WASHINGTON — A tidal wave of presidential words does not policy make.

That was the lesson this past week at the White House, the Capitol and on board Air Force Once, where President Donald Trump got out 35,615 words publicly between Sunday and Thursday, according to CQ Roll Call’s Factba.se. His remarks generated dramatic headlines, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States is considering "winding down" hostilities in the Middle East as the Pentagon is sending thousands of California-based Marines to the region and has requested billions in new funding for the Iran war.

"We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Senators are sticking around Washington this weekend after a busy week on the Hill highlighted partisan divides, intraparty friction and growing tension between the two chambers. One thing is clear — everyone is ready for spring break.

The Senate has largely been wrapped up in an extended debate on the GOP’s marquee voter ID ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Monday over what the phrase “Election Day” means and whether states can accept ballots in federal elections that arrive after that date.

Republicans challenged a Mississippi state law, passed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, that allows officials to count ballots that arrive up to five ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — A federal judge this week declined a request by county attorneys to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the mother of 29-year-old Abdul Kamara, who died March 4, 2024, hours after being placed in a restraint device at the Vista jail.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez ruled that the lawsuit, filed last year by Fredrika Nabbie, provides ...Read more

U.S. officials said the White House is sending more than 2,000 additional Marines to the Middle East as it weighs a plan to seize Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub, a ground operation that would carry huge risks for President Donald Trump.

“I don’t want to do a ceasefire,” Trump said Friday at the White House.

Any effort to seize and ...Read more

Jail officials are carefully watching Joseph Duggar, who once starred on the TLC reality show “19 Kids and Counting,” following his arrest for allegedly molesting a 9-year-old girl in Florida six years ago.

Duggar on Friday was being held in a “secure” area of the Washington County Jail in Arkansas while he awaits extradition to Bay ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed Richard Lee, one of the City Council’s top budget negotiators, as his Department of Finance commissioner Friday.

The move comes as the mayor and council are in the midst of hashing out the city budget for the upcoming fiscal year — a process that already become tense as the city ...Read more

U.S. President Donald Trump again lashed out at military allies for not joining the war on Iran or helping to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, expressing frustration as the Islamic Republic kept up attacks on Gulf energy assets.

An intervention by NATO to open Hormuz — a chokepoint for about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson pushed back Friday morning against a proposal by Republican state lawmakers for a 30-day break from the state gas tax as gas prices have risen since the start of the war in Iran.

Ferguson, a Baltimore City Democrat, said that the gas tax accounts for about a quarter of the revenue used for ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Researchers investigating the long-term effects of the 2025 firestorms on Los Angeles' beaches have found that rarest of things: good news.

In the year following the Palisades and Eaton fires, levels of harmful metals like lead in coastal sand and seawater have remained far below California’s limits for safe drinking water and...Read more

NEW YORK — A 40-year-old Saratoga County man pleaded guilty to cyberstalking the family of slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

The U.S. attorney’s office said Friday that Shane Daley of Galway admitted to leaving multiple threatening voicemail messages with Thompson’s family hours after the 50-year-old Minnesota man was killed in ...Read more

The Justice Department sued Harvard University for allegedly violating Jewish students’ civil rights in the Trump administration’s latest attack on the university.

In the suit filed Friday in Boston federal court, the government claims Harvard failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism during protests that followed the Oct. 7, 2023...Read more

The seven U.S. states that make up the Colorado River basin are struggling to agree on how best to manage the river’s water as its supply dwindles due to climate change and a period of prolonged drought. Their negotiations, which are not open to the public, missed a Feb. 14, 2026, deadline the federal government had established, after which...Read more

Public health advocates have largely applauded a Massachusetts judge’s ruling on March 16, 2026, to temporarily block major changes to vaccine policy made by the Department of Health and Human Services since 2025.

The ruling pauses two major actions ushered in by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. since he stepped into the role. ...Read more

Wars are rarely lost first on the battlefield. They are lost in leaders’ minds − when leaders misread what they and their adversaries can do, when their confidence substitutes for comprehension, and when the last war is mistaken for the next one.

The Trump administration’s miscalculation of Iran is not an anomaly. It is the ...Read more

Iran pressed ahead with attacks on Gulf Arab states even after Israel signaled it would stop targeting the Islamic Republic’s energy infrastructure, further unsettling oil and financial markets.

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia said they intercepted missiles and drones overnight and into Friday, while Bahrain reported a fire at a ...Read more

U.S. President Donald Trump again lashed out at military allies for not joining the war on Iran or helping to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, expressing frustration as the Islamic Republic kept up attacks on Gulf energy assets.

An intervention by NATO to open Hormuz — a chokepoint for about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Caif. — A criminal grand jury in Yolo County is investigating the fireworks explosion in Esparto that killed seven workers nine months ago, shortly before the Fourth of July.

Although grand jury actions are conducted in secret, sources with knowledge of the group’s activities — but not authorized to talk about them — said it...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky House of Representatives on Friday voted to impeach a Fayette County judge after a committee issued articles of impeachment against her earlier this week.

In a 73-14 vote Friday, the House approved the articles of impeachment against Fayette Circuit Judge Julie Muth Goodman, sending the matter to the Senate for a...Read more