She's cooked bean soup live and done laundry in public. She narrated much of what she calls "Congress camp" on Capitol Hill. We know what's in her bank account — less than $7,000 — and what she thinks of reviews of her clothing.
Such intimate details have kept Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's star on the rise since she upset Democratic veteran Joe Crowley in New York's June primary. By the time she takes her seat in the House on Jan. 3 as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, the 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez will have blazed a new, more public trail to Washington and literally shed light on the maze of Capitol Hill.
"Guys there are secret underground tunnels between all of these government buildings," she mock-whispers in one social media post.
FILE - In this Nov. 15, 2018, file photo, Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., joined at left by Rep.-elect Joe Neguse, D-Colo., exit a Democratic Caucus meeting in the basement of the Capitol in Washington. Ocasio-Cortez seems to be everywhere. She’s cooked soup, live on Instagram. She’s done laundry in public. And she’s clapped back at critics of her clothing and a misstatement. The New York Democrat, who at 29 is the youngest woman to be elected to Congress, says she’s documenting her journey to Capitol Hill to lift some of the mystery of the place and make it, ‘real.’ (AP PhotoJ. Scott Applewhite, File)
The passageways are hardly secret, as she notes — everyone from tourists to reporters and lawmakers jostle through them. But they can be hard to follow, much like the twists and turns of congressional business. So Ocasio-Cortez is posting not just about mundane tasks at home, but also about her life as a congresswoman-elect. And even though her Instagram stories don't stay online for long, she intends to keep up the posts in an effort to "humanize our government."
"A lot of times we'll tune in to cable news or watch what's going on on TV and all we're reading about is bills and all we're reading about is legislation or the political dynamics," she said Monday night on MSNBC. "But I think it's really important that we actually show people that government is a real thing, that it's something that you can be a part of."
In her first week, Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist, did give a glimpse inside the power games of Congress when she appeared with protesters in the office of the woman fighting to become House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California. Pelosi, who had not yet won Ocasio-Cortez's support in the leadership fight, permitted the demonstration. Video of the event was posted to social media. Over the weekend, Ocasio-Cortez signaled she would vote for Pelosi for speaker.
That episode and others offered clues to how Ocasio-Cortez and her social media practices fit into a national legislature that's slowly becoming younger, less male and more diverse. The approach Ocasio-Cortez is modeling — and the political world is studying — gives her a measure of control by communicating directly with constituents and responding to critics in close to real time.
"She knows how to navigate this space in a way that others don't," said Yvette Simpson, incoming CEO of Democracy for America, a progressive political action committee. Also, Simpson pointed out, "She's not accountable to that power structure" in Congress. "She's accountable to the group that put her there."
The Ocasio-Cortez approach carries risks. Every word she utters and writes will be scrutinized in the big arena of Congress and the 2020 re-election campaigns that have effectively already begun.
She's already gotten a taste of that scrutiny on policy, to which she is a newcomer compared to some in her class who were state legislators or staffers in previous administrations. Asked on PBS on July 13 about her views on capitalism considering the strong economy and the low unemployment rate, Ocasio-Cortez responded:
"We look at these figures and we say, oh, unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs."
Fact checkers pounced. Employed people are only counted once when the unemployment rate is determined — no matter how many jobs they hold. And the percentage of people working multiple jobs has fallen slightly since the mid-2000s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There have been other tangles.
"People keep giving me directions to the spouse and intern events instead of the ones for members of Congress," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Nov. 14.
Questioned about that claim on Twitter, she reiterated that she'd been sent to an intern lunch and added: "Next time try believing women + people of color when they talk about their experiences being a woman or person of color."
Her high profile has come with criticism.
"If I walked into Congress wearing a sack, they would laugh & take a picture of my backside," she posted on Nov. 15, after a reporter posted just such a photo and questioned whether her clothing choice was that of a "girl who struggles." ''If I walk in with my best sale-rack clothes, they laugh & take a picture of my backside."
Conservatives, too, questioned her claim that she can't pay rent in pricey Washington. A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday that she has less than $7,000 in her bank account to get her through the first congressional payday in January. She and each rank-and-file member will make $174,000 a year.
Another spat ensued when Ocasio-Cortez misspoke and referred to "three chambers of government," rather than three branches. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a Republican not immune to gaffes herself as John McCain's 2008 vice presidential running mate, tweeted that the congresswoman-elect had fumbled basic civics.
For now, Ocasio-Cortez posted that her appearance Monday night will be the last "before we go dark" to set up two congressional offices — one in New York and one in Washington. But even that announcement raised questions among her followers.
"Don't worry, I'll still be on insta, twitter, etc.," she reassured them.
Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.
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BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah on Thursday rejected the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Lebanese government, and the militant group demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as more fighting there hampered efforts to end the Iran war.
The Hezbollah announcement came as Israeli strikes killed at least four people, according to local authorities, and a U.N. peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire.
Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, in a written statement read on TV, called the negotiations “absurd, humiliating and insulting.” He said the agreement’s demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean “surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy’s goals.”
“What we are concerned about is an end to the aggression, ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal,” he said, underscoring that Hezbollah has not made any commitment to stop fighting. “So long as our villages are not safe and are being bombed and destroyed and our people are killed," he said, northern Israel “will not be safe.”
Following Kassem’s statement, drone alert sirens sounded in several border communities in northern Israel, including Shlomi, a town where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several ministers had been meeting with local officials, his office said. Israeli media reported that Netanyahu left a short time before the alerts sounded.
The Israeli military later said the sirens were triggered by attempts to intercept several drones that hit near soldiers in southern Lebanon. No injuries were reported.
Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, acknowledged Thursday that the ongoing war was straining northern Israeli towns living under the threat of Hezbollah fire. He said Israel’s operations in Iran and Lebanon had “created a new security reality,” by weakening Iran and Hezbollah “to an unprecedented degree.”
Lebanese troops began moving Thursday afternoon into the southern village of Dibbine, in coordination with U.N. peacekeepers, after Israeli forces left the area, which saw intense clashes in recent days, state-run media reported. It was the first time Israeli troops withdrew from an area in southern Lebanon since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began about three months ago.
The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for oil and gas. Its closure has jolted the world economy.
Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who faced a rare rebuke from Congress on Wednesday, has sought to downplay the diplomatic deadlock and the failure of declared ceasefires to end the fighting. He told reporters that in the Middle East, "a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”
A Serbian peacekeeper was killed and two others were wounded when a mortar struck their location near Marjayoun, a Christian-majority town that has seen intense fighting, according to the U.N. mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, and the Serbian Defense Ministry.
Israel later blamed Hezbollah for the firing that killed the U.N. peacekeeper, without offering evidence. Hezbollah and the U.N. did not immediately comment on who launched the shells.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said a drone strike killed a motorcyclist and wounded four people in the village of Maaroub. The Israeli military said soldiers killed an armed militant and later found a Hezbollah cache of guns, grenades, surface-to-air missiles and other combat gear in the area.
The military also said it conducted strikes near the coastal city of Tyre and around Shaqra, another community in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese news agency reported airstrikes in the south and said a strike on the village of Sohmor in the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon, killed three people and wounded others.
Israel has warned people not to go into parts of southern Lebanon where it says it is striking Hezbollah facilities.
Hezbollah resumed rocket fire days after Israel and the United States launched their surprise Feb. 28 attack on Iran, which backs Hezbollah. Before then, Israel had regularly carried out strikes in Lebanon against what it said were militant targets, often killing civilians, despite an earlier truce reached in 2024.
After Hezbollah's rocket and drone attacks resumed, Israeli troops seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing further into the country's south than at any time since the end of Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation.
In the southern city of Sidon, residents reacted to Wednesday's ceasefire announcement with skepticism, saying previous agreements had failed to stop the violence.
“Every few days a ceasefire is announced, but people keep getting killed,” said Mayada Hijazi.
“It’s all talk and no action,” said Salah Nassab. “We keep going back to our homes, and then we get displaced again, back and forth. We’re very tired."
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and over 1.2 million have been displaced. The fighting has killed 27 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.
The latest declared ceasefire came about through U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon's government, which accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.
The ceasefire agreement calls for Lebanon's armed forces to take control of security zones in Lebanon from which the militants would be banned.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday called the new agreement "the last chance to enter a final and comprehensive ceasefire.” He said Lebanon was ready to implement the deal once he receives responses from relevant factions in Lebanon, including Hezbollah. The United States — and Trump himself — would determine how and when the deal is implemented, Aoun told journalists.
The agreement terms Hezbollah “an enemy" of Israel, the U.S. and Lebanon and calls for dismantling it. The government has promised to do so in the past but does not have the capabilities to disarm Hezbollah by force.
The latest agreement did not say when Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon but said the U.S. would support the Lebanese army as it works to assert control in areas where Hezbollah has long wielded power.
Israeli troops gather on the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli troops gather on the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli soldiers drive in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Smoke rises near the Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
An Israeli flag hangs on a destroyed building in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
