WASHINGTON – The Justice Department has been referred an investigation into Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, raising the possibility for criminal charges, according to the Washington Post and CNN. The probe was one of several the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General had opened into allegations that Zinke, who heads the agency, used his office for personal Read More…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – Another NASA space telescope has shut down and halted science observations. Less than a week after the Hubble Space Telescope went offline, the Chandra X-ray Observatory did the same thing. NASA said Friday that Chandra’s automatically went into so-called safe mode Wednesday, possibly because of a gyroscope problem. Hubble went Read More…

President Donald Trump has withdrawn ex-CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance, in a move hitting one of the administration’s most vocal critics. The action, announced Wednesday by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, appears to be more of a political than practical move. Brennan and most other prominent former White House officials do not use their Read More…

A Forbes report alleging Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross “grifted” more than $120 million from former business partners has been widely slammed for relying heavily on anonymous sources and being laced with “petty” accusations, raising questions of whether the magazine’s Chinese owners were ultimately bashing Ross for his tough pro-American stance in trade talks with Beijing. Read More…

WikiLeaks is claiming that the Senate Intelligence Committee has asked its founder, Julian Assange, to testify as part of the panel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The organization posted a letter on its Twitter account dated Aug. 1 that purports to come from committee leaders Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Read More…

Barnes & Noble is cashing in on anxiety. The bookstore chain said in a press release on Wednesday that sales of books related to anxiety are up 26% year-over-year compared to last June. The bestselling books in the category include workbooks, toolkits, and self-help books about managing anxiety. “The Anxiety category has really popped in Read More…

In the age of social media and the internet, instant digital connectivity can paradoxically make us feel very isolated. “People are a lot lonelier than we realize,” said Alison Darcy, the founder and CEO of Woebot, a virtual therapist that will talk you through a panic attack at 3 a.m. Woebot is among multiple new Read More…

MGM Resorts International has filed federal lawsuits against more than 1,000 Las Vegas mass shooting victims in an effort to avoid liability. The company, which owns Mandalay Bay and the Route 91 Harvest festival venue, argues that it cannot be held liable for Oct. 1 deaths, injuries or other damages, adding that any claims against Read More…

An emergency descent by an Air China aircraft after cabin oxygen levels dropped has been linked to a co-pilot smoking an e-cigarette during the flight, state media said on Friday. The state-backed Air China Boeing 737 aircraft was flying to the Chinese city of Dalian from Hong Kong when it went down to 10,000 feet Read More…

Smugglers are using video cameras and small drones to spot vulnerabilities along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the Department of Homeland Security is struggling to stop them. Reports of unmanned aircraft flying along the Southwest border have spiked in recent months, with more than three dozen sightings since October, when the current fiscal year began. That Read More…

Tax preparation company Avalara soared as much as 33 percent Thursday after a historic Supreme Court decision on collecting sales tax from e-commerce. The stock later pared its gains, but still ended the session 13 percent higher at $51.04. READ THE FULL STORY.

(CNN)Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who led the Archdiocese of Washington and was a political force in the nation’s capital, said on Wednesday that he has been removed from public ministry by the Vatican because of a decades-old allegation of sexual abuse. The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, “at the direction of Pope Francis,” told Read More…

Hulu CEO Randy Freer weighed in on Tuesday on consolidation in the media industry — and subtly heckled rival Netflix for its content spending. “I think money is a relative term. I think it’s how you spend that is really important. We are not going to make 800 shows next year, we’ll probably make 20 Read More…

According to police, cocaine was found in a wallet that McGowan left behind on a plane last year on a United flight arriving at the Washington Dulles International Airport in January 2017 on her way to the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., according to The New Yorker. A felony warrant was issued for her arrest. Read More…

After landing a plane with a failed engine, Southwest pilot Tammie Jo Shults has returned to the skies again. But, she said, very little of her life since that flight in April has been routine. She has visited President Donald Trump at the White House. She has been interviewed on 20/20. And now, passengers stop Read More…

A Texas middle school teacher has been sentenced to prison for having sex with her 15-year-old student — including when she was pregnant, PEOPLE confirms. Katherine Harper had a months-long sexual relationship last year with a student she met at Tidwell Middle School in Roanoke, where she’d been an English teacher, cheerleading coach and tennis Read More…

A federal judge has ordered special counsel Robert Mueller to identify by Friday all the individuals and organizations involved in former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s alleged scheme to lobby on behalf of Ukraine without registering as a foreign agent under U.S. law. Among the people Mueller will be required to identify to the defense Read More…

The White House is aggressively stepping up its fight for tighter border enforcement, blaming former President Obama’s “catch-and-release” policies and legal loopholes promoted by congressional Democrats for the surge in fraudulent asylum claims and youth smuggling into the U.S. “When you want to talk about what’s cruel and what’s inhumane, we should talk about the Read More…

(CBS News/CBSNewYork) – The wireless industry is in a race to roll out 5G service. The network is supposed to be up to 100 times faster than current data speeds, but it requires cellphone tower equipment to be closer to users than before. Wireless companies in the U.S. say they’ll have to install about 300,000 Read More…

Video footage from a Texas state trooper’s body camera refuted sexual-assault claims a woman made against the trooper after she was pulled over for allegedly driving while intoxicated, CBS Dallas station KTVT reports. Sherita Dixon-Cole, 37, accused the trooper of raping her during the traffic stop south of Dallas over the weekend. The Texas Department Read More…

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for states to legalize sports betting, striking down a 1992 federal law that limited such gambling and likely touching off a nationwide battle to dominate what is sure to be a multi-billion-dollar industry. The justices ruled in favor of New Jersey, which had long argued that the Read More…

The allegations were shocking: an Army major and his wife accused of abusing their three young foster children through beatings, denial of food and water and forcing them to eat hot pepper flakes as punishment. When John and Carolyn Jackson were convicted of child endangerment in 2015, prosecutors received another shock when the trial judge, Read More…

NEW YORK — The man killed in a blaze at New York City’s Trump Tower was an art collector who spent time with Andy Warhol, but fell on hard financial times in recent years and went through bankruptcy proceedings. Todd Brassner, 67, died on Saturday at a hospital after a fire tore through his 50th-floor Read More…

U.S. consumer sentiment slipped slightly at the end of March, after shooting up in the mid-month preliminary report, but still recorded its highest level since 2004. The University of Michigan’s report showed consumer attitudes about the economy inched down to a reading of 101.4 at the end of March. Reuters economists expected the reading to Read More…

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket streaked away from California early Friday, boosting the fifth set of 10 Iridium NEXT relay stations into orbit, the latest step in the satellite telephone provider’s push to complete a globe-spanning constellation of next-generation spacecraft. Perched atop pad 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Los Angeles, the Falcon Read More…

Workers in Idaho are leading the nation in earnings growth, thanks in part to a buoyant job market and pockets of labor shortages that are putting upward pressure on wages. In 2017, Idaho workers boasted a 5.3% increase in earnings—mostly comprised of annual wages and salaries—compared with the 2016 calendar year, according to the Commerce Read More…

Just more than a week after tiny Los Alamitos voted to defy California’s law protecting immigrants in the country illegally, Orange County is poised to become a counterpoint against the state’s resistance to the Trump administration’s policies. On Tuesday, Orange County supervisors may consider whether to take up a resolution to condemn and possibly take Read More…

BlackBerry smartphones have secure messaging as a matter of course, but for some that isn’t enough: there are custom models that are even more secure thanks to PGP-encrypted mail. However, it seems that these locked down models aren’t quite as safe as you’d think. The Netherlands Forensic Institute has confirmed a recent report that it’s Read More…

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration over its alleged practices of searching the electronic devices of passengers traveling on domestic flights. “The federal government’s policies on searching the phones, laptops, and tablets of domestic air passengers remain shrouded in secrecy,” Read More…

All five passengers aboard a helicopter that crashed into Manhattan’s East River Sunday night have died, authorities said. The red Eurocopter AS350, which officials said was operated by Liberty Helicopters and had been privately chartered for a photo shoot, apparently had engine failure. The pilot — who repeatedly radioed “May day! May day! and reported Read More…

The United States has yet to hear from North Korea after President Donald Trump accepted an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Monday. “We have not heard anything directly back from North Korea, although we do expect to hear something directly from them,” Read More…

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell believes Amazon played a role in keeping a lid on inflation over the past decade. The central banker was asked why inflation has been so low since the financial crisis. “It’s a global phenomenon. We don’t perfectly understand it. Since the [financial] crisis, a big factor that has been weighing Read More…

When a group that says it provides financial assistance “relating to the jihad” sought to improve conditions for fighters in a squalid, sandbag-fortified trench in Syria late last year, it turned to a new funding conduit: bitcoin. “There is currently no shelter to protect the food and ammunition from the rain,” the group, called al Read More…

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (WJLA) – Multiple firearms, including a shotgun and two rifles, ammunition, replica grenades, a ballistic vest, and a journal were located at the home of student accused of bringing a loaded handgun and knife to Clarksburg High School last week. The alarming revelation was made during a bond review for Alwin Chen, Read More…