President’s tariffs are being scrutinized in crucial legal test of plan to impose duties on nearly every US trading partner
Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on the world are being scrutinized by the US supreme court today, a crucial legal test of the president’s controversial economic strategy – and his power.
Justices started to hear oral arguments this morning on the legality of using emergency powers to impose tariffs on almost every US trading partner.
Continue reading...As funding for food aid program is about to be exhausted, Congress fails for 13th time to advance Republican bill
The US government shutdown stretched into its 28th day with no resolution in sight on Tuesday, as the Senate remained deadlocked over spending legislation even as a crucial food aid program teeters on the brink of exhausting its funding.
For the 13th time, Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-backed bill that would have funded federal agencies through 21 November. The minority party has refused to provide the necessary support for the bill to clear the 60-vote threshold for advancement in the Senate because it does not include funding for healthcare programs, or curbs on Donald Trump’s cuts to congressionally approved funding.
Continue reading...GOP-led state is latest that Trump administration has put pressure on to undertake redistricting to favor Republicans
The Indiana governor, Mike Braun, announced on Monday that he is calling a special session to consider redrawing congressional districts in the state, the latest state to work on its maps ahead of 2026.
Indiana is one of several Republican-led states the Trump administration has pressured to undertake mid-decade redistricting to favor Republicans, which began with a push in Texas to redraw lines to add Republican seats.
Continue reading...Johnson’s House has been in recess since shutdown, delaying petition to force vote on making documents public
The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, on Tuesday said he would not prevent a vote on legislation to make the Jeffrey Epstein files public, even as the chamber remained out of session for a fourth straight week.
Johnson has kept the House of Representatives in recess ever since the shutdown began at the start of the month, after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach an agreement on extending government funding beyond the end of September.
Continue reading...Former Republican US representative walks free after being sentenced in April to more than seven years in prison for deceiving donors and stealing identities of 11 people
Donald Trump announced on Friday he had commuted the sentence of George Santos, the disgraced former New York representative and serial fabulist who had been sentenced to more than seven years in prison after a short-lived political career marked by outlandish fabrications and fraudulent scheming.
Santos left the Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in New Jersey just hours later and was “on his way home”, his attorney Joseph Murray told Agence France-Presse by phone late on Friday.
Continue reading...Provision of internet access to scam centres being investigated as Starlink swiftly becomes Myanmar’s biggest internet service provider
A powerful bipartisan committee in the US Congress says it has begun an investigation into the involvement of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite business in providing internet access to Myanmar scam centres, blamed for swindling billions from victims across the world.
The move comes as it was revealed that large numbers of Starlink dishes began appearing on scam-centre roofs in Myanmar around the time of a crackdown in February that was supposed to eradicate the centres, according to a investigation by Agence France-Presse
Continue reading...Troops can stay under federal control, as US senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth decry being barred access to Ice facility
The national guard troops Donald Trump sent to Illinois can remain in the state and under federal control but can’t be deployed, an appeals court ruled on Saturday.
The appeals court granted a pause in the case until it can hear further arguments.
Continue reading...First vote in Congress on military campaign that White House says has hit four vessels and killed at least 21 people
Senate Republicans voted down legislation Wednesday that would have put a check on Donald Trump’s ability to use deadly military force against drug cartels after Democrats tried to counter the administration’s extraordinary assertion of presidential war powers to destroy vessels in the Caribbean.
The vote fell mostly along party lines, 48-51, with two Republicans, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski, voting in favor and the Democrat John Fetterman voting against.
Continue reading...Money will aid with licensing fees and ensure artist’s ‘legacy continues to support’ medium that made him popular
Thirty paintings created by the bushy-haired, soft-spoken Bob Ross will soon be up for auction to defray the costs of programming for small and rural public television stations suffering under cuts in federal funding.
Ross, a public television stalwart in the 1980s and 90s, “dedicated his life to making art accessible to everyone”, said Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross Inc. “This auction ensures his legacy continues to support the very medium that brought his joy and creativity into American homes for decades.”
Continue reading...Mike Johnson adds Trump does not want permanent job cuts as talks between parties stalled over weekend
The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, accused Democrats of being “not serious” in negotiations to end the federal government shutdown, while the Democratic leader accused Republicans of driving the shutdown, now on its fifth day and expected to last at least through next week.
Talks between the opposing political parties stalled over the weekend, with no votes anticipated to end the standoff. A CBS poll found just 28% of Democratic voters and 23% of Republicans consider their party’s positions worth shutting down the government.
Continue reading...First shutdown in nearly seven years as Republicans accused of ‘risking America’s healthcare’ in spending bill
The US government shut down on Wednesday, after congressional Democrats refused to support a Republican plan to extend funding for federal departments unless they won a series of concessions centered on healthcare.
The GOP, which controls the Senate and the House of Representatives, repudiated their demands, setting off a legislative scramble that lasted into the hours before funding lapsed at midnight, when the Senate failed to advance both parties’ bills to keep funding going.
Continue reading...Democrats accuse Trump of intimidation tactics after memo outlines much more aggressive step than previous shutdowns
The White House is telling federal agencies to prepare large-scale firings of workers if the government shuts down next week in a partisan fight over spending plans – prompting the Democrats to accuse Donald Trump of intimidation tactics.
In a memo released on Wednesday night, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said agencies should consider a reduction in force for federal programs whose funding would lapse next week, is not otherwise funded and is “not consistent with the president’s priorities”.
Continue reading...Worker groups oppose move, citing studies finding health risks and decline in cognitive skills with increase in age
Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who heads the US Senate’s commerce committee, has urged Donald Trump to support international efforts by an airline trade group to raise the mandatory pilot retirement age to 67 – despite opposition from a pilots association, which says such a move could increase travel risks.
In a letter first reported by Reuters on Sunday, Cruz asked Trump to support efforts the upcoming opening of a United Nations aviation meeting in Montreal.
Continue reading...White House officials seek to discredit note and claim Donald Trump signature is false
Donald Trump now cannot claim presidential immunity to get off the hook from paying $83.3m in damages to the writer E Jean Carroll, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday, upholding a jury’s 2024 award against the president for defamation.
Trump’s lawyers had pointed to the supreme court’s ruling last year saying the president has immunity for official acts to argue that the damages should be overturned. A three-judge panel for the US court of appeals for the second circuit, rejected that argument.
Continue reading...The president has steamrollered the separation of powers but so far his sway over his party has been firm
Democrat Chuck Schumer returned to the Senate floor last week with some urgent questions. “Will Senate Republicans continue to kowtow to a leader they know is dragging the country down?” he demanded. “That they know is a pathological liar? Or will they, as the Founding Fathers intended, stand up to him? Will they help us fight America’s slide into authoritarianism?”
It was a recognition of how Donald Trump has spent eight months seeking to expand presidential power at the expense of Congress and others. He has signed 200 executive orders – more than Joe Biden in four years – unleashed squadrons of national guard troops in Washington, turned investigators on his political foes and sought to bring academic, cultural, financial and legal institutions to heel.
Continue reading...Vermont senator says Kennedy is endangering the health of the American people as head of the US health department
Bernie Sanders has joined in on growing public calls for Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to resign, after recent chaos across US health agencies.
In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday, the Vermont senator accused Kennedy of “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future”, adding: “He must resign.”
Continue reading...State follows Texas’s lead in Trump’s push to gain more House seats for Republicans in 2026 midterms
The Missouri governor, Mike Kehoe, has moved to help the Republican party gain an additional seat in Congress, calling a special legislative session to redraw congressional districts in his state.
Kehoe’s announcement on Friday followed a pressure campaign from Donald Trump, who has urged Republican states to reshape district boundaries to more heavily favor Republicans, boosting the party’s chances of maintaining control of the House of Representatives in 2026.
Continue reading...Pentagon official confirms plan as House minority leader Jeffries says president is ‘playing’ with Americans’ lives
Planning is underway to send national guard troops to Chicago, an official at the Pentagon confirmed to ABC News on Sunday.
“We won’t speculate on further operations. The Department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel,” a Department of Defense official said, according to ABC.
Continue reading...Assembly passes measure 57-20, sending it next to the state senate before on to governor Gavin Newsom
The California assembly on Thursday approved the first in a series of three bills designed to redraw congressional boundaries and create five potential new Democratic US House seats.
The effort in California is an answer to the Republican redistricting push in Texas, sought by Donald Trump and aimed at tilting the map in his party’s favor before next year’s midterm elections.
Continue reading...Legislation says special emergency conditions that would warrant federalization of DC police have not been met
Democratic lawmakers have introduced a joint resolution aimed at ending what they call Trump’s unlawful and unprecedented move to federalize the Metropolitan police department (MPD) in Washington DC.
Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House judiciary committee; DC’s non-voting House delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton; and representative Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House committee on oversight and government reform, introduced the resolution on Friday, invoking the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973.
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