
DC statehood: Why it should (and should not) happen
CNN
Democrats in the House voted on Thursday to make portions of Washington, DC, the 51st US state.
It's important because it is an official step toward creating a new state for the first time in a lifetime, but also no big deal because the proposal is DOA in the Senate, where Republicans have enough votes to block it.
The US military’s strikes in Iran over the weekend prompted a swift response from across the federal government to react to any fallout, but current and former officials say the administration’s DOGE-driven cuts to a host of agencies have made it harder to grapple with the conflict and prepare for potential retaliation.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday said in a statement that the agency had obtained “a body of credible evidence [that] indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged” by recent strikes, underscoring a broad intelligence community effort is ongoing to determine the impact of the US strikes on three of the country’s nuclear sites on Saturday.

White House’s DOGE spending cuts request runs into criticism, questions from some Senate Republicans
The head of the White House budget office on Wednesday defended the Trump administration’s push to enact sweeping cuts to federal funding, even as some Republican senators voiced concerns and raised questions about the breadth of them.