Vote counting began Friday in Bihar — India’s poorest yet one of its most politically significant states — in an election seen as a key test of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity after a year marred by economic headwinds and foreign policy challenges.

Exit polls released after Tuesday’s final phase of voting project that Modi�...Read more

A senior Trump administration official has referred U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., to the U.S. Department of Justice for an investigation over alleged mortgage and tax fraud tied to a Washington, D.C., home, NBC News reported Thursday.

Swalwell, a former Dublin council member, dismissed the allegations as politically motivated.

“As the ...Read more

The British Broadcasting Corp. issued a formal apology to Donald Trump on Thursday over the misleading edit of the U.S. president’s speech in a documentary program late last year, but rejected his demands for compensation.

BBC Chairman Samir Shah sent a personal letter to the White House “making clear to President Trump that he and the ...Read more

LANSING, Mich. — A group of 22 Michigan Republican lawmakers has asked President Donald Trump's U.S. Department of Justice to deploy monitors to vote-counting facilities and to provide general oversight for the state's upcoming elections in 2026.

In a letter sent Thursday to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the GOP legislators said their ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Congress flouted several legal principles with an unusual provision creating a streamlined path only for senators to file lawsuits and collect at least $1 million each for government actions in the previous administration, experts and critics say.

That includes a constitutional limitation on lawmaker pay increases, creating a new...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expand foster care services to children moving out of the system into adulthood, bolstering one of first lady Melania Trump’s initiatives.

“We are going to protect American children in foster care, and we’re going to ensure that they will never, ever be forgotten,” Trump...Read more

Proponents of an effort to stop members of Congress from trading stocks are cautiously optimistic that it could pick up steam now that the government shutdown has ended.

The House Administration Committee will meet Wednesday morning for a hearing on the issue, a small step forward for the lawmakers threatening to use whatever procedural tactics...Read more

NEW YORK — Council member Erik Bottcher threw his hat into a crowded ring to compete for Rep. Jerry Nadler’s House seat, he said Thursday.

Nadler, 78, announced his retirement in September, leaving an opportunity for younger politicians vying for a shot. His Manhattan district, which spans from 14th Street to the top of Central Park, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — How much political capital did President Donald Trump burn during a government shutdown he mostly left to lawmakers to end?

Perhaps, paradoxically, not very much.

So-called “Teflon Don” might have just survived yet another crisis that would have hamstrung any other chief executive, according to former congressional aides and...Read more

A provision significantly limiting the sale of intoxicating hemp products made its way into legislation to reopen the federal government just a day before the Senate approved the bill. Its inclusion follows years of pressure from states and the marijuana industry.

While states continue to expand access to legal marijuana, a separate market of ...Read more

MIAMI — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has been handed his first loss in higher court since joining Miami Dade College’s defense in a lawsuit over whether the school’s Board of Trustees violated Florida’s Sunshine Law when it voted to give away land for Donald Trump’s presidential library.

Uthmeier asked Florida’s Third ...Read more

The federal government slowly started to reopen Thursday but things remain far from normal after President Donald Trump signed a Republican government funding bill that narrowly passed both houses of Congress to end the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

Air travel remained snarled with hundreds more flights canceled and delayed, but experts ...Read more

Now that U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s new title is governor-elect, someone will need to take her place in Congress.

Sherrill represents a North Jersey district that she flipped blue in 2018, defeating a Republican candidate after the GOP incumbent retired. A flurry of Democrats are hoping to replace her in what’s since become a reliably blue ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The longest partial government shutdown in history ended late Wednesday night when President Donald Trump signed into law a short-term spending patch that funds federal agencies through January.

Flanked by House GOP leaders around his desk in the Oval Office, Trump signed the bill as he repeated his call for abolishing the Senate...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday night signed into law a spending package that will end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, a legislative victory for Republicans who did not budge on Democrats’ demands on healthcare.

“Today, we are sending a clear message that we will never give in to extortion,” Trump said during...Read more

WASHINGTON — The House late Wednesday cleared a short-term spending patch to reopen government through January, capping a bitter shutdown fight that led to the longest funding lapse in history.

On a 222-209 vote that fell mostly along party lines, the House sent the Senate-approved legislation to President Donald Trump’s desk. Trump ...Read more

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved a measure Wednesday night to end the longest-ever government shutdown after more than six weeks, without concessions to Democrats who demanded negotiations over skyrocketing health insurance premiums.

The stopgap spending bill, which funds the government through the end of ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The longest government shutdown in U.S. history was poised to come to an end Wednesday night as the House passed a spending package that President Trump was ready to sign into law as soon as it reached his desk.

The shutdown deal — approved by the House in a narrow 222-209 vote — now heads to Trump, who was scheduled to hold...Read more

WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson announced plans to pursue legislation next week that would repeal a Senate provision in a major spending package that incensed House Republicans and threatened to prolong the partial government shutdown.

The must-pass spending measure drew eleventh-hour objections from House members of both parties after the ...Read more