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GOP lawmakers returning from their Doral retreat are voicing deep frustration about the party’s lack of accomplishments and are divided over how to spend their remaining time in power.

House Republican leaders are publicly projecting confidence about their chances of holding the majority in the midterms. Privately, many of their members sound far less certain.

Gathered this week at a Trump-owned resort in Doral, Florida, to coordinate strategy for the rest of the legislative year and the looming campaign season, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., struck an upbeat tone, telling reporters, “Do not bet against the House Republicans” as they try to maintain their narrow edge in the chamber.

But beneath the public optimism, there is deep frustration — and, in some cases, outright pessimism — simmering inside Johnson’s conference.

“No one thinks we’re keeping the majority except for the speaker,” one House Republican, who requested anonymity to discuss the internal sentiment, told MS NOW.

The Trump administration this week stepped up its ambitious effort to replace about $1.6 trillion in lost tariff revenue that was eliminated by the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a range of the president’s import taxes.

Recovering that lost revenue, which the White House was counting on to help offset the steep, multi-trillion dollar cost of its tax cuts, is possible but will be challenging, experts say.

The administration has to use different legal provisions to impose new duties, and those provisions require longer, complex processes that U.S. companies can use to seek exemptions. It could be months or more before it is clear how much revenue the replacement tariffs will yield.

First major study on ‘AI psychosis’ suggests chatbots can encourage delusions among vulnerable people

A new scientific review raises concerns about how chatbots powered by artificial intelligence may encourage delusional thinking, especially in vulnerable people.

A summary of existing evidence on artificial intelligence-induced psychosis was published last week in the Lancet Psychiatry, highlighting how chatbots can encourage delusional thinking – though possibly only in people who are already vulnerable to psychotic symptoms. The authors advocate for clinical testing of AI chatbots in conjunction with trained mental health professionals.

For his paper, Dr Hamilton Morrin, a psychiatrist and researcher at King’s College in London, analyzed 20 media reports on so-called “AI psychosis”, which describes current theories as to how chatbots might induce or exacerbate delusions.

Review from non-profit finds range of scenarios of firms simultaneously lobbying for and against Pfas regulations

Some top US lobbying firms are simultaneously working both sides of the Pfas “forever chemicals” issue, raising serious conflict of interest questions and concerns that their activity is slowing states’ efforts to rein in the public health threat.

The review of six states’ lobbying records conducted by the non-profit F-Minus found a range of scenarios in which firms lobbied both sides. Most common Pfas are linked to cancer.

The lobbying firm Holland & Knight works for the American Chemistry Council, which represents the nation’s largest Pfas makers, and aggressively opposes most regulations. Simultaneously, Holland & Knight lobbies for the American Cancer Society.

Joshua Nass, of alleged $600,000 extortion plot, played role in pardon of man convicted of failing to pay $40m in taxes

A New York lobbyist and attorney connected to a presidential pardon issued by Donald Trump in November has been charged with attempting to extort a former client and the client’s son over an alleged $500,000 debt.

Joshua Nass, 34, was arrested on Friday after being charged in federal court in Brooklyn with attempted Hobbs Act extortion. US justice department prosecutors contend that Nass threatened a client for payment that he claimed he was owed for his services.

Nass is alleged to have provided an unnamed individual with a phone number as well as addresses while instructing the individual to visit the client at his home. It was an effort to intimidate the client into paying up, as prosecutors put it.

US workers are finding it difficult to afford basic necessities as the president claims ‘the economy is roaring back’

The White House insists that the affordability problem Americans like Levie report doesn’t exist. At a rally in Kentucky earlier this week, Donald Trump told the crowd: “Inflation is plummeting, income is rising, the economy is roaring back!”

Though the positive sentiment will be a tough sell for voters in the upcoming midterm elections.

After helping Congress pass huge cuts to healthcare and food assistance programs, Trump is now pushing to remove minimum wage and overtime protections for some workers. And though seven out of 10 Americans said that tariffs have led to higher prices, Trump has only doubled down on more levies.

Far from feeling like the US is in a golden age, workers said rising inflation means their paychecks can’t keep up with prices.

One year after Elon Musk began an unprecedented attempt to eliminate swaths of the federal government, newly released deposition videos are providing a never-before-seen look at two of the people responsible for the largest mass termination of federal grants in the National Endowment for the Humanities' history.

According to the depositions and other materials released as part of a civil lawsuit related to the funding cuts, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) relied on ChatGPT to identify more than $100 million in grants related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that were later cancelled.

When Donald Trump returned to office last January, he empowered Musk to slash federal spending as a lead adviser in the newly created DOGE. Within days, all agencies were directed to put DEI staff on leave and related programs were shuttered.

More US Marines and warships are being deployed to the Middle East, two officials confirmed to CBS News, the BBC's US partner.

The officials said the reinforcements were to come from an amphibious ready group and its Marine expeditionary unit, with one official adding that the group would be led by the Japan-based USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship.

The unit headed by the USS Tripoli typically consists of around 5,000 sailors and Marines distributed across several warships.

The development comes as Donald Trump said US forces had "totally obliterated" Iranian military infrastructure on Kharg Island in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for global oil shipping.

Trump DoJ’s investigation was purportedly about the management of the central bank’s renovation

A federal judge on Friday blocked the justice department from serving subpoenas to Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell in an inquiry purported to be about the management of the central bank’s renovation.

Powell disclosed the surprise investigation on 11 January, and described the move as a threat to Fed independence and part of the Trump administration’s attempts to pressure the Fed to cut rates.

The judge agreed, saying a “mountain of evidence” suggests the investigation was to pressure the Fed chair to lower rates or resign.

“The government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual,” chief judge James Boasberg of the DC district court wrote on Friday.

Mood among some in Iran shifts from hope of being rescued to dismay at destruction of infrastructure, culture and lives

After years of arrests, disappearances and mass killings of protesters, the hatred in Iran from some quarters for the hardline, oppressive governing regime had boiled into such a desperate rage that many believed Donald Trump’s promise that the US would “come to their rescue”.

Now, after a fortnight of war, with US and Israeli airstrikes killing hundreds as they hit residential blocks, shops, fuel depots and even a school, the mood is changing.

“They are also lying! Like the regime has been lying to us,” said Amir*, a student at the University of Tehran. “You are all worse than each other.”

The anti-regime protester has let himself hope for more from the US and Israel, which on the first day of the war had swiftly killed Iran’s most feared and powerful man, the supreme leader.

Since Italy became a country in 1861, there has been a surefire way to know who is and isn’t an Italian citizen: look at their parents.

The first page of the civil code, published in 1865 as the rulebook to Europe’s newest country, declared that a child born to an Italian citizen was an Italian citizen.

This founding tenet of the Bel Paese now looks set to change — ending diaspora dreams of returning to the mother country, and meaning that Italians who move abroad risk denying citizenship to their descendants.

On Thursday the Constitutional Court said it would rule in favor of the government and its controversial 2025 law that restricted citizenship for those born abroad. The law — issued last March via emergency decree — had been challenged by four judges, who questioned its constitutionality.