WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will look to sign economic agreements and critical minerals deals with trading partners during his trip to Asia, according to senior U.S. officials, as the administration moves to ramp up pressure on China ahead of a crucial meeting with Xi Jinping.

Trump will look for deals that will help unlock the region...Read more

LOS ANGELES — UCLA must release the Trump administration document that outlines the terms of the $1.2 billion settlement proposal at the center of talks between the University of California and the federal government, the California Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The decision is a win for UCLA faculty who have pushed for more transparency in the...Read more

WASHINGTON — Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva faces an uphill battle in her lawsuit to allow someone other than Speaker Mike Johnson administer her oath to be Arizona’s 7th District representative, experts said.

Grijalva and the state filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington earlier this week, arguing that Johnson has “unlawfully ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is set to rule for the first time on whether the president has the power to deploy troops in American cities over the objections of local and state officials.

A decision could come at any time.

And even a one-line order siding with President Donald Trump would send the message that he is free to use the ...Read more

President Donald Trump is expected to name the new White House ballroom, being constructed where the East Wing once stood for more than 120 years, after himself.

Trump insiders are already referring to the $300 million project as “The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom,” which is likely to become its official name, administration sources ...Read more

President Donald Trump is phoning it in for Republican Jack Ciattarelli as New Jersey’s gubernatorial race tightens.

Ciattarelli’s campaign said Friday that the president will be on the line for a 7 p.m. “Tele-Rally” to encourage early voting.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher — and on November 4th, we’re sending a powerful ...Read more

MIAMI — Miami Dade College’s board of trustees could end its legal battle with historian Marvin Dunn by holding a new public hearing on giving away prime downtown land to be used for Donald Trump’s high-rise presidential library — but new court filings show the college would rather duke it out in higher court.

The college’s attorneys ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Decisions, decisions.

That’s what candidates in Eastern North Carolina are having to make after Republicans in the General Assembly redrew the state’s congressional districts to give their party an extra seat in the U.S. House.

State lawmakers openly explained that they targeted the 1st Congressional District as a potential ...Read more

SLEEPY EYE, Minnesota — At the Sleepy Eye Auction Market on Wednesday, between sales of fattened steers and a shaggy Highland bull, chatter drifted to farm country’s latest beef with the White House: President Donald Trump’s plan to buy more beef from Argentina.

Few at the southwestern Minnesota cattle auction barn thought it would make a...Read more

WASHINGTON — Key senators of both parties said they would try to find a way to pay all federal employees during the partial government shutdown after the Senate blocked consideration of dueling proposals Thursday.

Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who authored competing bills, talked up the possibility of brokering a ...Read more

WASHINGTON — One federal employee has taken out a bank loan. Another says she’s planning to seek help from a food pantry. A third says his family will likely need to take out loans, or incur credit card debt, to get by.

Those stories and more were detailed in court filings this week in a lawsuit challenging the legality of Trump ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is soon slated to be 5,000 miles from Washington talking soybeans and tariffs, possibly hamstringing any efforts to end the government shutdown.

With Republican and Democratic lawmakers digging into their positions about how to revive the federal machine, perhaps only presidential prodding could help end ...Read more

DETROIT — U.S. Secret Service agents have arrested a Michigan man and accused the former U.S. Air Force airman of threatening to kill President Donald Trump over the administration's LGBTQ+ policies, according to federal court records unsealed Thursday.

Joshua Levi Young, 21, of Ishpeming, is accused of issuing several threats since January ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s upcoming trip to Asia caps a whirlwind stretch that includes jetting to the Middle East to mark the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, escalating a trade clash with China, redoubling efforts to send troops to U.S. cities and overseeing construction of a $300 million White House ballroom.

Seemingly absent from his...Read more

A state court on Wednesday ordered the University of California to release the $1.2-billion UCLA settlement proposal from the Department of Justice, handing a victory to faculty members who are pushing UC for more transparency in its negotiations with the Trump administration.

The one-sentence decision signed by 1st Appellate District acting ...Read more

The pantheon of problematic presidential pardons has always cut across partisan lines.

Former President Joe Biden’s pre-emptive pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, was among the most brazen examples ever of a president putting family loyalty above presidential duty. Barack Obama’s commutation of the prison sentence of Army private and document...Read more

American universities are at a crossroads.

Their business model, which is overwhelmingly dependent on the twin pillars of federal grants and taxpayer-backed student loans, is failing in the face of declining public trust, financial malfeasance, a looming demographic cliff, and their publicly acknowledged discrimination, contrary to civil rights...Read more

WASHINGTON — Next month’s special election in a heavily Democratic House district in Houston includes more than a dozen candidates vying to succeed the late Rep. Sylvester Turner.

Yet the crowded field of contenders shares a common opponent: voter confusion.

Responding to pressure from President Donald Trump to bolster the GOP’s chances ...Read more

Among the many dangerous actions President Donald Trump has taken, his push to force some of the country’s best universities into signing a sweeping federal “compact” ranks just behind his pardons for the January 6 insurrectionists.

The 10-part compact is a bizarre mix of bombast, authoritarianism, and a few unremarkable ideas buried like...Read more

Consider a hunger policy director at a state Department of Social Services studying food insecurity data across the state. For years, she has relied on the USDA’s annual Household Food Security Report to identify where hunger is rising, how many families are skipping meals, and how many children go to bed hungry. Those numbers help her target ...Read more