SLEEPY EYE, Minnesota — At the Sleepy Eye Auction Market on Wednesday, between sales of fattened steers and a shaggy Highland bull, chatter drifted to farm country’s latest beef with the White House: President Donald Trump’s plan to buy more beef from Argentina.

Few at the southwestern Minnesota cattle auction barn thought it would make a...Read more

WASHINGTON — Key senators of both parties said they would try to find a way to pay all federal employees during the partial government shutdown after the Senate blocked consideration of dueling proposals Thursday.

Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who authored competing bills, talked up the possibility of brokering a ...Read more

WASHINGTON — One federal employee has taken out a bank loan. Another says she’s planning to seek help from a food pantry. A third says his family will likely need to take out loans, or incur credit card debt, to get by.

Those stories and more were detailed in court filings this week in a lawsuit challenging the legality of Trump ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is soon slated to be 5,000 miles from Washington talking soybeans and tariffs, possibly hamstringing any efforts to end the government shutdown.

With Republican and Democratic lawmakers digging into their positions about how to revive the federal machine, perhaps only presidential prodding could help end ...Read more

DETROIT — U.S. Secret Service agents have arrested a Michigan man and accused the former U.S. Air Force airman of threatening to kill President Donald Trump over the administration's LGBTQ+ policies, according to federal court records unsealed Thursday.

Joshua Levi Young, 21, of Ishpeming, is accused of issuing several threats since January ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s upcoming trip to Asia caps a whirlwind stretch that includes jetting to the Middle East to mark the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, escalating a trade clash with China, redoubling efforts to send troops to U.S. cities and overseeing construction of a $300 million White House ballroom.

Seemingly absent from his...Read more

A state court on Wednesday ordered the University of California to release the $1.2-billion UCLA settlement proposal from the Department of Justice, handing a victory to faculty members who are pushing UC for more transparency in its negotiations with the Trump administration.

The one-sentence decision signed by 1st Appellate District acting ...Read more

The pantheon of problematic presidential pardons has always cut across partisan lines.

Former President Joe Biden’s pre-emptive pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, was among the most brazen examples ever of a president putting family loyalty above presidential duty. Barack Obama’s commutation of the prison sentence of Army private and document...Read more

American universities are at a crossroads.

Their business model, which is overwhelmingly dependent on the twin pillars of federal grants and taxpayer-backed student loans, is failing in the face of declining public trust, financial malfeasance, a looming demographic cliff, and their publicly acknowledged discrimination, contrary to civil rights...Read more

WASHINGTON — Next month’s special election in a heavily Democratic House district in Houston includes more than a dozen candidates vying to succeed the late Rep. Sylvester Turner.

Yet the crowded field of contenders shares a common opponent: voter confusion.

Responding to pressure from President Donald Trump to bolster the GOP’s chances ...Read more

Among the many dangerous actions President Donald Trump has taken, his push to force some of the country’s best universities into signing a sweeping federal “compact” ranks just behind his pardons for the January 6 insurrectionists.

The 10-part compact is a bizarre mix of bombast, authoritarianism, and a few unremarkable ideas buried like...Read more

Consider a hunger policy director at a state Department of Social Services studying food insecurity data across the state. For years, she has relied on the USDA’s annual Household Food Security Report to identify where hunger is rising, how many families are skipping meals, and how many children go to bed hungry. Those numbers help her target ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is turning to an unconventional approach to lowering drug prices in the United States: striking deals directly with big pharma companies in an attempt to bring U.S. prices in line with what other countries pay.

Trump and the nation’s health care officials have touted these “most-favored nation” ...Read more

Democratic mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani and his chief rival, Andrew Cuomo, tore into each other Wednesday on the debate stage over their respective careers in state government, with both men accusing one another of being ineffective in wielding power in Albany to address New York City’s affordability crisis.

Affordability has been a ...Read more

NORFOLK, Va. — The audience, such that it was, chattered excitedly ahead of Tuesday night’s debate. It sounded almost human.

“Good evening, and thanks for joining us on this unique occasion for an exchange of ideas between the two candidates running to be the next lieutenant governor of Virginia,” intoned a disembodied voice. Viewers at...Read more

President Donald Trump attacked U.S. cattle ranchers over their criticism of his plan to slash record beef prices by importing significantly more tariff-free meat from Argentina, deepening a quarrel with a group of reliable supporters and raising concerns among ranch-state Republican lawmakers.

Trump on Wednesday said that cattlemen should be ...Read more

Early voter turnout exceeds expectations in California’s Nov. 4 special election over redrawing the state’s congressional districts, a Democratic-led effort to counter Republican attempts to keep Congress under GOP control.

“We’re seeing some pretty extraordinary numbers of early votes that have already been cast, people sending back in...Read more

WASHINGTON — The University of Virginia became the latest college to strike a deal with the Trump administration, settling civil rights investigations that threatened the school’s federal funding and cost its former president his job.

As part of the accord, the university agreed to provide the government with data on its admissions and ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Three of the country's most powerful judges met in Pasadena on Wednesday for a rare conclave that could rewrite the legal framework for President Trump's expansive deployment of troops to cities across the United States.

The move to flood Los Angeles with thousands of federalized soldiers over the objection of state and local ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Rep. Mike Haridopolos has been averaging 15,000 steps a day during the shutdown, and his years of being a history teacher have come in handy.

With staff-led tours of the Capitol on pause until the government reopens, the Florida Republican has led more than 20 tours of his own this month.

“As a former history teacher, I love ...Read more