Ending the shutdown, meekly. After seven weeks of futile partisan wrangling, it seems fitting that Congress is on the verge of resolving the Department of Homeland Security shutdown with almost no lawmakers present in Washington.

The Senate passed a bill for a second time to fund most of DHS, but without money for immigration enforcement. The measure heads back to the House, which rejected it a week ago but is expected to pass it soon, after Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, agreed to the Senate’s two-part funding plan.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, returned to Washington during the congressional Easter recess to re-pass by voice vote the partial DHS funding bill.

That sends the original Senate-passed measure back to the House, which could try to pass it within days by voice vote, with few lawmakers present. If any lawmaker shows up to demand a roll call vote, however, that would further delay an end to the shutdown.

Some House Republicans have publicly objected to the plan, but it is not clear if any of them would travel back to Washington to force a roll call vote.

The agencies not funded under the bill — Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the border patrol functions of Customs and Border Protection — have been operating mostly as normal with a separate stream of funding from last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Republicans are planning to use a second filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package to give ICE and CBP enough money to last through Mr. Trump’s term, so Democrats cannot stand in the way of the administration’s deportation agenda.

Mr. Trump says he wants that bill on his desk no later than June 1. In the meantime, he says, he’ll sign an executive order to pay all DHS employees.

Virginia Democrats are getting nervous about their redistricting referendum, which is not turning out to be the slam dunk the party expected.

Despite Democrats spending tens of millions of dollars on the referendum to allow mid-decade redistricting, early voting numbers show ballots cast in Republican districts are far outpacing those in Democratic districts.

The closer-than-expected contest has Democratic Party officials panicking and calling on Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger to get out of the executive mansion and do more to motivate the party faithful to turn out. She is currently starring in TV ads urging voters to do just that.

Republicans said the early numbers show they’ve got a chance to block the redistricting, which, if approved by voters, would flip four GOP-held U.S. House seats to the Democrats.

In-person voting takes place April 21.

Jury verdicts against Big Tech in New Mexico and California have emboldened lawmakers in Congress to revive efforts at holding social media companies accountable for endangering children who use their platforms.

“That is a huge momentum for the cause,” Rep. Lori Trahan, Massachusetts Democrat, told The Washington Times. “Frankly, the courts did something that Congress has been unable to do. So I think for us, we have to build on that momentum.”

The New Mexico jury’s ruling, issued March 24, found Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, liable for $375 million in civil penalties for violating the state’s consumer protection laws by misleading users about the safety of its platforms and endangering children.

It was the first time a state prevailed in a court case seeking to hold a major technology company accountable for harming minors.

The left-wing “squad” in Congress is seizing on mounting opposition to data centers with a bill that would place a moratorium on their expansion “to ensure the safety of humanity.”

Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, two of the most socialist-leaning members of Congress, introduced the legislation that would pause construction of data centers until “strong national safeguards are in place” to protect workers from losing their jobs to artificial intelligence technology, ensure privacy rights are protected and address the risk of environmental harm.

While the bill hasn’t picked up many co-sponsors, it taps into growing opposition from environmental groups and communities pushing back against not only the data centers but also the AI technology that the centers fuel, which critics say will automate much of the global economy and eventually kill thousands of jobs.

In addition to high electric bills and fewer jobs, AI brings significant threats to young people who become addicted to the technology as it slowly takes over society, Mr. Sanders warned.

In the U.S., according to Goldman Sachs researchers, the construction of data centers capable of supporting advanced AI has tripled over the past three years.

King Charles III is scheduled to address a joint meeting of Congress on April 28 as part of his state visit to Washington.

Charles’ visit comes as Mr. Trump’s relationship with Britain and other NATO allies strains over their refusal to back the U.S.-led war against Iran. While the U.K. maintains it is not a party to the conflict, the government is allowing U.S. heavy bombers to stage from British military airfields.

The address and visit mark the enduring relationship between the U.S. and the United Kingdom as America celebrates its 250th anniversary of independence from Britain this year.

Bondi out after 14 months. The president fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, who made a mess of her unenviable chore of handling the Epstein files and failed to successfully prosecute several of Mr. Trump’s political adversaries. 

Mr. Trump named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal defense lawyer, as acting attorney general. 

It was the president’s second Cabinet firing in about a month, following the ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. 

Mr. Trump’s White House ballroom received the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission in an 8-1 vote. Phil Mendelson, chair of the D.C. Council, was the only vote against the 90,000-square-foot project because “it’s just too large.”

The urban planning commission is tasked with approving construction on federal property in the Washington region. It went ahead with the vote despite a ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon that bars construction. 

The judge said Congress must approve the project, but the White House disagrees and is appealing his ruling. White House officials said above-ground construction could begin this month.

Slap in pro-lifers’ faces. The White House said it had to extend federal family-planning grants to Planned Parenthood affiliates for a fifth and final year, citing legal difficulties with canceling the previously approved funding.

Pro-lifers called it a “slap in the face.”

A White House spokesperson said the Title X Service Grant Awards, which are administered by the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Population Affairs, were already “locked in place during the Biden presidency.”

Recipients of the Biden-era five-year grants aimed at expanding access to “family planning and preventive health services” included a host of Planned Parenthood affiliates.

The White House said the Title X grants for the next five-year funding cycle would reflect the administration’s commitment to defunding abortion providers.

The U.S. Forest Service will relocate its headquarters from Washington to Salt Lake City, part of a sweeping overhaul aimed at decentralizing the federal bureaucracy and bringing the leadership “closer to the forests and communities it serves.”

Officials at the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the agency, said nearly 90% of the 193 million acres of national forest and grasslands overseen by the Forest Service are west of the Mississippi River.

“Moving the Forest Service closer to the forests we manage is an essential action that will improve our core mission of managing our forests while saving taxpayer dollars and boosting employee recruitment,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. “Establishing a western headquarters in Salt Lake City and streamlining how the Forest Service is organized will position the chief and operation leaders closer to the landscapes we manage and the people who depend on them.”

Under the reorganization, the agency’s nine regional offices will be replaced by 15 state directors, each overseeing one or two states.

Birthright skepticism. The Supreme Court struggled with how to treat Mr. Trump’s attempt to block the children of illegal immigrants and short-term visitors from getting birthright U.S. citizenship.

The justices tried to square Mr. Trump’s executive order with more than a century of tradition that grants U.S. citizenship to anyone born in the U.S.

Mr. Trump was in the courtroom for part of the argument — the first time a president has personally appeared for a court session.

Justices from across the ideological spectrum put Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Solicitor General D. John Sauer, through a gantlet of questions, saying the text of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, a 1898 Supreme Court ruling and a century’s worth of legal scholarship have cemented the concept that nearly every person born on U.S. soil is entitled to citizenship. A ruling is expected before July.

The Supreme Court ruled against a Colorado law that prohibited a Christian counselor from helping LGBTQ children who want to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The 8-1 ruling said that as long as it’s just talking, the counselor has free speech rights that the state cannot take away.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing the key opinion, said the state can regulate other types of “conversion therapy,” such as physical treatment.

He said Colorado’s law went further by banning licensed therapists from certain lines of conversation, even at the patient’s request. That, the court said, was unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

“Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same,” said Justice Gorsuch, a Trump appointee. “But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee, dissented. She said talk therapy is a medical treatment and states have the power to control such treatments.

The Washington Times Editorial Board argues that the Democrats haven’t figured out that Americans will vote with their feet to escape high taxes and business-killing regulations.

If the Democrats win back the House in November, expect an agenda of more taxes, more illegal immigrants and bigger government, writes Michael McKenna.

The Republican Party is missing obvious opportunities to attack Democrats, James Roberts argues.