Attorneys for three news organizations banished from the White House by the Trump administration are in court Thursday. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly is hearing arguments nearly three weeks after CNN, MS NOW and Politico were abruptly banned from White House grounds, with President Donald Trump decrying their “fake news.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is suspending tech giant Microsoft from a program to apply for green cards for workers who come to the U.S. to live and work using an H-1B visa. Vice President JD Vance accuses the company of fraud.
Here's the latest:
A recurring character in the president’s Thursday ceremony honoring current tech titans: his uncle, John G. Trump.
Throughout his presidency, Trump has spoken several times about his uncle, an engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whom the president praises for his smarts.
Trump noted that his uncle received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan, the same award that was being given out during Thursday’s event.
The event even played a video tribute to his uncle, and Trump received the National Medal of Science that John G. Trump originally received.
“Some scientists transform medicine. Some help win wars,” the video’s narrator said. “John G. Trump did both.”
There was no mention by the president of the visa fraud allegations that his administration leveled against Microsoft earlier Thursday.
Rather, Trump’s comments were pure adulation.
“He had the vision to make Microsoft an early leader in super intelligence,” said Trump, using his preferred term for artificial intelligence. He noted that for more than 30 years, Nadella has been a “key figure in the transformation of Microsoft.”
The president spoke in especially warm terms about Musk as he honored him during the program, calling the SpaceX founder “a national treasure” and saying to him, “We’re so proud of you.”
“Elon is our modern-day Thomas Edison. And Elon, I want to congratulate you. You my friend and all of that. But you are a very, very special guy,” Trump said.
In 2025, Trump and Musk’s once-close relationship q uickly unraveled and they exchanged public threats and insults before making up months later.
The president is participating in an event meant to honor top tech industry officials.
It includes Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, just hours after Vice President JD Vance announced that Microsoft was being suspended from a program that allows companies to apply for green cards for skilled foreign workers with H-1B visas.
The Trump administration on Thursday sanctioned 17 tankers it accuses the Iranian government of relying on to move billions of dollars worth of oil and gas to foreign markets. The U.S. Treasury actions are the latest push as part of Washington’s punishing economic campaign against Tehran.
“Treasury is starving the tyrannical regime in Tehran of the money it uses to wage war in the region, and we will continue exposing those who enable the regime’s oil sales,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a press release.
The U.S. has alleged that the tankers are part of a shadow network helping to fund Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard and its armed proxies in the region.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, nominated to the bench by Trump, didn’t say how he intends to rule but described key government arguments as an “uphill climb” and a “tough lift” at this stage of the litigation. The judge also challenged a government attorney to specify the national security concerns that the administration claims are at stake.
“We’ve always been clear that it’s not just national security,” Justice Department attorney Michael Velchik said, arguing that false reporting can impact policy and adversely affect national security.
“He doesn’t mind negative press stories if he deserves them. He has problems with trafficking verifiable falsehoods,” Velchik said of Trump.
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney for the media plaintiffs, said the government was continuing to discriminate against viewpoints and reporting it doesn’t like.
“He doesn’t like scrutiny of his policies, he doesn’t like the reporting, he wants more good press,” Boutrous Jr. said in court. That’s a content-based restriction on speech and a clear violation of the First Amendment, he said.
While stumping for Republicans this week, the president hinted that he was confident that an endgame to the war could come in the days before or after the election, while also suggesting that he remained open to resuming full-scale military operations against Iran.
But Trump in a social media post on Thursday said the U.S. “will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd.”
Attorneys for the three news organizations have told a federal judge the Trump administration must be prevented from barring their reporters from the White House, saying the ban is a classic example of “viewpoint discrimination” that’s punishing people for what they say.
The case, which has First Amendment implications, has been going on since Trump banned MS NOW, CNN and Politico from the White House grounds, saying he objected to their reporting.
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney for the media plaintiffs, said the government was continuing to discriminate against viewpoints and reporting it doesn’t like. The government countered, as it has before, that what it called false reporting can impact policy and adversely affect national security.
The news organizations want longer-term relief until the entire case is resolved, and a temporary restraining order expires Thursday. The arguments were still going on at midday.
That’s according to a Congressional Research Service report updated this week.
The downed aircraft include what the military has publicly acknowledged as lost — like those destroyed as part of the rescue mission to recover two downed aviators in Iran — as well as dozens of drones the military has refused to discuss.
The report says that among the 81 damaged or destroyed aircraft were 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones, 12 F-15E Strike Eagle jets, seven KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft and an F-35A Lightning II fighter jet.
It offers insight into the toll of the war because the military hasn’t released a definitive list or report on the damage that equipment and bases have sustained.
While the report draws some of its information from media reports and not government sources, prior versions of it have been cited by the Pentagon’s inspector general.
President Trump on Wednesday approved major disaster declarations for six states, one territory and one tribe, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Hawaii, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Utah, Guam and the Pueblo of Zuni tribe all received major disaster declarations, which unlock federal support and funding for disasters deemed beyond the capacity of the jurisdiction to handle on its own.
Trump approved two declarations for Hawaii for Hurricanes Lala and Lowell, which impacted the state just weeks apart. However, the approval only permits funding for repairs to public infrastructure, not the individual assistance that helps survivors with repairs and temporary housing.
Trump denied requests from Tennessee and Illinois along with West Virginia’s appeal of an earlier denial, all for summer storms. He hasn’t approved any requests for hazard mitigation assistance — which adds dollars to build back with more resilience — for more than a year.
Washington Metropolitan Police say they’ve made no arrests in the theft of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s bust from the site of the stadium named for him after his assassination in 1968 as he campaigned for president.
An MPD spokesperson said there were no updates to the theft, first reported by The Washington Post. The stadium, the former home of Washington’s NFL team, has been demolished. The bust, which stood outside the main entrance, was left behind on a pedestal. According to the police report, it was stolen between Sept. 15 and Oct. 1, when MPD was notified.
It was unclear if the site has cameras. Attempts to reach Events DC’s sports and entertainment division, which manages the site, for comment were unsuccessful.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly is hearing arguments nearly three weeks after CNN, MS NOW and Politico were abruptly banned from White House grounds, with the president decrying their “fake news.”
Kelly granted a two-week temporary restraining order against the ban, but it expires Thursday. The outlets have asked the court to halt the ban until the case is resolved, saying the Trump administration has “persisted in unpredictably and inconsistently implementing its ban” despite the restraining order — including selectively keeping CNN from participating in White House pool duties.
“The White House’s words and actions leave little doubt that it will immediately reinstitute a complete ban of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO if allowed the opportunity,” lawyers for the networks wrote in a filing on Sept. 28.
It was the latest development in the escalating drama between the Trump administration and the news media, which has raged in various arenas during his second term. At its core, though, are multiple First Amendment questions.
The Trump administration is suspending tech giant Microsoft from a program to apply for green cards for workers who come to the U.S. to live and work using an H-1B visa. Vice President JD Vance accuses the company of fraud.
Vance said Thursday, “If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants.” Vance spoke in a White House news conference announcing the decision.
The H-1B program has long been a target of President Trump’s supporters who say the program undercuts American workers and is rife with abuse.
The Associated Press is reaching out to Microsoft for comment.
Obama, the nation’s first Black president, has endorsed David Crowley, who’s seeking to become Wisconsin’s first Black governor. Crowley received Obama’s endorsement in a video posted online Thursday.
Obama says that like him, Crowley started his political life as a community organizer. Crowley was raised in poverty in Milwaukee, and Obama says his “life story is about overcoming adversity and his life’s work is about bringing people together.”
Crowley faces Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who’s been endorsed by President Trump.
Trump won Wisconsin twice and lost once, all three decided by less than a percentage point. Obama won Wisconsin by 7 points and 14 points. Those were the only two presidential elections out of the past seven in Wisconsin that were decided by more than a point.
Few Americans think either major political party has the advantage on artificial intelligence issues, the new AP-NORC poll shows.
About 4 in 10 Americans say they don’t trust either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party on AI, while nearly 2 in 10 trust both parties equally. The rest are split between trusting the Republicans and the Democrats.
Even people who identify with the parties are ambivalent about their ability to handle the issue. Only about half of Republicans and Democrats say their party is better equipped to handle AI issues, and roughly 3 in 10 in each case say neither party is.
President Trump also gets a low rating on his handling of the issue, with 67% of U.S. adults disapproving of his performance on AI.
About 8 in 10 U.S. adults say it’s “extremely” or “very” important for the U.S. government to ensure AI stays under human control, according to the new AP-NORC poll.
They’re about as likely to want the government to prioritize protecting the country’s workforce. Most U.S. adults also think minimizing environmental harm and growing the U.S. economy are highly important. About half say this about promoting technological innovation, and slightly fewer say that about competing with China.
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say it’s highly important to grow the U.S. economy and to compete with other countries like China. Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to say it’s at least “very” important to minimize environmental harm.
About two-thirds of Americans think AI is developing “too fast,” according to a new AP-NORC poll. About 3 in 10 say its development has been “about right” and only 8% say it’s moving “too slow.”
The risk that powerful AI models could evade human control and hurt humanity, once the stuff of science fiction, has been emerging as a more pressing concern. Even leaders of the companies that are developing frontier AI models are calling for a slowdown so government regulation can catch up.
There’s bipartisan concern about the speed of AI’s development. About three-quarters of Democrats say AI is developing “too fast,” while only about half of Republicans share that worry.
People under 30 years old also express higher levels of concern than people 60 or older, the survey found.
Rubio is reiterating that the Trump administration will keep trying to facilitate a negotiated settlement to Russia’s war in Ukraine but that it’s been difficult.
“We have tried, we will continue to try, but we’re also not going to invest in pointless processes if we can’t make progress,” he told reporters in Portugal after new Russian strikes in eastern Ukraine killed 30 people.
Rubio warned about the danger of the stalemate in the war because it can lead to escalation.
“That escalation could wind up being a sabotage campaign in neighboring countries that are members of NATO,” he said. That could “quickly turn what is a war between two countries into a much broader and far more dangerous regional conflict.”
European officials have accused Moscow of a campaign of sabotage and disruption aimed at undermining support for Ukraine and destabilizing European nations.
President Trump attacked Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in a late Wednesday social media post, referring to him as “Mohammed” and saying he “goes back to the days of the Jihad.”
“He is a RADICAL Extremist, Terrorist Sympathizer,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
In a social media post, El-Sayed, a former public health official who was born in the U.S. to Egyptian immigrant parents, responded by pointing out that the president knows his name: “He says it every day.”
“But he’s not just attacking me. He’s attacking all of us,” El-Sayed wrote. “He thinks he can use my name and my faith to distract us from the suffering his policies are inflicting on us at the pump, at the grocery store, and at the doctor’s office.”
The Democratic former president called the former Atlanta mayor a friend in a video message released Thursday.
“As a former judge, council member and mayor, Keisha believes that public service is about putting you first,” Obama said, touting Bottoms’ proposals to expand Medicaid and pre-kindergarten access, raise pay for firefighters and police officers, and eliminate state sales tax on groceries.
Obama also endorsed Deb Haaland for New Mexico governor and Troy Jackson in Maine’s Senate race on Thursday, as he steps up his midterm campaign activity.
Bottoms faces Republican Rick Jackson, a billionaire who’s spent more than $100 million of his own money in the race.
Jackson has President Trump’s endorsement and said during his primary that he’d be “Trump with a Southern tone.” But he’s recently removed some mentions of Trump from his campaign website.
Bottoms, who also was an adviser to former President Joe Biden, got Biden’s endorsement during her primary campaign.
Texas Democrat James Talarico said Thursday he agrees with President Trump that he and Republican Ken Paxton should debate ahead of the midterm election in their Senate contest.
“Ball’s in your court,” Talarico said in a social media post, tagging Paxton.
In a Truth Social post late on Wednesday after holding a rally with Paxton in Texas, Trump said Talarico should make the debate happen right away.
“He should immediately report to a Debate Stage against Ken Paxton, who is ready, willing, and able,” Trump said.
A message seeking comment was sent to Paxton’s campaign.
The Texas Senate contest is one of the most closely watched in the nation. A reliably Republican state, where Trump won in 2024 by almost 14 percentage points, Texas has become competitive with Election Day less than a month away.
