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NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump says he has "total" confidence in Jeff Sessions, as calls mount for the attorney general to resign or recuse himself over his contact with a Russian envoy. During a visit to Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, Trump said he "wasn't aware" that Sessions had contact with the Russian ambassador during last year's White House campaign. Some Republicans have joined Democrats in calling for the attorney general to step aside from a federal investigation into Russian interference in the election. Several top Democrats are demanding that he resign.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to serve as energy secretary, by a vote of 62-37. Perry has said he'll work to develop American energy in all forms — from oil, gas and nuclear power to renewable sources such as wind and solar power. Democrats say they accept Perry's disavowal of his 2011 pledge to abolish the Energy Department, but they don't know if he'll fight Republican proposals to slash the department's budget.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A member of the Federal Reserve board is indicating that it might be time to raise interest rates. Board member Jerome Powell said in a CNBC interview today that he thinks the case for a rate increase "has come together" and it will be discussed at the Fed's policy meeting later this month. Powell says he believes the Fed is close to achieving its targets on full employment and 2 percent inflation.
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon says an incorrectly typed command during a routine debugging of its billing system caused the five-hour outage of some Amazon Web Services servers on Tuesday. The Seattle company says a command meant to remove a small number of servers for one of its subsystems was entered incorrectly and a larger set of servers was removed. A full restart was required, which took longer than expected. Amazon says it's is making changes to its system to make sure incorrect commands won't trigger an outage in the future.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Federal prosecutors are fighting to keep the wife of the Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooter in jail until she is tried on charges she helped her husband scout out potential targets. A motion filed today in federal court asks that Noor Salman's release be halted while the court considers their request. Yesterday a federal magistrate judge ordered Salman's release, saying it's "debatable" whether the government has enough evidence to convict her. She's scheduled to be released tomorrow.
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