Politics Election category
Bill to fund Homeland Security fails again as concern grows about airport lines
WASHINGTON — A bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security failed to advance Friday in the Senate amid growing concerns about long lines to get through screening at some of the country’s biggest airports. Democrats declined to provide the support needed to move the funding measure toward final passage....
Missouri judge strikes ballot summary for Trump-backed congressional redistricting plan
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — If Missouri voters get to decide whether to adopt new U.S. House districts backed by President Donald Trump, the ballot proposal presented to them won’t say a word about gerrymandering. A state judge on Friday ordered a new, toned-down description of the redistricting plan after Missouri’s...
Running New York’s ‘toughest job’ shows challenges familiar to Pittsburgh leaders
NEW YORK — Erin Dalton, the new commissioner of the New York City Department of Social Services, comes into the role confronting a daunting list of challenges. There are 85,000 people in city shelters. Many thousands of New Yorkers are likely to lose their federal benefits, including health care and...
Democrats aim to turn Trump’s tariffs against GOP in campaigns for governor
WASHINGTON — Less than a week after the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s global tariffs, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul listened as one of the plaintiffs in the case recounted the financial toll of the levies on his wine importing business. “This is a heavy tax and you...
ICE detains 3 Las Palmas workers in Brookline
Three Las Palmas restaurant workers were detained by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Thursday morning in Pittsburgh’s Brookline neighborhood. In a Facebook post, Las Palmas Supermercados y Taquerias confirmed the detainments, which took place near Las Palmas’ location at 700 Brookline Blvd. “Good morning my people, with the bad...
Fetterman says Trump Derangement Syndrome controls Democratic Party
Sen. John Fetterman has taken yet another jab at his colleagues, saying on a podcast that Trump Derangement Syndrome controls a leaderless Democratic Party. During an appearance on the “All-In” podcast, host David Friedberg asked Fetterman to name the leader of the Democratic Party and the senator replied, “We don’t...
Trump vowed to crack down on fraudsters, but he’s pardoned dozens
Salomon Melgen was an immigrant who came to the United States and wound up committing fraud, ripping off American taxpayers by $42 million. “Melgen devised a scheme to enrich himself by defrauding Medicare to the tune of tens of millions of dollars,” an FBI official said when Melgen was sentenced...
EU leaders blast Viktor Orbán over a Ukraine loan veto, accusing him of playing election games
BRUSSELS — European Union leaders on Thursday lashed out at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, accusing him of hijacking critical aid for Ukraine and undermining EU decision-making in an effort to win an election at home. In a rare public tirade against a member of their ranks, leaders insisted that...
A ‘freaking snake’ and no apologies: How the Mullin hearing went off the rails
WASHINGTON — The chairman opened the hearing with a provocative dare: Say it to my face. Sen. Rand Paul, the Republican from Kentucky, has made clear he has little regard for President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, fellow Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin. He says he’ll...
Ex-counterterrorism official says he wasn’t allowed to share concerns about Iran war with Trump
WASHINGTON — Joe Kent, the former counterterrorism director who resigned this week over concerns about the Iran war, said Wednesday that he and other senior officials with doubts about the airstrikes “were not allowed” to share them with President Donald Trump. Speaking on Tucker Carlson’s show, Kent said the president...
Democrats storm out of Justice Department leaders’ briefing on the Epstein files
WASHINGTON — Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday stormed out of a closed-door briefing on the Jeffrey Epstein files by Justice Department leaders, and said they would push to force Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer questions under oath about the case that has plagued the Trump administration. Bondi and Deputy Attorney...
Glassport police chief confirms 17 ICE arrests
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 17 people in Glassport over the past few weeks, according to the borough’s police chief. All 17 arrests occurred within two days, Chief Shawn DeVerse told TribLive on Wednesday. “I recognize that ICE is an outside law enforcement agency,” he said. “They have...
Pa. House Republicans hold on to key seats in special elections
Pennsylvania Republicans held on to two state House seats, critical to keeping them within striking range of majority control, in special elections Tuesday. Preliminary counts showed Catherine Wallen of York Springs had prevailed over Todd Crawley in the 193rd House District, covering parts of Adams and Cumberland counties. In Blair...
Former Illinois Republican Party chairman Don Tracy wins GOP primary for U.S. Senate seat
CHICAGO — Illinois voters decided primaries Tuesday for six open U.S. House and Senate seats in contests that became a testing ground for issues shaping the Democratic Party’s future. From questions about the cryptocurrency and AI industries to immigration enforcement to fracturing U.S. support for Israel, the state’s voters confronted...
Summer Lee moves to impeach Attorney General Pam Bondi as GOP-led committee subpoenas her
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee and five Democratic colleagues on Tuesday introduced articles of impeachment against Attorney General Pam Bondi over her handling of files related to the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and what the lawmakers described as the politicization of the Justice Department. Separately Tuesday, the GOP-controlled House...
Pa. Senate passes bill to protect children, others by mandating safeguards for AI ‘friend’ bots
The state Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would require AI chatbot operators to implement guardrails against self-harm and sexually explicit material, putting near-unanimous bipartisan support behind an idea that has also been endorsed by Gov. Josh Shapiro. The bill comes as polls show a growing public pushback to...
Pittsburgh budget woes vindicate Controller Rachael Heisler, who issued early warnings
For two years, Pittsburgh Controller Rachael Heisler raised one red flag after another about the city’s precarious finances. She wrote letters, held press conferences and mercilessly skewered former Mayor Ed Gainey’s final budget proposal as “not an honest document.” Few took her alerts to heart. Public officials, from the former...
Petition argues Republican state House candidate in North Hills is ineligible to run
A petition filed in Commonwealth Court says a Republican state House candidate in the North Hills is not eligible to run because he doesn’t meet the state’s residency requirement. The candidate, Ehab Akkary of McCandless, called the challenge “antidemocratic” and said it is a “frivolous and politically motivated attempt to...
Trump’s next target: ‘Taking Cuba’
NEWS ANALYSIS “I do believe I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba,” President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “Taking Cuba in some form, yeah,” he added when a reporter asked for clarification. “Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it — I...
Top counterterrorism official Joe Kent resigns over Trump’s Iran war, says Iran posed no imminent threatVideo
WASHINGTON — Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing his concerns about the justification for military strikes in Iran and saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the Trump administration’s war. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is...
Illinois voters set to pick a new generation of Democrats for House, Senate after near-record retirements
CHICAGO — Illinois voters are deciding primaries Tuesday for six open U.S. House and Senate seats that will spur a new generation of leadership in the state’s heavily Democratic congressional delegation. The retirement of longtime Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, has triggered a competitive campaign, drawing as candidates two sitting...
Republicans are launching a voting bill debate that could last days or even weeks
WASHINGTON — Republicans are launching an unprecedented effort on Tuesday to hold the Senate floor and talk for days about a bill that they know won’t pass — an attempt to capture public attention on legislation requiring stricter voter registration rules as President Donald Trump pressures Congress to act before...
In choosing ‘Epic Fury,’ Trump names a war and defines his presidency
WASHINGTON — By his own account, President Donald Trump was asked to personally pick the name of the military operation against Iran and was bored by all the choices presented to him. “They gave me, like, 20 names, and I’m like, falling asleep,” he said last week. “I didn’t like...
Trump team applying pressure to media: Tell the war’s story the way we see it
Through lectures, scoldings and outright threats, President Donald Trump and his aides are ratcheting up the pressure on journalists to cover the war in the Middle East the way the administration wants. The Republican president has fumed on social media about stories he doesn’t like and berated a reporter on...
Trump lets slip Rep. Neal Dunn’s medical diagnosisVideo
WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Neal Dunn was diagnosed with a “terminal” heart illness, President Donald Trump said Monday, adding that doctors initially predicted the North Florida lawmaker would “be dead by June.” “OK, that wasn’t public,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in an awkward moment. Trump patted him on the...
