Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral services take place in DC
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on April 27, 2026, in Washington, DC. Republican senators gathered to introduce legislation to fund construction of a White House ballroom as a secure alternative event space following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, DC Saturday night. (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — National political leaders and prominent figures from around the globe will remember South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham with a ceremony on Capitol Hill and a funeral service in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
Graham is first being recognized with a ceremony in the Capitol rotunda. His casket was brought to the Capitol, where he is being honored by his fellow senators.
The ceremony includes remarks from Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Vice President JD Vance, according to the program.
Graham served more than two decades in the Senate, becoming one of the chamber’s most recognizable Republicans and one of President Donald Trump’s closest friends and advisers. He advised the president on foreign matters, including the recent war in Iran, and was a prominent fixture of the Senate’s powerful Judiciary Committee.
He died suddenly and unexpectedly on July 11 at the age of 71. Preliminary findings from the Medical Examiner of the District of Columbia said that the senator died due to “aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.”
Later Tuesday, there will be a funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral. Trump is expected to speak at the service, according to the office of Darline Graham, the late senator’s sister who was sworn in earlier this month to finish out the rest of his term.
The cathedral funeral is expected to be attended by a number of world leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Graham worked closely with both men as a staunch ally to both nations. Graham spent some of his final days in Ukraine and met with Zelenskyy just before he died.
Graham’s casket will return to South Carolina on Wednesday, where further memorial services are set for Columbia, the state’s capital, and Pickens County, where Graham grew up and part of the district he represented.
Congressional candidate Claire Valdez speaks during a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) rally at Kings Theater on June 18, 2026 in New York City. Brad Lander, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier are challenging incumbents in Democratic primary contests. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The first major test of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s political influence could come Tuesday as three of his congressional endorsees face competitive primary races.
Two Democratic congressmen in New York City are facing challenges from progressive candidates endorsed by Mamdani, while two other races in the city each have multiple candidates vying for the Democratic nomination, including a Kennedy family member.
The Empire State is once again expected to play a pivotal role in the battle for control of the House this November.
North of the city in the Hudson Valley, a crowded Democratic field is seeking to flip Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler’s seat.
And in the state’s sprawling 21st Congressional District, which stretches from the top of the Catskill Mountains to the Canadian border, a candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump is taking on a state GOP-backed assemblyman in the race to replace Rep. Elise Stefanik.
1 city, 4 high-profile races
New York City largely leans blue, but the primary races are showing deep divisions among Democratic voters.
“I think what’s interesting about primaries, especially in New York, is that they’re the main contest because they tend to have an outsized influence on the general election,” said Hostos Community College assistant professor Helen Chang.
When drivers cross into Brooklyn, they are greeted with a sign noting that Mamdani is the mayor and Antonio Reynoso is the borough president.
While Mamdani and Reynoso’s names might appear together on the sign, they are not on the same page in the 7th District race in which Reynoso is a candidate. Reynoso is supported by New York Attorney General Letitia James, but Mamdani is backing state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez. Julie Won, a city council member, is also running.
In Manhattan and Brooklyn’s 10th District, Rep. Dan Goldman is being challenged by Mamdani-endorsed former comptroller Brad Lander, while in the 13th District, which covers parts of Manhattan and the Bronx, the mayor is supporting community advocate Darializa Avila Chevalier over Rep. Adriano Espaillat. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is backing Espaillat and Goldman.
Mamdani did not endorse a candidate in Manhattan’s 12th District. The race has been dominated by the artificial intelligence industry, with spending both supporting and opposing state Assemblyman Alex Bores.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed state Assemblyman Micah Lasher in the race, while former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is backing former President John F. Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg. Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway, health researcher Nina Schwalbe and attorney Laura Dunn are also running.
Noteworthy contests to the north
In the northern suburbs, the 17th is one of the state’s handful of swing districts. Home to Bill and Hillary Clinton, the district has been represented by Lawler since 2023.
Several Democrats are looking to make the district blue again, including former National Security Council Counterterrorism Director Cait Conley, Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson, Tarrytown Village Trustee Effie Phillips-Staley, former reporter Michael Sacks and retired Air Force officer John Cappello.
Further upstate in the state’s northernmost district, Republican primary candidate Anthony Constantino has aimed to closely align himself with Trump.
Constantino, who received the president’s endorsement, is the CEO of Sticker Mule and made headlines in 2024 by placing a large “Vote for Trump” sign atop his building.
Rival candidate Robert Smullen, a state assemblyman and retired Marine Corps officer, was endorsed by the chair of the New York Republican State Committee.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on May 25, 2026, in Arlington, Virginia. Memorial Day honors those who died while serving in the U.S. armed forces. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is expected to hold a Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Wednesday, a White House official confirmed to ABC News.
Sources told ABC News that the plans are subject to change due to possible inclement weather in the Washington, D.C., area.
According to the White House official, all Cabinet members are expected to attend, and the meeting will “highlight recent successes of the administration including economy and small business wins, Task Force to Eliminate Fraud highlights, and foreign policy updates.”
The travel to the presidential retreat was first reported by the New York Post.
The trip would be Trump’s first return to Camp David in almost a year.
Trump previously visited the retreat in Catoctin Mountain Park in Frederick County, Maryland, last June in what the White House described at the time as “a regular off campus retreat of principals attended by the President and Vice President.”
The decision to hold an official Cabinet meeting at Camp David marks a departure from typical practice, though it is not unprecedented. Trump held a Cabinet meeting there in September 2017, as well, which was closed to the press.
Exterior view of the Louisiana State Capitol building, the seat of government for the state of Louisiana, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 20th June 1974. Completed in 1931, the Art Deco building was designed by architects Weiss, Dreyfous & Seiferth. (Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
(BATON ROUGE, La.) — Louisiana lawmakers on Friday approved a new congressional map that could allow Republicans to flip one of the state’s two Democratic-held House seats in the 2026 midterms.
The Louisiana Senate gave final approval to a bill with the new map after much dissent from Democrats.
“Y’all, at the beginning of this process, I would have said that we are building a house on a broken foundation. Now, it feels more like quicksand, because we’re in 2026 going into a map that we know is flawed, that we know is going to get struck down,” state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat, said on the Senate floor.
State Sen. Jay Morris, a Republican, defended the map ahead of the final vote.
“I think we have a map here that meets all the traditional redistricting criteria. It’s not racially gerrymandered. … I think it broadly allows for representation for each region of the state, and it’s very fair, and we should approve it,” Morris said.
The new map comes weeks after U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s current map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The landmark Supreme Court decision dealt a blow to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and set off a newfound scramble of mid-decade redistricting in Louisiana and other states that Democrats say could drastically reduce the number of Black representatives in Congress.
On Thursday, during hours of floor debate, several Democratic state representatives condemned the redrawn map, which eliminates one of the two majority-Black districts in the state, as discriminatory.
“I want to ask you to remember the argument that we should now be colorblind about a congressional map, in this state of all states, requires forgetting a quantity of history that I don’t believe any of us has the right to forget. Black people in this country were not citizens; not partial citizens, not second-class citizens. We weren’t citizens at all,” state Rep. Kyle Green, a Democrat and member of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, said on Thursday.
State Rep. Beau Beaullieu, a Republican who sponsored an amended version of the map that the state House approved, argued to members that legislators had been forced to redraw the map because of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“And now we find ourselves back with a similar map to the one this body passed in 2022, that had five Republican districts and one Democrat district,” he said on Thursday. “The map complies with traditional redistricting principles and also maximizes partisan advantage. The map is contiguous; it is compact; it binds communities of interest; it protects incumbency. … Race was not a factor when drawing these districts.”
