Democratic state attorneys general, a chief roadblock to some of President Trump’s most controversial policies, escalated their campaign against him Monday, alleging in a lawsuit that payments by foreign governments to Trump’s businesses violate anti-corruption clauses in the Constitution.

criminal charges against fraternity members for hazing

Those charged with involuntary manslaughter — a misdemeanor — in the death of Mr. Piazza also face felony charges of aggravated assault, which could result in prison terms.

In a group text message shortly before midnight, one of the fraternity members wrote: “Also, Tim Piazza might actually be a problem. He fell 15 feet down a flight of stairs, hair-first, going to need help.

The reality is more complicated, experts in the law, policy and economics of energy said. The orders are not likely to lead either to significant new energy development or to job creation in the near future. With oil prices around $50 a barrel and production already glutting world markets, few oil companies are making plans to expand into costlier, riskier offshore drilling.

“You don’t create jobs by signing a piece of paper if those jobs rely on a combination of economics and technology that the president doesn’t control,”

But Mr. Trump’s supporters say that in recent years, presidents have overused and abused that authority. Mr. Obama designated about 553 million acres as national monuments, more than any other president.

US warships and submarines are on the move. North Korea has carried out its largest ever live-fire drill. Washington and Pyongyang are trading inflammatory rhetoric on a weekly basis.

it is a dangerous situation that could get out of hand

The US military would also step up training inside its borders and send a second aircraft carrier to East Asia -- and carriers don't move quickly.

“North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority,”

“The words and actions of North Korea threaten the U.S. homeland and that of our allies in South Korea and Japan,” Harris said in his prepared testimony. The U.S. “must be prepared to fight” on short notice, he said.

"There’re so many options that we need to be taking that are a long ways away from a strike,”

1. A bigger tax cut for the middle class

Is there a big loophole in the plan?

The Tax Policy Center projects that taxpayers exploiting this potential loophole could reduce the taxes the government collects by $2.6 trillion over 20 years. That is more than half as much as the main component of the individual plan, the reduction in rates on ordinary income. The lower rates are forecast to cost $4 trillion over the same period.

President Trump on Wednesday proposed a dramatic overhaul of the tax code, calling for sharply lower rates for individuals and businesses but also eliminating key tax breaks.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do something big and important on taxes,” White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn

Trump’s advisers are looking to ax some tax breaks that are very popular in certain states, including the deduction Americans take for the state and local taxes they pay separately each year. Eliminating this deduction could save more than $1 trillion over 10 years but inflame lawmakers and governors in states that have high income tax rates.

Within minutes, there was an enormous explosion — a shoot of red flame and a funnel of black smoke that reached into the sky.

Every day, for weeks, the battle to take western Mosul from the Islamic State has looked like this: a block-by-block crawl as casualties mount.

“The CTS has made enormous sacrifices since 2014, and many of the old hand are dead, killed in Anbar Province and elsewhere,” said David M. Witty, a retired colonel with the United States Army Special Forces and former adviser to the counterterrorism service, known as CTS.

Victims of hate crimes can sue perpetrators under state and federal hate crime or other civil rights laws for compensatory damages and, in some cases, punitive damages as well. But first they need lawyers.

“there is no real comprehensive network around the country” to connect victims of hate crimes or harassment with lawyers

He has portrayed the military’s primary role as winning battles, and winning battles as sufficient for winning wars — two ideas out of favor since at least the Vietnam War. Ever since then, most generals have emphasized that war is driven by political conflicts that can rarely be resolved through force alone.

“When he thinks about the military, he probably thinks about the tangible representations of the military,” Mr. Horowitz said, calling the advanced weapons “signals of strength.”

“I suspect that’s not so different from the way that a lot of the American public thinks about military power.”

The top United Nations diplomat working to resolve the civil war in Syria reported some progress Friday after nearly 10 days of talks, saying both sides finally had agreed on what he described as a “clear agenda” for further negotiations.

“I think and believe we have a clear agenda now in front of us,” Mr. de Mistura told a news conference in Geneva.

The progress on defining what the Syrian antagonists would even talk about spoke volumes about the frustrations that have vexed Mr. de Mistura in the talks, which have been held off and on for years and have been punctuated by acrimony and false hope.

Trump promised nearly 30,000 jobs as a result of the construction of the Keystone Pipeline while signing the memorandum for that project. He also signed a memorandum on the Dakota Access Pipeline and announced that construction of both pipelines would be "subject to terms and conditions to be negotiated by us."

"This is with regard to the construction of the Keystone Pipeline, something that's been in dispute ... We'll see if we can get that pipeline built," Trump said. "A lot of jobs, 28,000 jobs. Great construction jobs."

“Yes, the actual operating jobs are about 50," he said. "But that doesn't include all the other jobs that come with it."

The onetime presidential candidate, now the Democratic caucus’s point man on political outreach, is coming to the “March on Mississippi” to send a message about how organizing can lift workers’ quality of life.

“What I’m going to be saying is that the facts are very clear, that workers in America who are members of unions earn substantially more, 27 percent more, than workers not in unions,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an interview. “They get pensions and better working conditions. I find it very remarkable that Nissan is allowing unions to form at its plants all over the world. Well, if they can be organized everywhere else, they can be organized in Mississippi.”

“These workers are incredibly courageous,” Sanders said. “One thing we already know is that workers who have stood up for their rights are being harassed, are being discriminated against and are being lectured about the so-called perils of trade unionism. There’s a massive anti-union effort going on, and these guys are standing out their own. They deserve our support.”

Some of America's most critical allies in the fight against ISIS have made a deal to cede territory to Russian and Syrian government troops in northern Syria, the Pentagon confirmed Friday.

US military advisers could soon find themselves in close proximity to Syrian and Russian troops

"Essentially three armies and an enemy force have all converged within the same grid square. It's very difficult and complicated," he said.

President Donald Trump slammed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a tweet Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and presenting a photo of the two leaders as evidence.

"The bottom line is we have an obligation to get to the truth. We must evaluate the scope of Russia's interference in our election."

"I hereby demand a second investigation

It has been almost a month since Ukrainian nationalists began preventing coal shipments from the breakaway “republics” in the eastern part of the country by choking off all railroad traffic in what they are calling a blockade.

blockaders are a relatively new movement in the turbulent eastern European nation, but have quickly become a flashpoint in the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine between government forces and separatist rebels. The clashes have killed more than 9,800 people since April 2014.

goal of the blockade, which is strongly supported by Ukrainian nationalist circles, is to break all ties with Ukraine’s industrial base and force the financing of the Moscow-backed breakaway regions

Czech lawmakers are weighing a proposal to amend their constitution to guarantee citizens the right to keep and bear arms, according to EURACTIV.

“It is pure pre-election populism, because there is no need to set the right to possession of weapon by a constitutional law,” he was quoted as saying by EURACTIV.

“We will do our best to protect their rights,”

Just hours before his first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, a cheery President Trump posed for pictures with roughly 20 Republican attorneys general. "These are some great people here," the president said – fully aware that the AGs are in the midst of filing a flurry of lawsuits against the Trump administration.

"Sometimes it turns out the best way to help President Trump ... is to sue President Trump,"

Republican attorneys general note there's an added benefit to them. The lawsuits are helping to restore the concept of federalism, empowering the states and restoring the balance of power against the executive branch.