Washington and Massachusetts are stockpiling abortion pills. California is cutting climate deals directly with automakers. Colorado is rushing to protect the right to same-sex marriage. And attorneys general across the country are marshaling legal resources and privately plotting courtroom strategies. From the West Coast to the East, blue states are preparing for the possibility that former president Donald Trump wins ...

As a California voter, Vice President Kamala Harris has decisions to make about state policy measures that will appear on her November ballot — some of which reflect national challenges she could face if elected president. California voters’ ballots will include questions about crime, climate change, health-care funding and other issues, thanks to a state system that gives them a ...

The Supreme Court wades back into hot-button issues including gun control, the death penalty and gender-affirming care for minors in the term that begins Monday, even as the fast-approaching presidential election could end up dominating the docket. Last term was marked by blockbuster rulings on the scope of former president Donald Trump’s immunity from prosecution and place on the 2024 ...

Nobody planned it this way, but the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, former president Donald Trump’s role in attempting to subvert the 2020 election and the issue of protecting democracy emerged as the theme of the presidential campaign last week. That no one planned it is apparent from the coincidence of events that put the focus back ...

Rep. Michael Lawler (R-N.Y.) has acknowledged that he wore blackface as a college student nearly two decades ago, darkening his face as part of a Michael Jackson Halloween costume. “Obviously I can’t change what happened 18 years ago,” Lawler said in an interview with CNN on Thursday night. “But I certainly, with wisdom and age, understand that that is not ...

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to block new Biden administration rules requiring fossil-fuel-fired power plants to slash emissions of mercury and other toxic substances and oil and gas firms to curb methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from their operations. The issues were two of three playing out on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket over a suite of Biden administration ...

In the final stretch before Election Day, Republicans are ramping up efforts to distance themselves from the restrictive abortion positions that have defined their party since the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade — scrambling to soften, or appear to soften, their hard line positions. The group includes everyone from former president Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. ...

Former president Donald Trump will appear Friday in Georgia, one of the states hardest-hit by Hurricane Helene, after spending the week falsely telling voters that the U.S. government is unable to fund the disaster response — claims the White House slammed in a memo as “poison.” Without naming Trump, the Biden administration on Friday said Republicans are spreading “bald-faced lies” ...

President Joe Biden said he was concerned that the upcoming presidential election might not be peaceful, using a surprise appearance at the White House Briefing Room on Friday to suggest that former president Donald Trump’s rhetoric may lead to a “dangerous” outcome. “I’m confident it’ll be free and fair. I don’t know whether it’ll be peaceful,” Biden said of the ...

FLINT, Mich. — Vice President Kamala Harris met with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Michigan on Friday, part of an ongoing effort to stem defections from a pivotal group of voters who have fiercely criticized President Joe Biden for his staunch support of Israel’s wars in Gaza and now Lebanon. The meeting came during a campaign swing through the ...