National News at a Glance

Democrats Face Primary Shove from New Left

The midterm election season gets underway with races in Texas on Tuesday and Illinois on March 20. Democrats need to pick up 24 seats to take back control of the House and are hoping a surge of grass-roots energy, activism and fundraising at levels unseen since the rise of Barack Obama can help play a crucial role. Yet the backlash to President Donald Trump’s divisive politics has also fueled a demand by the party’s progressive wing for ideological purity and more diverse representation, a tension that could reshape what it means to be a Democrat.

Even After a Mass Shooting, Florida Has Trouble Passing Gun Laws

The Florida state Senate shocked even itself Saturday when it voted to approve a two-year moratorium on sales of AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, going beyond the gun-related measures that Republican leaders said they would consider. Tellingly, though, that two-year moratorium lasted only 15 minutes. It had been approved by a voice vote, and opponents quickly insisted on reconsidering it, this time with a roll call to formally record how each senator voted. Evidently that turned some of the ayes heard by the Senate president into nays, because the proposal was defeated, 21-17. Republicans hold 23 of the state Senate’s 40 seats.

Days After Powerful Storm, Hundreds of Thousands Remain Without Power

Hundreds of thousands of people remained without electricity Sunday, after a storm swept through the eastern U.S. Friday. Some utility companies told customers that power may not be restored until later this week, around the time another storm could strike the region. At least eight people died after heavy snow, winds and rain tore through the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic on Friday. At its peak, more than 2 million people were affected by power losses, from South Carolina to Michigan to Maine, the U.S. Department of Energy reported. In New York, officials said 182,000 people remained without power Sunday afternoon.

As Trump Pushes Medicaid Testing, the Grading Falls Short

The Trump administration is hoping to transform Medicaid by allowing states to test work requirements, premiums and other conservative policies, but a new government report says federal and state officials do not properly evaluate whether such experiments improve patient care or reduce costs. Evaluations “generally lacked rigor,” and the findings were often kept secret for years, so they were of little use to policymakers, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, said in the report issued last month. The Government Accountability Office found particular problems in the evaluation of a Medicaid waiver granted to Indiana.

A Big Oscars Night in the #MeToo Moment

The first Oscars of Hollywood’s post-Harvey Weinstein era took care of serious business first. As the 90th Academy Awards got underway Sunday, host Jimmy Kimmel addressed the sexual harassment scandals that have rocked Hollywood. He noted the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements that started in Hollywood after the Weinstein revelations, challenging the entertainment industry to make good on its promise to reform itself. “The world is watching us,” he said. “We need to set an example.” Sam Rockwell was named best supporting actor for his performance as a racist dimwit of a police officer in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”

David Ogden Stiers, Maj. Winchester on ‘M.A.S.H,’ Is Dead at 75

David Ogden Stiers, the tall, balding, baritone-voiced actor who brought articulate, somewhat snobbish comic dignity to six seasons of the acclaimed television series “M.A.S.H,” died Saturday at his home in Newport, Oregon. He was 75. His death was announced by his agent, Mitchell K. Stubbs, who said the cause was bladder cancer. Stiers joined the cast of “M.A.S.H” in 1977. The series, a comedy-drama set in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, required a foil for its raucous, irreverent, martini-guzzling leads, and Stiers’ imperious Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III seemed to fit the bill.