Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., called to “open the courtroom doors” so parents can sue Meta, accusing founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg of misleading Congress after whistleblowers detailed child safety failures on the company’s virtual reality (VR) platforms. Two former Meta researchers told a Senate panel Tuesday that the company buried child harm evidence in VR, killed age-verification studies and let AI chatbots flirt with kids, prompting a bipartisan...

It was a full-on nuclear explosion. Just like the Pacific Testing Grounds near the Marshall Islands and French Polynesia. But this political blast tore through the Senate chamber. In November 2013, late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., detonated the first Senate “nuclear option.” He curbed the filibuster to confirm executive branch nominees — except the Supreme Court. Rather than 60 votes to break a filibuster, such nominees...

Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston on Tuesday easily came out on top in a preliminary municipal contest to advance to November’s mayoral election, amid a new crackdown in Massachusetts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  Voters in New England’s most populous city cast ballots to narrow the mayoral field to two in Democrat-dominated Boston. Wu, the first woman and person of color elected Boston mayor, faced off...