With average US gas prices hitting $4.533 per gallon on Tuesday, Trump called on Americans to endure the pain at the pump “for a little while” while his administration works to end Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

“We cannot let them have a nuclear weapon,” he told reporters outside the White House.

“You want to see the world exploded?

“This is peanuts, and I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. It won’t be much longer,” he added.

Gas prices have remained stubbornly high and continue to increase after Tehran effectively shut down traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint that carries 20% of the world’s oil supply.

Gas prices are currently up by 50% since the US and Israel fired the first shots of the war on Feb. 28.

Trump acknowledged that he knew the war in Iran would have harsh economic consequences, but the president maintains that it beats the alternative.

“I thought the market would go down 25%, and I was OK with that to get rid of a nuclear potential holocaust,” Trump said.

“You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon, and it won’t have a nuclear weapon,” he added.  

The president’s comments come after the latest stall in peace talks between Iran and the US, with Trump repeatedly warning Tehran to get serious about negotiating or else the war would restart.

“We may have to give them another big hit. I’m not sure yet. You’ll know very soon,” Trump told reporters after revealing that he was only “an hour away” from launching fresh attacks on Tuesday.

The post Trump says gas prices are ‘peanuts’ compared to Iran getting nukes: ‘You want to see the world exploded?’ appeared first on New York Post.

Here are five things to know about Mr. Carter, 68, of St. Simons Island on the southeastern Georgia coast.

1. He is a Trump acolyte. Mr. Carter voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election, introduced a resolution in support of Mr. Trump receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and has said he has no points of disagreement with the president. He also once introduced a measure to authorize Mr. Trump to enter into talks to acquire Greenland and rename it “Red, White, and Blueland.” All three candidates running in the primary have sought to align themselves with the president, who has not endorsed a candidate.

2. He has vocally backed the war with Iran. Mr. Carter has been forceful in supporting Mr. Trump’s decision to start the war, describing it as “very necessary,” even as some Republicans have shied away from talking about the unpopular conflict. “What we’re paying at the gas pump is a small price to pay in order to save millions of lives in the future,” Mr. Carter told NewsNation in March, adding, “This is a painful experience at the pump right now, but that is going to stabilize.”

3. He ran a small pharmacy chain. Mr. Carter’s business, Carter’s Pharmacy Inc., included three pharmacies. He ran the business for more than three decades. He holds a B.S. in pharmacy from the University of Georgia. He was a central architect of measures, passed by Congress in February, intended to lower drug costs by placing new rules on the practices of large companies that oversee prescription benefits.

4. He has shown a bipartisan flair on energy issues. Mr. Carter has said he believes human society has an effect on climate change, and he has worked with Democrats on renewable energy legislation. He has expressed pride in efforts in Georgia to corral solar and nuclear energy. “We’ve done our part in using clean energy here,” he said in an interview.

5. He says he has been pressing Mr. Trump to endorse him. He said Friday that he last spoke to Mr. Trump about two weeks ago and that he would continue to push the president to intervene in the contest. “My hope is that he will endorse us at some point,” Mr. Carter said in the interview, but he added, “I don’t know that he will weigh in.”

The post 5 Things to Know About the Georgia Senate Candidate Buddy Carter appeared first on New York Times.

Here’s a look at when results will start arriving.

Alabama

Polls in Alabama close at 7 p.m. local time (8 p.m. Eastern), and from there the election board will begin tabulating.

Alabama has a rigid early-voting policy compared to some other states. Voters need to meet certain eligibility requirements to cast absentee ballots, which include being out of their home county on Election Day, an illness or a work shift that conflicts substantially with polling hours.

Early votes will be counted first, followed by the votes cast in person on Election Day. Refer to the secretary of state’s website to check out the state’s unofficial results page.

Georgia

Early votes received by the State Election Board will be tabulated by Election Day. Most results, election officials say, will be in between 10 p.m. and midnight.

Georgia election officials have launched a competition to see which county can get their unofficial tallies in first. Curious voters can check the state’s Election Data Hub vote tracker for the results out of every county.

These results will still be unofficial until the state elections board certifies the vote, about 21 days after the election.

Idaho

Polls close in Idaho at 8 p.m. local time (10 p.m. Eastern). Absentee votes need to be delivered to county clerks’ offices, where early votes are received, by poll-closing time on Election Day. Once a critical mass of votes is in, curious voters can head to the state’s vote tracker for unofficial results on election night.

Then, on June 9, the state board of canvassers will amass the results of the election and the secretary of state will certify them.

Kentucky

Polls opened at 6 a.m. local time on Election Day. County election boards began counting absentee ballots at 8 a.m. local time; the results of these ballots won’t be publicized until after polls close, at 6 p.m. local time. Poll-closing time is also the deadline for voters to get their mail-in ballots in.

Kentucky will upload its unofficial election night results live as they are counted. These will be available on the secretary of state’s website. Counties must submit their unofficial vote tallies to the secretary of state by May 26, at which time the state will begin auditing the results to certify them.

Oregon

Oregon is a mostly mail-in state, meaning that the bulk of votes will be in by election night. But limitations on the U.S. Postal Service this year, which Oregon counts on to deliver its ballots, might mean that it will take longer to certify the results, election officials say. The secretary of state’s office will allow extra time for more mail-ins to make it in, but officials think they will still have a good idea of the unofficial tally by Wednesday morning.

Voters can check the race’s unofficial results on the elections page of the secretary of state’s website. After that, the deadline for the secretary of state to certify the election is June 25.

Pennsylvania

Unlike other states that expect their early votes to be ready first, mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania are not counted until polls open at 7 a.m., meaning that the in-person Election Day votes will come in first.

The state has a vote tracker that will go live with the unofficial results as soon as polls close, at 8 p.m. Eastern.

These results will be unofficial until certification, which occurs 21 days or more following Election Day. Counties must go through a specific process to certify their results, conducting two kinds of audits to verify that the reported results are accurate. After that, they send their results to the state to become official.

Taylor Robinson covers politics and the New York City metro area as a news assistant for The Times.

The post When to Expect Results in Tuesday’s Primaries appeared first on New York Times.

The director of the Islamic Center, Taha Hassane, condemned the attack while also encouraging individuals to respond with tolerance and love. “All of us are responsible for spreading the culture of tolerance, the culture of love,” he said, while lamenting the conditions that had led to such violence.

The attack comes after escalating tensions in the Middle East and increasing anti-Islamic political rhetoric in the United States. Republicans in Congress held hearings last week titled “Sharia-Free America.” This reflects a long-standing anti-Muslim trope that portrays Muslims as invaders who want to impose sharia — Islamic religious law — on all Americans. Many Muslim Americans are concerned because the rise of anti-Muslim bigotry among politicians has been mostly met with silence.

Muslim Americans have been warning that the increased rhetoric targeting Islam and Muslims endangers their community. As a scholar who studies Islamophobia and its impact on Muslim Americans, I have observed how the war with Iran intensified anti-Muslim sentiment online. A study by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate found that in the first six days of the conflict, the average number of Islamophobic posts on X jumped from an average of 2,000 daily to 6,000.

Research consistently shows that negative portrayals of Muslims shape public attitudes toward them and can lead to increased discrimination, psychological harm and hate crimes like the shooting in San Diego.

Islamophobia in the United States tends to surge during global conflicts, political campaigns and terrorist attacks. Human Rights First, an organization that works to promote human rights in the U.S. and abroad, documented surges in Islamophobia in 2015 following the Syrian refugee crisis, when a large number of people were displaced. That same year the attacks in Paris and shooting in San Bernardino intensified public anxiety about terrorism. A surge in crimes against Muslims followed.

Islamophobic rhetoric in the U.S., in which Muslims were often framed as a security threat, intensified during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and continued into his first presidency. Burton Speakman, a scholar of digital media, and I found an increasing acceptance of such rhetoric among the political right in social media posts from 2016 to 2019.

Social media posts and comments showed an increasing use of dehumanizing language toward Muslims. In a study I conducted in 2020, a majority of 830 Muslim Americans reported encountering the most Islamophobic content on Facebook, followed by Twitter and Instagram. This shift was also reflected in the language and coverage of Islam in right-wing media, which often portrayed Muslims as invaders wanting to impose sharia and as a drain on social welfare.

Mainstream media can also amplify negative depictions of Muslims by often discussing Islam within the context of terrorism and portraying Muslims more negatively than other racial, ethnic or religious minority groups.

Hate crimes tend to increase alongside Islamophobic rhetoric. During 2016, a period with high rates of Islamophobic rhetoric, there were 307 reported incidents — the highest recorded number since immediately following 9/11. The numbers dropped in 2017 but were followed by an increase in 2024 with the Israel-Hamas war. That year, 288 anti-Muslim hate crimes were reported.

A 2025 poll found that 63% of American Muslims reported experiencing religious discrimination, with many reporting at least one such incident every year since 2016.

The cumulative effects of Islamophobia have an impact on American Muslims’ mental health and access to care.

Numerous studies since 9/11 link the high rates of discrimination experienced by the Muslim American community to higher rates of depression. Experiences of discrimination also lead some Muslim Americans to believe they are not viewed as being American. In addition, many Muslims reported feeling discouraged from seeking both physical and psychological treatment from non-Muslim providers. This leads Muslim Americans to significantly underutilize available services compared to other ethnic and religious minority groups.

The war with Iran has fueled an increase in anti-Muslim rhetoric that has increasingly spilled into political discourse. In February, for example, Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) posted on X that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” In another post he wrote, “We need more Islamophobia, not less.” Similarly, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) called for stopping the entry of “Muslims immigrating to America.”

The shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego has deepened fear of harassment and violence among an already vulnerable community.

Muslim Americans can often feel powerless in the face of such hostility. Greater public awareness, stronger advocacy and efforts to address the mental health impacts of anti-Muslim hatred are critical for a community that already feels vulnerable.

Anisah Bagasra is an associate professor of psychology at Kennesaw State University. This article was produced in collaboration with the Conversation.

The post San Diego mosque shooting follows increased Islamophobic rhetoric appeared first on Los Angeles Times.

But this was the most unusual of primary days, as even the most informed Alabama voters did not know whether they would stay in the same district going forward.

The Supreme Court cleared away a key hurdle as Republicans push to use a map first passed in 2023 that would do away with one of two majority-Black congressional districts in the state. But a federal court must still allow Alabama to go forward with that map.

Confident of the eventual outcome, Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has scheduled a separate Aug. 11 special election for four Alabama House districts that will change under the 2023 map. But with the primaries for governor, Senate and other posts proceeding on Tuesday, voters in the four limbo districts still went to the polls under the existing maps.

“There’s so many ifs, ands and buts,” conceded Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican now running for governor, after casting his vote in Auburn on Tuesday morning. “But,” he said, “I am for making sure everybody is represented in this state.”

Some candidates for races elsewhere on the ballot said they had spent the last few days making sure that people still turned out to vote amid the confusion.

“We have spent an enormous amount of energy and time getting out the word that, yes, you still vote,” said Pamela Portis, who is running for re-election to the Montgomery School Board.

The Second Congressional District, which stretches from the capital city of Montgomery to parts of Mobile along the Gulf Coast, is among the four districts that could change under new district lines. Representative Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat, won the seat in 2024 after the federal court ordered the state to use a map that created the majority-Black district.

Devan Flowers, who works in higher education, said he had fielded questions from students about the ruling and its implications.

“It’s about fairness and representation,” he said.

Several voters, speaking Tuesday after they cast their ballots, said they were frustrated or dismayed by the Supreme Court ruling and the Republican response to it.

“I feel like all I can do right now is vote,” said Karla Gier, 63, who is not Black but who said she was sensitive to the history of civil rights in Alabama and what it meant for Black voters to see the Voting Rights Act passed. She added, “Voting is all I got.”

Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The Times covering the American South, based in Nashville.

The post Under a Cloud of Uncertainty, Alabama Voters Head to the Polls appeared first on New York Times.

Polls close at 7 p.m. Eastern, and counties generally report votes quickly, starting with early in-person and mail ballots.

The statewide race, in which President Trump has declined to make an endorsement, is likely to result in a runoff on June 16, as a candidate needs more than 50 percent of the vote to win outright. But there are a few key regions to watch as things play out.

Atlanta Metro Area

The city of Atlanta sits in DeKalb and Fulton counties, and the city’s metropolitan region also includes Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties. By sheer volume, Atlanta is a key battleground in the state — in the crowded 2022 primary for secretary of state, this region made up around 35 percent of the total vote.

While none of the major candidates have a clear home-base advantage in the region, polling cross-tabs (which should be interpreted with some caution, as they are not meant to be representative on their own) point to Derek Dooley and Representative Mike Collins performing better in these areas.

South Georgia and Savannah

Representative Buddy Carter’s home base is Savannah, as he represents the First District, which includes that city as well as the more rural areas that surround it. He is expected to perform well there and throughout South Georgia, which encompasses the southern border of the state as well as a large swath of its southeast corner.

Athens and Neighboring Areas

One of the more fascinating regions is Athens, which is home to the University of Georgia. Mr. Collins, one of the leading candidates in the race, represents Athens and the 10th Congressional District, but he faces a significant challenge there from Mr. Dooley, a longtime football coach and political newcomer. Mr. Dooley has outsized name recognition in Athens thanks to his father, Vince, who coached the Georgia Bulldogs from 1964 to 1988, winning a national championship for the school in 1980.

Christine Zhang and Alex Lemonides contributed reporting.

Caroline Soler is a Times researcher focused on collecting and analyzing polling and election data.

The post Key Areas to Watch in Georgia’s Republican Senate Primary appeared first on New York Times.

by Lindsey Toomer, Colorado Newsline May 19, 2026

It is too late for another candidate to get on the June primary ballot in Colorado, despite President Donald Trump’s threat to back a primary challenger against longtime ally U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert.

Boebert, a Windsor Republican, joined U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie at several campaign events in Kentucky last week as he faced a primary challenger backed by Trump. Boebert posted on X emphasizing her support of both Trump and Massie, who led efforts to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files last year.

Massie lost his primary election Tuesday to a challenger backed by Trump.

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Trump on his social media platform Truth Social asked if anyone is interested in running against Boebert, whom he called “Weak Minded” for campaigning for Massie.

“Even though I long ago endorsed Boebert, if the right person came along, it would be my Honor to withdraw that Endorsement, and endorse a good and proper alternative,” Trump said. “Just let me know, or announce your Candidacy, and I will be there for you!”

Boebert posted on X shortly after acknowledging that she saw Trump’s post, saying she is “not mad or offended.”

“I knew the risks when I agreed to stand by my friend Thomas Massie,” Boebert said. “I was, and will be, America First, America Always, and MAGA.”

The June primary ballots in Colorado have already been certified by Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office, and county clerks mailed ballots to overseas voters this past weekend. Eligible voters can request a mail ballot for the June primary from their county clerk’s office as of Saturday.

Candidates from any party who were not on the primary ballot and want to run as a write-in candidate in the November general election can file an affidavit of interest with the secretary of state’s office no later than July 16, according to secretary spokesperson Jack Todd.

Boebert is running unopposed in the Republican primary. Eileen Laubacher, a retired Navy rear admiral and former National Security Council official, will be the sole name on the Democratic primary ballot, but Jenna Preston is running as a write-in candidate in the Democratic primary.

Republicans have a strong advantage in the 4th District, which includes most of Douglas County and the Eastern Plains.

Colorado’s primary election is on June 30.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 6:06 p.m., May 19, 2026, to note that Rep. Thomas Massie lost his primary election.

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Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com.

The post Trump’s retaliation campaign against Lauren Boebert hits a brick wall appeared first on Raw Story.

Here are five things to know about Mr. Ossoff, 39, of Atlanta.

1. He unseated an incumbent Republican in 2021. Mr. Ossoff defeated Senator David Perdue, a one-term Republican, in a runoff that year. The victory, which came by about a percentage point, helped Democratswin the Senate . It came as the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, defeated Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican, giving Democrats both Senate seats in Georgia and propelling the party into the Senate majority.

2. He was the youngest politician to reach the Senate in decades. Mr. Ossoff was 33 when he was elected in 2021. His first run for office had been a losing but competitive campaign for the House in 2017 that drew national attention (He initially ran the congressional campaign out of his basement). He was the youngest person elected to the Senate since Don Nickles, an Oklahoma Republican, won his first term in 1980, at age 31. And Mr. Ossoff was the youngest Democrat to achieve the feat since Joseph R. Biden Jr. won his first term in the Senate in 1972. Mr. Biden was 29.

3. He was once a volunteer for John Lewis’s congressional office. Mr. Ossoff, then 16, wrote a letter to Mr. Lewis that impressed the Georgia congressman and civil rights leader. It led to a spot in Mr. Lewis’s office. “You remind me of another time in my own life,” Mr. Lewis told Mr. Ossoff in a video posted by Mr. Ossoff’s campaign in 2020, shortly before Mr. Lewis died at 80. “When I was 17 years old growing up in rural Alabama, I wrote a letter to Dr. King, and he wrote me back and sent me a round-trip Greyhound bus ticket and invited me to come to Montgomery and meet with him. And it changed my life.”

4. He is seen by Republicans as an especially formidable opponent. Mr. Ossoff’s constituent services have won praise from Georgians across the political spectrum, and there is broad agreement among Republicans that they face an uphill battle in unseating him in November. Much of the debate in the three-way Republican Senate primary on Tuesday has revolved around the question of who would be best positioned to beat Mr. Ossoff, who is also a strong fund-raiser. Public opinion polls suggest that he would start the general election race leading any of the Republicans.

5. He has been floated as a possible presidential candidate. Mr. Ossoff’s popularity and skills as an orator have helped push him onto lists of potential Democratic candidates for 2028. He has dismissed the chatter. “I have zero interest in running for president in 2028,” Mr. Ossoff told MS Now in April. “I love serving the state of Georgia. I’ve got two young daughters. And to be honest with you, I think that the 2028 fantasy football risks distracting us from the urgent tasks at hand.”

The post 5 Things to Know About Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia appeared first on New York Times.

Pokémon Winds and Waves Price Reportedly Leaked By Amazon

When Pokémon Winds and Waves was announced earlier this year, fans were surprised when Game Freak didn’t confirm its release date or pricing. Even as of this month, the Gen 10 Pokémon games’ official eShop listing just says “releases 2027” on its description page. However, a new Amazon listing might have just revealed its pricing early, and well, it’s expensive.

According to an Amazon Germany pre-order page that recently went live, Pokémon Winds and Waves price will reportedly be $80. While that might not be exactly shocking, it’s actually one of the few Nintendo Switch 2 games to break that price point since Mario Kart World debuted as a launch title in June 2025. Recent Nintendo Switch 2 titles such as Donkey Kong Bananza and Pokémon Pokopia have retailed at $69.

This is also noteworthy, as Nintendo faced quite a bit of backlash over its $80 pricing during the Switch 2’s launch. It should be pointed out that the Amazon Germany Pokémon Winds and Waves pre-order page is listed at €79.99 for its physical edition. That means its digital version will be €69.99, which is around $80 USD when using current conversion rates. And if you are wondering, current Switch 2 games in Europe have been converting to these prices.

Pokémon Winds and Waves Digital Price Could Be Lower on eShop

Before you panic, it’s possible that the Pokémon Winds and Waves price will be $70 digitally on the eShop. In March, Nintendo made the move to charge $10 less for digital games vs. the physical editions. Although interestingly, several major retailers have recently decided to ignore the suggested MSRP for physical Switch 2 games and have been matching the digital price.

All this to say, it is possible that the Gen 10 Pokémon games will ultimately cost $69, which is the current price for many major first-party Nintendo titles. Still, with Pokémon Winds and Waves being one of the console’s upcoming flagship titles, it also wouldn’t be shocking if Nintendo did decide to slap the dreaded $80 price tag on it.

After all, Nintendo justified Mario Kart World’s pricing due to its supposed extended “value” compared to other games. And well, I have to imagine Pokémon Winds and Waves will have a lot more content than the Mario launch title. Finally, it’s also possible that the Amazon Germany listing is just a placeholder or has the wrong pricing listed. Only time will tell if this is the correct MSRP.

That said, we’ll likely be waiting quite a while before we get these answers. According to a credible Pokémon leaker, there will be no more updates about the Gen 10 Pokémon games in 2026. And the Pokémon Winds and Waves release date is reportedly set for November 2027, which is about 17 months away. So yeah, we might not get an official US price until Pokémon Day 2027 next year.

The post Pokémon Winds and Waves Price Revealed and It’s Expensive appeared first on VICE.

• Google delayed its Gemini 3.5 Pro AI model, disappointing some developers.
• The smaller Gemini 3.5 Flash model now powers Google’s Antigravity AI coding service.
• Feedback from 3.5 Flash will likely be used to enhance Gemini 3.5 Pro, via reinforcement learning.

Google usually saves its biggest product launches for its I/O conference every year. This time, CEO Sundar Pichai held back, and it says a lot about where the company stands in the AI coding race.

During the keynote address, Pichai told the crowd that Google’s new flagship Gemini 3.5 Pro AI model wasn’t ready yet, drawing audible groans.

I was there, and I’ve spent the rest of the event coming up with a theory for the apparent delay: Google is holding this new model back for a while to get it even better at AI coding tasks.

Anthropic’s Claude Code took the world by storm last year, and OpenAI’s Codex has gotten much better recently. These frontier labs are scooping up developer mindshare and generating big revenue by enabling coders to use AI tools with agents to automate and speed up coding tasks.

It’s a revolution that’s upending Silicon Valley, and Google was probably a bit behind. But not for long.

Instead of releasing 3.5 Pro, Pichai spoke at length and with passion about another new model, the Gemini 3.5 Flash. This is a smaller model that’s faster and a lot cheaper, while being only slightly less powerful than the world’s current top models.

Google has already made 3.5 Flash the main model powering its Antigravity AI coding service. Starting today, software developers will use this tool to churn out code.

This will generate a mountain of anonymous and highly valuable data. For instance, if an engineer starts a new coding project in Antigravity and suddenly halts the task, it suggests that something in the output from Flash 3.5 wasn’t right.

Google can use this feedback data to improve the larger 3.5 Pro model, likely through reinforcement learning—a technique in which a new AI model is refined by rewarding good outputs and punishing bad outcomes.

Signals from running Antigravity on the smaller 3.5 Flash model will likely help with this process in important ways. That’s because coding is particularly good at generating clear signals for AI model development. If the code is good, it likely works. If it’s bad, it often breaks stuff.

This should give the larger 3.5 Pro model strong clues about which coding outputs worked and which didn’t.

“I know you can’t wait to get your hands on it,” Pichai said onstage. “Give us until next month to get it to you.”

So, when this big new model finally lands, I expect it to be a lot better at coding — the hottest application of generative AI right now.

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The post Why Google held back a huge new AI model at its big conference appeared first on Business Insider.

Here are five things to know about Mr. Collins, 58, a second-term congressman from rural central Georgia.

1. He is running as a loyalist of President Trump. Like the two other top candidates in the Republican race, Mr. Collins has cast himself as an ally of the president, who has not endorsed a candidate in the race. Mr. Collins has some unique ties to the president: The first bill Mr. Trump signed after returning to office was a bill sponsored by Mr. Collins. The measure, the Laken Riley Act, targeted undocumented immigrants charged with nonviolent crimes for deportation. Mr. Collins’s campaign website describes him as “constant” at Trump rallies.

2. His hard-line immigration views are at the heart of his campaign. Mr. Collins has pointed to the Laken Riley Act and his broader positions on immigration during his run for Senate. That bill is named for a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was killed in 2024 by a migrant from Venezuela who crossed into the United States illegally. Her family has endorsed Mr. Collins, as has the union representing border agents. After Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington directly urged Mr. Trump in 2025 to display mercy on behalf of immigrants, Mr. Collins wrote on social media that she “should be added to the deportation list.”

3. He built a trucking company. Mr. Collins and his wife, Leigh Ann, started a trucking company in the 1990s. The company, Collins Trucking, based about 40 miles southeast of Atlanta in Jackson, Ga., hauls freight across the Midwest and Southeast. It has more than 100 employees, according to his campaign. Mr. Collins has leaned into his trucking past as he runs for the Senate. In a video launching his campaign, he said, “It’s time to send a trucker to the U.S. Senate” to put Georgians “back in the driver’s seat.”

4. He has a history of incendiary social-media posts. Mr. Collins, who posts frequently on social media, once responded to videos of white, male University of Mississippi students taunting and jeering at a female Black student at a pro-Palestinian protest by writing, “Ole Miss taking care of business.” (He later issued a lengthy statement saying that if anyone had treated someone “improperly because of their race, they should be punished appropriately.”) And after the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., 2024, Mr. Collins wrote on social media that “Joe Biden sent the orders” and urged a local prosecutor to bring charges against the Democratic president. After the post, the conservative editorial board of The Wall Street Journal described Mr. Collins as “the village idiot.”

5. He faces an ethics probe: The House Ethics Committee is looking into allegations that Mr. Collins’s office paid a district office intern who had a romantic relationship with the congressman’s chief of staff but did not actually work in the office. Mr. Collins said in a primary debate that the inquiry was based on a “bogus claim” filed anonymously. “Anybody can file a complaint,” he said.

The post 5 Things to Know About the Georgia Senate Candidate Mike Collins appeared first on New York Times.

Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky has lost the Republican primary for his seat to a challenger endorsed by President Donald Trump, Ed Gallrein, in a victory for Trump that underscores the strength of the President’s influence over the party.

The Associated Press called the race Tuesday evening.

Massie, who has represented Kentucky’s fourth congressional district since 2012, faced what he described as “by far the most challenging” primary of his career as Trump repeatedly levied fierce attacks against him and, in a rare move, even dispatched Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to campaign for Gallrein in the lead-up to Tuesday’s election.

Massie emerged as one of Trump’s chief targets in his efforts to topple GOP opponents in the primaries ahead of this year’s midterm elections due to the maverick congressman’s frequent breaks with the President on key foreign and domestic issues.

Massie helped lead the push to force the full release of government files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; he vocally opposed and voted against Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill; he has criticized U.S. financial supporting Israel; and he has been a staunch opponent to Trump’s war in Iran.

Gallrein, a farmer and retired Navy SEAL, was endorsed by Trump in October before he entered the race. In the spring, Trump touted Gallrein as a “true American hero” while standing beside him at an event in northern Kentucky. “He’s a great patriot,” the President said, “and he’s doing it because he saw what this guy was doing to our country.”

Gallrein tied his campaign tightly to Trump and characterized himself as a staunch loyalist, telling people in Kentucky at a campaign event on Thursday that he stands “100% behind the President and what he is doing to turn our nation around.” On Monday, he said that “there has never been a more important time to stand behind our President.”

Trump has meanwhile been vocal in his public criticism of Massie. In March, the President called Massie “disloyal to the Republican Party” and “disloyal to the people of Kentucky” while speaking in a warehouse in Hebron, at the heart of Kentucky’s fourth district. “And most importantly, he’s disloyal to the United States of America, and he’s got to be voted out of office as soon as possible!”

Massie has not backed down in the face of Trump’s assaults, however. “They’ve tried to turn me into a villain. The more they try to punish me, the more powerful I get,” he said at an election event on Monday.

Gallrein declined to debate against Massie on several occasions and opted not to attend events at which both were invited to speak—absences that Massie has been keen to make note of. The retired Navy SEAL has defended himself over his decision to forgo the opportunities to debate his opponent, telling voters in recent days, “I’m debating him every day. I’m talking right to the American people, just like the president does, with no middleman.”

The primary race was one of the most expensive in the country’s history, with more than $32 million spent on ads, according to AdImpact. Much of the advertising dollars have been spent by pro-Israel or Trump-aligned groups in the push to unseat Massie.

Trump’s effort to oust another GOP foe, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, met with victory days before the Kentucky primary; Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment and has been a long-time subject of the President’s anger,on Saturday lost the primary to his seat while Louisiana Rep. Julia Letlow, who was backed by the president, and another candidate advanced to a runoff.

Challengers backed by the President also scored notable wins earlier this month in state legislative primaries in Indiana, toppling multiple lawmakers who rejected Trump’s push for mid-cycle redistricting.

Gallrein is expected to go on to win the general election in the reliably red district in November. The Cook Political Report rates the seat as “Solid Republican,” among those deemed the least competitive this year.

The post Rep. Thomas Massie Loses to Trump-Backed Challenger in Heated Primary appeared first on TIME.

Here are five things to know about Mr. Dooley, 57, of rural Clayton, Ga.

1. His father brought a college football championship home to Georgia. Mr. Dooley’s father, Vince, coached the University of Georgia for a quarter-century, winning more than 200 games and the national title in 1980. Mr. Dooley, after a spell as a lawyer, followed his father into coaching, leading Louisiana Tech from 2007 to 2009 and the University of Tennessee from 2010 to 2012. (He was far less successful than his father in the powerhouse S.E.C.; his overall record coaching the Volunteers was 15-21.)

2. He has received a lot of support from Gov. Brian Kemp. Mr. Dooley has been joined by Mr. Kemp, a popular figure in the state, at more than 64 campaign stops over the past few months, according to the Dooley campaign. Mr. Kemp’s super PAC is also running TV ads in support of Mr. Dooley. The two men are close and grew up together in Athens, Ga. Mr. Kemp encouraged Mr. Dooley to run for the seat. At a recent campaign stop, Mr. Kemp said Mr. Dooley was one of his “best friends.” The governor argues that Mr. Dooley is the only candidate in the Republican primary who can beat Senator Jon Ossoff, a popular Democrat.

3. He was politically activated by Democrats’ response to Covid-19. Mr. Dooley was living in New York City and working as an assistant coach for the New York Giants of the N.F.L. when the coronavirus pandemic began. He was drawn into politics, he said, by frustration with vaccine and mask mandates that government officials placed on workplaces and schools.

4. He is running as a political outsider and didn’t vote for many years. Mr. Dooley has said he wants to “change how Washington does its business.” He has called for senators to be limited to two terms, and has vowed to only serve two himself if he is elected. Mr. Dooley has also said that he once went nearly two decades without voting, according to The Associated Press. “I spent three decades in coaching probably doing the exact opposite of what a lot of D.C. politicians are doing,” he said in his campaign launch video. His outsider status has also become a target for rivals. One of them, Representative Mike Collins, recently wrote on social media: “You don’t beat Jon Ossoff by having no record.”

5. He has sought to appeal to President Trump. Mr. Dooley’s links to Mr. Kemp, who has had a tumultuous relationship with the president, could pose a challenge as Mr. Dooley angles for Mr. Trump’s endorsement (Mr. Trump has so far remained neutral). Mr. Dooley has sought to limit any daylight between himself and the president. His campaign uses the slogan “Georgia First,” an echo of Mr. Trump’s “America First.” He met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office for about 90 minutes in August, discussing football and politics, according to the Dooley campaign.

The post 5 Things to Know About the Georgia Senate Candidate Derek Dooley appeared first on New York Times.

The move, which comes as Democrats are introducing such measures every week, caused a stir among commenters on social media — many of whom weren’t quick to view Cassidy as an anti-Trump hero just yet, but who nonetheless noticed the senator’s newfound incentives against the leader of his party.

“Too little, too late,” wrote Zeteo News chief Mehdi Hasan on X.

“As Kris Kristofferson once wrote and Janis Joplin once sang: Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” wrote Eric Michael Garcia of The Independent.

“Bill Cassidy *votes yes* on Dems’ war powers measure, giving them four Republicans supporting so far,” wrote Connor O’Brien, a defense reporter for Politico. “He’s been on YOLO watch since he lost his primary over the weekend.”

“Cassidy, now officially a free agent, bucks the president,” wrote Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman.

“Now officially a member of the YOLO caucus,” wrote NOTUS’ Igor Bobic.

“Lost his seat, found his voice,” wrote former Politico reporter turned podcaster Rachel Bade.

The post ‘Lost his seat, found his voice’: Eyes widen as Bill Cassidy flips on Trump’s war appeared first on Raw Story.

I remember you.

You were the big guy with “Cornhusker” scrawled on the back of your dungaree jacket, ahead of me in the long, thin line of Marines that trudged up the mountainside.

You grumbled as we bent into the effort, 40 pounds of gear on our backs, as darkness deepened and our anxiety grew. We could hear the unfamiliar boom of artillery from far off and the odd, muted drift of voices from the high ground.

It was a strange and scary time.

We’d been in Korea only two days and already they were leading us up to the main line of resistance, the MLR, and you kept complaining that we weren’t “acclimatated” yet. It was the biggest word you knew, Cornhusker, and it was wrong.

That was in April 1951. I’m in Korea now, near a place called Wonju, standing on a hillside looking for that MLR, an imaginary stretch across the north-central part of the peninsula. We called it the Quantico Line.

I’m here to resurrect memories of a war begun a half-century ago Sunday, because that kind of anniversary just can’t go unnoticed. The fact that the war itself went pretty much unnoticed continues to rest uneasily on the national conscience. It wasn’t a real war back then. It was a conflict. A police action.

Even though it killed 4 million human beings on both sides, military and civilian, it just didn’t seem right calling it a war only five years after the Big One had ended. Euphemisms prevailed in the 1950s as the young men marched away.

And now I’m back in this ancient land at a time when the presidents of North and South Korea are talking peace, shaking hands and laughing as though all that pain never existed and all that blood never flowed.

The fighting ended in 1953, Cornhusker, but the war, that element of hostility that keeps hatreds alive, never has ceased. Even detente won’t erase memories.

You’ll always be a part of the inner me, Cornhusker. You’re one of those guys who continue to haunt my dreams all these years later. I remember you because we were so close for a while, and a sniper killed you with a single bullet just a few weeks after we’d arrived. You died without a word, and I looked at violent death for the first time in my life.

Oh, I remember you.

I’m here seeking old battlefields. The driver tells me we’ve covered about 900 kilometers from Seoul to Taegu to the Hwachon Reservoir. We did it in two days. Back then, mountain by mountain, it took us nine bloody months.

I have a diary kept through most of my time in Korea. Much of it is in pencil, watermarked and hard to read. But I can make out sentences here and there. For instance on April 3, a Tuesday, I wrote, I’m beginning to feel detached from myself, as though it is someone else here, doing these things. . . .

The feeling prevailed from the day our troop ship landed at Pusan until the day I left Seoul. I lived in a world reduced to essentials. Happiness was a beer ration. Grief was the sniper’s mark on a guy like Cornhusker.

One minute alive, the next minute dead. Existence snapped in and out of focus that quickly.

We took the days as they came and moved on from one hill to the next, bearing down on our emotions, keeping them in check. Something within perishes in war. An internal dead zone allows a soldier to face terror that might otherwise break him. Fear abates at the cost of involvement. You come home a different person than the one who left.

These thoughts come to mind as I follow the route of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, on a drive called Operation Killer. And the dread that returns from the past still chills me.

I remember you.

You were the old man on the porch of a home somewhere in the Yongso Valley, a stretch between high mountains devastated by war. Artillery had left your small house a battered shell, but as we passed I noticed you sweeping.

Slowly, methodically, using a handmade broom, you swept your porch clean as troops and tanks forged north. Operation Killer was the first major offensive after Inchon’s glory and Chosin’s icy ordeal, an assault geared to finding our way back into the war against a massive influx of Chinese soldiers.

But war and peace have passed this way many times before through Korea’s troubled history, and you continued to sweep, despite the destruction of your home and the agony at your doorstep.

The shell-pocked rice paddies around you were thriving once, but in war they are simply annoyances in combat’s path, something we had to slosh through, ankle deep in water and mud, often dodging fire from distant hills.

But still you swept, old man, clinging to that fragile element of the quiet life you once knew.

The rice paddies are still here this spring of the year 2000. The war has long since passed and the fields are green with new life. Another old man works the ground now. His name is Sam Joon Byun and, at 79, he remembers when his village lay in ruins. “There was nothing left,” he says through an interpreter. “Nothing but ashes.”

He is thin and bearded, with skin the texture of parchment. “We lived in holes in the hills,” he says, pointing toward a ridgeline. “The Communists found some of us. Many were killed, others taken to the North and never seen again. We were afraid and hungry.”

In my diary for April 21 I wrote: The civilians we passed huddled together around fires near their burned-out houses. A man stood with his hands behind him, straight up, almost proudly, wearing rags. And I heard myself saying bitterly, “Behold, the glories of war. . . .”

A morning fog lifts as we talk, the old man and me. It is a gray and unsettling mist and I’m glad when it’s gone. It reminds me of the shrouded dawns when the cry “Saddle up!” roused us from our foxholes to move through valleys like this toward objectives that rose abruptly from the shallow floor.

There was peril at every step. Mortars from the ridges, mines in the lowlands. As I walk along the roadside today, a scene flashes into memory: There’s a Marine not 20 feet in front of me. He glances back. I see his face. An explosion. A cloud of smoke. Silence.

There were no screams. There was no time to scream as he stepped on a mine and was shredded by the blast. I still see his face. There and gone. We move on.

I remember you.

Your name was Pete Mamaril. You were small for a Marine, barely 5 feet 5, a 20-year-old born in the Philippines who had come to America in search of a future.

For a little guy, you had a laugh that could fill a barracks and a smile that faced any situation. It’s the smile I remember most about you, Pete. You loved the Corps, and nothing they did to us could change that.

We went through boot camp and advanced training together, and ended up in the same fire team in combat, comrades in arms. I remember you as we fought for the high ground east of Hongchon, the most mountainous section of Korea. Here the peaks tower over the low valleys, disappearing back into fading shades of blue as far as the eye can see.

Today, the high ground is thick with pine and fir trees, and with maples whose leaves turn to glory when autumn comes. Back then it had been bombed and scorched with such ferocity that the trees were almost nonexistent. Those that remained were torn and leafless, their branches reaching like claws to the lowering skies.

Napalm blackens everything, including human beings. I remember us, Pete, going up one of those nameless hills after the Corsairs had brought thunder down onto it. We saw humans that were charred figures, their bodies still smoking, caught by napalm in the posture of their flight. One died as he reached forward, seeking a haven beyond his grasp.

And that night when we dug in, sickened by the sights and smells of what we’d seen, we heard a woman wildly crying, her sounds carried up from the valley to our hillside foxholes, intensified by the evening’s silence.

It was a wail that lasted for hours, and we wondered, Pete, why she was crying. For a dead husband? A lost child? “Maybe,” you said, “she’s just crying for all of us.” I remember the look on your face, and it wasn’t a smile.

We moved out the next day, assigned to different units to fill spaces left by the dead and wounded. I was halfway down the hillside when enemy mortars flew in, hissing out of nowhere, few but deadly, a quick wharumph! and then silence.

I didn’t look back, Pete. We were a company in assault, and hesitation could mean the destruction of our drive to something called Objective Able. We leaned into our fears.

In my diary I wrote: Once I was a small child and I was afraid of things, so I ran from them. Now I’m a man in war and the things I fear could mean my death, but I don’t run. Oh, foolish travesty of intelligence, where is your reason?

It was only later, after we had secured our objective, that someone said to me, “You know your friend? The little Filipino guy? He’s dead.”

Yes. I remember.

The villages are towns now and the towns are cities. South Korea is a prosperous nation, and that is reflected in the countryside. Chunchon, Yanggu and Inje bustle with commerce. The streets are full and traffic heavy on superhighways that were once dirt roads packed down by the tread of tanks.

This part of Korea is a tourist mecca today that covers almost 17,000 square kilometers and includes a population of 1.5 million. Children pedal brightly colored paddle boats on lakes so clear that you can almost see the bottom. Families camp on mountains we took at the point of a bayonet.

One brochure offers tours of an old battlefield above Chorwon called the Iron Triangle, another of that region around Yanggu we knew as the Punchbowl.

I remember the Punchbowl.

We were on a ridgeline that bordered its singular shape, moving deliberately toward an enemy hill, our energy sapped by a numbing heat wave. It was at the start of July. Soon the rain would come, as it always did in July and August, but this day seemed years away from any kind of cooling comfort.

Often, because we moved so fast, our supply trains couldn’t keep up. We scrounged for water where we could, once drinking from a pond which, we discovered to our horror, contained a human leg at the bottom. We dropped extra purification tablets into our canteens, closed our eyes and drank it anyhow.

This day shadows my memory. As we trudged along the ridgeline, enemy fire blasted through our ranks. It was a flat-trajectory, 76-millimeter artillery piece firing down on us from high ground across the valley.

We scattered and sought shelter on the reverse slope, listening to the boom of ignition, the evil hiss of the shell and the almost instantaneous explosion as it hit. They fired many. One was meant for me.

I lay with my head down on the steep reverse slope, feet propped against a dead tree. I heard the 76 fire . . . and the tree that I leaned against shattered into wild fragments, its trunk and branches strewn over the ridgeline.

And then I realized. The missile had hit the tree but hadn’t exploded. It was a dud. I lay there long after our own artillery had silenced the enemy weapon.

I should’ve died that day. I should have been one of the 37,000 Americans to perish in that strange and awful war. Why am I still alive? “Let’s go,” a platoon sergeant said softly, knowing what had happened, knowing what I was thinking. “Let’s just go,” he said.

And I moved on, leaving a part of me by that tree, and the rest of me still wondering what it all meant.

I remember you.

Your name was Joe Citera. You were a rangy kid with big ears from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, whose raspy imitation of Jimmy Durante somehow kept us going through the worst of times.

I remember us lying flat in a rice paddy, half buried in mud, incoming mortars exploding around us . . . and you rising and asking, in that Durante rasp, “I wonder what the poor people are doing?”

We called you the luck of Fox Company because with you around we often managed to be where the danger wasn’t and, well, because you made us laugh.

But there was a serious side to you too, Joe. You confided once that at 19 you’d never had a girlfriend because of your protruding ears. “Look at them,” you said, pushing them out even farther. “They’re like elephant ears. When I get out, I’m having them cut down and pinned back. They can do that now. And then wait’ll you see me.” The Durante rasp: “Step aside, Errol Flynn, and let this beautiful guy through.”

You were a beautiful guy, Joe. Gentle, generous and without a hostile bone in your gangly body. You gave your chocolate rations to kids and your food to refugees along the road. The villagers I’ve talked to on this trip, and there were many, remember guys like you for those simple, humanitarian gestures. They remember you as bright moments on very dark days. I heard “Thank you” many times in the week I was here. So many of those thanks were meant for you.

Destiny should never have led you to Hill 749.

September. The rainy season had passed and the chill of autumn was setting in. The leaves of the maple trees normally turn brilliant at that time of year, but there were no trees around us on 749.

We were just grateful that it was dry, having survived sleeping in holes filled with water, drenched to the bone, and crossing rivers turned swollen and murderous by storms that rolled in one after another.

Hill 749 was waiting for us on the far side of one of those rivers. It was the first U.N. night attack of the war. We’d climbed in silence to surprise the enemy, but he knew we were coming. As we neared the knoll, he opened up from both flanks.

Machine gun tracers streaked the night, mortars blew around us. And then they came at us. Somehow, firing wildly into the gathering darkness at shapes that slipped in and out of the shadows, we managed to build a perimeter around the knoll.

I heard someone shout, “Citera’s been hit!” and a coldness beyond the exterior chill filled me. But he hadn’t abandoned us. As waves of North Koreans stormed up the hill, screaming threats and shouts in English, one enemy voice seemed to rise above the others. It said with deadly intent, “All Marines from California go home tonight!”

It would not go unanswered. Another voice, the Durante rasp of Joe Citera, filled the night when it asked, “What about Brooklyn?”

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to adequately explain what that did to the company. I know this: We held off five vicious charges that were complete with bullhorns and bugles. We dug into a hill that was almost granite and held our ground throughout the hellish ordeal. And as long as he was able, Citera’s voice urged us on.

Joe died just before sunrise from shock and loss of blood, his legs shredded by machine gun bullets. We were consumed with a sadness too deep to measure. But at least we could acknowledge his gift. We wrote a message on the side of a cardboard C-ration box and affixed it to a tree trunk. It said, “To Joe Citera, Hill 749. You held our luck as long as we needed it.”

I remember you, Joe. We all do. We always will.

I stand by the Hwachon Reservoir looking toward the northeast, at a jumble of hills where 749 sits. We lost half a battalion here and won a Presidential Unit Citation “for extraordinary heroism, superb professional performance in battle and outstanding devotion to duty.”

One man killed today from a booby trap, I wrote less heroically in my diary for Oct. 10. One wounded from our own artillery. There are a million ways to die around here. Pick a way, any way. . . .

“You saved Korea,” a retired college professor said to me in Seoul last week. Horace Underwood is from a third-generation American missionary family in Korea. His grandfather founded Yonsei University, where Underwood is now a member of the board of directors. During the war, he was a Marine translator.

“You could feel the turnaround from the first day of the war to the day the Americans came,” he said. “You saved Korea in every sense. . . .”

The price we paid was heavy. From a June 4 diary entry as we prepared to leave a rest area to return to battle: I knew all this couldn’t last forever, but in war, the impossible is what a man clings to; the inevitable is what he scorns. Even now as I write, the men are out in the warm evening playing baseball, football or cards. And tomorrow night, the guy who’s dealing out the blackjacks may be spread all over the front lines by a 120 mortar. The one who’s pitching the curves may be sucking in blood from a bullet hole. And the one who’s writing this diary may be cannon fodder too.

It was a possibility none of us ever ignored. We asked for just one more day as we crouched alone at night in foxholes dug along forward mountain slopes, entrenchments long since filled in by time’s relentless mechanisms. Just one more day of life.

The constant presence of death created a terrible loneliness. There were empty places in our soul. I had a wife waiting for me and a daughter born two months after I’d been sent off to war. I knew her only from pictures. It was an ache beyond any physical pain I have ever experienced.

I remember realizing that the 38th parallel we crossed twice in combat was the same line in its reach around the globe that passed just north of San Francisco, my home at the time. It was a strange awareness, and it filled me with a desperation to live, to survive, to exist.

Just one more day.

I remember you.

You were the thin young man aged by war, too old too soon, that they came for in the night, saying you’d been transferred to the rear. They had checked your records and discovered your interests and talents and wanted you as a regimental combat correspondent.

You stared dumbly from your foxhole at the messengers who brought the news. “On your way,” your platoon leader said, a first lieutenant just out of college. “Your war is over.”

But how could you leave? How could you abandon those with whom you had shared such peril, those to whom you owed your life? Friendships are forged in combat that are closer than brothers, built around a mantra that says no Marine is ever abandoned; we bring out our dead, our wounded, our shattered lives.

“This isn’t an invitation,” the lieutenant said. “You’ve been ordered. Pack your gear and get the hell out of here.”

So you left the front lines in the night, riding a jeep through the darkness to a place of tents and cots and hot food, far beyond the range of artillery.

But one never really leaves a war.

It stays with you down the years, hovering just beyond trills of laughter and times of happiness. Its sounds and images appear at unexpected moments: while holding a small child, or caught in a traffic jam, or alone in a garden.

But physically, at least, you spent the last few months of your war in relative safety and you left Korea aboard a troop ship looking back at the land that lay in a mist of dreams and moments long since past.

I thought about those moments as I boarded a 747 last week that would bring me home. I thought about you, the boy you had been and the man you had become, wounded by war but moving on.

I remember you, Al Martinez. You were so young then, and so old.

The post A Loss of Innocence … A Flight to Freedom appeared first on Los Angeles Times.

Since Trump ordered the attack on Iran at the end of February, Democrats have forced repeated votes on war powers resolutions that would require him to either gain congressional approval for the war or withdraw troops. Republicans had been able to muster the votes to reject those proposals, but Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy — fresh off a primary election loss in which Trump endorsed his opponent — switched sides to deliver a crucial vote to pass the legislation.

The 50-47 vote tally demonstrated the small but crucial number of Republicans voting to halt the war with Iran. The legislation will get a vote on final passage, but the timing was not immediately clear.

Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska had all previously voted for similar war powers resolutions and did so again Tuesday. Cassidy voted for the legislation for the first time.

After his primary election loss last week, Cassidy returned to Washington saying that he was proud of his work to uphold the Constitution and would carefully consider how he would vote on several priorities of the Trump administration.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

The post Senate advances bill aimed at ending Iran war as Cassidy, after primary loss, flips to support it appeared first on Los Angeles Times.

The law, which had the backing of a bipartisan group of state legislators, would make it illegal to host or advertise a prediction market site in Minnesota. Under the law, a person who creates, operates or advertises a prediction market that allows users to place bets on future events could be charged with a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The law would not subject Minnesotans who bet on the sites to criminal penalties.

“We are really concerned about the self-dealing,” said State Representative Emma Greenman, a Democrat who advocated for the new law limiting sites that let people put wagers on future outcomes of sports games, elections and more. “To me this is a clear place that the State of Minnesota should be acting on behalf of our citizens.”

At least 14 other states have introduced legislation seeking to regulate prediction markets, according to the National Conference of State Legislators, but Minnesota was believed to be the first this month to pass as sweeping a measure into law. The legal battle comes as states have struggled to police prediction markets, which have surged in popularity over the past year.

On Tuesday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency that regulates certain markets, filed a federal lawsuit against Minnesota, arguing that the state does not have the authority to put guardrails around prediction markets, such as the popular betting websites Kalshi and Polymarket.

In a news release, the commission called the law “the most aggressive move by a state” to “undermine the federal regulatory regime set up by Congress more than 50 years ago.”

Michael S. Selig, the chairman of the commission, said in a statement that the law turned “lawful operators and participants in prediction markets into felons overnight.”

Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, said that his office was reviewing the lawsuit and would respond in court. “I’m very concerned about the harms of prediction markets on Minnesotans,” Mr. Ellison, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Prediction markets are designed to be addictive and prey especially on young people and low-income folks.”

Jack Such, a spokesman for Kalshi, said that prediction markets were under federal, not state, regulation. “Minnesota banning prediction markets is like trying to ban the New York Stock Exchange,” he said. “States can’t ban federally regulated exchanges.”

Millions of Americans bet billions of dollars each month on markets ranging from the price of oil to who will win the reality show “Survivor.” The markets have come under heightened scrutiny as suspicious trades have come to light and fueled concerns about insider trading.

Last month, a U.S. Army soldier was charged with using classified information to bet on the mission to capture Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. The soldier, Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, was accused of making more than $400,000 on Polymarket by betting on different outcomes related to Venezuela after learning of the operation, federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. said. The sergeant has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

Hundreds of other unusual bets have also raised eyebrows. A New York Times analysis of Polymarket data showed hundreds of bets placed one day before the United States launched an attack on Iran, suggesting some bettors may have known the strike was coming. In April, Kalshi said it had discovered three examples of congressional candidates placing bets on their own races.

Prediction markets have surged even in states that outlaw sports betting, because they operate outside of state regulation. The trading activity is considered similar to commodity markets that speculate on the future and are under federal regulation.

Several state gambling commissions have filed lawsuits against prediction market sites, accusing them of operating unlicensed sports gambling platforms. In Nevada, a judge banned Kalshi from offering bets on sports without the company obtaining a gaming license.

Pooja Salhotra covers breaking news across the United States.

The post Minnesota Becomes First State to Ban Prediction Markets appeared first on New York Times.

President Donald Trump is facing a moment of maximum peril in his handling of Iran — one that will shape his legacy, America’s stature and perhaps the course of history itself.

We are now entering the sixth week of a two-week cease-fire that was agreed to on the pre-condition the Strait of Hormuz would be opened immediately.

Yet it never opened, and Iran continues to attack our Arab allies — while it dithers and strings out talks. What gives?

The prez’s big risk: Political pressure over the midterms and the buzzing of isolationists in Trump’s own camp might nudge him to take any deal that lets him declare victory, save face and bug out of Iran.

This would be a catastrophic mistake, comparable almost to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich in 1938.

It would burn his legacy on the bonfire of political expediency.

Walking away with a bad deal now would enhance the stature of Iran, vindicate its claims to regional hegemony, place our Arab and Israeli allies in a precarious position and signal to China, Russia and the middle powers that American resolve is paper thin.

It would also render meaningless the sacrifice of tens of thousands of brave Iranian citizens who were slaughtered for daring to stand up against nearly 50 years of the mullahs’ tyranny.

Trump has long condemned President Barack Obama’s 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as a sellout deal that rewarded Iranian obstreperousness about its pursuit of a nuclear bomb and support for terror proxies throughout the region.

But the shape of negotiations today makes it plausible that, in exchange for vague promises about weapons and nuclear enrichment, Iran could emerge with the power to toll the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions relief, a ton of cash and a burnished reputation covering up its savagery.

This would be a statement of humiliation that would make Obama look like Sun Tzu by comparison.

Plus, Iran would quickly rebuild its damaged infrastructure, resupply its depleted stocks of missiles and resume arming Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, confident that US threats of retaliation are empty.

And what future president would want to open up the Islamic Republic can of worms once again?

Meanwhile, Iran uses its friends in Pakistan and Qatar to communicate that a great deal is just around the corner.

Iran’s latest peace proposal reportedly contained nearly all the outrageous demands — reparations, release of frozen funds, no more Israeli attacks on Hezbollah terrorists — as its previous one.

Yet Trump agreed yet again to hold off on any military action and allow talks to proceed for days more, perhaps even a week.

The White House may have some tactical reason for this: Arab allies, for example, may need to prepare their defenses.

Follow The Post’s coverage on the latest in the war with Iran:

• China calls for Strait of Hormuz to reopen in meeting with Iran
• Trump tells Post ‘too soon’ to prep for Iran peace deal signing as uranium enrichment remains sticking point
• US, Iran ‘getting close’ to agreeing deal to end war after 67 days — what a potential pact would look like
• Trump pauses ‘Project Freedom’ initiative in Strait of Hormuz — teases ‘great progress’ in Iran talks

Yet every time Trump waves his fist at Iran and promises to take out “a whole civilization,” only to reset the clock when time expires, he diminishes his image and squanders American credibility.

The choices in the next few days will shape not only Trump’s legacy but also the role of the United States as a global power and the protector-of-last-resort of the world’s sea lanes.

After Britain’s 1956 Suez crisis, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden walked away from Suez, handing Nasser control of the canal and the power to shape the Middle East for decades to come.

Asked what he would have done, Winston Churchill said: “I would never have dared; and if I had dared, I would certainly never have dared stop.” 

President Trump acted boldly when he struck a blow against the Iranian regime and vowed to denuclearize it.

Backing down now would demonstrate not peace through strength, but peace through weakness. And a surely temporary peace at that.

Don’t buckle now, Mr. President. Finish the job.

The post Trump’s moment of truth in Iran is coming — and taking a bad deal would burn his legacy appeared first on New York Post.

The race was projected Tuesday night by NBC News, Decision Desk HQ and CNN.

Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican with a history of idiosyncratic beliefs and votes against his party on major issues, gained national prominence as one of the co-authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which compelled the release of files on one of the nation’s most infamous serial child trafficking cases — largely over opposition from Trump.

The primary campaign swiftly grew into an ugly spectacle, with groups supporting both sides lobbing vicious and sometimes antisemitic attacks on each other.

The post Trump gets revenge as Thomas Massie projected to lose primary to MAGA ex-Navy SEAL appeared first on Raw Story.

The libertarian-leaning iconoclast who has been a hindrance to some of the president’s biggest priorities lost to Trump-endorsed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein in Kentucky’s 4th District on Tuesday, in a primary that became the most expensive intraparty House fight on record. It’s the latest in a string of primary victories for the president that cements his viselike grip on the GOP even as his overall approval numbers continue to sag.

In a retribution campaign that has seen Trump fell GOP foes from Indiana to Louisiana, Massie’s race was perhaps his sweetest victory.

Massie has long been an irritant to Trump and House GOP leaders. But his votes against Trump’s signature tax-and-spending package, moves to rein in the president’s war powers over Iran and stewardship of the bipartisan effort to release the Jeffrey Epstein files finally pushed Trump to front a primary challenger.

The president searched for a “warm body” to run against the “third rate Grandstander” and eventually found one in Gallrein, a fifth-generation farmer and failed state Senate candidate. Trump endorsed Gallrein before he got into the race and rallied with him in March. His Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, promoted Gallrein at an event in the district Monday.

Polls showed a tight race down the home stretch in what had become the fight of Massie’s political life. The president’s intervention united local forces and various factions of the GOP that had long wanted to oust Massie but previously lacked the firepower. And it unleashed a flood of outside spending against Massie that proved too much for the incumbent to overcome.

A pair of pro-Israel super PACs linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Republican Jewish Coalition spent more than $9 million targeting the isolationist, who has routinely rejected efforts to financially aid and symbolically support the U.S. ally. Another super PAC stood up by Trump’s top political operatives spent nearly $7 million berating Massie over his votes against the president’s tax cuts, border wall and other priorities. Overall ad spending in the race topped $33 million, per tracking firm AdImpact.

In delivering a death knell to the seven-term representative, the president has effectively silenced his loudest remaining Republican critic in Congress and sent a warning shot against further dissent.

While Massie will remain a thorn in Trump’s side through the end of the year — and likely an even louder one, now — he’ll be replaced by a staunch supporter.

Massie had cast the race in existential terms for the GOP, warning in an interview last month that his loss could further fray the coalition that Republicans are struggling to keep together in the midterms by pushing voters dissatisfied with the president to stay home.

“This is a congressional race. But it’s also somewhat of a national movement,” Massie said. “And it would be bad for Republicans’ prospects in the midterms if I lose.”

Now, Massie’s defeat will be a defining part of Trump’s legacy. And it stands as a sharp rebuke of the isolationist and conservative wings of the GOP that rallied around the incumbent, including prominent figureheads like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).

The race became a microcosm of the conflicts playing out across the Republican Party over foreign interventions, Israel and the influence of its allied super PACs as the GOP starts to splinter over all three. It also drained tens of millions of dollars in GOP resources in a safe red seat as Republican donors fret about the party’s chances in competitive midterm races.

The post Trump picks off Massie in Kentucky appeared first on Politico.

Sen. John Curtis (R-UT), who recently floated quitting Congress to run for governor, told Punchbowl News on Tuesday that his “radar is up” on Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano’s nominations for ambassador to Jamaica and Slovakia, respectively, citing their election-denying backgrounds.

Curtis sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which processes ambassador nominations. A single GOP no vote is enough to deadlock the committee and sink a nomination.

“I have some first impressions, and I don’t mind telling you they’re not the best,” Curtis said. “But I’m open to what the role is, what the country needs, what they tell me about how they feel about positions they’ve had before that might be problematic.”

Lake’s nomination to Jamaica follows a string of controversies. She denied the 2020 presidential election results, refused to concede her own 2022 loss to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, and lost a 2024 Senate race despite Trump carrying her state. Her tenure overseeing Voice of America was marked by mass layoffs that a federal court later ruled unlawful.

Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator, was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and was involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. He lost his 2022 gubernatorial bid to now-Gov. Josh Shapiro by nearly 15 points.

Even if both nominees clear Foreign Relations, more trouble awaits. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) has already told the Washington Examiner he’ll likely vote no on both — citing Mastriano’s Jan. 6 views and Lake’s “history.”

Four Republican “no” votes on the Senate floor would end either nomination.

The post 2 controversial Trump nominees get warning shot from GOP senator: ‘Radar is up’ appeared first on Raw Story.

Khimberly was a seemingly healthy student at Reseda Charter High when she was struck in the head with a metal water bottle during an altercation with campus bullies on Feb. 17, according to her family. Days later, she was rushed to the hospital for emergency brain surgery, placed in a medically induced coma and died.

In April, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested a juvenile suspect on suspicion of murder in connection to Khimberly’s death. Khimberly’s family has filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District, alleging that their daughter had been repeatedly harassed on campus and staff failed to take reports of bullying seriously.

However, on Tuesday the L.A. County medical examiner ruled that Khimberly’s death was not a homicide but a result of natural causes. The medical examiner cited a “spontaneous rupture” of blood vessels in the brain caused by an underlying medical condition.

Khimberly had a cerebral arteriovenous malformation, according to the M.E. This is a rare condition present at birth where arteries in the brain are clustered tightly together, putting them at high risk of rupture.

“Arteriovenous malformations (AVM) are an assembly of fragile, tangled, high-pressure blood vessels that are prone to spontaneously rupturing, especially when located in the region of the brain as discovered in Khimberly,” Dr. Odey Ukpo, chief medical examiner, said in a statement. “Catastrophic bleeding due to a rupture develops quickly — within seconds to minutes — and is immediately life-threatening.”

The news release notes that Khimberly was reportedly struck on the back of the head four days days before being hospitalized, but does not draw any connection between that incident and the subsequent brain bleed.

Robert Glassman, the family’s attorney, said that the medical examiner’s determination “ignores the undeniable reality” of what happened to Khimberly.

“Before this incident, Khimberly was a healthy, vibrant 12-year-old girl with no symptoms, no medical crisis, and no indication that her AVM posed any danger to her life,” said Glassman, a partner with Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP. “Then she was struck in the head at school with an aluminum water bottle, complained of serious head pain, and within days suffered catastrophic brain bleeding that took her life.”

Glassman said the medical examiner’s update does not affect the civil case, which is about the district’s inaction in protecting a child in distress.

“If Khimberly had an underlying condition that made her more vulnerable to injury,” he stated, “that does not excuse the conduct that led to her death.”

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Unified School District did not comment directly on the medical examiner’s update Tuesday, but said that the district is deeply saddened by Khimberly’s death and that “our thoughts and condolences are with the student’s family, friends, and the entire school community.” The district does not comment on pending litigation, the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department said there is no update into the investigation into Khimberly’s death.

A similar controversy played out in 2024, when 16-year-old LAUSD student Shaylee Mejia suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage days after a campus fight.

Her mother believed that the death was result of bullying at Manual Arts High School in South L.A. and also blamed school administrators for failing to respond to prior reports of campus harassment.

A video captured of the March 5, 2024, fight showed Shaylee hitting her head against a bathroom stall. However, a final autopsy report determined that there was no link between the fight and the subsequent brain bleed, instead citing injuries Shaylee suffered after falling down some stairs days after the fight took place.

Shaylee’s cause of death was ruled an accident, and the Los Angeles Police Department dropped its investigation into the incident.

The post Girl, 12, was injured in alleged bullying incident. That wasn’t what caused her death, M.E. says appeared first on Los Angeles Times.

The longtime host admitted the decision might have “saved [his] life” in an interview with People for their latest cover story, released Tuesday.

“It takes a lot of bone marrow to do the show every day, and now I’ll be stepping down with enough time, enough energy to do other things that I want to do,” he shared.

The comedian told the outlet he’s ready to enjoy the empty nester stage of his life. He shares three adult children — daughter Madeleine and sons Peter and John — with his wife of 32 years, Evelyn McGee Colbert.

With the last episode of the late-night talk show airing May 21, Colbert said he’ll have more time to work on his passion projects, including writing a new “Lord of the Rings” movie with his son Peter.

“To lose an argument with an adult child over something you thought you knew about. I mean, if you can take it, it’s pretty great,” he gushed, calling this stage of fatherhood “the best.”

When it comes to other projects he’ll strike up in his free time, Colbert said, “I don’t have much better of an answer than most college seniors do, which is I’ve got to finish this first, because it takes almost the entirety of my brain to do this show. So we’ll land this plane and we’ll check out the view from there.”

Colbert, 62, was hired in 2015 to succeed David Letterman, who was retiring as host of “The Late Show” on CBS after more than 20 years.

Although Colbert is now reportedly worth a whopping $75 million and earned a yearly salary of $15 million for the talk show, he reflected on the early days of his marriage when he wasn’t sure he would be able to sustain a comedy career.

“I thought, ‘Oh, wait, I kind of want to have children and was this going to work out? I’ll never be able to afford a house or a family or a car. Am I good enough to do this?’” he recalled.

Colbert revealed that when he was offered the job to take over “The Late Show” from Letterman, he spent four months in therapy before accepting.

He announced the long-running series’ cancellation after nearly 33 years in July 2025, telling viewers that he found out about the decision the previous evening.

“I’m not being replaced,” Colbert clarified. “This is all just going away.”

At the time, CBS claimed they canceled the series as a “purely financial decision” and “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.” 

Colbert teased that his final sign off will be “something simple,” much like his wish for how the show will be remembered by fans.

“I hope they laughed. I hope they felt better at the end of the day,” he said.

“I mean, that’s it. We’re there. We’re the last thing you see,” Colbert added. “A lot of things happen in a day, but we bat last, and so we get the last take that people hear before they go to bed, and I hope it made their day better.”

The final episode of “The Late Show” airs May 21 on CBS at 11:35 p.m. ET.

The post Why Stephen Colbert thinks ‘Late Show’ cancellation ‘saved’ his life appeared first on Page Six.

Oliver Darcy’s Status reports the David Ellison-led media giant is internally eyeing July 15 as its target date to finalize the deal, citing multiple individuals with knowledge.

Representatives for Paramount deferred TheWrap to public statements that the deal is on track to close by the end of the third quarter. Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment.

The internal timeline comes as the merger has already been approved by shareholders, but remains subject to regulatory approval.

Regulators in the U.K. are gearing up to begin their review of the deal, with its deadline for public comments closing just last month. Paramount has also asked the FCC to approve its foreign investment in the deal, with those investors set to account for 49.5% of the equity of the combined company.

Additionally, the company said there’s “no statutory impediments” remaining after the Department of Justice’s Hart-Scott-Rodino review period expired, though the regulator can still get involved at anytime in the process.

In addition to federal and international regulators, a group of U.S. state attorneys general led by California’s Rob Bonta are also reviewing the deal and weighing whether to take legal action against the merger. Bonta previously told TheWrap that “red flags are everywhere when you have a merger of this type” and that the states are prepared to “act timely,” but declined to provide a specific timeline for when a decision could be made.

“We have been cooperating with the state attorneys general in responding to their requests,” Paramount said at the time.

In a recent regulatory filing, Paramount disclosed that it has received subpoenas, or civil investigative demands, from various state AGs that focus on the investigation by the Department of Justice and the competitive effects of the merger. It does not disclose which or how many state AGs sent subpoenas.

In the event the transaction does not close by Sept. 30, WBD shareholders will receive a 25 cent per share “ticking fee” for each quarter until closing. In the event that the deal does not close at all due to regulatory matters, Paramount will pay WBD a $7 billion termination fee.

Shares of Paramount Skydance, which closed at $9.90 per share as of Tuesday’s close are down 24.9% year to date, 36% in the past six months and 16% in the past month.

Warner Bros. Discovery, which closed at $27.09 per share, is down 4.9% year to date, 1.2% in the past month and 13.9% in the past five years, but is up 17.3% in the past six months and 199% in the past year.

The post Paramount Hopes to Finalize Warner Bros. Merger as Early as July | Report appeared first on TheWrap.

Representative Buddy Carter, Representative Mike Collins and Derek Dooley, a political newcomer, have consistently taken the top three spots in the polls in Georgia, where the winner will face Senator Jon Ossoff in the general election. Mr. Collins has led every poll fielded since the start of 2025. Mr. Dooley has seen a boost in the two most recent polls after having previously trailed Mr. Carter.

In nearly all of the recent surveys, more than a quarter of voters were undecided, including 54 percent in the University of Georgia poll from late April. If these undecided voters were to break heavily toward any of the three candidates, the race could be scrambled or there could be an outright winner.

In Alabama, the winner of the Republican primary will be heavily favored in the general election. No candidate has won majority support in recent polling, and if that holds up on Tuesday, the race would go to a runoff on June 16. Recent independent surveys have shown rising support for Jared Hudson, a business executive and former Navy SEAL, after months of him routinely placing third behind Representative Barry Moore and Steve Marshall, the state’s attorney general.

The partisan nature of several other polls is a major factor to consider. One showed rising support for Mr. Marshall, but it was sponsored by Alabama Strong PAC, a group aligned with Mr. Marshall’s campaign. And a Peak Insights poll from last month, in which Mr. Moore was ahead by 18 percentage points, was sponsored directly by Mr. Moore.

In Kentucky, where Senator Mitch McConnell is retiring, polls initially pointed to a very close race in the Republican primary between Daniel Cameron, a former attorney general of the state, and Representative Andy Barr. Mr. Barr began to build a consistent polling lead after another candidate, Nate Morris, dropped out to take an unspecified role in the Trump administration and endorsed Mr. Barr. President Trump also then endorsed Mr. Barr.

The most recent polls, however, offer limited insight, as one was sponsored by Mr. Barr and the other was sponsored by Keep America Great PAC, a group that is affiliated with Mr. Barr’s campaign. Only three of the nine polls fielded this year have been from groups that are not connected to one of the candidates, who can choose to release polls selectively to build a particular narrative.

Caroline Soler is a Times researcher focused on collecting and analyzing polling and election data.

The post What the Senate Primary Polls Tell Us in Georgia, Alabama and Kentucky appeared first on New York Times.