National Politics

President Joe Biden is preparing to declare the massacre of an estimated million or more Armenians under the Ottoman Empire a “genocide” this week, risking a potential fracture with Turkey but fulfilling a campaign pledge to finally use the word as President to describe the mass killings after a series of his predecessors stopped short.

The House of Representatives is on track to vote Thursday on a bill that would grant statehood to Washington, DC, a Democratic priority that faces obstacles to final passage even with the party now in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. House Democrats passed the bill — H.R. 51, the Washington,

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Wednesday urged those looking to boycott Georgia-based companies over the state’s new elections law to instead vote and back federal voting legislation. “My concern with a boycott, not just at Home Depot but any of the … Fortune 500 companies that are headquartered in Atlanta, is that you will

A group of House Republicans spoke out on Tuesday against a Democratic proposal to grant statehood to Washington, DC, which does not have voting representation in Congress. Freshman Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina described the statehood proposal as a Democratic power grab. She said at a news conference: “DC wouldn’t even qualify as a

US and Iranian officials say they have made progress in talks aimed at bringing the United States back to the 2015 nuclear deal and Iran back into compliance with it, but US officials stressed that a long road remains ahead. Representatives from the countries that are still members of the deal — China, France, Germany,

The Texas House on Tuesday passed legislation that would allow election judges to carry a handgun in most polling places on Election Day and during the early voting period. HB 530, which passed on a vote of 94 to 51, would specifically allow an election judge with a gun license to have a handgun at

Vice President Kamala Harris cast her first tie-breaking vote related to a Biden administration nominee on the Senate floor Wednesday evening, voting to advance the nomination of Colin Kahl to be the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy. The Senate deadlocked 50-50 on a straight party-line procedural vote to discharge Kahl’s nomination from the Armed Services Committee,

Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday that a police reform bill is in the works, one of several police reform efforts underway nationwide in the wake of Tuesday’s conviction of a former Minneapolis Police officer in the murder of George Floyd. The bill is expected to be introduced “within the next few days,” DeWine

One day after two four-star military commanders told Congress they did not have problems with extremists in their ranks, the top adviser on the issue to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin took a different view and stated plainly that he believes the opposite. “It would be remiss if we didn’t admit that there is a problem

Arizona’s Republican governor on Tuesday vetoed a state bill that would have made it harder for students to learn about sexual and gender identity in schools, but issued an executive order requiring schools to be more transparent about their proposed curriculum on the topics. Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed SB 1456 nearly a week after the

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Wednesday signed a bill legalizing simple possession of marijuana beginning this summer, making it the first Southern state to do so and accelerating a revamp of cannabis laws that have disproportionately jailed Americans of color for nonviolent offenses. The bill, signed a day after April 20 — marijuana’s unofficial holiday

The New York state legislature passed a bill on Wednesday that would automatically restore voting rights to people convicted of a felony once they are on parole. The bill is intended to improve upon a 2018 executive order granting voting pardons to the 35,000 New Yorkers on parole, according to Assembly member Daniel O’Donnell, a

Senate Republicans will decide Wednesday on whether to change their conference rules that ban their use of earmarks, an issue that divides the GOP conference and will be a test for how the party will operate over the next several months with Democrats in control of the US Senate. The discussion to bring earmarks back

Andrew Giuliani, the son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a former public liaison official inside the Trump White House, will meet with the former President at Mar-a-Lago next week as he finalizes his plans to launch a campaign for New York governor. “I will be down there next week for a

The Senate narrowly voted to advance the nomination of President Joe Biden’s nominee to be associate attorney general, Vanita Gupta, setting up a final vote expected later Tuesday despite fierce opposition from most Republican senators. Vice President Kamala Harris was on hand in case she was needed for a 50-50 tie on the procedural vote

The Senate narrowly voted to advance the nomination of President Joe Biden’s nominee to be associate attorney general, Vanita Gupta, setting up a final vote expected later Tuesday despite fierce opposition from most Republican senators. Vice President Kamala Harris was on hand in case she was needed for a 50-50 tie on the procedural vote

President Joe Biden is expected to tout the United States administering 200 million coronavirus vaccine shots since he took office in remarks on Wednesday, according to two administration officials. Two hundred million shots is double the original goal Biden had set out to meet within his first 100 days in office. The US cleared 100