U.S./World category

WASHINGTON— Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has told Pentagon staff they must obtain permission before interacting with members of Congress, according to a congressional aide and a department memo. The new policy was first reported by Breaking Defense, a digital news organization focused on global defense. It is the latest...

WASHINGTON — Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee on Oct. 21 referred former CIA Director John Brennan to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, alleging Brennan made false statements in his 2023 testimony before Congress about the Trump-Russia investigation. ”John Brennan lied to Congress,” Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio,...

A planned summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was put on hold on Tuesday, as Moscow’s rejection of an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine cast a cloud over attempts at negotiations. A senior White House official told Reuters “there are no plans for President Trump to meet...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has begun demolition of the East Wing as he remakes the White House in his image, ignoring rules, breaking promises and taking a wrecking ball to the approval process in an echo of the strategies he deployed in Florida and New York as he built...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump ’s pick to lead a federal watchdog agency withdrew from consideration Tuesday evening, after his offensive text messages were made public and GOP senators revolted. Paul Ingrassia, who was nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel, had been scheduled to have his confirmation hearing...

KIRYAT GAT, ISRAEL/CAIRO — The U.S. increased pressure on Hamas on Tuesday to disarm in the next phase of an already fragile Gaza ceasefire as President Donald Trump pushed to cement an end to the devastating conflict. In a visit to Israel, Vice President JD Vance said the ceasefire plan...

This story contains graphic descriptions that some readers may find disturbing. The soon-to-be released memoir from Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers, posthumously sheds light on the infamous financier’s abuses from the perspective of one of his most vocal victims. “She wanted all her suffering to have accomplished something,...

WASHINGTON — A Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by President Donald Trump has been charged with threatening to kill House of Representatives Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, according to a court document. Christopher Moynihan, 34, sent threatening text messages about an appearance Jeffries, who represents New York’s 8th congressional district, was scheduled...

WASHINGTON — The chair of the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that a weather balloon may be responsible for cracking the windshield of a United Airlines jet at 36,000 feet, prompting an emergency landing. WindBorne Systems said in a statement late Monday that it believes one of its balloons...

TOKYO — Hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi was voted in by parliament as Japan’s first female prime minister Tuesday, emulating her hero, Britain’s late leader Margaret Thatcher, after a whirlwind few weeks of political wrangling. Having won an all-male race to be chosen by her ruling Liberal Democratic Party as its...

SAN FRANCISCO -Amazon.com cloud service returned to normal operations on Monday afternoon, the company said, after an internet outage that caused global turmoil among thousands of sites, including some of the web’s most popular apps like Snapchat and Reddit. Still, Amazon said some AWS services had a backlog of messages...

WASHINGTON – The federal government shutdown enters its 21st day – headed toward its fourth week – as Democrats and Republicans remain bitterly divided over how to resolve rising health care costs. The impasse continues after widespread “No Kings” protest rallies against President Donald Trump during the weekend. Democrats continue...

PARIS — Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy began a five-year sentence on Tuesday for conspiring to raise campaign funds from Libya, arriving at La Sante prison in Paris in a stunning downfall for a man who led the country between 2007 and 2012. The former conservative president, 70, left his...

KYIV — A Russian bombardment of energy infrastructure left hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region without power and some without water on Tuesday, with repairs slowed down by the lingering threat of drone strikes, officials said. The energy ministry said that the regional capital, also called Chernihiv,...

LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Marines are investigating the firing of live artillery over a major California highway during a ceremony attended by Vice President JD Vance in which one shell blew up in the air and rained shrapnel onto police vehicles parked nearby, officials said on Monday. Nobody was...

WASHINGTON — A group of dozens of officials from across the federal government, including U.S. intelligence officers, has been helping to steer President Donald Trump’s drive for retribution against his perceived enemies, according to government records and a source familiar with the effort. The Interagency Weaponization Working Group, which has...

PHILADELPHIA — Federal appeals court judges on Monday questioned the Trump administration’s maneuvers to keep the president’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, in place as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor. The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in Philadelphia didn’t immediately issue a ruling after the...

Construction began on President Donald Trump’s new $250 million White House ballroom with workers demolishing part of the East Wing ahead of building a 90,000-square-foot addition, one of the biggest changes to the presidential residence in decades. Images show a backhoe tearing into the side of the East Wing facing...

ATLANTA — Police arrested a man at Atlanta’s bustling airport on Monday after getting a tip from his family that he was planning to shoot up the place, and found an assault rifle and ammunition in his truck outside, the city’s police chief said. Billy Joe Cagle, of Cartersville, Georgia,...

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss criminal charges against him, arguing that the U.S. attorney who brought the case was unlawfully appointed and that he is being unfairly targeted because of President Donald Trump’s “personal spite” against him. “The indictment in...

A divided U.S. appeals court ruled on Monday that Donald Trump can send National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon, despite objections by the leaders of the city and state, giving the Republican president an important legal victory as he dispatches military forces to a growing number of Democratic-led locales. A...

Major websites and popular apps were down and unavailable Monday, Oct. 20, due to an Amazon Web Services outage, or AWS incident. The disruption forced Verizon phones into “SOS” mode, and downed apps and impacted schools and teachers with the online platform Canvas by Instructure down, as well as Zoom,...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a rare earths and critical minerals agreement on Monday aimed at ensuring a steady supply of the materials at a time when China is trying to tighten control over global supply. As they met at the White House...

NEW YORK − The nation’s largest infrastructure project has drawn President Donald Trump’s ire in his latest fight with congressional Democrats. Trump has vowed to end the Gateway tunnel project meant to expand train service between New York and New Jersey along the nation’s busiest rail corridor. The project −...