Chicago becomes the latest major city to ditch Covid-19 capacity limits
CNN
Chicago and the rest of Illinois lifted capacity limits on businesses on Friday, declaring their economies fully reopen for the first time since Covid-19 restrictions were enacted last year.
Illinois joins a growing number of states that have largely ditched capacity restrictions on businesses. Many of those moves came as vaccinations rose and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that fully vaccinated people generally don't need to wear masks indoors or outdoors. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the move makes her city the largest US municipality to fully reopen.
A federal appeals court in Washington on Saturday allowed the head of a government ethics watchdog agency whom President Donald Trump fired last week to stay on the job, a decision that will likely tee up the fight over similar dismissals for the Supreme Court.
In his nearly four weeks in office, President Donald Trump has unveiled a constant stream of policy priorities in quick succession, from shrinking government, to cutting taxes, to waging a war on diversity initiatives, illegal immigration and transgender rights.
At the start of his first term, President Donald Trump filled several top jobs with retired generals — high-ranking veterans who served in leadership positions during the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Through blunt conversations with staff and his popular podcast, Steve Bannon is trying to steer the early direction of the new Trump administration. Whether he’s having much impact inside the White House is a subject of debate.
Amid Democrats’ shock and bickering over how much to respond to President Donald Trump is a deeper question rippling through leaders across the Capitol and across the country: How much should they rely on the same institutional and procedural maneuvers they used during the first Trump term, and how much are they willing to wield their own wrecking balls?
A real estate agent in Omaha, Nebraska, got an unexpected houseguest this week – a hungry opossum who ate the Tuxedo Chocolate Mousse Cake she recently bought from Costco.
A young man from an isolated Indigenous tribe who approached a riverine community in Brazil’s Amazon returned voluntarily to his people less than 24 hours later, Brazilian authorities said.
Top Trump administration officials are set to meet with senior Russian officials to begin talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, according to multiple sources.
A call to an anonymous tip line set off a chain of events that helped thwart a potential Valentine’s Day mass shooting in Indiana, authorities say.
The tragedy has the city reevaluating how it connects homeless families with shelters amid fears federal support for people in or on the precipice of homelessness could wane as the Trump administration pushes to slash spending.
In less than a month in office the Trump administration has simultaneously dismantled foreign aid programs that support fragile democracies abroad and put on leave federal workers who protect US elections at home in a move that current and former officials say abandons decades of American commitments to democracy.
A 5.0 magnitude earthquake was detected in western Texas Friday night, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out.