Новости за 17.06.2021

Only one side is officially fighting the culture war over “critical race theory.” Republican elected officials have not only denounced “critical race theory” but also introduced and passed legislation aimed at fighting its supposed spread. Well-funded and organized conservative activists and organizations are springing up to transform what was once an obscure academic theory into a fraught political issue in cities and states across the country. Drawing on the Tea Party’s playbook, they are organizing... Читать дальше...

On Tuesday, Judge Terry Doughty of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana issued an injunction on the Biden administration’s temporary pause of new gas and oil leases on public lands. Doughty’s ruling was spurred by a legal challenge mounted by a group of 13 state attorneys general, all Republican, who seem intent on clinging to the extraction of fossil fuels, all hopes of a sustainable future and common sense be damned.

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously sided with a Catholic foster care agency in Philadelphia that refused to help place children with same-sex couples, ruling that the city had improperly declined to work with the agency because of its religious beliefs. At the same time, the justices avoided a more sweeping ruling on when and how Americans’ religious beliefs can overcome state and federal efforts to protect gay and transgender Americans from discrimination.

The Supreme Court rejected a long-shot bid to overturn the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, once again saving the landmark health care law from Republican attempts to dismantle and destroy it. The 7–2 ruling is a strong sign that the court’s conservative supermajority won’t pose an existential threat to the ACA in the future, and perhaps even an indication that years of major legal struggles over the law may finally be winding down.

Using the discharge of incendiary devices across the wall that hems in the Gaza Strip against the Mediterranean Sea as justification, Israel, under new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, launched a series of airstrikes in the besieged coastal enclave on Tuesday night. Since Gaza was pulverized by an 11-day-long Israeli bombardment in May, fears had been growing that this scenario, or one similar to it, would play out should the fragile ceasefire reached between Hamas and Israel crack, if the latter... Читать дальше...

When he arrived in South Africa on March 20, 1976, Milton Friedman was a bona fide celebrity. He had been invited by the University of Cape Town to deliver a series of lectures on economic policy, but his itinerary was jammed with interviews, fetes, and gaudy extravagances fit for a senator or Hollywood royalty. Newspaper reporters harangued him, the crowded pre-cable TV spectrum reserved room for his insights, and he spent so much of the ensuing three weeks being whirlwinded by the local elite... Читать дальше...

When Vice President Andrew Johnson assumed the office of president upon the death of Abraham Lincoln in mid-April 1865, he initially incurred favor with Republican legislators in Congress, including those identified as “Radical Republicans,” by appointing the “Christian soldier” and Union Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard to head up the newly created Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (later just the Freedmen’s Bureau). Howard, to the satisfaction of Republicans of all stripes, immediately... Читать дальше...

Crystal Jackson and her husband live with their three-year-old son in rural Arkansas. Crystal’s husband, Keith, who is 39, was born with cerebral palsy and has had a growing number of health problems in recent years that threaten his independence. Five years ago, an illness put him on dialysis; three years ago, one landed him in the hospital for two weeks. His care needs continue to grow. “It’s a nonstop thing,” Crystal said. “Literally. It is a nonstop thing.”

Covid-19 cases across the United States have finally started dropping. People are venturing outside again to host barbecues and birthday parties. This week, both New York and California officially lifted restrictions that have been in place since last year to help defend against Covid-19. It feels like the worst of the pandemic could be behind us.

Joe Biden will almost certainly be the last president whose internal newsreel is filled with memories of Russia from Joseph Stalin to Vladimir Putin. He was born during World War II, when old “Uncle Joe” was our ally against Hitler. And he first visited Moscow as a senator in 1979, during the ideological rigidity of the Leonid Brezhnev years.