Politics

By Shawna Mizelle, CNN A slew of bills, mostly in Republican-led states, are looking to restrict or prohibit drag show performances in the presence of children, part of a larger fight over a burgeoning culture war issue. Republicans say the performances expose children to sexual themes and imagery that are inappropriate, a claim rejected by

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN The deep-pocketed network associated with billionaire Charles Koch is preparing to throw its money and weight behind a single Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential primary — in a move that could significantly reshape the GOP field. Americans for Prosperity Action, the main political arm of the Koch network, “is prepared

By Steve Contorno, CNN Facing accusations of whitewashing history after his administration blocked a new Black studies course for high-achieving high schoolers, Gov. Ron DeSantis has countered that Florida students already must learn about the triumphs and plight of African Americans. “The state of Florida education standards not only don’t prevent, but they require teaching

By Heather Chen, Andrew Raine and Sophie Tanno, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

By Ethan Cohen and Kate Sullivan, CNN The Democratic National Committee on Saturday approved a plan to shake up the 2024 presidential primary calendar and demote longtime early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire, but significant questions remain about how the new order will be implemented. The new calendar upends decades of tradition in which

By Zachary Cohen, CNN The suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that violated American airspace this week has fueled a diplomatic crisis with the postponement of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned trip to Beijing. But the two countries have a long history of spying on each other. The US has sought to collect its own intelligence

By Gabby Orr and Steve Contorno, CNN Republican presidential hopefuls have begun casting themselves as impassioned defenders of “parental rights,” turning schoolbooks and curricula, doctors’ offices, and sports leagues into a new political battleground as they work to distinguish themselves ahead of the 2024 GOP primary. The issue had already emerged as a major vein

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter Long before the leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, some Supreme Court justices often used personal email accounts for sensitive transmissions instead of secure servers set up to guard such information, among other security lapses not made public in the court’s report on the

By Sonnet Swire, CNN A suspected Chinese surveillance balloon in the skies over the continental United States has sparked national security and diplomatic concerns, adding to already tense Washington-Beijing relations. The incident prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone his highly anticipated trip to China, saying Friday that the high-altitude Chinese balloon entering US

By Ariane de Vogue and Tierney Sneed, CNN The North Carolina Supreme Court, which flipped to a Republican majority with last year’s elections, said Friday it would rehear a redistricting case and a voter ID case — cases that the state’s GOP legislature had lost when they were previously before the state’s highest court. The

By Annie Grayer, Sara Murray, Zachary Cohen and Marshall Cohen, CNN House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Friday subpoenaed the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Education for documents as part of its investigation into whether a Justice Department strategy to address threats against teachers and school officials was abused to target

By Nikki Carvajal, CNN The US and allies are trying to further limit Russia’s ability to make money and finance its war efforts with new price limits on products like gasoline and fuel oil, a senior Treasury official announced Friday — adding to sanctions on Russian energy sales in response to the country’s invasion of

By Haley Britzky, CNN As the US and its Canadian partners continue to monitor a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon floating above the northern United States, one question stands out among the rest: Why hasn’t it been shot down? Officials have said that the balloon’s path carries it over a “number of sensitive sites” in the

By David Wright and Clare Foran, CNN GOP Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana announced Friday that she will not run for any office in 2024, opting out of the race for the seat held by Republican Sen. Mike Braun, who is running for governor, while also declaring her intention to leave Congress. “I won a

By Annie Grayer, Sara Murray, Alayna Treene and Zachary Cohen, CNN Rep. Jim Jordan, one of the GOP’s most vocal partisans and now the chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee, started a recent meeting on the “weaponization” of the federal government with a surprising move: He urged caution. Rather than issuing a series of partisan

By MJ Lee and Kevin Liptak, CNN Several months after President Joe Biden promised Saudi Arabia would suffer “consequences” after the Saudi-led OPEC+ oil cartel unexpectedly announced it would cut production, the Biden administration has no plans to take proactive steps to punish — let alone significantly reorient its posture toward — the oil-rich Middle

By Jennifer Hansler, Kevin Liptak, Jeremy Herb, Kylie Atwood, Jim Sciutto and Oren Liebermann, CNN US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has postponed his upcoming trip to China in response to the flying of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the United States, in what marks a significant new phase in the tensions between Washington

By Alayna Treene, CNN House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul has invited former Afghanistan Ambassador to the US Roya Rahmani to be his guest for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address next week, CNN has learned exclusively. Rahmani, a fierce defender of women’s rights in Afghanistan, was the country’s first female ambassador

By Jennifer Hansler and Kylie Atwood, CNN Harrison Li and Katherine Swidan both worry they may never see their loved ones again. Kai Li — Harrison Li’s father — and Mark Swidan — Katherine Swidan’s son — are both Americans who have been imprisoned for years in China, and both have been designated by the

By Katie Lobosco, CNN The Biden administration is making it a little easier for borrowers who were misled by their for-profit college to apply for student loan forgiveness. This comes as the president’s broader, separate plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt is held up in the courts. The Department of Education launched

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN Several state Democratic lawmakers in Connecticut are seeking to ban state agencies from using “Latinx,” — the latest example of political backlash against the term. Members of the Connecticut state House introduced a bill last month that would prohibit state agencies and employees acting on behalf of state agencies from using

By Kylie Atwood and Jennifer Hansler, CNN Members of Congress are urging Secretary of State Antony Blinken to pressure China to do more to curb the flow of fentanyl and synthetic opioids into the United States on his visit to the country which is expected to take place in the next few days. On Wednesday,

By Shawna Mizelle, CNN Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders will deliver the Republican response to President Joe Biden‘s upcoming State of the Union address, according to an announcement from GOP congressional leaders. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced Thursday that Sanders will give the Republican address to the nation

By Shania Shelton, CNN Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she will support Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff’s bid for US Senate in California if the state’s longtime senator, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, decides not to run for reelection next year. “If she decides not to run, I will be supporting House Intelligence Committee Chair

By Daniel Dale, CNN Former President Donald Trump, who is now running for president again, made an inaccurate claim on Wednesday about his successor’s response to the Russian war in Ukraine. Trump said in an online video that President Joe Biden is “now doing what he said 10 months ago would lead to World War

By Shawna Mizelle Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Thursday that he sees Mitch McConnell’s decision to pull him off the Senate Commerce Committee as retribution for challenging the Kentucky senator’s position as leader of the GOP conference. “He completely opposed me putting out a plan,” Scott said to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, referencing his

By Phil Mattingly, Betsy Klein and Maegan Vazquez, CNN President Joe Biden announced Thursday that his National Economic Council Director Brian Deese plans to step down from his role, a long-awaited confirmation of an expected departure. Biden’s statement did not provide any details on a successor or timing of Deese’s departure, but praised his top

By Betsy Klein and Lauren Fox, CNN President Joe Biden offered an olive branch to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Thursday as he gave an interfaith and bipartisan address to the National Prayer Breakfast, remarks on Capitol Hill that come amid pressing issues including the debt limit, a national conversation on justice and policing and

By Marshall Cohen, CNN Washington — President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence are all facing scrutiny regarding their potential mishandling of classified documents. In all three cases, sensitive government materials were found in places where they shouldn’t have ended up. But there are key distinctions that differentiate each

By Tierney Sneed, CNN When the Senate Judiciary Committee meets Thursday to vote on another slate of President Joe Biden‘s judicial nominees, Democrats will be benefiting from more than their two additional years of Senate control. Democrats — with the expansion of their majority in the midterms to a 51-49 margin — have gained new

By Emily Bushey, CNN Federal law enforcement officials are investigating a US Navy veteran’s allegation that Rep. George Santos raised money for a lifesaving surgery for his dying dog only to take off with the money. Rich Osthoff, the veteran, told CNN he spoke to a pair of FBI agents on Wednesday about the incident

By Tierney Sneed Republican attorneys general from 20 states wrote letters to executives at CVS and Walgreens warning the pharmacy chains against using the mail to dispense abortion pills in their states, in a shot against a new Biden administration policy. The letters rebuke recent guidance from the Justice Department — issued in an opinion

By Haley Britzky, CNN The US Navy assisted the French military in seizing thousands of assault rifles and half a million rounds of ammunition that were heading to Yemen from Iran in January, the US military confirmed on Wednesday. The seizure in the Gulf of Oman occurred on January 15, according to 5th Fleet spokesman

By Andi Babineau, CNN The Environmental Protection Agency has blocked a controversial mining project set for development in Alaska over concerns about adverse effects on salmon fisheries in the area, according to a release from the agency. The announcement stops the Pebble Mine project, which would have become the largest copper, gold and molybdenum extraction

By Tierney Sneed The lawyer who will lead the court fights mounted by the newly GOP-controlled House of Representatives is a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and “seasoned litigator” with years of experience at the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the appointment of Matthew Berry, who most recently

By Kara Scannell, CNN A top executive of the Trump Organization is expected to appear Thursday before a Manhattan grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump’s alleged role in a hush money payment scheme, people familiar with the matter said. The executive, Jeffrey McConney, the controller of the Trump Organization, is one of the highest-ranking

By Ella Nilsen, CNN The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday advanced the controversial Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope, releasing the final environmental impact statement before the project can be approved. The ConocoPhillips proposed Willow drilling plan is a massive and decadeslong project that the state’s bipartisan Congressional delegation says

By Aaron Pellish and Karl de Vries, CNN Michael Cohen, former President Donald Trump’s former attorney, has handed over his cell phones to Manhattan prosecutors, he told “CNN This Morning” on Wednesday. Prosecutors are zeroing in on the Trump Organization’s involvement in hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels as part of an

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN Republican lawmakers slammed President Joe Biden’s border policies on Wednesday and laid the groundwork for an impeachment case against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the first of a series of hearings on immigration since seizing control of the House. Over the course of Biden’s presidency, Republicans have repeatedly criticized the

By Lauren Fox, Alayna Treene and Jeremy Herb, CNN Congressional Democrats are betting that a coordinated offense is their best defense against the coming Republican investigative onslaught. Democrats on Capitol Hill, at the White House, in agencies and in outside political groups are gearing up to do battle with the Republican committee chairs probing all

By Phil Mattingly, Chief White House correspondent President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy aren’t friends. Biden’s advisers describe the relationship in bland but respectful terms like “cordial” and “professional.” The president on Tuesday called McCarthy a “decent man” and the speaker said after a November meeting between Biden and congressional leaders he “can

By Gabby Orr, Kristen Holmes, Kaitlan Collins and Kate Sullivan, CNN Six months into his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump made a telling admission. “I don’t normally do stops like this,” he told the officers at a local police precinct in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who were there to deliver an endorsement. The political newcomer had

By Maegan Vazquez and Clare Foran, CNN House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not walk away from his highly anticipated White House meeting on Wednesday with an agreement in hand to address the debt limit, but signaled optimism that both he and President Joe Biden can reach consensus “long before” the United States reaches default. McCarthy

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN Nine Republican-led states asked a federal judge in Texas on Tuesday to block a rule providing protections to nearly 600,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, a group often described as “Dreamers.” It’s the latest move in an ongoing legal fight over the Obama-era Deferred Action

By Natasha Bertrand and Alex Marquardt, CNN Top Ukrainian officials have in recent days escalated their public lobbying campaign for US-made F-16 fighter jets, arguing they need them urgently to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks. But that push is being met with skepticism by US and allied officials who say the jets would

Sydney Kashiwagi, CNN Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill into law Tuesday that enshrines the “fundamental right” to access abortion in the state. Abortion is already legal in Minnesota, but in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, the Protect Reproductive Options Act goes a step further by outlining

By Steve Contorno and Kit Maher, CNN Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he intends to ban state universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in hopes that they will “wither on the vine” without funding. “It really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter,” the Republican said while speaking

By Paula Reid, Devan Cole, Jamie Gangel and Evan Perez, CNN The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s former think tank office in Washington in November after his team notified the National Archives that they found classified documents there, according to a Justice Department official and another source familiar with the matter. The Justice official told