GARY FIELDS

Students at Perry Traditional Academy attend a forum of candidates in Pittsburgh's upcoming mayoral primary in Pittsburgh, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
In Pittsburgh, candidates face their future voters, part of a national effort to engage the young
Young people have consistently turned out to vote at lower rates than older Americans. It’s a trend several civic organizations are hoping to reverse by getting teenagers engaged in public debate before they’re even eligible to vote, seeing it as foundational to the future of U.S. democracy.
 
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks at a news conference to address the impact of the proposed continuing resolution, on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
DC weighs layoffs and other cuts as House Republicans leave the city budget in limbo
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and the District of Columbia Council are scrambling to address a financial crisis created when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives recessed without voting to fix a hole in the city budget.
 
A massive sculpture carved into Mount Rushmore depicts U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, in, Keystone, S.D. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
Plans to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary were underway. Then came the federal funding cuts
Leaders of state humanities councils throughout the country say federal funding cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration will force them to scale back or eliminate celebrations next year commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary.
 
A no trespassing sign is posted on a door at the headquarters of the United States Institute of Peace, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein).
Institute of Peace headquarters transfer is a done deal even as lawsuit continues to unfold
There is no answer yet on the lawsuit filed by Institute of Peace board members who were fired amid a remaking of the independent think tank.
 
The United State Institute of Peace building is seen, Monday, March 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
A DOGE employee is put in charge of the US Institute of Peace, a court filing alleges
A court filing says an official allied with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has been put in charge of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a think tank targeted by President Donald Trump for closure.
 
The headquarters of the United States Institute of Peace are seen Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein).
Most US Institute of Peace workers get late-night word of their mass firing
Most employees at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a congressionally created and funded think tank now taken over by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, have received email notices of their mass firing — the latest step in the Trump administration’s government downsizing.
 
Supervisor of the Checklist for the State of New Hampshire Leslie Dombroski, left, registers Elise Collins, 18, to vote in Derry, N.H., Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Reba Saldanha)
Trump signed an order to reshape how elections in the US are run. Is it constitutional?
Election officials, state attorneys general and legal experts say President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to reshape election processes throughout the U.S. will likely face legal challenges for violating the Constitution.
 
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks at a news conference to address the impact of the proposed continuing resolution, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, March 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
DC fears revenue cliff as Congress debates its financial future
Washington, D.C., which has often had a tenuous peace with the federal government when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, is now facing its most urgent threat since it was given the power of Home Rule during the Nixon administration.
 
Sydney Smith, who lost her job due to DOGE cuts, stands in front of the Sydney Yates building that houses the Forest Service on Thursday, March. 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
Young people who aspired to government service dismayed by Trump ending the federal fellows program
Young people who aspired to federal government service are dismayed by President Donald Trump ending a program created to entice highly qualified workers to join the government.
 
Flags and a sign thanking United States Agency for International Development (USAID) workers are pictured as USAID workers retrieve their personal belongings from USAID's headquarters in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
USAID workers clear their desks in Trump’s final push to dismantle the agency
U.S. Agency for International Development workers, some in tears, are carting away belongings from a final visit to their now-closed headquarters.
 
Guards stand next to the U.S. Constitution in the newly renovated Rotunda of the National Archives in Washington, Sept. 16, 2003, during a media tour. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
The National Archives is nonpartisan but has found itself targeted by Trump
As President Donald Trump moves to overhaul the federal government with astonishing speed, he has wreaked havoc on one agency long known for its nonpartisanship and revered for its mission: the National Archives and Records Administration.
 
Calvin Stevens, Air Force Reserve Veteran, poses outside his home in Decatur, Georgia on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Olivia Bowdoin)
To these Black retirees, the federal civil service now under attack was a path to the middle class
The federal civil service that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are dismantling has been a way for people of color, in particular Black Americans, to get a toehold into the middle class for decades, as other occupations were closed off because of racial discrimination or patronage.
 
National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy speaks during a news conference at NTSB headquarters Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Helicopter crew in collision with plane may not have heard key instruction from tower, NTSB says
 
People participating in the March for Life walk past the Supreme Court, Jan. 19, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Trump and Vance join March for Life anti-abortion activists in celebrating the movement’s gains
President Donald Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, are celebrating gains in the anti-abortion movement with activists in the annual March for Life. Thousands came to Washington for the event Friday. After decades of fighting to overturn Roe v.
 
President Donald Trump, left, and first lady Melania Trump attend the national prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Trump demands an apology from bishop who asked him to ‘have mercy’ on LGBTQ+ people and migrants
President Donald Trump is demanding an apology from the Episcopal bishop of Washington after she asked him to have mercy on the LGBTQ+ community and migrants in the United States illegally during a prayer service marking his inauguration.
 
For Country Caucus co-chair Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., right, and Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., left, pose for a portrait at the Capitol following a vote, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
A caucus of military veterans seeks to bridge the political divide in a polarized Congress
In a deeply partisan Congress, one group of lawmakers with a shared background is working in a bipartisan way to try to pass important legislation. The group consists of military veterans in the U.S.
 
President Jimmy Carter views the Panama Canal at the Miraflores Locks in Canal Zone on June 17, 1978. On Friday Carter signed the final Panama Canal Treaties giving control of the canal to Panama in 2000. (AP Photo/Tasnadi, File)
A history of the Panama Canal — and why Trump can’t take it back on his own
President-elect Donald Trump is decrying rising shipping fees Panama has imposed to use the Panama Canal.
 
A placard expressing opposition to a Republican-penned measure being debated sits outside the North Carolina Senate gallery at a Legislative Building news conference in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, Nov. 20. 2024. (AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson)
Election Day has long passed. In some states, legislatures are working to undermine the results
Voters in some parts of the country are discovering that having their say at the ballot box is not necessarily the final word, even though this year’s election was over a month ago.
 
FILE - Supporters of democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump campaign outside a polling place, Nov. 5, 2024, in McAllen, Texas.(Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP, File)/The Monitor via AP)
Democracy was a motivating factor for both Harris and Trump voters, but for very different reasons
Inflation and immigration emerged as the dominant themes in this year’s presidential race. But democracy was also prominent in the minds of voters. Half of voters identified democracy as the single most important motivating factor for their vote.
 
FILE - The seal on the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building is seen June 9, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Racist text messages referencing slavery raise alarms in multiple states and prompt investigations
Racist text messages invoking slavery raised alarm across the country this week after they were sent to Black men, women and students, including middle schoolers, prompting inquiries by the FBI and other agencies.
 
James Galvin, Ella Nelsen and Charlotte Papacosma register students to vote at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Ryan M. Kelly)
US voters hear a stark message in the presidential race: The country’s fate is on the line
Few elections in the nation’s history have provided such a divide as this year’s, with the two major candidates and so many of their supporters saying the outcome will determine the fate of the country and whether it can hold to its democratic moorings.
 
FILE - Rioters loyal to President Donald Trump storm the Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
US voters concerned about post-election violence and efforts to overturn the results: AP-NORC poll
A new poll finds that American voters are approaching the presidential election with deep unease about what could follow.
 
Karimah McFarlane, a Howard University graduate and owner of Buckhead Art & Company in Atlanta, poses for a photo on Sept. 10, 2024. She hosted a viewing party of the presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, (AP Photo/Gary Fields)
In Georgia, the winner in the presidential race may be determined by who doesn’t vote
In Georgia, nonvoters are the most complicated piece of the electoral puzzle in a state that could decide the presidency. There are more than 47,000 people in Bibb County, Georgia, about 80 miles south of Atlanta, who are eligible to vote but don’t.
 
Linda Solomon, a client at Mother's Nest in Macon, Ga., poses for a photo on June 22, 2024. She does not intend to vote because she feels the lives of the poor don't improve regardless of what party controls the White House and government. (AP Photo/Gary Fields)
In battleground Georgia, some poor people see no reason to vote. That decision could sway election
There are more than 47,000 people in Bibb County, Georgia, about 80 miles south of Atlanta, who are eligible to vote but don’t. That’s four times the number of votes that President Joe Biden carried the state by in 2020.
 
FILE - A voter fills out their Ohio primary election ballot at a polling location in Knox Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Tuesday, March 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Not everything will run perfectly on Election Day. Still, US elections are remarkably reliable
Elections are a foundation of democracy, but they’re also human exercises. Despite all the laws and rules governing how they should run, elections can sometimes appear to be messy.
 
Police patrol on a bridge beside the Mar-a-Lago estate of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, as a supporter flies flags to express support for Trump one day after an apparent assassination attempt, in Palm Beach, Fla., Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Threats and assassination attempts come with the office Donald Trump once held and is seeking again
Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans are blaming comments made by Democrats that he is a threat to democracy for the unprecedented attacks on him, the latest coming over the weekend.
 
FILE - Supporters cheer Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris as she speaks at a campaign rally, Aug. 20, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps, File)
Harris isn’t backing away from Biden’s democracy focus. But she’s putting her own spin on it
Before dropping his bid for reelection, President Joe Biden framed voters’ choice in November in dark and ominous terms, painting Republican nominee Donald Trump as a menace to American democracy and questioning whether the country could survive if he won.
 
Panelists, recruiters and attendees, network and discuss changes in the industry among other media professionals at the Hilton Chicago, Thursday, August 1, 2024, at the 2024 National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago. (AP Photo/Cheyanne Mumphrey)
After Trump’s appearance, the nation’s largest gathering of Black journalists gets back to business
The National Association of Black Journalists conference is back to business as usual after former President Donald Trump’s contentious interview. Thousands of journalists are speaking with recruiters or networking at the career fair in Chicago.
 
Merri Cambo, left, of Saxonburg, Pa., and her friend, Jane Wesolosky, of Buffalo, Pa., react as the funeral procession for Corey Comperatore passes by, Friday, July 19, 2024, in Sarver, Pa. Comperatore, a former fire chief, was shot and killed while attending a weekend rally for former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Firefighter killed at Trump rally honored with bagpipes, gun salute and a bugle sounding taps
The keen of bagpipes, a three-volley gun salute and a bugle sounding taps pierced the air of a small Pennsylvania town as hundreds gathered to honor an ex-fire chief who was shot and killed at a rally for former President Donald Trump.
 
Supporters wave to former President Donald Trump as he arrives to the Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport ahead of the 2024 Republican National Convention, Sunday, July 14, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
America’s toxic political climate faces calls to ‘tone it down’ after assassination attempt on Trump
“Tone it down!” That was the plea from the Republican congressman as he came to grips with the assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a political rally in the area where he grew up.
 
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