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Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., questions witnesses during a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing on Feb. 12, 2025, on Capitol Hill. Rod Lamkey/AP hide caption toggle caption Rod Lamkey/AP The new top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee is ready for a fight. “I think I got elected because I am aggressive,” Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said in an interview. “I think that we’ve got to be fighters in this moment.” In June, House Democrats picked Garcia, a sophomore congressman, over several more senior colleagues to lead their party on the committee. At 47, the California…

Washington — Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official who previously served as President Trump’s criminal defense attorney, declined to rule out the possibility of the president running for a third term and did not denounce the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in a questionnaire submitted to a Senate panel considering his nomination for a lifetime appointment as a federal judge.The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote next week on whether to advance Bove’s nomination to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. CBS News obtained the 165-page questionnaire that Bove submitted to senators…

In his weekly newsletter, Elie Mystal lambastes the Republicans’ shameful priorities—and their deadly consequences. Ad Policy This is a preview of Nation Justice Correspondent Elie Mystal’s new weekly newsletter. Click here to receive this newsletter in your inbox each Friday. The death toll from the flooding in Texas has climbed to at least 120 people as of this writing. That number includes at least 36 children who had been campers at Camp Mystic, in Kerr County, Texas, which we now know was built on a dangerous flood plain. We also know that local officials were well aware of the dangers, and did nothing. Reports…

A divided federal appeals court on Friday threw out an agreement that would have allowed accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to plead guilty in a deal sparing him the risk of execution for al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks.The decision by a panel of the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., undoes an attempt to wrap up more than two decades of military prosecution beset by legal and logistical troubles. It signals there will be no quick end to the long struggle by the U.S. military and successive administrations to bring to justice the man charged with planning one of the…

“The Blue Oak R.V. Park, it was amazing. It’s on the Guadalupe River. It’s what most Texans hope to do at some time in their life — most Texans I know. My parents came down. I’ve been pushing them to come down for a little while, just to get a little vacation. I rented them a cabin next door to us. They were coming down just to celebrate July 4 weekend. Do some fishing, do some barbecuing, and — this is all unrecognizable. This is all it. She woke up to the screaming.” “The water was moving so fast, so…

Washington — President Trump and first lady Melania Trump landed in Central Texas on Friday to survey the devastation wrought by last week’s deadly flooding, as first responders and family members continue their search for the missing. The Trumps will speak with local officials and first responders in Kerrville, Texas, as the death toll stands at 121, according to local law enforcement and Gov. Greg Abbott. More than 170 people are still missing after flash floods consumed the region in the early morning of July 4. Drones, rescue teams and volunteers are combing through debris, hoping to find answers for the…

The U.S. Department of State sign in Washington, D.C. Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images The State Department is cutting its Washington-based staff by about 15% in what officials are calling the largest overhaul of the agency in decades. Some employees have already taken early retirement, while hundreds more received layoff notices Friday. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading the overhaul, eliminating 132 offices he’s described as part of a “bloated bureaucracy.” His staff rewrote key personnel rules to allow the department to fire foreign service and civil service officials in…

Across a wide swath of Texas, the inundated rivers that ravaged communities also tore through farms and ranches.In the town of Bend, about two hours north of Austin, Boyd Clark waded into rising waters to help one of his stranded ostrich hens. Matthew Ketterman spent several agonizing hours trapped on top of his truck amid coursing rapids after driving out to check the fences on his exotic game ranch outside Burnet, about an hour south of Bend. And the overflowing San Gabriel River knocked Christmas trees sideways and staff had to get petting zoo animals into a temporary pen at…

Saving a democracy that has delivered diminishing returns for 50 years—and is widely seen as rigged on behalf of the 1 percent—is not as compelling as the political class thinks. Ad Policy Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) arrives at the US Capitol on Thursday, March 27, 2025.(Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) Democratic Party officials, activists, and donors have finally decided to start paying attention to the voters they’ve lost. It’s about time. With a 27 percent approval rating, Democrats are about as popular as a vegan hot dog at a rodeo cookout. The disaffected include Latinos,…

Texas health officials are overhauling a program designed to steer people away from abortion following a ProPublica and CBS News investigation that found that the state had funneled tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into the effort while providing little oversight of the spending.The money has been flowing to a network of nonprofit organizations that are part of Thriving Texas Families, a state program that supports parenting and adoption as alternatives to abortion and provides counseling, material assistance and other services. Most of the groups operate as crisis pregnancy centers, or pregnancy resource centers, which often resemble medical clinics but…