In mid-2023, around the time Elon Musk rebranded Twitter as X but before he discontinued free academic access to the platform’s data, my colleagues and I looked for signs of social bot accounts posting content generated by artificial intelligence. Social bots are AI software that produce content and interact with people on social media. We ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Five days after federal immigration enforcement agents killed the second of his constituents, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had a message for his peers: Speak out.

“Mayors, we do not back down to bullies. We stand up for democracy,” Frey said in a speech last month in Washington, D.C., at a gathering of hundreds of mayors from...Read more

It is in the U.S. Constitution: States decide how federal elections are run, not the executive branch.

Yet over the last year, the Trump administration has sought to exert more control. In March, President Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order requiring documented proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. The order has since ...Read more

Bangladesh heads to the polls Thursday in a high-stakes general election that will shape the nation’s transition following the 2024 student-led revolution that ended Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule.

All but one of 300 seats in parliament are up for grabs in a contest that has coalesced around two rival blocs: the mainstream Bangladesh ...Read more

For the first time on Wednesday, the DeSantis administration acknowledged that it used opioid settlement money to campaign against a recreational marijuana amendment on the 2024 ballot.

Shevaun Harris, the secretary for Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, made the admission during an appearance before a Senate committee as part ...Read more

After weeks of pressure from rank-and-file Republicans, the House on Wednesday passed a bill aimed at creating a federal voter ID mandate.

Dubbed the SAVE America Act, it would require Americans to prove their citizenship when registering to vote and present photo identification when casting a ballot. It would also require states to submit ...Read more

President Trump on Wednesday issued an executive order directing the Department of Defense to buy electricity from coal-fired power plants. He also announced new funding to restart and upgrade coal plants in several states.

The executive order directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to enter into long-term...Read more

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Pamela Bondi showed little regret during an oversight hearing Wednesday for the Justice Department’s controversial handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, a release that publicly exposed the names and identifying information of survivors.

Instead, with some survivors behind her at the hearing, the attorney ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Wednesday came down hard on various sectors of the U.S. prescription drug supply chain during a hearing to shed light on the reasons for rising costs.

At a House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing, Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., touted changes in the fiscal 2026 spending package ...Read more

Rep. Bobby Scott waived onto the House Veterans Affairs Committee today to ask Veterans Affairs Sec. Doug Collins about staffing shortages at the VA’s 10-month-old outpatient clinic in Chesapeake.

At the hearing, Collins confirmed that 335 out of 534 positions — about 62% — had been filled at the North Battlefield Outpatient Clinic. ...Read more

The word “unprecedented” is getting a workout after a grand jury in Washington on Feb. 10, 2026, rebuffed an attempt by federal prosecutors to get an indictment against perceived enemies of President Donald Trump.

It began with an unprecedented video in November 2025 featuring six Democratic lawmakers alerting military and ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats sparred Wednesday on the potential real-world harms of a partial shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security, as Congress marched toward a funding deadline for the agency amid a dispute over immigration enforcement policies.

The House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee held a hearing with...Read more

WASHINGTON — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly sparred with lawmakers on Wednesday as she was pressed over the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and faced demands for greater transparency in the high-profile case.

Bondi accused Democrats and at least one Republican on the House Judiciary Committee ...Read more

After a three-day partial federal government shutdown, Congress has reauthorized the National Flood Insurance Program until Sept. 30.

For North Carolina homeowners who rely on federally backed flood insurance, the extension offers a brief respite from disruptions in home sales and mortgage lending.

“It’s a win for housing advocates,” ...Read more

Washington’s top diplomat in Port-au-Prince told a Senate appropriations panel on Tuesday that security and stability are the cornerstones of the Trump administration’s policy toward Haiti, where some 20 armed groups are holding the country hostage.

Henry Wooster, the U.S. chargé d’affaires, said that while 12,000 armed people account ...Read more

President Donald Trump says he knows nothing of the racist post that went out on his social media account. We're skeptical, considering the president's juvenile impulses and predilection for crudity. A meme depicting former President Barack and Michelle Obama as apes is not outside his range.

If he's telling the truth, and a staffer is ...Read more