A group of prominent Senate Democrats sent a letter to FCC chair, Brendan Carr, to protest the commission’s order last week challenging ABC’s licenses

A group of prominent Senate Democrats sent a letter on Thursday to Brendan Carr, the Trump-aligned Federal Communications Commission chair, asking him to rescind the US media regulator’s order last week requiring ABC to apply early to renew its television licenses.

The eight ABC-owned station licenses were not originally up for renewal until 2028 at the earliest and 2031 at the latest; now, the renewal requests must be filed by the end of May.

Ohio’s Senate seat is one Democrats have prioritized in the party’s bid to retake control of the chamber

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Democratic senator Sherrod Brown and Republican senator Jon Husted won their party’s nominations in Ohio’s primary elections on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press – teeing them up for what is expected to be a high-profile and expensive Senate race in November’s midterm elections.

Husted ran unopposed, while Brown had a single opponent whom he handily outraised.

President seemed to suggest that legislative deadline to approve war no longer applies as Democrats push back

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Donald Trump said in a letter sent to congressional leaders on Friday that hostilities with Iran have “terminated”, suggesting that the 60-day deadline to seek approval from the legislative branch no longer applied.

Friday marks 60 days since the US president notified members of Congress that the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on 28 February. Under the War Powers Act of 1973, the president can deploy troops to respond to an “imminent threat” but must receive congressional approval within 60 days to continue military operations.

US president faced a 60-day deadline on Friday to end the Iran war or make the case to Congress for extending it

A US-Iran ceasefire that began in early April has “terminated” hostilities between the two sides for the purposes of an approaching congressional war powers deadline, a senior official of the Trump administration said on Thursday.

Donald Trump faced a deadline on Friday to end the Iran war or make the case to Congress for extending it, but the date was most likely to pass without altering the course of the war.

Lee Zeldin claims before Senate that Trump administration plan will make Environmental Protection Agency ‘more efficient’

Senate Democrats accused the Trump administration of abandoning the Environmental Protection Agency’s mission to protect human health and the environment at a congressional hearing Wednesday, slamming agency leadership over a proposal to cut its budget in half.

Lee Zeldin’s appearance before the Senate environment committee was the EPA administrator’s last of three budget hearings this week where he argued for sharply reduced funding for the agency, which already has seen its staffing reduced to its lowest level in decades under his leadership. During much of the week, the former Republican congressman from New York took an aggressive approach, responding to Democrats in the House and Senate with his own questions and at times accusing them of being unprepared or failing to care about the EPA’s record.

Report from Elizabeth Warren calls Trump administration cuts to Social Security Administration ‘catastrophic’

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Cuts to the Social Security Administration have caused “customer service chaos” for millions of older Americans and those with disabilities who rely on the agency’s services, according to a new report from a group of Democratic senators.

An investigation found that phone wait times were more than 10 times higher than what the agency claimed on its website, if the calls were even answered at all.

Health secretary says ‘I had nothing to do with the measles outbreak’ and claims to support measles and MMR vaccines

The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, faced intense questioning from several US senators on Wednesday during a hearing largely focused on how the administration has responded to the measles outbreak and the spread of vaccine misinformation.

In his opening remarks to the Senate finance committee, the senator Ron Wyden criticized Kennedy’s messaging on vaccines, saying: “When it comes to vaccines, Robert Kennedy has used this once-in-a-lifetime platform to make parents doubt themselves and doubt their doctors,” before adding: “The secretary has ducked, bobbed and weaved without taking the responsibility of saying what needs to be said: vaccines save lives in America.”

Trump repeatedly demanded that Republicans unify to pass a longer extension of the Fisa warrantless spying law

Both chambers of Congress voted in quick succession on Friday to pass a brief 10-day extension of a controversial warrantless surveillance law after Republican infighting tanked plans for a much longer renewal of the law with no changes.

Donald Trump had repeatedly demanded that Republican holdouts “UNIFY” behind Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, in favor of an extension of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) without changes. But chaos ensued on Thursday evening and into the early hours of Friday as Republican leadership tried and failed twice in votes attempting to reauthorize the surveillance program, before resorting to a stopgap measure.