Senate Republicans are struggling to respond to an extreme Alabama Supreme Court ruling effectively halting in vitro fertilization in the state as Democrats plan a new effort this week to protect access to IVF and other fertility treatments nationwide. On the one hand‚ Republicans maintain that they support the continued use of IVF‚ calling it both pro-family and pro-life. But on the other hand‚ many in the GOP agree with the central premise of the ruling that found that frozen embryos are...

House Democrats are seething at Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as they press him to ignore hardliners' calls to allow a government shutdown. Why it matters: Democrats see the window closing to prevent a partial shutdown on Friday unless Congress comes to a deal on funding legislation. "The odds of a government shutdown go up every hour that we don't see legislative text for a budget vote‚" Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) told Axios. What they're saying: "It's literally up to one person‚ the...

The U.S. Army is slashing the size of its force by about 24‚000‚ or almost 5%‚ and restructuring to be better able to fight the next major war‚ as the service struggles with recruiting shortfalls that made it impossible to bring in enough soldiers to fill all the jobs. The cuts will mainly be in already-empty posts — not actual soldiers — including in jobs related to counterinsurgency that swelled during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars but are not needed as much today. About 3‚000 of the cuts...

House Republicans are issuing a subpoena to Attorney General Merrick Garland to compel him to hand over transcripts of President Joe Biden’s interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur. The deadline for providing the transcripts is March 7‚ the same day Biden is set to give his State of the Union address. In a letter accompanying the subpoena‚ lawmakers said they were specifically investigating whether Biden retained documents related to countries his family members did business with and...

Apple will wind down its team working on electric cars‚ called Special Projects Group‚ according to Bloomberg. The news signals an end to Apple’s secretive effort to build a car to rival Tesla. The program employed thousands of employees but never fit with Apple’s core business of electronics and online services‚ and raised questions about where Apple would turn for the manufacturing of a vehicle. Reports of Apple’s ambition to build a car first surfaced in 2014 after the company...

Worries about political extremism or threats to democracy have emerged as a top concern for U.S. voters and an issue where President Joe Biden has a slight advantage over Donald Trump ahead of the November election‚ a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. Some 21% of respondents in the three-day poll‚ which closed on Sunday‚ said "political extremism or threats to democracy" was the biggest problem facing the U.S.‚ a share that was marginally higher than those who picked the economy - 19% - and...

Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday re-upped calls to change New York City’s sanctuary laws‚ pushing for more accountability for those suspected of committing violent crimes and encouraging more collaboration between local law enforcement and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “I want to go back to the standards of the previous mayors who I believe subscribed to my belief that people who are suspected of committing serious crimes in this city should be held accountable‚” Adams told reporters...

A Fulton County judge ruled Monday that the former law partner of Nathan Wade must testify about Wade’s relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis‚ the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ordered Terrence Bradley to testify about the relationship between Wade and Willis‚ according to the Journal-Constitution. Bradley‚ who also served as Wade’s divorce lawyer‚ met with McAfee in a closed-door hearing‚ after which McAfee determined that...

A judge in California threw out charges against two far-right political agitators‚ saying the federal government engaged in “selective prosecution” by charging right-wing rioters but not the far-left agitators they fought against‚ and who did the exact same thing. Robert Rundo and Robert Boman attended a pro-Donald Trump “free speech” rally in Berkeley on April 15‚ 2017‚ as members of Rise Against Movement (RAM)‚ a “far-right‚ white nationalist” group that engaged in violence against left-...