Tag: Law and Legislation

Mike Pence: Donald Trump Has Betrayed the Pro-Life Movement

Serving as vice president in the most pro-life administration in American history was one of the greatest honors of my life. Of all our accomplishments, I am perhaps most proud that the Supreme Court justices we confirmed voted to send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history, ending a travesty of jurisprudence that […]

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House Set to Vote on Foreign Aid Bills for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan

The House on Saturday was heading toward passage of a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as Speaker Mike Johnson put his job on the line to advance the long-stalled legislation in defiance against hard-liners from his own party. Lawmakers were expected on Saturday afternoon to vote separately on aid for […]

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Expired Paper License Plates Multiplied During Covid. The Crackdown Is Here.

After hearing complaints about streets filled with cars with expired temporary license tags, the mayor of St. Charles, Mo., invited his constituents to send in photos of bad plates. He received more than 4,100 in a year — from a city of about 71,000 people. A Washington, D.C., Council member wants to make it easier […]

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The Unlikely Force Behind a Push to Legalize ‘Shrooms’ in New York

Religious texts state that when Moses climbed to the top of Mount Sinai, he was spoken to by God and inscribed that message onto stone tablets that became known as the Ten Commandments. Thunder rumbled, trumpets blared and lightning shot across the sky. It was, by biblical and other standards, an extraordinary moment. Moses had […]

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12 Jurors in Trump Hush Money Trial Will Decide a Former President’s Fate

At 4:34 p.m. on Thursday, twelve citizens were selected to determine the fate of an indicted former president for the first time in American history, a moment that could shape the nation’s political and legal landscapes for generations to come. The dozen New Yorkers will sit in judgment of Donald J. Trump, the 45th president […]

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Here’s How Johnson’s Jigsaw Puzzle of a Foreign Aid Plan Would Work

The House is set to vote this weekend on a foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that has been stalled for months. Similar legislation passed the Senate in February with bipartisan support, but, in order to steer around opposition from members of his own party, Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, is […]

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TikTok’s Origin Story: Court Files Show Role of GOP Megadonor Jeff Yass

In 2009, long before Jeff Yass became a Republican megadonor, his firm, Susquehanna International Group, invested in a Chinese real estate start-up that boasted a sophisticated search algorithm. The company, 99Fang, promised to help buyers find their perfect homes. Behind the scenes, employees of a Chinese subsidiary of Mr. Yass’s firm were so deeply involved, […]

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What Happens if a Powerful Surveillance Law Expires This Week?

Senate leaders of both parties are urging their colleagues to renew an expiring warrantless surveillance law before it lapses at midnight on Friday, as advocates of the law have argued that any expiration would mean going blind on a key source of counterterrorism information and other foreign intelligence. That deadline adds pressure to senators not […]

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TikTok Bill to Be Bundled With Aid to Ukraine and Israel, House Speaker Indicates

The House on Wednesday made another push to force through legislation that would require the sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner or ban the app in the United States, accelerating an effort to disrupt the popular social media app. Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated that he intends to package the measure, a modified version […]

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Colorado Bill Aims to Protect Consumer Brain Data

Consumers have grown accustomed to the prospect that their personal data, such as email addresses, social contacts, browsing history and genetic ancestry, are being collected and often resold by the apps and the digital services they use. With the advent of consumer neurotechnologies, the data being collected is becoming ever more intimate. One headband serves […]

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What a TikTok Ban Would Mean for the U.S. Defense of an Open Internet

For decades, the United States has fashioned itself the champion of an open internet, arguing that the web should be largely unregulated and that digital data should flow around the globe unhindered by borders. The government has argued against internet censorship abroad and even funded software that lets people in autocratic states get around online […]

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A Timeline of Britain’s Troubled Plan to Send Asylum Seekers to Rwanda

Britain’s Conservative government hopes to pass the Safety of Rwanda Bill on Wednesday, after a prolonged back and forth through the two houses of Parliament in which the legislation has come under sustained criticism. The bill is intended to clear the way for the government to put some asylum seekers on one-way flights to Rwanda, […]

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Trump’s Jan. 6 Case Could Go On Even if Court Limits Use of Obstruction Law

Even though Donald J. Trump was never mentioned during the Supreme Court’s hearing on Tuesday about a federal obstruction statute used against hundreds of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the former president loomed large over the proceeding. That is because Mr. Trump has been charged under the law in question […]

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Secret Rift Over Data Center Fueled Push to Expand FISA Surveillance Program

A hidden dispute over whether a data center for cloud computing must cooperate with a warrantless surveillance program prompted the House last week to add a mysterious provision to a bill extending the program, according to people familiar with the matter. The disclosure helps clarify the intent behind an amendment that has alarmed privacy advocates […]

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Supreme Court Clears Way, for Now, for Idaho to Ban Transgender Treatment for Minors

The Supreme Court on Monday temporarily allowed Idaho to enforce a ban on gender-affirming treatment for minors, effectively suggesting that at least some justices appear comfortable with wading into another front in the culture wars. In siding with state officials who had asked the court to lift a block on the law, the justices were […]

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New York Nears a Major Housing Deal to Confront Affordability Crisis

New York state leaders have reached a deal on the framework of a legislative plan to address one of the worst housing crises in the nation, according to three people familiar with the deal who spoke anonymously because they did not want to jeopardize negotiations. The agreement was negotiated by the governor and leaders in […]

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How Women at One Arizona Clinic Are Grappling With the Abortion Ruling

Leah found out she was five weeks pregnant on the same day that the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions in the state. The law is not expected to take effect until June, but Leah, 29, worried that the state’s abortion clinics might be overwhelmed by an influx of patients […]

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Jan. 6 Obstruction Case at Supreme Court Could Help Trump and Many Others

At first blush, the case the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday seems technical, requiring the justices to parse a decades-old statute mainly concerned with the destruction of business records. But the case has the potential to knock out half of the federal charges against former President Donald J. Trump for plotting to subvert the […]

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Ukraine’s Draft Dodgers Run, and Swim, to Avoid the War

The roiling water can be treacherous, the banks are steep and slick with mud, and the riverbed is covered in jagged, hidden boulders. Yet Ukrainian border guards often find their quarry — men seeking to escape the military draft — swimming in these hazardous conditions, trying to cross the Tysa River where it forms the […]

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Most N.Y.C. Drivers Who Honk Are Breaking the Law. Can They Be Stopped?

Hardly a second had passed since the light turned green, but there was already a symphony of honks and beeps and toots urging traffic forward on Columbus Avenue. About a minute later, a deep, foghorn-like honk rumbled from a dump truck as it turned onto 89th Street. It was a typical weekday morning on the […]

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Johnson Floats Voting on Senate Ukraine Bill, With Conservative Policies as Sweeteners

Shortly after congressional leaders met with Japan’s prime minister in Speaker Johnson’s ceremonial office in the Capitol on Thursday morning, the conversation turned to Ukraine aid. Mr. Johnson was in the middle of another agonizing standoff with the ultraconservatives in his conference, after they had blocked legislation to extend a major warrantless surveillance law that […]

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What Is the Powerful Surveillance Law That Divided Lawmakers?

The House on Friday passed a two-year reauthorization of an expiring warrantless surveillance law known as Section 702, reversing course after the bill collapsed days earlier when former President Donald J. Trump urged his allies to “kill” it. But disappointing privacy advocates, the House narrowly rejected a longstanding proposal to require warrants to search for […]

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Surveillance Bill Clears Key Hurdle in House, Putting It Back on Track

The House took a critical first step on Friday toward reauthorizing a law extending an expiring warrantless surveillance law that national security officials say is crucial to fighting terrorism, voting to take it up two days after a previous attempt to pass it collapsed. Grasping to salvage the measure before the law expires next week, […]

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Trump to Meet Mike Johnson at Mar-a-Lago as Their Ties Fray

Speaker Mike Johnson may not have a functional majority in Congress, but his job is similar to the Republicans who preceded him in at least one respect: The duties include the difficult task of managing Donald J. Trump. Mr. Johnson on Friday will travel to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida estate, to join him for what […]

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Trump and Alabama Have Laid Bare the Hypocrisy of the Pro-Life Movement

To understand the remarkable moral, political and intellectual collapse of the pro-life movement, look to the Alabama Supreme Court, not just to Donald Trump’s recent pledge not to sign a national abortion ban or Kari Lake’s flip-flop on Arizona’s reinstated 1864 anti-abortion law. When the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that I.V.F. embryos were subject to […]

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Ukraine’s Parliament Passes a Politically Fraught Mobilization Bill

After months of political wrangling, Ukrainian lawmakers on Thursday passed a mobilization law aimed at replenishing the nation’s exhausted and depleted fighting forces, which are struggling to hold back relentless Russian assaults that are expected to intensify in coming months. Yulia Paliychuk, a spokeswoman for the party of President Volodymyr Zelensky, confirmed that the law […]

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Biden Administration Approves Expansion of Background Checks on Gun Sales

The Biden administration has approved the broadest expansion of federal background checks in decades in an attempt to regulate a fast-growing shadow market of weapons sold online that has contributed to gun violence. Under a rule being released on Thursday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will require anyone “engaged in the business” […]

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Arizona Republicans Thwart Attempts to Repeal 1864 Abortion Ban

A decision by Arizona’s highest court upholding an 1864 ban on nearly all abortions created chaos and confusion across the battleground state on Wednesday. Patients hunted for answers and Democratic lawmakers shouted “Save women’s lives!” as their efforts to repeal the law were frustrated by Republican leaders. Democrats, who have criticized the decision resurrecting a […]

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Joining Texas, Iowa Enacts Law for State Immigration Enforcement

Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law on Wednesday that will make it a state crime for a person to enter Iowa after having been deported or denied entry into the United States. The new law, which is set to take effect July 1 but could face court challenges, joins Iowa with Texas in […]

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Migration Overhaul in E.U. Clears Final Hurdle

A landmark bill set to overhaul migration policy across the European Union cleared its final hurdle on Wednesday after it was approved by the European Parliament. The bill, which had taken the best part of the last decade to negotiate, aims to make it easier for member states to deport failed asylum seekers and to […]

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The Next Frontier in New York’s War on Rats: Birth Control

For nearly 60 years, New York City leaders have understood that they could not kill their way out of the rat problem. Rats are prodigious breeders, with one pair having the potential to produce 15,000 descendants in a year. City officials have tried repeatedly to give them contraceptives and diminish their ranks, but the rats […]

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