Over the past three years, Julie Contreras, an immigration and humanitarian activist from the Waukegan area, has visited the makeshift tent encampments filled with asylum-seekers on the southwestern border that were erected after the Trump administration enacted the “Remain in Mexico” program in 2019.

Contreras said she has witnessed the ...Read more

Over the past three years, Julie Contreras, an immigration and humanitarian activist from the Waukegan area, has visited the makeshift tent encampments filled with asylum-seekers on the southwestern border that were erected after the Trump administration enacted the “Remain in Mexico” program in 2019.

Contreras said she has witnessed the ...Read more

MIAMI — Florida advocates for legal abortion won a respite Thursday from the parade of bad news for their cause after a judge in Leon County said he would block implementation of a 15-week abortion ban just a day before the law was scheduled to go into effect.

But supporters of the law believe they will win in the end.

It was the latest ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and others expressed gratitude for new federal gun legislation at a forum in north Minneapolis on Thursday night, but the message included a reminder that there is much more to be done.

"This particular town hall is different," Omar said, explaining that the monthly gatherings rarely focus on a one or two ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Republicans won’t back compromise legislation to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing and U.S. competitiveness with China if Democrats continue to negotiate a partisan budget package that can pass without GOP support, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday.

“Let me be perfectly clear: There will be no ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Many public officials and environmental advocates in California were dismayed by Thursday’s Supreme Court decision to limit federal authority on greenhouse gases from power plants, citing a collective blow to the monumental challenge of tackling global warming.

But experts say it’s not likely to unravel California’s ...Read more

Former President Donald Trump belittled Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified before the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday, as “this girl” in an angry new attack on the House panel investigating the attack on the Capitol.

Displaying deep frustration with Hutchinson’s revelations, Trump called the 26-year-old ex-White House staffer a no-name junior ...Read more

Several dozen people were arrested Thursday afternoon, including Democratic lawmakers, near the Supreme Court in Washington during a protest in support of abortion rights.

Hundreds of people streamed to the court earlier in the day and shut down traffic briefly in reaction to Roe v. Wade being overturned last week. Organizers, including Planned...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday for the major coal-producing states and sharply limited the Biden administration’s authority to restrict the carbon pollution that is causing global warming.

The justices agreed with lawyers for West Virginia and said Congress did not give environmental regulators broad authority to reshape the ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ended its term with the conservative justices bending the law sharply rightward in a series of momentous decisions on abortion, gun rights, environmental regulations and religious rights that will reverberate for decades.

The decisions represent triumphs for a conservative legal movement that has sought for ...Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court reshaped the legal landscape in dramatic ways in the past few months, and it may just be getting started.

When its next nine-month term begins in October, the nation’s highest court is scheduled to hear arguments on the use of race in college admissions, on the intersection of free speech and gay rights and on a ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld President Joe Biden’s power to enforce immigration laws, ruling he may repeal the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, which barred most Central American migrants from entering the United States to seek asylum.

The 5-4 decision in Biden v. Texas reversed lower court rulings that held the...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Declaring it unconstitutional, a state judge said Thursday he would temporarily delay Florida’s new law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks.

But Leon Circuit Judge John Cooper said his ruling would go in force only after he issues a written order, which means the law will still take effect as scheduled on Friday. ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows questioned the results of the 2020 election just one day after it took place, texting Attorney General Bill Barr on Nov. 4 about looking into a fraud allegation, according to records released by the Justice Department.

The communications show how quickly ...Read more

Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court on Thursday, replacing retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, who administered the judicial oath at her ceremony.

Jackson, a 51-year-old jurist who was raised in Miami, was confirmed by the Senate in April after Breyer in January announced his plans to retire. ...Read more

MADRID — President Joe Biden’s five days of meetings in Europe and the bold actions undertaken by the U.S. and its G-7 and NATO allies reflect an abrupt sea change in the West’s approach to its own defense in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The conclusion of a historic summit here saw members of the North Atlantic Treaty ...Read more

ATLANTA — U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Stacey Abrams have each put a pledge to protect abortion rights at the heart of their November campaigns. But the two Democrats are taking sharply different approaches to how they would do so.

Abrams said in an interview that if elected governor she would push legislation to protect the right of an ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear a major election case and decide whether North Carolina’s Republican lawmakers have the power to draw a partisan election map without interference from state judges.

At issue is a potentially far-reaching shift in election law, one that could affect congressional and presidential ...Read more