WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. House passed legislation Thursday that would give the Treasury Department unilateral authority to strip the tax-exempt status of nonprofits it claims support terrorism, alarming civil liberties groups about how a second Trump presidency could invoke it to punish political opponents.

2. Volunteers bring solar power to Hurricane Helene's disaster zone - Friday, October 11, 2024

BAKERSVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Helene downed power lines and washed out roads all over North Carolina's mountains, the constant din of a gas-powered generator is getting to be too much for Bobby Renfro.

3. Trump-Putin ties are back in the spotlight after new book describes calls - Friday, October 11, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new book's assertion that former President Donald Trump may have had as many as seven private phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving the White House has refocused attention on their politically fraught relationship and on Trump's sustained dialogue with world leaders as he seeks a return to power.

4. 'The rules were you guys weren't going to fact-check": False, misleading claims from VP debate - Friday, September 27, 2024

FACT FOCUS: A look at false and misleading claims during the vice presidential debate

The Associated Press undefined

The vice presidential candidates, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, on Tuesday engaged in a fast-moving, largely civil debate on a wide range of issues. Here's a look at some false and misleading claims from the debate.

5. Justice Thomas took undisclosed 2010 trip with GOP megadonor, Democratic senator finds - Friday, August 2, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to publicly disclose additional travel on GOP megadonor Harlan Crow's private jet, a top Democratic senator who is backing an election-year push to tighten the high court's ethics rules said Monday.

6. In an attempt to reverse the Supreme Court's immunity decision, Schumer introduces the No Kings Act - Friday, August 2, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will introduce legislation Thursday reaffirming that presidents do not have immunity for criminal actions, an attempt to reverse the Supreme Court's landmark decision last month.

7. How Harris and Trump differ on artificial intelligence policy - Friday, July 26, 2024

Two days after President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order on artificial intelligence last year, Vice President Kamala Harris brought the wonky document to a global AI summit, telling an international audience what set the U.S. apart in its approach to AI safety.

8. Biden unveils plan for Supreme Court changes, says US stands at 'breach' as public confidence sinks - Friday, July 26, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has unveiled a long-awaited proposal for changes at the U.S. Supreme Court, calling on Congress to establish term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the court's nine justices. He's also pressing lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity.

9. Supreme Court weakens federal regulators, overturning decades-old Chevron decision - Friday, June 28, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday upended a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the federal government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections, delivering a far-reaching and potentially lucrative victory to business interests.

10. Nashville’s Hiller wins state bar award - Friday, June 28, 2024

Nashville lawyer Lorne Hiller has been selected as the recipient of this year’s Larry Dean Wilks Leadership Award. Hiller was chosen for the award by fellow members of the Tennessee Bar Association’s 2024 Leadership Law class.

11. Biden prepares an order that would shut down asylum if a daily average of 2,500 migrants arrive - Friday, May 31, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is telling lawmakers that President Joe Biden is preparing to sign off on an executive order that would shut down asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border once the average number of daily encounters hits 2,500 between ports of entry, with the border reopening only once that number declines to 1,500, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

12. Border bill fails Senate test vote as Democrats seek to underscore Republican resistance - Friday, May 24, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans again blocked a bill meant to clamp down on the number of migrants allowed to claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sought Thursday to underscore GOP resistance to the proposal.

13. Google wants judge, not jury, decide upcoming antitrust case in Virginia - Friday, May 17, 2024

Google on Thursday asked that a judge, rather than a jury, decide whether it violated U.S. antitrust laws by building a monopoly on the technology that powers online advertising.

To bolster its case, the tech giant wrote a multimillion-dollar check to the U.S. government that it says renders moot the government's best argument for demanding a jury trial.

14. Senators urge $32 billion in emergency spending on AI after finishing yearlong review - Friday, May 10, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of four senators led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is recommending that Congress spend at least $32 billion over the next three years to develop artificial intelligence and place safeguards around it, writing in a report released Wednesday that the U.S. needs to "harness the opportunities and address the risks" of the quickly developing technology.

15. Tennessee lawmakers join movement allowing some teachers to take guns into schools - Friday, April 26, 2024

Some public school teachers in Tennessee could gain new powers to carry concealed guns into the classroom, a year after a deadly school shooting in the state's capital city stirred impassioned debate about the best ways to curb such violence.

16. How Tennessee, other Republican-led states far from border are rushing to pass tough immigration laws - Friday, April 19, 2024

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Republican-led states are rushing to give broader immigration enforcement powers to local police and impose criminal penalties for those living in the country illegally as the issue of migrants crossing the U.S. border remains central to the 2024 elections.

17. Tennessee lawmakers pass bill to allow armed teachers, a year after deadly Nashville shooting - Friday, April 19, 2024

Some public school teachers in Tennessee could gain new powers to carry concealed guns into the classroom, a year after a deadly school shooting in the state's capital city stirred impassioned debate about the best ways to curb such violence.

18. Treasury wants to boost foreign investment review powers, as Congress dissects Nippon, TikTok deals - Friday, April 12, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Treasury wants to enhance the power of a little-known, secretive government committee to review deals made between U.S. firms and foreign investors.

This comes as high-profile deals involving foreign investment in the U.S. — like Chinese firm ByteDance's ownership of popular social media app TikTok and Japanese firm Nippon Steel's bid to purchase Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Corp. receive increased scrutiny by lawmakers and even President Joe Biden.

19. House passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after days of upheaval over changes - Friday, April 12, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Friday to reauthorize and reform a key U.S. government surveillance tool following a dramatic showdown on the floor over whether the FBI should be restricted from using the program to search for Americans' data.

20. Tennessee bill to untangle gun and voting rights restoration is killed for the year - Friday, April 12, 2024

NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers have killed a bipartisan bill for the year that would have let residents convicted of felonies apply to vote again without also restoring their gun rights.

Democratic Rep. Antonio Parkinson and Republican Sen. Paul Bailey advanced the bill late in Tennessee's annual legislative session. But a split House committee voted 8-6 on Wednesday to send the bill to a summer study before next year's legislative session, effectively spiking it for 2024, barring some unusual move.

21. US treads carefully in responding to Hong Kong's new national security law - Friday, April 5, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has denounced Hong Kong's new national security law as a tool to potentially silence dissent both at home and abroad, but so far the action from Washington has been notably muted, disappointing those fighting for the Chinese territory's democracy and freedoms.

22. Tennessee bill untangling gun and voting rights restoration advances, but faces uncertain odds - Friday, April 5, 2024

NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee residents convicted of felonies can apply to vote again without restoring their gun rights under a bipartisan bill that faces some GOP skepticism as it advances late this session.

23. Biden and Xi discuss Taiwan, AI and fentanyl in a push to return to regular leader talks - Friday, March 29, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed Taiwan, artificial intelligence and security issues Tuesday in a call meant to demonstrate a return to regular leader-to-leader dialogue between the two powers.

24. Supreme Court lifts stay on Texas law that gives police broad powers to arrest migrants at border - Friday, March 15, 2024

A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a stay on a Texas law that gives police broad powers to arrest migrants suspected of crossing the border illegally, while a legal battle over immigration authority plays out.

25. White House weighing executive actions on the border – with immigration powers used by Trump - Friday, February 23, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is considering using provisions of federal immigration law repeatedly tapped by former President Donald Trump to unilaterally enact a sweeping crackdown at the southern border, according to three people familiar with the deliberations.

26. Abandoned by his colleagues after negotiating a border compromise, GOP senator faces backlash alone - Friday, February 9, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just before the Senate voted Wednesday to kill the border deal he spent the last four months negotiating, Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford climbed a set of marble stairs outside the chamber and joined his wife in the visitors' gallery.

27. Biden determined to use stunning Trump-backed collapse of border deal as a weapon in 2024 campaign - Friday, February 9, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — How it began: President Joe Biden was urgently seeking more money from Congress to aid Ukraine and Israel. He took a gamble by seizing on GOP demands to simultaneously address one of his biggest political liabilities — illegal migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

28. GOP says Biden has all the power he needs to control the border. The reality is far more complicated - Friday, February 2, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Build more wall. Reinstate Trump-era immigration policies. Or simply shut down the U.S.-Mexico border.

Congressional Republicans argue that President Joe Biden already has all the authority he needs to halt the flow of migrants through the U.S.-Mexico border. They're making the claim as a bipartisan deal that the president negotiated with senators to expand his authority is facing near-certain defeat.

29. Border security, Ukraine aid collapses despite Biden's plea for Congress to 'show some spine' - Friday, February 2, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday urged Congress to "show some spine" and stand up to Donald Trump even as a Senate deal on border enforcement measures and Ukraine aid rapidly collapsed.

30. Senators release a border and Ukraine deal but the House speaker declares it 'dead on arrival' - Friday, February 2, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators on Sunday released a highly anticipated $118 billion package that pairs border enforcement policy with wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies, but it quickly ran into a wall of opposition from top House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson.

31. House GOP is moving swiftly toward Mayorkas' impeachment as Senate focuses on a border security deal - Friday, January 19, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Laying the groundwork for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a House committee on Thursday heard from parents whose tearful testimony sought to link government border policy to their daughters' deaths and from a law professor warning off the effort.

32. Washington's center of gravity on immigration has shifted to the right - Friday, December 1, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a decade ago that Capitol Hill was consumed by an urgency to overhaul the nation's immigration system, fueled in no small part by Republicans who felt a political imperative to make inroads with minority voters by embracing more generous policies.

33. A key US spy tool will lapse at year's end unless Congress and the White House can cut a deal - Friday, November 10, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — With just seven weeks until the end of the year, the Biden administration is running out of time to win the reauthorization of a spy program it says is vital to preventing terrorism, catching spies and disrupting cyberattacks.

34. Biden and Xi will meet Wednesday for talks on trade, Taiwan, fraught US-China relations - Friday, November 10, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Wednesday in California for talks on trade, Taiwan and fraught U.S.-Chinese relations in the first engagement in a year between the leaders of the world's two biggest economies.

35. Congress didn't include funds for Ukraine in its spending bill. How will that affect the war? - Friday, September 29, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukraine had little reason to celebrate when U.S. lawmakers approved a spending bill Saturday that averted a widely expected government shutdown. The measure didn't include the $6 billion in military assistance that Ukraine said it urgently needed.

36. Dress code drama camouflages need to solve bigger ills - Friday, September 29, 2023

My introduction to a dress code came on the first day of seventh grade, the coming-of-age transition from elementary school to junior high. My friend and neighbor Ken Hase showed up for the orientation assembly in short pants.

37. US Supreme Court asked to set aside ruling that blocks construction on Mountain Valley Pipeline - Friday, July 21, 2023

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The fate of a controversial natural gas pipeline in West Virginia may rest with the U.S. Supreme Court, as the state appealed a lower court's ruling that temporarily blocked construction despite a Congressional order clearing the way for the project.

38. Senate committee approves a bill to impose stronger ethics standards on Supreme Court justices - Friday, July 21, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court would have to abide by stronger ethics standards under legislation approved on Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, a response to recent revelations about donor-funded trips by justices. The bill faced united opposition from Republicans, who said it could "destroy" the court.

39. Threats of impeachment, censure used to be rare. In this Congress, they're becoming routine - Friday, June 23, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans have held it over Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for months. Attorney General Merrick Garland is facing it too. And President Joe Biden seemingly isn't far behind.

40. Biden would veto House GOP bill on border enforcement - Friday, May 5, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden would veto a House GOP bill that aims to restrict asylum, build more border wall and cut a program that allows migrants a chance to stay in the U.S., including Ukrainian refugees, the White House said Monday.

41. Lawsuit: Yellen should ignore 'unconstitutional' debt limit - Friday, May 5, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — A union of government employees on Monday sued Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and President Joe Biden to try to stop them from complying with the law that limits the government's total debt, which the lawsuit contends is unconstitutional.

42. What passed during the 2023 Tennessee lawmaking session - Friday, April 28, 2023

NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee's Republican-dominant Statehouse quickly adjourned last week after attracting national attention for the high-profile expulsion of two now-reinstated Democratic members, the refusal to address gun control following a fatal school shooting, and the resignation of a GOP member found in violation of workplace harassment rules.

43. Lee calls for special session on gun laws - Friday, April 28, 2023

Tennessee’s Republican-led Legislature finished its annual session April 21 without taking action on a gun control plan offered by the GOP governor in the wake of a deadly shooting at a Christian school in Nashville.

44. Appeals court halts House interview with ex-Trump prosecutor - Friday, April 21, 2023

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked House Republicans from questioning a former Manhattan prosecutor about the criminal case against ex-President Donald Trump, the latest twist in a legal battle between Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office and the House Judiciary Committee.

45. Judge: House GOP can question ex-prosecutor about Trump case - Friday, April 21, 2023

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge will let House Republicans question a former Manhattan prosecutor about the criminal case against ex-President Donald Trump, ruling Wednesday that there is no legal basis to block the Judiciary Committee's subpoena.

46. DeSantis seeks to control Disney with state oversight powers - Friday, April 14, 2023

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers ratcheted up pressure on Walt Disney World on Monday by announcing legislation that will use the regulatory powers of Florida government to exert unprecedented oversight on the park resort's rides and monorail.

47. Senate votes to repeal Iraq War approval many see as mistake - Friday, March 31, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate voted Wednesday to repeal the resolution that gave a green light for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a bipartisan effort to return a basic war power to Congress 20 years after an authorization many now view as a mistake.

48. Senate moves to repeal president's Iraq war power authority - Friday, March 24, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate moved toward a vote Wednesday to repeal the 2002 measure that greenlighted the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, which would end more than 20 years of authorization for U.S. presidents to use force in that country and return those war powers to Congress.

49. Senators take first step in repealing Iraq War authorization - Friday, March 17, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate took a first step Thursday toward repealing two measures that give open-ended approval for military action in Iraq, pushing to end that authority as the United States marks the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War.

50. In new role, Sanders demands answers from Starbucks' Schultz - Friday, February 3, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders settles into his new role as chairman of the Senate committee that oversees health and labor issues, he says some corporations "should be nervous." And the longtime liberal crusader's first target is Howard Schultz, the interim CEO of Starbucks who has aggressively fought his workers' efforts to unionize.

51. Disney faces losing control of its kingdom with Florida bill - Friday, February 3, 2023

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Disney's government in Florida has been the envy of any private business, with its unprecedented powers in deciding what to build and how to build it at the Walt Disney World Resort, issuing bonds and holding the ability to build its own nuclear plant if it wanted.

52. Biden aims to deliver reassurance in State of Union address - Friday, February 3, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is ready to offer a reassuring assessment of the nation's condition rather than roll out flashy policy proposals as he delivers his second State of the Union address on Tuesday night, seeking to overcome pessimism in the country and concerns about his own leadership.

53. Unity is new tone for often-divided Democrats in Washington - Friday, January 6, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The infighting was so intense a year ago that Democrats who controlled both the White House and Congress couldn't win support for a sweeping social spending package that was the party's top legislative priority. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, was viewed skeptically enough that some of his fellow Democrats questioned the wisdom of him seeking reelection.

54. Top Davidson Co. residential sales for 2022: 1,500 transactions of $1M or more - Friday, January 6, 2023

Top Davidson County residential real estate sales for 2022, as compiled by the Nashville Ledger.