Given the charged and, at times, apocalyptic rhetoric coming from the White House in recent days — particularly President Donald Trump’s warning that a “whole civilization will die tonight” — absent a deal, the newly announced two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran is a welcome development.

But it is only a pause. The ...Read more

Stocks soared and oil prices cratered on Wednesday after the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire in the ongoing conflict. But whether the fragile peace can hold for that long remains the looming question. It’s in Iran’s hands.

The deal came after President Donald Trump had threatened Iran in increasing apocalyptic terms, ...Read more

Pa. Gov. Josh Shapiro is correct to join 23 other states in challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that instructs the U.S. Postal Service to regulate mail-in voting across the 50 states. The states have the Constitution on their side.

It is particularly brazen for the president to attempt to use federal power to regulate ...Read more

What must it be like, we wonder, to be an American child in the era of President Donald Trump?

Prior to this president, it was long understood that presidents, be they Democratic or Republican, should avoid rhetoric unfit for a family audience. That’s not to say they did not speak of serious matters, nor that they sometimes discussed that ...Read more

A federal appeals court declined for now Anthropic PBC’s request to pause a declaration by the Pentagon that the artificial intelligence company poses a risk to the U.S. supply chain, even as plans for a broader government ban on its technology remain blocked by a California judge.

In its decision Wednesday, the three-judge panel in ...Read more

A top campaign staffer for Philadelphia congressional candidate Ala Stanford said on Wednesday that he used an artificial intelligence tool to help craft responses to an endorsement questionnaire on Stanford's behalf.

"Never been one not to own up to a mistake," Kellan R. White, a senior adviser to Stanford posted on X. "I wrote these answers ...Read more

NEW YORK — Donald Trump has asked New York’s highest appeals court to vacate a judge’s finding that he was liable for inflating the value of his real estate assets, arguing that his former lawyer Michael Cohen has since cast doubt on his own testimony against the president.

In a filing Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers cited a January ...Read more

LAS VEGAS —President Donald Trump will return to Nevada next week to promote his administration’s tax policies, according to the White House.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt unveiled Trump’s travel plans on Wednesday while highlighting the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” the president signed last year.

She specifically mentioned the ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump may have backed down on his Tuesday threat to eliminate the “whole” Iranian civilization, but Democrats hope his social media posts triggered enough outcry to buoy them to a congressional majority and, possibly, lead to a push to impeach Trump for the first time this term and the third time since he was ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Longtime U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui, who is facing her toughest primary challenge in years, has notched another major endorsement in her reelection campaign for the 7th Congressional District.

She now has the backing of California’s governor.

“Matsui has a record of delivering for the people she represents,” said Gov. ...Read more

Once upon a time, Donald Trump apparently was not so crazy about his son-in-law Jared Kushner and went so far as to enlist a former friend and ally, Chris Christie, to supply him with damaging information about Kushner’s family.

Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and the leader of Trump’s 2016 transition team, revealed Trump’s ...Read more

Among the most disorienting things about President Donald Trump’s public language is how easily it can feel numbing and shocking in the same moment. He says something outrageous, the country recoils, and then the recoil itself begins to feel familiar.

As a scholar who studies presidential rhetoric, I know that over time that rhythm ...Read more

MIAMI — Hugo Perera, a Cuban-born man imprisoned in the 1990s for cocaine smuggling with the notorious Cali Cartel, reinvented himself as a Miami real estate developer, a Coral Gables restaurateur and as a government informant.

As the feds’ star witness at the trial of former Miami-Dade Congressman David Rivera and political consultant ...Read more

Democrats on Wednesday celebrated huge overperformances in Georgia and Wisconsin elections that could herald a growing blue wave in the fall midterms with President Donald Trump’s Republican allies clinging to control of Congress.

Democrat Shawn Harris lost by just a 12% margin in the deep-red Georgia district once held by ex-Rep. Marjorie ...Read more

When a leader speaks of a civilization dying “tonight,” the weight of those words does not fall lightly. Language at that level does more than describe a moment; it shapes it. It can steady a nation, or it can heighten fear, harden positions and shrink the narrow space where diplomacy still has a chance to work.

President Donald Trump has ...Read more

Last Sunday, billions of people around the world observed Easter, a holiday that celebrates Christ’s resurrection. John 20:21 records the risen Jesus’ first words as “Peace be with you.” Under the shadow of war and troubling division, three very different American leaders shared their perspectives on the day.

Pope Leo XIV, the Chicago-...Read more

Mark Rutte may not be a household name in the Chicago area or the rest of America, but the man is perhaps the only thing standing in the way of a full-blown collision between President Donald Trump and the NATO alliance.

NATO’s secretary-general has emerged as Europe’s most capable Trump whisperer, someone who can fly to Washington at a ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — For the first time, Democrats are in reach of holding every congressional seat in San Diego County.

But it all depends on North County, where several Democrats are vying to make it past the primary — and where a two-term Republican county supervisor poses their party’s toughest challenge in November.

Jim Desmond jumped into ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump stood down from bellicose threats to strike Iran’s critical infrastructure on Tuesday night, agreeing instead to a last-minute, two-week pause in fighting to make room for negotiations.

But he did so stating that diplomacy would revolve around a 10-point proposal from Tehran, a framework he described as a...Read more