New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican, is set to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 16, 2025, as part of her confirmation process to become the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

International diplomacy is the essence of the U.N. As a former United Nations official and an academic who has ...Read more

One need only glance at headlines about Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and other super-wealthy individuals to understand that wealth in America is increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Inequality is sharply on the rise.

Until now, however, little has been known about where the richest households are located, which cities are the ...Read more

President Joe Biden’s farewell to elected office on Jan. 20, 2025, presents an opportunity to reflect on the legacy he left on the federal courts.

Many will perceive Biden’s influence on the courts primarily based on his appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the nation’s first Black, female Supreme Court justice.

But ...Read more

In November, Montana voters safeguarded the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. They also elected a new chief justice to the Montana Supreme Court who was endorsed by anti-abortion advocates.

That seeming contradiction is slated to come to a head this year. People on polar sides of the abortion debate are preparing to fight over ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Zach Nunn’s military background tells him that success in any given mission requires an understanding of the battle-space — and in the fight to ban congressional stock trading, it will always “be stacked against” those urging change, the Iowa Republican and Air Force Reserve colonel said.

Members who trade stocks may not ...Read more

With the public release of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the saga of Donald Trump’s federal prosecution for election interference has come to an end, less than a week before he’s sworn in to a second term. That it was short-circuited before trial is partly the fault of Garland, who waited ...Read more

Just how far President-elect Donald Trump will press his promises on trade and economic policy once he takes office is hard to say. One thing is already apparent: The harms won’t be limited to the direct consequences of his actual policies. Even if his commitments in the end amount to little, they’re already burdening companies, unsettling ...Read more

A much-anticipated Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal is set to take effect on Jan. 19, 2025 – subject to an Israeli government vote on the package scheduled for the morning of Jan. 16.

The breakthrough comes 15 months into the bloody conflict sparked by an Oct. 7 2023, attack by Hamas gunmen in which about 1,200 Israelis were killed ...Read more

The Biden administration has signaled to Congress its intention to remove Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

But here’s the twist: The move will only become legal upon the publication of a Federal Register notice – and that will likely happen under President Joe Biden’s successor, Donald Trump, who looks set ...Read more

President Joe Biden’s farewell speech Wednesday night came too late for many Americans, including members of his Democratic Party who wanted him to step aside before the primary.

The doggedness that marked Biden’s early congressional career, with him becoming known as a widowed dad traveling home every night on Amtrak to be with his sons, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden warned Americans of a “dangerous concentration of power” in the hands of a “very few ultrawealthy people” and the impact he feared it would have on the country’s democracy as he delivered a farewell address Wednesday from the Oval Office.

“Today an oligarchy is taking shape in America — of ...Read more

WASHINGTON — After an eight-year break, Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana is back in the House and ready to get to work on President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda. “It’s a new day,” he says.

First elected to Congress in 2010, Stutzman was an active member of the House Freedom Caucus, and perhaps best known for voting against then-Speaker ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s out-of-the-blue pledge to rebrand the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” — as well as some of his other renaming ideas — would likely take more than the stroke of a presidential pen to make good on.

During a wide-ranging press conference last week at his Florida resort, the president-elect said a ...Read more

Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general, repeatedly brought up Pennsylvania as she declined to answer who won the 2020 presidential election in her Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday.

“I accept, of course, that Joe Biden is president of the United States,” Bondi said in response to a question from ...Read more

The U.S. House passed a bill Tuesday that would ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports, the first step in what is expected to be a long and controversial process.

Locally, this issue became a flashpoint as Andraya Yearwood of Cromwell High and Terry Miller of Bloomfield competed in Connecticut ...Read more

Donald Trump is treating California Gov. Gavin Newsom “as his punching bag,” triggering an extraordinary battle between a president and a governor at a time when thousands are suffering and dozens are dying from the wildfires that have ravaged Southern California.

“He’s treating Gavin Newsom as his punching bag before he’s even in ...Read more

Just a day after President Joe Biden took Cuba off the list of nations that sponsor terrorism in exchange for the release of political prisoners, the deal is falling apart.

During his Senate confirmation hearing to become the next secretary of state, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said Cuba belongs on the list, adding the incoming Trump ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the answer to Haiti’s gang-fueled security crisis will not come from U.S. military intervention, but could still come from a multinational support effort spearheaded by the Biden administration, indicating President-elect Donald Trump will stay the current U.S. policy course on the ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Thanks to the internet and smartphones, children today have instant access to vast amounts of online pornography, much it graphic, violent and degrading, Texas state attorneys told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

They urged justices to restore the rules of an earlier era, when X-rated theaters and bookstores had an adults-only ...Read more