Author

Jennifer Shutt

Jennifer Shutt

Jennifer covers the nation’s capital as a senior reporter for States Newsroom. Her coverage areas include congressional policy, politics and legal challenges with a focus on health care, unemployment, housing and aid to families.

President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort is seen on November 1, 2019 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Search warrant shows Trump under investigation for possible Espionage Act violations

By: - August 12, 2022

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday unsealed the warrant that allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to search former President Donald Trump’s property at Mar-a-Lago in Florida earlier this week, revealing he’s under investigation for possibly violating the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice. The seven-page document, which includes a brief description of everything […]

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during his confirmation hearing in February 2021 in Washington, D.C.(Photo by Demetrius Freeman-Pool/Getty Images)

U.S. attorney general says DOJ asked for public release of search warrant for Trump estate

By: - August 11, 2022

WASHINGTON — U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice has moved to release the search warrant a federal judge issued earlier this week that allowed federal agents to enter former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.   DOJ, Garland said, filed a motion in the Southern District of […]

U.S. President Joe Biden hands a pen to Brielle Robinson, daughter of the late Sgt. First Class Heath Robinson, after he signed The PACT Act in the East Room of the White House August 10, 2022 in Washington, DC. The bill is the biggest expansion of veteran's benefits since the Agent Orange Act of 1991 and will expand health care benefits to millions of veterans exposed to toxic substances during their military service. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Biden signs landmark bill aiding veterans exposed to burn pits overseas

By: - August 10, 2022

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed legislation into law Wednesday that will provide health care and benefits to veterans exposed to burn pits in Afghanistan and Iraq, achieving a long-term, personal goal. “I was in and out of Iraq over 20 times,” Biden said of prior trips to the war zone he took as both […]

Health workers sit at a table at a pop-up monkeypox vaccination clinic which opened today by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health at the West Hollywood Library on August 3, 2022 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Biden administration proposes changing how monkeypox vaccine is administered

By: - August 9, 2022

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration began encouraging health care providers Tuesday to change the way they’re administering vaccines to protect against monkeypox, in an attempt to stretch out doses fivefold.  The latest shift in strategy comes as the administration races to curtail the spread of the virus, which jumped from 778 cases one month ago […]

U.S. Capitol (Photo by Russ Rohde/Getty Images)

U.S. Senate in turnaround backs aid for veterans exposed to burn pits

By: and - August 2, 2022

WASHINGTON —  The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed bipartisan legislation that would provide health care and benefits to millions of veterans exposed to toxic substances while deployed overseas, after many Republicans switched their votes and decided to once again back the legislation. The shift came after days of protest and vigils outside the U.S. Capitol, […]

People protest in response to the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Court's decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health overturns the landmark 50-year-old Roe v Wade case and erases a federal right to an abortion. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Four members of U.S. Senate unveil bipartisan bill ensuring nationwide abortion rights

By: - August 1, 2022

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of U.S. senators released legislation Monday that would codify Roe v. Wade, ensuring pregnant patients throughout the country once again have the right to an abortion.  Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said the measure, […]

U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas speaks at a news conference June 7, 2022, in Washington, D.C., on legislation to provide health care for veterans exposed to burn pits. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

Stalled U.S. Senate bill on veterans’ burn pit exposure could be revived this week

By: - August 1, 2022

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate could be on track to advance a bill as soon as Tuesday that would provide veterans exposed to toxic substances overseas with health care and benefits, after a weekend in which outraged veterans camped out on the steps of the Capitol to protest a delay in the legislation.  A Senate […]

This digitally colorized electron microscopic (EM) image depicts monkeypox virus particles, obtained from a clinical sample associated with a 2003 prairie dog outbreak. It was a thin section image from of a human skin sample. On the left were mature, oval-shaped virus particles, and on the right were the crescents, and spherical particles of immature virions. (Photo by Cynthia S. Goldsmith, Russell Regnery and Hannah Bullock/U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Congress mostly silent as states struggle to contain monkeypox

By: - July 28, 2022

WASHINGTON — Two months after doctors diagnosed the first case of monkeypox in the United States, Congress has yet to hold a hearing, or give any significant attention to the painful and debilitating virus that’s spread to more than 4,600 people.  Public health officials in the Biden administration have held several briefings, expanded testing capacity […]

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - MARCH 22: A soldier in the Afghan National Army (ANA) walks past a burn pit at a command outpost recently handed over to the ANA from the United States Army on March 22, 2013 in Kandahar Province, Zhari District, Afghanistan. The United States military and its allies are in the midst of training and transitioning power to the Afghan National Security Forces in order to withdraw from the country by 2014. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

U.S. Senate fails to advance burn pits bill for veterans in dispute over spending

By: - July 27, 2022

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate came up short Wednesday in trying to move ahead on legislation that would provide health care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits overseas. The bill, from Montana Democratic Sen. John Tester and Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, has been bogged down for nearly two months as U.S. lawmakers […]

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., speaks at a press event where Democratic senators spoke in favor of the Right to Contraception Act on July 26, 2022, in Washington, D.C. To the left of Klobuchar is Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. In back of Klobuchar is Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and to the right is Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

Bill guaranteeing right to birth control blocked in U.S. Senate by Republican

By: - July 27, 2022

WASHINGTON —  U.S. Senate Democrats tried to pass legislation Wednesday that would guarantee women can continue using contraception if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the long-standing precedent, the way it did with abortion.  But Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst blocked their efforts by objecting to Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey’s request for unanimous consent to […]

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, talks with reporters about the Respect for Marriage Act, on Tuesday, July 26, 2022. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

GOP support for same-sex marriage protections builds in U.S. Senate

By: - July 26, 2022

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate appears on track to send President Joe Biden a bill in the coming weeks that would guarantee same-sex and interracial couples can marry, even if the Supreme Court overturns the landmark cases that enshrined those rights.  “I think we’re very close,” Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins said Tuesday of efforts […]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) walks to the Senate floor following a recess in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol on January 23, 2020, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Republicans in Congress shy away from campaigning on national abortion platform

By: - July 21, 2022

WASHINGTON — Republicans, hoping to flip control of Congress in the November elections, appear to have decided against campaigning on a unified abortion platform that would specify exactly what conservatives plan to do if given control of the U.S. House and Senate.  Yet Republicans in Congress have written dozens of proposals that, if passed, would […]