U.S. stocks reversed course to trade slightly higher in late morning trading on Monday, helped by a rise in technology stocks including Apple. Apple (AAPL.O) rose nearly 1 percent, hitting a new record-high of $141.34, lifting the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index to yet another intraday high. The iPhone-maker’s stock could rise another 10 percent in six months, Barron’s wrote in an article posted Saturday. The U.S. stock […]
FBI director James Comey is on Capitol Hill today, where he is testifying to the House intelligence committee on the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s attempts to interfere in last year’s US presidential election. He is testifying alongside NSA Director Michael Rogers. Mr Comey, who came under fire during the election campaign for his handling of Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton’s email server probe, was questioned about […]
The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee said the FBI had found no evidence to support Donald Trump’s assertion that Trump Tower was monitored by his predecessor, adding to a chorus of Republican lawmakers who have rejected the president’s unsubstantiated claim. “Was there a physical wiretap of Trump Tower? No,” Devin Nunes told Fox News on Sunday. He added that no warrants had been issued under […]
By Emily Stephenson and Caren Bohan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. lawmakers from both parties said on Sunday they had seen no proof to support the claim by Republican President Donald Trump that his predecessor Barack Obama had wiretapped him last year, adding pressure on Trump to explain or back off his repeated assertion. Several Republicans last week urged Trump to apologize for the allegations he made in […]
WASHINGTON A detailed version of President Donald Trump’s budget to be released in May will lay out plans to eventually erase U.S. deficits, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday. “We’re getting into that now. By May, I think it’s mid-May we’re shooting for right now, we’ll have that larger budget…” Mulvaney said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. Mulvaney acknowledged that the budget would […]
By Susan Cornwell and Valerie Volcovici | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. House Republicans are working on changes to their healthcare overhaul bill to provide more generous tax credits for older Americans and to add a work requirement for the Medicaid program for the poor, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Sunday. Ryan said Republican leaders still plan to bring the healthcare bill to a vote on the […]
The Trump administration’s budget blueprint, released this morning, proposes to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS, as well as many public radio and television stations across the United States. In a section on page 11 labeled “major agency budget highlights,” the budget summary lists the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as among the independent agencies that will be defunded, along with […]
Employer-funded healthcare in the US is an accidental system. It came into being during the second world war, when wage freezes and 1.9 per cent unemployment forced the government to allow companies to offer fringe benefits like healthcare in an attempt to attract workers. In 1943, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that employer-based healthcare should be tax free — and we were off to the races. The […]
PARIS Eleven people have received the 500 endorsements from elected officials needed in order to run in the first round of the French presidential elections on April 23. The top two will qualify for a run-off on May 7. The Constitutional Council announced the final list on Saturday. NATALIE ARTHAUD, 46, WORKERS’ STRUGGLE Economics professor who runs for the far-left Trotskyist party. Wants the voice of the […]
Forced applause usually follows a regulator’s remarks to the regulated. Not so inside the pink stucco walls of the Boca Raton Resort and Club in Florida this week. Chris Giancarlo of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission received a standing ovation when he spoke to hundreds of traders, brokers and exchange executives. The enthusiastic response reflects hopes in the derivatives industry for a better relationship with the CFTC, its principal […]
Independent Journal Review on Thursday took down a story that implied Barack Obama’s recent trip to Hawaii had something to do with a federal judge’s decision to block President Trump’s immigration order. The story, published earlier today, was headlined “Fmr President Obama Made ‘Surprise Visit’ to Hawaii, Days Before Judge Issued Travel Ban Ruling.” It juxtaposed Obama’s visit to Oahu with U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson’s […]
LONDON Allegations from the United States that British spy agency GCHQ snooped on Donald Trump during his election campaign are “arrant nonsense”, the deputy head of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) said in an interview on Saturday. President Trump has stood by unproven claims that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race. On Thursday his spokesman cited a media report that […]
Democrats on a congressional committee have accused Wells Fargo of stonewalling them as they investigate the US bank over sham customer accounts, hinting they may intensify their probe as a result. In a letter on Friday to Wells’ chief executive Tim Sloan, the party’s most senior member of the House financial services committee complained the bank had yet to agree to put forward executives for interviews despite […]
The Quinns also were featured in “Capitol Gains,” the 2015 series produced by The Post and Courier and The Center for Public Integrity. That series explored how South Carolina’s loophole-ridden campaign finance system and ethics laws allow state lawmakers to use campaign war chests like personal ATM machines and profit from government connections. The Post and Courier reported this week that Statehouse probe investigators have obtained a copy […]
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts, I am convinced that the US, and probably the entire Western world, that is, the American Empire, has entered an era in which respect for truth does not exist in public and private institutions. We have been watching this develop for some time. Think, for example, back to August 3, 2002, a recent time in terms of our present predicament, but a […]
By Jeff Mason and Andreas Rinke | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump reiterated his strong support for NATO on Friday and pressed German Chancellor Angela Merkel to meet NATO’s military spending target, in the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders. The meeting between the leader of Europe’s largest economy and the U.S. president was billed as one that could help determine the future of the transatlantic […]
This morning President Trump hosted a brief media appearance in the oval office, along with a group of conservative lawmakers, to, among other things, declare his “100% support” for the GOP’s Obamacare replacement plan. During the discussion, Trump indicated that concessions had been made to the GOP’s legislation to attract the support of several conservative lawmakers and guarantee the bill’s passage when it come up for a […]
The White House has assured the UK government it will not repeat allegations that President Donald Trump was placed under surveillance by GCHQ, Britain’s electronic eavesdropping agency, after London protested over the “nonsense” claims. The allegations, made on Thursday by White House press secretary Sean Spicer, triggered an angry response from Downing Street, an extraordinary high-level spat between two allies with possibly the closest intelligence-sharing relationship in […]
Trump, presumably toasting his “great Irish friends”.Image: OLIVIER DOULIERY/POOL/EPA/REX/Shutterstock By Sam Haysom2017-03-17 13:15:42 UTC Despite their best efforts, Republicans’ attempts to embrace St. Patrick’s Day haven’t exactly gone down a storm. First there was Donald Trump’s green MAGA baseball cap, then there was his failed attempt to share an Irish proverb, and Thursday there was the not-exactly-positive response to Paul Ryan’s pint of Guinness. As expected, Trump […]
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon CEO, is undoubtedly familiar with “tone at the top,” a term coined by audit firms and drilled home by business ethicists in the wake of financial scandals at Xerox, Enron and Arthur Andersen. When corporate leaders fail to model tone at the top by upholding principles, corners are cut and lapses trickle down and poison institutional culture. And yet […]
By Dan Levine and Mica Rosenberg | HONOLULU/NEW YORK HONOLULU/NEW YORK A U.S. federal judge in Hawaii dealt another legal blow to President Donald Trump on Wednesday, issuing an emergency halt to his revised travel ban just hours before it was set to go into effect early on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson put out an emergency stop on Trump’s executive order, which aimed to temporarily […]
In the widely anticipated budget proposal to be released by President Trump on Thursday, the White House will call for spending cuts of 28% for the State Department and 31% for the Environmental Protection Agency, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing congressional staff who are familiar with the plan. The budget plan for fiscal 2018 will also propose a big reduction in the State Department’s […]
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE President Donald Trump is working with Republican leaders in the House of Representatives to make changes to their healthcare overhaul plan to ensure it has enough support to be approved by lawmakers, a White House spokesman said on Wednesday. “We’re obviously in talks with Speaker (Paul) Ryan, the entire leadership team over there … to get the best outcome based on feedback from […]
By Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm former Republican senator Dan Coats to be President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence and to approve Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster’s transfer to become his national security adviser. The vote was 85-12 to confirm Coats, who also served as ambassador to Germany under former President George W. Bush. Fifty-one votes were […]
