Abortion-rights advocates vowed to ask the Oklahoma Supreme Court to block the state’s near-total abortion ban within minutes of Gov. Kevin Stitt signing the measure into law.

State lawmakers, led by Republicans, pushed through the law making Oklahoma the first state to ban abortions while the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Spurred by the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade, Senate Democrats made plans to hold votes next month on House-passed measures to expand criminal background checks prior to gun purchases.

Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing the day after a gunman killed 19 students and ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Wednesday marked the second anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer by signing an executive order aimed at reforming policing at the federal level.

But the event was overshadowed by yet another act of violence — a shooting at a Texas elementary school that left at least 21 ...Read more

Former President Donald Trump vowed to speak at this weekend’s National Rifle Association convention even after an 18-year-old gunman killed 21 people, including 19 children, at a Texas elementary school.

Denouncing “politicians and partisanship,” Trump said he would appear as scheduled on Friday at the pro-gun group’s annual confab in ...Read more

The latest U.S. mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas elementary school creates a new point of political pressure on a U.S. Supreme Court that has signaled it will soon limit state and local governments’ ability to enact gun control measures.

The dispute, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, is the oldest outstanding case ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Spurred by the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade, Senate Democrats made plans to hold votes next month on House-passed measures to expand criminal background checks prior to gun purchases.

Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing the day after a gunman killed 19 students and ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Several candidates who back former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud won Republican primaries for governor, senator and attorney general Tuesday. They join other election deniers who have won nominations in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Governor, Alabama

— Nominee: Kay Ivey, incumbent

Her...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday indicated the United States would use military force to defend Taiwan against an attack from China, breaking from decades of “strategic ambiguity” where leaders have been intentionally vague about how the U.S. would react if China attempts to reclaim the island.

Quickly, the administration walked...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden plans to sign an executive order Wednesday afternoon aimed at putting new limits on federal law enforcement, to mark the second anniversary of George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis Police officer.

The order would have the Justice Department and other federal law enforcement agencies create a database of ...Read more

ATLANTA — No state has been at the center of Donald Trump's obsession with overturning his 2020 election defeat so much as Georgia. And Tuesday's primary results offered more of a rebuke than an embrace of his attempt to reshape the state GOP.

Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue was demolished by Gov. Brian Kemp despite making his allegiance to ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The last time Gavin Newsom’s name was on the ballot in California, he faced dozens of opponents in a chaotic recall election that drew national attention and was sparked by opposition to his handling of the pandemic.

At one point the polls suggested a close race and his chief challenger, conservative talk show host ...Read more

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new chief elections official, Cord Byrd, could have saved himself a whole lot of justifiable criticism Tuesday if he had simply acknowledged what most Americans know is true — that Joe Biden won the presidency fair and square in 2020.

But he wouldn’t do it. At his very first news conference as Florida’s new secretary ...Read more

In his recent alarm over a widely reported decline in public confidence in the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas chose a worthy target, but his diagnosis missed a major symptom: his own family ties.

Speaking at a conference sponsored by three conservative think tanks, Thomas expressed his dismay in response to the recent unprecedented leak...Read more

President Joe Biden’s remark Monday about a U.S. military response should China invade Taiwan was no gaffe and didn’t deserve to be walked back by his aides. Biden knew exactly what he was saying. He stated it three different ways at a news conference as Japan’s prime minister stood beside him. Despite all his previous malaprops and ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Threats against the nation’s highest court are being taken seriously at the uppermost levels of government in the aftermath of this month’s leak of a draft Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland earlier this month deployed U.S. marshals to provide “around the clock” ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Polls closed Tuesday in southern Minnesota's First Congressional District primary race, where a crowd of Republicans and Democrats are competing to serve the final months of the late GOP Rep. Jim Hagedorn's term.

Prominent GOP candidates include Jennifer Carnahan, the former state Republican chair who is Hagedorn's widow, state ...Read more

President Joe Biden on Tuesday called for legislation to restrict access to firearms in the wake of the school shooting in Texas that left at least 20 dead.

An 18-year-old gunman, Salvador Rolando Ramos, went into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Tuesday and killed at least 18 students and a teacher before he was killed by law enforcement. ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Polls closed Tuesday in southern Minnesota's 1st Congressional District primary race, where a crowd of Republicans and Democrats are competing to serve the final months of the late GOP Rep. Jim Hagedorn's term.

At press time, neither the Republican or DFL primary had been called by The Associated Press.

Prominent GOP candidates ...Read more

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was former President Donald Trump’s press secretary, easily won the Republican primary on Tuesday in the race for Arkansas governor, according to the Associated Press.

Sanders will face Chris Jones, who easily won the Democratic nomination, in the race to replace Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson, who can’t run ...Read more