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US politics: the White House, Congress, the courts and the elections.
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A 31-year-old man has been arrested in New York City after allegedly spray-painting the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, defacing a section bearing victims' names with the address of his anti-gun website.
The White House has released a fact sheet asserting that President Donald J. Trump has ended diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government, education, and the private sector through a series of executive orders and other actions over the past 21 months, replacing what it called radical and wasteful preferencing with merit and equal treatment.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a proclamation directing the administration to negotiate with foreign trading partners to reduce imports of robotics, industrial machinery and their components, after a Commerce Department investigation found the current level of foreign reliance threatens to impair U.S. national security.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico have asked a federal judge to make previous orders requiring the White House to restore their access permanent, saying they remain excluded from the Oval Office and Air Force One press pool and that the exclusions retaliate for coverage Trump dislikes.
A federal judge on Wednesday denied the Justice Department's emergency request to force California to set aside ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters the department alleges are likely noncitizens, writing that a ruling in the administration's favor would 'wreak havoc' and warning that discounting votes over unproven allegations could put democracy in danger, marking the latest legal setback for President Donald Trump's pre-election push to expand federal oversight of state elections. The Justice Department swiftly appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
Socialist political commentator and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker has filed a $72.5m defamation lawsuit against his conservative counterpart Scott Jennings, accusing him of falsely portraying Piker as a ‘violent racist’ who advocated the lynching of Black people. The suit, filed Tuesday in US district court for the District of Columbia, centers on a ‘cropped, shortened, and rearranged’ video clip that Jennings played on his podcast in August.
New internal polling commissioned by a Republican group shows Democrat Amy Acton leading Vivek Ramaswamy by eight points in Ohio's governor's race, up from a two-point lead earlier this month before an attack ad featuring her estranged mother began circulating on Oct. 19. The findings have heightened Republican anxiety that Ramaswamy's decision to air the deeply personal ad could backfire.
A federal judge on Tuesday struck from the record an amended criminal complaint that the Justice Department filed in the middle of the night against two former FBI officials, scolding prosecutors for bypassing standard probable-cause review. The original case accusing Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides of making false statements about their knowledge of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop remains intact for now.
The Federal Communications Commission will vote on November 19 on rules that would allow prisons to use cellphone signal jamming, a practice generally banned under US law, Chairman Brendan Carr announced.
Longtime Manhattan U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who was overseeing the prosecution of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, died Wednesday at 92, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said.
The US Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is suing Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland, accusing the district of secretly transitioning children's gender without parental knowledge or consent.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola to be criminally charged and removed from the ballot, after The New York Times reported that her campaign and national Democrats helped recruit a second candidate named Dan Sullivan to split votes from the Republican incumbent. The Justice Department, which is already suing to block an unfavorable Alaska result, is now urging the judge to let Peltola into that case so it can seek "expedited discovery from the campaign regarding the reported conspiracy."
Dolores Huerta died of cancer at her Bakersfield home on Wednesday, her family said, as political leaders and fellow organizers paid tribute to the United Farm Workers co-founder. She was 96. Her family plans to announce arrangements to celebrate her life.
Chancellor John Healey’s first budget left UK income tax thresholds frozen for another year, extending a policy that the Office for Budget Responsibility says will push the share of taxpayers paying higher or additional rates from 15% in 2021-22 to 24% in 2030-31.
Top House Democrat Jamie Raskin on Wednesday accused President Donald Trump of using tariffs as a 'tool for grift and self-enrichment,' demanding records on tariff exemptions he says were granted to industries whose leaders donated or gave gifts to Trump.
Thirty-four members of Congress have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate widespread overcharging at Dollar General, Family Dollar, 7-Eleven and Circle K, citing Guardian investigations that found persistent mismatches between shelf prices and register prices.
A person was killed Wednesday morning in a shooting involving an FBI agent in south suburban Dixmoor, the agency said. The shooting occurred around 7 a.m. during what the FBI described as "court-authorized law enforcement activity".
US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr faced backlash on Wednesday for remarks made at a campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in which he asserted that Arabs do not win major awards in science or literature. The comments, part of an attack on the Muslim Brotherhood, were condemned by Muslim advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers as racist and bigoted, coming in the heated final stretch of a closely watched Senate race against Muslim Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.
A federal judge has ruled that Bill Essayli, the Republican appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as the top US prosecutor in Los Angeles, is not legally serving in the role. The judge disqualified Essayli from overseeing two criminal prosecutions, but the Department of Justice said it intends to appeal.
Washington state's Public Disclosure Commission has voted to stop enforcing limits on how much candidates and political committees can raise in the final days of the Nov. 3 election, citing concern that the law would not withstand a legal challenge. Individual contribution caps remain in effect, as do requirements to report large contributions within 48 hours.
A new poll from the Deseret News-Hinckley Institute of Politics shows that corruption is among voters' top concerns ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections, with perceptions sharply divided along party lines, a dynamic that is complicating the Texas Senate race between scandal-plagued Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic state Representative James Talarico, a race polls now label a toss-up.
President Donald Trump's Oct. 22 executive order on homeownership is drawing criticism from two Washington Examiner opinion writers, who say it focuses on refinance loans and transaction costs rather than the core problem of high home prices.
Election security researchers have identified vulnerabilities in US voting systems, including paperless machines in Louisiana and a software flaw in Georgia's vote-counting system, while stressing there is no evidence any have been exploited to change an election result.
The cryptocurrency industry's leading network of super PACs, Fairshake, is spending $55 million to keep Sherrod Brown out of the Senate in Ohio, according to Semafor. The move repeats a 2024 play that critics say failed, as Brown pulls ahead in polls and President Donald Trump campaigns in the state.
The cost of the US war with Iran has exceeded $47 billion, Pentagon officials informed Congress on Oct. 16, as President Donald Trump reaffirmed that he will decide when the conflict ends. Speaking at a rally in Lubbock, Texas, Trump said the war would end "whenever I want it to," but insisted Tehran must never obtain a nuclear weapon.
A Canadian woman with permanent US legal residency died in her western Washington home after avoiding medical care because she feared being detained or deported, her son said. Paige Adamson, 61, died Oct. 18 of internal bleeding and blunt force injuries from a fall, according to Dylan Adamson, who said she was facing a deportation hearing over allegations that she voted illegally in 2018, which she denied.
Halima Salman, 27, a former Brooklyn resident who was taken to Syria at age 17 by her father and married to an Islamic State fighter, was convicted Tuesday in federal court of receiving military training from the militant group. The jury reached its verdict after several days of deliberations that at one point appeared deadlocked. Salman faces up to 10 years in prison; sentencing is set for Feb. 2.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has defended the Trump administration's decision to allow Russian diesel onto the US market, framing it as an incentive for Moscow to end the war in Ukraine, even as Ukrainian and bipartisan US critics condemn the move.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to intervene in a Texas-led lawsuit, leaving in place restrictions on when immigration judges can pause deportation proceedings, even for immigrants who qualify for legal status.
A federal grand jury in Washington has rejected a Justice Department request to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide whose testimony about President Donald Trump's actions on Jan. 6, 2021, became a flashpoint in the investigation of the Capitol attack.
Pennsylvania homeowners selling their homes will be required to disclose far more about flood risk, including past flooding incidents and flood insurance claims, under a law signed last week by Gov. Josh Shapiro that takes effect by summer 2028.
A new ad from a pro-Abdul El-Sayed political action committee blaming US aid to Israel for high grocery prices has drawn accusations of antisemitism, injecting a fresh controversy into the Michigan Senate race as President Trump intensifies his own attacks on the Democratic candidate's Muslim faith.
The Federal Election Commission said Tuesday night that it identified the problem affecting its electronic filing system and was implementing a fix, after reports that hackers targeted the agency days before the midterm elections. The system remained offline early Wednesday, cutting off public disclosure of campaign money in the final stretch of the race.
President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday evening that his administration is "terminating" Biden-era methane emissions rules for oil and gas producers, during a campaign rally in Lubbock, Texas, one week before the US midterm elections.
Dr Jennifer Shuford, the deputy director and chief medical officer of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will resign after six months on the job, according to an agency email obtained by the Guardian. Shuford was appointed by President Donald Trump in April and is expected to leave on 12 November, after the midterm elections.
Federal agents raided a Beverly Hills mansion on Tuesday as part of the ongoing investigation into former Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, searching the home of a wealthy donor where Swalwell spent time before resigning in April, according to law enforcement sources.
Two Democratic senators have accused the Trump administration of illegally withholding a secret court ruling from Congress until lawmakers renew a surveillance program that allows intelligence analysts to read Americans' communications without a warrant. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Adam Schiff of California said the administration missed its own September deadline to release the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's findings, which reportedly objected to search filters used to pull Americans' messages from intercepted data.
An investigation by The Center Square has found that the William Law Foundation, a nonprofit daycare awarded $18.2 million by the California Department of Social Services in 2022-23, operates only one facility serving no more than six children, despite claiming 'over 40 locations' across ten counties. The executive director acknowledged the claim was inaccurate, stating it 'seemed like a good idea at the time when I had nothing.'
Neil Young has filed a $10 million copyright infringement lawsuit against President Donald Trump's campaign committee, alleging it played his song 'Rockin' in the Free World' at an Oct. 12 rally in Youngstown, Ohio, and at other rallies without a license, despite a 2020 settlement in which the campaign pledged not to use the song without permission. The suit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia.
President Trump has signed into law the Romance Scam Prevention Act, a bipartisan bill that requires dating apps to notify users who have interacted with someone removed from the platform for fraudulent activity.
A majority of Utah voters disapprove of President Trump's job performance but still intend to vote Republican in the upcoming midterm elections, according to a new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted by Morning Consult.
A 36-year-old Quincy man has been arrested and charged with mailing letters containing white powder to four members of the Illinois congressional delegation, after he allegedly wrote his own name and return address on the envelopes and admitted to federal agents that the substance was salt.
The Trump administration has asked Washington state to set aside any ballots received from more than 400 people it alleges are registered to vote without US citizenship, one week before the midterm election. Acting US Attorney Neil Floyd claimed at a press conference Monday that the 405 voters identified so far represent 'the tip of the iceberg' and have cast over 1,500 illegal ballots in prior elections. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said he is 'carefully reviewing' the request but argued the timing is 'no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results.'
The federal government is considering redirecting a planned border wall off a levee adjacent to the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge and onto the refuge itself, a move aimed at resolving a trespass lawsuit filed by the Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 2. The potential change was disclosed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lance Duke during a federal court hearing on Oct. 14.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on October 23 that President Donald Trump’s June 2025 federalization of the California National Guard in Los Angeles was likely illegal, marking a significant limit on presidential emergency powers. The decision, which defines “rebellion” narrowly, has little immediate effect because the deployment ended after a Supreme Court ruling in a related Illinois case, but it establishes that executive claims of emergency authority are subject to judicial review.
Donald Trump has announced a $1m reward for reports of voter fraud in past and upcoming elections, with payment depending on the arrest and conviction of those responsible, as his administration continues legal efforts to challenge state voting procedures ahead of the November midterm elections.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been using the NYPD Police Academy gymnasium in Queens for late-night pickup basketball games, sources familiar with the sessions told POLITICO, while Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman faces questions over campaign finance filings that show bank balances far exceeding what he reported.
More than 86 percent of families with children at Silver Rail Elementary want them to return to the school when it reopens, according to a survey released by Bend-La Pine Schools. The results come two weeks after the Oct. 15 shooting that killed three students and a teacher. Governor Tina Kotek has declared a state of emergency for the district and directed state agencies to provide assistance. Superintendent Steven Cook said the district has not ruled out security upgrades but noted significant resource and funding challenges.