Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell believes the Republican Party is moving away from Trumpism and views the former president as a weight on his chances of reclaiming the majority next year.

That’s according to “Peril,” the new book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward and veteran reporter Robert Costa.

The book quotes McConnell ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed a pair of laws aimed at protecting reproductive health care in California, calling them urgent measures ahead of a new challenge to abortion rights that’s expected to appear before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Newsom signed the laws during an online discussion with leaders from Planned ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The United States will double the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses it is donating to the global inoculation effort as the international community struggles to meet its goals for protecting people from the coronavirus.

The larger donation, announced by President Joe Biden on Wednesday, will bring the U.S. commitment to more than 1...Read more

Former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against The New York Times and his niece over an investigative report on his tax avoidance for which she provided documents is just his “latest stunt,” her lawyer said.

The suit, which accuses Mary Trump and The Times of conspiring to breach a confidential settlement, is doomed to fail because the ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Republican state lawmaker has filed legislation that would create Texas-style abortion restrictions in Florida that would allow anyone to sue abortion providers or any person who helps someone get an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

The bill, filed Wednesday by state Rep. Webster Barnaby of Deltona, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — As Democrats consider legislation to respond to a new Texas state ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, they have lost the support of one of the few remaining Republicans who support abortion rights.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Tuesday she opposes the Democrats’ bill, which would prohibit states from ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The United States will double the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses it is donating to the global inoculation effort, President Joe Biden announced Wednesday.

The commitment will bring to more than 1 billion the total number of doses the U.S. has pledged to other countries in hopes of bringing the pandemic to a close and preventing...Read more

Uma Thurman wants everyone to have the same choice she made: to get an abortion when they aren’t ready to be a mother.

The 51-year-old actress revealed her “darkest secret” in an op-ed in the Washington Post Tuesday in which she called the Texas abortion law “a staging ground for a human rights crisis for American women.”

In her late...Read more

"Impeachment: American Crime Story" chronicles President Bill Clinton's relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and how it eventually led to his impeachment — turning one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history into a series so addictive it may as well be pulp fiction.

The third episode in the new installment of Ryan ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The United States will double the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses it is donating to the global inoculation effort, President Joe Biden plans to announce Wednesday.

The commitment will bring to more than 1 billion the total number of doses the U.S. has pledged to other countries in hopes of bringing the pandemic to a close and ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Federal agencies this week will submit plans to the White House on ways to increase voter registration and participation as the deadline approaches for one of President Joe Biden’s key voting rights initiatives.

The White House has been tight-lipped on the specific plans that federal agencies are developing, but voting rights ...Read more

President Joe Biden’s failure to name someone to lead the Food and Drug Administration, more than 10 months after the election, has flummoxed public health experts who say it’s baffling for the agency to be without a permanent leader during a national health crisis.

The pandemic has taxed the FDA, an 18,000-person agency whose chiefs have ...Read more

EDMUND, Okla. — As the Oklahoma Republican Party verged on implosion this summer, GOP Rep. Stephanie Bice donned a hard hat and toured a vocational-technical school under construction here in her district.

The facility was state-of-the-art, with modern furniture so new it was still encased in plastic and with glass-walled conference rooms ...Read more

As voting wound down last week during the California recall election, Natalie Adona, the assistant registrar of voters in Nevada County, got an irate phone call.

A voter, driven by disinformation that Republican politicians had pushed for weeks, berated Adona over the state’s lack of a photo ID law, saying election officials exposed the ...Read more

The first two lawsuits filed in the wake of a Texas bill that allows private citizens to sue doctors who perform abortions in all but the earliest weeks of pregnancy may have trouble gaining traction.

That’s because the lawsuits against Alan Braid, a San Antonio doctor who wrote a newspaper column in which he admitted to violating rules that...Read more

WASHINGTON — The House passed a catchall budget package Tuesday that is intended to avoid a partial government shutdown and debt limit crisis, but it seems likely to come back for a do-over once the Senate works its will.

The stopgap funding bill, which passed on a 220-211 party-line vote, would extend federal agency budget authority through ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Wine grapes damaged by smoke are among the crops covered under a $28.6 billion disaster assistance bill for states ravaged by wildfire, drought or hurricanes.

Thick smoke from some of the worst wildfire seasons in history tainted grape harvests in wineries in California, Oregon and Washington between 2017 and 2020. Grapes are ...Read more

NEW YORK — President Joe Biden tried to extend his global honeymoon with the international community during his first speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, promising “relentless diplomacy” now that the United States has “turned the page” on the war in Afghanistan.

In a speech that asserted the world was at the beginning of a “...Read more

WASHINGTON — Democrats’ plan to enact an ambitious remodel of the nation’s social safety net programs is facing new hurdles on Capitol Hill amid deep divisions over the scope of the package, its cost and what can be included under the Senate’s stringent rules.

The conflict jeopardizes President Biden’s entire “Build Back Better” ...Read more