Talk of the Town
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton is expected to plead guilty over mishandling classified documents, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News Thursday.
Bolton could not immediately be reached for comment. The Department of Justice is declining to comment.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(NEW YORK) — Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced Thursday morning that she is suspending her U.S. Senate campaign, leaving Graham Platner as the likely Democratic nominee to face off against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Mills cited financial resources as a reason for suspending her campaign.
“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else — the fight — to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources,” Mills said in a prepared statement. “That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate.”
The latest Federal Election Commission filings from Q1 show Planter raised roughly $1.4 million more than Mills and has roughly $1.7 million more cash on hand.
Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran, also regularly polled significantly higher than Mills.
Mills’ announcement came just one day before the Maine Democratic Convention was scheduled to begin — and more than five weeks before the state’s June 9 primary.
Mills and Platner were scheduled to participate in their first televised debates of the campaign in May alongside David Costello.
Sen. Bernie Sanders supported Platner, while Sen. Chuck Schumer had previously announced his endorsement of Mills.
In a statement issued Thursday morning by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said in part, “After years of allowing Trump’s abuses of power, Senator Collins has never been more vulnerable and we will work with the presumptive Democratic nominee Graham Platner to defeat her.”
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.
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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge said Friday that President Donald Trump can’t close or rename the Kennedy Center, ruling that it cannot be officially named for anyone else unless Congress approves it.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the rebranding of the Kennedy Center as the “Trump Kennedy Center” violates the law, and ordered that Trump’s name be removed from the building within two weeks.
Cooper wrote that the administration “violated the Kennedy Center’s organic statute in purporting to rename the Center for President Trump, and in taking steps to effectuate that official renaming, such as installing signage with Donald J. Trump’s name on the front portico of the Center, altering the Center’s website to name the Center for President Trump, and in issuing official materials naming the Center for President Trump.”
Cooper also wrote “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Congress created the famed cultural institution in a federal statute, designating it as a living memorial in 1964 shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s death.
Trump announced in December that the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees, which the president himself now chairs and filled with his hand-picked appointees, had voted “unanimously” to rename the building. Workers added signage with his name shortly after.
Trump also announced earlier this year that the Kennedy Center would be closed for two years starting in July for major renovations.
Cooper blasted the board for making an “ill-informed” and “seemingly preordained” decision to close the center.
“Finally, the Court is preliminarily persuaded that the Board’s March 16 vote to close the Kennedy Center pending a years-long renovation represents a dereliction of its common-law- derived duty of prudence,” Cooper wrote. “The current record reveals that the Board rendered this ill-informed and seemingly preordained decision without regard for how it would accomplish its full array of statutory responsibilities. The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one.”
The changes are being challenged in court by Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who sits on the Kennedy Board of Trustees as one of its ex-officio members.
“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law,” Beatty said in a statement Friday. “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”
The Trump administration has defended the renovation as fulfilling the board’s “responsibilities to repair and improve the Center.”
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling, according to sources familiar with the matter.
ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment on the ruling.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous and Steven Portnoy contributed to this report.
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(MADISON, Wis) — Wisconsinites will vote for a new state Supreme Court justice on Tuesday in a race that could maintain or widen the court’s liberal majority for years.
In a state home to some of the country’s tightest races, Democrats have won four of the last five Supreme Court elections by large margins. President Donald Trump carried Wisconsin by less than a percentage point in 2024.
Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judges Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar are competing for an open seat to replace retiring conservative-aligned Justice Rebecca Bradley. Unlike last year’s race, the ideological balance of the court is not in play. Yet the seven-member body has resolved disputes between the GOP-controlled state legislature and the Democratic governor.
In 2020, the court narrowly rejected a Trump lawsuit that would have tossed out more than 220,000 absentee ballots. And with the governor’s seat and control of the statehouse up for grabs, this year could prove no different. Justices are elected to 10-year terms and could potentially hear election or redistricting-related litigation in the future.
Taylor is a former Dane County Circuit Court judge and former Democratic lawmaker representing deep-blue Madison in the state assembly. Lazar is a former Waukesha County Circuit Court judge and assistant attorney general during former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s tenure.
Though the race is nominally nonpartisan, the candidates have received endorsements from political figures. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Taylor, while Republican congressmen, including GOP gubernatorial candidate Rep. Tom Tiffany, endorsed Lazar.
In 2023, liberals flipped the majority to 4-3 for the first time in 15 years. In 2025, another liberal victory preserved their control of the court until at least 2028.
Lazar is a self-described constitutional conservative who has focused her messaging on restoring impartiality to the court. She called Taylor “a radical, extreme legislator” while her opponent labeled Lazar as an extremist with a “right-wing political agenda” in a debate aired Thursday by ABC affiliate WISN.
The shadow of Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban, struck down by the court in 2025, also loomed large this year.
Asked how she would have ruled on that case, Lazar declined to answer. But she reiterated that she will honor the ruling, which reinstated what she called the “20-week compromise” in place before the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Though this race is attracting less national attention than in years prior, Taylor campaigned on similar issues that have worked in Democrats’ favor. A former policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, her messaging has focused on protecting abortion and democracy.
She also hasn’t shied away from addressing bread-and-butter issues. In one ad, she warned of rising costs and “extremists” stripping Wisconsinites of food assistance.
Taylor entered the race in May 2025. She significantly outraised and outspent Lazar, who launched her campaign five months later. Taylor raised nearly $2.1 million between Feb. 3 and March 23, while Lazar raised about $474,000 in the same period.
Compared to the record-setting levels of spending in the 2025 race, it’s a drop in the bucket. That race saw total spending surpass $100 million, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk barnstormed Wisconsin that year, handing out controversial million-dollar checks and warning “Western civilization” was at stake.
There are roughly 3.6 million active registered voters in the state as of this month, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The latest tally shows that 324,396 people voted early.
Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Central time. The new term will take effect on Aug. 1.
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