A Department of Justice opinion published Monday reversed a Biden administration directive that allowed Veterans Affairs to provide taxpayer-funded abortions, concluding that federal law bans the VA from offering abortion services in most circumstances. The DOJ Office of Legal Counsel said in the opinion that a rule the Biden administration issued in 2022, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs decision, flouted the law.  OLC Deputy...

The Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s request to allow the president to proceed with immediately deploying National Guard troops to Chicago — delivering a blow, if temporary, to President Donald Trump as he seeks to expand his federalization push across the U.S. The justices declined the Trump administration’s emergency request to overturn a ruling by U.S. District Judge April Perry that had blocked the deployment of troops....

As the year closes, Republicans are looking to the past for another dance with a partisan exercise that tested the party’s unity and delivered President Donald Trump his crowning legislative achievement of the year. Budget reconciliation is how congressional Republicans rammed through Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” earlier this year. But it’s a time-consuming, labor-intensive process that laid bare intra-party divisions and nearly exploded before liftoff. Still, some Republicans...