As many as a third of defendants in urban areas remain in jail because they could not post bail. An increasing number of states are changing that with risk-based systems of pre-trial detention.
In the Obama administration, Republican-dominated states such as Texas often sought to block the president's agenda. In the Trump era, California may play that same role.
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen David Friedman as America's next ambassador to Israel. The lawyer is strongly critical of the two-state solution and supports settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
NPR's Robert Siegel talks to political commentators E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution, and Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard. They discuss President Obama's response to Russian hacking of Democrats, the electoral college and the pro-life movement.
Intelligence sources tell NPR that the FBI agrees with the CIA's assessment that Russia interfered in the U.S. election, in part, to help Donald Trump.
Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, lost in November to Democrat Roy Cooper. The law leaves the new administration weaker, in particular, on a key board that oversees elections.