BY AL WEAVER AND EMILY BROOKS |
Frustrated lawmakers are looking to 2026 in the hopes that they can reclaim some of the power many fear they've ceded to the White House under President Trump.
Over the course of 2025, the Trump administration unilaterally shuttered or drastically weakened federal agencies, implemented widespread tariffs, canceled congressionally approved spending and conducted military operations in the Caribbean.
Democrats repeatedly cried foul, and even some Republicans aired concerns about the White House brushing aside Congress. Scores of lawmakers opted for retirement before the calendar even turned to January.
Now many are wondering whether anything will be different next year, especially with the added political pressure of the approaching midterm elections. |
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President Trump on Friday complained about the Justice Department's ongoing focus on the case of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after the department said it had discovered more than 1 million additional documents to review.
"Now 1,000,000 more pages on Epstein are found. DOJ is being forced to spend all of its time on this Democrat inspired Hoax," Trump posted on Truth Social. "When do they say NO MORE, and work on Election Fraud etc." Trump suggested the Justice Department release the names of Democrats associated with Epstein, "embarrass them, and get back to helping our Country!" |
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Voters will head to the polls in next year's midterms to decide on a number of critical ballot measures.
While most of the attention in 2026 will be on the fights for the House, Senate and governor's mansions, these measures are no less significant.
From reproductive and transgender rights to agriculture, crucial policies will be determined by these initiatives. |
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President Trump downplayed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's optimism about the Ukraine leader's 20-point peace plan in an interview published Friday.
"He doesn't have anything until I approve it. So we'll see what he's got," Trump told Politico. His remarks come days before his planned Sunday in-person meeting with Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader is pushing to forgo land cessation and security guarantees during peace discussions to end the more than three-year war with Russia. |
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President Trump and his Cabinet officials leaned heavily into religious themes as they wished Americans a Merry Christmas, underscoring how the second Trump administration has embraced and promoted Christianity without hesitation.
The theme carried into late Christmas Day, as Trump announced the U.S. had carried out airstrikes on "ISIS terrorist scum" in Nigeria, describing it as payback for "their slaughter of Christians." "May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues," he posted on Truth Social. On Friday, he called the strike a "Christmas present" to ISIS. |
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Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell on Friday sent a letter to jazz drummer Chuck Redd denouncing his decision to cancel a planned show at the venue after President Trump's name was added to the building.
"Your dismal ticket sales and lack of donor support, combined with your last-minute cancellation has cost us considerably. This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt," Grenell wrote, according to The Associated Press.
He lauded Trump for overtaking the Center's operations earlier this year. The overhaul included ousting board members and cancelling performances that were deemed "inappropriate." |
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Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) fundraised donations from supporters Friday after President Trump blasted him on social media and called him a "lowlife Republican" for his role in bringing the Jeffrey Epstein files to light.
"Imagine celebrating a blessed Christmas with your family… suddenly phones alert everyone to the most powerful man in the world attacking you… for fulfilling his campaign promise to help victims!" Massie wrote on the social platform X. He followed this by quoting Trump's reference to him in a Truth Social post: "plus one lowlife Republican, Massie." |
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President Trump's first year back in office saw a whirlwind of executive actions, the passage of a major reconciliation bill and the rapid remaking of the federal government.
Trump campaigned in 2024 on bringing down prices, implementing the largest deportation program in American history and rolling back various initiatives that took hold during the Biden administration. Here's a look at where Trump stands on some of those key campaign promises after one year back in office. |
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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Friday it is launching an investigation into Seattle Children's Hospital over its gender-affirming care for transgender minors, the latest escalation in the Trump administration's attempts to end the practice nationwide.
In a post on the social platform X, the HHS said the hospital had been referred to the Office of Inspector General for "failure to meet professional recognized standards of health care" under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s new declaration rejecting gender-affirming care for transgender minors. The investigation could result in the hospital losing its Medicare and Medicaid funding. |
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OPINION | Late last week, the Navy announced a replacement for the ill-fated Constellation frigate. The new ship would be "a smaller, more agile surface combatant designed to complement the fleet's larger, multi-mission warships and enhance operational flexibility around the globe."
By drawing upon a "proven American-built ship" with a stable and well-tested design, the Navy hopes to avoid making major design changes such as those that were a major cause of the Constellation's schedule delays and cost overruns. It may still encounter design problems, however, if it wishes to install guided missiles on the new warship, whose designation implies that it will not be a missile carrier. Still, Navy planners may conclude that missiles are necessary for the ship to operate effectively on the open ocean. |
OPINION | For years, families assumed that if a loved one lived in a nursing home, someone qualified was always watching. Not just anyone, either — a registered nurse. Someone trained to recognize a change in condition, to intervene when minutes matter, to prevent a crisis before it starts.
That assumption is about to disappear. |
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BY CASSANDRA VINOGRAD AND OLEKSANDR CHUBKO |
The soldier suspected early on that this frontline rotation would be difficult. But 472 days straight, in a bunker, under fire?
"I didn't expect it to last so long," the soldier, Sgt. Serhii Tyschenko, said one recent afternoon at his home outside Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, his wife glued to his side. "I hoped it would be a month, two months at most."
Instead, he spent more than a year underground in a damp bunker without fresh air or even a ray of sunlight for much of the time. "It becomes very hard mentally," he said. |
BY SANTIAGO PÉREZ AND ANTHONY HARRUP |
When President Trump began raising tariffs earlier this year, government officials and economists feared Mexico's export-led economy would take a devastating hit. Instead, Mexican exports to the U.S. have grown.
Because Mexico's ultimate tariff rate ended up lower than for most other countries, the disparity has helped Mexican exports fill some of the gap left by Chinese products subject to higher levies. |
The sun would rise over the Rockies, and Robin Gammons would run to the front porch to grab the morning paper before school.
She wanted the comics and her dad wanted sports, but the Montana Standard meant more than their daily race to grab "Calvin and Hobbes" or baseball scores. When one of the three kids made honor roll, won a basketball game or dressed a freshly slain bison for the History Club, appearing in the Standard's pages made the achievement feel more real. Robin became an artist with a one-woman show at a downtown gallery and the front-page article went on the fridge, too. Five years later, the yellowing article is still there. |
BY ARTURO TORRES, SAMANTHA SCHMIDT AND ALEX HORTON |
The police arrived at the airport prepared to arrest a drug trafficker — a mariner whose crewmates the U.S. military had just killed.
Andrés Fernando Tufiño Chila was one of only two people known to have survived a U.S. strike on a vessel that the Trump administration alleged was smuggling drugs from South America. President Donald Trump had described the Ecuadorian and a fellow survivor of the Oct. 16 strike in the Atlantic Ocean as "terrorists" who would be returned to their countries of origin "for detention and prosecution." |
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