Latina radio network owners fend off conservative critics, tout cultural focus

Latino Media Network’s Stephanie Valencia and Jess Morales Rocketto’s new ownership of key Latino radio stations was slammed as a Democratic power play, which they insist misses the point.

NBC News

‘Clock is ticking’: Lawmakers return to Washington facing fast-approaching debt limit ‘X-date’

As lawmakers return Monday from recess, they are staring down a fast-approaching deadline to address the debt limit or risk an unprecedented default.

The United States reached its $31.4 trillion borrowing limit back in January and is now relying on “extraordinary measures” to keep the government fully funded and avoid what would be an economically catastrophic default. When exactly those measures will run out — dubbed the “X-date” — is a moving target, experts told ABC News, though it could happen as early as this summer.

ABC News

Texas Republicans Have Filed Dozens of Bills Affecting LGBTQ People. Here’s What They’d Do.

Texas lawmakers this year are considering several bills that could bring major changes to the lives of gay and transgender Texans. Republicans have filed bills that would restrict when sexuality and gender identity are taught in schools, where people can perform in drag and what kind of health care is available to transgender children.

Reform Austin

Katie Porter thinks Democrats have a confidence problem

The populist Congress member from California talked with The Gray Area about some solutions to it.

Vox

America’s parents show increasing concern over gun violence

Social pressures. Bullies. Academics. These are all things generations of American children have had to worry about. 

Today, their parents tell us, there’s another worry weighing on most of them, too: the prospect of gun violence.

CBS News

A huge win in Wisconsin shows Dems how fiercely defending abortion rights can kneecap the GOP in 2024

The lesson is that, a year after the toppling of Roe v. Wade, “voters are furious about their personal freedoms being ripped away,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler told Insider, and “every Democratic candidate should convey with crystal clarity that they will stand up for reproductive freedom and for democracy.”

Insider

Column: Can an anti-immigrant bill turn Florida blue the way Prop. 187 did for California?

The Florida bill, SB 1718, is a grab bag of punitive proposals, requiring hospitals, law enforcement and others to report the immigrants and criminalizing anyone who helps them.

It would even repeal state laws allowing college students who grew up in Florida but aren’t U.S. citizens to pay in-state tuition and to practice law.

LA Times

Just 10 years ago, women were banned from combat. Now, they’re on the front lines, climbing the ranks.

The Army, facing its worst recruiting crisis since Vietnam, strains to meet its priorities without more soldiers. Women seizing a more prominent role in combat, some soldiers say, could ease the recruiting crunch.

USA Today

George Santos’ campaign didn’t spend a dime and managed to lose money

The New York Republican, who has been beleaguered from before he was sworn in after it was revealed he’d fabricated major portions of his biography, raised a scant $5,333.26 during the first three months of the year. But his campaign also refunded $8,352; meaning that he actually took in less than $3,000 than he paid out.

Politico

More Than Joy, Drag Queens & Kings Fuel Our Community

Drag performances have long been a part of America’s history, including its military, tracing back to the late 1800s. Drag performers were especially popular during World War I and II. Both on and off military bases, drag performers raised millions of dollars for the Army Emergency Relief Fund, and President Franklin Roosevelt even attended performances and raved about them. Women soldiers (WACS) held workshops to teach the soldiers how to dress in drag with lessons in makeup and how to dress in female clothing. Interestingly, because the Armed Services were racially segregated, there would be two ongoing shows separately performed by Black and white drag performers.

Advocate

The Supreme Court takes up a messy, chaotic case about religion in the workplace

Groff v. DeJoy could give religious conservatives unprecedented power to make demands from their employers.

Vox

Vice President Kamala Harris leads rally for abortion rights in L.A.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday urged Americans to take action during “a critical point in our nation’s history” as thousands of protesters demonstrated across the country against new limits to abortion rights making their way through the courts.

Saturday’s nationwide rallies were sparked by the U.S. Supreme Court’s actions the day before, when the high court intervened to delay rule changes that would have limited the way the abortion drug mifepristone could be used and dispensed. The limits were paused while the court reviews the case more thoroughly.

CBS News

‘Outrageous and unacceptable’: Biden slams GOP for standing with NRA in wake of Alabama, Kentucky gun violence

President Biden blasted Republicans Sunday for standing with the National Rifle Association in the wake of two more shootings in Alabama and Kentucky.

“This morning, our nation is once again grieving for at least four Americans tragically killed at a teen’s birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama as well as two others killed last night in a crowded public park in Louisville,” Biden said in a statement Sunday. “Jill and I are praying for their families, and for the many others injured and fighting for their lives in the wake of this weekend’s gun violence.”

The Hill

New Mexico governor fears a national ban on abortion

The governor recently signed two bills into law protecting abortion providers and guaranteeing access to reproductive and gender-affirming care in her state.

Politico

There’s another legal route Biden can use to cancel student debt, and the Supreme Court’s latest move shows the justices could be open to it

We just got another sign that President Joe Biden’s student-loan forgiveness might not be doomed — even if the Supreme Court strikes it down the first time around.

Insider

Debt Ceiling Fight Shows Stakes Of Feinstein’s US Senate Absence-Klobuchar

The standoff over raising the U.S. federal government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling illustrates the stakes of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s lengthy absence from Washington, fellow Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said on Sunday.

Feinstein, 89, faced calls from some fellow Democrats last week to resign her seat after being sidelined since early March by a bout of shingles. On Wednesday she said she would temporarily step down from her spot on the Judiciary Committee while she recovers.

IBT

What Bud Light’s Tepid Response to Anti-Trans Backlash Against Dylan Mulvaney Says About Brand Commitment to LGBTQ+ Issues

A recent partnership between prominent transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light prompted an anti-trans backlash from conservatives. As the LGBTQ+ community and allies have rallied to support Mulvaney, some have criticized Bud Light for not adequately defending her—and for not being more vocal in its support of the community.

Time

U.S.-born Latinos now more likely to be ‘nones’ than Catholic

Among the 65% who say they were raised Catholic, study shows, 23% no longer identify as such.

The Salt Lake Tribune

Lauren Boebert says affirming trans people’s identities will lead to school shootings

The gun-obsessed Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) believes that being transgender and learning about societal oppression will “radicalize” students and make them mentally ill, causing them shooting up schools.

Her views echo right-wing justifications for bans on LGBTQ+ and racial justice curriculum in schools. Her views also avoid blaming guns for recent mass shootings, blaming queer people and progressive politics instead.

LGBTQ Nation

Queen Latifah Becomes 1st Ever Female Rapper Inducted Into National Recording Registry

Queen Latifah may have made history as the first female hip-hop artists to get nominated for an Oscar back in 2002, but now, over 20 years later, she’s doing it once again—this time for the National Recording Registry.

The Root

Colombian FARC Dissidents ‘Ready’ For Peace Talks

An armed dissident group of Colombia’s disbanded FARC guerrillas said Sunday it was ready to start peace talks with the government next month in an apparent boost for leftist President Gustavo Petro’s quest for “total peace.”

IBT

Putin meets with China’s defence minister in Moscow

Putin meets with General Li Shangfu less than a month after Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a three-day state visit to Moscow.

Al Jazeera

Germany has evidence of hundreds of war crimes in Ukraine

Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has received 337 tipoffs about possible war crimes in Ukraine, Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported Sunday.

Citing government figures from February 2022 until mid-April, the newspaper said investigators had interviewed around 90 eyewitnesses about alleged atrocities committed by Russian soldiers during the Ukraine war.

Deutsche Welle

Reading the bones of the dead: the painstaking, painful process of returning genocide victims to their families

Hagerty’s book, Still Life with Bones, is a voyage into the brutality of the genocide that took place in Guatemala, and in Argentina’s “Dirty War”. It is also about the bureaucratic violence of state institutions, unfolding in the aftermath.

The Conversation

German environment minister rejects Bavaria’s plea for nuclear power

German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke blasted an attempt by Bavarian premier Markus Söder to transfer responsibility for nuclear power from the federal government to the states, a day after the nation shut down its last reactors.

“It is downright depressing how a prime minister so carelessly ignores questions of licensing and constitutional law and aspects of nuclear safety,” Lemke, a Green Party politician, told the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Deutsche Presse Agentur

Fighting rages in Sudan despite humanitarian pause

Fierce fighting raged in Sudan’s capital despite an hours-long pause Sunday to address humanitarian needs including the evacuation of wounded, on the second day of battles that left three UN staff among more than 50 civilians killed throughout the country.

Al-Monitor