Orion Donovan Smith

WASHINGTON – Donald Trump became the 47th president of the United States on Monday as he took the oath of office surrounded by family members, lawmakers, former presidents and the world’s richest men under the Capitol dome on a frigid day in D.C.

WASHINGTON – Capitol Hill regulars like to compare Congress to a high school – with its cliques, class clowns and that guy who won’t stop boasting about his athletic exploits. One similarity is certain: It’s not easy being a freshman.

WASHINGTON – When the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish meet in Atlanta on Monday, the college football championship won’t be the only thing on the line.Since a 2021 Supreme Court decision allowed student-athletes to be compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness, a star turn for a college player on the national stage could mean life-changing sums of money in endorsement deals before officially turning pro.Ohio State’s star-studded roster has earned about $20 million in NIL deals, and the “collective” that manages Notre Dame’s NIL money raked in roughly that same amount in 2023.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Commerce on Tuesday awarded a $48 million grant to establish an aerospace manufacturing hub in Airway Heights that promises to make the Inland Northwest a national center for composite materials used in next-generation aircraft.

WASHINGTON – Immigration policy will take center stage when Congress returns to the Capitol this week after most Senate Democrats voted Thursday to begin debate on a bill that would require the deportation of immigrants who are charged with minor crimes while in the country illegally.

WASHINGTON – Lawmakers paid their respects to Jimmy Carter as the former president’s casket arrived at the Capitol on Tuesday, with both Republicans and his fellow Democrats remembering the one-term leader as a humble man who earned wide respect after a presidency that few considered successful at the time.

WASHINGTON – The House and Senate met in a joint session of Congress on Monday and certified the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

WASHINGTON – Nearing the end of his tenure, President Joe Biden on Thursday celebrated the Senate’s confirmation of 235 judges during his presidency, eclipsing the total confirmed under his predecessor.

WASHINGTON – It was late October 2023, and House Republicans were in a bind.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is leaving Congress at the end of 2024 after 20 years representing Eastern Washington in the U.S. House of Representatives and a political career that has spanned three decades. After working as an aide to state Rep. Bob Morton, she took over his seat at age 24 and rose to become House Republican leader in Olympia before winning a seat in Congress in 2004.

WASHINGTON – When President-elect Donald Trump takes the helm of the U.S. government in January, he’ll face a more complex world than he did at the start of his first term, but he’ll also have an ally atop the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

WASHINGTON – Two Washington lawmakers are making a last-minute effort to pass landmark legislation intended to protect minors on social media platforms and other parts of the internet, but opposition from the left and right may keep the bill from reaching the finish line by the end of the year.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Since Republicans won control of the House, Senate and White House in last month’s elections, Democrats in Congress have embarked on a series of public and private debates over what went wrong for their party.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After the U.S. Department of Labor on Tuesday proposed phasing out a program that lets some employers pay disabled workers less than the minimum wage, two Washington lawmakers who have long advocated an end to the program hailed the move.

WASHINGTON – JD Vance is set to be the No. 2 in the White House, but the vice president-elect told supporters on Saturday that the second-most important person in the incoming administration won’t be him, but rather the attorney general.

WASHINGTON – Rep. Dan Newhouse won re-election in central Washington’s 4th Congressional District on Monday, a victory for moderate Republicans in an election that saw President-elect Donald Trump pull the GOP farther to the right.

WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump swept to victory in Tuesday’s election by winning a bigger share of votes in nearly every state than he did in 2020, improving even in Democratic bastions like Oregon, California and New York – but not in Washington state.

WASHINGTON – Michael Baumgartner intends to be a team player when he’s sworn in as a member of the House Republican conference in January, but Eastern Washington’s newly elected congressman says that doesn’t mean always being at odds with the opposing party.

Sen. Maria Cantwell won a fifth term in office on Tuesday, setting up the veteran lawmaker to represent Washington state for three decades in the Senate.

WASHINGTON – As presidential election results came in Tuesday night, former President Donald Trump led in several key states and Vice President Kamala Harris’ path to victory appeared to be narrowing, as she relied on a few swing states where her Republican opponent held a slim lead.

WASHINGTON – On Election Night in 2000, it looked like Sam Reed was going to lose.

Some Republicans were critical of the Washington State Republican Party for sending text messages to Spanish-speaking voters on Friday alleging that Democratic candidates want to “eliminate the Spanish language” and “support the chemical castration of your children in school without your knowledge or consent.”

WASHINGTON – Speaking in the same spot where her opponent urged his supporters to “fight like hell” and march to the Capitol nearly four years earlier, the messages – both symbolic and literal – that Vice President Kamala Harris delivered in her closing argument to the nation could hardly have been clearer.