US News

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fending off a U.S. default, the Senate gave final approval late Thursday to a debt ceiling and budget cuts package, grinding into the night to wrap up work on the bipartisan deal and send it to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law before the fast-approaching deadline. The compromise package negotiated between […]

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said a deal to raise the government’s debt ceiling seemed “very close” late Friday, even as the deadline for a potentially catastrophic default was pushed back to June 5. The later date, laid out in a letter from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, set the risk of a devastating default four days […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. military leaders are starting to unveil the updated Defense Department cyber strategy, calling for troops to “campaign in and through cyberspace” in order to defend the country. The Pentagon on Friday announced it shared a classified version of its 2023 Cyber Strategy with Congress earlier this week and promised to produce an unclassified […]

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday sharply limited the federal government’s authority to police water pollution into certain wetlands, the second decision in as many years in which a conservative majority narrowed the reach of environmental regulations. The outcome could threaten efforts to control flooding on the Mississippi River and protect the Chesapeake Bay, among […]

WASHINGTON — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared his candidacy for the 2024 U.S. Republican presidential nomination on Wednesday in a Federal Election Commission filing. DeSantis was scheduled to hold an online conversation with Twitter owner Elon Musk later Wednesday. DeSantis’ campaign had said his long-anticipated announcement would come on the Twitter Spaces social media site, where […]

Four Chinese citizens living in Florida and a real estate brokerage that operates in the state have joined together in a lawsuit challenging a new law that places severe restrictions on the ability of some non-U.S. citizens to purchase property there. The case, Shen v. Simpson, charges that Florida law SB 264, which was signed […]

SAN FRANCISCO — TikTok on Monday filed suit in U.S. federal court to stop the northern state of Montana from implementing an overall ban on the video-sharing app. The unprecedented ban, set to start in 2024, violates the constitutionally protected right to free speech, TikTok argued in the suit. “We believe our legal challenge will prevail […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — Saudi Arabia’s first astronauts in decades rocketed toward the International Space Station on a chartered multimillion-dollar flight Sunday. SpaceX launched the ticket-holding crew, led by a retired NASA astronaut now working for the company that arranged the trip from Kennedy Space Center. Also on board: a U.S. businessman who now owns a […]

U.S. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are to meet Monday at the White House as they negotiate raising the government’s borrowing limit. Negotiators for the two sides met for more than two hours Sunday, while Biden and McCarthy spoke by telephone in a call that each described positively. “It went well, we’ll […]

NEW ORLEANS — Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. went up slightly last year after two big leaps during the pandemic. Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the numbers plateaued for most of last year. Experts aren’t sure whether that means the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in U.S. history is finally reaching […]