Author: Press Room
Applications for unemployment benefits rose slightly last week, though they remain at historically low levels. Initial claims rose by 6,000 to 214,000 in the week ended April 18, the Labor Department data said Thursday. The mid-month report of claims is closely watched because it coincides with the survey period for the government’s monthly employment report. Jobless claims, which are a proxy for layoffs, fell near the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and have remained extremely low throughout the conflict. The four-week moving average of claims now stands at 210,750, lower than it has been 94 percent of the…
During an interview aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “11th Hour,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that there has been “bravado” due to how “incredibly lucky” we’ve been to not have any deaths of Americans in Venezuela and few in Iran so far. Paul said, “I think the president, also, a part of him, really wants the war to end. He sees the effect on the economy.” He continued, “I know the president pretty well, and I don’t think he likes to see loss of life. Now, we’ve been incredibly lucky, though, and I think that leads to more…
House GOP leaders on Thursday unveiled the text of a new three-year extension of a key spy law, as Speaker Mike Johnson tried to overcome ultra-conservative resistance and pass it next week. The proposed reauthorization of the so-called Section 702 law includes some new oversight and penalties for abuses of the spy authority but stops short of warrant requirements sought by GOP hard-liners. Conservatives have pushed back on extending Section 702, which allows warrantless surveillance of foreigners, because of concerns about U.S. citizens being caught up in the program. The faction that’s been opposing an extension has not yet signed…
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam says attacks on media workers have become an established pattern, not isolated incidents Lebanon has accused Israel of war crimes after a reporter for a Lebanese newspaper was killed on Wednesday in a strike on a house in the southern village of al-Tiri, where she had taken cover after an earlier attack targeted the vehicle she was traveling in.Amal Khalil, a reporter for Al-Akhbar, was killed in the strike and her colleague Zeinab Faraj seriously wounded. Rescuers were initially unable to recover Khalil’s body because Israeli fire forced them to halt their efforts for hours.Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam…
During portions of an interview with NewsNation aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of “Elizabeth Vargas Reports,” Jason Owens, who served as Chief of the Border Patrol from June 2023 until early 2025, said that he doesn’t think the border is secure yet. Owens stated, “I don’t want to say that the border is secure, because I don’t believe that we have achieved that yet.” And “If something tries to cross our border illegally, we are going to be able to detect, identify, respond to, and interdict that traffic with a certainty, if we can’t tell the American people that, if we…
Hakeem Jeffries celebrated Take Your Child to Work Day by taking questions from the children of the Capitol Hill press corps, but it got heavy fast. The first question: “Why do voters view Democrats so poorly?” Jeffries responded with a lengthy explanation of broad voter distrust in institutions. “There’s a great frustration that applies to every organized institution in this country, and Democrats are not immune from that,” he said. But, Jeffries added, “Consistently in state after state and race after race and contest after contest, irrefutably, the American people are choosing the Democratic Party.” He fielded other tough questions…
The US president has rejected claims that he is rushing to end the conflict ahead of midterm elections The US is not setting any deadlines for concluding the war against Iran, President Donald Trump has said.The remarks contrast with Trump’s earlier claim, made shortly after the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, that the fighting would last “four to five weeks.” He also repeatedly said over the past month that the war would be over “very soon.”The US president told Fox News on Wednesday that there is “no time frame” and no rush to end the…
Survey data and bank-account balances are telling different stories about Americans’ saving habits. gettyWithin the span of a few days this month, three headlines relayed mixed messages about household finances. On April 15, a Santander survey found that 76% of Americans say saving more is their top financial goal for 2026, and among those expecting a tax refund, 88% intend to set aside at least part of it. Yet just days earlier, on April 9, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the U.S. personal savings rate fell to 4.0% in February, down from 4.5% in January. And on April…
Donald Trump sold himself to the American people as the ultimate dealmaker during his first run for President. He argued that Obama’s poor negotiating skills had impoverished the American people, and he would Make America Great Again by getting tough with both allies and adversaries. The American people bought the narrative and elected him over Hillary Clinton in 2016. In the President’s five years in office, he had been unable to cement any agreement that benefited Americans. During his first administration, he engaged in talks with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. The two leaders met three times, including…
Award-winning French director Mathieu Kassovitz is embracing AI and predicts that “in two years from now nobody will care” if actors are real or AI. Kassovitz arrived on the scene as a respected international filmmaker 30 years ago with his 1995 masterpiece La Haine, a critical and financial hit that won him the Best Director prize at that year’s Cannes Film Festival. Today, he says he’s working on what the far-left Guardian describes as “an almost entirely AI-enabled film based on a 1940s wartime comic book by Edmond-François Calvo[.]” “Right now, everybody’s scared,” he told the World AI Film Festival, held in…