Sessions quietly, dramatically reshapes Justice Department

For more than five hours, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sat in a hearing room on Capitol Hill this month, fending off inquiries on Washington's two favorite topics: President Donald Trump and Russia. But legislators spent little time asking Sessions about the dramatic and controversial changes in policy he has made since taking over the top law enforcement job in the United States nine months ago.

Trump names interim consumer agency head, likely sparking showdown

U.S. President Donald Trump has designated White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until a permanent director is nominated and confirmed, the White House said on Friday. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney attends the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 20, 2017.

Turkey: Trump told Erdogan won’t give Syria Kurds more arms

President Donald Trump told Ankara on Friday that the US will no longer supply arms to the Syrian Kurdish militia Washington has used against the Islamic State, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Friday. Trump delivered the message during what the Turkish presidency called a "productive" phone call with his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the White House hailed as reaffirming a "strategic partnership."

Cordray Names Aide to Lead Consumer Bureau in Challenge to Trump

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and named one of his lieutenants to immediately take over as acting director, setting up a potential standoff with the Trump administration over the controversial agency's leadership. In a memo to the consumer watchdog's employees, Cordray said his current chief of staff, Leandra English, would become deputy director and automatically rise to acting director when he leaves.

Castro Meets N. Korea Minister Amid Hope Cuba Can Defuse Tensions

Cuban President Raul Castro met with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho on Friday amid hopes the communist-run island might be able to persuade its Asian ally to avert a showdown with the United States. North Korea is facing unprecedented pressure from the United States and the international community to cease its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan: Respect existence or expect resistance

Last week in Bonn, Germany, thousands gathered at the heavily secured United Nations climate conference, dubbed “COP 23,” a Potemkin village of bureaucrats, politicians, environmentalists, journalists and local support staff. Sixty kilometers away, in the 12,000-year-old Hambach Forest, scores of activists, living in treehouses, defended the old growth woodland in an ongoing struggle to save the rare ecosystem from destruction and stop the expansion of Europe's largest open-pit mine, a sprawling hole in the earth where energy company RWE extracts lignite, or brown coal, the dirtiest coal on earth.

The Latest: Turkey: US to stop arming Syrian Kurds

The attorney defending a woman accused of deliberately driving off a Maui cliff and killing her identical twin says prosecutors misled a grand jury that indicted her. The attorney defending a woman accused of deliberately driving off a Maui cliff and killing her identical twin says prosecutors misled a grand jury that indicted her.

Billy Baldwin: Trump made sexual advances on my wife

William "Billy" Baldwin says President Donald Trump made sexual advances on Baldwin's wife at a hotel party in New York. The actor made the accusations on Twitter after the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted about sexual harassment allegations against Senator Al Franken .

Allegations of Presidential Sexual Misconduct Nothing New

Sex scandals in entertainment and politics seem to be exploding, as increasing numbers of women, and sometimes men, say they have been sexually assaulted or harassed by the powerful. But in politics, sex scandals are nothing new, and allegations of misconduct have swirled around a number of U.S. presidents, including the current White House occupant, Donald Trump.

Putin Peace Plan Gets Boost as Syria Opposition Unites for Talks

Syria's fragmented opposition agreed to form a single bloc to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad at a meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh, giving a boost to a Russian-led diplomatic drive to end the 6 1/2-year civil war. "We have agreed with the other two branches" of the opposition "to send a united delegation to take part in direct negotiations in Geneva" comprising 50 members, Bassma Kodmani, a leader of the High Negotiations Committee, the main anti-Assad group, said early Friday after two days of talks, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya reported.

Congressional Russia probes likely to head into 2018

Some Republicans are hoping lawmakers will soon wrap up investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election that have dragged on for most of the year. But with new details in the probe emerging almost daily, that seems unlikely.

Scary, judgmental old men

U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, center, waits to speak at a news conference in Birmingham, Ala., last week. Even in a political season of routine marvels, few developments are more spectacularly incongruous than this: The United States has seen a swift, dramatic shift in attitudes toward sexual harassment with Donald Trump as president.

Bombshell report offers clearest evidence yet Mueller has flipped Flynn

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn , National Security Advisor Designate speaks during a conference on the transition of the US Presidency from Barack Obama to Donald Trump at the US Institute Of Peace in Washington DC, January 10, 2017 A new report from the New York Times offers the clearest evidence yet that former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is getting ready to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.