More than 175 former State Department and Pentagon officials added their names to a statement signed by former national security officials criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel the security clearance of former Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan.
Former U.N. Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan died on Saturday at the age of 80, his foundation said, after decades of championing efforts to try to end protracted conflicts in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The U.S. government is trying to force Facebook Inc to break the encryption in its popular Messenger app so law enforcement may listen to a suspect’s voice conversations in a criminal probe, three people briefed on the case said, resurrecting the issue of whether companies can be compelled to alter their products to enable surveillance.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller recommended in a court filing on Friday that a judge sentence former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos to up to six months in prison for lying to federal agents investigating whether Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Four U.S. senators urged the Army to detail the steps it is taking to safeguard children from lead poisoning, citing a Reuters investigation into hazards on military bases.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating a cyber attack on the congressional campaign of a Democratic candidate in California, according to three people close to the campaign.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday sought to speed up the deportation of illegal immigrants, telling immigration judges they should only postpone cases in removal proceedings “for good cause shown.”
Aretha Franklin, the preacher’s daughter whose powerful voice made her the long-reigning “Queen of Soul” with such hit songs as “Respect” and “Chain of Fools,” died on Thursday at the age of 76, officials said.
By David Gaffen (Reuters) – Voter engagement in the 2018 U.S. midterm races remains feverish, primaries in notable swing states Wisconsin and Minnesota showed on Tuesday. Both states showed sharp increases in participation as voters picked candidates for Congress, Senate and governor, with Minnesota’s turnout surpassing a two-decade high and Wisconsin’s hitting levels not reached…
By Karen Freifeld and Nathan Layne (Reuters) – Paul Manafort had “a huge dumpster of hidden money” abroad, a prosecutor said on Wednesday, urging a jury to convict the former Trump campaign chief on financial fraud charges based more on a paper trail of evidence than the testimony of a former protege. Special Assistant U.S….
(Reuters) – Twitter Inc has banned U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from tweeting for seven days, saying one of his tweets violated its rules against abusive behavior. The microblogging site had asked Jones on late Tuesday to delete the tweet that contained a video, which according to a spokesman had a segment at the end…
By Ginger Gibson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As women line up to run for U.S. political office at historic rates, state legislatures – where some of America’s most critical policy decisions get made – could see a slew of new female lawmakers after November’s vote, according to a Reuters analysis of election data. In Michigan, for…
By Bernie Woodall PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – The Florida high school where a gunman killed 17 people in February opened on Wednesday for a new school year with three armed guards and other new security measures that some parents and students worried would not be enough. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, doubled…
Advocacy groups on Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging the decision by President Donald Trump’s administration to allow Arkansas to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients in the state.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House national security adviser John Bolton will meet Russian officials in Geneva next week as a follow-up to the summit meeting that President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had in Helsinki last month, the White House said. Bolton, as part of his trip, will also visit Israel and Ukraine…
By Daniel Trotta (Reuters) – Vermont Democrats made Christine Hallquist the first openly transgender person to win a major party nomination for statewide office in U.S. history as she clinched Tuesday’s primary election for governor. She defeated three other Democrats and will take on incumbent Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, in the Nov. 6 general…
A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a lawsuit by border policy activists challenging the constitutionality of a U.S. government policy requiring advance permission to take photos or shoot film at ports of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania sexually abused thousands of children over a 70-year period and silenced victims through “the weaponization of faith” and a systematic cover-up campaign by their bishops, the state attorney general said on Tuesday.
(Reuters) – An 11-year-old boy managed to hack into a replica of Florida’s election results website in 10 minutes and change names and tallies during a hackers convention, organizers said, stoking concerns about security ahead of nationwide votes. The boy was the quickest of 35 children, ages 6 to 17, who all eventually hacked into…
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $716 billion defense policy bill on Monday that authorizes military spending and includes watered-down controls on U.S. government contracts with China’s ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.
(Reuters) – A Florida man was charged with manslaughter on Monday for fatally shooting another man during an argument over a parking spot, after police initially declined to arrest him due to the state’s “stand your ground” self-defense law, officials said. Alleged shooter Michael Drejka, 47, was taken into custody on Monday, the Pinellas County…
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he kept former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman on staff because she praised him even as she failed to do her job, the latest insult in the two former reality television stars’ public battle. Trump said the former “The Apprentice” contestant had begged for…
By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who came under fire by Republicans for sending politically charged text messages that disparaged President Donald Trump, was fired from the bureau late Friday, his attorney said on Monday. Strzok is the third high-ranking person to be fired from the FBI during the…
“It’s important to understand that if we make this a friendly departure … you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation.”
By Ginger Gibson and Joseph Ax WASHINGTON/CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (Reuters) – Washington was bracing for a white nationalist rally on Sunday organized to coincide with the anniversary of last year’s racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. The “Unite the Right 2” event was set to take place at 5:30 p.m. in Lafayette Square, across the street…
By Joseph Ax CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (Reuters) – Hundreds of students and left-wing activists took to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, as a rally to mark the anniversary of last year’s white nationalist gathering turned largely into an anti-police protest. [ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”24″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_slideshow” gallery_width=”600″ gallery_height=”400″ cycle_effect=”fade” cycle_interval=”10″ show_thumbnail_link=”1″ thumbnail_link_text=”[Show thumbnails]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included”…
By Brendan O’Brien and Alex Dobuzinskis (Reuters) – Federal authorities on Saturday were seeking to learn what drove an airline worker to steal an empty airplane from Seattle’s airport in a security scare that caused the scrambling of U.S. fighter jets and ended when the plane crashed onto a sparsely populated island. A Horizon Air…
Donald Trump said on Saturday he condemns “all types of racism and acts of violence,” appealing for unity ahead of the anniversary of a deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
A U.S. free speech group on Friday asked President Donald Trump to unblock 41 Twitter users after a federal judge in May ordered him to restore access to a group of individuals who filed suit.
A Chicago bank chief pushed for $16 million in loans to Paul Manafort in return for help landing a post in the incoming Trump administration, a witness testified in the former Trump campaign chairman’s federal fraud trial testified on Friday.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday renewed his attacks on NFL players pushing for criminal justice and other social reforms, after a number of players protested during the league’s preseason opening late on Thursday.
An associate of President Donald Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone was found in contempt on Friday after refusing to appear as a witness before a grand jury convened as part of U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, U.S. media reported.
The number of Americans who consider Russia a threat to their country increased since 2015, as U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and on new accusations of Russian meddling ahead of the November midterm elections.
Officials in Charlottesville have vowed a massive police presence – with some 1,000 personnel assigned – to deter any violence.
The “Unite the Right” rally last August, called to protest the removal of a Confederate statue, turned the picturesque Virginia college town into a chaotic scene of street brawls, and one woman was killed when an Ohio man rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters.
President Donald Trump’s administration has quietly started cutting scores of Pakistani officers from coveted training and educational programs that have been a hallmark of bilateral military relations for more than a decade, U.S. officials say.
The judge in the trial of U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort expressed contrition on Thursday to jurors for harsh commentary directed at prosecutors.
By Sarah N. Lynch, Nathan Layne and Karen Freifeld ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is on trial on tax and bank fraud charges, had $16.5 million in unreported taxable business income between 2010 and 2014, a U.S. Internal Revenue Service agent testified on Wednesday. IRS agent Michael…
The trial of Paul Manafort, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, is expected to shift focus on Thursday from his alleged tax evasion to bank fraud as the prosecution’s case heads into its final two days.
By Andrew Hay TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) – Five adults charged with abusing 11 children at a New Mexico compound, where they were found ragged and starving, were training those children to use firearms to commit school shootings, prosecutors said in court documents on Wednesday. The principal suspect, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, also was charged with abducting…
By Collin Eaton NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Pumping carbon dioxide into the air makes the planet greener; the United Nations puts out fake science about climate change to control the global energy market; and wind and solar energy are simply “dumb”. These are among the messages that flowed from the America First Energy Conference in…
China is slapping additional tariffs of 25 percent on $16 billion worth of U.S. imports from fuel and steel products to autos and medical equipment, the Chinese commerce ministry said, as the world’s largest economies escalated their trade dispute.
Republican candidates backed by Donald Trump clung to small leads in closely watched races in Ohio and Kansas on Wednesday, with the narrow margins serving as encouraging signs for Democrats heading into November’s elections.
Voters in Missouri on Tuesday overwhelmingly decided to strike down a so-called “right-to-work” law barring the collection of fees from private-sector workers who choose not to become union members, a crucial victory for organized labor following a series of setbacks.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul said on Wednesday he delivered a letter from President Donald Trump to the Russian government during a trip to Moscow. “I was honored to deliver a letter from President Trump to President Vladimir Putin’s administration. The letter emphasized the importance of further engagement in various areas including…
By John Whitesides (Reuters) – A hotly contested race in Ohio for a U.S. House of Representatives seat that has gone Republican for more than 30 years remained too close to call on Wednesday, in an encouraging sign for Democrats heading into the Nov. 6 elections. Republican Troy Balderson led Democrat Danny O’Connor by about…
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday said Christopher Collins, a Republican congressman from upstate New York, has been indicted for insider trading related to a drug trial at an Australian biotechnology company on whose board he served. The indictment also charged Collins’ son Cameron, as well as Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron…
California air regulators on Tuesday said they plan to keep tightening state vehicle emissions rules despite a Trump administration proposal last week that would strip the state of the ability to set its own limits.
Mattress Firm Inc, the largest U.S. mattress retailer, is considering a potential bankruptcy filing as it seeks ways to get out of costly store leases and shut some of its 3,000 locations that are losing money, people familiar with the matter said.
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s right-hand man testified at trial on Tuesday that Manafort instructed him not to tell their firm’s bookkeeper about payments from accounts in Cyprus that held millions of dollars in earnings from consulting work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.
As Charlottesville prepares for the one-year anniversary this weekend, it is still agonizing over clashes last year in which one woman was killed when an Ohio man drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters.
Federal prosecutors in New York are examining whether U.S. President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, committed tax fraud, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the investigation.
California’s biggest wildfire on record raged on Tuesday as hot and windy conditions challenged thousands of fire crews battling eight major blazes burning out of control across the state.
Rick Gates, a former business associate to U.S. President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort, will continue to testify against his former boss and is expected to face a tough cross examination on Tuesday.
The proposal illustrates how Russia, having helped turn the tide of the war in favor of President Bashar al-Assad, is now pressing Washington and others to aid the reconstruction of areas under his control. Such an effort would likely further cement Assad’s hold on power.
By Aziz El Yaakoubi and David Ljunggren RIYADH/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia froze new trade and investment with Canada and expelled the Canadian ambassador, in a stern gesture of retaliation after Ottawa urged it to free arrested civil society activists. The sudden sharp response to criticism shows the limits of reforms by Saudi Arabia’s 32-year-old…
MOSCOW (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Rand Paul on Monday invited Russian lawmakers to visit Washington after holding talks in Moscow with parliamentarians and pledging to obstruct new sanctions against Russia. The Republican senator and ally of U.S. President Donald Trump said he had traveled to the Russian capital to encourage diplomacy amid tense relations between…
U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged on Sunday that his son met with Russians in 2016 at Trump Tower to get information on his election opponent Hillary Clinton, saying it was “totally legal” and “done all the time in politics.”
With opinion polls showing U.S. public support for more gun control growing in the wake of mass shootings in recent years, the NRA is facing internal pressure from this little-known force that is demanding that the leadership concede zero ground to gun-control advocates.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday it had made U.S. actor Steven Seagal its special representative for Russian-U.S. humanitarian ties, a role it said was meant to deepen cultural, art and youth ties between the two countries.
BEIJING/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – China’s state media said on Saturday the government’s retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods showed rational restraint and they accused the United States of blackmail. Late on Friday, China’s finance ministry unveiled new sets of additional tariffs on 5,207 goods imported from the United States, with the extra levies ranging…
North Korea and the United States on Saturday sparred over an agreement reached at a landmark summit in June for the Asian country to end its nuclear program, as Washington called for maintaining sanctions pressure against Pyongyang, which in turn said it was alarmed by U.S. intentions.
Scores of right-wing and anti-fascist demonstrators squared off on Saturday in Portland, Oregon, where four people were injured in similar rallies on June 30.
North Korea has not stopped its nuclear and missile programs in violation of United Nations sanctions, according to a confidential U.N. report seen by Reuters on Friday.
The Trump administration has rescinded an Obama-era ban on the use of pesticides linked to declining bee populations and the cultivation of genetically modified crops in dozens of national wildlife refuges where farming is permitted.
One worker died after a fire and series of pipeline explosions two days ago in Midland County, Texas, officials said on Friday.
The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to vacate a 2016 appeals court ruling that had upheld Obama era “net neutrality” rules that barred internet service providers from blocking, throttling or prioritizing content.
A federal judge on Friday ruled that the Trump administration must fully restore a program that protects from deportation some young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children, including accepting new applications for the program.
An accountant for U.S. President Donald Trump’s one-time campaign chairman Paul Manafort admitted in trial testimony on Friday that she helped backdate documents and falsify financial records at Manafort and his business partner’s request to reduce his tax burden and help him qualify for loans.
A group of immigrant fathers, recently reunified with their sons and detained in Texas, have gone on a hunger strike to demand their release, an immigrant rights group representing them.
The U.S. government deported a Mexican woman on Friday who had lived in the country illegally for nearly two decades despite efforts by lawmakers to keep her in Florida with her husband, a Marine Corps veteran, and her two American children.
By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the constitutionality of two California laws restricting the ability of people to buy and carry firearms, rejecting appeals by gun rights advocates. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected challenges to Unsafe Handgun Act requirements that new semiautomatic pistols have chamber load…
Eleven U.S. states have joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the online distribution of blueprints for 3-D printed guns, after several states on Tuesday convinced a federal judge to block the planned publication of the designs.
Less than two months after a landmark U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew back to the city state on Friday and said North Korea’s continued work on weapons programs was inconsistent with its leader’s commitment to denuclearize.
China on Friday announced retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods ranging from liquefied natural gas (LNG) to some aircraft and warned of further measures, signaling that it won’t back down in a protracted trade war with Washington.
The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on a Russian bank it said had facilitated a transaction with a person blacklisted by Washington for involvement with North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
By Ginger Gibson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of the Republican National Committee criticized the conservative Koch network of donors on Thursday for threatening to back Democrats, escalating tensions between the party and its core business backers before November’s congressional elections. Officials with the Koch network, which was founded by billionaires Charles and David Koch…
The U.S. government told a federal court judge on Thursday that volunteers and non-profit groups, rather than government officials, should take the lead in locating more than 400 immigrant parents who were separated from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border and deported from the United States.
A group of immigrant fathers, recently reunified with their sons and detained in Texas, have gone on hunger strike to demand their release, an immigrant rights group representing them said on Thursday.
Prosecutors on Thursday pressed their bank and tax fraud case against Paul Manafort, presenting testimony and documents to try to prove U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman deceived his lead bookkeeper and a bank about his finances.
By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some records sought by U.S. senators about the prior White House service of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will not be available until the end of October, the U.S. National Archives said on Thursday, though it was unclear whether this would delay his confirmation process. The…
U.S. President Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on the media run the risk of triggering real violence against journalists, the U.N. rapporteur for freedom of expression said on Thursday.
Four major U.S. cities filed a lawsuit on Thursday contending that President Donald Trump’s administration is unconstitutionally seeking to undermine Obamacare by failing to faithfully execute the healthcare law.
Prosecutors in the trial of U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort hammered away on Thursday at his lavish spending as they sought to prove fraud charges, while they also confirmed plans to call a key witness to testify.
The Republican senator is due to lead a U.S. delegation to the Russian capital and to meet Russian members of parliament, Russian agencies cited a senior lawmaker as saying earlier on Thursday.
By Sarah N. Lynch, Nathan Layne and Karen Freifeld ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) – Two witnesses in the trial of President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort testified on Wednesday that invoices purporting to bill a company tied to Manafort appeared to be fake. It was the first time that prosecutors from Special Counsel Robert…
U.S. prosecutors raised the possibility on Wednesday that an expected star witness may not testify against President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort even as the judge tried to rein in their portrayal of Manafort’s lavish lifestyle.
A senior official at the U.S. agency charged with caring for migrant children believed separating them from their parents carried “significant risk” of harm and said on Tuesday concerns had been raised internally before the Trump administration made it official policy.
A U.S. judge on Tuesday blocked the planned release of blueprints for 3-D printed guns hours before they were set to hit the internet, siding with several states that sued to halt publication of designs to make weapons that security screening may not detect.
While collusion is not a technical legal charge, Mueller is probing any coordination between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, and could bring conspiracy charges if he finds that any campaign member worked with Russia to break U.S. law.
The prosecution on Tuesday portrayed U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort as a man who felt tax and banking laws did not apply to him and described how he opened more than 30 bank accounts in three foreign countries to “receive and hide” income from Ukraine.
The jury was selected on Tuesday in the trial of U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and opening arguments were set to begin in the afternoon.
Facebook Inc has identified a coordinated political influence campaign through dozens of inauthentic accounts on its platform ahead of November’s U.S. midterm election,
President Donald Trump on Tuesday slammed the powerful Koch-led political donor network as “globalist” and “a total joke,” rejecting the conservative group amid signs of a growing public fissure between the president and business over trade and immigration.
Senior Iranian officials on Tuesday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer of talks without preconditions as worthless and “a humiliation” after he acted to reimpose sanctions on Tehran following his withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid by President Donald Trump’s administration to put the brakes on a lawsuit filed by young activists who have accused the U.S. government of ignoring the perils of climate change.
U.S. spy satellites have detected renewed activity at the North Korean factory that produced the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, a senior U.S. official said on Monday, in the midst of talks to compel Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arms.
Aftab Pureval, a Democrat seeking to unseat a Republican congressman in Ohio, knows the political risks in calling for gun restrictions – and taking on the powerful National Rifle Association, which has spent more than $115,000 supporting his opponent over the years.
Paul Manafort, a former chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, faces 18 criminal counts in his trial in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, that starts on Tuesday. Half the counts involve bank fraud and bank fraud conspiracy, which can carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for each count. He has pleaded not guilty. Here is a summary of the charges:
In a move due to take effect on Monday, BMW said in a statement to Reuters over the weekend that it will increase maker-suggested retail prices of the popular, relatively high-margin X5 and X6 SUV models by 4 percent to 7 percent.
A group of U.S. states on Monday said it is suing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump for allowing the public to download blueprints for 3-D printable guns.
