By JONATHAN MATTISE, Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — President Donald Trump and Republicans will try to bounce back from recent losses around the country when Tennessee voters choose the next representative for the reliably conservative 7th U.S. House Congressional District on Tuesday.

The special election, which was organized after Republican Rep. Mark Green resigned this summer, saw an unexpected surge of spending in recent weeks, flooding the airwaves and filling residents’ mailboxes with campaign flyers.

Matt Van Epps, the Republican candidate, has been backed by more than $1 million from MAGA Inc. It’s the first time the Trump-supporting super PAC has spent money on a campaign since last year’s presidential race, a reflection of this contest’s outsize importance. House Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP chair Joe Gruters rallied supporters in Tennessee on Monday. Trump addressed the crowd by phone and later held a tele-rally for Van Epps, his second of the general election.

Democrats recently won by wide margins in New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere, and a strong showing in Tennessee could further embolden the party ahead of midterm elections next November.

The House Majority PAC has put $1 million behind state Rep. Aftyn Behn, the Democratic candidate. National party chair Ken Martin visited to campaign for Behn. Former Vice President Kamala Harris participated in a canvassing kickoff while in Nashville on a book tour. And former Vice President Al Gore, a Tennessee native, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez headlined a virtual rally on the election’s eve.

Democratic congressional candidate State Rep. Aftyn Behn, D-Nashville, attends a campaign event during the special election for the seventh district, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The 7th District is one of three seats redrawn in 2022 to erode the influence of Nashville, the state’s largest city and a Democratic stronghold. Only about 1 in 5 of its registered voters are in Nashville, and last year it went to Green by 21 percentage points and to Trump by a similar margin.

Democrats say closing the gap would signal that their party has momentum going into next year. Republicans remain confident that they can defend the seat, and they hope to dismiss Democratic claims that even red districts are now in play as Trump struggles with low approval ratings and persistent economic dissatisfaction.

Related Articles

US envoy Witkoff will meet Putin in Moscow while Zelenskyy tours Europe as peace efforts press ahead

Shooting of National Guard members prompts flurry of US immigration restrictions

GOP-led states settle lawsuit against federal government over checking citizenship status of voters

White House says admiral ordered follow-on strike on alleged drug boat, insists attack was lawful

Former Trump lawyer Alina Habba is disqualified as top New Jersey prosecutor, US appeals court rules

However there are concerns about turnout due to the timing, as early voting went into Thanksgiving week with Election Day the following Tuesday.

Trump held a virtual rally in November with Van Epps, a former state general services commissioner from Nashville who previously served as an Army helicopter pilot, to boost his candidacy.

Republicans have tried to turn Behn’s own words against her in television advertising, such as when she described herself as a “radical” or claimed to be “bullying” immigration agents and state police officers. A frequent target are comments Behn made about Nashville years ago, when she said “I hate this city” and complained about bachelorette parties.

For the most part, Behn has answered questions about those remarks by redirecting to cost of living issues. But she has responded specifically about Nashville, saying she wants it “to be a place where working people can thrive” even if she gets annoyed at some tourist draws.

Behn, a self-proclaimed “pissed-off social worker,” has condemned Trump’s tariffs and tax cut legislation, both of which Van Epps supports. She also has criticized Republicans’ reluctance to release files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Van Epps originally opposed a House vote to force the Justice Department to disclose more Epstein documents but changed his stance to mirror Trump after the president backed the measure.

Democratic allies sought to eat away at Van Epps’ base by urging conservatives to back independent candidate Jon Thorp instead. That messaging came in mailers from Your Community PAC, which has spent more than $16 million supporting Democratic candidates across the country since last year.

By PATRICK WHITTLE, Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The Northeast was getting ready Tuesday for its first major snowstorm of the season, just as the Midwest began to escape snow and ice that snarled travel after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Some parts of northern New England were expecting up to 10 inches of snow. A windy, potentially icy storm was headed to the region and could soak some parts of the area’s six states while piling snow in others, forecasters said.

The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories in states including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and New York ahead of the snow’s arrival.

The winter blast is set to arrive days after more than 8 inches of snow fell at Chicago O’Hare International Airport over the weekend, setting a record for the highest single calendar day snowfall in November at the airport, according to the weather service. The previous record was set in 1951.

A man fills up a vehicle’s gas tank at a gas station in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Snow in the Great Lakes region was tapering off, but the new storm was heading to the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, with up to a foot (30 centimeters) of snow by Tuesday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Andrew Orrison.

“It’s going to be the first snowfall of the season for many of these areas, and it’s going to be rather significant,” Orrison said.

Winter weather on tap in Northeast next

The National Weather Service issued a warning for coastal Maine from Tuesday morning until Wednesday morning, stating that residents “should delay all travel if possible” due to snow. The state is one of many that is in for its first wallop of snow of December, forecasters said.

Related Articles

Russia and the US threatened to resume nuclear testing after several decades. Here is why it matters

Today in History: December 2, Terror attack on San Bernardino holiday party kills 14

USA Gymnastics and Olympic sports watchdog failed to stop coach’s sexual abuse, lawsuits alleges

Shooting of National Guard members prompts flurry of US immigration restrictions

US air travelers without REAL IDs will be charged a $45 fee

In New Hampshire, the Department of Transportation on Sunday invited residents to submit names for its second annual name-a-plow competition.

“Welcome to The Department of the Seven Snowplows, our winter twist on a classic tale. Hawthorne had gables. We have orange snowplows just waiting for the perfect name,” the department said on social media.

Last winner’s top name was Ctrl-Salt-Delete. This season’s winners will be announced in January.

Pennsylvania prepares for snow

With plowable snow expected to coat large parts of Pennsylvania, crews began to treat lanes along the 565-mile (909-kilometer) Pennsylvania Turnpike system on Monday, said the agency’s press secretary, Marissa Orbanek. Vehicle restrictions on many interstates in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, including on the turnpike system’s Northeast Extension, from the Lehigh Valley to Clarks Summit, will be imposed at 5 a.m. Tuesday.

More than 600 equipment operators and safety workers are available to help clear the turnpike’s 2,900 miles (4,667 kilometers) of lanes, Orbanek said. The turnpike’s winter staffing schedule began in mid-November, and 23 maintenance sheds are staffed around the clock.

“We really prepare for snow all year long,” Orbanek said.

Travelers recovering in Midwest

In Chicago, Don Herrian was among the crowds of travelers at O’Hare on Sunday, hoping to make it back home after Thanksgiving as hundreds of flights were delayed and canceled following a winter storm in the Great Lakes region.

An American airplane arrives at the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

The 76-year-old retiree from Ardmore, Oklahoma, had visited his daughter and her family in Indianapolis. He said his first flight was three hours late, and his connecting flight to Oklahoma City from Chicago was already running another two hours behind.

“It is what it is,” Herrian said. “It’s congested, but that’s expected due to the snow, the delays and the holidays.”

Roads leading to O’Hare were packed Sunday with slow-moving vehicles, even after the roads had been cleared of snow. Planes were being de-iced at several airports across the country on Sunday, including at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Associated Press reporters Adam Schreck in Chicago, Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and photojournalist Nam Y. Huh in Chicago contributed to this report.

By STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN, Associated Press

VIENNA (AP) — The United States and Russia have both recently threatened to resume nuclear testing, alarming the international community and jeopardizing a global norm against such tests.

Experts say these threats from the world’s two largest nuclear powers put pressure on nonproliferation efforts and endanger global peace and security.

FILE – A mushroom cloud rises from a test blast at the Nevada Test Site on June 24, 1957. (U.S. Energy Department via AP, File)

“Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” U.S. President Donald Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site at the end of October. “That process will begin immediately.”

Moscow quickly responded.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Security Council that should the U.S. or any signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty conduct nuclear weapons tests, “Russia would be under obligation to take reciprocal measures.”

Here’s is a look at what a resumption of nuclear testing could mean.

The treaty established a norm against nuclear testing

Concerns about the negative effects of nuclear weapon tests grew in the 1950s when the U.S. and the Soviet Union carried out multiple powerful atomic tests in the atmosphere. As a result, a limited nuclear test ban treaty was negotiated that prohibited such tests but underground tests were still permitted.

Related Articles

Today in History: December 2, Terror attack on San Bernardino holiday party kills 14

USA Gymnastics and Olympic sports watchdog failed to stop coach’s sexual abuse, lawsuits alleges

Shooting of National Guard members prompts flurry of US immigration restrictions

US air travelers without REAL IDs will be charged a $45 fee

Here’s why everyone’s talking about a ‘K-shaped’ economy

Renewed international efforts to ban all nuclear tests resulted in the start of negotiations for a comprehensive treaty in 1994, culminating in its adoption by the U.N. General Assembly in 1996.

With 187 states having signed the treaty and 178 having ratified it, most experts believe the treaty has established a norm against atomic testing — even without formally entering into force.

For the treaty to officially take effect, 44 specific states — listed in an annex to the treaty — must ratify it. Nine of them have not yet done so.

China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the U.S. signed but didn’t ratify it. India, North Korea and Pakistan neither signed nor ratified the treaty. Russia signed and ratified the treaty but revoked its ratification in 2023, saying the imbalance between its ratification and U.S. failure to do so was “unacceptable in the current international situation.”

Alongside the treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization was established in Vienna. It runs a global monitoring network to detect nuclear tests worldwide, operating 307 monitoring stations, using seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound and radionuclide technologies.

The organization is financed mainly through assessed contributions by its member states. Its budget for 2025 is more than $139 million.

China and India would profit from resuming tests

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said that a resumption of U.S. atomic tests would “open the door for states with less nuclear testing experience to conduct full-scale tests that could help them perfect smaller, lighter warhead designs.”

This would “decrease U.S. and international security,” he said.

Joseph Rodgers, fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that states such as China or India stand to profit from a resumption of nuclear tests.

“It makes more sense for them to test” than it does for the U.S. or Russia, the two states who have conducted most atomic tests to date, Rodgers said.

The U.S. conducted its last nuclear test in 1992. Since 1996, only 10 nuclear tests have been conducted by three countries: India, Pakistan and North Korea. None of them have signed or ratified the treaty

The vast majority of nuclear tests — approximately 2,000 — occurred before 1996, mostly by the U.S. and Soviet Union.

The organization creates ‘confidence’

Given the uncertainty around Trump’s announcement and the potential for escalation of tensions around the issue, the test ban treaty organization could play a role in resolving the situation.

Rodgers said that the treaty organization is primarily a scientific one and should focus on providing scientific data to the international community.

But Kimball disagrees, suggesting the organization’s Executive Secretary Robert Floyd could “take the initiative and bring together” officials from the U.S. and other countries to help resolve some uncertainties, such as what type of nuclear tests the U.S. president was referring to in his statement.

Floyd told The Associated Press that in the current situation, he believes his organization’s main role is providing “confidence to states” that they would know if a nuclear weapon explosion occurred “anywhere, anytime.”

The organization’s monitoring network successfully detected all six atomic tests conducted by North Korea between 2006 and 2017, he said.

Not all atomic tests create explosions

The White House has so far not clarified what kind of tests Trump meant and what other countries he was referring to in his statement. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the new tests would not include nuclear explosions.

Nuclear test explosions banned under the treaty are so-called supercritical tests, where fissile material is compressed to start a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction that creates an explosion.

These tests produce a nuclear yield — the amount of energy released, which defines a weapon’s destructive power. The treaty bans any nuclear explosion with a yield, following a zero yield standard.

In contrast, subcritical nuclear experiments, the ones Wright was referring to, produce no self-sustaining chain reaction and no explosion. Nuclear weapon states, including the U.S., conduct these experiments routinely without violating the treaty.

Some tests may remain undetected

Kimball says hydronuclear tests with extremely small yields conducted underground in metal chambers are “undetectable” by the organization’s monitoring system.

“So that creates what I would say is a verification gap regarding this particular type of extremely low yield explosion,” he said.

When the organization’s monitoring system was established in the 1990s, it was designed to detect nuclear explosions of 1 kiloton (1,000 tons of TNT). Floyd said the system actually performs better, detecting explosions below 1 kiloton, at 500 tons of TNT.

The nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima by the U.S. was approximately 15 kilotons.

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff was due to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, taking to the Kremlin an embryonic peace plan that Washington hopes can bring about an end to the nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

Coinciding with Witkoff’s trip, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went to Ireland, continuing his visits to European countries that have helped sustain his country’s fight against Russia’s invasion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, front, arrives to visit the Dassault Aviation plant, in Cergy, northwest of Paris, France, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (Dimitar Dilkoff/Pool Photo via AP)

After months of frustration in his efforts to stop the fighting, U.S. President Donald Trump is deploying officials to get traction for his peace proposals. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, will join the meeting between Putin and Witkoff, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He said that the talks would take “as long as needed” and will involve only Witkoff, Kushner and an interpreter from the U.S. side.

So far, the talks have followed parallel lines, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sitting down with Ukrainian officials, and now Witkoff heading to Moscow.

Zelenskyy said that he met Tuesday with the Ukrainian delegation that returned from the latest round of negotiations with the U.S. representatives in Florida. Rubio said that those talks made progress, but added that “there’s more work to be done.”

Zelenskyy said that the Florida talks took as their cue a document that both sides drafted at an earlier meeting in Geneva. The Ukrainian leader said that document was now “finalized,” although he didn’t explain what that meant.

Ukrainian diplomats are working to ensure that European partners are “substantially involved” in decision-making, Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app, and warned about what he said were Russian disinformation campaigns aimed at steering the negotiations.

Related Articles

Shooting of National Guard members prompts flurry of US immigration restrictions

GOP-led states settle lawsuit against federal government over checking citizenship status of voters

White House says admiral ordered follow-on strike on alleged drug boat, insists attack was lawful

Former Trump lawyer Alina Habba is disqualified as top New Jersey prosecutor, US appeals court rules

Indiana Republicans could win 2 more US House seats under a new proposed map

“Ukrainian intelligence will provide partners with the information we have about Russia’s true intentions and its attempts to use diplomatic efforts as cover to ease sanctions and block important collective European decisions,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy was meeting with political leaders and lawmakers in Dublin on his first official visit. Ireland is officially neutral and isn’t a member of NATO, but has sent nonlethal military support to Ukraine. More than 100,000 Ukrainians have moved to Ireland since Russia launched its war on Feb. 24, 2022.

Though this week’s consultations could move the process forward, few details have become public. It remains unclear how envoys are going to bridge the gap between the two sides on such basic differences as who keeps what territory. European officials say the road to peace will be long.

European leaders, who fear Russia’s future territorial ambitions and are trying to figure out how they can fund Ukraine’s fight beyond this year, are trying to make their voices heard after being largely sidelined by Washington. They are also working on future security guarantees for Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that he and Zelenskyy, who was on a trip to Paris, spoke by phone with Witkoff. They also spoke to leaders of eight other European countries as well as top European Union officials and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

Macron said that the coming days will see “crucial discussions” between U.S. officials and Western partners. Zelenskyy’s visit to Paris followed Sunday’s meeting between Ukrainian and U.S. officials, which Rubio described as productive.

Diplomats face a hard time trying to bridge Russian and Ukrainian differences and persuading them to strike compromises. The key obstacles — over whether Kyiv should cede land to Moscow and how to ensure Ukraine’s future security — appear unresolved.

Zelenskyy is under severe pressure in one of the darkest periods of the war for his country. As well as managing diplomatic pressure, he must find money to keep Ukraine afloat, address a corruption scandal that has reached the top echelons of his government, and keep Russia at bay on the battlefield.

The Kremlin late Monday claimed that Russian forces have captured the key Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region. Zelenskyy, however, said in Paris that fighting was still ongoing in Pokrovsk on Monday.