JOHN MCCAIN

Lawyers for a group of Colorado voters are focusing on the January 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol and former President Donald Trump’s words and actions in a hearing that could determine whether the Constitution’s insurrection clause bars Trump from running again for the White House.

The White House has pinned the blame for a possible government shutdown on House Republicans who, until Saturday, had been paralyzed by their inability to pass a funding package.

President Joe Biden has issued one of his most dire warnings yet that Donald Trump and his allies are a menace to American democracy.

President Joe Biden will travel to Arizona next week to deliver a democracy-focused address that will also pay tribute to the late John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate who represented the state in the U.S. Senate for more than three decades.

New Hampshire’s primary tradition may be little more than a fairy tale in the 2024 presidential race as the Republican presidential field largely overlooks the state in favor of Iowa.

Mitt Romney’s decision not to run for another Senate term has a distant echo of his father’s departure from politics five decades ago.

The head of the United Nations food agency says a global hunger crisis has left more than 700 million people not knowing when or if they will eat again.

President Joe Biden has wrapped up a five-day diplomatic sprint through Vietnam and India that put a spotlight on complicated relationships he believes will be crucial for global stability.

The man who became known as “Joe the Plumber” during the 2008 U.S. presidential election has died.

Three Republican members of the U.S. Congress have made a quick trip into opposition-held northwest Syria in the first known visit to the war-torn country by American lawmakers in six years.

Republicans are energizing GOP voters with ongoing U.S. House probes on Hunter Biden and the threat of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden's family finances.

Republican presidential hopefuls made their pitches to Christian Zionists at the annual Christians United for Israel summit in suburban Washington, D.

President Joe Biden rarely gives network interviews.

The super political action committee promoting Ron DeSantis plans to shoulder the load of organizing support for him in Iowa while the Florida governor moves toward launching a 2024 presidential campaign.

Nearly four decades have passed since federal immigration laws got a major rewrite.

From almost the moment he first rode down the escalator in Trump Tower, a question has loomed over the Republican Party: Is this the moment to break from Donald Trump.

UFC President Dana White is selling slap fighting as the next big thing in combat sport, and the Nevada Athletic Commission has sanctioned the Power Slap League for competitions.

Peterson Zah, who guided one of the largest Native American tribes in the U.S. through a politically tumultuous time, has died.

Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona says she has switched her registration to independent.

Donald Trump is betting he can win his way back to the White House by reviving the outsider appeal that fueled his success in 2016.

The oldest president in U.S. history is hitting a milestone birthday.

In an Associated Press interview, former Vice President Mike Pence declines to say whether he believes Donald Trump is fit to be president again.

The release of ballots on Saturday from Arizona’s largest county netted Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake a few thousand votes, but she’s still trailing Democrat Katie Hobbs by tens of thousands of ballots.

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly led his Republican rival, venture capitalist Blake Masters, but the race that could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate was too early to call.

Presidential aspirants running for reelection while dreaming of the highest office in the land often face an uncomfortable question: Will they commit to serving a full term — should they win one — when their best moment to take a shot at the White House may come sooner than that.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly distanced himself from President Joe Biden during his first and only debate against Republican Blake Masters on Thursday.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney says the Republican candidates for Arizona governor and secretary of state pose a huge risk for democracy because both say they will refuse to certify election results if they don’t like the results.

A year ago, Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was all over cable news, building a national profile as a defender of democracy and raking in cash for her campaign for governor.

The far-right forces that former Sen. John McCain successfully marginalized within the Arizona Republican Party are back and in full control, with profound implications for one of the nation’s most closely matched battlegrounds.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is hailing economic and educational cooperation with Taiwan, marked by a $12 billion investment in his state by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. Ducey spoke Thursday at a meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the latest of a series of visits by U.S. political leaders that have stirred the ire of China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and condemns all official contacts between Taipei and foreign governments that recognize Beijing.

How has Congress changed in the last four decades.

Liz Cheney’s resounding election defeat marks the end of an era for the Republican Party.

Sen. Joe Manchin sealed the deal reviving President Joe Biden’s big economic, health care and climate bill.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration spokeswoman who broke from her old boss in 2020, will be the conservative voice on the daytime talk show “The View.”.

The race for Arizona Senate doesn't fit easily into the Donald Trump vs.

Political divides in the U.S. seem deeper than ever, but one of the few shared sentiments right now from voters of all stripes is the desire for something different.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has already helped block one of former President Donald Trump’s allies from winning the Republican nomination for governor in a crucial battleground state.

President Joe Biden has presented the nation's highest civilian honor to 17 people, including gymnast Simone Biles and the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.

The White House says President Joe Biden will present the nation's highest civilian honor to 17 people, including gymnast Simone Biles, actor Denzel Washington and the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, with whom Biden served in the Senate.

Alabama’s Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby is a bitter high-dollar fight between three candidates.

Former President Barack Obama has returned to the White House — for a few hours, to celebrate the 12th anniversary of his signature health care law.

Former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin picked up a prized endorsement from former President Donald Trump in her bid to fill the remainder of the late U.S. Rep. Don Young’s term.

A special election is being held in California's farm belt to complete the term of former U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, who resigned to join Donald Trump's media company.

Republican missteps that include intense infighting are threatening the GOP’s path to the Senate majority.

From the earliest days of his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump aggressively dismantled pillars of Republican foreign policy.

The U.S. Congress is largely backing President Joe Biden’s decision to impose sanctions on Russia.

More than 600 sitting senators have died or resigned since the first Congress met in 1789.

Leaders of the Arizona Democratic Party have voted to censure Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Democrats are trying to pick up the pieces after West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin effectively crushed President Joe Biden’s big domestic policy bill.

The Senate has confirmed two prominent anti-Trump Republicans to serve in the Biden administration.

Conservative firebrand Meghan McCain says she decided to leave ‘The View’ the day after she returned from maternity leave last winter when colleague Joy Behar said ‘I did not miss you’ during a political argument.

Have you heard the one about climate change.

With a robust vote after weeks of fits and starts, the Senate has approved the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan.

A freshman senator has ground the Senate to a crawl in order to slow the passage of a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure package.

Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly has used his first speech in Congress to pay tribute to John McCain, the late Republican senator whose seat Kelly now holds.

Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is known for doing the unthinkable in Washington — spending time with Republicans.

Conservative firebrand Meghan McCain says that she's quitting ABC's daytime talk show ‘The View’ after four years.

Jill Biden is encouraging Arizona residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19, aiming to counter skepticism by declaring the vaccines are safe and have been vigorously tested.

Looming over the Senate Democrats this year is a decision that could fundamentally change Congress as it has operated for decades.

President Joe Biden is nominating Cindy McCain to be the U.S. representative to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture.

The Supreme Court’s latest rejection of a Republican effort to dismantle “Obamacare” is another sign that the GOP must look beyond repealing that law if it wants to hone the nation’s health care problems into a winning political issue.

President Joe Biden is giving serious consideration to nominating Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F.

President Joe Biden is facing a fresh challenge to his oft-repeated commitment to diversity in his administration: assembling a diplomatic corps that gives a nod to key political allies and donors while staying true to a campaign pledge to appoint ambassadors who look like America.

Voters who served in the military have long leaned Republican, but there are signs that Democrat Joe Biden may have cut into that advantage.

Kathy Hochul delivers her remarks after taking the oath of office, on Ellis Island in New York Harbor. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)BUFFALO, N.Y. – As a chorus of top Democrats demanded New York Gov. Kathy Hochul delivered virtual remarks at an array of small events statewide. Baruch College political science Professor Doug Muzzio said Hochul is probably preparing herself now in case she’s called on to step in. “The next stage of the game is if he resigns and Hochul becomes governor.

FILE - IN this Nov. 8, 2016 file photo, Democratic senatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., speaks to supporters during an election night party in Phoenix. Kirkpatrick, a five-term Arizona Democrat, announced Friday, March 12, 2021, she won't run for reelection in 2022. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)TUCSON, Ariz. – U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, a five-term Arizona Democrat, announced Friday she won't run for reelection in 2022. The district has been competitive in recent elections but Kirkpatrick defeated Republican challenger Brandon Marlin by a nearly 40,000-vote margin in November. After redistricting made that district more Democratic, Gosar switched districts and Kirkpatrick won the 1st District seat again in 2012 and was reelected in 2014.

Democrats hope to make deeper strides in changing their fortunes in a state that has become friendlier place for Republicans. And that was despite $100 million spent by Michael Bloomberg to help Democrats in the state. When the spending tally is complete, the last election cycle in Florida is expected to rank as among the most expensive in state history. Ad“I don’t know anybody who’s happy with investing $100 million and not winning,” said Manny Diaz, the new chair of the Florida Democratic Party. Diaz, the state party chairman, is trying to reverse the slide in its voter registration advantage over Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., leaves the chamber just after the Senate narrowly approved a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, at the Capitol in Washington, Saturday, March 6, 2021. Senate passage sets up final congressional approval by the House next week so lawmakers can send it to President Joe Biden for his signature. Ad“Lessons learned: If we have unity, we can do big things,” Schumer told The Associated Press in an interview after the vote. The outcome “gives us optimism about doing more big things in the future — because it worked,” he said. He and Schumer spoke often as the Senate leader steered the pandemic aid to approval.

(AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)LONDON – The timing couldn’t be worse for Harry and Meghan. “Harry and Meghan are hugely popular,’’ Pauline Maclaran, a professor of marketing and author of “Royal Fever: The British Monarchy in Consumer Culture,” told The Associated Press. “The firm” is a nickname for the royal family, sometimes used with affection and sometimes with a note of criticism. More damaging for the palace was the interview Prince Andrew, Harry’s uncle, did with the BBC in 2019. “It’s just such a mess,” said Penny Junor, who has written several books about the royals, including a biography of Harry.

But lawmakers and advocates are racing to capitalize on House rules that allow any bill to bypass lengthy committee hearings if brought forward by April 1. Senate Republicans are now threatening similar delays. Ad“We’ll be fighting this in every way that we can,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said about the COVID-19 package. McConnell wants Senate Republicans to vote in lockstep against the virus aid, calling it a bloated liberal wish list, following the lead of House Republicans who gave it zero support. That leaves Democrats negotiating with themselves on the COVID-19 package, with Biden warning they won’t like every aspect as he courts centrists.

Bowe Bergdahl filed the complaint in federal court in Washington, D.C. last month, asking a judge to overturn his court martial conviction. Bergdahl says Trump's statements and actions by the late U.S. Sen. John McCain and his military judge violated his Fifth Amendment right to a fair trial. In his appeal, Bergdahl said McCain intensely pressured the Army to charge him, calling Bergdahl a “deserter” and threatening to hold a hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee if Bergdahl went unpunished. But around that same time, Nance was appointed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions — a member of Trump’s cabinet — to the immigration judge post, effective the following year. He wants a federal judge to overturn his conviction and sentence and expunge it from his record, restoring his military rights.

FILE - In this Jan. 13, 2020, file photo Cindy McCain, widow of Sen. John McCain, waves to the crowd at the opening day of the legislative session at the Capitol in Phoenix. Forum, a Penguin Random House imprint, announced Tuesday that McCains Stronger: Courage, Hope, and Humor In My Life With John McCain will be released April 27. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)NEW YORK – Cindy McCain, widow of Sen. John McCain, will have a memoir out this spring. Forum, a Penguin Random House imprint, announced Tuesday that McCain's “Stronger: Courage, Hope, and Humor In My Life With John McCain” will be released April 27. “Being married to John for 38 years was an adventure,” Cindy McCain said in a statement.

Internal Democratic disputes remain over raising the minimum wage, how much aid to funnel to struggling state and local governments and whether to extend emergency unemployment benefits another month. The issue that's provoked the deepest divisions is a progressive-led drive to boost the federal minimum wage to $15 hourly over five years. More ominously, the Senate parliamentarian is expected to rule soon on whether the minimum wage provision must be tossed from the bill. Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., his chamber's chief minimum wage sponsor, said Democrats must “act boldly” and approve a package with the minimum wage increase. AdRepublicans said the measure's higher minimum wage and increased unemployment benefits would cost jobs or discourage people from seeking work, and said much of the spending was wasteful.

In this Jan. 20, 2016 file photo, John Weaver is shown on a campaign bus in Bow, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)WASHINGTON – Last June, the Lincoln Project was on a high. Of the $90 million Lincoln Project has raised, more than $50 million has gone to firms controlled by the group's leaders. Others used the money earned during their time with Lincoln Project to refinance homes, or purchase a new one. AdAt least two Lincoln Project employees were targeted last year, including an intern who was finishing law school, and a communications staffer.

FILE - This Nov. 4, 2004 file photo shows Susan Bayh with husband Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, FILE)INDIANAPOLIS – Former Indiana first lady Susan Bayh, an attorney and wife of former Gov. Evan Bayh, has died at age 61 “after a long and courageous fight" against brain cancer, her family announced Saturday. Susan Bayh died Friday night in McLean, Virginia, a family spokesman said. Susan Bayh first underwent brain surgery in 2015 to remove a benign tumor.

The Forest Service says it's doing what Congress mandated. ___OTHER LAWSUITSThe Apache Stronghold lawsuit is one of three filed over the copper mine, some of which have overlapping arguments. The San Carlos Apache Tribe, and a coalition of environmentalists, tribes and the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, also sued the U.S. Forest Service. Apache Stronghold contends the land belongs to Western Apaches under an 1852 treaty with the United States. AdReuben Schifman, a U.S. Department of Justice Attorney representing the Forest Service, said Apache Stronghold can't assert ownership rights because it's not a federally recognized tribe.

(Senate Television via AP)COLUMBIA, S.C. – Donald Trump has added two more former federal prosecutors from South Carolina to his impeachment legal team, according to one of the lawyers. Harris and Gasser join a team that includes Butch Bowers, a noted South Carolina ethics and elections lawyer called an “anchor tenant” of the team by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. It's in part on the advice of Graham that Trump is turning to the South Carolina team after other legal allies passed on the case. It’s a notable departure from his 2020 impeachment trial, when Trump had a stable of nationally known attorneys, including Alan Dershowitz, Jay Sekulow and Kenneth Starr. Bowers has years of experience representing elected officials and political candidates, including former South Carolina Gov.

But as the Senate prepares for an impeachment trial for Trump's incitement of the riot, few seem willing to hold the former president accountable. “The political winds within the Republican Party have blown in the opposite direction,” said Ralph Reed, chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and a Trump ally. After Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer backed impeachment, Republican Tom Norton announced a primary challenge. “We’re getting ready for an impeachment trial — that’s really the focus,” said Trump adviser Jason Miller. And that his political activism or whatever role he would play going forward would be with the Republican Party, not as a third party,” Cramer said.

(AP Photo/Bruce Smith, File)COLUMBIA, S.C. – Donald Trump is adding another South Carolina attorney to his impeachment legal team, according to a trial lawyer group in the state. Barbier joins Bowers, a Columbia attorney with years of experience representing elected officials and political candidates, including former South Carolina Gov. In part on the advice of Graham, the South Carolina senator, Trump is turning to Bowers and Barbier after other legal allies passed on the case. That's a notable departure from his 2020 impeachment trial, when Trump had a stable of nationally known attorneys, including Alan Dershowitz, Jay Sekulow and Kenneth Starr. If convicted, Trump could be barred from holding public office again, ending any hopes of mounting another White House bid in 2024.

FILE - In this Jan. 13, 2020, file photo Cindy McCain, wife of former Arizona Sen. John McCain, waves to the crowd after being acknowledged by Arizona Republican Gov. Arizona Republicans voted Saturday, Jan. 23, 2021 to censure Cindy McCain and two prominent GOP officials who have found themselves crosswise with former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)PHOENIX – Arizona Republicans voted Saturday to censure Cindy McCain and two prominent GOP members who have found themselves crosswise with former President Donald Trump. John McCain was censured by the state GOP in 2014 and went on to comfortably win a Republican primary over Ward and a general election. The self-described maverick, known best for his willingness to buck his party, had strained relations with the state party for much of his career but was consistently reelected by wide margins.

Now that he's left office, it's hard to see him embracing the stately, exclusive club of living former presidents. “He kind of laughed at the very notion that he would be accepted in the presidents club,” said Kate Andersen Brower, who interviewed Trump in 2019 for her book “Team of Five: The Presidents’ Club in the Age of Trump." Obama, Bush and Clinton recorded their video after accompanying Biden to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider following the inauguration. When Hurricane Katrina blasted the Gulf Coast, Bush, father of the then-current president George W. Bush, called on Clinton to boost Katrina fundraising relief efforts. Obama tapped Clinton and the younger President Bush to boost fundraising efforts for Haiti after its devastating 2010 earthquake.

Trump turned to Bowers, a familiar figure in Republican legal circles, after other legal allies passed on the case. The first impeachment trial turned on charges that Trump improperly solicited Ukraine’s help for his reelection campaign. Pat McCrory and the South Carolina Election Commission in litigation over voter ID laws, as well as a former South Carolina sheriff who pleaded guilty to embezzlement and misconduct in office. In 2018, he was attorney for University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley in her successful defamation suit against Missouri’s athletics director. With degrees from the University of South Carolina and College of Charleston, Bowers graduated from Tulane University School of Law in 1998.

The Forest Service now has 60 days to turn over a tract of land in Tonto National Forest east of Phoenix to Resolution Copper Mining, a joint venture of the international mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP. Environmentalists contend the Forest Service was pressured to push the review over the finish line before President Donald Trump leaves office, complicating their efforts to reverse the land swap. The Forest Service said that's not true, while the mining company contends the publication already was delayed by months. It also contends the Forest Service legally can't transfer the land because it belongs to Apaches under an 1852 treaty. Resolution Copper is set to receive 3.75 square miles (9.71 square kilometers) of Forest Service land in exchange for eight parcels the company owns elsewhere in Arizona.

Adelson died Monday night from complications related to treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Las Vegas Sands announced Tuesday. “If you do things differently, success will follow you like a shadow,” he said during a 2014 talk to the gambling industry in Las Vegas. In politics, Adelson was a record-breaking campaign donor who had the ear of domestic and international leaders, including President Donald Trump. Late in 2015, Adelson secretly purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Soon his Macao revenue outstripped that of his Las Vegas holdings.

(Nicholas Kamm/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON – Arizona Democrat and former astronaut Mark Kelly was sworn into the Senate on Wednesday, narrowing Republican control of the chamber and underscoring his state's shift from red to blue. Kelly, 56, defeated GOP Sen. Martha McSally in last month's election, making her one of only three incumbents to lose. Kelly's Arizona colleague, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, held the Bible on which he took his oath. In what was one of the country's most expensive Senate races, Kelly raised $89 million. That was second only to the $108 million collected by defeated South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, left, and Arizona Gov. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool)PHOENIX – Arizona officials certified the state's election results on Monday, formalizing Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow victory over Donald Trump even as the Republican president's attorneys continued to make baseless claims of fraud about the state's vote count. In the final tally, he beat Trump by 10,457 votes, or 0.3 percent of the nearly 3.4 million ballots cast. Nine Republican state lawmakers attended the meeting. A judge in Phoenix has scheduled a Thursday trial in Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward’s lawsuit that seeks to annul Biden’s victory in the state.

The three Americans and one Japanese should reach the International Space Station late Monday for a five- to six-month stay, following Sunday's liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. A brief look at each:—Crew commander Mike Hopkins, 51, is an Air Force colonel and former space station resident who grew up on a hog and cattle farm in Missouri. He played football for the University of Illinois and, before becoming an astronaut in 2009, worked at the Pentagon. —Shannon Walker, 55, a Houston-born-and-raised physicist, also has lived before on the space station. She worked as a flight controller at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and then behind the scenes in the space station program, before becoming an astronaut in 2004.

All of this an effort to discredit the outcome and, in the process, put democracy itself on trial. Trump is using not just his sway over the party but also the levers of government to keep Biden at bay at least for a while longer. In 2016, Trump won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by a combined 77,000 votes; Democrat Hillary Clinton called him on election night and publicly conceded the next day. Her advantage in the popular vote of nearly 3 million has animated the grievances of her supporters to this day, but the Electoral College arithmetic was inexorable and not to be challenged. Obama then welcomed Trump to the White House in a display to the world of the rituals of an American democratic transition.

FILE - In this Nov. 4, 1992, file photo, President George H.W. Bill Clinton won the 1992 president election. Most concessions are gracious — less about the loser and more about closure for the country. “Just moments ago I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd president of the United States. President John Adams was glum, too.

NORTH CONWAY, N.H. – A cat who patrolled the highest peak in the northeast U.S. for a dozen years as its weather observatory's mascot has died. Marty, a black Maine coon cat, succumbed to “an unforeseen illness," Mount Washington Summit Operations Manager Rebecca Scholand said in a news release Monday. The Mount Washington Observatory staff have had a cat at the 6,288-foot (1,915-meter) summit, called the “home of the world's worst weather," since 1932. The observatory had recently shared the news that Marty would retire from the mountain early in 2021. Marty, a shelter cat, won 53% of the Mount Washington Mascot Primary in January 2008, the same time that Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain won their respective races in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2020, file photo Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a drive-in rally at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

“It was a hard call,” said Jake Sullivan, a senior Biden adviser. He held large-scale events on the South Lawn of the White House, including the introduction of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett less than a week before his diagnosis. After three nights in the hospital, Trump, who was still infectious, staged a dramatic return to the White House. ___Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders knew his White House ambitions were over. Trump had been roundly criticized after mostly peaceful protesters were forcibly removed from a street near the White House in June.

Five Supreme Court justices who had twice preserved the Obama-era health care law remained on the bench and seemed unlikely votes to dismantle it. A court ruling invalidating the entire law would threaten coverage for more than 23 million people. It's their first time hearing a major case over the health law as justices, although Kavanaugh took part in the the first round of suits over it when he was a federal appeals court judge. Enrollment in the law's insurance markets stayed relatively stable at more than 11 million people, even after the effective date of the penalty’s elimination in 2019. The case could also be rendered irrelevant if the new Congress were to restore a modest penalty for not buying health insurance.

Election officials arrive for work at the Maricopa County Recorder's Office, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, in Phoenix. The Associated Press has called the race in Arizona for Democrat Joe Biden. “The Associated Press continues to watch and analyze vote count results from Arizona as they come in,” said Sally Buzbee, AP’s executive editor. Many of the gains have been driven by the shifting politics of Maricopa County, which is home to Phoenix and its suburbs. Maricopa County accounts for 60% of the state’s vote.

Republican Senate candidate Sen. Mitch McConnell, second from right, and his wife, Elaine Chao, right, look on as aides show him the election results in Louisville, Ky., Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)WASHINGTON – Hopes fading for Senate control, Democrats had a disappointing election night as Republicans swatted down an onslaught of challengers and fought to retain their fragile majority. Democrats contested seats from New England to the Deep South and the Midwest to the Mountain West, reaching deep into GOP strongholds. The Democrats' gains were in Colorado and Arizona, where former astronaut Mark Kelly beat GOP incumbent Martha McSally. Republican Cynthia Lummis, the former congresswoman from Wyoming, won the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Mike Enzi.

Republican senators are fighting to save their majority against an onslaught of challengers in states once off limits to Democrats that are now hotbeds of the backlash to President Donald Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans are fighting to save their majority, a final election push against the onslaught of challengers in states once off limits to Democrats but now hotbeds of a potential backlash to President Donald Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill. With it, a reelected Trump could confirm his nominees and ensure a backstop against legislation from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. With the chamber now split, 53-47, three or four seats will determine Senate control, depending on which party wins the White House. Swooping in to fill the gap for Republicans is the Senate Leadership Fund, tapping deep-pocketed donors.

This summer, the worst wildfires on record burned in Oregon, with climate change and overgrown forests worsening fire conditions. His name recognition went only so far, said Christopher McKnight Nichols, associate professor of history at Oregon State University. Of his campaign war chest, over 60% comes from out of state, DeFazio said during their debate. Several GOP state lawmakers display the group's regalia in their Capitol offices. With the industry having waned, logging in 2.4 million acres of forests in western Oregon owned by the U.S. government dropped.

The button was among a handful of changes implemented by the nonpartisan debate commission to help ensure a more orderly debate following the raucous and widely criticized opening debate 23 days ago. Coronavirus restrictions also remained in place, with attendees required to wear masks at all times and audience members distanced. The debate commission also tightened its rules on masks, with organizers saying that any audience member who refused to wear one would be removed. Audience members were seated in accordance with social distancing recommendations; several empty seats separated each person or small group. All audience members and support staff were required to undergo coronavirus testing onsite and wore colored wristbands as evidence of their negative tests.

It’s a strikingly different landscape from 2008, when Nashville last hosted a presidential debate between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican challenger John McCain at Belmont University. Fast-forward to a year of unprecedented disruption to live music and other public gatherings, and Tennessee health officials are now reporting record-breaking virus numbers in the days leading up to the debate. But Belmont University President Bob Fisher says canceling the debate never crossed his mind. He says he was always confident Belmont could pull off the debate, even in a pandemic. Approximately 150 people are expected in the debate hall, including up to 35 Belmont students working as ushers.

This time around, though, he was betting on a massive cash advantage to negatively define Biden and to defend his own record. Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien insisted money was no issue. And it’s just not a good sign for the Trump campaign,” Ridout said. — Over $7.4 million spent at Trump-branded properties since 2017. — At least $35.9 million spent on Trump merchandise.