The House on Wednesday rejected a GOP-backed effort to censure Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., with almost two dozen Republican lawmakers bucking their party’s attempt to publicly rebuke him.

The House voted 225-196 to set aside the resolution, introduced by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., to censure Schiff over his role in the House investigation into Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

Twenty Republicans joined Democrats in tabling Luna’s measure, effectively blocking a vote on the censure resolution itself. Two Republicans and five Democrats voted present.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign said Wednesday that it has raised $6.6 million since news of his federal indictment broke, including more than $4.5 million online.

In an announcement, the campaign said an additional $2.1 million came in at a pre-planned fundraiser Tuesday night at Trump’sBedminster golf course in New Jersey.

Altogether, that’s a bit more than half of the $12 million Trump’s campaign previously announced raising in the six days following the news in late March that he had been indicted in New York City. That indictment alleged that Trump violated New York state law when paying an adult film actress to stay quiet about an alleged affair.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A federal judge on Tuesday granted a motion by E. Jean Carroll to file an amended defamation suit against former President Donald Trump seeking at least $10 million, based in part on recent comments Trump made on CNN.

Carroll made the motion for an amended complaint after Trump called her a “whack job” at a CNN town hall in May — the day after she won a $5 million judgment against him in a different civil case that alleged sexual abuse and defamation.

At the CNN event, Trump said, “I never met this woman. I never saw this woman,” and he called her claims “fake” and “made up,” her lawyers said in seeking the amended complaint.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Sen. JD Vance announced Tuesday that he will be putting a procedural hold on Department of Justice nominees in response to the prosecution of former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling national defense information.

Vance’s office said nominees for positions with the U.S. Marshal Service will be excepted from the Ohio Republican’s move.

The announcement follows “the unprecedented political prosecution of Donald J. Trump by Biden’s Department of Justice,” Vance’s office wrote in a statement. Trump was arraigned Tuesday as Vance made the announcement. Vance has endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential run.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., struck a temporary deal with a band of 11 conservative rebels Monday, ending a nearly weeklong blockade of the House floor and paving the way for votes this week on a handful of GOP messaging bills.

The agreement was announced after a meeting between McCarthy and some of the rabble-rousers who last week joined Democrats in voting no on a rule vote — a rare move that blocked a package of GOP bills from advancing on the floor and prompted leadership to send lawmakers home for the week.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A federal judge tonight said members of the media will be prohibited from taking cellphones or other electronic devices into the courthouse where Trump is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow afternoon.

“All cellular phones and/or electronic equipment are hereby prohibited for news reporters and other members of the media inside the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. United States Courthouse in Miami,” Chief U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga wrote in a court order.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

If there was a theme for Kevin McCarthy’s jampacked first five months as speaker, it would be this: You only live once.

In April, he followed in the footsteps of his political idol, fellow California Republican Ronald Reagan, delivering a major address on Wall Street. Then he hosted Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen at Reagan’s presidential library, infuriating Beijing. Last month, McCarthy met King Abdullah II in Jordan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

 President Joe Biden welcomed hundreds to the White House on Saturday for a delayed Pride Month celebration aimed at showing LGBTQ+ people that his administration has their back at a time when advocates are warning of a spike in discriminatory legislation, particularly aimed at the transgender community, sweeping through statehouses.

The event, which the administration described as the largest Pride event hosted at the White House, was initially scheduled for Thursday, but was postponed because of poor air quality from hazardous air flowing in from Canadian wildfires. But the haze that blanketed a huge swath of the East Coast this past week had lifted over the nation’s capital, allowing the president and first lady Jill Biden to hold their South Lawn party.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Pat Robertson, a religious broadcaster who turned a tiny Virginia station into the global Christian Broadcasting Network, tried a run for president and helped make religion central to Republican Party politics in America through his Christian Coalition, has died, the network announced Thursday. He was 93.

Robertson died at his home in Virginia Beach, Virginia, early Thursday morning, according to the network. No cause was given.

Robertson’s enterprises also included Regent University, an evangelical Christian school in Virginia Beach; the American Center for Law and Justice, which defends the First Amendment rights of religious people; and Operation Blessing, an international humanitarian organization.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

The Supreme Court’s unexpected affirmation of part of the Voting Rights Act was not just a win for Black voters in Alabama — it could also send new Democrats to Congress in as many as four states, advocates said, as the precedent is applied in similar cases around the country.

The court, divided 5-4, struck down Alabama’s congressional map Thursday, agreeing with a lower court that the state had diluted the power of Black voters by drawing just one majority-Black district when there were enough voters for two seats.

Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the court’s three liberals.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

NBC News’s Jacob Soboroff sat down with California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) for an interview set to air Thursday morning on Today. In the interview, Newsom doubled down on his strongly-worded criticism of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and his vow to investigate and potentially prosecute anyone involved in the deceitful shipping of migrants to his state.

“These flights of asylum seekers that are being brought to Sacramento. There’s been two of them, now. They’ve been described as state-sanctioned kidnaping by the attorney general of the state of California,” Soboroff began.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

A small bloc of conservative bomb-throwers is holding the floor of the House of Representatives hostage, forcing GOP leaders to cancel votes for the rest of the week.

For the second straight day, the conservatives blocked several leadership-backed bills from moving forward Wednesday in protest of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s handling of the debt deal he struck with President Joe Biden.

The brazen revolt means this hard-right faction, made up mostly of House Freedom Caucus members, has ground legislating on the chamber floor to a halt, undermining the Republican majority and McCarthy’s power.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The PGA Tour, the dominant force in men’s professional golf for generations, and LIV Golf, which made its debut just last year and is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in Saudi money, will together form an industry powerhouse that is expected to transform the sport, executives announced Tuesday.

The rival circuits had spent the last year clashing in public, and the tentative agreement that emerged from secret negotiations blindsided virtually all of the world’s top players, agents and broadcasters. The deal would create a new company that would consolidate the PGA Tour’s prestige, television contracts and marketing muscle with Saudi money.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

About two dozen Secret Service agents have been subpoenaed or have appeared before a federal grand jury in Washington that’s looking into former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents, two sources familiar with the matter confirmed Tuesday.

The sources said prosecutors have interviewed agents assigned to Trump’s security detail at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, about 24 of whom have been asked to testify before the grand jury. All complied, the sources said.

The testimony occurred in the “past few months,” meaning not recently, since the grand jury has been on hiatus, the sources said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie jumped into the 2024 presidential race Tuesday, filing his official paperwork hours before a planned launch event.

Christie has been blunt in his criticism of former President Donald Trump, who remains the Republican front-runner in the polls, and he’s likely to continue those lines of attack now that he’s in the race.

Christie directly took aim at Trump as he announced his candidacy Tuesday night at a town hall at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics in Manchester.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Gov. Gavin Newsom took his feud with Gov. Ron DeSantis to new heights on Monday, seemingly threatening him with kidnapping charges after California officials say South American migrants were sent to Sacramento by the state of Florida as a political stunt.

Newsom, a Democrat, cited state kidnapping laws in a tweet to the Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful, whom he called a “small, pathetic man.”

“This isn’t Martha’s Vineyard. Kidnapping charges?” Newsom said in the tweet, referencing DeSantis’ action last year to send a group of Venezuelan migrants to the wealthy liberal vacation spot in Massachusetts.

Read the rest of the story at The Los Angeles Times

Former Vice President Mike Pence is filing paperwork on Monday declaring his campaign for president in 2024, setting up a challenge to his former boss, Donald Trump, just two years after their time in the White House ended with an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and Pence fleeing for his life.

Pence, the nation’s 48th vice president, will formally launch his bid for the Republican nomination with a video and kickoff event in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday, which is his 64th birthday, according to people familiar with his plans. He was set to file papers making his candidacy official with the Federal Election Commission.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The federal grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the Justice Department’s investigation of former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents is expected to meet again this coming week in Washington, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation.

Prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith have been presenting the grand jury with evidence and witness testimony for months, but activity appeared to have slowed in recent weeks based on observations at the courthouse and sources.

It’s unclear whether prosecutors are prepared to seek an indictment at this point. The Justice Department would not comment on the status of the investigation. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

NBC News is passing the baton on its long-running Sunday public affairs program “Meet the Press.”

Chuck Todd told viewers Sunday he is leaving the moderator’s chair on the 75-year-old program in September. He will hand it off to Kristen Welker, the network’s chief White House correspondent.

Welker will be the second female moderator in the long history of “Meet the Press.” Martha Rountree was the first to have the job when the program launched in 1947 and held the position until 1953.

Read the rest of the story at The Los Angeles Times 

The Senate voted largely along party lines Thursday on legislation to block President Joe Biden’s student debt relief program after the measure cleared a key procedural hurdle in the chamber.

The 52-46 vote to pass the legislation comes a day after senators took a similarly close vote to proceed to the measure, which would repeal Biden’s debt relief program and end the administration’s pause on federal student loan payments. A few moderate senators — Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana and independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — voted with Republicans on the final passage vote as well as the motion to take up the measure.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden fell onstage Thursday at the Air Force Academy’s graduation ceremony and is “fine,” a White House aide said.

After Biden shook the hands of more than 900 graduates, he turned to head back to his seat and started to motion as if he were going to jog. He then appeared to trip and fell down on the stage.

Biden, 80, was helped up by two Secret Service agents and an Air Force official, and he then turned and pointed to something onstage that he might have tripped over.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, multiple sources told CNN, undercutting his argument that he declassified everything.

The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. On the recording, Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records, two of the sources said.

CNN has not listened to the recording, but multiple sources described it. One source said the relevant portion on the Iran document is about two minutes long, and another source said the discussion is a small part of a much longer meeting.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Mike Pence plans to enter the GOP presidential nomination fray June 7 with a campaign video and a kickoff speech in Des Moines, Iowa, according to a person familiar with his launch schedule.

The former vice president, a longtime advocate of the priorities of traditional conservatives on social and economic issues, will join the race at a time when his onetime boss, former President Donald Trump, claims a majority in most national polls and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is in a clear second place.

Redefining himself to Republican voters, most of whom know him primarily as Trump’s vice president, will be a challenge.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump promised to nullify a key clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if he is elected president again, though he does not have the authority to do so.

Trump has long taken issue with the citizenship clause of the amendment, which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

This means that under the Constitution, anyone born in the United States is a citizen of the country, regardless of the immigration status of the parents – with very few exceptions (such as cases where a parent has diplomatic immunity). To change this or any other provision of the document, two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the states would have to agree to ratify the change. (As an alternative to Congress’s role, two-thirds of the states could request an amendment be considered by the rest of the states.)

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he plans to “counterpunch” against former President Donald Trump’s attacks after kicking off his 2024 campaign in Iowa on Tuesday.

The Florida governor implicitly poked fun at his top rival at his first official campaign event. But speaking to reporters after the event, he had plenty to say about Trump, unloading a series of blows designed to depict him as selfish, unprincipled and petty.

“I think our voters are looking at this and they say, yeah we appreciate what he did, but we also recognize there are a lot of voters that just aren’t gonna ever vote for him,” DeSantis told reporters. “I know people in Florida who voted against me in ’18 and for me in ‘22. They said in ‘18, ‘I thought you were too much like him and in ‘22 we realized you were your own guy, we’re gonna do it.’”

Read the rest of the story at CNN

As criticism builds in Republican ranks over the debt ceiling deal struck by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and President Joe Biden, some hard-line conservatives have begun floating the idea of toppling the speaker.

On a House Freedom Caucus call Monday night, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., floated using the motion to vacate, a rule that would allow any House member to force a vote to remove the speaker, two sources familiar with the call said. Buck, speaking toward the end of the call, referred to it as the “elephant in the room,” a source said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A historic impeachment trial in Texas to determine whether Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton should be permanently removed from office will begin no later than August in the state Senate, where the jury that would determine his future could include his wife, Sen. Angela Paxton.

Setting a schedule was one of the last orders of business lawmakers took Monday during an acrimonious end to this year’s legislative session in Texas, where the impeachment laid bare fractures in America’s biggest red state beyond whether Republicans will oust one of the GOP’s conservative legal stars.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Shootings across the U.S. left at least 16 people dead and dozens more injured over Memorial Day weekend.

The gun violence occurred at beaches, high schools and motorcycle rallies, among other locations, across at least eight states. The victims were teenagers to people in their 60s.

The weekend concluded as it began — with gunfire. Nine people were injured in a shooting in the Hollywood Beach area of Hollywood, Florida, on Monday evening as people enjoying the holiday amassed along the Atlantic coast north of Miami, police said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Russia’s Interior Ministry on Monday issued an arrest warrant for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham following his comments related to the fighting in Ukraine.

In an edited video of his meeting on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was released by Zelenskyy’s office, Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, noted that “the Russians are dying” and described the U.S. military assistance to the country as “the best money we’ve ever spent.”

While Graham appeared to have made the remarks in different parts of the conversation, the short video by Ukraine’s presidential office put them next to each other, causing outrage in Russia.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Seeking to strike a reassuring tone despite days of negotiations, President Joe Biden said Thursday afternoon that he’s had several “productive conversations” with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and their teams are “making progress” on debt ceiling talks as the country inches closer to default.

“I’ve made it clear time and again: Defaulting on our national debt is not an option,” Biden said as he delivered remarks in the Rose Garden before nominating a new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But an agreement still remains elusive with just seven days until potential default. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen maintains that the U.S. government could run out of cash to pay all its bills in early June, possibly as soon as June 1.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The Supreme Court on Thursday significantly weakened a landmark water pollution law by ruling that an Idaho couple’s property does not include wetlands subject to federal oversight under the law.

The ruling, in which all the justices agreed in the outcome but differed on the legal reasoning, concluded that Mike and Chantell Sackett’s land does not fall under jurisdiction of the 1972 Clean Water Act, so they do not require a federal permit to build on the property.

The decision ends a yearslong battle between the Sacketts and the federal government and is a victory for conservative groups and business interests opposed to the broad application of the water pollution law.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Tina Turner, the exuberant, heel-stomping, wild-haired rock goddess who sold out stadiums, earned a dozen Grammy Awards and won the adoration of fans around the world in an electrifying music career spanning five decades, died Wednesday at her home near Zurich after a long illness, according to her publicist.

She was 83.

“With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model,” Turner’s publicist, Bernard Doherty, said in a statement. Doherty added that there will be a private funeral ceremony for close friends and family members. He did not specify a cause of death.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Fitch Ratings, a top credit rating agency, put the United States’ AAA long term foreign currency issuer default rating on negative watch on Wednesday evening.

“The Rating Watch Negative reflects increased political partisanship that is hindering reaching a resolution to raise or suspend the debt limit despite the fast-approaching x date (when the U.S. Treasury exhausts its cash position and capacity for extraordinary measures without incurring new debt),” the agency said in a statement.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Arkansas man who was photographed on Jan. 6, 2021, with his feet on a desk in then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was sentenced Wednesday to four and a half years in prison.

Federal prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Richard “Bigo” Barnett to more than seven years for his actions before, during and after the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

They noted in a court filing that a picture of a smiling Barnett lounging in Pelosi’s office became “one of the best-known images of that day, symbolizing the rioters having wrested control of both the hallowed space and the political process from the nation’s elected leaders.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump made a virtual appearance in New York criminal court Tuesday for the first time since pleading not guilty last month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

A stern-looking Trump appeared before Judge Juan Merchan on video to hear the terms of a protective order barring him from publicly disclosing evidence, which the Manhattan district attorney’s office will be turning over to his lawyers in the hush money payments case. Trump — whose in-person arraignment in the same courthouse last month came with massive security precautions and paralyzed operations there for the day — appeared virtually from Florida, with lawyer Todd Blanche at his side.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The 19-year-old Missouri man accused of deliberately driving a rented box truck into a White House barrier allegedly told authorities that he admires Nazis and wanted to “seize power” and “kill the president,” court documents released Tuesday show.

Sai Varshith Kandula, of Chesterfield, Missouri, rented the U-Haul truck Monday night immediately after flying from St. Louis to Dulles International Airport on a one-way ticket, a Secret Service agent said in a statement of facts filed in federal district court in Washington D.C.

The statement was included with a criminal complaint charging Kandula with depredation of property of the United States in excess of $1,000.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

As Washington struggles to reach a debt ceiling deal with little more than a week until potential default, a key hangup in the negotiations is turning out to be — “work requirements.”

A long-sought effort by Republicans to impose stricter conditions on recipients of Medicaid and other federal assistance programs is now front-and-center in the debt ceiling standoff.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has described tougher work requirements as a “red line” in his ongoing negotiations with President Joe Biden to reduce federal spending in exchange for addressing the debt ceiling.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Writer E. Jean Carroll on Monday asked a judge to update her still pending original defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump to add a new claim after he trashed her as a “whack job” during his CNN town hall earlier this month.

In a court filing late Monday, Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan said her client will be seeking a “very substantial punitive damages award” for Trump’s remarks.

Trump made the comments a day after a federal court jury in New York found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and then defaming her for calling her claims fraud. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A driver was detained after a truck crashed into security barriers near the White House on Monday night, officials said.

The white U-Haul box truck crashed into the barriers on the north side of Lafayette Square, at 16th Street, just before 10 p.m. ET.

The Secret Service said the incident, which took place just a few hundred feet from the White House, may have been intentional.

“There were no injuries to any Secret Service or White House personnel and the cause and manner of the crash remain under investigation,” Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service chief of communications, said in a statement Monday night.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Disney has abandoned plans to open up a new employee campus in Lake Nona, Florida, amid rising tensions with the state’s governor.

Citing “changing business conditions” and the return of CEO Bob Iger, Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney’s parks, experiences and products division, penned a memo to employees Thursday, announcing that the company will not move forward with construction of the campus and will no longer be asking more than 2,000 California-based employees to relocate to Florida.

“This was not an easy decision to make, but I believe it is the right one,” D’Amaro told employees.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., experienced more complications than were publicly disclosed from a recent case of shingles that left her absent from Washington for nearly three months.

Feinstein, 89, had also suffered from Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which occurred when shingles spread to her head and neck, and a case of encephalitis, which is swelling of the brain, a person familiar with her situation said Thursday.

The New York Times first reported the previously undisclosed complications.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he is “confident” the U.S. will avert default, expressing optimism a crisis could be avoided as he left for a foreign trip even as debt ceiling negotiations were coming down to the wire.

“I’m confident that we’ll get the agreement on the budget that America will not default,” Biden said from the White House Roosevelt Room. He added, “We’re going to come together because there’s no alternative.”

Biden’s remarks come as he embarks on a now five-day trip to Japan to meet with G-7 leaders. The president was due to visit Papua New Guinea and Australia following his appearance in Hiroshima but canceled the back half of the trip to work on a debt ceiling deal.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., introduced a resolution on the House floor Tuesday afternoon to expel GOP Rep. George Santos.

“I rise to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges of the House. … Rep. George Santos be, and hereby is, expelled from the House of Representatives,” he said.

House Republicans can schedule this vote within two legislative days, needing a two-thirds majority to pass; however, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would refer the resolution to the House Ethics Committee instead.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A person looking for Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly allegedly attacked two of his staffers with a metal baseball bat at his district office Monday, the congressman said in a statement.

Connolly, a Democrat, said the individual was taken into police custody and the two staffers who were injured were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

One of the staffers, a senior aide, was hit in the head, according to Connolly’s office in Fairfax. The other, an intern who had just started working in the office, was hit in the side.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A woman who said she worked for Rudy Giuliani during the last two years of the Trump administration alleged in a wide-ranging lawsuit that Giuliani, the former president’s personal attorney, discussed selling presidential pardons and detailed plans to overturn the 2020 election results.

In a 70-page complaint filed in state court in New York on Monday, Noelle Dunphy said that after Giuliani hired her in January 2019 he sexually assaulted and harassed her, refused to pay her wages and often made “sexist, racist, and antisemitic remarks,” adding that she had recordings of numerous interactions with him.

Dunphy, who is seeking $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages, said Giuliani had hired her for $1 million a year in addition to expenses and pro bono legal representation for a domestic abuse case against a former partner. But after she was hired, Dunphy alleged, Giuliani kept her employment “secret” and paid her only about $12,000 and reimbursed some of her business expenses, owing her $1,988,000 in unpaid wages. She said she was fired in January 2021.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The special counsel who spent four years investigating the Trump-Russia probe accused the FBI of acting negligently by opening the investigation based on vague and insufficient information in a sweeping 300-page report made public Monday.

Special counsel John Durham, named by then-Attorney General William Barr to examine the origins and conduct of the investigation into whether Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia, criticized the FBI at length in the report.

“The [Justice] Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to law,” the conclusion section of Durham’s report says. “Senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor toward the information they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons or entities.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

It was supposed to be a clash of 2024 GOP presidential primary titans in Iowa on Saturday, but Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had the state to himself — meeting with voters at several stops — as the threat of tornadoes forced former President Donald Trump to cancel an outdoor rally.

DeSantis, seizing on Trump’s absence, hurriedly scheduled an unannounced stop late Saturday at Jethro’s, a Des Moines barbecue joint a stone’s throw from the park where Trump had planned to hold his rally. Roughly 100 DeSantis supporters packed the restaurant’s patio and the sidewalk outside to take pictures, shake hands and hear him give a short version of his stump speech.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Cheers and applause broke out as migrants prepared to cross the border into El Paso, Texas, hours after the lifting of pandemic-era restrictions on Friday.

Once across, men and women, some in hoodies and sweaters to guard against the chilly desert night air, walked in single file to a U.S. Border Patrol van. A man and woman held hands, the woman covering her nose and mouth with her sleeve as dust filled the air.

Dozens of migrants had already boarded three white school buses in small groups, Border Patrol vans partially obscuring the media’s ability to see them. The bus was flanked by members of the National Guard and Border Patrol in green and camouflage uniforms.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

One day after making a long-anticipated return to Congress, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., attended her first Judiciary Committee meeting on Thursday after a monthslong absence following a shingles diagnosis in February.

With Feinstein’s “aye” votes, Democrats were able to send three additional judicial nominees to the Senate floor for consideration on party-line votes: Charnelle Bjelkengren to be a district court judge in Washington state; Kato Crews to be a district court judge in Colorado; and Marian Gaston to be a district court judge in California.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., cast her first two votes on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon after a nearly three-month absence due to health issues.

Upon her arrival on Capitol Hill, she was assisted into a wheelchair and greeted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Feinstein told reporters that she feels “much better.” She did not answer questions about why she decided to return or respond to calls from critics to resign.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., appeared to defend white nationalists in a recent interview by suggesting they should not be barred from serving in the military, prompting his office to clarify the remarks.

In an interview published this week by Birmingham-based radio station WBHM, Tuberville criticized the state of the military and said Democrats were to blame.

“We are losing in the military — so fast — our readiness in terms of recruitment,” said Tuberville, a member of the Armed Services Committee. “And why? I can tell you why. Because the Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don’t believe in [President Joe Biden’s] agenda.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

For months, Representative George Santos seemed to possess a Teflon-like resistance to repercussions, even as questions mounted over his income, campaign finances and rags-to-riches life story.

Mr. Santos, a first-term Republican representing Long Island and Queens, gave numerous speeches on the House floor and appeared to relish his growing notoriety. Just in the last month, he announced his bid for re-election and tried to leverage his vote with House Republican leadership on a contentious bill to raise the debt ceiling.

But on Wednesday, Mr. Santos was confronted with consequences that may prove difficult to skirt. Federal prosecutors charged him with 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, stealing public funds and lying on federal disclosure forms, and took him into custody.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

President Joe Biden and congressional leaders failed to resolve the impending default crisis at a contentious meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon, but they plan to meet again Friday.

Each side accused the other of being unreasonable, and Biden — for the first time — said after the meeting that there have been White House discussions about taking the unilateral step of invoking the 14th Amendment to circumvent Congress and ignore the debt ceiling, although he later seemed to dismiss the idea, citing litigation concerns.

A source described the mood in the room as “tense and serious,” and Biden suggested afterward that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was at times out of line.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Conservative commentator and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is launching a new version of his show on Twitter, he said Tuesday.

Speaking in a nearly three-minute video posted on the platform, Carlson gave few details about the show and offered a familiar criticism of the news media.

Carlson called the platform the “last big one remaining in the world” for free speech.

“Twitter isn’t a partisan site,” he said. “Everyone is allowed here.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

E. Jean Carroll was “exactly” Donald Trump’s type, and the former president didn’t show up at her civil trial accusing him of rape because “he knows what he did” to her, her attorney alleged in closing arguments Monday in Manhattan federal court.

Speaking to the six-man, three-woman jury, Roberta Kaplan played a video of the former president’s October deposition in the case, where he looked at a picture of Carroll from the late 1980s and identified it as a photo of Marla Maples, his second wife.

Trump had said in his deposition and in public statements after Carroll accused him of sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan department store that he wouldn’t have done so because she was “not my type.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The New York state judge presiding over the criminal hush money case against Donald Trump issued an order Monday restricting the former president from posting about some evidence in the case on social media.

Judge Juan Merchan largely sided with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg by limiting what Trump can publicly disclose about new evidence from the prosecution before the case goes to trial.

The order says that “any materials and information provided by the People to the Defense in accordance with their discovery obligations … shall be used solely for the purposes of preparing a defense in this matter.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden and congressional leaders — including the two top Republicans — will meet Tuesday in the Oval Office to open negotiations to head off an impending default crisis, although neither side expects the summit to make much progress. 

With the Treasury Department saying the government will run out of money as soon as June 1 unless Congress raises its borrowing limit, Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., have precious little time and virtually no pre-existing relationship. 

But even sitting down together is seen as a major step forward, because the White House has so far refused to negotiate over the debt ceiling itself and both sides agree a resolution is essential to avoid the unprecedented economic calamity of a default.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Eight people waiting at a bus stop in a Texas border city were killed and a dozen more were injured early Sunday when a vehicle rammed into them, officials said.

The victims, who are believed to be migrants, were at a stop near a Catholic Charities facility in Brownsville known as the Ozanam Center, a senior law enforcement official said.

Shortly after the crash, around 8:30 a.m., seven deaths were reported. Brownsville Mayor Trey Mendez later said an additional person had died.

“Several more remain critical,” Mendez said in a statement on Facebook.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Justice Department is seeking 25 years in prison for Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as a violent plot to keep President Joe Biden out of the White House, according to court papers filed Friday.

A Washington, D.C., jury convicted Rhodes in November in one of the most consequential cases brought in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters assaulted police officers, smashed windows and temporarily halted Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory.

The sentencing recommendations come a day after jurors in a different case convicted four leaders of another extremist group, the Proud Boys — including former national chairman Enrique Tarrio — of seditious conspiracy. The Proud Boys were accused of a separate plot to forcibly keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Eight of the so-called “fake electors” in Georgia who were allegedly involved in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state have accepted immunity in the Fulton County probe into the matter, according to their lawyer.

In a court filing in the case on Friday, an attorney who represents 10 of the fake electors said the Fulton County district attorney’s office reached out in April to provide an immunity offer for eight of her clients.

“After reviewing the actual, written offers of immunity, each of those eight electors accepted their immunity offer,” the filing by the attorney, Kimberly Debrow, said.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

King Charles III was crowned monarch of the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland on Saturday, in a ceremony steeped in a millennium of tradition and pageantry.

Shouts of “God Save the King!” were heard, trumpets blared and gun salutes rang out after the Archbishop of Canterbury placed the crown on Charles’s head at Westminster Abbey. The coronation comes almost eight months after Charles ascended the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Sept. 8.

Charles, 74, and his wife, Queen Camilla, 75, then returned to Buckingham Palace in a sumptuous procession cheered on by crowds lining the roads despite the heavy rain. Soon after, the couple and other members of the family, including Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales, and their three children appeared on the palace’s balcony and greeted a flag-waving crowd below them.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

First Republic Bank has been taken over by federal regulators and will be sold to JPMorgan — making it the third major bank to go under in less than two months. 

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) ) announced simultaneously Monday morning that it had seized the bank and that JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in America, would be purchasing substantially all of the bank’s assets and deposits.

With $229.1 billion in total assets at the time of closure, First Republic Bank has eclipsed Silicon Valley Bank ($209.0 billion at the time of closure) to become the second largest bank failure in American history.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A man suspected of using an AR-15 rifle to kill five neighbors execution-style continued to elude an army of law enforcement hunting for him outside Houston over the weekend.

Authorities said Sunday afternoon that Francisco Oropesa, 38, appeared to have slipped past a 2-mile dragnet of more than 150 law enforcement officers in Cleveland, Texas, about 45 miles north of Houston, on Saturday.

On Sunday, they said, more than 250 officers were continuing the search.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Writer E. Jean Carroll, who alleges in a lawsuit that Donald Trumpraped her in the 1990s in a New York department store, was questioned Thursday by a lawyer for the former president who repeatedly suggested her claim was made up.

“You were supposedly raped?” Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina asked Carroll early in his cross-examination.

“I was raped,” Carroll responded.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday brushed off a lawsuit by the Walt Disney Co. over the revocation of its Orlando-area theme park’s self-governing privileges as politically motivated.

“I don’t think the suit has merit. I think it’s political,” DeSantis said during a news conference in Jerusalem as part of a trip his office described as an “international trade mission.”

“I think they filed in Tallahassee for a reason, because they’re trying to generate some district court decision,” the governor said. “But we’re very confident on the law.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Tucker Carlson released a video on Wednesday addressing his firing from Fox News several days prior.

“In five years we won’t even remember that we had them,” he said, adding, “Trust me as someone who has participated.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

House Republicans on Wednesday narrowly passed a bill to increase the nation’s debt ceiling while cutting federal government spending — and while the legislation has no prospect of becoming law, GOP leaders hope it will help force negotiations with Democrats.

The proposal, known as the Limit, Save, Grow Act, passed 217-215, with four Republicans joining all Democrats in voting no.

Those Republicans were Reps. Andy Biggs, Ken Buck, Tim Burchett and Matt Gaetz.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Disney filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and various Florida officials over a campaign the company alleges was “patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional.”

The lawsuit follows the state oversight board’s decision to void “publicly noticed and duly agreed development contracts which had laid the foundation for billions of Disney’s investment dollars and thousands of jobs,” according to the legal filing.

The company’s lawsuit called the move “a targeted campaign of government retaliation — orchestrated at every step by Gov. DeSantis as punishment for Disney’s protected speech — now threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday declined an invitation from a high-ranking Democratic senator to testify at a congressional hearing on ethics rules for members of the Supreme Court.

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Roberts suggested that his participation could pose a threat to judicial independence.

“Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the Chief Justice of the United States is exceedingly rare, as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence,” Roberts wrote.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

As Republican leaders in the Montana legislature doubled down on forbidding Rep. Zooey Zephyr from participating in debate into a second week, her supporters on Monday interrupted proceedings in the House by chanting “Let her speak!”

Zephyr, a first-term Democrat from Missoula, wanted to speak about a proposal that would restrict when children could change the names and pronouns they use in school, with their required parents’ consent.

When lawmakers voted to continue subjecting Zephyr to a gag order, denying her the chance to speak, the gallery, made up mostly of her supporters, erupted, forcing legislative leaders to pause proceedings and clear the room.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday in a civil trial stemming from a lawsuit filed by advice columnist and author E. Jean Carroll against former President Donald Trump. 

Carroll says Trump raped her in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s and defamed her when she went public with the story in 2019, when New York Magazine published an excerpt from a book Carroll was soon to publish.

Trump has denied Carroll’s allegations, claiming she fabricated them, and accusing her of doing so for publicity.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Monday that she’ll announce charging decisions stemming from her probeinto possible interference in the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and his allies as early as mid-July.

Willis said the charging decisions will be revealed during the state Superior Court’s fourth term, which begins July 11 and ends Sept. 1.

The timeline is the clearest that Willis has given about potential indictments since she said in January that an announcement was “imminent.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

More than a half-dozen Republicans who are or may be running for president took their pitches to religious conservatives at an Iowa cattle call on Saturday that’s long been one of the premier stops on the GOP primary calendar.

Before a 1,000-person crowd at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition’s spring kickoff, a bevy of midtier candidates seeking to break out of the pack mingled with attendees, many of whom were influential activists across the state. They called for new restrictions on abortion rights and gender-affirming care, and for expanding school choice programs and shutting down the Department of Education.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the most commonly used abortion pill in the U.S. to remain widely available.

The court blocked in full a decision by Texas-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on April 7 that had invalidated the Food and Drug Administration’s longtime approval of mifepristone and handed a sweeping victory to abortion opponents.

Two of the nine justices — conservatives Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — said they would have let part of Kacsmaryk’s ruling go into effect.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Ari Melber aired a recording of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) telling Fox host Maria Bartiromo that evidence would be required to prove claims about voter fraud in a court of law.

Bartiromo was one of the several Fox hosts and guests who falsely claimed or suggested the 2020 presidential election was rigged against then-President Donald Trump, who insists to this day it was stolen from him. On Tuesday, Fox Corp. settled a $787.5 million lawsuit with Dominion Votings Systems after the latter sued for defamation when Fox personalities cited Dominion while making their bogus election allegations.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Mike Lindell has to pay $5 million for losing his “Prove Mike Wrong” 2020 election challenge, an arbitration panel has ruled.

In a decision dated Wednesday, the panel found software developer Robert Zeidman had won Lindell’s 2021 contest challenging experts to prove that data he had was not from the 2020 election, and directed the MyPillow founder to pay him the reward money he’d promised in the next 30 days.

Lindell told NBC News on Thursday that the ruling was “a horrible, wrong decision.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

An IRS special agent said to be involved in the federal investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes is seeking whistleblower protections to provide sensitive disclosures about the probe to Congress.

Mark D. Lytle, a lawyer for the unnamed IRS employee, wrote in a letter Wednesday to a bipartisan group of lawmakers that he represents a “career IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high profile, controversial subject since early 2020” and would like to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A House committee formally silenced Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Wednesday after she lobbed accusations at the homeland security secretary during his congressional testimony.

Democrats on the GOP-led Homeland Security Committee twice sought to strike remarks made by Greene at the hearing, one in which she accused a Democratic member of having an extramarital affair, but the only bipartisan agreement came when she called Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “a liar.”

The first remark that sparked backlash came when it was Greene’s turn to question Mayorkas. She followed Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who had displayed a poster that depicted a defund-the-FBI campaign with Greene’s face on it.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Key Senate Democrats are considering a hearing about Supreme Court ethics in the wake of revelations that Justice Clarence Thomas received previously undisclosed gifts and luxury travel from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the chair of the Judiciary Committee, said the “20 years of gift travel on yachts and chartered planes was outrageous.” He added that the failure to disclose Crow’s real estate deals and his reported purchase of Thomas’ mother’s home was “beyond anything I could imagine at the Supreme Court level.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Senate Republicans blocked a request Tuesday by Democrats to temporarily replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee while the 89-year-old Californian recovers from illness.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer asked for unanimous consent to swap out Feinstein for Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., saying that Feinstein “made her wish clear” to be removed “until she returns to the Senate.”

That was met with opposition from Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, effectively dooming the request. “This is about a handful of judges that you can’t get the votes for,” Graham, R-S.C. said, adding that he doesn’t believe those judges that lack GOP support should be confirmed.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) defended Jake Teixeira, 21, on Thursday, just hours after he was arrested for allegedly leaking highly sensitive military documents online.

Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman serving since 2019, held the highest-level security clearance possible for top-secret information military information and he allegedly shared highly sensitive national defense documents with an online Discord gaming group called “Thug Shaker Central.” The New York Times reported that the group of “about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games.”

The leaks caused shock waves of anger and frustration around the globe as key U.S. allies panicked over sensitive information regarding the war in Ukraine, NATO preparedness, and other topics leaked online.

The Georgia Republican, however, brushed all that aside after Teixeira’s arrest and vehemently defended him.

“Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar,” Greene wrote on Twitter

Federal prosecutors probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have in recent weeks sought a wide range of documents related to fundraising after the 2020 election, looking to determine if Trump or his advisers scammed donors by using false claims about voter fraud to raise money, eight people familiar with the new inquiries said.

President Joe Biden on Monday signed into law a Republican-backed resolution that immediately terminates the coronavirus national emergency first declared in March 2020.

The measure ends the national emergency a month earlier than the Biden administration had planned. A separate public health emergency tied to Covid will remain until May 11.

Biden had signaled his opposition to ending the national emergency but said he wouldn’t veto the legislation.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A gunman opened fire at a bank in downtownLouisville on Monday, killing at least five people — including a close friend of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear — and injuring nine others, authorities said.

The gunman was identified as Connor Sturgeon, 25, who police said was an employee of Old National Bank on East Main Street, where the gunfire erupted at 8:38 a.m.

Parts of the attack were livestreamed, police said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s decision to put the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone on hold has thrown future access to medication abortion into question nationwide and laid the foundation for a high-stakes Supreme Court battle. 

The ruling, issued Friday, is set to go into effect at the end of this week unless a higher court intervenes. The Justice Department asked an appeals court to block it Monday.

In interviews, several legal and medical experts said Kacsmaryk’s decision was unprecedented and clearly ideological. His language and reasoning, they said, closely mirrored arguments and concepts put forward by the anti-abortion movement — at the expense of scientific consensus in some instances.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson said Sunday he expects to be quickly reappointed after what he called his “unprecedented” expulsion for participating in a raucous, unrecognized gun violence protest on the Legislature floor.

“I do hope to continue to serve District 86 in the reappointment,” Pearson, a Memphis Democrat, told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “If there is a special election, I would definitely run in that special election because our voters have been disenfranchised.”

Pearson was ousted from the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday along with Democratic Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville. It was the first such partisan expulsion in the state’s modern history.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Congressional Democrats quickly condemned the decision Friday by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s longtime approval of the key abortion pill mifepristone, while top Republicans in Congress have yet to weigh in.

Kacsmaryk has given the government a week to appeal his decision, and President Joe Biden said his administration will file an appeal. If the ruling does eventually go into effect, it would curtail access to the standard regimen for medication abortion nationwide.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Progressive representatives on Thursday called for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas shortly after a ProPublica report detailed how he took lavish trips funded by a Republican billionaire donor that he did not disclose.

“This degree of corruption is shocking — almost cartoonish,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote on Twitter. “Thomas must be impeached.”

Progressive ally Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., reiterated the call for impeachment, adding that the Supreme Court needs a binding code of ethics. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., joined in on Twitter: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Thursday accused House Republicans of trying to “undermine” his office’s criminal case against former President Donald Trump through an “unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation.”

“Repeated efforts to weaken state and local law enforcement actions are an abuse of power and will not deter us from our duty to uphold the law,” Bragg tweeted in response a subpoena House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, issued to a former prosecutor involved in the investigation.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The White House released a report Thursday about the decisions made regarding the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, including the bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members.

The 12-page report by the National Security Council summarizes the administration’s assessment of the withdrawal and largely blames former President Donald Trump’s administration for the chaos that unfolded as U.S. troops were leaving and as Americans and Afghans evacuated from the country. The Taliban took over the governmentand have remained in power.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A Delaware judge said he’s inclined to force Fox Corp. executives Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch to testify live in the defamation suit against Fox News and Fox Corp.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said Wednesday at a public hearing that lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems would need to issue trial subpoenas to force their testimony.

“I would not quash it, and I would compel them to come,” he said. “It would be my discretion that they come.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Just hours after he left his fingerprints in a Manhattan courthouse and on American history, former President Donald Trump returned to his home turf at the Mar-a-Lago club here and proclaimed that he is being unjustly persecuted by prosecution.

“They can’t beat us at the ballot box, so they try to beat us through the law,” Trump, the first former president ever charged with a crime, said Tuesday night to a room of supporters that included luminaries of his movement, such as defeated Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, voter fraud evangelist Mike Lindell and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Ronny Jackson, R-Texas.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Brandon Johnson will be the next mayor of Chicago, NBC News projected Tuesday, marking a stunning turn for a staunch progressive and former teacher whose campaign leaned into messages of racial and economic disparities and who overcame blowback over past comments about decreasing police funding.

Johnson defeated the well-financed, tough-on-crime moderate Paul Vallas, a former CEO of the Chicago Public Schools who promised to immediately bulk up the Chicago police ranks to curb a crisis of gun violence.  

Vallas told his supporters Tuesday night that he called Johnson and “told him I absolutely expect him to be the next mayor.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Janet Protasiewicz, a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, has won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, NBC News projects, giving liberals their first majority on the state’s highest court in 15 years.

Protasiewicz defeated conservative Dan Kelly, a former state Supreme Court justice, on Tuesday in what became the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history and one of the most closely watched elections of 2023.

Protasiewicz’s victory will allow the court’s new liberal majority to determine the future of several pivotal issues the bench is likely to decide in the coming years, including abortion rights, the state’s gerrymandered legislative maps and election administration — including, possibly, the outcome of the 2024 presidential race in the battleground state.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The shooter in last week’s deadly attack at a private Christian school in Nashville planned it for months, police said Monday.

Audrey Hale outlined plans “to commit mass murder at The Covenant School” in journals police found in the shooter’s car and bedroom after the March 27 attack that killed six people, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said.

Police previously said the shooter, a former student at the school, had carefully planned the attack with detailed maps and surveillance.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Judge Juan Merchan will allow five pool still photographers to snap for several minutes before the arraignment formally starts, according to a decision issued Monday night.

No video cameras will be allowed, though Judge Merchan conceded, “That this indictment involves a matter of monumental significance cannot possibly be disputed. Never in the history of the United States has a sitting or past President been indicted on criminal charges.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Sen. John Fetterman is speaking publicly for the first time since he entered the hospital in February with severe depression, saying in an interview on “CBS Sunday Morning” that he looks forward to returning to work later this month.

Fetterman, D-Pa., said he also looks forward to “being the kind of dad and the kind of husband and the kind of senator that Pennsylvania deserves. Truly, that’s what my aspiration is.”

Elected in November in one of 2022’s most significant midterm elections, Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed Military Medical Center for treatment for depression on Feb. 15, his staff has said.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A federal judge in Texas has struck down Affordable Care Act provisions that require health insurers to provide some free preventive care services.

The ruling could jeopardize coverage nationwide for people relying on the health care law for preventive services, such as screenings for cancer, as well as HIV drugs.

In the decision, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor mentioned his previous ruling on the structure of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which was created under Obamacare and helps determine preventive services coverage, saying it violates the appointments clause of the Constitution and therefore its related preventive care mandates are unlawful.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Donald Trump’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination jumped to his defense Thursday after he was indicted by a grand jury in Manhattan, a sign of the former president’s continued power within the party.

Many of his declared or potential rivals were quick to assert that the potential prosecution was merely about politics rather than the possibility that Trump may have committed a crime.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called it “un-American” and a “weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump boasted he “got along” with Vladimir Putinbefore Sean Hannity said the Russian president is “evil.”

Trump declined to join the Fox News host in that assessment.

Wednesday’s Hannity aired the third and final installment of the host’s interview with the former president at Mar-a-Lago. In one segment, Hannity rattled off the names of people so Trump could give quick reactions.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Pope Francis was admitted to a Rome hospital after complaining of breathing difficulties in recent days, the Vatican said Wednesday after canceling his meetings for the next two days.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said medical checks had been carried out on the pontiff at the Gemelli hospital, where Francis underwent surgery in 2021.

“In recent days Pope Francis has complained of some breathing difficulties,” Bruni said in a statement, adding that the tests had picked up a respiratory infection.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A heated debate erupted on Capitol Hill when Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a former middle school principal, yelled at his GOP colleagues Wednesday and repeatedly called them “cowards” for not supporting stricter gun measures in the wake of the Nashville school shooting.

The exchange between Bowman, D-N.Y., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., occurred just outside the House chamber and was widely circulated on social media after several journalists posted video of it.

Bowman, a former principal at Cornerstone Academy for Social Action in the Bronx, can be heard yelling: “They’re all cowards! They won’t do anything to save the lives of our children at all!”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Lawyers for Fox News were met with skepticism Tuesday when they argued that Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch should be excused from testifying in court as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the company.

At a hearing in Delaware Superior Court, Judge Eric Davis said he’d received a letter from Fox saying it would be an “inconvenience” for Murdoch, 92, to provide testimony in the courtroom.

Murdoch, the judge said, is “hardly infirm.” The judge said that after receiving the letter he was told that Murdoch had just gotten engaged and was discussing plans to travel more in the coming years — an apparent reference to an interview the recently divorced media mogul gave to his New York Post last week, where he announced his engagement to Ann Lesley Smith, 66. The article said the couple planned to spend their time between California, the United Kingdom, Montana and New York.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Sunday that lawmakers “will be moving forward” with legislation to address national security concerns surrounding TikTok after the social media giant’s CEO faced hours of hostile questioning before a congressional panel last week.

“It’s very concerning that the CEO of TikTok can’t be honest and admit what we already know to be true — China has access to TikTok user data,” McCarthy tweeted.

“The House will be moving forward with legislation to protect Americans from the technological tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party,” he added.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump returned to Fox News on Monday night and aired a host of grievances about investigations he’s facing, mail-in voting and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in his first interviewwith the network since legal filings showed network leaders privately condemning him.

There was no hint of the acrimony detailed in those communications, made public as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the network. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, spoke for nearly an hour with prime-time host Sean Hannity, long one of his most outspoken Fox News backers.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Tens of thousands of Israelis poured into the streets of cities across the country Sunday night in a spontaneous outburst of anger after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly fired his defense minister for challenging the Israeli leader’s judicial overhaul plan.

Protesters in Tel Aviv blocked a main highway and lit large bonfires, while police scuffled with protesters who gathered outside Netanyahu’s private home in Jerusalem.

The unrest deepened a monthslong crisis over Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the judiciary, which has sparked mass protests, alarmed business leaders and former security chiefs and drawn concern from the United States and other close allies.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said Sunday that he won’t run for the seat of retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein and will endorse Rep. Barbara Leeinstead.

Referring to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Khanna said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” “I have concluded that, despite a lot of enthusiasm from Bernie folks, the best place, the most exciting place, action place, fit place, for me to serve as a progressive is in the House of Representatives.”

Khanna said he will be a co-chair of Lee’s campaign, adding, “We need a strong anti-war senator, and she will play that role.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has dismissed another letter by three House Republican chairmen seeking more information related to the hush money probe that could lead to an indictment of former President Donald Trump.

In a letter to Bragg on Saturday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil argued that Congress should be privy to documents and testimony in the ongoing investigation into a $130,000 payment made during Trump’s 2016 campaign to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The White House COVID-19 team will wind down as the country moves out of the emergency phase of the pandemic, multiple administration officials confirmed to ABC News.

The public health emergency is set to expire on May 11 after being in place since early 2020. The end will impact public health measures afforded by the pandemic, like expanded Medicaid enrollment, subsidized costs of COVID tests, and data gathering on cases and deaths across the country.

It will also mark a “new phase” of COVID response, an administration official said, which will be mirrored by a restructuring within the White House.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis′ administration is moving to forbid classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades, expanding the controversial law critics call “Don’t Say Gay” as the Republican governor continues a focus on cultural issues ahead of his expected presidential run.

The proposal, which would not require legislative approval, is scheduled for a vote next month before the State Board of Education and has been put forth by state Education Department, both of which are led by appointees of the governor.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Special counsel Jack Smith’s office presented sufficient evidence to establish that former President Donald Trump committed a crime through his attorneys, a U.S. district judge ruled Friday night, a source briefed on the proceedings confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, based in Washington, D.C., wasn’t ruling on whether Trump was guilty of a crime but was making a decision about whether his attorney could be compelled to testify.

As a result of the decision, Howell ruled in favor of applying the “crime fraud” exception, which would let prosecutors sidestep protections afforded to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran through attorney-client privilege. Howell also ruled in favor of ordering Corcoran to testify before the federal grand jury. The development was first reported by ABC News.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Communications between adult-film star Stormy Daniels and an attorney who is now representing former President Donald Trump have been turned over to the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Daniels’ lawyer told CNN.

The exchanges – said to date back to 2018, when Daniels was seeking representation – raise the possibility that the Trump attorney, Joe Tacopina, could be sidelined from his defense of the former president in a case pertaining to Trump’s alleged role in a scheme to pay hush money to Daniels.

Daniels’ communications with Tacopina and others at his firm include details relating to Daniels’ situation, according to her current attorney Clark Brewster, who believes the communications show a disclosure of confidential information from Daniels.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Several sources close to former President Donald Trump say he is currently huddling at his private club at Mar-a-Lago and meeting with his team, including his lawyers and senior advisers from his campaign operation, as he awaits a possible indictment in New York City. 

Trump posted on social media over the weekend that he expected to be arrested this week by the Manhattan district attorney, who has been investigating whether Trump was involved in allegedly falsifying business records to hide campaign finance violations tied to payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The former president did not post any details about what the charges would be, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been probing whether Trump violated New York bookkeeping law by allegedly directing Michael Cohen to pay Daniels in exchange for her silence ahead of the 2016 election. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday again ripped into the Manhattan district attorney when asked about the potential charges against Donald Trump at a news conference at the House GOP retreat in Orlando while seemingly growing frustrated with reporters after multiple questions about the former president who has continued to dominate the news cycle.

McCarthy was asked directly if had concerns specifically about Trump’s alleged conduct regarding a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels and quickly pivoted to talking about Hillary Clinton and did not answer the question — before instead targeting the Manhattan DA.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News