First Run News

Each year the Elsman girls went with family members on a trip, a vacation the two teenagers anticipated all year. On Thursday morning they were strolling the neon-trimmed heart of New York City when a motorist jumped the curb and plowed through three blocks of Times Square sidewalk and into crowds of pedestrians.

WASHINGTON — The national board of the N.A.A.C.P. voted Friday to dismiss the organization’s president, Cornell William Brooks, after only three years, pledging a “systemwide refresh” at the nation’s largest and most storied civil rights group in order to confront President Trump more vigorously. Mr. Brooks, who said in an interview that he was “baffled” and saddened by the decision, will leave the organization at the end of June when his contract expires. The group will search for a new leader while Leon W.

WASHINGTON — When House Democratic leaders hastily called a news conference Wednesday to demonstrate their outrage at President Trump’s latest dramatics, they took great pains to show they were not seeking to railroad him out of the White House. “No one ought to, in my view, rush to embrace the most extraordinary remedy that involves the removal of the president from office,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the sober-minded senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

The Education Department on Friday took up an Obama-era plan to streamline federal student loan servicing by moving to a new, single platform for managing the loans of 43 million borrowers. The department had indicated it might jettison the previous administration’s initiative, which was intended to simplify a system that consumer advocates have compla

WASHINGTON — The United States began accelerating and intensifying its campaign against the Islamic State in January, at President Trump’s direction, but it was not putting civilians in war zones at greater risk, the defense secretary said Friday. Defense Secretary Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, was devised not only to “annihilate” thousands of fighters hunkered down there, but also to prevent them from returning to their home nations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, possibly to c

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal would cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Science and Technology nearly in half, while paring by 40 percent funding for E.P.A.

Hillary Clinton before the election, pleaded guilty to a felony on Friday, crying openly as he admitted to conduct that he knew was “as morally wrong as it was unlawful.” The plea agreement ended a federal investigation into a series of sexually explicit pictures and messages that Mr.

WASHINGTON — On the afternoon of May 1, President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, welcomed a high-level delegation of Saudis to a gilded reception room next door to the White House and delivered a brisk pep talk: “Let’s get this done today.” Mr. Kushner was referring to a $100 billion-plus arms deal that the administration hoped to seal with Mr. Trump’s visit to the kingdom this weekend.

BEIJING — For Chinese citizens, American green cards can be notoriously difficult to obtain. But a Beijing immigration company called Qiaowai tells visa applicants of a secret weapon: It is working on behalf of a real estate firm owned by the family of President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner. “They said the president would make sure it came through,” said Lu Ling, a technology executive in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

WASHINGTON — President Trump embarked on Friday on his first foreign mission since taking office, beginning a challenging nine-day, multistop, multifaceted journey to the Middle East and Europe and leaving behind a capital consumed by investigations and intrigue. Mr. Trump’s first stop will be Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he will meet with dozens of Arab and Muslim leaders.