Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.On May 7, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia signed into law one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the country. If allowed to take effect, it will outlaw abortion once an ultrasound can detect electrical activity where a heart develops in an embryo; it’s known as a “fetal heartbeat” despite the technical absence, in many cases, of either a fetus or a heart. Not to be outdone, Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama signed an on May 15. House Bill 314 more directly flouts the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by reclassifying...…Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.On May 7, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia signed into law one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the country. If allowed to take effect, it will outlaw abortion once an ultrasound can detect electrical activity where a heart develops in an embryo; it’s known as a “fetal heartbeat” despite the technical absence, in many cases, of either a fetus or a heart. Not to be outdone, Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama signed an on May 15. House Bill 314 more directly flouts the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by reclassifying...WW…

Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.Over the past week, in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis have been met with increasingly menacing calls to restore order. But chaos isn’t going anywhere soon. Order, in this context, just means forcing chaos back where it belongs. There are positive signs for the near future, especially if one understands the dissent as aimed primarily at reducing police violence. Public sentiment is on the side of the dissidents; a recent found that more than half of Americans thought the torching of the Minneapolis...…Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.Over the past week, in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis have been met with increasingly menacing calls to restore order. But chaos isn’t going anywhere soon. Order, in this context, just means forcing chaos back where it belongs. There are positive signs for the near future, especially if one understands the dissent as aimed primarily at reducing police violence. Public sentiment is on the side of the dissidents; a recent found that more than half of Americans thought the torching of the Minneapolis...WW…

Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.This article was featured in , New York’s reading recommendation newsletter.  to get it nightly.John Lewis died on Friday from complications due to pancreatic cancer, an illness that divided the last few months of his life into “good days and days not so good,” as he recently told me. He’d seen a lot in his 80 years — from a modest youth as the third of ten children in an Alabama sharecropping family, to a brutal and exhilarating early adulthood in the civil-rights movement, to his storied tenure in...…Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.This article was featured in , New York’s reading recommendation newsletter.  to get it nightly.John Lewis died on Friday from complications due to pancreatic cancer, an illness that divided the last few months of his life into “good days and days not so good,” as he recently told me. He’d seen a lot in his 80 years — from a modest youth as the third of ten children in an Alabama sharecropping family, to a brutal and exhilarating early adulthood in the civil-rights movement, to his storied tenure in...WW…

Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.“Defund the police” has become a rallying cry for recent protests, but several different explanations have been offered for what it actually means. The semantic dispute reveals key philosophical differences among its proclaimers: The abolitionists who coined the term see gutting police budgets as one step toward a policeless society; others who’ve adopted it see policing as redeemable and worth preserving — a common view that much evidence suggests is folly.This has been a source of confusion and contention. In the weeks...…Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.“Defund the police” has become a rallying cry for recent protests, but several different explanations have been offered for what it actually means. The semantic dispute reveals key philosophical differences among its proclaimers: The abolitionists who coined the term see gutting police budgets as one step toward a policeless society; others who’ve adopted it see policing as redeemable and worth preserving — a common view that much evidence suggests is folly.This has been a source of confusion and contention. In the weeks...WW…

Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.Wisconsin Republicans were dealt a on Monday. Daniel Kelly, a conservative State Supreme Court justice, lost his reelection bid to Jill Karofsky, his progressive challenger, by a decisive margin. (Returns are still incoming, but as of Monday night, Karofsky was up by 120,000 votes in the nonpartisan race; the New York reports that the last election for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat was decided by fewer than 30,000 votes.) The result shocked members of both parties, in no small part because the state GOP did all it could to...…Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.Wisconsin Republicans were dealt a on Monday. Daniel Kelly, a conservative State Supreme Court justice, lost his reelection bid to Jill Karofsky, his progressive challenger, by a decisive margin. (Returns are still incoming, but as of Monday night, Karofsky was up by 120,000 votes in the nonpartisan race; the New York reports that the last election for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat was decided by fewer than 30,000 votes.) The result shocked members of both parties, in no small part because the state GOP did all it could to...WW…

Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.General-election season typically announces itself with a handful of reliable signposts — , dueling party conventions, more frequent campaign rallies in contested states. The presidency of Donald Trump has occasioned a new one: . Their presence in Portland, Oregon (and at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018), is more than a flex of authoritarian muscle. It marks, for Trump, the establishment of an election-year ritual, a political strategy ripe for replication anytime he faces the will of the voters. Especially if he thinks he might...…Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.General-election season typically announces itself with a handful of reliable signposts — , dueling party conventions, more frequent campaign rallies in contested states. The presidency of Donald Trump has occasioned a new one: . Their presence in Portland, Oregon (and at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018), is more than a flex of authoritarian muscle. It marks, for Trump, the establishment of an election-year ritual, a political strategy ripe for replication anytime he faces the will of the voters. Especially if he thinks he might...WW…

Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.New York City’s Police Benevolent Association, which advertises itself as “the largest municipal police union in the world,” endorsed President Trump on Friday, marking the first time the organization has made a presidential endorsement in at least 36 years, according to union head Patrick J. Lynch. “That’s how important this is,” Lynch said during an event at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, which the president attended. “You’ve earned this.”But beyond formalizing a political alliance, this announcement confirmed what...…Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.New York City’s Police Benevolent Association, which advertises itself as “the largest municipal police union in the world,” endorsed President Trump on Friday, marking the first time the organization has made a presidential endorsement in at least 36 years, according to union head Patrick J. Lynch. “That’s how important this is,” Lynch said during an event at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, which the president attended. “You’ve earned this.”But beyond formalizing a political alliance, this announcement confirmed what...WW…

Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.President Trump sent federal agents to Portland, Oregon, , but their deployment also redirected outrage that was previously aimed at local police. This was a reprieve for Portland officials who viewed the president as an antagonist they and the protesters could both agree on. Now that Trump’s troops are scaling back, these officials have to contend with, yet again, how the city’s most persistent policing excesses have always been homegrown. Their behavior in the days since has only reaffirmed it.On Saturday night, officers with...…Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.President Trump sent federal agents to Portland, Oregon, , but their deployment also redirected outrage that was previously aimed at local police. This was a reprieve for Portland officials who viewed the president as an antagonist they and the protesters could both agree on. Now that Trump’s troops are scaling back, these officials have to contend with, yet again, how the city’s most persistent policing excesses have always been homegrown. Their behavior in the days since has only reaffirmed it.On Saturday night, officers with...WW…

Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.Joe Biden’s most effective campaign strategy has been to lie low and let people vote for whatever congealed inside their heads. On Friday, he went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss the . It was not a good argument for changing this strategy.For the most part, the interview with Mika Brzezinski held few surprises: Biden denied the allegations that he assaulted Reade in 1993, when she was on his Senate staff, while maintaining that women who make such allegations should be heard and have their claims investigated seriously. He...…Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.Joe Biden’s most effective campaign strategy has been to lie low and let people vote for whatever congealed inside their heads. On Friday, he went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss the . It was not a good argument for changing this strategy.For the most part, the interview with Mika Brzezinski held few surprises: Biden denied the allegations that he assaulted Reade in 1993, when she was on his Senate staff, while maintaining that women who make such allegations should be heard and have their claims investigated seriously. He...WW…

Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.On Thursday, President Trump wondered aloud if blasting people’s insides with ultraviolet light and injecting their lungs with disinfectant might be a more effective way to slow the coronavirus than the measures currently in use. It was one of the more irresponsible things he’s said in a presidency defined by its irresponsibility. He was able to say this, without fear of how guileless Americans might act on his suggestion, because he recognizes that responsibility is only required of people who can’t afford to evade it, and he...…Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.On Thursday, President Trump wondered aloud if blasting people’s insides with ultraviolet light and injecting their lungs with disinfectant might be a more effective way to slow the coronavirus than the measures currently in use. It was one of the more irresponsible things he’s said in a presidency defined by its irresponsibility. He was able to say this, without fear of how guileless Americans might act on his suggestion, because he recognizes that responsibility is only required of people who can’t afford to evade it, and he...WW…