A pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans, and the toxic politics of a presidential election year, have disrupted the taking of the 2020 Census. That's worrisome for anybody whose life is touched in some way by federal spending - meaning, pretty much everybody. The census is not a quaint tradition or historical artifact; it's a ...Read more

One of the biggest stories of the 2016 presidential election was the support Donald Trump received from non-college-educated white women. Exit polls showed that 52% of them voted for Trump, enough to secure his victory in the Electoral College even with a popular vote loss. Following the election, Trump repeatedly bragged about having "won women...Read more

What's a worse look for a politician: hypocrisy or extremism?

For Senate Republicans, the risk is that voting on a Supreme Court nominee now will tag them as ends-justify-the-means hypocrites. That's because four-and-a-half years ago, they refused even to hold a hearing on President Barack Obama's final Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, ...Read more

President Donald Trump offered no kind words to Breonna Taylor's family Wednesday after Kentucky prosecutors announced they won't file any charges in the Black woman's death at the hands of police.

The president offered effusive praise for the chief prosecutor, though.

"I thought it was really brilliant," Trump said at the White House after he...Read more

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump refused Wednesday to commit to giving up power should he lose the November race, adding to concerns that a contested election could lead to a constitutional crisis and a unique challenge to the nation's democracy.

Trailing the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, in national and swing-state polls six weeks before ...Read more

WASHINGTON - When Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined the Supreme Court in 1993, she was its lone Democratic appointee, the first in 26 years. Her eight colleagues were named by the four Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to George H.W. Bush.

They were not all conservatives, however. Ginsburg voted regularly with John Paul Stevens and David H. ...Read more

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump, trailing in public polling and lagging in fundraising, wants a new Supreme Court justice confirmed before the election to be able to break potential ties on the court over election litigation.

"In terms of time, we can go to January 20th, but I think it's better if you go before the election because I think ...Read more

President Donald Trump gave a Tuesday campaign speech that blasted Beijing's COVID-19 culpability, lauded his administration's response to the pandemic and celebrated America's abdication of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal.

No, Trump wasn't rallying supporters in a swing state. His address, delivered remotely, was to the ...Read more

You might think that the massive collection of biometric data from legal immigrants seeking or holding green cards, as well as from some of their U.S. citizen sponsors, would be a bridge too far even for the Trump administration. But when it comes to intrusive immigration policy, no bridge is too far for this crew.

The Department of Homeland ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden brought his campaign to Charlotte on Wednesday, telling a dozen African American business owners and educators that the "tough times" for Americans in this pandemic are even worse for African American communities.

"It's sort of emblematic of the inequality that exists," he said at what...Read more

WASHINGTON - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told senators that he didn't mean to imply last week that it could take into the second half of next year for enough COVID-19 vaccine to be available to inoculate all Americans.

Redfield said at a Senate health committee hearing Wednesday that about 700 million ...Read more

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the typically reserved infectious disease expert, put Sen. Rand Paul on blast during a testy congressional hearing Wednesday after the Kentucky Republican trash-talked New York's coronavirus response.

Paul, who remains skeptical of face masks and social distancing despite contracting COVID-19 in March, posited the dubious ...Read more

WASHINGTON - Two Senate Republican committee chairmen sought to revive allegations around Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son six weeks before the election, yet their report broke little new ground in finding that Hunter Biden's role on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company put State Department officials in an "awkward" position.

"...Read more

WASHINGTON - An election year featuring the impeachment of the president, the worst pandemic in a century, a catastrophic recession and racial unrest has left the race for the White House largely in the same place: Joe Biden holding a steady lead over Donald Trump nationally and in key battleground states.

If a Supreme Court fight suddenly ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS - A suspicious fire before dawn Wednesday in a Minneapolis suburb destroyed a freshly vandalized residential garage where Donald Trump presidential campaign flags were displayed, authorities said.

Police and firefighters responded to the blaze in the 6900 block of N. Morgan Avenue in Brooklyn Center shortly before 4 a.m. that burned...Read more

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused the GOP of hypocritically trashing precedent to quickly transform the top court into a right-wing bulwark against the liberal values the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought for.

"They are fighting to reverse Justice Ginsburg's legacy, not honor it," the New York Democrat said, in a fierce ...Read more

Landing a one-on-one interview with President Trump would put the startup "NewsNation" "in the big time," an executive for the network crowed before the interview aired in Tuesday's first hour of the WGN America national cable newscast.

After seeing the questions anchor Joe Donlon lobbed at the president and the unchallenged assertions and ...Read more

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump publicly insists he doesn't rehearse for debates, claiming recently that he is preparing for his first debate on Tuesday in Cleveland with Democratic nominee Joe Biden "just by doing what I'm doing."

But behind the scenes, Trump is quietly studying videotapes of Biden's debate performances in 2008 and 2012 to...Read more

BANGOR, Maine - Maine is getting an outsized share of Trump love these days.

The president visited a remote town of 1,500 in June. His son and daughter-in-law, Eric and Lara Trump, have stumped in the state. A lobsterman from tiny Swan's Island spoke at the Republican National Convention in August.

And the president is showering federal ...Read more

The start of the confirmation hearings to put Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court was nowhere to be found on The New York Times' front page. Joe Biden couldn't have been more thrilled.

"My heart sang," said Biden, then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He declared the muted media coverage - an indication of the dearth of ...Read more