Members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet have a new catchphrase for how they see the future role of the US: not just “energy-independent”, but “energy-dominant”. As Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, put it at an industry conference in Houston last week: “Dominance is what America needs.” It would be tempting to dismiss that talk as hype, except that every week the US energy sector is coming up […]
Credit: CC0 Public Domain Investing in new ways of utility-scale electricity storage and capturing carbon to store underground should be a priority for governments aiming to meet the greenhouse gas and ‘green energy’ targets set out in the Paris Agreement despite shrinking research and development budgets, suggests a new paper published today in Nature Energy. Researchers analyzed a range of studies and expert reports on public energy […]
By Douglas Busvine | DHARAMSALA, India DHARAMSALA, India A U.S. Congressional delegation visited the Dalai Lama at his headquarters in India on Tuesday, seeking to draw world attention to human rights in Tibet as President Donald Trump eyes warmer ties with China. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi flew with a bipartisan delegation to the Himalayan hill town where the 81-year-old Buddhist leader is based, on a trip […]
By Christine Kim and Jane Chung | SEOUL SEOUL South Koreans flocked to polling stations to elect a new leader on Tuesday, with a high turnout suggesting voters are eager to move on from a corruption scandal that brought down the former president and shook the political and business elite. Unless there is a major upset, liberal Moon Jae-in – who calls for a moderate approach on […]
This story was originally co-published by ProPublica and IRE Journal. It’s a great time to be an investigative journalist. Sure, no president has done more to demonize media than President Trump. But nor has anybody done more to boost our standing than Trump. Millions of Americans have put their faith in us. A few weeks after the election, a friend of mine, pondering the reality of one-party […]
Sign up to receive FirstFT by email here Days after Donald Trump was elected, President Barack Obama warned his successor against hiring former general Michael Flynn as his security adviser. Mr Trump ignored the advice and Mr Flynn resigned after 17 days on the job amid the growing investigation of the Trump team’s ties to Russia. This is just one of the revelations to emerge following a Senate […]
It was planned as a routine engagement for Martin Schulz — open a new children’s playground, say a few words, sign some autographs and pose for selfies. But the event in a drab suburb of the industrial western town of Hamm was anything but an easy ride for the German Social Democrat leader, who is challenging Chancellor Angela Merkel in September’s parliamentary election. What began as a […]
BOSTON When the Masjid Al-Kareem mosque in Providence, Rhode Island, received a threatening letter in November calling Muslims a “vile and filthy people,” its members were frightened enough they asked for and got extra police protection. The 42-year-old mosque was far from alone. The letter it received was one of 2,213 anti-Muslim bias incidents in the United States last year, according to a report released Tuesday by […]
The former head of the US Department of Justice told Congress that she had warned the White House in January that Michael Flynn, the first national security adviser appointed by Donald Trump, could be blackmailed by Russia. Sally Yates, who served as acting attorney-general early in the Trump administration, told Congress that she had warned the White House that Mr Flynn had left himself open to being […]
Thanks to a shoutout from John Oliver, the election of President Trump, an insult from White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and, oh yeah, its journalism, ProPublica is enjoying a pretty good run. Just how good was disclosed on Friday, when the nonprofit investigative outlet put out its quarterly report to stakeholders. The report, which contains updates on ProPublica’s strategy and journalistic output, included a by-the-numbers page […]
WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate easily confirmed Heather Wilson, a former Republican member of the House of Representatives, on Monday to be President Donald Trump’s secretary of the Air Force. The vote was 76-22 in favor of Wilson becoming the top civilian overseeing the Air Force. The 22 “no” votes all came from Democrats. At her confirmation hearing in March, Wilson praised the stealth capability of Lockheed Martin […]
By Tom Hals and Diane Bartz | WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON Health insurer Anthem Inc (ANTM.N) asked a Delaware judge on Monday to give it more time to try to win approval for a merger with rival Cigna Corp (CI.N), which is seeking to end the deal and collect a $1.85 billion break-up fee. Anthem asked Vice Chancellor Travis Laster of Delaware’s Court of Chancery to grant […]
Former U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly warned current President Donald Trump against hiring Mike Flynn as his national security adviser, former White House officials revealed. Obama warned Trump about Flynn in the days following the 2016 Presidential Elections, but the warning went under the radar so far. News now came to light just as former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is about to testify that Flynn made misleading […]
Robert Mercer, co-chief executive of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors, has been sued by a former employee who says he was fired after he publicly criticised his boss’s support for the US president. David Magerman, a long-time research scientist at the fund who had helped it build computer algorithms that make investment decisions, was terminated after giving two newspaper interviews […]
Even so, Russia has sent signals it is hoping to gain support for the agreement from the United States despite their deep differences over the Syria war, now in its seventh year. Continue reading the main story Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia will visit with his American counterpart, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, in Washington on Wednesday to discuss Syria and other issues, both […]
By Arshad Mohammed | NEW YORK NEW YORK Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday she would prefer that President Donald Trump not criticise judges and the media but that U.S. democratic institutions can withstand such comments. Speaking in an interview, Rice also described Trump as having a somewhat “transactional” view of foreign relations but she broadly endorsed his approach of seeking to enlist […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump and French President-elect Emmanuel Macron agreed during a phone call on Monday to meet during a May 25 NATO leaders meeting in Brussels, the White House said. “President Trump emphasized his desire to work closely with President-elect Macron in confronting shared challenges, and noted the long and robust history of cooperation between the United States and its oldest ally, France,” the White […]
Moments from now, at 2:30PM EST, former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper will take the stand before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer more questions about the alleged “Russian Interference in the 2016 United States Election.” As we noted earlier, President Trump submitted his question list for the Senate panel earlier this morning via Twitter: “Ask Sally Yates, under […]
When it comes to international news, The New York Times doesn’t want to be BuzzFeed, HuffPost or The Guardian. It wants to be, well, The New York Times. Whereas other publishers are looking to lure massive new audiences with editions published in various languages, The New York Times is being deliberately conservative with its foreign-language offerings. It has Spanish- and Chinese- language homepages but isn’t planning to […]
Film musical Beauty and the Beast and Netflix’s sci-fi newcomer Stranger Things were the night’s big winners at the MTV Movie & TV Awards, picking up two trophies apiece. This year, the 26th edition of what was formerly known as the MTV Movie Awards, television was added into the mix for the first time. Stranger Things was named Show of the Year, and its young breakout star, […]
“We should all agree that in our constitutional democracy, the executive’s ability to attack another country is constrained by the law,” Justin Florence, the group’s legal director and a former Obama White House lawyer, wrote in an essay announcing the lawsuit. He added: “Some countries may tolerate a head of state launching a new conflict without offering a clear legal justification, but we should not.” Continue reading […]
By Thierry Chiarello and Sarah White | PARIS PARIS Emmanuel Macron may have won Sunday’s presidential election by a comfortable margin, but even his supporters’ enthusiasm is tempered by the scale of the challenge that the inexperienced politician faces in tackling France’s deep-seated economic, social and security problems. Macron, a former economy minister who had never previously stood for elected office, beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen […]
Sinclair Broadcast Group, the biggest US local television station owner, has struck an agreement to buy Tribune Media for $43.50 a share, valuing Tribune at about $3.9bn. The transaction is the first big move of an expected consolidation wave in media unleashed by the Federal Communications Commission’s recent decision to effectively loosen a cap on local television station ownership. The rule change has US media companies jostling […]
By Phil Stewart | COPENHAGEN COPENHAGEN U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday the United States would closely examine proposed de-escalation zones aimed at easing Syria’s civil war but warned “the devil’s in the details” and that much needed to be worked out. The deal to create “de-escalation” zones in the major areas of conflict in western Syria took effect on Saturday. The initiative was proposed […]
