Turning Point is beginning its annual Christian youth conference, the first event since the assassination of founder Charlie Kirk. The four-day meeting in Phoenix kicking off Thursday gathers thousands of young supporters of the MAGA movement, which faces internal debates over its future. A year ago, the conference celebrated President Donald Trump’s victory. Now the movement faces challenges, including debates over antisemitism. Turning Point is being led by Kirk’s widow and is confronting its own future. The event features MAGA influencers like Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson. Erika Kirk has stepped into the spotlight, addressing conspiracy theories surrounding her husband's death.

House Republican leaders are determined to push ahead with a health care bill that excludes efforts to address the soaring monthly premiums for Affordable Care Act recipients. The enhanced tax credits for people who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act are set to expire at year’s end. Speaker Mike Johnson had discussed allowing more politically vulnerable Republicans lawmakers a chance to vote on their plan that would temporarily extend the pandemic-era subsidies. But leadership ultimately sided with conservatives who assailed the subsidies as propping up Obamacare. The outcome all but guarantees that many Americans will see substantially higher insurance costs in 2026.

Indiana’s Republican-led Senate has decisively rejected a redrawn congressional map that would have favored their party, defying months of pressure from President Donald Trump and delivering a stark setback to the White House ahead of next year’s midterm elections. The vote on Thursday was overwhelmingly against the proposed redistricting, with more Republicans opposing than supporting the measure, signaling the limits of Trump’s influence even in one of the country’s most conservative states. Trump has been urging Republicans nationwide to redraw their congressional maps in an unusual campaign to help the party maintain its thin majority in the House of Representatives.

  • Updated

FILE - A national flag hangs over the site where conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, at Utah Valley University, Sept. 17, 2025, in Orem, Utah. (AP Photo/Jesse Bedayn, File)

Chief Justice John Roberts has led the Supreme Court’s conservative majority on a steady march of increasing the power of the presidency. And that began well before Donald Trump’s time in the White House. The justices could take the next step in a case being argued Monday that calls for the overturning of a unanimous 90-year-old decision that limits executive authority. The court’s conservatives already have allowed Trump to fire almost everyone he's wanted to in his second term. That's despite the court’s 1935 decision that prohibits the president from removing the heads of independent agencies without cause.

  • Updated

People hold up signs during a memorial for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Sept. 21, 2025, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Federal judges have allowed North Carolina to use a redrawn congressional map designed to give Republicans an additional U.S. House seat. The map targets the state’s only swing seat, held by Democratic Rep. Don Davis, who represents over 20 northeastern counties. A three-judge panel denied a preliminary injunction request on Wednesday, acting after a hearing in mid-November. North Carolina is among several states where President Donald Trump has pushed for mid-decade map changes ahead of the 2026 elections. A federal court also recently blocked Texas from using a GOP-engineered map. Many lower courts have blocked Trump’s initiatives, but the conservative U.S. Supreme Court often puts those rulings on hold.