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President Donald Trump dances at the Mitchell Center at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama, on Oct. 2, 2026. The president is visiting several red states in support of GOP nominees about a month ahead of midterm elections in November. (Dan Anderson for Alabama Reflector) MOBILE — President Donald Trump told a crowd of roughly 8,000 supporters Friday night to vote like he is on the ballot in November. “Can everybody just close your eyes and pretend I’m on the ballot?” Trump asked the crowd. Mobile was the president’s second stop in a month-long campaign for Republican congressional candidates across the country. Supporters lined up at the Mitchell Center on the University of South Alabama’s campus hours before doors opened . The building was roughly 75 percent full by the time Trump took the stage. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE ...

Members of the Alabama Educational Television Commission listen to a speaker during a meeting on July 21, 2026 in Birmingham. Gov. Kay Ivey removed five members of the AETC Friday night. (Andrea Tinker/Alabama Reflector) Gov. Kay Ivey dismissed five of the Alabama Educational Television Commission’s seven members Friday evening. Commissioners Pete Conroy, Ferris Stephens, Les Barnett, Bebe Williams and William Green were removed from the AETC. Commissioners Tijuanna Adetunji and Logan Glass remain on the board. A message seeking comment was left with Ivey’s office Friday night. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE The story was first reported by Al.com . The move to dismiss the members came days after a survey conducted by the board showed support for Alabama Public Television continuing its relationship with the Public Broadcasting Ser...

President Donald Trump gestures as he exits the stage during a midterm election rally at the Choctaw Event Center on Oct. 1, 2026, in Durant, Oklahoma. (Photo by Jessica Tobias/For Oklahoma Voice) When Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin declared in September that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could serve warrants on individuals at polling places this fall, officials in Denver, a liberal city where roughly 14% of residents are foreign-born, quickly sued. “Every day we find new things to be astonished about but I think that we just want residents to not be afraid to vote because that’s ultimately what the president was after,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat, said in an interview. Johnston and other local and state officials across the country are bracing for possible federal election interference from now through Nov. 3 — even as they remain unsure of what will actually happen. One month from Election Day, President Donald Trump’s long-running pressure campaign...

North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer is holding up Trump administration nominees over a rule affecting the state’s Prairie Pothole Region, seen here in Stutsman County, North Dakota. (Photo by Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor) WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Keith Sonderling as secretary of Labor on Wednesday, marking one of the few Trump administration picks to get through the upper chamber recently after a  North Dakota senator put a hold on “any and all” nominees.  But the  Senate left town late Wednesday for its weeks-long campaign break and is not scheduled to return until after the midterms in November.  Dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees remain held up amid Sen. Kevin Cramer’s outrage over a Biden-era rule dealing with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wetland easements that Cramer says harm his state’s property owners. Those nominees on hold include Kari Lake, the 2024 Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, as ambassador to Ja...

Student backpacks hang in their cubbies at a school in Alaska. At least 30 states have opted into a federal program allowing individuals to receive tax credits for donations to scholarship organizations that might offer tuition help for private schools or extra tutoring. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon) The U.S. Department of the Treasury released new guidance Thursday for participating states, scholarship-granting organizations and taxpayers as the federal scholarship tax credit program prepares to take effect in January.  Created through President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending law in 2025, the Education Freedom Tax Credit program allows individuals to claim a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit of up to $1,700 for donations to certain scholarship-granting organizations (known as SGOs) and taxpayers can contribute to an eligible organization regardless of where that taxpayer lives.   The $1,700 limit applies to the donor credit, not the scholarship amount, and marri...

A worker cleans the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on June 25, 2026. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — A D.C. Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors cannot, for a second time, charge former Olympic canoeist David Hearn with damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Judge Todd E. Edelman wrote in his ruling that “the observed damage to the Reflecting Pool was due to a contractor’s ‘rushed and botched’ installation of the lining while conducting renovations, and Mr. Hearn’s actions had no effect on the value of the Pool.” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro  sought to drop the charges against Hearn, of Maryland, in August, writing in a brief to the court that she wouldn’t have filed a case against him had she had more information from the Interior Department, which manages the Reflecting Pool.  “Specifically, the newly released documents reveal that work on installing the lining almost immediately fell ...