Health

As the opioid crisis continues to devastate families and communities across the country, a new bipartisan bill, the Fentanyl Sanctions Act, promises to put more teeth in efforts to curb the activities of Chinese and other traffickers of Fentanyl and... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court will not revive Alabama's ban on second-trimester abortions, the justices announcing Friday they are content to have lower court orders blocking the law to remain in place. Though Alabama's Attorney General Steve Marshall regularly... Read More

WASHINGTON - It just might be the liveliest few minutes of the day in the Supreme Court press room. Quietly getting up from their desks, the 20 or so reporters who call the high court beat home on a daily... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday replaced Obama-era rules intended to tamp down on carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants with new regulations that allow states to decide whether such steps are needed. The new rule will go... Read More

Oregon is a step closer to becoming the second state in the nation, after California, to adopt a sweeping cap-and-trade-program. The bill passed the state House with a 36-24 vote on Monday after six hours of debate, and has been... Read More

WASHINGTON - The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the Trump administration's policy of blocking abortions sought by undocumented pregnant teenagers in federal custody cannot "be squared with Supreme Court precedent." In 2017, the Trump administration adopted a... Read More

North Carolina's Republican-led House on Thursday failed to override Democratic Governor Roy Cooper's veto of a bill that would require doctors to try to preserve the life of an infant born alive during an attempted abortion. To override Cooper's veto... Read More

The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it will sharply reduce the amount of federal money supporting medical research that relies on tissue from aborted fetuses, handing a significant victory to anti-abortion groups who had lobbied for such a decision for... Read More

Americans are more likely to name healthcare costs than any other issue when asked to say what is the most important financial problem facing their family, a recent Gallup poll found. In a survey conducted April 17-30, 17 percent of... Read More

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said Thursday that he will sign a strict new abortion law barring the procedure once a heartbeat is detectable -- a point that comes before many women realize they are pregnant. In a written statement,... Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the portion of an Indiana law signed by Vice President Mike Pence during his tenure as governor that requires fetal remains from abortions be buried or cremated. The ruling partially reversed an earlier... Read More

For the second time in five days, a conservative Republican member of the House has blocked a long overdue $19 billion disaster bill. Representative Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said that if Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders had thought the... Read More

Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge on Friday to block an Alabama law that bans nearly all abortions and makes performing the procedure a felony punishable by up to 99 years in prison. The... Read More

A bipartisan coalition of House members on Thursday released their outline of the Protecting People from Surprise Medical Bills Act, legislation intended to protect patients from unfair and expensive surprise medical bills. “For too many middle-class families, receiving an unexpected... Read More

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed an executive order Thursday permitting full-time state government employees to take up to eight weeks off after adopting or having a child. Executive Order 95 also provides 4 weeks of paid parental leave to... Read More

A majority of American voters believe the U.S. Supreme Court was right in 1973 when it ruled in Roe v. Wade that women have a constitutionally-protected right to have an abortion, and most also believe the current generation of justices... Read More

Representatives Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., and Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., have introduced bipartisan legislation to address chronic flooding that places Veterans Affairs medical facilities at risk on a regular basis. The bill the representatives filed Tuesday, called the VA Community Infrastructure Act,... Read More

This week, U.S. Representatives Brad Schneider, D-Ill., and Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., announced the introduction of new bipartisan legislation to improve primary care options for individuals with high-deductible health insurance plans. H.R. 2774, the Primary Care Patient Protection Act of 2019,... Read More

The Blue Dog Coalition has endorsed H.R. 2483, also known as the Fentanyl Sanctions Act, which aims to pressure the Chinese government to honor its commitment to make all forms of fentanyl illegal and provide the United States with more... Read More

For the first time in history, renewable energy surpassed coal earlier this month as a source of electricity generation in the United States, the Brookings Institution reported Wednesday. The paper underlying the report attributes this remarkable development to U.S. municipalities... Read More

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation Tuesday co-sponsored by Representative Elaine Luria to extend disability benefits to Vietnam-era Navy veterans who have fought for years to prove they were exposed to the chemical herbicide Agent Orange. Luria, a... Read More

This week, U.S. Representative Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, and U.S. Representative David McKinley, R-W.V., introduced the Clean Up Our Neighborhoods Act of 2019, authorizing the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to make grants to states to eliminate residential and commercial... Read More

New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation last week adopted the final elements of a regulatory regime intended to end carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants in the state by the end of 2020. Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo first announced... Read More

New legislation in the California state house is seeking to end surprise hospital bills that catch unwitting patients with expensive out-of-network insurance costs for emergency care. Earlier this year, Vox’s Sarah Kliff reported on San Francisco woman Nina Dang and... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress expressed outrage Wednesday during hearings on Capitol Hill at the rising cost and government inaction in cleaning up the nation’s nuclear waste. Some lawmakers were reacting to a Government Accountability Office report released this week... Read More

San Francisco could become the first city in the United States in which large commercial property owners use only renewable energy under a plan unveiled by Mayor London Breed earlier this week. She and city supervisors Vallie Brown and Ahsha... Read More

A federal court ruling last week set a precedent for property rights to cannabis products in the quickly growing marijuana industry. U.S. District Judge William Martinez, an Obama appointee who presides in Colorado, ruled that cannabinoid formulations can be considered... Read More

Both Social Security and Medicare are on unstable financial footing, and lawmakers need to act sooner rather than later to shore up America’s bedrock retirement programs and phase in needed changes, the trustees of both programs said in reports released... Read More

Bipartisan legislation enacting a long sought after drought plan for seven states in the Colorado River basin has been sent to the White House for President Donald Trump's signature. Senator Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and Representative Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., fast-tracked passage... Read More

WASHINGTON - Residents of Appalachian states warned about severe health and environmental consequences from renewed mountaintop coal mining during a congressional hearing Tuesday. Lawmakers called the hearing to address concerns raised by Trump administration policies to loosen environmental restrictions on... Read More