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As Americans have engaged in fierce disagreement over gender expression and sexual orientation, the costs and reach of racism, and the danger and opportunity presented by rapid technological advancement, state legislatures have been one of the most visible and influential arenas for these debates.

It will probably be no different in 2024.

Lawmakers in dozens of states will soon be returning to work, weighing in on some of the most divisive issues confronting the country, including access to transition-related care for young transgender people, abortion and gun rights.

Lawmakers will also consider new regulations on artificial intelligence, a digital frontier that security experts have described as a serious potential threat — and one where state lawmakers could play a vital role by adopting safeguards that could be a model for the federal government to follow.

“Consensus has yet to emerge, but Congress can look to state legislatures — often referred to as the laboratories of democracy — for inspiration regarding how to address the opportunities and challenges posed by A.I.,” said a report published in November from the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and poverty think tank.

Several states, including Florida, South Carolina and New Hampshire, are considering legislation that would govern the use of artificial intelligence in political advertising, particularly “deepfake” technology, which could enable the voice and likeness of a candidate to be co-opted and used in malicious ways.

The South Carolina bill would limit the use of such technology within 90 days of an election and require a disclaimer declaring that the advertisement includes imagery or audio that has been “manipulated or generated by artificial intelligence.”

“The technology that produces this content has advanced rapidly and outpaced government regulation,” Nick DiCeglie, a Republican state senator in Florida who introduced legislation in December, said in a statement.

A recent surge of legislation focused on gender expression and sexual orientation, driven by conservative lawmakers across the country, is also widely expected to continue in 2024.

In Missouri, lawmakers have proposed forbidding educators from referring to a student using pronouns that do not align with their “biological sex” without written permission from a student’s parent.

Lawmakers are also considering strengthening the law the state enacted in 2023 that prevents doctors from prescribing puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors. The new proposals include removing a sunset clause on the current law, as well as an exception that allowed minors who were already prescribed puberty blockers or hormones before the law went into effect to continue receiving treatment.

Twenty-two states have now passed laws preventing access to transition-related health care for minors; some have been blocked by legal challenges. The laws were part of a flurry of legislation championed by conservative lawmakers over the past two years that focused particularly on the gay and transgender community. It included bills aimed at limiting drag performances and classroom discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation.

In South Carolina, one of the few Southern states that have not passed a ban on transition-related care for minors, critics of the earlier proposed prohibitions have warned that the fight is not over. “We were able to stave off the worst attacks in 2023, but we need all hands on deck when the state legislature returns in January 2024,” the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina said in a recent statement.

Democratic lawmakers have proposed beginning the lengthy process of amending the state’s Constitution to guarantee abortion rights, as well as passing a law prohibiting the purchase, possession and sale of assault firearms and some ammunition feeding devices.

Other states, including Kentucky and Tennessee, could see proposals for less-stringent gun control measures, including so-called red-flag laws that authorize the temporary removal of firearms from people who are deemed by the courts to be dangerous.

A Republican lawmaker in Kentucky has said he would like to expand the ability of law enforcement agencies to temporarily take away weapons from people who are experiencing a mental health crisis, but other members of his party have argued that any such restriction would infringe on constitutional rights.

In Louisiana, the new year is expected to begin with back-to-back special sessions.

The first will concern congressional district boundaries, which lawmakers have been ordered by a federal judge to redraw after the previous maps were found to dilute the electoral power of Black voters. The Legislature has been given until the end of January to deliver a new map.

Five of the seven justices on the Louisiana Supreme Court signed a letter last week urging that the court’s own judicial district maps also be redrawn during the special session. They said the current maps have not been updated in more than 25 years, and there is an urgent need to “increase minority service on the Louisiana Supreme Court.”

The second session is likely to focus on public safety and crime, although the agenda is unclear.

The sessions come as Louisiana’s political dynamic is poised for a significant shift, with Republicans soon to be rid of their biggest impediment to complete control of state government: Gov. John Bel Edwards, the two-term Democratic governor — and the only Democratic governor in the Deep South — will leave office in January.

He will be replaced by Jeff Landry, the much more conservative, Republican attorney general. Republican lawmakers have said rolling back Mr. Edwards’s agenda and pursuing bills that he previously vetoed would be a priority.

In Washington State, some elected officials — including the state treasurer and lawmakers — are pushing for an ambitious approach to tackling a growing chasm in upward mobility and access to education between upper-income white residents and children who grow up in lower-income families, especially families of color, with a proposal to create trust funds known as “baby bonds.”

The proposal would provide such children with a $4,000 bond by their first birthday, which would be available to them when they reach adulthood to use for college, buying a home or starting a business. Connecticut lawmakers approved baby bonds in 2021, but the implementation was delayed for two years as state officials negotiated funding. Attempts at the federal level have failed.

Washington State had considered a similar measure in 2023, but it failed, with opponents mainly put off by the cost. Supporters said the Washington Future Fund, as the program is officially known, would help with closing an important division in opportunity.

“Income gaps and other institutionalized racist policies and practices prevent Black, Indigenous and other people of color from building generational wealth,” the Economic Opportunity Institute, a think tank based in Seattle focused on economic security, racial equity and sustainability, said of the proposed policy. “The Washington Future Fund would shrink this racial wealth gap and provide longer term economic stability to low income Washingtonians.”

Maia Coleman, Jenna Russell and Mitch Smith contributed reporting.

Maine’s secretary of state was the victim of a “swatting” call to her home, the authorities said, the latest politician to be targeted in recent weeks by people reporting fake crimes to the police, hoping to provoke heavily armed responses.

A hoax call was placed on Friday night, just a day after the secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, barred Donald J. Trump from the state’s ballot, a politically fraught decision that drew criticism from Republicans across the country.

The state police said that in the call, a man claimed to have broken into Ms. Bellows’s home in Manchester, just outside the capital city of Augusta. State troopers searched the residence, but did not find anything suspicious. Ms. Bellows was not home at the time, the authorities said.

In a statement, the state police said that the incident was under investigation and that officials were “working with our law enforcement partners to provide special attention to any and all appropriate locations.” No arrests have been made.

Ms. Bellows drew national attention after she ruled that the former president did not qualify for the ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. In an interview with The New York Times, Ms. Bellows, a Democrat, defended her decision, saying that it was not one she “made lightly” and that Maine election law required her to act.

The ban, which is facing a court challenge, made Maine the second state, after Colorado, to disqualify Mr. Trump from the primary ballot this year.

In a statement on Saturday, Ms. Bellows wrote that she had received escalating threats since her decision, and that her home address was leaked while she and her husband were out of town for the holiday weekend.

“The nonstop threatening communications the people who work for me endured all day yesterday is unacceptable,” she wrote on Facebook, adding, “We should be able to agree to disagree on important issues without threats and violence.”

Swatting incidents have risen in recent years, and advances in technology have made it easier for perpetrators to make 911 calls sound more credible. In May, the F.B.I. formed a national database to track such attacks across the country.

In the days before the hoax call against Ms. Bellows, numerous other high-profile politicians said swatters had targeted their homes.

Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, said that his home in Naples, Fla., was targeted on Dec. 27 while he and his wife were out to dinner. “These criminals wasted the time & resources of our law enforcement in a sick attempt to terrorize my family,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

On Dec. 25, a hoax call sent the police to the home of Michelle Wu, the mayor of Boston, according to a police report. Ms. Wu told WBUR that she had been the target of several swatting calls since she became mayor in 2021.

“When there are true emergencies that happen and there are resources being deployed in this way, it is concerning,” Ms. Wu told the news outlet.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican from Georgia who was ousted from the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus over the summer, said that she was swatted on Christmas Day, and not for the first time.

“After today, I have been swatted 8 times but the F.B.I. can’t seem to figure out who is responsible for the swatting,” she wrote on X. “Thankfully my local police are far too smart, know me well, and know exactly what these swatting calls are.”

In past cases, the calls have turned deadly: In 2019, a California man was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to making dozens of fake calls, including one that led to a Kansas resident being fatally shot by the police. A year later, a man in Bethpage, Tenn., died of a heart attack after the police swarmed his home following a fake emergency call.

Hoax calls to law enforcement have also been weaponized against tech executives, journalists and places of worship.

Livia Albeck-Ripka contributed reporting.

However relevant the stereotypical, silence-enforcing librarian remains in the popular imagination, Mychal Threets wants to dispel any lingering notion of the library as a dry, humorless place, lorded over by rigid pedants.

In fact, Mr. Threets has leveraged the power of social media to show that the public library is as joy-inspiring as it is welcoming, and that librarians — in his case, a 33-year-old man who sports quirky threads, tattoos and an Afro — are “so happy you’re here.”

Mr. Threets has taken on that mission by sharing videos of what he calls “library joy” on TikTok, Instagram and other platforms, telling stories about the everyday happenings at the Fairfield Civic Center Library in Solano County in Northern California, where he is the supervising librarian.

His videos have collectively garnered millions of views and hundreds of thousands of followers across his social media accounts.

“Most of the time I’m either just retelling library interactions, library stories,” Mr. Threets said. “And then, apart from that, I just try to give people messages of hope.”

In a recent video, Mr. Threets shared an anecdote about a “library kid” who, cash in hand, was trying to return a late book only to find out that the library was a fine-free zone.

“I was like, ‘You’re good to go, you can start checking out more books,’” Mr. Threets said in the video. “And this kid just gets a gigantic grin on their face and just goes, ‘Really? I’ll be right back.’”

The child, he explained, went to get his grandmother from the parking lot where she had been waiting, and he immediately returned to browsing the shelves.

“That’s the importance of libraries being fine-free — it’s telling people we want them to come back to the library,” Mr. Threets concluded in the video. “They belong in their local library.”

Those experiences are what Mr. Threets means by “library joy,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s being able to see people love their local library and just have the wholesome moments.”

Library joy, Mr. Threets said, is what has kept him going since almost as long as he can remember. A “true library kid,” he received his first library card when he was 5.

He was home-schooled by his mother through most of grade school using the resources at his local library — the same one that he now runs. And his earliest friends, he said, were the books, and voices, on the shelves.

“They’ve always meant the world to me,” Mr. Threets said. “They are how I kept on going day after day.”

He has adopted a line from one of his favorite childhood characters, Arthur Read, a mild-mannered aardvark from a book and animated series: “Having fun isn’t hard when you have a library card.” Mr. Threets even has Arthur Read’s library card tattooed on his arm.

Several years ago, Mr. Threets thought that his observations from the library could encourage other people to frequent the stacks, so he began sharing his vignettes in posts on Facebook.

During the coronavirus pandemic, he transitioned to uploading short videos on TikTok and Instagram, where they resonated with many people. His first viral hit came in March 2023.

Apart from offering a dose of joy, the videos remind people that libraries offer much more than a collection of books on shelves.

There is something in them for everybody, he said.

People can access the internet, check out instruments, check out video games or even obtain baking equipment. People without a place to stay can turn to libraries to protect themselves from the elements. They can spend time on their own, Mr. Threets said, or befriend new people.

The library is a “place for everybody to exist,” Mr. Threets said.

“Without the library, many people wouldn’t survive,” he added. “Many people wouldn’t be in the position they’re in to better their lives and have the ultimate future that they’re capable of.”

Jamie Nakamura, a former Solano County librarian, said Mr. Threets was “raising up the image of the whole library staff.”

“Mychal doesn’t just talk about himself,” she said. “He talks about his peers and how great they are and how much they want you in the library.”

On social media, Mr. Threets makes it a point to talk about the intersection of his two passions: the library and mental health.

He has long been open with his followers about his own mental health struggles, and wants the library to be a place where people can feel free to express that same level of vulnerability.

“I’m always talking about how you can bring your anxiety, you can bring your depression into the library,” Mr. Threets said. “You don’t have to leave it outside of the building.”

Library patrons and his online followers know to expect the routine “mental health check” from Mr. Threets, who constantly preaches that “it’s OK not to be fine.”

Mr. Threets’s peers have recognized his work. He is well known in library circles and was nominated by his colleagues for an award from the American Library Association.

Last year, he was one of 10 librarians who were selected from a nationwide pool of 1,400 nominees to win the association’s I Love My Librarian Award for Outstanding Public Service. They will be honored at a ceremony later this month.

Some of his followers have likened him to the eponymous host of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” or to LeVar Burton in “Reading Rainbow.”

Recently, Mr. Threets made a video about someone who came into the library to thank him for “saving” their dad’s life.

The person told Mr. Threets that their father had come into the library one day. Mr. Threets recalled the person telling him: “And you came by and you were pushing in chairs, and you said, ‘Hi, my friend, how is it going?’ And my dad told you he was not doing well. And you said, ‘Thank you for coming to the library. Thank you for being here. Never be afraid to ask for help. That’s what the library is for. We’re here to help you.’” He said the person told him, “And that meant the world to my dad.”

The father began to go to therapy and work on mending a broken relationship with his family, the person told Mr. Threets.

“And I’m telling you this story because I didn’t save that person’s life,” Mr. Threets said in the video. “The library did. The library is here to help you. Never be afraid to ask for help.”

The sixth-grade boy who raised his hand was wiry and small. “People at my school make racist jokes,” he said, when I called on him. His voice had yet to change. “How do I get them to stop?”

I was sitting on a high school stage in Piedmont, Calif., where I had finished a conversation with two high school seniors about my new book, “Accountable,” which was adapted in The New York Times Magazine last August. Both the article and the book tell the story of the turmoil that befell a California high school and its community after some students created and shared racist material on an Instagram account. Since the article and book came out, I have spoken at schools around the country about the issues the story raises: social media radicalization, racism, humor, boy culture, the impacts of bullying and the vexing question of how to respond effectively.

This particular audience was made up mostly of adults, and they responded with applause, as if the boy’s mere desire to stop racist jokes was triumph enough. Perhaps it was. But this sixth grader wasn’t looking for approval. He wanted an actual answer, not the platitudes that adults fall back on when asked about the toxic social dynamics of middle and high school: “Be kind!” “Speak up!” “Be an upstander!” He wanted to know how to get people at his school to stop making racist jokes without becoming the butt of the jokes himself.

I talked about having a firm but nonconfrontational phrase ready, something like “Dude, that’s messed up.” I talked about how to identify which classmates had the social clout to influence their peers and how to approach those people. I talked about when to get an adult involved and how to choose the right one. But even as I spoke, I was thinking: “You know I’m just a journalist, right? I’m the one who asks the questions. What makes you think I have the answers?”

This is both the joy and the terror of talking to young people about hot-button topics. I usually start by asking students to raise their hands if they’ve seen or heard hate speech online, whether it’s the use of slurs on gaming platforms; racist memes or videos on social media; or ugly remarks in the comment section of an article or video. They all have, of course. We all have.

If I’ve managed to engage their attention — tougher to do just before lunch or during first period, when they’re barely awake — students will respond to my presentation with questions that reveal both how pertinent the topic is to their lives and how eager they are for guidance.

Sometimes the questions are philosophical: “How do you know if someone is a good person or a bad person?” “You say that everyone has the capacity to transform, but what if it’s a mass murderer?”

Sometimes they are practical: “What should we do when we see something racist online?”

And often the questions are deeply personal. Usually, at the end of my presentation, there is a small group of students waiting to talk with me. With the sensitivity that is characteristic of their generation, they will keep some space between one another so that the person speaking with me won’t be overheard.

Within that small cocoon of privacy, I’ve had a young woman sob in my arms after saying: “Those girls you wrote about must have felt so heard. But nobody listened when it happened to me!” I’ve heard the stories of young people who were the targets of everything from racist remarks to violent bullying. I’ve fielded questions about free speech and the role anger plays in the emotional health of victims.

“I did not want to write about my experiences with racism,” Jeena Ann Kidambi, an eighth grader from Framingham, Mass., wrote in an essay about the girls, Ana and A., featured in the Times article because they were targeted by the racist Instagram account. Like A., she wrote, “I did not want to dwell on those memories. However, by writing this essay and embracing my emotions on the subject, I gained closure and released myself from anger’s chokehold.” (The essay won a contest in her school district sponsored by the Swiacki Children’s Literature Festival at Framingham State University.)

At one school, a girl spoke so softly that I had to lean close to hear her. Haltingly, with her eyes fixed on the ground, she asked how people could make amends for a harm they caused if the person harmed wouldn’t speak to them. She didn’t tell me what she had done, but I could see that it haunted her — both the guilt over the injury she had caused and the fear she would be punished in perpetuity.

I think about this girl often, wishing I had a better answer to give her. At every school I visit, I remind students that they are works in progress, that during their teenage years they will both be harmed and cause harm, and that they have the capacity to survive both. And each time, I walk away struck by how vulnerable they are to forces that they neither created nor control.

Dashka Slater is a writer in California with a focus on teenagers and criminal justice. Her book “The 57 Bus,” a New York Times best seller, was based on an article she wrote for the magazine in 2015 and went on to win a 2018 Stonewall Book Award from the American Library Association.

As former President Donald J. Trump campaigned in Iowa in the fall, he projected the utmost confidence. He told his supporters during speeches that his advisers had constantly warned him not to take the state for granted. Buoyed by his dominance in state polls, Mr. Trump insisted he had no reason to worry.

“We’re going to win the Iowa caucuses in a historic landslide,” Mr. Trump predicted in speeches in September and October.

But as he returned to Iowa last month, with the state’s caucuses on Jan. 15 fast approaching, Mr. Trump injected a note of concern. Though he retained his confidence, he warned his supporters of a rising threat: complacency.

“The poll numbers are scary, because we’re leading by so much,” Mr. Trump said on Dec. 19 in Waterloo during his final trip to Iowa of 2023. “The key is, you have to get out and vote.”

“Don’t sit home and say, ‘I think we’ll take it easy, darling. It’s a wonderful day, beautiful. Let’s just take it easy, watch television and watch the results,’” Mr. Trump later added. “No, because crazy things can happen.”

With just two weeks until Iowa’s first-in-the-nation nominating contest, Mr. Trump’s campaign is dedicated to meeting high expectations and avoiding a repeat of 2016, when Mr. Trump narrowly came in second in Iowa despite being ahead in polls.

But while his Republican rivals are more focused on knocking on doors and swaying minds, Mr. Trump and his campaign have directed their efforts toward teaching supporters how to caucus and recruiting a grass-roots network to help guarantee they show up.

“We already have the votes to win,” one aide said. “All we have to do is turn them out.”

The campaign has focused much of its effort on enlisting and training its most ardent supporters to become “caucus captains” who can help recruit other Trump supporters to be present at caucus sites and to speak on Mr. Trump’s behalf.

The campaign is also engaged in the standard fare of political operations: distributing lawn signs, holding events where Mr. Trump addresses voters and collecting phone numbers and emails to solicit donations and motivate likely supporters.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have pointed in particular to an extensive database that the campaign has compiled over his past two presidential runs, and that it has been using to identify potential caucusgoers who need a nudge to show up on Jan. 15.

The campaign has drawn on the contact information of voters who attended Trump events, and on the records of campaign donors who live in Iowa. Many of those people voted for Mr. Trump in general elections but did not participate in the 2016 caucus, advisers said.

Staff members have sent a blitz of text messages, phone calls, emails and direct mail urging these supporters to caucus. A senior adviser to the campaign who was not authorized to speak publicly said the access to that data might give the campaign a distinct advantage that reduced its dependence on door knocking, a costly and labor-intensive effort that is central to rival campaigns.

Super PACs backing both Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, have undertaken large-scale door knocking operations aimed at identifying likely supporters or at persuading undecided voters.

The Iowa caucuses create a challenge for turnout different from primary elections, in which voters simply need to go to a polling place and mark a ballot. Participants of the caucuses must arrive on time and stay until they end. The meetings open with speeches by attendees on behalf of their preferred candidates, in a final bid to win over their friends and neighbors. Then everybody votes.

Mr. Trump blamed his second-place finish in Iowa in 2016 — when he fell about 6,000 votes and one delegate short — on a weak ground game that did not effectively drive turnout. And past and present advisers have acknowledged that Mr. Trump had a fairly scant Iowa operation at the time.

During that campaign, Mr. Trump visited the state far less often than his rivals did. He eschewed meet-and-greet retail politicking for rallies. And though he drew crowds, many in his audience had never caucused, and his campaign lacked a robust operation to target, educate or motivate them.

During his current bid, Mr. Trump has still been a relatively sparse presence in the state when compared with candidates like Mr. DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur, who have barnstormed Iowa for months.

But starting in September, Mr. Trump began to appear in the state more frequently at so-called Commit to Caucus events, where his campaign made a more concerted effort to collect information from his supporters and to recruit them as volunteers.

Ryan Rhodes, an Iowa political operative unaffiliated with a campaign, said he thought the Trump campaign had taken “a little longer” to begin a robust field operation. But, he added, “they have very much made up lost ground and have a very strong closing ground game.”

At Mr. Trump’s Iowa events, volunteers — some of them already caucus captains — urge those lining up outside to join their ranks. As an enticement, the campaign has offered rewards: white-and-gold “Trump caucus captain” hats and a chance to meet Mr. Trump at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July.

So far, the campaign has 1,800 people who have agreed to be caucus captains, according to advisers — a surplus for the more than 1,600 locations where people will gather on caucus night.

Campaign staff members have held hundreds of hourlong training sessions for caucus captains to learn how caucuses work so that they will be able to explain the process to first-timers. Caucus captains are given a suggestion for a speech they can deliver on caucus night.

The campaign has also pitched the captains on a “10 for Trump” program. Captains are given a list of 25 potential Trump supporters in their neighborhoods, and are asked to make certain that 10 first-time caucusgoers from the list will show up to back Mr. Trump.

Last month, about two dozen captains and prospective volunteers crowded into the campaign’s headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa, where Alex Meyer, a senior campaign adviser focusing on Iowa and Missouri, emphasized the need for each of them to recruit 10 voters.

Deborah Renae, 59, a caucus captain who attended the event, said she sometimes spent 12 hours a day volunteering. She estimated that she had made nearly 200,000 calls to voters. “I feel like people are at the top of their game right now,” Ms. Renae said.

The campaign, too, has shifted its events to help demystify the process. A newer three-minute how-to video shown before Mr. Trump speaks features a blocky cartoon figure, Marlon, who explains what to do on caucus night. The campaign also holds panels where caucus captains push others to get involved and argue how easy it is to caucus.

Underlying these changes is a sense of urgency. Mr. Trump and his allies have made it clear that he is hoping for a dominant finish in the Iowa caucuses to potentially push his rivals out of the race and to clear the path to an early primary victory.

Mr. Trump is slated to return to Iowa on Friday and Saturday, where he will hold two events each day — a busy schedule for him, but a paltry one compared with that of some of his rivals. To fill the gaps, his campaign is drawing on a network of prominent Republican surrogates, allies with national name recognition who are popular among his base.

This week, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a popular conservative, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a far-right star, will appear in Iowa on Mr. Trump’s behalf.

Last month, the campaign held events with Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida and Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon who served as Mr. Trump’s secretary of housing and urban development.

Mr. Gaetz acknowledged in an interview that his presence in the state was part of a more robust Trump campaign operation.

“I think that President Trump’s first participation in the Iowa caucuses had a certain ‘hold my beer’ energy to it,” he said. “It was a fun traveling carnival that inspired people and brought them in. But I am certain that our campaign is more technically proficient today.”

There is almost nothing in the words of the Constitution that even begins to support former President Donald J. Trump’s boldest defense against charges that he plotted to overturn the 2020 election: that he is absolutely immune from prosecution for actions he took while in office.

A federal appeals court will hear arguments on the question next week, and the panel will consider factors including history, precedent and the separation of powers. But, as the Supreme Court has acknowledged, the Constitution itself does not explicitly address the existence or scope of presidential immunity.

In his appellate brief, Mr. Trump said there was one constitutional provision that figured in the analysis, though his argument is a legal long shot. The provision, the impeachment judgment clause, says that officials impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate are still subject to criminal prosecution.

The provision says: “Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: But the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.”

All the clause says in so many words, then, is that “the party convicted” in the Senate can still face criminal prosecution. But Mr. Trump said the clause implied something more.

The clause “presupposes that a president who is not convicted may not be subject to criminal prosecution,” Mr. Trump’s brief said.

A friend-of the-court brief from former government officials said Mr. Trump’s position had “sweeping and absurd consequences,” noting that a great many officials are subject to impeachment.

“Under defendant’s interpretation,” the brief said, “the executive would lack power to prosecute all current and former civil officers for acts taken in office unless Congress first impeached and convicted them. That would permit countless officials to evade criminal liability.”

Mr. Trump also made a slightly narrower but still audacious argument: “A president who is acquitted by the Senate cannot be prosecuted for the acquitted conduct.”

Mr. Trump was, of course, acquitted at his second impeachment trial, on charges that he incited insurrection, when 57 senators voted against him, 10 shy of the two-thirds majority needed to convict.

The idea that the impeachment acquittal conferred immunity from prosecution may come as a surprise to some of those who did the acquitting.

Take Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, who voted for acquittal. Shortly afterward, in a fiery speech on the Senate floor, he said the legal system could still hold Mr. Trump to account.

“We have a criminal justice system in this country,” Mr. McConnell said. “We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”

That suggests that Mr. Trump’s reading of the clause is far from obvious, but the Justice Department has said that it is not wholly implausible. In 2000, its Office of Legal Counsel issued a 46-page memorandum devoted to just this question. It was called “Whether a Former President May Be Indicted and Tried for the Same Offenses for Which He was Impeached by the House and Acquitted by the Senate.”

The argument that such prosecutions run afoul of the Constitution “has some force,” according to the memo, which was prepared by Randolph D. Moss, now a federal judge. But, it went on, “despite its initial plausibility, we find this interpretation of the impeachment judgment clause ultimately unconvincing.”

It added: “We are unaware of any evidence suggesting that the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution chose the phrase ‘the party convicted’ with a negative implication in mind.”

More fundamentally, the memo said, “impeachment and criminal prosecution serve entirely distinct goals.” Impeachment trials involve political judgments. Criminal trials involve legal ones.

In a brief filed on Saturday, Jack Smith, the special counsel, wrote that “acquittal in a Senate impeachment trial may reflect a technical or procedural determination rather than a factual conclusion.” The brief noted that at least 31 of the 43 senators who voted to acquit Mr. Trump at the impeachment trial said they did so at least in part because he was no longer in office and thus not subject to the Senate’s jurisdiction.

Mr. Trump’s reading of the provision “would produce implausibly perverse results,” Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing his trial in Federal District Court in Washington, wrote in a decision last month rejecting Mr. Trump’s claim of absolute immunity.

She noted that the Constitution permits impeachment for a narrow array of offenses — “treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors.”

Under Mr. Trump’s reading, Judge Chutkan wrote, “if a president commits a crime that does not fall within that limited category, and so could not be impeached and convicted, the president could never be prosecuted for that crime.”

“Alternatively,” she went on, “if Congress does not have the opportunity to impeach or convict a sitting president — perhaps because the crime occurred near the end of their term, or is covered up until after the president has left office — the former president similarly could not be prosecuted.”

She added that President Gerald R. Ford’s pardon of former President Richard M. Nixon, who resigned as calls to impeach him for his role in the Watergate scandal grew, would have been unnecessary under Mr. Trump’s reading.

A few days before Christmas, a jury in Washington cleared three Tacoma police officers of criminal charges in the death of Manuel “Manny” Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man who died in police custody in 2020 after pleading that he could not breathe.

The next day, on Dec. 22, a jury in Colorado convicted two paramedics of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died in police custody in 2019 after officers subdued him and medics injected him with the powerful sedative ketamine.

In the three years since the murder of George Floyd, whose death in police custody ignited a national movement against police brutality, prosecutors have charged the police and emergency medical workers in a number of high-profile cases.

The result has been a mixed bag of verdicts: convictions, acquittals and in one case, a mistrial. Civil rights activists and legal experts say the different outcomes reflect a country still struggling with how to view cases of police use of lethal force, and shifting public sentiment on law enforcement and safety.

“Police accountability is still up for debate. Even with actual evidence, even with body cam footage, we’re still in a place where we cannot be certain that an officer’s conviction for wrongdoing will take place through our judicial system,” Charles Coleman Jr., a civil rights lawyer, former Brooklyn prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst, said in an interview in October.

The deaths of Mr. Floyd, Mr. McClain, Mr. Ellis and Breonna Taylor — all killed in fatal police encounters within a nine-month span — came to occupy a central place in the racial justice movement and in some cases inspired reforms in the cities where they were killed.

In total, 16 police officers and paramedics faced state and federal charges in the four cases, with eight convictions so far, including a former police detective who pleaded guilty to federal charges in Ms. Taylor’s case.

But convictions are only one piece of the justice system, reform activists pointed out.

“The algorithm of justice are charges, arrest, conviction and sentencing,” MiDian Holmes, a community activist in Aurora, Colo., said following the paramedics’ conviction in Mr. McClain’s death. She said she is thankful for the three convictions in the case, but “we do not know justice until we see sentencing.”

No organization comprehensively tracks the number of law enforcement prosecutions. But legal experts and those pushing for police reform say prosecutors seem more willing to bring charges against police officers, though juries are not as willing to convict.

“There’s at least a situation in which police are subjected to the same criminal law processes as the rest of us would be,” said Ian Farrell, associate professor of law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Jurors, however, are often reluctant to second-guess “the split-second decisions of police officers in potentially violent street encounters,” said Philip Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University.

Mr. Stinson, whose research includes police misconduct, has built a public database of police officers charged in shootings compiled from media reports.

From 2020 to 2023, 71 officers were charged with murder or manslaughter stemming from an on-duty shooting, compared to 43 officers from 2016 to 2019. The data is limited to shooting deaths, which means some of the most recent notable police killings, such as Mr. Floyd’s, Mr. McClain’s and Mr. Ellis’s, were not in the count.

The trial of the officers in Mr. Ellis’s case was considered a test of Washington’s police accountability legislation, approved by voters in 2018.

During trial, jurors heard prosecutors describe how officers beat, choked and hogtied Mr. Ellis and placed a hood over his head. Defense lawyers said police actions were justified because Mr. Ellis fought the officers with “extraordinary strength,” The Seattle Times reported. They argued Mr. Ellis died from methamphetamine found in his system and a pre-existing heart condition. Before the case went to trial, the Ellis family reached a $4 million settlement agreement with Pierce County in 2022.

Mr. Stinson’s data also leaves out the case of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died in police custody in January 2023. Five former Memphis police officers were accused of beating Mr. Nichols during a police stop and charged with second-degree murder and assault in state court, plus civil rights violations in federal court. One officer has pleaded guilty to some state and federal charges; the other four have pleaded not guilty.

Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest law enforcement organization with more than 373,000 members, said no blanket standard can be applied to cases of police custody deaths. He said each situation is different, and each case must be considered on its own merits.

“There are all kinds of things that have to be factored into a judgment as to whether or not use of force is appropriate,” Mr. Pasco said, adding that officers should be afforded due process like any other citizen. “They don’t check their civil rights at the station door any more than anyone else should have to.”

And defense lawyers and defendants have argued that they were doing their best to react to often chaotic situations where at times they felt their own lives were at risk.

After the conviction of two paramedics in Mr. McClain’s death, Chief Alec Oughton of the Aurora Fire Department said he was “discouraged that these paramedics have received felony punishment for following their training and protocols in place at the time and for making discretionary decisions while taking split-second action in a dynamic environment.”

Social justice activists who are watching the cases say the different outcomes are a sign there is still work to be done, and are a way to understand shifting public attitudes on policing. But charges are just the first step in a long criminal justice process.

“You have to be able to prove the case. You have to be able to collect that evidence and to tell the story that is convincing to a jury,” said Tracie L. Keesee, co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity, which conducts research and collects data to improve policing.

In the case of Mr. Floyd, who was 46, Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who was captured on video pressing his knee into Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, was convicted on murder and manslaughter charges. Mr. Chauvin was sentenced to 22 and a half years. Three other officers who were present were found guilty on various state and federal charges.

Two months before Mr. Floyd’s death, Ms. Taylor, 26, was killed in her apartment in a botched raid in Louisville, Ky. No officer has ever been charged with shooting Ms. Taylor, but last year, the Justice Department charged four officers with federal civil rights violations. One police detective pleaded guilty and faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

One officer faced state charges related to endangering Ms. Taylor’s neighbor, and a jury acquitted him last year. Federal prosecutors hope to retry that same officer after a deadlocked jury prompted a mistrial in November.

In the case of Mr. McClain, two paramedics and one police officer were convicted, but two police officers were acquitted of all charges, and one of them has returned to the force.

The death of Mr. McClain, who was placed in a neck restraint and given a fatal sedative dose during a police stop in Aurora, offers one of the clearest examples of the impact of national protests and public pressure leading to charges.

Not long after he was killed in 2019, a local prosecutor declined to charge police officers and paramedics. But Colorado’s attorney general later opened an investigation that resulted in a 32-count indictment, including manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges. Two months after the indictment, the city of Aurora agreed to pay the parents of Mr. McClain $15 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit.

Community activists and the families of victims have also looked for accountability in other ways, outside of criminal prosecutions.

After a jury found one of the officers convicted in Mr. McClain’s case not guilty, he returned to his job on the Aurora force, but is currently on paid personal leave.

A local N.A.A.C.P. chapter began organizing a response. Members of the civil rights organization are demanding a public apology from the officer, Nathan Woodyard, and applying pressure to keep him from returning to a role that would require him to interact with civilians.

“Mr. Woodyard’s lack of humanity is a key reason Elijah is not with us,” said Omar Montgomery, president of the Aurora N.A.A.C.P. “He should not be working with the public.”

Mr. Woodyard’s lawyer, Megan Downing, declined to comment about his future at the Aurora Police Department.

Art Acevedo, Aurora’s interim police chief, said he understands that many in the community do not want Mr. Woodyard back on the force. But he said there’s also a segment of the community who support his return.

It is unclear if Mr. Woodyard would return to active duty, Mr. Acevedo said, but if he does, “we’re going to take into consideration what’s best for the department, for the community and, ultimately, for Officer Woodyard himself.”

Even in cases of failed criminal convictions, families have been awarded millions and dedicated some of that to furthering police reform.

Four years after the 2018 death of 19-year-old Anton Black in police custody in Maryland, his family and a community coalition partially settled a federal civil rights lawsuit that included $5 million payout and reform initiatives.

The partial settlement requires the three Maryland law enforcement agencies involved to overhaul their use-of-force policies, and requires training for implicit bias and de-escalation. It also includes a requirement for more resources for police officers who encounter people with mental health issues in crisis.

“No family should have to go through what we went through,” Jennell Black, Mr. Black’s mother, said in a statement after the settlement. “I hope the reforms within the police departments will save lives and prevent any family from feeling the pain we feel every day.”

A spate of new state laws, including on guns, minimum wage and gender transition care, went into effect as the calendar flipped to 2024. Perhaps the most significant change bans programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion at publicly funded colleges and universities in Texas.

Conservative politicians have targeted these diversity initiatives, known as D.E.I., because they have said that the programs have used taxpayer money to stoke racial division and push a liberal agenda on campuses. The new Texas law follows a similar one that Florida enacted in May to prohibit public colleges and universities from spending funds on D.E.I. initiatives.

In other states, Americans will follow new rules on guns and marijuana, as well as have additional health care and workplace protections. About three dozen states enacted new laws on voting in 2023, but most of the practical effects won’t be felt until primary and general elections in 2024.

Many of these changes will have an immediate impact on everyday life starting Monday. Here are some other new and noteworthy state laws:

Gun Ownership

Californians will be barred from carrying guns in most public places after an 11th-hour ruling from a federal appeals court. A lower court judge had blocked enforcement of the law earlier in December, but just two days before the law was set to take effect, the appeals court put a hold on the lower court ruling. The law lists more than two dozen locations, including libraries and sports venues, where firearms are prohibited.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia already have red-flag laws that authorize the temporary removal of firearms from people who are deemed dangerous. Minnesota this week became the 20th state to give family members and law enforcement the ability to ask a court to take away guns in certain situations.

Next month, a red-flag law will take effect in Michigan, which is also adding more expansive background checks and a safe gun storage law in homes where a child is present.

Washington State is expanding its 10-day waiting period to purchases of any gun, not only semiautomatic weapons. Gun buyers will also have to show that they have passed a safety training program within the last five years, or prove that they are exempt from training requirements.

Illinois is banning high-powered semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity magazines, and Colorado is getting rid of ghost guns.

Workplace

Twenty-two states are raising their minimum wages at the start of 2024, according to the Economic Policy Institute. About 40 cities and counties will do the same, with many of the wage levels meeting or exceeding $15 per hour for some or all employees, the National Employment Law Project says.

For Alabamans, employee hours above 40 in a week will no longer be included in gross income, effectively exempting overtime pay from state taxes.

It will be harder to get fired in California. Employees, with few exceptions, can’t be punished for using marijuana outside of work, or if traces of THC — the psychoactive component in marijuana — show up in their blood or urine tests. They also cannot face retaliation for discussing their wages, asking how much co-workers earn or encouraging colleagues to seek a raise.

An executive order in Nebraska demands that some state workers who have been working remotely since the pandemic return to the office starting on Tuesday, but a public employees union has asked a state labor court to delay the requirement.

In Arkansas, unemployment claims will be denied to anyone who fails to respond to a job offer or show up for a scheduled job interview, in what the state calls the Prohibiting Unemployment Claimants from Ghosting Employers Act of 2023. And videoconferencing while driving will be banned in Illinois.

Public Safety

Two notable laws in California aim to increase equity. Law enforcement officers must inform drivers why they have been stopped before they begin any questioning. Black motorists get pulled over at higher rates, and the new requirement is intended to deter officers from using traffic stops as a means to search vehicles or investigate drivers for other crimes.

The California Highway Patrol also will launch an emergency system, called Ebony Alerts, to notify the public when there are missing Black children and women between the ages of 12 and 25. Proponents said that young Black residents comprise a disproportionate share of people who go missing and that their cases receive less attention in the media.

In Pennsylvania, new laws will add protections for female inmates. The state is banning the shackling and solitary confinement of pregnant incarcerated women, and full-body searches of female inmates by male guards.

Health Care

At least 20 states with Republican-controlled legislatures passed bans or restrictions on gender transition care for young people in 2023, and changes will go into effect on New Year’s Day in Louisiana and West Virginia.

West Virginia lawmakers carved out exceptions to its law, including allowing minors to get treatment if they have parental consent and a diagnosis of severe gender dysphoria from two doctors. Doctors could also prescribe medical therapy if a minor is considered at risk of self-harm or suicide.

State legislatures have also considered bills related to abortion in the year and a half since the Supreme Court upended Roe v. Wade, but there are few new rules to start 2024.

California will legally shield its doctors when they ship abortion pills or gender-affirming medications to states that have criminalized such procedures. New Jersey pharmacists will be allowed to dispense self-administered hormonal contraceptives to patients without a prescription. Law enforcement officers in Illinois will be prohibited from sharing license plate reader data with other states to protect women coming for an abortion.

In Arkansas, new mothers will be required to undergo screenings for depression, which will be paid for by health insurance providers in the state. Public safety employees in Arkansas who experience a traumatic event while on duty will be provided counseling.

Education

Illinois is prohibiting book bans in libraries, after a year in which many materials were removed from shelves across the country. The law allows state grants only for libraries that adopt the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights or those who have a statement rejecting the banning of materials.

In California, the teaching of cursive writing from first to sixth grades will be mandatory, and media literacy and Asian American history will be added to the curriculum for K-12 students.

Consumer Protection

Online dating services operating in Connecticut must now have procedures for reporting unwanted behavior and provide safety advice, including warnings about romance scams.

In California, large retailers will be required to provide gender-neutral sections of children’s toys or child care products. Proponents said the law would help reduce gender stereotypes at a young age and prevent price disparities in items marketed for girls. The law does not require gender-neutral clothing sections. Retailers can be fined $250 for the first violation and $500 for subsequent ones.

Telemarketers who don’t follow new rules in New Jersey can be charged with a disorderly persons offense. The state is requiring them to identify, within the first 30 seconds of a call, themselves, whom they’re representing, what they’re selling and a phone number to reach their employer. The law also bans unsolicited sales calls to any customer from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. It has been referred to as the “Seinfeld law,” after a memorable scene from the 1990s sitcom.

While the law went into effect in December, it might be the best example of state legislative consensus in 2023, having passed 38-0 in the Senate and 74-0 in the General Assembly.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. devoted his annual year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary, issued on Sunday, to the positive role that artificial intelligence can play in the legal system — and the threats it poses.

His report did not address the Supreme Court’s rocky year, including its adoption of an ethics code that many said was toothless. Nor did he discuss the looming cases arising from former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal prosecutions and questions about his eligibility to hold office.

The chief justice’s report was nevertheless timely, coming days after revelations that Michael D. Cohen, the onetime fixer for Mr. Trump, had supplied his lawyer with bogus legal citations created by Google Bard, an artificial intelligence program.

Referring to an earlier similar episode, Chief Justice Roberts said that “any use of A.I. requires caution and humility.”

“One of A.I.’s prominent applications made headlines this year for a shortcoming known as ‘hallucination,’” he wrote, “which caused the lawyers using the application to submit briefs with citations to nonexistent cases. (Always a bad idea.)”

Chief Justice Roberts acknowledged the promise of the new technology while noting its dangers.

“Law professors report with both awe and angst that A.I. apparently can earn B’s on law school assignments and even pass the bar exam,” he wrote. “Legal research may soon be unimaginable without it. A.I. obviously has great potential to dramatically increase access to key information for lawyers and nonlawyers alike. But just as obviously it risks invading privacy interests and dehumanizing the law.”

The chief justice, mentioning bankruptcy forms, said some applications could streamline legal filings and save money. “These tools have the welcome potential to smooth out any mismatch between available resources and urgent needs in our court system,” he wrote.

Chief Justice Roberts has long been interested in the intersection of law and technology. He wrote the majority opinions in decisions generally requiring the government to obtain warrants to search digital information on cellphones seized from people who have been arrested and to collect troves of location data about the customers of cellphone companies.

In his 2017 visit to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the chief justice was asked whether he could “foresee a day when smart machines, driven with artificial intelligences, will assist with courtroom fact-finding or, more controversially even, judicial decision-making?”

The chief justice said yes. “It’s a day that’s here,” he said, “and it’s putting a significant strain on how the judiciary goes about doing things.” He appeared to be referring to software used in sentencing decisions.

That strain has only increased, the chief justice wrote on Sunday.

“In criminal cases, the use of A.I. in assessing flight risk, recidivism and other largely discretionary decisions that involve predictions has generated concerns about due process, reliability and potential bias,” he wrote. “At least at present, studies show a persistent public perception of a ‘human-A.I. fairness gap,’ reflecting the view that human adjudications, for all of their flaws, are fairer than whatever the machine spits out.”

Chief Justice Roberts concluded that “legal determinations often involve gray areas that still require application of human judgment.”

“Judges, for example, measure the sincerity of a defendant’s allocution at sentencing,” he wrote. “Nuance matters: Much can turn on a shaking hand, a quivering voice, a change of inflection, a bead of sweat, a moment’s hesitation, a fleeting break in eye contact. And most people still trust humans more than machines to perceive and draw the right inferences from these clues.”

Appellate judges will not soon be supplanted, either, he wrote.

“Many appellate decisions turn on whether a lower court has abused its discretion, a standard that by its nature involves fact-specific gray areas,” the chief justice wrote. “Others focus on open questions about how the law should develop in new areas. A.I. is based largely on existing information, which can inform but not make such decisions.”