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Eighteen ways the Supreme Court just changed America

Eighteen ways the Supreme Court just changed America

Politico reports: The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will create two Americas when it comes to abortion access — the mostly red states where abortion is illegal in most circumstances, and the mostly blue states where it is mostly available with restrictions. But this sudden cleaving in the United States will go far beyond abortion access, affecting healthcare, the criminal legal system and politics, at all levels, in the coming years. We can’t know exactly how all…

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Many states with antiabortion laws have pro-choice majorities

Many states with antiabortion laws have pro-choice majorities

Jake Grumbach and Christopher Warshaw write: We find that a majority of the public in about 40 states supports legal abortion rights. Only about 10 states have majorities that oppose allowing abortions. In some of these red states, such as Louisiana and Arkansas, bans on abortion may bring policy into line with the views of the majority of the public. But this increase in congruence between policy and public preferences in red states will probably be outweighed by the decrease…

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How Kavanaugh and Gorsuch deceived the Senate

How Kavanaugh and Gorsuch deceived the Senate

The New York Times reports: During a two-hour meeting in her Senate office with the Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh on Aug. 21, 2018, Senator Susan Collins of Maine pressed him hard on why she should trust him not to overturn Roe v. Wade if she backed his confirmation. Judge Kavanaugh worked vigorously to reassure her that he was no threat to the landmark abortion rights ruling. “Start with my record, my respect for precedent, my belief that it…

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Five misunderstandings of pregnancy biology that cloud the abortion debate

Five misunderstandings of pregnancy biology that cloud the abortion debate

Science News reports: Like most aspects of biology, early human development involves many complex processes. Despite the rhetoric around these issues, clear lines — between having a heart and not having a heart or being able to survive outside of the uterus — are scarce, or nonexistent. “There aren’t these set black-and-white points for much of this,” says obstetrician-gynecologist Nisha Verma, a fellow with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Washington, D.C. Here’s what’s known about five key…

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Ukrainian troops retreat from Severodonetsk after weeks of brutal battle

Ukrainian troops retreat from Severodonetsk after weeks of brutal battle

The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukraine ordered its troops to withdraw from their remaining foothold in the city of Severodonetsk to avoid encirclement, the regional governor said, ending a battle that lasted nearly two months and giving Russia a small but symbolically important victory in the grinding war for control of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas area. Hard to defend and separated from the rest of Ukrainian-held territory by a river, Severodonetsk, a city of just over 100,000 people before the war,…

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America is growing apart, possibly for good

America is growing apart, possibly for good

Ronald Brownstein writes: It may be time to stop talking about “red” and “blue” America. That’s the provocative conclusion of Michael Podhorzer, a longtime political strategist for labor unions and the chair of the Analyst Institute, a collaborative of progressive groups that studies elections. In a private newsletter that he writes for a small group of activists, Podhorzer recently laid out a detailed case for thinking of the two blocs as fundamentally different nations uneasily sharing the same geographic space….

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Trump privately called a Roe v. Wade reversal ‘bad’ for his party

Trump privately called a Roe v. Wade reversal ‘bad’ for his party

The New York Times reports: The man most responsible for shaping a United States Supreme Court that delivered the conservative movement a long-sought victory has spent weeks saying he didn’t think it will be good for his party. Publicly, after a draft of the likely decision leaked in May, former President Donald J. Trump was remarkably tight-lipped for weeks about the possible decision, which the court ultimately handed down on Friday, ending federal abortion protections. But privately, Mr. Trump has…

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No one is above the law, and that starts with Donald Trump

No one is above the law, and that starts with Donald Trump

Richard L. Hasen writes: In a 2019 ruling requiring the former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify at a congressional hearing about former President Donald Trump’s alleged abuses of power, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson declared that “presidents are not kings.” If we take that admonition from our next Supreme Court justice seriously and look at the evidence amassed so far by the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack, we can — and in fact must — conclude…

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I was forced to give birth to my rapist’s baby. The end of Roe means more will suffer my hell

I was forced to give birth to my rapist’s baby. The end of Roe means more will suffer my hell

Dina Zirlott writes: My story is one that some already know, but for the sake of those who might not, and in light of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, it is best summarized by these three sentences: I was raped when I was 17 years old. I was forced to give birth to a baby when I was 18 years old. My baby died when I was 19 years old. I wrote my first essay for HuffPost in…

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Biden, 11 U.S. states to boost support for offshore wind energy

Biden, 11 U.S. states to boost support for offshore wind energy

Reuters reports: The Biden administration is partnering with 11 East Coast states to accelerate development of offshore wind facilities and create jobs by supporting a domestic supply chain for the industry, the White House said on Thursday. The move is part of President Joe Biden’s push to fight climate change by expanding clean energy technologies. That agenda has been weighed down recently by rising prices, particularly for gasoline. Offshore wind is a major component of that strategy. The administration has…

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‘Ukraine’s future is in the EU’: Zelenskiy welcomes granting of candidate status

‘Ukraine’s future is in the EU’: Zelenskiy welcomes granting of candidate status

The Guardian reports: European leaders have granted Ukraine candidate status, in a historic decision that opens the door to EU membership for the war-torn country and deals a blow to Vladimir Putin. EU leaders meeting in Brussels approved Ukraine’s candidate status on Thursday night, nearly four months after the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, launched his country’s bid to join the bloc in the early days of the Russian invasion. Moldova was also given candidate status. Zelenskiy immediately welcomed the move,…

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Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine

Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine

Slavoj Žižek writes: For me, John Lennon’s mega-hit Imagine was always a song popular for the wrong reasons. Imagine that “the world will live as one” is the best way to end in hell. Those who cling to pacifism in the face of the Russian attack on Ukraine remain caught in their own version of “imagine”. Imagine a world in which tensions are no longer resolved through armed conflicts … Europe persisted in this world of “imagine”, ignoring the brutal…

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What Turkey wants to support Finland and Sweden joining NATO

What Turkey wants to support Finland and Sweden joining NATO

Steven Erlanger writes: Spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden applied last month to join NATO, anticipating swift and smooth entry into the alliance. Instead they are in a bind, their path blocked by the unpredictable Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. With NATO’s annual summit beginning on June 29 in Madrid, their expectations to be greeted as fast-track applicants are quickly fading, after Mr. Erdogan backtracked on earlier promises not to put obstacles in their way. Ibrahim Kalin,…

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Moscow threatens NATO member Lithuania over transit ban on goods to Russia’s European exclave Kaliningrad

Moscow threatens NATO member Lithuania over transit ban on goods to Russia’s European exclave Kaliningrad

CBS News reports: Lithuania’s decision to ban the transit of certain goods between Russia and its isolated exclave of Kaliningrad has provoked wrath among top officials in Moscow, and even a threat of retaliation against the European nation. Kaliningrad shares land borders with two NATO nations, Lithuania and Poland, but not Russia. Captured from Nazi Germany by the Soviet Red Army in 1945 and later ceded to the Soviet Union, the Russian territory is home to about 500,000 people. While…

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Bulgaria’s Petkov points finger at mafia and Russia as government collapses

Bulgaria’s Petkov points finger at mafia and Russia as government collapses

Politico reports: Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov planted the blame squarely on Russia and his own country’s powerful mafia after his government lost a no-confidence vote on Wednesday. Petkov, who only came to power six months ago, was voted in on a pledge to fight the country’s rampant corruption and has pushed Sofia to take an unusually strong line against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. In the vote of no-confidence, some 123 lawmakers out of 239 in parliament voted…

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Gavin Newsom jumps onto the national stage and Bidenworld takes notice

Gavin Newsom jumps onto the national stage and Bidenworld takes notice

Politico reports: Newsom has long centered Republican leaders as foils, using his State of the State speech in March to argue that America is plagued by agents of a “national anger machine” that’s fueling division and weaponizing grievance. Often focusing on Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, Republican governors who revel in making California an example of progressivism run amuck, Newsom argues, the GOP is counting on complacency to erode voting rights, scapegoat minorities, conjure conspiracies and…

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