First Run News

North Korea's threat to deliver a "Christmas gift" to the U.S. appears to have fizzled, with no reports of military action by Pyongyang as of late Wednesday. A North Korean official earlier this month accused U.S. negotiators of trying to buy time without offering solutions as the two countries struggle to reach a nuclear agreement. The official added that such inaction meant that the U.S. was essentially choosing to receive an unspecified gift from North Korea. “The dialogue touted by the U.S.

Senate Majority Leader MORE (R-Ky.) is delivering more than $1 billion worth of federal spending and tax breaks to his Kentucky constituents, just in time for Christmas and ahead of a potentially tough reelection campaign.  McConnell’s biggest obstacle to getting the deal done was not Speaker MORE, who proclaimed last year that he was not going to sign another omnibus spending bill and whose White House made rumblings about backing a year-end spending freeze instead. But McConnell, who is running for his seventh Senate term next year, flexed

MORE will face a volatile world in 2020 as he seeks to make his case for reelection.

From North Korea’s renewed threats of a nuclear escalation to Trump’s perennial desire to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan, global hotspots will test Trump in myriad ways in the coming year.

Foreign policy is rarely a focus of presidential campaigns, as voters concern themselves with issues closer to home. But a major crisis could cause foreign policy issues to break through to voters.

Parents from the Manchester, Indiana public school district walked out of a school meeting focused on gender identity after being barred from discussing a transgender bathroom policy. During the meeting, the parents attempted to voice their concerns about the policy that permits biological boys who claim to identify as girls to use the girls’ bathrooms in the Manchester Elementary School. According to WPTA21, parent Nate Gephart pulled his two daughters out of the school to homeschool

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors say California attorney Michael Avenatti was over $15 million in debt when he tried to extort up to $25 million from Nike, while Avenatti’s lawyers say the money he legally requested to conduct an internal probe of the sportswear giant was a bargain. Both sides made the assertions in court papers filed late Tuesday in advance of a Jan. 22 criminal trial in Manhattan, giving U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe time to decide what the jury will be allowed to hear and see. For Avenatti, it is the first of three scheduled trials in the next five months.

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President Donald Trump slammed California Governor Gavin Newsom in a Christmas Day tweet for doing “a really bad job of taking care of the homeless population in California.” The president, evidently catching up on recent tweets, reacted Wednesday to several posts from late last week.

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — Dale King rumbled into the parking lot in his military Jeep, a black 1940s-style clunker that he maneuvered with a skull-tipped stick shift. Heavy metal music blasted from the garage that he and some friends had converted to a gym for the neighboring addiction center. Patients from next door were packed inside wearing worn T-shirts, faded athletic gear, and other hand-me-downs. Half the class were barefoot.