President Donald Trump is on his way to Kansas in the latest in a series of stops where he’s trying to energize his base in the final weeks before the midterm elections.
The visits come as Republicans pour money into Senate races in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa amid concerns about voter enthusiasm.
Trump won Kansas by 16 percentage points against Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024, but now Republican Sen. Roger Marshall faces a tough challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton.
Earlier Monday, Trump directed the government to bolster federal research into women’s health, a move pushed by his wife, first lady Melania Trump. The order creates a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health and a White House task force to focus on the issue.
Here's the latest:
US boosts travel alert for Kenya and advises Americans to reconsider visiting after Ebola cases rise
The State Department on Monday boosted its previous alert level for the East African country from two — “exercise increased caution” — to three — “reconsider travel.”
The move came a day after Kenyan health authorities announced there were now eight confirmed cases of the virus in the capital of Nairobi. Kenya reported its first Ebola death on Oct. 5, but the virus has killed at least 4,000 people in neighboring Congo.
U.S. travel warnings are not binding but can affect how potential tourists and business people plan their trips, and they are used as a guide by tour companies and insurance companies.
Kenya is particularly sensitive to elevated travel warnings as its safari- and nature-based tourism industry is a mainstay of its economy.
Supreme Court says it will hear case on race in middle school admissions
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a case about the role race plays in middle school admissions, three years after a majority on the high court struck down affirmative action in college.
The case involves admissions to four selective middle schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, a diverse suburb of Washington, D.C.
A group of parents said in a lawsuit that the district’s admissions policy for four magnet schools, while race-neutral on its face, is designed to boost the admission of Black and Latino students while disadvantaging Asian American kids.
The high court said Monday it will weigh whether the parent group has enough evidence of discrimination for the case to move forward.
Senators hold call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Senators who organized the call with Zelenskyy said he confirmed that critical Starlink services remain degraded, impeding Ukraine’s ability to intercept Russian drones.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said in a statement that Zelenskyy also reported disruptions to U.S. intelligence sharing concerning early warning of Russian ballistic missile launches.
“As a result of these disruptions, civilians – children – are dying,” the senators said.
The senators participated in the call after the Trump administration waived sanctions against Russia approved recently by Congress. The senators said that Democrats and Republicans understand what will happen if Russian President Vladimir Putin faces no consequences, and they remain committed to Ukraine and European allies trying to end “the slaughter in Russia’s war of aggression.”
“Zelenskyy reiterated his willingness to halt strikes on Russian energy facilities as President Trump has proposed, but only if Putin agrees to the same – a fair request,” they said.
El-Sayed releases ad highlighting his faith as Trump escalates attacks
Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed released a digital ad Sunday embracing his Muslim faith.
“I’m a man of faith. And that’s a good thing,” El-Sayed says in the ad, titled “Faith.”
Trump has repeatedly referred to El-Sayed as “Mohammed” instead of Abdul and called him a “radical jihadist.” He has also accused El-Sayed, without evidence, of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.
El-Sayed, who was born in the United States to Egyptian immigrant parents, addresses his religion directly in the ad.
“My name is Abdul. It means servant,” El-Sayed says. “I pray every day.”
“Faith is a thing there’s just too little of in Washington. We don’t have faith in our future. We don’t have faith that we can actually fix things,” he adds.
Trump praises Elon Musk for promise to give SpaceX stock to kids
The president thanked Musk on Monday for an act of “incredible generosity” after the tech CEO pledged to give one share of his SpaceX company to every child in America next year.
Trump suggested the SpaceX stock would be distributed through Trump Accounts, the investment accounts for U.S. children rolled out by the Trump administration this year.
“This is exactly what was envisioned when we created TRUMP ACCOUNTS — Bringing together the GREAT PRIVATE SECTOR, Elon and so many more, to invest in our children, by far our greatest and most important asset,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Former Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to campaign with Susan Collins in Maine
Manchin, who was a Democrat for the vast majority of his long political career, will come to Maine this week to campaign alongside the Republican Collins.
Manchin endorsed Collins earlier in the election cycle and called the senator “the soul of the Senate” last month.
Collins is in the midst of a tough reelection fight against Democrat Troy Jackson. She is seeking her sixth term in office. Collins’ campaign confirmed on Monday that the senator and Manchin will appear together at an event in central Maine on Wednesday.
Manchin served in the Senate for more than 14 years as a Democrat before becoming an independent shortly before retiring from office. Like Collins, he was widely regarded as a moderate.
Kansas Democratic Senate candidate welcomes Trump to state, calls visit an ‘honor’
Adam Hamilton, the founder of the nation’s largest United Methodist church, is trying to pull off a major upset against Republican Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas, a state President Donald Trump won by 16 percentage points in 2024.
To do so, the Democratic Senate candidate will likely need to win over some Trump voters. That balancing act was on display Monday ahead of the president’s visit to Wichita, when Hamilton welcomed Trump to the state and made a direct appeal to his supporters.
“It’s always an honor to have the president of the United States right here in our great state,” Hamilton said in a video posted Monday afternoon.
“I want Kansans to know that if you voted for the president, you also have a place in my campaign.”
Hamilton said he would work with Trump when their priorities aligned but stand up to him when he believed the president’s policies would hurt Kansas.
“Some days we’ll agree, some days we won’t,” he said.
Trump defends decision to try to make over Washington golf course
“It’s old, it’s tired, it’s beaten up, it’s useless,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House to campaign in Kansas.
He said the Interior Department has the right to undertake the makeover.
“All they want to do is fix up their property. It’s been allowed to get run down,” Trump said.
The president announced plans on social media on Sunday to close the golf course for 15 months, starting on Nov. 15, and redevelop the 106-year-old East Potomac Park and course despite a court challenge by the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers.
On Monday, Trump said the work would start immediately.
Trump would hold three-way meeting with Putin and Xi
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised the prospect of a meeting with the three leaders to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.
Trump told reporters on Monday that he “would do” the meeting, which would occur next month in China, but that he expected it would focus on denuclearization efforts.
But asked whether he would be willing to negotiate the end of the war in Ukraine without its leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump appeared to indicate yes, saying: “Anything I can do to end the war, whether somebody’s there or not.”
“I think it’s time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine,” Trump said.
California attorney general says there is no widespread voter fraud in the state
There may be “one-off, isolated incidents” of people voting illegally, but the federal Justice Department has failed to prove its claim that the state has 20,000 noncitizens who are registered to vote, Democrat Rob Bonta said at a press conference.
His remarks came hours after the federal government announced it arrested 28 people in California, accusing them of crimes including making false statements on a naturalization application and submitting fraudulent voter registrations.
The arrests were “a drop in the bucket” given the state has 23 million registered voters, Bonta said, adding that the state will prevail in the federal government’s lawsuit accusing California of having noncitizens on its voter rolls.
“We are not impressed by their case,” Bonta said. “Our north star is the law and the facts, and they have neither on their side.”
US and Cuba clash at the United Nations ahead of annual economic embargo vote
For the second year in a row, the Trump administration is seeking to build opposition for the upcoming annual vote at the U.N. General Assembly condemning America’s decades-long economic embargo against Havana.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., hosted a “Cuba Libre” event Monday with a panel of dissidents and former prisoners from the island country in an effort to highlight the alleged oppressive behavior of the Communist Party government.
“This is the oppression that Havana wants to hide,” Waltz said during the event at the U.N. headquarters.
A few feet away, Cuban Ambassador to the U.N. Ernesto Soberón Guzmán gathered diplomats and allies from around the world to protest what he called a sham event against Cuba.
Trump signs women’s health executive order at Rose Garden ceremony
The order creates a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health and a White House task force to focus on the issue. That panel was set to hold its first meeting Monday.
“Beginning today we will change the reality of women’s health,” Melania Trump said. “Previous generations fought for women’s rights. Our generation will fight to discover the cures that will ensure a woman can live her life in health and to the fullest.”
The president, who spoke after his wife, said the order will “promote new research and really go after the understudied diseases affecting women.” The order is also intended to promote diagnostic technology and improve treatment.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently completed treatment for breast cancer, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lead the White House task force.
The initiative comes after a series of meetings the first lady had with federal health officials.
Customs delays implementing rule impacting Americans who buy meds in Canada
The U.S. is extending the compliance timeframe for a rule that will impose stricter regulations on shipments valued under $800.
The rule change, which was set to go into effect on Thursday, would, among other things, impact Americans who buy their personal medications in Canada, including those drugs not available in the U.S.
The extension will last 90 days, until Jan. 20, 2027. Thereafter, the exemption will be indefinitely suspended, and medications mailed from outside the U.S. will require additional data and a bond guarantee.
The extension gives extra time for compliance, the CBP said Monday, and supports “efforts to identify illegal and unsafe goods before they reach U.S. communities.”
Justice Department charges 28 alleged noncitizens in California with ‘various voting and registration crimes’
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said at a news conference Monday that the charges included unlawfully voting as a noncitizen, falsely claiming U.S. citizenship when registering to vote and “knowingly depriving the residents of California of a fair and impartial election process.”
The charges come after the Justice Department sued the state last week, alleging there are likely noncitizens who were mailed ballots to participate in the November election. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said the federal government has failed to prove there are noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.
At least eight of the 28 people charged allegedly voted illegally more than once, McCotter said.
“This Department of Justice will not look the other way while noncitizens vote in federal elections,” he said.
DOJ explains how it came up with 20K ‘likely noncitizens’ in California
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter on Monday walked reporters through how the Trump administration culled a list of 20,000 California voters it believes to be noncitizens.
The administration is currently suing state election officials to prevent them from counting mail ballots from the alleged noncitizens until their immigration status can be confirmed.
McCotter said at a news conference that the government started with California’s publicly available voter file, which includes basic but not detailed voter information. Then, it “enriched and cross-referenced” that information with other federal and public data.
Finally, McCotter said, the administration removed from the list anyone for whom citizenship evidence existed in federal databases, and the Department of Homeland Security “manually verified” the rest.
McCotter didn’t explain what he meant by “manually verified,” but acknowledged the Trump administration hadn’t yet proven that the voters were noncitizens.
Since states run elections, federal databases are often an incomplete and outdated source of information about voter eligibility.
Jeffries likes Democrats’ chances in race for the House
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday the election climate is holding firm for Democrats as he campaigned for Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a heavily contested Ohio congressional district that’s crucial for majority control of the House.
Jeffries also slapped back at President Trump’s abrupt decision to waive sanctions on Russia and said there will be a bipartisan effort in the House to pursue a new sanctions package the president wouldn’t have the ability to waive.
“It’s shocking, but not surprising, that an American president would do so much to undermine the cause of democracy, freedom and dignity for the Ukrainian people,” Jeffries told The Associated Press after visiting church services in Toledo.
Jeffries, who’s in line to become House speaker if Democrats win back the majority, has traveled to some 50 cities campaigning for Democratic candidates.
Trump will sign an order aimed at boosting women’s health research, a plan backed by the first lady
The order, first reported by USA Today, will create a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health and a task force at the White House focused on the issue.
Melania Trump is expected to speak about prioritizing research and easing taboos around discussions of women’s health issues during a signing ceremony Monday, the White House said.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently completed treatment for breast cancer, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lead the White House task force. The order doesn’t include specific funding goals.
The initiative comes after a series of meetings the first lady had with federal health officials. “It was abundantly clear that women’s healthcare needs to be modernized, the research gap closed, and further, the need to accelerate the discovery of treatments and cures was glaring,” Melania Trump said in a statement.
Trump’s new pitch for Republican candidates — they’re really good looking
President Trump has a new pitch for Republican candidates: they’re easy on the eyes.
“Look at this beautiful guy,” Trump said at a Saturday rally in Kentucky, referring to U.S. House candidate Ed Gallrein, a former U.S. Navy SEAL with an angular face who stood nearby the stage. “Central casting.”
That’s a common refrain from Trump, who owned the Miss Universe beauty pageant and grew his clout on the reality television show “The Apprentice” before entering politics. Aesthetics have long been part of the president’s measuring stick, either as a source of praise or target for ridicule.
Now, Trump is deploying his handsomeness appraisals as he boosts Republican candidates in a midterm election which already includes debates over which candidates are more masculine. The outcome will determine whether Republicans keep control of Congress or Trump faces emboldened Democratic opposition in Washington.
Supreme Court agrees to review a Reconstruction-era ban on distilling spirits in private homes
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a ban on distilling spirits in private homes more than 150 years ago.
Plaintiffs challenging the prohibition on home distilling claim the 1868 law is an antiquated relic of Reconstruction-era politics. They argue that Congress overstepped its taxation powers when it enacted the home distilling ban as part of a tax reform measure designed to curb fraud by commercial distillers.
Government attorneys counter that Congress properly restricted where spirits can be distilled to prevent producers from evading federal excise taxes. They warn that lifting the ban would violate Supreme Court precedent and erode congressional powers.
Federal law makes home distilling a crime punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
US and Russian officials comment on report about possible Trump-Putin-Xi meeting
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov were both asked about a Wall Street Journal report that Russian President Vladimir Putin could try to use a possible meeting with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to try to negotiate a deal on Ukraine behind Kyiv’s back.
Rubio told reporters in Uzbekistan that “I think there’s been talks of a meeting. I don’t know anything’s been finalized. But the president has been clear he’d like the war in Ukraine and Russia to end.”
Peskov, meanwhile, said separately that while the possibility of such a meeting has been mentioned, “no substantive proposals or agreements neither regarding the meeting itself nor its potential agenda and content have been discussed or put forward by anyone.”
He added that Russia appreciates Washington’s ongoing mediation efforts, but “a final settlement is certainly impossible without the participation of someone from Kyiv who is prepared to take on responsibility.”
