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U.S. politics: the White House, Congress, the courts and the campaigns, and what each move means.
Health, nutrition, environmental and disaster-relief grants took the biggest hits. California, Texas, New York, Illinois and North Carolina lost the most, and the database catalogs everything from maternal health in Michigan to minority-farmer aid in Iowa.
Paid administrative leave rose 435% across 76 agencies covering 95% of the civilian workforce. OPM Director Scott Kupor says the cost was one-time and is dwarfed by $20 billion in recurring savings.
The Kentucky Republican, who lost his primary in May, accuses the war secretary of waging an unauthorized war in Iran, bombing a girls' school, demoting Sen. Mark Kelly and seizing Nicolás Maduro without Congress's consent.
The attorney general said the Supreme Court's mail-ballot ruling changes nothing about the DOJ's election work, citing 11 illegal-voting charges in ten days. 'We're prosecutors, not regulators,' he said of AI.
Huang put the president on speakerphone at the All-In Summit. Trump said data centers are 'the oil of the next 20, 25 years' and that the doubters are 'political people' or 'China.' Huang stopped short of 'hoax,' calling apocalyptic predictions 'not grounded in science.'
Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV's 48-page order preserves the 'duration of status' system that has governed F-1 and J-1 visas for nearly 50 years. Eight higher-education groups and unions sued; the rule drew 22,000 public comments, most of them opposed.
Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell's Protect College Sports Act cleared the filibuster easily on Tuesday. Chris Murphy said it 'protects a system of exploitation,' the NAACP opposes it, and the House has failed repeatedly to pass its own version.
WatchJudge Christopher Cooper ruled the board cannot install a Trump tribute anywhere on the grounds without Congress. The board then declared the main building 'unsafe for continued occupancy,' the CFO resigned, and Trump said the renovation 'will not take place' unless the ruling is reversed.
WatchIn his first congressional appearance since May, the FBI director defended relaxed hiring rules on prostitution and bestiality, brushed off a ProPublica report on Don Jr.'s wedding, and refused to give Blumenthal an unambiguous pledge to keep agents away from elections.
Seven Republicans crossed the aisle on Seth Moulton's resolution as the war entered its seventh month. Hours earlier, Thomas Massie filed impeachment articles against Pete Hegseth, and the CBO put the bill at $2 billion to $3 billion a month.
The Texas Democrat's H.Res. 1486 accused Trump of letting ICE and Border Patrol 'operate without accountability' and cited four people killed by federal immigration agents this year. Democratic leaders declined to whip the vote and voted present themselves.
Median income rose 2.6% in 2025, the official poverty rate fell to 10.2% and child poverty hit a record low of 13.4%. Women's earnings rose 3.2% while men's did not move, and the top 10% gained while the bottom 10% slipped.
The Clarity Act needed 60 votes to advance. Thune said Republicans had granted more than 100 Democratic requests; Warren said the ethics language was 'a tiny little fig leaf' that would let Trump make 'his next $1.4 billion in crypto profits.'
The Future of Life Institute's all-day 'Pro-Human Assembly' also features Marsha Blackburn, Randi Weingarten, Ashley Judd and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Speaker Johnson says a moratorium means 'we will lose the race to China.'
The 84-year-old Kentucky Republican, who retires in January, told reporters it was 'time to get back to work' on the farm bill. His return restores a 12-11 GOP edge on the Agriculture Committee.
WatchIn a fly-fishing interview at his in-laws' Montana ranch, the California governor said the two Democrats share the same voters and the same friends. Harris leads him by 11 points in the RealClearPolitics average and has not said whether she will run.
The J.H. Campbell plant was supposed to retire in May 2025. Secretary Chris Wright's Section 202(c) order kept it burning coal for more than a year at a cost of roughly $259 million, which Midwest ratepayers are on the hook for. Similar orders in five other states now look legally exposed.
Judge George O'Toole Jr. found the essay prompt 'calls for the applicant's personal views on a political topic' and likely violates the First Amendment. It had appeared on more than 70,000 postings for nonpartisan civil service jobs since May 2025. OPM has until the end of the week to pull it.
In two late-night Truth Social posts the president called José de Rivera's stainless-steel sculpture 'strange' and said it 'tells visitors nothing about America.' The Smithsonian's Board of Regents, not the White House, controls the museum, and its secretary, Lonnie Bunch, has already announced he will leave at the end of the year.
WatchAn unsigned, one-paragraph order Monday left in place a Massachusetts judge's injunction against the USPS rule born of Trump's March executive order. Twenty-three states and D.C. had sued, and Justice Kavanaugh wrote that election officials 'do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.'
ProPublica found that Umar Kremlev, the 43-year-old head of the International Boxing Association who received the Order of Friendship from Putin in May, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the May 24 festivities. Trump Jr. and Bettina Anderson called it 'an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend.'
The federal complaint, filed in New York with student Mohammad Zubairi and a suspended pro-Palestinian group, accuses Columbia of hiring private investigators to monitor Khalil, retaliating against students who reported harassment, and rewriting its discipline rules to punish criticism of Israel.
The suspensions, tied to an estimated $39 billion in suspected PPP and EIDL fraud, were announced in Kansas City alongside a summer 'Heartland fraud surge' that produced more than 160 defendants. One Missouri man is accused of claiming to own dozens of businesses, including 'Fur Lives Matter.'
Draft resolutions filed in court Monday offer 10 marble inscriptions crediting Trump and ask trustees to shut the main building immediately. Rep. Joyce Beatty says the safety claim cites a consultant who expressly disclaimed it.
Padilla and Schumer say the 'Unlawful Voter Initiative' could amount to thousands of state-law violations and has already created federal law enforcement records against naturalized Americans. They gave Secretary Mullin until Sept. 21 to answer.
The suit says DHS cannot call one of the emptiest stretches of the border an 'area of high illegal entry' to waive the law. Roughly 65% of the 609-mile project runs across private property.
The president blamed the world's diesel crisis on the Ukraine war rather than his own war on Iran. Zelenskyy said any halt has to last past Russia's 'elections' and not collapse the moment fuel prices ease.
The former CIA director's lawyer disclosed the subpoena in a court filing and said Brennan also remains a target in a separate Washington investigation into whether he lied to Congress in 2023.
Starting Friday, immigration officers can weigh food stamps, housing aid, WIC and college financial aid against green-card applicants. Mamdani says 3.1 million New Yorkers are foreign-born and the rule is 'intentionally vague.'
The rule had required coal plants and new gas plants to cut 90% of their CO2 by 2032. The EPA's own prior analysis credited it with preventing 30,000 deaths a year. Power-sector emissions rose 4.1% in 2025, the first increase in two decades.