Violence continued across much of the Middle East a day after Donald Trump said the US was in āvery goodā talks with Iran to end the war in the region soon. Iranian barrages targeted Israel, Gulf Arab states and northern Iraq on Tuesday, while Israeli and US warplanes continued to carry out strikes across Tehran and on other targets in the Islamic Republic. Democrats managed to flip a seat in the Florida state house in the district that is home to Donald Trumpās Mar-a-Lago. Emily Gregory, a Democrat, defeated Republican Jon Maples, who had an endorsement from the US president, in the special election in Floridaās 87th state house district. The Associated Press called the race on Tuesday evening, with Gregory, a public health expert and small business owner, leading by more than 2 percentage points.
Donald Trump on Tuesday swore in Markwayne Mullin as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), while Senate Republicans unveiled a compromise that would restart funding to most of the agency but appears to exclude reforms to immigration enforcement Democrats have demanded. Donald Trump has described voting by mail as ācheatingā at an event in Memphis, Tennessee, just days after casting a mailāin ballot himself. āMail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating, and we got to do something about it all,ā the US president said on Monday, in remarks to a roundtable on his administrationās crime taskforce. Workers with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are reeling from the White Houseās deployment of immigration law enforcement into airports as TSA workers enter their sixth week without pay as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown continues.