Kacen Bayless | (TNS) The Kansas City Star JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A Cole County judge will decide whether the Missouri Republican Party can block a candidate with alleged ties to the Ku Klux Klan from running for governor as a Republican. Circuit Court Judge Cotton Walker held a one-day trial in Jefferson City on Thursday over a lawsuit from the state party seeking to remove the candidate, Darrell Leon McClanahan III, from the August ballot. McClanahan, who resides in Milo, a small village in southwestern Vernon County, filed to run for governor as a Republican and paid his $500 filing fee ..read more

Noah Bierman | (TNS) Los Angeles Times President Joe Biden spent his Earth Day in a national forest this year with an explicit pitch to young people: a climate jobs corps intended to excite Gen Z the way John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps inspired their grandparents. Biden took a selfie with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive New York Democrat, to remind voters that he was the first president to truly embrace elements of her Green New Deal, signing a signature $369-billion spending package in 2022 — the biggest climate bill in American history — to ignite the re ..read more

Matt Vasilogambros | (TNS) Stateline.org Preventing people who are not United States citizens from casting a ballot has reemerged as a focal point in the ongoing Republican drive to safeguard “election integrity,” even though noncitizens are rarely involved in voter fraud. Ahead of November’s presidential election, congressional and state Republican lawmakers are aiming to keep noncitizens away from the polls. They’re using state constitutional amendments and new laws that require citizenship verification to vote. Noncitizens can vote in a handful of local elections in several states, but alre ..read more

Arthur Allen | (TNS) KFF Health News When doctors began using the drug sotorasib in 2021 with high expectations for its innovative approach to attacking lung cancer, retired medical technician Don Crosslin was an early beneficiary. Crosslin started the drug that July. His tumors shrank, then stabilized. But while the drug has helped keep him alive, its side effects have gradually narrowed the confines of his life, said Crosslin, 76, who lives in Ocala, Florida: “My appetite has been minimal. I’m very weak. I walk my dogs and get around a bit, but I haven’t been able to golf since last July.” H ..read more

David Matthews | New York Daily News Stormy Daniels blasted Donald Trump on social media Thursday night, just a few hours after she finished testifying against the former president in his Manhattan hush-money trial. “Real men respond to testimony by being sworn in and taking the stand in court. Oh…wait. Nevermind,” she wrote in a post on X — a taunting reference to Trump not testifying in the case and using his own social media accounts to rail against the proceedings. The zinger came after Trump’s lawyers unsuccessfully requested a mistrial based on Daniels’ testimony. If ..read more

Jessie Hellmann | (TNS) CQ-Roll Call WASHINGTON — Six months after the launch of the Biden administration’s “birthing friendly” designation for hospitals, advocates are questioning the next steps for the tool aimed at incentivizing better care for patients. Beginning last fall, hospitals that achieved the designation received an icon on Care Compare, a federal website aimed at helping consumers pick health care providers. But it’s not difficult for hospitals to receive the designation, with 2,225 — that is, most eligible hospitals — having received it as of April. Of the nearly 1,000 acut ..read more

A new family of COVID variants nicknamed “FLiRT” is spreading across the country, as vaccination rates nationwide remain concerningly low for some public health experts. While symptoms and severity seem to be about the same as previous COVID strains, the new FLiRT variants appear to be more transmissible, said infectious disease expert Dr. Robert Murphy. “A new, more contagious variant is out there,” said Murphy, executive director of Northwestern University’s Institute for Global Health and a professor of infectious diseases at the Feinberg School of Medicine. “COVID-19 is still with us, and ..read more

By JOHN RABY (Associated Press) CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — For Derrick Evans, being part of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol wasn’t enough. The former West Virginia lawmaker wants to make his path to the halls of Congress permanent. On the other side of the metal barricades that day, Police Officer Harry Dunn couldn’t stand what he saw as he defended the Capitol and its inhabitants from rioters on Jan. 6, 2021. Ultimately, the Maryland resident watched lawmakers he had protected vote to acquit former President Donald Trump and deny the violence and trauma that led to the deaths of some of h ..read more

California, we have a job-loss problem. All the noise about rising California layoffs – especially at technology companies – is adding up to real pain. Consider a Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis of household employment surveys that shows 482,700 Californians lost their jobs in the year ending in the first quarter. My trusty spreadsheet found California job losses are No. 1 in the nation, though the state was followed by other economic heavyweights. Texas was No. 2 at 274,900, then New York at 220,600, Illinois at 155,700, and Florida at 141,900. And these job cuts were California’s worst ..read more

By WAFAA SHURAFA and JOSEPH KRAUSS (Associated Press) RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city of Rafah has left crucial nearby aid crossings inaccessible and driven more than 110,000 people to flee north, U.N. officials said Friday. With nothing entering through the crossings, food and other supplies were running critically low, aid agencies said. The World Food Program will run out of food for distribution in southern Gaza by Saturday, said Georgios Petropoulos, an official with the ..read more