U.S. government

A former San Francisco Bay Area tour operator agreed Monday to plead guilty to serving as an unregistered agent for China in exchange for a possible reduced prison sentence.

A U.S. judge on Friday set an April 2018 trial date for Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman on charges he oversaw a multibillion-dollar international drug trafficking operation responsible for murders and kidnappings. Guzman answered the judge’s questions through an interpreter. He spent half the hearing looking across the courtroom at his wife, who smiled and waved to him...

The Trump administration is preparing court filings to begin taking over private land to build its long-promised border wall as early as this week — without confirming how much it will pay landowners first, according to two officials familiar with the process. Jared Kushner is hosting a meeting with military and administration officials at the White House this Friday, NBC...

The Trump administration has proposed making it tougher for asylum-seekers to obtain permission to work in the United States while their cases are pending, a move that immigrant advocates say would unfairly punish those who need humanitarian protection the most. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Wednesday a proposed rule would double the time asylum-seekers must wait for a work...

A federal court in Boston has ruled that warrantless U.S. government searches of the phones and laptops of international travelers at airports and other U.S. ports of entry violate the Fourth Amendment. Tuesday’s ruling in U.S. District Court came in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of 11...

Multiple published reports say that the U.S. government has launched a national-security review of the China-owned video app TikTok, popular with millions of U.S. teens and young adults. The reports Friday from Reuters,The New York Times and others said that the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews acquisitions by foreign firms, has opened an inquiry...

Multiple published reports say that the U.S. government has launched a national-security review of the China-owned video app TikTok, popular with millions of U.S. teens and young adults. The reports Friday from Reuters,The New York Times and others said that the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews acquisitions by foreign firms, has opened an inquiry...

Federal prosecutors charged a Southern California campaign fundraiser Tuesday with falsifying records to conceal his work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. government officials.

Three Los Angeles County educators were among those who received presidential awards for teaching or mentoring, the White House announced Tuesday.

The Trump Administration is blocking shipments from a Chinese company making baby pajamas sold at Costco warehouses, after the foreign manufacturer was accused of forcing ethnic minorities locked in an internment camp to sew clothes against their will. The government is also blocking rubber gloves sold by industry leader Ansell whose customers include surgeons, mechanics and scientists around the U.S.,...

On a recent day in a remodeled brick church in the Rio Grande Valley, a caregiver tried to soothe a toddler, offering him a sippy cup. The adult knew next to nothing about the little 3-year-old whose few baby words appeared to be Portuguese. Shelter staff had tried desperately to find his family, calling the Brazilian consulate and searching Facebook....

A Bay Area man who operates tours for Chinese students and visitors was charged with being an illegal foreign agent and delivering classified U.S. national security information to officials in China, U.S. government officials announced Monday.

A U.S. judge on Friday blocked new Trump administration rules that would enable the government to keep immigrant children in detention facilities with their parents indefinitely. U.S. District Court Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles said the rules conflict with a 1997 settlement agreement that requires the government to release immigrant children caught on the border as quickly as possible...

Even as they publicly insist President Donald Trump did nothing wrong in his call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, his allies are privately acknowledging more serious concerns about the ethical questions raised and potential political fallout from it — especially over the involvement of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney. Two Trump allies, one of whom is a former senior White...

In 2014, then-Vice President Joe Biden was at the forefront of American diplomatic efforts to support Ukraine’s fragile democratic government as it sought to fend off Russian aggression and root out corruption. So it raised eyebrows when Biden’s son Hunter was hired by a Ukrainian gas company. The Obama White House said at the time that there was no conflict...

A former senior Russian official is living in the Washington area under U.S. government protection, current and former government officials tell NBC News. NBC News is withholding the man’s name and other key details at the request of U.S. officials, who say reporting the information could endanger his life. An NBC News correspondent went to the man’s house in the...

The head of the Port of Los Angeles Tuesday gave an apprehensive report about the effects the trade war between the United States and China could have on the local shipping yard.

A Texas-based company is facing criticism for naming a beer after the location of nuclear tests that resulted in the contamination of a Pacific island chain, a report said.

With suicides on the rise , the U.S. government wants to make the national crisis hotline easier to reach. Once implemented, people will just need to dial 988 to seek help. Currently, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline uses a 10-digit number, 800-273-TALK (8255). Callers are routed to one of 163 crisis centers, where counselors answered 2.2 million calls last year....

Immigrant children detained by the U.S. government should get edible food, clean water, soap and toothpaste under a longstanding agreement over detention conditions, a federal appeals panel ruled Thursday in dismissing a Trump administration bid to limit what must be provided.