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This is VOA news. I'm David Byrd.
President Donald Trump is downplaying Wednesday night's historic House vote to impeach him. We get more from AP correspondent Sagar Meghani at the White House. Asked how it feels to be just the third president impeached in the House, "It doesn't feel like impeachment." But it did happen. "... and the president has been held accountable." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she and many others have a spring in their step. The president says they shouldn't. "It's a phony deal." He spoke amid uncertainty about the next step. The Senate needs Pelosi to formally send the impeachment articles for trial to start. But she first wants to see how GOP chief Mitch McConnell plans to run it. Both he and the president say Pelosi appears afraid after a shoddy impeachment process. "... the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair ...." Sagar Meghani, Washington Seven U.S. Democratic presidential candidates are debating again in just about an hour offering themselves to voters as an alternative in next year's election to President Donald Trump. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg lead the field. Cal State Long Beach Political Science professor Jason Whitehead says that something it's time for Joe Biden to use his missteps to endear himself to voters. The onetime Democratic field of more than two dozen candidates has shrunk as several candidates have dropped out of the chase for the party's nomination. For more, log on to our website voanews.com. This is VOA news. The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a new North American trade deal on Thursday that includes tougher labor and automotive content rules but leaves $1.2 trillion in annual U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade flows largely unchanged. New Jersey Democratic Representative Mikie Sherrill announced the vote. "On this vote, the yeas are 385 and the nays are 41. The bill is passed." The House vote sends the measure to the Senate but it is not clear when the Republican-controlled chamber will take it up. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said that consideration of the measure would likely follow an impeachment trial in the Senate, which is expected in January. The USMCA trade pact first agreed upon in September of last year will replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. Protesters took to the streets of Lebanon on Thursday to demonstrate against the Hezbollah-backed newly named Prime Minister Hassan Diab. As Francesca Lynagh reports, the demonstrators say that Diab is part of the same corrupt political system against which they've been rallying for months. Former minister Hassan Diab became Lebanon's new prime minister on Thursday, with backing from the Iran-backed group Hezbollah and its allies. The country has been crippled by the worst economic crisis since the 1975 to 1990 civil war and has been in dire need of a new government since the then Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri resigned at the end of October. Violent protests against the ruling elite followed. Diab, an engineer and academic, taking the helm could seriously complicate Lebanon's efforts to secure badly needed Western financial aid because Hezbollah is under U.S. sanctions and listed as a terrorist group by Washington. That's Francesca Lynagh reporting. There is a new problem with Takata airbags and a U.S. government agency is looking into four car companies. AP's Rita Foley reports. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it is investigating four automakers that have a potentially deadly type of Takata airbag inflator in their vehicles. But those companies have not yet recalled the vehicles. The automakers are Audi, Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi. The problem is the airbag inflators can blow apart a metal canister and toss shrapnel into the faces and bodies of those in the car. ???NHTSA says Takata didn't provide details on which makes, models or model years have the defective inflators. It's ordering the company to get that information and recall the vehicles promptly. Rita Foley, Washington. For more, be sure to log on to voanews.com. I'm David Byrd, VOA news. |