Politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson violated the law when his department spent more than $40,000 to purchase a dining set and a dishwasher for his office’s executive dining room, government auditors concluded. In a report released Thursday, the Government Accountability Office said HUD failed to notify Congress before exceeding a […]

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Nearly three decades ago, when Democratic Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards’ wife was 20 weeks pregnant with their first child, a doctor discovered their daughter had spina bifida and encouraged an abortion. The Edwardses refused. Now, daughter Samantha is married and working as a school counselor, and Edwards finds himself […]

NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — Montana Gov. Steve Bullock waited until May to declare his candidacy for president, but he’s wasting no time getting to the point. Bullock launched his first full day of campaigning Friday in Newton, Iowa, a town where union manufacturing jobs have vanished in the past 15 years. In doing so, he […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump and U.S. trade tariffs (all times local): 4:50 p.m. Mexico’s National Chamber of the Iron and Steel Industry is congratulating the country’s officials on the agreement reached with the United States on ending steel and aluminum tariffs. The chamber says in a statement posted online that […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The largest outside Democratic group said Friday that the key to defeating Donald Trump is to focus on pocketbook issues and not fall prey to the president’s efforts to tag the party as a band of socialists. Priorities USA says polling indicates voters in key battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and […]

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Abused and neglected children are again sleeping overnight in the offices of Kansas foster care contractors because homes cannot be found for them quickly enough. Since January, when Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly took office, more than 70 children have been kept overnight in the offices of the two nonprofit agencies providing […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on a House bill to extend civil rights protections to LGBT people (all times local): 12:15 p.m. Democrats in the House have approved a sweeping anti-discrimination bill that would extend civil rights protections to LGBT people by prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Called the Equality Act, […]

MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) — A half-dozen presidential candidates back “Medicare for All,” a proposal that would put the government in charge of most health benefits. But some of the Democrats they’re courting aren’t sure that the nation’s health care system should be overhauled so dramatically. After watching Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Medicare for […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bogged down in a sprawling trade dispute with U.S. rival China, President Donald Trump took steps Friday to ease tensions with America’s allies — lifting import taxes on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum and delaying auto tariffs that would have hurt Japan and Europe. By removing the metals tariffs on Canada […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Elizabeth Warren is calling for a series of targeted measures designed to safeguard abortion rights following a flurry of new state laws that dramatically restrict women’s ability to terminate pregnancies, moves Democrats have decried as a planned effort to chip away at the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Warren’s abortion rights platform, […]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump is moving fast to build a wall on the Mexico border with billions of dollars secured under his declaration of a national emergency, but he first must get past the courts. On Friday, a federal judge in Oakland heard arguments in two lawsuits seeking to block the White […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats in the House approved sweeping anti-discrimination legislation Friday that would extend civil rights protections to LGBT people by prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The protections would extend to employment, housing, loan applications, education, public accommodations and other areas. Called the Equality Act, the bill is a top […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservative lightning rod Roy Moore of Alabama, narrow loser of a turbulent special election for Senate in 2017, is considering a fresh run next year. National Republican leaders are signaling they’ll again try preventing their party from nominating the twice-removed state jurist whose campaign was battered by allegations of long-ago sexual harassment […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — It started with a surprise statement on a Sunday night that the U.S. was rushing military forces to counter alleged Iranian threats. What followed were two weeks of bombastic rhetoric and swells of fear and confusion over whether Washington and Tehran were lurching toward open conflict. And that’s how President Donald Trump […]

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Thursday cast President Donald Trump’s immigration proposal as a “short-sighted” plan that overlooks immigrant families and categorizes people into a hierarchy. Harris, speaking to members of Nevada’s Latino community and Democrats gathered at a Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas, said the plan shifting the green […]