By Marice Richter GRAPEVINE, Texas (Reuters) – The Boy Scouts of America will vote on Thursday on a proposal to remove its ban on openly gay scouts that has been in place throughout the organization’s 103-year history. The vote by more than 1,400 delegates comes amid intense lobbying by gay-rights activists and members of conservative [...]
By Kim Dixon and Patrick Temple-West WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Internal Revenue Service official at the center of a scandal about extra tax scrutiny of conservative groups told Congress on Wednesday she had done nothing wrong but invoked her constitutional right not to answer questions. Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS tax-exempt unit, angered lawmakers [...]
By Richard Cowan and Rachelle Younglai WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Prospects for passage of a major immigration bill improved on Thursday when a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House of Representatives declared they had reached a tentative deal, resolving disputes that had threatened to torpedo negotiations. The breakthrough came at the end of a two-hour [...]
By David Ingram and Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday he had ordered the FBI to open a criminal probe in a growing scandal over the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative political groups for extra tax scrutiny. Holder’s announcement came about four hours before an inspector general’s [...]
By Kevin Drawbaugh and Kim Dixon WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When tax agents started singling out non-profit groups for extra scrutiny in 2010, they looked at first only for key words such as ‘Tea Party,’ but later they focused on criticisms by groups of "how the country is being run," according to investigative findings reviewed by [...]
By Kim Dixon and Kevin Drawbaugh WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Higher-level Internal Revenue Service officials took part in discussions as far back as August 2011 about targeting by lower-level tax agents of "Tea Party" and other conservative groups, according to documents reviewed by Reuters on Monday. The documents show the offices of the IRS’s chief counsel [...]
By Daniel Wallis and Diego Ore CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Thursday he will challenge President Nicolas Maduro’s narrow election victory in the courts and that an audit of the vote being prepared by electoral authorities risked being "a joke." Maduro, the hand-picked successor of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, [...]
By Deisy Buitrago and Daniel Wallis CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s government-controlled parliament set up an inquiry on Wednesday into violence over a disputed election that authorities blame on opposition leader Henrique Capriles. Nine people died and dozens were injured after opposition protests against Nicolas Maduro’s narrow April 14 presidential poll win turned violent around the [...]
By Aung Hla Tun YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar’s president announced an amnesty on Tuesday for about 100 prisoners, a senior official said, 56 of whom were confirmed as political detainees by a group monitoring activists held in the country’s jails. The release is the latest in a series of amnesties decided by reformist President Thein [...]
By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, moving swiftly after the Senate rejected a measure to expand background checks for gun buyers, acted on Friday to patch holes in the existing database dealers use to ensure they are not selling weapons to criminals or the mentally ill. The Health and Human Services Department [...]
