of cities with growing homeless populations. Officials say the focus has been on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has insight into the so-called “homeless capital of the United States.” …

Artists are bringing their artwork into a new dimension using augmented reality. Deana Mitchell gets in on the action   …

Pope Francis said on Tuesday he prayed that dissent from American Catholic conservatives would not lead to a schism in the Church and that he was willing to listen to critics and make corrections if necessary. But in frank comments to reporters aboard the plane returning to Rome from a trip to Africa, he said he was not afraid of a schism. Some of his critics had allowed political ideology to infiltrate religious doctrine, he said. It was the first time Francis has spoken so openly about the possibility of a schism in the 1.3 billion worldwide Roman Catholic Church, albeit in answer to a question. Francis also implied that some of his critics were hypocrites for accusing him of being “a communist pope” even though he was saying the same things about social issues that had been said by the late Pope John Paul, who many conservatives consider an icon. Francis has been the butt of criticism from a small but powerful number of American conservatives unhappy with his stands on various theological issues as well as social matters from immigration to climate change. An American reporter asked him about the attacks from conservative clerics, Catholic television stations and …

As climate change brings more frequent and extreme heat waves around the world, demand for air conditioners is soaring, with 10 new units sold every second on average, but the poor may be left to swelter, said a University of Oxford researcher. By 2050, energy use for cooling is projected to triple, while in hot countries like India, China, Brazil and Indonesia, it is expected to grow five-fold, the World Bank has said. “By the end of the century, global energy demand for cooling will be more than it is for heating,” said Radhika Khosla, who leads an Oxford Martin School program on future cooling. But not everyone will be able to afford to beat the heat. “Traditionally, energy poverty has been defined as people not having heating. Now that is potentially going to shift, and we could have cooling poverty,” Khosla warned on the sidelines of a conference on efforts to slash planet-warming emissions. Health risks of heat waves Rising heat is having a huge impact on health — deaths and hospital admissions jump in heat waves — but also on productivity as workers struggle to cope, climate scientists say. A 2018 report from Sustainable Energy for All, a …

The wage gap between men and women in the United States failed to budge in 2018, government data showed Tuesday, sparking calls for action to end pay discrimination. Women working full-time year-round earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men last year, the U.S. Census Bureau said, meaning the size of the gender pay gap was unchanged statistically from a year earlier. “That’s an annual wage gap that adds up to more than $10,000 a year, which is really substantial,” said Jessica Mason, senior policy analyst at the National Partnership for Women & Families, a Washington-based public policy advocacy group. “We’ve seen that number really fail to improve very significantly in the past several years, which is very discouraging,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. A gender wage gap exists worldwide. Globally, the World Economic Forum reported on average women earned 63% of what men earned in 2018. Explanations range from discrimination and bias to women who leave the paid workforce to care for families, then lag on the wage scale when they return. The U.S. gap has shrunk since 2007, when women earned 78 cents for every dollar that men were paid, said Trudi Renwick, an assistant division …

The Republican leader of the U.S. Senate repeated Tuesday that he would not commit to bringing gun control legislation up for consideration until the White House comes forward with its own proposal. “Let’s see if we can actually make a law here,” Senator Mitch McConnell told reporters. “To make a law, you have to have a presidential signature. “They are working on coming up with a proposal that the president will sign,” he added. “Until that happens, all of this is theatrics.” Democrats are pressuring McConnell to bring up legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last February that would toughen gun sale background checks by including sales made over the internet and at gun shows. The White House threatened to veto that bill, saying it would impose “burdensome” requirements on some firearm sales. Since then, however, President Donald Trump has given mixed messages on whether he might support legislation expanding background checks. McConnell, who as majority leader decides what legislation comes to the Senate floor for consideration, did not directly respond to a reporter’s question on whether he personally supports expanded background checks.   …

Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire are vowing to hold a caucus and primary next year, even as party leaders in a handful of other states have canceled their contests to help smooth President Donald Trump’s path to reelection. “Under no circumstances will the New Hampshire primary ever be canceled, whether there’s token opposition or a serious contest,” Steve Duprey, New Hampshire’s national Republican committeeman, said in an interview. “It was never even up for discussion,” echoed Iowa GOP National Committeeman Steve Scheffler in a separate interview. “We’re not going to shut the door on anyone and say, ‘You’re not welcome.’” FILE – Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, center, walks to the grand concourse during a visit to the Iowa State Fair, in Des Moines, Iowa, Aug. 11, 2019. At least three Republicans have stepped up to challenge Trump’s claim to his party’s 2020 presidential nomination: former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, former South Carolina Gov. and U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, and former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh. None of them is expected to generate enough support to defeat — or even embarrass — the incumbent president in the months leading up to the November 2020 general election. …

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met business tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky on Tuesday, the president’s office said, the first reported meeting since Zelenskiy’s inauguration in May between the two men who had long-standing business ties. The president’s relationship with Kolomoisky, one of the richest businessman in Ukraine, has been under heavy scrutiny since the start of Zelenskiy’s election campaign, amid fears that the tycoon may be wielding influence behind the scenes. Both men deny such suggestions. The president’s office said in a brief statement that Zelenskiy and Kolomoisky had met to discuss the business climate and the energy sector in Ukraine. It gave no further details. FILE – A client walks out as others arrive at the office of the PrivatBank in the center of Kyiv, Dec. 19, 2016. Zelenskiy, a former comedian with no prior political experience, won the presidential election in April by a landslide on promises to fight corruption and transform Ukrainian politics. Kolomoisky has been embroiled in a long-running legal battle over control of PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest lender, which he used to own before it was nationalized in late 2016. Zelenskiy has repeatedly denied suggestions that he would help Kolomoisky win back control of PrivatBank or receive compensation. …