California lawmakers are reining in AI. Alabama and Mississippi are finally open to implementing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. And Arizona lawmakers are considering the therapeutic effects of psychedelic mushrooms.

State lawmakers are increasingly driving big policy debates as Congress struggles to keep the federal government funded. And the impasse on Capitol Hill is likely to get worse this year, with the presidential contest putting partisan discord into overdrive.

With a low birth rate and a high number of job vacancies, Germany is preparing to reform its immigration and citizenship laws. Three statutes under consideration—a skilled labor law, a legal status law, and new citizenship law—would cause a "paradigm shift" in Germany's immigration policy, says Victoria Rietig, head of the migration program at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) announced on April 9 that the FY 2023 state budget will include a provision to permanently permit to-go sales of beverages containing alcohol. Far from being an outlier, Governor Hochul’s announcement was the latest in a long series of decisions made by governors and state legislators over the past two years to loosen restrictions on the sale of beer, wine, and spirits. 35 states eased regulations during the pandemic to allow bars and restaurants to sell beverages containing alcohol to-go.

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said the Centers for Disease Control now recommends using a cloth face covering to protect against coronavirus, but said he does not plan to do so himself.

Speaking at a White House news conference on Friday, Trump stressed that the recommendations were merely voluntary, not required. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it” he said as he announced the new guidance.

Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday defended the social network's decision not to send speech from politicians to third-party fact-checkers, a move that's drawn scrutiny, especially from Democrats in the US.

"I don't think most people want to live in a world where you can only post things that tech companies judge to be 100% true," Zuckerberg said during a nearly 40-minute speech at Georgetown University.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social media behemoth considered banning political ads, but ultimately chose not to do so in order to protect free speech.

“Given the sensitivity around political ads, I’ve considered whether we should stop allowing them altogether,” Zuckerberg said during a speech at Georgetown University on Thursday. “From a business perspective, the controversy is not worth the very small part of the business that they make up.”

How much would a “Medicare for all” plan, like the kind being introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders on Wednesday, change health spending in the United States?

Some advocates have said costs would actually be lower because of gains in efficiency and scale, while critics have predicted huge increases.

We asked a handful of economists and think tanks with a range of perspectives to estimate total American health care expenditures in 2019 under such a plan. The chart at the top of this page shows the estimates, both in composition and in total cost.

This Abridge News topic aggregates four unique arguments on different sides of the debate. Here are the quick facts to get you started:

THE QUICK FACTS

President Trump argued on Tuesday for changes in tax law, health care and immigration policy by lobbing Twitter insults at the NFL, Congress, Democrats, and fellow Republican Bob Corker, among others.