President Donald Trump announced this afternoon that U.S. Space Command will be relocated from Colorado to Alabama, reversing a Biden-era decision to keep it at its temporary home.
Space Command’s functions include conducting operations like enabling satellite-based navigation and troop communication and providing warning of missile launches. Alabama and Colorado have long battled to claim Space Command because it has significant implications for the local economy. The site has also been a political prize, with elected officials from both Alabama and Colorado asserting their state is the better location.
Here's the latest:
Secretary of State: Trump administration will continue its counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement came following a U.S. military strike on a vessel alleged to be carrying drugs from Venezuela.
Speaking to reporters before boarding his plane to fly to Mexico for an official visit, Rubio said Tuesday that Trump “is going to be on offense against drug cartels and drug trafficking in the United States. It destabilizes not just the country but the entire Caribbean basin.”
He said many drug shipments that transit through the Caribbean head to Puerto Rico or directly to Europe and that the administration would act to stop them.
“The president has been very clear that he’s going to use the full power of America and the full might of the United States to take on and eradicate these drug cartels, no matter where they’re operating from and no matter how long they’ve been able to act with impunity,” he said. “Those days are over.”
Republican lawmakers run with Trump’s wish to rename Defense Department
A bill to rename the Defense Department has been introduced in the House and Senate after Trump recently pushed for the change.
The bill from Republican Sen. Mike Lee would restore the name to the United States Department of War. The Utah senator said Americans used that name for the first 150 years of the military’s history. Republican Rep. Greg Steube introduced the House version.
“It should always be clear to anyone who would harm our people: Americans don’t just play defense,” the Florida representative said.
Trump said at a recent White House event that he didn’t like the sound of the department’s current title.
“Why are we defense?” he said. “It used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound.”
Colorado officials oppose Trump’s efforts to move Space Command to Alabama
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and the state’s Congressional delegation voiced opposition to President Trump’s decision to move U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama, saying it will hurt national security.
The Democratic governor said moving space command to Alabama will diminish military readiness, waste taxpayer money and inconvenience military families.
Both Republicans and Democrats in the state’s delegation to Washington released a statement saying the move will set back space defense efforts and “hands the advantage to the converging threats of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.”
Minority Leader Jeffries says he and House Speaker Johnson had ‘opening conversation’ on budget talks
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said that he and the House Speaker Mike Johnson discussed how to reach a bipartisan deal to fund the federal government. The two discussed kitchen table economic issues, healthcare, public safety and national security, Jeffries said.
“But in that conversation, I also made clear we’re not going to support partisan funding legislation. Period. Full stop,” said Jeffries.
Congressional Republicans need to garner some Democratic support to continue funding the government. Jeffries said that he and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are “working closely together” on their negotiation strategy. He also called for a bipartisan meeting of top congressional leaders.
Jeffries and Schumer briefly diverged from each other during a spring budget battle with the Trump administration, with Schumer brokering a deal to fund the government over concerns that a funding shutdown would allow the Trump administration to wreak havoc on the federal workforce.
“We’re not going to find ourselves in a situation where Republicans at the 11th Hour, present a partisan spending bill that hurts everyday Americans,“ Jeffries told reporters.
Republican House members express support for Trump’s actions in Washington
Members representing states ranging from North Dakota to South Carolina held a news conference in front of the Capitol on their first day back from recess to reiterate their concerns about crime in the capital while specifically giving credit to Trump.
“We are here today to talk about something Donald Trump promised during the campaign,” said Rep. Buddy Carter, who is running for Senate in Georgia. “He promised to make our nation safer and more prosperous.”
He then introduced legislation called Make Our Streets Safe Again.“President Trump’s unyielding leadership and strength coupled with proper congressional oversight ensures that Washington D.C. will reclaim its rightful place,” said Rep. Harriet Hageman, who represents Wyoming.
Two protesters who interrupted their remarks were apprehended by Capitol Police during the news conference. At the end of their remarks, the lawmakers were met with chants of “shame” by dozens of protesters.
Trump denies object thrown from White House window and says he will ‘just blame AI’ if there’s video of something ‘really bad’
A reporter showed the president a video that was circulating over the weekend that appeared to show an upper-story window in the White House being open and something being thrown out of it.
Trump said the windows of the White House are sealed because they’re bulletproof.
He said the video was AI and said, “They create things.”
“If something happens that’s really bad, maybe I’ll have to just blame AI,” he said.
But the White House over the weekend told multiple media outlets that the video showing an item being thrown out of a window was a contractor performing maintenance. It was not clear why there was a discrepancy between their version of events and the president’s.
Speaker Johnson joins meeting with Epstein abuse survivors
House Speaker Mike Johnson is joining a meeting with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse on Capitol Hill as lawmakers debate how to push for disclosure of the investigation.
The survivors emphasized in the meeting that they wanted to keep private their personal information and some details of the nature of their abuse, according to Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican who was in the meeting.
Johnson has been pressured into acting on the Epstein files by many of his own members who are pressing the Trump administration for more public disclosure in the case.
Trump says US has carried out a strike against drug-carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela
Trump says the U.S. has carried out a strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug-carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela.
The president on Tuesday offered scant details on the operation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that the vessel was being operated by a “designated narco-terrorist organization.”
The press office of Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the announcement.
Trump says he’s going to send federal intervention to Chicago and Baltimore
The president was asked if he had decided to send National Guard troops to Chicago and said, “We’re going in,” but added. “I didn’t say when.”
Trump said he’d like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, to call him and say “send in the troops.”
“If the governor of Illinois would call up, call me up, I would love to do it. Now, we’re going to do it anyway. We have the right to do it,” Trump said.
He said he has an “obligation to protect this country, and that includes intervention in Chicago and Baltimore, despite local opposition.
Trump says social media conspiracies about his death were wrong
Asked if he had seen the weekend social media posts indicating he was no longer living, the president initially said “Really? I didn’t see that” and then talked about his activities over recent day.
Trump said despite a lack of public appearances up until Tuesday that he did “numerous” interviews and had some “pretty poignant” posts on his social media site. The president said he went to visit “some people” at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia as well.
“I was very active over the weekend,” Trump said.
Trump says mail-in voting a ‘big factor’ in moving Space Command out of Colorado
In announcing that Space Command would be headquartered in Alabama, Trump said the “big problem” he has with Colorado is its use of mail-in voting. Trump has long claimed without clear evidence that mail-in voting increases fraud and he’s seeking to ban it as a practice by states in U.S. elections.
“So that played a big factor,” Trump said of relocating Space Force’s command center.
The president said that mail-in voting leads to “automatically crooked elections.”
Trump’s predecessor in the White House, Joe Biden, had placed Space Command’s headquarters in Colorado, a choice he reversed on Tuesday.
Space Command HQ is moving from Colorado to Alabama
President Donald Trump speaks about the relocation of U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado to Alabama in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Trump has officially announced that Space Force’s headquarters will be moving to Alabama.
“The U.S. Space Command HQ will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point forward as Rocket City,” Trump said.
He said that when he created Space Command in his first term, he planned to make its headquarters in Alabama but that the Biden administration established it instead in Colorado.
Trump said one of his issues with Colorado was that it allowed all-mail in voting -- which he suggested encouraged fraud.
Trump says he will be seeking an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on tariffs
The president said in an interview taped Tuesday morning with conservative commentator Scott Jennings that he will be “going in as an emergency” to the high court and would “probably” be seeking it Wednesday.
He said the judges who issued the appeals court ruling last week were “a very liberal court” and said that “they don’t care about the country and “they don’t love the country.”
“It will be a disaster if that is lost for our country,” Trump said of his tariffs.
The president reappears
When Trump makes his announcement about Space Command’s new headquarters, it will be the first time he’s spoken publicly for a week.
Although he was spotted heading to his golf course over the weekend and he granted some interviews, he was largely out of sight for an unusually long stretch of time.
On Sunday, the 79-year-old president posted “NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE” on social media.
We’ll see how long Trump talks during the announcement. His participation in a Cabinet meeting last Tuesday stretched for three hours, including a monologue, conversations with top officials and questions from reporters.
Pentagon authorizes up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges, according to a memo reviewed by The Associated Press.
The military will begin sending groups of 150 attorneys — both military and civilians — to the Justice Department “as soon as practicable” and the military services should have the first round of people identified by next week, according to the memo, dated Aug. 27.
-By Konstantin Toropin
Iowa GOP-er previews ‘announcement soon’ on Senate run
After Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst made her retirement official on Tuesday, one House Republican widely speculated to launch a statewide bid teased an “announcement soon” on the race.
Rep. Ashley Hinson, who represents an eastern Iowa district, praised Ernst’s time in military and government service as a “powerful example of the American dream.”
“As we look forward, President Trump needs a fighter in the Senate who will always have his back to continue to cut spending, deport illegal aliens, and put working families first,” Hinson said in a post on the social media site X. “I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with the President to pass this America First agenda in the House and I would be his strongest ally in the Senate.”
Her family will have an “announcement soon about how we believe we can best serve Iowa,” she says.
Vaccine researcher and critic of RFK Jr. will no longer serve on FDA panel
A leading vaccine researcher and critic of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will no longer serve as a government adviser, after U.S. officials declined to extend his term on a federal panel.
Dr. Paul Offit told the Associated Press Tuesday that he learned his appointment to a Food and Drug Administration vaccine panel would not be renewed.
Offit, a vaccine inventor and pediatric specialist, has been a prominent critic of Kennedy, repeatedly calling for his resignation over recent changes to vaccine access and information.
The FDA’s vaccine advisory panel meets regularly to make recommendations for seasonal shots and to review the safety and effectiveness of new vaccines.
Offit served two four-year terms on the panel. He says he was asked to extend his time by an additional two years and filed paperwork to serve until 2027.
But Offit said he was told that Kennedy’s department decided not to renew his appointment.
Rubio attends event to honor Cuban dissident in Miami before Mexico trip
Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended an awards ceremony in his native Miami where Polish officials recognized one of Cuba’s best known dissidents.
Rubio appeared alongside his Polish counterpart, Radoslaw Sikorski, and spoke briefly to praise Berta Soler’s refusal to leave Cuba while also thanking Poland for its actions to throw off communist rule and support other countries on the same path.
“I’m not being critical of anybody, but it is easier to be critical of the regime, like many of us are on social media and in press releases. It’s a lot harder to actually confront it in person with real consequences in your daily life,” Rubio said. Soler did not attend the event and recorded a video from Cuba.
Later on Tuesday, Rubio is set to travel to Mexico in what will be his fourth foreign trip in the Western Hemisphere. He will also visit Ecuador.
‘Green bank’ funding in jeopardy after appeals court ruling
A federal judge was wrong to block the Trump administration from freezing billions of dollars and terminating contracts for nonprofits to run a “green bank” aimed at financing climate-friendly projects, a divided appeals court ruled Tuesday.
It said the challenge belongs in a federal claims court as a breach of contract case.
The ruling is a win for the Trump administration that had blasted the program as a waste of taxpayer money and tried to claw back funding. It’s a loss for Climate United Fund and other nonprofits who wanted the federal court system to ensure it quickly received its funding.
The groups sued the EPA, its administrator Lee Zeldin and Citibank, which held the grant money, saying they had illegally denied the groups access to funds awarded last year. They wanted access to those funds again, saying the freeze had paralyzed their work and jeopardized their basic operations.
UN says 14,000 US-bound migrants have turned around
Almost all are Venezuelan, and they’ve reversed course since Trump’s immigration crackdown began, according to a report published by the governments of Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica, with support of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
This “reverse flow” migration is largely made up of migrants who fled Venezuela’s long-running economic, social and political crises only to encounter U.S. immigration policy no longer open to asylum-seekers. Migration through the treacherous Darien Gap on the border of Colombia and Panama peaked in 2023 when more than half a million migrants crossed. That flow slowed somewhat in 2024, but dried up almost completely early this year.
▶ Read more about what’s happening with Venezuelans who were trying to reach the U.S.
Newsom, channeling Trump, cheers ruling against military deployments
Judge Breyer noted in his ruling the Trump administration’s possible plans to call National Guard troops into other U.S. cities.
Newsom posted on X, in an all-caps reflection of the president’s own social media style, “DONALD TRUMP LOSES AGAIN. The courts agree -- his militarization of our streets and use of the military against US citizens is ILLEGAL.”
The White House and the Defense Department did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Judge’s order finding National Guard deployment illegal is scathing
Trump deployed roughly 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines in Southern California over the objections of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, citing a law that applies when the nation “is invaded,” when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government,” or when the president is otherwise unable “to execute the laws of the United States.”
Breyer accused the Trump administration of “willfully” violating the law, saying it used troops for functions barred by their training, refused to “meaningfully coordinate with state and local officials” and “coached” federal law enforcement agencies as it used armed soldiers and military vehicles to block traffic, engage in crowd control and otherwise act beyond its authority.
▶ Read more about the ruling against National Guard deployments
Chicago mayor defies Trump’s immigration crackdown plan
The executive order signed by Mayor Brandon Johnson on Saturday pushes back against what he called the “out-of-control” Trump administration’s plan to surge federal officers into the nation’s third-largest city. It prohibits Chicago Police from helping federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement or any related patrols, traffic stops and checkpoints during the surge.
Brandon said all city departments must guard the constitutional rights of Chicago residents “amidst the possibility of imminent militarized immigration or National Guard deployment by the federal government.”
The federal surge into Chicago could start as early as Sept. 5 and last about 30 days, according to two U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that had not been made public.
State Department blocking nearly all Palestinian visa applicants
The Trump administration is piling new restrictions on Palestinian visa applicants, making it nearly impossible for anyone holding a Palestinian Authority passport to receive the travel documents needed to visit the U.S. for business, work, pleasure or educational purposes.
Palestinian applicants who hold non-Palestinian Authority passports also may face difficulties, should they need a U.S. visa.
The State Department has tightened what it says are temporary policies to intensify the vetting of Palestinians seeking to travel to the United States. Now, virtually all applications will either be denied or not accepted for processing.
The administration is changing how U.S. visas are issued as it cracks down on illegal migration from around the world, but these steps against Palestinians appear more far-reaching that those directed at other nationalities, many of which include exemptions for official travel to the U.S.
U.S. sanctions network allegedly smuggling Iranian oil
The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned the Iraqi-Kittitian businessman Waleed al-Samarra’i and firms associated with him, accusing him of smuggling Iranian oil disguised as Iraqi oil through a network of shipping companies and ships.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control alleges that al-Samarra’i covertly blends Iranian oil with Iraqi oil to avoid sanctions and has made hundreds of millions of dollars from the scheme.
“By targeting Iran’s oil revenue stream, Treasury will further degrade the regime’s ability to carry out attacks against the United States and its allies,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a news release. “We remain committed to an oil supply free from Iran and will continue our efforts to disrupt the ongoing attempts by Tehran to evade U.S. sanctions.”
The Associated Press
