A group of House members from both parties succeeded Thursday in deploying a rarely executed method to bypass GOP leadership and force a vote on a bill to expand access to Social Security benefits. Why it matters: It's the second time this year that a bipartisan group of lawmakers has sidestepped House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) with the tool, called a discharge petition. • In May, a discharge petition led by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) attained the necessary 218 signatures to force a House...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Thursday the Federal Reserve’s decision to lower interest rates was “an important signal” that inflation has eased as he poked at Donald Trump’s economic policies as a failure in the past and sure to “fail again” if revived. “Lowering interest rates isn’t a declaration of victory,” Biden told the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. “It’s a declaration of progress, to signal we’ve entered a new phase of our economy and our recovery.” The Democratic...

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that it would be “politically beyond stupid” for Republicans in the House to send the nation careening toward a government shutdown just one month before a national election. One day later, House Republicans seemed to treat this as a dare. They went beyond—by a big margin. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson finally got a continuing resolution to the floor on Wednesday evening to keep the government funded beyond the end of...

House Republicans have shifted gears as they race to avoid a government shutdown, eyeing a three-month stopgap spending bill — in lieu of a six-month extension — while dropping their demand for tougher voting rules as part of the package.  Top appropriators have already launched bipartisan talks in both chambers, and senior lawmakers said they expect the continuing resolution (CR) will extend 2024 funding into December while excluding the more stringent voter-eligibility rules demanded...

Mark Robinson, the controversial and socially conservative Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and expressed support for reinstating slavery, a CNN KFile investigation found. Despite a recent history of anti-transgender rhetoric, Robinson said he enjoyed watching transgender pornography, a review of archived messages found...

The Israeli military carried out dozens of airstrikes against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Thursday, one of the most intense waves of bombardment this year. The strikes came hours after Hezbollah’s leader vowed that “retribution will come” to Israel after audacious attacks on Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies. The device explosions killed at least 37 people and left many Israelis and Lebanese fearful of a worsening conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

CAIRO — Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah blamed Israel on Thursday for the explosion of electronic devices across Lebanon this week, calling the operation an “act of war” and vowing to respond, as the Israeli military signaled it was moving ahead with plans for a new phase of the conflict along the two countries’ border. “It is an act of war against the people of Lebanon, Lebanon’s sovereignty. It is a declaration of war,” Nasrallah said in a televised address, his first remarks since pagers...

Hezbollah’s leader has said bomb attacks using thousands of the Lebanese armed group's pagers and radios "crossed all red lines", and accused Israel of what he said represented a declaration of war. In a much-anticipated speech, Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged Hezbollah had suffered an “unprecedented blow”, but he vowed it would continue fighting and inflict a “just punishment”. Israel has not said it was behind the blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday, which Lebanese authorities said killed 37...

Donald Trump this week pivoted to embrace a niche constituency that few would have expected him to champion—cryptocurrencies and the deep-pocketed investors who have made them their domain. The former president and onetime bitcoin skeptic on Monday helped launch a new crypto business with his family. On Wednesday, he bought a round of burgers for denizens of a bitcoin-theme dive bar in New York. Pledges to block a Federal Reserve-backed digital currency and establish a “strategic national...

Pennsylvania’s dormant Three Mile Island nuclear plant would be brought back to life to feed the voracious energy needs of Microsoft under an unprecedented deal announced Friday in which the tech giant would buy 100 percent of its power for 20 years. The restart of Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, would mark a bold advance in the tech industry’s quest to find enough electric power to support its boom in artificial intelligence. The plant, which...