First Run News

When Daniel and Elizabeth married in 1993, they found it was easy enough to choose a ring for her, but there were far fewer choices for him. Daniel, then a 27-year-old who worked in information technology, decided to design one himself, requesting that tiny stones be placed in a gold band, like planets orbiting in a solar system. He was happy with the ring, and what it represented, until it became obvious after the wedding that he was allergic to the nickel that was mixed in with the gold in the band. As if in revolt, his finger grew red and raw, beneath the circle of metal.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — It is still uncertain whether Republicans in Congress will succeed in undoing the Affordable Care Act, but the debate over repealing it may have already done in Midwestern Nice. It was Tuesday evening, and inside a community college gymnasium, the jeers were hailing down on Representative Rod Blum, a Republican from northeastern Iowa, as he defended his vote for a bill that would reshape health care and repeal much of President Barack Obama’s biggest domestic accomplishment. “Be an adul

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. trade representative on a bipartisan vote despite complaints from some Republicans that the administration has an "ongoing, incoherent and inconsistent trade message." The Senate voted 82-14 to confirm Robert Lighthizer, who served as deputy U.S.

WASHINGTON — The script should be familiar by now. President Trump takes action that stuns the country, eliciting indignation and disbelief from Democrats and leading them to conclude that the vitality of American democracy is under assault. Yet among those who are sympathetic to the president — a minority, to be sure, but somewhere around 40 percent of the country, according to recent polls — the outrage is that Mr.

President Trump had another busy day on Thursday: He received his daily intelligence briefing, signed two executive orders, posed for photographs in the Oval Office and was interviewed at the White House by NBC News. He also found time to reignite his decade-long feud with the comedian Rosie O’Donnell. Mr. Trump shared a message on Twitter by Ms. O’Donnell from December in what appears to be his latest attempt to prove that even his critics truly support his decision to fire the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey. The president has highlighted past criticism by Democrats about Mr.

WASHINGTON — Soon after the Trump administration took office this year, the National Security Agency secretly briefed its new overseers at the White House that they had inherited a problem with the agency’s warrantless surveillance program. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was delaying its annual reauthorization because the N.S.A. had discovered widespread violations of a rule for how analysts could handle Americans’ emails collected under the program. Now, the agency director, Adm. Michael S.

WASHINGTON — What is it about Sergey V. Lavrov that always makes high-ranking American officials look hapless? In 2006, Mr. Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, put Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in an awkward position when technicians did not turn off the microphones at a lunch in Moscow. Reporters overheard the two of them bickering over American policy in Iraq. “What does that mean?” she said at one point. “I think you understand,” he replied. Three years later, Hillary Clinton commemorated her first meeting with Mr.

WASHINGTON — Andrew G. McCabe has risen so fast at the F.B.I. that he has become a source of both admiration and resentment. So a favorite way to criticize him is to offer one of the most backhanded compliments in the bureau’s lexicon: He’s a great briefer. Mr. McCabe’s talent for briefing his superiors is regarded by many workaday agents as nothing more than an ability to discuss somebody else’s work. But it is highly valued at F.B.I.

WASHINGTON — The acting director of the F.B.I. contradicted the White House on two major issues on Thursday: the support of rank-and-file agents for the fired F.B.I. chief James B. Comey and the importance of the agency’s investigation into Russian election interference. In a striking repudiation of official White House statements, the acting director, Andrew G.

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.