It was 2:35 am et Sunday.The phone rang, yanking me out of deep slumber.Calls like these are never good.In the split second before I answered the phone, my mind traveled to the obvious place for any journalist who covers Capitol Hill and gets a call at that hour.LINDSEY GRAHAM, SOUTH CAROLINA SENATOR WHO ROSE FROM SMALL-TOWN ROOTS TO GOP POWER BROKER, DIES AT 71Surely it was about former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Iran has released an American woman who he said was “wrongfully detained” in the country for the past year and a half.She was identified as Iranian-American citizen Dena Karari by her attorney Jared Genser, who confirmed her release to Fox News. She was reportedly accused of espionage over her work with an American nonprofit helping impoverished children.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz publicly defended his vote to pardon a Laotian national who had been under a final removal order after losing legal status following a child sex crime conviction of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a 10-year-old girl after the Trump administration deported him to Laos last week.Tou Lue Vang, 42, received a pardon from Minnesota’s Board of Pardons on June 10.

Nevada Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony has an unusual plan to rev up the Silver State’s entertainment business: space tourism. And with Elon Musk having significant business interests in the state, Anthony won’t have to look far to find the man to do it.Anthony’s background has been anything but boring. He had a nearly three-decade career in law enforcement, was a regent in the state’s higher education system and served as a longtime Las Vegas city councilman.

FIRST ON FOX: Former Vice President Mike Pence is calling on Congress to rename Sen. Lindsey Graham’s signature Russia sanctions legislation after the late South Carolina Republican, telling Fox News Digital there would be “no more fitting tribute” to one of the Senate’s most influential national security hawks.

Former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump swept up text messages from nearly 50 members of Congress, bypassing a required review process in what one victim alleged is a direct constitutional violation.

During four terms in Congress, South Dakota’s Dusty Johnson has emerged as a leading voice on American agricultural policy, U.S.-China relations and fiscal responsibility. Often known as the “problem solver,” he recently sat down with Fox News Digital at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas to discuss his congressional career, his South Dakota gubernatorial bid and his future plans as his time in the U.S. House draws to a close.

A bipartisan effort to make daylight saving time permanent is one step closer to becoming law after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the measure on Tuesday.Lawmakers voted 308-117 to pass the Sunshine Protection Act, which would allow states to voluntarily observe daylight saving time year-round as a growing mass of lawmakers push to extend daylight into the evening hours.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) America Act would make it harder for Democrats to win elections, prompting Republicans to argue she had finally said “the quiet part out loud” about Democrats’ opposition to stricter election laws.Slotkin made the remarks in a video recently unearthed by Breitbart News that was recorded the day after the Senate narrowly rejected the SAVE America Act in June.

President Donald Trump’s decades-old comments on Iran resurfaced Tuesday in a 1980 interview clip in which he argued America needed to project strength during the hostage crisis.”When you get the respect of the other countries, then the other countries tend to do a little bit as you do … and then you create the right attitudes,” Trump said in the resurfaced clip during an interview with reporter Rona Barrett about the Iranian hostage crisis.