The new darling of the Democratic left is … Chris Van Hollen? - POLITICO

Van Hollen could be using his flirtations with a bid to influence some end-of-year decisionmaking. He is pushing Congress to cut off Iran war funding as they head toward a Dec. 11 government funding deadline, and he wants a provision mandating cooperation with Israel stripped from the annual defense policy bill…

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/11/11/chris-van-hollen-senate-leader-01160588 

USPS sounds alarm over finances, presses Congress for help - POLITICO

The agency says it remains in a precarious financial position despite shrinking its annual losses and cutting costs…

 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/11/10/usps-sounds-alarm-over-finances-presses-congress-for-help-01159676

 

Congress is coming back to Washington. Here's what to expect : NPR

It is the final hoorah for the 119th Congress. Republicans have just weeks left in control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The main thing on the agenda: keeping the federal government open. Funding is set to run out on December 11, when a stop-gap measure passed about a month ahead of the midterms expires. 

Any funding extension is all but certain to be done through another short-term bill, known as a continuing resolution. The typical government funding process — 12 carefully negotiated appropriations bills — would take time and political will that lawmakers currently lack…

 https://www.npr.org/2026/11/09/nx-s1-6030633/congress-is-coming-back-to-washington-heres-what-to-expect

 

Student Asks Bernie & Abdul 'Where Will Money Come From?'; Their Answer ...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdRBz_2Ccos

 

Trump administration unveils plan to tie high birth and marriage rates to transit funding - POLITICO

Communities with high birth and marriage rates could soon gain an advantage in securing federal transit money — a long-sought goal of the Trump administration but one that a top Democratic appropriator calls “bizarre and dystopian.”… 

 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/06/babies-marriage-transit-funding-trump-01107399

 

Here’s How Easy It Was for Journalists to Start Two Private Schools — ProPublica

An Easy Process: In Arkansas, all it took to establish a school was filling out a form on a state website, $45 and the purchase of an American flag. 

 No Qualifications Needed: Having no experience running a school — or even teaching — didn’t stand in the way of founding schools. 

Fewer Barriers: We discovered that opening microschools, which are proliferating nationwide, offer an even easier route…

 https://www.propublica.org/article/propublica-private-schools-arkansas-west-virginia-north-carolina

 

Democratic senators accuse Trump administration of worsening childcare crisis

“The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unlawfully froze program funding for grantees mere weeks after President Trump took office – which forced some Head Start programs to temporarily close and left thousands of the country’s most vulnerable families’ child care with uncertainty – and withheld funding from grantees until they complied with the administration’s rigid requirements,” the letter says…

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/01/childcare-crisis-trump-administration 

 

Federal watchdog says Trump’s $810M funding cancellation is unconstitutional - Live Updates - POLITICO

“Any withholding of appropriated funds beyond their date of expiration, regardless of size, subverts both the constitutional process for enacting federal law and Congress’s constitutional power of the purse,” Perez added. “The President may not force the expiration of budget authority Congress has already enacted and did not rescind.”…

 https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/09/29/congress/pocket-rescission-gao-unconstitutional-01096965

 

Key senators reject White House proposal on NIH grants | PBS News

Murray said that under the administration's effort, a single political appointee could kill a cancer study for no scientific reason. 

 "Whether lifesaving medical research gets funded or not should be determined by experts at the NIH—not a panel of lackeys chosen by Donald Trump and Russ Vought," Murray said…

 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/key-senators-reject-white-house-proposal-on-nih-grants

 

Senior GOP appropriator pours cold water on funding Trump’s arch - Live Updates - POLITICO

“If it was my choice, I wouldn’t put any of that money into the arch,” Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson said…

 https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/09/21/congress/trump-arch-pushback-01086147

Taxes wouldn’t fund $5,000 Trump ‘dividend’ if Republicans win midterms, says commerce secretary

Lutnick said $500bn of estimated $1tn needed to fund checks to all US adults could come from new visa program…

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/12/trump-midterm-dividend-funding

 

Democrats demand Homeland Security officials fund election security ahead of midterms : NPR

Two Democrats tasked with overseeing federal elections are asking why the Trump administration hasn't distributed money to protect state and local elections as directed by Congress...

 https://www.npr.org/2026/09/03/nx-s1-5954541/election-security-midterms-dhs-democrats

 

Federal delays are holding up $21 billion for rural internet projects, as states wait for guidance

State officials can’t spend billions in federal funding to connect remote areas to the internet until the Trump administration provides information on how to use the money. Broadband offices are hopeful guidance is on the way – but when remains unclear...

 https://www.kcur.org/environment-agriculture/2026-09-01/federal-delays-billions-funding-rural-internet-projects-bead-guidance

 

Trump Just Used a $500 Million Clean Steel Grant to Fund a Coal Furnace – Mother Jones

Today’s announcement makes official what Cliffs has been signaling would happen in recent months. The change of plans has drawn pushback from green-steel advocates and some Middletown residents, who say they are dismayed that funding meant to slash industrial emissions could potentially amp up local air pollution instead...

 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/08/trump-clean-steel-grant-coal-biden-inflation-reduction-act-misallocation-congressional-funding

Republicans bristle at Trump’s latest tactics to undermine Congress’ funding power - POLITICO

“At what point did we stop legislating?” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another senior appropriator, said last month after Voughtprivately pitched Senate Republicans on the latest party-line plan, which would inherently take funding power away from the appropriations committees...

 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/21/in-year-2-of-trumps-funding-grab-congress-fights-back-01045146

 

FDA Commissioner nominee believes that we need more “conservative-based”..

 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wTWPDbOqgsQ

 

Pentagon threatens to cut federal funding to 30 universities over foreign academic partnerships

Harvard, Yale, Stanford and others face directive to review and cut alliances Pentagon deems national security risk…

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/18/pentagon-funding-colleges-harvard 

 

Freedom 250 seeks $10 million more for July Fourth celebrations : NPR

"It is unacceptable to ask the American people to bail out Freedom 250," he wrote, referring to the group that President Trump created last year to oversee anniversary celebrations, which critics say he did to bypass a bipartisan group that already existed...

 https://www.npr.org/2026/07/30/nx-s1-5913172/freedom-250-july-fourth-10-million

 

New Trump Rule Could Exclude U.S. Scientists From Critical Discoveries — ProPublica

“These experiments take decades to build and require sustained, cooperative international investment,” University of Chicago physics professor David W. Miller wrote in a public comment. “The experiments will continue, without American leadership. … The United States will not just fall behind. It will step aside.”…

 “The United States built the greatest scientific enterprise in human history on a simple idea: fund the best ideas, chosen by the best experts, and get out of the way,” he said in his public comment. “This proposed rule dismantles that principle entirely, and it does so in ways that will cause immediate, concrete, and in many cases irreversible harm to American science.”

 https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-science-grants-russell-vought-omb

Cornyn threatens to block Trump’s ambassadors over AIDS prevention funding - Live Updates - POLITICO

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is threatening to sink the ambassador nominations of two high-profile allies of President Donald Trump unless the White House commits to distributing AIDS funding in Africa...

 https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/07/21/congress/cornyn-pepfar-lake-mastriano-nominations-01006984