AP US Politics News

By ROBERT YOON Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters across New York state on Tuesday will pick nominees in municipal primaries that include high-profile comeback bids in New York City by a former governor and a former congressman who both left office mired in scandal. At the top of the ballot, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo

By OLIVIA DIAZ Associated Press/Report for America RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats in Virginia have built up a hefty fundraising advantage for their effort to reclaim the governor’s mansion in a race seen as a bellwether for the party in power in Washington heading into the 2026 midterms. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA case

By DEE-ANN DURBIN AP Business Writer Some segments of the U.S. restaurant industry don’t support President Donald Trump’s proposal to eliminate federal taxes on tips, saying it would help too few people and obscure bigger issues in the way tipped workers are paid. The Independent Restaurant Coalition, which represents nearly 100,000 restaurant and bars, has

By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Farmers, cattle ranchers and hotel and restaurant managers breathed a sigh of relief last week when President Donald Trump ordered a pause to immigration raids that were disrupting those industries and scaring foreign-born workers off the job. “There was finally a sense of calm,’’ said Rebecca

By BILL BARROW, OLIVIA DIAZ and MIKE CATALINI Associated Press HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (AP) — Abigail Spanberger opened her general election bid for Virginia governor Wednesday using her high school alma mater near Richmond. “I grew up walking the halls of Tucker High School,” the former congresswoman says as she walks past a bank of

By SEUNG MIN KIM Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he plans to tap Chad Meredith, a former state solicitor general in Kentucky, for a federal judgeship in the state — and this time, he is facing no objections from Sen. Rand Paul, who opposed his nomination three years ago. Meredith was

By MARC LEVY Associated Press HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel said Wednesday they have finalized their “historic partnership,” a deal that gives the U.S. government a say in some matters and comes a year-and-a-half after the Japanese company first proposed its nearly $15 billion buyout of the iconic American steelmaker. The

By SCOTT BAUER Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Anxious lawmakers convened Wednesday under heightened security in Wisconsin’s state Capitol, one of the most publicly accessible statehouses in the country, days after a legislator and her husband in neighboring Minnesota were shot and killed at their home and others were targeted. The tension playing out

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly six months after Joe Biden left the White House, Senate Republicans are still scrutinizing his presidency, kicking off the first in what’s expected to be a series of congressional hearings this year on his mental fitness in office. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee brought in

By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming surgery for transgender youth in a ruling that’s likely to reverberate across the country. Most Republican-controlled states already have similar bans. In his majority opinion Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Tennessee’s ban does not violate the Constitution’s equal

By FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The go-broke dates for Medicare and Social Security ‘s trust funds have moved up as rising health care costs and new legislation affecting Social Security benefits have contributed to earlier projected depletion dates, according to an annual report released Wednesday. The go-broke date — or the date

By SEUNG MIN KIM Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Joe Biden will be attending a Juneteenth celebration at a historic African Methodist Episcopal church in Galveston, Texas. The former Democratic president’s plans were confirmed by a person with knowledge of them but not authorized to discuss logistics publicly. In 2021, Biden signed legislation

By KIMBERLY KINDY and AMANDA SEITZ Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — California’s two U.S. senators demanded on Wednesday that the Trump administration stop using personal data of millions of Medicaid enrollees — including their immigration status — as part of its sweeping deportation campaign. In a letter to top administration officials, Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff

By MEG KINNARD and CHRIS MEGERIAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday downplayed any notion that his supporters are cooling on him amid uncertainty over whether he will order a U.S. strike on Iran, addressing a rift between some of his most vocal MAGA backers and national security conservatives. “My supporters

By ISABELLA VOLMERT Associated Press LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Bridget Brink, who stepped down as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine this year in protest of what she said was President Donald Trump’s unfair treatment of the the war-torn country, announced Wednesday that she’s running for Congress in one of Michigan’s most competitive districts. The longtime diplomat,

By MARK SHERMAN and LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is in the homestretch of a term that has lately been dominated by the Trump administration’s emergency appeals of lower court orders seeking to slow President Donald Trump’s efforts to remake the federal government. But the justices also have 10 cases

By OLIVIA DIAZ Associated Press/Report for America RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The candidates for Virginia’s lieutenant governor are set to make history after Sen. Ghazala Hashmi won the Democratic nomination for the position on Wednesday. Hashmi is the first Muslim and the first Indian-American to be nominated to appear on the ballot for a Virginia

By The Associated Press The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that it is restarting the process for foreigners to apply for student visas but says all applicants must have their social media accounts set to ‘public’ to allow review by officials. Consular officers will be looking for activity, posts and messages showing “any indications of

By ALEXANDRA OLSON and CLAIRE SAVAGE AP Business Writers WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — The acting chair of the federal agency that enforces workers rights acknowledged Wednesday that transgender workers are protected under civil rights laws but defended her decision to drop lawsuits on their behalf, saying her agency is not independent and must comply with

By SARA CLINE Associated Press BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana state Sen. Blake Miguez officially launched his bid on Tuesday to unseat fellow Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy in 2026. Miguez is the latest GOP challenger to Cassidy, who has been chastised by his party for being one of seven GOP senators who voted

By REBECCA SANTANA and ERIC TUCKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was taken to the hospital on Tuesday after experiencing an allergic reaction, her spokeswoman said. “She is alert and recovering,” said the statement from department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, who said the hospital treatment was out of an

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and COLLEEN SLEVIN Associated Press DENVER (AP) — A jury found Monday that MyPillow founder Mike Lindell defamed a former employee of a prominent voting equipment company by calling him a traitor, telling Lindell and his online media platform to pay $2.3 million in damages. The decision came after a two-week trial

By MICHAEL PHILLIS Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency told a federal appeals court it will reconsider the Biden administration’s ban on the last type of asbestos used in the United States to determine whether it went “beyond what is necessary.” Asbestos is linked to tens of thousands of deaths annually and

By MARY CLARE JALONICK and MICHAEL R. BLOOD Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Alex Padilla on Tuesday encouraged Americans to peacefully protest against President Donald Trump’s administration and said it’s “it’s time to wake up” in his first extended remarks in the Senate since he was forcibly removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s