New intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program has convinced American officials that a secret team of the country’s scientists is exploring a faster, if cruder, approach to developing an atomic weapon if Tehran’s leadership decides to race for a bomb, according to current and former American officials. The development comes even amid signals that Iran’s new…

President Trump has long been clear that he would use tariffs as an economic sledgehammer against nations that refuse to bend to his demands. He has been far less clear about what, exactly, those demands are — a strategy that allows him to declare victory when he sees fit. Mr. Trump has said he wants…

Merle Louise Letowt was born on April 15, 1934, in Manhattan and grew up largely in Bethlehem, Pa. Her father, Alvin Letowt, was a machine-shop inspector at Bethlehem Steel; her mother, Merle (Barnes) Letowt, managed the home. Merle dropped her surname soon after appearing in “Gypsy.” She acted in high school productions and, after graduation,…

President Trump is brandishing the U.S. economy like a weapon, threatening to put more than a trillion dollars of trade on the line with economic wars on multiple fronts. In a high-stakes confrontation that lasted over the weekend and into Monday, Mr. Trump promised to put tariffs on the United States’ closest trading partners, which…

President Trump and the leaders of Mexico and Canada struck last-minute deals today to postpone hefty tariffs that the U.S. planned to impose tomorrow on goods from the two countries. The agreements temporarily averted a North American trade war. Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, announced this afternoon that Trump had agreed to postpone tariffs against…

The New York attorney general, Letitia James, has warned New York hospitals that complying with the White House’s executive order that seeks to end gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth could well violate state law. The warning, in a letter the attorney general’s office sent Monday morning to health care providers and other organizations, puts…

President Trump on Monday delayed his planned tariffs on Canada and Mexico for 30 days after winning concessions from both countries to stem the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States, postponing, at least temporarily, a painful and potentially destabilizing trade war. Tariffs of 10 percent are still set to go into effect…

In a beige-walled courtroom in eastern Iowa, a man who has been William Woods for his entire life faced a man who had been known as William Woods for much of his. That hearing on Friday brought an end to what prosecutors called “a Kafkaesque plot that resulted in the false imprisonment, involuntary hospitalization and…

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed during a visit to the southwestern border on Monday to use thousands of U.S. active-duty troops to help stem migrant crossings, a top priority for President Trump. Mr. Hegseth and Thomas D. Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, toured El Paso by air Monday morning in a line of Army Black…

In Elon Musk’s first two weeks in government, his lieutenants gained access to closely held financial and data systems, casting aside career officials who warned that they were defying protocols. They moved swiftly to shutter specific programs — and even an entire agency that had come into Mr. Musk’s cross hairs. They bombarded federal employees…