Informing, engaging & connecting the people of the world. DECEMBER 31, 2019

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U.S. President Donald Trump regularly says his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un remains positive. But he may soon have little choice but to change his approach toward Kim, who within days may unveil a new, hard-line policy toward the United States.

ON THIS DAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY On December 31, 1879, inventor Thomas Alva Edison demonstrates his incandescent light bulb by lighting a street in Menlo Park, New Jersey. While the incandescent bulb had been invented some 40 years earlier, Edison’s was the first practical design that could burn steadily and relatively efficiently. Anticipation for Edison’s demonstration was so high that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company ran special trains to Menlo Park to accommodate public interest in the event.

Security forces at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad fired tear gas Tuesday in response to protesters and Iraqi Shiite militia supporters who breached the outer edge of the compound and rallied in condemnation of U.S. airstrikes targeting an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq and Syria.

VIDEO: Volunteers are working around the clock preparing flower-decked floats for the annual Rose Parade, a New Year’s Day tradition. Hundreds of thousands of people will line the parade route in Pasadena, California, on Wednesday, and millions more will watch on television.

VIDEO: This New Year’s Eve, an estimated 1 million people will pack the streets of New York City’s Times Square to watch the famous ball drop. It’s a tradition that dates back to 1907, as visitors from around the world gather to count down the final seconds to 2020. VOA heads to the rooftop for a look at one of the world’s most anticipated New Year’s Eve celebrations.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo leaves this week for Ukraine — the country at the center of a political storm in Washington, D.C. He will be in Kyiv on Friday, the first stop of a five-nation European and Central Asian tour that will also take him to Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Cyprus.