Heather Timmons

The Trump administration just ended a policy of giving visas to same-sex partners of foreign diplomats stationed at the UN, and is balking at including questions about LGBTQ identity on the 2020 US census. Yet at Washington DC’s storied Mayflower Hotel, the Log Cabin Republicans—the four-decade-old lobbying and activist group for LGBTQ party members—kicked off their annual Spirit of Lincoln dinner by recounting 2018’s triumphs.

The New York State tax authority is “vigorously pursuing” an investigation into decades of alleged tax fraud by the Trump family, after the New York Times reported that Donald Trump and his parents avoided nearly $500 million in taxes, partially by underreporting assets and using shell companies.

In an exhaustive deep dive into the finances of Donald Trump, and his real estate mogul father Fred, the New York Times details a pattern of tax avoidance and parental gifts that created the US president’s business empire.

The new “USMCA” deal the US, Canada, and Mexico tentatively agreed to provides wide-reaching protection to internet giants from lawsuits and liabilities for what appears on their services.

Donald Trump dubbed NAFTA “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere” and threatened multiple times to cut Canada from the three-nation pact or just terminate the entire thing.

Donald Trump’s rambling press conference in New York yesterday (Sept. 26) was peppered with outlandish statements. But one thing was consistent: multiple times, the US president said, or strongly implied, that the women who accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault are not to be believed. He sometimes went a step further, suggesting that most women who accuse men of sexual assault should be doubted. Here are all 31 instances:

Donald Trump gave one of the longest, most chaotic press conferences of his tumultuous presidency Wednesday (Sept. 26) at a midtown New York hotel near the United Nations General Assembly meeting.

China is interfering in the US’s upcoming midterm elections to help the Democrats, Donald Trump claimed without offering any evidence as he opened the Security Council meeting at the UN General Assembly.

Donald Trump told the UN General Assembly the US is “taking a hard look at U.S. foreign assistance” and would “only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends.”

Donald Trump said the US is turning its back on globalism, criticized OPEC and Iran, and praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and the growing nationalism in Poland in his speech to the UN General Assembly.

Donald Trump will address the United Nations today, with a focus on US “sovereignty.” As White House advisors have explained in recent days, that means putting the will of the American people over that of the international community, trimming aid for countries and UN agencies that don’t agree with Trump’s positions, and questioning long-standing alliances and multilateral agreements.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh tends to use a particular phrase when he speaks to other members of the American elite about their activities behind closed doors: “What happens at [private school or club] stays at [private school or club].”

On Sept. 24, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is expected to face accusations he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old when he was also a teenager. The Congressional hearing could decide whether Kavanaugh receives a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the United States. It’s also shaping up to be a big-top moment in the ongoing circus that is American politics.

The White House is putting a 10% tariff on an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods, effective September 24, Donald Trump said in a statement Monday evening, to counter a “grave threat to the long-term health and prosperity of the United States economy.”

The top immigration-enforcement agencies in the US, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have a longstanding practice of suspending the enforcement of immigration laws during natural disasters. The agencies’ combined 80,000 employees are often drafted to help in post-disaster rescue and recovery efforts.

As many as 10 million people may lie in the path of Hurricane Florence, which is bringing strong winds and a massive storm surge to the coast of the Carolinas, and is expected to dump more than a foot of rain on already-saturated areas of the eastern United States. 

Hurricane Florence is expected to make landfall today, hitting the Carolinas and Maryland. In the past 12 hours, the storm has been downgraded from a potential category four storm to a category two. But the lower windspeed of a category two storm doesn’t mean that coastal areas on Florence’s path are out of danger.

The Trump White House assault on the US Environmental Protection Agency has been brutal and well documented, including widespread staff reductions, a rolling back of rules and regulations that give the agency power, attempts to slash the agency’s budget, and efforts to undermine its very mission.

As Hurricane Florence churns up record-breaking waves on its way across the Atlantic, warnings about the strength of the storm are getting more strident.

“We’re as ready as anybody has ever been” for Hurricane Florence, US president Donald Trump said from the White House on Tuesday (Sept. 11), speaking about the Category 4 hurricane that’s barreling toward the US’s southeastern shore.

As the United States grappled with the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, many Americans were haunted by one question—could they have been prevented?

On Sept. 7, American troops shot live weapons in southeastern Syria that weren’t aimed at ISIS or another terrorist group—they were meant to deter Russians troops from invading a US base.

With his latest public appearance, Tesla CEO Elon Musk helped trigger a slide in company’s shares and may have scared off his HR chief for good. This time, Musk didn’t call anyone a pedophile, or potentially break US securities laws—he publicly smoked marijuana, on a talk show.

The US director of national intelligence says he didn’t write it. Ditto say the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Housing, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the commerce secretary, the energy secretary, or the vice president. In a rare statement, even the first lady has disavowed it.