Politics

Massive amounts of radioactive waste brought to the surface by oil and gas wells have overwhelmed the industry and the state and federal agencies that regulate it, according to a report released today by the prominent environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. The waste poses “significant health threats,” including the …

Covid-19 vaccines are readily available and restrictions have been lifted across the country, but the pandemic is far from over. In fact, it’s starting to get worse. According to The New York Times, the daily average case rate has increased in 46 of 50 states over the past two weeks. …

WASHINGTON —In the fall of 1981, a young conservative lawyer named John Roberts, fresh off a Supreme Court clerkship, arrived at the Justice Department at the start of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Hired as a special assistant to the attorney general, Roberts focused on voting rights, and in particular the battle …

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is not messing around when it comes to student loan reform. The senator has been holding up the confirmation of President Biden’s nominee to lead higher ed policy at the Department of Education as a way of bargaining for promises to overhaul student loans, Bloomberg and …

WASHINGTON — When Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) announced his opposition to the Democrats’ sprawling reform bill to rein in dark money, gerrymandering, and voter suppression, that bill, the For the People Act, was declared all but dead. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), however, says reports of the bill’s death are, …

Ranked-choice voting. You’ve heard a lot about it. Maybe you’ve read a lot about it, too. Maybe you’ve been explaining how it works to your friends at social gatherings, which are a thing again. Still, ranked-choice voting, and the degree to which it will impact New York City‘s Democratic mayoral …

More than a year after the pandemic reached the U.S. and less than six months after vaccination began, the country reached a milestone Friday — now more than 50 percent of the population has received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control …

South Carolina lawmakers voted to allow firing squads as an execution option when carrying out death penalty sentences. The state’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster, said he will sign the legislation into law. On Wednesday, the state’s House approved the bill requiring inmates sentenced to the death penalty to choose between …

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) — who maintains he is extremely innocent of everything the FBI is investigating him for — sought a “blanket” pardon from President Trump in the final days of Trump’s time in office. The New York Times reported the news on Tuesday night, a week after it …

Georgia was one of the most reliable conservative strongholds in the nation before it voted for President Joe Biden last November and then, two months later, a pair of Democratic senators. The state’s still-very-Republican legislature has since been doing all it can to make sure this never happens again, and …