The impasse over funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is showing no signs of easing as lawmakers barreled past the first reduced paychecks for agency employees on Friday and the shutdown of the agency hits the two-week mark.
Lawmakers have spun their wheels for a full month over how to fund DHS for the remainder of fiscal year 2026, with talks between the White House and Democratic negotiators showing scant progress despite the increasing chances of employees missing payday.
The desire to pay federal workers on time is normally a key pressure point in government shutdowns, and with the first missed payday behind them — and most DHS employees reporting to work regardless of the funding lapse — both sides are worried that there is little on the immediate horizon that can break the stalemate. |
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BY FILIP TIMOTIJA AND COLIN MEYN |
The United States and Israel on Saturday launched strikes on Iran after weeks of threats from President Trump, who called for regime change in Tehran and warned of American casualties in a video posted online shortly after the attacks began.
"A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran," Trump said in a video posted to Truth Social at 2:30 a.m. "Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people."
The president urged members of Iran's military to lay down their arms and called on Iranians to topple the hardline regime that has controlled the country since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. |
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Cuba's communist government is facing a breaking point in its battle for survival under pressure from President Trump, whose energy quarantine against the country is aimed at collapsing the regime.
The consequences are hitting the population of 10 million people hard, with the U.S. fuel blockade exacerbating a decades-long economic crisis, disrupting access to water and worsening food and medicine shortages.
"There's a number of epidemics rippling through the population right now, repression is increasing as the regime feels cornered, and they are not signaling any willingness to negotiate with the United States," said Sebastián Arcos, interim director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. |
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LEESBURG, VA — House Democrats promising to flip the chamber in this year's midterms are fighting to avoid a pitfall they see as hazardous to their goal.
The message, they say, can't just be anti-Trump.
While the president's approval ratings are well under water — and polls indicate that key constituencies have soured on him after a tumultuous first year back in office — Democrats say they can't lean on that unpopularity to secure victory in November. Instead, they're racing to cobble together a menu of specific policy priorities to act as both the centerpiece of their campaign message and the heart of their early legislative agenda if they win control of the Speaker's gavel in 2027. |
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Pell Grants, the federal financial aid program that helps low-income Americans afford college and has enjoyed broad bipartisan support, are projected to have big funding shortfalls that could jeopardize the education of thousands of students.
The grants, which have recently seen expanded eligibility, give low-income students a chance to go to college without incurring debt. But the program itself is in financial difficulties with a projected shortfall of billions of dollars that could lead to trouble for students as soon as 2028.
By the end of this fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the Pell Grant program will be $5 billion in debt. Over the next 10 years, that number jumps to between $104 billion and $132 billion if nothing is done about the issue. |
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BY JULIA SHAPERO AND FILIP TIMOTIJA |
President Trump on Friday directed federal agencies to "immediately cease" using Anthropic technology amid an escalating feud between the AI company and the Pentagon.
"THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. "The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution," he continued. "Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY." |
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Both Republicans and Democrats said former President Clinton was "very cooperative" in a historic deposition with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday that set a new precedent for how congressional investigators treat former presidents.
"He did attempt to respond to every single question asked, even when his attorney told him to shut up," House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said after the deposition. "This was historical," Comer said. "I believe that in the history of Congress, the two highest ranked officials to ever be deposed by Congress would be President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton." |
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Former President Biden on Friday knocked President Trump for his record-length State of the Union address, asking if his successor is "still talking."
Biden gave a critique about Trump and his record while celebrating six years since the former president won the 2020 South Carolina Democratic primary at a party held by the South Carolina Democratic Party. It is believed that Biden's South Carolina victory was instrumental in putting him on the path to the 2020 nomination.
"By the way did you see Trump give the State of Union?" Biden asked, which was met with boos. "Is he still talking? I don't know. But folks, it's unbelievable. The guy talks for almost two hours, but never mentions the anniversary of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin invading Ukraine. Never once." |
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President Trump gave shoutouts to the three Republicans running the Texas Senate primary race during a speech in which they were all in attendance in Corpus Christi on Friday, but he stopped short of endorsing in the race.
"We have a great Attorney General Ken Paxton. Where's Ken? Hi, Ken," Trump said during his remarks. "And we have a great senator, John Cornyn. Hi, John. Thank you, John." "They're in a little race together. You know that, right," he continued. "It'll be an interesting one, right? They're both great people too. Thank you both very much. I appreciate it." |
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OPINION | "It is very difficult for me to imagine how we and Russia can be together in this or that council," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted this month, effectively snubbing the invitation to Donald Trump's inaugural Board of Peace meeting in Washington. His absence was the most defining feature of the summit.
While leaders like Hungary's Viktor Orban and Argentina's Javier Milei gathered to toast a new era of "commercial diplomacy," the man whose nation's fate topped the agenda was notably elsewhere. By refusing to show up, Zelensky is signaling that sovereign survival cannot be bought or sold like a distressed asset in a real estate merger. |
OPINION | On Feb. 12, the Trump administration repealed the landmark 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, flouting decades of scientific consensus. This doesn't just gut the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions — it also blocks our ability to know anything about cars' and companies' emissions. It thus ensures that automakers "no longer have any future obligations for the measurement, control, and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions for any highway engine and vehicle."
The Trump administration's efforts to block data are not isolated. Between the repeal of the Endangerment Finding and the proposed repeal of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program — expected to be finalized any day — the Trump administration has entirely turned out the lights on greenhouse gas emissions data. That may sound like the administration doesn't care about data, but its extensive efforts to hide and halt federal data actually show how critically important they are. |
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The Pentagon's new inspector general has frozen a proposal to evaluate military targeting in the Trump administration's strikes on boats suspected of smuggling cocaine from South America, telling his staff he wanted to consult department leadership before deciding whether the review should go forward, The New York Times has learned.
The inspector general, Platte B. Moring III, also said to staff members at a Feb. 11 meeting that the proposed project sounded as if it could become highly political, according to a person briefed on the exchange. Since then, the project has remained in limbo, with Moring neither approving nor rejecting it. |
A well-honed tariff-reduction playbook is giving businesses—and the lawyers who advise them—some confidence that they can deal with President Trump's latest tariffs.
One of the most effective plays is reducing the reported value of goods companies bring into the U.S. Importers may not be able to escape a tariff, such as the global 15 percent rate Trump announced after the recent Supreme Court ruling, but they can pay it on a smaller amount.
A legal way to do this has had such an impact that a bipartisan pair of senators wants to ban it. |
The U.S. and Israel's attack on Iran disrupted flights across the region and beyond.
The United Arab Emirates, home to both the long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad, and Israel closed their airspace on Saturday. Qatar Airways Group said it has temporarily canceled flights to and from Doha because Qatari airspace also was closed.
Planes that were en route to Israel were rerouted to other airports, and passengers who were at Ben Gurion International Airport awaiting flights were shuttled back. |
BY WILL OREMUS, LIAM SCOTT, CAT ZAKRZEWSKI AND SCOTT NOVER |
Hours after Netflix sent shock waves through the media and entertainment world by withdrawing its $83 million bid for most of Warner Bros. Discovery, Laura Loomer celebrated on X in all-caps: "VICTORY."
The far-right influencer, who has called herself President Trump's "loyalty enforcer," had spent months denouncing Netflix over its ties to former president Barack Obama and urging Trump to "kill" the megamerger that would have given the streaming giant control over CNN, HBO and more. Netflix's withdrawal Thursday evening cleared the way for David Ellison's Paramount Skydance to instead take the reins of the cable network, whose coverage the president has labeled "fake news."
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