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A former lawyer for the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot announced Tuesday that he is running for Congress in Florida as a Democrat, challenging Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar.

Robin Peguero, 39, said in an interview ahead of his announcement that he is running because Salazar has not “stood up” to President Donald Trump on issues like his deportation program and sweeping tax and spending cuts law.

“It’s been six months into this administration, and Congresswoman Salazar has not stood up to the president in any meaningful way,” Peguero said.

Peguero was a homicide prosecutor in Miami from 2014 until September 2021, when he took a job on the Jan. 6 committee as an investigative counsel. He continued in that position until the committee dissolved in 2021, after which he became chief of staff for Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., until January 2024. He has taught law in Miami since.

Salazar has represented Florida’s 27th Congressional District, which encompasses most of Miami and its southern suburbs, since 2021. The predominantly Hispanic district has shifted toward Republicans in recent years, as Trump won the district by 15 percentage points in 2024 after he carried it by less than half a percentage point in 2020.

Peguero said his top priority is affordability, which he said includes issues like health care, grocery costs and gas prices.

“It is the number one role of government, is again, to make sure that everybody has the opportunity for the American dream,” he said.

Peguero said he leaned on his experience as a prosecutor in Miami when he became investigative counsel for the Jan 6. committee.

“That was me wanting to take what I had learned as a prosecutor and present evidence of what was an awful mark in our country’s history, the first non-peaceful transfer of power in our history, to uncover evidence to present to the American people so that they might decide what to do with it and how we might avoid it from ever happening again,” Peguero said.

Some 30-plus miles outside of Salazar’s district lies “Alligator Alcatraz,” the new immigration detention center in the Everglades that Peguero said is a “PR gimmick.” He said he supports deporting violent criminals, but criticized the Trump administration for deporting “good, hard-working” people who have been in the U.S. for a long time.

“They didn’t vote for mass deportations without due process. They voted for border security and for the deportation of violent criminals and a government that’s smart enough to be able to tell the difference between who ought to be deported and who should not,” Peguero said.

“People are absolutely having regrets over their votes in the past, and the truth is we just got to move forward,” he said.

Salazar’s seat is one of 35 that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has announced as targets, as House Democrats aim to flip the chamber next year, though the expansive list includes some districts that are heavily Republican at this point.

Peguero joins former Key Biscayne mayor and 2024 candidate Mike Davey, entrepreneur Richard Lamondin and accountant Alexander Fornino in the Democratic field.

WASHINGTON — House Democrats have been publicly grappling with the issue of impeaching President Donald Trump, with grassroots activists pressuring lawmakers to more aggressively confront Trump and centrist members of the party dismissing the push as futile.

During a six-week stretch this year, House Democrats twice were confronted with impeachment votes — forced by their own rank-and-file members — that had zero chance of passing, given that Republicans control the chamber.

In May, Democratic leaders convinced Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., to back off his impeachment push at the last minute. But the following month, Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, forced a failed vote to impeach Trump, exposing stark divisions among Democrats and putting the party’s vulnerable members in a difficult position ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Before the 119th Congress is over, it’s likely there will be other pushes to impeach Trump, who survived two such efforts during his first term, even as many Democrats grow frustrated by them.

“They’re massively unhelpful, and they just fire up the base,” said one moderate House Democrat who opposed the recent impeachment efforts.

A second centrist Democrat called them a “waste of time,” and suggested that colleagues who had voted for impeachment had only done so to appease the party’s base.

“Even people that voted ‘no’ on it, they don’t really want to impeach Trump. But they have to feed the left-wing base,” said the second Democrat, who spoke anonymously to freely discuss internal party dynamics. “They don’t want to have to go home and answer questions why they didn’t vote for impeachment.”

That lawmaker said impeachment should only be pursued after holding a committee investigation and hearings — and that won’t happen until Democrats win back the majority.

“If you respect the process here, you don’t go right to an impeachment vote,” the lawmaker said. “You go through a process, and then you have an impeachment vote. So let’s go through that process.”

That was the roadmap that House Democrats followed in 2019 during Trump’s first impeachment, over allegations he withheld military aid to pressure Ukraine to launch an investigation into political rival Joe Biden’s family. Democrats voted to launch a formal impeachment investigation, took closed-door testimony and held a series of televised hearings.

The second impeachment, in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, happened in a much more haphazard way as Trump was preparing to leave office. There was no lengthy House investigation or hearings before an impeachment vote. The Senate acquitted Trump in both cases.

In Trump’s second term, talk from some Democrats about impeaching the president began early. In February, Green gave a floor speech announcing he’d pursue articles of impeachment. Two months later, he introduced a single article accusing Trump of “devolving democracy within the United States into authoritarianism” and detailed a lengthy list of grievances about Trump flouting the courts and attacking the judiciary.

But by June, when Green finally called up his resolution, forcing an impeachment vote on the floor, the Texas Democrat swapped out the language of the resolution and replaced it with new language hitting Trump for failing to consult with Congress before striking Iran.

Green’s resolution failed on a 344-79 vote, with 128 Democrats joining all Republicans to table the measure. Among those who backed Green were Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly, who are both running for Senate in Illinois.

Some Democrats said the vote served only as a distraction from more pressing matters, like Republicans’ megabill that was moving through Congress.

But in an interview Monday night, Green said he had no regrets about forcing the impeachment vote and vowed to do it again — though he wouldn’t say when or what the new articles might say.

“I can’t say that he committed an impeachable offense and then not vote to impeach. I have a conscience; it’s a vote of conscience. And I say to members, ‘Vote your conscience,’” Green told NBC News. “By the way, I’m going to bring articles against him again. Those were not the last.”

He said he respected the views of colleagues who believe that political “tactics supersede the Constitution.” But he felt he had no choice but to act on impeachment.

“A person who breaches the Constitution that the courts can’t manage and their party won’t manage, then there’s but one option left,” Green added. “And the Constitution is kind of important.”

In a sign of how Democrats are struggling to find the right message on impeachment, Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., who voted to kill the Green impeachment effort, asked to cosponsor impeachment articles one day later in a post to X.

And Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., recounted how he changed his vote from killing the Green measure to supporting it after a conversation on the House floor with a colleague. Longtime Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who has participated in all four modern presidential impeachments, informed Beyer that the revised language of the resolution effectively made it a vote to restrict Trump’s ability to use military force against Iran.

“This is the only chance as a Democrat to make a war powers vote,” Beyer said Lofgren told him. “I would not have voted for it based on the original impeachment text that Al Green put in, which I thought was thin.”

Some freshman lawmakers have been worried about the optics of Democrats being publicly split over impeaching Trump. They’re seeking more coordination and guidance from leadership to get rank-and-file members marching in the same direction, according to one Democratic member who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity.

This lawmaker, who represents a progressive district, said they are getting inundated with calls from constituents who want Democrats to fight harder.

“They aren’t buying that just because we are in the minority, we can’t do anything,” the lawmaker said. “The truth is we can. And we should.”

After Thanedar’s impeachment push, the lawmaker said there was “anxiety” among freshmen in particular. The lawmaker added that they’d want to see a concerted push in relevant committees that has been blessed by leadership, rather than disjointed attempts from rank-and-file members.

Still, there is little Democratic leaders to do to stop these efforts. Any lawmaker is able to call up an impeachment resolution as “privileged” and force a full vote in the House.

Democratic leaders have consistently poured cold water on the rogue impeachment efforts, arguing that Republicans — in control of the House and Senate — won’t hold Trump accountable.

The newly minted ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said in the middle of last month’s fight over Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that Democrats should focus on stopping Trump’s legislative agenda.

“We know that Donald Trump is corrupt. We know that we’re going to have the ability and we’re going to need to investigate his corruption. But at this moment, the priority has to be in stopping this bill. I think that’s the focus,” Garcia told NBC News.

Asked if Democrats will move to impeach Trump eventually, Garcia replied: “He’s going to have to be held accountable for his actions. At this moment, we’ve got to focus on stopping this massive bill.”

At various times this year, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has dodged the question of whether he supports impeaching Trump. But Jeffries and his top Democratic lieutenants all voted to table the Green resolution. And speaking with NBC News recently, Jeffries deferred to Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee who has dismissed impeachment as “not a plausible instrument” while in the minority.

“Impeachment, of course, rests with the Judiciary Committee under the leadership of Jamie Raskin. He has been very clear that this is a moment where we have to expose the corruption and abuse of power that is taking place as a result of the extreme behavior by the Trump administration,” Jeffries said.

“Follow the facts, apply the law, and be guided by the Constitution,” he said.

The man accused of killing two women in a shooting rampage at a Kentucky church after wounding a state trooper had been expected in court for a domestic violence hearing on Monday, a local official said.

In a chilling account of Sunday’s attack, Star Rutherford, a relative of the two slain women, said Guy House went to the Lexington-area church looking for one of her sisters but was told she wasn’t there.

He declared: “Well I guess someone’s going to have to die then,” and shot her mother, 72-year-old Beverly Gumm, in the chest. Rutherford spoke to the Lexington-based broadcaster WKYT-TV. House later killed Christina Combs, who media reports said was another of Rutherford’s sisters. Two men were also critically wounded, police said Monday.

House went to Richmond Road Baptist Church seeking the mother of his children but his domestic violence hearing did not involve her, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported, citing Rachael Barnes. She identified Gumm and Combs, 34, as her mother and sister.

Matt Ball, a deputy clerk for family court in Fayette County, confirmed to The Associated Press that House had been scheduled for the domestic violence hearing on Monday.

Authorities have offered no motive and the investigation was ongoing.

Officers confronted House, 47, in a rear parking lot after the shootings at the close-knit rural church where many members are related or close friends. At least three Lexington police officers fired, striking House and resulting in his death, authorities said.

The trooper is in stable condition, and authorities have not identified the wounded.

Sunday’s violence began when House shot the trooper during a traffic stop near Lexington’s airport, police said. House then fled, forcibly stole a vehicle and opened fire at the church about an hour later, police said.

The trooper stopped House after receiving a “license plate reader alert,” police said. House had active arrest warrants and he shot the trooper as the officer interacted with people in the vehicle, Kentucky State Police Sgt. Matt Sudduth said Monday. The others in the vehicle were not involved in the shooting, did not flee and have cooperated with investigators, he said.

A woman who witnessed that shooting said it initially appeared to be a routine traffic stop, with the trooper talking through an open window.

“And as we were driving by, I heard, ‘pop, pop’ and I knew it was gunshots,” Larissa McLaughlin told WLEX-TV in Lexington.

Police credited several people for coming to the trooper’s aid immediately.

“Without the assistance of several Good Samaritans, this likely could have been a very life-threatening injury,” Sudduth said. He didn’t offer details on what aid was provided and said police were working to identify them.

Officers tracked the stolen vehicle to the church about 16 miles (26 kilometers) from where the trooper was shot, police said.

“Please pray for everyone affected by these senseless acts of violence,” Gov. Andy Beshear said Sunday, “and let’s give thanks for the swift response by the Lexington Police Department and Kentucky State Police.”

State Attorney General Russell Coleman said Sunday that detectives with his office were ready to support local and state agencies, saying, “Today, violence invaded the Lord’s House.”

John Goodman is showing off his 200-pound weight loss.

The former “Conners” star, 73, turned heads when he walked the red carpet at the Los Angeles premiere of the “Smurfs” movie on Sunday.

Goodman, who voices Papa Smurf in the animated flick, wore a navy blue suit, white shirt, black tie and brown shoes as he smiled for photographers.

Goodman’s appearance at the event comes four months after he sustained a hip injury in the U.K. during production of an upcoming movie directed by Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, Deadline reported in March.

The Emmy winner reportedly received medical attention and was scheduled to begin shooting again the following week.

Goodman’s slow and steady weight loss has happened over many years. According to a 2023 interview with Rolling Stone, the actor has lost more than 200 pounds.

The actor told People in 2010 that he’d lost the first 100 pounds after deciding he wanted to be a more active person.

“I know it sounds sappy, but it was a waste,” he said. “It takes a lot of creative energy to sit on your a– and figure out what you’re going to eat next. … I wanted to live life better.”

Goodman told the publication that he’d been working out six days a week and he’d also cut out sugar from his diet.

“I’m breaking a sweat, but I’m not going nuts,” he said.

In 2018, Goodman told AARP that he had trained himself to consume less food when he ate. “It was basically just portion control, and ‘I don’t need it,’” he said. “I was just shoving everything into my mouth.”

He added that that he wasn’t comfortable boasting about his weight loss because of the risk of him gaining the weight back.

“I don’t want to be an example to anybody when the weight comes thundering back on — when I start eating Crisco out of the can with a spoon and a side of confectioner’s sugar,” he joked.

In June 2023, Goodman told Rolling Stone that his exercise routine at the time consisted of “getting out and walking the dogs.”

The busy actor said he had become “lazy” since the Covid pandemic and hadn’t devoted much time as he wanted to working out.

Goodman added that boxing was one of his favorite ways to break a sweat.

“I never got good enough where I would trust myself to spar because once I get whacked in the face, I don’t know if I wouldn’t lose it,” he added.

ATLANTA — Seattle’s Cal Raleigh won his first All-Star Home Run Derby after leading the big leagues in long balls going into the break, defeating Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero 18-15 in the final round Monday night.

The Mariners breakout slugger nicknamed Big Dumper advanced from the first round on a tiebreaker by less than an inch over the Athletics’ Brent Rooker, then won his semifinal 19-13 over Pittsburgh’s Oneil Cruz, whose 513-foot first-round drive over Truist Park’s right-center field seats was the longest of the night.

Hitting second in the final round, the 22-year-old Caminero closed within three dingers, took three pitches and hit a liner to left field.

Becoming the first switch-hitter and first catcher to win the title, Raleigh had reached the All-Star break with a major league-leading 38 home runs. He became the second Mariners player to take the title after three-time winner Ken Griffey Jr.

Raleigh was pitched to by his father, Todd, former coach of Tennessee and Western Carolina. His younger brother Todd Raleigh Jr. did the catching.

Just the second Derby switch-hitter after Baltimore’s Adley Rutschman in 2023, Raleigh hit his first eight left-handed, took a timeout, then hit seven right-handed. Going back to lefty, he then hit two more in the bonus round and stayed lefty for the semifinals and the final.

Caminero beat Minnesota’s Byron Buxton 8-7 in the other semifinal.

Atlanta’s Matt Olson, Washington’s James Wood, the New York Yankees’ Jazz Chisholm Jr. and the Athletics’ Brent Rooker were eliminated in the first round of the annual power show.

Cruz and Caminero each hit 21 long balls and Buxton had 20 in the opening round. Raleigh and Rooker had 17 apiece, but Raleigh advanced on the tiebreaker of their longest homer, 470.61 feet to 470.53.

Cruz’s long drive was the hardest-hit at 118 mph.

The longest derby homer since Statcast started tracking in 2016 was 520 feet by Juan Soto in the mile-high air of Denver’s Coors Field in 2021. Last year, the longest drive at Arlington, Texas, was 473 feet by Atlanta’s Marcell Ozuna.

Wood hit 16 homers, including a 486-foot shot and one that landed on the roof of the Chop House behind the right-field wall. Olson, disappointing his hometown fans, did not go deep on his first nine swings and finished with 15, He also was eliminated in the first round in 2021.

Chisholm hit just three homers, the fewest since the timer format started in 2015.

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., is facing a lawsuit seeking his eviction over alleged failure to pay thousands of dollars in rent at a property in Washington, D.C., according to court papers.

In a complaint filed in D.C. Superior Court last week, Bozzuto Management Company said the congressman did not pay a total of $85,009 in rent between March and July. Monthly rent for the property, according to the court filing, is $20,833.

The management company is asking the court to allow it to evict Mills and for an order requiring that he submit future monthly payments with the court until the case is resolved. An initial hearing is scheduled for Sept. 8.

The lawsuit was first reported by Roger Sollenberger, an independent journalist.

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A resident ledger accompanying the management company’s lawsuit appears to show Mills has repeatedly failed to pay his rent on time, and that he was frequently assessed fees for late payments. He moved into the property in June 2023.

According to court papers, Mills was served in January with a notice to pay over $18,000 in past due rent by Feb. 26, and a notice of the company’s intent to file a lawsuit.

A spokesperson for Mills did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night, but Mills posted screenshots on X earlier in the day that he said showed him “repeatedly asking for payment links and again as I tried with management today, it failed to process.”

An attorney listed for the management company did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Mills’ social media post.

Police in February opened an investigation into Mills over a report of an alleged assault at an apartment building on the same block as that of the rental dispute. Mills’ office said he “vehemently” denied any wrongdoing, and a police spokesperson at the time said the congressman was not arrested and no charges had been filed.

Mills has represented Florida’s 7th Congressional District since January 2023.

Arizona’s senators are demanding answers from the Department of the Interior over its handling of a devastating wildfire that is still burning out of control on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim.

In a letter sent Monday to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly questioned the department’s initial response to the Dragon Bravo Fire. The blaze spread quickly over the weekend and destroyed dozens of structures, including the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, a visitor center and a wastewater treatment plant.

“It has been reported that National Parks Service officials initially decided to monitor the fire as a controlled burn, but changed their approach as strong winds allowed the fire to jump multiple containment features,” the senators wrote in the letter. “There are many questions over the initial decision to treat this fire as a controlled burn and subsequent decisions on how to respond.”

Neither the National Park Service nor the Department of the Interior immediately responded to requests for comment.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, on Sunday called for an independent investigation into the federal response, particularly the decision to “manage that fire as a controlled burn during the driest, hottest part of the Arizona summer,” she said in a post on X.

“An incident of this magnitude demands intense oversight and scrutiny into the federal government’s emergency response,” Hobbs wrote. “They must first take aggressive action to end the wildfire and prevent further damage. But Arizonans deserve answers for how this fire was allowed to decimate the Grand Canyon National Park.”

As of Monday, the fire had consumed more than 5,700 acres and remained 0% contained, according to InciWeb, the U.S. Forest Service’s wildfire information site.

Gallego and Kelly said they were concerned that early decisions by the federal government “may have affected the spread of fire in northern Arizona,” particularly since the North Rim has been under weeks of extreme heat and experienced a dry winter.

The senators asked Burgum to detail the factors that contributed to the initial decision to treat the fire as a controlled burn.

Controlled burns are fires that are intentionally set or allowed to burn to reduce the amount of dry and flammable vegetation in an area. These kinds of burns are used to manage ecosystems that need periodic fires to stay healthy and also to lower the risk of bigger wildfires from breaking out.

Gallego and Kelly called the Grand Canyon “Arizona’s crown jewel” and asked about the resources available to fight the wildfire. They also questioned how the Interior Department plans to prevent other blazes from spreading. The senators requested responses by Aug. 10.

The Dragon Bravo Fire was started by lightning on July 4. The National Park Service said Sunday that the blaze “exhibited extreme and volatile fire behavior the evening of July 12, resulting in a 500-acre expansion.” The fire’s rapid expansion was fueled by sustained winds of 20 mph and gusts reaching up to 40 mph, according to the NPS.

Early assessments suggest that between 50 and 80 structures have been lost, but no injuries or deaths have been reported so far.

A separate, bigger blaze known as the White Sage Fire is also burning north of the Dragon Bravo Fire. The White Sage Fire has consumed more than 49,000 acres and is also 0% contained, according to InciWeb.

New Yorkers in basement apartments were told to be ready to leave and New Jersey’s governor declared a state of emergency after heavy rains in the northeast caused flash flooding, officials said.

Western Union County, New Jersey, was experiencing life-threatening flash flooding by storms that were nearly stationary Monday evening, the National Weather Service office for the New York City region said.

“Please stay indoors and avoid unnecessary travel,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said in announcing he was declaring a state of emergency due to the heavy rainfall. “Stay safe, New Jersey.”

All five boroughs of New York City were under a flash flood warning Monday night.

Emergency management officials warned residents of basement apartments to be ready to leave.

“If you live in a basement apartment, stay alert. Flash flooding can happen with little warning, including overnight,” New York City Emergency Management said on X. “Keep a phone, flashlight, and Go Bag nearby. Be ready to move to higher ground.”

Video on social media showed people wading out into floodwaters above their knees Monday in New Providence, New Jersey, around 10 miles west of Newark.

Early rainfall reports Monday evening in New York City included 1.67 inches in Staten Island and 1.47 inches in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City Emergency Management said on X at around 7:30 p.m. — and it cautioned more rain was forecast Monday night.

LaGuardia International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport both reported flight disruptions due to the weather, and John F. Kennedy Airport warned of possible problems. All three airports led in cancellations Monday night on tracking website FlightAware.

Standing water on the Cross Bronx Expressway caused the traffic artery to be closed in both directions at Macombs Road, emergency officials said.

There was also standing water on FDR Drive that was causing delays Monday night, as well as standing water on Harlem River Drive, the city warned.

New York City Transit said it was working on flooding at multiple subway stations in Queens. E, M and R trains were “severely disrupted,” the agency said. The Staten Island Railway suspended service in both directions in the southern part of the borough because of floods.

The National Weather Service warned earlier Monday that showers and thunderstorms could bring rainfall rates of up to 2 inches an hour, and up to 3 inches in total could fall in the New York City area.

“Much of this could fall in only 3 to 4 hours, causing isolated to scattered instances of flash flooding,” the weather service said.

At around 7:40 p.m., the weather service warned that an additional 1 to 2 inches, on top of the rain that already fell, could hit the city.

Jamaica, Flushing, Rockaway Beach, Great Neck, John F. Kennedy Airport and Bayside were among the New York City areas expected to see flooding, the weather service said in the flash flood warning issued Monday.