Construction underway on UFC Octagon at White House for Flag Day fights
In this photo illustration, the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen. (Photo Illustration by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Construction on the Ultimate Fighting Championship Octagon is underway on the White House South Lawn ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned fights this summer to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States.
The event, dubbed “UFC Freedom Fights 250,” will take place on June 14 — coinciding with the president’s birthday and Flag Day — and feature a lightweight title matchup between undisputed champion Ilia Topuria and interim title holder Justin Gaethje alongside four other fights.
“Selected fighters” will take home prize money — some of which will come from Crypto.com, according to UFC.
The scaffolding — which will frame and light the cage where the fight is occurring, according to renderings shared by UFC — is visible from the White House North Lawn, cresting over the historic West Wing and Oval Office.
Trump has repeatedly touted the popularity of the fight, claiming at the congressional picnic earlier this month that he had “never seen anybody want anything so much as people want those tickets.”
In an Oval Office event featuring some of the fighters earlier this month, including Topuria and Gaethj, Trump claimed that tickets would be free to attendees and that tens of thousands of people would be able to congregate on the South Lawn and surrounding parks to witness the event.
“Our country is invited to this, it’s free,” Trump told reporters, claiming that the Ellipse would be able to house 75,000 to 100,000 fans beyond the main stage on the South Lawn. “They’re going to set up eight big screens and they’re going to have the fight. And then out here, we’re going to have 4,000 seats right in front of the front door of the White House.”
On Saturday, UFC shared new renderings to social media of what the event is expected to look like. The images featured a large fighting cage surrounded by stadium seating as well as an overview of the “UFC Freedom 250 Fan Fest” in Ellipse Park.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said the event “will be one of the greatest and most historic sports events in history.”
“President Trump hosting it at the White House is a testament to his vision to celebrate America’s monumental 250th anniversary,” he said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers remarks during working-level peace talks at the U.S. State Department, April 14, 2026, in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Data collected by the State Department that has not previously been made public indicates that the number of people receiving treatment through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has remained steady despite dramatic cuts to foreign aid funding under the Trump administration, according to an internal department memo sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and seen exclusively by ABC News.
The memo, which is marked sensitive but unclassified, says that even though overall spending on the initiative fell by roughly 30%, 20.6 million people living with HIV in more than 50 countries received anti-retroviral treatment through U.S. government programs during the 2025 fiscal year — the same number government data shows were receiving the therapy in 2024.
However, the memo did not provide information on the number of individuals who had received testing and counseling services through PEPFAR, which was 84.1 million in 2024. Global health experts estimate that figure could have fallen by more than 15 million in 2025, due in part to an interruption to some testing programs during the Trump administration’s freeze on most foreign aid in early 2025.
But Jeremy Lewin, the State Department’s senior official for foreign and security assistance, reports that the data collected in 2025 shows progress towards other Trump administration goals, including ending mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Lewin wrote to Rubio that the number of pregnant and breastfeeding mothers who began pre-exposure prophylaxis through PEPFAR more than doubled. He said it climbed from 43,000 in 2024 to 103,000 in 2025, ” showing early progress on any early focus area of yours and President Trump’s.”
Additionally, Lewin said the 2025 data demonstrates “an important shift toward country self-reliance,” indicating that treatment programs for 3 million people with HIV/AIDS were now being managed by national governments rather than organizations working on behalf of PEPFAR.
Lewin said the department expected to see “further progress” toward country self-reliance as it further shifts toward its new global health strategy based on bilateral agreements that mandate a level of co-investment from participating nations.
In a letter outlining the plan in September 2025, Rubio said that the U.S. would enter pacts with 71 countries by the end of the year and establish detailed implementation plans with those nations by the end of March 2026 — a timeline the administration has fallen behind.
In his memo, Lewin said that as of April 7, the U.S had now “signed 30 compacts with nearly $20.6 billion dollars in both U.S. and partner co-investment commitments,” adding that the current data “does not yet show the impact of these historic deals.”
The Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy will confidentially brief members of Congress on the 2025 PEPFAR data before releasing it to the public on Friday, according to the memo.
Since it was launched by former President George W. Bush in 2003, PEPFAR has saved 25 million lives globally, supported 7 million orphans and vulnerable children, and enabled 5.5 million babies to be born HIV-free, according to the State Department. It’s credited as the largest commitment by any country to fight a single disease in history.
Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, campaigns during Fiesta on Hamilton ahead of a primary election in Allentown, Pennsylvania, US, on Sunday, May 17, 2026. Pennsylvania will hold a primary election on May 19. Photographer: Joe Lamberti/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania are headed to the polls on Tuesday in primaries that will set up matchups critical for both control of the state and the House in the 2026 midterm elections.
Both parties know how key the state is to their efforts.
“The road to the majority in the House of Representatives runs through Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Republican Party Executive Director James Markley told ABC News.
And Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk, a Democrat, told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz in a recent interview, “The path to a Democratic majority in Congress is places like Allentown, places like Scranton.”
A marquee race for governor
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat first elected as governor in 2022 after almost two decades in state politics, is set to vie for a second term. He faces speculation that he’ll run for president in 2028 but has said he currently remains focused on 2026.
Republican State Treasurer Stacy Garrity is set to be the GOP’s standard bearer for governor. She has said she hopes to unseat Shapiro by pointing to challenges Pennsylvanians still face with affordability and other issues.
Neither candidate faces any opponents on their primary ballots.
The battle for the 7th District
Across the state, Democrats are targeting four House districts held by Republicans in Pennsylvania — among the highest number of seats the party is targeting in any state.
One of those four seats is Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, which includes the Lehigh Valley. Incumbent Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, a Republican, is set to try to win a second term in Congress, and is unopposed in the Republican primary.
In 2024, he flipped the seat once held by then-Rep. Susan Wild, a Democrat, by just 1 percentage point, but he says he’s confident he’ll be able to hold the seat.
“What we’ve seen is that all four of the [Democratic] candidates have raced to the left, and they’ve all mirrored each other on the radical-left policies,” he told ABC News, saying later that he feels voters trust him on delivering for the region.
The four-way Democratic primary in the district has both candidates with distinct backgrounds as well as some party infighting.
Gov. Josh Shapiro himself has thrown his support behind Bob Brooks, a union leader and former firefighter. Brooks has excited supporters with his blue-collar bona fides and the chance for him to galvanize working-class Pennsylvanians to support him.
However, Brooks has faced scrutiny from both Democrats and Republicans over how he appeared to get so much institutional support — including from Shapiro and from progressive stalwart independent Sen. Bernie Sanders — before the primary.
“I’m a 20-year firefighter, union leader, and baseball coach, and I’ve had nearly every job in the book — dishwasher, snowplow driver, bartender, and Teamster…. A lot of politicians want to talk about the affordability crisis. I’ve lived it,” Brooks said in a statement to ABC News.
Ryan Crosswell, a former federal prosecutor, is also on the ballot and has decried the institutional support going to Brooks. Crosswell is a former Republican who resigned from the Justice Department in February 2025 because he disagreed with how the DOJ wanted to drop corruption charges against then-New York City mayor Eric Adams.
“I’m the only candidate in this race who hasn’t either been a career politician or been hobnobbing around them, and that includes Bob Brooks. So I think I had a lot more in common with everyday Americans,” Crosswell told ABC News in an interview.
Brooks’ campaign has emphasized local support for him from state lawmakers, local Democratic groups, and local labor groups.
The other Democrats on the ballot in Pennsylvania’s 7th District are Lamont McClure, a former Northampton County executive, and Carol Obando-Derstine, who served as an aide to former Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.
Other key districts
The other three districts that are likely to be battlegrounds are Pennsylvania’s 1st, 8th and 10th districts. Similar to Mackenzie, none of the Republican incumbents in those districts have any primary opponents.
In the 1st District in the Philadelphia suburbs, incumbent Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is set to try to win a sixth term in Congress. Bob Harvie, a Shapiro-backed Bucks County commissioner, and Luca Simonelli, a mathematician and political newcomer, are vying in the Democratic primary for the chance to flip the seat.
And in the 8th District, Rep. Rob Bresnahan is set to try to win a second term in Congress after flipping the seat previously held by then-Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright in 2024 by a slim margin. Paige Cognetti, the mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, will be set to be Democrats’ standard-bearer to flip the seat. She faces no primary challengers.
In the 10th District, incumbent Rep. Scott Perry, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, is set to try to win an eighth term in Congress. The Democrats vying to unseat him in their own primary are Janelle Stelson, a Shapiro-endorsed former local television anchor who was the district’s Democratic nominee in 2024, and Justin Douglas, a Dauphin County commissioner.
Another key race to watch in Pennsylvania, although not one is considered a battleground, is the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 3rd District. The deeply-blue district, which covers a swath of Philadelphia, is opening up as incumbent Rep. Dwight Evans is retiring.
State Sen. Sharif Street, progressive state Rep. Chris Rabb, and pediatric surgeon Ala Stanford are the frontrunner candidates. Whoever wins is on a glide path to Congress as no Republicans are running for the seat.
ABC News’ Julia Cherner contributed to this report.
The US Treasury building in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Wednesday is Tax Day, the last day of this year’s tax season, and the average refund for filers is up 11% compared to last year’s filing season, according to new Treasury Department data.
The average refund this filing season is “over $3,400,” the Treasury Department data said.
The data, which is as of Tuesday, also showed that “over 53 million filers claimed at least one of President Trump’s signature new tax cuts,” which includes provisions from Trump’s sweeping legislation that was passed last year.
Treasury has also announced that more than 5 million filers have opened so-called Trump Accounts for children who were eligible under the law.
“Treasury and the IRS have worked tirelessly to ensure our tax system works for the people it is meant to serve,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a press release on Wednesday. “From the shop floor to the kitchen table, taxpayers are feeling the difference of the largest tax cuts in our nation’s history, and millions of Americans are keeping more of what they earn and seeing their paychecks go further than ever before.”
Over 25 million filers have claimed No Tax on Overtime, with an average deduction of over $3,100, the department’s data noted, while more than 30 million seniors have claimed the Enhanced Deduction for Seniors, with an average deduction of over $7,500.
The data also showed that more than 105 million filers have claimed the permanently doubled standard deduction — the specific dollar amount that reduces the amount of income on which people are taxed.
