Once they acclimate to their new environment, overcoming language, social and cultural barriers, refugees in the U.S. often thrive. Some translate their experiences into assets that are valuable to their new community, as did Parvin and Yadollah Jamalreza. VOA’s June Soh visited their popular tailoring shop in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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Growth in China’s manufacturing sector slowed in April, official data showed Sunday, pointing to an unsteady recovery in the world’s second-largest economy.
The monthly purchasing managers’ index by the Chinese Federation of Logistics and Purchasing fell to 51.2 in April, lower than the 51.8 recorded in March.
The index is based on a 100-point scale on which numbers above 50 indicate expansion.
National Bureau of Statistics statistician Zhao Qinghe said in the release that April’s figure was affected by sluggish growth in market demand and supply, and slower expansion in imports and exports.
April’s index still represented a ninth consecutive month of expansion.
China saw its slowest growth in nearly three decades in 2016. China’s huge manufacturing sector is seen as an important indicator for the wider Chinese economy. It has cooled gradually over the past six years as Beijing tries to pivot it away from heavy reliance on export-based manufacturing and investment toward consumer spending.
The official full-year economic growth target for 2017 is 6.5 percent.
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Despite lingering anxiety over their range, interest in electric cars is rising, especially in industrialized countries. Manufacturers say they are improving the mileage by building more charging stations, but the industry is still waiting for a major breakthrough in battery technology. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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During a recent visit to Wisconsin, President Donald Trump announced he was signing an Executive Order reviewing the visa program that brings many technical workers to the United States, known as the H1B visa. About 85,000 workers come to the United States annually using an H1B visa. More from VOA’s Kane Farabaugh
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Later this year, two pilots in a sailplane will try to break the world altitude record for a glider, soaring more than 27 kilometers above sea level. But their primary mission will be to explore the little-known phenomenon called “mountain waves” and to carry a number of experiments designed by school students. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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President Donald Trump is re-opening for oil exploration areas that President Barack Obama had closed, a move that environmental groups have promised to fight.
In an executive order Friday, the president reversed the Obama administration’s decision to prohibit oil and gas drilling in the Arctic waters off Alaska.
The order also instructs the Interior Department to review current restrictions on energy development in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. In addition, it bars the creation or expansion of marine sanctuaries and orders a review of all areas protected within the last 10 years.
Trump cites advantages
The White House says 90 billion barrels of oil and 327 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are buried off the U.S. coastline, but 94 percent of the area is off limits.
“Renewed offshore energy production will reduce the cost of energy, create countless new jobs and make America more secure and far more energy independent,” Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House.
The action is the latest from the Trump administration aimed at boosting domestic energy production and loosening environmental regulations.
In his first 100 days, Trump has relaxed coal mine pollution rules and ordered a review of vehicle efficiency standards and power plant greenhouse gas rules. His administration has stopped defending Obama-era pollution regulations challenged in court.
The energy industry has cheered the moves. Environmental groups have promised strong opposition.
Fragile ecosystems
Conservationists have long opposed oil drilling in the Arctic. A spill would devastate the region’s fragile ecosystems, they say, while extreme conditions raise the risks of a spill and make cleanup harder.
Fishing and tourism on the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico would suffer from an accident, too, environmentalists note.
“By his actions today, President Trump has sent a clear message that he prioritizes the oil and gas industry over the needs of working Americans in our coastal communities who depend on healthy fishing and tourism economies for their livelihoods,” Environmental Defense Fund Vice President Elizabeth Thompson said in a statement.
Reviewing and rewriting the current offshore drilling plans are expected to take several years. Environmental groups plan legal challenges to the changes.
Facebook is acknowledging that governments or other malicious non-state actors are using its social network to sway political sentiment, including elections.
That’s a long way from CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s assertion in November that the idea that bogus information on Facebook influenced the U.S. presidential election was “pretty crazy.” It also illustrates how the world’s biggest social network has been forced to grapple with its outsized role in how the world communicates, for better or for worse.
In an online posting Thursday, the company said that it would monitor efforts to disrupt “civic discourse” on Facebook. It is also looking to identify fake accounts, and says that it will warn people if their accounts have been targeted by cyber-attackers.
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Національний банк України вирішив відкликати банківську ліцензію та ліквідувати «Фінбанк».
Як повідомляє прес-служба регулятора, 7 квітня «Фінбанк» віднесли до категорії неплатоспроможних.
За даними Фонду гарантування вкладів фізичних осіб, 99% вкладників «Фінбанк» отримають свої вклади у повному обсязі, оскільки їх розмір не перевищує гарантовану суму у 200 тисяч гривень.
За даними фонду, наразі в Україні 87 банків перебувають у процесі ліквідації.
The latest economic data indicate the U.S. economy is growing at the slowest rate in three years. The GDP or gross domestic product, the broadest measure of all goods and services produced in the country, increased at a disappointing 0.7 percent annual rate, according to new government estimates released Friday. That’s the weakest performance since 2014, as consumer spending stayed flat and business inventories remained small.
Analysts say that’s bound to be a disappointment to U.S. President Donald Trump who predicted strong economic growth on day one, once he took over the White House.
“Remember candidate Trump talked about GDP of about 5 percent and paraphrasing, perhaps something much, much stronger,” said Bankrate.com senior analyst Mark Hamrick.
“Most economists believe the track for the U.S. economy for the intermediate future is going to be very familiar to what has been seen over the last number of years, and that’s somewhere between one and probably 2.5 percent on an annual basis.”
The U.S. economy grew at a 2.1 percent pace in the fourth quarter of 2016. But economists say first quarter estimates tend to be notoriously low for a number of reasons.
“In some years it’s been because of bad weather that kept people in their homes, keeping them from purchasing things but it’s also believed to be somewhat flawed statistically — meaning that what’s actually happening in the economy isn’t being perfectly captured by government statistics,” Hamrick tells VOA. “It ends up being an estimate and most of them are not perfect”.
Most economists say the first quarter estimate should not be seen as a true measure of U.S. economic health.
Other indicators suggest a more positive outlook. The U.S. unemployment rate is near a 10-year low at 4.5 percent, consumer and business sentiment are rising and major U.S. stock indexes are near record highs.
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Qualcomm slashed its profit expectations Friday by as much as a third after saying that Apple is refusing to pay royalties on technology used in the iPhone.
Its shares hit a low for 2017.
Apple Inc. sued Qualcomm earlier this year, saying that the San Diego chipmaker has abused its control over essential technology and charged excessive licensing fees. Qualcomm said Friday that Apple now says it won’t pay any fees until the dispute is resolved. Apple confirmed Friday that it has suspended payments until the court can determine what is owed.
“We’ve been trying to reach a licensing agreement with Qualcomm for more than five years but they have refused to negotiate fair terms,” Apple said. “As we’ve said before, Qualcomm’s demands are unreasonable and they have been charging higher rates based on our innovation, not their own.”
Qualcomm said it will continue to vigorously defend itself in order to “receive fair value for our technological contributions to the industry.”
But the effect on Qualcomm, whose shares have already slid 15 percent since the lawsuit was filed by Apple in January, was immediate.
Qualcomm now expects earnings per share between 75 and 85 cents for the April to June quarter. Its previous forecast was for earnings per share between 90 cents and $1.15.
Revenue is now expected to be between $4.8 billion and $5.6 billion, down from its previous forecast between $5.3 billion and $6.1 billion.
Shares of Qualcomm Inc. tumbled almost 4 percent at the opening bell to $51.22.
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Just weeks after receiving official approval, an Apple self-driving car has been seen making its way through the streets of Silicon Valley.
The Lexus fitted with various sensors is the latest entrant in the quest to make driverless cars commercially viable. Apple, a late comer, likely will face fierce competition from Google’s Waymo, which has carried out millions of miles of road testing, and Uber, which has been testing autonomous cars for months.
Apple’s initiative, officially called Project Titan, is driven by hardware developed by Velodyne Lidar, while Apple is expected to develop the software.
Based on documents obtained by Business Insider, Apple’s cars sound very much like other self-driving cars. The cars are “capable of sending electronic commands for steering, accelerating, and decelerating and may carry out portions of the dynamic driving task,” according to the documents.
As with other driverless cars, humans are still present and can override the self-driving mode at any time.
Despite being somewhat late to the game, Apple may find an opening in the way of a potentially lengthy legal battle between Waymo and Uber, with Waymo alleging that Uber stole its trade secrets.
On Thursday, Uber executive Anthony Levandowski recused himself from work on driverless cars in the wake of the lawsuit, which alleges he stole intellectual property while employed at Google.
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“I would like for you to have a pencil out on your desk,” fifth-grade teacher Mary Fucella said to her reading class at Point Pleasant Elementary School in Glen Burnie, Maryland. A kilometer and a half away, in a pink bedroom, Cloe Gray pulled a pencil out, too, and listened.
Cloe, 11, is at home, recuperating from leg surgery. For the first month after the operation, a home tutor visited her. But the precocious child grew withdrawn and didn’t want to leave her bed. She missed routine. She missed her friends. She missed real school.
“You could tell she wasn’t happy,” said Rob Gray, Cloe’s dad.
The Anne Arundel County school system in Maryland had a cure. Cloe now attends class virtually through a $3,000 robot. Hers, which she named Clo-Bot, was donated by the local Rotary Club. Since she began using it, the learning hasn’t stopped.
Clo-Bot is basically an iPad attached to a pole on wheels. Cloe uses the keyboard on her home computer to remotely control the device, rolling it into and out of the classroom. She speaks through a headset and is heard through the iPad. When the class breaks up into small groups, one classmate holds materials up to the iPad, and Cloe contributes to the project.
Fucella said Cloe was a little shy at first about “raising” Clo-Bot’s hand, “but now I feel like it’s just like having the normal Cloe in the classroom.”
To answer a question, Cloe clicks on a slider, and the iPad raises to the teacher’s eye level. Cloe said the robot had given her confidence to participate. “I’ll try it and I’ll get it right,” she said. “Woo-hoo! Personal victory!”
The Anne Arundel schools have six of the robots. Patrick Malone of the district’s Office of Instructional Technology said he and his colleagues had been stunned at their effectiveness.
“Every kid that uses this technology starts to smile again,” Malone said. “They start to feel like a regular kid again, and I cannot put a price on that.”
Devices like Clo-Bot are the brainchild of Double Robotics, a privately held technology company in Burlingame, California.
The telepresence robot can be used for business or education, anywhere people need a physical presence. Double Robotics co-founder and CEO David Cann said he understood the importance of school attendance, educationally and socially, and that it was humbling “to be able to provide a way for all students to attend school, no matter their situation.”
Double Robotics has 300 of its robots in the United States, with 25 others placed in education facilities in China, Japan, Australia and Canada.
When it’s lunchtime at Point Pleasant, Cloe’s best friend, Kyla Jones, walks with Clo-Bot to the lunchroom. The sight of a fifth-grader walking with an iPad rolling beside her seems like a scene from a science fiction movie.
“At first it was kind of weird because it was Cloe, but not really Cloe,” Kyla said. But now, it’s natural for the two to discuss, well, whatever fifth-graders discuss. On a recent day, the topic was flip-flops.
Cloe uses the device’s 150-degree wide-angle lens to look down as she maneuvers the robot beside the cafeteria table. Cloe’s dad delivers her lunch to her desk at home, and classmates start joining Clo-Bot at the lunch table.
Cloe said it’s sometimes nerve-racking to enter the lunchroom. “Everyone’s like, ‘Hi, Cloe!’ ‘Bye, Cloe!’ ” she said.
Clo-Bot waits until school is over to get its energy. Cloe maneuvers it to a charging station, where it sits until the bell rings the next morning. Then Cloe will happily drive her virtual self back to Ms. Fucella’s class.
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Think back to grade school. If you were sick, you stayed home. If you had a serious illness, you’d miss weeks, or even months of classes. Technology could change all this, with a robot attending school in place of the sick child. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti introduces us to a Baltimore girl who is homebound no more.
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Employers can legally pay women less than men for the same work based on differences in the workers’ previous salaries, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower-court ruling that said pay differences based exclusively on prior salaries were discriminatory under the federal Equal Pay Act.
That’s because women’s earlier salaries are likely to be lower than men’s because of gender bias, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Seng said in a 2015 decision.
1982 law cited
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit cited a 1982 ruling by the court that said employers could use previous salary information as long as they applied it reasonably and had a business policy that justified it.
“This decision is a step in the wrong direction if we’re trying to really ensure that women have work opportunities of equal pay,” said Deborah Rhode, who teaches gender equity law at Stanford Law School. “You can’t allow prior discriminatory salary setting to justify future ones or you perpetuate the discrimination.”
Activists held rallies around the country earlier this month on Equal Pay Day to highlight the wage gap between men and women. Women made about 80 cents for every dollar men earned in 2015, according to U.S. government data.
The 9th Circuit ruling came in a lawsuit by a California school employee, Aileen Rizo, who learned in 2012 while having lunch with her colleagues that her male counterparts were making more than she was.
Attorney: Logic hard to accept
Her lawyer, Dan Siegel, said he had not yet decided the next step, but he could see the case going to the U.S. Supreme Court because other appeals courts have decided differently.
“The logic of the decision is hard to accept,” he said. “You’re OK’ing a system that perpetuates the inequity in compensation for women.”
Fresno County public schools hired Rizo as a math consultant in 2009 for $63,000 a year. The county had a standard policy that added 5 percent to her previous pay as a middle school math teacher in Arizona. But that was not enough to meet the minimum salary for her position, so the county bumped her up.
Equal Pay Act of 1963
The Equal Pay Act, signed into law by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, forbids employers from paying women less than men based on sex for equal work performed under similar working conditions. But it creates exemptions when pay is based on seniority, merit, quantity or quality of work or “any other factor other than sex.”
The county argued that basing starting salaries primarily on previous pay prevents subjective determinations of a new employee’s value. The 5 percent bump encourages candidates to leave their positions to work for the county, it said.
The 9th Circuit sent the case back to Seng to consider that and other justifications the county provided for using previous salaries.
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Working to dismantle his predecessor’s environmental legacy, President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Friday that could lead to the expansion of drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.
With one day before he reaches his 100th day in office, Trump will order his interior secretary to review an Obama-era plan that dictates which locations are open to offshore drilling, with the goal of the new administration to expand operations.
It’s part of Trump’s promise to unleash the nation’s energy reserves in an effort to reduce reliance on foreign oil and to spur jobs, regardless of fierce opposition from environmental activists, who say offshore drilling harms whales, walruses and other wildlife and exacerbates global warming.
Zinke: Safeguards remain
“This order will cement our nation’s position as a global energy leader and foster energy security for the benefit of American people, without removing any of the stringent environmental safeguards that are currently in place,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters at a White House briefing Thursday evening.
Zinke said the order, combined with other steps Trump has taken during his first months in office, “puts us on track for American energy independence.”
The executive order will reverse part of a December effort by President Barack Obama to deem the bulk of U.S.-owned waters in the Arctic Ocean and certain areas in the Atlantic as indefinitely off limits to oil and gas leasing.
It will also direct Zinke to conduct a review of the locations available for offshore drilling under a five-year plan signed by Obama in November. The plan blocked new oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It also blocked the planned sale of new oil and gas drilling rights in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska, but allowed drilling to go forward in Alaska’s Cook Inlet southwest of Anchorage.
The order could open to oil and gas exploration areas off Virginia and North and South Carolina, where drilling has been blocked for decades.
Zinke said that leases scheduled under the existing plan will remain in effect during the review, which he estimated will take several years.
Monuments, sanctuaries under review
The order will also direct Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to conduct a review of marine monuments and sanctuaries designated over the last 10 years.
Citing his department’s data, Zinke said the Interior Department oversees some 1.7 billion acres on the outer continental shelf, which contains an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 327 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas. Under current restrictions, about 94 percent of that outer continental shelf is off-limits to drilling.
Zinke, who will also be tasked with reviewing other drilling restrictions, acknowledged environmental concerns as valid, but he argued that the benefits of drilling outweigh concerns.
Environmentalists protest
Environmental activists, meanwhile, railed against the expected signing, which comes seven years after the devastating 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Diana Best of Greenpeace said that opening new areas to offshore oil and gas drilling would lock the U.S. “into decades of harmful pollution, devastating spills like the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, and a fossil fuel economy with no future.
“Scientific consensus is that the vast majority of known fossil fuel reserves — including the oil and gas off U.S. coasts — must remain undeveloped if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” she said.
Jacqueline Savitz of the ocean advocacy group Oceana warned the order would lead to “corner-cutting and set us up for another havoc-wreaking environmental disaster” in places like the Outer Banks or in remote Barrow, Alaska, “where there’s no proven way to remove oil from sea ice.”
“We need smart, tough standards to ensure that energy companies are not operating out of control,” she said, adding: “In their absence, America’s future promises more oil spills and industrialized coastlines.”
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United Airlines reached an out-of-court settlement Thursday with a doctor who was dragged off one of its flights after he refused to give up his seat.
The airline and Dr. David Dao’s lawyers agreed not to disclose the amount of money he will receive.
United put out a brief statement saying it reached an “amicable resolution of the unfortunate incident.”
United changes policy
The airline said earlier Thursday that from now on, no passenger would be forced to give up his seat except in cases of safety and security.
Those who volunteer to surrender their seats when a flight is overbooked would get up to $10,000 in compensation.
“Every customer deserves to be treated with the highest levels of service and the deepest sense of dignity and respect,” United chief Oscar Munoz said. “Two weeks ago, we failed to meet that standard and we profoundly apologize.”
Chicago aviation police dragged Dao up the aisle of the packed plane when United needed to make room for airline employees.
Three other passengers volunteered to give up their seats, but Dao was picked out at random and refused to leave, saying he had to get home to treat patients.
Congress gets involved
His nose was broken, some teeth were knocked out, and he suffered a concussion. Cellphone video captured the scene. Dao, with blood streaming down his face, could be heard screaming with other shocked passengers.
The incident prompted calls in Congress to bring back government airline regulation.
Some lawmakers demanded outlawing the practice of overbooking flights, in which airlines sell more seats than are available to ensure a full plane.
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The common stereotype has teens glued to their phones 24-7. But nearly 60 percent of teens in the U.S. have actually taken a break from social media – the bulk of them voluntarily, a new survey found.
The poll, from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, surveyed teens aged 13 to 17 and found that most value the feeling of connection with friends and family that social media provides. A much smaller number associate it with negative emotions, such as being overwhelmed or needing to always show their best selves.
The survey, released Thursday, found that teens’ social media breaks are typically a week or longer, and that boys are more likely to take longer breaks.
Teens were allowed to cite multiple reasons for their breaks. Nearly two-thirds of teens who took a break cited at least one voluntary reason. Amanda Lenhart, the lead researcher and an expert on young people and technology use, said she was surprised by this, as it counters the broader narrative that teens are “handcuffed” to their social media profiles.
Today’s teenagers might not recall a time before social media. MySpace was founded in 2003. Had it survived, it would be 14 years old today. Facebook is a year younger. Instagram launched in 2010. For an adult to understand what it might be like for someone who grew up with it to step back from social media, consider disconnecting from email – or your phone – for a couple of weeks.
Among the teens who took voluntary breaks, 38 percent did so because social media was getting in the way of work or school. Nearly a quarter said they were tired of “the conflict and drama” and 20 percent said they were tired of having to keep up with what’s going on.
Nearly half of teens who took a break did so involuntarily. This included 38 percent who said their parents took away their phone or computer and 17 percent who said their phone was lost, broken or stolen.
The involuntary break “is sort of its own challenge,” Lenhart said. “They feel that they are missing out, detached from important social relationships (as well as) news and information.”
About 35 percent of teens surveyed said they have not taken a break, citing such worries as missing out and being disconnected from friends. Some said they need social media for school or extracurricular activities.
“I like to see what my friends and family are up to,” said Lukas Goodwin, 14, who uses Instagram and Snapchat every day. He said he took a break from Instagram “a few years ago” but not recently. Now, he says, “I wouldn’t want to take a break from them.”
Among the survey’s other findings:
– Lower income teens were more likely to take social media breaks than their wealthier counterparts, and their breaks tended to last longer. The study points out that educators who use social media in the classroom need to understand that not every teen is online and connected all the time.
– Boys were more likely to feel overloaded with information on social media, while girls were more likely to feel they always have to show the best version of themselves.
– Teens who took breaks typically did so across the board, checking out of Facebook, Snapchat and all other services all at once. And they were no more or less likely to take breaks from social media based on the type of services they use.
– Although they felt relief and were happy to be away from social media for a while, most teens said things went back to how they were before once they returned to social media.
The AP-NORC poll was conducted online and by phone from Dec. 7 to 31. A sample of parents with teenage children was drawn from a probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Parents then gave permission for their children to be interviewed. The panel, AmeriSpeak, is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.
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Lawmakers are nearing agreement on sweeping spending legislation to keep the lights on in government, after the White House backed off a threat to withhold payments that help lower-income Americans pay their medical bills.
It was the latest concession by the White House, which had earlier dropped a demand for money for President Donald Trump’s border wall. Even with Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, the Trump administration is learning that Democrats retain significant leverage when their votes are needed on must-pass legislation.
A temporary funding bill expires Friday at midnight, and GOP leaders late Wednesday unveiled another short-term spending bill to prevent a government shutdown this weekend, something Republicans are determined to avoid.
There appears little chance of that as lawmakers worked to resolve final stumbling blocks on issues like the environment, though a short-term extension of existing funding levels is likely.
“The fundamental issue is keeping the government open, that’s our focus,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., a top member of the vote-counting team in the House.
At the same time, House Republicans had a breakthrough on their moribund health care legislation as a key group of conservatives, the House Freedom Caucus, announced it would support a revised version of the bill. Freedom Caucus opposition was a key ingredient in the legislation’s collapse a month ago, a humiliating episode for Republicans that called into question their ability to govern given that they’ve been promising for seven years to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Yet whether the Freedom Caucus support would be enough remained uncertain. One key moderate, GOP Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, dismissed the Freedom Caucus about-face as “a matter of blame-shifting and face-saving” for a bill going nowhere. Even if the legislation passes the House it will face major hurdles in the Senate and is certain to be extensively revised if it survives at all.
The changes in the bill would let states escape requirements under Obama’s health care law that insurers charge healthy and seriously ill customers the same rates, and cover a list of specified services like maternity care. Conservatives embraced the revisions as a way to lower people’s health care expenses, but moderates saw them as diminishing coverage.
Despite some optimism among House leaders for a quick vote on the health bill, the outcome was difficult to predict. The White House has been exerting intense pressure on House GOP leaders to deliver any tangible legislative accomplishments ahead of Trump’s 100-day mark, something that has yet to occur aside from Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
The massive spending measure, which would wrap together 11 unfinished spending bills into a single “omnibus” bill, represents the first real bipartisan legislation of Trump’s presidency.
Democratic votes are needed to pass the measure over tea party opposition in the House and to provide enough support to clear a filibuster hurdle in the Senate, which has led negotiators to strip away controversial policy riders and ignore an $18 billion roster of unpopular spending cuts submitted by White House budget director Mick Mulvaney.
The outlines of a potential agreement remained fuzzy, but aides familiar with the talks said Trump would emerge with border security funding that’s unrelated to the wall and a $15 billion down payment for military readiness accounts on top of $578 billion in already-negotiated Pentagon funding. Democrats won funding for medical research, Pell Grants and foreign aid.
But negotiators rejected Trump’s demands for $1 billion to begin construction of his promised wall along the length of the 2,000-mile (3218.54-kilometer) U.S.-Mexico border. And after a dispute between Mulvaney and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the administration agreed to keep funding cost-sharing payments under Obamacare that go to reimburse health insurers for reducing deductibles and co-payments for lower-income people.
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Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor and Alan Fram contributed to this report.
AP-WF-04-27-17 0724GMT
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