News

US presidential debate: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump spar over jobs, taxes Democrat   Hillary Clinton   and Republican Donald Trump took to the stage on Monday to begin their first-ever presidential debate and immediately sparred over jobs, taxes, the Islamic State (IS), guns and the former secretary of state's undisclosed emails, media reports said. Clinton is held to have won the first presidential debate, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. According to the poll of debate watchers, 62 per cent of voters who watched the debate thought Clinton won, while only 27 per cent said that   Donald Trump   came out on top. On prosperity, taxes and jobs Moderator Leslie Holt of   NBC News   opened the 90-minute debate at Hofstra University, Long Island, New York, with the first topic being "Achieving Prosperity", where the first question about putting money back into Americans' pockets and creating jobs was directed to Clinton, CNN   reported. Cli...

Donald Trump's paid maternity leave plan gets Hillary Clinton rejoinder Republican presidential nominee   Donald Trump   has introduced an unorthodox childcare plan, becoming a rareRepublican calling for paid maternity leave. Introduced on Tuesday by his daughter Ivanka, who asserted that childcare issues were at the "root of wage inequality by disproportionately affecting women", Trump tried to soften his image at an event held in Pennsylvania, a former stronghold for moderate Republicans that has trended Democratic in recent years,   the Guardian reported. Trump also asserted that "my opponent has no childcare plan". Clinton has in fact made a number of detailed proposals on childcare. Clinton in June last year first outlined a programme for universal pre-kindergarten and in May this year proposed to cap childcare costs at ten per cent of household income and to introduce 12 weeks of paid family leave. Maya Harris, a senior policy adviser to Clin...

Donald Trump wants allies to share burden of security Republican presidential nominee   Donald Trump   has said that if elected he would ensure that America's European and Asian allies meet the NATO obligation of spending two per cent of their GDP on defence. "Only five of the 28 member   NATO   countries meet their obligations to spend two per cent of GDP on defence. I will convene a summit of our European and Asian allies to make sure everyone is sharing in the burden of security. We are paying tremendous amounts of money to secure other nations, to protect and defend other nations," Trump said at an election rally in Iowa. "We are going to be made whole. We have no choice. This isn't 30 years ago. This isn't 40 years ago. And I believe properly asked, we'll be in a very good position and they will be very nice about it," he said as he slammed the foreign policy of the Obama Administration in particular that of the former Secretary of Sta...

Email fallout: 3 Democratic National Committee executives resign The chief executive of the   Democratic National Committee   and two other top officials have resigned in the wake of an   email hack   that embarrassed the party on the eve of its presidential nominating convention. CEO Amy Dacey, chief finance officer Brad Marshall and communications director Luis Miranda left their jobs today, the party said in a statement. The   resignations   are the latest fallout from the hacked emails, which exposed an apparent lack of neutrality in the primary race between   Hillary Clinton   and Bernie Sanders, with some party officials disparaging Sanders. Marshall wrote the most explosive email, questioning Sanders' Jewish faith and suggesting he could be portrayed as an atheist. He has apologized for the missive. Earlier, party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned her position and, after being booed at a pre-convention appearance la...

Time for Trump to stop hiding: Hillary Clinton Democratic presidential nominee   Hillary Clinton   alleged that her Republican rival   Donald Trump   does not even respect Americans enough to do what every other presidential candidate has done for decades and released their tax returns. "It's time for Trump to stop hiding," Clinton said at an election rally in Omaha, Nebraska. "My husband and I have put out I think about 33 or 34 years' worth if you're interested. He doesn't even respect the American people enough to do what every other presidential candidate has done for decades and release them," she said. "It's time to stand up for working families. It's time to make clear that when the middle class thrives, America thrives. And that's what we're going to get back to doing," she said adding that she would not rest until they get wages and income rising. Clinton's remarks came after billionaire investor W...

Facebook to live stream US Democratic, Republican conventions Social networking giant   Facebook   has partnered with the US television network ABC for a non-stop live streaming of both the   Democratic   and   Republican   National Conventions. The Republican National Convention started in Cleveland, Ohio on Monday night and will run till Thursday while the Democratic National Convention is set for July 25-28 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Not just livestreaming, Facebook will provide an in-depth coverage of both the events, reported on Monday. Earlier, micro-blogging site Twitter had signed a deal with the US television network CBS to stream both the conventions. Twitter has permission to broadcast the CBSN feed—the company's 24-hour digital news streaming service—and anyone online can watch for free even if they do not have a Twitter account.   Read More

Trump seeks $10 million from former aide in disclosure case Republican presidential candidate   Donald Trump   is seeking $10 million in damages from a former senior campaign consultant, Sam Nunberg, alleging that Nunberg leaked confidential information to reporters in violation of a nondisclosure agreement. In a court filing obtained by The Associated Press, Nunberg accuses Trump of trying to silence him "in a misguided attempt to cover up media coverage of an apparent affair" between senior campaign staffers. The document cited a New York Post story about a public quarrel between the staffers published last month. The legal dispute reflects Trump's efforts to aggressively protect the secrecy of his campaign's inner workings. The case is spelled out in court documents that sought to block private arbitration proceedings that Trump initiated in May.   Read More

'No to Trump, yes to Hillary': Indian diaspora in the US tells New Delhi The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), given its recent anti-immigrants election campaign in Assam and the perception that the Republican administrations have been friendlier towards India, should have found an alter ego in Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. But the   Indian diaspora   in the United States, even its more prosperous sections, have conveyed to the BJP’s overseas arm that they were unlikely to support Trump in the   US presidential elections   due in November. Overseas friends of BJP chief Vijay Chauthaiwale was in the US in the latter half of June. He travelled across the US to meet representatives of Indian diaspora associations. There are literally dozens of associations of each linguistic group. The Rockefeller Foundation — Aspen Institute Diaspora Programme (RAD) survey in July 2014 — had identified 224 important diaspora associations of Indian linguistic, regi...

Trump targets to raise $10 million The campaign of Donald Trump, presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican party, has set a target of raising another $10 million by the month end, according to an email sent on Monday. Over the last few days, the Trump campaign raised $11 million, it said adding it is working to "shatter records" by raising another $10 million in the remaining four days of June. The mass email seeking funds was sent by his son Eric Trump, who described it as the most ambitious   fund raising   campaign yet. " Hillary Clinton 's campaign machine and her liberal media allies are desperate. First, they claimed we raised too little. Then, when donors like you helped us to raise $11 million in just a few days, they claimed we were lying," the junior Trump wrote in his first fund raising email. A real estate tycoon from New York,   Donald Trump   had self-funded his campaign during the primary elections. He started raising money ...

Clinton boasts double-digit lead as support for Trump plunges Presumptive Democratic nominee   Hillary Clinton   is holding a 12-point lead over her Republican rival   Donald Trump   as support for the latter tumbled in the past month, a poll released on Sunday showed. Clinton enjoys 51% of support among Americans, up by seven points from May, compared to Trump's support at 39%, which is down by seven points, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll. This is Clinton's biggest lead over Trump since last fall and is a dramatic reversal from the May poll, in which Trump led Clinton slightly by 46% to 44%, Xinhua news agency reported citing the poll. The poll discovered that 56% of   American   voters believe Trump stands against their beliefs, while 64% said Trump does not have the necessary credentials to be president. Clinton's lead over Trump narrows to 10 points by 47% to 37%, when the two third-party presidential candidates were mentio...

President Obama hopeful Bernie Sanders will wind up campaign in couple of weeks Barack Obama expressed hope that   Bernie Sanders   in "the next couple of weeks" will finally concede having lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton, despite having vowed to fight on through the party's convention next month. Speaking to late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon,   Barack Obama   said that on balance, Sanders's candidacy in the hardfought Democratic campaign was a positive. "It was a healthy thing for the Democratic Party to have a contested primary," Obama told Fallon during recording of an episode of The Tonight Show. "I thought that Bernie Sanders brought enormous energy and new ideas. And he pushed the party and challenged them. I thought it made Hillary a better candidate." He added, "My hope is, is that over the next couple of weeks, we're able to pull things together." The US president made h...