By JONATHAN LEMIRE and JILL COLVIN, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is defending chief of staff John Kelly after he mischaracterized the remarks of a Democratic congresswoman and called her an “empty barrel” making noise. A Trump spokeswoman said it was “inappropriate” to question Kelly in light of his stature as a retired…
By LISA MARIE PANE and EMILY SWANSON, Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — The slaying of five dozen people in Las Vegas did little to change Americans’ opinions about gun laws. The nation is closely divided on whether restricting firearms would reduce such mass shootings or homicides, though a majority favor tighter laws as they have for…
By KEN RITTER, Associated Press HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — An off-duty police officer who was among 58 people killed in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history was honored with a posthumous promotion to Army first sergeant during an emotional funeral service Friday. Hundreds of police officers in uniform packed the Henderson, Nevada, church as…
By JONATHAN LEMIRE and CATHERINE LUCEY, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — He started by describing the reverent handling of America’s war dead, bodies packed in ice and shipped home in the dark to Dover Air Force Base. From that opening, White House chief of staff John Kelly delivered a raw and searing monologue Thursday about the…
By JANIE HAR and MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The wildfires that have devastated California this month caused at least $1 billion in damage to insured property, officials said Thursday, as authorities raised the number of homes and other buildings destroyed to nearly 7,000. Both numbers were expected to rise as crews…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Donald Trump has sent a $25,000 check he promised to the father of an Army sergeant killed in Afghanistan. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Trump offered the money during a telephone conversation with the father of Dillon Baldrige a few weeks after the 22-year-old was killed in…
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas hotel employee who entered a hallway near the suite where a gunman was holed up says he thinks the first gunfire he heard was out the windows of the high-rise. Mandalay Bay building engineer Stephen Schuck tells TV host Ellen DeGeneres in an interview set to air Wednesday…
By Eric Tucker, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is again tweeting about the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email server investigation. The latest burst came Wednesday morning in response to the FBI’s release of a heavily blacked-out draft memo from May 2016 by Director James Comey in preparation for closing the Clinton…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican and Democratic senators have announced a plan aimed at stabilizing America’s health insurance markets in the wake of President Donald Trump’s order to terminate “Obamacare” subsidies. Trump himself has spoken approvingly of the deal, but some conservatives are denouncing it as an insurance company bailout. Health insurance markets have been in…
By SUDHIN THANAWALA and BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — The winds eased, some of the smoke began to clear and the forecast Monday offered a tantalizing chance of rain to thousands of firefighters trying to corral the wildfires that have laid waste to the nation’s most celebrated wine-making region. The progress was…