Navigating Iran crisis, Trump relies on experience over star power  —  Gabbard, Hegseth outside the inner circle as president weighs military actions against Iran.  —  Summary55  —  As President-elect Donald Trump assembled his core national security team early this year …

U.S. to Review Social Media Posts of Student and Scholar Visa Applicants  —  The State Department is restarting the processing of visa applications from students and visiting scholars, but is screening for “hostility” toward the United States.  —  The State Department plans to review …

Trump administration to shut down LGBTQ youth suicide hotline  —  The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline will no longer use its LGBTQ youth service line starting July 17.  The Trump administration says the move will “focus on serving all help seekers.”  —  The Trump administration will shut …

The Supreme Court's incoherent new attack on trans rights, explained  —  What the hell did the Court just do to equal protection law? … It was obvious, if you listened to the Supreme Court's oral argument in United States v. Skrmetti last December, that the Court would vote …

Parsing ICE's mixed-up, hard-to-believe assault claims  —  ICE officials keep touting a 413 percent increase in assaults on officers to justify anonymity.  —  Last month, I wrote a column questioning why Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were increasingly disguising their identities as they conducted sweeps and arrests.

FDA approves 6-month HIV prevention shot  —  Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences announced Wednesday the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved its six-month, twice-yearly HIV PrEP injection, which was found in trials to be more than 99.9 percent effective among participants.

As Trump pledges mass deportation, he's creating more undocumented people  —  More than 1 million people who were granted legal entry to the country under different programs are now being considered illegally here by the Trump administration.  —  Florndjie Camey, 31, had gone from a bleak future …

Hegseth Recommended a ‘Passive Approach’ to Honoring Juneteenth  —  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requested the Pentagon go light on commemorating Juneteenth, the holiday marking the end of slavery … Juneteenth marks the day in 1865, after the Civil War ended, when Union soldiers arrived …

Justice Dept. to Cut Two-Thirds of Inspectors Monitoring Gun Sales  —  The move is part of the Trump administration's effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  —  The Justice Department plans to slash the number of inspectors …

Accounts peddling child abuse content flood some X hashtags as safety partner cuts ties  —  Thorn, a non-profit that provides detection and moderation software related to child safety, said they canceled their contract with X after the platform stopped paying them.

Some Democratic senators regret voting to confirm Kristi Noem as DHS secretary  —  After seven Democrats voted for Noem, some say they'd now oppose her in the wake of Trump's aggressive deportation plans and last week's incident involving Sen. Alex Padilla.  —  WASHINGTON — Five days …

Bernie Sanders dives into a key House battleground Trump carried in 2024 with a new endorsement  —  Democrat Rebecca Cooke is running against GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden again after she lost by less than 3 points in western Wisconsin even as Trump won the district by 7 last year.

Republicans want unregulated AI.  What could go wrong?  —  🦾 PN is possible thanks to paid subscribers.  If you appreciate our fiercely independent coverage of American politics, please support us.  👇  —  The great artificial intelligence bait-and-switch is almost complete.

ICE Bars Reps. Goldman and Nadler From Immigrant Detention Area ‘Approaching Capacity’  —  Two members of Congress were refused entry to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention areas inside 26 Federal Plaza Wednesday morning, despite rules laid out by Congress allowing members to conduct unannounced visits for oversight purposes.

The D.N.C. Is in Chaos and Desperate for Cash  —  Under its new leader, Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee has been plagued by infighting and a drop in big donations, raising alarms from Democrats as they try to win back power.  —  Just months into the tenure of a new party leader …

June 18, 2025 (Wednesday)  —  Tomorrow is the federal holiday honoring Juneteenth, the celebration of the announcement in Texas on June 19th, 1865, that enslaved Americans were free.  —  That announcement came as late as it did because, while General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army …

SCOTUS Denies Gender Affirming Care to Transgender People, Live with E. Jean Carroll, and More  —  A recording from Joyce Vance's live video  —  If you joined us today at noon, you know E. Jean Carroll and I managed to discuss a wide range of topics.  We discussed Trump lawyer Alina Habba's …

A Wild Number of People Have Already Blocked JD Vance on Bluesky  —  RUDE WELCOME  —  JD Vance's Bluesky launch is not going smoothly.  The vice president had already been blocked by more than 55,000 users on the social media site, according to ClearSky, a third-party tool that tracks Bluesky user activity.

Members of Congress worry about lack of plan as political violence rises  —  Minnesota's shooting has temporarily changed the state legislature's balance of power, a fear for some in Congress.  —  Last fall, a couple of soon-to-retire lawmakers decided that it was time to have an uncomfortable discussion …

Websites expand ancestry records of enslaved people  —  Two genealogy sites are adding troves of historical materials about enslaved people in the U.S. to databases, which could give many of their descendants a fuller picture of their families' histories.  — The moves come as the nation …