Politics

USA Today reports: Ohio lawmakers voted Wednesday to criminalize marital rape in all situations, ending a years-long fight over a law that critics cast as archaic and harmful to survivors. The Ohio Senate unanimously passed legislation which eliminates a measure that protects spouses from prosecution against rape, unless the perpetrator used force or the couple lives in separate homes. It …

From the New York Times’ live blog: Speaker Johnson is now starting his news conference amid boos after meeting with Jewish students. He is surrounded by a group of House Republicans, including New York lawmakers and Representative Virginia Foxx, chairman of the committee that has been holding the hearings on antisemitism on campuses. Johnson says: “The madness has to stop. …

Quinnipiac Polling reports: Two-thirds of voters (66 percent) think abortion should be legal in either all cases (34 percent) or most cases (32 percent), while 27 percent of voters think abortion should be illegal in either most cases (22 percent) or all cases (5 percent). Support for legal abortion (66 percent) is at the highest level in two decades of …

The Washington Post reports: The Arizona House voted Wednesday to repeal a Civil War-era ban on nearly all abortions that is set to take effect as early as June 8. The measure now heads to the state Senate, which could grant final passage next week. Three Republicans in the House crossed party lines Wednesday to vote with all of the …

Reuters reports: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday he will suspend public duties until next week to decide whether he wants to continue leading the government after a court launched a business corruption probe into his wife’s private dealings. Sanchez, who last year secured another term for his Socialist party as leader of a minority coalition government, said …

The Hill reports: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) endorsed Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) on Wednesday, defending the congressman as he faces criticism from fellow Republicans after dubbing two far-right members of the caucus “scumbags.” Gonzales went after Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Bob Good (R-Va.) over the weekend, saying the Freedom Caucus members “walk around with white hoods,” and referencing …

The New Jersey Globe reports: Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark) – an immensely likable, low-key but effective, progressive six-term congressman from New Jersey with a passion for social justice and constituent service – died today. He was 65. Payne suffered a heart attack on April 6 and had been unconscious and on a ventilator since then at Newark Beth Israel …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports: As Mr. Trump sat in a courtroom in Manhattan on Tuesday during the first criminal trial of a former president in U.S. history, some staunchly Republican voters told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that they could not vote for their party’s standard-bearer. “I’m a pretty strong Republican, but it’s hard to support Mr. Trump,” said Terry Bimle, 68, …

Reuters reports: An Australian senator said on Wednesday that police feared Elon Musk’s decision to ignore a regulator order and leave footage on his social media platform X of a Sydney bishop being stabbed might encourage people to join terrorist groups. An Australian court has upheld a regulator order for the billionaire to take down posts containing footage of the …

SCOTUSblog reports: Less than a month after the justices heard oral arguments in a case seeking to roll back access to one of the drugs used in medication abortions, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday in another case involving abortion. At issue in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States is whether emergency rooms in …

“I think she is uninformed, she is a total waste of time, and I’m embarrassed to have actually lived geographically in her district at one time before she was there. She is a horrible leader. She is dragging our brand down. She, not the Democrats, are the biggest risk to us getting back to a majority.” – GOP Sen. Thom …

The Verge reports: A bill that would force China-based company ByteDance to sell TikTok — or else face a US ban of the platform — is all but certain to become law after the Senate passed a foreign aid package including the measure. It now heads to President Joe Biden, who already committed to signing the TikTok legislation. Once signed …

Mediaite reports: “I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump’s character,” Sen. Mitt Romney told CNN’s Manu Raju outside the Capitol on Tuesday. “And so far as I know, you don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.” Though Romney is a longtime Trump critic, the comment was a sharp missive from the typically buttoned-up …

The Hill reports: Former 2024 GOP presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson is joining Scripps News as a political analyst, the news organization announced Monday. Hutchison, a former Arkansas governor who ran in the Republican primary for president this cycle, is set to appear regularly on Mondays on the news outlet’s politics and campaign-oriented evening show, “The Race.” Another presidential candidate who’s …

The Arizona Mirror reports: A slew of Republican bills, including those that would have allowed discrimination against transgender people and would have given public school teachers a green light to post the Ten Commandments in their classrooms, were vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs. Hobbs, who has made it clear that she’ll use her veto power on any bills that don’t …

Bloomberg News reports: Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro praised Elon Musk as a free-speech advocate, in his latest effort to build opposition to the country’s Supreme Court as his legal troubles mount. Bolsonaro and his supporters painted the court as overzealous and anti-democratic at a rally in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday as they railed against Judge Alexandre de Moraes, …

NBC News reports: The latest national NBC News poll shows the third-party vote — and especially independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — cutting deeper into former President Donald Trump’s support than President Joe Biden’s, though the movement the other candidates create is within the poll’s margin of error. Trump leads Biden by 2 percentage points in a head-to-head …

Mike Pence writes in a New York Times op-ed: It was so disheartening for me to see former President Trump’s recent retreat from the pro-life cause. Like so many other advocates for life, I was deeply disappointed when Mr. Trump stated that he considered abortion to be a state-only issue and would not sign a bill prohibiting late-term abortions after …

Florida Politics reports: Sen. Rick Scott is practicing perseverance in sending again the articles of impeachment to Alejandro Mayorkas, the United States’ Director of Homeland Security, after the Democratic-controlled Senate dismissed the House charges without a trial, and after Mayorkas admitted he didn’t even read the papers. “Under oath, you testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental …

The Mississippi Free Press reports: Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves declared April 2024 as Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi, keeping alive a 31-year-old tradition that began in 1993. Beauvoir, the Biloxi museum and historic home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, announced the proclamation in a Facebook post on Friday. Beauvoir is owned and operated by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a …