Illinois bond rating cut again over budget impasse
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Illinois’ ongoing failure to enact a fiscal 2016 budget due to political wrangling led to a second major credit rating agency downgrading the state’s debt to the low investment grade triple-B level this week.
Planned Parenthood says Texas launches politically charged document hunt
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – Texas sent agents to Planned Parenthood facilities on Thursday seeking documents, the group said, calling it a “politically motivated” move that comes on the heels of the state’s Republican leaders barring it from receiving Me…
Puerto Rico creditor advisers to meet Commonwealth Tuesday: sources
NEW YORK/SAN JUAN (Reuters) – Advisers for several Puerto Rico bondholder groups are scheduled to meet on Tuesday with advisers for the U.S. Territory to discuss debt restructuring, after key talks with one of the groups collapsed, two sources familiar…
Clinton defends her Benghazi record in face of Republican criticism
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday deflected harsh Republican criticism of her handling of the deadly 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, and urged her questioners in Congress to put U.S. national security ahead of…
Ex-U.N. diplomat, others plead not guilty in U.S. bribery case
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former U.N. General Assembly president, a billionaire Macau real estate developer and three others accused by U.S. authorities of engaging in a wide-ranging bribery scheme pleaded not guilty on Thursday.
Man arrested after crashing vehicle at Tennessee nuclear facility
(Reuters) – A man drove his vehicle through a security entrance at a U.S. defense site in Tennessee on Thursday where enriched uranium is processed and stored, then crashed and fled on foot on the facility’s grounds before being arrested, authorities s…
Criminal justice reform measure wins Senate panel approval
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Mandatory minimum prison sentences for low-level drug offenders would be reduced under a measure approved by a U.S. Senate committee on Thursday, marking a step forward in Washington for advocates of overhauling criminal justice …
UAW picks GM for autoworker talks after Fiat Chrysler deal
DETROIT (Reuters) – The United Auto Workers said on Thursday it will negotiate its next deal with General Motors Co , after the union’s workers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV ratified a new pact.
‘The rats are taking over,’ complain New Yorkers
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When New Yorkers see something scurrying, they say something and that has brought rat complaints to the city’s 311 hotline to a recent high of more than 24,000 so far this year, officials said on Thursday.
Mexico police bust U.S. border tunnel of drug lord ‘El Chapo’ Guzman
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican police busted a smuggling tunnel run by the drug gang of fugitive kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman on the U.S. border stashed with about 10 tons of suspected marijuana, officials said on Thursday.
