White House Turf Battle Threatens to Delay Tax Law Rollout

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Supported by Politics White House Turf Battle Threatens to Delay Tax Law Rollout Photo Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, left, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, right, are debating oversight of the new $1.5 trillion tax law. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times WASHINGTON — A power struggle between two of President Trump’s top cabinet members threatens to delay implementation of the new tax law and could give lobbyists and political hands in the White House greater ability to shape critical decisions about which types of businesses benefit from the law.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget, headed by Mick Mulvaney, and the Treasury Department, run by Steven Mnuchin, are at odds over whether to end Treasury’s traditional independence in writing tax regulations and to give the budget office more oversight of those rules. If an agreement is not reached soon, the president may have to weigh in and make the decision himself.
The debat..

British Lab Has Not Identified ‘Precise Source’ of Poison in Spy Case

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British Lab Has Not Identified ‘Precise Source’ of Poison in Spy Case Photo Investigators with the bench on which Sergei V. Skripal and his daughter were found unresponsive after being poisoned in Salisbury, England, last month. Credit Will Oliver/EPA, via Shutterstock Britain’s military laboratory has not established whether the nerve agent that poisoned a Russian former double agent and his daughter came from Russia, the laboratory’s chief executive said on Tuesday.
“We have not verified the precise source,” the executive, Gary Aitkenhead, told Sky News. Mr. Aitkenhead said his laboratory, the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, had confirmed that the poison was Novichok, or from its family of nerve agents, and that it was of military grade.
“We provided the scientific information to the government, who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions they have come to,” Mr. Aitkenhead said. He said it was “not our job to say where it actually was man..

White House Memo: On Foreign Policy, President Trump Reverts to Candidate Trump

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On Foreign Policy, President Trump Reverts to Candidate Trump Photo President Trump’s reversion to his campaign themes comes as he has reshuffled his national security team, ousting aides with more conventional views of American power in favor of more hawkish figures. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times WASHINGTON — President Trump has been commander in chief for 14 months, but to an uncanny degree, he still sounds like the armchair statesman who ran for the White House in 2016.
“I want to get out,” Mr. Trump said of the United States’ military engagement in Syria, at a news conference on Tuesday with leaders of the Baltic States. “I want to bring our troops back home.”
Mr. Trump’s words were at odds with the strategy his administration is pursuing in Syria. But they were almost verbatim what he said in pre-election tweets, as well as in debates two years ago against Republican challengers and his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Far from learning on the job or modifying his view..