Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
WASHINGTON - Congress Thursday appeared poised to effectively evade the last-minute threat of a government shutdown, with the House passing a bill to keep the government open through Jan. 19 and the Senate poised to follow suit later Thursday or early Friday. The spending bill - which included a $2.85 billion down payment aimed at keeping the federal Children's Health Insurance Program operational as well as reauthorizing federal surveillance powers - passed after House leadership was able to convince a group of Defense hawks including Rep. Mike Turner, R–Dayton, to overcome their reservations about the spending bill.
Who would've predicted at the dawn of 2017 that U.S. President Donald Trump would fire the FBI director? Or that a Democrat would win an Alabama Senate race? Or that a Hollywood sex scandal would spark resignations on Downing Street? Policy makers plotting their way through next year might consider the words of former British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, who, when asked what could disrupt his government, answered: "Events, my dear boy, events." Indeed, MacMillan was later undone by the Profumo affair, a Cold War scandal involving sex and Soviet spies.
What a dumpster fire of a year, especially for those who reside and operate in the world of politics and policy. Who will mourn the passing of 2017? Not, presumably, President Donald Trump.
Just days before the end of the year, congressional Republicans finally handed President Trump his first major legislative victory. But their effort to pass an unpopular and incoherent tax bill left them with little time to address many other pressing concerns.
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It's been more than three decades since Congress passed significant tax reform legislation. Since then, the tax code has become overwhelming in both its size and complexity, burdening working families and small businesses across the country.
At noon Thursday, Sen. Al Franken addressed the Senate for the last time, giving a half-hour resignation speech that touched on everything from voter fraud to climate change but held an overarching message - that the Trump administration is chipping away at the pillars supporting American democracy. Over the past few weeks, there has been speculation that Franken might walk back his promise to resign, since he made his initial resignation speech in early December.
Kansas corrections officials and the company picked to build a new state prison have bolstered support for their plan among top Republican legislators, making it more likely their project will get the final go-ahead. Three key Republican legislators said after a briefing this week that they're more comfortable with a state Department of Corrections plan to have the nation's largest private prison operator, CoreCivic Inc., build the new prison for 2,432 inmates in Lansing, in the Kansas City area.
The family of dead hazing victim Horacio Tomas "Atio" Castillo III has expressed dismay that the leader of the Aegis Juris fraternity has to be released from Senate detention. "We were hoping na sana tumagal pa siya sa Senate detention ," said his father, Horacio Jr. Horacio Castillo II and Carmina, parents of alleged fraternity hazing victim Horacio Castillo III, arrive at the Manila Police District headquarters on United Nations Avenue in Paco, Manila, to face John Paul Solano, a suspect in the hazing death of their son.
"I Have Power": Is Steve Bannon Running for President? - On a whirlwind tour around the globe, Trump's former aide and alter ego reveals what really went down in the White House, his unfettered thoughts on Javanka, his complicated relationship with his erstwhile boss - and his own political ambitions.
U.N. resoundingly rejects U.S. decision on Jerusalem in pointed rebuke The U.N. General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a measure rejecting the Trump administration's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a stunning rebuke of a U.S. decision that allies and adversaries alike warned Congress races to fund the government and avert a shutdown - Congress races to pass a short-term spending bill aimed at averting a partial government shutdown at midnight Friday.
"I Have Power": Is Steve Bannon Running for President? - On a whirlwind tour around the globe, Trump's former aide and alter ego reveals what really went down in the White House, his unfettered thoughts on Javanka, his complicated relationship with his erstwhile boss - and his own political ambitions.
"I Have Power": Is Steve Bannon Running for President? - On a whirlwind tour around the globe, Trump's former aide and alter ego reveals what really went down in the White House, his unfettered thoughts on Javanka, his complicated relationship with his erstwhile boss - and his own political ambitions.
In the end, the calendar won -- and that has some recalculating who will have leverage in January for negotiations on immigration. Congress finished up its business for the year Thursday night and left town without resolving major outstanding issues -- including a resolution for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which lawmakers had repeatedly pledged to fix before the end of the year.
A lawmaker from India's ruling party called the Taj Mahal a blot on Indian culture, saying in October that the famous tourist site had been built by Muslim traitors. In November, another party member offered a bounty for the heads of two people involved in a movie featuring a Muslim sultan.
President Donald Trump and Republicans plan to ring in 2018 with an aggressive sales pitch for their $1.5 trillion tax cut plan. Ahead of the bill's passage this week, Trump repeated several notable claims about what it will mean for Americans.
AP file photo Retired family physician Jay Brock of Fredericksburg, Va., joins other protesters against the Republican health care bill in July outside the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., on Capitol Hill in Washington. A year after a big change in leadership, a survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 48 percent named health care as a top problem for the country.
The Republican-led Congress narrowly passed a temporary spending bill Thursday to avert a government shutdown, doing the bare minimum in a sprint toward the holidays and punting disputes on immigration, health care and the budget to next year. The measure passed the House on a 231-188 vote over Democratic opposition and then cleared the Senate, 66-32, with Democrats from Republican-leaning states providing many of the key votes.
The U.S. economy grew at a solid 3.2 percent annual rate from July through September, slightly slower than previously estimated but still enough to give the country the best back-to-back quarterly growth rates in three years. The figure was revised down from last month's estimate of 3.3 percent, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.