WASHINGTON — The question to Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, was brutally personal. "If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?" Bernard Shaw, a CNN anchor, asked, referring to the Massachusetts governor's wife. Dukakis said he wouldn't favor...
Rapper A$AP Rocky Charged With Assault Over Fight in Sweden
STOCKHOLM — A Swedish prosecutor on Thursday charged rapper A$AP Rocky with assault over a fight in Stockholm last month, in a case that has drawn the attention of fellow recording artists as well as U.S. President Donald Trump. Rocky, a platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated artist whose real name is Rakim Mayers,...
What Comes After Mueller? Investigations, Lawsuits and More
WASHINGTON — After months of anticipation, Congress finally heard testimony from former special counsel Robert Mueller. So what now? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Mueller's appearance was "a crossing of a threshold," raising public awareness of what Mueller found. And Democrats after the hearing said they had clearly laid out the facts...
Senate Approves Bill to Extend 9/11 Victims Fund
WASHINGTON — The Senate gave final legislative approval Tuesday to a bill ensuring that a victims' compensation fund related to the Sept. 11 attacks never runs out of money. The 97-2 vote sends the bill to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. The vote came after Democratic...
Black Voters Say They Won't Forget Trump's Racist Tweets
DETROIT — Robin D. Stephens lived through Jim Crow and thought the worst days of racism were behind her. Then President Donald Trump told four American congresswomen of color to "go back" to where they came from. "It was very hurtful to see the person who is the leader of the...
Biden Criminal Justice Plan Reverses Part of 1994 Crime Bill
Joe Biden is proposing to reverse several key provisions of the 1994 crime bill he helped write in an acknowledgment that his tough-on-crime positions of the past are at odds with the views of the modern Democratic Party. In a speech later Tuesday in New Orleans, the former vice president will...
Lawmakers Return to Assess Budget and Debt Agreement
WASHINGTON — House lawmakers are returning to Washington to assess a budget and debt deal between Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump, but there's no evidence of any last-gasp drama that could upset the hard-won compromise. Reaction to the two-year deal, which would enable the government's debt-fueled...
Fact Check: Trump Team Warps Omar's Words on 9/11, Al Qaida
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump attributed statements to a Democratic congresswoman that she didn't make as he set off an incendiary week of vilification with accusations that she and three other lawmakers of color hate America. One of his top White House advisers, Stephen Miller, reinforced the charges Sunday, pointing to...
Walters: Trump and California at It Again
President Donald Trump and the Democrats who dominate California politics are locked into a rather bizarre, symbiotic relationship. Almost daily, they fire political and legal bullets at each other across 2,728 miles – by highway – of American soil, each knowing that no matter how strange the missives may appear...
Iran Denies Trump Claim That US Destroyed Iranian Drone
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran on Friday denied President Donald Trump's claim that a U.S. warship destroyed an Iranian drone near the Persian Gulf in another escalation of tensions between the two countries less than a month after Trump nearly launched an airstrike. The Iranian military said all its drones had...