By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans are considering changing Senate rules to speed up confirmation of President Donald Trump’s executive branch nominees.

The move forces a possible clash with Democrats in the coming days as Trump pressures them to fill dozens of administration posts before they are scheduled to leave town for the monthlong August recess.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has already more than doubled the number of executive branch and judicial confirmations from Trump’s first term by holding the Senate in session for more days and longer hours. Still, Trump says he wants more, and Democrats are delaying a vote on most every nominee, arguing that Trump’s picks are extreme.

“We may need to look at doing things differently on nominees generally if the Democrats continue on this path of obstruction that they’re on right now,” Thune said Wednesday morning, adding that the number of willing votes to change Senate rules “is growing quickly on our side right now.”

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The standoff between the two parties, with Trump encouraging Republicans to move even more swiftly or cancel their August recess, is likely to come to a head in the next week. Democrats have little desire to give in to Thune’s demand to confirm a tranche of nominees before they leave, even as senators in both parties are eager to skip town after several long months of work and bitter partisan fights over legislation.

The Senate clash over nominees is not new, though it has intensified over the last two decades as both parties have increasingly used stalling tactics to delay confirmations that were once quick, bipartisan and routine. In 2013, Democrats changed Senate rules for lower court judicial nominees to remove the 60-vote threshold for confirmations as Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s judicial nominations. In 2017, Republicans did the same for Supreme Court nominees as Democrats tried to block Trump’s nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Still, Democrats have blocked more nominees than usual this year, denying any quick unanimous consent votes and forcing roll calls on each one, a lengthy process that takes several days per nominee and allows for debate time. It’s the first time in recent history that the minority party hasn’t allowed at least some quick confirmations.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats have blocked quick votes because “historically bad nominees deserved historic levels of scrutiny.”

But Thune said the rules are being “misused” by Democrats, and there is a lot of interest in the GOP conference in potentially speeding up the process. A rules change, in the end, “could benefit both parties when they have the presidency.”

It’s unclear how Republicans would change the rules, but they could potentially cut the number of procedural votes, reduce or eliminate the standard two hours of debate time or somehow force nominations to be bundled together, among other possible options. A rules change would require a simple majority vote, so almost all of the Senate’s 53 Republicans would have to be on board.

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven said that in discussions among GOP senators, “all options are on the table.”

“We’d rather not have to,” Hoeven said. “If they would follow the same approach we gave them as recently as Biden, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Democrats have discussed similar changes in the past when Republicans were blocking their own nominees, but they would be unlikely to support any move to change the rules. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said that if Republicans propose to eliminate any debate time, they would be “resisting scrutiny” for a president’s nominations.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., has said in the past that he would be open to changing Senate rules to reduce the number of Senate-confirmed positions in government. But he said he would not be open to reducing debate time for nominees.

“There can be non-controversial nominees where you don’t need two hours, but there are some super important ones where that’s not enough time,” Kaine said.

The GOP leader is facing his own pressure from Trump, who has publicly called on Republicans to cancel the August recess to confirm more nominees. Trump also criticized Senate Republicans on social media this week for continuing with the so-called “blue slip” process that allows home state senators to approve or block some judicial nominees.

In a Tuesday post on Truth Social, Trump called on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to have the “courage” to stop honoring the blue slip forms that are submitted to the home state senators, regardless of party. Trump said as a result of this “custom” only Democrats or “a weak and ineffective Republican” can get nominated.

“Chuck Grassley, who I got re-elected to the U.S. Senate when he was down, by a lot, in the Great State of Iowa, could solve the ‘Blue Slip’ problem,” Trump posted.

Opening a committee hearing on Thursday, Grassley defended the practice and added that he was “offended by what the president said, and I’m disappointed that it would result in personal insults.”

Thune also backed the process Wednesday, noting that he used the blue slip process himself during former President Joe Biden’s administration when there was a judicial vacancy in South Dakota. “I don’t sense any rush to change it,” Thune said.

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS and MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Businesses around the country are reevaluating security after a brazen shooting at a New York City office building raised questions about what it takes to keep workplaces safe.

The attack on a seemingly secure building — in a gilded part of Manhattan where the rich live in sprawling apartments and tourists window-shop designer stores — has rattled workers and prompted managers to examine whether they are adequately protected.

“What should we be doing different?” clients are asking, said Brian Higgins, founder of Group 77, a Mahwah, New Jersey, security company that is among those getting peppered with an influx of calls. “How can we prevent something like this?”

The gut reaction of some companies, Higgins said, is to buy the latest technology and blanket their workplace in cameras. But, he cautioned, that’s only only effective if paired with consistency and long-term monitoring.

“If you’re going to add a security measure … you have to make sure you maintain it,” said Higgins, a former police chief who teaches security at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Police officers stand in front of a door with a bullet hole at scene of Monday’s deadly shooting, Tuesday, July 29, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Four people were killed in the shooting Monday before the gunman died by suicide. Images of the shooter, toting a long rifle on a street in the biggest U.S. city, then terrorizing an office building, have companies desperate to do something to keep the scene from repeating.

“People are frightened, people are asking questions,” said Dave Komendat, the Seattle-based chief security officer at Corporate Security Advisors, where calls are also spiking.

With the U.S. locked in a pattern of gun violence virtually unparalleled in the world, security firms are used to the rhythms of the business. While attacks at a corporate office are less commonplace, a major shooting or an attack on an executive focuses attention back on security for a time, before receding.

“Give it a couple weeks, a month or so, it’ll go back,” Higgins said of the increased call volume. “When security issues don’t happen for a while and companies start reexamining their budget, security is one of those things that companies cut.”

Pedestrians walk by police tape on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 53rd Street, near a Manhattan office building after a shooting, Monday, July 28, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Gene Petrino, CEO of Survival Response in Coral Springs, Florida, has also seen an uptick in calls from potential new customers, but expects it to be fleeting.

“When things are calm it’s seen as an expense they don’t need right away,” he said, “and then when a tragedy happens it’s a priority again.”

Petrino said companies can make changes that aren’t intrusive like using cameras with artificial intelligence capabilities to identify weapons. Sometimes, it may just be a matter of improving lighting in a hallway or putting up convex mirrors to see around a corner.

“Everything doesn’t have to be bulletproof and locked with security cameras everywhere,” he said. “You don’t have to be Fort Knox. You can have very basic things.”

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Michael Evanoff, chief security officer of Verkada, a building security company based in San Mateo, California, said technology like AI-enabled cameras to help identify threats have become even more important amid a shortage of guards.

“It’s harder than many realize to find and retain trained personnel,” Evanoff said. “That makes it even more essential that guards are equipped with technology that can extend their reach.”

Security at 345 Park Avenue, the site of the shooting, included a New York Police Department officer working a uniformed security assignment. He was among those killed.

Rudin, the leasing company that manages the building, did not respond to a query about when the building will reopen or whether new security measures will be implemented. No matter what, though, every workplace has vulnerabilities.

“The security team has to be perfect to 100% of the time,” said Komendat, a former chief security officer for Boeing. “Someone like this just needs to be lucky once.”

By STEPHEN GROVES, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, on Wednesday evening as Republicans looked past his connections to right-wing extremists and support for conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Kent won confirmation on a 52-44 vote tally with Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina the only Republican nay vote. Kent had already been working for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. As the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, he will oversee an agency tasked with analyzing and detecting terrorist threats.

In the role, he plans to devote agency resources to targeting Latin American gangs and other criminal groups tied to migration. He is the latest Trump loyalist to win Senate confirmation to the upper echelons of U.S. national security leadership at a time when Trump is stretching his presidential wartime powers to accomplish his goals.

“President Trump is committed to identifying these cartels and these violent gang members and making sure that we locate them and that we get them out of our country,” Kent said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee in April.

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Kent enters the top role at the counterterrorism center after two unsuccessful campaigns for Congress in Washington state, as well as a military career that saw him deployed 11 times as a Green Beret, followed by work at the CIA. His first wife, a Navy cryptologist, was killed by a suicide bomber in 2019 while fighting the Islamic State group in Syria.

Yet Democrats strongly opposed his confirmation, pointing to his past ties to far-right figures and conspiracy theories. During his 2022 congressional campaign, Kent paid Graham Jorgensen, a member of the far-right military group the Proud Boys, for consulting work. He also worked closely with Joey Gibson, the founder of the Christian nationalist group Patriot Prayer, and attracted support from a variety of far-right figures.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Kent also refused to distance himself from a conspiracy theory that federal agents had somehow instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, as well as false claims that Trump won the 2020 election over President Joe Biden.

Democrats grilled him on his participation in a group chat on Signal that was used by Trump’s national security team to discuss sensitive military plans.

They also raised grave concerns over a recent incident where Kent, as Gabbard’s chief of staff, told an intelligence analyst to revise an assessment of the relationship between the Venezuelan government and a transnational gang. The revisions supported Trump’s assertions that members of the gang could be removed under the Alien Enemies Act — a wartime provision.

Democrats said it showed Kent cannot be trusted to handle some of the nation’s most important and sensitive intelligence.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said any counterterrorism director “must be trusted to tell the truth and to uphold the core principles of the intelligence community: Objectivity, nonpartisanship and fidelity to fact.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Kent has shown time and again that he cannot meet the standard,” Warner added.

Still, Republicans have praised his counterterrorism qualifications, pointing to his military and intelligence experience.

Sen. Tom Cotton, the GOP chair of the intelligence committee, said in a floor speech that Kent “has dedicated his career to fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe.”

By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press

A federal judge on Wednesday essentially accused the Trump administration of ignoring his orders to restore Voice of America’s operations and explain clearly what it is doing with the government-run operation that provides news to other countries.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia gave the administration until Aug. 13 to explain how it will get VOA working again. The outlet that dates back to World War II has been largely dark since March.

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Lamberth said the administration needs to show what it is doing with the $260 million Congress appropriated for VOA’s operations this year.

Kari Lake, the adviser appointed by Trump to run the government news agencies, said in June that 85% of employees at VOA and its overseers at the U.S. Agency for Global Media had lost their jobs. She called it a “long overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.”

Lamberth said there’s a process for eliminating funding that had previously been appropriated — Congress must vote on it, as it recently did for NPR and PBS funding. But that hasn’t happened here, he said.

He scolded the administration for providing “cagey answers” and omitting key information when asked for it in previous court orders.

“Without more explanation, the court is left to conclude that the defendants are simply trying to run out the clock on the fiscal year, without putting the money Congress appropriated toward the purposes Congress intended,” Lamberth wrote. “The legal term for that is ‘waste.’”

There was no immediate comment from the White House.

David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.