AP

By CHRIS MEGERIAN and DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The American flag has long flown from a pole on the White House roof, but that’s always been too small for President Donald Trump, who wants everything to be bigger and more beautiful. On Wednesday, massive new flagpoles were erected on the North and

By JONATHAN MATTISE, GEOFF MULVIHILL and JOHN SEEWER Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A U.S. Supreme Court decision Wednesday upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors is leaving transgender children and their parents uncertain and anxious about the future. The court handed President Donald Trump’s administration and Republican-led states a significant victory by

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