HHS secretary says ‘everything is on the table’ in response to medication abortion ruling
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Sunday said “everything is on the table” following a Texas federal judge’s ruling to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication abortion drug mifepristone.
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” the secretary would not say whether he believes the FDA should ignore the ruling and keep the drug on the market, but he maintained that the Biden administration is considering all options.
CNN
Missouri officials refuse to work with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, saying all federal ‘so-called’ gun laws are unconstitutional
Missouri officials in one county have refused to work with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, claiming that the government agency is unconstitutional.
Six top elected officials in Camden County signed a letter to the ATF saying as much, according to the NPR affiliate KCUR 89.3.
“Under the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine, Camden County was the first county in Missouri, and possibly in the country, to pass an ordinance prohibiting any county employee from assisting your unconstitutional agency in violating the rights of our citizens,” Ike Skelton, the county’s presiding commissioner, said in the letter.
Business Insider
Now Kansas Republicans Are Going After Transgender Youth and Their Doctors In New Bill
The war against transgender youth in the United States has taken another disturbing turn. On Friday, Republican legislators in Kansas approved a plan to end gender-affirming care for transgender youth. The move comes amid a year of unprecedented legislative attacks on trans youth.
The Root
The Cold War Mystery The U.S. Military Can’t Afford to Forget
Seventy-three years ago this week, the first lethal clash of the Cold War lit up the skies over the Baltic Sea. Ten American airmen on a secret — and well-disguised — mission disappeared, never to be heard from again. Most likely you have never heard about them. But at a time when Russia and the U.S. once again have daggers drawn, their story is one we cannot afford to forget.
Politico
‘We’re angry’: Hundreds rally for transgender and drag queen rights in SF
A day of action and activism in San Francisco Saturday. Hundreds of trans and drag activists including their supporters took to the streets to fight for their rights and protest recent anti-LGBTQ Legislation across the country.
A march with a message echoing through the streets of San Francisco. Activists and allies say enough is enough.
“Trans rights are human rights,” the crowd chanted.
ABC 7 News
At a Korean community center in Houston, the struggle immigrant Texans face with language barriers is clear
Texas largely conducts its state business in English and Spanish. It falls to interpreters like Terry Yun to help people scale the wall dividing them from crucial government services.
Texas Tribune
Tenn. lawmaker Justin Pearson expects to soon be reappointed after unprecedented expulsion
Former Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson said Sunday he expects to be quickly reappointed after what he called his “unprecedented” expulsion for participating in a raucous, unrecognized gun violence protest on the Legislature floor.
“I do hope to continue to serve District 86 in the reappointment,” Pearson, a Memphis Democrat, told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “If there is a special election, I would definitely run in that special election because our voters have been disenfranchised.”
ABC News
Gov. Greg Abbott announces he will push to pardon Daniel Perry who was convicted of murder
Less than 24 hours after a jury in Austin found Daniel Perry guilty of shooting to death a protester, Gov. Greg Abbott announced on social media Saturday that he would pardon the convicted killer as soon as a request “hits my desk.”
Austin American Statesman
Ben Ferencz, last living prosecutor of Nazis at Nuremberg trials, dies at 103
Ben Ferencz, the last living prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, who tried Nazis for genocidal war crimes and was among the first outside witnesses to document the atrocities of Nazi labor and concentration camps, has died. He had just turned 103 in March.
PBS
Biden to travel to Northern Ireland to mark Good Friday Agreement anniversary
The White House announced Wednesday that President Biden will visit Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement before traveling on to Ireland.
CBS News
Border Patrol investigating after humanitarian volunteers say agents destroyed supplies left for migrants
Volunteers with Borderlands Relief Collective found and confronted two Border Patrol agents at the end of the trail and filmed it
San Diego Tribune
What Does Biden’s Title IX Proposal Mean for Trans Youth Athletes?
The Biden administration announced blanket bans are in violation of Title IX, but schools could still make their own rules.
Teen Vogue
Why Republicans are in trouble: Trump and the abortion issue aren’t going away
Donald Trump is now in a stronger position to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination than he has been in months as his party rallies around him following his indictment by a New York grand jury on business fraud charges.
But actual results on the ground continue to suggest that the former president may not be good for the Republican brand among the general electorate.
CNN
Brandon Johnson: The rise of Chicago’s next leader
There will soon be a new boss in the Windy City — Brandon Johnson has been elected the 57th mayor of Chicago, defeating challenger Paul Vallas in a runoff election. The 47-year-old Johnson is a former teacher-turned-progressive political leader who has run the ladder in Illinois politics to now helm the country’s third-largest metropolis.
The Week
‘A son of Ireland’: how Biden’s Irish roots shape his political identity
It was a line guaranteed to raise a smile. “As we know, every American president is a little bit Irish on St Patrick’s Day,” Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach, observed during last month’s celebration at the White House. “But some are more Irish than others.”
The Guardian
Biden administration to speed up asylum cases, expand legal resources at the border
The Biden administration next week will begin conducting asylum interviews at the border while it expands access to legal services for migrants seeking refuge in the U.S., according to two administration officials. The latter a key issue that emerged during attempts to fast-track processing under the Trump administration.
ABC News
Is the Biden Administration Really Turning Against Transgender Students?
When Joe Biden’s Department of Education unveiled a proposed rule on Thursday regulating transgender students’ participation in school sports under Title IX, the announcement prompted two wildly different articles in the nation’s leading newspapers. The Washington Post reported that, “as a practical matter,” the regulation “would side with those who have opposed the inclusion of transgender athletes in high-profile cases.” (The paper later removed this sentence in a stealth-edit.) The New York Times, by contrast, led with the fact that the new rule would “prevent schools from enacting across-the-board bans,” though it would “block some transgender athletes” at a school’s “discretion.”
Slate
Everything You Need to Know About the Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney Fiasco
All this drama over Dylan Mulvaney and an American lager.
Over the past week, right-wingers in the U.S. have worked themselves into a veritable tizzy over a new Anheuser-Busch marketing campaign featuring transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, who promoted the company’s “Easy Carry Contest” on social media. To reiterate, a company put a trans woman in a marketing campaign, and things immediately escalated to the point of Kid Rock destroying cases of watery beer with an AR-15. What a time to be alive!
While we’re not bending over backwards to praise a multinational conglomerate responsible for massive pollution, the whole situation is sadly reflective of where trans visibility and acceptance stands in the U.S. today — so if you’re behind on the whole saga, here’s everything you need to know to catch up.
them
Thousands Of Catholic Nuns Declare Trans People ‘Beloved And Cherished By God’ In Open Letter
In an open letter, more than 6,000 Catholic nuns stated trans and non-binary people are “beloved and cherished by God,” joining the fight for trans rights.
On Trans Day of Visibility, the Sisters of Saint Joseph Federation and a number of other Catholic organizations sent an open statement supporting the LGBTQ+ community and denouncing the recent wave of oppressive and discriminatory legislation that has been sweeping the US.
Comic Sands
Meet the judge who ruled medication abortion must remain available in some states
What initially looked like an outright victory for anti-abortion activists Friday evening soon became more complicated.
US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, first ruled Friday that the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of mifepristone – one of the drugs used to terminate a pregnancy – needed to be halted.
But less than an hour after Kacsmaryk’s ruling, US District Judge Thomas Owen Rice of the Eastern District of Washington, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ordered the federal government to keep the drug available in 17 states plus the District of Columbia.
CNN
Caitlyn Jenner enraged by trans influencer’s Nike deal: “Stop trying to erase women!”
Jenner is trans and has done ad deals for clothing in the past. But when Dylan Mulvaney does the same, Jenner called it an “outrage.”
LGBTQ Nation
Is This America? Republicans Kick Two Black Elected Officials Out of Tennessee Legislature–But Spare A White Woman
Members of the same political party that accuses a New York prosecutor of being politically-motivated for indicting ex-president Donald Trump on Tuesday expelled two duly-elected Black lawmakers from their posts for leading a legal, peaceful protest against gun violence.
Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones are no longer members of the Tennessee House of Representatives after the Republican supermajority in the state legislature’s lower chamber voted to oust both men–and tried to kick out a third–following a loud protest at the state’s capitol in Nashville on Tuesday. Both men are Democrats and both had been elected by constituents in heavily Black districts.
The Root
Tensions build around Jerusalem shrine after Syria rockets
Israeli warplanes and artillery struck targets in Syria following rare rocket fire from the northeastern neighbor, as Jewish-Muslim tensions reached a peak Sunday at a volatile Jerusalem shrine with simultaneous religious rituals.
AP News
What Were the Troubles? The History of Northern Ireland’s Decades-Long Conflict
What were The Troubles? They were a long-running insurgency waged in Northern Ireland from the 1960s through the 1990s, fought by Ulster Unionists against Irish Nationalists. I asked Ian McBride, professor of Irish history at the University of Oxford, how we should understand the conflict, and he had this to say: “The first political scientist to go to Northern Ireland and study it was a brilliant man named Richard Rose. He went there in the 1960s because he said, not quite in these terms, some places are fed up over religion, some are fed up over class, some are fed up over nationality, and Northern Ireland is fed up over all of them.”
Teen Vogue
Chinese military rehearses encirclement of Taiwan
Chinese state media said the military drills would “simultaneously organise patrols and advances around Taiwan island, shaping an all-round encirclement and deterrence posture”.
BBC News
This Southern Mexico Community Has Challenged the Gender Binary for Generations
Muxes, a group long recognized within the indigenous Zapotec people of Mexico, are often referred to as a third gender. Embodying characteristics of both men and women, their existence challenges the gender binary that is so deeply entrenched in Western society.
Advocate
Ukrainians celebrate Palm Sunday in church marred by dispute
The occasion marks the first significant religious service to be held in the complex following the March 29 eviction order issued by the Ukrainian government against Orthodox monks residing in the monastery over their alleged links with Russia. The monks had refused to leave the premises before the eviction deadline.
AP News