WASHINGTON — A storm is brewing in the nation’s capital, both inside and outside the halls of Congress.

Congress is barreling toward potential gridlock as friction grows between the chambers over the difficulty of passing a sweeping voter ID and election overhaul bill through the Senate. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has ...Read more

Airport security lines are getting longer and longer as the Department of Homeland Security government shutdown stretches on and screeners working without paychecks call in sick or quit altogether.

Viral clips on social media show travelers lining up in predawn darkness out the door of terminals into parking lots and traffic ramps at popular ...Read more

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump resurrected a pet nickname for New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman in his latest salvo against female reporters, threatening to sue her and the newspaper while hurling insults at the veteran journalist.

“Maggot Hagerman, just another SLEAZEBAG writer for The Failing New York Times, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Amid concerns that Cuba could be President Donald Trump’s next target for military action, a trio of Senate Democrats has introduced legislation aimed at blocking him from doing so.

The war powers resolution from Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Adam B. Schiff of California would direct the ...Read more

The selling point, from state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, was simple and direct.

The Fort Myers Republican told colleagues they needed to pass a suite of election-law changes — including verifying the citizenship of registered voters and reducing the kinds of ID voters could use to verify themselves at the polls — to ensure that “Florida ...Read more

Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar’s supporters packed central Budapest in a show of strength a month before elections that polls show could spell the end of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s 16-year rule.

Backers of Magyar’s Tisza party lined the capital’s Andrassy Avenue for more than a mile on Sunday ahead of the April 12 vote. ...Read more

Prime Minister Viktor Orban ratcheted up his anti-Ukraine rhetoric, casting next month’s Hungarian election as a choice between sticking with him or installing a puppet of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Orban, the European Union leader who is closest to Russia and also an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, told a crowd outside the Hungarian...Read more

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had some explaining to do when he arrived on Capitol Hill for a classified briefing with lawmakers in early March.

Members of Congress wanted to know why, two days earlier on Feb. 28, the United States and Israel had attacked Iran and killed its supreme leader — without notifying them first. After the briefing, ...Read more

More than 300 political parties and groupings have registered for Haiti’s upcoming elections after a last-minute rush to beat a Thursday registration deadline.

A source with Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council confirmed that 320 political parties and platforms registered to participate in the first general elections in 10 years, scheduled...Read more

President Donald Trump’s main outside political group, MAGA Inc., has amassed more than $300 million heading into November’s midterm elections. It’s just not clear he’s willing to tap that fortune to keep vulnerable Republicans in Congress.

With public frustration over the Iran war adding to mounting GOP hurdles, Trump’s unprecedented...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The list of candidates running for Los Angeles city and school board offices is set, with a number of incumbents facing what could be competitive primary elections on June 2.

Fourteen Angelenos have qualified to run for mayor, including incumbent Karen Bass, City Councilmember Nithya Raman and former reality TV star Spencer ...Read more

A surprise guest appeared at a recent campaign rally for Viktor Orban’s party in eastern Hungary: a Ukrainian prisoner of war freed from Moscow’s captivity.

How he got there illustrates the way in which Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to help the Hungarian prime minister survive next month’s election.

Orban has frequently ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The former federal attorney who proclaimed “this job sucks” in a courtroom amid Operation Metro Surge is now running for Congress as a Democrat.

Julie Le made national headlines for her Feb. 3 outburst before U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell, who was demanding answers as to why the federal government missed deadlines to ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho lawmakers are trying to strengthen the state’s “abortion trafficking” law after a legal challenge.

The law bans people from helping minors get an abortion in a state where it’s legal without a parent’s consent.

Gov. Brad Little signed the law in 2023, the first legislative session after the U.S. Supreme Court ...Read more

President Donald Trump mocked Iran’s new leader on Friday as “damaged” and shrugged off the historic threat to the world’s oil supply as the Middle East war shows few signs of winding down.

With the conflict set to enter a third week, Trump dismissed Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei as only “alive in some form” after the newly ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The silence from the Kentucky crowd, many wearing “Make America Great Again” gear, was deafening.

The friendly audience in the commonwealth’s 4th District already had booed loudly at President Donald Trump’s mention of “Barack Hussein Obama,” with emphasis on the 44th president’s middle name. It would later howl as ...Read more

The U.S. Department of Justice has begun connecting its push to obtain sensitive personal data on millions of voters to whether the upcoming midterm elections will be fair and secure, laying the groundwork for the Trump administration to potentially cast doubt on the results.

The Justice Department has sued 29 states and the District of ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The House and Senate Armed Services panels have yet to be briefed on the costs of the Iran war, members and aides said Thursday.

This week, Pentagon officials gave the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee an estimate of $11.3 billion for the war’s first week, a figure first reported Wednesday by The New York Times.

The ...Read more

Headlines from the war in Iran are changing by the hour as the operation intensifies. That’s why it’s disturbing that Congress decided to sit on the sidelines and watch things unfold instead of exercising its power.

Among the developments since the Republican-led Congress decided against resolutions that would have asserted their power to ...Read more

WASHINGTON — On paper, Reps. Jimmy Panetta and Tracey Mann don’t seem like they’d agree on much. A Democrat representing California’s Central Coast and a Republican whose district spans half of Kansas make for an unlikely duo.

But the pair are on shared turf as they co-captain the Mean Machine, the members’ team for the Congressional ...Read more