U.S. Political Party Preferences Shifted Greatly During 2021  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — On average, Americans' political party preferences in 2021 looked similar to prior years, with slightly more U.S. adults identifying as Democrats or leaning Democratic (46%) than identified as Republicans or leaned Republican (43%).

Texas rabbi: Security training paid off in hostage standoff  —  COLLEYVILLE, Texas (AP) — U.S. and British authorities Monday continued an investigation into the weekend standoff at a Texas synagogue that ended with an armed British national dead and a rabbi crediting past security training …

Who Is King of Florida?  Tensions Rise Between Trump and a Former Acolyte  —  A spat over Covid has exposed friction between the former president and a rising G.O.P. governor unwilling to curb his ambitions.  —  For months, former President Donald J. Trump has been grumbling quietly …

The left dreamed of remaking America.  Now, it stares into the abyss as Biden's plans wither.  —  In 2020, prominent liberals promised major changes to the safety net and climate policy  —  Just three years ago, as they vied to lead the country, the Democratic Party's presidential candidates competed …

School Closures Were a Catastrophic Error.  Progressives Still Haven't Reckoned With It. … Recently, Nate Silver found himself in the unenviable role of main character of the day on Twitter because he proposed that school closures were a “disastrous, invasion-of-Iraq magnitude (or perhaps greater) policy decision.”

Book bans are back in style  —  School districts from Pennsylvania to Wyoming are bowing to pressure from some conservative groups to review — then purge from public school libraries — books about LGBTQ issues and people of color.  —  Why it matters: A pivotal midterm election year …

How Manchin and Sinema Completed a Conservative Vision  —  The decision by Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to block their fellow Democrats from passing new federal voting-rights legislation clears the path for years of tightening ballot restrictions in Republican-controlled states.

Covid Live Updates: Approval of U.S. Pandemic Response Hits New Low  —  Just 36 percent of Americans in a recent poll thought U.S. coronavirus efforts were “going well.”  In New York, tentative optimism has taken hold.  —  Here's what you need to know:  —  Just over a third of Americans …

The Trump Org Stiffed a Hotel.  His Kids May Pay the Price.  —  The D.C. attorney general wants to drag the Trump Organization back into a lawsuit.  His evidence?  An unpaid $49,000 hotel bill.  —  Former President Donald Trump and his family company have a long history of stiffing contractors …

‘270 doctors’ called out Joe Rogan, but the authors of the letter and the vast majority of its signatories are not medical doctors  —  Only a handful are practicing physicians.  —  Are you seeing all of those blaring corporate press headlines targeting Joe Rogan this weekend …

Rolls-Royce, Bentley, BMW Sales Surge as Cheaper Brands Lag Behind  —  Luxury sales boom as car makers shift scarce chip and raw materials toward high-margin models  —  BERLIN—A surge in luxury-car sales and the shifting of scarce semiconductors to the most profitable vehicles helped …

Electoral act reform picks up growing bipartisan support  —  An increasingly broad and powerful array of lawmakers is coalescing around the idea of changing how Congress tallies Electoral College votes — as MLK Day comes and goes on Monday without broader voting rights reforms.

'It's ugly out there': Rail thefts leave tracks littered with pilfered packages  —  The scene was a stretch of railroad tracks in Lincoln Heights on Saturday: A blizzard of torn plastic wrappers, cardboard boxes and paper packaging attesting to a wave of rail car thievery that officials say has been on the rise in recent months.

Democrats see good chance of Garland prosecuting Trump  —  Senate Democrats believe there is a good chance the Department of Justice will prosecute former President Trump for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol …

It's Long Past Time to Prosecute Phony GOP Electors  —  The individuals who signed and transmitted fraudulent Electoral College ballots claiming their states voted for Donald Trump must be held to account.  —  DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTERS PROTEST OUTSIDE CLARK COUNTY ELECTION DEPARTMENT WHERE BALLOTS …

Kristi Noem's on a Political Rocket Ship.  But Don't Rule Out a Crash.  —  SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — One Saturday last fall, around the opening of South Dakota's pheasant hunting season, a crowd of businesspeople and political benefactors who'd come to meet and hunt with the state's governor …

To Honor MLK, Focus on His Actual Work  —  Stop pretending to know what he'd be like today.  —  Were he alive today, on the federal holiday celebrating his contributions to civil rights, Martin Luther King would be 93 years old.  —  Today's federal holiday was established 15 years after King was assassinated.