Poli Alert Political & Civics

Eleanor Klibanoff, The Texas Tribune A federal judge issued a favorable ruling for Texas abortion funds, indicating they likely cannot be criminally charged for helping people travel out of state to terminate their pregnancies. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman temporarily blocked prosecutors in eight counties from pursuing charges against anyone …

Commentary Al Cross, Kentucky Lantern Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has become one of the most outspoken advocates of stronger support for Ukraine, even as his party displays a deeper split on the issue. McConnell made his position clear last Friday at the Munich Security Conference, repeatedly calling for accelerating …

Casey Quinlan, Nevada Current  = Forty million people in the U.S. are having difficulty affording household expenses, and a little more than 25 million people say they sometimes or often do not have enough to eat, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse survey data. The survey is …

Diane Rado, Florida Phoenix Former Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democrat who had hoped to become the first woman governor of Florida but didn’t win in the 2022 gubernatorial primary race, has been elected as the new chair of the Florida Democratic Party. Florida Democrats on Saturday posted a celebratory …

Ariana Figueroa, Michigan Advance As the Biden administration prepares to defend its student debt cancellation program before the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 28, data shows that Black borrowers have the most to lose should a majority conservative court strike down the policy. Black borrowers hold a disproportionate share of …

With Democrats hoping to confirm dozens more federal judges following President Joe Biden’s milestone of appointing 100 new members of the judiciary, progressives on Friday said the party has no choice but to eliminate a tradition they say has been exploited by Republicans to block the president’s nominees. Advocacy group …

Ashley Murray, Florida Phoenix On the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration announced an additional $2 billion in weapons and a host of new sanctions targeting Russia’s key industries and government officials. The Friday announcement came on the heels of President Joe Biden’s historic and …

In moves that alarmed advocates for transgender youth, the Tennessee and Mississippi GOP-dominated legislatures this week sent bills banning gender-affirming care for minors to their Republican governors’ desks. Even though organizations including the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, and American Psychiatric …

Michael Moline, Florida Phoenix Gov. Ron DeSantis has unveiled an anti-immigration agenda that would deny jobs, education, and possibly health care for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who call Florida home. If the governor gets his way with the state Legislature — as is likely — all private employers …

Casey Quinlan, Michigan Advance President Joe Biden devoted 19 sentences of his State of the Union speech to “junk fees,” which includes credit card late fees, service fees for concert tickets and airplane seating preferences that he said strain families’ budgets. Biden did not mention the numerous and opaque fees …

By Topher Sanders and Dan Schwartz Norfolk Southern allows a monitoring team to instruct crews to ignore alerts from train track sensors designed to flag potential mechanical problems. ProPublica learned of the policy after reviewing the rules of the company, which is engulfed in controversy after one of its trains …

Brian Lopez, The Texas Tribune The superintendent of a small school district in West Central Texas resigned this week after parents learned that his gun was found in a bathroom stall by a third grade student, an incident that comes as Texas lawmakers and top officials discuss school safety in …

Michael Moline, Florida Phoenix Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has asked a federal trial court to allow the state to enforce a seven-year-old law denying taxpayer support for health facilities that provide abortions, even if the money wouldn’t pay directly for abortion services. Back in 2016, U.S. District Judge Robert …

James Brooks, Alaska Beacon The Alaska House of Representatives voted almost unanimously Wednesday to reprimand Rep. David Eastman, R-Wasilla, for speculating the state could financially benefit if child abuse victims died of their abuse. Eastman’s remarks, which he said were intended to criticize some arguments in favor of abortion rights, …

Kelcie Moseley-Morris, Michigan Advance Democratic governors from 20 states across the U.S., led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have formed a Reproductive Freedom Alliance to safeguard and improve abortion and reproductive health care access “in the face of an unprecedented assault by states hostile to abortion rights,” according to a …