San Diego Union-Tribune Politics

By JULIE CARR SMYTH COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s controversial attack ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton, is off the air after the Republican spent about a quarter of what his campaign initially said it would invest to run it. Ramaswamy said during a campaign appearance in Vandalia, Ohio, on Thursday that the ad’s planned run was over. His campaign originally said it would spend $4 million to air the ad, but data from th

By ERIC TUCKER WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense lawyers urged a federal judge Thursday to dismiss a criminal complaint charging two former FBI counterintelligence officials with making false statements to Congress about Hunter Biden, calling the case an overtly political prosecution aimed at placating President Donald Trump. The arguments capped a days-long hearing in which lawyers for the former officials, Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, sought to cast the case — one in a series of high-profile Ju

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to identify all states where it has pressured officials to comply with its efforts to prevent non-U.S. citizens from voting in the midterm election, inquiries that Democrats have challenged as an illegal power grab. Chief Judge James Boasberg said he intends to rule by Monday — the eve of Election Day — on a request by Democratic Party leaders to block President Donald Trump’s administration from

By DAVE COLLINS Relatives whose loved ones were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are making an impassioned plea to the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold state and local bans on certain semiautomatic rifles, citing the high body counts and devastating injuries the weapons can inflict. The parents of five of the 20 first-graders killed in the 2012 Connecticut shooting and relatives of one of six educators who died filed a “friend of the court” brief on Wednesday, weighing in on two c

By FATIMA HUSSEIN WASHINGTON (AP) — Chronically ill people on Medicaid won’t be bound by new work requirement rules that the latest Trump administration guidance requires in order to qualify for “medically frail” exemptions, a federal judge ruled Thursday. U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston gave a partial victory to a coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia, which sued the Trump administration in June over the new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services guidance l

By SAFIYAH RIDDLE and ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has issued subpoenas to California officials in an escalation of its scrutiny of local election administration. The Associated Press obtained copies of three subpoenas sent Oct. 21 to employees of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, ordering them to appear in court on Nov. 4, the day after the election. The documents request any records, documents and communications related to letters sent i

By MELISSA GOLDIN, Associated Press False and misleading claims about the voting process are being spread online as voters cast their ballots in the 2026 midterms, with Election Day less than a week away. The posts often focus on alleged election rigging or voter fraud. However, closer scrutiny of the claim typically reveals a logical explanation. Here’s a closer look at the facts. Holes in California ballots are not nefarious CLAIM: A punched hole in a Ventura County, California, ballot r

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI, COREY WILLIAMS and JACQUELINE GANUN, Associated Press DETROIT (AP) — Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed will campaign Sunday in Detroit alongside former primary rival Rep. Haley Stevens, marking their first public appearance together in months after a week in which lingering divisions spilled into public view. The two will be joined by South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, one of the country’s most prominent Black politicians, at a get-out-the-vote event at

By TIM SULLIVAN and NICHOLAS RICCARDI MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — When Donald Trump was running for president two years ago, Americans’ television screens were filled with images of migrant chaos. There were tent camps on both sides of the border, caravans of people trudging through Central America and concerns about newcomers overwhelming social services. That turmoil faded as President Joe Biden tightened immigration enforcement after Trump clamped down even more. Now any chaos is on American streets,

By MARY CLARE JALONICK WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is unlikely to act before the end of the year on a House-passed bill that would make daylight saving time permanent, defying President Donald Trump and dashing the hopes of Americans who don’t like having to change their clocks twice a year. As daylight saving time ends early Sunday and much of the country turns the clocks back an hour, several senators are holding up legislation that would eliminate the longtime U.S. practice. Supporters argue

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and ALI SWENSON Democrats, election officials and voting rights groups have long wondered whether President Donald Trump, upon his return to the Oval Office, would again attempt to overturn an election when his party is trailing. It’s no longer hypothetical. Trump’s Department of Justice issued subpoenas in probes of a Democratic Senate candidate in Alaska on Thursday, and subpoenas were issued Oct. 21 and Oct. 24 to election officials in California. The agency h

By ELÉONORE HUGHES RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Flávio Bolsonaro is now in Miami after fleeing to the U.S. following his stunning defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil’s presidential elections. Bolsonaro has refused to concede and has positioned himself as the “leader of Brazil” while declaring that there was electoral fraud, without providing evidence. In a letter on Wednesday, the senator for Rio de Janeiro said he relocated to the U.S. because he is the victim of political and judicial perse

By LAURIE KELLMAN Three news outlets have beefed up their legal complaint against the White House over access, saying it is continuing to defy a judge’s orders by refusing to let them return to covering President Donald Trump in the Oval Office and on Air Force One — thus violating their free speech rights by continuing to keep them out of the rotating press “pool.” CNN, MS NOW and Politico said Wednesday that the president is retaliating against them for reports he does not like, which vi

By STEVEN SLOAN, MEG KINNARD and ERIK VERDUZCO ROCK HILL, S.C. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday canceled weekend rallies in Iowa and Kansas, opting instead to support Republican candidates with telerallies that his party said could reach more voters in nearly two dozen states in the final days of a midterm election that could cost the GOP control of Congress. The president traveled to South Carolina Thursday for the second time in a month, a sign of Republican anxiety about Darli

By Shalina Chatlani, Stateline.org As the nation’s physician shortage worsens, some fear the Trump administration’s immigration policies will dissuade or prevent doctors who earned their medical degrees in foreign countries from practicing in the United States. Among all U.S. doctors, an estimated one quarter were educated abroad. But they make up an even larger proportion of physicians in many specialties, including internal medicine (41%), endocrinology (46%) and geriatrics (52%). The U.S. has

Affordability is taking center stage in the 2026 elections, perhaps more than any other area of interest. In a poll released this month by health policy nonprofit KFF, 62% of voters say the cost of living is the top issue they want to hear about from candidates. Among the top concerns were affording the cost of health care, gas and other transportation. Candidates are meeting this moment of public outrage by using the high cost of living as a political frame to package a range of policies. Here

By BECKY BOHRER, MEG KINNARD and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola denied Thursday that she knew anything about an effort to put another candidate on the Alaska ballot with the same name as the Republican incumbent as the Justice Department escalated a criminal investigation with new grand jury subpoenas. “I just want to clear the air,” she said at the top of a speech in a downtown bar in Juneau, Alaska’s capital. “I knew nothing about any

By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the Pentagon’s top military planner, a defense official said Wednesday, the latest in a series of generals to be ousted and one that comes even as President Donald Trump is weighing renewed strikes on Iran in the eight-month-long war. Army Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia was removed as head of strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is the second general to be ousted from the post, known in military circle

By GARY FIELDS WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department filed notice Wednesday night that President Donald Trump’s announcements that there are plans for renovating the East Potomac Golf Course and there are plans to close the park beginning Nov. 15 are accurate. “On Friday, October 30, 2026, the National Park Service will submit to the National Capital Planning Commission for review a rendering designed by Tom Fazio for a World Class, championship-level golf course that is capable of hosting ma

By SAFIYAH RIDDLE LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge rejected on Wednesday a Trump administration request to stop California from processing the ballots of up to 20,000 people over allegations they are likely noncitizens, warning it would “wreak havoc” on the midterm elections. The ruling by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter comes as more than 3.7 million people have already voted in the state. “Eroded trust in our democracy is irreparable. Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred,