US politics

US politics

In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump carried Tennessee's Seventh Congressional District by 22 points. Last night, in a special election to represent the district, the Republican Matt Van Epps won by only nine points, defeating the Democratic State Representative Aftyn Behn. Trump celebrated the outcome on Truth Social as a "BIG Congressional WIN," but the margin of victory in a deep-red district is ominous for Republicans. Van Epps underperformed Trump by 13 percentage points, a sign that the party is vulnerable heading into the 2026 midterms.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put American troops and mission at risk when he used the Signal mesaging app on his personal device to discuss planned strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen, a report by the Pentagon's watchdog has found. That's according to US media, including CNN and ABC, and news agencies. They cite sources familiar with the results of the investigation by the Pentagon's inspector general, which hasn't yet been publicly released.

Minnesota boasts the largest population of Somalis in the U.S. a community that's recently faced attacks from President Trump. On Tuesday, Trump called Somali immigrants "garbage" and said he wanted to send them "back to where they came from." He continued on Wednesday, saying, "they've destroyed our country and all they do is complain, complain, complain." The tirade came less than two weeks after Trump threatened to strip temporary legal protections from Somali migrants living in Minnesota.

He'll announce his plans on Dec. 11, Lindell told the Minnesota Star Tribune.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

The bill, introduced by California's Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Juan Vargas, would allow the attorney general to appoint temporary immigration judges who have served on appellate panels, are administrative judges in other agencies, or have at least 10 years of experience in immigration law. This legislation comes after the White House authorized up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges, while eliminating the requirement for them to have prior immigration law experience.

A few weeks ago, Katie Porter's campaign for California governor was reeling. A day after an irritable TV interview went viral, an old video surfaced of the former Orange County congresswoman cursing and berating one of her aides. Around the same time, the race for U.S. Senate in Maine was shaken by a number of disturbing online posts. In them, Democratic hopeful Graham Platner disparaged police and Black people, among other crude remarks.

(TMZ/WCVB/Mark Schiefelbein/AP photo) A new video obtained by TMZ shows the moment Bruna Ferreira, the mother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's nephew. was detained by ICE agents last week. The security video, shot on November 25 and released by TMZ on Wednesday, shows Ferreira leaving her Revere, MA home before several other vehicles surround her car. Dressed in a gray hoodie, Ferreira exits the car and is promptly placed in handcuffs and led away.

In its annual "Roadmap to Safety" report, the Advocates for Highway & Road Safety once again surveyed the patchwork of statewide regulations that governs America's roads, and found a whopping 45 states had failed to adopt sufficiently aggressive road safety laws, including restrictions on text messaging behind the wheel, permitting red light cameras, and bans on open containers of alcohol in cars.

The Trump administration is pausing all immigration applications such as requests for green cards for people from 19 countries banned from travel earlier this year, as part of sweeping immigration changes in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard troops.The changes were outlined in a policy memo posted Tuesday on the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency tasked with processing and approving all requests for immigration benefits.

Over what should have been a weekend of gratitude and family gatherings, our communities were confronted once again with devastating headlines of gun violence. The loss of innocent lives at a children's birthday party near Stockton is a heartbreaking reminder of how fragile safety has become in this country. How many more lives must be cut short? How much longer do children have to fear going to school or being out in their communities?