Politics

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries during an interview with the Associated Press in Irvine in October. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press) House Leader Hakeem Jeffries won reelection Tuesday as the Democratic leader, receiving support from his colleagues despite the party’s inability to win back majority control of the chamber in the November election. Jeffries … Read more

Unveiling his most sweeping education initiative yet, Sen. John F. Kerry said Thursday he would provide states more than $20 billion over the next decade to hire more teachers and raise their pay in return for new efforts to weed out poorly performing instructors. The plan would use the carrot of increased federal funding to … Read more

A transgender candidate defeated an incumbent Virginia lawmaker Tuesday who sponsored a bill that would have restricted which bathrooms she could use. Democrat Danica Roem, a former journalist, is set to make history as the first openly transgender person elected and seated in a state legislature in the United States. She unseated Republican Del. Bob … Read more

This image from police body-worn camera video, contained and annotated in the Justice Department’s statement of facts, supporting the arrest warrant for Edward Richmond Jr., at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (Department of Justice via Associated Press) A former U.S. Army soldier who was court-martialed for fatally shooting a handcuffed civilian … Read more

Steve Bannon exits Manhattan criminal court in New York last week. (Yuki Iwamura / Associated Press) Conservative strategist Steve Bannon won’t face trial until February on state charges of conspiring to dupe donors to build a border wall, a judge said Monday as prosecutors asked for the jury to be anonymous. Bannon was not in … Read more

Brendan Carr answers questions during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in 2020. (Jonathan Newton / Associated Press) President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, as the new chairman of the agency tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Carr is … Read more

Donald Trump visits the U.S.-Mexico border in 2019. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to execute mass deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally will involve the military and a national emergency declaration, he confirmed Monday. In a Nov. 8 post on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, Tom Fitton, who … Read more

Taking aim at California’s pioneering efforts to bolster animal safety, the House Agriculture Committee has moved to block states from imposing their own standards for agriculture products on producers from other states. That could jeopardize California laws to protect chickens as well as one to ban foie gras, which took effect this month. The panel’s … Read more

Mars Wright, a transgender artist and streetwear designer, sits in his Los Angeles apartment in November. He is relieved to have already undergone gender-affirming surgeries but worries about the future of such care as Donald Trump takes office again. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) When Mars Wright saw that Donald Trump had been elected … Read more

California Gov. Gavin Newsom in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. (Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images) The state Legislature will convene a new two-year session on Dec. 2, and hopefully lawmakers have been reading the messages California voters sent them on election day. The messages were straightforward and concise, although many elected … Read more