US military says it carried out lethal strike on vessel in Pacific, killing four, as Trump addresses country – live

Pete Hegseth says no US military harmed as US Southern Command says it hit three vessels in international waters

  • Four Republicans join Democrats to force vote on bill that would extend Obamacare subsidies

The Donald Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, will soon make his first appearance before Congress since sparking an uproar with comments seen as pressuring ABC to temporarily pull co...

House Republicans release last-minute healthcare plan; TSA defends sharing traveler names with ICE – as it happened

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The admiral in charge of US military forces in Latin America will retire two years early, AP reports, amid rising tensions with Venezuela that include Wednesday’s seizure of an oil tanker and more than 20 deadly strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats.

Three US officials and two people familiar with the matter told Reuters that Admiral Alvin Holsey was pushed out by defense secretary Pete Hegseth. Two officials said Hegseth had grown frustrated with Southern Command as he sought to flex US military operations and planning in the region.

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Senate rejects dual healthcare bills as Obamacare tax credits expiration nears

Votes came as premium tax credits for estimated 21.8 million enrollees of plans set to expire at end of month

The US Senate on Thursday rejected competing proposals to address the imminent expiration of subsidies for Affordable Care Act health insurance plans, greatly increasing the chances that healthcare costs will soon rise to unaffordable levels for millions of Americans.

The votes, part of a deal brokered between Republican majority leader John Thune and the Democratic senators who agreed to reopen the government after a historically long shutdown last month, came as premium tax credits for an estimated 21.8 million enrollees of the plans are set to expire at the end of the month. Health policy research group KFF estimates that annual premiums will more than double if the subsidies are allowed to expire.

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Hospitals and clinics are shutting down due to Trump’s healthcare cuts. Here’s where

From Georgia to Oregon, clinics and wards are closing as Trump’s health law triggers steep Medicaid cuts and rising costs

  • People in the US: how has the Trump administration affected your healthcare?

Healthcare providers across the country have closed clinics and hospital wards in the four months since Donald Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the landmark tax-and-spending legislation that will lead an estimated 10 million pe...

Trump signs funding bill to end longest US government shutdown

President signs legislation to restart federal operations after House passes measure in 222-209 vote

The longest US government shutdown in history ended on Wednesday after more than 42 days, following the House of Representative’s passage of a bill negotiated by Republicans and a splinter group of Democrat-aligned senators.

The compromise sets the stage for government operations to return to normal through January, while leaving unresolved the issue of expiring tax credits for ...

Trump shares false claim Obama earned $40m in ‘royalties’ from Obamacare

US president promoted fictional claim from satirical website that has been debunked repeatedly since 2017

Donald Trump promoted the false claim that Barack Obama has earned $40m in “royalties linked to Obamacare” in a post to his 11 million followers on Truth Social on Sunday.

The fictional claim that the former US president receives royalty payments for the use of his name to refer to the Affordable Care Act, which he signed into law in 2010, has been repeatedly debunked since...

Trump news at a glance: President suggests scrapping Obamacare as shutdown flight chaos continues

Trump urged Republican senators to redirect federal money toward direct payments to individuals. Key US politics stories from 8 November at a glance

Donald Trump on Saturday urged Republican senators to redirect federal money used to subsidize health insurance costs under the Affordable Care Act toward direct payments to individuals, in an effort to overcome an issue at the heart of the US government shutdown.

“I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billio...

Senate Republicans embrace Trump’s call – from his Florida golf course – to replace Obamacare

Amid a historic government shutdown, some senators on Capitol Hill are working this weekend on an unpopular bill

US senators are working through the weekend for the first time since the government shutdown began more than a month ago, but hopes for a bipartisan agreement on how to end the standoff, and keep healthcare affordable for millions of Americans, appeared to recede as Republican senators floated a proposal toxic to Democrats: scrapping the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known as...

On the shutdown, Democrats have painted themselves into a corner

Having painted themselves into a shutdown corner, Democrats now want Republicans to extricate them. 

Democrats know that they cannot win this one. They also know that they cannot return to their rabid base having conceded. What they want is for Senate Republicans to detonate another so-called “nuclear option” and end Democrats’ ability to filibuster the federal government to a standstill. 

Senate Democrats have defeated 13 Republican attempts t...

What Democrats should learn from Zohran Mamdani

Ask Thomas Dewey. Politics is unpredictable. The polls are often wrong, and even the smartest of the commentariat don’t always get it right. Nobody thought Tom Dewey would lose to Harry Truman in 1948; Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump in 2016; or Kamala Harris, to Trump in 2024. 

And few commentators, including me, thought Zohran Mamdani would win the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City.

So, at the risk of being proven wrong yet again, I want to boldly ...