In 2016, when the governor of Ohio was asked why he had signed a bill to limit early voting, he had a simple retort: He pointed to another state that had no early voting at all. When North Carolina’s governor was sued for cutting early voting in his own state, his lawyers cited that same […]
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For nearly a decade, Bahia Amawi worked as a speech pathologist and therapist for children in the Pflugerville Independent School District, which includes schools in Austin. She was, to her knowledge, the only certified speech pathologist working for the district who spoke Arabic, which made her indispensable to children whose first language was Arabic. She […]
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More people died from firearm injuries in the United States last year than in any other year since at least 1968, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides. It was […]
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LANSING, Mich. — On both sides of Lake Michigan this month, Republican-dominated legislatures pushed forward measures aimed at hamstringing Democrats who will take over their statehouses in January. On the Wisconsin side, Gov. Scott Walker shrugged at accusations of dirty politics and partisan overreach and signed them into law. In Michigan, all eyes are on […]
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WASHINGTON — Just days away from a partial government shutdown, lawmakers are weighing adding a contentious measure to a stymied spending package that would keep American companies from participating in boycotts — primarily against Israel — that are being carried out by international organizations. Critics of the legislation, including the American Civil Liberties Union and […]
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WARSAW — Backing down from a showdown with Brussels, Poland’s government reversed its purge of the country’s Supreme Court, as the president signed a law on Monday that will reinstate the judges who had been forced out of their jobs. It was a remarkable turnaround after months of Poland’s top officials saying they would resist […]
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[What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that he would push to legalize recreational marijuana next year, a move that could bring in more than $1.7 billion in sales annually and put New York in line with several neighboring states. The […]
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WASHINGTON — Just days before a deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, President Trump, Democratic leaders and the Republican-controlled Congress are at a stalemate over the president’s treasured border wall. But House Republican leaders are also confronting a more mundane and awkward problem: Their vanquished and retiring members are sick and tired of Washington […]
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When a federal judge in Texas struck down the Affordable Care Act on Friday, ruling that its mandate requiring most people to buy health insurance was unconstitutional, it thrust Obamacare into the spotlight right at the deadline to sign up for next year’s coverage. Open enrollment was scheduled to end on Saturday in most states, […]
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Could a federal judge in Texas be the catalyst that finally brings down the Affordable Care Act, a law that has withstood countless assaults from Republicans in Congress and two Supreme Court challenges? On the morning after Judge Reed O’Connor’s startling ruling that struck down the landmark health law, legal scholars were doubtful. Lawyers on […]
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WASHINGTON — The decision by a federal judge in Texas to strike down all of the Affordable Care Act has thrust the volatile debate over health care onto center stage in a newly divided capital, imperiling the insurance coverage of millions of Americans while delivering a possible policy opening to Democrats. After campaigning vigorously on […]
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In a shocking legal ruling, a federal judge in Texas wiped Obamacare off the books Friday night. The decision, issued after business hours on the eve of the deadline to enroll for health insurance for 2019, focuses on the so-called individual mandate. Yet it purports to declare the entire law unconstitutional — everything from the […]
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WASHINGTON — The day after President Trump announced his support for a bipartisan criminal justice overhaul bill in the Roosevelt Room, Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, arrived in the Oval Office to give him a dose of political reality. He was not going to bring the bill to the Senate floor until next year, […]
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BERLIN — Germans will now be able to choose “diverse” as an option for gender on birth certificates and other legal records, after the country’s Parliament passed a measure introducing the third category on Friday, in a milestone for people who do not identify as either male or female. The change came more than a […]
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Across New York City, landlords in fast-gentrifying neighborhoods, eager to bring in higher-paying renters, have driven out tenants by harassing them with dangerous and annoying renovations. Renters, tenant advocates, city officials and The Times have all documented the forced exodus of tenants from rent-stabilized apartments. That helps landlords glide through loopholes to get their buildings […]
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Give one group of New York officials a pat on the back, and another inevitably slaps you in the face. It was good news that a special pay committee recommended that state legislators not only get a substantial raise to recognize that their positions are full time jobs but that there also be strict limitations […]
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WASHINGTON — I was wrong about Mitch McConnell. I doubted he would ever put a criminal justice measure that divided Republicans and ran counter to his conservative political instincts on the floor for a vote. But Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the Senate majority leader, has, after years of delay, finally agreed to do […]
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This year, the media has exposed — and the government, including through guidance issued by the F.B.I. — has begun to address a string of harms to individual privacy by the technology sector’s leading firms. But policymakers must intervene specifically to protect the most precious and vulnerable people in our society: children. Their behavioral data […]
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Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up here for Climate Fwd:, our email newsletter. When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, automakers, the obvious winners from the proposal, balked. The changes, they said, went too far even for them. But it turns […]
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WASHINGTON — After months of stalled negotiations, lawmakers in the House and Senate reached a compromise on legislation that would overhaul the arcane and often burdensome procedures for handling sexual harassment and discrimination claims in Congress. The compromise, reached more than a year after the #MeToo movement rattled Capitol Hill, would require members to personally […]
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