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Former Detainees Say Immigration Jails Profit off Their Labor

Every day, immigrants are told to clean their living areas in a privately run Colorado detention center or risk being put in solitary confinement. Some also volunteer to do jobs as varied as landscaping, more cleaning and cutting other inmates’ hair, but the pay is always the same: $1 a day. A group of former detainees says the system borders on modern-day slavery. They are challenging it in federal court and have won the right to sue the Denver-area detention center’s...

US Senate Unveils Health Care Bill

Republican U.S. senators have finally unveiled their version of a health care bill aimed at repealing the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement. After weeks of secret meetings, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell initially released the proposal Thursday only to Republican Senators before publishing the 142 page measure online. "We have to act," McConnell said on the Senate floor, and added "Obamacare is a direct...

Trump: No Tapes of Conversations with Former FBI Director He Fired

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he did not record his conversations with James Comey, the former chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Trump. The president fired Comey after he said the president urged him to curb the agency's investigation of Russian meddling in last year's election, which Trump denies. Trump's comment ended weeks of uncertainty about whether he had taped two private White House conversations he had with Comey. One was a private White...

Pentagon: Islamic State Problem ‘Not Getting Better’ in Afghanistan

The United States military has spilled its blood, spent immense amounts of cash and even dropped a munition called the “Mother of All Bombs” in an effort to root out Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan. But despite these efforts, the Islamic State-Khorasan problem in Afghanistan is “not getting better,” Chief Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White told VOA Wednesday in her first sit-down, on-camera interview since joining the Pentagon team. “It’s not getting better in Afghanistan in...

Tropical Storm Brings Rough Weather, 1 Death to Gulf Coast

Gulf Coast states were in for a third day of rough weather Thursday with Tropical Storm Cindy, blamed for one death in Alabama, expected to keep churning seas and spin off bands of severe weather from east Texas to northwestern Florida. The storm made landfall early Thursday in southwestern Louisiana with maximum sustained winds near 40 mph. A boy on an Alabama beach was struck and killed Wednesday by a log washed ashore by the storm. Baldwin County Sheriff’s Capt. Stephen...

US Interrogates Detainees in Yemen Prisons Rife With Torture

Hundreds of men swept up in the hunt for al-Qaida militants have disappeared into a secret network of prisons in southern Yemen where abuse is routine and torture extreme - including the “grill,'' in which the victim is tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire, an Associated Press investigation has found. Senior American defense officials acknowledged Wednesday that U.S. forces have been involved in interrogations of detainees in Yemen but denied any participation...

New Census Data Show US Becoming More Diverse

All races and ethnic groups grew in the U.S. over the last year, but the Asian and Hispanic populations continued to be the fastest-growing, according to the annual count released Thursday by the Census Bureau. The census reports that across all races and ethnic groups, the non-Hispanic white population grew the slowest. "The non-Hispanic white alone group grew less than one-hundredth of one percent and only gained about 5,000 people,” Lauren Medina, a census...