When President Donald Trump called for the federal government to “maximize” water deliveries in California, commanders of the Army Corps of Engineers quickly found two dams where they could carry out that order. And even though the officials knew the water couldn’t be moved out of the Central Vally as Trump wished, they released billions ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Drew Ferguson’s last year as a congressman from Georgia was action-packed.

In March 2024, three months after announcing he wouldn’t run for reelection, the four-term Republican from Pike County reported spending almost $27,000 in stored-up campaign donations on a trip to The St. Regis Deer Valley, a high-end ski resort in ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order aimed at reducing the scope of eight federal agencies as part of his campaign to downsize the U.S. government.

The action eliminates non-statutory functions and reduces others for these entities called “unnecessary” in a White House fact sheet.

Groups affected are ...Read more

Facing a threat of imminent government shutdown, nine Democrats joined GOP Senate colleagues to defeat a filibuster, moving a six-month government funding bill to final passage in a late-day vote on March 14, 2025.

Since January 2025, Republicans in Washington have enjoyed what’s commonly known as a governing “trifecta”: control...Read more

Nine Haitians, a powerful labor union and a Protestant group are suing President Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over their decision to cut short more than a half-million Haitians’ legal immigration protections in the United States by six months.

The lawsuit alleges that the end of the deportation protection, known ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted to end debate on the six-month stopgap funding bill Friday after negotiations all morning and into the afternoon to hammer out a time agreement.

The 62-38 vote saw nine Democrats defy party activists and agree to let the GOP-drafted measure come to a final vote, ahead of a deadline Friday at midnight to avert a ...Read more

WASHINGTON — A six-month stopgap funding bill cleared the Senate on Friday after enough Democrats crossed the aisle to vote to end debate, defying intense pressure from the left wing of their party.

The measure now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk, where he’s expected to sign it and avert a partial government shutdown that was ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Nine Senate Democrats and one independent voted with Republicans to move forward legislation to fund the government through September, albeit with $13 billion in cuts to non-defense spending.

The Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, insisted that a government shutdown, which could be prolonged by President Donald ...Read more

President Donald Trump said Friday that he doesn’t want the new FBI headquarters to be built in Maryland but rather in the nation’s capital.

Trump said he prefers Washington for the headquarters promised to 61 acres in Greenbelt in 2023.

“They were going to build it … in Maryland, a liberal state, but that has no bearing on what I’m ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Advocates are wondering what Congress could do next to flex its authority over the nation’s capital, after a scramble over unexpected budget cuts sent hundreds of locals and their kids to plead with lawmakers at the Capitol.

“This funding bill issue is really reminding a lot of people of the vulnerabilities that D.C. has ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man who contends Rep. Nancy Mace lied about him when she accused him of sex crimes filed a libel and defamation lawsuit against Mace in federal court Friday morning.

The 37-page lawsuit, filed by Brian Musgrave, of Fort Mill, contends that Mace falsely accused him being a rapist, sex trafficker and predator ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and top aides have signaled a major overhaul of the U.S. economy — one that would be backed by industry executives, and partly fueled by nostalgia and trade retaliation, as Democratic lawmakers warn economic hardship looms.

As the United States and Canada this week engaged in a tit for tat triggered by ...Read more

When senators on Friday vote on a piece of legislation to keep the government open, they will also decide whether to give the Trump administration the authority to withhold funds from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control.

Experts interviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution say that funding for the CDC’s Injury Center — which ...Read more

As Sen. Chuck Schumer came under fire from progressives like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for backing a Republican stopgap spending plan, President Trump on Friday heaped unlikely praise on the Democratic leader for declaring he’d vote to avert a government shutdown.

Ocasio-Cortez led a chorus of outrage at Schumer, accusing him of ...Read more

China and Russia joined Iran in denouncing U.S. sanctions and backed efforts to restore a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran that President Donald Trump abandoned in his first term and now wants to replace.

The three countries — all sanctioned by the U.S. to varying degrees — stressed the need to end unilateral restrictions and urged the ...Read more

The Securities and Exchange Commission is scaling back its cryptocurrency enforcement unit. Why does this matter? Because crime pervades the crypto industry.

Just last month, a hacker stole about $1.5 billion from the crypto exchange Bybit in the biggest theft the industry has ever experienced. As this incident suggests, crypto crime seems to ...Read more

Federal workers in Philadelphia faced layoffs last month, and now as a government shutdown looms, some face the reality of having to work through it.

If the shutdown comes to fruition, it would represent "fear, anxiety and insult to injury" for some Philadelphia Internal Revenue Service workers, deemed "essential" federal employees, who would ...Read more

Many observers suggest that the United States is coming apart as a nation. They parse us into red states and blue states, urban areas versus rural. Some believe that our social and political divides are too wide to overcome.

I don’t accept that.

As someone who grew up in Peoria, Illinois, lived and worked in Chicago, and is raising a family ...Read more

WASHINGTON — A legislative proposal to cut in half a Pentagon-funded medical research account, subtracting hundreds of millions of dollars in this fiscal year alone, would jeopardize the fight against deadly diseases, experts said this week.

The six-month continuing resolution for fiscal 2025, which the House has passed and the Senate is ...Read more