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Styrofoam packing peanuts littered an empty office in the Rayburn House Office Building across from the Capitol on Monday morning as two moving men unpacked a plush couch, an upholstered armchair, lamps and a lucite side table.Representative Elise Stefanik of New York was back.This had not been the plan.Ms. Stefanik, the self-proclaimed “ultra MAGA” warrior whom President Trump nominated to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, had expected to sail through her Senate confirmation vote, which was to be scheduled in early April.So she boxed up her office. She sent off her longtime chief of staff, Patrick Hester, to…

Washington — The Senate is expected to vote Wednesday on a measure aimed at blocking President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs amid anxiety over how the wide-ranging tariffs could disrupt the U.S. economy.The resolution, led by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, would terminate the April 2 national emergency that the president is using to impose the tariffs, effectively blocking the sweeping levies on foreign imports.But the measure almost certainly won’t be taken up in the GOP-controlled House, making the vote largely a symbolic one. On April 2, the president announced a 10% baseline tariff…

April 30, 2025, 9:56 a.m. ETIf approved to open, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would be part of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa. Credit…Nick Oxford/Associated PressThe very identity of the nation’s 8,100 charter schools is on the line on Wednesday, as the Supreme Court considers whether they are fundamentally public or private institutions.If they are public, there is little room for religious instruction, as proposed by the school at the center of the case, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which seeks to open in Oklahoma as the nation’s first religious charter…

‘I don’t regret voting for him.’Jaime Escobar Jr., 46, from Roma, TexasAs mayor of the small border town of Roma, Jaime Escobar Jr. was accustomed to assessing whether strategies were working. At this point, Mr. Escobar remained mostly optimistic, but he was still wary.“I’m not saying I’m 100 percent happy with everything, but for the most part, I feel that Trump is tackling the issues that the American voters thought were important,” he said, referring to immigration and the economy. “I don’t regret voting for him.”He identified as a Democrat until the migrant crisis and, after years of what he…

U.S. economic growth slowed sharply in the first quarter of 2025 as businesses rushed to stockpile goods ahead of President Trump’s sweeping tariff policies. The nation’s gross domestic product — the total value of products and services — shrank at a 0.3% annual rate, down from growth of 2.4% in the final three months of 2024, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday in its initial GDP estimate. It’s the worst quarterly performance for the U.S. economy since early 2022, when the economy was in recovery after cratering during the COVID pandemic.The U.S. economy was forecast to show 0.8% growth in the first…

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day. Today’s top stories President Trump marked the 100th day of his second term with a rally in Michigan last night. There, Trump cited an editorial alleging that his presidency has been the most consequential in history. Trump has pushed the limits of presidential power, used wartime authorities to crack down on immigration, punished his political enemies and launched a trade war that has upended global relationships.…

In January, Border Patrol agents conducted sweeps through immigrant communities in California’s Central Valley, arresting nearly 80 individuals the agency said were unlawfully present in the United States.Officials said the operation, named “Return to Sender,” was intended to target undocumented immigrants with serious criminal backgrounds. But lawyers for those arrested argued that the agents had simply rounded up people who appeared to be day laborers and farm workers, regardless of their actual immigration status, without having a legally sound reason to suspect they were in the country illegally.On Tuesday, a federal judge in California issued a preliminary injunction barring Border…

Washington — The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Wednesday morning in a high-profile dispute over efforts in Oklahoma to create an online Catholic charter school, a case that could open the door to public dollars flowing directly to religious schools.A ruling in favor of the school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, could lead to the country’s first religious charter school and upend laws in 45 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the federal charter school program, all of which require charter schools to be nonsectarian, Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, has warned. “This would really be…

Politics / Hiding in Plain Sight / April 29, 2025 This isn’t a government of, by, and for the people; it’s a government of, by, and for American oligarchs. Ad Policy President Donald Trump and White House senior adviser andTesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shake hands while attending the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship on March 22, 2025, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.(Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images) As we reach Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office (again), two leitmotifs stand out. Number one is the in-your-face corruption of these people—Trump’s cabinet and inner circle of advisers, including many of the…

Within two minutes of speaking at a rally near Detroit to celebrate 100 days of his second term, President Trump told a lie: that he won Michigan “three times.” In fact, he lost the state in the 2020 election.What followed on Tuesday was an hour and a half filled with many familiar falsehoods and exaggerations about his accomplishments, including on tariffs, immigration and his rollback of Biden administration policies.Mr. Trump claimed an 87 percent decrease in the price of eggs and gas below $2 a gallon in three states. Both claims were overstated. The wholesale price of eggs has fallen…