Danielle Kurtzleben

Updated at 12:05 p.m. ET Thursday

Many advocates for women's rights are watching Virginia closely as the state's legislature began its session Wednesday. They're watching because the Equal Rights Amendment has a good chance of being ratified by Virginia lawmakers this year.

If the ERA passes there, Virginia would become the 38th state to ratify it; an amendment needs 38 states to be fully ratified and added to the U.S. Constitution.

There was a time when "Medicare for All" was not a part of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign. It was March.

The divide among Democrats over "Medicare for All" has dominated the policy conversation in the 2020 Democratic primary. But another rift has opened among Democrats, this one about college affordability. The question: Who should get to go to college for free?

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg jabbed at his more liberal opponents in a new ad airing in Iowa. It doesn't name other candidates, but it's clear he's taking aim at Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who have pitched plans making free public college available to all.

A few weeks ago, Elizabeth Warren made huge news with her plan to finance "Medicare for All." But as part of it, the Massachusetts senator made a big change to one of her other major policy goals: she boosted the size of the wealth tax she wants to impose on the very rich: The top rate went from 3% to 6%, giving her trillions more dollars in theoretical revenue to fund the sweeping program.

Women always make up more than half of the electorate in national elections.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren says paying for "Medicare for All" would require $20.5 trillion in new federal spending over a decade. That spending includes higher taxes on the wealthy but no new taxes on the middle class.

The Democratic presidential candidate released her plan to pay for Medicare for All on Friday after being dogged for months by questions of how she would finance such a sweeping overhaul of the health care system. That pressure has been intensified by the fact that Warren has made detailed proposals a central part of her brand as a candidate.

Bernie Sanders doesn't plan on releasing a detailed plan of how to finance his single-payer Medicare for All plan, he told CNBC's John Harwood on Tuesday.

"You're asking me to come up with an exact detailed plan of how every American — how much you're going to pay more in taxes, how much I'm going to pay," he said. "I don't think I have to do that right now."

Are robots stealing workers' jobs? At last week's Democratic presidential debate, CNN moderator Erin Burnett dove into the thorny issue.

"According to a recent study, about a quarter of American jobs could be lost to automation in just the next 10 years," she said, asking candidates how they would respond to this problem.

Updated at 12:15 p.m. ET

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is canceling presidential campaign events "until further" notice following a heart procedure, campaign senior adviser Jeff Weaver said Wednesday morning.

Weaver said in a brief written statement that Sanders "experienced some chest discomfort" during a Tuesday evening campaign event.