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Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan cast the political left as "crazy" and "mean" while he hyped up his colleague, U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn, at a special meeting of Des Moines' Westside Conservative Club. Jordan, a Republican from Ohio who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, was in Des Moines on Thursday, May 29, supporting Nunn. Nunn is running for reelection to the 3rdCongressional District next year. And the race has begun in earnest as Democrats begin entering the race. Democratic state Reps.Sarah Trone GarriottandJennifer Konfrsthave both announced their candidacies. And national Democrats haveonce again targeted the seat as a prime pickup opportunity. "Thanks for getting off the sidelines and getting in the game," Jordan told the group, which gathered at the Machine Shed Restaurant in Urbandale. "I learned a long time ago, good things in life don't just happen. You want to accomplish anything that matters … it takes hard work, it takes sacrifice, but most importantly, it takes a willingness to assume risk." Politics is a risky business, he said, particularly in an age of division. He said the dividing line between the parties currently is one of "common sense." "We're the party of common sense and normal," he said. "You think about the left, it is crazy to defund the police. … It's crazy to not have a border. It is crazy to have men compete against women in sports." He painted Democrats broadly as untrustworthy, pointing to decisions made during the COVID-19 pandemic to shut down schools and churches as well as the current conversation about whether former Democratic PresidentJoe Bidenwas mentally fit to serve in office. More:$1,000 to seek asylum? House Republicans propose new immigration fees "The left will tell a lie," Jordan said. "Big media will repeat the lie. Big tech will amplify the lie. And then when you tell the truth, they call you a racist or some other name. They'll attack you. They'll come at you personally because they're mean. Then pretty soon, your position will be proven accurate. So much so, in this example even, Jake Tapper wrote a book to say we were right." Tapper is the co-author of a bookthat suggests aides and confidantes close to Biden shielded him from the public to hide his declining mental state. Nunn said he had recently spoken to Republican PresidentDonald Trumpabout the importance of Iowa's congressional races in the coming midterm elections. "We were just on a conversation with the President, and he said, 'You know what, everybody looks to Iowa, and they might be looking at presidential races coming up in 2028,'" Nunn said. "But the President said, 'I am laser focused on 2026.'" Nunn again touted the tax cut and spending package that recently cleared the House of Representatives. "It adds 10,000 new ICE agents," he said. "But at this point, we almost don't even need them, because the president has been so effective, they've stopped coming over themselves." He said he believes there are people who need access to social safety net programs, but he believes the legislation, which makes massive spending cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, are for the best. "There are important things that Washington can do for Americans," Nunn said. "I'll be the first to say, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP do help Americans. But they have to be used in a way to help Americans with a hand up, not a handout." Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register. Reach her atbpfann@dmreg.comor 515-284-8244. Follow her on X at @brianneDMR. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register:US Rep. Jim Jordan backs Zach Nunn ahead of 2026 reelection bid

U.S. President Donald Trump displays a signed executive order during a tariff announcement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. Credit - Jim Lo Scalzo—EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images The roller coaster that is President Donald Trump's trade war steamed ahead this week. On Wednesday, a federal district court dealt a major blow to Trumpwhen it ruledthat hissweeping global tariffswere illegal. On Thursday, an appeals courtruledthe levies could remain in place for now. And then, on Friday, Trumpaccused Chinaof violating a preliminary trade deal andsuggested he would respond. As all this unfolds and the U.S. legal systemlumbers toward a final verdict, one thing is clear: the White House needs to get a real trade strategy, and fast. Read More:The Five Small Businesses That Helped Block Trump's Tariffs Few issuesare more fundamentalto Trump's worldview than trade. For Trump, trade is not merely an economic issue, but a litmus test of whether America iswinning or losing on the world stage. Even matters of war and peace, such as Taiwan and the South China Sea, have seemingly taken a back seat toTrump's stubborn fixationon China's trade surplus with the U.S. During his first term, Trump launched a trade war against China with a goal, ashe framed it, of punishingChina's unfair trade practices. The trade war ended with aPhase-one dealwherein China promised to increase its future purchases of American products and enact structural reforms. Ultimately, this dealfailed to deliver. The Chinese underperformed on their pledges. Trumpblamedthe Biden Administration for not enforcing the deal. Unbowed by the disappointment of his first trade war with China, Trump launched a second one when he returned to office earlier this year. This time, he surrounded himself with loyalists who supported his instincts for public confrontation and rapid escalation to force China to the negotiating table. Trump's approach appeared to be built on an assumption that China's economy was brittle, and Beijing would buckle under pressure. Read More:Why Trump Will Blink First on China That bet backfired. Chinaretaliatedwith counter-tariffs. Beijing alsoimplementednovel new export controls on critical minerals and magnets upon which U.S. industries depend. Chinese policymakers moved swiftly to shore up China's economy while expanding trade ties with other partners. Rather than fold, China punched back. As the economic costs of the trade war mounted onbothsidesof the Pacific, Trumpdesignatedhis Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to negotiate a90-day truce. The Chinese accepted. Trump's trade war with China is not over. It is merely paused. Trump will continue returning to the well of grievance about America's trade imbalance with China until he can secure a deal that he can sell as a win to the American public. But therein lies the rub. Based on my recent exchanges with Chinese officials and experts, it seems Beijing has taken America's measure in recent weeks and concluded that China has greater capacity to withstand economic pain than the U.S. China's leaders lack confidence that any agreement with the mercurial Trump will last. At a more fundamental level, China's leaders are unclear on what specifically Trump seeks—and what he would offer in return. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Bessent said that U.S.-China talks were "a bit stalled" and suggested Trump and Xi Jinping "have a call." But until the Trump Administration can articulate its concrete objectives, its strategy for achieving them, and its vision of a productive process for doing so, the U.S.-China trade war will stay stalemated. Read More:It's Time for Trump and Xi to Meet To be clear, the Trump Administration has legitimate grievances about China's unfair economic practices. China'smarket access barriers,forced technology transfers, andstate-directed subsidiesto preferred industries and businesses have createdmassive global trade distortions. But grievance is not a strategy. And daily improvisation is not a formula for progress in negotiations. The 90-day trade truce gives the Trump Administration time and space to do its homework. That means discarding the failed assumptions that Xi will cave under pressure and instead doing the hard work of homing in on what specifically Trump is aiming to achieve and what he is prepared to give in return. In the end, trade policy is not about scoring points or undermining competitors. It is about making America stronger, safer, and more prosperous. If Trump wants to succeed, he will need to move beyond theatrics and prepare for the grinding process of negotiating with China that awaits. Contact usatletters@time.com.

President Donald Trump sent stock futures diving early Friday after he accused China of breaking the handshake pact the two countries made in Geneva earlier this month that had helped reset a trade standoff. In a post on Truth Social just after 8 a.m. ET, Trump wrote China "HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US" and signaled a tough response lay ahead. "So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!" the president said. S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures fell about 0.5%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures declined about 0.4%. The "trade win" announced by the White House May 12 was expected to lead to China removing retaliatory tariffs and a suspension of "non-tariff countermeasures taken against the United States." Both sides agreed to lower tariffs on each other by 115% for 90 days. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, speakingon CNBC Friday morningas Trump posted his message, said "this has been something that we've been discussing" since meeting with China in Geneva. "The Chinese are slow rolling their compliance, which is completely unacceptable," Greer added. "You make every effort to be diplomatic and professional and to do things behind closed doors. But at some point the impact on on the U.S. economy, or the trade relationship, becomes such that it's hard to withhold that anymore," he continued. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said trade talks with China were "a bit stalled." Bessent said he believed there would be more talks in the coming weeks but "given the magnitude of the talks," Trump and Xi would likely need to "weigh in with each other" first. The matter hit a further snag Thursday after an appeals courttemporarily reinstateda set of tariffs a federal trade court had voided just hours earlier, casting fresh doubt on the path forward for Trump's tariffs gambit. The case is expected to make its way to the Supreme Court. There has been almost no resolution in the market fluctuations Trump's trade war has set off. The week's back-and-forth court opinionserasedmost of the stock gains from the first decision. Yet before Trump's Friday post, stocks were poised for a weekly gain. Since Trump took office, the S&P 500 has fallen approximately 2% — a modest decline that masks substantial weekly and even daily swings.

A combination drug treatment doubled survival time for patients with an aggressive form ofcolorectal cancer, according to late-stage trial data published Friday inThe New England Journal of Medicineand presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting in Chicago. The three-treatment combination included a standard chemotherapy drug, an antibody drug called cetuximab and a pill from Pfizer called Braftovi, which targets acancer mutation called BRAF V600E. The mutation shows up in about 10% of patients with colorectal cancer, said Dr. Lionel Kankeu Fonkoua, a gastrointestinal oncologist at the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center in Rochester, Minnesota. Patients with the mutation tend to survive for less than a year after diagnosis, and they often don't respond well to standard chemotherapy treatments, said Fonkoua, who wasn't involved with the new trial. According to Pfizer, the risk of death for these patients is more than double compared with those without the mutation. Braftovi was initially approved in 2020 to be used with cetuximab in this group of patients after other treatments had failed. The new trial looked at the drug combination as a so-called first-line therapy. The Food and Drug Administrationgranted the treatment fast-track approval as a first-line approach in Decemberon the condition that Pfizer provide additional data confirming its effectiveness. The agency often grants fast-track approval to treatments that address serious or life-threatening conditions, especially when there's an unmet medical need. Dr. Christopher Lieu, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine who wasn't involved with the research, called the results "very impactful." "Patients are clearly living longer, and this represents the new standard of care for this specific subset of patients with this specific mutation," Lieu said. The trial included more than 600 patients with the mutation who had metastatic colorectal cancer. Patients were randomized to get either the three-drug combination treatment or standard chemotherapy alone. Some of the patients in the latter group were also given bevacizumab, a first-line treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer. The trial found that patients who got the combination treatment lived, on average, about 30 months, compared with about 15 months for those who got standard chemotherapy, with or without bevacizumab. What's more, 47% of patients who got the combination treatment had no disease progression after two years, meaning their cancer didn't grow or spread. The treatment was well-tolerated, with no unexpected safety concerns that would've caused investigators to stop the trial. "This is a really remarkable finding," said Dr. Scott Kopetz, a professor of gastrointestinal medical oncology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas and a co-principal investigator in the trial. "When we bring this together with standard of care chemotherapy, we get really substantially prolonged survival for these patients that are really unprecedented for this disease type." More than 141,000 new cases of colorectal cancer are diagnosed in the U.S. each year, making it the fourth most common cancer, according tothe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 52,900 people in the U.S. are expected to die from colorectal cancer this year, according tothe American Cancer Society. Laurie Ritchie, 61, of St. Louis, got the combination treatment in October 2023. Her results weren't included in the clinical trial analysis. Ritchie had been diagnosed with metastatic colorectal cancer with the BRAF mutation — a diagnosis she describes as "a huge shock." Previous colonoscopies hadn't detected cancer; by the time she was diagnosed, the cancer had already reached Stage 4. It eventually spread to her lungs and ovaries. Since she got the combination treatment, she said her blood tests have consistently shown no trace of cancer. While she still worries about the cancer coming back, she says she's now focused on living fully — including going water skiing and downhill skiing. "I've kind of learned to think of it as something in the trunk, not in the front seat," she said. "It still feels a bit like a ticking time bomb inside me, but I think the work I've done on my mental health has really helped me live with it."

Tropical Storm Alvinis producing large swells that will affect portions of the coasts of west-central and southwestern Mexico and the southern Baja California peninsula in the next couple of days, according to theNational Hurricane Center. These swells are "likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions" and the hurricane center advises people to keep an eye on weather forecasts from their local weather office. TheNHC said Friday morningthe storm is located about 445 miles south-southeast of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula with maximum sustained winds of about 50 mph with higher gusts. Alvin is moving toward the north-northwest, however a turn toward the north is expected Friday. "Gradual weakening is forecast during the next couple of days, and Alvin is expected to degenerate to a remnant low on Saturday," according to the hurricane center. While the 2025 Pacific hurricane season began on May 15, the Atlantic season officially begins on June 1 and will last through the end of November. Active hurricane weather typically peaks between mid-August and mid-October. TheNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationreleased its prediction for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season on Thursday, May 22,predicting an above-average season, with 13 to 19 named storms and six to 10 hurricanes. The hurricane center is also keeping tabs on a disturbance just offshore of Central America and southern Mexico. The NHC said an area of low pressure could form by the middle part of next week and that environmental conditions appear "favorable for some development" while it moves generally westward to west-northwestward. The hurricane center gives the disturbance a 20% chance of formation through the next seven days. This forecast track shows the most likely path of the center of the storm. It does not illustrate the full width of the storm or its impacts, and the center of the storm is likely to travel outside the cone up to 33% of the time. Illustrations include an array of forecast tools and models, and not all are created equal. The hurricane center uses only the top four or five highest-performing models to help make its forecasts. Hurricanes are born in the tropics, above warm water. Clusters of thunderstorms can develop over the ocean when water temperatures exceed 80 degrees Fahrenheit. If conditions are right, the clusters swirl into a storm known as a tropical wave or tropical depression. A tropical depression becomes a named tropical storm once its sustained wind speeds reaches 39 miles per hour. When its winds reach 74 mph, the storm officially becomes a hurricane. Delaying potentially life-saving preparations could mean waiting until it's too late. "Get your disaster supplies while the shelves are still stocked, and get that insurance checkup early, as flood insurance requires a 30-day waiting period," NOAA recommends. Prepare now for hurricanes:Here's what you should do to stay safe before a storm arrives Develop an evacuation plan: If you are at risk from hurricanes, you need anevacuation plan. Now is the time to begin planning where you would go and how you would get there. Assemble disaster supplies: Whether you're evacuating or sheltering-in-place, you're going to need supplies not just to get through the storm but for the potentially lengthy aftermath,NOAA said. Get an insurance checkup and document your possessions: Contact your insurance company or agent now and ask for aninsurance check-upto make sure you have enough insurance to repair or even replace your home and/or belongings. Remember, home and renters insurance doesn't cover flooding, so you'll need a separate policy for it. Flood insurance is available through your company, agent, or theNational Flood Insurance Program. Act now, as flood insurance requires a 30-day waiting period. Create a family communication plan: NOAA said to take the time now to write down yourhurricane plan, and share it with your family. Determine family meeting places, and make sure to include an out-of-town location in case of evacuation. Strengthen your home: Now is the time to improve your home's ability to withstand hurricane impacts. Trim trees; install storm shutters, accordion shutters, and/or impact glass; seal outside wall openings. Gabe Hauari is a national trending news reporter at USA TODAY. You can follow him on X@GabeHauarior email him at Gdhauari@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Tropical Storm Alvin tracker: See projected path, spaghetti models