The State Bar of Texas is dropping efforts to discipline Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton over allegations that his failed efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election amounted to professional misconduct. The decision, revealed Wednesday in court filings, ends a yearslong attempt to potentially sanction Paxton over making false claims of fraud when he filed a lawsuit that questioned Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Republican President Donald Trump. The move comes a month after the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Paxton's top deputy could not be sanctioned over similar accusations.
Despite watching Bitcoin's scorching run past $100,000 and the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to be a "crypto president" in the U.S., some of the world's largest investors said this week they still plan to stay on the sidelines. "I am not an advocate, nor a critic ... it is not what it was supposed to be, which was an alternative to banking," said Anne Walsh, chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners, which is headquartered in New York and Chicago. "To me, what crypto really correlates to is Nasdaq - it's a risk-on appetite indicator to me," she told the Reuters Global Markets Forum on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos.
A naturalized U.S. citizen who’s been living in Massachusetts has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for falsely claiming to be a Bosnian War refugee, when in fact he persecuted ethnic Serbs at a notorious prison camp. Kemal Mrndzic, 52, was sentenced in a Boston federal court on Wednesday. A federal jury convicted him in October of scheming to conceal his involvement three decades ago in the persecution of Serb prisoners at the Celebici prison camp in Bosnia.
Efforts by the U.S. Forest Service to fight wildfires in California shouldn't be influenced by politics, President Donald Trump's nominee to head the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday at her Senate confirmation hearing. Responding to questions from a Senate panel, nominee Brooke Rollins also acknowledged that Trump's plans for mass deportations and tariffs could create hardships for the agriculture industry, but she said his election demonstrated that the public supports such actions. Trump nominated Rollins, who also served in his first administration, to lead a sprawling agency that oversees farming, forestry, ranching, food quality and nutrition.
Law enforcement officers from around Vermont escorted a fallen U.S. Border Patrol agent to a funeral home Thursday, three days after he was killed during a traffic stop near the Canadian border. Hundreds of vehicles with lights flashing accompanied the hearse carrying David Maland from the University of Vermont morgue to a funeral home in Burlington, WCAX-TV reported. Maland, a U.S. Air Force veteran, had worked for U.S. Customs and Border Protection for more than nine years, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
During a Fox News interview, Trump falsely claimed California Gov. Gavin Newsom's fish conservation efforts were responsible for dry hydrants
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said he was not sure the United States should be spending anything on NATO, telling reporters the U.S. was protecting NATO members, but they were "not protecting us." Trump earlier demanded that other members of the transatlantic alliance spend 5% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense – a huge increase from the current 2% goal and a level that no NATO country, including the United States, currently achieves.
Trump’s tough talk and proposed tariffs on Canada would not only hurt one of America’s top trade partners, it would punish US automakers and regular Americans shopping for a new car, a new report said.
Marco Rubio will make his first trip as US secretary of state to Central American nations including Panama, a spokeswoman said Thursday, after President Donald Trump threatened to seize the Panama Canal and clamped down hard on migration.The Central American nations of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras -- torn by endemic violence, poverty, and natural disasters exacerbated by climate change -- have been among the top sources of migration, along with Venezuela and Haiti.
U.S. Capitol Police on Thursday said they suspended an officer who let a man with a gun into the Capitol Visitor Center on Tuesday.
Exhausted firefighters battling deadly infernos for weeks are now grappling with more wildfires torching Southern California – including one that’s threatening 14,000 structures.
The US Senate on Thursday confirmed John Ratcliffe with overwhelming bipartisan support as director of the CIA, filling a key post in President Donald Trump's national security team.The upper house of the US legislature voted 74-25 to approve Ratcliffe, who served as the director of national intelligence from 2020-2021 during Trump's first term in office.
Rain in the forecast for Southern California this weekend could bring relief to firefighters battling wildfires. But it also brings risks of mudslides and toxic runoff.
A Colorado crime lab analyst is facing more than 100 criminal counts in connection with allegations that she altered reports in sexual assault cases.
The Supreme Court on Thursday revived a requirement that owners of millions of small businesses register with an arm of the Treasury Department charged with fighting money laundering and other financial crimes. The justices granted an emergency plea made by the Justice Department in the waning days of the Biden administration to allow enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act, enacted in 2021 to crack down on the illicit use of anonymous shell companies. Owners and part-owners of an estimated 32.6 million small businesses must register personal information with Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.
Pete Hegseth is closer to Senate confirmation as Trump's Defense secretary despite controversy and allegations of serious impropriety.
A federal judge on Thursday put a temporary block on US President Donald Trump's attempt to restrict birthright citizenship."Birthright citizenship makes clear that citizenship cannot be conditioned on one's race, ethnicity or where their parents came from," he said after the ruling.
A Berlin gallery opened an exhibition Thursday of artworks from a museum in Ukraine that were evacuated to Germany in 2023 to spare them from Russian bombardment. The works from the collection in the Black Sea port city were initially hidden in western Ukraine before being transported to Berlin in the second half of 2023 to be restored.
Italy’s high court has upheld the remaining conviction against American Amanda Knox, who was jailed and later acquitted of the 2007 murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher.
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