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Politics & Government

In this Jan. 29, 2016 photo, Terry Work stands outside a store that accepts food stamps in Bon Aqua, Tenn. The House farm bill would expand to age 59 the current requirement that adults up to age 49 work or participate in job training or educational activities as a prerequisite for food stamps.

Politics & Government

Farm bill’s food stamp changes are largely symbolic despite GOP bid to tighten rules

Despite a promise by House Republicans to use the farm bill to crack down on state-level abuse of the federal food aid program, California and other states Republicans consistently accuse of abusing the system are coming out basically unscathed.

In this 2016 photo, people fish along the Sacramento River in the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, near Courtland, Calif.

News

EPA rolls back regulations on what bodies of water are subject to Clean Water Act

The Environmental Protection Agency is stripping rules that would have enforced federal clean water regulations on thousands of bodies of water in the United States.

President Donald Trump was joined on stage by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell during a rally for U.S. Rep. Andy Bar in Richmond in October.

News

McConnell, once a holdout, calls for Senate vote on criminal justice reform

The Senate will vote on criminal justice reform this month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Tuesday.

Saudi dissident Ali Al-Ahmed poses for a photograph in his office in Washington in late October. Al-Ahmed says forensic researchers have determined that scores of emails he has received in the past year were attempts to infect his computer with spyware. He blames operatives working for the Saudi monarchy.

Nation & World

Khashoggi’s friends, other foreigners, are being watched. The U.S. can do little about it

Friends of slain writer Jamal Khashoggi as well as other foreign nationals in the U.S., are beign spied on by their home countries. There’s little the U.S. can do about it.

California DMV customers angry over rising wait times

Capitol Alert

A pleasant DMV experience + Leg Analyst search continues + What’s in the budget?

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles is reducing wait times, and the change is noticeable

Guatemalan teens ‘severely injured’ in fall from US border wall in Arizona

National

Guatemalan teens scaling 18-foot U.S. border wall ‘severely injured’ in fall, agents say

Two teens fell climbing an 18-foot US-Mexico border wall near the San Luis Port of Entry outside Yuma, Arizona, and were hospitalized. Border agents took four other Guatemalan migrants into custody.

In this Dec. 7, 2018 photo, President Donald Trump speaks the 2018 Project Safe Neighborhoods National Conference in Kansas City, Mo. Trump’s growing legal peril has unnerved Republicans who believe the turmoil has left the president increasingly vulnerable as he gears up for what is sure to be a nasty fight for re-election.

National Politics

Some Trump allies starting to worry about investigations

Some Republicans starting to worry about impact of investigations on Trump-re-election.

The Forest Service wants to round up 1,000 wild horses in this California forest

Capitol Alert

Sale, possible slaughter of California horses delayed while they get their day in court

The U.S. Forest Service has agreed to postpone the sale of hundreds of wild horses rounded up in Northern California. Such a sale would open the horses up to be purchased by foreign slaughterhouses.

President Donald Trump stands with House Speaker Paul Ryan, right, and Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, center, during an event May 4, 2017, in the White House Rose Garden after Republicans passed legislation aimed at repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Politics & Government

Meadows would bring political skill to chief of staff job. But can he control Trump?

NC Rep. Mark Meadows is a top pick for White House Chief of Staff as President Donald Trump’s has struggled to find someone to fill what has become one of the most perilous jobs in Washington.

FILE - In this Sept. 13, 2017, file photo, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. talks to reporters about his plan to meet with President Donald Trump to discuss race at the Capitol in Washington. Scott’s opposition Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018 to President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as a North Carolina district judge likely doomed the chances of Thomas Farr, criticized by civil rights groups for defending state laws found to have discriminated against African-Americans.

Politics & Government

Tim Scott wants his party to get smarter on race. His colleagues are making it tough.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, wants his GOP colleagues to get smarter about the judges they nominate, urging them to steer clear of candidates with questionable records on race. Republicans aren’t getting the message.

Capitol Alert

Kamala Harris aide who resigned after harassment case was one of her closest confidantes

California Senator Kamala Harris had a long relationship with aide Larry Wallace, who resigned after The Sacramento Bee inquired about a harassment and retaliation settlement from his time at Department of Justice.

Capitol Alert

OC recount starts + Union leader turns political strategist + Lawmakers travel to India

Election officials in Orange County on Dec. 10, 2018 began recounting ballots in the 34th state Senate district, where Democrat Tom Umberg unseated incumbent Republican Janet Nguyen.

President Donald Trump talks to media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Saturday, Dec. 8, 2018, for the short trip to Andrews Air Force Base en route to Philadelphia to attend the Army-Navy Football Game.

National Politics

Whether a president can be prosecuted remains in dispute

An open question: Can a president be prosecuted or must he leave office first?.

Shot of an unrecognisable nurse standing in a hospital

Health & Medicine

Why 150,000 doctors, others wrote to oppose Trump’s proposed change in immigration rule

More than 150,000 doctors, health care organizations and others have flooded the Federal Register with comments condemning a Trump Administration plan that would make it harder for immigrants to maintain their legal residency status if they seek federal assistance for food, health care or housing.

In this Nov. 1, 2018 photo, President Donald Trump walks in to the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, to talk about immigration and border security. Chief of Staff John Kelly is at right. Trump says chief of staff John Kelly will leave his job at the end of the year.

News

John Kelly’s legacy now tied to Trump’s policies and “worst impulses”

President Trump announced on Saturday that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was leaving. The two men had very different styles

California

Delta tunnels won’t get green light before Gov. Brown leaves office. What will Gavin Newsom do?

In a potentially significant setback for Gov. Jerry Brown’s Delta tunnels project, state officials Friday backed off from seeking approval from the Delta Stewardship Council, an obscure California agency that needed to sign off on the controversial plan to build two huge tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the hub of California’s water delivery network.

Politics & Government

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