Is America ready for gay president? Iowa casts first votes

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The nation's first gay presidential candidate to reach his party's top tier, Pete Buttigieg, is scheduled to be among 10 Democrats at a LGBTQ forum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Friday. Buttigieg and the first-ever such Iowa caucus forum beg the question he faces: Is America ready for a...

US envoy meets Israel's embattled PM to discuss peace plan

JERUSALEM (AP) — The U.S. envoy to the Middle East met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, days after elections that left the Israeli leader's political future in doubt. Netanyahu suffered an apparent setback when he and his allies failed to secure enough seats for a narrow, right-wing...

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio drops 2020 presidential bid

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio ended his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination on Friday after struggling to gain traction in a sprawling field of candidates. Announcing his decision in an MSNBC interview, de Blasio did not throw his support behind any candidate but...

CORRECTS: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he is ending his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

WASHINGTON (AP) — CORRECTS: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he is ending his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. (Corrects APNewsAlert to lower case 'de' and put a space before Blasio)

Kennedy mystique could factor into Massachusetts Senate race

BOSTON (AP) — When Edward M. Kennedy was running for the U.S. Senate for the first time in 1962, his Democratic primary opponent turned to him during a debate and said if his last name was Moore — Kennedy's middle name — his "candidacy would be a joke." Fortunately for Kennedy, he shared a...

Democrats shift 2020 strategies as Iowa draws closer

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Kamala Harris will "exponentially" increase the time she's spending in Iowa. Bernie Sanders is shaking up his operations there and in New Hampshire. And Beto O'Rourke is going broader, turning up at such places as a San Quentin prison and an Arkansas gun show. With just over four...

Key Senate panel approves $250 million for election security

WASHINGTON (AP) — A key Senate panel on Thursday approved $250 million to help states beef up their election systems, freeing up the money after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell came under criticism from Democrats for impeding separate election security legislation. The Kentucky Republican announced...

O'Rourke says he's open to broadening gun buyback proposal

AURORA, Colo. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke says he's open to broadening his proposal to require owners of AK-47s and AR-15s to sell them to the government. During an emotional town hall Thursday near the site of the Colorado theater shooting, a man who identified himself as a...

State police union to stop paying ex-president's legal fees

BOSTON (AP) — The union representing Massachusetts State Police troopers and sergeants says it has voted to stop paying the legal fees for its former president who was indicted on several federal charges last week. The Boston Globe reports the State Police Association of Massachusetts voted overwhelmingly...

Bernie Sanders says he's reached 1 million individual donors

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders' campaign says that it has received contributions from more than 1 million individual donors and that it's the first in the crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field to do so. In a statement Thursday, the Vermont senator's campaign says more than 99.9% of those donors...