By MARY CLARE JALONICK, KEVIN FREKING and STEPHEN GROVES Associated Press
Congressional Republicans scored a massive victory this summer when they passed President Donald Trump’s tax and spending cuts without a single Democratic vote. But as they return to Washington this fall after a monthlong August recess, they will have to find a way to work with Democrats — or around them — as a government shutdown looms.
The annual spending battle will dominate the September agenda, along with a possible effort by Senate Republicans to change their chamber’s rules to thwart Democratic stalling tactics on nominations. The Senate is also debating whether to move forward on legislation that would slap steep tariffs on some of Russia’s trading partners as the U.S. presses Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine.
In the House, Republicans will continue their investigations of former President Joe Biden while Speaker Mike Johnson navigates a split in his conference over whether the Trump administration should release more files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
A look at what Congress will be doing as lawmakers return from the August break:
The priority is to keep the government open
The most urgent task for Congress is to avoid a government shutdown on Sept. 30, when federal funding runs out. And it’s so far unclear if Republicans and Democrats will be able to agree on how to do that.
Congress will have to pass a short-term spending measure to keep the government funded for a few weeks or months while they try to finish the full-year package. But Republicans will need Democratic votes to pass an extension, and Democrats will want significant concessions. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s vote with Republicans to avoid a shutdown in March prompted furious backlash within his party.
The Trump administration’s efforts to claw back previously approved spending could also complicate the negotiations. Republicans passed legislation this summer that rescinded about $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funds and Trump notified Congress again on Friday that he will block $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid.
Democrats have warned that such efforts could tank the broader negotiations. “Trump is rooting for a shutdown,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., posted on social media Friday.
Senate nominations fight looms
Senators are expected to return to Washington right where they left off in early August — fighting over Trump’s nominees.
Exasperated Republicans fled Washington for the month after making little headway with Senate Democrats over their nominations blockade, which has forced delays in confirmations and angered Trump as many of his administration’s positions remain unfilled. Republican leaders called it quits after a rare Saturday session that ended with a breakdown in bipartisan negotiations and Trump posting on social media that Chuck Schumer could “GO TO HELL!”
Republicans now say they’re ready to try and change Senate rules to get around the Democratic delays, and they are expected to spend the next several weeks discussing how that might work.
Stiffer Russia sanctions are sought
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s closest congressional allies, has pushed the president for months to support his sweeping bipartisan sanctions bill that would impose steep tariffs on countries that are fueling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by buying its oil, gas, uranium, and other exports. The legislation has the backing of 85 senators, but Trump has yet to endorse it, and Republican leaders have so far said they won’t move without him.
Graham has stepped up his calls after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy last month in hopes of a peace deal. Since then, Russia has continued to step up attacks on Ukraine.
“If we don’t have this thing moving in the right direction by the time we get back, then I think that plan B needs to kick in,” Graham said of his bill in an interview with The Associated Press last month.
Senate panel awaits RFK Jr. appearance
Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear before the Senate Finance Committee to discuss his health care agenda on Thursday, less than a week after he ousted Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Several other top officials also resigned in protest.
Kennedy has tried to advance anti-vaccine policies that are contradicted by decades of scientific research. Monarez’s lawyers said she refused “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican chairman of the panel that oversees the CDC and a member of the Finance Committee, has called on the CDC to delay a meeting of outside experts who make recommendations on the use of vaccines until Congress can look into the issue.
A House divided over Epstein
The House left Washington in July in the midst of disagreements among Republicans about whether they should force President Donald Trump’s administration to release more information on the sex trafficking investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein. The pressure for more disclosure could only get more intense when lawmakers return.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky are pushing the House to take up their bill to force the Justice Department to release its investigation. They are planning a news conference joined by Epstein victims. The House Oversight Committee is also investigating the issue.
Democrats are eager to keep pressing on the Epstein files, especially after the Trump administration reneged on pledges for transparency. The case for years has been the subject of online conspiracy theories and speculation about who may have been involved or aware of the wealthy financier’s abuse.
GOP focuses on Biden’s mental fitness in office
The House Oversight Committee will return from August recess with a slate of interviews lined up as part of its investigation into former President Joe Biden’s mental state while in office. The committee has already conducted interviews and depositions with nearly a dozen former top Biden aides and members of the president’s inner circle.
The Republican-led committee will hear from former top Biden staffers in September like Jeff Zients, Biden’s final White House chief of staff, Karine Jean-Pierre, the former White House press secretary, and Andrew Bates, a top press aide.
Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has said public hearings and a full report can be expected sometime in the fall.
A stock trading ban is weighed
Congress has discussed proposals for years to keep lawmakers from engaging in trading individual stocks, nodding to the idea that there’s a potential conflict of interest when they are often privy to information and decisions that can dramatically move markets.
That push is now gaining momentum. A Senate committee has approved legislation from GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri that would also extend the prohibition on stock trading to future presidents and vice presidents — while notably exempting Trump. In the House, several members are putting forward proposals and even threatening to maneuver around the GOP leadership to force a vote.
Still, there is plenty of resistance to the idea, including from many wealthy lawmakers who reap dividends from their portfolios.

Four people were rescued Sunday morning after their 16-foot fishing boat capsized off Lido Beach, according to Nassau County police.

Police said the incident happened around 10 a.m. near Jones Inlet. The Nassau County Police Department’s Marine Bureau was monitoring VHF radio channels when officers heard a distress call about the overturned vessel with four passengers onboard.

By the time rescuers arrived, all four boaters had reached a nearby sandbar. They were transported safely to Point Lookout by Town of Hempstead Bay constables, with assistance from Marine 6, police said.

Sea Tow later retrieved the capsized boat. No injuries were reported.

This Labor Day weekend, travel is expected to hit record levels. AAA warns of heavy traffic on highways, while the TSA projects 17.4 million air travelers—the busiest since before the pandemic. Gas prices are at a bright spot, averaging $3.15 per gallon, the lowest since 2020. Top destinations include Seattle, Washington D.C., and Yosemite. Officials advise planning ahead, avoiding peak travel times, and allowing extra time for delays.

Two men have been indicted on Long Island in connection with a fatal fentanyl overdose that left a 4-year-old girl to discover her father dead in their Brentwood home, Suffolk County prosecutors announced.

According to the district attorney’s office, investigators determined the victim died from fentanyl intoxication. The case led authorities to two suspects who were allegedly involved in the sale of counterfeit pills.

As part of the investigation, undercover officers arranged several drug purchases, with prosecutors saying the pills matched those tied to the Brentwood overdose. Officials stressed that each overdose death must be treated not as an accident, but as a preventable tragedy caused by deliberate criminal conduct.

Both defendants have pleaded not guilty to multiple drug-related charges and remain in custody on bail. If convicted, they face lengthy prison sentences.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A shooter opened fire with a rifle Wednesday through the windows of a Catholic church in Minneapolis and struck children celebrating Mass during the first week of school, killing two and wounding 17 people in an act of violence the police chief called “absolutely incomprehensible.”
Armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol, 23-year-old Robin Westman approached the side of the church and shot dozens of rounds through the windows toward the children sitting in the pews during Mass at the Annunciation Catholic School just before 8:30 a.m., Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at news conferences. He said the shooter then died by suicide.
The children who died were 8 and 10. Fourteen other kids and three octogenarian parishioners were wounded but expected to survive, the chief said.
Fifth-grader Weston Halsne told reporters he ducked for the pews, covering his head, shielded by a friend who was lying on top of him. His friend was hit, he said.
“I was super-scared for him, but I think now he’s okay,” the 10-year-old said, adding that he was praying for the other hospitalized children and adults.
Halsne’s grandfather, Michael Simpson, said the violence during Mass on the third day of school left him wondering whether God was watching over.
“I don’t know where He is,” Simpson said.
Police investigate motive for the shooting
FBI Director Kash Patel said on X that the shooting is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime targeting Catholics.
O’Hara said police hadn’t yet found any relationship between the shooter and the church, nor determined a motive for the bloodshed. The chief said, however, that investigators were examining a social media post that appeared to show the shooter at the scene and contained “some disturbing writings.”
“The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” said O’Hara, who gave the wounded youngsters’ ages as 6 to 15. He said a wooden plank was placed to barricade some of the side doors, and that authorities found a smoke bomb at the scene.
Westman’s uncle, former Kentucky state lawmaker Bob Heleringer, said he did not know the accused shooter well, last saw Westman at a family wedding a few years ago, and was confounded by the violence: “It’s an unspeakable tragedy.”
“We’re praying for my sister and her other children and also, obviously, for these poor, poor children,” Heleringer said by phone.
The police chief said Westman did not have an extensive known criminal history and is believed to have acted alone.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the violence had forever changed the students’ families and the city along with them.
“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now,” Frey said at a news conference. “These kids were literally praying.”
Bill Bienemann, who lives a couple of blocks away and has long attended Mass at Annunciation Church, said he heard as many as 50 shots over as long as four minutes.
“I was shocked. I said, ‘There’s no way that could be gunfire,'” he said. “There was so much of it. It was sporadic.”
Bienemann’s daughter, Alexandra, said she was an alumna of the kindergarten-to-eighth-grade school, and it made her sick to her stomach to think she might know some of those who were injured.
“It doesn’t make me feel safe at all in this community that I have been in for so long,” she said.
Police chief says officers rescued children who hid
The police chief said officers immediately responded to reports of the shooting, entered the church, rendered first aid and rescued some of the children hiding throughout the building as other emergency responders arrived.
Frey and Annunciation’s principal said teachers and children, too, responded heroically.
“Children were ducked down. Adults were protecting children. Older children were protecting younger children,” said the principal, Matt DeBoer.
Danielle Gunter, the mother of an eighth-grade boy who was shot, in a statement said her son told her a Minneapolis police officer “really helped him” by giving aid and a hug before her son got into an ambulance.
Amid a heavy uniformed law enforcement presence later Wednesday morning, children in dark green uniforms trickled out of the school with adults, giving lingering hugs and wiping away tears.
Aubrey Pannhoff, a 16-year-old student at a different Catholic school, rushed to Annunciation after her own school’s lockdown and prayer service, and she said she was asking God: “Why?”
“It’s little kids,” she said through tears. “It’s just really hard for me to take in.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz lamented that children just starting the school year “were met with evil and horror and death.” He and President Donald Trump ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff on state and federal buildings, respectively, and the White House said the two men spoke. The governor was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in last year’s election against Trump’s running mate, now Vice President JD Vance, a Republican.
From the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV sent a telegram of condolences. The Chicago-born Leo, history’s first American pope, said he was praying for relatives of the dead.
News of the shooting rippled through a national Democratic officials’ meeting nearby in Minneapolis. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat who represents the area around the school, visited the scene.
Atlanta Archbishop Gregory Hartmeyer, who chairs the board of the National Catholic Education Association, said in a statement that reasonable firearms legislation must be passed.
“The murder of children worshipping at Mass is unspeakable,” Hartmeyer said. “We must take action to protect all children and families from violence.”
A string of fatal shootings in Minneapolis
Monday had been the first day of the school year at Annunciation, a 102-year-old school in a leafy residential and commercial neighborhood about 5 miles (8 kilometers) south of downtown Minneapolis.
Karin Cebulla, who said she had worked as a learning specialist at Annuciation and sent her two now-college-aged daughters there, described the school as an accepting, caring community.
“Everyone felt safe here, and I just pray that it continues to be a place where people feel safe,” she said.
The gunfire was the latest in a series of fatal shootings in Minnesota’s most populous city in less than 24 hours. One person was killed and six others were hurt in a shooting Tuesday afternoon. Hours later, two people died in two other shootings in the city.
O’Hara, the police chief, said the Annunciation shooting does not appear to be related to other recent violence.
Alongside many major U.S. cities, violent crime in Minneapolis has decreased since the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of homicides between 2020 and 2024 fell by about 7%, based on data from AH Datalytics and its Real-Time Crime Index, which tracks crimes across the country using law enforcement data.
Over the first six months of 2025, the index shows a 21% decrease in homicides over the same period of 2024, while aggravated assaults — which include non-fatal shootings — were down 8%.