Brett Wilkins Scores of independent reproductive health centers have been forced to close or stop offering abortion care, with 14 states now having no abortion clinics, a report published Tuesday revealed. Abortion Care Network (ACN) released its annual Communities Need Clinics report, which details how “abortion bans, extremist harassment, and …

Kim Lyons, Pennsylvania Capital-Star The campaign of U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) paid ousted Congressman George Santos of New York to record a video taunting Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ). The video appeared on the Cameo platform, where celebrities record short videos for a fee, typically for fans. “I thought my …

Lynn Bonner, NC Newsline A group of Black and Latino voters in North Carolina say in a lawsuit that four of the state’s new congressional districts are racial gerrymanders. They are asking a panel of federal judges to declare it unconstitutional. The lawsuit filed Monday focuses on Districts 1, 6, …

Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams The U.S. Congressional Progressive Caucus said Monday that most of its 103 members would oppose an emergency spending package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan that empowers the Republican House majority to undermine protections for asylum-seekers, reinstate Trump-era travel bans, and implement other anti-immigrant policies. “As Congress …

Robin Opsahl, Iowa Capital Dispatch North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum announced Monday he would end his campaign to become the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. In a statement on suspending his campaign, Burgum criticized the Republican National Committee’s debate structure, saying the fundraising and polling criteria “ensure advantages for candidates from …

Ariana Figueroa, Georgia Recorder As Congress negotiates the White House’s $106 billion supplemental aid request for Israel, Ukraine and U.S. border security, fights over immigration policy have tied up the request. The White House sent its proposal that includes nearly $14 billion in supplemental border security funding to Congress in late October, but it …

Rob Schofield, NC Newsline Last week, December 1 — was the day North Carolina became the 40th state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Roughly 300,000 adults who lacked health insurance last month, now have it. And if officials, providers, and nonprofits do an effective job of outreach …

Ashley Murray, Michigan Advance South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Republican colleagues stormed out of a Democratic-led U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Thursday to authorize subpoenas for two high-profile GOP operatives as part of an ethics probe into undisclosed financial ties to U.S. Supreme Court justices. The panel voted 11-0 …

Ariana Figueroa, Georgia Recorder Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats this week discussed how to treat gun violence as a public health crisis, in hopes of building upon last year’s federal gun safety legislation. “Across the country, gun violence is a public health epidemic,” Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, the chairman of the …

  In a televised faceoff that lasted over 90 minutes, Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gavin Newsom of California engaged in a fiery debate on Fox News, covering an array of critical issues. Touted as “The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate,” the discussion, hosted by Sean Hannity,  became …

Ashley Murray, Florida Phoenix The first woman to serve on the nation’s highest court is dead at 93. Sandra Day O’Connor, a groundbreaking justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, died Friday in Phoenix, Arizona of complications related to advanced dementia, probably Alzheimer’s, and a respiratory illness, according to an announcement …

Jennifer Shutt New York Republican George Santos on Friday became the sixth lawmaker in history and the first member of the GOP to be expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives. The 311-114 bipartisan vote, which required two-thirds support, followed months of scandal that culminated in a federal criminal indictment …

Jennifer Shutt, Georgia Recorder Democrats in Congress are divided on whether to set guardrails on additional military aid to Israel as that country responds to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks with airstrikes and a ground war in Gaza. It’s not yet clear what those conditions would be or how …

Jimmy Williams Last month marked two years since President Joe Biden signed the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal ((Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) into law. The $1.2 trillion law seeks to invest in and upgrade various aspects of the United States’ infrastructure, including roads, bridges, airports, ports, broadband, water infrastructure, and …

Jon King, Michigan Advance Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a slate of bills Tuesday that take her proposals from the MI Healthy Climate Plan and make them into state law. Held at Detroit’s Eastern Market, the ceremony followed House passage earlier this month of a half-a-dozen pieces of climate change legislation …