JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Cori Bush is attempting a political comeback Tuesday in a Missouri Democratic primary that tests evolving views on American-Israeli relations, just two years after the progressive “Squad” member was ousted by voters in favor of Wesley Bell.
The rematch in a heavily Democratic St. Louis district is one of several consequential primaries. In western Missouri, Republicans are picking a candidate to try to unseat Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver in a dramatically reshaped district that is part of President Donald Trump’s attempt to retain a slim House majority in the midterms.
In northern Missouri, Republicans are choosing a potential successor to retiring Rep. Sam Graves, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Meanwhile, Missouri voters are deciding a pair of unique ballot measures backed by the Republican-led Legislature. One would require all citizen-initiated constitutional amendments to pass in each of Missouri's eight congressional districts instead of by a simple statewide majority — a high standard used by no other state. The other would direct lawmakers to repeal the state’s individual income tax while authorizing a state sales tax expansion.
The contest between Bush and Bell tests how much the Democratic Party has shifted over the past two years.
The deep-pocketed American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which lobbies for U.S. support of Israel, spent millions to help oust Bush in 2024 after she criticized Israel’s response in Gaza to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Bell is again supported by AIPAC.
But public opinions of Israel have since shifted, particularly among Democrats. A recent survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 58% of Democrats now say the U.S. is “too supportive” of Israelis, up from 45% in an AP-NORC poll from January 2024.
This year's primary also could test the growing clout of democratic socialists, who have traveled from across the country to help campaign for Bush.
Bush and Bell both honed their leadership skills in Ferguson amid the racial unrest that followed the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in 2014. Bell won election to the Ferguson City Council the next year, then defeated a seven-term St. Louis County prosecutor in the 2018 Democratic primary.
Bush, a protest leader, defeated longtime Rep. William Lacy Clay in the 2020 Democratic primary. She served two terms before being defeated by Bell.
Missouri was the second Republican state, after Texas, to respond to Trump’s call last year to redraw congressional districts to the GOP’s advantage ahead of the midterms. The revamped map stretches Cleaver’s previous Kansas City district eastward into rural central Missouri, giving the new 5th District a Republican tilt.
Cleaver is unopposed for the Democratic nomination. A six-person Republican primary features state Sen. Rick Brattin, a Marine veteran and founding member of the Missouri Freedom Caucus, a conservative faction that has challenged the legislature’s GOP leadership. Brattin now has the backing of some of Missouri's top Republicans, including Gov. Mike Kehoe.
His main advertising competitor has been Taylor Burks, a Navy officer who previously served as Boone County clerk, which oversees elections in the home county of the University of Missouri.
Graves, who has represented rural northern Missouri for a quarter century, set off a political scramble when he announced in late March that he wasn’t seeking reelection. He endorsed conservative talk radio host Chris Stigall, who once worked for Graves.
The five-person Republican field in the GOP-leaning 6th District also features Kansas City Council member Nathan Willett. The recent redistricting added more northern Kansas City neighborhoods to the sprawling district. The Democratic primary has three candidates.
A constitutional amendment placed on the ballot by Republican state lawmakers would make it harder for citizen-initiated amendments to win voter approval. The measure comes after voters narrowly passed several controversial citizen initiatives, including ones enshrining abortion rights into the state constitution, legalizing recreational marijuana, allowing sports betting and expanding Medicaid coverage to low-income adults.
None of those would have passed under the proposed requirement that citizen-initiated amendments win majority approval in every congressional district. Under Amendment 4, constitutional amendments proposed by the Legislature would still need just a statewide majority.
Amendment 5 would direct the Legislature to gradually eliminate the individual income tax as state revenue grows. It also would allow lawmakers to raise revenue by expanding the sales tax to “any goods and services” — giving them five years to decide which sales to tax without needing further voter approval.
The Missouri measure marks the first time since the modern income tax began over a century ago that a U.S. state legislature has asked voters whether to eliminate the tax. Alaska is the only state so far to impose a general individual income tax and then repeal it, doing so in 1980 by a legislative vote.
Massachusetts voters rejected income tax eliminations in 2002 and 2008 that were initiated by citizens, not lawmakers.
FILE - The Missouri Capitol is shown on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in Jefferson City, Mo. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb, File)
U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., with U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell, D-Mo., at a healthcare rally hosted by Congressman Bell and Affinia Healthcare on Friday, July 24, 2026 in Ferguson, Mo. (AP Photo/Michael Thomas)
U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell, D-Mo., speaks at a healthcare rally hosted by him and Affinia Healthcare on Friday, July 24, 2026 in Ferguson, Mo. (AP Photo/Michael Thomas)
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Authorities say they’ve arrested a 37-year-old man suspected of starting one of the devastating wildfires burning around Spokane, Washington.
The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office said Monday they arrested Aaron F. Farinacci for arson. He’s accused of starting the Old Trails Fire.
Several fires are burning in the area. They've destroyed at least 700 structures and forced more than 60,000 people to evacuate.
The fire sparked on Saturday.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Some residents returned to devastated neighborhoods in eastern Washington state to find their homes leveled by wildfires that erupted across a parched landscape over the weekend, covering yards in charred debris. In some cases, only chimneys were left standing.
The fires in and around Spokane, the state’s second-largest city, were among the most destructive in state history. About 700 buildings had been destroyed — a number that was expected to climb — and some 67,000 people were under evacuation orders. The cause was under investigation.
“There’s nothing to save,” Miriam Sim, 76, said Monday as she and her husband, Daniel Sim, surveyed the ruins of the home where they had lived since 2005.
“At our age, do we want to rebuild?” her husband asked.
The fires jumped roads and rivers and had burned about 12.5 square miles (about 32 square kilometers) by Monday. The sky filled with smoke and haze. Calmer winds and lower temperatures arrived to help firefighters, but it was expected to be hot and dry again by midweek.
In one Spokane neighborhood, blackened vehicles, a boat twisted by the heat and melted plastic recycling bins remained. Across the street, lawns were still green and houses were spared, as residents continued to run hoses or sprinklers to water their properties.
“Hundreds of people have completely lost their homes and farms, and many are prohibited from returning to their homes or neighborhoods as crews continue to extinguish smoldering embers,” the state's entire congressional delegation wrote Monday in asking President Donald Trump to approve an expedited emergency declaration.
Cpl. Mark Gregory, a spokesperson for the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, said the county initially received nearly 300 reports of missing people, but by Monday they had cleared all but 14.
Those outstanding reports more likely represented people who had not been in contact since evacuating than people who were truly missing or in danger, authorities said.
The Spokane-area wildfires were completely uncontained, fire officials said. More than 1,000 firefighters, many from out of state, had arrived by Monday, and that number was expected to double in the next few days.
The fires were among dozens across the Western U.S. stretching the ability of federal, state and local agencies to fight them. At least 390 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) has burned across Washington, which has contended with severe drought and a paltry snowpack.
Authorities warned people not to fly drones near the burned areas, saying it could force them to delay aerial firefighting operations.
Angela and Wayde Deatherage, both 49, evacuated shortly after 3 p.m. Saturday with a son, grabbing a few bins of family photos and heirloom rings but not much else. Roughly 30 minutes later, their security camera was sending fire notifications to Angela’s phone.
Wayde Deatherage took some back roads and returned by early evening. He stopped at the end of the street and called his wife: “Our house is done.”
Deatherage, however, wasn't done with his neighborhood. He propped a hose at another house so it sprayed the property. That home survived.
The couple returned to their property Sunday.
“It’s just ash,” Angela Deatherage said of the home where they had lived for nearly 22 years. ”It’s like our house sunk down in the basement. ... There’s just so much loss for so many people.”
Karen Faggioli, 61, figured she would be returning to her home. She recalled how other recent fires had been brought under control. But a relative texted her the bad news: Her house and three vehicles were destroyed. A daughter lost her nearby house, too.
“Why cry? What’s crying going to do? I’ve been through so many tragedies myself,” said Faggioli, who is recovering from breast cancer. “This is nothing. Like I told my granddaughter, ‘We’re strong — and now we get all new things.’ I’m emotionally numb.”
Friends and relatives of fire victims posted online appeals for money, clothes and basic necessities.
Spokane was hardly the only place struggling to contain fires.
A lightning-caused fire that has burned over 530 square miles (about 1,370 square kilometers) of grassland in western Idaho and eastern Oregon continued to grow Monday. The area is home to cattle ranches, and authorities said the fire is threatening more than 600 homes and 800 other structures.
In central Utah, a blaze quadrupled in size over the weekend to nearly 109 square miles (282 square kilometers) by Monday afternoon. More than 100 cattle have been killed, according to law enforcement.
Heavy winds helped flames jump containment lines, but forward progression was slowed toward Fillmore, a town of about 2,600 people and the seat of Millard County, officials said. Mandatory evacuations were ordered Sunday evening for the town's southern portion, and inmates at the county jail were transferred.
In Spokane, about 400 people were staying at city's main convention center, which was turned into a shelter, officials said.
Spokane Public Schools opened a free emergency drop-in camp for children on Monday. Trials at the county court were pushed to Aug. 10.
Several larger fires continued to burn in less populated areas northwest of Spokane.
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Johnson reported from Seattle, and White from Detroit. Associated Press writers Manuel Valdes in Spokane; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Kathy McCormack in Concord, N.H.; and Martha Bellisle in Seattle contributed.
A worker with Avista moves through a property after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash., Monday, Aug. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Miriam Sim, 76, reacts as she walks through the burned remains of her neighborhood after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash., Monday, Aug. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Daniel Sim, 76, views the remains of his destroyed house after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash., Monday, Aug. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Miriam Sim, 76, reacts while talking about her neighborhood largely burning to the ground after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash., Monday, Aug. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Trees burned by a wildfire stand near destroyed structures in the Indian trail neighborhood, Monday, Aug. 3, 2026, in Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
Structures along W. Tiffany Ave. are burned to the ground after a wildfire, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026, in Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
A vehicle and structure are burned on N. Skyline Dr. due to a wildfire, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026, in Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
Kimberley Sather stands at the duplex she rents on W. Indian Trail Rd. after it burned in a wildfire in Spokane, Wash., Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
People watch Old Trails Fire from W. Northwest Blvd., Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, in Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
Allen Sather and his wife Kimberley embrace at the duplex they rent on W. Indian Trail Rd. after it burned in a wildfire in Spokane, Wash., Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
