The White House Announces White House Ballroom Construction to Begin  —  Washington, D.C. — For 150 years, Presidents, Administrations, and White House Staff have longed for a large event space on the White House complex that can hold substantially more guests than currently allowed.

Virginia Giuffre's Family Was Shocked That Trump Described Her as ‘Stolen’  —  The siblings of one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent accusers wonder what the president knows.  —  When Donald Trump told reporters yesterday that Jeffrey Epstein “stole” a young woman named Virginia Roberts Giuffre …

Trump's tariffs get frosty reception at federal appeals court … Judge Timothy Dyk, a Clinton appointee, said “it was hard for me to see” that Congress intended to give the president the authority to essentially rewrite the entire U.S. code when it passed the legislation.

Alan Dershowitz Takes on His Greatest Challenge Yet: A Farmers' Market  —  It was an unusually warm day on Martha's Vineyard on Wednesday, and Alan Dershowitz just wanted to enjoy some hot dumplings.  —  As he tells it, Dershowitz, the 86-year-old attorney for some of America's …

Trump set to revive the Presidential Fitness Test while hosting professional athletes at White House  —  President Donald Trump will be joined by professional athletes on Thursday to sign an executive order that will expand on his council on sports, fitness and nutrition …

Trump's war on Big Law leads firms to retreat from ‘pro bono’ work for underdogs  —  Interviews with over 60 lawyers and 30 nonprofits show legal aid groups now have fewer resources to defend the vulnerable.  —  When the Texas Civil Rights Project needed lawyers to help dozens …

“We'll Smash the Fucking Window Out and Drag Him Out”  —  This story contains videos and descriptions of violent arrests.  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published.

Trump extends Mexico's 25% tariffs for 90 days as talks continue … President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would not raise U.S. tariffs on Mexican goods beyond their current levels for 90 days, in order to give the neighboring countries time to strike a trade deal.

Legal Watchdog Files Bar Complaints Against Justice Dept. Lawyers  —  The move represented a rare attempt to seek accountability for rank-and-file lawyers who have represented the Trump administration in court.  —  A legal watchdog group accused three career Justice Department lawyers …

Judges overseeing Trump cases speak out against threats  —  Federal judges presiding over major cases involving the Trump administration on Thursday denounced threats they've faced as tensions between the White House and judiciary continue to mount.  —  U.S. District Judges Jack McConnell …

The Fact Checker rose in an era of false claims.  Falsehoods are now winning.  —  Longtime Fact Checker Glenn Kessler takes stock as he departs The Washington Post.  —  Just now  —  When 400 fact-checkers from around the world gathered in Rio de Janeiro in June for an annual conference, the mood was tense.

Trump demands pharma companies slash drug prices in next 60 days  —  President Trump on Thursday sent letters to 17 of the world's largest drug companies, telling them to take more steps to slash the prices of prescription drugs to match the lowest price in certain foreign countries.

Newly Declassified Appendix To Durham Report Sheds Additional Light On Clinton Campaign Plan To Falsely Tie Trump To Russia And FBI's Failure To Investigate  —  WASHINGTON - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today is making public the formerly Classified Appendix …

A New Cycle of Texas Gerrymandering: Your Questions Answered  —  A redistricting expert answers questions from Bolts readers about the effort to redraw Texas' congressional map, and its effects on communities of color and political representation.  —  The Texas legislature began meeting …

‘Welcome to hell’: Inside the megaprison where the U.S. deported migrants  —  Interviews with 16 former detainees of El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center offer the most complete view yet of conditions at the notorious prison.  —  One detainee was beaten unconscious.

Senators Could Vote Imminently to Remove Their Homes, Travel Info From Internet  —  Watchdogs argue the legislation would block reporters from doing their jobs and limit efforts to hold lawmakers accountable  —  Senators could vote on a bill as soon as Thursday to allow members of Congress …

The federal government is paying more than 154,000 people not to work  —  Early resignation offers and other programs have reduced the workforce, but critics say the moves are also wasting money.  —  Just now  —  The government is paying more than 154,000 federal employees not to work …

Donald Trump's unprecedented attack on Brazil's judiciary  —  He has placed sanctions on the judge leading the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, his ideological ally  —  “Let this be a warning to those who would trample on the fundamental rights of their countrymen,” Marco Rubio …

The shockingly shrunken footprint of a former president … Now, he's on the other side of the mountain.  And his life has entered a new phase that is quieter and smaller.  —  He's staffed by only one or two aides and a small Secret Service detail.  He holes up for hours at a time in Delaware working …

Trump regulatory czar Jeffrey Clark should be disbarred for role in 2020 election plot, disciplinary board rules … “The fight continues,” Clark said in a series of posts on X, shortly after the decision.  —  The D.C. Bar's Board of Professional Responsibility said its ruling was based …

Criminal defendant challenging Alina Habba's appointment takes a page from Aileen Cannon's playbook … “As Judge Cannon explained in Trump, when executive officials deliberately engineer an appointment in violation of statutory and constitutional mandates, the only effective remedy is dismissal or …

Republicans Put Conspiracy Theorist With Far-Right Ties In Top Counterterrorism Job  —  Joe Kent has pushed white nationalist views and fanned conspiracies about the 2020 election being “stolen” and the FBI planning the Jan. 6 insurrection.  —  WASHINGTON ― You can't make it up, folks.

How Scientific Empires End  —  And what it means for America  —  Roald sagdeev has already watched one scientific empire rot from the inside.  When Sagdeev began his career, in 1955, science in the Soviet Union was nearing its apex.  At the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow …

Ms. Rachel grew up on Mister Rogers.  Now she's carrying on his legacy. … NEW YORK  —  Many years ago, in a gray wooden house in Maine, there was a little girl who loved to curl up on the living room couch and watch “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.”  When each episode wound down …

Kavanaugh Defends Supreme Court's Terse Emergency Orders  —  Speaking at a judicial conference, the justice said that saying too much risked premature judgments, adding that the court had been trying various approaches.  —  Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said on Thursday that the Supreme Court …

Jess Glynne calls White House deportation video with Jet2 song ‘sick’  — Jess Glynne criticises White House for using a meme featuring her song in a post about deportation  — Parodies of Jet2 adverts including Glynne's 2015 hit Hold My Hand have gone viral on TikTok

Poll shows decline in belief that Blacks and Asians face racial discrimination  —  Meanwhile, about three in 10 people said DEI increased discrimination against white people.  —  Slightly less than half of U.S. adults believe that Black people face “a great deal” or “quite a bit” …

The Media Can't Handle the Absence of Truth  —  And their diffidence empowers pathological liars  —  We have guests for the next couple of days, and it would be rude to spend the whole time chained to the computer.  So this post and maybe the next will be short and somewhat meta.

Unnoticed Whistle-Blower Document Alarms Justice Department Veterans  —  A complaint concerning a top Justice Department official, Emil Bove III, went unnoticed for more than two months, raising worries that an internal watchdog has gone dormant.  —  The Justice Department's internal watchdog lost …

Traffic Apocalypse  —  Google's AI Overviews are killing click-throughs to news sites.  —  Worldwide search traffic has fallen by 15 percent in the past year, estimates Similarweb, a digital intelligence platform.  The culprit: AI search.  Now that AI-generated summaries are being integrated …