Austin American-Statesman: “President Joe Biden is set to deliver a major speech on civil rights and democracy at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin on July 15, the same day the Republican National Convention begins in Milwaukee, two sources familiar with the engagement told the American-Statesman. The event, which will commemorate…

Advocate: “The Texas Supreme Court has refused to block the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, allowing the ban to remain in effect while a lawsuit against it proceeds. The court ruled that the families, health care professionals, and organizations challenging the ban are unlikely to succeed in proving that it violates the Texas constitution. “We conclude…

New Republic: “Mark Robinson, the extremist GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, appeared to endorse political violence in a bizarre and extended rant he delivered on June 30 in a small-town church. “Some folks need killing!” Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, shouted during a roughly half-hour-long speech in Lake Church in the tiny town of White…

Longreads: ““At last! This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” —Genesis 2:23 In the seventh year of our marriage, on a cold day in October, my husband called me into the bathroom. He was lying in the tub with…

KCBX: “A Kentucky judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by three Jewish mothers who argued that the state’s near-total abortion ban violated the religious freedoms of those who believe life begins at birth, not conception. On Friday evening, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Brian Edwards said the group of women lacked standing to bring the case and sided with the state’s…

WaPo: “Handcuffed in the cramped lobby of the Lexington Police Department, standing eye-to-eye with the chief, Jill Collen Jefferson was given a choice. She had been arrested while filming a nighttime traffic stop in this county seat of roughly 1,500 people and four traffic signals. Pay a $35 processing fee, the chief said, and we’ll…

WaPo: “A lone four-lane road goes south past a Navy air base, an idle industrial site, a coal export terminal and a handful of small storm-battered communities. Then, suddenly, a gigantic facility rises from the wetlands. Cranes dot the skyline. They hover over crews that are installing a jumble of pipes, pumps, storage tanks and…

AR Times: “Arkansans for Limited Government announced Tuesday on social media that they still need 8,200 petition signatures in order to get the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot in November. If passed, the amendment would allow for abortions under any circumstance within 18 weeks of fertilization as well as in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomalies…

NC Newsline: “The Republican-dominated legislature passed three new laws that Gov. Roy Cooper does not want, with the Senate voting Thursday to tear holes in campaign finance rules, allow billboard owners to cut more trees along roadsides, and have more 16- and 17-year-olds to face trial in adult court.  The Senate voted along party lines…

ABC 11: “Activists from across the country gathered in Raleigh Monday, calling on North Carolina lawmakers to prioritize care and secure more funding for people who are disabled. 50 protesters in wheelchairs and on crutches made their way from Glenwood South to the State Department of Health and Human Services near Dix Park. According to…