Stories by Associated Press

In her first congressional hearing over the July 13 assassination attempt, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle repeatedly angered lawmakers by evading questions, citing ongoing investigations. She called the attempt on Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades.

Democrats are set to hold their convention in Chicago on Aug. 19-22. What was supposed to be a coronation for Biden now becomes an open contest in which nearly 4,700 delegates will be responsible for picking a new standard-bearer to challenge Republican Donald Trump in the fall.

President Joe Biden has withdrawn from the presidential election and will no longer seek a second term in office. The decision comes one month before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 

A growing chorus of Democratic lawmakers called Friday for President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid, even as the president insisted he’s ready to return to the campaign trail next week to counter what he called a “dark vision” laid out by Republican Donald Trump.

Trump’s forward-looking speech marks the climax and conclusion of a massive four-day Republican pep rally that drew thousands of conservative activists and elected officials to swing-state Wisconsin as voters weigh an election that currently features two deeply unpopular candidates. 

With time racing toward the party convention next month, Democratic unease is growing at the White House and within the campaign at a fraught moment for the president and his party.

In a ruling Thursday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion for an administrative stay filed by a group of Republican-led states seeking to invalidate the administration’s entire student loan forgiveness program.

Bob Newhart, best remembered now as the star of two hit television shows of the 1970s and 1980s that bore his name, launched his career as a standup comic in the late 1950s.

The 39-year-old Ohio senator is a relative political unknown. In his first primetime speech since becoming the nominee for vice president, Vance spoke of growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio, his mother addicted to drugs and his father absent, and how he later joined the military and went on to the highest levels of U.S. politics.

President Joe Biden, 81, tested positive following his first event in Las Vegas, where he was expected to later speak at the UnidosUS annual conference. 

The jury’s verdict followed a nine-week trial in which prosecutors said the Democrat abused the power of his office to protect allies from criminal investigations and enrich associates, including his wife, through acts that included meeting with Egyptian intelligence officials and helping that country access millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.

The Republican presidential ticket came together on Monday when Donald Trump named J.D. Vance as his running mate. In turning to the 39-year-old Ohio senator, the Republican nominee injected new energy into a campaign that has centered in recent weeks on questions of age following President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance.

The 39-year-old Vance rose to national fame with the 2016 publication of his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” He was elected to the Senate in 2022 and has become one of the staunchest champions of the former president’s “Make America Great Again” agenda, particularly on trade, foreign policy and immigration.

Even with conventions choreographed down to tiny details, the unexpected can still happen. Here’s a look at the floor fights, street battles and other memorable convention scenes that were uplifting, outlandish or just plain awkward.

The decision, which can be appealed and may be overruled by a higher court, brings at least for now a stunning and abrupt conclusion to a criminal case that at the time it was filed was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the legal threats the Republican former president confronted.

The convention’s first day is still expected to focus on the economy even after Saturday’s shooting at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania in which the former president was injured.

“There is no place in America for this kind of violence — for any violence. Ever. Period. No exception. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized,” President Joe Biden said.

The FBI early Sunday identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as it pressed its investigation. An FBI official said investigators had not yet determined a motive.

Investigators were working Sunday to gather more information about Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, who they say opened fire from a rooftop outside the rally venue in Butler before he was killed by Secret Service.

At least one attendee was dead and two spectators were critically injured, authorities said. The Secret Service said it killed the suspected shooter — who it said attacked from an elevated position outside the rally venue, a farm show in Butler, Pennsylvania — and that Trump was safe.

Before Saturday’s apparent attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, there have been multiple instances of political violence targeting U.S. presidents, former presidents and major party presidential candidates.

At 6:02 pm Saturday, to the strains of “God Bless the U.S.A.,” former President Donald Trump took the stage at fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, waving at the cheering crowd and settling into his regular rally speech under a scorching midsummer sun. A few short minutes later, the shots rang out. 

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the diminutive sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, has died. She was 96.

For all the usual stagecraft, the Republican National Convention that opens Monday is different from Donald Trump’s previous nominating affairs.

The grants cover a broad range of the automotive supply chain, including parts for electric motorcycles and school buses, hybrid powertrains, heavy-duty commercial truck batteries and electric SUVs, the White House said.

Federal prosecutors gave Boeing the choice last week of entering a guilty plea and paying a fine as part of its sentence or facing a trial on the felony criminal charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States.