While it's only 2021, a major question facing Democrats this year and next will be what to do about the presidential nominating calendar and whether Iowa, in particular, should retain its prized place at the front of the calendar in 2024.Read More
National News
With his trademark suspenders and deep baritone voice Larry King spoke with presidents, world leaders, celebrities, authors, scientists, comedians, athletes — everyone. The Peabody Award-winning broadcaster died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 87.Read More
The U.S. Postal Service has an answer at the very top of its official tracking page. A disclaimer there notes the system is "experiencing unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to the impacts of COVID-19." That combination is making it tough on those at the other end of the mailbox.Read More
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the sole article of impeachment for incitement to insurrection against former President Donald Trump will be delivered to the Senate on Monday and a trial against the Republican will begin the week of Feb. 8.Read More
A U.N. treaty outlawing nuclear weapons went into effect on Friday, having been ratified by at least 50 countries. But the ban is largely symbolic: The U.S. and the world's other nuclear powers have not signed the treaty.Read More
Lloyd Austin, a retired four-star Army general, has been confirmed by the Senate, making him the first Black secretary of defense in U.S. history. The Senate approved President Biden's nomination for Pentagon chief in a near-unanimous 93 to 2 vote.Read More
Riley Williams, the 22-year-old woman who is accused of participating in the theft of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's laptop during the attack on the Capitol building on Jan. 6, has been released from jail Thursday, The Associated Press reported.Read More
Because of his skill and power at the plate — Aaron batted in more than 100 runs in a season in three decades — Major League Baseball named its award for the best offensive player after him.Read More
While another surge remains possible, especially with new, more infectious variants on the horizon, the number of new daily infections in the current wave appears to have hit a high in the past week or two and has been steadily declining in most states since, the researchers say.Read More
The U.S. officially withdrew from the accord to limit climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions late last year, after President Donald Trump began the process in 2017. It is the only country of the nearly 200 signatories that has withdrawn. Biden vowed to sign on Inauguration Day the documents needed to rejoin the agreement.Read More
ALS, often called Lou Gehrig's disease after the New York Yankees first baseman who died of the disease in 1941, destroys motor neurons, causing people to lose control of their limbs, their speech and, ultimately, their ability to breathe. It's usually fatal in two to five years, though about 10% of people survive ten years or more.Read More
Michael Pack resigned Wednesday as the CEO of the federal agency over the Voice of America and other federally funded international broadcasters, after a turbulent seven-month tenure. He leaves the U.S. Agency for Global Media with a Trumpian legacy of ideological strife, lawsuits, and scandal, his departure effective just two hours after the swearing-in of President Read More
As part of his ambitious plan to address climate change, President Biden is revoking a key, cross-border presidential permit needed to finish the controversial Keystone XL pipelineRead More
Joe Biden will become the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday, having defeated Donald Trump in an acrimonious, divisive election last November. Biden will be sworn in alongside Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in an unusual inauguration ceremony, conducted amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis and heightened physical security risks.Read More
While millions wait for a lifesaving shot, the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus continues to soar upward with horrifying speed. On Tuesday, the last full day of Donald Trump's presidency, the official death count reached 400,000 — a once-unthinkable number. More than 100,000 Americans have perished in the pandemic in just the past five weeks.Read More
If you've been riding an emotional, politics-fueled rollercoaster in 2021 (not to mention 2020), believe us: Your kids have noticed. Here's a quick primer from Life Kit on how to talk with your kids about politics — and, even get them thinking about civics.Read More
Joe Biden is nominating Pennsylvania health expert Dr. Rachel Levine to be assistant secretary for health in the department of Health and Human Services, in a move that could make Levine the first openly transgender federal official to win Senate confirmation.Read More
The Trump-appointed director of the U.S. Census Bureau is stepping down close to a week after whistleblower complaints about his role in attempting to rush out an incomplete data report about noncitizens became public.Read More
Washington-based Regnery Publishing, which aims to spread the message of "prominent and lasting voices in American conservatism," announced on Monday it will publish the title in May.Read More
Every January, in the middle of the night, thousands of volunteers and outreach workers spread out across the country to count the nation's homeless population. They search highway underpasses, wooded areas, abandoned buildings and sidewalks to locate those who are living outside. But this year, because of the pandemic, the annual street count has been canceled or modified Read More
As the COVID-19 vaccine rolls out, three big questions loom. First, can someone who has been vaccinated still spread the disease? Second, will the vaccine remain effective as the virus itself evolves? And third, how long will the vaccine's protection last?Read More
The test, at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, was part of NASA's Artemis program, a plan to return to the moon in the coming years. NASA's test called for four engines to fire for eight minutes — roughly the time it will take for NASA's long-delayed Space Launch System (SLS) to generate the thrust needed to send the rocket to space.Read More
This week marks 10 years since a white supremacist attempted to bomb the Martin Luther King Junior Day parade through downtown Spokane. The bomb was discovered and defused just in the nick of time. But the effects of extremist ideologies in the region lived on. Journalist Leah Sottile examined that in the podcast Bundyville, from Oregon Public Broadcasting. Leah spoke with Read More
If you’ve ever waited in a long line to receive a test for the coronavirus, or tried to get one and couldn’t, or waited a week to get the results, you may have wondered why it’s not easier and more convenient. In recent weeks, the Food and Drug Administration began approving over-the-counter COVID-19 tests for Americans to use at home, part of a wave of new options that Read More
President Trump plans to leave the White House and Washington on Inauguration Day with a departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, a senior administration official said on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the announcement is not yet official.Read More
The National Rifle Association filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Texas on Friday as its current home, New York, pursues a fraud case against the organization. The NRA was founded in New York in 1871 and has since presented itself as a defender of Second Amendment rights. The NRA attributes the move to Texas to a "corrupt political and regulatory environment" in New York.Read More
Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's push to make a COVID-19 vaccine available in record time, added $628 million to a federal contract with Emergent BioSolutions, a Maryland-based contract manufacturer, "to advance manufacturing capabilities and capacity for a potential COVID-19 vaccine as well as therapeutics," the Department of Health and Human Services Read More
Even as people continue to splurge on shopping, they cut back on going out to eat and shop. Plus, the earlier-than-usual holiday shopping season meant online shopping as well sales of electronics and appliances dipped in December. Gas stations saw the biggest jump in spending last month, up 6.6%, as people traveled for holiday visits despite health warnings.Read More
Some 6,000 workers at Amazon's warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, will begin voting next month on a groundbreaking possibility: whether to form the first union in the company's U.S. history.Read More
President-elect Joe Biden has long pledged he would deliver an aggressive plan to address the raging coronavirus pandemic and the painful recession it spawned.Read More
Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder was charged Wednesday for his role in the Flint water crisis, an environmental disaster that contaminated the majority Black city's drinking water with lead nearly seven years ago.Read More
The U.S. Census Bureau has halted all work on President Trump's directive to produce a state-by-state count of unauthorized immigrants that would have been used to alter a key set of census numbers, NPR has learned.Read More
The U.S. House voted 232 to 197 Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time. Democrats were joined by 10 congressional Republicans – including two from Washington state. Read More
Local and federal security officials expect about 20,000 National Guard members to be involved in securing the capital for President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration next week.Read More
The House of Representatives is on track to impeach President Trump for the second time in 13 months — which would make him as the only president to receive the rebuke twice. This time, though, impeachment could be bipartisan. Republicans all opposed the House vote in December 2019, arguing that it was politically driven. But now some GOP lawmakers are joining Democrats in Read More
BY BRAKKTON BOOKER A Minnesota judge has ruled that the former Minneapolis police officer seen in cellphone video kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for several minutes last summer, will stand […]Read More
The House of Representatives is expected to vote Tuesday evening on a resolution calling for Vice President Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment against President Trump, days after violent insurrectionists breached the U.S. Capitol.Read More
Several Capitol Police officers have been suspended in connection with last week's fatal riot at the U.S. Capitol by protesters loyal to President Trump, Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman announced Monday evening.Read More
Monoclonal antibody drugs are supposed to help people with mild to moderate COVID-19 avoid the hospital, but it can be a challenge to find out where the treatment is offered. NPR has heard from people across the country who have been frustrated by this. They include Shirley Wagoner, an 80-year-old who still hits the ski slopes and helps run the family plumbing business in Read More
The Democratic proposal, shared first with NPR, comes as the party will have unified control of Congress after victories in two Georgia Senate races, a change in fortunes for Democratic legislative priorities. The legislation would end capital punishment at the federal level and require the resentencing of all federal inmates on death row.Read More
The Washington Legislature approved rules Monday that lawmakers to meet remotely because of the pandemic. The in-person votes in Olympia happened under tight security with strict COVID-19 protocols in place. The Washington State Patrol arrested two people outside the Capitol.Read More
The Trump administration is designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, in a move that will return the island nation to the pariah list from which it was removed nearly five years ago.Read More
Pope Francis offered prayers Sunday for those who lost their lives during the siege at the U.S. Capitol — and encouraged Americans to come together in a spirit of reconciliation.Read More
Nearly two-thirds of Americans place a good deal of the blame on President Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, but the country is evenly split over whether he should be removed from office before his term ends on Jan. 20, according to the latest PBS NewsHour-Marist poll.Read More
The violence at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday was unprecedented in modern U.S. history — but some pro-Trump extremists are promising it was just a taste of things to come.Read More
Since the beginning of this pandemic, experts and educators have feared that open schools would spread the coronavirus further, which is why so many classrooms remain closed. But a new, nationwide study suggests reopening schools may be safer than previously thought, at least in communities where the virus is not already spreading out of control.Read More
The precise composition of the mob that forced its way into the Capitol on Wednesday, disrupting sessions of both houses of Congress and leaving a police officer and four others dead, remains unknown. But a review by a ProPublica-FRONTLINE team that has been tracking far-right movements for the past three years shows that the crowd included members of the Proud Boys and Read More
With less than two weeks before he assumes office, President-elect Joe Biden is on track to have few, if any, Cabinet members confirmed on Inauguration Day, the first president to face such a personnel issue in recent history.Read More
In the small town of Oak Creek, Colo., — a three-hour drive from Denver, assuming the roads are clear — Gene Bracegirdle, a firefighter and EMT in training, is getting his first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.Read More
Twitter has permanently suspended President Trump from Twitter over a pattern of behavior that violated company rules. "After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further Read More
