New lawsuits accuse the banks of maintaining a relationship with the convicted sex offender and failing to report suspicious activities until after his 2019 death.

White House budget director Russell Vought said he wants to close the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and expects to do so within the next two to three months.

Strikes cause outages in eight regions before Washington talks to discuss US providing Kyiv with cruise missiles A massive Russian drone and missile strike has hit gas facilities in eastern Ukraine as the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, flew to Washington for a meeting with Donald Trump to discuss the US providing Kyiv with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles. Russia launched hundreds of drones, dozens of missiles, as well as glide bombs early on Thursday, sparking outages in eight regions in another large-scale bombardment targeting Ukraine’s energy network. Continue reading...

Lobbyists attended 48% more meetings than Tories, as Labour accused of giving them ‘backstage pass’ * UK politics live – latest updates Government ministers met representatives from the fossil fuel industry more than 500 times during their first year in power – equivalent to twice every working day, according to new research. The analysis found that fossil fuel lobbyists were present at 48% more ministerial meetings during Labour’s first year in power than under the Conservatives in 2023. Ministers at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) met fossil fuel lobbyists 274 times, with industry figures present at almost a quarter of meetings. Ed Miliband, the secretary for energy and climate change, met fossil fuel lobbyists 250 times – with a third of all his meetings attended by industry figures. During the same period DESNZ ministers met trade union representatives 61 times Three fossil fuel companies: BP, Shell and Equinor , met ministers 100 times between them. Fossil fuel lobbyists attended almost every government meeting about the energy profits levy, a temporary windfall tax on the “extraordinary profits” of North Sea oil and gas companies. Continue reading...

The New York governor swiftly dismissed talk of "some bad apples" among leaders of the Young Republicans groups.