Politics

By David Shortell, CNN A Texas federal judge on Friday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine mandate for federal employees, dealing another blow to President Joe Biden’s campaign to increase the country’s lackluster vaccination rate. Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown called the mandate an overstep of presidential authority and cited the recent Supreme Court

By Alex Rogers and Manu Raju, CNN Democrats are substantially tamping down their ambitions after failing to pass their top priorities, turning their attention to keeping the lights on and passing narrowly targeted legislation while scrambling to salvage aspects of their sprawling economic agenda. In the past month, Democrats failed to pass a $1.75 trillion

By David Wright, CNN Three recent ads from Republican Senate candidates explicitly echo the false claim that the 2020 election was rigged or stolen, illustrating how lies from former President Donald Trump and his allies continue to drive GOP messaging ahead of the 2022 midterms. In a new ad from Rep. Billy Long, running in

By Maegan Vazquez, CNN Labor Secretary Marty Walsh announced a new federal roadmap to improve job quality and job access on Friday, as Americans continue to leave the workforce in record numbers amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The program, called the Good Jobs Initiative, was unveiled by Walsh — the former mayor of Boston — at

By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN Cmdr. Billie Farrell on Friday became the first female to captain the USS Constitution in the historic warship’s 224-year history. Farrell assumed duties as the 77th commanding officer of Old Ironsides following a change-of-command ceremony held Friday at Boston’s Charlestown Navy Yard. A native of Paducah, Kentucky, Farrell was a sixth

By Liz Stark, CNN The Biden administration will start paying federal civilian employees a $15 hourly minimum wage by the end of the month, the Office of Personnel Management announced Friday, raising the pay for thousands of workers across the federal government. OPM Director Kiran Ahuja in a new memo provided guidance to agency leaders

By Kevin Liptak, CNN President Joe Biden on Friday accepted an invitation to visit Japan in the late spring during his virtual meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, according to a senior administration official. It would be Biden’s first visit as president to Asia, a region he’s vowed to prioritize even as crises with Russia

By Tami Luhby, CNN Marisa Diaz y Diaz doesn’t understand why her order for the free federal home Covid-19 tests isn’t going through. The Uniondale, New York, resident rents a single-family home from a friend. But when she entered her information on covidtests.gov on Tuesday, she got an error message stating that the tests were

By Daniel Dale, CNN Republican Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, a doctor who formerly served as White House physician to presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, made a sensational claim this past weekend about undocumented immigrants. “In 2022, illegal immigrants will have MORE FREEDOMS and easier access to healthcare and ballot boxes than most Americans… Just

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State and its affiliated groups raised $4.5 million last year — a record haul for the group and the latest indication of the heightened interest in once-sleepy down-ballot races for state election chiefs. The fundraising total, shared first with CNN, is three times what the

By Jeremy Herb, Veronica Stracqualursi and Vasco Cotovio, CNN US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that any Russian invasion of Ukraine would be “met with a severe and a united response” following his meeting Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the latest round of diplomatic talks that Blinken said provided a “clearer path

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN A proposal to vaccinate migrants that was a source of tension inside the White House last year is back on the table as the Biden administration tries to change the way the United States deals with migrants at the southern border. In August, when a report on the proposal emerged, top

By Donald Judd and Kate Sullivan, CNN President Joe Biden on Friday urged Congress to pass legislation strengthening research and development and manufacturing for supply chains to address global semiconductor shortages. Semiconductor shortages have been a persistent thorn in the Biden administration’s side. The shortage of the chips — which are essential for the production