State and National News

Updated 4:03 p.m.

President Trump signed an executive order Monday on price transparency in health care that aims to lower rising health care costs by showing prices to patients. The idea is that if people can shop around, market forces may drive down costs.

"Hospitals will be required to publish prices that reflect what people pay for services," said President Trump at a White House event. "You will get great pricing. Prices will come down by numbers that you wouldn't believe. The cost of healthcare will go way, way down."

Augustin Hadelich's latest album of violin concertos offers two unlikely bedfellows. The tuneful, romantic classic by Johannes Brahms bumps up against the modernist mayhem of György Ligeti. The album, titled simply Brahms, Ligeti: Violin Concertos, also proves to be a compelling introduction to one of today's best, but still undervalued, violinists.

Updated at 5:45 p.m. ET

Three summers ago, Ayse Tenger-Trolander, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, ordered a batch of monarch butterflies from a breeder, and made an accidental discovery: the butterflies had likely lost the ability to migrate.

The White House on Saturday published one-half of its long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan — a multibillion-dollar proposal to upgrade the Palestinian economy. The Palestinian leadership has already rejected it, and so far, it has been widely panned by former U.S. envoys and Mideast policy experts.

The Treasury Department will conduct an investigation into the circumstances leading to a delay in the production of a new $20 bill featuring a portrait of slave-turned-slave-emancipator Harriet Tubman.

In a letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., released Monday, acting Inspector General Rich Delmar explained the inquiry will be folded into a larger examination of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's project management processes for new note design that was already in the works.

In her new documentary “Homecoming,” singer Beyoncé talked about the punishing measures she took to prepare for her two-hour show at Coachella, only a few months after she gave birth to twins:

In pre-Coachella behind-the-scenes footage, a voice off-camera — presumably Beyoncé’s choreographer, JaQuel Knight — said that she was likely burning 1,500 to 2,000 calories per day from hours of rehearsing.

Conservative columnist George Will says today’s GOP has strayed far from its conservative roots. Indeed, he recently said “young people have made up their mind about the Republican Party, that it’s kind of the dumb party.”

He explains where the party has been and what’s at stake in a new book, “The Conservative Sensibility.”

President Donald Trump commented on the possibility of war with Iran in an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd broadcast on Sunday.

Although he said he didn’t want a military conflict, he said if it did happen, “it’ll be obliteration like you’ve never seen before.”

Tensions continue to rise between the United States and Iran following last week's sharp escalation in which Tehran downed a U.S. drone and the U.S. conducted cyberattacks against an Iranian intelligence group.

On Monday, President Trump announced financial sanctions against Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and several other top officials.