The U.S. trade deficit fell by nearly 24% in August as President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs pushed imports lower. In a report delayed for more than seven weeks by the federal government shutdown, the Commerce Department said Wednesday that the the gap between what the United States buys from other countries and what it sells them fell to $59.6 billion in August, from $78.2 billion in July. Imports of goods and services dropped 5% to $340.4 billion in August from July when U.S. companies were stocking up on foreign products before Trump finalized taxes on products from almost every country on earth. Those levies went into effect Aug. 7...

The Justice Department admitted on Wednesday that not every member of the grand jury in former FBI Director James Comey’s case saw the final version of the indictment, an error that could get the case thrown out. The rare admission of fault from the administration came toward the end of a hearing on Comey's arguments that the case should be dismissed because he's the victim of a "selective and vindictive" prosecution...

The average "classic holiday feast for 10" will run $55.18 this Thanksgiving, per the American Farm Bureau Federation's new annual survey. That's about $5.52 per person, and down about 5% from last year — the third straight year of declines. Yes, but: "Three years of declines don't fully erase dramatic increases that led to a record-high cost of $64.05 in 2022," AFBF says...

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) yelled and wagged her finger at her Republican colleagues on the House floor Tuesday night after the chamber rejected a resolution to censure Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) with the help of a handful of Republicans. The GOP failure to censure Plaskett, in turn, led to Democrats declining to pursue a censure of Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.)...

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is holding a hearing Wednesday afternoon to look into the impact of the 43-day government shutdown on U.S. flight safety, travel and the economy. During the record-long lapse in funding, the Transportation Department reduced flights for least 40 major airports across the U.S. as staffing shortages that already plagued the system worsened as air traffic controllers and other essential employees called out more often, chose to retire or were mandated to work overtime without pay...

A provision in the bill requiring the Justice Department to release its files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has come under scrutiny over concerns it could allow Attorney General Pam Bondi to redact certain details. The Epstein Files Transparency Act will head to President Donald Trump's desk for his signature after the House and Senate both voted on Tuesday to publicly release the files. Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges...

Israel has dominated battlefields across the Middle East for the past two years, largely from the air. It has yet to lose a single plane. A major reason is the F-35. Now, a promise by the Trump administration to sell the most advanced U.S. aircraft to Saudi Arabia is threatening to remove a pillar of Israel’s uncontested military advantage over its neighbors. The immediate concern in Israel isn’t so much about Saudi Arabia’s potential use of the plane. Israeli officials are worried that sales to the kingdom would open the door to others, such as Turkey, that have made clear their aspirations for the stealthy and highly networked plane. Such sales would erode Israel’s advantage and put its own F-35s at greater risk at a time when the regional balance of power is shaped largely from the air...

New York City’s “Bernie Madoff of landlords” has defaulted on nearly $170 million in loans — and is facing foreclosure on a whopping 35 or so Manhattan properties, new court records show. Steven Croman, a longtime notorious landlord and convicted fraudster — who did a stint on Rikers Island more than a decade ago — is facing another reckoning, but this time in civil court. A bevy of lawsuits filed recently filed against Croman in Manhattan Supreme Court claim he is in default on $168 million worth of real estate loans...

Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, this week officially designated the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as terrorist organizations, authorizing the state attorney general to pursue legal action against them. "Today, I designated the Muslim Brotherhood and Council on American-Islamic Relations as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations," Abbott said...

The year is 2025. You froze your eggs a decade ago, after your live-in boyfriend dumped you on your 30th birthday. You’re about to start your fifteenth round of IVF, and if this one doesn’t work, you have a color-coded list of surrogacy agencies to call. But your parents are pushing 70, and you feel some guilt thinking about the years your kids could have spent with them. Thankfully, former Disney child star Calum Worthy and his company 2wai have an app for that: In between trips to the IVF clinic, you can digitize your parents and create immortal AI clones of them that will haunt your children forever...