Panicked progressives weren’t shy about telling Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to stop judging and start golfing or gardening.

“Justice Breyer should retire right now” was the headline over a typical see-ya-later-judge opinion piece in the New York Times last year. Not to be outdone, the Washington Post had one, too. And the Breyer-...Read more

WASHINGTON — After a career trying to keep the U.S. Supreme Court above politics, Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement underscores just how central the court now is to the U.S. political wars.

Breyer’s White House announcement Thursday was timed perfectly to give President Joe Biden a needed chance to change the national conversation and ...Read more

The sale of offshore oil and gas leases on more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico was canceled by a U.S. judge who ordered regulators to take a harder look at the impact on climate change.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington, D.C., vacated the lease sale in a 67-page decision, issued Thursday. The judge found that the ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warned President Biden on Thursday against selecting a new Supreme Court justice nominee based on the demands of the progressive left.

“To the degree that President Biden received a mandate, it was to govern from the middle, steward our institutions, and unite America,” McConnell said ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Activists with Students for a Democratic Society disrupted a Florida House committee meeting Thursday while lawmakers took up a controversial bill banning abortions after 15 weeks.

After about half an hour of public testimony, Bryan Avila, a Republican and chairperson of the Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee, said he...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Half of the shootings in Philadelphia in recent years were sparked by arguments. Most of the guns used in crimes in the city were bought in Pennsylvania. And many suspected shooters and victims had previously been arrested or received mental health services from the city. The majority had also witnessed violence.

Meanwhile, as ...Read more

The Biden administration’s program to make 1 billion COVID-19 rapid tests available to Americans across the country appears to be exacerbating pharmacy supply shortages and making it more difficult for Americans to find tests on short notice after a virus exposure, say some pharmacists and state officials.

“It’s just a matter of numbers. ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden praised Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who made his retirement official at the White House on Thursday, vowing that his choice to replace him will be a Black woman and that he plans to announce the choice by the end of next month.

“I’ve made no decision except one: The person I will nominate will...Read more

A top House Democrat suggested Thursday that his party scale back eligibility for child tax credits as a way to unlock President Joe Biden’s stalled economic agenda.

Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, speaking in a video interview with the Washington Post, said he would support a lower income cap in a revived form of the child tax...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden praised Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who made his retirement official at the White House on Thursday, vowing that his choice to replace him will be a Black woman and that he plans to announce the choice by the end of next month.

“I’ve made no decision except one: The person I will nominate will...Read more

ATLANTA — Slim majorities of voters feel confident in Georgia’s elections and reject claims of fraud about the 2020 presidential contest, according to a poll conducted for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The poll showed elections rank among the top issues for Georgians at the beginning of an election year.

Republicans, especially, said ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden praised Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who made his retirement official at the White House on Thursday, vowing that his choice to replace him will be a Black woman and that he plans to announce the choice by the end of next month.

Appearing with Breyer before a small group of reporters in the ...Read more

WASHINGTON — An opening on the Supreme Court nine months before the midterm elections promised to inject a new urgency into the battle for the Senate majority, with both parties rushing Wednesday to remind voters of the stakes of the upcoming confirmation battle.

An expected announcement from Justice Stephen G. Breyer would mark the fourth ...Read more

The pervasive myths of a stolen 2020 presidential election and widespread voter fraud are still dominant in many state legislatures, as Republican policymakers call for more investigations and reshape election administration in a way that could give them a partisan advantage.

In Georgia, the Republican-led State Election Board could use a new ...Read more

The Supreme Court granting review on Monday to two cases about affirmative action is an ominous sign for diversity in higher education and advancing racial equality. Given the composition of the court, it seems very likely that the six conservative justices will use these cases to ban any form of affirmative action in the United States.

The two...Read more

WASHINGTON — During his 2020 campaign, President Joe Biden promised to change federal policies to address long-term racial inequalities in the country, and his administration has touted some successes since then.

Biden nominated a record-breaking number of judges from minority communities, along with the first Black woman to the Federal ...Read more

The Democrats’ enormous tax and spending package, known as Build Back Better, has stalled in Congress with little hope of recovery in its present form. President Joe Biden said last week that he’d settle for enacting as much of it as possible. If the administration is willing to prioritize and apply sound fiscal policy, the result could be a...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is under pressure from a large group of lawmakers to stop penalties and pause automated collections from taxpayers whose returns have been caught in a processing backlog.

In a letter signed by at least 216 Republicans and Democrats from both the House and Senate, the legislators urged the IRS to ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The expected retirement of liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer arrives at a critical juncture for President Joe Biden, offering the Democrat and his party an opportunity to recover lost support among Black voters ahead of the midterm elections.

Biden is likely to nominate the first Black woman to the nation’s highest ...Read more

Before Ketanji Brown Jackson was one of the front-runners for a U.S. Supreme Court nomination, she was a speech and debate superstar at Miami Palmetto Senior High School.

As a high school senior in 1988, Jackson, who then went by Ketanji Brown, won the national oratory title at the National Catholic Forensic League Championships, one of the ...Read more