The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the construction of the president’s much-touted White House ballroom.
To hear one sailor’s mother tell it, the experience on board the USS Abraham Lincoln is like a “scene out of the ‘American Horror Story,’ where … everybody’s dead, but they don’t know it yet.”
The conditions have been getting progressively worse in recent weeks, and the extended time at sea is “wreaking havoc” on sailors’ mental health, said Danielle Rappa, whose son has been on the long-deployed aircraft carrier.
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Trump dismissed concerns from families of service members about the grim conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose deployment had been overextended in the Middle East due to the Iran war.
NBC News asked Trump, who was speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, whether the deployments have gone on for too long and whether he’s worried about troops’ mental health.
“No. No. No — not nearly long enough,” Trump said.
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A month ago, hardly anyone gave the Democratic ironworker and City Council member in this working-class Cleveland suburb a chance to flip Ohio’s 7th Congressional District, which Trump won by 11 points in 2024. Then, domestic abuse allegations stemming from a divorce and custody fight involving Republican Rep. Max Miller became daily news.
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Former Olympian David Hearn’s lawyers asked a District of Columbia Superior Court judge last night to prohibit federal prosecutors from reviving the felony charge accusing him of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The move comes amid reports that the White House has asked the Justice Department to figure out a way to bring new charges against Hearn after the U.S. prosecutor in the District of Columbia, Trump appointee Jeanine Pirro, dropped the charge, citing a lack of evidence.
The Wall Street Journal first reported that White House officials were seeking to bring a new case again Hearn.
Trump publicly disagreed with Pirro, saying she “folded like an umbrella” in dropping the case. Hearn’s attorneys say Trump’s continued social media posts attacking their client constitute harassment and present a very real threat of having the case revived.
They urged the court to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning the Justice Department would be barred from further attempts to prosecute Hearn.
Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman dismissed the case against Hearn after Pirro dropped it. In its filing, the Justice Department said the damage to the pool had been caused by shoddy installation, not by vandalism.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made it clear at an event today that he’s not supporting the re-election campaign of Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla.
Asked about the race for Florida’s 7th Congressional District, the GOP governor said, “I have not endorsed Cory Mills, and I do not support Cory Mills.”
Mills’ office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mills is under criminal investigation by the Justice Department, NBC News reported last month. Two people familiar with the matter said that the probe touches on Mills’ finances, and according to one of the sources, investigators are interested in some of his overseas business dealings.
The House Ethics Committee has also been investigating Mills over allegations of “sexual misconduct and/or dating violence,” as well as potential campaign finance violations. He has denied wrongdoing. He rejected calls earlier this year to resign from Congress.
Melissa Farris, the woman federal authorities allege vandalized the National World War II Memorial, is facing two federal charges: one count of willfully injuring or committing a depredation against property of the United States and one count of destruction of a veterans memorial.
U.S. Park Police Detective Christopher Edmund alleged in an affidavit that law enforcement officers responded to a call of a disorderly person yesterday and that a U.S. park ranger observed the woman, later allegedly identified as Farris, flee the area after the ranger arrived.
The affidavit alleged that a U.S. Park Police officer then recognized Farris as someone they arrested in connection with unlawful camping on federal property on Monday. Farris had a Kentucky driver’s license when she was arrested Monday, the affidavit said.
The woman who will be charged with vandalizing the World War II Memorial appears to have livestreamed the incident on Facebook, a person familiar with the investigation confirmed.
A video posted to a Facebook account under the name of the suspect, Melissa L. Farris, went live around 2 p.m. ET yesterday. It shows a woman shaking a can of spray paint and then spray-painting the memorial.
“It was me. I’m doing it. I did it. It’s on camera,” the woman, whom authorities identified as Farris, said in yesterday’s livestream. Another livestream posted this morning appears to show the woman identified as Farris turning herself in.
GOP Rep. Russell Fry, who unsuccessfully ran for Senate in South Carolina’s special primary election earlier this week, today endorsed Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., in the primary runoff to fill her late brother’s seat.
“President Trump needs fighters and allies in the Senate who will show up every day and get results. I believe Darline Graham will be exactly that. Darline knows what it means to struggle, persevere, and keep fighting when life deals you a difficult hand. Those experiences shaped her, and I believe they give her a real understanding of the challenges families across South Carolina face,” Fry wrote in a post on X. “On August 25, I’m asking everyone who supported our campaign to join me in supporting Darline Graham for the United States Senate.”
On Tuesday, Graham advanced to a runoff in the special Senate primary against Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. She was appointed to fill the Senate seat through the beginning of January by Gov. Henry McMaster after the sudden death of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Trump last month endorsed Darline Graham in the special election, which will determine who fills this seat for the next term. On Wednesday, Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina’s other GOP senator, also endorsed Graham.
A woman accused of vandalizing the World War II Memorial has been arrested in Washington, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced today.
Melissa L. Farris is facing two felony charges in federal court, Pirro said on social media. Charging documents in the case against Farris were not yet available, but Pirro said Farris was in custody.
“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather,” Pirro wrote.
The memorial was vandalized yesterday with bubbles filling the fountain and graffiti that appeared to read “Clean hands dirty $.”
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Trump asked the Supreme Court today to allow him to continue construction of a sprawling ballroom adjacent to the White House.
The emergency application follows an Aug. 7 ruling by an appeals court in Washington upholding a federal judge’s decision that would block work on-site while litigation moves forward.
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A quick snatch of a fancy pen caught on security cameras over a decade ago is coming back to haunt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s campaign for Senate, in the form of an endorsement for his opponent, James Talarico.
Lawyer Joe Joplin endorsed James Talarico today via video, sitting in front of a pen while vocalizing his support for the Democratic nominee for Senate in his state.
In 2014, Joplin told Texas news outlets that he’d left behind an expensive Montblanc pen at a security stop at the Collin County courthouse. The pen was later taken by then-state Sen. Paxton when he subsequently went through the security stop.
A spokesperson for Paxton at the time told The Dallas Morning News that the pen was taken in “error” and later returned to its rightful owner.
In a statement to NBC News about Joplin’s endorsement, Paxton campaign spokesperson Madison Cercy said Talarico, “is so desperate to distract voters from his constant lies about pushing his radical trans agenda on children and wanting to take police off our streets that he has to resort to the same childish attacks that have already been thoroughly litigated.”
Cercy added that the pen saga, “was nothing more than a mix-up at security.”
Semafor first reported the news of Joplin’s endorsement this week. Paxton’s campaign did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment.
In a statement to NBC News, Talarico campaign spokesperson JT Ennis said, “Ken Paxton is the kind of guy who steals your pen. James Talarico is the kind of guy who’d let you borrow his.”
Trump voiced outrage this morning at the vandalism done to the World War II Memorial in downtown Washington yesterday.
“Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray Painting Vandals. THERE CAN BE NO GREATER INSULT TO THOSE AMERICAN HEROES WHO DIED IN WORLD WAR II. First the Reflecting Pool, now this. We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???” he wrote on Truth Social.
The memorial was hit with bright green and orange spray paint, and bubbly soap had been added to the water.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that damage to the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was caused by vandalism, even clashing with his own appointee for U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, after she dropped a case against a former Olympic canoeist, citing a lack of evidence.
The Justice Department’s filing attributed the damage to a “botched installation and not vandalism” after reviewing additional records.
If the Interior Department, which manages the National Mall through its National Park Service, had “been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment,” the filing said.
The World War II Memorial in Washington was vandalized with bubbly soap and graffiti yesterday, prompting vows from the U.S. government to find the perpetrator.
The fountain bubbled over with suds and someone painted “Clean hands Dirty $” on one surface, splattering the area with red and green paint. Uniformed police and National Guard troops converged on the scene, which was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape, keeping visitors away.
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Trump is set to travel to Long Island today to tour a police academy in Nassau County with New York GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman.
The president will also deliver remarks at the facility, the David S. Mack Center for Training and Intelligence in Garden City.
Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, is running against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. Cook Political Report rates the race as “solid Democrat.”
The Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board voted yesterday to partially close the iconic arts center for up to two years during renovations and to re-add Trump’s name to the building’s facade, according to a person who attended the virtual board meeting and a second person familiar with the meeting.
The decision would close the Kennedy Center’s main building and keep a smaller addition, known as the Reach, open for some events in response to a May court order requiring the board to maintain the center as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy.
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A federal judge overseeing a case focused on the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files pressed government attorneys yesterday about their compliance with his court orders and warned that he has held lawyers in contempt before.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, a 41-year veteran of the bench, convened the hearing seeking answers about whether the Trump administration had complied with his previous orders in the case, including one about the need for the Justice Department to publish justifications for the numerous redactions in the released Epstein files.
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Keeping gas prices low is now the United States’ “goal No. 1” in the Iran war, Vice President JD Vance has said, as Washington threatened an indefinite naval blockade and signaled it would soon intensify economic pressure on Tehran.
The comments appeared to be the latest shift in the public rationale for the conflict, with Vance ranking Iran’s nuclear ambitions second.
The vice president’s remarks came as the Trump administration embraced a long-term effort to impose pain on the Islamic Republic, despite growing signs of strain on American forces and domestic pressure ahead of the midterm elections.
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