America's Talking

(The Center Square) – Casting a ballot may look different for millions of American voters in the 2026 midterm elections if Republican-led states follow President Donald Trump’s wish to abolish mail-in voting and electronic voting machines. In a lengthy social media post Monday, the president announced he is planning to “lead a movement” to end mail-in ballots and voting machines, beginning with is...

(The Center Square) – The White House has helped open the channels of communication between Russia, Ukraine and the rest of Europe, but the details of any resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war remain murky. The White House continues to highlight the differences in how President Donald Trump has responded to the overseas conflict versus former President Joe Biden. White House Press Secretary Karolin...

(The Center Square) – More than a week after President Donald Trump declared “Liberation Day” in Washington, D.C., his administration is touting the operation as a success as more Republican governors commit National Guard troops. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that since the operation began on Aug. 11, law enforcement officials have made 465 arrests, adding that “nearly half” of the “arrests hav...

(The Center Square) – As President Donald Trump’s tariff policies come into effect, July’s Consumer Price Index showed overall consumer prices rose 2.7% annually, slightly lower than forecasted by economists. The CPI measures changes in price of everyday consumer goods like groceries and clothes over time. July’s CPI rose 0.2% on a monthly basis since June’s reading which came in at 2.7%. Since a...

(The Center Square) – “Liberation Day” arrived Monday in Washington, D.C., as declared by President Donald Trump. The president declared a crime emergency in the district and said the National Guard will soon patrol the streets in an effort to curb crime. Flanked by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Secretary o...

(The Center Square) – Right before leaving for its week-long August recess, the U.S. Senate passed a minibus Friday evening containing three out of the 12 annual government funding bills. The package allocates more than $153 billion for military construction and Veterans Affairs in fiscal year 2026 alone, $27 billion for agriculture and rural development, and $2.2 billion for the Legislative branc...

 (The Center Square) – The FBI on Thursday agreed to assist with locating Texas Democrats who fled the state to prevent the Texas House from reaching a quorum and conducting official business. On Sunday, more than 50 Democrats fled the state, many to Chicago, to prevent a House vote on redistricting, and all other votes during a special session of the legislature, by preventing a quorum from being...

(The Center Square) – Appellate court judges scrutinized President Donald Trump's tariff authority on Thursday, asking attorneys on both sides of the case tough questions about the president's authority to restructure global trade without help from Congress. Trump has used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to underpin his "Liberation Day" tariffs. On April 2, Trump announced reciproc...

(The Center Square) – The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to rescind an Obama-era environmental finding impacting the automobile industry. The EPA chief says it costs $1 trillion in regulations. Lee Zeldin, administrator of the EPA, made the announcement Tuesday in the backdrop of an auto dealership in Indianapolis, Ind., to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which the Trump EPA c...

(The Center Square) – Newly declassified intelligence documents indicate that Hillary Clinton, her 2016 presidential campaign managers, and a top member of a George Soros group plotted to fabricate the Trump-Russia collusion campaign to distract the public from Clinton’s email scandal. Declassified by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, the 29-page “Durham annex” from 2023 chronicles the O...

(The Center Square) – Cities that host the NFL Draft have seen small increases in hotel revenue in recent years but those gains are far smaller than what is claimed by teams, the National Football League and the marketing and tourism departments in local government have claimed. The first three cities to host the draft after it left New York saw insignificant changes in hotel stays during the even...

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump said Tuesday he had reached a framework for a trade deal with Japan that will include a 15% tariff on imports from the island nation. Trump outlined the broad terms of the deal in a post on Truth Social, as he has for other trade pacts. Trump said imports from Japan will face a 15% tariff, while U.S. exports to Japan will be tariff-free.  Support this p...

(The Center Square) – Federal officials have released more documents indicating a Democratic-led intelligence community politically targeted President Donald Trump by claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin influenced the 2016 presidential election to help Trump win. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report Wednesday that “...

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump's tariffs could cancel out the economic benefits of the GOP's tax cuts, according to a new analysis from the Tax Foundation. "Our analysis finds the current U.S.-imposed and scheduled tariffs threaten to offset much of the economic benefits of the tax cuts, while falling short of paying for them," according to a report from the national nonprofit. The t...

(The Center Square) – The U.S. House in a late night vote passed Republicans’ $9 billion rescissions package, delivering another win for President Donald Trump and his promise to cut federal spending. The measure, which cuts already appropriated federal spending on some foreign aid projects and public broadcasting programs, passed 216-213 in the House, the final voted needed to send it to Trump's...

(The Center Square) − Court records reviewed by The Center Square show a pattern in which defendants in Orleans Parish initially facing multiple felony weapons charges have had the vast majority of those charges dismissed, often as part of plea deals that result in minimal jail time and little long-term supervision. Meanwhile, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office, led by District Attorney...

(The Center Square) – Ten people have been arrested so far in a “planned ambush” of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in north Texas. On July 4, the Alvarado Police Department announced that one of its police officers had been shot in the neck after responding to a call without stating the incident occurred outside of an immigration facility. It was the first of two officer involve...

(The Center Square) – Gov. Greg Abbott announced a new agenda for a special legislative session to begin July 21. After the regular legislative session concluded in May, Abbott vetoed 26 bills and called a special session to address six legislative priorities, The Center Square reported. After the historic July 4 flooding and catastrophic loss of life, he announced a revised session agenda that pr...

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump traveled to Florida Tuesday to visit ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ the new, quickly constructed immigrant detention center that will hold up to 5,000 foreign nationals facing deportation. “Very soon, this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet,” Trump said at a panel Tuesday. The facility – which mi...

(The Center Square) – Against all odds, U.S. House Republicans finally united around the Senate-revised “big, beautiful bill” and passed it in a 218-214 vote Thursday afternoon, sending the multitrillion-dollar budget reconciliation package to the president’s desk. The bill’s passage marks yet another herculean feat by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who not only persuaded – with President Dona...

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump heads home from the NATO summit in the Netherlands touting a slew of international successes, including the member nations committing to more than doubling their defense spending. NATO partners, comprised of 32 member nations, agreed to Trump’s demands that the countries increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP. The proposal initially had been met w...

(The Center Square) – Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday that the U.S. gained nothing from its strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. Khamenei, in his first public comments since a ceasefire with Israel on Tuesday, said the U.S. "gained no achievements" from strikes on Fordow, a key nuclear site in Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump has said the strikes "obliterated" Iran nu...

(The Center Square) – As the conflict between Israel and Iran closes in on a week since it began, President Donald Trump won’t say if U.S. will get involved in the conflict. Despite dire warnings from Iran against the U.S. and its potential involvement, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that Iranians want to meet, adding they want to come to the White House. However, he appeared...

(The Center Square) – Federal stalking and murder charges have been filed against 57-year-old Vance Boelter in a 20-page charging document on Monday in what was described as the “stuff of nightmares.” Boelter is expected to have a 1:30 p.m. Monday appearance in federal court in St. Paul. The charges include firearms offenses, stalking using interstate commerce and murder for the stalking and killi...

(The Center Square) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants the state to take over some funding of government services for rural, thinly-populated fiscally constrained counties and allow them to eliminate their property taxes. DeSantis made the statement at an economic development announcement in Crawfordville on Monday. His estimate of how much this would cost Florida taxpayers would be about $300 mill...