A suburban county in Georgia agreed on Friday to use a new voter information database endorsed by the election denial movement, a move that defied warnings from voting rights groups, election security experts and state election officials. Columbia County, a heavily Republican county outside Augusta, is the first in the country known to have agreed […]
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In the wake of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that significantly limits what the government can do to restrict guns, states led by Democrats have scrambled to circumvent or test the limits of the ruling. A few have approved new gun restrictions. Oregon even passed a ballot initiative to ban high-capacity ammunition […]
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The first data on births since Roe v. Wade was overturned shows how much abortion bans have had their intended effect: Births increased in every state with a ban, an analysis of the data shows. By comparing birth statistics in states before and after the bans passed, researchers estimated that the laws caused around 32,000 […]
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It makes perfect sense to treat Donald Trump as the most immediate threat to the future of American democracy. He has an ambitious plan to turn the office of the presidency into an instrument of “revenge” against his political enemies and other supposedly undesirable groups. But while we keep our eyes on Trump and his […]
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At least two million low-income children have lost health insurance since the end of a federal policy that guaranteed coverage through Medicaid earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new analyses by researchers at the Georgetown Center for Children and Families and KFF, a health policy research organization. The figures, which are likely a significant […]
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The Michigan Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to a bundle of clean energy bills, transforming a state at the center of industrial America into a leader in the fight against climate change. The legislation, which passed both chambers of the Statehouse with narrow Democratic majorities, represents a turnaround for a state that had long […]
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The four vehicles parked at a depot in South Burlington, Vt., look no different from the yellow school buses familiar to millions of schoolchildren. But beneath their steel shells, these buses are packed with technology that could be vital in the transition to clean energy. While their main job remains transporting children, the vehicles take […]
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Democrats once dominated statewide elections for the influential post of agriculture commissioner. Now they’re hoping to win just one. By David W. Chen Photographs by Jon Cherry David W. Chen and Jon Cherry drove more than 800 miles across Kentucky, stopping at farms, diners, a fish fry and a livestock auction, to understand the politics […]
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Since Sept. 12., the Department of Justice and a group of state attorneys general have questioned more than 30 witnesses as they try to prove that Google broke antitrust laws, in a landmark monopoly trial that may affect the power of the technology industry. The government is now wrapping up its side in the case […]
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In the 12 months after the Dobbs decision in June 2022, there were on average 82,298 abortions a month, compared with 82,115 in the two months before Dobbs, WeCount found. The group, part of the Society of Family Planning, which supports abortion rights, collects monthly numbers from providers across the country. The new data, released […]
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Tens of thousands of people who work for Toyota in Kentucky, Mercedes-Benz in Alabama or Tesla in Texas are technically not involved in the high-stakes negotiations taking place between labor and management in and around Detroit. But they are very much a presence. Executives at Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, […]
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When government leaders in Saxony learned that Rheinmetall, Germany’s most prominent arms manufacturer, was considering building a new munitions factory in the former East German state, they saw visions of economic boom. It was a chance, they thought, to capitalize on the city’s storied airfield — home to the Red Baron in World War I, […]
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For decades, Republicans have outmaneuvered and outspent Democrats in state legislatures, gerrymandering them into the minority in both red states and political battlegrounds. G.O.P. state lawmakers have used that advantage to pass countless conservative policies — with a lot of help along the way. In back rooms and behind the scenes, conservative think tanks and […]
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Nearly 500,000 people, many of them children, will keep Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage after state officials discovered major errors in their procedures for reviewing eligibility for the programs, federal officials said on Thursday. After a pandemic-era policy that guaranteed Medicaid coverage lapsed in April, states began checking to see whether tens of […]
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President Biden’s labor and environmental goals are colliding in the auto industry, where concerns over the electric vehicle transition underpin an autoworkers strike. But in states like Maine, unions and environmental groups have teamed up in an attempt to make a central promise of the president’s green agenda come true for workers. Mr. Biden has […]
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Pennsylvania, a battleground state that could play an outsize role in the 2024 presidential election, will begin to automatically register new voters as part of its driver’s license and state ID approval process, officials said on Tuesday. The program, which was announced by Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, is similar to those offered in 23 […]
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Since the start of the pandemic, labor unions have enjoyed something of a renaissance. They have made inroads into previously nonunion companies like Starbucks and Amazon, and won unusually strong contracts for hundreds of thousands of workers. Last year, public approval for unions reached its highest level since the Lyndon Johnson presidency. What unions haven’t […]
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While political campaigns rarely persuade voters to change their minds on social issues, ballot measures may be an exception, researchers say. And Keeler thought she had a head start. The City Council shake-up proved that many residents in Mason fell into the camp of, “OK, I’m pro-life, but they’re going too far,” she says. In […]
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Republicans have more than enough votes in the Wisconsin State Assembly to impeach Justice Protasiewicz and just enough votes in the State Senate — a two-thirds majority — to remove her. But removal would allow Governor Evers to appoint another liberal jurist, which is why Republicans don’t plan to convict and remove Protasiewicz. If, instead, […]
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Conservative intellectuals should take this sort of Republican plea seriously, but they haven’t. In recent years, many of them have been seduced by national conservatism, a movement that claims to be working to preserve America’s best traditions. Organizers of an annual National Conservatism conference, for example, call for the “revival of the unique national traditions […]
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