NEW YORK — Donald Trump repeatedly sought to block potentially damaging media reports that might hurt his 2016 presidential campaign but did not seem worried about how his family would feel about them, the former publisher of the National Enquirer testified Thursday. David Pecker, the former media executive, said at Trump’s criminal trial on 34 charges of falsifying business records ...

Militants launched mortars at Israeli forces in Gaza as they prepared for the arrival of a floating U.S. Army pier dispatched to facilitate delivery of humanitarian aid, U.S. officials said Thursday, an incident that underscores the mission’s vulnerabilities. The attack on a “marshaling area” for the pier caused minimal damage, and occurred while U.S. ships involved in the operation remain ...

LIVINGSTONE, Zambia — Dozens of American military personnel are expected to withdraw from Chad in coming days, three senior U.S. officials said Thursday, amid a broader, involuntary reconfiguration of Washington’s security policy in a volatile part of Africa. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military movements, said the repositioning could be temporary as the United ...

AUSTIN — As word got out that pro-Palestinian protesters were planning to occupy a lawn on the University of Texas campus, Gov. Greg Abbott made a dramatic move: calling in more than 100 state troopers with orders to clear them out. With that decision, which led to dozens of arrests amid video of riot-clad troopers on campus, Abbott sought to ...

In March, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban went to Mar-a-Lago, arguing to Donald Trump that Russia would grind Ukraine down and eventually win their war — and that the United States should accept that reality. Then the two spent hours in a ballroom listening to a cover band play Rolling Stones hits. Several weeks later, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron ...

Politicians, like us all, often engage in hyperbole to make a point. But don’t doubt the alliterative precision of Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) when he warns about “a deluge of deception, disinformation and deepfakes … about to descend on the American public.” “There is a clear and present danger to our democracy,” he added for emphasis during the Senate Judiciary ...

BRYANT, Ark. — Tony Chism pulled up to the library in a red pickup truck with a “Don’t Tread on Me” plate on the front and a “Biden Sucks” sticker on the back. He settled into a lawn chair and held up a sign showing solidarity with abortion rights activists gathered nearby: “LET PEOPLE VOTE.” The 60-year-old conservative was there ...

NEW YORK — Back in March 2016, as the Republican presidential primary narrowed to a showdown between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, unsubstantiated rumors about the senator from Texas having extramarital affairs started appearing in the National Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid of wide circulation and ill repute. Cruz called the allegations “complete and utter lies … a smear that has ...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell figured something out during the dozens of heated debates the Republicans had about funding Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion. “One thing I have noticed about the critics of the [national security legislation] is they don’t like being called isolationist. Which, to me, is progress,” the Kentucky Republican said during an interview Tuesday. So, as ...

Even before there was a Mueller investigation — that is, even before special counsel Robert S. Mueller III took over the probe into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election — Donald Trump was disparaging the Mueller investigation. Trump immediately dismissed reports that his campaign that year had been aided by Russian actors and continued to dismiss accruing reports ...