Month: May 2024

NY Times: “Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has unexpectedly emerged as a top contender to become Donald J. Trump’s running mate, a signal that the former president is heavily weighing experience and the ability to run a disciplined campaign over other factors. Mr. Cotton’s ascendance comes as Mr. Trump’s leading vice-presidential options have increasingly come…

NY Times: “The speaker of the Texas House, Dade Phelan, won renomination in a runoff on Tuesday, surviving a bruising Republican primary challenge from a party activist and first-time candidate who was backed by former President Donald J. Trump and his Texas supporters. The race, in a southeast Texas district that includes part of the…

CNN: “The Supreme Court upheld a pro-Republican South Carolina congressional map Thursday, rejecting the argument raised by civil rights groups that lawmakers impermissibly used race as a proxy to bolster the GOP’s chances. But the high court also said that the civil rights groups that challenged the maps could continue to pursue one part of their claim,…

NC Newsline: “Lawyers with the North Carolina Attorney General’s office tried three times to convince a federal court the state’s “ag-gag” law should stand. They lost in U.S. District Court, which ruled the law violated the constitution. They lost at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the lower court. They petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear…

WaPo: “If people didn’t want to be gay, he thought, God could transform them. Danny had read accounts of conversion therapy, and he believed that it could work. But by 2014 he’d begun to notice that it hadn’t worked for any of the gay people he actually knew. One afternoon he went out for coffee…

WaPo: “The Louisiana House on Tuesday passed a bill that classifies the two drugs used to induce an abortion as “controlled dangerous substances.” Abortion opponents hope the measure, now on its way to Gov. Jeff Landry, will be a template for conservative states trying to end the procedure. The bill passed 64-29 after more than an hour…

NC Newsline: “Individuals and law firms making false claims of fraudulent voting cannot be sued for defamation,  the NC Supreme Court ruled Thursday.  The state Supreme Court’s five Republican justices ruled unanimously that people and entities bringing election protests enjoy “absolute privilege” that protects them from defamation lawsuits.  The case stems from false claims of…

Reuters: “U.S. workers at a Mercedes-Benz (MBGn.DE), opens new tab plant in Alabama handed a stinging loss to the United Auto Workers on Friday, rejecting the union in a vote it had expected would build on a win at a Tennessee Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), opens new tab plant and push it deeper into the U.S. South. It marked the first…

ATL Journal-Constitution: “President Joe Biden gave a high-stakes commencement speech to hundreds of young Black men at Morehouse College on Sunday, delivering a direct address to the constituency his campaign worries is shifting against him as he runs for reelection against former President Donald Trump. The Democrat focused parts of his speech laying out the…

TX Tribune: “Protests have been a century-long tradition at UT-Austin, and The Daily Texan, the student-operated university newspaper, has faithfully covered and recorded these significant historical events. UT-Austin President Jay Hartzell, in an op-ed following the protests, defended the university’s response and also acknowledged the university’s long, proud history of protest. He recognized the campus…