Biden announces new $375M military aid package for Ukraine

President Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday and unveiled a new $375 million military aid package for Ukraine.

The Week

Writers Strike Explained: Why the Writers Guild of America Is Going Against Streamers

What it is, why it’s happening, how you’ll be affected, and how you can support the writers.

Teen Vogue

‘They’re opposed to government. But now they are the government.’ One county’s hard-right shift

Shortly after being sworn in last fall, the new majority of the Sumner County Commission in Tennessee acted to update one of its official documents. The new version said county operations would not only be orderly and efficient, but “most importantly reflective of the Judeo-Christian values inherent in the nation’s founding.”

It was an important moment for the 14 commissioners who had campaigned under the banner of the Sumner County Constitutional Republicans. The group had waged a political war on fellow Republicans they viewed as insufficiently conservative in this fast-growing region north of Nashville during a bitter primary a few months before.

AP News

How the 14th Amendment factors into the debt ceiling debate

As negotiations over addressing the US debt ceiling continue and the threat of default draws closer, President Joe Biden has resurfaced the controversial idea of using the 14th Amendment as a way to lift the borrowing cap without Congress.

CBS News

Yellen Doubts US Could Still Pay All of Its Bills by June 15

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US is unlikely to reach mid-June and still be able to pay its bills, underscoring the urgency of the White House reaching a deal with Republicans to raise the debt limit. 

“Well, there’s always uncertainty about tax receipts and spending,” Yellen said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “And so it’s hard to be absolutely certain about this, but my assessment is that the odds of reaching June 15 while being able to pay all of our bills is quite low.”

Bloomberg

Senate passes rewritten land bill no longer aimed at Chinese citizens in Alabama

The state Senate has passed a rewritten bill that in its original form caused alarm because it would have banned Chinese citizens from buying property in Alabama, a ban that would have applied to many people living and working in the state, preventing them from buying a home.

American Military News

Barbara Rose Johns Helped Make Brown v. Board of Education Possible

In 1896, the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson ruled that segregation was constitutional, so long as the facilities for white people and Black people were “separate but equal.” Yet one look at the white and Black public schools across the country would show that these separate facilities were anything but equal. In Prince Edward County, Virginia, the two segregated white schools had cafeterias, gymnasiums, and enough space for their students. They had solid foundations and brick walls, new textbooks, and heating. Conditions at Robert Russa Moton High School, the county’s first free-standing high school for African American students were a different story. 

Teen Vogue

Gov. Tim Walz Says He’s ‘Proud To Sign’ Cannabis Bill Into Law, Minnesota To Become 23rd Legal State

In the early hours of Saturday morning, Minnesota’s Senate approved a 300-page cannabis legalization bill by a vote of 34-32. Once Gov. Tim Walz (D) signs the legislation as he has promised to do, Minnesota will become the 23rd to have legalized adult-use cannabis.

Benzinga

How Abraham Lincoln Broke the Barrier Between Church and State

In September 1862, weeks before he issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln wrestled with the enormous dilemma of whether to change the stakes of the Civil War. As he deliberated, he committed his thoughts to paper. In a private document that his secretaries found after his death, the president struggled to understand what God expected of him and of the nation.

Politico

Suffolk County lawmakers trying to block Mayor Eric Adams from relocating asylum seekers in New York City

Officials in Suffolk County are planning to prevent thousands of asylum seekers from coming to the area, if they’re sent from New York City.

CBS2 was at a news conference Sunday to hear their plan on this embattled topic in the county.

“This is not an anti-immigration stance,” said Suffolk County Presiding Officer Kevin McCaffrey.

CBS News

If Trump ‘Finished’ His Wall Like He Claims, How Are So Many Migrants Still Crossing?

The coup-attempting former president lies as a matter of course, but his lie about the wall he promised he would build in 2016 may wind up costing him in 2024.

Huffpost

Back in hoodies and gym shorts, Fetterman tackles Senate life after depression treatment

Before Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman checked himself in to the hospital for clinical depression in February, he walked the halls of the Senate stone-faced and dressed in formal suits. These days, he’s back to wearing the hoodies and gym shorts he was known for before he became a senator.

AP News

Column: Debt ceiling negotiations were hard when Biden was vice president. They’re even harder now

For a brief moment last week, it was possible to imagine that President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) had found a patch of common ground in their standoff over the federal debt ceiling.

Los Angeles Times

A progressive wave washed away the competition in Western Pennsylvania: How they did it and what it means

On Tuesday, Sara Innamorato continued her streak of victories, winning the Democratic primary for Allegheny County Executive.

Raw Story

Fresh US abortion bans show Republicans trying to soften message

After repeated failed attempts to pass stricter bans, Republicans in someUS states are changing their messaging, touting “common sense” abortion laws presented as more lenient than outright bans, but that are more restrictive than they seem when looked at in detail.

The Guardian

Why immigration policy is so inhumane

The expiration of Title 42 has put migration front and center in US politics. Can a humane policy also be a winning political one?

Vox

The Pentagon has pulled back on its efforts to fight extremism in the ranks

Only one of six policy recommendations from December 2021 have been implemented, the Defense Department said this week.

Task and Purpose

This ancient farming practice could get a boost from the US farm bill

By integrating trees and pasture, farmers can increase their bottom line and protect livestock from hotter summers.

Popular Science

DeSantis wants judge disqualified from Disney’s free speech suit

The governor’s motion was filed a day after Disney said it was scrapping plans to build a new campus in Florida.

Politico

Vigilante violence disproportionately harms marginalized communities: Researchers

When Jordan Neely was killed in a chokehold on the New York City subway by fellow subway passenger Daniel Penny, some conservative politicians declared him a “Good Samaritan” and “Superman” for his actions.

ABC News

‘There are no good days’: Uziyah’s family won’t stop fighting until gun laws change

Nearly a year after losing their son, Uziyah, during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, the anguish is still there and it just won’t go away.

Austin American-Statesman

Voters elected Philadelphia’s first openly gay candidate to win a city council nomination

Our historic city of Philadelphia is about to make history once again. In Tuesday’s primary, voters elected the first openly gay candidate to win a nomination for city council. Rue Landau is used to being first.

In 2014, she and her wife Kerry were the first same-sex couple in Pennsylvania to get a marriage license. And now she could be the first member of the LGBTQIA+ community to sit on the Philadelphia City Council.

CBS News

While Bud Light falters, this brewer is crafting super-political “progressive beers”

Right-wingers have recently targeted Bud Light for a partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney — even though its parent company donates big bucks to anti-LGBTQ+ politicians. But while the company has also come under progressive criticism for its weak statements about transphobia, one Wisconsin brewer has spent years creating beers that are proudly progressive, including brews dedicated to left-wing political stars like lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

LGBTQ Nation

Automatic Voter Registration Would Help Get More Young People to Vote

Why don’t more young Americans vote? People (usually older people) will often say it’s because we’re apathetic or we just don’t care, but that’s not true. Young Americans are speaking up about immigration reform, gun violence, climate change, and rights for the LGBTQ+ community. As a 19-year-old Latinx community organizer who has helped thousands of schoolmates and neighbors register to vote, I think there is something else going on. The voter registration process is still too complicated and too inaccessible for young people. That’s why I am part of the movement to streamline voter registration in California and make it a more accessible, efficient, and truly automatic process for people of all ages. 

As an immigrant who arrived in the U.S. with my parents when I was seven, I just don’t understand why we are the only advanced democracy in the world where the burden to register falls entirely on the individual. 

Teen Vogue

Germany, South Korea to sign military secrets pact

Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged South Korea to invest in Germany’s chip industry after meeting President Yoon Suk-yeol in Seoul. Scholz also visited the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Korean peninsula.

Deutsche Welle

19 shot, 10 fatally, at car rally less than 100 miles from Mexico-US border

At least 10 people were killed and nine were wounded when an apparent team of gunmen ambushed a car rally in Baja California, Mexico, about 73 miles from the U.S. border, authorities said.

ABC News

Sudan conflict: Army fights to keep Wadi Saeedna airbase, residents say

Sudan’s army is resisting an attempt by paramilitaries to advance towards its main airbase near the capital Khartoum, residents have said.

The airfield is used by the military to carry out air strikes on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and was also used by foreign governments to evacuate their nationals early in the conflict.

The fighting comes despite the announcement of a new seven-day truce.

BBC

Taiwan legalizes adoption for LGBTQ+ couples

LGBTQ+ activists are celebrating this week after the Taiwanese legislature voted to legalize LGBTQ+ adoption.

In 2019, Taiwan became Asia’s only country to recognize marriage equality, but until now, only heterosexual couples and single people could adopt children that are not biologically related to them. As such, LGBTQ+ couples who wanted to adopt children that were not biologically related to one of them could only select one person to be the legal parent. Many worried about what would happen to the children if the legal parent died.

LGBTQ Nation

Greek elections: Ruling party wins over Syriza

The New Democracy party (ND) of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has won a landslide victory over its main rival, the left-wing Syriza party of Alexis Tsipras in Greece’s national elections on Sunday, according to official preliminary results.

Deutsche Welle

Angry fans crash through gate at El Salvador soccer match in stampede that kills 12, injures dozens

Fans angry at being blocked from entering a Salvadoran soccer league match despite having tickets knocked down a small access gate to the stadium, creating a crush that killed 12 people and injured dozens, officials and witnesses said Sunday.

AP News

Egyptian conservationists race to save artefacts as the City of the Dead is bulldozed

Amateur archaeologists are rescuing relics as mausoleums are flattened to make way for a new highway

The Telegraph

Greece recovers hundreds of stolen artefacts

Greece says it has recovered hundreds of looted artefacts, including a 2nd-Century bronze statue of Alexander the Great.

BBC