Fewer Americans have received their tax refunds in the first week of this year’s tax filing season compared to the same period last year, Bloomberg reports, citing IRS statistics.
The big picture: About one in eight IRS employees worked during the longest government shutdown in history, impeding the agency's ability to full prepare for tax season. 4.67 million refunds were sent out in the first week, down 24% from the 6.17 million delivered in the same period last year. Bloomberg also notes that this is the first year that changes from the 2017 GOP tax overhaul will be in effect, adding further complexities to an already-hectic start to filing season.
Ivanka Trump told ABC News Friday that she has “zero concern” about her loved ones' legal exposure in the Mueller investigation, and that she knew “literally almost nothing“ about the Trump Organization's efforts to build a tower in Moscow.
"It’s not like it's a strange thing, as a hospitality company or a development company, to have a hotel or a property in Russia. We're not talking about Iran. It was Russia. And we weren't even advanced enough that anyone had even visited the prospective project site. So it really was just a non-factor in our minds. I'm not sure that anyone would have thought of it."
The big picture: In pleading guilty to Congress about the extent of his work on the Moscow tower, the president's former personal attorney Michael Cohen admitted that he briefed members of Trump's family about the project. Ivanka, much like her father has done both during the campaign and his presidency, downplayed the significance of the Moscow project in her interview with ABC.
The Washington Post located 16 former workers in Costa Rica and other countries who said they and other family members and friends were employed by the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., and that their managers knew they were undocumented.
Why it matters: From the campaign trail to the Oval Office, President Trump's rhetoric surrounding illegal immigration has been harsh and unyielding. Yet, as one former Bedminister worker told the Post: "Many of us helped get what [Trump] has today. This golf course was built by illegals."
Former Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz's "60 Minutes" interview and a recent New York City book event to promote an expected presidential run have short sellers lining up to bet on the company's fall.
What's happening: Short sellers added 2.5 million shares, or 6.78%, to bets against Starbucks over the last week. Short interest is now $2.7 billion, with 39.21 million shares shorted, according to data firm S3 Partners.
"The political crisis in Virginia threatens to turn a state that has trended Democratic back into a battleground, a development that could complicate the party's effort to defeat President Trump next year," AP's Bill Barrow reports.
Why it matters: "Virginia's increasingly diverse and urban population has fueled Democratic victories at the state and presidential level for a decade. But Democrats are anxious that the dizzying developments could suddenly halt their progress."
Former House Speaker John Boehner this morning will announce the National Cannabis Roundtable, an industry-funded group to lobby for cannabis reform, including changes affecting medical research, banking and taxes.
"As the cannabis industry grows and matures, it’s vital that we work together for a common-sense legal framework for cannabis policy,” Boehner says in a forthcoming release.
The group has seven founding companies, including Acreage Holdings, where he's on the board.
Democrats are flirting with socialism in ways they carefully and clearly ran away from in the past, handing President Trump a new way to unify Republicans — and to club his opponents.
Former Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), who was the longest-serving member in the history of Congress, died Thursday at the age of 92, reports the Detroit News.
Dingell was elected to the House in 1955 at the age of 29, and retired in 2014. His wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell, revealed on Wednesday that the former congressman had been receiving hospice care. Dingell tweeted on Wednesday evening: "The Lovely Deborah is insisting I rest and stay off here, but after long negotiations we've worked out a deal where she'll keep up with Twitter for me as I dictate the messages. I want to thank you all for your incredibly kind words and prayers. You're not done with me just yet.
Applications from Indian national students to American graduate programs fell 12% from 2017 to 2018, leading to an overall decline in international enrollment in U.S. universities, according to a new study from the Council of Graduate Schools.
The big picture: India is one of the biggest sources of foreign students in American universities, where international enrollment has fallen for two consecutive years. "While two data points is not a trend, we're troubled that there's a decrease for the first time ever," says Suzanne Ortega, head of the Council of Graduate Schools.
President Trump has accused House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff of hiring former White House and National Security Council staffers to investigate his administration, Bloomberg and CNN report.
The big picture: Former National Security Council staffer Abigail Grace left the White House last year and now works for the committee, while a second White House employee is reportedly considering doing the same, according to Bloomberg. Trump tweeted Thursday that he thinks the Democrat-controlled committees in the House are "stealing people who work at the White House," but a House Intelligence aide disputed that characterization to CNN. The aide said that while the committee has hired staff with experience on the NSC, no recent hire has come directly from the White House.
Preliminary findings from a UN-led inquiry have determined that the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was "planned and perpetrated by" Saudi officials or individuals acting on their behalf, and that Saudi Arabia “seriously curtailed and undermined” Turkey’s efforts to investigate the killing.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 on party lines Thursday to advance Trump’s attorney general nominee William Barr to a Senate floor vote, which could take place as soon as next week.
Why it matters: Many Democratic lawmakers are concerned Barr's past writings about presidential authority may present conflicts of interest as he heads up a Justice Department currently investigating Trump. He has said Trump did not obstruct justice by firing former FBI director James Comey and that Mueller should not be able to subpoena Trump over obstruction.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke with Politico on Wednesday in her Capitol Hill office, discussing the looming government shutdown and the challenges of leading a divided House.
Driving the news: Pelosi predicted that Republican congressional leaders won't allow another government shutdown to happen next week if no compromise is reached on border security, calling the issue "too hot to handle."
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told NPR's "Morning Edition" on Thursday that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is "doing a great job," specifically praising Pelosi's work "to hold the caucus together" during the 35-day government shutdown.
Why it matters: Ocasio-Cortez hasn't been afraid of challenging Pelosi from the left during her short tenure in Congress, leading the charge on climate change before she was even inaugurated that culminated with her introduction of a Green New Deal resolution. "I think she's showing people who's boss and I very much understand that she's in an extraordinarily difficult position," Ocasio-Cortez said.
In the weeks and months ahead, President Trump plans to amp up the anti-abortion rhetoric he used in his State of the Union address.
Driving the news: Trump is seizing on conservative outrage over Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s abortion comments, and the passage of a New York law that codifies Roe v. Wade. In Tuesday's speech, Trump promoted a congressional ban on late-term abortions by graphically describing how lawmakers in New York "would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments before birth."
Congressional Democrats' war with President Trump is about to get personal.
What's happening: House Democrats, led by Chairman Adam Schiff's House Intelligence Committee, are about to begin investigating Trump's family business. The Democrats are hiring staff with deep expertise at tracing cash flowing through complicated property transactions.
The Trump Organization's negotiations to build a tower in Moscow were a continuation of efforts that go back decades. Here's what we know, and still don't know, about the talks that continued well into the presidential campaign that landed Donald Trump in the White House.
