Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recommendation to downsize a vast new national monument in Utah created optimism among opponents of 26 other monuments under review around the country and fear among conservation groups that worry he will propose shrinking or rescinding other sites in his final report due in late August. Along the New England coast,…
read moreThe U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration more time to file papers responding to an appeals court ruling that upheld a block on a proposed travel ban on people entering the United States from six Muslim-majority countries. The move likely delays any high court action on the administration’s two emergency applications asking…
read moreU.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has defended President Donald Trump’s proposal to sharply cut spending on diplomacy and foreign aid while proposing large increases in military spending. The president’s 2018 proposed budget would cut spending at the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by 32 percent and boost Defense Department spending…
read moreTop officials of the U.S. central bank are gathered in Washington, debating whether to raise short-term interest rates on Wednesday, and by how much. Most economists expect the Federal Reserve to boost the benchmark rate a modest quarter of a percent, to a range between one and 1.25 percent. The Fed cut rates nearly to…
read moreIt’s the end of an internet era. Yahoo, an iconic early adapter of the World Wide Web, is now part of Verizon Communications, after a $4.48 billion deal was finalized Tuesday for Yahoo’s core internet operations. The remainder of Yahoo will be called Atlaba Inc., which will serve as a holding company for Yahoo’s shares…
read moreApple Inc. offered a $1 billion bond dedicated to financing clean energy and environmental projects on Tuesday, the first corporate green bond offered since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement. The offering comes over a year after Apple issued its first green bond of $1.5 billion — the largest issued…
read moreGeneral Motors says it has built 130 self-driving Chevrolet Bolt electric cars at a factory in suburban Detroit. The cars are equipped with GM’s second-generation self-driving software and equipment. They will join 50 self-driving Bolts that are already being tested in San Francisco; Scottsdale, Arizona; and the Detroit area. CEO Mary Barra says GM is…
read moreA top U.S. Justice Department official assured lawmakers Tuesday that without “good cause” he would ignore any attempt by President Donald Trump to fire a special counsel investigating possible illegal collusion between Trump’s aides and Russian officials in last year’s campaign. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Robert Mueller, a former director of the…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump is assailing the latest federal appellate court decision blocking his executive order restricting travel from six majority-Muslim countries where terrorist attacks have occurred. “Well, as predicted, the 9th Circuit did it again – Ruled against the TRAVEL BAN at such a dangerous time in the history of our country,” Trump posted…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized a federal appeals court one day after it handed him another legal setback by refusing to revive his U.S. travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority nations, and appeared poised for the nation’s top court to weigh in. On Monday, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of…
read moreHigh-profile supporters of President Donald Trump are turning on special counsel Robert Mueller, the man charged with investigating Russian interference in the U.S. election and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign. As Mueller builds his legal team, Trump’s allies have begun raising questions about the former FBI director’s impartiality, suggesting he cannot be trusted to…
read morePresident Donald Trump says apprenticeships could match workers with millions of open jobs, but he’s reluctant to devote more taxpayer money to the effort. Instead, Trump and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta say the administration is focused on getting universities and private companies to pair up and pay the cost of such learn-to-earn arrangements. The…
read moreThe U.S. Secret Service said Monday it doesn’t have any recordings or transcripts of any tapes recorded within President Donald Trump’s White House, a disclosure that failed to rule out whether any tapes exist of Trump’s conversations with ousted FBI Director James Comey. The agency made the disclosure in response to a freedom of information…
read morePresident Donald Trump preened before his Cabinet and the cameras on Monday, making claims that are unsupported by the record. A sampling from a portion of the Cabinet meeting opened to the press: — “Great success, including MS-13. They’re being thrown out in record numbers and rapidly. And they’re being depleted. They’ll all…
read moreGreat president or greatest? That appeared to be the question at President Donald Trump’s first meeting of his full Cabinet on Monday, as top aides took turns piling praise on the boss. After Trump extolled the achievements of his young administration, asserting that he had accomplished more than any president in his first…
read moreA drop in global cocoa prices threatens to undermine efforts to stamp out child labor in Ghana and Ivory Coast, the world’s two biggest growers, as falling incomes could force farmers to send their children to work, charities said on Monday. More than two million children are estimated to work in the cocoa industry across…
read morePoland warned on Monday against rising protectionism in Europe after a decisive victory for French President Emmanuel Macron’s party in the first round of parliamentary elections. Macron has called for a “protection agenda” for the European Union that includes a “Buy European Act” and regulations to prevent strategic companies from falling into non-European hands. Konrad…
read moreEurozone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund are likely to strike a compromise on Greece on Thursday, paving the way for new loans for Athens while leaving the contentious debt relief issue for later, officials said on Monday. IMF head Christine Lagarde suggested a plan last week under which the Fund would join the…
read moreThe United States refused Monday to sign onto a Group of Seven pledge that calls the Paris climate accord the “irreversible” global tool to address climate change. The G-7 environment ministers issued a final communique Monday after their two-day meeting, the first since the United States announced it was withdrawing from the Paris climate…
read moreChina has granted provisional approval for four additional Ivanka Trump trademarks since April 20, and her brand has continued to seek more intellectual property protection in China, with at least 14 applications filed around the time she took on an official White House role, Chinese public records show. Trademarks provide essential – and valuable…
read moreDevelopments in Washington, D.C., over the weekend include Attorney General Jeff Sessions agreeing to speak to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republicans asking President Donald Trump to come clean about possible taped conversations with former FBI Director James Comey, the continuing Gulf crisis involving a blockade of Qatar by other countries in the region, and the…
read moreFellow Republicans are pressing President Donald Trump to come clean about whether he has tapes of private conversations with former FBI director James Comey. And if he does, they want the president to hand them over to Congress or else possibly face a subpoena. The request is a sign of escalating fallout from…
read more
