Contributing Writers

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Friday she will return to President Donald Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., after leaving her post in the administration.Leavitt, 28, told reporters aboard Air Force One that she plans to work for MAGA Inc., a Trump-aligned super PAC, though she did not specify her title or responsibilities.The move sends Leavitt back to a familiar political operation. She served as a spokesperson for MAGA Inc.

In addition to fending off a Democratic challenger, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, is wrestling against confusion caused by a candidate who shares his name — Dan J. Sullivan Jr., an independent — and a shrinking window to clear it up.Alaska state Sen. James Kaufman, a Republican, said he personally remains worried about conflation between the two.”I’ve had at least one person say they had to slow down to make sure they didn’t make a mistake.

Northern Virginia Democrats faced questions about how a Tajik national committed to a psychiatric facility after killing his landlord was twice allowed to leave — once to obtain a passport and once to visit an apartment — before escaping to Tajikistan.

New York City officials are looking at ways to ease costs for independent grocers as taxpayers foot the bill for Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s city-owned grocery store plan.The administration is eyeing tax breaks, incentives and zoning benefits to help private grocers manage costs as the city moves ahead with taxpayer-subsidized stores that will receive low- or no-cost real estate, city-funded buildouts and other subsidies.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., on Saturday dismissed “AI doomsdaying,” warning that China benefits from “overreaction” by the United States as the two countries compete for dominance in artificial intelligence.Fetterman shared an article on X highlighting a Bloomberg analysis examining what it described as the narrowing U.S. lead over China in the AI race and the faster pace at which Chinese companies are deploying advanced models.

Former Republican Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker of Kansas, the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate without previously having a husband serve in Congress, died Friday at 94.Her son, Bill Kassebaum, told The Associated Press that she died of natural causes.”She loved Kansas. She loved people from Kansas and representing Kansas for 18 years in the U.S. Senate,” he told the AP.

A federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s freeze on immigrant visas from 75 countries Friday, ruling Secretary of State Marco Rubio lacked the legal authority to order denials for applicants otherwise found eligible to enter the United States.U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, a Biden appointee in Manhattan, vacated the State Department policy and any visa refusals based solely on it, directing the government to revisit those cases.

The FBI interviewed Salvatore Gravano, the former underboss of the Gambino crime family known as “Sammy the Bull,” to ask if ex-FBI Director James Comey likely knew what the term “86” means, according to court documents.Gravano, who had familiarity with Comey due to Comey’s role as the lead prosecutor in United States v. John Gambino et al.

The Senate has been out of session for about two weeks. It’s convened in brief “pro forma” sessions for just a couple of moments on four occasions since senators called it quits for more than a month at 4:57 a.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 8.Pro forma sessions are where the Senate huddles for just a few seconds, gaveling in and gaveling out with a skeleton crew. It’s rare that more than one senator is even in the chamber.

President Donald Trump is set to honor four astronauts who traveled farther from Earth than any humans in history during a record-breaking journey around the moon earlier this year.Trump will award the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen during an Aug. 28 ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the agency announced.

President Donald Trump had a striking message for a protester who interrupted his South Carolina rally Friday night: Mom isn’t going to be happy.A protester stood up and interrupted Trump at about 7:28 p.m., before being escorted from the Myrtle Beach Convention Center by police and convention center staff, according to a White House pool report.As the protester was still being escorted out, Trump briefly paused his remarks and turned to the commotion.

Lawyers representing Dr. Anthony Fauci have created a legal defense fund for the infectious disease expert as investigations against him continue to mount.Fauci, who helped lead the country through the pandemic, has been accused by Republicans of misleading the public about the origins of COVID-19 and faces multiple federal and state investigations.Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has called on the U.S.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Friday he had referred “discriminatory” religious facilities at two of the state’s major airports to the Justice Department over the installation of Islamic foot-washing stations in its bathrooms.

Vice President JD Vance put Abdul El-Sayed at the center of his attack on the modern Democratic Party, pointing to the Michigan Senate nominee’s past remarks linking criticism of Sharia law to White supremacy as evidence that the party has abandoned its working-class roots.Vance delivered the remarks Friday at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works steel plant in his Ohio hometown as neighboring Michigan gears up for one of the midterms’ most competitive Senate races.

Vice President JD Vance offered an unfiltered assessment Thursday of some of the biggest names in politics in a rapid-fire TikTok, calling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a “communist,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., “lame” and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani “crazy.

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville did not mince words when he unloaded on his party’s far-left insurgency Thursday.”We get subjugated by some of the more outspoken people who, by the way, [are] not even Democrats,” Carville said during a video news conference.”I wish they’d take the word Democrat out of their name.

Newly released police bodycam video obtained by Fox News Digital shows Oklahoma Secretary of State Benjamin Lepak’s encounter with police outside a McDonald’s before officers arrested him on suspicion of public intoxication.Lepak was arrested Friday night in Edmond after police responded around 10:45 p.m. to a report of a man who appeared to be drunk in public, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Fox News Digital.

A top Democratic strategist from the Obama White House contended that Sen. Jon Ossoff’s latest shot at President Donald Trump was “gratuitous and unnecessary.”The Georgia Democrat, who has expanded his profile throughout his re-election campaign during this midterm cycle to new heights that have him in the conversation for the 2028 presidential race, recently went viral for his remarks while on the trail, where he went after Trump.

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is slated to speak at the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA) annual convention over Labor Day weekend, joining a speaker roster that includes Muslim religious leaders with histories of controversial remarks.

One of the betting favorites to replace Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary declared Wednesday that she is not in the running for the job.The 28-year-old White House press secretary, fresh off maternity leave, announced earlier this month that she would end her tenure at the podium at the end of August to spend more time with her two young children.

A Missouri judge handed President Donald Trump and Republicans a major redistricting victory Wednesday, ruling that the state’s referendum process cannot be used to challenge congressional maps drawn by the Legislature and allowing a new GOP-friendly map to remain in place for November’s midterm elections.

A Chinese national living in Massachusetts was arrested Wednesday after federal prosecutors said he impersonated another Chinese national to register and vote in the 2024 presidential election then reported the alleged victim to immigration authorities for illegally voting.Yupeng Sun, 33, of Andover, was charged with one count of fraudulent voter registration and one count of fraudulent voting, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued a stern warning to any nation thinking about offering a lifeline to Iran after announcing the launch of a U.S. operation he likened to an “economic D-Day.””Today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed said he wanted to “take it a step further” when asked whether he supported Bernie Sanders’ public ownership model for major artificial intelligence companies. El-Sayed argued for “some system of public control,” days after a top House Democrat rejected suggestions that young socialists are talking about “seizing the means of production.

The special election to fill the seat vacated by former Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., remained undecided in the early Wednesday morning hours.The battle to succeed Swalwell comes after he resigned in April amid sexual assault allegations from at least five women. Prior to the allegations, Swalwell was also making a bid for California’s gubernatorial race, but he dropped that bid as well.Vying for Swalwell’s seat are two women: progressive state Sen.

Seventeen governor-lieutenant governor candidate pairs battled Tuesday to make the primary cutoff and advance to the November general election to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Michael Dunleavy.Former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and running mate Zac Johnson finished first, while former Democratic state Sen. Tom Begich and Julia Hnilicks finished second. They will advance to the November general election, alongside two more winning governor-lieutenant governor pairs.

A heated battle for Alaska’s only U.S. House seat will see a handful of candidates face-off in November after four candidates advanced in Tuesday’s rank-choice primary.First-term incumbent Rep. Nicholas Begich III, R-Alaska, is hoping to hang onto his seat, and will have a chance to do so in November. But he is facing an insurgency from independent candidate Bill Hill.AP called the race for Begich and Hill early on, and Begich led by a 47.9% to 29.5% margin.