National Politics

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN Richard Barron, who oversees elections in Georgia’s biggest Democratic county, is announcing his resignation Wednesday — following a tumultuous year that has included death threats against him and his staff and the potential takeover of election operations in the county by state officials. His announcement comes one day after municipal elections

By Rachel Janfaza, Lauren Dezenski and Chandelis Duster, CNN A number of trailblazing candidates made history this week, as CNN projected that people of color across the country were elected to top positions at both the state and city level. Here’s a look at some of the historic firsts from Election Night 2021. Winsome Sears,

By Holmes Lybrand and Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN A federal judge has ordered a January 6 defendant to be released from the DC jail after an unannounced inspection by US Marshals last month showed mistreatment of detainees and increased the judge’s concern that a defendant with cancer would not be treated properly. Judge Royce Lamberth said

By Clare Foran, CNN Senate Republicans blocked the John Lewis Voting Rights Act from advancing on Wednesday when the Senate took a procedural vote on whether to open debate on the legislation. The final tally was 50 to 49 with GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voting with Democrats in favor. The John Lewis voting

By Barbara Starr, Oren Liebermann, Ellie Kaufman, and Adam Pourahmadi, CNN The US strongly rejected Iran’s accusation that the US Navy had tried to confiscate Iranian crude oil aboard a tanker in the Gulf of Oman, with Pentagon spokesman John Kirby calling the claims “absolutely, totally false and untrue.” Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed it had

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN US officials issued a sweeping directive on Wednesday requiring federal civilian agencies to promptly update hardware and software that is vulnerable to hacking following multiple breaches of government networks in recent years. The directive gives agencies just two weeks to remediate newly discovered software vulnerabilities, and requires agencies to have a

By Oren Liebermann, CNN China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal and may have 1,000 nuclear warheads by the end of the decade as it aims to surpass US global influence by the middle of the 21st century, according to a major Pentagon report released on Wednesday. The estimate, based on the rapid modernization of

By Katie Bo Lillis and Sean Lyngaas, CNN US Cyber Command head and director of the National Security Agency Gen. Paul Nakasone said Wednesday that the US had “conducted a surge” over the past three months to address the problem of ransomware attacks on US interests. Nakasone said the US government had taken aim at

By Annie Grayer, CNN House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a major shift, announced Wednesday that four weeks of paid family and medical leave will be added back into the social spending bill, after Democrats had previously scrapped the provision from the package. The California Democrat is pushing for a vote on both the $1.75 trillion

By Jeff Zeleny, John Harwood, Betsy Klein, Kate Sullivan and Kevin Liptak, CNN President Joe Biden on Wednesday received an unwelcome wake-up call for his still-new presidency as the Democrat arrived back in Washington from a European excursion suddenly facing a transformed political landscape. Republican Glenn Youngkin’s projected gubernatorial victory over Democratic former Gov. Terry

By Ella Nilsen, CNN After President Joe Biden entered the US into a global pledge at COP26 to end and reverse deforestation, a top Democrat in the House introduced a bill Wednesday to put financial weight behind Biden’s commitment. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s legislation would establish a $9 billion trust fund at the US

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN The Department of Homeland Security has rescinded a Trump-era policy limiting entry of undocumented immigrants at legal ports of entry and released new guidance on the process, according to a recently-released memo. Migrants seeking asylum can present at ports of entry to make their claim, but under the Trump administration, DHS

By Arlette Saenz, CNN President Joe Biden’s commission on the Supreme Court is delaying submission of its final report by one month to December 15, a source familiar with the commission told CNN. The commission, which was formed via executive order in April, initially was scheduled to complete its final report by mid-November — 180

By Kevin Liptak, CNN Meeting his foreign counterparts behind closed doors in Rome this weekend, President Joe Biden repeatedly recited for them a key figure: $555 billion. That is the massive sum of money set aside to combat climate change in the sweeping social spending plan he’s been trying to get through Congress. In conference