Politics

Eli Stokols 2020-07-02 01:37:58 President Trump on Wednesday suggested that painting the words “Black Lives Matter” on New York City’s Fifth Avenue would amount to a “symbol of hate,” complaining that such an action would be “expensive” and “denigrating this luxury Avenue.”That came shortly after a threat by the president to veto the Pentagon’s budget legislation should it include a...

Melanie Mason 2020-07-01 17:30:46 As Joe Biden weighs potential running mates, he has been asked repeatedly about the women he is considering. The Democrat has responded repeatedly that multiple women of color are on his list.The former vice president’s statement has all the makings of a coy dodge, keeping all possibilities open. But it is also a milestone.“There has not...

Corie Brown 2020-07-01 17:30:36 The city of Omaha “does a great job of investing in itself,” said James Chung, a son of Wichita, Kan., and founder of strategy and predictive analytics firm Reach Advisors. The low-profile Omaha nonprofit Heritage Services plays a large role in the investing.Since 1990, Heritage Services, backed by some 100 mostly anonymous residents, has provided $725...

Corie Brown 2020-07-01 17:30:05 Financial support for local charities reveals what a community truly values, according to Nathan Dietz, a senior researcher with the University of Maryland’s Do Good Institute and the Urban Institute. Dietz tracks funding for local charities across the nation and has provided information on 2014 donations to charities in the Wichita, Kan., and Omaha metropolitan statistical...

Corie Brown 2020-07-01 17:30:01 Susie Buffett, daughter of Omaha billionaire Warren Buffet, is a top-tier philanthropist in her hometown. In the last two decades, she has given $1.3 billion to charitable organizations serving Omaha and Nebraska through her Sherwood Foundation.In the fiscal year ended June 2019, Sherwood donated $285 million to her city and state. Working with public institutions, most...

Doyle McManus 2020-07-01 16:30:33 When President Trump launched his reelection campaign, he hoped to run, in part, on a record of foreign policy success.He told voters he was making progress toward a big trade deal with China: “The biggest deal ever,” he promised.He was holding peace talks with North Korea aimed at dismantling Kim Jong Un’s nuclear arsenal and ending...

Sarah D. Wire 2020-07-01 05:05:09 Nearly $135 billion provided by Congress to help small businesses struggling to survive the COVID-19 pandemic was left on the table Tuesday as the Paycheck Protection Program stopped accepting new applications.The program was so popular after Congress created it in March that it ran out of its initial $349 billion in less than two weeks...

Taryn Luna, Benjamin Oreskes 2020-07-01 02:55:07 Gov. Gavin Newsom said he planned to announce new restrictions on Wednesday ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend, continuing to reverse course on reopening California as COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations rise. “Tomorrow we’ll be making some additional announcements on efforts to use that dimmer switch that we’ve referred to and begin to toggle...

Chris Megerian, Brian Contreras, David S. Cloud 2020-07-01 00:45:20 President Trump’s deference to Vladimir Putin is back under the microscope amid accusations that he ignored intelligence that Russia offered to pay Taliban militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Democrats returning from a classified briefing at the White House on Tuesday pledged to get to the bottom of the matter...

David G. Savage 2020-06-30 19:43:51 The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states may not exclude religious schools from tuition grants that support other private schools. The justices, by a 5-4 vote, decided that denying grants to students in church schools amounts to unconstitutional discrimination against religion. The decision is a victory for advocates of school choice, and a setback for...