President Donald Trump has proposed boosting defense spending to $1.5 trillion in his 2027 budget released Friday, the largest such request in decades, reflecting his emphasis on U.S. military investments over domestic programs.

A bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security has failed to advance in the Senate amid growing concerns about long lines to get through screening at some of the country’s biggest airports.

Democratic senators are vowing to oppose a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security following the shooting death of a man in Minnesota.

The House has passed this year's final batch of spending bills.

The twin crises at the heart of the government shutdown fight in Washington are coming to a head.

Senate Democrats are rejecting for the 10th time a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government.

As Congress confronts a possible government shutdown, it's also weighing the Trump administration's willingness to simply halt federal spending — even when it's against the law.

The Trump administration is ending several grant programs reserved for colleges that have large numbers of minority students, saying they amount to illegal discrimination.

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The Senate has rejected an effort from Sen. Bernie Sanders to block the sale of U.S. bombs and firearms to Israel.

The Trump administration is withholding more than $6 billion in federal grants for after-school and summer programs, English language instruction, adult literacy and more.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune says Republicans “got the job done” in passing President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts.

The Senate’s long day of voting has churned into a long night as Republican leaders grasp for ways to shore up support for President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts.

Republicans and Democrats on a key Senate panel are challenging the merits of cancelling billions of dollars in spending for foreign aid and public media, as requested by President Donald Trump.

The acting chair of the federal agency that enforces workers rights acknowledged during a Senate hearing Wednesday that transgender workers are protected under civil rights laws but defended her decision to drop lawsuits on their behalf, saying her agency is not independent and must comply with President Donald Trump’s orders.

President Donald Trump has fired a Democratic commissioner for the federal agency that oversees nuclear safety as he continues to assert more control over independent regulatory agencies.

Senate Democrats were shaken to the core after seeing videos of officers aggressively pushing California Sen. Alex Padilla out of a news conference with the Homeland Security secretary and eventually restraining him on the floor outside the room.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is defending his decision to order National Guard troops to provide security during immigrations raids in Los Angeles.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez provided Democrats a rare bright spot last fall when she won reelection against a MAGA diehard in a Trump-leaning district in southwestern Washington state.

President Donald Trump has marked his first 100 days in office with an interview with ABC News and a rally in Michigan.

The Trump administration has frozen, stalled or otherwise disrupted some $430 billion in federal funds since the president took office — from federal disease research to Head Start for children to disaster aid.

The Trump administration is asking Congress to eliminate the Head Start program, a move that would cut early education for some of the nation’s neediest children as part of drastic proposed cuts to federal health funding.

Federal databases show Head Start centers across the U.S. have received nearly $1 billion less in federal funding compared with this time last year.

With President Donald Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” of tariff implementation fast approaching, Senate Democrats are putting Republican support for some of those plans to the test by forcing a vote to nullify the emergency declaration that underpins the tariffs on Canada.

Wildland firefighters will keep a four-year-old pay hike under a GOP-led spending bill signed by President Donald Trump.

The Democratic Party appears fractured as a torrent of frustration and anger has been unleashed on Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has announced he's ready to start the process of considering a Republican-led spending bill to prevent a midnight Friday government shutdown.

House Republicans have unveiled a 99-page spending bill that would keep federal agencies funded through Sept. 30.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for a plan to shut down of the Education Department, an agency Republicans have talked about closing for decades.

A handful of veterans speaking to The Associated Press are divided over the Trump administration's proposed cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health is promising to help restore trust in medical research.

Negotiations to avoid a federal government shutdown in two weeks have not been going well.

The budget resolution from Republicans was on the agenda in the Senate, but the nearly all-night debate encompassed so much more.

The termination letters that ended the careers of thousands of U.S. Forest Service employees mean fewer people and less resources will be available to help prevent and fight wildfires.

A federal judge is continuing to block the Trump administration’s drastic cuts in medical research funding.

Republican senators pushed a $340 billion budget framework to passage over Democratic objections after a nearly all-night vote.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has teed up a vote on a budget plan that sets the stage for a massive boost in defense and border security spending, and leaves a looming tax cut fight for later this year.

Thousands of federal government employees have been shown the door in the first month of President Donald Trump’s administration.

The Trump administration has fired about 1,000 newly hired National Park Service employees who maintain and clean parks, educate visitors and perform other functions as part of its broad-based effort to downsize government.

President Donald Trump's billionaire top lieutenant, Elon Musk, is the focus for thousands of Democratic activists launching a massive protest campaign this week.

The Trump administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs.

Federal workers were responding with anger and confusion Friday as they grappled with the Trump administration’s latest effort to shrink the size of the federal workforce by ordering agencies to lay off probationary employees who have yet to qualify for civil service protections.

President Donald Trump’s administration is holding up money for wildfire mitigation projects funded through legislation championed by his Democratic predecessor.

President Donald Trump’s most powerful adviser, Elon Musk, has made a rare public appearance at the White House to defend the swift and extensive cuts he’s pushing across the federal government while acknowledging there may be mistakes.

Linda McMahon once described herself as an outsider stepping into the world of education, a business leader with an “inquiring mind” who would challenge the status quo and demand more for students.

Talks on a spending bill for the current budget year have bogged down in the wake of President Donald Trump’s efforts to slash federal spending and its workforce.

President Donald Trump's transportation secretary is instructing his department to prioritize projects for states with higher marriage or birth rates.

Congress is proving little match for the Department of Government Efficiency as wary lawmakers watch it march through the bureaucracy.

A Treasury Department official has written a letter to federal lawmakers saying that a tech executive working with Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” will have “read-only access” to the government’s payment system.

Democrats are fighting to energize their party’s growing resistance to President Trump and his chief lieutenant, Elon Musk.

President Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees have flooded the zone in back-to-back-to-back confirmation hearings.

President Donald Trump’s budget office has rescinded a memo freezing spending on federal grants, less than two days after it sparked widespread confusion and legal challenges across the country.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a push from President Donald Trump to pause federal funding while his administration conducts an across-the-board ideological review to uproot progressive initiatives.

The Senate has passed a bill that would require federal authorities to detain migrants accused of theft and violent crimes.

The Senate has rushed through final passage of a bipartisan plan to fund federal operations and prevent a government shutdown.

Senate Democrats reelected Chuck Schumer as party leader on Tuesday as the party moves into a deeply uncertain time, with no real consensus on a strategy as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office.

The Navy has identified the two crew members killed when their jet fighter crashed near Mount Rainier last week as two 31-year-old aviators from California.

A resolution introduced by Congressional Democrats would make clear that U.S. emergency rooms need to provide emergency abortions when a woman’s health or life is at risk, despite strict state abortion bans.

New Jersey has a new U.S. senator after the August resignation of Democrat Bob Menendez.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has teed up a vote this week on a bill that would keep the federal government funded for six more months.

House Republicans have unveiled legislation to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the month.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged in a scathing speech to Congress to achieve “total victory” against Hamas and criticized American opponents of the war in Gaza as “idiots.”.

The Senate will pursue a spending increase next year of about 3.4% for defense and 2.7% increase for non-defense programs under a bipartisan agreement reached by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Lawmakers have introduced a $1.2 trillion spending package that sets the stage for avoiding a partial government shutdown for several key federal agencies this weekend.

Senate Republicans have blocked legislation that would protect access to in vitro fertilization, objecting to a vote on the issue Wednesday even after widespread backlash to a recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that threatens the practice.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are urging an increasingly divided Congress to immediately send major aid to both Israel and Ukraine.

In tributes to Sen. Dianne Feinstein after her death, her female colleagues talked about her indomitable, fierce intelligence and how she had paved the way for so many women.

The United States is at risk of another damaging government shutdown, potentially as soon as the end of September.

House Republicans are pushing new restrictions on abortion access and trying to build on the work of activists whose strategy successfully elevated the abortion fight to the Supreme Court.

Senate Democrats are trying hard to pressure Republicans into resolving the menacing impasse on the nation's debt ceiling.

It’s the first time the four leaders of the two congressional spending committees are women.

Washington Democrat Patty Murray has become the first female president pro tempore of the Senate.

Lawmakers who eagerly accepted piles of cash from Samuel Bankman-Fried now can’t move fast enough to offload contributions from the disgraced crypto mogul to anywhere but their own campaign coffers.

Nearly 400 school districts across the country are receiving grants totaling about $1 billion to purchase 2,500 “clean” school buses under a new federal program.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has introduced a bill calling for a nationwide abortion ban.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is transferring $15 million from his campaign account to his party’s candidates, incumbents and political committee for the fall election.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state is seeking her sixth term at a new inflection point for women.

The Democratic National Committee is launching a digital ad campaign to energize its voters after last month’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Fighting for decades over abortion policy, Congress is about to run into the political limits of its ability to act in either direction on the issue.

Top Pentagon leaders say the U.S. has learned a great deal about Russian military shortfalls and capabilities in the first two months of the war in Ukraine.

A Senate committee has approved a bipartisan blueprint to overhaul the nation’s public health system, applying the lessons of COVID-19 to future outbreaks through a new chain of command, a stronger medical supply chain, and clearer crisis communications.

The Senate has unanimously approved a measure that would make daylight saving time permanent next year.

Senate Democrats and Republicans each want to flash election-year signals that they’re helping families struggling with rising costs and the two-year-old pandemic.

Democrats have fractured repeatedly over President Joe Biden’s agenda, stalling legislation and creating an atmosphere of mistrust that threatens the party’s political prospects in November.

A federal watchdog says the government's main health agency is failing to meet its responsibilities for leading the national response to public health emergencies including the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather disasters and even potential bioterrorist attacks.

Senate Democrats have played defense for the last three Supreme Court vacancies.

Democrats are trying to pick up the pieces after West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin effectively crushed President Joe Biden’s big domestic policy bill.

The Senate has rejected a bid to stop a U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

President Joe Biden has signed into law the stopgap spending bill that will keep the federal government running through Feb. 18.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi surprised advocates, and even many of her Democratic colleagues, when she revived a long-sought paid family and medical leave plan and said it would be part of a massive social and environmental spending bill in the House.

Women — and some men — in Congress have been fighting for government child care assistance for almost 80 years.

Medicaid issues are turning up as winners in President Joe Biden’s social budget framework even as divisions force Democrats to hit pause on far-reaching improvements to Medicare.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, who was elected in 1992 as a self described “mom in tennis shoes,” has been fighting for paid family and medical leave for decades.

Two leading congressional Democrats are calling for ideas on a “public option” health insurance plan, a campaign promise of President Joe Biden’s that faces long odds politically.

Americans are experiencing flickers of optimism at the one-year anniversary of the deadly outbreak as more people are vaccinated. But new strains of the virus and a still shaky economy could unleash another devastating cycle of infections, lockdowns and deaths. Biden and Democrats warn that now is not the time to let up on aid, and that it's better to risk doing too much than too little. McConnell expressed similar optimism last spring when he hit “pause” on new spending after approval of the initial round of aid. GOP Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana said by the time they're done they hope to turn public opinion around.

AdIt’s a tested strategy but comes at an uncertain, volatile time for the nation. Americans are experiencing flickers of optimism at the one-year anniversary of the deadly outbreak as more people are vaccinated. But new strains of the virus and a still shaky economy could unleash another devastating cycle of infections, lockdowns and deaths. Biden and the Democrats backing him warn that now is not the time to let up on aid — better to risk doing too much, than too little. GOP Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana said by the time they're done they hope to turn public opinion around.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats are preparing to push ahead quickly on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package even if it means using procedural tools to pass the legislation on their own, leaving Republicans behind. Coming so soon in Biden's administration, the action provides a first test of Republican opposition to the White House priorities as well as to the new president's promise of a “unity” agenda. Biden's COVID-19 aid package includes money for vaccine distribution, school reopenings and $1,400 direct payments to households and gradually boosts the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour over five years. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters earlier Tuesday that Biden is still looking to negotiate on an aid package, while emphasizing that several components of the existing aid will lapse in March. Collins said Tuesday that the White House made good on its commitment to deliver a more detailed accounting of the proposed expenditure.

The massive, catchall bill combines $900 billion in COVID-19 aid with a $1.4 trillion spending bill. A 1994 bill blocked prisoners from the program, but momentum has been growing to reverse the decision. For Republicans, the bill secures a longtime goal to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the form that students fill out to determine their eligibility for federal financial aid. It would provide $23 billion to colleges and universities, the first federal virus aid since a virus package Congress approved in March. For K-12 schools, the bill provides $54.3 billion, with an additional $4.1 billion that governors can use on education.

Meanwhile, the FDA said late Wednesday that some Pfizer vaccine vials may contain more than the standard five doses. The Trump administration has come under scathing criticism from congressional Democrats after news leaked out last week about the missed opportunity to secure more vaccine. A second vaccine from Moderna appears headed for Food and Drug Administration approval within days, and more vaccine candidates are advancing through clinical trials. Operation Warp Speed has financed the development, manufacture and distribution of millions of doses, with the goal of providing a free vaccine to any American who wants one. Pfizer was not as closely involved with Operation Warp Speed as other manufacturers, preferring to retain control over its own development and manufacturing.

Alexander left the GOP's leadership track during the Obama years to focus on his committee work. As chairman of the HELP panel, Alexander shepherded a 2015 rewrite of elementary and high school education that swept through the Senate with near-universal support. “Lamar listened to me when I told him we should write a bill together, rather than amending the Republican bill he had begun working on,” Murray said. Alexander offered a defense of the chamber's traditions, especially the filibuster that forces consensus — or, increasingly, gridlock — upon the Senate. Alexander will be replaced by Nashville businessman Bill Hagerty, a Republican backed by President Donald Trump.