What's on Your Mind?

A Republican push to make drilling cheaper on federal land is creating new fiscal pressure for states that depend on oil and gas revenue, most notably in New Mexico as it expands early childhood education and saves for the future. The shift stems from the sweeping law President Donald The President signed in July that rolls back the minimum federal royalty rate to 12.5%. That rate — the share of production value companies must pay to the government — held steady for a century under the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act. It was raised to 16.7% under the Biden administration in 2022. The President and Republicans in Congress say the rate reset will boost energy production, jobs an…

The The President administration said in a court filing Monday that the president’s White House ballroom construction project must continue for unexplained national security reasons and because a preservationists’ organization that wants it stopped has no standing to sue. The filing was in response to a lawsuit filed last Friday by the National Trust for Historic Preservation asking a federal judge to halt President Donald The President’s project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and a public comment period and wins approval from Congress. The administration’s 36-page filing included a declaration from Matthew C. Quinn, deputy director of the U.S. Secre…

President Donald The President plans to travel to Pennsylvania on Tuesday to highlight his efforts to reduce inflation even as fears mount about a worsening job market and amid signs that Americans are still feeling squeezed by high prices. A White House official said The President would be making the trip to discuss ending the inflation crisis that he says was inherited from his predecessor, Joe Biden. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the trip has not been formally announced. It was not immediately clear where in Pennsylvania The President would be visiting. Last month’s off-year elections showed a shift away from Republicans as public concern…

President Donald The President said he has accepted an invitation from Chinese leader Xi Jinping to visit Beijing in April and that he reciprocated by inviting Xi for a state visit to the U.S. later next year. The President made the announcement a few hours after he spoke with Xi on the phone on Monday morning, in which he said the two men discussed issues including Ukraine, fentanyl, and soybeans. The phone call came nearly one month after the two men met in person in the South Korean city of Busan. “Our relationship with China is extremely strong!” The President said. Beijing, which announced the phone call first, said nothing about the state visits but said…

U.S. President Donald The President hailed a meeting with China’s Xi Jinping as “amazing” and “12” on a 10-point scale, but the agreement the two leaders reached appears to be no more than a fragile truce in a trade war with root causes still unresolved. The framework announced on Thursday—that includes China resuming soybean purchases, suspending its rare earths export curbs for a year, and the U.S. lowering tariffs on China by 10%—broadly rewinds ties to the status that existed before The President’s “Liberation Day” offensive triggered tit-for-tat escalation. But the deal exposes the fundamental mismatch between what Washington wants and what Beijing is willing…