Author: Reporter

President Joe Biden is heading to the Mexico-U.S. border on January 8, his first trip there as president after two years of hounding by Republicans who have hammered him as soft on border security while the number of migrants crossing spirals. Biden is due to spend a few hours in El Paso, Texas, currently the biggest corridor for illegal crossings, due in large part to Nicaraguans fleeing repression, crime and poverty in their country. They are among migrants from four countries who are now subject to quick expulsion under new rules enacted by the Biden administration in the past...

It has been 90 years, but socialism is back in the Wisconsin Legislature. After taking their oaths of office on January 3, two freshman Assembly members made it their first order of business to revive a socialist caucus that has been dormant since the 1930s. As self-identified democratic socialists, a movement that has been regaining popularity in the U.S. with the help of young Democrats, Reps. Ryan Clancy and Darrin Madison plan to hold their own meetings to advance their policy goals while also caucusing with Assembly Democrats. In the Republican-controlled Legislature, however, the socialist caucus is a minority...

Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected House speaker on a historic post-midnight 15th ballot early on January 7, overcoming holdouts from his own ranks and floor tensions that boiled over after a chaotic week that tested the new GOP majority’s ability to govern. “My father always told me, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,” McCarthy told cheering fellow Republicans. Eager to confront President Joe Biden and the Democrats, he promised subpoenas and investigations. “Now the hard work begins,” the California Republican declared. He credited former President Donald Trump for standing with him and for making late calls...

Republican lawmakers are moving quickly in the opening days of the legislative session to work around Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor Tony Evers, who vetoed a record number of bills from the GOP-controlled Legislature in his first term. Four constitutional amendments primarily supported by Republicans could be put before voters as soon as April. Republican backers of the measures are pushing for a final vote on at least two proposed amendments in the Legislature in the opening weeks of the session so they could make it onto the April 4 ballot, which will also have a pivotal state Supreme Court race...

In the days after a gunman killed five people at a gay nightclub in Colorado last month, much of social media lit up with the now familiar expressions of grief, mourning and disbelief. But on some online message boards and platforms, the tone was celebratory. “I love waking up to great news,” wrote one user on Gab, a platform popular with far-right groups. Other users on the site called for more violence. The hate is not limited to fringe sites. On Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, researchers and LGBTQ advocates have tracked an increase in hate speech and threats of...

As monks chanted evening prayers in the dimly lit Saint John’s University church, members of the student LGBTQ organization, QPLUS, were meeting in a dedicated, Pride flag-lined lounge at the institution’s sister Benedictine college, a few miles away across Minnesota farmland. To Sean Fisher, a senior who identifies as non-binary and helps lead QPLUS, its official recognition and funding by Saint John’s and the College of Saint Benedict is welcome proof of the Catholic schools’ “acknowledging queer students exist.” But tensions endure here and at many of the hundreds of U.S. Catholic and Protestant universities. The Christian teachings they...