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The Wall Street Journal says Equifax will pay around $700 million to settle with the Federal Trade Commission over a 2017 data breach that exposed Social Security numbers and other private information of nearly 150 million people. The Journal, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, said the settlement could be announced as soon as Monday. Equifax declined to comment. The report says the deal would resolve investigations by the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and most state attorneys general. It would also resolve a nationwide consumer class-action lawsuit. Spokesmen for the FTC and the CFPB didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment Friday night. The breach was one of the largest affecting people’s private information. Atlanta-based Equifax did not notice the attack for more than six weeks. The compromised data included Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver license numbers and credit card numbers. The company said earlier this year that it had set aside around $700 million to cover anticipated settlements and fines.   …

The United States and Pakistan this month started cracking down against armed militant groups, in what analysts describe as establishing a groundwork ahead of the meeting between the U.S. President Donald Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Washington early next week. Pakistani authorities in Punjab province Wednesday arrested the head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, Hafiz Saeed, who is alleged to have been the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people, including six Americans. Trump, in a tweet following the detention, praised the “great pressure” exerted over the past two years against the cleric. FILE – Hafiz Saeed, head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, second from right, addresses supporters during a protest against U.S. drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal region, in Lahore, Nov. 29, 2013. Some experts say the move by the Pakistani government just days ahead of Khan’s maiden trip to Washington serves as a goodwill gesture to improve relations with the Trump administration, which has accused Pakistan of failing to rein in extremists operating on its soil. Marvin Weinbaum, the director of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Program at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told VOA that Pakistan is hoping its recent moves against armed Islamists …

President Donald Trump renewed his attacks on a Somali-born congresswoman Friday while reversing his previous criticisms of a North Carolina crowd who chanted “send her back,” defending them as “patriots” while again questioning the loyalty of four Democratic lawmakers of color. In a week that has been full of hostile exchanges over race and love of country on both sides, Trump returned to a pattern that has become familiar during controversies of his own making: Ignite a firestorm, backtrack from it, but then double down on his original, inflammatory position.    “You know what I’m unhappy with?” Trump answered when reporters at the White House asked if he was unhappy with the Wednesday night crowd. “Those people in North Carolina, that stadium was packed. It was a record crowd. And I could have filled it 10 times, as you know. Those are incredible people. They are incredible patriots. But I’m unhappy when a congresswoman goes and says, ‘I’m going to be the president’s nightmare.’” FILE – From left, U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez respond to remarks by President Donald Trump, at the Capitol in Washington, July 15, 2019. It was another dizzying twist in …

VOA Connect Episode 79 – We look at great personal and human achievements, and what communities are doing to preserve our planet.   …

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had “sympathized” with Donald Trump before the 2016 presidential election that swept Trump to power because of his desire to restore normal relations with Russia.  In an interview with U.S. filmmaker Oliver Stone dated June 19 and published on the Kremlin website Friday, Putin also said that any alleged Russian hackers were still not able to influence the vote’s outcome.  The Russian president reiterated that he had not and would not interfere in U.S. elections.  The Moscow-Washington ties have long been strained by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement findings, denied by the Kremlin, that Russia tried to influence the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election to boost Trump’s chances of winning the White House.  U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies say Russia used disinformation and other tactics to support Trump’s 2016 campaign. Putin has denied it.  “And whichever our bloggers — I don’t know who works there in the internet — had expressed their point of view on the situation in the USA in this or that way, this had not been able to play a decisive role. This is nonsense,” Putin said.  “But we had sympathized with him [Trump], because he said that he wanted to restore normal relations with Russia. What’s bad in this? And of course, we couldn’t unwelcome …

A 42-year-old man from Brooklyn, New York, is back on U.S. soil, charged with fighting for the Islamic State terror group as a sniper before rising through the ranks to become an emir. Charges against Ruslan Maratovich Asainov were unsealed Friday, a day after U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces handed him over to U.S. law enforcement officials. The U.S. military then flew Asainov to New York, where he appeared before a judge Friday. According to court documents, Asainov, a naturalized citizen who came to the U.S. from Kazakhstan, traveled to Syria in late 2013, where he began fighting with IS as a sniper. Training camps Eventually, he became one of the terror group’s emirs, responsible for establishing training camps for IS recruits and for teaching them how to use weapons. He also began communicating with a confidential informant for the FBI, asking for money while periodically sending the informant photos of himself and other IS fighters in combat gear. “We [IS] are the worst terrorist organization in the world that has ever existed,” he allegedly wrote in one communication, adding he wished to die on the battlefield. In other messages, officials say Asainov talked about fighting in places like Kobani, Deir …

LOS ANGELES — Universal says it will release two new Halloween films, including one with the ominous title Halloween Ends.    The studio said Friday that the first of the films, Halloween Kills, will be released in 2020 and the second film will come in 2021.      A teaser video includes the voice of Jamie Lee Curtis, who starred in the original 1978 film and last year’s blockbuster sequel, Halloween. The video states the saga of Curtis’ character, Laurie Strode, and villain Michael Myers “isn’t over.”    Universal says Halloween Kills will be released on Oct. 16, 2020, and Halloween Ends will arrive Oct. 15, 2021.    Last year’s film set records and earned $253.5 million worldwide.    Curtis is also serving as a producer on the films, which are being overseen by Blumhouse Productions.  …

The U.S. government on Friday expanded its policy requiring asylum-seekers to wait outside the country to one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities, where thousands of people are already camped, some for several months. The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that it would implement its Migrant Protection Protocols in Brownsville, Texas, across the border from Matamoros, Mexico. DHS says it anticipates the first asylum-seekers will be sent back to Mexico starting Friday. Under the so-called Remain in Mexico policy, asylum-seekers are briefly processed and given a date to return for an immigration court hearing before being sent back across the southern border. Since January, the policy has been implemented at several border cities including San Diego and El Paso, Texas. The U.S. is trying to curtail the large flow of Central American migrants passing through Mexico to seek asylum under American law. The Trump administration has pressured Mexico to crack down on migrants, threatening earlier this year to impose crippling tariffs until both sides agreed on new measures targeting migration. Matamoros  Matamoros is at the eastern edge of the U.S.-Mexico border in Tamaulipas state, where organized crime gangs are dominant and the U.S. government warns citizens not to visit due …

First lady Melania Trump says her husband’s administration is working with the State Department to try to bring rapper A$AP Rocky home. The president also tells reporters that many members of the African American community have asked him to intervene. The platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated artist has been behind bars in Sweden while police investigate a fight he was involved in in Stockholm earlier this month. Kim Kardashian West, Diddy, Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes and Nicki Minaj are some of the celebrities who have shown public support for the Grammy-nominated Rocky. Kardashian West thanked Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on Twitter Thursday evening for their “efforts to Free ASAP Rocky & his two friends.” She says their “commitment to justice reform is so appreciated.” …

A group of international astrophysicists and astronomers are speaking out against what they call the “criminalization” of Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) and their allies protesting the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on the summit Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s “big island.” In an Demonstrators gather to block a road at the base of Hawaii’s tallest mountain, Monday, July 15, 2019, in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to protest the construction of a giant telescope on land that some Native Hawaiians consider sacred.   Protesters insist they won’t back down and are calling on Hawaii Governor David Ige to rescind an  emergency proclamation he issued Wednesday that broadens the state’s power to restrict access to Maunakea and clear the way for construction crews. The proclamation followed the arrest of a group of more than 30 activists who refused to move from the site Wednesday. ‘Reserved for the gods’ In February, Lanakila Mangauil, activist and director of the FILE – Observatories and telescopes sit atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s tallest mountain and designated construction site for a new $1.4 billion telescope, near Hilo, Hawaii, Aug. 31, 2015. ‘Probing time and space’ The University of California and the California Institute of Technology in 2003 began …

The United Nations says Zimbabwe’s food situation is moving from a crisis to an emergency. It says a majority of the population is food insecure because of El Nino-induced drought and the ongoing economic meltdown. Columbus Mavhunga has the story from a poor township just outside the capital, Harare. …

Spain’s center-left Socialist party and the United We Can party edged closer to a deal on forming a coalition government after the far-left party’s leader removed a key obstacle by saying Friday he would not insist on being part of a future Cabinet. Isabel Celaa, the spokeswoman for the Socialist caretaker government, said acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was ready to create a coalition with the United We Can party, so long as its leader, Pablo Iglesias, was not part of it. Sanchez said Thursday he has deep differences of opinion with Iglesias on such issues as the Catalonia region’s demands for independence, which the Socialists oppose. Nevertheless, Celaa said Friday that “the offer of a coalition government is on the table” for United We Can to consider before parliament next week holds confidence votes on the Socialist party’s bid to take office. Iglesias signaled he was thinking of taking the offer. “I won’t be the Socialists’ excuse for there not to be a coalition of parties on the left,” he said in a tweet hours after Celaa spoke. However, he said he wants his party’s Cabinet seats to be proportional to the number of parliamentary seats it captured in …

Turkey launched airstrikes against Kurdish rebel targets in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, after the killing of a Turkish diplomat there, state-run media quoted Turkey’s defense minister as saying on Friday. Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Turkish jets on Thursday hit the Qandil mountains region in northern Iraq, where the leadership of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, is reported to be based. A Defense Ministry statement said airstrikes were also conducted Friday against alleged PKK targets in Iraq’s Karajak region. Akar said the offensive was launched after an employee of the Turkish Consulate in the city of Irbil was killed along with an Iraqi national in a gun attack at a Turkish-owned restaurant in the city on Wednesday. The diplomat has been identified as Osman Kose. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting although suspicion fell on Kurdish militants.   In Irbil, a statement issued by security forces said the lead suspect in the investigation was a 27-year-old who hails from Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir. The statement did not give further details, but said the suspect was already wanted by security agencies in Iraq’s Kurdish region.   Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency claimed that two …

Joe Biden was at a soul food restaurant in Los Angeles on Thursday when he blasted President Donald Trump’s “racist” taunts at a rally the night before. “This is about dividing the country,” the early Democratic front-runner, who has been criticized for his own handling of race , told reporters. “This is about dividing and raising the issue of racism across the country because that’s his base, that’s what he’s pushing.” Full Coverage: Election 2020 But Michael Fisher, an African American pastor from Compton who attended the event, warned Democrats to ignore Trump. “They should absolutely not respond to ignorance,” Fischer said. “They should stay focused on the issues.” That tension previews the uncomfortable balancing act Democrats will face in the nearly 16 months before Election Day. Trump’s escalating exploitation of racism puts the rawest divide in American life squarely on the ballot in 2020. Democrats are united in condemning his words and actions, but the question of how to counter them is much more complicated. The party’s passionate left wing is pressing for an all-in battle, arguing that candidates’ plans to combat racism are just as important as their proposals to provide health insurance to every American. But others …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Argentina where he is expected to rally support from Latin American leaders in the U.S. fight against Middle East militant groups. The top U.S. diplomat will deliver remarks Friday at the second Western Hemisphere Counterterrorism Ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires, where the challenges of terrorism in the hemisphere will be addressed. On Monday, Argentina’s Security Ministry officially designated the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group, which is supported by Iran, as a terrorist organization. The designation gives the U.S. another ally in its effort to develop a global coalition to contain Iran’s influence in the Middle East and beyond. Pompeo’s visit to Argentina coincides with the 25th anniversary of the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. The Argentine government has said Hezbollah was responsible for the attack. The secretary of state left Thursday to meet face-to-face with Latin American leaders  amid difficult negotiations with Mexico and Central American countries over how to best stem the flow of migrants to the southern U.S. border. Central American migrants prepare to board a bus as they voluntarily return to their countries, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, July 2, 2019. Migration root …

Facebook says it plans to appeal German authorities’ decision to fine it 2 million euros ($2.3 million) under a law designed to combat hate speech. The Federal Office for Justice said July 2 Facebook failed to meet transparency requirements for handling hate speech complaints, and contended the company’s report for the first half of 2018 didn’t reflect the actual number of complaints about suspected illegal content. Facebook disputes that and says the legislation lacks clarity.   A Facebook statement Friday stressed its desire to comply fully with the German law and said the fine notice provided “some helpful new guidance.” It said it would appeal the decision “to get the clarity we need” but intends to drop the appeal and make necessary changes once it resolves the issue with German authorities.   …

A strong earthquake hit Friday near the Greek capital of Athens, causing residents to run into the streets in fear and firefighters to check for people trapped in elevators. The Athens Institute of Geodynamics gave the earthquake a preliminary magnitude of 5.1 but the U.S. Geological Survey tagged it as a magnitude of 5.3.  The Athens Institute says the quake struck at 2:13 p.m. local time (1113 GMT) some 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) north of Athens. Authorities inspected areas close to the epicenter by helicopter and police patrols but no deaths or serious injuries were reported. Government spokesman Stelios Petsas said one abandoned building had collapsed in a western district of Athens and that several other abandoned buildings had suffered serious damages in other parts of the city. ”There are no reports of serious injuries … I urge members of the public to remains calm, in Greece we are well acquainted with earthquakes,” he said. The quake caused limited power cuts and communication problems around Athens and the fire brigade reported receiving calls about people being trapped in elevators. The shock was caught live in the studios of state broadcaster ERT. The most powerful quake to hit the Greek capital …

Rain-swollen rivers in Bangladesh broke through at least four embankments, submerging dozens of villages and doubling the number of people fleeing their homes overnight to 400,000 in one of the worst floods in recent years, officials said Friday. Heavy rains and overflowing rivers have swamped 23 districts in northern and northwestern Bangladesh, officials said. At least 30 people have been killed since the floods began last week. “The government has opened more than 1,000 temporary shelters but due to deep waters and lack of communications, many people aren’t able to reach them,” Raihana Islam, an official in the flood-afflicted district of Bogra, told Reuters. Islam said scores of people had instead camped on embankments, railway lines and highways, where traffic has come to a standstill. Aside from concern over crops, authorities are also worried that rising flood waters could take a toll on livestock. Flooding severe South Asia receives monsoon rains between June and October that often lead to floods later in the season, but the intensity of the deluge in Bangladesh is uncommon. “The severity of the flood of this year is worse compared to recent years,” Ariful Islam, an executive engineer of Bangladesh Water Development Board, said. The …

Japan’s foreign minister Friday summoned South Korea’s ambassador and accused Seoul of violating international law by refusing to join in an arbitration panel to settle a dispute over World War II forced labor. South Korea had until midnight Thursday to respond to Japan’s request for a three-nation panel.  The neighboring countries are quarreling over South Korean court decisions ordering Japanese companies to compensate victims of forced labor during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. Foreign Minister Taro Kono said after summoning Ambassador Nam Gwan-pyo that Japan will “take necessary measures” against South Korea if interests of Japanese companies are harmed, without giving details. Their talks were held in an icy atmosphere, briefly turning confrontational. “It is extremely problematic that South Korea is one-sidedly leaving alone the situation that violates the international law, which is the foundation of our bilateral relationship,” Kono told Nam. “The action being taken by the South Korean government is something that completely overturns the order of the international community since the end of the World War II.” Protesters stage a rally denouncing the Japanese government’s decision on their exports to South Korea in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July …

About 60 percent of the world’s coral reefs are under stress from rising temperatures, according to the nonprofit group Reef Resilience Network. And new research shows just how devastating two heat waves were to coral in the Indian Ocean. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

South African musician Johnny Clegg, who was one of the loudest voices in pop during the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, has died at age 66 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.  The “White Zulu” — so named for his use of indigenous South African music and dance — is being widely mourned in South Africa. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Johannesburg.   …

An area in northwestern Pakistan known for militant activities and the Taliban’s presence holds a special election Saturday. The vote is part of an effort that began last year to merge the former lawless tribal belt into a neighboring province. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem reports on how the change is impacting the region.   …

As Libya’s two rival governments fight for control of the capital, Tripoli, airstrikes and artillery fire continue to batter the city. Nearly 1,100 people have died and more than 100,000 have been displaced by the war. As VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Tripoli, officials say if the fighting does not slow down, the country is headed toward “disaster.”   …

The governor of Puerto Rico is not backing down despite massive street protests in the capital, San Juan, demanding his resignation. Thousands of people have taken to the streets after Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of leaked text messages in which Gov. Ricardo Rossello used homophobic and misogynistic language.  VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the governor said in a statement Thursday that his commitment to Puerto Rico is stronger than ever. …