WASHINGTON ― An incumbent Democratic senator is on trial this week on charges of federal bribery, and his colleagues in the Senate would rather not talk about it. Federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday that Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) entered into a “corrupt pact” with wealthy donor and longtime friend Dr. Salomon Melgen. In return, prosecutors alleged, Menendez helped Melgen expedite visa applications so his foreign girlfriends could visit him in the U.S. They claimed in a court filing on Wednesday that the relationship dated back at least as far as 2006, shortly after Menendez entered the Senate.
“May as well announce this: I’m not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow,” Limbaugh said on his Thursday broadcast. How is it legal for Rush Limbaugh to undercut cat 5 hurricane warnings? Rush Limbaugh spent show mocking fears raised by scientists @ #Irma.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that she believed President Trump would sign a DREAM Act legalizing young unauthorized immigrants after her meeting with him Wednesday. “The president both yesterday in the meeting and today made it very clear he wants Congress to act, to get this done,” Pelosi told reporters.
Christian Americans proved to be a massive voting force in the 2016 presidential election, making up at least 75 percent of voters. Majorities of Protestants, Catholics and Mormons threw their support behind now-President Donald Trump ― and none so enthusiastically as white evangelicals. Findings from a major new study by Public Religion Research Institute lend added weight to that analysis.
Three Cleveland Taco Bell employees opened fire on two armed robbers, killing one, according to police.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced on Thursday the Trump administration's plan to overhaul Obama-era policy relative to sexual assault on college campuses. "The truth is that the system established by the prior administration has failed too many students," DeVos said during a speech at George Mason University in Virginia. The 2011 policy guidelines in question were implemented during former President Barack Obama's tenure, and pushed school districts colleges and academic leaders to actively combat sexual violence -- enforcing these rules citing federal Title IX law standards.
Politicians in the hurricane-hit city of Houston are warning against donating to the American Red Cross. Houston City councillor Dave Martin told a district meeting: “I beg you not to send them a penny” and repeatedly branded the Congress-endorsed charity “the red loss”. Speaking two weeks after the devastating hurricane which left at least 70 people dead, Mr Martin claimed that local government had done most of the difficult work in the aftermath of the disaster as well as providing the majority of resources.
The hurricane was upgraded to Category 5 strength on Tuesday, and after it passes, parts of the island could be left without power for four to six months, according to Ricardo Ramos, director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). According to reports, 300,000 people are already without power, representing about 20 percent of Puerto Rican energy subscribers. In September 2016, Puerto Rico experienced an islandwide outage for several days following a fire at a power plant.
Swooping in ahead of Hurricane Irma's feared weekend arrival, an emergency response team is rescuing rare treasures - some of them survivors of world wars and all of them liquid - from harm's way in Florida and Louisiana. Wine collections worth millions of dollars are being stashed out of reach of the Category 5 hurricane, moved from homes to local bunker-like storage units or shuttled to temperature-controlled warehouses as far away as New Jersey. Many are owned by philanthropists aging the wine to perfection before donating it to a charity auction, often to raise disaster relief funds, said Adam Gungle, chief executive officer of Xpeditr, a high-end wine transporter based in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Toronto.
A shopper in Florida is being hailed as a hero after he selflessly gave away a new generator he had just bought to a woman he thought was more in need. Ramon Santiago insisted that Pam Brekke take his machine after he saw her burst into tears at a Lowe’s store in the Conway area of Orlando on Thursday, per multiple reports. With Hurricane Irma barreling toward the region, Brekke had been frantically trawling the area for a generator that she hoped would secure her father’s oxygen supply should his Sanford home lose power.
WASHINGTON ― The credit monitoring company that let criminals steal personal information pertaining to nearly half the U.S. population is offering free credit monitoring to those affected ― but there’s a catch. Victims of the Equifax security breach who sign up for the company’s “complementary” service will only get one free year. Robert Weissman, president of the consumer watchdog Public Citizen, said, “It appears that the company thinks one of the worst data breaches in history is a marketing opportunity.
“Military action would certainly be an option,” Trump told reporters during a joint question and answer session at the White House with Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah. The president noted that his predecessors had achieved little by “talking, talking, talking” and cutting deals with North Korea. “I would prefer not going the route of the military, but it’s something certainly that could happen,” Trump said.
A group of students from an Iowa high school were disciplined Wednesday after a photo of them wearing white hoods, waving a Confederate flag and burning a cross began circulating on social media, according to The Associated Press. 5 high school students in Iowa wear KKK hoods, get guns, and set a cross on fire. The photo first appeared on Snapchat and made the rounds from there, according to WHOtv.com. The students in the image attend Creston Community High School and are members of the Creston/Orient-Macksburg football team.
As the Category 4 Hurricane Irma blasts towards Florida, people continue to evacuate by the thousands — rendering highways and gas stations a nightmare. At a news conference on Thursday, Governor Rick Scott urged those in evacuation zones to get
A bombshell interview between Dr. Phil and Sinead O'Connor is shedding light on the singer's lifelong battles with depression, suicide attempts and other severe mental issues that led to her online breakdown earlier this year. Many of O'Connor's deep-rooted troubles stem from her mother, who died in a car crash when O'Connor was 19. "You say she abused you physically and sexually," Dr. Phil begins.
An abducted 15-year-old girl in Minnesota managed to flee this week, following a month of sexual and physical abuse in captivity, in part by swimming across a lake to safety. The teen was last seen Aug. 8 at her home in Alexandria before investigators
Israel's defence minister on Thursday issued a veiled warning to Syria, without confirming or denying what Damascus said was an Israeli air strike on its territory. Syria's army accused Israel of hitting one of its positions, killing two people in an attack earlier the same day that a monitor said targeted a site where the regime allegedly produces chemical weapons. "We are determined to prevent our enemies harming, or even creating an opportunity to harm, the security of Israeli citizens," Avigdor Lieberman said in Hebrew, in remarks broadcast on Israeli television.
One of the most powerful earthquakes ever to strike Mexico has hit off its southern Pacific coast, killing at least 15 people, toppling houses and businesses and sending panicked people into the streets more than 650 miles (1,000 kilometers) away. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake hit off Chiapas state near the Guatemalan border with a magnitude of 8.1 — slightly stronger than the magnitude 8 quake of 1985 that killed thousands and devastated large parts of Mexico City. National civil defense chief Luis Felipe Puente told the Televisa network that at least 15 people had died, 10 of them in Oaxaca, also close to the epicenter.
As Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic Ocean hurricanes, approached Puerto Rico on Wednesday, one last flight raced to the Caribbean island to drop off and pick up the airport’s last passengers of the day. Jason Rabinowitz, an aviation writer
During a planned press conference on Thursday, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced that “the era of rule by letter is over” with regards to campus sexual assault. DeVos delivered a speech on Title IX to a crowd at George Mason University’s Law
By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee passed a spending bill on Thursday evening that includes $10 million to help fund the United Nations' climate change body that oversees the Paris Climate Agreement, despite President Donald Trump's decision to stop funding it. The 30-member Senate panel, which allocates federal funds to various government agencies and organizations, approved a $51 billion spending bill for the State Department and foreign operations, which included an amendment to continue funding the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change as well as the scientific body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
ABC News' Linzie Janis shows some of the damage incurred around the beaches of San Juan.
In August, The Miscarriage Association, a U.K.-based charity dedicated to supporting people who’ve suffered pregnancy loss, launched the #SimplySay campaign. “We have long worked to encourage people to talk more openly about miscarriage, but we’ve been struck by those affected who told us that one reason they didn’t talk or share was the responses they received,” The Miscarriage Association’s national director, Ruth Bender Atik, told HuffPost. “That promoted us to research public attitudes to and perceptions of miscarriage and the results we got were really significant ― many were sympathetic and wanted to help, but a lot of them said they held back for fear of saying the wrong thing – and clearly, people do, albeit with the best of intentions.” she added.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is ordering about 4,500 manufactured housing units to help people who are left without homes after Harvey dumped as much as 52 inches (132.08 centimeters) of water in some areas in just days. FEMA officials have said they have an existing inventory of more than 1,700 of the manufactured homes or trailers stored in Selma, Alabama, and Cumberland, Maryland. Officials in Texas have said housing is a major issue after the catastrophic flooding that swept through many counties.
The Washington National Cathedral, a central landmark in the U.S. capital, has announced its decision to remove two stained glass windows honoring Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The two 4-by-6-foot windows “are not only inconsistent with our current mission to serve as a house of prayer for all people, but also a barrier to our important work on racial justice and racial reconciliation,” church leaders wrote in a statement published Wednesday on the cathedral’s website.