US politics

US politics

The briefing paper pointedly cites Newsom's veto of last year's Senate Bill 7, a union-backed bill to bar employers from using AI to make employee discipline and termination decisions. In rejecting it, Newsom said the measure was overly broad and would prevent even innocuous uses of AI. Newsom's veto exemplifies his efforts, as the AI industry explodes, to satisfy both the tech industry, with which he has decades-long political ties, and those who worry about AI's societal and economic impacts.

The New Jersey Democratic primary for the state's 11th Congressional District was plunged into uncertainty on Thursday night after Decision Desk HQ abruptly walked back its earlier projection calling a win for former congressman Tom Malinowski after a late surge by his progressive rival. The election analysis outlet had initially called the contest for Malinowski, only to retract its call hours later as election night data began cutting sharply against its assumptions.

Many Portlanders have asked that question since federal officials and agents have become increasingly hostile to immigrants or those they perceive to be immigrants, as well as people protesting President Trump's draconian immigration crackdown.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge's Political Psychology Lab tracked shifts in Americans' views across nearly four decades and found that divisions were broadly stable through the 1990s and early 2000s, before rising steadily from 2008 onward. Using more than 35,000 responses from the American National Election Studies between 1988 and 2024, they estimate that issue polarization has increased 64% since the late 1980s, with almost all of that change occurring after 2008.

Roughly half of U.S. states now have their own rules for driverless cars, creating a patchwork of regulations. Lawmakers say that uneven oversight, combined with several high-profile incidents, underscores the need for uniform federal guardrails that don't stifle innovation yet ensure public safety. Senators cite safety issues, demand more transparency "We need more honesty from the industry so that there is in fact transparency in everything that they know that the American public should know as well," said Sen. Ed Markey, D-MA.

OAKLAND Federal prosecutors have signaled they may call a San Leandro city councilman as a witness in the upcoming bribery and fraud trial against former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and the men accused of bribing her. The revelation by Assistant U.S. Attorney Abraham Fine came as hints emerged during a federal court hearing Thursday of broader corruption across the East Bay, particularly in Oakland.

We're not going to keep going to work and boosting the world's greatest economy in exchange for us to give up on democracy. If we have to destroy the stock market to save democracy, we need to accept that and, more importantly, the richest and the most powerful people in the world and in this country need to understand that that is a real possibility. There is no economic stability without democratic stability. If you take away our democratic stability, we will take away

The House Subcommittee on Energy this week advanced five recently introduced bills aimed at boosting the physical and cyber security of the United States' electric grid and other energy infrastructure. The bills collectively aim to update Department of Energy (DOE) programs, enhance grid and pipeline protections, and prioritize cybersecurity for vulnerable sectors amid rising threats. One of the bills is H.R. 7258, named the Energy Emergency Leadership Act,

When Rosaly Estevez self-deported from Miami to Havana last November, US immigration officers bid farewell by removing her ankle monitor. The 32-year-old had been told she was about to be detained, so she left with her three-year-old son, Dylan, a US citizen. It's been brutal, said Estevez. Imagine Dylan hugging his phone every night when he sees his dad. I wouldn't wish this on any mother.

How it works: The site features discounts that the Trump administration has negotiated with drug companies, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. People can't buy drugs directly from the site. Instead, it's a landing page with links that take them to pharmaceutical companies' direct-to-consumer purchasing platforms, or coupons that can be presented at a pharmacy. People who have health insurance could still pay cash for a medication from the site.

Vance is in Italy to lead the official US delegation at Friday's opening ceremony, joined by second lady Usha Vance, Rubio and billionaire Tilman Fertitta, the US ambassador to Italy and owner of the NBA's Houston Rockets. The group watched Thursday's game from the second and third rows at center ice behind the scorer's table alongside Olympic gold medal-winning hockey sisters Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday called for a new nuclear treaty instead of extending the caps on nuclear weapons deployments with Russia. Hours after the pact that held the world's two largest nuclear arsenals in check for more than two decades expired, Trump said that the New START treaty was "badly negotiated" and "is being grossly violated." "We should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future," he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Abraham Lincoln first earned national attention by calling out President James K. Polk's lies about the lead-up to the conflict, which lasted from April 1846 to February 1848, on the floor of Congress. Ulysses S. Grant called the war "one of the most unjust ever waged." Henry David Thoreau's famous essay "Resistance to Civil Government" was written partly in response to the Mexican-American War, which he decried as "the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool." Other American paragons of virtue who were publicly opposed at the time: William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederick Douglass.

The price of Bitcoin has fallen to its lowest level in 15 months despite US president Donald Trump's personal and public support of cryptocurrency. A single Bitcoin is now worth $66,000 (48,700), its lowest level since October of 2024, with the price down 24% since the start of this year. The drop followed months of surging Bitcoin prices, which saw the cryptocurrency hit an all-time high of $122,200 in October.

Recent months have seen deadly anti-government protests spread across Iran as Trump repeatedly threatened more US military intervention and tightened crippling sanctions. The US president has since surged a multibillion-dollar armada of US military assets off the coast of Iran, following a playbook that preceded both the previous strikes on Iran as well as the US abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on January 3.

Buried in Part C is a provision requiring all 3D printers sold or delivered in New York to include 'blocking technology,' the company said in a blog post. This is defined as software or firmware that scans every print file through a 'firearms blueprint detection algorithm' and refuses to print anything it flags as a potential firearm or firearm component.

EEOC chair, Andrea Lucas, an ardent critic of racial diversity initiatives who was appointed last year by President Donald Trump, said US anti-discrimination law is colour-blind and protects employees of all races. Thanks to President Trump's commitment to enforcing our nation's civil rights laws, the EEOC has renewed its focus on even-handed enforcement of Title VII, Lucas said in a statement, referring to a section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, colour, religion or sex.