Politics

Associated Press Fort Lauderdale, Florida (AP) — Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins announced Monday that he’s running for governor in 2026, hoping to take over for term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis. The candidacy places Collins in a Republican primary race against U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump. DeSantis tapped Collins

By Katelyn Polantz, Kristen Holmes, CNN (CNN) — The top career prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Eastern District of Virginia office has been fired, according to three people familiar with the development Monday. It is the latest dramatic change to the powerful prosecutors’ office that previously brought cases against former FBI Director James Comey and

By Haley Britzky, CNN (CNN) — Lawyers for Sen. Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s move to cut Kelly’s retirement pay and reduce his rank in response to Kelly’s urging of US service members to refuse illegal orders. The lawsuit argues punishing Kelly violates the First Amendment

By Molly English, CNN Washington (CNN) — Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren called on her party Monday to “read the room” and begin appealing to a wider swath of the working-class public by keeping a stringent focus on the economy. “Americans are stretched to the breaking point financially, and they will vote for candidates who name

By Alayna Treene, CNN (CNN) — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump on Thursday, a senior White House official told CNN. Her visit to the White House comes as the president declined to endorse her following the US military strikes in

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN (CNN) — The Department of Homeland Security on Monday said it would invest $115 million in counter-drone technologies to secure the World Cup and events marking 250 years of American independence. The money will be overseen by a new DHS office focused on quickly buying and deploying drone and counter-drone technologies.

By John Fritze, CNN (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a $2.4 billion bankruptcy settlement for the Boy Scouts of America, rejecting an appeal from a group of childhood sex-abuse victims who said the deal unlawfully blocked them from suing groups that ran local scouting programs. The group of victims –

By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN (CNN) — Democrats are getting the news they’d been hoping for out of Alaska, with former US Rep. Mary Peltola launching a Senate campaign on Monday morning. The one-and-a-half-term former congresswoman was elected at-large from the small-population state in a 2022 special election and reelected that fall, before losing in 2024.

By Joan Biskupic, CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst (CNN) — When the Supreme Court, led by Justice Neil Gorsuch, ruled in 2020 that federal law protected transgender workers from discrimination, the justices appeared to launch a new era of rights for a historically shunned group. LGBTQ advocates believed the core principle of Bostock v. Clayton County

CNN, IRANWIRE, POOL, IRIB, VAHIDONLINE, KABC, KHOU, SUSIE SHOSHANA, X , @SHANGOOLANS, X / @Shangoolans By Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump is weighing a series of potential military options in Iran following deadly protests in the country, two US officials told CNN, as he considers following through on his recent

By Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Kit Maher, CNN (CNN) — The Smithsonian has taken down details about President Donald Trump’s impeachments from an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. The removal occurred last week when the museum installed a black-and-white portrait of Trump in the “America’s Presidents” exhibition with a short label that notes his birth

By Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump is weighing a series of potential military options in Iran following deadly protests in the country, two US officials told CNN, as he considers following through on his recent threats to strike the Iranian regime should it use lethal force against civilians. Trump was

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN (CNN) — Since early December, the US Coast Guard and other military branches have boarded and taken control of five oil ships that had previously been sanctioned. They were all either accused of being in the process of transporting Venezuelan oil or on their way to take on oil that has

By John Fritze, Devan Cole, CNN (CNN) — Becky Pepper-Jackson, the high school sophomore at the center of the Supreme Court appeal on transgender sports, flashes a grin when asked to describe the basic technique of the shot put, one of her favorite track and field events. “It’s just throwing something that’s heavy,” the 15-year-old

By Eric Bradner, Michael Williams, CNN (CNN) — In every city where President Donald Trump’s immigration agents have arrived in force, they’ve been trailed by people who seek to monitor or protest their activities, often in close quarters. At times, those two groups have collided with tragic results — including an Immigration and Customs Enforcement

By Aleena Fayaz, Haley Britzky, CNN (CNN) — The US carried out large-scale strikes against ISIS targets in Syria on Saturday tied to an ongoing retaliatory campaign dubbed “Operation Hawkeye Strike.” “Today, at approximately 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces, alongside partner forces, conducted large-scale strikes against multiple ISIS targets across Syria,”

Associated Press (AP) — A federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing most of his executive order on elections against the vote-by-mail states Washington and Oregon, in the latest blow to Trump’s efforts to require documentary proof of citizenship to vote and to require that all ballots be received by Election

By Sophie Tanno, Samantha Waldenberg, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump continued his threats towards Greenland on Friday, as he insisted that if the United States did not act Russia or China could occupy it in the future. Trump said that if he is unable to make a deal to acquire the territory “the easy

By Tami Luhby, CNN (CNN) — A 42-minute video from a conservative content creator in Minnesota has provided the Trump administration with yet another opportunity to argue that federal safety net programs are plagued by widespread fraud. Though investigations have yet to show that child care centers in the state were committing fraud to obtain

By Aleena Fayaz, CNN (CNN) — The Washington National Opera on Friday announced it is parting ways with the Kennedy Center after more than a decade with the arts institution. “Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations

By Adam Cancryn, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump on Friday tried to sell Big Oil executives on the promise of an expansive new drilling campaign in Venezuela. But at least for now, the industry isn’t buying it. Trump and his top aides emerged from a lengthy White House meeting without any major commitments from

By Evan Perez, CNN (CNN) — FBI Director Kash Patel has named Christopher Raia, a seasoned career agent, to replace Dan Bongino as deputy director, according to people briefed on the matter. Raia is a respected agent with 22 years’ experience, and his appointment restores the decades-long tradition of having a career agent serve in

By Annie Grayer, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump faced Republican defections on a series of split votes this week, but his willingness to call out members of his own party convinced some wavering lawmakers to stay in line. On Thursday, Trump was quick to say five Republican senators should not be reelected to Congress

By Holmes Lybrand, CNN (CNN) — The Virginia man accused of planting two bombs in Washington, DC, five years ago pleaded not guilty Friday to federal charges of transporting and attempting to use explosives. The DC federal court arraignment for the man, Brian J. Cole Jr., took place over a month after Cole was initially

By Jennifer Hansler, Stefano Pozzebon, Kylie Atwood, CNN (CNN) — A US State Department team traveled to Venezuela on Friday for the first time since the ouster of Nicolas Maduro, according to a US official. The visit comes as the US looks to reopen its embassy in Caracas and underscores the administration’s desire to re-establish

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN (CNN) — The US has seized another sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea, US Southern Command said on Friday. US troops, in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, “launched from the USS Gerald R. Ford and apprehended Motor/Tanker Olina in the Caribbean Sea without incident,” the command said in

By Jack Guy, Kaanita Iyer, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump said early Friday that he had cancelled a “previously expected” second wave of attacks on Venezuela due to the country’s cooperation with the United States. It comes nearly a week after he ordered a military operation to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is

By Terence Burlij, CNN Washington (CNN) — This year’s midterms will not only shape the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency; they’ll determine what politics after Trump might start to look like. A series of races that starts with primaries on March 3 will either preserve Republican majorities in Congress, helping Trump to push

By Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez, Kristen Holmes, CNN (CNN) — Mutual distrust between federal and state authorities derailed plans for a joint FBI and state criminal investigation into Wednesday’s shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE officer, leading to the highly unusual move by the Justice Department to block state investigators from participating in

By Tami Luhby, CNN (CNN) — A federal judge on Friday temporarily paused the Trump administration’s freeze of $10 billion in social assistance and child care funding in five Democrat-led states in the wake of a widespread probe into alleged federal funding fraud in Minnesota. Judge Arun Subramanian of New York’s Southern District granted the