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US politics: the White House, Congress, the courts and the elections.
1053 articles · page 13 of 22
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has appointed Elon Musk to co-lead a new government taskforce studying the future of warfare, marking Musk's first return to government since his time running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. The project, dubbed Project Meridian, will run for 120 days.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has confirmed plans to cut 20% of generals and admirals, vowing that 'no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps' would be tolerated inside the country's military.
The US Senate on Wednesday blocked a Republican bill that would restrict stock trading by members of Congress, after Democrats refused to advance the measure over what they called a "poison pill" voter ID provision and gaps that would let lawmakers keep their portfolios.
The US Department of Justice has indicted 10 people in Minnesota on charges related to noncitizen voting, the sixth such announcement this month as the Trump administration intensifies its voter fraud allegations ahead of the midterm elections.
An internal watchdog has found that the Federal Reserve mismanaged costs in the $2.4bn renovation of its Washington DC headquarters, but that no criminal violations occurred, according to a report released Wednesday.
· 2 sourcesThe Trump administration is leveraging an anti-drug trafficking grant program from the 1980s to compel cities to funnel automated license plate reader data into federal surveillance centers, according to records obtained by 404 Media. The program raises significant privacy concerns as it effectively bypasses local restrictions on surveillance data use.
Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, remains alive more than an hour after receiving two doses of lethal injection, according to her legal team and multiple witnesses, who described an abnormally long and irregular procedure at Nashville's Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.
· 4 sourcesThe Trump administration has formally notified the Council of Europe that the United States is withdrawing from the Group of States against Corruption (Greco), the latest in a series of pullbacks from international bodies the administration considers wasteful or overreaching.
The execution of Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, was halted by a federal appeals court about an hour before it was scheduled to occur on Wednesday. The Sixth Circuit panel said it needed more time to review arguments in her case, bringing a temporary reprieve after the US Supreme Court and the Tennessee governor both declined to intervene.
The US Supreme Court has declined to stop the execution of Christa Pike, clearing the way for Tennessee to carry out the death sentence of a woman for the first time in more than 200 years. The court overturned a last-minute reprieve granted by a federal appeals court earlier on the same day.
· 7 sourcesA federal judge has ended court-ordered federal oversight of the Oakland Police Department after 23 years, marking the longest such arrangement in US history. The oversight was imposed in 2003 as part of settling civil lawsuits filed by victims of a group of officers known as the 'riders', who were exposed for planting evidence, falsifying reports and using excessive force against primarily young Black men.
Florida executed 77-year-old Curtis Wilkie Beasley on Tuesday for the 1995 hammer attack killing of Carolyn Monfort, making him the 16th person put to death in the state this year.
Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen has filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging that television advertisements paid for by the US government and featuring former President Donald Trump violate federal laws against propaganda and restrictions on political activity by government employees.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Venezuelan man in Austin while he was sitting in his vehicle making a DoorDash delivery was not wearing a body camera during the incident, multiple reports confirmed. Days later, the Department of Justice charged the man, Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, with assault charges related to the encounter.
· 4 sourcesThe U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily lifted a lower-court decision that had prevented the Trump administration from deporting immigrants to a third country without first giving them an opportunity to argue that they face persecution there. The six-justice conservative majority issued a brief order allowing the practice to resume while litigation continues, drawing dissents from the court's liberal justices.
· 6 sourcesAnthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director fired after just 11 days in 2017, has released a memoir titled 'All the Wrong Moves', in which he warns about the dangers of a second Donald Trump presidency, but devotes only 15 pages to his own brief tenure, according to a review by David Free in The Brisbane Times and The Sydney Morning Herald.
· 2 sourcesUS Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has accused Apple of collaborating with the Trump administration to remove ICE-tracking apps from the App Store, asserting that the company lacks evidence to support safety concerns and is violating customers' First Amendment rights to record government activity.
The Trump administration has asked the US Supreme Court to permit it to deny gender-affirming care to transgender inmates in federal prisons, including hormone therapy and social accommodations, while legal challenges proceed in lower courts. Two lower courts have so far blocked implementation of the policy.
Senator Mike Lee (Republican of Utah) blocked a bipartisan bill on Monday night that would have prohibited President Donald Trump from demolishing the Kennedy Center without explicit congressional approval. The Protecting Presidential Memorials Act, co-authored by Senator Jeff Merkley (Democrat of Oregon) and Senator Lisa Murkowski (Republican of Alaska), sought to bar the demolition of any presidential memorial designated by Congress—including the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials—unless lawmakers gave the go-ahead. Lee objected when the Senate was asked to pass the measure by unanimous consent.
Nine Entertainment news sites, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times, are carrying a story headlined "Trump airs promotional ad using taxpayer money," reporting that Donald Trump has aired a promotional advertisement using taxpayer funds. The full details of the advertisement and the surrounding context were not available in the published article text.
· 3 sourcesThe Senate on Monday passed the Protect College Sports Act, a sweeping bipartisan bill that would create the first national regulations for college athletics, including new authority for the NCAA over athlete name, image and likeness payments and transfers. The 77 to 22 vote is Congress's strongest effort yet to end what supporters describe as chaos in an industry upended by rising athlete compensation.
· 3 sourcesPresident Donald Trump said Monday he and his political action committee will pay for television ads that praised him and had been funded by the U.S. government, reversing course after days of criticism over the legality of the spots that ran ahead of next month's midterm elections.
· 3 sourcesChrista Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, remained alive and conscious on Wednesday after prison officials administered two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital. Instead of leaving the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in a hearse, she was taken by ambulance, having spoken, smiled and complained of arm pain during the failed execution attempt.
· 7 sourcesShouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77 and the parents-in-law of New York Times executive Jonathan McKinsey, are scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday to formally face first-degree murder charges. Police have corrected the location of the fatal shooting, stating the car park where McKinsey was found is east of San Francisco, not west as initially reported.
· 2 sourcesThe US Department of Transportation has finalized a plan to significantly weaken fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, replacing Biden-era requirements that would have reached 50.4 miles per gallon by 2031 with a target of 34.9 miles per gallon. The Trump administration touted the move as one of the largest deregulatory actions of his second term, claiming it will lower vehicle costs, while consumer and environmental groups condemned the rollback.
· 2 sourcesBo French, a Republican running to lead the Texas Railroad Commission, is facing renewed backlash after a CNN KFile investigation detailed past social media posts in which he called for the public execution of Democratic leaders and made racist statements. The controversy has cost him support within his own party.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed state Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to oversee the criminal investigation into allegations that a Cornell University student was drugged and gang-raped at a fraternity house in 2024. The appointment came Thursday evening as unsealed court documents revealed the university conducted an extensive internal disciplinary inquiry involving more than 50 interviews with 32 witnesses after the student reported the assault. The case, which had drawn intense public criticism after no criminal charges were initially filed, is now being presented to a grand jury.
· 7 sourcesThe Trump administration on Monday announced the official rollback of federal fuel economy standards, lowering the target mileage automakers must achieve for cars and light trucks. The move rolls back Biden-era rules that would have required the nation's fleet to average 50.4 miles per gallon by 2031.
· 2 sourcesElection experts have warned that Donald Trump’s administration could use the crucial hours and days after polls close in November’s midterm elections to disrupt the results, after suffering a series of court defeats in its attempts to restrict voting access. Former deputy homeland security adviser Caitlin Durkovich said the administration may turn to claims of foreign interference to justify seizing voting equipment or ballots, regardless of legal authority.
At the height of the Trump administration's most significant feud with the media, the Australian embassy in Washington hosted a moment of rare detente on Sunday, as White House staff and journalists from CNN and The New York Times faced off across the ambassador's grass tennis court for the annual Kangaroo Cup.
· 2 sourcesThe Trump administration has launched a broadside against the Smithsonian Institution, releasing a 162-page White House report that accuses the National Museum of American History of ‘ideological capture’ and excessive political activism. The report, published in July, singles out a now-closed exhibit called ‘The Electric Dr. Franklin,’ which suggested that Benjamin Franklin’s electrical experiments may have been aided by enslaved people in his household, as emblematic of what critics see as a departure from straightforward historical education.
Christa Pike, Tennessee's only woman on death row, has asked her loved ones not to attend her execution on Wednesday, a friend has said, as the state prepares to carry out what would be its first execution of a woman in more than 200 years. Ashlee Sellars said Pike texted her from her cell this week and told her she did not want any of her loved ones present when she is put to death by lethal injection. Pike's lawyers have filed a clemency petition seeking to commute her sentence ahead of the 30 September date.
· 2 sourcesThe primary White House television pool resumed filming administration events on Friday, two days after a court ruling temporarily overturned the Trump administration's ban on CNN, Politico and MS Now. The resumption ended an unprecedented multi-day blackout that left the president without pooled television coverage during the UN general assembly.
· 8 sourcesPresident Donald Trump’s feud with CNN has escalated further, with the White House indicating the network will not be included in the press pool accompanying him on his latest Air Force One trip.
· 3 sourcesAn independent review has found multiple security failures at Utah Valley University (UVU) in the planning of the event where conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in September 2025, including the absence of a written security assessment and a failure to conduct a line-of-sight check of the outdoor courtyard venue.
· 2 sourcesA handwritten letter by Thomas Jefferson, written from Paris in 1787 on how the newly created United States could prosper, has been put up for sale by a private collector — reviving attention on a document The Guardian reports carries a prescient warning for Donald Trump's second term.
A new bill introduced in the U.S. Congress, the American Copyright Protection Act of 2026 (H.R. 10364), would require internet service providers, DNS resolvers, and virtual private networks (VPNs) to block foreign websites or services hosting pirated content. The bill creates a court-ordered blocking process, with a special fast-track for live-streamed events, and exempts small providers with fewer than 100,000 monthly users. However, the legislation leaves key definitions—particularly around what constitutes a connection "from the United States"—vague, raising concerns about how it would apply to VPNs and content delivery networks.
The White House has barred CNN from travelling with President Donald Trump on Air Force One for a Saturday trip to Tennessee, escalating a confrontation that last week saw a federal judge rule Trump’s ban on several news outlets likely unconstitutional.
· 4 sourcesOutgoing Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch received a standing ovation Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture as he defended the institution against claims of being unpatriotic, insisting that telling the full, complex truths of history is a profound act of love for the United States.
President Donald Trump used a United Nations address on Tuesday to threaten to 'annihilate' Iran, but the tough talk was undercut by signs of waning political power at home: sliding approval ratings, a court-ordered return of CNN to the White House, and desertions by some Republican allies.
A growing number of US federal judges say their jobs have become significantly more dangerous under President Donald Trump's second term, citing a surge in threatening phone calls, online doxing, and safety fears for their families, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice. The US Marshals Service recorded a 57 per cent increase in security incidents of significant concern in the 2025 fiscal year, with further rises forecast for 2026.
Republican senators are voicing concern and dismay over President Trump's warm reception of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington this week, following revelations that Iran used Chinese satellite imagery to target U.S. troops in Jordan earlier this month.
· 2 sourcesPlans for former President Donald Trump's proposed 250-foot triumphal arch near Washington, D.C., moved forward Thursday after a federal advisory council—led by Trump appointees—terminated required consultations on the structure's impact on historic sites, despite mounting criticism from lawmakers and safety concerns over its proximity to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The Supreme Court on Friday lifted a lower court's injunction against the Trump administration's overhauled immigration database — known as Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) — allowing it to be used to check voter rolls for noncitizens. However, federal law imposes a 90-day 'quiet period' before elections that likely restricts immediate use ahead of November's midterms, limiting the ruling's practical impact.
· 10 sourcesWith less than six weeks until Election Day, a growing number of Republican lawmakers are distancing themselves from President Trump on key issues, even as the party enters the final midterm stretch with a significant advertising spending edge over Democrats, according to NPR and The New York Times.
· 3 sourcesGreen Party leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, was heckled at a Jewish community hustings in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection after saying that Zionism is a form of racism, according to a report from the Camden New Journal.
New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Dale Caldwell resigned Friday afternoon, hours after Governor Mikie Sherrill gave him a Friday deadline to step down following an ethics report that found he sexually harassed a staffer and committed other ethics violations.
· 4 sourcesAfter a nearly monthlong delay, states can now order this season's COVID-19 vaccines through a federal program that provides free immunizations to low-income children, the US health department confirmed Wednesday. The Trump administration has still not explained why ordering was held up, fueling concerns about interference from anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.