Democrats seized on a ruling on Tuesday by Arizona’s highest court upholding an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions, setting up a fierce political fight over the issue that is likely to dominate the presidential election and a pivotal Senate race in a crucial battleground state. Even though the court put its ruling on […]
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Multiple Republican candidates in swing-state races aligned themselves with former President Donald J. Trump after he said abortion access should be left up to the states, avoiding mention of a national ban and laying bare the party’s rift over the issue. The pivot was particularly pronounced among at least a couple G.O.P. contenders for the […]
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Arizona’s highest court on Tuesday upheld an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions, a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for women’s health care and election-year politics in a critical battleground state. The Arizona Supreme Court said that because the federal right to abortion in Roe v. Wade had been overturned, there was no […]
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The Supreme Court reputedly has a long-awaited conservative majority committed to enforcing the meaning of the Constitution as it was understood when it was adopted. This commitment to originalist interpretation will soon be tested in two cases now before the court that have what lawyers call “bad optics.” One case, United States v. Rahimi, involves […]
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When Markus Wingens created the position of “energy manager” for the metal heat-treatment company he runs in southwestern Germany, his idea was to increase energy efficiency and attract customers interested in sustainability. But the job has become as much a task of filling out paperwork and studying seemingly ever-changing laws as it is ensuring that […]
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When Donald Trump was asked about the recent Florida Supreme Court decision upholding his adopted state’s abortion ban, he promised that he would announce where he stands this week, a sign of how tricky the politics of reproductive rights have become for the man who did more than any other to roll them back. Sure […]
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A five-minute walk to work and around $600 a month in rent was hard to pass up in 1990. Rodolfo Calica worked as a parking attendant at Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park, Brooklyn. His wife, Queenie Calica, also began working there in the 2000s as a housekeeper. It made sense to them to move […]
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For those who say that an on-time budget in New York State is about as likely as a solar eclipse, the odds on an eclipse are about to improve. The negotiations over the state budget, which was due on April 1, have stretched on for more than a week past the deadline as differences over […]
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The Maryland Legislature this weekend passed two sweeping privacy bills that aim to restrict how powerful tech platforms can harvest and use the personal data of consumers and young people — despite strong objections from industry trade groups representing giants like Amazon, Google and Meta. One bill, the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, would impose […]
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For a very brief moment, Taylor Sheridan’s hit television series starring Sylvester Stallone had the working title “Kansas City Mob.” But at the time, Missouri had no state funding for film subsidies. “Tulsa King” was born. “We had the incentive, so we got the name,” said Rachel Cannon, the founder of Prairie Surf Studios in […]
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In a TV commercial, Sister Monica Clare, a nun in northern New Jersey, walks through a church that’s bathed in sunlight and sits in a pew, crossing herself. Her message: TikTok is a force for good. “Because of TikTok, I’ve created a community where people can feel safe asking questions about spirituality,” she says in […]
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As lawmakers in a nearby hearing room debated last month whether to support her legislation to expand Medicaid, Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas dared the state’s Republican House speaker to hold a vote. “If he thinks he can kill it, bring it,” Ms. Kelly, a soft-spoken moderate Democrat, said in an interview in her sprawling […]
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President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has signed into law three measures aimed at replenishing the ranks of his country’s exhausted and battered army, including lowering the age when men become eligible for conscription and eliminating some medical exemptions. While Mr. Zelensky did not say why he had decided to move ahead on at least some […]
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Uganda’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday largely upheld a sweeping anti-gay law that President Yoweri Museveni signed last year, undermining the efforts of activists and rights groups to abolish legislation that drew worldwide condemnation and strained the East African nation’s relationship with the West. The legislation, which was signed into law by Mr. Museveni in May, […]
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On Monday, Israel bombed a building that was part of the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, killing seven people, including Gen. Mohamad Reza Zahedi, who oversaw Iran’s covert military operations in Syria and Lebanon, and two other senior generals. For centuries, diplomatic premises have been afforded special protections. Diplomats get immunity from prosecution in their […]
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In the hours before delivering his State of the Union speech last month, President Biden called the chief executives of General Motors and Cisco Systems to ask their advice on the state of the American economy and share how he planned to talk about it. Then he rode to Capitol Hill and, in his address, […]
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A long discredited, arcane 150-year-old law is back in the news in 2024, and that should terrify anyone who supports reproductive freedom. Last week at the Supreme Court, the Comstock Act of 1873 was referenced on three separate occasions during oral arguments in a case dealing with access to mifepristone, one of two drugs typically […]
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A sweeping law targeting hate speech went into effect in Scotland on Monday, promising protection against threats and abuse but drawing criticism that it could have a chilling effect on free speech. The law, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2021, expands protections for marginalized groups and creates a new charge of “stirring […]
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When Oregon embarked on a landmark plan three years ago to decriminalize hard drugs, it wagered that a focus on treatment over punishment would create a new model for drug policy around the country. But after a deluge of overdose deaths and frequent chaos in the streets of Portland, Gov. Tina Kotek signed into law […]
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In the halls of the New York State Capitol, with a budget deadline bearing down, it seems that all that anyone wants to talk about is adultery. An antiquated but seldom-enforced state law categorizes adultery as a crime, and past efforts to repeal it have gone nowhere. But that seems poised to change. The Assembly […]
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Senator Patty Murray got inspired to enter politics when a male state legislator derided her efforts to fight budget cuts to early education programs, calling her “just a mom in tennis shoes” — a remark she would proudly adopt as her campaign slogan. So it came as little surprise that more than 40 years later, […]
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Janine, a nurse in Arizona, checked into the hospital for stomach surgery in 2017. Before the procedure, she told her physician that she did not want medical students to be directly involved. But after the operation, Janine said, as the anesthesia wore off, a resident came by to inform her that she had gotten her […]
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