The chief executive officers of Kroger and Albertsons have insisted that merging would allow the two supermarket companies to lower prices and more effectively compete with retail giants like Walmart and Amazon.

NEW YORK Tackling a lower-profile issue for the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at strengthening child-welfare programs nationwide. The executive order envisions three basic areas of reform:Creating robust partnerships between state agencies and public, private, faith-based and community organizations. For the fiscal year 2019, it expects that entries into foster care will total about 250,000 down 9% from 2016. Some family court proceedings have been disrupted, at times delaying a childs exit from foster care to return home. Many biological parents have been denied normally routine in-person visits with children placed in foster care.