Author: Reporter

Lower-income families with school-age kids can get help from the federal government paying for groceries this summer, unless they live in one of the 14 states that have said no to joining the program this year. The reasons for the rejections, all from states with Republican governors, include philosophical objections to welfare programs, technical challenges due to aging computer systems and satisfaction with other summer nutrition programs reaching far fewer children. The impact falls on people like Otibehia Allen, a single mom of five in Clarksdale, Mississippi, who makes too much to qualify for some public assistance programs. She...

A New York judge on February 16 imposed a $364 million penalty on Donald Trump, his companies, and some executives, ruling that they engaged in a yearslong scheme to dupe banks and others with financial statements that inflated the former president’s wealth. Trump, who built his reputation as a real estate titan, also was barred from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for three years. However, the judge backed away from an earlier ruling that would have dissolved the former president’s companies. Trump’s lawyers vowed to appeal. Judge Arthur Engoron issued his decision after...

Criminally indited ex-President Donald Trump has plans to radically reshape the Federal government if he returns to the White House, from promising to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally to abolishing government agencies and firing tens of thousands of workers and replacing them with loyalists. Liberal organizations in Washington are backing President Joe Biden and say they expect Trump to lose. But they’re quietly trying to install roadblocks just in case. A collection of activists, advocates, and legal experts is promoting new federal rules to limit presidential power while urging President Biden’s White House to do more...

World leaders and Russian opposition activists wasted no time on February 16 in blaming the reported death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and his authoritarian government. Alexei Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as Putin’s fiercest foe, died in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence, Russia’s prison agency said. He was 47. “It is obvious that he was killed by Putin,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was visiting Germany for the Munich Security Conference as he sought aid for his country’s efforts...

The attacks range from the exotic, poisoned by drinking polonium-laced tea or touching a deadly nerve agent, to the more mundane of getting shot at close range. Some take a fatal plunge from an open window. Over the years, Kremlin political critics, turncoat spies, and investigative journalists have been killed or assaulted in a variety of ways. On February 16, Russian authorities said President Vladimir Putin’s key political challenger, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison colony. The details of what happened are unknown; Navalny’s team says it has no official confirmation of his death and Russian authorities say...