Politics

President Joe Biden is expected to announce Tuesday that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its guidance for wearing masks outdoors, three people familiar with the expected announcement said. Ahead of his first address to Congress on Wednesday, the President will give remarks on the state of the pandemic on Tuesday.

The Justice Department on Tuesday abandoned the idea that pro-Trump rioters had used bear spray against US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick during the January 6 riot, a major change after implying for weeks that bear spray, not pepper spray, had been deployed. Prosecutors addressed the seemingly small but significant difference at a detention hearing

Critics of California Gov. Gavin Newsom have met the state’s threshold with enough validated signatures to force a recall election of the Democratic governor this year, a contest that could land on the ballot as early as this summer or as late as December. The recall had long been expected to qualify because it was

Progressive Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is reintroducing three policing bills she hopes will be incorporated into the bipartisan package lawmakers have been fine-tuning for weeks as pressure mounts on Congress to pass meaningful legislation that will impose new police practices across the country. All three bills were first introduced in the last Congress,

Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican Senate candidate seeking to challenge Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2022, once wrote in support of an “ex-gay” Christian organization that promoted discredited “conversion therapy” and said that homosexuality was caused by “sexual molestation during childhood.” In an article unearthed by CNN’s KFile, Tshibaka wrote that gay people can “work through

The Justice Department has charged at least 400 people in connection with the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, according to CNN’s latest review of court documents. The 400 known defendants come from 43 states and Washington, DC, according to CNN’s analysis. The massive federal inquiry has added several defendants nearly each day since

The Senate confirmed Colin Kahl to be the No. 3 civilian at the Pentagon on Tuesday, approving President Joe Biden’s nominee for Pentagon policy chief on a party-line vote. The 49-45 vote came one week after Vice President Kamala Harris broke a 50-50 tie on a procedural vote to advance Kahl’s nomination, in the first

An Alaska state lawmaker who had called flight attendants “mask bullies” and clashed with airline employees on video over mask rules is now banned from Alaska Airlines for her “continued refusal to comply” with the mask policy, the airline said in a statement. The restriction on Republican state Sen. Lora Reinbold will make her job

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will meet with former President Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter in their hometown of Plains, Georgia, on Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. The event will mark the first time the couples will meet in person since Biden became president. The

The State Department on Tuesday ordered the departure of government employees from the US Embassy in Kabul “whose functions can be performed elsewhere” as the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan gets underway. US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad told senators in a Tuesday hearing that some diplomats who “are not necessary to

President Joe Biden will nominate Harris County, Texas, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, a critic of former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, to serve as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the White House announced Tuesday. Gonzalez, who was elected sheriff of Harris County in 2016, has a decades-long career in law enforcement, according to his biography.