U.S. • 22nd March 2021

‘Next phase’ of criminal probe into Trump finances: Finding witnesses

(Reuters) - Investigators in a criminal probe of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s real-estate business are combing through millions of pages of newly acquired records with an eye toward identifying witnesses who can bring the documents to life for a jury, say two people familiar with the probe.

U.S. • 9th February 2021

New York accelerates probes of Trump's property dealings

As former U.S. President Donald Trump goes to trial this week in the Senate on charges of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, criminal and civil investigations into his businesses are accelerating in New York.

U.S. • 23rd January 2017

Exclusive: Overruling diplomats, to drop Iraq, Myanmar from child soldiers' list

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a highly unusual intervention, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to remove Iraq and Myanmar from a U.S. list of the world’s worst offenders in the use of child soldiers, disregarding the recommendations of State Department experts and senior U.S. diplomats, U.S. officials said.

U.S. • 9th November 2016

'Go to hell!' A divided America struggles to heal after ugly election

ELLSWORTH, Maine (Reuters) - “He lies,” huffed Janet Foster.

“And he’s a dirty old man,” chimed in her sister Jean as they discussed Donald Trump’s flaws a few days before he was elected the new president of the United States.

U.S. • 24th October 2016

Trump's outrage finds ready audience in struggling South

LUCEDALE, Miss (Reuters) - Mississippi’s vast flatlands, laced with the remains of a fading industrial base, are fertile ground for the incendiary populism of Donald Trump.

For the insurgent presidential candidate, there’s plenty of voter outrage to tap into here and in a swathe of other southern states that could push Trump closer to securing the Republican presidential nomination in the coming weeks.

U.S. • 21st December 2015

Exclusive: In favoring Middle East ally, glossed over human rights record

As the United States negotiated this year’s nuclear pact with Iran, the State Department quietly agreed to spare the Gulf sultanate of Oman from an embarrassing public rebuke over its human rights record, rewarding a close Arab ally that helped broker the historic deal.

U.S. • 4th November 2015

India takes tough line on trafficking victims who get special U.S. visas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When Ajay Ahir agreed to come to the United States, he had no idea the recruiter promising a high-wage welding job and legal residency in America was lying. He borrowed 500,000 rupees ($7,633) to pay the recruiter’s fees, told his wife to wait for him in India, and set off to make his fortune.

Almost nine years later, he has not returned.

U.S. • 3rd August 2015

State Department watered down human trafficking report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the weeks leading up to a critical annual U.S. report on human trafficking that publicly shames the world’s worst offenders, human rights experts at the State Department concluded that trafficking conditions hadn’t improved in Malaysia and Cuba. And in China, they found, things had grown worse.The State Department’s senior political staff saw it differently — and they prevailed.

U.S. • 2nd March 2015

How Jeb Bush's big bet on Florida economy may come back to haunt him

JUPITER, Florida (Reuters) - In October 2003, Jeb Bush unveiled one of the largest economic projects in Florida history: a $500 million plan to bring Scripps Research Institute to the state and build a biomedical hub he said would generate nearly 50,000 jobs in 15 years.

U.S. • 15th September 2014

Syria's 'moderate' rebels say they need weapons, not training

JEDDAH Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - As President Barack Obama knits together an international coalition to take its campaign against Islamic State from Iraq into Syria, fighters like Ammar al-Wawi could make the difference. If he had the chance, he says.

U.S. • 14th June 2007

Polygamist community faces rare genetic disorder

(This is the fourth story in a series on Mormonism in America that won a Sigma Delta Chi Award in 2007)

COLORADO CITY, Arizona (Reuters) - In a dusty neighborhood under sheer sandstone cliffs studded with juniper on the Arizona-Utah border, a rare genetic disorder is spreading through polygamous families on a wave of inbreeding.

The twin border communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, have the world’s highest known prevalence of fumarase deficiency, an enzyme irregularity that causes severe mental retardation brought on by cousin marriage, doctors say.

“Arizona has about half th

U.S. • 12th June 2007

Polygamist leader Jeffs still a force from jail

(This is the third story in a series on Mormonism in America that won a Sigma Delta Chi Award in 2007)

HILDALE, Utah (Reuters) - From a cell in the Purgatory jail 10 months after his arrest, fundamentalist Mormon leader Warren Jeffs is still God’s voice on Earth to thousands of polygamists in this isolated community.

“Warren Jeffs isn’t ‘gone’. He doesn’t have to be there to rule the place,” said Enos Steed, a 21-year-old former member of Jeff’s Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamist sect that broke from the mainstream Mormon church 72 years ago.

To abou

U.S. • 12th June 2007

Fundamental Mormons seek recognition for polygamy

(This is the second story in a series on Mormonism in America that won a Sigma Delta Chi Award in 2007)

CENTENNIAL PARK, Arizona (Reuters) - When Ephraim Hammon returns home from a day of working construction near Arizona’s border with Utah, he’s greeted by his wife SherylLynne. And then by his wife Leah.

Polygamy, once hidden in the shadows of Utah and Arizona, is breaking into the open as fundamentalist Mormons push to decriminalize it on religious grounds, while at the same time stamping out abuses such as forced marriages of underage brides.

The growing confidence of polygamists and their wi

U.S. • 10th June 2007

In U.S., Mormons are in the spotlight

(This is the first story in a series on Mormonism in America that won a Sigma Delta Chi Award in 2007)

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (Reuters) - After more than a century on the fringe of America’s consciousness, Mormons are riding a wave of media attention and public scrutiny -- and say they welcome the chance to set a few things straight.

From Mitt Romney’s bid to become the first Mormon in the White House to Public Broadcasting Service’s four-hour documentary on Mormonism in May and a Hollywood movie opening this month focusing on one of Mormon history’s darkest episodes, the once-isolated religion is