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Vice President Mike Pence laughs as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 17, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Washington Republicans in the House of Representatives took a first step toward tax reform, with the release of a fiscal 2018 budget plan that would allow a tax package to pass the U.S. Congress without support from Democrats.
Senate Republicans abandoned an effort to pass their latest healthcare legislation after two Republican Senators - Mike Lee and Jerry Moran - joined Republican Senators Susan Collins and Rand Paul in opposition to the bill. President Donald Trump is now calling for an outright repeal of Obamacare while other Republicans - who hold a slim majority in the Senate - are considering a bipartisan path. Setback for Trump agenda leaves dollar stranded
U.S. Hospitals in rural communities across America are scaling back services to save on insurance and staffing costs, and maternity departments are often among the first to get shuttered. More than 200 maternity wards closed between 2004 and 2014 because of higher costs, fewer births and staffing shortages, leaving 54 percent of rural counties across the United States without hospital-based obstetrics, data from the University of Minnesota’s Rural Health Research Center show.
Graphic: Lights out in rural hospitals Small U.S. towns brace for rare solar eclipse, and crowds, in August Authorities and activists questioned why Minneapolis police who fatally shot Justine Damon, an Australian woman, over the weekend did not have their body cameras turned on during the incident. She had called the police to report a suspected sexual assault near her home, her fiance told reporters outside the home. U.S. student imprisoned in Iran is scholar, not spy: colleagues For many of the 300,000 Chinese students at U.S. colleges and their parents back home, the presumed kidnapping of a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois confirmed their worst fears about coming to America to study. Windy, dry weather forecast in U.S. West, threatens to stoke wildfires
Athletics - IAAF World ParaAthletics Championships - London, Britain - July 17, 2017 Ntando Mahlangu of South Africa falls during a heat of the men's 100 metre T42 Action Images via Reuters/Henry Browne
Business The U.S. housing sector has seen prices, sales and financing applications soar lately as more buyers entered the market for the first time. But those trends were hard to see in big banks' mortgage businesses during the second quarter. Four major U.S. lenders reported an average 33 percent drop in second-quarter mortgage banking revenue, compared with the same quarter last year.
Breakingviews: Xi pours cold water on China's "creativity" rally The U.S. government cleared the way for thousands more foreign workers to enter the country under temporary seasonal visas, just as President Donald Trump declared this "Made In America" week and pushed companies to hire American workers. Bank of America's quarterly profit rises 11 percent The United States launched the first salvo in the renegotiation of the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), saying its top priority for the talks was shrinking the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico.
Russia Russia's Foreign Ministry said Moscow reserves the right to take retaliatory measures against the U.S. after a meeting in Washington ended without a deal on returning seized Russian diplomatic property. Barack Obama, then U.S. president, ordered the seizure of two compounds and the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats over what he said was their involvement in hacking the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, something Russia denies.
Venezuela U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to take "strong and swift economic actions" if Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro goes ahead with plans to create a super-legislature known as a Constituent Assembly in a July 30 vote. "Yesterday, the Venezuelan people again made clear that they stand for democracy, freedom and rule of law. Yet their strong and courageous actions continue to be ignored by a bad leader who dreams of becoming a dictator," Trump said in a statement issued by the White House.
Poland Surrounded by security guards and amid opposition deputies' shouts of "shame" and "disgrace", Poland's parliament debated a bill that critics say would erode the independence of the judiciary. | 
