First Run News

Trump named Scaramucci communications director on July 21, a development that immediately prompted the resignation of former White House press secretary Sean Spicer.  Scaramucci came under fire days later after he delivered a profanity-laced tirade against former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and other staffers during an interview with the New Yorker.

The National Security Agency (NSA) illegally used technology to spy on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, according to new documents from New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). The New Zealand Herald first reported that the GCSB told the nation's high court that it ceased all surveillance of Dotcom in early 2012, but that "limited" amounts of communications from Dotcom were later intercepted by its technology without the bureau's knowledge.  Dotcom was surveilled by the NSA and the GCSB in

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Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • President Trump signed legislation imposing new sanctions on Russia, but he asserted that the bill, which also includes sanctions on Iran and North Korea, was “significantly flawed,” raising questions about how he would enforce it. Vice President Mike Pence,

VENICE — “You guys, just say ‘skooozy’ and walk through,” a young American woman commanded her friends, caught in one of the bottlenecks of tourist traffic that clog Venice’s narrow streets, choke its glorious squares and push the locals of this enchanting floating city out and onto drab, dry land.

WASHINGTON — The White House has engaged in a slow-motion purge of hard-line officials at the National Security Council in recent weeks, angering conservatives who complain that the foreign policy establishment is reasserting itself over a president who had promised a new course. The latest to go was Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who ran the N.S.C.’s intelligence division and, like others who have left, was originally appointed by Michael T.

WASHINGTON — Caleb Bennett was days away from starting the final semester of an associate degree at ITT Technical Institute outside Indianapolis last fall when he got word that the school had unexpectedly gone belly up. Like thousands of ITT students, Mr. Bennett, an Army veteran with four years of service and a tour in Afghanistan, had paid for the schooling, books and even his family’s housing with benefits he had earned under the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill.

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed legislation on Wednesday imposing sanctions on Russia and limiting his own authority to lift them, but asserted that the measure included “clearly unconstitutional provisions” and left open the possibility that he might choose not to enforce them as lawmakers intended. The legislation, which also includes sanctions on

WASHINGTON — Has President Trump told you about the time the head of the Boy Scouts called to say his was the best speech ever delivered to the more than century-old organization? What about when the president of Mexico picked up the telephone to let him know that his tough enforcement efforts at the border were paying off handsomely? The anecdotes, both of which Mr.

WASHINGTON — The end came quickly for one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A. During a White House briefing early last month, the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, recommended to President Trump that he shut down a four-year-old effort to arm and train Syrian rebels.