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

Justice Stephen G. Breyer has made many rulings during a long and distinguished career, but his most consequential may turn out to be the one reported Tuesday: He will retire from the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of its current term in June, allowing President Joe Biden to nominate his replacement, and a Senate barely controlled by Democrats to...Read more

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s retirement provides President Joe Biden and Democrats a golden opportunity to move past recent setbacks and reengerize Black and progressive voters ahead of the midterms.

That is, if everything goes smoothly.

Appointing the nation’s first Black female Supreme Court justice, as Biden ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House introduced its version of legislation that would allocate $52 billion for semiconductor chip manufacturing late Tuesday, teeing up debate with the Senate that could prompt movement on the long-stalled funding.

The funding has been a priority for the Biden administration, for auto industry leaders and for many of ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the Supreme Court’s 83-year-old liberal pragmatist, plans to retire this year, clearing the way for President Joe Biden to make his first appointment to the high court.

Breyer, a 1994 appointee of President Bill Clinton, is the senior member of the three-justice liberal bloc, and his retirement is ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the Supreme Court’s 83-year-old liberal pragmatist, plans to retire this year, clearing the way for President Joe Biden to make his first appointment to the high court.

Breyer, a 1994 appointee of President Bill Clinton, is the senior member of the three-justice liberal bloc, and his retirement is ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement announcement gives President Joe Biden the chance to fulfill his campaign promise to put the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.

If that happens, Biden’s pick would be the third Black justice and the sixth woman in the court’s history of more than 230 years. Biden could also heed...Read more

WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the Supreme Court’s 82-year-old liberal pragmatist, plans to retire this year, clearing the way for President Joe Biden to make his first appointment to the high court, two sources told The Associated Press Wednesday.

Breyer, a 1994 appointee of President Bill Clinton, is the senior member of the ...Read more

For more than two decades, I researched the life of Inez Burns, one of America’s most successful abortion providers. Burns lived in California and terminated more than 50,000 pregnancies when abortion was illegal across the U.S. While the Supreme Court weighs whether to overturn Roe v. Wade, Burns’ cautionary story underscores a basic, ...Read more

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to block the Biden administration’s vaccination-or-test requirement for large private businesses will threaten the safety of hundreds of thousands of workers. But the damage it could do goes well beyond the pandemic.

The court’s 6-3 majority acknowledged that the order would save more than 6,500 lives ...Read more

WASHINGTON — A year into his presidency and with his central greenhouse gas-cutting legislation stalled in Congress, President Joe Biden finds his climate agenda moving in fits and starts as the U.S. is on track to miss the carbon reduction goals his administration set.

Biden said last week he may have to break off pieces of that bill, a ...Read more

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday she will run for another term, ending months of speculation about whether the 81-year-old would retire.

“Our democracy is at risk,” the California Democrat said in a video message, citing last January’s Capitol insurrection and Republican attempts to limit access to voting. “We don’t...Read more

ATLANTA — A Republican state senator has filed legislation to fight a decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowing those with a prescription to obtain the abortion pill through the mail.

Senate Bill 351, filed Monday by state Sen. Bruce Thompson, R-White, would require pregnant women to see a doctor in person before being able ...Read more

WASHINGTON — About one in eight congressional staffers are not making a living wage, according to a new analysis of payroll data.

The problem is particularly acute for staff assistants, who are often the most junior staffers in congressional offices. According to Issue One, a “crosspartisan” group that advocates for transparency in ...Read more

CHICAGO — Nearly 10,000 women traveled from out of state to have an abortion in Illinois in 2020, a roughly 29% increase compared with the previous year, according to the most recent Illinois Department of Public Health data available.

State health statistics show 9,686 out-of-state women terminated a pregnancy in Illinois in 2020, comprising...Read more

When he was running for president in 1999, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, famously fended off the strong anti-abortion wing of his party by suggesting the country ought not consider banning abortion until public opinion shifted further in that direction. “Laws are changed as minds are persuaded,” he said.

Bush was no moderate on ...Read more