In The News

WASHINGTON — The Senate health committee on Wednesday considered the steps schools should take to reopen later this year as officials seek to protect students, teachers and staff from COVID-19 while compensating for learning gaps students experienced this year. The... Read More

African American civil rights leaders spoke out in support Wednesday of a bill pending in Congress that would set national standards for police behavior. It also would ban chokeholds, reduce legal immunity for police misconduct and create a national database... Read More

WASHINGTON - Federal law enforcement officials pledged a vigorous crackdown Tuesday during a Senate hearing on fraudsters who are trying to make easy money off vulnerable people during the coronavirus pandemic. They accused con artists of selling fake vaccines and... Read More

WASHINGTON - A panel of scientists on Tuesday slammed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to overhaul accounting methods used to evaluate the various economic and social costs of clean air regulations. Last week, the agency proposed a new set... Read More

WASHINGTON - The coronavirus pandemic shaved roughly $3.9 trillion from the U.S. economy and will likely prevent the nation's quarterly growth rate from climbing above zero percent through the end of 2021, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. The... Read More

Georgians who overcame concerns about the coronavirus to participate in Tuesday's primary election encountered long lines, extended waits and a new touch screen voting system that experienced widespread problems. So bad did the situation become that by mid-morning one lawmaker,... Read More

WASHINGTON - A plea bargain with federal prosecutors is allowing four activists to avoid jail time after they occupied the Venezuelan Embassy in April and May. The four were part of a group that stayed in the embassy in Washington,... Read More

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina plan to vote Tuesday on a measure that would allow President Donald Trump to speak in front of a capacity crowd at the Republican National Convention in Charlotte without the restrictions officials have imposed on... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Transportation announced on Friday that Chinese airlines would be limited to just two weekly roundtrip flights between Chinese and American soil until further notice. Two days earlier, the Trump administration had issued a decision... Read More

Comcast is allocating $100 million toward fighting injustice and inequality faced by African-Americans and other communities. The new initiative will encompass social-justice programs aimed at inequality against “any race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation or ability,” chairman/CEO Brian Roberts announced... Read More

WASHINGTON - House and Senate Democrats proposed a sweeping overhaul of police oversight and procedures Monday, the first legislative response to mass protests that have gripped the nation in the wake of the death of an unarmed black man while... Read More

WASHINGTON - The year 2020 will no doubt be remembered as the year when crisis and turmoil took center stage not just in the U.S., but around the world. From a global pandemic, to upheavals in the economy to social... Read More

WASHINGTON - Congress moved closer Thursday to approving economic sanctions against China for its interference with Hong Kong’s independence. Most Democrats and Republicans on a Senate committee joined in saying the United States must take action to condemn China’s plan... Read More

NEW YORK (AP) — The city that never sleeps had a curfew for much of last week. Famous stores were boarded up after days of unrest. The lights are out on Broadway theaters, and the subway no longer runs overnight.... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — A sweeping overhaul of police oversight and procedures is being proposed by Democrats in response to the deaths of black Americans at the hands of law enforcement, according to a draft outline obtained by The Associated Press. The Justice... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Less than five months before voters will decide his fate, President Donald Trump is confronting a vastly different political reality than he once envisioned. For starters, if the election were held today, he’d likely lose. The president,... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The coronavirus pushed hospitals to the edge, and millions of workers lost job-based coverage in the economic shutdown to slow the spread, but a new poll suggests Americans have remarkably little interest in big changes to health... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are mounting a new effort to push back against a well-funded Republican campaign that seeks to undermine public confidence in mail-in voting, which President Donald Trump has said, without offering proof, will lead to election fraud.... Read More

The state of Tennessee must provide all 4.1 million of its registered voters with the option of casting ballots by mail during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, a state court judge ruled on Thursday. Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle held... Read More

WASHINGTON - A switch to all-by-mail voting ahead of the 2020 general election would disenfranchise Native Americans because it would be impossible for some of them to cast a ballot that way, the Native American Rights Fund says in a... Read More

WASHINGTON - If you wanted to have a front row seat to a global viral pandemic, you probably couldn't have been in a better position to do so than Keith Herron was three months ago. The company he'd worked at... Read More

A federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled Thursday that Texans cannot request mail-in ballots for the upcoming 2020 elections out of fear that they might contract the coronavirus if they vote in person. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals... Read More

WASHINGTON - A group of lawmakers in the House and Senate urged congressional leaders on Wednesday to support the clean energy sector in future coronavirus stimulus legislation. In a letter signed by 57 members -- all Democrats or independents --... Read More

NEW YORK (AP) — In an embarrassing about-face, The New York Times said Thursday that an opinion piece it ran by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton advocating the use of federal troops to quell nationwide protests about police mistreatment of black... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s inability to unify the nation at a time of grave unrest is testing his uneasy alliance with mainstream Republicans, some emboldened by Gen. James Mattis’ plea for a leader who lives up to the... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration Thursday, alleging officials violated the civil rights of protesters who were forcefully removed from a park near the White House by police using chemical agents before President Donald... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate impasse over a widely backed bill to designate lynching as a federal hate crime boiled over on Thursday in an emotional debate cast against a backdrop of widespread protests over police treatment of African Americans.... Read More

PHOENIX (AP) — Reyna Montoya’s hands get sweaty and her throat feels like it’s closing just talking about the anxiety of every Monday this spring. The immigrant rights activist who's shielded from deportation and allowed to legally work in the... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican Party is facing a reckoning over some of its most divisive candidates. So far the results are mixed, and that's dicey for the GOP as a country shuddering from coast-to-coast civic unrest hurtles toward November elections. Republican... Read More

WASHINGTON - U.S. employers added 2.5 million jobs in May as businesses began to reopen following months of closures ordered at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic. The uptick in hiring dropped the unemployment rate to 13.3%, the Labor Department... Read More