The US says it is evaluating the Hamas response to the latest proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal. The Palestinian armed group said it was ready to “deal positively” with the process but stressed the need for Israel to agree to a permanent ceasefire. Israel’s government has not commented, but an anonymous Israeli official said Hamas’s response amounted to a rejection. Meanwhile, the US secretary of state is heading to Qatar - which along with the US and Egypt is...

Population changes spurred by the pandemic. Byzantine zoning laws that make construction agonizingly slow and expensive. Stagnant wages amid stubborn inflation rates. All these factors have contributed to years of skyrocketing housing prices — and leaders in Washington, including President Biden — have shown little ability to get a handle on the issue. That’s putting even more pressure on governors to come up with solutions to the affordable housing crisis. But those state...

Secretly recorded conversations with Justice Alito and his wife tell us mostly that the justice worries about polarization and his wife handles the flags. One of the hallmarks of the now–annual silly–season efforts to discredit and delegitimize the Supreme Court is that the hit jobs are aimed to make up in volume what they lack in content. So long as there is a constant drumbeat of new stories, the narrative can be kept alive even as one...

A couple closer-than-expected races highlighted Tuesday’s elections in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina, which put Donald Trump’s endorsement power to the test as he heads toward a rematch with President Biden. But it was an under-the-radar special election in Ohio that turned out to be the biggest shocker of the night. Elsewhere, Trump-endorsed candidates pulled through against their primary challengers, though at least one of them did so with far...

Republican Michael Rulli won the special election for Ohio’s 6th Congressional District, helping his party expand its narrow House majority. Rulli, a Youngstown-area state senator and an executive for his family’s grocery store chain, defeated Democratic Air Force veteran Michael Kripchak in the race for the sprawling district along the Ohio River in eastern Ohio. Rulli will succeed former Rep. Bill Johnson, a seven-term Republican who resigned in January to...

Former President Trump's criminal conviction in his historic New York trial may have thrown the 2024 presidential election into unprecedented upheaval – or it may not have, according to Dr. Allan Lichtman. The American University historian, who has correctly predicted the outcome of nine of the last 10 U.S. presidential elections, told Fox News Digital that instant analysis of Trump's conviction is meaningless as the country looks forward to Election Day. "We're not going to know...

President Joe Biden has sought to bolster his outreach to Black voters as polls show him with lower-than-usual support within that demographic. In graduation remarks May 19 at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, a historically Black institution, Biden touted achievements for Black Americans that he said were reached during his presidency. "Today, record numbers of Black Americans have jobs, health insurance, and more (wealth) than ever," Biden said.  Both Biden and ...

The consumer price index showed no increase in May as inflation slightly loosened its stubborn grip on the U.S. economy, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. CPI, a broad inflation gauge that measures a basket of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, held flat on the month though it increased 3.3% from a year ago, according to the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.1% monthly gain and a 3.4% annual rate.

Photos featuring nude individuals in public with children present are not all connected to Pride month events, despite the miscaptioned images being shared online with posts disparaging the LGBTQ+ community. The social media posts echo the harmful tropes that LGBTQ people are “child groomers” or pedophiles. Reuters has previously addressed other misinformation that tied LGBTQ people to pedophilia. A June 2 post on Facebook, opens new tab said: “...

Just hours before the release of the Federal Reserve’s latest rate decision, fresh inflation data showed that price increases slowed notably in May. The new report is a sign that inflation is cooling again after proving sticky early in 2024, and it could help to inform Fed officials as they set out a future path for interest rates. Policymakers had embraced a rapid slowdown in price increases in 2023, but have turned more cautious after inflation progress stalled early this year. The latest...