The U.S. and Mexico failed to resolve a dispute over trade rules for cars during a meeting last week, a development – or lack of one – that appears capable of severely straining relations between the two countries a year after the new USMCA trade pact took effect. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine ... Read More

WASHINGTON – A federal judge on Friday gave the U.S. Federal Trade Commission until Aug. 19 to file an amended complaint in its antitrust lawsuit against Facebook. In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the agency asked for a three-week extension to amend a lawsuit the ... Read More

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has released the final list of 46 candidates who qualified for the upcoming gubernatorial recall election.  The recall election seeking to remove Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom will take place on Sept. 14, 2021.  Among the candidates that qualified were nine Democrats and 24 Republicans, including Caitlyn Jenner, former ... Read More

New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner has asked Democrats and Republicans to reconvene the state’s redistricting commission and come up with a consensus candidate to act as the tiebreaker in upcoming districting decisions. Rabner first made his desire for a consensus candidate known in a letter sent to Gov. ... Read More

Voters in Texas’ 6th Congressional District will decide which Republican candidate will fill the vacancy left by Rep. Ronald Wright, R-Texas, who died of COVID-19 related complications on Feb. 7. On the ballot Tuesday are Susan Wright, the representative’s widow and a longtime player in GOP politics in the Lone Star State, ... Read More

WASHINGTON – As a select committee prepares to open its investigation Tuesday into the events leading up to and during the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, a trio of House Republicans wonder what might have been. Everyone expected some controversy when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, after some delay, announced his five picks ... Read More

Electric utility company FirstEnergy Corp. agreed to settle a Justice Department complaint Thursday by paying $230 million to avoid a federal wire fraud conspiracy charge. Company officials admitted they conspired with former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder to pay millions of dollars to his political nonprofit organization if he would promote a bill ... Read More

A coalition of state attorneys general reached a $26 billion settlement with opioid maker Johnson & Johnson and three of its distributors this week. They blame the companies for a half-million deaths in the United States from overdoses and addictions to powerful painkillers. “Our country’s opioid epidemic is a nationwide public health ... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs is offering a new COVID-19 Refund Modification option to assist Veterans who require a significant reduction in their monthly mortgage payments because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In some cases, veterans can receive a 20% payment reduction — in others, the reduction may be even larger, the department said. [&... Read More

WASHINGTON – The Department of Defense is conducting its first fiscal research study in over 30 years to determine the efficiency and overall health of the military industry and its private contractors. The decision comes as part of a push by the DOD to utilize budgeted funds more efficiently in the face of supply ... Read More

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democrat Abby Finkenauer, a former congresswoman, is running for Republican Chuck Grassley’s U.S. Senate seat, hoping her blue-collar credentials will propel her forward in a state that has grown more conservative over the years. The 32-year-old former state lawmaker, who announced her candidacy by video Thursday ... Read More

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court should overturn its landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide and let states decide whether to regulate abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb, the office of Mississippi’s Republican attorney general argued in papers filed Thursday with the high court. “Under the ... Read More

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The eruption of COVID-19 last year caused the proportion of people working from home in the U.S. to nearly double, with the shift most pronounced among college graduates and workers in such fields as finance and professional services. The share of employed people working from home shot up ... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Unfazed by Republican threats of a boycott, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection will take on its “deadly serious” work whether Republicans participate or not.  The Republicans’ House leader, Kevin McCarthy, called the committee a “sham process” and suggested that GOP ... Read More

WASHINGTON- The U.S. should appoint a special envoy for the devolving situation in Myanmar, a former U.S. ambassador to the country said on Thursday morning.  “We’re seeing, little by little and step by step, in slow motion, the collapse of the country, and it’s going to have ... Read More

LOS ANGELES- California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Wednesday investing $330 million to expand the state’s Film and Television Tax Credit Program in order to boost the state’s economy.  Launched in 2009, the Film and Television Tax Credit Program works to attract and retain production jobs and economic activity across ... Read More

Hurricane season is underway and climate experts warn of increasingly severe and frequent storms. Animal advocacy groups are reminding the public and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to protect animals during natural disasters.  Often left out of disaster planning and with no way to protect themselves, advocacy groups argue that ... Read More

WASHINGTON — Tracy Harden, owner of Chuck’s Dairy Bar in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, told a Senate panel Thursday about how a 2019 flood along the Mississippi River Delta devastated her community. High waters inundated 548,000 acres, nearly half of it cropland. Hundreds of residents in the sparsely populated area were left with no place ... Read More

National Guard leaders are preparing to furlough civilians and cancel training events and drills slated for August and September to cover costs incurred by responding to the Jan. 6 siege on Capitol Hill. The guard’s mission formally ended in May, TWN previously reported, five months after being deployed to the U.S. ... Read More

This article is by Prachi Patel and was originally published by Anthropocene magazine. Livestock farming produces a large share of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, what with cows belching and farting tons of methane. But the ruminants might be unlikely allies in the world’s ... Read More

She is 8 years old. That’s … what? About third grade? Too young for boyfriends. Too young for R-rated movies. Too young for algebra or a learner’s permit. But she has already experienced her second shooting. It happened a little over a week ago in Washington, D.C., outside of Nationals Park ... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans rejected an effort to begin debate on the big infrastructure deal that a bipartisan group of senators brokered with President Joe Biden, but pressure was mounting as supporters insisted they just needed more time before another vote possibly next week.  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ... Read More

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Smoke and ash from massive wildfires in the American West clouded the sky and led to air quality alerts Wednesday on parts of the East Coast as the effects of the blazes were felt 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) away. Strong winds blew smoke east from California, Oregon, Montana and other states [&... Read More

CINCINNATI (AP) — President Joe Biden expressed pointed frustration over the slowing COVID-19 vaccination rate in the U.S. and pleaded that it’s “gigantically important” for Americans to step up and get inoculated against the virus as it surges once again. Biden, speaking Wednesday night at a televised town hall in Cincinnati, ... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is launching an effort in five cities in the U.S. to reduce spiking gun violence by addressing illegal trafficking and prosecuting offenses that help put guns in the hands of criminals. Attorney General Merrick Garland will launch the gun trafficking strike forces in Chicago, New York, ... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration is beginning to make $3 billion in economic development grants available to communities — a tenfold increase in the program paid for by this year’s COVID-19 relief bill. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said her agency on Thursday will begin accepting applications for the competitive grants, which ... Read More

One of the more disturbing trends of the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is the susceptibility of diabetic Americans to the virus. Researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso conducted a study that indicates unmanaged diabetes is a decisive element of COVID-19 severity and complications, particularly among Hispanic populations. The researchers ... Read More

WASHINGTON — The million acres of forest that burned in western states in the past week were a lesser concern for a congressional panel that discussed the hazards of high heat caused by climate change Wednesday. “It’s becoming a routine part of life on the West Coast,” Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, R-Ohio, said ... Read More

The Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation Online Global Summit, hosted by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, is holding a week-long event, July 20-24, that brings together professionals from sexual abuse and exploitation sectors to discuss how to connect, educate and solve the tangled web of sexual exploitation. “We’re not just ... Read More

WASHINGTON – House Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to permanently close the nation’s digital divide by targeting federal investments in broadband to the hardest to reach areas, while also providing a permanent, federally-funded broadband benefit program to financially vulnerable families. The effort is being spearheaded by Reps. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.... Read More