For a third time, the U.S. House has voted to end the war in Iran, approving a war powers resolution that would halt President Donald Trump’s ability to continue military action without congressional approval. The roll call was similar to earlier efforts this summer. None of the resolutions have made it to the president’s desk, where Trump would almost certainly veto the measure.
The Trump-aligned Kennedy Center board voted Tuesday to close most of the iconic performing arts venue just hours after a federal judge blocked the institution from returning Trump’s name to the building.
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And Trump will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to rally with Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley as the former national party chairman tries to shore up his campaign against Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper.
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The Senate health committee hearing adjourned after Saphier was questioned about vaccine safety and whether she would follow the law or potentially unlawful orders from administration officials.
Saphier said she would follow the law.
Canada has retaliated against U.S. tariffs and rejected trade terms that Carney says would weaken its sovereignty. The EU has taken a different course, reaching a trade agreement with the Trump administration that set a 15% U.S. tariff ceiling on the vast majority of EU exports even as Europe eliminated tariffs on U.S. industrial goods.
That contrast has loomed over Carney’s push for closer European ties. In a closely watched speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, he urged middle powers to work together to increase their leverage in an era of great-power rivalry.
“When we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered,” Carney said. “It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.”
Carney’s Davos speech drew a personal rebuke from Trump, and von der Leyen’s overture to America’s neighbor could raise the temperature again.
Ursula von der Leyen made the striking overture as Trump’s threats drive Ottawa closer to Europe.
Trump’s tariffs and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state have soured the relationship between the North American neighbors. Canada is seeking to reduce its dependence on the United States, the destination for roughly 70% of its exports, and Prime Minister Mark Carney has called for a “unique alliance” with the EU.
In her annual State of the European Union address on Wednesday, von der Leyen said Canada and the EU would build on their existing free trade agreement, known as CETA, with a broader “Alliance for the Future” aimed at creating “a common prosperity and economic security space,” rooted in shared democratic values.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he’ll skip any possible protests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the U.N. General Assembly next week.
The Democrat told reporters “I do not have any plans to attend any protests at the U.N. General Assembly” when asked about Netanyahu’s incoming visit, instead saying he is focused on security and getting the city ready to host world leaders.
Mamdani has been a fierce critic of Netanyahu and Israel’s military actions in Gaza, saying during his campaign that he would direct the city’s police to arrest the prime minister under the International Criminal Court’s warrant over his role in the war in Gaza. Mamdani later acknowledged that the city lacks such authority.
Netanyahu is expected to arrive late on Sept. 23, address the General Assembly the next day and fly back to Israel that night, according to Israel’s U.N. envoy.
Trump signed an executive order in July calling for signs outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History warning of what it argues are exhibits that present history inaccurately.
Though none have appeared, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently told Sen. Jeff Merkley they’re still happening.
“The purpose of these signs is straightforward: Americans should enter the NMAH with relevant information about curators’ interpretation of history and their stated goal of changing the viewpoints of visitors to the museum,” Burgum wrote in a Sept. 3 letter to Merkley. The Atlantic first reported Burgum’s letter.
The Smithsonian is in the midst of a leadership change after Lonnie Bunch announced plans this month to step down as secretary. In an interview with the AP last week, Anthea Hartig, the American history museum’s director, expressed faith in the institution’s ability to do its work.
“I wake up every day confident in Americans’ ability to embrace the complexities of their past,” she said.
Standing on the Capitol steps before lawmakers head home to campaign, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries assailed the “do nothing” Republican majority and promised Democrats will do better.
“Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans promised to bring down grocery prices on Day One. They promised to stop endless wars in the Middle East,” Jeffries said. “But Republicans have done nothing to make life more affordable for the American people.”
He said the Democrats’ message is simple: “We hear you… And we are committed to making life better for you.”
Jeffries also warned that it’s time for the corruption to end: “House Democrats are going to hold the crooks accountable.”
Sen. Cassidy asked Saphier what her message would be to parents on vaccines, in light of Trump’s comments on the causes of autism. Trump and Secretary Kennedy have repeatedly suggested a link between childhood vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine, and the development of autism, even tough studies by the CDC and others have ruled that out.
“I don’t know what causes autism, but I have not seen reputable evidence that would suggest that vaccines cause autism.” Saphier told Cassidy, “I can tell you that I do not believe the MMR vaccine to be lethal. I believe the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combatting measles.”
If confirmed, Saphier will be in the difficult position of navigating Kennedy’s efforts to scale back vaccine guidance at a time when the U.S. is enduring its worst year for measles in decades.
The military honor guard and members of “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine band have been practicing on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the White House for Xi’s Sept. 24th state visit.
Trump also has said the helipad he had built on the South Lawn is ready. The black and white granite landing pad mimics the official seal of the President of the United States. Trump had wanted it finished in time for Xi’s visit.
Work on columns and the doors of the North Portico was completed recently.
Xi will also be the guest of honor at a White House state dinner that evening.
“We spend too much time and resources treating chronic disease after it takes hold, and not enough time helping Americans reduce their risk before illness begins,” Saphier said. “We should treat illness when it occurs, but we also need to do a far better job of helping people stay healthy in the first place.”
At the start of the Senate health committee hearing, chair Sen. Bill Cassidy noted the “serious health issues” facing the country, highlighting the measles deaths.
“That is going to be a terrible legacy for this administration,” said Cassidy, R-LA, telling Saphier and other nominees that he hoped they would restore the public’s confidence in public health.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-WI, said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “career spreading vaccine conspiracy theories” has contributed to the outbreak.
“We need leaders who will stand up for science,” Baldwin said.
A radiologist and former Fox News contributor is facing lawmakers as Trump’s third nominee for surgeon general.
The position known as the nation’s doctor has been vacant throughout Trump’s second term. The confirmation of entrepreneur and wellness influencer Dr. Casey Means stalled over her background and vaccine views. Trump withdrew the nomination of Fox News medical contributor Janette Nesheiwat after her academic credentials were questioned.
Dr. Nicole Saphier is director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth, according to her profile on the New York-based institution’s website, which says she earned her medical degree from Ross University School of Medicine in Barbados.
Senators are likely to question her views on vaccines and her ownership of DropRx, which produces controversial, unregulated tinctures — concentrated liquid extracts promoting focus and calm — that contain ingredients, including kava kava root, described by the FDA as potentially causing severe liver injury.
The market’s main event is coming later in the day, when traders expect the Fed will announce the first hike to interest rates in three years. They’re counting on the central bank to try to cool the inflationary pressures caused by the global energy crisis driven by Trump’s war on Iran.
U.S. data released last week shows inflation remains stubbornly high, and a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. rose again overnight, hitting $4.37 on average, according to motor club AAA. A week ago, gasoline averaged $4.22 a gallon. Diesel, which topped $6 a gallon on Friday, is now $6.31 a gallon on average, up from $5.94 a week earlier.
The stock market also is under pressure from higher U.S. Treasury yields, which have risen as the government finances the growing U.S. national debt.
The House overwhelmingly passed the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, which would require the Transportation Secretary to issue a rule require the devices as standard equipment in new vehicles sold in the U.S.
Similar bipartisan legislation has been considered by Congress before, but stalled out. Lawmakers say there’s a need for emergency broadcasts and other local programming to be available on the dial.
Under the bill, the secretary would have a year to come up with the rule, and it would take effect two years later. It passed unanimously late Tuesday. The Senate is considering a similar measure.
The U.S. military’s highest ranking officer says modern warfare is changing so quickly that Russian troops are killed by Ukrainian drones within minutes of reaching the front lines.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference outside Washington, where he talked about the rapid evolution of military technology.
Caine described Ukrainian drones that use “AI-enabled computer vision” to strike targets “even when there’s no GPS.”
“It shows how quickly software and autonomy are changing what is possible at the tactical edge, and the results are stark,” Caine said. “In certain locations on the front line of troops right now, the life expectancy of a new Russian recruit arriving on the front lines is as little as 20 to 30 minutes.”
A major scientific report has found that 12.5 trillion tons of ice from Greenland and Antarctica has melted since 1979. That’s enough to cover the continental United States in ice five feet high. The study published in Wednesday’s Scientific Data journal says satellite data shows the melting is accelerating, and abrupt changes are happening more often as the Earth grows warmer.
Trump has called climate change a “con job” and erased the very basis for federal climate regulations. He’s said that rising sea levels would only create more beachfront property.
In reality, study author Ines Otosaka says another 2 to 3 million more people get flooded at least once a year for every third of an inch of sea level rise, and the melting of the planet’s major ice sheets has tripled that. It’s already making the flooding worse in Miami, said Mark Serreze, director of the national snow and ice data center.
Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh is barely four months into the job and stuck between two opposing forces: Financial markets that anticipate the central bank will raise interest rates, and Trump, who wants the Fed to cut them or leave them unchanged.
Economists expect Warsh and his fellow policymakers will side with the markets on Wednesday.
They say Warsh has largely boxed himself into a rate hike after delivering a high-profile speech last month warning that inflation remains too far above the Fed’s 2% target and might require higher borrowing costs to bring it down. A report last week showing inflation is still stubbornly high largely sealed investors’ expectations.
Their lawyers blamed the activist’s assassination on a string of “reckless decisions” at Utah Valley University that exposed him to a rooftop sniper more than 400 feet away.
Kirk was shot while debating students in an outdoor courtyard surrounded by tall buildings with about 3,000 people in attendance. An Associated Press review showed the campus did not apply some standard safety measures. Campus police staffing was far below recommended levels for a school of that size. No drone was flown to monitor rooftops, and local law enforcement wasn’t brought in to secure the event. There were no bag checks or metal detectors.
“The risk of a rooftop shooter should have been especially top-of-mind given the attempted assassination of President Trump,” Kirk family attorney D. Loren Washburn wrote.
A spokesperson said the university’s “focus remains on supporting the campus community.”
About 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of new data centers that can be built, according to the new AP-NORC/EPIC poll. That includes majorities of Democrats and Republicans.
Roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults support requiring data centers to use clean energy sources, the poll found, and about 7 in 10 support requiring companies that build data centers to pay for the electric grid upgrades needed to support them.
Most Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the impact of data centers on electricity prices or the water supply in the communities where they are built, the poll found. Data centers are powered by tremendous amounts of electricity, raising concerns about where that energy will come from.
Nancy Antunes, a 60-year-old Democrat from Waltham, Mass., told AP that she believes “decisions are being made for the company, not for the community that they’re being built in.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has cut or frozen roughly $177 billion in federal grants since his return to the White House in 2025, according to a new tracking tool released Wednesday by a pro-democracy nonprofit and a group of researchers and scientists.
The cuts affected all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with health, nutrition, the environment and disaster relief making up the largest share of cuts, the States United Democracy Center and Grant Witness organization found.
A message seeking comment was sent to the White House.
Four Republicans had previously voted in the House to halt the Iran war, but that number rose to seven during the latest war powers resolution vote.
GOP lawmakers from battleground Iowa, Rep. Zachary Nunn and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and retiring Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, joined GOP Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky in voting for the war powers resolution.
All Democrats also voted for the resolution to bring an end to the Iran war.
Trump will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to rally with Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley as the former national party chairman tries to shore up his campaign against Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper.
It's the first campaign rally for Trump since his unusual midterm convention in Dallas. The president, despite voter frustrations over the Iran war and his economic leadership, has promised dozens more trips ahead of Election Day. Trump’s involvement creates a balancing act for Republicans like Whatley, who will depend on the president’s core supporters to turn out while also trying to appeal to moderates and disaffected conservatives unhappy with the direction of the country.
Whatley was the president’s pick for the Senate race and Trump’s pick to lead the Republican National Committee before that. Republicans viewed him as a strong recruit to hold the seat being left open by Sen. Thom Tillis, who decided to retire after clashing with the president last year. But Whatley, who is making his first bid for public office, has trailed Cooper in fundraising in recent months and polling from over the summer showed Cooper with at least a slight lead.
FBI Director Kash Patel defended Tuesday a recent policy change to allow some applicants who have engaged in prostitution and bestiality to be considered for employment, insisting that the move was made to enable victims of those acts to apply for a job without fear of automatic disqualification.
The subject arose during a fiery Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Patel clashed with Democrats over his firing of agents who participated in investigations of Trump and suggested that agents might be dispatched to the polls on Election Day amid Justice Department and White House concerns about voter fraud.
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau is fulfilling its key mission -- keeping Americans safe.
The hours-long hearing featured the name-calling and bitingly personal exchanges that have come to define Patel’s appearances on Capitol Hill, with Democrats characterizing the Trump appointee as unqualified, criticizing him for politically charged investigations into Trump’s enemies and highlighting travel that has included a trip to the Winter Olympics in Italy in which he partied with U.S. hockey players and a snorkeling excursion at the Pearl Harbor memorial in Hawaii.
The Trump-aligned Kennedy Center board voted Tuesday to close most of the iconic performing arts venue just hours after a federal judge blocked the institution from returning Trump’s name to the building.
In a social media post, Trump said the closure was needed for safety repairs. But he said the repairs, which Congress has allocated $257 million to cover, would only happen if the board was allowed to move forward with plans to add his name to the building. A federal judge has twice said that can’t happen without the approval of Congress.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said in the latest ruling Tuesday.
The Justice Department appealed the ruling. Trump, who was named the Kennedy Center’s chairman last year by loyalists on the board, participated in the virtual board meeting and said on social media he’d given $17 million to an endowment intended to support the institution.
For a third time, the U.S. House has voted to end the war in Iran, approving a war powers resolution that would halt President Donald Trump’s ability to continue military action without congressional approval.
The roll call late Tuesday, 220-204, was similar to earlier efforts this summer, with a few more Republicans joining all Democrats voting to bring an end to the conflict. None of the resolutions have made it to the president’s desk, where Trump would almost certainly veto the measure.
The action is likely the last House vote on the Iran war ahead of the midterm elections, where the conflict overseas is playing a substantial role in the political campaigns. The war that Trump launched Feb. 28 has dragged, with on-again, off-again deadly missile strikes being exchanged and causing havoc in the region for nearly seven months.
