Politics Election category, Page 248

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump opened the door Wednesday to lifting some sanctions on Iran in an effort to set up a meeting with that country’s leaders, a softening of his “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran just a day after the firing of national security adviser John Bolton. Trump has...

The first presidential debate of the 2020 election season to include all of the major Democratic candidates at one venue — at the same time — is set to take place Thursday. After the DNC upped the standards to qualify for this debate, only 10 of the previous 20-plus candidates...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is allowing nationwide enforcement of a new Trump administration rule that prevents most Central American immigrants from seeking asylum in the United States. The justices’ order late Wednesday temporarily undoes a lower-court ruling that had blocked the new asylum policy in some states along the...

For nearly 40 minutes Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey and two of his colleagues from across the aisle huddled around a phone, fielding what they described as thoughtful questions from President Donald Trump about hammering out a bill to expand gun background checks. Afterward, the Pennsylvania Republican once again told...

RALEIGH — Conservative Republican Dan Bishop won a special election Tuesday for an open House seat in North Carolina, averting a demoralizing Democratic capture of a district the GOP has held for nearly six decades. But his narrow victory didn’t erase questions about whether President Donald Trump and his party’s...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he didn’t know about the overnight stay of a U.S. Air Force crew at his Scotland golf resort amid new scrutiny of government spending at properties owned by the president. “I know nothing about an Air Force plane landing at an airport (which I...

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee will vote Thursday to establish rules for hearings on impeachment, escalating the panel’s investigations of President Donald Trump even as many Democrats remain wary of the effort. The resolution is a technical step, and the panel would still have to introduce impeachment articles against...

Republican leaders in South Carolina and Kansas have voted to scrap their presidential nominating contests in 2020, while party officials Nevada were deciding whether to follow suit as the GOP erects more hurdles for the long shots challenging President Donald Trump. Canceling primaries, caucuses and other voting is not an...

WASHINGTON — Veteran Wisconsin Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner announced his retirement from Congress on Wednesday, making the former House Judiciary Committee chairman the 15th GOP lawmaker to say he will step aside before next year’s elections. Sensenbrenner, 76, was first elected in 1978 and is the second-longest serving current member...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration turned its deregulatory focus Wednesday to light bulbs, scrapping a rule that would have phased out less energy efficient incandescent bulbs. The move slows a years-long push by Congress and past administrations to switch Americans to LED bulbs and other lighting using less electricity. President...

LONDON — British lawmakers battling Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to leave the European Union without a divorce deal cleared their first big hurdle Wednesday, approving in principle a bill to block his actions and sending it on for further debate. In a second straight day of parliamentary turmoil, the...

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are waiting for the White House to chart a path forward on gun violence legislation, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday, effectively putting the burden on President Donald Trump to decide the GOP’s legislative response to the spate of mass shootings that included another deadly...

DUBLIN — A top aide to Vice President Mike Pence is defending Pence’s decision to stay at one of President Donald Trump’s properties while in Ireland amid criticism by Democrats that he is enriching Trump at taxpayers’ expense. Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, told reporters aboard Air Force Two...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump expressed a commitment Sunday, hours after the latest deadly mass shooting, to work with a divided Congress to “stop the menace of mass attacks.” He said any measures must satisfy the competing goals of protecting public safety and the constitutional right to gun ownership and...

WASHINGTON — An aide and gatekeeper to President Trump resigned from the White House staff on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter. Madeleine Westerhout, whose formal title was special assistant to the president and director of Oval Office operations, had worked for Trump since the transition. The president...

FAIRFAX, Va. — A $50 million gift made earlier this year to Virginia’s largest public university was given specifically to “promote the conservative principles of governance,” newly released documents show, raising concerns from critics that it compromises academic freedom at the school. George Mason University announced the gift earlier this...

SELA PRI KAMNIKU, Slovenia — There’s no mistaking it depicts Donald Trump: a large wooden statue of the U.S. president has been erected in Slovenia, the homeland of his wife Melania. The nearly 26-foot high construction shows Trump with his trademark hair style, blue suit, white shirt and a long...

NEW YORK — The one constant with President Donald Trump’s increasingly frequent attacks on Fox News has been the network’s refusal to respond, even as the president complains that “Fox isn’t working for us anymore.” In recent days, however, some Fox personalities like Bret Baier, Juan Williams and Brit Hume...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s inspector general says former FBI Director James Comey violated FBI policies in his handling of memos documenting private conversations with President Donald Trump. The watchdog office says Comey broke FBI rules by giving a memo containing unclassified information to a friend with instructions to share...