
Questions swirl over investigation into Gaetz as House returns
CNN
House Republicans have remained conspicuously quiet since the Justice Department's investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida first became public two weeks ago, but they're likely to face new questions about their colleague's future as the chamber returns to Washington on Tuesday.
One House Republican has called for Gaetz to resign from Congress, while just a couple of Gaetz's GOP colleagues have come to his defense in the face of a federal investigation into whether he broke federal sex-trafficking and prostitution laws and had sex with a 17-year-old girl. When it was first revealed that Gaetz was under investigation by the FBI, the House was in a two-week recess, allowing Republican leaders to largely ignore the scandal and its political implications. Now the House is returning Tuesday to major debates on President Joe Biden's massive infrastructure plan and the record number of unaccompanied minors on the southern border, but questions about Gaetz threaten to distract from Republicans' messaging.
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.