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  FILE PHOTO: People protest U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that he plans to reinstate a ban on transgender individuals from serving in any capacity in the U.S. military, in Times Square, in New York City, New York, U.S., July 26, 2017. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump walks from Air Force One as he arrives at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., August 23, 2017. (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Friday that directs the U.S. military not to accept transgender men and women as recruits and halts the use of government funds for sex-reassignment surgeries for active personnel unless the process is already underway. The memo, released by the White House, laid out in more detail a ban on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. armed forces that Trump announced via Twitter last month, reversing a policy shift started under his predecessor, President Barack Obama. In it, Trump directed the Department of Defense and Department of H

Media captionRiley Dosh wanted to defend her country and the rights of those who disagree with her The White House has not yet decided how it will implement the president's ban on transgender people serving in the US military. Mr Trump's surprise Twitter announcement on Wednesday has been met with criticism from rights groups. Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the administration would work alongside the Pentagon to decide how to proceed. It is not yet clear how the announcement will affect current transgender service personnel. Why was the ban introduced? "The United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the US military," Donald Trump tweeted. "Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail." Asked at a press briefing if troops on battlefields would be immediat

A 17-year-old Cameroonian has won Google's annual coding award, despite the partial shutdown of internet in his country. Nji Collins Gbah is the first African to win the competition. The population of the English-speaking North West and South West regions of Cameroon are elated after teenager Nji Collins Gbah became the first African winner in Google's annual coding competition. The 17-year-old beat all odds, including the internet blackout imposed by the government, to emerge the winner. The Cameroonian government cut off the internet in the English-speaking regions four weeks ago, saying this was necessary to quell unrest and to stop people from using social media to spread what the government calls "anti-state messages." Protests began in October last year, targeting the alleged marginalization of English speakers by Cameroon's francophone majority. Since then, at least six protestors have been shot dead and hundreds have been arrested. Undeterred by all t

President Trump said Friday that he is considering rewriting his executive order temporarily barring refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the country, indicating that the administration may try to quickly restore some aspects of the now-frozen travel ban or replace it with other measures. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he would probably wait until Monday or Tuesday to take any action, and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said several options — including taking the case to the Supreme Court — were still on the table. Trump hinted that the ongoing legal wrangling might move too slowly for his taste, though he thought he would ultimately prevail in court. “We will win that battle,” he said. “The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand-new order.” He said among the revisions he might make are “new security measures.” A t

Mark Abadi President Donald Trump.Drew Angerer/Getty Images A federal appeals court unanimously ruled against President Donald Trump on Thursday, refusing to reinstate his travel ban affecting people from seven Muslim-majority countries. The ruling, issued by a three-judge panel on the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, means that refugees and citizens of the countries in question can continue entering the US - striking a blow to Trump's ability to deliver on one of his key campaign promises. "We hold that the Government has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, nor has it shown that failure to enter a stay would cause irreparable injury, and we therefore deny its emergency motion for a stay,"  the panel said  in its ruling. Shortly after the ruling was announced, Trump posted a defiant message to Twitter: "SEE YOU IN COURT," Trump tweeted, foreshadowing a legal challenge that could play out in the Supreme Court. Th

Video President Trump stepped up his criticism of the United States judicial system a day after his travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries faced close scrutiny from an appeals court. WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday lashed out at the judicial branch for considering challenges to his executive order banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, asserting that politically motivated judges had held a “disgraceful” federal appeals court hearing Tuesday on the matter. “I don’t ever want to call a court biased, so I won’t call it biased,” Mr. Trump told a gathering of sheriffs and police chiefs in Washington. “But courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what’s right.” Mr. Trump, who opened his remarks reciting the passage of the United States code that gives the president the power to restrict immigration whenever he deems the influx of foreigners detrimental t

Bill McKibben The White House in the Time of Trump has seen unprecedented attacks on pillars of society and civilization  ‘Bannon and Trump hate reason precisely because it places limits on their actions.’ Photograph: REX/Shutterstock We’re not in a normal historical moment. Congress is acting as expected under a Republican government. The assault on the environment and working people is wrong, but predictable. What’s coming from the Oval Office, though, is unprecedented. It’s less the White House than the Black Tower, sending out its Breitbartian orcs and alt-right winged harpies to poison the politics of a nation. Two types of assaults are underway. One, instigated mostly by Congress, is painful. Last week, for instance, they managed in one morning to both end rules which sought to  prevent  coal companies from polluting streams and regulations which made it  harder  for oil companies to bribe foreign governments. There are dozens of these changes, all of them with hideous cons

People hold protest signs during Friday prayers to show solidarity with the Muslim community at the Islamic Center of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, U.S. February 3, 2017. REUTERS/KEVORK DJANSEZIAN (Reuters) - Several technology giants, including Apple, Google and Microsoft, banded together on Sunday to file a legal brief opposing President Donald Trump's temporary immigration ban, arguing that it "inflicts significant harm on American business." The brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, included other top tech firms including Facebook, Twitter and Intel, as well as non-tech companies such as Levi Strauss and Chobani. In all nearly 100 firms, including eBay, Netflix and Uber signed onto the brief. Trump's temporary immigration ban, the most contentious policy move of his first two weeks in offices, faces crucial legal hurdles. His administration has a deadline on Monday to justify the executive order temporarily barring

Fuad Sharef Suleman (C) and his wife and children arrive at Terminal 1 at JFK airport in Queens, New York City, New York, U.S. February 5, 2... Fuad Sharef Suleman (R) and two of his children arrive at Terminal 1 at JFK airport in Queens, New York City, New York, U.S. February 5, 201... Fuad Sharef Suleman (C) and his wife and children arrive at Terminal 1 at JFK airport in Queens, New York City, New York, U.S. February 5, 2... Fuad Sharef Suleman and his son Bnyad Fuad Sharef arrive at Terminal 1 at JFK airport in Queens, New York City, New York, U.S. February 5, 2... Fuad Sharef Suleman (C) and his wife and children arrive at Terminal 1 at JFK airport in Queens, New York City, New York, U.S. February 5, 2... Fuad Sharef Suleman (R) and two of his children arrive at Terminal 1 at JFK airport in Queens, New York City, New York, U.S. February 5, 201... Fuad Sharef took one of the first planes out of Iraq with a connection to the United States this past weekend, just hours a

 The Trump administration's immigration order barring citizens from seven mainly Muslim countries and temporarily blocking refugees was in legal limbo on Sunday after an appeals court denied the Department of Justice's request to restore the ban. The overnight ruling dealt a further setback to Trump, who has denounced the judge in Seattle who blocked his executive order on Friday. In tweets and comments to reporters, the president has insisted he will get the ban reinstated. In a brief order, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government's request for an immediate administrative stay of the judge's ruling had been denied. It was awaiting further submissions from the states of Washington and Minnesota on Sunday, and from the government on Monday. Trump says the 90-day travel ban on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and a 120-day bar on all refugees, are necessary to protect the United States from Islamist

 President Donald Trump signed an executive order that bars citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the US for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days. Opponents of the ban worry that the temporary travel ban will turn into a permanent one. Around the nation, news has emerged of college students from the affected countries  not being able to get back into the US . Aside from the personal hardship the ban has been seen to cause, it may also have a big effect on the bottom line at certain American colleges, according to estimates provided to Business Insider from  College Factual, a higher education data analytics and research company . International students can pay up to three times more than in-state students at public universities,  Business Insider's   Tanza Loudenback reported in September , citing data from SelfScore, a company providing financial services to international students. Foreign students effectively subsidize education costs

Gulf carrier Qatar Airways will allow passengers barred from the United States by President Donald Trump's executive order last week to resume boarding U.S.-bound flights after a federal judge blocked the move, an airline spokeswoman said on Saturday. U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) has advised Qatar Airways it can board travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and all refugees who had been banned under the order, according to a statement on the airline's website. A spokeswoman confirmed the airline would start accepting all passengers with valid travel documents. Trump on Jan. 27 suspended the entry of nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and all refugees. The ban caught the airline industry off guard, with some carriers forced to re-roster flight crew in order to abide by the order. The judge's temporary restraining order represents a major challenge to Trump's action, although his administration could still appeal th

A Seattle federal judge on Friday put a nationwide block on U.S. President Donald Trump's week-old executive order that had temporarily barred refugees and nationals from seven countries from entering the United States. The judge's temporary restraining order represents a major setback for Trump's action, though the White House said late Friday that it believed the ban to be "lawful and appropriate" and that the U.S. Department of Justice would file an emergency appeal. Still, just hours after the ruling, U.S. Customs and Border Protection told airlines they could board travelers who had been affected by the ban. Trump's Jan. 27 order caused chaos at airports across the United States last week as some citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen were denied entry. Virtually all refugees were also barred, upending the lives of thousands of people who had spent years seeking asylum in the U.S. The State Department said Friday that almost

Among Silicon Valley’s top tech employers, Facebook Inc could be the most vulnerable to U.S. President Donald Trump’s expected crackdown on guest-worker visas, according to a Reuters analysis of U.S. Labor Department filings. More than 15 percent of Facebook's U.S. employees in 2016 used a temporary work visa, giving the social media leader a legal classification as a H-1B “dependent” company. That is a higher proportion than Alphabet Inc's Google, Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc or Microsoft Corp. (Click tmsnrt.rs/2l28fLH for a graphic showing H-1B visa applications and average pay) That could cause problems for Facebook if Trump or Congress decide to make the H-1B program more restrictive, as the president and some Republican lawmakers have threatened to do. Both Trump and Attorney General nominee Senator Jeff Sessions have opposed the program in its current form. They have also indicated that they are open to reforming it to “ensure the beneficiaries of the program are the be