Tag: Washington

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. House committees will delay former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s planned July 17 testimony for one week to allow lawmakers to question him for a longer period of time, the committees said on Friday. Mueller, who oversaw the federal investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, is now scheduled to testify on July 24 before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, the panels’ chairmen said in a statement. Under the new...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller will testify before two U.S. House of Representatives committees on July 24, one week later than originally scheduled, the chairmen of the panels said in a statement on Friday. Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, has agreed to appear for “an extended period of time,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said. Mueller had been scheduled to appear for...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved legislation to permanently compensate first responders to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center who have been suffering from cancers and other illnesses as a result of working at the contaminated site. The House voted 402-12 to pass the “Never Forget the Heroes Act” that had been championed by Jon Stewart, the popular former host of the late-night comedy program The Daily Show, and highlighted...

ISTANBUL — The first shipment of a Russian missile defense system has arrived in Turkey, the Turkish Defense Ministry said Friday, moving the country closer to possible U.S. sanctions and a new standoff with Washington. The S-400 consignmentwas delivered to the Murted Air Base outside the capital Ankara, the ministry said, in a statement. "The delivery of parts belonging to the system will continue in the coming days," Turkey's Defense Industry Directorate said separately. "Once the system is completely ready, it...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The attorney general for the District of Columbia issued subpoenas on Friday to the National Rifle Association and its charitable foundation seeking financial records in an investigation into their nonprofit status. District of Colombia Attorney General Karl Racine said in a statement his office “has issued subpoenas to the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) and the NRA Foundation, Inc., as part of an investigation into whether these entities violated the District’s Nonprofit Act.” The announcement,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta has resigned, believing that he has become a distraction to the administration because of his handling of the sex abuse case against financier Jeffrey Epstein a decade ago. Trump announced Acosta’s departure to reporters as he left the White House on Friday on a trip to Wisconsin. Acosta joined him on the lawn and Trump praised him for doing a good job as Labor...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta resigned on Friday amid fresh scrutiny of his handling of the sex abuse case against financier Jeffrey Epstein, becoming President Donald Trump’s latest adviser to leave the administration in controversy. Acosta, joining Trump at the White House before the president left for a trip to Wisconsin, said he did not want to be a distraction to the administration’s work because of his leadership of the Epstein case more than a decade...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. House committees are considering a one-week delay for former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s planned July 17 testimony to allow more time for lawmakers to question him, sources told Reuters on Friday. Mueller, who oversaw the federal investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, may now testify July 24, sources familiar with the plan said on the condition of anonymity while talks continue. Mueller was scheduled to appear on Wednesday...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Guatemalan asylum seeker left some members of a U.S. House panel visibly shaken on Wednesday with the story of her daughter’s death, saying the toddler had contracted a deadly lung infection during a 20-day detention near the U.S. border with Mexico. Yazmin Juarez told a House of Representatives subcommittee that it was “like they tore out a piece of my heart” when just weeks after they were released her daughter Mariee died at 19 months...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Amy Klobuchar unveiled a new plan on Friday to help lower the cost of pharmaceuticals purchased by seniors in the wake of the White House scrapping its own ambitious drug cost plan. Klobuchar’s proposal, which is also designed to invest in research for a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and improving the stability of Social Security, would allow the government to negotiate Medicare Part D costs, which cover prescriptions for seniors. Klobuchar, a...

(Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected emergency bids to temporarily set aside its recent decision allowing the Trump administration to enforce a “gag rule” that could strip Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers of federal funding for family planning. By a 7-4 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals let stand its June 20 decision lifting injunctions blocking enforcement of the rule, which makes clinics ineligible for Title X family planning funds if they provide...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In four hours of debate among Democratic contenders for the U.S. presidency, the word “deficit” was never uttered and the government’s debt was mentioned only once. The reality is that Democrats are reluctant to make a campaign issue out of one of America’s most vexing problems — the ballooning annual budget deficits and overall debt under President Donald Trump. That’s because some of their most popular policies going into the 2020 election would present...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration said on Tuesday he would veto a $733 billion defense bill being considered by the House of Representatives, saying it provides less money than he wants for the military and disagreeing with some of its policy provisions. The version of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, up for a vote in the Democratic-led House sets $733 billion in military spending, $17 billion less than Trump’s fiscal-year 2020 budget request. The...

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence helped out an anti-hate speech protest by drowning out a hate group commentator. The all-men far-right group Proud Boys organized a Demand Free Speech rally in D.C. on Saturday to protest social media platforms that ban people for hate speech. The counter-protest, All Out D.C., was larger than the protest itself and featured immigrants, Native Americans, and trans women of color as speakers and local artists as performers. And the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were there. In a...