Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will authorize $12 billion to $15 billion for a wall spanning the entire U.S.-Mexico border as soon as Sept. 30, the Republican leaders said Thursday. The comments came midway through the Republicans’ annual retreat, this year called “Congress of Tomorrow,” during which lawmakers are plotting the first 200 days of action on such issues as repealing and replacing Obamacare and reforming the tax code. After Ryan was asked several times if he planned to offset the billions for the wall, the speaker said he would “wait and see” what the Trump administration proposed.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti speaks during the Women’s March Los Angeles on Jan. 21. If the “resistance” to President Trump has a headquarters, a nerve center, a ground zero, then California is it — or so the state’s top politicians like to tell us. Pretty much every day since Nov. 8 there’s been yet another news story about yet another left-coast official insisting that he or she won’t let Trump undercut California’s progressive policies or mess with California’s progressive values — or else his or her name isn’t [insert name here].
Police in North Carolina believe that what first appeared to be a twisted scheme to carjack would-be good Samaritans may have been a sick prank orchestrated by area kids. In the pre-dawn hours Sunday, the 33-year-old victim was driving in Carteret County
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., found herself in an unusual position after voting to support retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s nomination to President Trump’s cabinet — defending herself to aggrieved progressives. On Wednesday evening, after considerable pushback from supporters, Warren wrote on Facebook that she thinks backing Carson was a reasonable decision despite her “serious, deep, profound concerns” about Carson’s inexperience and the “outrageous things” he said as a Republican presidential candidate. Warren explained that she sent Carson a nine-page letter with detailed questions on a host of issues she considers central for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), including providing housing assistance, fighting homelessness, preparing for natural disasters, and protecting the LGBT community.
Citing mounting evidence from recent US executions, a federal judge blocked Thursday the use of lethal injections to put to death three Ohio inmates, saying a proposed drug cocktail was unconstitutional. Federal Magistrate Judge Michael Merz of Ohio focused heavily on the use of one of the drugs, midazolam, citing evidence from multiple other state executions that the drug insufficiently sedated inmates, likely leading to suffering during their executions. Lawyers for the three Ohio inmates claimed such suffering violated the US Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Skeletal remains discovered in Tennessee this week have been identified as those of a Fort Campbell soldier missing since September, officials said. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) on Wednesday confirmed the remains were those of Private First Class Shadow McClaine, who was last seen on Sept. 2. Sergeant Jamal Williams-McCray, McClaine's ex-husband, and Specialist Charles Robinson, who served in the 101st Airborne Division with McClaine, remain in pre-trial confinement pending court-martial on charges of kidnapping, conspiracy and premeditated murder, the fort's public affairs office said in a statement.
Despite all the fanfare surrounding voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant, they just don't seem to be catching on much with consumers, according to recent research. While their makers market the devices as a hub for controlling the smart home, less than a third of Amazon Echo and Google Home users list the capability as a reason why they like their device, VoiceLabs found. With 6.5 million so-called "voice first" devices sold in 2016 vs. 1.7 million sold in the prior year, VoiceLabs expects the devices to get more popular in 2017.
If you're a blue state voter who's spent any time on Facebook in the past few months, you've probably been overwhelmed by caps lock Facebook posts begging you to call your representatives. The posts can feel simultaneously redundant and contradictory — call your senator to oppose Betsy Devos..no wait, send Paul Ryan a postcard first! — and render some of us completely impassive. A new site, "5 Calls," aims to make calling that much easier, giving users easy one-minute scripts they can read to their representative each week.
French presidential candidate Francois Fillon vowed Thursday to produce evidence to counter explosive allegations that his wife received half a million euros ($540,000) for "fake jobs". The rightwing Fillon, who polls show is likely to reach the second round of May's election, is facing an investigation into claims he handed his British-born wife Penelope a fictitious paid role as a parliamentary aide. Fillon's campaign manager, senator Bruno Retailleau, said the candidate's lawyer would contact the national financial prosecutor's office and "take them a certain number of documents".
Bannon, who used to edit the far-right website Breitbart before heading Trump’s presidential campaign, delivered the contemptuous indictment of the news media during a phone interview with the New York Times on Wednesday. “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while,” Bannon said. Trump generated controversy by bringing Bannon — who is associated with the so-called alt-right movement — into his inner circle.
California authorities say they have captured the second of two inmates who walked away from a minimum security facility in Northern California. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says 27-year-old Brian Schueren of Orange County was taken into custody without incident Wednesday near the Alder Conservation Camp.
Police in Michigan are alleging that a former business executive stabbed his wife to death then turned the blade on himself in an attempted suicide while their three young children were right upstairs. Police later said the caller was the couple's 10-year-old, who reportedly told an operator the father was retrieving a knife. When deputies arrived, they say the former Quicken Loans exec was covered in blood and told them he'd stabbed his wife, according to an Oakland County Sheriff's Office statement.
Hillary Clinton’s email server was the subject of enormous scrutiny, and we discussed it, at the time, as one facet of an enormous security problem. Now, Twitter users have fact-checked Twitter handles associated with the Trump administration, and the results are not just embarrassing, but potentially disastrous and possibly illegal. Checking somebody’s email address tied to their Twitter account is as simple as getting to the password recovery screen.
A Palestinian uses a sling shot against Israeli troops during clashes following a protest at checkpoint 300 in the West Bank city of Bethlehem; People walk on a street decorated with Chinese lamps to celebrate the Lunar New Year in Bangkok, Thailand;
By Lamin Jahateh BANJUL (Reuters) - Thousands of people lined the streets of Gambia's capital Banjul on Thursday to welcome home new President Adama Barrow days after authoritarian leader Yahya Jammeh fled into exile under pressure from regional forces. Barrow, a former real estate agent, won a Dec. 1 election but Jammeh refused to step down, forcing his opponent to be inaugurated at the Gambian Embassy in neighbouring Senegal. Clad in a long white African tunic, Barrow smiled as he stepped out of a small plane and walked down a red carpet to greet hundreds of diplomats and officials lined up to greet him.
Although millions of people around the world continue to buy iPhones every year, it’s hard to deny that the enthusiasm for Apple’s smartphones has diminished somewhat over the past few generations. The iPhone 6 was the last major upgrade, and in the years since its launch, other vendors have moved on to bigger and bolder designs. Thankfully for Apple fans, the long wait for another overhaul might be nearly over.
The president discusses his threat to send "the feds" to Chicago, "black site" prisons, and his stance on torture. Reporter: Mr. Trump let's talk about many things that have happened this week, Chicago, last night you tweeted about the murder rate in Chicago saying "If Chicago doesn't fix the horrible carnage going on, I will send in the feds." You will send in the fends. This is Afghanistan, is not like what's happening in Chicago. Maybe there's something going on, but you can't have those killings going on in Chicago, Chicago is like a war zone, Chicago is worse than some of the people that you report in some of the places that you report about every night, in the Middle East.
A British court on Thursday blocked pollution claims against Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell by more than 40,000 Niger Delta residents demanding action over decades of oil spills in the region. Members of the Ogale and Bille communities had applied for the case to be heard in Britain, arguing they could not get justice in Nigeria. King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, ruler of the Ogale Community, told AFP the decision would be appealed, saying: "The battle is not over.
Elections have consequences, and among them is the fact that the new administration gets to select its own team to implement its own policies. As a State Department political appointee in the Barack Obama administration, I was under no illusion after the election that I would be asked to stick around, or, painful as it may be, that the policy initiatives that my colleagues and I had championed were likely to persist.
A 69-year-old seaplane that crashed, killing the pilot and his passenger, in front of thousands of onlookers during an aerial display above the city of Perth had flown from the United States to Australia in recent years, an official said Friday. Owner and pilot Peter Anthony Lynch, 52, and his Indonesian partner Endah Cakrawati, 30, were alone in the 1948 Grumman G-73 Mallard flying boat when it crashed into the Swan River on Thursday to the horror of up to 60,000 witnesses who were gathering to watch an annual fireworks display. Perth Mayor Lisa Scaffidi said Lynch had "remodeled" the twin-engine plane and had flown it across the United States then across the Pacific Ocean to Australia.
On the evening of November 15, 1982, De Anna Lynn Johnson went to a party just doors down from her Vacaville home on Royal Oaks Drive. When it reached past midnight and De Anna still hadn’t returned from the party, her mother, Ginger Dimpel reported her missing. The case eventually went cold, but detectives never stopped investigating, and on Wednesday, they announced they had finally nabbed the man they believe responsible for De Anna’s death.
A state-by-state by breakdown of what is broken and needs fixing.From Popular Mechanics
Another attempt is underway to establish California as a separate nation. Election officials announced Thursday that a proposal has been submitted to the Secretary of State's Office that would ask voters to repeal part of the state constitution that declares California an inseparable part of the United States. If the proposal qualifies for the ballot and is approved by voters, it could be a step to a future vote on whether California should break away from the U.S.
By Manuel Mogato MANILA (Reuters) - The United States will upgrade and build facilities on Philippine military bases this year, Manila's defense minister said on Thursday, bolstering an alliance strained by President Rodrigo Duterte's opposition to a U.S. troop presence. The Pentagon gave the green light to start the work as part of an Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), a 2014 pact that Duterte has threatened to scrap during barrages of hostility towards the former colonial power. "EDCA is still on," Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told a news conference.
Up until now, most of the leaked renders we've seen of the Galaxy S8 have either been speculative or based on cases and screen protectors reportedly designed for Samsung's upcoming phone. Consider the source of this latest leaked image — VentureBeat's Evan Blass, who has a pretty good track record when it comes to revealing details about unannounced smartphones. Blass posted the image to Twitter, along with a March 29 date for the Galaxy S8's unveiling.