Politics Election category, Page 107
Bill allows for stuffed toys made and/or sold in Pennsylvania to be more eco-friendly
Teddy bears and other stuffed animals sold in Pennsylvania may soon go green. The state House of Representatives on Monday voted 154-48 to send a bill to Gov. Josh Shapiro for enactment that would end a 63-year-old prohibition on the distribution and sale of stuffed toys made with recycled materials...
After a ‘rough’ start, Sen. John Fetterman opens up about his mental health journey
ASPEN, Colo. — It wasn’t the 2022 election that nearly killed Sen. John Fetterman. By his own account, it was the aftermath. The Pennsylvania Democrat has been candid about his personal experience with depression and self-harm, shining a spotlight on what can still be a taboo subject for many Americans....
Is Trump shielded from criminal charges as an ex-president? A nation awaits word from Supreme Court
WASHINGTON — In the coming days, the Supreme Court will confront a perfect storm mostly of its own making: a trio of decisions stemming directly from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Within days of each other, if not hours, the justices are expected to rule on...
Can Biden perform and can Trump be boring? Key questions ahead of high-stakes presidential debate
NEW YORK — Rarely, if ever, has one candidate in a presidential debate had so much material to use against the other. Republican Donald Trump has been convicted of 34 felony counts with serious charges in three other indictments still pending. As president, Trump nominated three of the justices who...
Conservative-backed group is creating a list of federal workers it suspects could resist Trump plans
WASHINGTON — From his home office in small-town Kentucky, a seasoned political operative is quietly investigating scores of federal employees suspected of being hostile to the policies of Republican Donald Trump, an effort that dovetails with broader conservative preparations for a new White House. Tom Jones and his American Accountability...
Here’s a look at Trump’s VP shortlist and why each contender may get picked or fall short
NEW YORK — Donald Trump has narrowed his vice presidential shortlist to a handful of contenders as he prepares to announce his pick in the days before — or perhaps even at — next month’s Republican National Convention. He told reporters Saturday that he already has made his decision and...
Attacker of Nancy Pelosi’s husband also found guilty of kidnapping and could face more prison time
SAN FRANCISCO — A man who bludgeoned Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer and was sentenced to 30 years in federal court was also convicted Friday of aggravated kidnapping by a state court which could put him behind bars for life. A federal judge last month sentenced David DePape to...
Long a Republican state, Louisiana is redder than ever under new governor
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana has long been reliably red. The Bayou State has voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential election since 2000, with residents overwhelmingly supporting Donald Trump during the past two, and the GOP has held a majority in the statehouse for years. But policies in...
How Biden and Trump are taking very different approaches to preparing for next week’s debate
NEW YORK — President Joe Biden begins an intense period of private preparations Friday at Camp David for what may be the most consequential presidential debate in decades. The 81-year-old Democrat’s team is aware he cannot afford an underwhelming performance when he faces Republican rival Donald Trump for 90 minutes...
Trump dwarfs Biden in latest fundraising numbers: Billionaire Timothy Mellon donates $50 million to pro-Trump group
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s campaign outraised President Joe Biden by more than $60 million last month, according to federal filings that detailed the Republican fundraising explosion sparked by Trump’s felony convictions. Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee together raised a robust $85 million in May and reported $212...
New Louisiana law requiring classrooms to display Ten Commandments churns old political conflicts
NEW ORLEANS — A bill signed into law this week makes Louisiana the only state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every classroom in public schools and colleges — and stirs the long-running debate over the role of religion in government institutions. Under the new law, all...
RFK Jr.’s campaign files petitions to get on presidential ballot in swing-state Pennsylvania
HARRISBURG — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed paperwork Thursday to get on the ballot for the November election in swing-state Pennsylvania, the state’s election office said. Kennedy’s filing comes six weeks before the Aug. 1 deadline, after which the paperwork can be challenged in court. The campaigns...
Pennsylvania court will decide whether skill game terminals are gambling machines
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s highest court will decide whether the cash-paying electronic game terminals that have become commonplace in convenience stores, bars and elsewhere are unlicensed gambling machines and, as a result, must be shut down. The state Supreme Court said this week that it will consider an appeal by the...
TikTok accuses federal agency of ‘political demagoguery’ in legal challenge against potential U.S. ban
TikTok disclosed a letter Thursday that accused the Biden administration of engaging in “political demagoguery” during high-stakes negotiations between the government and the company as it sought to relieve concerns about its presence in the United States. The letter — sent to David Newman, a top official in the Justice...
Jill Biden returning to Pittsburgh to campaign for abortion rights
First lady Jill Biden is returning to Pittsburgh on Sunday in an effort to remind voters that the Biden administration is seeking to protect their abortion rights. Biden will visit Pittsburgh on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade,...
The fight for abortion rights gets an unlikely messenger in swing state Pennsylvania: Sen. Bob Casey
HARRISBURG — Abortion rights, suddenly a potent political force in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to leave such matters to the states, have found an unlikely champion in swing state Pennsylvania. Sen. Bob Casey, who will appear on the November ballot beneath President Joe Biden as the...
New law requires all Louisiana public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments
BATON ROUGE — Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom, the latest move from a GOP-dominated Legislature pushing a conservative agenda under a new governor. The legislation that Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law on Wednesday requires...
Republicans block bill to outlaw bump stocks for rifles after Supreme Court lifts Trump-era ban
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans blocked bipartisan legislation Tuesday that would have outlawed bump stocks after the Supreme Court struck down a ban on the rapid-fire gun accessory used in the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history. Democrats tried to force a voice vote on the bill to ban bump stocks,...
The politics of memes: How Biden and Trump are fighting each other on the internet
WASHINGTON — Whether it’s a grinning Joe Biden as “Dark Brandon” or Donald Trump’s face superimposed onto a scene from HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” both presidential campaigns this year have embraced digital memes, the lingua franca of social media. The campaigns of the Democratic president and Republican former president enthusiastically...
Biden’s campaign announces a $50 million advertising blitz highlighting Trump’s conviction
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is spending $50 million through the end of June, a blitz that includes its first television ad trumpeting Donald Trump’s felony conviction and signals that the Democratic incumbent is seeking to make his Republican opponent’s legal woes a bigger issue heading into November....
Clooney and Roberts help Biden raise $28 million at a fundraiser featuring dire warnings about Trump
LOS ANGELES — Some of Hollywood’s brightest stars headlined a glitzy fundraiser for President Joe Biden on Saturday night, helping raise what his reelection campaign said was $28 million and hoping to energize would-be supporters for a November election that they argued was among the most important in the nation’s...
Biden goes straight from G7 to Hollywood fundraiser, balancing geopolitics with his reelection bid
LOS ANGELES — After flying through the night across nine time zones, from southern Italy to Southern California, President Joe Biden is shifting his focus from Russia’s challenge of Western unity to raking in big money for his reelection campaign at a Hollywood fundraiser featuring George Clooney and Julia Roberts....
Trump’s Michigan trip will include stops at a Black church and a gathering of far-right activists
DETROIT — Donald Trump will use back-to-back stops Saturday to court Black voters and a conservative group that has been accused of attracting white supremacists as the Republican presidential candidate works to stitch together a coalition of historically divergent interests in battleground Michigan. Trump is scheduled to host an afternoon...
Speaker Johnson says House will go to court for Biden audio
WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday the House will go to court to enforce the subpoena against Attorney General Merrick Garland for access to President Joe Biden’s special counsel audio interview, hours after the Justice Department refused to prosecute Republicans’ contempt of Congress charge. “It is sadly predictable that...
The RNC is launching a massive effort to monitor voting. Critics say it threatens to undermine trust
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — The Republican National Committee on Friday launched a swing state initiative to mobilize some 100,000 polling place monitors, poll workers and attorneys to serve as “election integrity” watchdogs in November — an effort that immediately drew concerns that it could lead to harassment of election workers...
