First Run News

A year or so ago, in a fit of hunger after a long day of working outside, I pulled in at a Mexican-themed restaurant near my home, and for no other reason than the fact that everyone else was doing so, made like the other mutts sitting at the bar watching sports and sucking down beers: I ordered three-no-make-it-four hard-shell tacos with picadillo, guac and sour cream, yellow cheese and shredded lettuce. I dolloped hot sauce on the sour cream, red rivulets running down the white, and ate, perfectly content.

The innkeepers and the guests. The owners and the housekeepers. The urban and the rural. The studious and the watchers of cat videos. And finally (and memorably), Mac versus Dell. This year’s crop of college application essays about money, work and social class come from teenage writers who toe the line, tap dance on either side and often stay suspended, for just a moment, in the space above and between. Each year, we put out a nationwide call for these bits of transcribed financial choreography, and we do so with a couple of goals in mind.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered federal prosecutors to pursue the toughest possible charges and sentences against crime suspects, he announced Friday, reversing Obama administration efforts to ease penalties for some nonviolent drug violations. The drastic shift in criminal justice policy, foreshadowed during recent weeks, is Mr.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s lawyers say his income tax returns do not show income from Russian sources or debt owed to Russians, with the exception of $95 million paid by a Russian billionaire for a Trump-owned estate in Florida and $12.2 million in payments in connection with holding the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013. The statements are contained in a letter from two lawyers, Sheri A. Dillon and William F. Nelson, to Mr. Trump, which the White House released Friday.

WASHINGTON — Only seven days after F.B.I. director was summoned to the White House for a one-on-one dinner with the new commander in chief. The conversation that night in January, Mr. Comey now believes, was a harbinger of his downfall this week as head of the F.B.I., according to two people who have heard his account of the dinner. As they ate, the president and Mr. Comey made small talk about the election and the crowd sizes at Mr. Trump’s rallies. The president then turned the conversation to whether Mr.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has broadened his search for a new F.B.I. director in recent days, moving to install a leader who would be viewed as independent from the White House amid the backlash over his abrupt dismissal of James B. Comey. Four candidates will be interviewed Saturday, according to a person familiar with the meetings: Andrew G. McCabe, the acting director of the F.B.I.; Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas; Judge Michael J.

So the threat we have been waiting for — girding for — has finally arrived from the presidential level. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???” President Trump wrote on Twitter on Friday morning. It may be an idea whose time has come — at least until there’s an improvement in the truth and accuracy barometer in the White House briefing room. The president’s Twitter post almost certainly came in response to the assessments of

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday warned James B. Comey, the fired this week, against leaking anything negative about him, saying that Mr. Comey “better hope” that there are no secret tapes of their conversations that the president could use in retaliation. The suggestion that the president may be surreptitiously recording his meetings or telephone calls added a twist at the end of a week that roiled Washington.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday warned James B. Comey, the fired this week, against leaking anything negative about him, saying that Mr. Comey “better hope” that there are no secret tapes of their conversations that the president could use in retaliation. The suggestion that the president may be surreptitiously recording his meetings or telephone calls added a twist at the end of a week that roiled Washington.

LONDON — Britain’s National Health Service ignored numerous warnings over the last year that many of its computer systems were outdated and unprotected from the type of devastating cyberattack it suffered on Friday. The attack caused some hospitals to stop accepting patients, doctor’s offices to shut down, emergency rooms to divert patients, and critical operations to be canceled as a decentralized system struggled to cope. At some hospitals, nurses could not even prin