"Strategic ambiguity" is what U.S. diplomats call America's policy on Taiwan and China. The strategy is to keep the peace by maintaining ambiguity over the degree the U.S. would go to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion.

To date, that intentional vagueness has met its objective of keeping Taiwan from declaring formal independence, which would...Read more

Reports that then-President Donald Trump reacted favorably as the Capitol mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence” on Jan. 6, 2021, is a fresh reminder that Trump is, at his core, an aspiring anti-democracy strongman — one who still has a realistic prospect of winning the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. For years now, Republican politicians who ...Read more

He may spend his days thinking about transportation, but Rep. Peter A. DeFazio is ready to be done with airplanes.

“I have one of the longest commutes in the Lower 48,” says the retiring Democratic chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who will soon trade those flights for a little fly fishing.

DeFazio has always ...Read more

IGNACIO, Colo. — Colorado’s West Slope firebrand, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, traded blows with her most formidable challenger, state Sen. Don Coram, Thursday morning at Ignacio’s Sky Ute Casino.

The hour-long debate between the two, vying for the Republican nomination in the massive congressional district, ranged in topics from gun laws, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Kansas City, introduced a bill Thursday that would suspend pay for members of Congress every time there is a mass shooting.

His bill comes in the immediate aftermath of two mass shootings this month — one in Buffalo, New York, where a racist gunman killed 10 people and one in Texas...Read more

NEW YORK — Donald Trump and two of his adult children must testify in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil investigation into the former president’s family real estate business, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. had fought a February order by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ...Read more

ATLANTA — The policy divides in Georgia's marquee political races came into clearer focus after this week's primaries, as Republicans tied their opponents to President Joe Biden and Democrats condemned pro-gun GOP stances following another mass shooting.

The candidates for Georgia's top offices raced to better define themselves — and their ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers are facing increased pressure to pass a comprehensive mental health and substance use package but are unlikely to make an initial goal of advancing legislation before the implementation of a three-digit suicide hotline in July.

At least four congressional committees have committed to advancing a swath of bipartisan ...Read more

Donald Trump and some of his adult children must testify in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil investigation into the former president’s family real estate business, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. had fought a February order by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron requiring ...Read more

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday accused his former close aide Kellyanne Conway of lying when she claimed she told him he lost the 2020 election — and reignited his feud with her hubby to boot.

“Kellyanne Conway never told me that she thought we lost the election,” Trump wrote Thursday in a post on his new social media startup ...Read more

The members of the Korean-pop supergroup BTS will meet with President Joe Biden next week to speak about anti-Asian hate crimes and Asian representation, the White House announced Thursday.

The meeting will take place Tuesday at the White House.

“President Biden has previously spoken about his commitment to combating the surge of anti-Asian ...Read more

DENVER — After two losses, Rebecca Leder doesn’t like the terms “pro-choice or pro-life” when it comes to talk about ending a pregnancy.

She and her husband had to deal with it twice, once at 20 weeks in April of 2020 and another at 16 weeks in December of 2021, after undergoing in vitro fertilization.

“We were already on a very ...Read more

CASPER, Wyo. — A modest building sandwiched between a gas station and a small apartment house near this Western city’s downtown has become an unexpected focal point of America’s abortion debate, just weeks before Wyoming could outlaw the procedure.

Inside, a nonprofit is renovating the space into a clinic that, beginning in June, would be...Read more

WASHINGTON — Rep. Billy Long thinks he has two paths to winning the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Missouri.

The first is the path of Kathy Barnette in Pennsylvania. After losing a congressional bid in 2020, Barnette set out to find voter fraud in her district based on a faulty statistical analysis of her race. In the process, she ...Read more

Former President Donald Trump chalked up some victories in Tuesday’s primaries, but he suffered a trio of defeats where it most mattered: Georgia, epicenter of Trump’s efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Three Republicans on whom Trump had declared war for refusing to do his vote-fixing dirty work — Gov. Brian Kemp, ...Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court’s projected decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has, understandably, unleashed a wave of emotion. The story has prompted people across the political spectrum to offer their perspectives. The ensuing dialogue, however, has become polarized into a problematic binary.

The question should not be whether one is for or against ...Read more

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