Politics

President Biden has declared “the battle between democracy and autocracy” to be the defining struggle of his time. But when he rolls out the red carpet on the South Lawn of the White House for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India on Thursday morning, Mr. Biden will effectively call a temporary truce.In granting Mr. Modi a coveted state visit, complete with a star-studded gala dinner, Mr. Biden will shower attention on a leader presiding over democratic backsliding in the world’s most populous nation. Mr. Modi’s government has cracked down on dissent and hounded opponents in a way that has raised fears of an authoritarian turn not seen since India’s slip into dictatorship in the 1970s.Yet Mr. Biden has concluded, much as his predecessors did, that he needs India despite concerns over huma...

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Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said a plea deal on tax charges for Hunter Biden, President Biden's son, will not slow down House Republicans' investigation into the Biden family's business dealings.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna announced Tuesday night she secured enough support from Republicans to censure Rep. Adam B. Schiff and refer him to the ethics committee. ...

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled an Arkansas law that bans hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery for transgender minors is unconstitutional.U.S. District Judge Jay Moody said that the first-in-the-nation law violated the due process and equal protection rights of transgender youth and their families and it violated the First Amendment rights of health care providers by prohibiting them from referring patients elsewhere. "Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that, by prohibiting it, the state undermined the interests it claims to be advancing," Moody wrote. Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin said he was "disappointed" in the ruling and plan...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt University Medical Center has turned over medical records for transgender patients to the Tennessee attorney general’s team in what his office confirmed is an investigation into potential medical billing fraud.A Vanderbilt University Medical Center spokesperson confirmed to The Tennessean on Tuesday that the hospital provided the records to Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office.In a state that has moved to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth, the revelation that their records were handed over to the state spurred fear for some families — despite assurances from the attorney general’s office that the records would remain confidential and that patients aren’t the target of the investigation.The state ban doesn’t take effect until July 1, and i...

Comment on this storyCommentWhen Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Beijing on Sunday for two days of talks with top officials, people in China were skeptical.The secretary’s last name when pronounced in Mandarin sounds similar to the pain killer Ibuprofen. People joked on Weibo, the domestic equivalent of Twitter, that his visit would cause headaches rather than relieve them.Instead, it appears that Blinken’s visit has acted as a remedy, at least in the short term, alleviating some of the tensions in the bilateral relationship.“This is good for China’s international image, for its grand narrative,” said Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based scholar of international relations.The meeting gave Chinese leader Xi Jinping a chance to improve the country’s image abroad — not just in the Unit...