1stHeadlinesBreaking News Headlines
North Dakota · RSS · up to 100 stored headlines · Visit site
A proposal to overhaul the federal process for permits to construct energy projects passed a procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate on Monday, though several Democratic supporters said the legislation needed more work. The Senate voted, 73-25, to advance what’s known as the permitting reform bill, despite opposition…
WASHINGTON — Oregon Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden plans to press for “the boldest” healthcare bill possible after he takes over as Finance Committee chairman next year, but he didn’t commit to Medicare for All, a longstanding policy goal for progressives, during a briefing Monday. Wyden told reporters in the Capitol…
Federal officials on Monday announced $10 billion in awards across all 50 states in the second year of the Rural Health Transformation Fund, grants created by Congress to bolster rural health in response to concerns about Medicaid cuts. Texas received the largest grant for the 2027 fiscal year — almost $282 million —…
A group of northwest North Dakota landowners urged U.S. Supreme Court justices Monday to find that they should be reimbursed for legal costs they paid in a land dispute with a pipeline company. Natural gas pipeline developer WBI Energy used federal eminent domain to take portions of the McKenzie County landowners’…
The U.S. Department of Justice is dismissing a lawsuit that tried to force California to set aside the ballots of suspected noncitizen voters, marking the formal end of the Trump administration’s most aggressive effort to control vote counting in the lead-up to the midterm elections. The Justice Department filed a…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday his mass deportation campaign, which helped propel his return to the Oval Office, had gone too far and potentially led to Republicans losing the U.S. House and Senate in the midterm elections. “I think it might be too tough, yeah,” Trump said…
A North Dakota lawmaker is planning to propose a bill to regulate the use of controversial automated license plate readers, such as Flock cameras, across the state. “I have a lot of constituents who reach out on a nearly daily basis who are very concerned about this, and they want them banned,” said Sen. Jamie
The age of the typical first-time homebuyer last year remained stuck at a historic high of 40 years old as younger people continue to get the worst of brutally high prices and interest rates in much of the country. That’s according to new data from the National Association of Realtors, and it’s the second year
Along with a dramatic change in congressional majorities on Election Day, an analysis from the National Conference of State Legislatures showed large shifts in legislative majorities around the country, flipping from a majority of Republican legislatures to majority Democratic. Democrats also now hold a large number…
WASHINGTON — Voters may have given Democrats control of Congress in the midterm elections, but Republicans will remain in charge of both chambers during the lame-duck session that spans November and December. The relatively brief five-week schedule, which begins Monday, gives GOP leaders a chance to wrap up unfinished…
Voters in two North Dakota counties Tuesday defeated ballot measures to raise property taxes beyond a 3% cap set by the Legislature last year. The measures came as an early sign of how some counties have grappled to cover rising costs under the limitation set by the Legislature last year. Divide County asked voters to
This article was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. The Trump administration has likened the need to build out the nation’s artificial intelligence infrastructure to the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort that produced the world’s first atomic bomb. The…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Friday he will elevate Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff, the first shake-up of his administration officials since Democrats trounced Republicans in the midterms. Former Chief of Staff Susie Wiles will move to the “Trump Political Operation,” the president…
North Dakotans see value in having data centers in the state, particularly if developers cover infrastructure costs, but remain split on whether they’d welcome them in their communities, a new North Dakota Poll has found. Poll respondents also said they were more welcoming to traditional data centers – those providing…
Moves to provide help for farmers, truckers and others hit by high diesel fuel prices are having a limited effect in North Dakota. For some farmers, loosening up restrictions on the use of lower-taxed diesel came too late and was complicated by farming in two states following different sets of rules. North Dakota on…
Native American communities experience some of the highest disparities in healthcare in the country. Tribal chairs are hoping to work with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who visited North Dakota Thursday, to remedy that. A major theme of the tribal chairs’ comments Thursday was the…
The top U.S. health official visited a ranch near Bismarck Thursday where he talked about the importance of soil health for human health. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at a roughly 90-minute roundtable on regenerative agriculture at the Black Leg Ranch east of Bismarck. Reporters…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to establish the Oval Office and White House Cabinet Room as a national monument in order to prevent any major renovations to those spaces that are not approved by Congress. Trump, who tore down the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom,
Alabama Republicans had hoped Rep. Shomari Figures would deliver a concession speech on Tuesday night after the state legislature redrew his district to be more GOP-friendly. Instead, the Democrat declared victory — winning nearly 54% of the vote. “We know what happened with this district,” Figures told supporters as…
An attempt to guarantee free school meals to K-12 students narrowly failed at the ballot box Tuesday, but the issue isn’t going away in North Dakota. Supporters and opponents of Measure 2, the defeated constitutional amendment, are looking ahead to next steps. Nearly 51% of voters rejected the measure, while about 49%…
WASHINGTON — As the monumental midterm victories set in, Democrats began to talk strategy Wednesday on how to deliver what voters want: lower prices, attainable health care and an end to a stagnant and expensive conflict in the Middle East. Starting in January, the party will control both chambers of Congress, giving…
WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders in Congress have just a couple months to decide how they want to balance investigations into President Donald Trump and his administration with securing his signature on major bills to address the cost of living, a top concern for voters. While Democrats gained control of the House and…
WASHINGTON — Winners of more than a dozen congressional and gubernatorial races have broken longstanding barriers of race, gender and sexuality. The results set records for the most Black governors and most women governors, and the first Black woman governor, Georgia’s Keisha Lance Bottoms. Democrats, who flipped the…
Voter turnout in North Dakota’s general election sagged to a low point of just under 40%, a dismal showing political observers connect to uninspiring races, voters’ busy lives and enough political fatigue for some to sit this one out. About 39.8% of eligible voters cast ballots, the lowest general election turnout in…
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will visit North Dakota Thursday to participate in three roundtable discussions with state and tribal leaders. The events in the Bismarck area will focus on regenerative agriculture, tribal health, the Rural Health Transformation Program and the regulatory…
The fingerpointing is coming from inside the house. Vice President JD Vance said in a lengthy social media post Wednesday that Republicans’ shellacking in the midterm elections the night before was mainly due to the administration’s war in Iran. Though Vance sought to soften the blow to President Donald Trump by…
In local elections across the country, Americans voted overwhelmingly to restrict the buildout of data centers in their communities. Late Tuesday evening, 33 ballot measures to restrict data centers were passed by voters or were leading in ongoing vote counts, according to the tracking website Data Centers on the…
WASHINGTON — Voting ended Tuesday in this year’s midterm elections, leaving officials and volunteers counting tens of millions of ballots to determine which U.S. House and Senate candidates will take the oath of office in January. The post-election process includes numerous steps and varying deadlines for when ballots…
Democrats have won the majority of governor’s offices for the first time in 16 years after the GOP racked up major losses across the country. Democrats flipped governorships in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas and defended competitive races in Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to unofficial results from…
Democrats made small gains in North Dakota’s Legislature Tuesday, flipping some seats in Fargo and Grand Forks to boost their tiny minority. Republicans will keep their longtime control of the Legislature by supermajorities in the House and Senate. Seventy-five of 141 seats were on the ballot. Two incumbents, both…
Voters across the country administered a sharp reprimand to President Donald Trump and Republicans who hold majorities in Congress, with Democrats gaining comfortable majorities in the Senate and the House. Several U.S. Senate and House races remained uncalled by The Associated Press as Election Day ended on the East…
North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring was reelected Tuesday after an active campaign by Democratic challenger Vern Thompson. Goehring, a Republican, pulled in about 63% of the vote in complete but unofficial results. That percentage tracked with other Republicans in statewide races. Thompson had 37% of…
North Dakota voters on Tuesday approved Gov. Kelly Armstrong’s first appointments to statewide offices, giving green lights to Public Service Commissioner Jill Kringstad and State Superintendent Levi Bachmeier to keep serving two more years. Voters also reelected all other Republican state officeholders. No Democrat…
North Dakota voters have rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that sought to guarantee free school meals to all K-12 students in the state. Measure 2 was rejected by nearly 51% of voters, according to complete but unofficial results published by the North Dakota Secretary of State’s Office. The measure’s…
North Dakota voters Tuesday rejected a higher bar to amend the state constitution. “No” votes for Measure 1 led “yes” votes by a margin of about 56% to 44%, according to complete but unofficial results. Measure 1 was for a 60% threshold for voters to approve future constitutional amendments. The measure’s defeat is a…
A voter enters the El Zagal Shrine Hall in Fargo, North Dakota, to vote in the midterm election on Nov. 3, 2026. (Photo by Dan Koeck/For the North Dakota Monitor)
North Dakota voters have given U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak a second term in Congress. Fedorchak led in a political rematch against Democratic-NPL U.S. House candidate Trygve Hammer when The Associated Press called the race at 8:56 p.m. Fedorchak finished with 57% of the vote Tuesday to Hammer’s 37% in complete but…
America voted. After the Trump administration pressured election officials, after concerns that armed federal agents would deploy to the polls, after fears U.S. Department of Justice election monitors would intimidate voters — ballots were cast by the millions Tuesday, mostly without incident. Across the United…
An error resulted in some Bismarck-area District 7 voters receiving a ballot that omitted the district’s legislative races early Tuesday. The error was caught and corrected by approximately 9:30 a.m. at the Liberty Elementary polling location, which opened at 7 a.m. Some District 7 voters had been erroneously handed a…
WASHINGTON — In a stunning upset, Democrats ousted Republicans and flipped control of the U.S. Senate Tuesday night, effectively establishing a barricade for President Donald Trump’s agenda for the last two years of his term. Democrats will now have the power to block many of Trump’s nominees, both executive and…
WASHINGTON — Democrats will regain control of the U.S. House early next year, after voters throughout the country rejected the policies that Republicans and President Donald Trump implemented during the last two years. The Associated Press, which States Newsroom looks to for the projected winner of congressional…
WASHINGTON — Tens of millions of Americans have already cast a ballot in the 2026 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress and shape President Donald Trump’s remaining policy agenda. As of Monday, more than 57 million Americans had cast a vote, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab…
Election workers are primed for Election Day after nearly a year of training, working primary elections and guiding tens of thousands of North Dakotans through early voting. “The general public does not realize how many previous months and how many hours the staff puts into getting ready for Election Day,” said Linda…
WASHINGTON — One day before his party is forecast to lose control of the U.S. House, and possibly the Senate, President Donald Trump gathered guests and press at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to tout the “magnificent” renovation of the monument — a monthslong project plagued by algae, reclosure and false…
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, mere hours before Election Day in the midterms that will determine control of Congress, denied the Trump administration’s final attempt to force California to set aside the ballots of 20,000 people it suspects are noncitizens. The decision marked a significant blow to President Donald…
A North Dakota judge on Monday denied Greenpeace’s request for a new trial in the case brought against the organization by the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace will now move forward with its appeal of the $345 million judgment entered against it earlier this year, the organization announced Monday…
As broad affordability concerns define elections across the country, voters in several states on Tuesday will have a say on their future utility bills. State utility regulators, who are facing heightened levels of attention and scrutiny amid high prices, are on the ballot in nine states: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia…
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to require California to set aside the ballots of suspected noncitizen voters in a last-ditch appeal by the Trump administration to exert control over the state’s vote counting. The request came on the eve of Election Day and as more than 5 million…
North Dakota’s governor cast his ballot Monday, telling reporters he expects good results for Republicans in the state but not necessarily nationally. “I think we’re doing well here. I think we have reasonable, rational legislators that have put the state on a great path,” Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong told…
At least two counties in North Dakota this week are asking voters to let them go over the state’s limit for how much local governments can increase property taxes, a crucial revenue source to funding various services. The ballot measures in Divide and Traill counties show how some local governments are struggling with…
MEDORA, N.D. – North Dakota’s public and private investments in Medora and Billings County are unprecedented in the region’s history. Tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars, business development and philanthropic giving have been piling into this once-sleepy cow town, forever changing its character and, to…
WASHINGTON — When the polls close Tuesday night, the 2026 U.S. election will go down as one of history’s most expensive and extraordinarily ugly midterms — galvanizing record-breaking early voter turnout among a deeply divided electorate. Voters on Saturday crossed the high-water mark of 52.7 million early votes cast…
As concerns rise about the potential for federal influence over the results of next week’s midterm elections, many voting experts and advocates remain confident that the nation’s highly localized systems of administering and counting votes will persevere. Facing sinking approval ratings over high prices, the White…
A federal appeals court on Friday denied a Trump administration demand that California set aside and not count the ballots of 20,000 suspected noncitizen voters, setting the stage for a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a U.S…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is rounding out his midterm travel blitz in the final sprint leading up to Election Day on Nov. 3. With just four days to go, the Republican Party is aiming to keep its narrow majority in the U.S. House and control of the Senate. But elections forecasters see a bleak
As the Trump administration waged a public legal fight with California over the ballots of suspected noncitizen voters in mid-October, behind the scenes a federal grand jury in Santa Ana issued a series of subpoenas to election officials in Los Angeles County at federal prosecutors’ urging. The subpoenas demanded a…
Medicaid recipients who are disabled or have a chronic illness will not have to prove they are unable to work to be exempted from new work requirements that take effect next year, a federal judge ruled Thursday. The decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston grants a partial victory to the 25…
Department of Justice election monitors will observe polling locations in Cass County on Election Day as part of a nationwide effort. The federal observers will be part of more than 1,000 election monitors being sent to polling locations across all 50 states on Election Day, an expansion of the department’s monitoring…
WASHINGTON — As of early Friday, more than 46 million Americans had cast ballots ahead of Election Day, eclipsing the early voting turnout of the 2022 midterms, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab. In the 2022 midterm elections, 45.9 million Americans voted early, according to the UF Election Lab…
MERIDIAN, Idaho — It didn’t take long for doctors to see that something was amiss with Rebecca Crozier’s pregnancy. At her eight-week ultrasound in 2025, they mentioned a possible neural tube defect, she said, but after some research, she thought it was something that could be managed or treated. “If it was a fixable…
Downstream Missouri River states have worried for decades about receiving an insufficient flow of water from upstream dams. Now they’re worried their share of water could be further diminished by potential pipelines for dry Western states. The concern is the basis of a dispute about the U.S. House version of the…
Costs are soaring for people who care for their older parents and other family members, according to a new study. Out-of-pocket expenses are nearly 60% higher than they were just five years ago for family caregivers, who now spend an average of $11,508 a year on caregiving, according to a report released this week by
The Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to combat noncitizen voting and assert authority over elections came under intense scrutiny in courtrooms across the country on Thursday, as Democrats and voting rights groups alleged federal election interference. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the U.S…
The North Dakota State Board of Higher Education on Thursday named two interim college presidents to the long-term role. Allen Burgad will lead Valley City State University and Lisa Karch will lead North Dakota State College of Science. Burgad was approved unanimously after the board met in a closed-door executive…
WASHINGTON — Communities throughout the country have been inundated with television ads and outside spending as politicians try to spur voter turnout in the most competitive U.S. House races in Tuesday’s midterm elections. The focus on a short list of campaigns highlights how much power voters in a small number of…
A federal judge on Wednesday denied a U.S. Department of Justice request that would have forced California to not count the ballots of 20,000 voters the Trump administration alleges are likely noncitizens. The decision sets the case on a course to possibly reach the U.S. Supreme Court within days. In a scathing…
I think everyone should vote, but not for the aggravating script we’ve heard over the last two decades. I think people should vote because they matter, their lives matter, their voice matters, and they deserve to be heard. I say this as someone who isn’t partisan and has spent my adult life being disappointed in
North Dakota has launched a new website aiming to make Legacy Fund investments more transparent to the public. The long-awaited website allows users to see where and how the state has invested taxpayer money through the Legacy Fund, a sovereign wealth fund fueled by oil taxes, which is valued at $15 billion. “We’re…
The North Dakota Supreme Court on Wednesday denied an effort by GOP officials to overturn potential election victories of four legislative candidates whose paperwork they challenged, saying the court case came too late. The three challengers filed a petition with the court asking the seats be declared vacant and…
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is unlawfully scrutinizing naturalized U.S. citizens and placing them at risk of disenfranchisement, civil rights groups alleged in a lawsuit Wednesday, less than a week before Election Day. The lawsuit, filed in California, came as Homeland Security asked for an emergency…
North Dakota’s Ethics Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to begin its own inquiry into a state-backed business financing program that drew critical audit findings and lawmakers’ concerns about conflicts of interest and a lack of documentation for millions of dollars in transactions. The move is the first of its…
Less than a week before Election Day, President Donald Trump’s unprecedented drive for power over elections has set the stage for a series of courtroom fights that could quickly lead to a high-stakes showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over the limits of federal authority. Democrats and voting rights advocates have…
Most of the nation returns to standard time Sunday morning, and Congress could decide as early as next month whether it will be the last time people have to change their clocks. President Donald Trump wants year-round daylight saving time. The U.S. House voted overwhelmingly in July for the change. Lots of Democrats…
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats. Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American…
A federal appeals court has upheld a North Dakota judge’s decision ordering a Federal Reserve board to change how it regulates debit card transaction fees. The fees, which apply every time someone makes a debit card purchase, are meant to compensate banks for processing the transactions. The lawsuit was brought by…
WASHINGTON — Tens of millions of Americans have already made their way to the ballot box as early voting is underway in a midterm election that will determine control of the House and the Senate, possibly flipping one or both from Republicans to Democrats. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 34 million people have…
A North Dakota judge has ruled that the law for nominating people to the panel that promotes the beef industry violates the state constitution because it gives nominating power to specific trade groups and no one else. “That is arbitrary and unreasonable,” South Central District Judge Jackson Lofgren wrote in his…
The U.S. Department of Justice plans to send election monitors to every state ahead of Election Day, expanding a long-standing practice that’s spurred concern this year among Democrats and voting rights advocates because of President Donald Trump’s push to influence elections. The Justice Department for decades has…
Americans’ growing frustration over high prices has defined many political campaigns ahead of November’s midterm elections. Rising costs of healthcare, gas and groceries during President Donald Trump’s second term have put Republicans on defense, not only in Washington, but in statehouse and gubernatorial races across…
Every K-12 student has the legal right to receive a lunch at school in North Dakota without any stigma or shaming. But students and families who can’t afford to pay can still have long-term consequences, and some students may choose to go hungry to avoid them. There are more than two dozen school districts that
Birth centers are an option for those with low-risk pregnancies and are correlated with more positive health outcomes, but 10 states do not have any birth centers at all, and more could be built with certain state policy solutions and different models of care, a new report suggests. Birth centers can be an attractive…
The current Trump administration claims its mass deportation efforts have expelled nearly a million people through July of this year, but those include both voluntary returns and people turned around at the border, according to a new analysis by the former chief statistician for the Department of Homeland Security…
President Donald Trump’s 11th-hour campaign to intervene in California’s vote counting encountered its first resistance from federal courts on Monday, with appellate judges ruling against the effort. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against a U.S. Department of Justice request for a…
An accounting firm’s investigation into the financial management and reporting at Dickinson State University has yielded a group of recommendations, including more support and oversight from the North Dakota University System. The University System, led by Commissioner Brent Sanford, has been discussing creation of a…
North Dakota voters have a choice for the state’s tax commissioner between the incumbent who says he wants to explore more tax reductions and a challenger who says the Republican-dominated state government is moving in the wrong direction. Republican Brian Kroshus is seeking a second four-year term, challenged by…
SPRINGDALE, Pa. — Residents in a small southwestern Pennsylvania town are facing the prospect of a 47-acre data center facility on their doorstep. “Right here behind this fence is where they want to put up the data center, and as you can see, there’s houses right across the street, roughly 100 feet,” said lifelong…
This year’s statewide ballot measures are written, on average, at a graduate-school reading level, according to a new report. The readability of 2026’s ballot questions — which ask voters to weigh in on issues as varied as abortion, property taxes, voter ID and firearms — varies by state, political data tracking…
Earlier this month, a 50-year-old man riding his personal electric scooter in Washington, D.C., was killed when he collided with a woman on a rideshare scooter. In June, a 12-year-old Massachusetts girl died after her electric scooter slammed into a school bus in a suburb of Boston. And in April, an Atlanta woman…
PORTLAND, Ore. — The latest cosponsor of a U.S. House bill to provide single-payer health insurance defeated a Republican incumbent in a suburban and rural Oregon district by fewer than 10,000 votes two years ago. U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, a Democrat now seeking her second term, doesn’t have the far-left profile of…
CASSELTON, N.D. — The chair of the North Dakota Public Service Commission on Friday expressed concerns that a large battery storage project in Cass County would have to rely on Casselton for fire protection without Casselton having any say in the project’s approval. The project is called Harmony Storage and would sit…
Some supporters of a ballot measure to require at least 60% voter support to change North Dakota’s constitution say the move would help block a potential abortion rights initiative in the future. Opponents say the measure would make it harder to pass any constitutional amendment, giving more power to a minority of…
The percentage of working-age adults without health insurance has increased in the past two years, largely because many people can no longer afford Obamacare coverage after Congress allowed federal subsidies to expire at the end of last year. The uninsured rate for adults ages 19-64 rose to 11.2% this year, up from…
The U.S. Department of Justice is stepping up its legal campaign over the midterm elections, suing Alaska over its U.S. Senate election and appealing a lawsuit against suspected noncitizen voters in California. Election law experts have cast doubt on the strength of the cases, criticizing them as performative. The…
WASHINGTON — Fewer than 5% of U.S. House races are seen by a top political analysis as truly competitive heading into November’s midterm elections, giving relatively few voters the ability to determine which party controls the chamber for the next two years. The other 414 of 435 House districts are viewed by the…
As Election Day approaches, top Democrats on the intelligence committees in Congress are preparing for the possibility that President Donald Trump will allege foreign interference to discredit unfavorable results. And they want leading U.S. intelligence officials to be immediately reachable if he does. Sen. Mark…
A challenger for a seat on the Public Service Commission says North Dakotans do not feel like they are being heard by state regulators, while the incumbent defended the processes used by the state agency. Democrat Scot Kelsh said people feel like developers of projects such as power lines and pipelines are “running…
Early in-person voting begins in certain counties throughout North Dakota during the next week, an opportunity one Bismarck-area group is highlighting to encourage Indigenous people to vote. Staff of the Sacred Pipe Resource Center gathered Thursday with half a dozen voters to all cast their ballots shortly after…
WASHINGTON — The price health insurance companies charge for employer-sponsored plans increased again this year, as did the deductible many people must pay before those plans begin covering most healthcare costs, according to a survey released Thursday by the nonpartisan health organization KFF. The cost of individual…
Candidates for North Dakota’s top law enforcement position say artificial intelligence will be transformative for society but is not a replacement for humans in investigations or legal matters. Republican Attorney General Drew Wrigley, a two-time former U.S. attorney and past lieutenant governor, is running for…
National Democrats are suing President Donald Trump, accusing his administration of intimidating election officials and asking a federal court to block him from interfering in the midterm elections. The lawsuit, filed late Tuesday in Washington, D.C., comes as the Trump administration mounts a highly public offensive…