First Run News

2020 is shaping up to be a busy year on the energy and environmental front. The Trump administration is pushing ahead with their broad regulatory rollback, while on Capitol Hill House Democrats are looking to pass legislation on their ambitious clean energy agenda. Hovering over those moves will be the approaching presidential election, certain to raise the stakes for Washington's environmental policy fights. Here are the five biggest fights we'll be watching in the year ahead.   EPA's regulatory rollback Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator MORE

Protesters at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad are withdrawing and declaring victory after camping outside the compound all night, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. The protesters, who support the Iranian-backed militia group Kataib Hezbollah, are now calling for the nation's parliament to push for U.S.

The battle for the Democratic nomination is nearing crunch time with roughly one month left before the Iowa caucuses. Some big-name candidates have dropped out — most notably Sen. MORE has joined the field. Who has the best chance of winning the nomination? 1. Former Vice President MORE (July ranking: 2)  Biden has led national polls since he launched his campaign in April.  His advantage has eroded since then, but it is still significant.

A federal strategy for defending the U.S. government against cyberattacks is one step closer to completion, with lawmakers saying they have a draft form that could be finalized as early as March. The report has been in the works since 2018 after the National Defense Authorization Act created a commission, consisting of lawmakers and industry leaders, to draw up recommendations. Rep.

The Supreme Court will hear a slate of highly charged disputes when the justices return to the bench in the new year and resume one of the most politically volatile terms in recent memory. Since the term opened in October, the court has heard high-profile fights over LGBT rights in the workplace, the scope of the Second Amendment and the deportation status of nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants. The remaining cases on the court’s docket are no less explosive.

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed legislation aimed at ending the backlog of rape kits nationwide. Presently, at least 100,000 rape kits are untested in the U.S. and are likely to remain so without adequate funding to test DNA in a timely fashion. The Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act of 2019, named in honor of a 1989 rape victim whose evidence went untested until 1994, will help fund DNA test training as well as education programs.

Two bloody tragedies, just a few hours apart on December 28-29—the mass stabbings at a synagogue in Monsey, New York, and the thwarted mass shooting at a church in Forth Worth, Texas—have put questions about guns and public safety in a valuable new light.  Yet at

NEW LONDON, Wis.—After it was clear that neither of her preferred candidates, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, was going to be elected president in 2016, Linda Behm prayed. Behm is an evangelical Christian and keeps a calendar filled with volunteer shifts at a thrift store and a food pantry in this small community an hour away from Green Bay. She wasn’t sure about supporting Donald J. Trump, the New York business magnate with a penchant for insults and crude behavior.

It’s the dawn of a new year, that time when people make resolutions about food and exercise, about work-life balance, about spending and saving — and, oh yeah, about politics, too. We asked Massachusetts’ statewide elected officials and top two legislative leaders about the year ahead. Some are Republicans and some are Democrats.