Author: Nomaan Merchant

WASHINGTON • President Joe Biden has tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the White House effort to tackle the migration crisis at the U.S. southern border and work with Central American nations to address root causes of the problem. Biden made the announcement as he and Harris met at the White House on Wednesday…

WASHINGTON • Capitol police knew armed extremists were primed for violence at the iconic building on Jan. 6 and even provided officers with assault rifles to protect lawmakers, the acting chief acknowledged Wednesday. But the wild invasion of the Capitol was far worse than police expected, leaving them unprepared to fight it off. A day…

HOUSTON • The Texas lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden’s victory has quickly become a conservative litmus test, as 106 members of Congress and multiple state attorneys general signed onto the case even as some have predicted it will fail. The last-gasp bid to subvert the results of the Nov.…

HOUSTON • A coronavirus resurgence is wiping out two months of progress in the U.S. and sending infections to dire new levels across the South and West, with hospital administrators and health experts warning Wednesday that politicians and a tired-of-being-cooped-up public are letting a disaster unfold. The U.S. recorded a one-day total of 34,700 new…

HOUSTON • George Floyd was fondly remembered Tuesday as “Big Floyd” — a father and brother, athlete and neighborhood mentor, and now a catalyst for change — at a funeral for the black man whose death has sparked a global reckoning over police brutality and racial prejudice. More than 500 mourners wearing masks against the…

HOUSTON • The young migrants and asylum seekers swim across the Rio Grande and clamber into the dense brush of Texas. Many are teens who left Central America on their own; others were sent along by parents from refugee camps in Mexico. They are as young as 10. Under U.S. law they would normally be…

WASHINGTON • Crews could start building a private border wall in South Texas within the coming days after a federal judge’s ruling Thursday that lifted a restraining order against the project. U.S. District Judge Randy Crane’s order was the second federal ruling in two days in favor of border barriers. On Wednesday, the 5th U.S.…

HOUSTON • The acting head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection resigned Tuesday amid an uproar over the discovery of migrant children being held in filthy conditions at one of the agency’s stations in Texas. Commissioner John Sanders’ departure deepened the sense of crisis and added to the rapid turnover inside the agencies responsible for…

PALM BEACH, Fla. • Taking drastic action over illegal immigration, President Donald Trump moved Saturday to cut direct aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, whose citizens are fleeing north and overwhelming U.S. resources at the southern border. The State Department notified Congress that it would look to suspend 2017 and 2018 payments to the…