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Democratic members of Congress on Monday gathered on the National Mall in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility. (Stock photo by Vladimir Vladimirov/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — Nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers Monday gathered on the National Mall in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility, pushing back against the Trump administration’s policies that harm the trans community. It came as the Trump administration has moved to block gender-affirming health care for transgender children ,  bar transgender members from serving in the U.S. military , deny gender markers for passports and  ban transgender athletes from women’s sports. Transgender Day of Visibility is dedicated to recognizing the transgender community for their accomplishments and raising awareness of the discrimination that trans people face.  Lawmakers like Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida slammed President Donald Trump and his administration. He said that Trump is using transgender people ...

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 3, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — Top Democrats in Congress are asking the Government Accountability Office to open an investigation into whether the Trump administration violated federal law by freezing funding for several programs. Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, ranking members on the House and Senate Budget committees, wrote in  a two-page letter sent Monday to the government watchdog organization that certain actions appear to have violated the Impoundment Control Act. “Unilaterally impounding funds is illegal, and Donald Trump and Russ Vought are trying to gut the federal government piece by piece,” Merkley wrote in a statement accompanying the letter. “GAO must get to the bottom of this and reiterate to the administration that Congress has the power of the purse, not Trump and Vought.” The Senate...

Multiple Republican-led states have sued to rescind a federal rule keeping the records of those who sought legal reproductive care private, while a federal judge in Texas is questioning the constitutionality of the federal HIPAA law in its entirety. (Wichayada Suwanachun/Getty Images) The decades-old federal law protecting the privacy of individual health information is threatened by multiple lawsuits that seek to throw out a rule restricting disclosure of information in criminal investigations, including for those seeking legal abortion and other reproductive health care. In one of the cases, the Texas federal judge who has been at the center of several anti-abortion court battles appears to question the constitutionality and legality of the health privacy act in its entirety. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — or HIPAA — established in 1996 to protect the privacy and security of patient health information, includes some exceptions under limited conditions, ...

Anna Schlobohm de Cruder stands for a portrait in March amid the remains of her Altadena, Calif., home, which was destroyed in the Eaton Fire early this year. California is among the states considering bills that would force fossil fuel companies to pay recovery costs for climate disasters. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) This story originally appeared on Stateline . For many California residents, the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year were the latest and most searing example of the devastating effects of climate change. Some estimates have pegged the damages and economic losses from the fires at more than $250 billion. “We’ve had disaster after disaster after disaster,” said Assemblymember Dawn Addis, a Democrat. “It’s the taxpayers and the insurance ratepayers that are bearing the cost. It’s not sustainable, it’s not right and it’s not ethical.” Addis and Democratic lawmakers in nearly a dozen other states want to force the world’s largest fossil fuel companies to help pay for t...

House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville and fellow Democrats unveil legislative priorities at the Alabama Statehouse Tuesday Jan. 28, 2025. Democrats have introduced a bill to make an income tax exemption on overtime pay permanent. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector) Democrats in the Alabama House of Representatives have introduced a bill to preserve an income tax exemption on overtime pay that Republicans plan to jettison to pay for a tax cut package that includes a grocery tax reduction. HB 467 , sponsored by House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, would remove a June expiration date from the tax break, approved in 2023, and create a commission to study its economic impact. “These are hardworking Alabamians that are putting into our economy,” Daniels said at a press conference last week. “These are not handouts. These are dollars that they are earning.” When approved, the tax break was estimated to cost the Education Trust Fund budget $34 million. But the ...

Then-Former President Donald Trump speaks at a fundraiser for the Alabama Republican Party on Friday, Aug. 4, 2023 in Montgomery, Alabama. Republicans in Alabama's congressional delegation have embraced or been silent on Trump's tariffs on cars and agricultural products, which could have major effects on the state economy. (Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector) By middle school, we’re all taught that the word “democracy” combines “demos,” the Greek word for people, with “kratos,” meaning rule. Rule of the people. That doesn’t describe the government we live under. Alabamians say they want Medicaid expansion . They don’t seem keen on the state’s effective abortion ban . If you let Alabama voters decide whether the state should have a lottery, odds are that it would pass , and it wouldn’t be close. None of those initiatives will pass the Legislature anytime soon. State government rests on gerrymandered districts that give party extremists a loud voice in elections. It’s also hi...

Program participant Nathan Shack listens to a service provider give a presentation during veterans treatment court in Anniston, Alabama on March 21, 2023. Two bills moving through the Alabama Legislature would rename drug courts "accountability courts" and allow them to enroll veterans and those with mental illnesses. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector) Two bills working their way through the Alabama Legislature would standardize how diversion programs in the state operate. SB 200 , sponsored by Sen. Andrew Jones, R-Centre, and HB 360 , sponsored by sponsored by Rep. Chad Robertson, R-Heflin, rebrand “drug courts” to “accountability courts” and allows courts to assign veterans; people with a mental illness and those with drug addictions to rehabilitation programs instead of the criminal justice system. “We need a standardized process for veterans to get help around the state,” Jones said in an interview Wednesday. “And we need more courts, frankly, around the state, to adop...

White House Senior Advisor to the President, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk arrives for a meeting with Senate Republicans at the U.S. Capitol on March 05, 2025 in Washington, DC. Musk is scheduled to meet with Republican lawmakers to coordinate his ongoing federal government cost cutting plan. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) While the role and actions of the Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency remain somewhat murky, data privacy experts have been tracking the group’s moves and documenting potential violations of federal privacy protections. Before President Donald Trump took office in January, he characterized DOGE as an advisory body,  saying it would “provide advice and guidance from outside of government” in partnership with the the White House and Office of Management and Budget in order to eliminate fraud and waste from government spending. But on Inauguration day, Trump’s  executive order establishing the group  said Musk would have “full...

For the past decade, BMI has been used to deny or delay abortion care, despite researchers finding little evidence of increased adverse outcomes during abortion procedures based on higher body weight alone. (Photo by Tetra Images/Getty Images) Lexis Dotson-Dufault’s second pregnancy, like her first, was marked by incessant vomiting. She suffered from the pregnancy-related condition hyperemesis gravidarum, and she wasn’t prepared to parent. So in late summer of 2022, after deciding to terminate at a California reproductive health clinic where she was already a patient, she was surprised when the doctor refused to perform the scheduled abortion procedure, or to even meet her. All because of one metric in her chart: her body mass index (BMI). “I was like, ‘You’re telling me that I’m too fat to get the basically safest procedure in the world? Like, OK, I guess,’” said Dotson-Dufault, who is now the executive director for Abortion Fund of Ohio. Like more than  2 in 5 U.S. adults , ...