VIDEO: Silicon Valley has long been a power center of American innovation. Now that high-tech is also becoming a focus of tensions between the U.S. and China, companies based here are trying to understand how they fit in. VOA spoke with the head of the U.S. Defense Department’s local outpost who sees the tech industry as key to U.S. national security.

ON THIS DAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY On May 24, 1974, jazz legend Duke Ellington dies in New York City. He was 75. Ellington is perhaps the biggest name in the history of jazz, and his career spanned decades. Born in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York from the mid-1920s and came to national attention with his orchestra’s appearances at the famed jazz venue, the Cotton Club. By the 1930s his orchestra was regularly touring Europe. Ellington composed over one thousand songs, many of them becoming standards. Some of his most notable songs include “In a Sentimental Mood,” “Satin Doll” and “Mood Indigo.”

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May became the third Conservative leader to fall victim to party divisions over Britain’s membership of the European Union, following in the footsteps of Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron.

U.S. President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are trading insults in an escalating feud that follows questions about whether he should face impeachment over past and current dealings.

U.S. President Donald Trump is heading to Japan for a four-day state visit heavy on ceremony and sports, although a senior White House official promises “there’ll be some substantive things to announce.”

In a bid to extort revenues from local farmers during the harvest season, Islamic State militants are threatening to set fire to thousands of acres of wheat fields in territories disputed between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan region, according to local officials.