With Ramaswamy run expected, Ohio treasurer drops bid for governor to run for secretary of state

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell fell twice near the Senate chamber on Wednesday, Punchbowl News reporters said. In one fall, the Kentucky Republican fell down the stairs and walked away with help from other senators in addition to another fall inside the chambers, the news outlet said. McConnell used a wheelchair as a precaution to get around the Capitol after the fall.

Seven families with transgender or nonbinary children filed a lawsuit Tuesday over President Donald Trump's executive orders to narrowly define the sexes and halt federal support for gender-affirming health care for transgender people under age 19. PFLAG, a national group for family of LGBTQ+ people; and GLMA, a doctors organization, are also plaintiffs in the court challenge in a Baltimore federal court. It comes one week after Trump signed an order calling for the federal government to stop funding the medical care through federal government-run health insurance programs including Medicaid and TRICARE.

The House Majority Fund, which is boosted by several billionaire donors, has launched an initiative aimed at earning back the working-class vote that was lost in 2024.

Parents across Texas are being warned that Border Patrol agents may be boarding school buses and their children may be detained or deported if they can not prove citizenship.

His union represents 800,000 federal employees and is suing DOGE for over “unprecedented” privacy violations

(Reuters) -U.S. Arab American and Muslim leaders, including some who supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election, criticized the president's proposal for the U.S. to take over Gaza and resettle Palestinians, but some of them said they still believed he was the best option for lasting peace in the region. The leaders largely dismissed Trump's comments as unrealistic bluster, though one warned that the president and his Republican Party risked losing support from the community. "We believe that his ideas, as well-intentioned as they might be, rubbed a lot of people the wrong way," Bishara Bahbah, who founded Arab Americans for Trump and helped rally support for him in Michigan and other battleground states, told Reuters.

IRS employees involved in the 2025 tax season will not be allowed to accept a buyout offer from the Trump administration until after the taxpayer filing deadline, according to a letter sent Wednesday to IRS employees. The letter says that “critical filing season positions in Taxpayer Services, Information Technology and the Taxpayer Advocate Service are exempt” from the administration's buyout plan until May 15. The news comes after President Donald Trump announced a plan to offer buyouts to federal employees through a “deferred resignation program” to quickly reduce the government workforce.

The White House is insisting that Elon Musk will recuse himself if he finds conflicts with his financial holdings during his efforts through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vocal vaccine skeptic and activist lawyer, appeared on track to become the nation's health secretary after winning the crucial support of Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a doctor who says Kennedy has assured him he would not topple the nation's childhood vaccination program. In a starkly partisan vote, the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee advanced Kennedy's nomination 14-13, sending his bid to oversee the $1.7 trillion U.S. Health and Human Services agency for a full vote on the Senate floor. All Democrats on the committee opposed Kennedy, whose family name had been synonymous with their party for generations before he aligned with President Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Andreessen Horowitz's website lists the Marine veteran Daniel Penny as a deal partner to support the venture capital firm's American Dynamism team.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is a father to nine

The U.S. government sent buyout offers to the employees of at least four U.S. intelligence agencies in addition to the CIA as President Donald Trump's drive to shrink America's federal workforce gathered steam on Wednesday. The four additional agencies whose personnel have received buyout offers are the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Security Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, spokespeople at those agencies said. The Central Intelligence Agency late on Tuesday said its workforce received buyout offers in a move aimed at aligning the country's premier spy service with the goals of its new director, John Ratcliffe.

A second federal judge has issued an order blocking Donald Trump's administration from implementing his plan to curtail U.S. birthright citizenship, saying no court in the United States has ever endorsed the Republican president's interpretation of the Constitution. During a hearing on Wednesday in Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman sided with two immigrant rights groups and five pregnant women who argued that their children were at risk of being denied U.S. citizenship based on the immigration status of their parents in violation of the Constitution. Boardman, an appointee of Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking Trump's order from going into effect as planned on Feb. 19 while the matter is litigated.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A top Justice Department official on Wednesday told FBI agents they would not be fired if they worked on January 6 investigations because they were ordered to do so and accused FBI leaders of insubordination for initially opposing demands for agents' names. "Let me be clear: No FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner with respect to January 6 investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties," he wrote. The Justice Department is set to square off in court on Thursday against FBI employees who have sued to protect the identities of agents who investigated Donald Trump supporters in the storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association president said he expects an appeals court to rule in its favor after oral arguments ended Jan. 30.

President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was planning to seize control of the Gaza Strip and oust 2.2 million Palestinians, temporarily at least, has provoked shock and disbelief around the world.

BBC presenter Naga Munchetty has seen a fake online post using her image to "scam people out of money".

Al Green, a Democrat, says Trump proposal to ‘take over Gaza’ is a ‘dastardly deed’ amounting to ethnic cleansing

ERs reaching capacity are more common than you might think, says a North College Hill fire deputy chief.

“Protecting our environment and preserving our natural resources is a top priority."

We want to pump you up!

Students at Keller’s four high schools have been mobilized and want their voices heard in the battle over a proposed district split.

(Bloomberg) -- Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks global trade. Sign up here.Most Read from BloombergState Farm Seeks Emergency California Rate Hike After FiresTransportation Memos Favor Places With Higher Birth and Marriage RatesNYC’s Newest Transit Leader Builds a Worker-Driven StrategyNew York’s First ‘Passive House’ School Is a Model of Downtown DensityWhen French Communists Went on a Brutalist Building BoomDonald Trump’s trade war is threatening to open fresh Brexit wounds in No

The 'Late Show' host went to town on Donald Trump's 'special government employee' Elon Musk.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the political outlet's funding "will no longer be happening" The post DOGE Cancels Politico’s Government Funding After $8 Million in Subscription Contracts Revealed appeared first on TheWrap.

Easy As Pie Can we all agree that nuclear warfare is bad? Yes? Well, do we have an easy way that Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency can do their jobs Instead of gutting education and health agencies, the First Buddy and his DOGE lackeys could spare us all the noise and drawn-out drama and simply cut off the US's exorbitant, multi-trillion dollar nuclear weapons program. As The Scientific American opines, this would almost single-handedly achieve Musk's promise that h

US President Donald Trump's embattled health secretary pick, vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr, squeaked through a crucial vote in his confirmation bid on Tuesday as senators advanced his nomination to the floor. The Senate confirmed former congressman Doug Collins -- no relation of the senator -- as secretary of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday, a day after approving fracking executive Chris Wright to lead the Energy Department.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta says he will support former Vice President Kamala Harris if she decides to run for Golden State governor in 2026.

Tiffany Network published two never-before-seen excerpts from the sit-down, which critics say was deceptively edited to help the Democratic nominee.

A group that played a key role in Donald Trump’s voter outreach to the Arab American community alongside his allies is rebranding itself after the president said that the U.S. would “take over” the Gaza Strip. Bishara Bahbah, chairman of the group formerly known as Arab Americans for Trump, said during a phone interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday that the group would now be called Arab Americans for Peace. The name change came after Trump held a Tuesday press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Musk shared a misleading video Tuesday, falsely claiming that it showed the Minnesota Democrat "breaking the law."

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he's given his advisers instructions to obliterate Iran if it assassinates him. “If they did that they would be obliterated,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters while signing an executive order calling for the U.S. government to impose maximum pressure on Tehran. "I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”

Leaders at the Department of Education told staff Wednesday that the Trump administration could cancel its controversial, government-wide deferred resignation offer after workers sign it, possibly leaving them without months of guaranteed pay. According to a report in NBC News, citing three department sources, two top department officials said during a virtual all-staff meeting on Wednesday that the education secretary could rescind the administration’s offer, which allows workers to voluntarily

President Trump says he wants access to Ukraine's supply of rare earth minerals in exchange for American military aid for the country's war against Russia.

The share of Republicans who say they want tech billionaire Elon Musk to have significant influence in the Trump administration has fallen substantially in the months since President Trump was elected. In The Economist/YouGov poll taken in the days after the November 2024 election, 47 percent of surveyed Republicans said they wanted Musk to have…

According to the United Nations, ethnic cleansing is not "recognized as an independent crime under international law."

Senate Democrats are bracing to stay in the chamber overnight to make the case against the nomination of Russell Vought to serve as the White House’s next budget chief, who is expected to be confirmed later this week. The Senate voted along party lines earlier on Wednesday to advance Vought’s nomination, clearing its procedural hurdle…

President Donald Trump called for CBS News program 60 Minutes to be “immediately terminated” and its network shut down Thursday, as he escalated campaign threats to punish media outlets that don’t offer coverage to his liking. He also tried to shoehorn the network into an online rightwing conspiracy theory that falsely claimed media outlets took millions in government kickbacks. In a post on Truth Social, Trump reiterated his claim that 60 Minutes committed “election interference” last year by a

Donald Trump caught everyone, even his closest advisers, off guard with his plan for Gaza.

A newly released transcript of a contested interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris refutes President Donald Trump’s assertions that CBS committed “election interference” last October.

The GOP House Speaker said he believes the executive branch's government efficiency efforts are "within the scope of their authority."

Hegseth’s Venmo account gives a terrifying insight into what he’s planning.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) has called for the deportation Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a U.S. citizen, to her birth country of Somalia. “America would be a better place if @IlhanMN were deported back to Somalia,” Gill wrote Tuesday on the social platform X. Gill, a first-term lawmaker representing Texas’s 26th Congressional District, was responding to…

A U.S. military aircraft carrying scores of undocumented Indian nationals landed in northern India on Wednesday morning, according to a Reuters video.

The CNN host said it all with her face in a debate over the president’s plan for Gaza.

The press secretary was astonishingly candid about her boss in the cleverly-edited “Late Night” bit.

CAIRO (Reuters) -Saudi Arabia said it would not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state, contradicting President Donald Trump's claim that Riyadh was not demanding a Palestinian homeland when he said the U.S. wants to take over the Gaza Strip. In a shocking announcement, Trump said on Tuesday the United States would take over the war-ravaged enclave after Palestinians are resettled elsewhere and develop it economically. Saudi Arabia rejects any attempts to displace the Palestinians from their land, Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that its stance towards the Palestinians is not negotiable.

US imports surged to a record high in December, official figures showed today as Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs triggered a rush among American companies to import goods.

Another four years with Trump in charge may feel apocalyptic, but these Democrats are fighting back and giving us hope!

The first flight carrying "high-threat" migrants to Guantanamo Bay arrived Tuesday evening, part of the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. The C-17 plane took off from El Paso, Texas, and landed landed at 7:20 p.m. Eastern time, according to U.S. Transportation Command. The 10 people on the flight were suspected members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, according to the Department of Homeland Security.