Daily news coverage of politics, policy, and issues shaping the nation.
The Trump administration filed an amicus (or “friend of the court”) brief Wednesday urging the Supreme Court to protect a 93-year-old war memorial in Bladensburg, Maryland, that is shaped like a Latin cross. The court will soon decide whether the cross-shaped World War I memorial violates the First Amendment’s ban on religious favoritism. The justices agreed…
KATOWICE, Poland—TV weather forecasters who understand the potential dangers of climate change are well-positioned to educate the public and spur them to take action, participants said in a panel discussion at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held here earlier this month. A major theme at…
Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said President Donald Trump will not budge on the $5 billion requested for a border wall Wednesday, as the government enters its sixth day of a partial shutdown. Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said he does not believe Trump will agree to the Democrats’ counteroffer of $1.3…
President Donald Trump said the federal government will remain shut down unless there is an agreement on some type of border wall or fence. “I can’t tell you when the government is going to reopen … [not until] we have a wall, a fence, whatever they’d like to call it. I’ll call it whatever they…
Two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are pressing a nominee for the Nebraska federal trial court about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a fraternal service organization of the Catholic Church. Democratic Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Kamala Harris of California submitted written questions in December to Brian Buescher, an Omaha lawyer nominated to the U.S. District Court for…
Incoming White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney warned that it is “very possible” the partial government shutdown will run into 2019, as President Donald Trump insists funding for the border wall must be included. “It’s very possible this shutdown will go beyond the 28th and into the new Congress,” Mulvaney said on "Fox News…
George Opudo used to drive for Uber. Picking up and dropping off customers at Union Station in Washington, just steps away from the U.S. Capitol, he’d look at homeless people and think: “That’d never be me.” But in September 2017, Opudo lost his car, his job, and all of his worldly possessions. With no place…
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Republicans need to “abandon” border wall funding if they want the government to reopen, just less than 24 hours into the partial shutdown. Schumer, who has strongly opposed funding President Donald Trump’s border wall, said this on the Senate floor Saturday afternoon as the federal government is officially in a partial shutdown after…
Hours before a partisan divide was set to force a partial government shutdown, President Donald Trump signed the most sweeping bipartisan initiative of his presidency—a criminal justice reform bill. Trump signed the First Step Act, geared toward helping to integrate prisoners into society after they serve their sentence. At the bill signing, after talking at…
Defense Secretary James Mattis is leaving the administration at the end of February—making it clear he has a different worldview than President Donald Trump. “Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to…
PARIS—The Christmas season is back on track in France’s capital city after a month of violent nationwide protests tripped up the country’s economy and dealt President Emmanuel Macron an existential threat to his ambitious reform program. The “yellow vest” protesters first took the streets in mid-November to oppose a fuel tax increase, which was part…
President Donald Trump won’t sign a spending bill to keep the government fully running without funding for a wall along the southern border. The Senate passed a spending bill late Wednesday, sending it to the House of Representatives, but lacking Trump’s request for $5 billion to build the wall. Earlier Thursday, it was widely reported…
After three days, a GoFundMe page started by a Purple Heart recipient to help pay for a border wall has more than $6 million from more than 100,000 people as of this writing. This comes as Congress appears unlikely to give President Donald Trump the funding he wants to help pay for his key campaign…
The Trump administration on Thursday put forward a draft proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration while at the same time protecting the region’s iconic wildlife. The proposal comes nearly one year after President Donald Trump signed GOP-led tax cuts into law. The bill also ordered the Interior Department to…
As the second year of investigations of President Donald Trump wraps up, he and his lawyers probably won’t be able to take a breather in 2019, when the Democrats’ new House majority creates a third track of probes. Legal experts agree that special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian election meddling won’t conclude by year’s…
Shortly after Rep. Trey Gowdy’s new lawmaker orientation as an elected member of the House of Representatives in 2011, he went to his hero Paul Ryan’s office and asked for his autograph. Ryan, who was slightly embarrassed, according to Gowdy, decided to take the opportunity to have a quick chat with his new colleague from…
Now in the final days of their control of the House, Republicans have failed to make good on a major promise they made to voters—namely, funding the border wall to curb illegal immigration, the former chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus said. But some caucus members are holding out hope for a last-minute breakthrough….
North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s recommendation of a short-term funding bill that would fund the government until Feb. 8, as funding is set to expire Friday. Shortly after McConnell announced his idea for funding on the Senate floor, Meadows said pushing the funding on a continuing resolution would be a…
Despite ongoing criticism from activists, fast-food chain Chick-fil-A is projected to become the third-largest restaurant chain in the U.S., according to an analysis from Kalinowski Equity Research. The fast-food chicken chain will rise from its seventh-place spot to rank as the third-largest U.S. restaurant chain by 2018’s close, according to the group’s research, Business Insider reported. “We have…
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced legislation on Tuesday that would establish a government-run pharmaceutical manufacturer to effectively compete with the private market. The Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act seeks to address the increasing prices of prescription drugs by injecting competition into the marketplace, consequently lowering the cost of mass-produced generic drugs. The bill would create the…