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A vermin infestation has overrun the kitchen of a suburban Chicago Veterans Affairs hospital and is reportedly so severe that cockroaches routinely crawl across countertops as cooks prepare meals. The insects have even found their way into patients’ food, employees say. The bug invasion has attracted the attention of a U.S. senator who is demanding to know how the VA is fixing the problem. It’s just the latest scandal at an agency rocked by allegations of abuse, incompetence and the needless deaths of veterans who wait years for medical appointments.

On Sunday night, the campaigns for Ohio Governor John Kasich and Texas Senator Ted Cruz released simultaneous statements declaring an alliance of sorts aimed at taking on the runaway frontrunner, Donald Trump. Jeff Roe from the Cruz campaign released the following statement details exactly how the arrangement would work: To ensure that we nominate a Republican who can unify the Republican Party and win in November, our campaign will focus its time and resources in Indiana and in turn clear the path for Gov. Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico, and we would hope that allies of both...

Donald Trump will likely wind up winning the most primary votes of any GOP presidential candidate in modern history, the author of the influential Smart Politics blog told The Post on Wednesday. After convincing victories in Tuesday’s primaries in five East Coast states, Trump has roughly 10.1 million votes, about 200,000 more than Mitt Romney got during the entire 2012 primary campaign. And with the primaries ahead — including in populous states such as California, New Jersey and Indiana — the former “Apprentice” ­reality TV star should easily break the modern record of 10.8 million held by George W. Bush...

In an unannounced visit shrouded in secrecy, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. came to Iraq on Thursday for the first time in almost five years, in the hopes that he can help a weak prime minister and bolster the military campaign against the Islamic State. But the intense security concerns and the clandestine nature of the trip demonstrated the challenges....

Democratic strategist Dave "Mudcat" Saunders believes Donald Trump will beat Hillary Clinton like a "baby seal," and that working class whites who haven't already left the Democratic Party for cultural reasons will due so now for economic ones. "I know a ton of Democrats - male, female, black and white - here [in southern Virginia] who are going to vote for Trump. It's all because of economic reasons. It's because of his populist message," Mudcat told The Daily Caller Wednesday. [Snip] "Hillary hasn’t been shot at yet. I hear on TV people taking about Bernie Sanders being negative, he ain’t...

EVANSVILLE, IN Evansville is a city in and the county seat of Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 117,429 at the 2010 census. Old National Events Plaza Scheduled for Apr 28, 2016 Thursday, April 28, 2016: Live stream of the Donald Trump for President rally in Evansville, IN at the Old National Events Plaza. The event is scheduled to begin at 12:00 PM Central time. Evansville Skyline COSTA MESA, CA Costa Mesa is a city in Orange County, California. The population was 109,960 at the 2010 United States Census Scheduled for Apr 28, 2016 Thursday, April 28, 2016:...

Cruz's decision Wednesday to add former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina (and one-time GOP presidential candidate herself) as his running mate if he wins the nomination, may make his newly found H-1B beliefs a hard sell. At HP, Fiorina was a prominent supporter of the offshore outsourcing model, said Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at Howard University, who wrote about Fiorina's approaches in his book, Outsourcing America. "To pump up profits, she was an early adopter of the practice, which given HP's status as a leading Silicon Valley firm, pushed other firms to adopt offshoring," said Hira. "It...

Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz has tapped former technology executive Carly Fiorina as his running mate in the race for the White House. The Texas senator plans to formally unveil his pick for vice president Wednesday afternoon in Indianapolis. That's according to a Republican with direct knowledge of the plan, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized speak before the official announcement. Cruz is trying to generate momentum for his struggling campaign. GOP front-runner Donald Trump swept primaries in five Northeastern states on Tuesday. Cruz has been mathematically eliminated from winning enough delegates to clinch the Republican...

Donald J. Trump Foreign Policy Speech Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you, and thank you to the Center for the National Interest for honoring me with this invitation. I would like to talk today about how to develop a new foreign policy direction for our country – one that replaces randomness with purpose, ideology with strategy, and chaos with peace. It is time to shake the rust off of America’s foreign policy. It's time to invite new voices and new visions into the fold. The direction I will outline today will also return us to a timeless...

CHICAGO —A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert to 15 months in federal prison — a term above what even prosecutors had recommended and one that clearly takes into account the sexual abuse allegations that generated the criminal case against the Illinois Republican. The sentencing marked an ignominious moment in the life of a man who was once a revered high school teacher and wrestling coach in Illinois and who ascended into the highest ranks of American politics. Even before the hearing, prosecutors had revealed in court filings how Hastert allegedly had molested or inappropriately...

MANCHESTER, N.H. —Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will announce on Wednesday afternoon that former presidential rival Carly Fiorina has agreed to be his running mate should he win the GOP presidential nomination. Sources confirmed to WMUR political director Josh McElveen and political reporter John DiStaso that Fiorina, who has been a supporter of Cruz for several weeks, will be the focus of the announcement that Cruz intends to make in Indiana Wednesday afternoon.

Isn’t democracy great? Isn’t it great when “the people” get to vote? Actually, this is exactly what our Founders warned of when they portended an elective despotism emanating from a pure democracy. This is why they sought to establish a republic.

More than two-thirds of Americans want the presidential nomination processes to be changed and more than half say the systems are “rigged,” a new poll found. The Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday found that 51 percent of likely voters believe the primary system is “rigged” against some candidates. And 71 percent say parties should pick their presidential nominees with a direct vote, instead of using delegates. Twenty-seven percent said they did not understand how the primary process works, and 44 percent said they were unsure why delegates are involved at all. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders...

CNBC: Cruz will make major announcement at 4PM

Donald Trump’s sweeping victories Tuesday night move the Manhattan billionaire a step closer to winning the Republican nomination for president and to pulling off the most improbable political feat in modern American history. But Trump’s story is about more than a first-time candidate’s stunning rise. It is also about the humiliating defeat suffered by an increasingly isolated political and media class who still do not understand the causes and scope of Trump’s populist revolt. In his book “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010,” Charles Murray wrote about the rise of a new American upper class and the “narrow...

Indianapolis, IN Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. It is located in the East North Central region of the Midwest, near the confluence of the White River and Fall Creek. The city covers 372 square miles (963.5 km²) and had an estimated population of 848,788 in 2014, making it the largest city in Indiana, second largest in the Midwest, and 14th largest in the U.S.Approximately 1,971,274 people live in the Indianapolis metropolitan area (MSA), the 33rd most populous MSA in the U.S. Its combined statistical area (CSA) ranks 26th, with...

As we predicted on April 2nd…. As of today, April 26, 2016, Ted Cruz is mathematically eliminated from winning the Republican nomination outright. On April 2nd we predicted that Donald Trump would have 953 delegates as of today (needing only 284 delegates for the nomination) and that Cruz would have 550 delegates as of today (needing 687 to win the nomination). We also predicted that only 634 delegates would remain and therefore Cruz would need more delegates than would be available. Ted Cruz is eliminated. It is clear that Cruz was eliminated tonight. After winning all five primaries tonight —...

Tuesday, April 26, 2016: Mr. Trump will be making post-election remarks from Trump Tower in New York City following the results of the Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island primaries. LIVE Stream: Donald Trump Primary Night Press Conference (4-25-16)

Donald Trump has been projected as the winner of the Republican presidential primaries in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, victories that continued the New York real estate mogul’s dominance in contests along the East Coast. Those projections were made by Edison Research as polls closed at 8 p.m., and they relied on exit polls. In Maryland, the Associated Press projected Trump and Hillary Clinton as winners, even though a few polling places in West Baltimore will remain open until 9 p.m.

<p>Exit polling from CNN looks promising for Trump. Republican voters feel candidate with most votes should WIN!</p>