U.S. News

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday that he and others on his Democrat leadership team have reached an agreement with Senate Republicans to extend the federal debt ceiling through early December.

First-time claims for U.S. unemployment compensation dropped sharply last week after three straight weeks of increasing numbers of jobless workers filing for benefits, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The Gallup polling firm reported Thursday that Americans’ trust in the media to report the news with fairness, accuracy and fullness has dropped to its lowest level since the 2016 presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Cybersecurity experts who held lucrative Pentagon and homeland security contracts and high-level security clearances are under investigation for potentially abusing their government privileges to aid a 2016 Clinton campaign plot to falsely link Donald Trump to Russia and trigger an FBI investigation of him and his campaign, according to several sources familiar with the work of Special Counsel John Durham.

This year has seen 106 new pro-life laws passed, a record which overtook the previous record of 100 anti-abortion laws passed in 1973, The 19th reports. The 2021 laws were passed by 19 states, with twelve of the new acts incorporating some kind of total ban on abortion, The 19th said.

A federal judge on Wednesday issued an injunction to temporarily block implementation of the controversial Texas “heartbeat” law which bans abortion from around six weeks gestation, DW reports. US District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin ordered the temporary injunction in response to a suit filed by the Biden administration, which argued the law is unconstitutional.

U.S. Supreme Court justices Wednesday questioned why the U.S. government will not let a suspected high-ranking al-Qaida figure held at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba testify about his torture at the hands of the CIA.

An out-of-state billionaire who has previously bankrolled attempts to defend controversial immigration laws is responsible for nearly all the donations to Gov. Greg Abbott’s $54 million border wall fund.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday offered a short-term suspension of the U.S. debt ceiling to avoid the U.S. defaulting on its debt in the coming day, resulting in a potential economic crisis.

President Biden now says he’s prepared to sign the proposed $3.5 trillion social-spending bill whether the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortions, makes it into the package or not.

A District judge in Oklahoma on Monday allowed three out of five new pro-life state laws to stand, including legislation which would disqualify half of the state’s abortion physicians from practicing, Christian Headlines (CH) reports. At the same time, Oklahoma County District Judge Cindy Truong did block a “heartbeat” law banning abortion from about six weeks gestation, and a law categorizing the provision of abortion as “unprofessional conduct” by doctors.

Dr. Francis Collins announced Tuesday he will step down as director of the National Institutes of Health by the end of the year because it is time for a “new scientist” to lead the biomedical agency after his 12-year run.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has directed the FBI and U.S. Attorney Offices across the country to work with local officials over the next 30 days to address the “increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools.”

The Facebook whistleblower who revealed herself in a 60 Minutes interview is getting strategic communications guidance from a top Democratic operative, according to a source with direct knowledge of the relationship, which was confirmed by another half-dozen sources with indirect knowledge of the partnership.

Hurricane Ida may have incurred losses as high as $41 billion insured losses nationwide, making it one of the costliest disasters in U.S. history, Reinsurance News (RN) reports.

All civilians who work for the Defense Department and the military services must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by Nov. 22, under new guidelines released Monday.

Social media services Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram slowly reconnected to the global internet Monday, nearly six hours into a massive outage that underscored the limitations of worldwide communications.

The Supreme Court on Monday begins a new term and returns with abortion, guns and religion on the agenda.

A breach in an oil pipeline in Southern California on Saturday resulted in thousands of gallons of oil spilling into the Pacific Ocean, ravaging a nearby wildlife habitat.

Americans face massive shortages of consumer goods ranging from cars to shoes ahead of Christmas as the global supply chain almost collapses due to restrictions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, officials warned late Sunday.