Politics Election category, Page 57
VP Vance on 1st foreign trip joins world leaders in Paris for a high-stakes AI summit
PARIS — JD Vance is stepping onto the world stage for the first time as U.S. vice president this week, using a high-profile artificial intelligence summit in France and a gathering of national security leaders in Germany to showcase Donald Trump’s more assertive approach to diplomacy. The 40-year-old vice president,...
Trump says he is serious about Canada becoming 51st state in Super Bowl interview
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he is serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday during the Super Bowl preshow. “Yeah it is,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier when asked whether his talk of annexing Canada is “a real thing”...
Supreme Court that Trump helped shape could have the last word on his aggressive executive orders
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will need the Supreme Court, with three justices he appointed, to enable the most aggressive of the many actions he has taken in just the first few weeks of his second White House term. But even a conservative majority with a robust view of presidential...
Vance and Musk question the authority of the courts as Trump’s agenda faces legal pushback
WASHINGTON— Top Trump administration officials are openly questioning the judiciary’s authority to serve as a check on executive power as the new president’s sweeping agenda faces growing pushback from the courts. Over the past 24 hours, supporters ranging from billionaire Elon Musk to Vice President JD Vance have not only...
Trump says he has directed Treasury to stop minting new pennies, citing cost
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he has directed the Treasury Department to stop minting new pennies, citing the rising cost of producing the one-cent coin. “For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump wrote...
Trump official orders consumer protection agency to stop work
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down an agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought, the newly installed director of the Office of Management and...
Fetterman doesn’t waver on openness to work with Trump, despite backlash from some Democrats
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, the Braddock Democrat who was once a darling of the progressive movement, has drawn the ire of some on the left for his stances on Israel and immigration and, more recently, for his openness to working with President Donald Trump. Just last week, protesters who gathered...
Trump’s 3rd week saw more executive orders, a trade war that wasn’t and a Mideast jolt
WASHINGTON — Three weeks in, President Donald Trump keeps cranking out executive orders designed to remake the government while billionaire Elon Musk hunts for more ways to upend the federal workforce. Trump also provoked — then called off — trade wars with Canada and Mexico but allowed one with China...
Why is Trump punishing South Africa and who are the Afrikaners he wants to give refugee status to?
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — U.S. President Donald Trump followed through on his promise to punish South Africa by signing an executive order Friday stopping all aid to the country over what he called a human rights violation against a white minority group. The Trump administration says a land expropriation...
Trump fires head of National Archives, a North Huntingdon native
North Huntingdon native Colleen Shogan said she was fired Friday night from her job as archivist of the United States without being given any reason for her dismissal, which President Donald Trump had hinted at during an interview before his inauguration. Shogan, who had served as the head of the...
Trump says he’s revoking Biden’s security clearance, ending intelligence briefings in payback move
PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump said Friday he’s revoking former President Joe Biden’s security clearance and ending the daily intelligence briefings he’s receiving in payback for Biden doing the same to him in 2021. Trump made the announcement on social media shortly after arriving at Mar-a-Lago for the...
Senate GOP unveils $340B budget plan with Trump’s deportation and defense funds, as House stalls
WASHINGTON — As House Republicans missed another deadline Friday to produce a massive budget package of tax cuts and slashed spending, Senate Republicans jumped ahead, unveiling a more tailored $340 billion blueprint focused on President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda and bolstered U.S. defense spending. Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged his own...
More GOP-led states seek to follow Trump’s lead in defining male and female
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Katherine Bartle said she spent her years growing up in Alabama trying anything to “fix” herself and exist as a man. Eventually she realized it wasn’t possible. “I am a woman. I assure you that this is not a costume, nor is it by my own choice,”...
19 states to sue over DOGE access to government payment systems containing personal data
Nineteen Democratic attorneys general sued President Donald Trump on Friday to stop Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records that contain sensitive personal data such as Social Security and bank account numbers for millions of Americans. The case, filed in federal court in New York City,...
Trump promotes misleading claims about federal government’s media subscriptions
NEW YORK — Federal government payments to news outlets like Politico, The New York Times and The Associated Press for subscriptions or to license content are in the crosshairs of Trump administration spending hawks, with the president on Thursday calling it potentially “THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL.” It’s the...
Senate confirms Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to lead powerful White House budget office
WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Russell Vought as White House budget director on Thursday night, putting an official who has planned the zealous expansion of President Donald Trump’s power into one of the most influential positions in the federal government. Vought was confirmed on a party-line vote of 53-47. With...
Trump administration plans to slash all but a fraction of USAID jobs, officials say
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration presented a plan Thursday to dramatically cut staffing worldwide for U.S. aid projects as part of its dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, leaving fewer than 300 workers out of thousands. Two current USAID employees and one former senior USAID official told The...
Judge temporarily blocks Trump plan offering incentives for federal workers to resign
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s plan to push out federal workers by offering them financial incentives, the latest tumult for government employees already wrestling with upheaval from the new administration. The ruling came hours before the midnight deadline to apply for the deferred...
House lawmakers push to ban AI app DeepSeek from government devices
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan duo in the the U.S. House is proposing legislation to ban the Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSeek from federal devices, similar to the policy already in place for the popular social media platform TikTok. Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Darin LaHood, R-Ill., on Thursday introduced the...
Gaza joins list of Trump proposals backed by Fetterman
After President Donald Trump suggested a plan to “take over” and “own” the Gaza Strip, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman said he was open to the idea. Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, called the plan “provocative,” but it’s “part of the conversation,” The Hill reported. “The Palestinians have refused, or they’ve been...
Musk uses his X ownership and White House position to push Trump priorities, intimidate detractors
WASHINGTON — The emergence of X owner Elon Musk as the most influential figure around President Donald Trump has created an extraordinary dynamic — a White House adviser who’s using one of the world’s most powerful information platforms to sell the government’s talking points while intimidating its detractors. In recent...
2nd federal judge in 2 days blocks President Trump’s birthright citizenship order
SEATTLE — A second federal judge in two days has blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally, decrying what he described as the administration’s attempt to ignore the Constitution for political gain. U.S. District Judge John C....
Trump unleashes a supercharged MAGA agenda and Republicans come aboard
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump is testing how far Republicans are willing to go in supporting his supercharged “Make America Great Again” agenda, tearing down government agencies and taking actions fundamentally at odds with once-traditional party principles. For now, Republicans are marching largely in lockstep. They are backing Cabinet...
Trump signs executive order intended to bar transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday intended to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports. The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” gives federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the...
’60 Minutes’ publicly releases transcripts of interview at heart of its dispute with Trump
NEW YORK — CBS’ “60 Minutes” posted online Wednesday the unedited transcripts of its October interview with Kamala Harris that sparked a lawsuit by Donald Trump, saying that they proved its broadcast was not “doctored or deceitful.” That’s what Trump contended in a $10 billion lawsuit he filed against the...
