On a recent morning in Yutian, a dusty town bisected by the highway that connects Beijing to the sea, Su Meiquan strolled into a dealership packed with hulking trucks and prepared to drive off with a brand new rig. After years of driving a diesel truck for a trucking company, …
Ants and beetles in the kitchen? Normally that’d close down a restaurant immediately, but for a unique eatery in Bangkok, bugs in the beef ragu and pests in the pesto are the business plan. Tucking into insects is nothing new in Thailand, where street vendors pushing carts of fried …
Born and raised in this Texas Gulf Coast beach town, James Wheeler Jr. finds himself sawing plywood and hanging sheet rock at a time when he would normally be leading deep-sea fishing excursions, trying to hook tuna or Spanish mackerel by the cooler-full. Since Hurricane Harvey came through Port …
Sudan’s currency strengthened to 18.5 pounds to the dollar from 20.2 on the black market on Sunday, the first day of business since the United States lifted trade sanctions, raising a glimmer of hope for recovery in the war-torn country. The decision to suspend 20-year sanctions and lift a trade …
Donald Trump boasts of making great deals, but a financial report filed with the British government shows he has lost millions of dollars for three years running on a couple of his more recent big investments: his Scottish golf resorts. A report from Britain’s Companies House released late Friday shows …
The decline of the world’s industrialized honeybees has been well documented. A combination of pesticides and parasites have led to whole bee colonies dying off, a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder. Now, it turns out the pesticides that are hurting the bees are also turning up in the world’s honey …
Ira Gerhart finally found a place last year to fulfill his yearslong dream of opening a brewery: a 1923 Presbyterian church. It was cheap, charming and just blocks from downtown Youngstown. But soon after Gerhart announced his plans, residents and a minister at a Baptist church just a block away …
Home to half the world’s Mountain gorilla and 50 percent of world bird species, conservation tourism marketing remains a challenge for Uganda. In a first ever conservation Finance Giants Forum, Uganda also known as the Pearl of Africa, Friday, got an opportunity to market its beauty in a bid to …
Two back-to-back hurricanes in the continental U.S. displaced more workers than first thought resulting in a net loss of 33 thousand jobs in September. But the job losses seem to have had little effect on the national unemployment rate, which fell to 4.2 percent the lowest since 2001. Mil Arcega …
Venezuelans already struggling to find food, medicine and other basic necessities have a new shortage to worry about: cash. Troubling shortfalls of Venezuelan bolivars are forcing many in this distressed South American nation to form long lines outside banks several times a week to withdraw what little cash is …
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned on Friday that the Trump administration was making “highly dangerous demands” in the North American Free Trade Agreement modernization talks that could erode U.S. business support and torpedo the negotiations. John Murphy, the chamber’s senior vice president for international policy, said the largest U.S. …
Robert L. McKay, who designed the first Taco Bell restaurant and with founder Glenn Bell turned it from a quirky food stand into a fast-food empire, has died. He was 86. His son, Rob McKay, said McKay died last week of cancer. Bell opened his first Taco Bell in Downey, …
French carmaker Renault said Friday that half of its models will be electric or hybrid by 2022 and it’s investing heavily in “robo-vehicles” with increasing degrees of autonomy. A strategic plan released Friday aims to boost Renault annual revenues to 70 billion euros ($82.2 billion) by 2022 from 51 billion …
The U.S. economy lost 33,000 jobs in September, reflecting the impact of hurricanes hitting the states of Florida and Texas, as well as other areas. Friday’s report from the Labor Department also said the unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.2 percent, the lowest jobless figure since 2001. Economists said many …
Oil and natural gas operators began evacuating staff and halting production at U.S. Gulf of Mexico platforms Thursday ahead of Tropical Storm Nate, the second storm in as many months to rattle the Gulf Coast energy corridor. Nate, which has killed at least 10 people in Costa Rica and Nicaragua …
Transgender people are no longer protected by federal civil rights laws banning workplace discrimination, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday. In a memo to federal prosecutors, Sessions wrote that it is a matter of “law, not policy,” that the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not extend to gender identity. The …
Congressional Republicans moved to hasten an overhaul of the U.S. tax code on Thursday, while Federal Reserve officials warned in rare public remarks that President Donald Trump’s tax plan could lead to inflation and unsustainable federal debt. In a procedural step forward, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved by a …
At 52 years old, with two grown children, Newton Gunathileka thought he should be working less by this point. Instead he has never worked so hard — and earned so little. Gunathileka, from the Sri Lankan village of Periyakulam, in the North Western Puttalam District, is among hundreds of thousands …
Greece welcomed Wednesday a decision by senior archaeologists to conditionally permit a major tourism project in Athens, saying it cleared the way for the country to turn the site into one of Europe’s biggest coastal resorts. The 8-billion-euro ($9.4 billion) project to develop the disused Hellenikon airport site is a …
South Korea indicated Wednesday it was open to talks on revising a 2012 trade pact with the United States after initial differences that followed President Donald Trump’s threat to terminate the accord unless it was renegotiated. After a day of talks in Washington, South Korea’s trade ministry said in a …
Ford Motor Co.’s new CEO plans to cut $14 billion in costs, drop some car models and focus the company’s resources on trucks, SUVs and electric vehicles as part of a renewed effort to win over skeptical investors. Jim Hackett, who became Ford’s CEO in May, met with around 100 …
North Korea’s U.N. ambassador accused the United States on Tuesday of imposing “an economic blockade” on his country and deploying nuclear assets on the Korean Peninsula aimed at toppling leader Kim Jong Un. Ja Song Nam said the U.S. push for countries to implement what he called “illegal and unjustifiable” …
The recovery of eastern Caribbean islands hardest hit by recent hurricanes, including Dominica, Barbuda, Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands and Anguilla, could cost up to $1 billion, a senior U.N. official said Tuesday. “It’s going to be a large-scale rebuilding effort that will take time,” said Stephen O’Malley, …
The European Union insisted Tuesday that Brexit negotiations with Britain will not move on to the question of future relations until enough progress has been made on divorce issues, such as how much the country’s exit bill should be. Britain desperately wants talks to move on to future trade and …
After several years of struggling to make a living doing odd jobs in and around his village, 26-year-old Pushkar Singh came to New Delhi from the northern Uttarakhand state three months ago to hunt for a job. The high school dropout is willing to do anything — cook, work as a …
With more and more consumers shopping online, do brick-and-mortar stores stand a chance? At a pop-up shop in New York City, the future of retail is about embracing digital trends rather than resisting them. VOA reporter Tina Trinh explains. …