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U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, speaks as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee March 3, 2026. Tillis is among the lawmakers who have criticized Noem's handling of immigration enforcement. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — Republicans on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee mounted unusually blunt criticisms of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a tense five-hour hearing Tuesday, with North Carolina’s Thom Tillis threatening to obstruct the chamber’s business if Noem did not answer questions from his office about immigration enforcement.  Tillis even revisited a book written by Noem in which she famously detailed shooting a pet dog as well as a goat, comparing her actions in that instance with drawing too-hasty conclusions in the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis. The oversight hearing was Noem’s first appearance on Capitol Hill since ...

An Iranian flag is planted in the rubble of a police station, damaged in airstrikes, on March 3, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he “might have forced Israel’s hand” in launching the war on Iran that has already cost the lives of six American troops.  Trump’s statement came less than a day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters the United States joined the campaign to protect American troops after Israel’s planned strike. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” Trump told reporters. “… and I didn’t want that to happen. So if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand, but Israel was ready, and we were ready, and we’ve had a very, very powerful impact, because virtually everything they have has been knocked out.” Trump made the comments prior to a bilateral White House meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz as...

A gas pump is seen in a vehicle on Nov. 26, 2025, in Austin, Texas. Gas prices rose Tuesday after the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) The national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline topped $3 Tuesday for the first time this year, and is expected to keep going up. The average price Tuesday was $3.11, up about 11 cents from Monday, according to AAA. “The pump reaction is not only underway — it’s accelerating,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, which tracks prices. Increases were already on tap even before Saturday’s U.S.-Israel strikes at Iran, as warmer weather usually means more demand and refiners start producing a summer-blend product. But the attack adds new, powerful momentum to the price surge. The war makes it tough to forecast how long any increases will last or how big they could be. Recent experience does offer some hope that any big spike won’t last. “While oil markets continue to react to pot...

Abortion opponents once convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to ban an abortion procedure on the basis that it was gruesome and barbaric. They are spreading a similar narrative about abortion medication in court and at protests like this year’s March for Life on Jan. 23, 2026. (Photo by Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom) There is a content warning on page 7 of a friend-of-the-court brief recently submitted in a high-stakes abortion medication case by women who say they were injured or traumatized from taking the pills.  “Warning: these accounts are raw, graphic and real.” About 30 mostly anonymous people recount their medication abortions, saying they were uninformed about what they would experience mentally and physically. The graphic accounts and bloody portraits are meant to bolster the argument that the practice is a barbaric and gruesome one that states have the authority to ban. The  brief argues the problem is perpetuated by telehealth abortion.  “We call it a par...

U.S. Reps. Kelly Morrison, Ilhan Omar and Angie Craig of Minnesota, all Democrats, arrive outside of the regional ICE headquarters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building on Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The lawmakers attempted to access the facility where the Department of Homeland Security has been headquartered in the state. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — A federal judge Monday temporarily blocked a Department of Homeland Security policy that instituted a seven-day notice requirement for members of Congress to conduct oversight visits at facilities that hold immigrants, finding it likely violates appropriations law that allows for unannounced visits. The order from Judge Jia Cobb of the District Court for the District of Columbia rejects  initial arguments from the Trump administration that the separate funding stream from the tax cuts and spending package passed last year circumvents a 2019 appropriations law that allows for unanno...

Family nurse practitioner Munira Maalimisaq, center, gives a vaccine education session at Inspire Change Clinic, a nonprofit health care center she leads in Minneapolis. Tuberculosis cases in the U.S. have been rising since 2021. (Photo courtesy of Munira Maalimisaq) In Johnson County, Iowa, the number of tuberculosis cases has increased in recent years — and so has the cost of containing it. The cost of contact tracing and surveillance, traveling each day to patients’ homes to ensure they take their meds or booking hotel rooms to quarantine patients, has surged from $17,000 in 2020 to $65,000 last year. That doesn’t include $13,000 spent last year for language translation, as many of the cases were among the local immigrant communities, said Danielle Pettit-Majewski, director of the Johnson County public health department. She said the rise in spending is directly tied to the increase in diagnoses since 2020, with latent infections tripling, from 27 that year to 90 last yea...