“Sir, can you please have a seat.” Donald J. Trump had stood up to leave the Manhattan criminal courtroom as Justice Juan M. Merchan was wrapping up a scheduling discussion on Tuesday. But the judge had not yet adjourned the court or left the bench. Mr. Trump, the 45th president of the United States and…
A vast and growing wildfire, one of several burning in the Texas Panhandle, has now become the largest on record in state history, scorching more than a million acres, devastating cattle ranches, consuming homes and continuing to rage out of control. The sparsely populated area is home to most of the state’s cattle — millions…
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…
Shortly before Gov. Roy Cooper, a North Carolina Democrat, began his first term in 2017, his rivals in the Republican-controlled legislature voted to strip the position of key powers, including the governor’s longstanding authority to appoint majorities to the state election board and local election boards in all 100 counties. After the state Supreme Court…
One year after Justice Clarence Thomas said the Supreme Court should reconsider whether the Constitution affords Americans a right to birth control, Democrats and reproductive rights advocates are laying the groundwork for state-by-state battles over access to contraception — an issue they hope to turn against Republicans in 2024. The justice’s argument in Dobbs v.…
For a month, the Pennsylvania legislature has been frozen by a handful of vacancies in the State House of Representatives that made the difference between Democratic and Republican control, and by representatives’ inability to agree on basic operating rules. Special elections on Tuesday could bring the General Assembly back to life. Those elections will fill…
Just off the coast of East Africa, Madagascar is the world’s fourth-poorest nation. It struggles with corruption, especially in the mining and oil industries that bring in billions a year for corporations. Malagasy officials did not comment. In Greece, Predator is also at the center of a domestic political maelstrom. The saga began in April,…
Birth control remains legal everywhere in the United States, though several states allow doctors and pharmacists to refuse to prescribe or dispense contraceptives, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The Supreme Court decision that overruled Roe v. Wade does not indicate that the Court would revisit past decisions about birth control. In a concurring opinion, however,…