WASHINGTON (AP) — He boasted of fixing city fountains and power-washing a local pool — making careful distinctions between sandblasting versus…

President Donald Trump says it’s “fantastic” that a key federal agency approved the design for the triumphal arch he wants to build at an entrance to the nation’s capital. The Republican president says Washington needs an arch because it’s the only major Western capital without one. His version would rise on a traffic circle between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts gave its final approval on Thursday to a slightly revised design. A separate agency that oversees construction on federal land must still approve the plan. At 250 feet, critics say the arch is too big for the region.

President Donald Trump is defending the White House ballroom he's building. He showed off the construction site to a group of reporters on Tuesday. The surprise visit comes days after the Senate parliamentarian said a proposal to pay for $1 billion in security additions to the White House campus could not be included in a bill currently before Congress. Raising his voice over the banging and clanging of loud construction equipment, Trump described the ballroom's security features, repeated that taxpayer money isn't paying to build it and called it a "gift to the United States of America.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Washington-based nonprofit is asking a judge to force the Trump administration to stop work on the Lincoln Memorial Reflec…