Category: Politics

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping for a more productive week on Capitol Hill, aided by a social media push from President Donald Trump, as he tries to smooth over deep divisions within his Republican conference and advance key legislative goals ahead of this fall’s elections.

Last week, Johnson sent members home early after internal turmoil within the GOP blocked votes on two spending bills and a measure related to veterans’ benefits. On top of that, the legislative workload grew when Trump requested $87.6 billion in new federal spending, largely to cover costs tied to the war with Iran.

How this week unfolds could reveal whether Johnson is capable of turning a brief summer session into a stretch of meaningful lawmaking that resonates with voters come November.

“We have got a lot more to do. We have got to keep it going,” Johnson said during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

After the House wrapped up its shortened workweek, Johnson traveled to the White House and came back with something valuable — a Trump social media post calling on Republicans to stop voting down the procedural rules that are needed to bring bills to a final vote.

“No more grandstanding, please!” Trump wrote.

Before that message went out, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers were openly questioning whether the House would even bother returning this week or simply follow the Senate’s example and take an early break ahead of the July Fourth holiday.

“I got to have everybody working here on all cylinders, and I’m excited to bring them back,” Johnson said on Fox.

The week did begin on a positive note, with the House passing bipartisan legislation aimed at reducing housing costs — a win that directly addresses voters’ concerns about affordability and represented years of effort from members on both sides of the aisle.

However, Trump unexpectedly canceled the bill-signing ceremony, stating he would not sign the housing legislation until Congress passed a separate bill requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration. Johnson said he plans to send the housing bill to Trump on Monday, expressing hope that the president signs it with the “biggest, boldest marker that he has.”

Conservative hard-liners in the House have rallied behind Trump’s demand for the elections bill. More than two dozen of them have signed a letter vowing to vote against any Senate legislation unless the elections measure is attached to it. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., spearheaded the blockade that forced Johnson to dismiss lawmakers early last week.

Democrats wasted no time pointing out the Republican dysfunction.

“This is the incredibly pathetic Congress,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “The fact they can’t get their act together, can’t establish discipline to keep this place running, is stunning. I’ve never seen such incompetence.”

Republicans themselves expressed frustration as well.

“I just think it’s a very self-defeating position for anyone to take, that they’re going to shut everything down over one issue,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.

Meanwhile, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., warned that gridlock will continue unless legislation including the elections bill is sent to Trump. The House has already passed a version of the measure, but it has stalled in the Senate.

“Yeah, I think everything is going to be held up until we come to an agreement on voter ID and especially confirming the citizenship of Americans before they register to vote,” Harris said.

When asked whether Americans want Congress to focus on other matters beyond the voting bill — known as the SAVE America Act — Harris replied: “I think they truly believe that this is a very important bill. I’m not sure they believe that a lot of the other things we’re doing here in Washington are very important.”

Trump’s call for Republicans to stop blocking procedural votes will face its first real test this week, as House leadership is expected to bring up a vote on the annual defense policy bill — must-pass legislation that includes some of the increased Pentagon spending Trump has been seeking.

Luna, a Trump ally, was not making any commitments to stand down, even in the wake of the president’s social media message. She has floated the idea of attaching the elections legislation directly to the defense bill. With the Republican majority so narrow, it takes only a handful of GOP “no” votes to prevent a bill from moving forward.

“If they want my vote, they should entertain it, debate it, and if they block it, then we’ll see. But that’s how you get my vote,” Luna told reporters.

The House is scheduled to be in session for roughly 28 days before the midterm elections, with members away for nearly all of August and October to campaign in their home districts.

Within that limited window, lawmakers must pass legislation to fund the government past the September 30 end of the budget year. Republicans are also hoping to pass a party-line bill that would boost defense spending, offset in part by cuts to other programs — an effort they have framed as targeting waste and fraud.

That bill would follow up on last year’s major tax and spending cut legislation, which extended tax cuts from Trump’s first term and added new breaks for income earned through tips and overtime. That earlier measure also prioritized immigration enforcement, funded partly through reductions to Medicaid and nutrition assistance programs.

Johnson has spoken optimistically about passing such a bill before the August recess and met with House Budget Committee members last week to map out a path forward. But Republican senators are skeptical it will happen on that timeline, and doubters exist in the House as well, given the procedural complexity required to bypass a Senate filibuster.

“I’m just not seeing a path forward on it,” said Rep. David Valadao, a Republican who represents a competitive district in California’s farm belt.

Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, offered a more optimistic view, saying members are close to reaching a framework agreement. He predicted political rewards await if Republicans can deliver on election integrity and spending cuts.

“We have to energize our base, and we have to address the enthusiasm gap,” Arrington said.

WASHINGTON — Technology journalist Kara Swisher has become nearly impossible to avoid these days.

She has been filling in for Joy Behar on ABC’s “The View,” appearing alongside Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” starring in a CNN documentary, preparing for a national tour, and producing four podcasts most weeks that feature lengthy interviews and commentary.

That level of visibility stems from more than 30 years spent covering the technology industry with a self-described disregard for power — a stance that elevated her into a rare category of journalistic celebrity.

She used that standing to convince rivals Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to share a stage, and her pointed questioning once made Mark Zuckerberg visibly uncomfortable enough to break into a sweat. She once had Elon Musk’s personal cell number — the two are currently not in contact — and regularly communicates with tech and business leaders by text.

Now, Swisher is betting that the clout she built in Silicon Valley will carry over into the political arena, particularly as podcasts increasingly replace traditional media as the go-to platform for candidates seeking a public audience.

During President Donald Trump’s second Republican term, potential Democratic presidential hopefuls have lined up to appear on Swisher’s programs — including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Swisher expects that list to keep growing.

“We get called by all the presidential candidates,” said the 63-year-old Swisher during an interview at her Washington home. “We’re going to get to all of them.”

Swisher is far from the only podcast host diving into political commentary. Conservative voices like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, along with liberal programs such as “Pod Save America” — hosted by former aides to Barack Obama — draw larger audiences. All of them are overshadowed by Joe Rogan’s massive following.

But few podcasters can match Swisher’s deep knowledge of the technology sector and her ability to connect that expertise to broader political discussions.

“When I first went on her podcast when I just got into Congress in 2017, she was very well respected in tech circles,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat whose district includes Silicon Valley. “But now she’s emerged as a larger cultural force, especially at a time where there’s such anger at the tech billionaires and tech arrogance.”

When she is not traveling, Swisher typically records from a basement studio in her Washington home, where she lives with her wife, children, and a cat named Lovely. Her interview podcast, “On with Kara Swisher,” often feeds into discussions on “Pivot,” which she co-hosts with entrepreneur Scott Galloway.

Those conversations have produced memorable moments. When Newsom filled in for Galloway on “Pivot,” Swisher criticized him for going too easy on longtime Trump aide Steve Bannon during an appearance on Newsom’s own podcast.

“You had an opportunity to engage,” Swisher pressed. “Why not engage?”

The typically composed Newsom acknowledged, “I’m not the pro that some of these others are, but I appreciate the insight.”

Swisher also challenged Buttigieg over why he waited so long to publicly say that President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, should not have sought reelection. Buttigieg responded that he had not been consulted.

“Sure, but you have eyes,” Swisher shot back.

Her interview with Harris caught the former vice president in a candid moment, as she described policies from Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as “f—— up.” Harris said solemnly that she “can’t laugh” about such issues, though Swisher later noted on a subsequent podcast that the two had actually joked about Kennedy before the cameras rolled.

“Be the person backstage because that’s the person who gave a great answer,” Swisher said in that follow-up episode.

In a separate interview, Newsom said Swisher “calls out my bulls—-.”

“She’ll send me missives unsolicited,” he added. “She’s usually right, and it drives me crazy.”

Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who has known Swisher for years, agreed that sitting down with her is “not a layup.”

Even Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina — a rare Republican guest on her show — said the experience was valuable, even though Swisher pressed him on whether he only began speaking out against the Trump White House after deciding not to seek reelection.

“If you’re a politician, you should be able to walk up anywhere and hold your own,” Tillis said. “Do the prep, get on the show. You may end up having an opportunity, like in my experience, to give a completely different perspective.”

Influencing political debate was never the original goal when “Pivot” launched in 2018. Galloway recalled that the show was conceived as a look at the overlap between technology and business. That remains a core focus, but major stories in those fields — such as the anticipated initial public offering for Musk’s SpaceX or the rapid rise of artificial intelligence — now carry unavoidable political dimensions.

“Show me a big business or tech story, and I’m going to show you a political overlay,” Galloway said.

This shift aligns with a growing urgency among Democrats to be more assertive on digital platforms, where audiences are increasingly concentrated.

“The single most important quality that every candidate needs to have is the ability to talk and the ability to talk anywhere,” said Teddy Goff, co-founder of Precision Strategies and digital director for Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. “That might mean a two-hour podcast interview. It might mean a 15-second digital video.”

Democrats are still feeling the sting of Rogan’s nearly three-hour interview with Trump during the final stretch of the 2024 campaign. Rogan, who does not consider himself a journalist, has said Harris’ campaign declined to meet his conditions. Harris has described being turned away by Rogan.

Swisher agreed that Democrats should lean into podcasts but pushed back on the idea that she is simply a left-leaning answer to Rogan.

“You can’t manufacture this stuff,” she said. “It just doesn’t work, right? The kids like what the kids like.”

Still, the podcasts have translated into both influence and financial reward. Galloway said “Pivot” — effectively a joint venture between himself, Swisher, and Vox Media — is on track to be a $15 million to $20 million business this year. With a staff of just five people, that makes it a highly profitable operation at a time when traditional media is being reshaped by mergers and acquisitions.

Vox Media itself has been revitalized following a recent acquisition by James Murdoch, who brought together New York magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and the Vox editorial brand under one umbrella, with podcasts serving as the fastest-growing segment of the business.

“Podcasts are the NBA,” Galloway said. “There’s a small amount of people making a lot of money.”

While Swisher’s guest list leans heavily Democratic, she has recently hosted Tillis and conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings. She hopes to bring on more Republicans soon and said she reached out to Steve Hilton’s wife — a former Google executive — hoping to book him shortly after he advanced in California’s governor’s race.

“What we’re going for is to be popular among the entire populace,” she said. “So that people who don’t feel they want to be in a constant state of anger, whether it’s on the left or the right, can have a place to go.”

Her pointed remarks about Trump and other Republicans could make that goal harder to achieve. Kelly McBride, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, said programs like Swisher’s can sometimes “butt right up against the type of podcasts that I would not consider journalism.”

“The way you separate them out is that the intention and the system surrounding the podcast is engineered in a way to create fact-based information,” McBride said.

Swisher describes her own work as “reported analysis,” citing tech writer Om Malik, who died last week, as a source of inspiration.

As for the tone of her podcasts, Swisher views it as part of the authenticity that defines her brand. She and Galloway have built a distinctive chemistry — his tendency toward colorful language often makes her come across as comparatively refined.

“We don’t shy away from our faults,” she said. “We don’t shy away from our biases. We don’t shy away from things that most people try to.”

The Trump administration has been anything but quiet when it comes to birthright citizenship — the longstanding policy that automatically grants U.S. citizenship to nearly anyone born on American soil.

President Donald Trump has called the practice “a disgrace.” Top White House adviser Stephen Miller went further, describing it on X as “the gravest and most preposterous of all constitutional abominations.” Vice President JD Vance, speaking in 2025, called it “the dumbest immigration policy in the world.”

The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming days on a Trump executive order that would overturn more than a century of constitutional precedent on the matter. “It’s all up to a couple of people,” Trump told reporters recently. “I hope they do what’s right.”

One claim Trump has repeated often is that the United States stands alone in offering birthright citizenship. “You know, we’re the only country that has it,” he has said in multiple interviews. That claim, however, is false.

Here is a closer look at the facts surrounding birthright citizenship.

Birthright citizenship was established in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was ratified following the Civil War. One of its primary purposes was to ensure that formerly enslaved people would be recognized as citizens.

In the late 1800s, the Supreme Court expanded the policy through the case of Wong Kim Ark — a man born in the United States to Chinese parents — to include children of immigrants. Later court rulings extended that protection further, establishing that anyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen, even if their parents are in the country illegally or only temporarily.

A small number of exceptions exist, primarily for children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats.

For most of American history, birthright citizenship was considered settled law and attracted little controversy. That includes among Republicans — President Ronald Reagan, speaking at a 1984 naturalization ceremony in Detroit, praised immigrants who “have crawled over walls and under barbed wire and through mine fields” to reach the United States, adding, “And all of them have added to the sum total of what your new country is.”

Opposition to immigration has been a defining theme of Trump’s political career. He has pointed to frustrations over illegal border crossings, including during the Biden administration when border arrests from Mexico hit a record high of 250,000 in a single month.

The administration frames birthright citizenship as a “magnet for illegal immigration,” frequently citing illegal “birth tourism” operations that allegedly bring non-citizens to the U.S. specifically to give birth. Government lawyers have focused their legal challenge on a single phrase in the 14th Amendment — “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — arguing it allows the government to deny citizenship to babies born to mothers who are in the country illegally. That interpretation breaks with the view held by most legal scholars.

Even some conservative justices on the Supreme Court expressed skepticism about that argument during oral arguments held in April.

As for the claim that the U.S. is unique in its birthright citizenship policy — that is not accurate. While it is true that most countries tie a child’s citizenship to that of their parents regardless of birthplace, dozens of other nations also offer unrestricted birthright citizenship. The majority are in the Western Hemisphere, including Canada, Mexico, and numerous countries throughout Central and South America.

Many additional countries, ranging from Germany to Australia, use a combination of factors — including parentage, place of birth, residency, and ethnicity — to determine citizenship, representing a middle-ground approach.

WASHINGTON — The nation’s highest court is entering the final stretch of its current term, with several landmark decisions still to come involving President Donald Trump’s broad assertions of executive power.

Starting Monday, the justices are expected to hand down rulings in as many as eight remaining cases. Among the most closely watched are disputes over Trump’s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, his claimed authority to dismiss the leaders of most independent agencies without cause, and his effort to remove a sitting Federal Reserve governor.

The court is also considering cases out of West Virginia and Idaho that could determine whether laws in roughly half of all states — laws that bar transgender girls and women from competing on public school and college sports teams — are constitutional.

Two cases tied to election procedures are still unresolved as well. One involves state laws that allow mailed ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day but arrive a short time afterward. The other concerns limits on how much money political parties can spend in support of candidates running for Congress or president.

Additionally, the court has yet to rule on a case involving so-called geofence warrants, which allow law enforcement to collect location data from cellphones in order to identify people who may have been near a crime scene. Opponents of the practice argue it amounts to a broad dragnet that infringes on civil liberties.

So far this term, the court’s conservative majority has largely sided with the Trump administration on immigration matters. Last week, the justices allowed the administration to end temporary legal protections for individuals who came to the United States fleeing war or natural disasters in their home countries. A separate ruling could make it more difficult for people fleeing persecution to apply for asylum here.

However, during oral arguments in April, the justices appeared more skeptical of Trump’s executive order that would end the long-established practice of granting citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally or on a temporary basis.

The court has also previously rejected Trump’s claim that he has the authority to impose sweeping tariffs on his own under an emergency powers statute.

That February ruling drew a sharp response from Trump, who issued an unusually pointed personal attack on two of his own court appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — after they voted against his position.

The question of how broadly a president can fire members of independent federal agencies is the longest-pending unresolved case, having been argued back in December. The justices appear poised to either overturn or significantly scale back a 91-year-old precedent that required presidents to have a specific cause — such as neglect of duty — before removing Senate-confirmed officials from those positions.

The outcome is widely expected to favor expanded presidential removal power, as the court’s conservative justices have already allowed the firings to proceed while the legal challenge continues — even after lower courts ruled the dismissals were unlawful.

The court appeared more hesitant, however, when it came to Trump’s push to immediately remove Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, who faces allegations of mortgage fraud that she has denied. No president has ever fired a Fed governor in the agency’s 112-year existence.

The Supreme Court traditionally concludes its term before July 4. After this week’s anticipated rulings, the justices will not meet publicly again until the first Monday in October.

President Donald Trump made stops Sunday at several construction and renovation projects near the nation’s capital, later claiming that his planned overhaul of the East Potomac Golf Links would transform it into a venue fit for championship play.

“When completed, this Course will have the ability to host Major Golf Tournaments, including The U.S. Open, The Ryder Cup, The PGA Championship, and other top PGA Tour events,” Trump wrote in a social media post following his visit.

The president walked the course alongside Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, several aides, golf course architect Tom Fazio, and Fazio’s son Gavin. The renovation project is currently the subject of an ongoing lawsuit in U.S. District Court.

While Trump used his post to criticize the condition of the grass and the course’s sprinkler system, the public golf course has also become a dumping ground for debris from the demolition of the White House East Wing. The National Park Service reported last month that testing of that debris revealed the presence of lead, chromium, and other hazardous metals.

Trump stated in his post that construction work on the golf course is set to begin September 1st. In addition to the golf course, the president also checked on improvements underway at Lafayette Park, located on the north side of the White House, and had his motorcade travel the route where he intends to construct a triumphal arch.

In a separate social media post, Trump announced he would be sitting down with Janeese Lewis George, who recently won the Democratic primary for Washington’s mayoral race. Trump referred to Lewis George as a “Communist” in his post.

Lewis George addressed the situation at a news conference on Thursday, saying that as the city’s likely next mayor, she would “work with anyone including the president for the best interest of D.C. residents.” However, she made clear she would not agree “in advance” to any administration demands that might undermine the authority of the locally elected government.

U.S. Representative Julia Letlow has clinched the Republican nomination for a Louisiana Senate seat, riding a wave of support from President Donald Trump to defeat state Treasurer John Fleming in a Saturday runoff election, according to results published by the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office.

The runoff came after a tight three-way contest in May that also included two-term Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who failed in his bid to hold onto his seat. Cassidy’s political troubles stemmed largely from his vote to convict President Trump during the second Senate impeachment trial in 2021. More recently, Cassidy clashed openly with Trump at the Capitol in a shouting match over the Iran war, following his vote in favor of a resolution to stop military action against Iran.

Letlow had secured Trump’s backing even before she officially announced she was running. Following Saturday’s results, the president took to Truth Social to celebrate her victory.

“Great News!!! Julia Letlow WON in Louisiana, beating conclusively a very strong and smart opponent. Congratulations to Julia. She will be a truly GREAT Senator!” Trump wrote.

Letlow’s path to Congress began in 2021, when she won a special election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of her husband, Luke Letlow. Before entering politics, she had a career as an educator and university administrator.

In the general election, Letlow will go up against Democrat Jamie Davis, a farmer. Analysts consider her a strong favorite heading into that contest.

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Sunday that he plans to deliver a housing affordability bill to President Donald Trump on Monday, following its passage through both chambers of Congress.

Johnson made the announcement during an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” program, expressing confidence that the legislation would soon become law.

“It’s passed by both chambers. I’m sending it to him on Monday, and it will become law,” Johnson said during the broadcast.

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top Homeland Security official is sending a clear message to migrants living in the United States under temporary protected status: apply for permanent residency or prepare to return home.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made the remarks Sunday during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. His comments come on the heels of a divided Supreme Court ruling last week that gave the Trump administration the green light to revoke humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants — protections that had shielded them from being deported to countries ravaged by conflict and poverty.

“Either try to fill out the paperwork and be here underneath a permanent status or we’ll help you get back to your country,” Mullin said.

He added that the government is prepared to assist those who choose to leave. “We’ll actually give you a plane ticket, plus roughly $2,100 to help you re-establish when you get there, but temporary protective status, according to the courts and in its name itself, is not permanent status,” Mullin said.

Under federal law, the government has the authority to grant temporary legal residency to individuals fleeing war, natural disasters, or other dangerous conditions in their home countries. That status had routinely been renewed over the years, but the current administration has moved to end those renewals.

Despite that move, the State Department continues to advise Americans against traveling to either Haiti or Syria, pointing to widespread violence, crime, terrorism, and kidnapping in both countries.

The United States first extended temporary protected status to Haitians following a catastrophic earthquake in 2010, and to Syrians after their country fell into civil war in 2012.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, President Trump made false claims that Haitians living in Ohio were eating other people’s pets. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority, however, determined that Haitians who sued the administration were unlikely to win their argument that the administration’s actions were motivated by racial bias.

WASHINGTON (AP) — When democratic socialist Claire Valdez pulled off a victory in a New York congressional primary last week, the celebration at her Brooklyn warehouse party quickly took a pointed turn.

Supporters broke into chants of “You’re next!” as a photo of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York appeared on TV screens at the event.

That moment rattled Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks, whose congressional district sits adjacent to the one Valdez is set to represent. Meeks noted that Jeffries would likely become the first Black speaker of the House if Democrats win back the majority — an achievement he said people “died to see something like that opportunity.”

The scene captures a broader struggle playing out inside the Democratic Party during a populist era.

As left-wing candidates gain ground in New York and other states, their campaigns are bumping up against long-standing institutions led by people of color. For a party that has long championed diversity, these confrontations are intensifying arguments over identity politics and widening the divide between progressive and moderate factions.

The result of these battles will determine who holds influence within the Democratic coalition as the party fights for control of Congress and gears up for what is expected to be a wide-open presidential primary in 2028.

Historically, minority-led organizations were seen as more radical and anti-establishment. Now, some Democratic leaders view the current left-wing surge as being largely driven by white college graduates. Progressives, however, maintain that their platform continues to resonate within communities of color.

“It’s complicated,” said Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “But these changes are a real opportunity for our communities, and maybe a passing of the baton to a younger generation of leaders.”

When asked whether he might face a primary challenge of his own, Jeffries dismissed the question outright.

“When you ask me a serious question, I’ll give you a serious answer,” he told a reporter from Fox Business.

The political networks in many communities of color — once the distant aspirations of Black and Latino activists — have grown into a central pillar of the Democratic establishment. They played a major role in pushing the party to embrace civil rights and diversity as foundational values.

Some of the party’s longest-serving members and most influential political families now come from those communities, and figures like Jeffries climbed through those very systems to reach leadership positions.

But those organizations were built for a different political era.

“A lot of our communities are anchored in older, more traditional voters, and those older, more traditional voters carry older, more traditional values,” said Dallas Jones, who served as the Texas political director for Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. In the current Democratic debate pitting “people versus elites,” Jones said, “you cannot help but find that the Black community is caught up in the middle of it.”

Jones said that desire for generational change played a role in the May defeat of Texas Rep. Al Green, a progressive who was seeking his 12th term in Congress. Green, 78, a veteran civil rights activist, lost to Christian Menefee, a 38-year-old first-term congressman who is also Black, in a majority-Black district centered around Houston.

The Democratic electorate became slightly whiter in 2024 as former President Donald Trump made modest gains among Black and Hispanic voters. Meanwhile, white Democrats have grown more likely to identify as liberal than their Black and Hispanic counterparts, according to 2022 Gallup research.

Progressives contend they are challenging veteran lawmakers based on their ties to the establishment — not because of any demographic shift in the party. They point to recent progressive wins in House Democratic primaries for majority-minority districts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey as evidence of broader appeal.

“The point of being a senior Democrat is you’re supposed to be able to deliver more and impact the agenda,” said Regina Monge, a strategist who led a political action committee backing democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in last year’s New York City mayoral race. “People are supposed to feel the benefits of their leadership in the district.”

Senior Democratic lawmakers are doubtful that last week’s results carry much national significance, even though Mamdani successfully backed a trio of insurgent candidates.

“Our path to 218” — the number of House seats needed for a majority — “wasn’t affected by those races that are getting a lot of news,” said Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, the highest-ranking Latino in Congress. “The mayor made some endorsements, and those individuals won, and I presume that they’re going to come and vote with the Democratic caucus when they get here.”

Many of today’s insurgent candidates are emerging from outside the traditional civil rights and community organizing structures that shaped politics in minority communities for generations.

Valdez, who is Latina and Native American, won the primary to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez, a former chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who was born in Puerto Rico.

The current caucus leader, Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York, lost his own primary to Darializa Avila Chevalier, another democratic socialist, in a district covering parts of Manhattan and the Bronx. Espaillat was born in the Dominican Republic; Chevalier’s parents are Dominican immigrants.

“We’re really looking at a moment in time where people are anxious about the future of our country,” said Katharine Pichardo, who heads Latino Victory.

Pichardo, who was a senior adviser during Espaillat’s first successful congressional run in 2016, said his message “needed to focus more on kitchen table issues” and be “forward looking” if he hoped to hold off Chevalier’s challenge.

She said incumbents hoping to fend off populist and ideologically driven challengers must “give people a sense of security against the very real anxiety over what’s going on in Washington, D.C.”

Basil Smikle, a former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party who now teaches at Columbia University, said insurgent candidates and their supporters view institutions as “inherently flawed.” He argued that party leaders “would do well to turn with the momentum and not against it.”

“This is an opportunity for Hakeem to turn around and say, ‘Look, I’m with you, I’m not going to stand in your way, let’s iron out our differences and make me speaker, get us back to power,’” Smikle said. “That would be the best way to bridge this divide.”

On Saturday, Jeffries took a step toward reconciliation by publicly congratulating New York City’s Democratic nominees, including both Valdez and Chevalier. He made no mention of his ideological differences with them or his backing of their opponents, focusing instead on the shared goal of working to “crush far-right extremism.”

“The path is different but the work is the same,” Jeffries said.

Comedian Bill Maher is being honored Sunday with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in Washington — an event that could be one of the last major performances at the venue for years to come.

The Mark Twain Prize has been given out since 1998 to recognize individuals who have made lasting contributions to American comedy and social commentary. When the Kennedy Center announced Maher’s selection back in March, it described him as someone who has shaped American comedy “one politically incorrect joke at a time” — a nod to the late-night program “Politically Incorrect” that he hosted through much of the 1990s and that helped launch his career into the national spotlight.

Past recipients of the honor include Conan O’Brien, Dave Chappelle, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Letterman, Carol Burnett, and Tina Fey. Among the celebrities expected to take the stage Sunday night are Woody Harrelson, Arianna Huffington, and Jay Leno.

President Donald Trump, who has spent a significant portion of his second term reshaping the Kennedy Center, is not anticipated to be in attendance.

The timing of the ceremony is complicated by the turmoil surrounding the Kennedy Center itself. After returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump fired most of the center’s leadership and put in place a board made up largely of his allies. He was named chairman, and his name was added to the building’s well-known exterior — a move that sparked a legal challenge that became a broader battle over presidential authority.

Trump later announced plans to shut down the Kennedy Center in July for a two-year renovation project. However, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper threw a wrench into those plans in May, ruling that Trump’s name had been illegally placed on the building and ordering its removal. The judge also put a stop to the planned closure.

Trump’s name has since been taken off the building as required by the court order, but the area where the letters once appeared is now covered with a tarp. The closure remains on hold, and lawyers for the Kennedy Center have indicated they are not currently working to book new programming.

“The Court’s order did not affirmatively require the Board to reschedule programming that had previously been cancelled or to seek new programming,” the center’s attorneys stated in a recent court filing.

Judge Cooper has requested an update next month on how long the tarp will stay in place. As things stand, the last event on the books for the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall is “The Freedom Gathering: A Musical Celebration” on July 3.

Maher’s selection for the award carries extra weight given his complicated history with Trump. Back in 2013, before Trump entered politics, Trump filed a $5 million lawsuit against Maher over comments the comedian made on Jay Leno’s “The Tonight Show.” During that appearance, Maher offered to donate $5 million to a charity of Trump’s choosing if Trump could prove he was not “the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.” Trump claimed that after he produced his birth certificate, Maher refused to pay, leading to the lawsuit — which Trump ultimately dropped.

Their relationship flared up again earlier this year when Trump took to social media to claim he had wasted his time having dinner with Maher the previous year. “He came into the famed Oval Office much different than I thought he would be,” Trump wrote. “He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself.” Trump also claimed the comedian admitted he was “scared.”

Maher pushed back during his April 11 episode of “Real Time,” offering his own account of the dinner. He said Trump was “gracious and measured” and not like the “person who plays a crazy person on TV.” Maher flatly denied being scared.

During his “New Rules” segment that night, Maher also acknowledged some Trump policies he agreed with, including what he called the “mass removal of stone cold criminals” and pushing NATO allies to pay “their fair share.” “I may be the last person from the lunatic left that is still an honest broker when it comes to you,” he said.

Just ahead of Sunday’s ceremony, Maher welcomed Vice President JD Vance onto his show. Vance, who is currently promoting a book, said he watches “Real Time” and admitted he laughed at Maher’s opening monologue “even though you were making fun of me.” During the sit-down, Maher challenged Vance on topics including the situation in Iran, immigration enforcement, and claims of election fraud.

“You guys have two outcomes that an election can be,” Maher told Vance. “Either we win or they cheated. That s—- has to stop.”

Maher’s selection wasn’t without drama either. After The Atlantic reported in March that he would receive the award, the White House pushed back sharply. White House communications director Steven Cheung took to social media to call the story “literally FAKE NEWS,” and press secretary Karoline Leavitt also dismissed it as “fake news,” insisting Maher “will NOT be getting this award.” The situation was eventually resolved following further discussions between the Kennedy Center and event organizers.

Other celebrities expected at Sunday’s ceremony also have complicated histories with Trump. Huffington, for example, has feuded with the president at various points over more than a decade. Sports analyst Stephen A. Smith, also expected to appear, recently criticized Trump for attending the NBA Finals in New York earlier this month, calling the move “selfish” and “narcissistic.” Smith has also hinted at political ambitions of his own.

America’s 250th anniversary of breaking free from British rule began with a campaign-style event on the National Mall hosted by President Donald Trump — a president whose image already appears on banners hanging from federal buildings throughout Washington, D.C.

Those images have come to symbolize how thoroughly Trump has dominated American public life since returning to power, and for many observers, they call to mind the imagery of a monarch rather than the elected leader of the world’s oldest democracy. But it is not just the imagery — it is how he has exercised power that has fueled comparisons to an imperial presidency.

Since taking office again in January 2025, Trump has nominated one of his personal attorneys to serve as attorney general, directed the Department of Justice to go after political opponents, sent U.S. Marines into the nation’s second-largest city, and used the presidency in ways that have personally benefited himself and his family.

He has called for comedians who ridicule him to be fired, attached his name to the Kennedy Center, pushed to take control of elections, filed lawsuits against news outlets whose reporting he found objectionable, and sued his own government seeking $10 billion in taxpayer funds.

As the nation’s founding anniversary draws near, Trump’s own celebration plans have largely eclipsed the bipartisan, congressionally authorized commission that was created to organize commemorative events. He has announced plans to return to the National Mall on July Fourth for what he is calling a “Trump rally.”

The president’s conduct has drawn comparisons to King George III, the British monarch whose rule sparked the American Revolution — a parallel Trump firmly rejects.

“I’m not a king,” he told CBS’ “60 Minutes” earlier this year. “If I was a king, I wouldn’t be dealing with you.”

American political history is filled with opponents labeling presidents as kings. But Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton University, argues the comparison lands differently with Trump.

“It’s more about how he imagines who he is and what the presidency is,” Zelizer said. “We’re celebrating founding principles, and that was a driving issue — fears of how a centralized power can be corrupted. And here we are again.”

When King Charles III visited Trump this year, the official White House account on X posted a photo of the two men with the caption “TWO KINGS.” At the beginning of his second term, Trump declared he had ended a New York City transportation program and posted: “LONG LIVE THE KING.” Those posts appeared to suggest a willingness to lean into the label and the reaction it stirs among his critics.

It is no coincidence that the primary resistance movement during Trump’s second term adopted the slogan “No Kings.” Ezra Levin of the group Indivisible said activists had the America 250 celebration in mind when selecting that phrase.

“It looks like the same kind of tyranny we were rebelling against 250 years ago, the type of domination of Americans by a secret police force that’s murdering people in the streets like in Minneapolis this year and in Boston in 1770,” Levin said, referring to demonstrations against the administration’s immigration crackdown that resulted in the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal officers this year.

When asked to respond, the White House pointed to Trump’s own statements regarding his use of executive authority. The president has spoken openly about his expansive approach to presidential power on multiple occasions.

During his first term, he cited Article II of the Constitution while telling attendees at a youth summit, “I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” adding that it “gives me all of these rights at a level nobody has ever seen before.” In an interview with The New York Times this year, he said the only constraint on his global power was “my own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

At the same time, Trump has pushed back against characterizations of his leadership as authoritarian. “I’m not a dictator,” he told reporters last year. When asked about concentrating power in the presidency, he told Time magazine in an interview last year, “I don’t think so. I think I’m using it properly, and I’m also using it as per my election.”

With a largely compliant Republican-controlled Congress, the courts have emerged as the primary remaining check on Trump’s authority. The president has been sharply critical of judges who have ruled against him, and his administration has at times disregarded their orders.

Nevertheless, his drive to expand presidential power has received significant support from the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, which has ruled in Trump’s favor on numerous occasions after lower courts moved to limit him.

In the middle of the 2024 campaign, the high court ruled that presidents enjoy broad immunity from criminal prosecution. That decision derailed several investigations connected to Trump’s first term, including one examining his efforts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election.

Trump has argued that courts cannot restrain him on key matters, including his claimed authority to dismiss members of independent agencies. One of the most striking examples came in 2024, when a judge during the immunity case asked whether a president could face prosecution for ordering the killing of a political rival. Trump’s attorney, D. John Sauer, responded with a “qualified yes.”

Sauer now serves as solicitor general, the official responsible for presenting arguments before the Supreme Court. He has continued to argue that courts have no authority to review presidential decisions.

“Once the President has made a determination … at that point, there’s no work for the reviewing court to do,” Sauer said during Supreme Court arguments in a case over whether Trump could remove Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, from her position.

The Supreme Court, however, has allowed Cook to remain in her role while it deliberates. The court’s majority also struck down Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, ruling that only Congress holds that authority.

Such decisions show that presidential power does have boundaries, according to John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

“The presidency today, even when colored by President Trump’s worst excesses, is not a monarchy,” he said.

Trump entered the presidency as the wealthiest person ever to hold the office. During his first term, he faced criticism over properties where foreign officials and those seeking his favor spent heavily. Those conflicts of interest have grown more pronounced in his second term.

Trump introduced cryptocurrencies both before and after returning to office. By conservative estimates, one has generated $320 million this year alone, while another sold $550 million in tokens. A third received a $2 billion investment from a foreign wealth fund.

Earlier this year, Trump took the unusual step of filing a private $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns during his first term. His Department of Justice then directed the IRS to settle the case, creating a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people who claimed the federal government had unfairly prosecuted them.

The administration later withdrew the settlement following backlash from both Democratic and Republican members of Congress. But Todd Blanche, a former personal attorney for Trump who now serves as acting attorney general, said at least one element remains in place — a prohibition on the IRS auditing Trump.

Zelizer said Trump’s financial dealings may represent the most monarchy-like aspect of his administration.

“We have not seen a person who has a business operation of this scale and scope benefiting directly from the decisions he makes,” Zelizer said.

The Justice Department’s involvement in the IRS lawsuit is one illustration of how Trump has directed executive branch employees to function as instruments of his personal will.

In breaking down the traditional separation between the White House and the Justice Department, Trump has pushed federal prosecutors to go after his adversaries. In one social media post last year, he publicly called out by name Pam Bondi, who was serving as attorney general at the time, pressuring her to prosecute several of his political opponents: “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Trump wrote.

Indictments followed shortly thereafter, including charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat. The cases against both were eventually dismissed, but the department under Blanche filed new charges against Comey.

The targeting is not confined to past adversaries.

For his 80th birthday this month, the president hosted a UFC fight — a company he has invested in — on the White House lawn. The event aired on a network owned by the son of one of the president’s major donors. The spectacle drew a sharp response from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a frequent Trump critic and potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate.

“The White House was built to serve the American people. Tonight it was used to promote a company the President owns stock in, sell subscriptions, promote corporate sponsors, push Trump crypto, and enrich the President and his family,” Newsom wrote on X. “The founders warned us about kings enriching themselves from public office.”

Within days, Newsom revealed that Trump’s Department of Justice had launched an investigation into him and his wife.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court is approaching the end of its current term with a handful of significant cases still unresolved, including three that put Donald Trump’s expansive claims of presidential power to the test.

The high court, which leans conservative by a 6-3 margin, has seven cases left to rule on and has designated Monday as its next scheduled day for issuing decisions. The court’s terms begin each October and generally conclude around the end of June, though they occasionally run into early July.

At the heart of the Trump-related cases are his moves last year to remove a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and a member of the Federal Trade Commission, as well as an executive order he issued to limit birthright citizenship. All three actions are being scrutinized for how far presidential power can legally reach.

The court handed Trump wins in two immigration cases on Thursday and has sided with him in several emergency rulings since he returned to office last year, allowing certain policies to take effect while legal fights continued in lower courts. However, the justices dealt him a notable defeat in February, rejecting his sweeping tariffs that were issued under a law designed for national emergencies.

Firing Federal Officials

During arguments in January, the justices appeared doubtful about Trump’s attempt to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve — a move seen as a threat to the central bank’s independence from political influence.

No president has attempted to fire a Fed official since the institution was established in 1913. When Congress created the Fed, it built in protections against political interference, requiring that governors only be dismissed “for cause.” The law does not spell out what that phrase means or lay out any removal process.

Trump pointed to unverified allegations of mortgage fraud — which Cook has denied — as his justification for the firing. Cook, who has remained in her position throughout the legal battle, has said the allegations are simply a cover for removing her over disagreements on monetary policy.

Meanwhile, the conservative justices signaled during December arguments that they would likely uphold Trump’s dismissal of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, citing policy disagreements. Lower courts had previously ruled that Trump overstepped his authority in that case.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the administration, urged the court to overturn a 1935 precedent — Humphrey’s Executor v. United States — which has long limited a president’s ability to remove the heads of independent federal agencies. While the court has chipped away at that precedent in recent decades, it has not yet fully overturned it.

The conservative wing of the court appeared receptive to the administration’s argument that congressional job protections for leaders of independent agencies infringe on the president’s constitutional authority. The court allowed Trump to remove Slaughter while the case was still being litigated last year.

Election-Related Cases

Two rulings tied to election law are also expected, with the November midterm elections on the horizon and Republicans working to hold onto their congressional majority.

During March arguments, the conservative justices seemed skeptical of a Mississippi law — challenged by Republicans — that allows mail-in ballots received up to five business days after Election Day to be counted, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day or earlier. A lower court had ruled against the law, and the outcome of this case could tighten voting rules across the nation.

The administration backed the challenge to Mississippi’s law. Separately, Trump signed an executive order in March aimed at restricting mail-in ballots nationwide, but a federal judge in Boston blocked that order from taking effect on Thursday.

The court also heard arguments in December in a case involving Vice President JD Vance, centered on a Republican-led effort to strike down federal limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates. Some conservative justices appeared open to the challenge, while the court’s liberal members seemed inclined to keep the restrictions in place. The dispute centers on whether those spending limits violate the First Amendment’s free speech protections. A lower court had upheld the restrictions.

Transgender Athletes

In January, the court heard arguments over laws in Idaho and West Virginia that prohibit transgender athletes from competing on female sports teams at public schools, including universities. The conservative justices appeared prepared to uphold those laws. Supporters say the measures protect fair competition for women and girls, while critics argue they are part of a broader push to curtail the rights of transgender Americans.

‘Geofence’ Warrants

The court also heard arguments in April in a Virginia case examining whether law enforcement’s use of so-called “geofence” warrants — which use cellphone location data to identify potential suspects near a crime scene — runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches.

A newly enacted Mississippi law is giving the state’s leading law enforcement agency the authority to compile a registry of undocumented immigrants residing within its borders — and the move is drawing sharp criticism from those who advocate for immigrant communities.

The law, which takes effect Wednesday, directs the state Department of Public Safety to use every reasonable and lawful investigative tool at its disposal to identify and count all undocumented immigrants in Mississippi. The information to be gathered includes names, home addresses, country of origin, whether the individual is an adult or a child, any criminal history, and details about deportation proceedings.

The department is also required to share information about individuals suspected of breaking laws with state and local law enforcement. Notably, the law neither mandates nor prohibits sharing that database with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Republican state Sen. Angela Hill, the bill’s sponsor, defended the measure, arguing that states have both the right and the responsibility to help the federal government curb illegal immigration, which she said enables crimes like human trafficking and drug smuggling.

“The new law seems like commonsense to me,” Hill said. “In order to address the problems caused by illegal immigration, we need to understand the magnitude of the problem. Identifying the number and identity of illegal aliens in Mississippi is a concrete way to better understand the problem.”

The legislation arrives as immigration policy has become a flashpoint across the country. According to an Associated Press count, more than 100 immigration-related laws have been passed by states so far this year. Republican-led states have largely moved in step with President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, requiring local sheriffs to partner with ICE, tightening eligibility for public benefits, and directing election officials to cross-check voter rolls against a federal citizenship verification system. Democratic-led states, by contrast, have moved to block cooperation with ICE and restrict immigration enforcement in sensitive locations like schools and hospitals.

The Mississippi law bears a resemblance to a 2021 executive order issued by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, which directed that state’s law enforcement agency to use all lawful investigative means to identify undocumented immigrants transported from the southwest border to Florida. The Florida agency did not respond when the Associated Press sought information about the outcome of that order.

Unlike a one-time count, Mississippi’s law calls for an ongoing, two-year tracking effort — a scope that critics say makes it logistically difficult to carry out accurately.

“You can be undocumented today, and then have status tomorrow, and then lose it again next month, and then regain it three months from now,” said Efrén Olivares, vice president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, a nonprofit that advocates for low-income immigrants.

“It’s practically unworkable, but it’s also very worrisome, because it’s eerily reminiscent of other countries that have created lists of certain groups of people,” Olivares added.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies — a nonprofit that supports tighter immigration restrictions — acknowledged that officials would need to develop “a credible and fairly foolproof way of correctly determining someone’s immigration status.” Still, she said the law “makes a lot of sense,” noting that it “raises the likelihood that someone’s illegal presence is going to come to the attention of federal authorities.”

Mississippi already has one of the smallest undocumented immigrant populations in the nation. A report from the American Immigration Council, drawing on 2023 Census Bureau data, estimates fewer than 28,000 undocumented immigrants live in the state — less than 1% of its total population.

Victoria Francis, deputy director of state and local initiatives for the American Immigration Council, called the law “very concerning for a bunch of different reasons,” including the possibility that it could pull law enforcement resources away from public safety duties and toward investigating people from other countries who may be contributing economically to their communities.

“A mandate like this invites profiling and turning entire communities into targets,” Francis said.

Lydia Grizzell, policy and advocacy manager for the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, warned that the law could erode the trust between police and the communities they serve.

“That increases the likelihood of individuals not reaching out to law enforcement when it’s needed — and that is opposite of the mission,” she said.

Amy Neville calls Kristin Bride her “soulmate” — a bond born from the worst day either woman has ever experienced. On June 23, 2020, both mothers lost their teenage sons to harms connected to social media use. The boys lived a thousand miles apart and never crossed paths in life, but their deaths linked their families forever.

When the two women first connected through their advocacy efforts, Bride recalled feeling “totally alone.” Since then, however, they have watched a growing movement take shape, with dozens of other grieving parents joining the push for stronger online protections for children.

Advocates say the momentum is building. Two significant jury verdicts this year have opened a new path toward holding technology companies legally accountable, and calls for federal regulation are gaining renewed energy in Congress.

“Moving forward for me, it’s this groundswell. We now have the court of public opinion on our side, and that is powerful. That has brought things to the next level,” Neville said.

Neville described her son Alexander as “brilliant and intense,” with an entrepreneurial drive and “the best laugh in the world.” At age 14, a drug dealer reached him through Snapchat and sold him the pill that ended his life. Kristin Bride described her son Carson as the “bright light” of their family — funny, caring, and someone who loved connecting with others. He died by suicide at 16 following severe cyberbullying.

This past Tuesday, both teenagers were honored in Washington, D.C., along with 270 other young people whose deaths have been linked to online harms. The event fell on the sixth anniversary of the boys’ deaths — a date their families have been working to officially establish as Social Media Victims Remembrance Day.

Globally, awareness of the risks social media poses to young, still-developing minds has led to a wave of new laws. Australia, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Indonesia and other nations have enacted bans preventing children under 15 or 16 from accessing platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. The United States has not gone nearly that far.

In the U.S., progress shifted after jury verdicts went against Meta twice and against Google once, energizing child safety advocates. Court proceedings revealed internal company communications in which employees compared their own products to drugs and casinos.

The fact that a Los Angeles trial accusing social media platforms of deliberately harming children was allowed to proceed at all was described as a turning point by Matthew Bergman, who leads the Social Media Victims Law Center. The organization represents more than 1,000 people suing social media companies.

A longstanding legal shield — Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act — has historically protected tech companies from being held responsible for content posted on their platforms. Lawsuits are now working around that protection by targeting the companies’ intentional design decisions rather than the content itself.

“It is still a hurdle, but it is no longer a barrier,” Bergman said.

Federal action on social media regulation has moved slowly. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which took effect in 2000, requires apps and websites aimed at children to obtain parental consent before gathering personal data on users under 13.

This week, House lawmakers announced a bipartisan proposal called the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act. It incorporates elements of the Kids Online Safety Act, which the Senate passed in 2024. However, critics argue the new bill has been stripped of its most critical element — a “duty of care” provision that would legally require companies to take reasonable steps to avoid harming children.

“Without a duty of care, Big Tech companies will maintain the status quo of putting profit before the safety of our children,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., in a written statement.

Bride said advocates must pursue three simultaneous strategies: legislation, litigation and education. That way, she explained, “when one stalls, like legislation, then we have the trials and we have litigation. So we keep pressing forward. We’re not going to give up.”

Representatives from Meta, YouTube and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment. Snap issued a written statement saying the company continuously works to strengthen safety measures on its platform.

Over the years, social media companies have rolled out some protective features, such as placing minors in dedicated teen accounts with tighter controls. Instagram, for example, now limits teen accounts to content rated similarly to PG-13, sets those accounts to private by default and prevents strangers from sending direct messages. YouTube offers a separate app for younger children and parental control options on its main platform.

But advocates for children say far more is needed.

“Their fundamental incentive to design products that maximize engagement has not changed,” Bergman said. “Yes, there have been some improvements. A 13-year-old child is not by default provided with an open account for adult predators to prey upon. So, you know, there are baby steps, but there are steps in the right direction. We just need more of them.”

Since 2024, the Senate has passed a resolution each year recognizing June 23 as Social Media Harms Victim Remembrance Day, honoring those who died from online-related harms including suicide, drug poisoning, cyberbullying and dangerous social media challenges.

At Tuesday’s event, senators joined parents and advocates — including Bride and Neville — in calling for urgent action. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., called for repealing Section 230. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., urged those gathered to “fight like hell for the living.” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., criticized fellow lawmakers for their inaction, saying “we all know why” Congress has failed to act.

“It’s the same reason that the companies want the kids online, want their privacy destroyed, want all their information — it’s money,” Hawley said, pointing to the technology industry’s campaign contributions and millions spent on lobbying each year.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has invited the chief executives of Meta, Alphabet, TikTok and Snap to testify at an upcoming hearing focused on children’s safety on their platforms. The committee framed the moment starkly in the hearing’s title: “Is This Social Media’s Big Tobacco Moment?”

Bride and Neville plan to listen closely to what the tech executives say under oath — just as they did during a similar hearing in 2024 — and both say they remain hopeful.

“Every morning I wake up, lives are on the line. If we’re not talking about these things, if we’re not doing something about it, lives are on line,” Neville said. “And that’s probably not good for my nervous system, but that’s the state that I’ll live in until I’ll probably die on this hill.”

With America on the verge of its 250th birthday, demonstrators took to the streets in cities across the country Saturday, pushing back against the Trump administration’s official Freedom 250 celebrations with a message of their own.

The rallies offered what protesters described as a different vision for the nation — one that stands in contrast to the administration’s commemorative events marking the historic milestone.

A reporter visited one of the demonstrations held near the White House, where participants gathered to make their voices heard ahead of the landmark anniversary.

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he plans to nominate Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper, to take over as the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social platform, describing Schroyer as a “PATRIOT with real operational experience, and proven leader with DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst.”

The move comes following the resignation of former ICE director Todd Lyons, who stepped down at the end of May. Since then, David Venturella, who previously worked as an executive at a private prison company, has been filling the role as acting head of the agency.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former congressman who also hails from Oklahoma, is still getting settled into his position leading the Cabinet department that oversees ICE. Mullin has pledged to keep his agency out of the spotlight and has signaled a more measured approach to immigration, though he is expected to support the president’s push for mass deportations.

Mullin wasted no time praising the nomination on X, writing: “With over 29 years of law enforcement experience, Lance will play a vital role in helping deliver on the President’s mandate from the American people to target, arrest, and deport illegal aliens.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he plans to nominate Lance Schroyer to serve as the next director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Taking to social media, Trump highlighted Schroyer’s background, writing, “Lance has over 29 YEARS of Law Enforcement experience in Oklahoma.” The president also urged lawmakers to act quickly, adding, “The Senate must CONFIRM Lance, IMMEDIATELY — Do not delay.”

The nomination comes after years of ICE operating under leaders serving in a temporary “acting” capacity. The last time the agency had a director formally confirmed by the Senate was in early 2017.

Since returning to office last year, Trump has placed immigration enforcement at the top of his agenda. However, civil rights organizations have pushed back, arguing that the administration’s enforcement tactics infringe on civil liberties and have created a climate of fear — particularly for ethnic minority communities.

ICE has played a central role in that enforcement push, carrying out immigration detentions and deportation efforts across the country. The agency drew intense national scrutiny in January after ICE agents fatally shot two American citizens in Minnesota — Alex Pretti and Renee Good — an incident that triggered widespread protests.

The president has defended the immigration crackdown, stating its goal is to reduce illegal immigration and strengthen national security.

An Alaska judge has ordered that a challenger sharing the name of a sitting U.S. senator must be placed back on the state’s August 18 Republican primary ballot, overturning a decision by a state election official who had removed him.

Dan J. Sullivan, a former U.S. Forest Service worker and retired teacher, was pulled from the ballot last week by Carol Beecher, director of the Alaska Division of Elections. Republican Party officials had argued his presence on the ballot would confuse voters.

Senator Dan Sullivan and other Republicans have also claimed that Democrats deliberately recruited the challenger to create voter confusion and boost Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola, a former U.S. representative.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews issued his ruling late Friday, finding that the removal of the challenger had been based on criteria described as “good-faith” but which do not appear in either the Alaska Constitution or the state’s election laws. “Mr. Dan Sullivan is declared to be an eligible candidate,” the judge wrote in his conclusion.

According to local media reports, Judge Matthews’ ruling is expected to be appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court before a Tuesday deadline, when state election officials are scheduled to begin printing ballots.

Alaska uses a nonpartisan primary system in which all candidates, regardless of party, appear together on a single ballot. The top four vote-getters then move on to the November general election.

A spokesperson for the Peltola campaign, Harry Child, issued a statement saying the campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan’s campaign.

Senator Sullivan’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the Alaska Democratic Party. A representative for Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign was also unavailable for comment.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For decades, holiday gatherings and milestone moments have carried the weight of an empty chair. Certain days on the calendar meant visits to gravesites, standing before stone markers that bore the names of people who gave their lives for a cause.

They are a scattered few, living in different corners of the country, yet connected by a shared and painful history: each lost a family member to violence during the fight for voting and civil rights. Their loved ones fell along a long, bloody road that seemed to reach its destination when the nation appeared to finally live up to its founding ideals.

Now, 61 years later — as the United States nears its 250th birthday — those sacrifices are being called into question. Through a series of rulings over the past 12 years, including one handed down this past April, the Supreme Court has effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the very law those family members died trying to bring into existence.

“My mother’s blood is on that bill. We were always proud of that, and now it’s gone,” said Anthony Liuzzo, whose mother, Viola Liuzzo, was killed on an Alabama highway between Selma and Montgomery in 1965 while transporting civil rights marchers.

Those who have criticized the law argue that the country has moved forward — a point the Chief Justice made in a 2013 ruling that marked the first significant rollback of the law’s protections.

But the families of those who died see things differently. They point to how quickly Republican-controlled state legislatures moved to eliminate majority-Black congressional districts following the court’s April ruling, which severely weakened the section of the law that had shielded minority communities’ voting rights. Though filled with sorrow and fury, these survivors say they have no intention of giving up the fight.

Lisa McNair entered the world on September 19, 1964 — born just days after the death of her older sister, Denise, who was killed in the September 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. That church had served as a key gathering place for civil rights organizing.

The explosion took the lives of Denise McNair, age 11; Addie Mae Collins, 14; Carole Robertson, 14; and Cynthia Morris Wesley, 14. Close to two dozen other people were wounded. Three members of the Ku Klux Klan were eventually convicted for the crime.

One of Lisa McNair’s earliest memories connected to her sister involves a box their grandmother kept from the funeral home — inside were Denise’s shoes, a purse, and a chunk of concrete the size of a rock that had been lodged in Denise’s skull.

The attack thrust the civil rights movement into the national spotlight and drew outrage from Democratic President John F. Kennedy.

The era was turbulent, McNair recalled, but it felt as though the country was moving toward something better. For most of her life, she said, “I’ve seen advances” — on television, in advertising, in interracial marriages, and in civil rights and voting rights — “a plethora of rights that we got over the greater part of my lifetime.” That sense of progress, she said, has now reversed.

McNair, 61, described feeling “physically sick” over the Supreme Court’s ruling and the actions that followed from lower courts and state legislatures.

“I am constantly working to pray my way through it, so I can get up and go to work in the morning and do what I need to do. But I just want to ask every white person I see, What more do you want?” she said. “Why do you hate us so?”

Michael Schwerner — known as Mickey — grew up in a family where standing up for human rights and pushing back against social injustice were simply expected. In 1964, he traveled to Mississippi as part of Freedom Summer. That June, he disappeared along with Andrew Goodman and James Chaney while the three were looking into a bombing at a Black church.

Their remains were discovered weeks later, buried inside an earthen dam in a remote part of Neshoba County. Schwerner was 24 and Goodman was 20; both were white. Chaney, who was Black, was 21.

Stephen Schwerner, who passed away earlier this year and had been a social activist in his own right, told The Associated Press in a 2023 interview that from the moment the family learned his younger brother and the others had gone missing, they knew the men were dead.

“Our family was very out front in the media that the only reason there was international attention was two of the young men were white,” said Stephen’s daughter, Cassie Schwerner. “Had all three of those young men been Black, they would have ended up absent from our history and our narrative.”

Cassie Schwerner, who serves as executive director of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, said her family has tracked the voting rights struggle through its highs and lows — including the 2013 Supreme Court decision that allowed states and counties with histories of discriminatory voting practices to change their election rules without first obtaining approval from the Department of Justice.

The court’s ruling this past April, she said, stirred rage “and a good deal of sadness — not for me and my family, but for this country.” There remains, she added, much work to be done across many areas.

Tamara Orange said that when she heard about the Supreme Court’s latest Voting Rights Act decision, one of her reactions was unexpected: relief. “Relief that my dad is not here to see that; that Jimmie Lee Jackson is not here to see it; that Viola Liuzzo is not here to see it,” she said. “I’m relieved for them because to me, it’s as though the sacrifices that were made were done in vain.”

Her father, James Orange, had been working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to organize voting rights demonstrations in Marion and Perry County, Alabama, in 1965. After young people joined the effort, he was arrested on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of minors. Word spread that he might be taken from the jail and lynched.

A protest aimed at preventing that outcome ended with Jackson — a 26-year-old Black church deacon — being shot in the stomach by a state trooper as he tried to protect his mother and grandfather.

Jackson’s death became the spark that ignited what would become the Selma to Montgomery march and the events of “Bloody Sunday.”

James Orange remained active in the movement throughout his life and died in 2008, his daughter said. Even after the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, she recalled him warning: “Be careful or we’re going to lose it.”

Anthony Liuzzo had just celebrated his 10th birthday when his mother, then 39, left their middle-class Michigan neighborhood and made her way to Selma, Alabama. She had been moved to tears watching footage from “Bloody Sunday” on television.

Viola Liuzzo took part in a portion of the second march and then spent time ferrying other civil rights workers through the Black Belt region of the state. On March 25, 1965, while transporting one protester along the highway between Selma and Montgomery, a car pulled up beside her and shots were fired into the vehicle.

The call came close to midnight. Anthony Liuzzo recalls the person on the line asking his father whether his wife was Viola, then saying, “We got bad news for you. She’s been shot.” When his father asked if she was okay, the caller replied, “No, she’s dead” — and hung up.

An FBI informant quickly identified members of the Ku Klux Klan as the killers. The three men charged avoided conviction in state court but were later found guilty in federal court.

Anthony Liuzzo and his siblings grew up carrying the absence of missed birthdays and life events that their mother never got to share. His solace had been knowing that the voting rights she died for had become the law of the land. But the Supreme Court’s April ruling — and the rapid response from Republican-led legislatures in several Southern states to eliminate congressional districts represented by Black lawmakers — left him furious and heartbroken.

Still, he said, he remains proud that his mother had the courage to go to Selma “when others sat in their pretty little houses.”

The inscription carved at the base of Vernon Dahmer Sr.’s tombstone says it plainly: “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.”

Those words capture both the mission of his life and the circumstances of his death.

Even after Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, not every state rushed to put it into practice. In Mississippi, the law came paired with a poll tax set at $2. That may sound small, but as Dahmer’s son, Dennis Dahmer Sr., explained, when a farmworker might earn only $5 a day, it was a meaningful barrier.

The elder Dahmer, who was 57 at the time of his death, had built a successful business — owning a store, a sawmill, and a farm near Hattiesburg. He was also a civil rights leader and served as NAACP president in Ford County. He offered to cover the $2 poll tax for Black residents who wished to register to vote.

He had long been a target of the local Ku Klux Klan. There was harassment, threatening phone calls, and the windows of his store were shot out — but no one confronted him directly, because his sons were always nearby and armed.

That intimidation seemed to fade after Johnson signed the law into effect.

“The Klan quit calling,” Dennis Dahmer said. “They quit shooting out the windows, so my family thought that all of this was behind us.”

That sense of safety shattered in the early morning hours of January 10, 1966, when two carloads of Klan members arrived. They firebombed the house and the neighboring grocery store and opened fire on the home. The elder Dahmer fought back, drawing on his substantial supply of weapons to hold off the attackers.

His wife and the three children who were home that night survived, but he suffered devastating injuries from breathing in smoke and toxic fumes from the fire. He died later that same day.

Dennis Dahmer, then 12 years old, stood at his father’s hospital bedside wondering why anyone would want his father dead simply for helping Black people exercise their right to vote.

A former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Sam Bowers, was convicted in 1998 for ordering the attack and received a life sentence.

Like the other families in this story, Dennis Dahmer’s family has watched the Voting Rights Act be taken apart piece by piece over the years.

“Finally, they basically turned it into a relic,” he said.

His response now is to speak out, push for massive voter participation, and make sure people understand the cost that certain families paid so that all Americans could have the right to vote and be represented by someone of their own choosing.

“We’re living in a time when America has a lot of the same characteristics of the 1960s that I grew up in,” he said. “People say, are we going back? Hell, we’re already there.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has always been many things to many people: murky and peaceful, occasionally smelly, a gathering spot for protests and celebrations, a favorite backdrop for sunrise photography, and a setting made famous by the film “Forrest Gump.”

What it has rarely been, however, is a tightly policed area with strict enforcement.

While wading into the pool has technically been against the rules all along, the typical response from law enforcement was simply asking someone to step out of the water. That relaxed approach has now given way to something far more serious.

The shift followed President Donald Trump’s claim last weekend — made without supporting evidence — that vandals had deliberately damaged the pool’s liner, which he connected to his broader renovation efforts. Trump had previously blamed past presidents for allowing the pool to fall into disrepair. Court documents filed this week reveal that the National Park Service reported to the U.S. Park Police a June 9 incident in which the pool’s new liner appeared to have been sliced with a sharp knife or razor blade.

In response, National Guard members and Park Police officers have been stationed around the pool’s perimeter. The Associated Press confirmed that one individual was arrested after making contact with paint that was already peeling from a surface. The man said he simply wanted to get a closer look at the new coating, briefly touching a loose piece before letting go — and did so shortly after a park worker told him to stop. Earlier this week, crews were also observed installing fencing near the site, which the administration said was related to preparations for July Fourth festivities.

The increased security stands in contrast to the pool’s long history as an irresistible attraction. During the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968, visitors waded in to escape the oppressive summer heat. In colder months, the frozen pool has occasionally transformed into an impromptu ice skating rink.

Today, the scene looks very different. Mobile surveillance towers now stand watch over the area, law enforcement officers patrol on foot in greater numbers, and the sound of nanobubblers fills the June air.

President Donald Trump’s temporary agreement to halt the conflict with Iran is taking a toll on his approval numbers and drawing fire from across the political aisle — including from many of his own supporters.

Reuters conducted interviews with 18 Americans who cast their ballots for Trump in 2024 — a group the outlet has checked in with each month since he returned to the White House — and found that most have serious reservations about the deal. The agreement has reopened the Strait of Hormuz, temporarily removed U.S. oil sanctions on Iran, and established a $300 billion fund designated for Iran’s reconstruction.

“We need to truly weaken the Iranian regime instead of this, ‘beat them up a little bit and then step back and let them rebuild,’” said Terry Alberta, 65, a pilot from Michigan.

Nationally, just one in four Americans believes the war with Iran was worth the price paid, and most are doubtful that the ceasefire with Tehran will hold, according to the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Several members of the group worried that Trump’s unpopular concessions to Iran could jeopardize Republican control of Congress in November’s midterm elections. However, those most sharply critical of the deal had already begun losing confidence in the president before the war started. Six members of the group still believe Trump has undisclosed plans to topple the Iranian government.

In the early stages of the conflict, the group largely backed the military campaign, viewing U.S. strikes as necessary to deplete Iran’s long-range missile stockpile and cripple its nuclear capabilities.

Now, nearly four months later, with Iran appearing politically strengthened and much of its military capacity still in place, 14 of the 18 voters took issue with various elements of the memorandum of understanding announced on June 14. Most expressed doubt that Tehran would follow through on any agreement, and many were troubled by the idea of providing billions of dollars for Iran’s rebuilding efforts.

The $300 billion reconstruction fund is structured as a private investment vehicle rather than a government-funded program, though the full details have yet to be made public.

Juan Rivera, 26, said Trump “criticized his predecessors about negotiating with terrorists, and he’s basically done the same exact thing.”

Rivera said he still plans to vote for mostly Republican candidates in the midterms. But he noted that while volunteering to canvass Latino voters near his community in the San Diego area, he found many fellow Trump supporters so let down by the president’s handling of the war — among other grievances — that they had little motivation to turn out for his party in November.

“A lot of people say: ‘Why should I vote when the president’s not doing what he promised?’” Rivera recalled.

When asked to respond, a White House spokesperson told Reuters that Trump’s achievement “on the battlefield and at the negotiating table is nothing short of remarkable and will strengthen American security for many years.”

Steve Egan, 65, a promotional product distributor based in Tampa, had already turned against Trump in early 2025 after tariff-driven price increases hurt his business. He was skeptical of the war’s justification from the beginning and frustrated that it drove up the cost of gasoline and other goods.

“Right now it doesn’t seem like it’s been worth it to go through all that,” he said, pointing out that the stated objective of regime change “didn’t happen.” His view of the president has dropped so low that Egan said Trump’s endorsement would be “the kiss of death” for any candidate he’s considering in the midterms.

Brandon Neumeister, 37, a Pennsylvania state corrections worker and former National Guardsman, said the conflict appeared to have done little more than benefit oil companies. Even before the war broke out, he said, he was unlikely to vote in November due to his deep frustration with politics in general.

Robert Billups, 35, of Washington state, said he was cautiously hopeful the peace agreement would hold, but felt the war had generated more resentment toward the United States rather than making the country more secure. His confidence in Vice President JD Vance — who led U.S. negotiations with Iran — has declined, and Billups said he no longer feels a strong pull toward Republican candidates. In November, he said, “whoever has a better strategy this time, I’m gonna vote for them regardless of their party.”

Despite Trump’s stated commitment to ending the war, six of his more loyal supporters said they still hope he has secret plans to bring Iran under control.

Kate Mottl, 63, a secretary at a municipal office in the Chicago suburbs, said that “destroying” the regime in Tehran seemed like the only way to prevent future conflict. She said it would be “very disappointing” if Trump chose not to pursue further military action, adding that she believes “there’s a bigger plan here.”

Rich Somora, 62, an engineer in North Carolina, agreed that Trump likely has more aggressive moves in mind. “I can’t imagine that he would have gone through all this and not found out a way to get rid of those mullahs,” he said. Diplomats and analysts, however, say the war has actually tightened the grip of Iran’s clerical leadership. If they remain in power for another month, Somora said, he’ll start to grow concerned.

Joyce Kenney, a 74-year-old retiree in Prescott, Arizona, said she supports lifting the sanctions and believes restoring Iran’s access to international trade would give its leaders reason to honor the ceasefire. But she drew the line at the reconstruction fund: “That’s not our responsibility,” she said.

The United States was already facing a demographic challenge — an aging population gradually trending toward decline. Now, following a Supreme Court ruling that expanded President Trump’s authority to deport hundreds of thousands of foreign migrants, experts are warning that population decline in the country could speed up significantly.

The high court’s decision confirms the administration’s power to carry out large-scale deportations, a move that analysts say could have long-term consequences for the country’s population numbers and overall workforce.

Demographers and other experts had already been sounding the alarm about the direction of U.S. population trends before this ruling. With immigration serving as a key driver of population growth in recent decades, a major reduction in the number of migrants living in the country could push those trends in a more dramatic direction.

JUNEAU, Alaska — An Alaska judge has determined that a man who shares both a name and party affiliation with Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan has the right to appear on the state’s August primary ballot.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews issued the ruling Friday, reversing a June 15 decision by Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher, who had moved to bar the challenger from the ballot. The ruling remains subject to appeal before the state Supreme Court.

State attorneys have indicated that Tuesday represents the final deadline for a ruling to be in place so that ballots for the August 18 primary can be sent to print.

Judge Matthews found that the Division of Elections’ move to exclude Dan J. Sullivan on the grounds that his candidacy lacked “good faith” had no basis in the state Constitution, Alaska law, or the Division’s own rules. “Instead, the decision was based upon a new, previously unstated, ‘good faith’ criteria,” the judge wrote.

The situation involving the two Dan Sullivans has drawn attention to the high stakes surrounding the incumbent senator’s reelection bid. Alaska’s Senate race is among roughly half a dozen contests across the country expected to be fiercely contested this fall, and it represents a seat Democrats are hoping to capture as part of their push to reclaim a Senate majority.

The senator, along with supporters including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has spoken out against the challenger’s entry into the race, arguing it risks confusing voters. Under Alaska’s election rules, the top four finishers in the primary — regardless of party — advance to a ranked choice general election in November.

Sen. Sullivan has accused the challenger of working in concert with Democrats and the campaign of Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola — widely seen as the senator’s primary competition — in an effort to muddy the waters and improve Peltola’s prospects. Peltola’s campaign, state Democrats, and the challenger himself have all denied those claims.

Sen. Sullivan and Peltola are the most prominent figures in the crowded field and the only candidates who have reported raising campaign funds.

Director Beecher had concluded that the challenger’s filing was not made in good faith and was instead intended to mislead voters. She pointed to the fact that he had been registered to vote as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. and switched his party affiliation to Republican when he filed for the race. She also noted similarities between his campaign website and the senator’s, along with his use of a political consultant who has worked with Democratic clients. She did not cite any direct evidence of coordination with the senator’s opponents.

In their effort to uphold the disqualification, state attorneys rejected the idea that ballot design could adequately address any confusion created by two candidates with identical names and party labels running for the same office. “The Constitution does not require States to place a sham candidate on the ballot and then attempt to mitigate the damage through design choices,” wrote attorney Rachel Witty of the Alaska Department of Law, along with outside attorneys Christopher Murray and Michael Francisco.

Attorneys representing the challenger countered that the U.S. Constitution sets out only three qualifications for Senate candidates — age, citizenship, and residency — and argued that Director Beecher had no legal authority to remove their client from the ballot.

The challenger Sullivan, a 69-year-old retired teacher and former U.S. Forest Service employee, has acknowledged that having the same name and party as the sitting senator gave him “an instant megaphone.” He has said, however, that he had been considering a run for some time and had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the senator’s performance in office.

When the candidate list was initially published, the challenger appeared as Dan J. Sullivan, while the incumbent was listed as Dan S. Sullivan with a notation identifying him as the current officeholder.

BATON ROUGE, La. — President Donald Trump’s chosen candidate for a Louisiana U.S. Senate seat is hoping to lock up the Republican nomination Saturday, adding another chapter to the president’s ongoing effort to replace GOP members who have defied him with candidates loyal to his agenda.

U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who carries Trump’s endorsement, is squaring off against state Treasurer John Fleming in the runoff election. The two advanced past two-term Sen. Bill Cassidy in the May 16 primary after Trump publicly turned against Cassidy, who had voted to convict the president following his 2021 impeachment trial.

Should Letlow prevail, it would represent the latest in a string of primary victories for Trump’s preferred candidates. Last month, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, and five Indiana state senators all lost their reelection races to challengers Trump had supported.

Letlow entered the House of Representatives in 2021 following the death of her husband, Luke Letlow, who had won the same congressional seat but passed away before he could be sworn in. She secured Trump’s endorsement before formally joining the Senate primary race in January.

In the May primary, Letlow came out on top with nearly 45% of the vote. Fleming trailed with roughly 28%, while Cassidy received close to 25%.

“We have a chance to send a clear message that Louisiana stands with President Trump,” Letlow said during an online rally with the president on Thursday. “He endorsed me because he knows I will stand with him.”

Letlow enters the runoff with several advantages, including her first-place finish in May, strong campaign spending on her behalf, and backing from prominent Republican figures. She also has the support of Gov. Jeff Landry, who consulted with Trump last year about her potential Senate candidacy, as well as U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

In last month’s primary, Letlow won parishes ranging from the rural northern part of the state to the New Orleans region in the southeast. She even carried six of the 13 parishes that Fleming once represented in Congress, including Caddo Parish, home to Shreveport.

Fleming, who was a founding member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus during his time in Congress, later served in Trump’s first administration. He has made a point of reminding voters that he did not step down following the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

Fleming has positioned himself as a true believer in the president’s “Make America Great Again” movement, arguing that his voting record is more conservative than Letlow’s. His campaign ads have described him as MAGA “long before it was cool.”

Fleming has also told voters that White House allies of Gov. Landry blocked him from getting through to Trump to seek his endorsement. He says he eventually managed to reach the president by phone and reminded him of their history together.

“I said nobody has been more loyal to you than me,” Fleming recalled during a June campaign appearance. “He said, ‘You’re fantastic! Why didn’t you call?’”

Louisiana political consultant Mary Patricia Wray, who works with both Republican and Democratic candidates, said she expects Fleming to do well in rural areas, but believes Letlow holds the overall advantage.

“Higher-information voters in more populous areas are going to fall into that Letlow camp,” Wray said. “She is the more institutional-looking candidate.”

Both campaigns have spent roughly $1 million each on advertising. However, a super PAC backing Letlow has outspent everyone, pouring in $4 million since the primary, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

Fleming has run ads targeting Letlow’s past public support for diversity, equity and inclusion policy — something Trump has worked to eliminate. Letlow, a former college administrator, acknowledged supporting DEI when she was interviewing for the presidency of the University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2020, but says she now opposes it.

Fleming also reposted an AI-generated video on the social platform X this month that falsely depicted Letlow saying she had backed DEI because she “didn’t know any better.” The fabricated video also made reference to her late husband, who died from COVID-19 complications.

Fleming said he did not produce the video “but it’s getting passed around Louisiana for a reason.”

Letlow called the sharing of the video “disgraceful and indefensible,” particularly because of the reference to her deceased husband.

Letlow has focused on issues important to social conservatives, including her backing of federal legislation that would prohibit transgender women and girls from competing in school sports.

Fleming built a significant portion of his campaign around opposition to carbon capture and sequestration — a process that involves injecting carbon dioxide underground to cut down on industrial pollution. Plans to expand the technology, including proposed pipelines, have generated strong pushback in rural Louisiana communities and created divisions within the state Republican Party.

Fleming has argued that such projects violate private property rights and that federal subsidies supporting the technology amount to wasteful spending.

On the Democratic side, Jamie Davis, a crop farmer from northeast Louisiana, is facing Gary Crockett, a Navy veteran and business executive. Both candidates have focused on lowering the cost of living and preserving social safety net programs.

Louisiana leans heavily Republican — Trump won the state by 22 percentage points in the 2024 election.

WASHINGTON — A gay rights activist has taken the Department of Defense to federal court, demanding to see a copy of an agreement between the Pentagon and Scouting America — and to find out whether that deal actually requires the organization to ban transgender members.

James Dale filed his complaint in a New York City federal court on Thursday, arguing that the Pentagon and Scouting America have given the public two very different stories about what was agreed to, while the government refuses to release the actual document.

The Pentagon struck a deal with Scouting America back in February, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announcing that the agreement would steer the organization away from diversity programs and other policies he described as “woke.” Hegseth warned that the military would cut off its long-standing support of the organization if it did not comply within six months — a deadline that falls in late August.

Hegseth placed particular focus on the issue of transgender youth, stating that the organization would require members to be identified by their “biological sex at birth and not gender identity.”

However, Scouting America — formerly called the Boy Scouts of America — said at the time that the agreement did not alter its existing policies on transgender youth and that those members remain welcome in its programs.

“We have transgender people in our program and we’ll have transgender people in our program going forward,” Scouting America President and CEO Roger Krone told The Associated Press in February.

In his court filing, Dale argues that both versions of events “cannot be true, and the stakes are of profound public importance.”

Hegseth had also said in February that he would “vigorously review” any changes Scouting America made, and did not rule out pulling military support.

“We hope that doesn’t happen, but it could,” Hegseth said at the time. “Ideally, I believe the Boy Scouts should go back to being the Boy Scouts as originally founded, a group that develops boys into men. Maybe someday.”

The relationship between the military and the scouting organization runs deep, with the armed forces historically providing logistical assistance for the National Boy Scout Jamboree, hosting scouts on or near military installations, and maintaining close ties with Eagle Scouts — many of whom go on to enlist.

Dale had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request in late March seeking the memorandum of understanding between Scouting America and the Pentagon. That request went nowhere.

“The Department has invoked no exemption, produced no record, and missed every deadline,” his complaint stated. “Mr. Dale brings this action to enforce the public’s right to know, before the Department’s August deadline expires.”

The Pentagon declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying it does not discuss active litigation, and instead pointed to the video Hegseth released in February outlining the changes he said the organization was making. Scouting America did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Dale’s complaint also raises a broader legal question: whether the federal government even has the authority to require a private organization like Scouting America to accept or exclude certain members.

Dale’s history with the Boy Scouts goes back decades. In 1990, the organization expelled him — then an Eagle Scout serving as an assistant scoutmaster — after learning he was co-president of Rutgers University’s gay and lesbian organization. He sued in 1992, alleging discrimination, but ultimately lost at the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the organization had the right to set membership and leadership standards that excluded gay individuals.

“Here, if the Department’s account is true, the federal government has now obtained by contract what the Court once held it could not command by law,” Dale’s lawsuit states. “And if it is not, then the Department has misled the public about what Scouting America has agreed to do.”

A poll worker in New York says two federal officers came to her voting location during the state’s primary election to confront her about something she posted on social media — a message criticizing an ICE officer who fatally shot a woman named Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Paigelynne Gonyea said the encounter took place on Tuesday while she was on duty at a polling location in Syracuse. She said the two officers handed her a written notice indicating she could be in violation of federal laws that prohibit publicly sharing personal information about federal law enforcement officers.

According to Gonyea, the warning was connected to a post she had made back in January. In that post, she shared a photo of Jonathan Ross — an ICE officer who shot and killed Good in Minneapolis during anti-ICE demonstrations — and wrote: “I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted.”

Gonyea noted that Ross had already been publicly identified by news outlets before she made the post. The post remains online, and she said she has no plans to remove it.

“I plan on using this experience to defend and support our First Amendment right,” Gonyea said. “Our First Amendment rights definitely need to be protected now more than ever.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Lauren Bis, issued a statement saying Gonyea “committed a federal crime by posting the address of an ICE law enforcement officer online” and warned that “if you doxx our officers, we will investigate you, and you will be brought to justice.”

Bis also shared a separate post from one of Gonyea’s social media accounts, which the spokesperson said included Ross’s home address. Part of that post was blacked out in the version shared publicly.

“Doxxing federal law enforcement officers is a federal crime that puts their lives and their families in serious danger,” the DHS statement read. “This danger is not hypothetical. Our law enforcement officers are on the frontlines arresting terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and rapists.”

A fellow poll worker captured the confrontation on video. The footage shows two people in uniform entering the polling location and briefly speaking with Gonyea, who declined to sign the warning document they presented to her.

Gonyea later shared the unsigned letter on social media. The document indicates it originated from ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, a division whose main function is looking into misconduct allegations against ICE employees and contractors.

The poll worker who filmed the interaction, Sheilia Milledge, said the episode left workers rattled. Gonyea confirmed that no voters were present at the polling location when the officers arrived.

“I felt like it was a scare tactic that they were using,” Milledge said.

A representative from the New York Attorney General’s Office confirmed the office is aware of what happened and is currently reviewing it. A spokesperson for the governor’s office said officials there had not received reports of similar incidents elsewhere in the state.

Kathleen McGrath, a spokesperson for the New York State Board of Elections, said the incident “did not disrupt voting and was not related to the election process.” Onondaga County Democratic Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny said he went to the polling place shortly after it happened, checked in with poll workers, ensured voting continued without interruption, and “connected Paige to resources.”

Gonyea said she had initially missed a phone call from U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials who wanted to speak with her. A DHS agent left her a voicemail saying they were reaching out “in reference to a post that we believe you made on Instagram where you doxxed an ICE officer back in January,” according to a recording she shared online.

“We just wanted to talk to you about it. You’re not in any type of trouble,” the agent said in the voicemail, according to the recording Gonyea provided.

She said she called back and asked the officers to come inside the polling place because she felt it would be a safer environment for the conversation.

Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights and elections program at Brennan Center for Justice — described as a left-leaning public policy institute — said it appears the officers’ timing at the polling place was coincidental, but noted their presence could still be unsettling to voters and election workers.

Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that if officers are delivering residents “a formal complaint about their protected speech, we’re in trouble.”

Rep. John Mannion, a Democrat representing the area in Congress, sent a letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin urging the department to examine the incident and “put a stop to any ICE activities that target protected speech.”

“ICE should not be broadly targeting online speech or actively monitoring social media accounts without cause and without proper judicial protections,” Mannion’s letter stated.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg found himself at the center of a disturbing incident when an anonymous report — later determined to be false — prompted Michigan State Police and child protective services to respond to his home, temporarily separating him from his four-year-old twins.

Buttigieg detailed the experience in a post on Substack, writing that a Michigan State Police officer informed him they found no evidence to support the anonymous allegation and believed it was driven by political motives. He described the roughly 24-hour ordeal as being “among the darkest hours of my life.”

Michigan State Police confirmed in a statement that they received an “anonymous report” and that both their agency and child protective services “responded and determined the report was false.”

According to Buttigieg, an officer and a child protective services worker arrived at his home after someone anonymously claimed he was a danger to his children. Authorities arranged forensic interviews for the twins and told Buttigieg he was not permitted to be alone with them until those interviews were finished.

The next day, Buttigieg said investigators revealed that the anonymous caller had claimed he confessed to violent crimes years ago during an unplanned encounter in Alabama. Buttigieg stated he had never visited the town where that supposed meeting took place. Police told him the allegation would not be forwarded to prosecutors, and child protective services found nothing to back up the report.

“I cannot describe the mix of rage and sadness that I feel at the idea that someone brought our children into this,” Buttigieg wrote. “They are four years old. Four. They do not know or care what a Democrat or a Republican is.”

Buttigieg, who is widely considered a potential Democratic presidential contender in 2028, has long been a target of anti-LGBTQ attacks. He noted that the incident happened shortly after he posted photos of his family online in recognition of Father’s Day.

He previously faced criticism from some Republicans when he took paternity leave after he and his husband, Chasten, adopted their twins while he was serving in the Biden administration. Buttigieg also noted in his post that he has received death threats throughout his career.

“But this is the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began,” he wrote.

The incident appears to be an example of what law enforcement calls “swatting” — the act of making a false report to emergency services in order to trigger a police response at someone’s home or location. Officials have warned that such incidents waste critical resources and create dangerous situations for both responding officers and the people targeted.

Buttigieg said the episode is part of a larger pattern of escalating political attacks in the current environment.

“Everyone knows politics is ugly these days,” he wrote. “It’s always been ugly, but now it feels more and more like bloodsport. Even so, this is different.”

Washington, D.C. has reached a financial settlement with a local resident who claims he was illegally detained by police while using Darth Vader’s theme music as a form of protest against the presence of National Guard troops patrolling the city’s streets.

A court document filed late Thursday confirms that the plaintiff, Sam O’Hara, has agreed to drop his legal claims against the district and four Metropolitan Police Department officers within three business days of receiving payment. The exact dollar amount was not disclosed in the filing. O’Hara is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia.

In a Friday email, an ACLU spokesperson described the financial terms as “a significant amount” that O’Hara “is pleased with,” but said the specific figure would not be released in order to protect his privacy. A spokesperson for D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s office declined to offer any comment on the matter.

While O’Hara’s dispute with the district has been resolved, his legal claims against an Ohio National Guard member remain active. Attorneys for that Guard member, Sgt. Devon Beck, have asked a judge to throw out O’Hara’s claims against him.

“He was there because that was his assigned duty,” Beck’s lawyers wrote in court documents. “This was not an accidental encounter or a one-time disagreement on a public sidewalk.”

A February court filing had previously indicated that O’Hara and the district had reached a settlement “in principle,” prompting a judge to pause the case while the two sides worked out the details.

O’Hara originally filed suit against the district last October, alleging that officers violated his First Amendment right to free speech and his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable detention and excessive force.

The music O’Hara played — “The Imperial March,” the iconic and foreboding theme associated with Darth Vader in the Star Wars film series — served as the backdrop for his ongoing protests against the deployment of Guard members in Washington under President Donald Trump. According to his lawsuit, millions of TikTok users have watched his videos documenting his interactions with the troops.

O’Hara, an artist who also works in the hospitality industry, maintains that he did nothing to interfere with the Guard patrol during their September 11, 2025, encounter on a public street. After one of the troops called in Metropolitan Police Department officers, O’Hara was stopped and kept in handcuffs for 15 to 20 minutes before being let go without any charges filed, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit included a pointed Star Wars-themed line: “The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests.”

The Guard presence in Washington stems from an executive order Trump signed last August declaring a crime emergency in the city. In the weeks that followed, hundreds of Guard troops and federal agents joined local police in patrolling Washington’s streets — a move that sparked significant tension with residents of the heavily Democratic district.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has been issuing significant rulings at a fast pace, but even with some of its most consequential decisions still ahead, visible friction among the justices is becoming hard to ignore.

A particularly unusual moment unfolded Thursday as the justices took their seats to deliver brief summaries of their latest decisions — among them two major immigration victories for President Donald Trump.

After conservative Justice Samuel Alito finished presenting the majority’s ruling that limits how individuals can seek asylum at the southern border, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor rose to read aloud from her strongly worded dissent.

Sotomayor recounted the hardships many asylum seekers endure and invoked a painful episode from history: the 1939 turning away of a ship carrying Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany by the United States and other nations. Roughly 250 of those passengers would later perish in the Holocaust.

In her dissent, Sotomayor argued the majority’s ruling would enable the Trump administration to prevent people from applying for asylum at the border, leading to more deaths. She said the decision “regrettably and tragically extinguishes the light of the torch of the Statue of Liberty.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh watched Sotomayor closely as she spoke, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson kept her gaze fixed straight ahead.

While majority opinions are always delivered from the bench, dissenting justices may also speak up to emphasize their objections — though this typically occurs in only a handful of cases each term. Additional rulings are expected Monday.

Sotomayor’s decision to speak appeared to catch Alito off guard. In a highly unusual move, he responded off the cuff, sounding visibly irritated. He said he had no idea she planned to speak and would have elaborated more in his own summary had he known.

From the conservative majority’s perspective, the case centered on whether border officials have the authority to delay asylum seekers’ entry into the country “until they can be processed in a safe and orderly way.”

Alito defended the ruling by pointing out that the policy in question had been used under both the Obama and Trump administrations. “I won’t add anything more to that,” he said.

The public dispute comes as the court prepares to issue rulings next week on some of the most significant questions of the term, including Trump’s effort to limit birthright citizenship and his push to expand presidential authority to remove members of independent federal agencies.

This is not the first sign of unusual tension this term. In April, Sotomayor issued a rare public apology to Justice Kavanaugh for what she described as “hurtful comments” made during a law school appearance, where she suggested a colleague “probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”

Earlier, in March, Kavanaugh and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly clashed over the numerous emergency orders the court had issued allowing the Trump administration to move forward with key elements of its agenda.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has terminated its contract for a mobile device surveillance tool that allowed federal agents to track people’s locations without a warrant, following pressure from members of Congress, a prosecutor, and a judge who questioned whether the practice was legal.

ATF, the federal agency charged with enforcing the country’s gun laws, told The Associated Press it shut down what it described as a “pilot” program using a product called Webloc. The move came after Rep. Michael Cloud, a Republican from Texas, and Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, raised alarms about the agency’s use of bulk commercial location data.

Webloc is manufactured by a company called Penlink and pulls location information from consumer apps and advertising networks. Those networks gather data from mobile devices when users download apps or browse the internet. This type of information is often referred to as “ad tech” data, and its use in law enforcement has sparked controversy because it allows agencies to pinpoint which mobile devices were in a specific area at a specific time — without obtaining a warrant.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled back in 2018 that law enforcement must obtain a warrant to access historic movement data from cellphone carriers when investigating a suspect. However, the high court has not yet weighed in on the growing use of commercially purchased location data.

Webloc is also used by the U.S. military, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and various local police departments, including agencies in Elk Grove, Calif. and Durham, N.C. The technology has also spread internationally — the national police in El Salvador and intelligence agencies in Hungary are among its customers, according to a report from Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto that studies digital threats to civil society.

In a statement, ATF said the tool “does not meet our needs” and confirmed it is not currently using any other services that rely on ad tech data.

“ATF continually evaluates tools and techniques to enhance our investigations and ultimately reduce violent crime in American communities. We did conduct a pilot with Webloc to determine if it could improve our investigative capabilities,” an ATF spokesperson said.

Sen. Wyden praised the agency’s decision, calling it “a victory for Americans’ constitutional rights.”

“For years, I have warned that the government’s purchase of Americans’ location data from shady data brokers is an unacceptable end-run around the Fourth Amendment,” Wyden said. “After Rep. Cloud and my staff informed the ATF about the legal and privacy quagmire surrounding adtech data, the agency did the right thing.”

The issue first came to light publicly during a congressional hearing in May, when ATF Director Robert Cekada acknowledged under questioning from Rep. Cloud that the agency had been purchasing geolocation data tied to American cell phones.

Following that hearing, both lawmakers were briefed by ATF officials. In a joint statement, Wyden and Cloud revealed that ATF had carried out more than 300 warrantless searches using the tool — over 200 of which were connected to active ATF investigations.

In one case involving suspected arson at a facility owned by a U.S. defense contractor, both a prosecutor and a judge raised objections to the use of Webloc data. The agency “was ultimately forced to backtrack and obtain a traditional court order for bulk cellphone tower data” from wireless carriers instead, according to the two lawmakers.

Webloc was originally developed by an Israeli company called Cobwebs before being acquired and merged with a U.S.-based firm, Penlink. The company issued a statement saying it is “proud to have a long-standing relationship with ATF” and expressed hope for a continued partnership.

Other federal agencies continue to use commercially purchased location data. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security both buy such information. DHS put out a request to private industry in January exploring how advertising data could support its deportation and law enforcement efforts. Earlier this year, FBI Director Kash Patel told the Senate that the bureau purchases “commercially available information that’s consistent with the constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.”

A bipartisan group of lawmakers — including Wyden, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Republican Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, and Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California — has introduced legislation that would prohibit government agencies from purchasing location data without first obtaining a court order.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic National Committee is organizing hundreds of grassroots events nationwide this weekend, hoping to channel widespread frustration over the cost of living — the same issue that helped carry President Donald Trump back into the White House.

The planned activities span a wide range, including school supply giveaways, food bank drives, neighborhood canvassing, and training sessions for organizers.

“Everything costs too damn much under Donald Trump and the Republicans,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin in a written statement.

Martin added that party members intend “to reach, engage, register, and mobilize voters who will make the difference in races up and down the ballot.”

Just two years ago, it was Democrats who faced criticism for being out of touch with Americans’ anger over climbing prices. Now the party is turning that argument around, pointing to Trump, who has played down the ongoing effects of inflation.

Trump has called affordability worries a “hoax” and recently stated, “I love the inflation,” suggesting he expects prices to fall as he works to resolve tensions with Iran.

The weekend’s events differ depending on the part of the country. In New Mexico, the governor will host a training session for roughly 150 prospective campaign workers. In Nevada, statewide campaigns will knock on doors in rural and working-class communities. Volunteers in other areas will call voters in competitive U.S. House districts to discuss rising gas prices.

Some events are designed to provide direct assistance to voters while making the case that Democrats genuinely care about everyday costs. In Kenosha County, Wisconsin, for example, the local Democratic Party plans to gather and hand out school supplies to families in need. Canvassers will also spread out across Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to talk with residents about affordability.

Party leaders hope the weekend’s activities will demonstrate that time out of power has sharpened their focus on the bread-and-butter issues that matter most to voters. However, some within the party worry their message may struggle to cut through in a deeply fragmented media landscape.

“One of Donald Trump’s greatest strengths is that he’s so loud,” said Democratic strategist Brian Derrick. He argued that events like those planned this weekend help Democrats zero in on what he called an “Achilles’ heel” for Trump — specifically, “his lack of interest in addressing everyday costs for people.”

John Bolton, who once served as national security adviser to President Donald Trump and has since emerged as one of his most vocal critics, is expected to appear in federal court Friday to enter a guilty plea on charges related to the mishandling of classified information.

According to sources who previously spoke with Reuters, Bolton reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that sets his potential sentence anywhere from no jail time to a maximum of five years in prison, with a judge making the final determination. The deal also requires Bolton to pay a fine of $2.25 million.

Prosecutors allege that Bolton passed along sensitive government information to two family members, potentially for use in a book he was working on. The information reportedly included notes from intelligence briefings and details from meetings with top government officials and foreign heads of state. Bolton had previously pleaded not guilty to 18 criminal counts filed against him last year.

Bolton held the national security adviser position during Trump’s first term in the White House. His case is among a number of prosecutions brought by Trump’s Justice Department against notable political opponents — a pattern that critics say has blurred the traditionally firm line between law enforcement and partisan politics.

Notably, the investigation into Bolton differs from some other cases targeting Trump critics in that it was launched before Trump returned to power in 2025 and carried the support of career federal prosecutors, rather than being initiated by political appointees.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is weighing a presidential run as he nears the end of his time in office, is pushing for a nationwide tax on billionaires — even as he works to block a similar measure back home in California.

In a post published on Substack, Newsom laid out a sweeping economic agenda that also calls for the federal government to hold an ownership stake in artificial intelligence companies. His proposals put him squarely in line with the populist left wing of the Democratic Party, and he argued that dramatic action is needed to stop an extreme concentration of wealth and power from weakening American democracy.

“It’s time for an economic reset for America,” Newsom wrote.

The governor unveiled his plan just one day after a powerful health care union in California announced it would move ahead with a ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the total assets of billionaires living in the state as of January 1, 2026.

Newsom is against that state-level measure, and so are many liberal advocacy groups that typically support higher taxes on the wealthy. The concern is that such a tax would push billionaires to leave California, shrinking the state’s long-term tax base in exchange for a single influx of money. California, a hub for the technology industry, is home to more billionaires than any other state — with estimates putting the number at several hundred.

“You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” Newsom wrote. “Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes. The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”

Rather than a patchwork of state tax policies, Newsom is calling for a unified national approach. His plan includes a minimum tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $100 million. He also wants to ban a common practice among the wealthy — borrowing against stock portfolios to finance lavish lifestyles without paying taxes on those funds.

Newsom also called for reforms to inheritance taxes, cautioning that “the transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth.” Additionally, he wants corporate tax rates restored to the levels that existed before President Donald Trump’s first-term tax cuts.

He said the urgency of these changes is heightened by the rise of artificial intelligence, which he warned could displace workers and funnel even more wealth to those already at the top.

“We need to ensure every American owns a stake in the future being built by AI through a national public equity fund that takes a major stake in the new economy,” he wrote. “Simply, as artificial intelligence reshapes the country, every American should own a piece of the future it builds.”

Newsom suggested that money raised through his proposed policies could be directed toward worker retraining programs, universal child care, tuition-free college, and expanded health care funding.

Newsom has become one of Trump’s most prominent political critics, and his early push to define a policy platform comes well ahead of the midterm elections — the traditional unofficial starting gun for presidential campaigning.

His embrace of a wealth tax marks a significant shift for a governor who has generally been considered moderate on tax issues, despite his liberal image. It also reflects a broader change in the political climate since Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren made a wealth tax — specifically a 2% levy — a centerpiece of her 2020 presidential campaign, which failed to gain momentum.

Newsom framed the current tax system as one that is rigged to benefit a privileged few at everyone else’s expense.

“Money buys influence, and influence rewrites the rules,” he wrote. “Those rewritten rules funnel even more wealth to the few. Under this weight, democracy itself starts to buckle.”

New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, has struck down transgender bathroom legislation for the third time, continuing a pattern of executive vetoes on this issue in the state.

The bill in question would have prohibited males from entering female restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms. It also included a provision that would have kept boys from participating in girls’ athletic competitions at the school level.

This latest veto marks the fourth time the New Hampshire legislature has attempted to pass such a measure, only to be blocked by the governor. Ayotte’s predecessor, Chris Sununu, also vetoed a transgender-related bill during his tenure, establishing a consistent executive response to this type of legislation in the state.

A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to establish a federal voter list and place restrictions on who would be eligible to receive a mail ballot.

U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani ruled in favor of a coalition of nearly two dozen states that challenged the order, issuing a summary judgment. The ruling covers the current midterm election cycle.

The two lawsuits, both brought before federal court in Boston, argued that Trump’s executive order was unconstitutional because the authority to set election rules belongs to the states and Congress — not the president.

This marks the second consecutive day that a court has struck down one of Trump’s election-related executive orders. On Wednesday, a separate ruling blocked an order Trump signed last year that would have required proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

In other news, Vice President JD Vance appeared Thursday at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, where he spoke about his new book, “Communion,” and shared his admiration for the 37th president. Vance, widely considered a likely presidential contender in 2028, suggested Nixon’s legacy is experiencing a revival.

Vance drew comparisons between Nixon and Trump, claiming both were targeted by “deep state” forces. “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy,” Vance said.

He continued: “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration.”

Separately, the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing the Trump administration to end temporary legal protections for Haitian and Syrian immigrants could have far-reaching consequences. The ruling directly affects approximately 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, but legal experts say it may signal what lies ahead for nearly 1.3 million people from 17 countries currently holding Temporary Protected Status. Many of those individuals have lived and worked in the U.S. for decades and have American-born children.

The decision opens TPS holders from Haiti and Syria to potential detention and deportation and could force hundreds of thousands of others with pending immigration relief claims to leave the country. Dozens of lawsuits filed by people of various nationalities whose TPS was revoked by the Trump administration remain ongoing.

Also this week, a top National Park Service official says a liner at the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was deliberately cut with a sharp knife or razor blade this month, damaging foam sealant that was installed as part of a $16 million restoration project. Deputy Director of Operations Frank Lands disclosed the damage in a court document filed Wednesday as part of a lawsuit by a nonprofit group seeking to halt the administration’s work on the project. Lands’ statement did not specify exactly when the damage occurred, whether it is being treated as vandalism, or identify any suspects.

WASHINGTON — Billionaire investor Leon Black sat before the House Oversight Committee on Friday as part of a sweeping congressional effort to understand how Jeffrey Epstein’s vast network of power and money allowed decades of sexual abuse to continue.

Black is the latest in a series of prominent individuals called to give a closed-door deposition before the committee. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates appeared earlier this month, telling lawmakers he had made a “grave error in judgment” by associating with Epstein.

Black co-founded the private equity firm Apollo Global Management and previously served as its chief executive. He stepped away from that role in 2021 following backlash over his connections to Epstein.

An internal review commissioned by Apollo in 2021 revealed that Black had paid Epstein a total of $158 million between 2012 and 2017 — payments that came after Epstein had already pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor. According to the review, those payments were made for “bona fide tax, estate planning and other related services.”

Black’s name comes up frequently in documents released by the Department of Justice connected to the Epstein investigation. He also appeared in a set of birthday messages sent to Epstein that the House committee made public last year. Among those messages was a poem attributed to Black that referenced “Blond, Red or Brunette, spread out geographically.”

Epstein was indicted in July 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. Prosecutors alleged he built an extensive network of girls — some as young as 14 — whom he sexually abused between 2002 and 2005. Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on those charges.

The committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., noted earlier this year that Epstein’s former accountant, Richard Kahn, told lawmakers during his own testimony that Epstein received large sums from several high-profile individuals, Black among them.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., this month forwarded findings from a nearly four-year investigation into Black to the House committee. In a statement, Wyden said, “Epstein even appears to have acted as a middleman for Black to pay women on Black’s behalf.”

Wyden added, “While I have offered Black ample opportunities to address outstanding irregularities regarding his arrangement with Epstein, he has refused.”

Others who have already appeared before the committee include former Democratic President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, former Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Gates.

Democratic members of the committee have pushed their Republican counterparts to call President Donald Trump to testify, noting his well-documented past friendship with Epstein. Republicans have declined, stating they have found no evidence that Trump engaged in any wrongdoing.

Committee Chairman Comer has indicated he is in discussions with the Justice Department about scheduling testimony from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Bondi, during her own testimony, highlighted that Blanche had overseen the troubled release of federal Epstein files, which included the accidental disclosure of victim information.

WASHINGTON — Louisiana Republicans are heading to the polls Saturday to pick a U.S. Senate nominee in a primary runoff, roughly six weeks after voters shut the door on incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy’s bid for a third term.

The runoff pits U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow against state Treasurer John Fleming, both Republicans competing for Cassidy’s soon-to-be-vacant seat. While President Donald Trump already scored a political win when Cassidy was ousted, Saturday’s contest may serve as another measure of just how much pull he still has over Republican voters as he works to fill Congress with allies during the final stretch of his time in office. Democrats have not identified the seat as a priority target in their push to regain control of the Senate in November.

Trump encouraged Letlow to take on Cassidy and endorsed her even before she formally entered the race in January. Letlow first came to Congress in 2021 through a special election, stepping in to fill the seat her husband, Luke Letlow, had won but never occupied — he died from COVID-19 in 2020 before being sworn in. Fleming, meanwhile, spent eight years in Congress before Trump’s first term and made a run at the Senate in 2016, though he fell short of making the runoff. Republican John Kennedy ultimately claimed that seat.

In the May 16 primary, Letlow finished on top with roughly 45% of the vote — not enough to cross the majority threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Fleming came in second with about 28%, narrowly edging out Cassidy, who pulled in around 25%.

Letlow’s support was concentrated in smaller, largely rural parishes throughout the state, including outright majorities in parishes in northeastern Louisiana and those bordering Mississippi. Fleming ran a distant second in most areas but showed his strongest numbers in northwestern Louisiana, carrying nine rural parishes there. He fell just short of Letlow in Caddo Parish, home to Shreveport.

Cassidy led the field in Louisiana’s three most heavily populated parishes. In Orleans Parish, he outpaced Letlow by nearly a three-to-one margin. His margins over Letlow were much slimmer in East Baton Rouge and Jefferson parishes.

Trump’s endorsed candidates have generally fared well at the polls, though his recent picks for governor in Iowa and Georgia both came up short. In South Carolina, he backed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette for governor ahead of the primary, but after she was pushed into a runoff, Trump announced support for both her and her opponent, state Attorney General Alan Wilson — who went on to win the nomination Tuesday.

Trump has reissued his endorsement of Letlow multiple times since January, most recently in mid-June, and has not extended any backing to Fleming.

On the Democratic side, farmer Jamie Davis and Navy veteran Gary Crockett are also competing in a Senate runoff Saturday to determine their party’s nominee.

Additional runoffs on the ballot include Republican races for the Public Service Commission and a state board of education contest, where incumbent board member and former Republican U.S. Rep. Joseph Cao faces a challenge from educator and business owner Ellie Schroder.

U.S. House primaries were pushed back to November after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s existing congressional map, which featured a majority Black district that had been favorable to Democrats. Those postponed House races will revert to an “open” or “jungle” primary format, where all candidates regardless of party appear on the same ballot.

Polls are scheduled to close at 8 p.m. Central Time, or 9 p.m. Eastern Time. The Associated Press will report results and announce winners in the U.S. Senate, Public Service Commission, and state school board runoffs.

Under Louisiana’s rules, registered party members may only vote in their own party’s runoff. Independent or unaffiliated voters who participated in a partisan primary on May 16 must vote in that same party’s runoff. Those who sat out the May 16 primary may choose either party’s runoff.

As of June 1, Louisiana had approximately 3 million registered voters. Registered Democrats and Republicans each numbered around 1.1 million, with Democrats holding a slight edge. About 819,000 voters had no party affiliation, and the rest were registered with other parties.

Turnout in the May 16 primary reached roughly 832,000 voters, or about 28% of those registered. That included approximately 347,000 Democrats and 336,000 Republicans. For context, when Louisiana used an open primary system in 2022, turnout dropped from about 1.4 million in the November primary down to around 439,000 in the December runoff — falling from roughly 47% to just 14% of registered voters.

Early and absentee voting made up about 33% of Democratic primary ballots and around 31% of Republican ballots in the May 16 contests. As of Thursday, approximately 82,000 Republican ballots and 61,000 Democratic ballots had already been cast ahead of Saturday’s runoffs. Results from early and absentee voting are typically released by each parish in the first vote update of the night.

In the May 16 primary, the AP began reporting results at 9:02 p.m. ET — just two minutes after polls closed. More than 90% of the total vote had been counted by 10:46 p.m. ET, and the final update of the evening came at 1:30 a.m. ET with approximately 99.9% of votes tallied.

The AP does not make projections and will only declare a winner when it is clear no remaining votes could allow a trailing candidate to catch up. If a race remains uncalled, the AP will continue monitoring and reporting on significant developments, such as a candidate conceding or claiming victory, while making clear no official winner has been declared.

Louisiana does not have automatic recounts, but candidates may request and fund a recount of absentee and early ballots. The AP may still call a race subject to a recount if the margin is determined to be too large to be overturned.

As of Saturday, 129 days remain until the November 3 general election and Louisiana’s congressional primaries, with 168 days until the Louisiana congressional general election on December 12.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the United States marking its 250th birthday, many Americans are planning the classic summer trip to Washington, D.C. But those who visit the nation’s capital this year will find a city in the middle of a dramatic transformation driven by President Donald Trump.

In the roughly 17 months since returning to the White House, Trump has placed his name and likeness on federal buildings, demolished historic structures, launched major construction projects, and stationed armed military personnel throughout the city.

The landmarks tourists have always known are still there. But a closer look — with a willingness to wander and observe — reveals just how aggressively the president has worked to put his stamp on the capital.

Any tour of the new Washington begins at Union Station and Metro Center, the city’s primary transit hubs. Alongside their distinctive architecture — Greco-Roman at the former, Brutalist at the latter — visitors will now notice something new: armed National Guard troops stationed at entrances and throughout the surrounding areas.

Guard members from Washington, D.C., and multiple states have been present since August 2025, deployed under an emergency order Trump signed, which he described as a measure to combat crime. The deployment is expected to continue through most or all of 2026, with troop numbers projected to reach 5,000 this summer.

Military deployments to the capital are not without precedent — troops were stationed in D.C. during the Civil War, following the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and briefly during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. But under Trump, soldiers at street corners and subway stations have become a routine feature of city life, with no clear end date in sight.

Heading down Pennsylvania Avenue from Union Station, visitors pass a building now closely associated with the Department of Government Efficiency — the Trump administration’s initiative to reduce the size of the federal government. The U.S. Agency for International Development, once headquartered there, was the first major federal agency targeted by then-DOGE leader Elon Musk. Tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs as cost-cutting measures swept through the agency.

USAID had previously distributed billions in humanitarian assistance around the world and was credited with saving millions of lives over its history. By cutting roughly 90% of foreign aid contracts, the Trump administration effectively eliminated around $60 billion in funding. After employees packed up last February, the Pennsylvania Avenue offices were converted to other government uses. The agency’s closure also contributed to a sharp rise in unemployment in the region, where approximately one-fifth of the workforce is employed by the federal government.

Heading south toward the National Mall along the numbered streets, visitors encounter another striking change: banners bearing Trump’s image on the facades of several government buildings. This kind of display is highly unusual for a sitting American president.

At the U.S. Department of the Interior, Trump’s image appears alongside that of George Washington on matching banners reading

President Donald Trump is making his return Friday to a prominent Washington hotel that was the scene of a foiled assassination attempt just months ago.

Trump is scheduled to speak at the Washington Hilton as part of the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s yearly “Road to Majority” conference. The visit marks his first time back at the venue since the evening of April 25, when an armed man attempted to breach a Secret Service security checkpoint outside the hotel’s ballroom, forcing Trump to cut his appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner short.

The Faith and Freedom Coalition is an evangelical Christian organization that has been a strong supporter of Trump. The president has aligned himself with many of the group’s priorities, including efforts to prohibit transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. However, Trump has also faced pushback from some Christian backers of Israel who oppose his ceasefire agreement with Iran, as well as from anti-abortion advocates who believe his administration has not taken a firm enough stance on the issue.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, offered strong praise for the president’s relationship with faith communities. “There has never been a bigger champion for families and people of faith than President Trump,” the official said.

Authorities have identified the man behind the April incident as Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old resident of California. Allen has pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he attempted to assassinate Trump. Prosecutors say Allen fired a shotgun at a Secret Service agent and forced his way through a security checkpoint in what was described as a deliberate attack targeting Trump and other members of his administration. Both Trump and first lady Melania Trump were quickly escorted out of the dinner following the incident. In the aftermath, Trump remarked that the hotel was “not a particularly secure building.”

With Friday’s event approaching, security preparations are expected to be more extensive. A Secret Service official, also speaking anonymously, stated that presidential security “continuously evolves to meet today’s heightened security environment.”

“While the existing security plan at the April 2026 White House Correspondents Dinner was effective in interdicting an identified threat, the agency continually reviews our security posture and will make adjustments, as necessary,” the official added.

Friday’s appearance comes as Trump has now survived three separate threats on his life since 2024, a stretch marked by growing political division across the country.

The Washington Hilton has long been a fixture in presidential history, hosting the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner for decades. The hotel also holds a grim place in the history books — former President Ronald Reagan was shot outside the building in 1981 and survived.

As for the correspondents’ association, the group is planning a scaled-down version of its canceled dinner, set to take place in late July at a different location.

WASHINGTON — Since returning to the White House with a pledge to dramatically tighten immigration enforcement and pursue mass deportations, President Donald Trump has found a willing ally in the U.S. Supreme Court — at least most of the time.

The nation’s highest court, which holds a 6-3 conservative majority, has largely cleared the path for the Republican president’s immigration policies targeting both those in the country legally and those who are not. The court’s three liberal justices have opposed most of those moves.

Three more examples emerged this week, with the court handing the administration a trio of wins — each decided along ideological lines — that expand the government’s power to deport individuals or deny them entry, including some who hold legal status.

‘A RUBBER STAMP’

Elora Mukherjee, who directs the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School in New York, was blunt in her assessment: “The Trump administration has turned the immigration system into a deportation machine.”

“In most cases, the Supreme Court has been a rubber stamp for Trump’s mass deportation agenda,” Mukherjee added.

In a 6-3 ruling Thursday, the court allowed the administration to revoke Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants. That humanitarian designation permits people from countries devastated by war or disaster to live and work in the United States while conditions at home remain dangerous.

Legal experts warned the real-world consequences are severe. Immigrants losing that protection now face a stark choice: remain in the U.S. and risk arrest, or return to countries the U.S. State Department advises against visiting due to widespread violence, crime, terrorism, and kidnapping.

Tirana Hassan, CEO of Doctors Without Borders USA, addressed the situation Thursday, saying, “These are not conditions to which people should be returned” — a reference to Haiti.

Ahilan Arulanantham, an immigration law expert at UCLA who also represented Syrian plaintiffs in the TPS case, said, “The Supreme Court has consistently ruled against the rights of immigrant communities in important cases in the last several years, and this case fits that pattern.”

He added that the ruling “hands to the administration, and to the far right wing of the anti-immigrant movement, an important victory that they have been unable to obtain through Congress for a number of years.”

Also on Thursday, the court ruled 6-3 to uphold the government’s authority to physically block asylum seekers from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border when officials determine border crossings are overwhelmed. This practice, known as “metering,” was discontinued under Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden. The Trump administration has indicated it may seek to bring the policy back.

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, the court again split 6-3 to make it easier to remove lawful permanent residents — commonly known as green-card holders. The ruling determined that border agents do not need to meet the demanding “clear and convincing evidence” standard to prove a green-card holder committed a crime before blocking their re-entry into the country after traveling abroad.

‘THE RULE OF LAW’

Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival praised the decisions, saying, “These three rulings are all victories for the rule of law and common sense.” He noted that Temporary Protected Status “was always supposed to be temporary.”

“Thanks to these decisions, we now have several more important tools to continue securing our borders,” Percival said.

Since Trump returned to office in January 2025, the Supreme Court has repeatedly stepped in to allow his immigration policies to move forward — often on an emergency basis — even while legal challenges work their way through the courts. These orders are issued through what is known as the court’s “shadow docket,” a process that allows justices to make significant decisions without the usual extensive legal briefings or oral arguments.

Among the policies the court has permitted: deporting migrants to countries where they have no connections, conducting aggressive immigration raids that may target individuals based on race or language, and eliminating humanitarian protections — including TPS and another form of protection called parole — for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

Ashley Sanchez, who leads the Immigration Clinic at the University of Notre Dame’s law school, noted that immigration laws themselves haven’t changed dramatically. Rather, she said, the current administration is choosing to enforce them in ways designed to restrict both legal and illegal immigration as aggressively as possible.

The court’s current ideological balance has been in place since October 2020, when Trump appointed conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat left vacant by the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Sanchez said that conservative supermajority has been central to the direction of immigration rulings.

“This more conservative group appears much more willing to side with the president,” Sanchez said.

She pointed to a June 2020 decision, during Trump’s first term, in which the court blocked his effort to end a program shielding from deportation hundreds of thousands of migrants — often called “Dreamers” — who came to the U.S. illegally as children. At that time, the court had a 5-4 conservative majority, but conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal justices to block Trump’s move.

“It’s hard to imagine this current court coming to that same decision,” Sanchez said.

The court has not sided entirely with the administration. In several instances, justices have ruled that migrants must be afforded basic fairness protections guaranteed under the Constitution’s due process clause. Last year, the court twice placed limits on the administration’s use of a 1798 law called the Alien Enemies Act — historically invoked only during wartime — which Trump had used to rapidly deport Venezuelan migrants accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang.

BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

As the court’s current term nears its end, one major immigration case remains unresolved. Based on questions the justices posed during oral arguments in April, the court may actually rule against Trump in a case involving his executive order that would deny birthright citizenship to hundreds of thousands of babies born in the United States each year.

Trump’s order directed federal agencies to refuse to recognize citizenship for children born on U.S. soil if neither parent is an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident. Lower courts found the order conflicts with the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which has long been interpreted as granting citizenship to virtually all people born on U.S. soil, with limited exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats or members of an enemy occupying force.

The relevant section of the 14th Amendment, known as the Citizenship Clause, reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

A ruling in that case could come as early as Monday.

A large state fair has opened on the National Mall, but the debut of the event has not been without controversy.

The fair got underway with a rally that drew comparisons to a Trump campaign-style event, setting a tone that left some observers questioning the nature of the gathering.

Adding to the debate, not every state in the country chose to take part in the event, raising broader questions about whether the so-called Great American State Fair truly lives up to its name as an inclusive, nationwide celebration.

The mixed reactions surrounding the fair’s opening have sparked conversation about who the event is really meant to represent — and whether it can claim to speak for all 50 states when some have declined to join in.

National Guard troops have taken on an increasingly visible — and contentious — role in Washington, D.C., and the situation is growing ahead of upcoming America 250 events.

A number of Democratic governors have made the decision to send additional National Guard members to the nation’s capital in preparation for the milestone celebrations. The deployments have drawn significant attention and stirred debate across the country.

The Trump administration has made a point of projecting a unified message on the ongoing Iran situation, but statements from Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the past week have told a somewhat different story — particularly when it comes to Israel.

Speaking at the White House last week, Vance took aim at Israeli critics of the preliminary U.S.-Iran agreement. He also suggested that Israeli airstrikes on civilian infrastructure in Beirut — carried out in an effort to weaken Hezbollah, which has been launching attacks against Israel — were getting in the way of U.S.-led peace efforts.

Rubio, who spent the week traveling through the Gulf region, took the opposite stance. He repeatedly defended Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon, framing its actions as a legitimate response to Hezbollah aggression. When reporters pressed him on Vance’s criticism, Rubio sidestepped the question before pointing to a recent Hezbollah assault on an Israeli checkpoint.

The gap between the two officials suggests that even with the administration’s emphasis on unity, competing worldviews are occasionally breaking through — a potential headache for a White House whose political base is sharply divided on foreign policy. It also provides an early preview of the Republican Party’s future, as both Rubio and Vance are widely considered possible 2028 presidential candidates.

Both men were sent on separate high-profile international trips over the past week to make the case for the preliminary peace agreement signed between Washington and Tehran on June 17.

Vance traveled to Switzerland for direct talks with Iranian officials. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, he struck an upbeat tone about the state of negotiations. He has also repeatedly floated the idea that Gulf nations could help finance Iran’s reconstruction, and in an interview released Thursday, he revealed that the U.S. had invited an Iranian intelligence official to serve as a deconfliction liaison with the Pentagon in Qatar.

Rubio’s itinerary took him to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain, where he worked to reassure regional allies worried that the interim agreement was too favorable to Tehran. On Tuesday, he said he would not ask Gulf partners to fund Iran’s rebuilding efforts during his trip, calling that prospect “far down the road.” At a meeting with regional officials Thursday, he stressed that any final deal must firmly protect U.S. interests and those of its allies.

“While we want a deal, we don’t want a deal at any price,” Rubio said.

The White House pushed back firmly against any suggestion of a rift between the two officials.

“There is one camp – President Trump’s camp – and the entire administration is fully behind the President’s efforts to ensure Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott dismissed talk of a foreign policy divide between Rubio and Vance as a “tired and fake” narrative, adding, “The entire administration is 100% in lockstep behind President Trump.” A separate State Department spokesperson also argued the two men were aligned on Lebanon, saying the administration’s shared goal was restoring the Lebanese government’s sovereignty over its full territory.

Not everyone is buying that explanation. Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said the two officials clearly hold different views. “At their core they represent different strains,” he said.

Their foreign policy backgrounds are strikingly different. Before taking office, Vance was a vocal critic of foreign military engagements, often calling them costly and unnecessary. Rubio built his Senate reputation as a foreign policy “hawk” who pushed for a harder line against Iran, Russia, and Cuba.

Both are seen as potential heirs to Trump’s political legacy and represent competing wings of the Republican Party — one more inclined toward foreign intervention, the other skeptical of overseas military commitments. A Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed Monday found that only 52% of Republicans believe the current conflict has left the U.S. in a stronger position, reflecting that internal divide.

Despite their differences in style and background, both Rubio and Vance have backed all of Trump’s major foreign policy moves, including the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, the U.S. attack on Iran in February, and the subsequent push for a peace agreement. Both have also used similar language in recent weeks, saying they will judge Iran by its actions rather than its words as talks continue.

When a reporter asked Rubio Thursday how much his views on Iran actually differed from Vance’s, he pointed back to Trump as the common denominator.

“Everyone here is aligned behind the president,” he said.

Voters in California will have a major financial question on their November ballot after the labor union behind a proposed billionaire tax announced Thursday it will not back down despite mounting pressure to pull the measure.

The proposal, supported by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would apply a one-time 5% tax to individuals with a net worth above $1 billion who were living in California as of January 1, 2026. Supporters say the tax could bring in $100 billion in revenue, with the bulk of that money earmarked to shore up the state’s Medicaid program in the wake of federal funding cuts.

“We aren’t backing down,” campaign spokeswoman Debru Carthan declared during a Zoom call with reporters.

The measure faces significant opposition, including from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — who is weighing a presidential campaign ahead of leaving office in January — along with many of the union’s traditional political allies. Critics argue the tax is only a short-term answer to a long-term problem and warn that it could push the state’s wealthiest residents to relocate, along with the income tax dollars they bring with them. Newsom has broadly resisted tax increases throughout his time as governor.

A broad coalition of healthcare, education, and housing organizations — among them the California Medical Association and the California School Boards Association — came together last week to fight the proposal.

“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” the coalition said in a written statement.

Brian Brokaw, a political adviser to Newsom who is leading a committee working to defeat the tax, warned that the measure would “make California’s biggest challenges worse.”

“Driving away the state’s sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag,” Brokaw said.

If passed, the revenue collected would be distributed over several years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office projects the tax would bring in tens of billions of dollars in the early years, but that income tax revenues would then fall by hundreds of millions of dollars each year afterward.

A number of wealthy Silicon Valley tech figures who oppose the measure have already moved assets out of state or threatened to do so to sidestep the potential tax. They have collectively spent millions of dollars in an effort to defeat it.

Since the proposal was first unveiled in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has contributed $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California, which supports various efforts aimed at countering the billionaire tax. That committee has now raised more than $118 million in total, drawing from fewer than a dozen donors.

California currently depends on its top 1% of earners for nearly half of all personal income tax revenue collected by the state.

Last week, the union offered a compromise, proposing a scaled-back 2% tax on billionaires and asking Newsom to get on board. The governor’s office rejected the offer, saying the lower rate did not change his position.

Martin Gilens, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the proposal is drawing interest from Democrats in part because of the current political climate around affordability, income inequality, and cuts to federal programs.

“There’s kind of a perfect storm that sort of bolsters preexisting inclinations to be sympathetic to the idea of raising taxes on the well-to-do,” Gilens said.

Still, Gilens noted there are real hurdles ahead. Support for ballot measures often erodes as election day approaches, and if the measure does pass, it would likely face legal challenges in court.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is planning to host an international summit on July 15 aimed at addressing a growing wave of political violence, according to a State Department official who spoke Thursday.

The event, being called the “ministerial on resurgence of political terrorism,” will take place in Washington. Rubio intends to invite representatives from more than 60 nations spanning the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and Asia, the official said.

The summit is a follow-up to a counterterrorism strategy that President Donald Trump signed in May. That strategy centers on identifying and neutralizing what the White House described as “violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically transgender or anarchist, such as Antifa.”

The State Department official, who requested anonymity, said the international community has fallen short in addressing this type of threat in recent years.

“Our counterterrorism operating system needs an update to deal with the reality of such threats, to protect American citizens and U.S. national security and interests,” the official stated.

The official clarified that American efforts are directed at activities that legally qualify as terrorism — including assassinations, kidnappings, violent threats against government institutions, facilities, and law enforcement, as well as attacks on critical infrastructure and military personnel.

The push for coordinated action gained momentum following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September, after which White House officials called for a unified response against unnamed left-wing organizations accused of encouraging violence.

The White House also noted that the U.S. strategy would extend to right-wing groups that incite violence as well.

New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board handed Mayor Zohran Mamdani a major win on Thursday, voting overwhelmingly to halt rent increases on roughly one million regulated apartments for as long as two years — a promise he made during his campaign.

The board’s 7-1 decision set rent increases at zero percent for both one-year and two-year leases beginning in October. Inside a Manhattan museum auditorium packed with hundreds of tenants, the announcement was met with cheering and whistles.

“This is a historic victory for New York City tenants,” Mamdani said in a statement following the vote. “This is the relief that working people across our city deserve.”

The vote marked the end of a weeks-long annual process in which the board decides how much landlords may raise rents on stabilized apartments — housing that is home to roughly one in four New Yorkers. In making its decision, the board considers factors such as wages, inflation, property maintenance costs, taxes, and landlord income.

According to the board’s own 2025 study, the average monthly rent for a regulated apartment stands at $1,599 — a stark contrast to the $3,950 median rent for a newly leased apartment across the city, as reported by listings agency StreetEasy.

Mamdani, who describes himself as a democratic socialist and has pledged to make New York City more affordable, has appointed six of the board’s nine members since taking office in January. He selected individuals he believes are sympathetic to tenants’ concerns.

Hours before the vote, however, a board member representing landlords resigned in protest, claiming the mayor had stacked the board and that the outcome was never in doubt. Christina Smyth, who was appointed by Mamdani’s predecessor and served as one of two landlord representatives on the panel, accused the board of failing its legal obligation to remain impartial.

“The rebuilt board was required to deliver a rent freeze,” Smyth said upon resigning. “Everything since has been theater.”

Board Chair Chantella Mitchell, a Mamdani appointee, pushed back on that characterization, saying that board members and staff conducted themselves with independence and integrity throughout the process.

The second landlord representative on the board, Maksim Wynn — also a Mamdani appointee — was met with boos from the crowd as he read a lengthy statement ahead of the vote. That reaction quickly shifted to celebration when he concluded his remarks and voted in favor of the rent freeze.

During public hearings leading up to Thursday’s decision, tenants called for a rent freeze or even a rent reduction, arguing that their incomes have not kept pace with inflation and rising costs. Rent freezes previously occurred three times under Mayor Bill de Blasio, between 2015 and 2021, though those applied only to one-year leases.

Landlord groups argued that a freeze would make it more difficult for property owners to maintain their buildings and said some are already struggling to cover mortgage payments. Some landlords — ranging from small, single-building owners to large private equity investors — contend they are forced to raise rents on unregulated, market-rate apartments to offset losses on their rent-stabilized units.

Following his election, Mamdani relocated from a rent-regulated one-bedroom apartment in Queens, where he paid roughly $2,300 a month, to the mayor’s official five-bedroom residence in Manhattan.

Thursday’s vote capped off a strong week for Mamdani. He also celebrated the wins of three left-wing candidates in competitive races for Democratic Party nominations to represent New York in the U.S. Congress.

NEW YORK (AP) — From the moment Zohran Mamdani launched his campaign for New York City mayor, one promise stood above all others. In social media ads, speeches, and rallies, he repeated the same line over and over: “As your next mayor, I will freeze your rent.” On Thursday evening, that pledge became reality.

The city’s Rent Guidelines Board, an independent panel made up of mayoral appointees, voted to approve a rent freeze on both one-year and two-year leases for tenants living in roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments across New York City.

The outcome was widely anticipated, but it still marks a significant early victory for Mayor Mamdani, who has made addressing the city’s sky-high cost of living a top priority. The vote came just two days after three congressional candidates he endorsed pulled off stunning upsets, defeating two Democratic incumbents and defying the party establishment — further boosting his profile as a rising progressive force.

In a statement, Mamdani, a Democrat, described the board’s decision as “a historic victory for New York City tenants.” He added, “This is the relief that working people across our city deserve.”

Not everyone is celebrating. Real estate organizations argue that a rent freeze will squeeze landlords financially, making it harder to keep up with routine maintenance and repairs at a time when costs and inflation are already climbing. Opponents of rent regulation also contend that such policies tend to push up prices in the non-stabilized rental market.

Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association, a lobbying group representing landlords, warned of serious consequences. “This will only result in more dilapidated housing and potentially more foreclosures and bankruptcies, which the city is wholly unprepared for,” he said.

The board’s vote is also expected to face a legal challenge. One board member who represented landlord interests resigned in protest, alleging that the panel’s independence had been undermined.

In her resignation letter, which she shared with The Associated Press, former board member Christina Smyth wrote, “The Rent Guidelines Board has stopped being a fact-finding body. It has become a body that starts with an answer and vibe codes its way backward to justify it.”

Mamdani appointed a majority of the board’s members just over a month after taking office, a move widely seen as laying the groundwork for the freeze. Before relocating to Gracie Mansion — the official mayoral residence — earlier this year, he and his wife had lived in a rent-stabilized apartment in Queens.

About 2 million New Yorkers live in rent-stabilized units, which account for roughly 40% of the city’s total housing supply. Although these apartments are privately owned, the Rent Guidelines Board sets a cap each year on how much landlords can raise rents.

The board has issued rent freezes before, most recently during the tenure of former Mayor Bill de Blasio. Under Mamdani’s predecessor, former Mayor Eric Adams, the board approved modest increases instead. Most recently, the board had approved raises of up to 3% on one-year leases and up to 4.5% on two-year leases.

Thursday’s vote drew a large crowd of tenant advocates who packed an auditorium at a museum along Central Park, erupting in cheers when the freeze was approved.

Rent-stabilized apartments come with no income requirements, meaning higher-earning residents are not barred from occupying them — a point of ongoing criticism. During last year’s mayoral race, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on Mamdani — who was then a state Assembly member earning just under $150,000 annually — to give up his rent-stabilized unit. Cuomo called the arrangement “disgusting,” arguing the apartment should be available to someone with a lower income.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President JD Vance made a bold claim Thursday, saying the Watergate scandal that ultimately forced President Richard Nixon from office would barely make a dent in today’s relentless news cycle. Vance also drew direct comparisons between Nixon and President Donald Trump, suggesting both men were targeted by what he called “deep state” forces.

Vance shared his long-standing admiration for Nixon during a visit to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California. The vice president, widely considered a likely presidential candidate in 2028, was at the library to promote his new book, “Communion.”

After discussing the book and his personal faith journey, Vance turned his attention to Nixon, saying the legacy of the 37th president is “enjoying a bit of a renaissance.”

“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy,” Vance said.

He continued by connecting Nixon’s downfall to what he sees as similar efforts against Trump: “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration.”

Vance also pointed out what he sees as parallels between himself and Nixon, saying: “Young senator, vice president, writes some bestselling books, is hated by the media. It kind of sounds like JD Vance. I’ve always liked Richard Nixon.”

Nixon resigned from the presidency during his second term in 1974, following the Watergate scandal.

A landmark Supreme Court ruling is opening the door for the Trump administration to eliminate temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants — and the effects could ripple far beyond those two groups.

Thursday’s decision directly affects roughly 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians currently living and working in the United States under Temporary Protected Status, commonly known as TPS. But legal experts warn it could foreshadow the loss of protections for nearly 1.3 million people from 17 countries — many of whom have spent decades in the U.S. and have American-born children.

The ruling exposes Haitian and Syrian TPS holders to possible detention and deportation. It could also clear a path for hundreds of thousands of other TPS beneficiaries with pending asylum claims or other forms of immigration relief to be forced out of the country.

TPS was established by Congress in 1990 as a way to halt deportations to nations experiencing natural disasters or civil conflict. When President Donald Trump returned to office, Venezuelans made up the largest group of TPS beneficiaries, followed by Haitians and Salvadorans.

To qualify for TPS, individuals must have been continuously present in the United States since the date their country was designated. The Department of Homeland Security can renew the status in intervals of up to 18 months.

The Trump administration has contended that immigrants were inadequately screened after the previous administration significantly expanded the TPS program, and has argued that conditions in those countries are now safe enough for people to return. The administration has already ended TPS for approximately 1 million people from 13 nations, including around 650,000 Venezuelans and 50,000 Hondurans. Decisions are pending for roughly 200,000 Salvadorans and 100,000 Ukrainians whose protections are set to expire soon.

Other countries with smaller numbers of TPS holders include Afghanistan, Myanmar, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen.

Immigrants whose TPS was revoked by the Trump administration have filed dozens of lawsuits across the country, and many of those cases remain active. Legal observers say courts will now carefully study the Supreme Court’s ruling as those cases proceed.

The government’s position was that the Department of Homeland Security — not federal judges — holds exclusive authority to end TPS protections. The court’s six-justice conservative majority sided with the administration.

Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the attorneys who argued on behalf of Syrian TPS holders, called the outcome deeply troubling. “The decision is definitely bad news,” he said. “The implication of this is that at least most of the claims that have been litigated to challenge this administration’s sort of illegal war on TPS are now foreclosed.”

Immigration attorneys argue that both Haiti and Syria remain dangerous and that it is not safe for people to return. They also contend that the administration failed to assess conditions in those countries or consult other government agencies as required under the law.

According to Emi MacLean, a senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California — which represents TPS holders from Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal — Supreme Court decisions typically take effect 32 days after they are issued. The case is being sent back to lower courts to carry out the ruling, a process not expected to begin before July 27.

In the meantime, MacLean and other attorneys said, Haitian and Syrian TPS holders can continue to work legally. But that window is short. “In 32 days, everyone from Haiti and from Syria who held their employment authorization through TPS will most likely lose that authorization,” Arulanantham said.

Attorneys and advocates are urging TPS holders to explore other legal options to remain in the country, such as asylum claims or employment-based visas — though the administration has also made those pathways increasingly difficult to access.

Many affected individuals may face a stark choice: leave the country voluntarily or face deportation proceedings. In either case, they risk losing their jobs and being separated from children who were born in the United States.

Each person would revert to whatever immigration status they held before receiving TPS — unless that status has since expired or they have obtained a different legal standing, such as asylum.

Advocates are also pressing Congress to act. Attorney Melissa Keenan, who represents Syrian TPS holders, called on lawmakers to step in. “We also call on Congress to immediately restore these vital humanitarian protections that the TPS program represents for the sake of our clients and TPS holders, their families, and all of our communities,” she said.

While TPS is designed to be a temporary measure, attorneys and advocates say conditions in Haiti and Syria have not improved enough to allow for safe returns. Federal law requires the DHS secretary to consult with other government agencies — potentially including the Department of State, the National Security Council, and the Department of Justice — before designating a country for TPS. TPS holders from Haiti and Syria allege those consultations never took place and that the decision to end their protections was made without any real assessment of conditions on the ground.

Haiti was first given TPS designation in 2010 following a devastating earthquake. Extensions were later granted as gang violence displaced more than a million people, according to court documents. Syria was first designated in 2012 amid a civil war that stretched on for decades until the country’s national government fell in late 2024.

A U.S. District Judge ruled Wednesday that plaintiffs in the case known as Harris v. DeSoto County failed to present sufficient evidence that the county’s district maps were deliberately drawn to diminish Black voting influence.

Judge Glen H. Davidson sided with DeSoto County, writing in his decision that “plaintiffs cannot prove their claims for vote dilution pursuant to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and judgment must be awarded to defendants.”

Davidson issued the ruling after hearing arguments in the case back in March.

The federal lawsuit was originally filed in September 2024, claiming that a 2022 DeSoto County electoral map weakened Black voting power in county office races. Those who brought the suit were seeking a new redistricting plan along with special elections for seats on the boards of supervisors and education, the election commission, and the offices of constable and justice court judge.

The ruling comes on the heels of a significant U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections against racially discriminatory redistricting. That Supreme Court ruling has already sparked protests and political disputes over redistricting and voting rights nationwide.

The ACLU of Mississippi responded to the DeSoto County ruling with a statement describing the outcome as “deeply disappointing.”

“The Callais opinion pretends to adhere to the text of the Voting Rights Act and only updates the test for proving vote dilution,” the statement said. “In reality, the Supreme Court is directing federal courts to close their eyes and ignore the clear results of discriminatory maps.”

Mike Hurst, the state Republican Party chairman, represented DeSoto County in the case. He told a reporter the lawsuit amounted to nothing more than “Democrats are mad they can’t win an election in DeSoto County because it’s a Republican county.”

DeSoto County sits just south of Memphis in northwest Mississippi and has been among the state’s fastest-growing counties for years. Its Black population has also been growing and now makes up more than 30% of the county’s total population of 190,000.

Currently, none of the 25 county offices determined by the disputed map is held by a Black official. The county does, however, have a Black sheriff elected on a countywide basis, Democratic Black state legislators representing majority-Black districts, and a Black Republican state House member elected from a majority-white district. The lawsuit did not challenge legislative districts.

A federal judge has ordered Elon Musk to sit for sworn testimony in two proposed class action lawsuits that accuse him of deceiving voters in battleground states ahead of the 2024 presidential election through a $1 million-per-day cash giveaway.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Hightower, based in Austin, Texas, issued the ruling Thursday. She also recommended that Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, continue to face a fraud allegation in one of the cases — specifically, that they tricked voters into handing over personal identifying information as part of the giveaway promotion. However, she recommended that a breach of contract claim tied to that same case be thrown out.

Attorneys representing Musk did not respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for the plaintiffs either had no immediate response or declined to comment.

The two plaintiffs — Joy Harvick and Jacqueline McAferty, both residents of Arizona — allege that Musk and America PAC misled voters across seven swing states. The women claim they were encouraged to sign a petition supporting the U.S. Constitution under the impression that $1 million winners would be selected at random, like a lottery drawing.

According to the plaintiffs, voters never had a genuine shot at winning. Citing testimony from one of Musk’s own attorneys, the plaintiffs noted that the 18 people who received the money were handpicked — not randomly drawn — because they were seen as potentially effective spokespeople for America PAC.

Musk created America PAC to back Republican Donald Trump’s successful bid for the presidency in 2024. He unveiled the giveaway during an October town hall event held in Pennsylvania. Musk is also recognized as the wealthiest person on the planet, with business ventures that include electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and the rocket and satellite company SpaceX.

In recommending that McAferty’s fraud claim be allowed to proceed, Judge Hightower noted that it remains an unresolved question whether Musk was acting recklessly when he described the prize selection as “random.”

Hightower highlighted testimony from America PAC Director Christopher Young, who said during a February 2026 deposition that he was caught off guard by Musk’s word choice. “It was not the way that we had — you know, with legal counsel and consultation, discussed the program and how it would run,” Young stated.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, also in Austin, will now review Hightower’s recommendations. Separately, Musk and America PAC are seeking dismissal of Harvick’s lawsuit, a motion that Judge Pitman will rule on independently.

WASHINGTON — A senior National Park Service official says the liner along the floor of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was sliced with a sharp knife or razor blade this month, causing damage to foam sealant that was put in place as part of a $16 million renovation project.

Frank Lands, the park service’s deputy director of operations, disclosed the information in a court document filed late Wednesday. The agency reported the June 9 incident to U.S. Park Police, Lands said. His statement came as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by a nonprofit group trying to stop the Trump administration’s work on the pool.

Lands did not indicate in his statement whether the damage is being treated as vandalism or name anyone suspected of being involved.

According to the police report cited by Lands, the damage to the pool included “a caulk over the foam sealant that was cut with a sharp knife or razor and destruction of delaminating surface material.” He also said roughly 70 fence post tops had been tossed into the pool.

This marked the first time the administration provided specific details about when and how the Reflecting Pool may have been damaged after the bulk of the renovation work was finished.

President Donald Trump and other administration officials have repeatedly blamed unidentified vandals — without offering evidence — for peeling paint, a “350-foot gash” in the liner, and other issues. Trump said this week that six people have been arrested, though he did not provide further details.

Trump had promised to restore the century-old Reflecting Pool ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations, ordering it drained and its floor painted in a color he described as “American flag blue.” Since the pool was refilled, however, it has been dealing with an algae bloom and visible peeling of the new coating on the bottom.

The administration is working against a self-imposed deadline to finish the renovation before the Fourth of July. Trump also said the federal government would release images to back up his claims about vandalism.

On Wednesday, Trump said “sick people” had used razors and box cutters to slice parts of the liner.

That same evening, U.S. Park Police posted surveillance video and asked the public for help “identifying the individual depicted here in connection with a Destruction of Government Property investigation.” The grainy, 30-second clip appears to show a person crouching down, reaching into the reflecting pool, and pulling something out of the water. Police said the footage was recorded Friday afternoon.

In his court statement, Lands said the park service intends to begin draining the Reflecting Pool after Independence Day celebrations in order to carry out repairs, including evaluating and fixing any damage to the liner.

The park service wrapped up more than two months of renovation work at the Reflecting Pool in early June. The 2,000-foot-long basin was drained and a plastic-like rubber liner was installed to waterproof and protect the concrete surface before the pool was refilled, Lands said.

The Cultural Landscape Foundation, an education and advocacy nonprofit that filed suit in May to halt the project, has asked a federal judge to block any additional renovation work.

“It is also not too late to correct course,” the group wrote in a Monday filing, urging the administration to “engage with experts and the public, and make an informed decision about what is best based on the consultations mandated by the law, instead of once again rushing ahead with half-baked ideas.”

Congressional Democrats have called for formal investigations into the pool renovations, arguing that no-bid contracts were handed to vendors with prior ties to Trump.

Ohio-based Green Water Solutions received a $1.7 million contract to install a water-purification system in the pool, while Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings was awarded $14.7 million to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor.

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the leading Democrat on the Senate appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Interior Department’s budget, said the pool project looks like a squandering of public money.

“After railing about waste, fraud and abuse, Donald Trump spent more than $16 million on a renovation of the Reflecting Pool that’s now peeling and chock full of algae,” Merkley said Thursday, calling it a “massive waste” of tax dollars and saying the public deserves “swift answers — and a refund.”

Merkley is among roughly 10 Democratic senators and House members looking into the pool project.

“Taxpayers deserve a full explanation of how these failures occurred and who will be held accountable for correcting them,” stated another letter signed by New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich and five fellow senators. Heinrich serves as the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has oversight of the Interior Department.

A federal judge has put a stop to President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to establish a federal voter list and restrict who could receive ballots through the mail.

U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, granted a summary judgment in favor of a coalition of nearly two dozen states that had challenged the order. The ruling covers this year’s midterm election cycle.

Two separate lawsuits — both brought in federal court in Boston — argued that Trump’s order was unconstitutional because the authority to set election rules belongs to the states and Congress, not the president. Judge Talwani agreed, writing in her decision that the order’s provisions “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”

This was the second consecutive day that a federal court ruled against one of Trump’s election-related executive orders. On Wednesday, a separate ruling blocked an order Trump signed last year that would have required proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

The Trump administration had sought to have the lawsuits dismissed, arguing the challenges were premature and that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing under the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies create and issue regulations.

However, in a preliminary order ahead of Thursday’s ruling, Judge Talwani pushed back on those arguments. She wrote that given the executive order’s specific deadlines over the coming three months and the approach of the November 3, 2026 midterm election — just five months away — delaying a court review “is impracticable and may inflict significant hardship on Plaintiffs.” That earlier order rejected the administration’s request to dismiss the cases.

Trump’s executive order — his second targeting elections during his current term — comes amid his ongoing and unsubstantiated claims that noncitizens are voting in large numbers. In reality, states already maintain detailed procedures to keep voter rolls accurate, and noncitizen voting has consistently been found to be extremely rare. It is also a felony offense that can carry deportation as a consequence.

Trump issued the order in March after a voting overhaul bill he backed failed to advance in Congress. The order would have directed the federal government to compile a list of eligible voters and instructed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to individuals on that list. Election administrators warned the plan was vulnerable to abuse and could create widespread confusion, while the postal workers’ union objected to the idea of mail carriers being used to police ballot delivery.

The Postal Service published a proposed rule in the Federal Register stemming from Trump’s order. Among its provisions, the rule would not apply to primary elections or ballots sent to overseas voters.

The lawsuit seeking summary judgment was brought by Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia. Attorneys representing Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania — a state with a Republican attorney general — also joined the effort.

The states further argued that the order places a costly burden on election officials and could cause fear of prosecution among voters. Stephen Pezzi, an attorney for the Trump administration, countered that no one would face prosecution for violating the order.

In a related but separate lawsuit filed against the same executive order, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled in May that it was too soon to block the order since it had not yet been put into effect. That case was brought by Democratic and civil rights organizations, who have since filed an appeal.

Since losing the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has repeatedly and without evidence claimed that mail voting is plagued by fraud. He has launched a federal investigation into that election, despite numerous audits and reviews — including those conducted by Republicans — finding no evidence of widespread fraud. Trump has also stated his desire to “take over” election administration in Democratic-leaning areas.

OCHOPEE, Fla. — The makeshift immigration detention center carved out of the Florida swamplands and dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” is shutting down for good, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday.

The Republican governor said the facility was designed from the start to be a short-term solution, intended to stay open for roughly a year while more permanent detention infrastructure was put in place. Now that federal officials have adequate capacity elsewhere, the center’s job is done.

“It served its purpose for the time,” DeSantis said.

Authorities had already announced a temporary shutdown earlier in June, citing safety concerns tied to hurricane season. Officials determined it was too dangerous to continue housing detainees in the Florida Everglades during storm season, and everyone held at the remote airstrip location was transferred to other facilities.

The center was constructed by DeSantis’ administration in just a matter of days in 2025. President Trump later visited the site, and both he and DeSantis described it as a key part of Republican efforts to deport people living in the country without legal status. The governor said 21,000 individuals were deported through the facility during its operation.

However, immigration advocates consistently argued the tent-based facility was neither safe nor humane. Detainees themselves described troubling conditions, including worms found in food, toilets that did not function properly, floors flooded with sewage, and swarms of mosquitoes and other insects throughout the facility. Many also reported having difficulty reaching legal representation while held there.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Democratic U.S. senator is raising the alarm that the Trump administration may be preparing to swiftly remove more than 500 unaccompanied migrant children from the United States, potentially sidestepping legal safeguards put in place to protect them. If carried out, it would mark a second such attempt, following a federal court’s intervention last year that halted an overnight removal operation during Labor Day weekend.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon sent a letter Wednesday to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose department oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement — the agency responsible for caring for unaccompanied migrant children. In the letter, Wyden stated he had “credible information” that the administration had compiled a list of more than 500 migrant children targeted for a fast-track deportation process, and that officials were moving to act within days. He called on the administration to immediately stop any such plans, warning it was abandoning “core humanitarian and child welfare mandates.”

Wyden serves as the ranking member and senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which holds jurisdiction over the Office of Refugee Resettlement. He did not disclose how he obtained his information, and his office declined to elaborate. The Office of Refugee Resettlement operates under the Department of Health and Human Services.

An HHS spokesperson flatly denied that any such plans are in the works.

“The new information I obtained leads me to believe that the Department is laying the groundwork for another lawless deportation effort, this time on a greater scale, across more countries of origin,” Wyden wrote in his letter.

He added: “You have been entrusted with the care and safety of the children placed within the ORR network. Proceeding with this plan knowingly endangers their lives and violates your duty to these vulnerable children.”

Wyden also sounded an early warning last August before what turned into a turbulent weekend during which the Trump administration attempted to remove Guatemalan children from government care and return them to their home country.

HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard pushed back strongly, saying “there are no plans to target these children” and calling Wyden’s claims “irresponsible fearmongering.” She added: “The Trump Administration is working to identify the parents or legal guardians of unaccompanied alien children in our care because ensuring every child is placed with a properly vetted sponsor is our top priority.”

During that Labor Day weekend last year, dozens of migrant children — some living in government-supervised shelters and others with foster families — were taken from their homes and transported by bus to airfields in Texas, headed for Guatemala. A federal judge, awakened in the middle of the night, ultimately stopped the flights. Attorneys representing the children later described how deeply traumatic the late-night removal effort had been for many of them, including children who had fled violence in their home countries to come to the United States.

The administration maintained it was reuniting the Guatemalan children with parents or guardians who had requested their return, at the Central American nation’s request. Lawyers for at least some of the children disputed that claim and argued that regardless, authorities were still required to follow a legal process — one they said was not followed.

Unaccompanied migrant children who arrive in the U.S. alone are typically placed under the care of the federal government, and a series of legal protections exist to safeguard them as they navigate the immigration system.

A key piece of that framework is the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which generally requires that children be placed in the “least restrictive setting possible.” In most cases, that means they can be released to a sponsor — such as a relative living in the U.S. — while their immigration cases are resolved. Children may also apply for specially protected immigration status if they cannot safely return home due to abuse or neglect, and they can seek asylum as well.

The Trump administration has made it increasingly difficult for children to be released to sponsors, saying the stricter approach ensures children are not placed in dangerous situations. Advocates, however, say the effect has been that children are spending months stuck in government shelters.

In his letter, Wyden said the children now at risk of removal come from multiple countries, potentially including Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Afghanistan, and have been in U.S. custody — primarily in foster care — for at least 180 days. He said these children were characterized as having no “viable sponsor” able to step forward and care for them in the United States.

The absence of an identified sponsor can stem from several circumstances: the child’s parents may still be in their home country, may have died, or may be too fearful to come forward after immigration enforcement agencies began arresting some parents who are in the country without legal status during reunification efforts.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday in favor of the Trump administration, giving it the green light to strip away legal protections for migrants who fled violence and natural disasters in Haiti and Syria. The 6-3 decision puts hundreds of thousands of people at risk of deportation.

The ruling overturns orders from lower courts and clears the way for the Department of Homeland Security to quickly terminate the Temporary Protected Status program for those groups. Altogether, TPS currently shields 1.3 million people from 17 different countries.

The Trump administration contended that immigration officials’ decisions about these protections should not be subject to judicial review, arguing the program was always meant to be short-term.

Immigration lawyers pushed back, saying the affected countries are still too dangerous for people to safely return to. They also argued the administration moved to end the protections in an unlawfully rushed manner driven by racial bias. On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump repeated debunked claims that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating people’s pets.

The Justice Department brought the case to the Supreme Court after lower court judges had delayed the end of protections for roughly 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court had previously sided with the administration in a similar case involving migrants from Venezuela.

Federal officials rejected claims that racial bias influenced the decisions. They pointed to a Supreme Court ruling from Trump’s first term, which dismissed bias arguments based on social media posts and upheld a travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority nations.

Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, DHS has ended protections for people from 13 countries — some of which had been in place for over a decade.

Immigration attorneys noted that countries like Haiti and Syria remain extremely dangerous. Court documents cited a grim example: four Haitian women who were deported from the United States in February were later found beheaded and left in a river.

In April, the House passed a bill with rare bipartisan support that would extend protections for Haitians, but the legislation has stalled in the Senate.

The United States first extended TPS to Haitians in 2010 following a devastating earthquake, renewing it several times as gang violence continued to displace more than a million people, according to court records. Syrians first received the protections in 2012 during a civil war that lasted over a decade, ending with the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in late 2024.

Congress created the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990 as a way to prevent deportations to countries experiencing natural disasters, armed conflict, or other dangerous instability. The program allows people already living in the U.S. to remain and work legally in periods of up to 18 months, but it does not offer a route to citizenship.

WASHINGTON — The nation’s highest court opened the door Thursday for the Trump administration to eliminate a humanitarian protection shielding hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants from deportation, delivering yet another victory for the president’s aggressive immigration agenda.

In a 6-3 decision driven by the court’s conservative bloc, the Supreme Court reversed rulings from federal judges in New York and Washington, D.C., who had previously blocked the administration from ending Temporary Protected Status — commonly known as TPS — for more than 350,000 people from Haiti and approximately 6,100 from Syria. The court’s three liberal justices voted against the majority.

TPS is a federal designation that allows people from nations devastated by war, natural disasters, or other serious crises to live and work legally in the United States when conditions in their home countries make it dangerous to return. The U.S. first extended TPS to Haitians following a major earthquake in 2010 and to Syrians after civil war broke out in their country in 2012. The State Department currently advises Americans against traveling to either Haiti or Syria, pointing to widespread violence, crime, terrorism, and kidnapping.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito authored the ruling, concluding that federal courts do not have the authority to review the administration’s TPS-related decisions. That finding could effectively shut down future legal challenges to TPS revocations for immigrants from any country. Alito wrote that the law governing TPS “plainly bars” such judicial oversight.

Alito also addressed a racial bias argument raised by Haitian TPS holders who sued the administration, writing that they were unlikely to win their claim that the administration’s actions violated the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee.

Interestingly, Alito noted that the plaintiffs themselves weakened their own racial bias argument by pointing to what he called a “strong, race-neutral explanation for Haiti’s termination: namely, that the current administration, which has terminated every TPS designation that has come up for renewal, simply opposes the TPS program, at least as it has been implemented in the past.”

Thursday also brought a second immigration win for the Trump administration at the Supreme Court, again in a ruling written by Alito. The court sided with the administration’s authority to turn away asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border when officials determine that crossing points are too overwhelmed to handle additional claims — a policy referred to as “metering.” The administration has indicated it may seek to bring that policy back after it was discontinued by Trump’s Democratic predecessor.

The TPS legal battle represented another chapter in the ongoing examination of presidential power, with the Supreme Court traditionally deferring to the executive branch on matters involving immigration, national security, and foreign policy. Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has moved aggressively to roll back both legal and illegal immigration. The court’s conservative supermajority previously allowed the administration to end TPS for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants.

During his 2024 reelection campaign, Trump pledged to revoke TPS protections for Haitian immigrants, doing so after making widely condemned false claims about Haitian migrants in Ohio. The administration has consistently argued that TPS was always intended to be a short-term measure.

The ruling carries broad consequences, potentially affecting all 1.3 million immigrants from the 17 countries currently holding TPS designations.

Immigration advocacy organizations expressed deep concern following the decision.

“This is a deeply painful day for hundreds of thousands of families who have built their lives here lawfully, paid taxes, cared for our communities, and who now face the prospect of losing everything,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the organization Global Refuge. “Importantly, the court did not find that Haiti or Syria is safe. It found that the question is beyond the reach of judicial review. Our immediate concern is what happens to these families and children should they be forced back to the dire circumstances that have long prevented their safe return.”

The legal challenges at the center of the case stemmed from actions taken last year by Kristi Noem, who was then serving as Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, when she revoked TPS designations for both Syria and Haiti, declaring the protections contrary to U.S. national interests. Noem’s TPS decisions remained in effect even after Trump dismissed her from her post in March.

Groups of Syrian and Haitian TPS holders filed separate class-action lawsuits against the administration, arguing that Noem’s actions — combined with the broader pattern of ending humanitarian designations across multiple countries — pointed to a deliberate effort to dismantle the TPS program altogether.

A Washington-based federal district judge had earlier found that the administration’s actions against Haitian TPS holders were likely driven at least in part by “racial animus,” concluding it was probable that Noem had predetermined her termination decision “because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants.” Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling pushed back on that conclusion.

Lower courts had previously ruled against the TPS terminations, finding that administration officials failed to follow required procedures for evaluating conditions in a country before ending its TPS designation. The administration maintained it had followed proper protocols and argued more broadly that courts have no authority to second-guess its TPS determinations — a position the Supreme Court ultimately affirmed.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a major gun rights ruling on Thursday, striking down a Hawaii law that prohibited people from carrying handguns onto private property open to the public — such as most businesses — without the property owner’s explicit permission.

The court’s six conservative justices voted together to overturn a lower court decision that had found Hawaii’s Democratic-backed law was likely in compliance with the Second Amendment. The Trump administration had supported the legal challenge to the law before the Supreme Court.

Hawaii’s law required gun owners to obtain “express authorization” from a property owner before bringing a handgun onto that property, even when the property was open to the general public.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, was sharply critical of the Hawaii measure. “This regime hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives,” he wrote. “We hold that the law is unconstitutional.”

The three liberal justices on the court dissented from the ruling.

Legal experts note that several other states have enacted similar laws, and those measures may now face serious constitutional challenges in light of Thursday’s decision.

The lawsuit was brought by three Hawaii residents who held concealed-carry licenses, along with a Honolulu-based gun rights organization. They filed their challenge just weeks after Democratic Governor Josh Green signed the law in 2023. Hawaii officials had argued the law appropriately balanced Second Amendment rights against property owners’ rights to keep firearms off their premises.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly sided with an expansive interpretation of Second Amendment protections, including landmark rulings in 2008, 2010, and 2022 — all decided against a backdrop of ongoing national debate over gun violence and mass shootings.

The challengers in the Hawaii case leaned heavily on the court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which established that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense. That ruling struck down New York’s restrictions on carrying concealed handguns in public and set a new legal standard: firearms laws must be consistent with the country’s historical tradition of gun regulation, rather than simply serving a government interest.

A federal judge had initially blocked Hawaii’s law from taking effect. However, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely sided with Hawaii, which led the challengers to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Notably, the Supreme Court did not address a separate part of the legal challenge concerning the law’s ban on carrying handguns at beaches, bars, and other designated sensitive locations.

This was not the only significant gun rights case the court decided this term. On June 18, the justices limited the reach of a longstanding federal law that bans firearms possession by certain drug users, rejecting the Trump administration’s broader interpretation that would have threatened the gun rights of millions of marijuana users who also own firearms.

Earlier, the court upheld a federal rule targeting so-called “ghost guns” — firearms that are typically bought online, assembled at home, and lack serial numbers used to trace weapons. That ruling was based on federal statute, not the Second Amendment.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday opened the door for the Trump administration to potentially bring back a controversial immigration policy that restricted the number of migrants who could seek asylum each day at the southern border.

The justices struck down a lower court ruling that had prevented the practice from being reinstated. The policy, known as metering, was originally used during the Obama administration and was expanded throughout President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

Immigrant rights advocates have argued that the practice triggered a humanitarian emergency, with thousands of people forced to wait in dangerous, overcrowded makeshift camps for their chance to apply. The Trump administration, however, contends the policy is an essential tool for managing the growing number of asylum seekers arriving at the border.

While metering is not currently being enforced, the administration has put other restrictions on asylum seekers in place. Officials argue that metering has been used by presidents from both political parties and should remain available as a border management option. Federal lawyers have pointed out that migrants turned away at the border can return at a later time, though wait lines stretched into the thousands when the policy was previously active.

This case is among several immigration-related lawsuits the high court is examining this term, including challenges to ending birthright citizenship and efforts to remove temporary legal protections for migrants who fled violence and instability in their home countries.

Under U.S. federal law, migrants who reach American soil are entitled to apply for asylum and must be evaluated for fear of persecution in their home countries. The Justice Department argued that individuals stopped before formally entering the country have not legally “arrived,” and therefore immigration officials are not required to process their asylum claims.

Attorneys representing asylum seekers counter that the law has historically been interpreted to mean that anyone reaching a port of entry should be screened, and that blocking people from applying goes against the country’s foundational values.

Metering was first introduced during the Obama administration after a large influx of Haitian migrants appeared at the main crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. The policy was later expanded to cover all crossings along the Mexican border during Trump’s initial presidency.

The practice was phased out in 2020 when sweeping pandemic-era restrictions were put in place, and President Joe Biden officially ended it in 2021. That same year, a federal judge based in California ruled that metering violated the legal rights of asylum seekers and the law mandating screening. An appeals court panel upheld that decision, though nearly half of the judges on the full San Francisco-based court voted to reconsider the case — a notable signal that may have drawn the Supreme Court’s attention.

American law permits individuals fleeing danger to apply for asylum once they are on U.S. soil, regardless of how they entered the country. To be granted asylum, applicants must demonstrate a credible fear of persecution in their home country based on factors such as race, religion, nationality, membership in a specific social group, or political beliefs.

Those who are ultimately granted asylum cannot be deported. They are also entitled to work legally in the United States, bring immediate family members to join them, apply for permanent residency, and eventually pursue citizenship.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a major Second Amendment ruling Thursday, invalidating a Hawaii law that required gun carriers to obtain permission before entering privately owned businesses like stores and hotels.

The court’s 6-3 decision clears the way for people to bring firearms into privately owned public spaces — including shopping malls and gas stations — unless the property owners have explicitly posted a ban on guns at their locations.

The ruling comes shortly after the high court determined that marijuana users cannot be completely prohibited from owning firearms, continuing a string of Second Amendment decisions in recent years.

President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, which had argued the Hawaii measure violated the Second Amendment, claimed a victory with the ruling. The law had earned the nickname the “vampire rule” — a reference to the folklore belief that vampires must be invited into a home before they can enter, similar to how the law required gun carriers to seek permission before entering a business.

Hawaii had defended its 2023 law by arguing it protected the rights of private property owners to decide whether firearms were welcome on their premises. The state enacted the measure after a surge in residents obtaining legal permits to carry guns publicly, which followed a 2022 Supreme Court decision affirming that the Second Amendment extends to carrying firearms in public.

Roughly four other states have passed similar laws, though courts have blocked comparable restrictions in other parts of the country as well.

Hawaii also has laws restricting guns in public spaces like parks, beaches, and alcohol-serving restaurants, but those regulations were not part of this case. They are currently being challenged in lower courts.

The case was originally brought before the courts by a gun rights organization and three Maui residents. A lower court judge had initially blocked the law, but an appeals court later allowed it to take effect. Trump’s administration supported the appeal that reached the Supreme Court.

This is one of two gun-related cases the Supreme Court is hearing this term. The second involves whether people who regularly use marijuana or other drugs can legally possess firearms.

These cases are part of a broader wave of Second Amendment challenges that flooded the legal system following the court’s landmark 2022 ruling. Since then, the justices have struck down a federal ban on bump stocks — devices that allow guns to fire rapidly — while upholding a law designed to shield domestic violence victims and regulations governing so-called ghost guns, which are nearly untraceable firearms.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump officially launched the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations Wednesday evening, hosting a large-scale rally on Washington’s National Mall designed to stoke national pride and excitement.

The event featured thunderous flyovers by stealth bombers, performances by military bands, and country singer Lee Greenwood delivering his signature anthem “God Bless the USA.”

Speaking to the crowd, Trump declared, “There has never been anything like the United States of America, and together we are making it bigger and better and stronger and far more exceptional than ever before.”

He told attendees he had restored the nation’s standing on the world stage, saying, “Nobody’s laughing at us anymore.”

True to form, Trump touched on familiar themes from his rally speeches — including his administration’s crackdown at the U.S.-Mexico border and his stance against transgender rights. However, in what appeared to be a nod to the celebratory occasion, he was noticeably less combative toward Democrats than he typically is at such events.

“The American Dream is alive again. It’s something that nobody thought they’d be saying when you went through that last four years of incompetence,” Trump told the crowd.

The president also brought up plans to renovate the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial and construct a ballroom at the White House.

Trump wrapped up his remarks in under 30 minutes, but not before letting the crowd know he plans to speak at another Washington rally on July Fourth. “Your favorite president will be speaking so please show up,” he urged.

The crowd was positioned within a designated section of the National Mall, and from the stage Trump could likely see a massive neon-lit Ferris wheel that had been set up in front of the Capitol building.

The rally comes at a politically significant moment, as midterm elections begin to draw closer. Trump is working to reassure Americans that the unpopular Iran war is winding down, with oil prices declining as the Strait of Hormuz has begun to reopen following an interim agreement to end hostilities with Tehran.

Wednesday’s event kicked off several weeks of America-themed festivities called “The Great American State Fair,” taking place along the national park that runs from the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial — marking the country’s founding in 1776.

“This is the beginning of the golden age of America,” Trump told those gathered.

Organizers handed out rectangular cardboard American flags, which many attendees used to shield themselves from the sun before Trump took the stage after dark. The atmosphere resembled a summer concert, with vendors offering burgers, sausages, and turkey legs, while the crowd sported an array of American flag-themed clothing — from overalls and skirts to hats — alongside plenty of “Make America Great Again” caps.

Among those in attendance were Karen and Brian Ontrap, who made the journey of more than 500 miles from northwest Ohio with their children. The family had planned the trip back in January to mark the nation’s 250th birthday and, for some members of the group, to see Washington for the very first time. Karen Ontrap said the couple support the president “100%.”

Senate Republicans found themselves at the center of a dramatic political showdown this week, ultimately voting late Wednesday night to defeat a war powers resolution — just 24 hours after a nearly identical measure had passed with bipartisan support.

The reversal came after President Donald Trump traveled to Capitol Hill earlier in the day and delivered a sharp, face-to-face rebuke to GOP senators who had sided with Democrats on Tuesday’s vote to limit his military actions against Iran. The confrontation intensified an already-heated feud that has pulled Republican attention away from the party’s focus on affordability ahead of the midterm elections.

Among those who felt the brunt of Trump’s anger was Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of four Republicans who had crossed party lines to support Tuesday’s measure. The two exchanged particularly harsh words during the meeting.

However, just hours after that tense exchange, Cassidy received a personal briefing at the White House from Vice President JD Vance and envoy Steve Witkoff on the situation in Iran. He then returned to the Senate chamber and cast his vote against the second, nearly identical war powers resolution.

The political drama played out against troubling economic news. The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation climbed to its highest point in three years during May, driven largely by a surge in gas prices. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that consumer prices rose 4.1% compared to the same time last year — the steepest annual increase since April 2023. On a monthly basis, prices climbed 0.4% in May, matching April’s pace but down from 0.7% in March.

Beyond gas, higher costs for semiconductors and other computer equipment tied to the artificial intelligence boom also contributed to the inflation spike. The persistent price pressures have led the Federal Reserve to hold its key interest rate steady this year, a significant shift from earlier plans that had called for two rate cuts. Some economists now warn the central bank could actually raise rates before the year is out. Some analysts, however, predict gas prices may ease if tensions with Iran are resolved.

On a brighter economic note, the Commerce Department also reported Thursday that the U.S. economy grew at a solid 2.1% annual rate during the first three months of the year — an upgrade from a previous estimate of 1.6% growth. The figure marked a strong rebound from a sluggish 0.5% pace in the final quarter of 2025, a period weighed down by a 43-day federal government shutdown. Business investment surged during the first quarter, likely fueled by heavy spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure, though consumer spending declined sharply compared to both the prior quarter and earlier government estimates.

Senate Republicans faced a dramatic Wednesday as President Donald Trump personally confronted them over their opposition to his war in Iran, leading to a late-night vote that rejected a war powers resolution — just one day after a nearly identical measure had passed.

Earlier in the day, Trump met face-to-face with Republican senators and berated them for allowing Tuesday’s vote, which sought to block his military actions in Iran. The confrontation deepened an internal party conflict that has pulled GOP focus away from election-year economic issues and brought much of the Senate’s work to a standstill.

Among those who had a particularly tense exchange with the president was Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of four Republicans who had sided with Democrats on the original measure. However, hours after the heated meeting, Cassidy was invited to the White House for a private briefing on the Iran conflict, conducted by Vice President JD Vance and envoy Steve Witkoff. Following that meeting, Cassidy returned to the Capitol and voted against the second, nearly identical war powers resolution.

On a separate front, congressional Democrats in both the House and Senate are demanding answers about the ongoing troubles surrounding the $16 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The White House has repeatedly blamed unidentified vandals — without providing evidence — for issues including peeling paint. President Trump stated that six people have been arrested, though he offered no additional details. A local wildlife nonprofit also performed necropsies on dead ducks discovered near the Reflecting Pool, and Trump has suggested the pool may need to be drained again for further repairs.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, raised concerns about no-bid contracts tied to the Reflecting Pool project, alleging they were awarded to vendors with prior connections to Trump.

Four years have passed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, but rather than seeing a decline in abortions, the numbers are heading in the opposite direction — and abortion pills are at the center of it all.

The driving force behind the increase appears to be President Biden’s move to make abortion medications readily available through mail delivery. That decision is now being tied to an increase of approximately 100,000 abortions since the high court’s landmark ruling.

Pro-life activists argue that organizations like Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocacy groups are using the widespread availability of these pills to effectively sidestep abortion restrictions that are on the books in roughly half of U.S. states.

In response, some of those states have taken legal action, filing lawsuits in an effort to block the drugs from being distributed within their borders.

WASHINGTON — Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen has thrown his support behind progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, putting him at direct odds with party leadership and deepening a growing divide over the future direction of the Democratic Party heading into one of 2026’s most consequential Senate contests.

Van Hollen announced the endorsement to the Associated Press on the same day early voting opened in Michigan. It makes him the first senator to back El-Sayed since Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed the candidate shortly after he announced his run last year. The announcement follows a series of victories by progressive challengers in New York U.S. House races earlier this week.

The Michigan primary has become a flashpoint for ideological tensions within the Democratic Party. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has thrown his weight behind U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, while state Sen. Mallory McMorrow has attracted backing from other notable senators.

The seat carries enormous stakes for Democrats. It became available after Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced his retirement, and former Rep. Mike Rogers is running unopposed for the Republican nomination.

In his conversation with the AP, Van Hollen described El-Sayed as the “strongest” candidate capable of winning in November and “the candidate who’s willing to take on the status quo.”

“When I say the status quo, I mean not just the lawless Trump administration, but take on the Democratic establishment that has not fought hard enough for working people,” Van Hollen said.

Schumer publicly endorsed Stevens last week. She is a fourth-term congresswoman from the suburbs of Detroit who is widely viewed as the more moderate option in the race. Stevens has also received substantial financial backing from outside groups, including close to $8 million this month from the United Democracy Project, a super PAC connected to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

McMorrow has attempted to position herself between Stevens and El-Sayed as a reform-minded, anti-establishment option. She has secured endorsements from senators including Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, along with millions in outside spending on her behalf.

El-Sayed, who previously served as Wayne County’s health director, has staked out the most left-leaning positions in the race, including support for Medicare for All and a complete halt to U.S. weapons transfers to Israel. He has become a favorite among the party’s progressive base and has campaigned alongside popular online streamer Hasan Piker, who boasts millions of followers but has drawn controversy for past statements including saying “America deserved 9/11.”

Earlier this month, the United Auto Workers gave El-Sayed their endorsement, stating that members “want a fighter in Washington, D.C. who isn’t afraid to push forward a strong working-class agenda with moral clarity.”

Van Hollen argued that El-Sayed is well-suited to compete in a swing state because his campaign focuses on affordability and challenges what the senator characterized as a political system overly beholden to wealthy interests.

“This is not about left versus right. This is about very concentrated economic and political power at the top, and everybody else,” Van Hollen said. “And he’s fighting for everybody else.”

El-Sayed welcomed the endorsement, calling it the “culmination of an ongoing conversation” and referring to Van Hollen as a “mentor.”

With progressives riding momentum from their New York victories, El-Sayed said those results reflect the same frustrations he has encountered while campaigning across Michigan.

“It’s not surprising to me that candidates who buck that system win,” El-Sayed said. “I really hope that folks in D.C., like Chuck Schumer, decide to pay attention, finally.”

When asked whether his endorsement represented a broader challenge to Democratic leadership, Van Hollen said it was “not about personalities” but rather about supporting a candidate willing to confront both President Donald Trump and what he called “the establishment Democratic Party” for being “too cozy with big money special interests.”

Van Hollen stopped short of calling on Schumer to step down and told the AP he has “not thought about” taking on a Senate leadership role himself.

Still, his endorsement arrives at a moment of escalating friction between Democratic leadership and the party’s progressive wing over how forcefully to challenge Trump and which type of candidates can succeed in competitive states.

Those tensions were already running high following events in Maine earlier this month, where Schumer had endorsed Gov. Janet Mills in the Democratic Senate primary before she dropped out and progressive Graham Platner went on to win the nomination.

Van Hollen, who has been among the Democratic senators pushing the party to reassess its strategy following the 2024 election, framed his break with leadership as a “difference of opinion with respect to which candidates will best connect with voters.”

“I think it’s pretty clear that Abdul is the candidate who can build a grassroots movement and others are not,” Van Hollen said.

WASHINGTON — Armed with surveillance cameras, floodlights, and National Guard patrols, federal authorities have locked down the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool following a costly renovation that has been plagued by green algae and peeling paint.

Soldiers move through the area around the roughly 2,000-foot-long pool on Washington’s National Mall in small groups of three and four. Solar-powered light towers keep the site lit after dark, and about a half-dozen mobile security stations equipped with cameras are positioned around the perimeter.

The heightened security follows a $14.7 million overhaul of the Reflecting Pool. President Trump has pointed the finger at nighttime saboteurs for the project’s problems, though he has offered no evidence to back up those claims. Algae growth has historically been a recurring issue at the pool.

The heavy presence made an impression on Mary Jane Willard, a tourist visiting from Seattle, Washington. “It’s very sad to come here and see all the fences, to see all the National Guard here, to see all the cameras,” Willard said Wednesday. “It just shouldn’t be here.”

Three weeks ago, the Trump administration announced the completion of a project to repaint the iconic pool, which runs from the Lincoln Memorial nearly to the Washington Monument. The new color was described as “American flag blue” in honor of the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence on July 4.

Since then, the pool has been hit with a wave of problems — most visibly, blooms of green algae that have turned the water a bright green, along with chunks of blue paint flaking off the bottom.

With the National Mall set to host major 250th anniversary events in just days, the Reflecting Pool has drawn national attention as a flashpoint between the administration’s claims and the physical reality visitors are seeing firsthand.

Trump has alleged — without providing supporting evidence — that vandals carved a gash either 250 or 350 feet long into the pool, causing the paint damage, and poured chemicals into the water to trigger the algae bloom. When reporters pressed him Monday on the absence of proof, Trump responded, “at the right time, you’ll see it. You’ll see it in court.”

The Department of the Interior announced via social media Tuesday that six individuals have been arrested on alleged vandalism charges at the Reflecting Pool, with seven others issued federal citations. The department also said it is looking into the “gash” Trump described, though no evidence has been made public to support that claim.

Neither the Department of the Interior nor the U.S. Park Police has released the names of those arrested or the specific charges they face. Both agencies declined to respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

A review of local and federal court records shows no recent cases tied to vandalism at the Reflecting Pool. Those arrested may not appear in Washington, D.C. court records unless the U.S. Attorney’s Office decides to pursue charges locally.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, a Trump ally, said in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday that those charged “will face the criminal justice system.”

Among those arrested was former U.S. Olympic cyclist David Hearn. Video shared on social media by conservative journalist Emily Miller showed Hearn, who had been riding his bicycle near the pool, being stopped by National Guard troops and later placed in handcuffs by police.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Hearn denied damaging or taking any property, but acknowledged he reached into the pool and picked up a piece of the pool liner that was already coming loose.

His attorney, Norm Eisen, who has been involved in multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration, issued a statement saying: “Treating ordinary conduct as criminal diverts attention from the real questions of how this project was managed. Using the criminal justice system to target innocent people as a form of distraction is textbook authoritarian behavior.”

Hearn is scheduled to appear in Washington, D.C. court on July 9.

Despite the visible security presence, the mood around the Reflecting Pool was largely calm Wednesday as visitors took in a sunny summer morning on the Mall. “I came down to check it out for myself, but I actually think I was expecting something a little different. It looks pretty good to me,” said Joanna Walling, visiting from Merritt Island, Florida. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s out here vandalizing today.”

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans found themselves on the defensive Wednesday after President Donald Trump showed up at a Capitol luncheon to scold members of his own party for allowing a vote to restrict his war in Iran. Hours later, those same senators gathered for a late-night vote and rejected a war powers resolution — just one day after a nearly identical measure had passed.

Trump had been invited by Florida Sen. Rick Scott to address a closed-door GOP luncheon, where he was expected to push senators on his proof-of-citizenship voting legislation. Instead, the conversation quickly turned to Tuesday’s war powers vote, which marked the first time the Senate had adopted such a resolution regarding the Iran conflict.

The most heated exchange of the afternoon involved Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of four Republicans who had sided with Democrats on Tuesday’s measure. Cassidy stood up and defended his position directly to the president.

“I stood and said, ‘You have not told the American people what’s going on,’” Cassidy told reporters after the meeting. “This was supposed to last four weeks, it’s lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved.”

Cassidy said the two men “went back and forth” and that he “matched his tone and volume.” He said he eventually tried to calm things down, but made clear he would not be intimidated. “I am voting for war powers until I get a briefing,” he said.

According to someone with knowledge of the private meeting who was not authorized to speak about it publicly, Trump repeatedly told Cassidy to sit down and at one point called the senator a “lunatic.”

Publicly, Trump offered a different impression on his way out of the building. “We had a really great meeting,” he told reporters, though he hinted at the tension underneath. “We like everyone in the room. I don’t like a few people, but that’s OK.”

Despite the confrontation, Cassidy’s position shifted by evening. He was invited to the White House for a personal briefing on the Iran war from Vice President JD Vance and envoy Steve Witkoff. He then returned to the Capitol and voted against the second war powers resolution.

“I want to thank Vice President Vance and Special Envoy Witkoff for the thorough briefing this afternoon on Iran. I appreciate the quick invitation to the White House to address many of my concerns,” Cassidy wrote on X. Cassidy lost his reelection bid last month after Trump endorsed his opponent.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, another Republican who had previously voted with Democrats to limit the war, chose to vote present this time. He said on X that he did so “to give the President more space and leverage to negotiate a lasting peace.”

The resolution ultimately failed 47-50-1 just before midnight Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., along with a small group of GOP colleagues, called Trump after the vote. Thune later told reporters the president was “pleased with the outcome.”

Trump responded on social media by thanking Thune and noting that both Cassidy and Paul had changed their votes. “This vote puts Iran on notice!” he wrote.

It is worth noting that both the Tuesday and Wednesday votes were largely symbolic. Neither resolution carries the full weight of law, and they were moving on separate legislative tracks.

The day’s tensions extended beyond the war powers debate. Before the luncheon even began, Trump announced on social media that he was pulling back from a scheduled signing ceremony for a housing bill that had passed both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support. He said he would not sign it until Congress sent him the SAVE America Act — his bill requiring proof of citizenship for all voters.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis pushed back on the move. “It makes no sense to me,” he said as he walked into the luncheon, adding that he doesn’t understand why Trump is holding the housing bill “hostage” for a voting bill that “will never pass in this Congress.”

Thune described the housing legislation as “an affordability issue” and said, “Eventually I hope he finds a way to sign it.”

Republicans have grown increasingly worried that Trump’s resistance to the housing bill signals indifference toward voters’ economic concerns ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The friction is part of a broader pattern of tension between Trump and Senate Republicans in recent weeks. Trump has blocked the Senate from confirming one of his own nominees, requested funding for parts of a White House renovation project despite pushback, and pushed senators to defend the Iran war even as many question its strategy and goals.

Trump has also endorsed primary challengers to two sitting GOP senators — Cassidy and Texas Sen. John Cornyn — both of whom have become more outspoken critics since losing their reelection bids.

“If we’re going to win the midterm elections, we need to get on the same page,” Cornyn said ahead of the meeting. “We’re not on the same page now, and that I think is dangerous.”

Trump has also been pushing Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster in order to pass his voting bill, even though Thune has told him repeatedly that there are not enough votes to do either. Democrats are uniformly against the citizenship bill, and the 60-vote threshold required under the filibuster rules makes passage unlikely in the current 53-47 Senate.

“I think people at some point have to come to grips with that,” Thune said.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani emerged this week as a rising force within the Democratic Party — and not everyone in that party is happy about it.

While progressives across the country celebrated, some of the most influential Democrats in Washington moved quickly to minimize the significance of Mamdani’s Tuesday victories. The 34-year-old democratic socialist mayor saw his hand-picked slate of congressional candidates defeat three establishment Democrats — including two sitting members of Congress — in primary contests. He also successfully backed five additional candidates in state legislative races.

Just six months into his first term as mayor, Mamdani pulled off a remarkable sweep that stands to grow his influence in both Washington and Albany. On Wednesday, he announced his intention to bring his political agenda to other states while pushing for sweeping changes within the Democratic Party.

“Working people are struggling across the country,” Mamdani said, adding that he hopes to help “write a new chapter in our party’s history, where working people are back at the heart of that struggle. And I believe that will be key in not just the midterms coming up in November, but also in the years to come.”

The reaction from Democratic leadership laid bare the gulf between the party’s progressive and establishment factions, who disagree sharply on how Democrats should govern — and campaign — during the remaining two years of the Donald Trump presidency.

Party leaders are eager to prevent an all-out internal war before November’s midterms, particularly as Republicans deal with their own divisions over Trump’s conflict with Iran, the rising cost of living, and the president’s expensive plans to construct a large ballroom at the White House.

Opposition to Mamdani from senior Democrats was anything but quiet.

“The effort to nationalize New York is going to fail,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. “What’s happening in New York will be really irrelevant by the time of the elections in November.”

Rep. Marc Veasey of Texas, a vice chair of the New Democrat Coalition, was equally dismissive, suggesting progressives were thinking short-term while moderates had a longer game in mind.

“No one in DSA is trying to win in a red-to-blue seat, or in a tough general election matchup,” Veasey said, referring to democratic socialist candidates.

Progressive Democrats, however, argued the party should embrace its newest nominees.

“What I would like to see, and what I think would be actually productive and beneficial, is a congratulations to these people, a commitment to welcome them in, to understanding the perspectives that they bring,” said Rep. Summer Lee, a 38-year-old progressive from Pennsylvania.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who hit the campaign trail alongside Mamdani and his allies last week, said the New York results delivered an unmistakable message.

“The American people, in New York and increasingly all over the country, are sick and tired of status quo establishment politics,” he said. “I think you’re gonna continue to see it.”

President Trump used the moment to stoke tensions, telling reporters from the Oval Office that Democrats were “going radical left” and that Mamdani’s chosen candidates are “really communist.”

Trump also commented on the defeat of Rep. Dan Goldman — who had previously served as a top attorney during Democrats’ first impeachment of Trump — by Brad Lander, a Mamdani ally.

“When they go more liberal than Dan Goldman, they’re really into Never Neverland,” Trump said.

Mamdani’s three congressional picks were considered a political long shot even by his own team, yet all three won.

Goldman, a two-term incumbent, was quickly unseated by Lander, a former city comptroller.

U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, was defeated by Mamdani’s most controversial pick, Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist who previously helped organize pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University.

Antonio Reynoso, who had been chosen as the successor to U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, fell to another democratic socialist, Assembly Member Claire Valdez.

All of Mamdani’s candidates ran on pledges to “abolish ICE,” described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide,” and called for taxing the wealthy.

“Voters are just pissed off,” Lander said in an interview. “They want people who show who they’re fighting for, and really get out and fight for things that matter in the lives of working people.”

Progressive leaders called on Democratic leadership in Washington — and potential future presidential candidates — to take the New York results seriously and make real changes in the months ahead.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, considered a possible presidential contender, said it would be “silly” for Democrats to ignore the lessons from New York’s primary results.

“The voters are clearly telling us they want us to be bolder — bolder in the policies we’re proposing and bolder in the tactics we use to fight authoritarians,” he said.

Still, critics of Mamdani within the party were not hard to find.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is positioned to become the next House speaker if Democrats reclaim the majority this fall, repeatedly pushed back against Mamdani’s slate in interviews and public appearances.

“He’s got work to do in terms of the conversations that he’s going to have with members of Congress moving forward,” said Jeffries, the top House Democrat, even while acknowledging the two maintain a working relationship.

House Republican operatives said they plan to use Mamdani and his candidates to damage the Democratic brand in competitive midterm races nationwide, while some Republican officials urged their party to take note of the political shift underway.

“Republicans need to wake up. What we saw last night in New York can only be called one thing: a socialist uprising sweeping the Democrat Party,” said Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio. “If Republicans don’t act now, we will lose this country as we know it.”

Trump, meanwhile, appeared more focused on Mamdani’s growing national profile than on his policy positions.

“Mayor Mamdani pulled through 3 solid Communists, and has received loud and universal applause from the Fake News Media. Congratulations Mr. Mayor!” Trump wrote on social media. “I went 16-0 last night, helping to elect wonderful American Patriots, and the Media doesn’t say a word.”

Mamdani brushed aside concerns that his victories could hurt Democrats’ chances of winning back Congress in the fall.

“We’ve heard from Republicans time and again that they’re going to try and make these candidates the face of the Democratic Party. To them, I say that we are ready for that,” he said. “For far too long we have been told that it is not possible to fight for working people and win. These candidates have shown that they can.”

Some Democrats acknowledged the difficult road ahead in uniting a fractured party.

“We have to respect the voters. They made their decision,” said Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont.

“The challenge that we have,” he continued, “is to build the different points of view together, all in service of helping people who are struggling to pay their bills to get more economic security. The challenge of unity is enormous. But that’s our challenge.”

A former New York City Council candidate is now facing criminal charges after prosecutors say he turned to artificial intelligence to manufacture fake political endorsements and phony news stories, then spread them across social media.

Jonathan Rinaldi, 47, was taken into custody outside his home on Wednesday. He ran as a Republican for a Queens council seat last year but lost. If convicted on the forgery charges against him, he could spend up to two years in prison.

Despite speaking with The Associated Press by phone on Wednesday, Rinaldi declined to confirm or deny that he created the posts or generated the images in question. He framed the arrest as a free speech matter — even though the First Amendment does not typically shield fraudulent statements from legal consequences.

“I got arrested for social media posts,” Rinaldi said. “This is an issue that strikes at the heart of our First Amendment freedoms — not just for me, but for everybody.”

Prosecutors say many of the false posts appeared on Facebook and Instagram. One claimed that the Queens Jewish Alliance had endorsed him, and allegedly used the organization’s real logo along with a convincing-looking endorsement document. According to the complaint, the head of the Queens Jewish Alliance confronted Rinaldi in a recorded phone call, to which he responded, “When you are trying to fight against the establishment, I have to use every available tool that’s at my disposal.”

In another instance, Rinaldi allegedly fabricated a New York Post article claiming that then-Council Member Robert Holden, a Democrat, had crossed party lines to endorse him, according to the Queens district attorney. The fake story was paired with a doctored photo that appeared to show Holden shaking Rinaldi’s hand — an image allegedly created by prompting an AI platform to swap one person’s face onto another.

The AI prompt cited in the charges read: “just change the face the head is ok they are both bald just change the face.”

“In today’s world it is important to hold people accountable for materially misrepresenting facts,” District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement. “As alleged, the defendant used AI to replace factual political support and launched fabricated attacks against his opponent as fact in a deliberate effort to mislead voters ahead of a City Council election.”

The charges also allege Rinaldi used AI to produce images of his Democratic opponent, Lynn Schulman, wearing a shirt with a message that prosecutors say was designed to damage her standing in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Forest Hills, where both candidates were campaigning.

Additionally, Rinaldi is accused of posting AI-generated videos that falsely depicted endorsements from a local police precinct and an elementary school — two public institutions that are prohibited from making political endorsements.

The legal statutes Rinaldi is charged under — third-degree forgery and possession of forged instruments — were written long before AI existed. Under New York law, third-degree forgery occurs when someone falsely creates, alters, or completes a written instrument with the intent to deceive or defraud. The law defines written instruments to include online content that could benefit or harm another person.

New York passed a law in 2024 requiring campaigns to disclose the use of deepfakes in political materials, and giving targeted candidates a legal avenue to seek court orders blocking their distribution.

The issue of AI in elections is not unique to New York. More than half of U.S. states have enacted some form of regulation on AI use in political campaigns, with many requiring disclosure and some imposing criminal penalties. In a Republican congressional primary in Kentucky, for example, an AI-generated advertisement depicted a sitting U.S. representative going on a date and to a hotel room with two Democratic congresswomen.

Rinaldi’s legal troubles extend beyond the forgery case. He also appeared on the ballot in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for a state Assembly seat, where he was defeated by a wide margin by incumbent Andrew Hevesi. During that race, Hevesi accused Rinaldi of fraudulently altering his party registration documents to make himself eligible for the primary. Rinaldi told The New York Times he denied submitting the paperwork. Hevesi later had Rinaldi’s registration changed back.

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives turned out in force Wednesday to express strong support for Taiwan, greeting Han Kuo-yu, the president of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, during a reception at the Longworth House Office Building. The visit comes at a sensitive moment, with the Trump administration currently reviewing a $14 billion arms sales package for Taiwan that had already received preliminary congressional approval.

More than 30 House members — from both sides of the aisle — attended the event to show solidarity with the island. Among those present were Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi of California, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, a Republican and former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Ted Lieu, a California Democrat who serves as vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus.

McCaul wasted no time making his feelings known. “I love Taiwan,” he said while welcoming Han. “It’s very important to me to say that the United States supports you, Mr. Speaker.”

Pelosi echoed that sentiment, stressing that backing for Taiwan crosses party lines. “The support for Taiwan is bipartisan and bicameral — both houses, both parties,” she said. “It’s about peace. It’s also about commerce in terms of keeping the ships able to travel here.”

Han is leading an eight-member parliamentary delegation that flew into Washington on Tuesday evening after first stopping in Phoenix, Arizona, where the chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is constructing new facilities and producing cutting-edge chips that are central to the artificial intelligence industry. TSMC has become a symbol of how deeply Taiwan’s economy is intertwined with that of the United States. Earlier Wednesday, Han met with U.S. senators, though his delegation declined to share specifics, noting only that the warm welcome from House members reflected how the senators had received them as well.

Taiwan sits at the heart of one of the most complicated issues in U.S.-China relations. Beijing considers the self-governed island part of Chinese territory and has not ruled out using military force to take control of it. Under U.S. law, Washington is required to supply Taiwan with enough military equipment to defend itself against any attack from the mainland. Following his May visit to Beijing, President Donald Trump announced he would be reviewing the $14 billion arms package — a deal China firmly opposes. Trump has also floated the idea that the package could serve as a negotiating tool. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, has stated that U.S. policy toward Taiwan has not changed.

Several lawmakers used Wednesday’s event to push back against any delay or cancellation of the arms deal.

“I’m here today … to affirm in the strongest terms that Taiwan is not a bargaining chip. It is an island of freedom. And we need to do all we can to preserve it,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat. “I believe we need to make available every weapon that Taiwan needs in its defense as quickly as it becomes possible.”

Rep. Lieu was sharply critical of the administration’s decision to hold the package. “I urge the administration to reverse that and to allow their arms sale to proceed,” he said.

Han, a member of Taiwan’s opposition KMT party, used his remarks to praise the United States on the occasion of its 250th anniversary and to draw a connection between the two sides’ shared commitment to freedom and democracy. He said both Taiwan and the U.S. carry the responsibility of protecting democratic values and maintaining stability and peace across the region.

Han also highlighted the strength of trade between Taiwan and the United States. The island of 23 million people has now surpassed Germany to become the fourth-largest trading partner of the U.S., a rise driven largely by global demand for Taiwan’s advanced semiconductor chips and other technology products.

Additionally, Han called on Congress to advocate for Taiwan’s broader participation in international affairs. Because of China’s territorial claim over the island, no country can maintain formal diplomatic ties with both Beijing and Taipei simultaneously. Only 12 governments — including the Holy See — still officially recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state. China has also worked to keep Taiwan out of international bodies such as the World Health Organization.

“On the international stage, Taiwan feels very lonely in its heart,” Han said. “I am here asking Taiwan’s good friends in Congress … to help us participate in global activities.”

Han is set to depart Washington on Friday aboard the inaugural nonstop flight operated by Taiwanese carrier EVA Air between Washington Dulles International Airport and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport — a milestone that has been highlighted as further evidence of growing ties between the two sides.

NEW YORK — A court document filed by Live Nation has disclosed that President Donald Trump personally spoke with the company’s chief executive, Michael Rapino, about an ongoing antitrust lawsuit just weeks before the Justice Department abruptly reached a settlement in the case against the entertainment giant and its Ticketmaster subsidiary.

Attorneys representing Live Nation informed the court on Monday that the conversation between Trump and Rapino occurred in February, though they maintained that no “substantive terms” of a possible settlement were discussed during that exchange.

The filing also revealed that White House lawyers participated in some of the extensive back-and-forth between Live Nation and the Justice Department during February and March — a period that included in-person meetings, video calls, phone conversations, and written communications.

Shortly after the trial got underway in March, the Justice Department announced it had reached a settlement with Live Nation. Most states declined to sign on to the deal, arguing it did not do enough to address the company’s grip on concert venues and live event ticketing through Ticketmaster.

Despite the federal settlement, the trial pressed forward. A jury ultimately determined that the company had operated as a monopoly, harming both concertgoers and sports fans.

When asked about Live Nation’s disclosure, the White House declined to offer any comment and directed questions to the Justice Department, which had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

The revelation has added fuel to ongoing criticism that the Justice Department’s independence has been compromised by White House involvement or oversight.

The antitrust lawsuit was originally brought jointly by the Justice Department and dozens of states against Live Nation.

Among the jury’s findings in New York, Ticketmaster’s anticompetitive behavior was found to have resulted in consumers in 22 states paying an additional $1.72 per ticket. A judge could potentially require the companies to repay those overcharges.

State attorneys general who were part of the lawsuit suggested the jury’s verdict could open the door to lower ticket prices for music fans going forward.

The federal settlement included a cap on service fees at certain amphitheaters and introduced new ticketing options for promoters and venues — potentially, though not mandatorily, allowing competitors such as SeatGeek or AXS to enter the market.

Live Nation responded to the verdict in April with a statement saying the ruling “is not the last word on this matter.”

WASHINGTON — A private lunch between President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans took a dramatic turn Wednesday when Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana squared off with the president over the Iran war — an encounter that reportedly included raised voices, personal insults, and a demand to sit down.

The confrontation began after Trump questioned how any senator could have voted for a war powers resolution the day before — a measure aimed at blocking further U.S. military action against Iran. Cassidy was one of four Republicans who supported it, and he wasn’t about to stay quiet.

“Would you really like to know?” Cassidy asked the president, according to his own account shared with reporters following the meeting.

Cassidy said he stood up and told Trump directly: “You have not told the American people what’s going on. This is supposed to last four weeks. It’s lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved.”

From there, things got worse. When Cassidy told Trump he planned to keep voting for war powers resolutions until Congress received a proper briefing on developments in Iran, the senator said the president “did not particularly care for my comments” and “raised his voice.”

According to a person with knowledge of the private meeting who spoke anonymously, Trump repeatedly told Cassidy to sit down and at one point called the senator a “lunatic.”

Cassidy admitted he lost his temper in return — something he said was “not appropriate” — but he didn’t back down.

“I again matched his tone and volume,” Cassidy told reporters. “And so I sat down and tried to de-escalate. I guess my point is, though, that the American people need to know more than we’re being told.”

The confrontation was a striking departure from how most congressional Republicans have behaved during Trump’s second term. While many have avoided criticizing the president publicly — even when frustrated behind closed doors — Cassidy’s willingness to confront Trump face-to-face drew attention across Capitol Hill.

The exchange also reflected growing anxiety among Republican lawmakers about their slim congressional majorities heading into this year’s elections, especially amid the ongoing turmoil surrounding the Iran conflict.

There’s also a personal history at play. Trump effectively ended Cassidy’s political career by endorsing a Republican rival in Louisiana’s GOP primary. Last month, Cassidy became the first sitting senator in 14 years to lose a primary — a defeat driven largely by his vote to convict Trump during the impeachment trial related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Cassidy said Trump brought up his primary loss during their argument, describing the president’s comments as part of “whatever comes to mind as to demean another person.”

Before losing his primary, Cassidy had largely tried to stay in Trump’s good graces by supporting his policies and nominees. Since the loss, with no more Republican primary voters to answer to, he has taken a noticeably harder line.

“It does not appear, although I don’t know for sure, that the course of (the Iran war) is going the way that we were told,” Cassidy said. “And so I make no apologies for standing up to the president, if you will, trying to demand that more information be shared with the Senate, and more information be shared with the American people.”

Cassidy noted that his Republican colleagues didn’t exactly rush to his defense while Trump was in the room — though he said they barely had the chance.

“The president just kind of talked and talked and talked and talked and talked,” Cassidy said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Cassidy’s version of events. Some Republican senators tried to downplay what happened.

“Y’all act like no one ever yelled at each other,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican and former college football coach, compared the exchange to a locker room speech, calling it “halftime talk” given the circumstances of Cassidy’s recent defeat. “Probably needed to be said, end of the day,” Tuberville said. “I think they got a lot of — both of them — got a lot off their chests.”

Others offered more pointed commentary. The lunch had been billed as an opportunity for Trump and Senate Republicans to align on messaging.

“That was quite a unity message,” said Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who himself lost a primary to a Trump-backed challenger just weeks after Cassidy’s defeat.

When a reporter asked if he was being sarcastic, Cornyn stepped into an elevator and let the doors close behind him.

WASHINGTON — Democratic members of Congress moved Wednesday to launch formal investigations into the chaotic renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the latest development in a weeks-long controversy surrounding the president’s $16 million rehabilitation effort.

Legislators in both the House and Senate pressed for accountability in the troubled project, even as the White House has continued to point fingers at unnamed vandals — without backing up the claim — for problems including peeling paint. President Donald Trump announced that six people have been arrested in connection with the matter, though he offered no further details. A local wildlife nonprofit also performed necropsies on ducks found dead near the pool. Trump has suggested the pool may need to be drained yet again for further repair work.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the leading Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, took aim at the Trump administration over no-bid contracts tied to the Reflecting Pool project, arguing those contracts went to vendors who had prior relationships with Trump.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and acting Park Service Director Jessica Bowron, Blumenthal wrote that National Park Service projects carried out at Trump’s direction in the Washington area “have been marked by blatant corruption, a shocking lack of transparency, disregard for legal requirements and apparent incompetence.”

“Rushed no-bid contracts given to unqualified vendors with previous relationships to the president resulted in a reflecting pool more covered with algae than before, with freshly painted chunks of paint peeling from the bottom to float on the pool’s surface,” Blumenthal stated.

He went on to say that the nation’s capital “will now celebrate America’s 250th birthday with an empty reflecting pool, a testament to incompetence and corruption.”

Ohio-based Green Water Solutions received a $1.7 million contract to put in a water-purification system at the pool, while Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings was awarded $14.7 million to repaint and waterproof the concrete floor.

California Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said both contractors have connections to Trump entities.

Trump had promised to spruce up the century-old Reflecting Pool in advance of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations. The pool was drained and its floor was painted a color Trump called “American flag blue.” However, once the pool was refilled, it developed a significant algae bloom and sections of the new coating began peeling away from the bottom.

Neither the White House nor the Interior Department responded to requests for comment regarding the Democrats’ allegations.

Trump has repeatedly — and without evidence — attributed the peeling paint to deliberate sabotage, including what he described as a “350-foot gash” in the liner. His administration is facing a self-imposed deadline to finish the renovation before July 4th, and Trump said the federal government would release images to support his vandalism claim. As of Wednesday, no such images had been made public.

On Wednesday, Trump said “sick people” used razors and box cutters to cut sections of the lining. He said he was uncertain whether the pool would need to be drained before or after the July 4 holiday, when tens of thousands of visitors are expected to gather at the National Mall.

“Donald Trump’s disastrous renovation of our national reflecting pool is his latest failed vanity project,” Garcia said, describing the expenditure as a waste of taxpayer money.

The owner of Green Water Solutions, John Cafaro, is a Trump donor who resides near Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private Florida club.

Atlantic Industrial Coatings is owned by Curtis “Eddie” Wood. The company said this week that it has identified areas within the Reflecting Pool requiring additional work, and that repairs will be made once the pool is drained. No timeline for that draining has been established.

Amid the push for investigations, Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado called on Trump to personally pay back American taxpayers for the cost of the pool renovations, which he labeled “a national embarrassment.”

In a letter addressed to Trump, Hickenlooper wrote that Americans expect their tax dollars “to fix roads, support schools and protect our public lands.” He added: “They do not expect to bankroll failed presidential vanity projects. The bill for this fiasco should only belong to you, Mr. President.”

A wide-ranging piece of legislation designed to make housing more affordable and accelerate home construction cleared Congress with strong bipartisan backing this week — but it’s now stalled because President Donald Trump is refusing to sign it.

The White House had previously expressed support for the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. However, on Wednesday, Trump called off the bill’s signing ceremony, announcing he would withhold his signature until Congress sends him legislation requiring all voters to prove citizenship.

The bill itself is the product of months of negotiations among lawmakers who brought together dozens of separate proposals aimed at tackling the growing affordability crisis facing both renters and prospective homebuyers across the United States.

Among its key provisions, the legislation would cut federal red tape, speed up environmental review processes, accelerate construction timelines, and rein in corporate landlords by restricting their ability to buy up single-family homes.

Supporters acknowledge the bill isn’t a cure-all. Factors like a shortage of construction workers, climbing insurance premiums, and years of wages failing to keep pace with rising rents and home prices are not fully addressed by the measure.

Despite that, the bill has earned widespread backing from across the real estate world, including groups representing homebuilders and apartment owners, along with housing advocacy organizations.

“We need more homes built, and legislation that removes construction barriers is exactly what the market needs right now,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin. “Homebuyers who were hoping for relief may have to wait even longer, and in a market already starved for inventory, that’s a tough pill to swallow.”

Housing affordability has become a major concern for American voters in recent years. The U.S. housing market has been sluggish since 2022, when mortgage rates started rising sharply from the low levels seen during the pandemic. Sales of previously owned homes were essentially unchanged last year, sitting at a 30-year low. While sales picked up in May to their strongest pace since December, they remain near a 4 million annual rate — well below the historical norm of around 5.2 million — partly due to persistently high mortgage rates.

Years of skyrocketing home prices, particularly in the early part of this decade when ultra-low mortgage rates triggered a buying frenzy, have left many potential buyers on the sidelines. A persistent shortage of homes available for sale — driven in part by years of below-average construction — has kept prices elevated even as sales have slowed.

Nationally, home prices have jumped 54% since 2020. Last year, the median sale price of an existing single-family home was nearly five times the median household income, according to researchers at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Renters haven’t seen much relief either. Although the median U.S. monthly rent has been edging lower for nearly three years, it was still 17.2% above pre-pandemic levels as of May, according to Realtor.com data.

A central driver of the affordability problem is a mismatch between supply and demand in many markets. Fewer homes for sale pushes prices higher, even when the market slows. And when mortgage rates drop, buyers compete for the same limited pool of homes, pushing prices up further.

The housing bill aims to address supply by encouraging construction of smaller, more affordable starter homes. It would update existing rules to promote the building of manufactured homes — which are typically less expensive than other newly built homes — and expand access to government-backed loans to include the construction of accessory dwelling units that homeowners can rent out.

The legislation also sets aside new funding to help communities convert abandoned infrastructure into housing and offers guidance for localities seeking to update outdated zoning rules that often stand in the way of larger residential developments.

“It won’t make housing more affordable overnight, but in the coming years we will see more construction of town homes, multifamily housing, and ADUs,” said Fairweather, adding that the increased supply “will relieve the pressure on home prices, and make it easier for homebuyers to break into the market.”

The bill contains a broad array of additional measures, including an expansion of government rental assistance, more funding for affordable housing construction, and incentives for state and local governments to make it easier to build new homes and apartments — including federal dollars for communities that exceed the median rate of homebuilding. It would also raise limits on how many public housing units can receive renovation financing and lock in a disaster recovery program to help communities rebuild more quickly after emergencies. New renter protections are included as well.

“Families are struggling under the heavy weight of housing costs that have climbed for decades,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who serves as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. “There’s no time to waste. Without federal action, America’s housing shortfall will continue to grow, falling another 2 million units behind in the next five years.”

It’s worth noting that the federal government’s ability to directly control things like home prices or rent levels is limited. Most housing regulations — including zoning laws — are set at the state and local level. So even a delay in the bill’s enactment wouldn’t immediately affect local home prices, but it could push back the timeline on new construction projects that depend on the bill’s provisions to move forward.

“The sooner this bill becomes law, the sooner builders and homebuyers will benefit from its downstream effects,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. “Even if the president were to sign this bill immediately, many of the provisions will take time to impact builder planning and projects in the pipeline, so there is going to be a delay before consumers feel the impacts of this legislation either way.”

Trump’s refusal to sign the bill on Wednesday may turn out to be only a temporary setback. The House approved the measure 358-32 on Tuesday, and the Senate passed it 85-5 on Monday — margins large enough to be considered veto-proof majorities. If Trump were to formally veto the bill, both chambers would need to vote again to override him.

It may not come to that. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that he had spoken with Trump and was optimistic the president would ultimately put his signature on the bill.

“The president, when we go through the details of the bill, he’s going to understand that it’s a good product,” Johnson said.

A Republican state senator in South Dakota who currently holds a leadership role in the legislature is now facing two felony charges, accused of forging signatures to place candidates into Republican Party positions — all without those individuals’ knowledge or consent.

State Sen. Thomas Pischke, a Republican from Dell Rapids who represents a heavily conservative district near Sioux Falls, is running for a third term this November. He has been charged with two felony counts of knowingly submitting a falsified or forged document.

Pischke turned himself in to the Minnehaha County Jail on Tuesday and was released after agreeing to appear at all future court proceedings, according to the sheriff’s office. His first court appearance is scheduled for July 7.

Jim Eschenbaum, chair of the South Dakota Republican Party, confirmed that Pischke has agreed to step back from his party responsibilities while the legal case moves forward, including his role on the executive board of the Minnehaha County Republicans.

“It’s a bad optic for the party,” Eschenbaum said Wednesday. “I’m disappointed that this has happened. But we also have to just be honest about what’s going on, you know, and deal with it.”

The Associated Press sent email messages to both Pischke and his attorney requesting comment but had not received a response as of this week.

Eschenbaum noted that a felony conviction would bar Pischke from holding any position within the state Republican Party. Whether he could continue serving in the Legislature remains an open question. Under state law, anyone convicted of perjury, bribery, or an infamous crime is prohibited from serving in the Legislature.

The Associated Press also left phone messages Wednesday with the Legislative Research Council and state Senate President Pro Tempore Chris Karr seeking clarification on that question.

Jessica Meyers, vice chair of the South Dakota Democratic Party, weighed in on the matter, saying elected officials who interfere with public processes must face consequences.

“We believe in free and fair elections at every level of the political process,” she said.

The South Dakota Republican Party’s biennial state convention kicks off Thursday, though Pischke will not be in attendance. At the convention, precinct committee members act as delegates and voting members who help shape party leadership and set the party’s direction. Between conventions, these committee members carry out local responsibilities such as voter outreach and registration.

The charges stem from a months-long investigation into the suspicious filings. The county auditor’s office flagged 16 forms for precinct committee positions that appeared to contain fraudulent signatures and mismatched registered voter addresses.

Officials from the auditor’s office contacted the people named on the suspected fraudulent forms, and most said they had never filled them out. None of those individuals appeared on the ballot during the June Republican primary, according to Eschenbaum.

Pischke admitted to completing his own form at the auditor’s office to run for precinct committeeman but denied filling out forms on behalf of anyone else, according to a court affidavit. He won that precinct committeeman position in June, the auditor’s office confirmed.

Investigators found DNA evidence matching Pischke on envelopes that contained the forms. Surveillance footage also captured a vehicle near a mail drop box that was registered in Pischke’s name.

Pischke ran without opposition in the Republican Senate primary. He will face Bryan Breitling — a former Republican state lawmaker now running as an independent — in the November general election.

Breitling said Tuesday that he entered the race because the district deserves a senator of strong character and integrity.

“These charges are the latest on a long list of poor judgments made by the senator,” he said.

WASHINGTON — The White House sent a formal request to Congress on Wednesday seeking $1 billion to restore pension benefits for workers at Delphi, a former auto parts division of General Motors, whose retirement funds were slashed when the Detroit automaker went through bankruptcy restructuring in 2009.

In addition to the pension funding, the administration is requesting $500 million to support active construction projects in and around the nation’s capital, along with another $1 billion dedicated to the reconstruction of New York’s Penn Station.

The White House is also asking lawmakers to grant the Federal Aviation Administration the authority to redirect any portion of the $12.5 billion set aside for modernizing the country’s air traffic control system toward alternative air traffic reform initiatives.

Michigan’s registered voters will keep their personal information protected after a federal appeals court handed the Trump administration another legal setback on Wednesday.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that a federal law cited by the U.S. Justice Department does not require Michigan to turn over voter birth dates, driver’s license numbers, or partial Social Security numbers. The ruling upholds an earlier decision made by a federal judge in Lansing, Michigan.

Michigan is far from alone in this legal battle. Courts have also blocked similar federal demands in Maryland, Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. In Georgia, a judge threw out the government’s lawsuit on procedural grounds because it was filed in the wrong city, leading the government to refile the case in a different location.

Michigan’s Secretary of State, a Democrat named Jocelyn Benson, stated that under federal law, the government is only entitled to the same basic voter registration list available to any ordinary member of the public.

The Trump administration argued it needs the detailed voter information to verify that Michigan is following federal election law, pointing to what it described as “anomalies” and other concerns raised in court documents.

Michigan’s legal team pushed back, arguing the administration’s true intentions go further — including building a national voter database and sharing the information with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to check whether any non-citizens may have registered or cast ballots.

Not all states have resisted. According to the Brennan Center for Justice and Associated Press reporting, at least 13 states have already handed over or agreed to provide their voter registration lists to the federal government: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has officially submitted an $87.6 billion emergency spending package to Congress, with the bulk of the funds intended to restock the Pentagon following the U.S. military campaign against Iran. The Office of Management and Budget delivered the supplemental funding request on Wednesday.

The timing is politically charged. Just hours before the request was sent, President Donald Trump clashed with Republican senators during a private lunch — reportedly getting into a shouting match with at least one lawmaker — over their votes in favor of a war powers resolution that would put a stop to any additional military action.

The largest portion of the package — $67 billion — is earmarked for the Department of Defense to cover what the administration describes as urgent needs tied to Operation Epic Fury, the name given to the Iran conflict. According to the administration, those funds would go toward “military personnel and readiness expenses, operational costs to rebuild stocks.”

Beyond the military spending, the request also includes financial assistance for American farmers, support for efforts to combat the Ebola crisis in Africa, and funding for restoration projects in Washington, D.C.

OMB Director Russ Vought sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson urging swift action. “I urge the Congress to take action on these important and urgent requests as soon as possible,” Vought wrote. Despite that appeal, a majority of lawmakers have already gone on record opposing any further military engagement.

NEW YORK — The corruption saga surrounding former New York City Mayor Eric Adams shows no signs of slowing down, even though Adams is no longer in office and currently faces no criminal charges himself.

On Wednesday, federal authorities arrested Frank Carone, who served as Adams’ chief of staff, on charges alleging he took $120,000 in bribes in return for directing a multimillion-dollar contract for migrant shelter services to a hotel in Queens. Three additional individuals were also indicted in connection with the scheme, among them Carone’s own brother. All four have entered pleas of not guilty.

The arrest adds to a growing list of legal troubles for those who were once closest to Adams. Another former top ally, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, is currently contesting separate bribery charges. Prosecutors allege she exchanged political influence for cash, diamond earrings, and a promised speaking role on a television program.

Adams himself was indicted in 2024 on bribery charges, with prosecutors accusing him of accepting illegal campaign contributions from Turkish officials while providing political favors in return — including helping to expedite the opening of Turkey’s diplomatic building in New York City. Adams, a Democrat, denied any wrongdoing. Those charges were later dismissed at the direction of the Trump administration, which argued the case was interfering with Adams’ ability to support federal immigration enforcement efforts.

The legal troubles that surrounded Adams’ administration began almost as soon as he took office in January 2022. Federal agents quietly launched a corruption investigation into his campaign, which became public in the fall of 2023 when authorities seized his phones as he was departing an event. Formal fraud and bribery charges followed a year later.

The indictment alleged that Adams allowed Turkish officials and other business figures to purchase his political favor through illegal campaign donations and heavily discounted international travel. Adams denied the allegations and claimed, without providing evidence, that the Biden administration had targeted him politically because of his public criticism of federal immigration policy.

Shortly after President Donald Trump returned to the White House in early 2025, Justice Department leadership directed Manhattan federal prosecutors to drop the case.

The ongoing legal cloud severely damaged Adams’ reelection prospects. He bypassed the Democratic primary and ran as an independent, but ultimately withdrew from the race before it concluded.

As for Lewis-Martin, prosecutors say she was perhaps the most influential figure in Adams’ inner circle aside from Carone. She was indicted in 2024 on allegations that she traded her access and influence for bribes valued at more than $100,000 from individuals and entities doing business with the city. She has denied any wrongdoing.

In one alleged scheme, prosecutors say Lewis-Martin agreed to block a proposed bike lane near a Brooklyn soundstage — at the request of the studio’s owners — in exchange for benefits that included a promised role on the police drama “Blue Bloods.” In another scheme, prosecutors allege she accepted diamond earrings and cash from two real estate developers in exchange for expediting approvals on their projects, sometimes overriding safety concerns raised by city regulators.

Her attorney — who is also representing Carone — has argued that she was simply helping constituents navigate the city’s complex bureaucratic processes. A court hearing in her case is scheduled for Thursday. The case was brought by the Manhattan District Attorney.

Numerous other former Adams administration officials have had their homes searched and devices seized by federal agents, yet have not been charged with any crime. Among them: an adviser to the Chinese community who was seen handing a potato chip bag filled with cash to a reporter following a campaign event; the former police commissioner, whose twin brother was accused of extortion by a Brooklyn bar owner; and Adams’ schools chancellor and deputy mayor — who are brothers — whose third sibling ran a consulting firm that connected clients with city officials. Each has denied wrongdoing.

Federal authorities have not disclosed whether any of those investigations remain ongoing.

Even after the charges against Adams were dropped, prosecutors continued pursuing cases against lower-level figures connected to the original indictment. One Brooklyn real estate developer was sentenced last summer to a year of probation after pleading guilty to working with a Turkish government official to funnel illegal donations into Adams’ 2021 campaign. In November, an Adams aide who served as his liaison to the city’s Muslim communities received a three-year probation sentence for soliciting illegal campaign funds.

Before handing down that sentence, the presiding judge — who had also overseen the now-dismissed case against Adams — remarked on the former mayor’s conspicuous absence from the proceedings. “There’s a notable absence here of the person at the apex of the pyramid,” the judge said, describing the situation as an “elephant in the room.”

A federal judge in Newark has thrown out a Department of Justice lawsuit that targeted immigration-related policies in four New Jersey cities, dealing another legal blow to President Donald Trump’s administration in its ongoing battle against sanctuary jurisdictions.

U.S. District Judge Evelyn Padin issued the ruling Wednesday, dismissing the case the Justice Department had brought against the cities of Newark, Hoboken, Jersey City and Paterson. The lawsuit, filed in May 2025, accused those cities of blocking federal immigration enforcement through local policies that the DOJ argued violated the U.S. Constitution and were overridden by federal law.

Specifically, the Justice Department claimed the cities were preventing federal immigration agents from accessing immigrants held in local custody, stopping local officers from transferring people in custody to federal agents, and prohibiting officers who might otherwise be willing from sharing information with federal immigration authorities.

Judge Padin, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, found the government’s argument to be fundamentally flawed. She wrote that the DOJ’s case “has a fundamental flaw—it treats the challenged policies as though they operate in isolation.”

The judge pointed out that a statewide directive issued by New Jersey’s attorney general back in 2008 already limits how law enforcement agencies across the state — including those in cities — can cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, beyond what is legally required.

Because of that existing statewide policy, Padin concluded that even if the DOJ had won its case, the ruling would not have changed what municipal officers were permitted to do. The alleged harms cited by the Justice Department, she said, could not be resolved through this lawsuit alone.

The White House and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment. Representatives from Newark, Hoboken, Jersey City and Paterson either did not respond or had no immediate comment.

This dismissal is the latest in a string of court defeats for the Trump administration as it has sought to legally challenge policies adopted by Democrat-led sanctuary jurisdictions across the country.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has forwarded an $87.6 billion supplemental budget request to the United States Congress, according to a congressional source with knowledge of the situation.

The source confirmed the submission on Wednesday, though additional details about the specific allocations within the request were not immediately available.

A federal judge in Washington has ordered the Trump administration to account for a tarp that is now covering the front of the Kennedy Center, the famous performing arts complex where the president’s name was recently removed under court mandate.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper issued the directive Wednesday, requiring the administration to explain by July 31 “the purpose and status of the tarp and scaffolding” currently surrounding the landmark building.

The covering appeared after workers removed Trump’s name from the building’s exterior in an early-morning operation earlier this month. Judge Cooper had previously ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully added the president’s name to the facade back in December.

Neither the White House nor the Kennedy Center offered a response when asked for comment.

The legal dispute stems from a lawsuit filed by Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty, who serves as a Kennedy Center board member. Last month, Judge Cooper ordered Trump’s name taken down from the Washington theater complex and also blocked the administration’s plans to shut the venue for a two-year renovation period beginning July 4. The Trump administration has since appealed that ruling, asking a federal appeals court to pause the order.

Attorneys for Beatty filed documents this week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, arguing that the “semi-permanent tarp” blocking the late President John F. Kennedy’s name from public view appears to be the Trump administration’s “effort to frustrate the restoration of the status quo as it existed prior to the renaming.”

Beatty herself had sharp words for the move, calling the obstruction of the building’s facade an “act of petty defiance.”

NEW YORK — A federal judge on Wednesday put a halt to efforts by federal prosecutors based in Texas to obtain the private medical records of transgender patients who received treatment at New York hospitals, declaring the move part of an unconstitutional government campaign to “demonize and eradicate an entire population of transgender” people.

Judge Katherine Polk Failla issued her ruling just one day after hearing arguments in Manhattan. She described the government’s attempt to access the most sensitive health records of a “uniquely vulnerable group” of patients — records spanning a six-year period — as “most egregious” and a violation of the Constitution.

The judge accused the Justice Department of turning to criminal investigations as a workaround to obtain private records related to transgender medical care, after courts around the country had repeatedly refused similar requests made through civil channels.

Federal prosecutors had sought the records as part of a criminal investigation into the possible “misbranding” of drugs that had been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

A request for comment from the Justice Department was not immediately answered.

Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, described the ruling as “a victory for the basic privacy of our clients and all families like theirs across New York City.” In a written statement, he said using subpoenas to obtain the identities and sensitive health information of transgender young people “should send chills down the spine of every American.”

Judge Failla’s ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed this month on behalf of minors, their parents, and young adults who had received what the lawsuit described as medically necessary gender-affirming care in New York City.

Court documents indicate that NYU Langone Hospitals was among several medical institutions that received a federal grand jury subpoena on May 7, issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas. The records request originated from a special agent with the Kansas City office of criminal investigation within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Judge Failla noted that at least 40 individuals who were treated at NYU Langone alone fell within the subpoena’s scope, which covered the period from January 1, 2020, through May 5, 2026.

Most major medical organizations maintain that access to gender-affirming care is essential for individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Transgender teens, their parents, and healthcare providers have described such treatment as life-saving for young people who experience depression or suicidal thoughts because their gender identity does not align with the gender they were assigned at birth.

Gender-affirming care can take many forms, including counseling, puberty-blocking medications, hormone therapy, or — in rare cases involving minors — surgery.

Twenty-seven states have placed restrictions on or outright banned gender-affirming care for minors. In June 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states have the constitutional authority to do so.

President Donald Trump has made rolling back transgender rights a priority of his administration. During his second term, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has moved to use regulatory authority to restrict gender-affirming care for minors, while the Justice Department has pushed hospitals — many of which depend on federal funding — to hand over private patient records.

At the start of her ruling, which she read aloud during an electronic court proceeding, Judge Failla noted that the “current administration” had issued directives in its opening days that “sought to demonize and eradicate an entire population of transgender individuals.”

By the time she concluded — nearly an hour later — Failla had granted class-action status to the plaintiffs and found that the Justice Department’s use of subpoenas violated both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. She also scheduled a July 8 hearing to consider additional evidence before deciding whether to issue a longer-lasting preliminary injunction, which would be the next legal step following Wednesday’s temporary restraining order.

A federal judge on Wednesday made permanent her earlier ruling blocking President Donald Trump’s administration from carrying out most of his first executive order targeting elections — an order that included a requirement for voters to show documentary proof of citizenship when signing up to vote.

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper, based in Boston, issued the permanent ruling, which builds on a preliminary injunction she put in place a year ago that had temporarily halted many of the administration’s proposed election changes.

Judge Casper dismissed the administration’s contention that the lawsuit — filed by Democratic state attorneys general — was filed too soon because the new rules hadn’t yet taken effect. She sided with the challengers, finding that the U.S. Constitution grants authority over elections to the states and Congress, not the president, and that Trump’s order crossed those boundaries.

In her written opinion, Casper stated that the Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections.”

The executive order in question would have mandated that individuals provide documentary citizenship proof when registering to vote, barred mail-in ballots from being counted if they arrived after Election Day — even if postmarked on time — and threatened to cut off certain federal funding to states that didn’t comply.

New York Attorney General Letitia James released a statement praising the court’s decision, saying she was thankful the ruling had stopped Trump’s “unconstitutional attempt to seize control of our elections” and pledging to keep defending voting rights in this year’s midterm elections.

“Generations of Americans fought tirelessly for the right to vote, and we honor their legacy by protecting that right against anyone who tries to undermine it,” James said.

The White House and Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.

Wednesday’s decision is the latest in a series of court defeats for the elections executive order Trump signed shortly after beginning his second term. He has since issued a second executive order on elections — this one aimed at creating a national voter list and restricting mail-in voting — which is also facing legal challenges on multiple fronts.

Last fall, a separate federal judge in Washington, D.C., overseeing a different legal challenge brought by civil rights and Democratic Party-aligned organizations, blocked the government from adding the citizenship proof requirement to the federal voter registration form. That same judge later prohibited the Secretary of Defense from requiring military members to show documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote or requesting ballots.

Recognizing the legal obstacles to implementing a citizenship proof requirement through executive action, Trump has been pushing Congress to pass legislation achieving the same goal. The SAVE America Act cleared the House but has stalled in the Senate, prompting Trump to call for eliminating the filibuster that is holding up the bill.

In a related development Wednesday, Trump abruptly called off the expected signing of a bipartisan housing bill, announcing he would not sign any legislation until Congress first passes his proof-of-citizenship voting requirement.

Separately, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to soon issue a ruling on whether mail-in ballots must be received by Election Day to be counted. That decision could immediately affect rules in 14 states that currently allow grace periods — ranging from a few days to several weeks — for ballots postmarked by Election Day.

A federal judge in New York announced Wednesday that she will prevent the U.S. Department of Justice from using grand jury subpoenas to access the medical records of transgender patients who received gender-affirming care as minors from New York City healthcare providers.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla, based in Manhattan, said she would issue a temporary restraining order following a lawsuit brought by several families and patients. The legal action was triggered after NYU Langone Health disclosed that it had received a grand jury subpoena connected to the Trump administration’s broader effort to restrict gender-affirming treatments for transgender youth.

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that he anticipates President Donald Trump will put his signature on an affordable housing bill within the next 10 days.

Johnson also indicated that House Republicans are working to put together a reconciliation bill that would incorporate voter ID legislation under the Save America Act.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump had called off a previously scheduled signing of the bipartisan legislation, which is designed to accelerate the construction and availability of affordable housing. The president said he would hold off on signing the housing bill until the voter ID measure was approved.