Kentucky Parents Could Owe Child Support Before The Child Is Born, Some Men Are Mad

A Kentucky bill with bi-partisan support could radically change how child support works in the state. On Tuesday, the Kentucky Senate passed a bill granting the right to collect child support for a child before they’re born — allowing parents to re-coup expenses from during their pregnancy.

The bill, which passed the senate 36-2, would allow parents to retroactively apply for child support for pregnancy expenses a year after they’ve given birth.

The Root

Georgia and Michigan could be key to keeping Black voter turnout up in 2024

Black voters played a key role in helping Joe Biden win Georgia and other battlegrounds in 2020. But as Georgia voters head to the polls on Tuesday for the state’s presidential primary, organizers warn that Democrats cannot ignore the drop in Black voter turnout that happened between the last two midterms.

NPR

Florida surgeon general says controversial measles policy informed by lessons from COVID-19

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is standing firm behind his controversial decision not to force an isolation period for children not vaccinated against measles after an outbreak in his state in February, saying that erring on the side of individual choice should be a key lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What honestly breaks my heart but I hope that people recognize … is that, unfortunately, the same people who were ready to drive the car into the ground and take everyone down with them during COVID have learned no lessons,” Ladapo said in an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner.

Washington Examiner

Youngkin signs bills targeting legacy admissions at Virginia public colleges

“No public institution of higher education shall provide any manner of preferential treatment in the admissions decision to any student applicant on the basis of such student’s legacy status or such student’s familial relationship to any donor to such institution,” the identical bills’ text reads.

The Hill

Crypto titans target Ohio, Montana races that could flip Senate

The crypto political network, which includes the super PACs Fairshake, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress, is also planning to target Democratic Senate primaries in Michigan and Maryland, said a spokesperson for the group, Josh Vlasto. The organizations have raised more than $80 million to spend on this election cycle and have already helped nudge crypto-friendly candidates to victory.

Politico

Biden’s new ad takes on his age: “I’m not a young guy”

“Look I’m not a young guy. That’s no secret,” he says in the ad, addressing the camera. “But here’s the deal, I understand how to get things done for the American people.”

CBS News

Looking at Nex

For transmasculine people like me, images of Nex Benedict before his death evoke a complex mix of recognition, affection, and pain.

I’m using he/him pronouns for Nex because reporting by NBC Out has confirmed that while Nex used the pronouns they/them in some contexts, including around family, he/him is how his friends and partners knew him. The pronouns, plus his friends’ description of him as trans, plus how he looks and sounds on video combine to present a picture of Nex as a masculine-of-center trans kid. The word for this is transmasculine, encompassing binary trans men (like me) and nonbinary people whose genders hew toward, but don’t fully line up with, maleness.

Slate

Trumper says he’ll never vote for a woman because they don’t have “no balls to scratch”

“All women’s good for in my book is having babies and taking care of the house,” he said before describing why Trump is better because he’s a man.

LGBTQ Nation

Space Invader: NASA Satellite Narrowly Avoids Catastrophic Collision With Russian Spacecraft

The TIMED spacecraft, launched in 2001, faced off against the Cosmos 2221 satellite, launched in November 1992, highlighting the increasing congestion in Earth’s orbit due to the proliferation of satellites and space-related activities by various countries.

Front

Let’s Not Take Over-the-Counter Birth Control Pills for Granted

When the Pill arrived in 1960, it gave women new power over their bodies. But it took decades for it to be this easy to get.

Mother Jones

Symone Sanders-Townsend: Gaza Protests Have Similar Political Impact To Black Lives Matter in 2016

MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend breaks down the political similarities between the Black Lives Matter movement and the calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Root

Sanders urges progressives to back Biden despite Gaza policy

“The contrast between Biden and Trump is day and night,” he said. “The election of Trump would be a disaster for this country. And in my view of the world, we’ve got to come together, reelect Biden, but at the same time we have to demand that we have a progressive agenda where we have an economy that works for all, not just a few.”

The Hill

‘I could never vote for Donald Trump’: Some Haley voters spurning GOP nominee

MacGovern won’t vote for Trump. Giles doesn’t see herself supporting Trump this time after casting ballots for him twice. While Moore – also a two-time Trump voter – said she is leaning against backing him again, calling him a “self-serving narcissistic and a bully and he is not the role model I want for my children and grandchildren.”

USA Today

Biden Is Playing Right Into the GOP’s Hands on Immigration

President Joe Biden delivered the State of the Union last week in fantastic fighting form, as befitting a leader confronting an in-house authoritarian faction hostile to democratically elected government — at least until he turned to immigration.

There, he slipped into opposition tropes, using “illegal” as a noun — a move Biden admitted regretting, to his credit, in an interview over the weekend. Nevertheless, in an effort to expose the GOP’s hypocrisy, Biden unwittingly affirmed Republicans, and “his predecessor,” Donald Trump, as legitimate leaders on this topic. In the process, he undermined his broader argument for why MAGA Republicans have no business governing.

Rolling Stone

‘No CCP in USA!’

Inside a Michigan town’s unhinged war over a Chinese battery plant

Business Insider

Texan Students Ask Supreme Court to Block Drag Ban on Their Campus

An LGBTQ+ student group at a Texas University is asking the Supreme Court for an emergency injunction that would allow a planned charity drag ball to go forward.

them

‘Politicians in robes’: How a sharp right turn has endangered trust in the US Supreme Court

US Supreme Court’s polarization post-Dobbs ruling raises concerns, eroding trust in its neutrality and independence.

Jerusalem Post

The Media Are Getting Easier to Push Around

At a time of financial weakness and flagging public support, government officials are emboldened to bully the press.

The Atlantic

Pete Buttigieg forced to explain that lead is poisonous to obtuse Republican

Drinking lead can damage people’s brains, but Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach opposes a plan to remove lead water pipes.

LGBTQ Nation

Appetite for DeSantis’ ‘war on woke’ agenda fizzles out in latest legislative session

A number of culture war proposals introduced by Republican lawmakers did not pass the legislative body before the legislature ended its session on Friday. The proposals included a bill banning rainbow flags from government-owned buildings in the state, as well as another that would have prevented the removal of Confederate monuments. Other bills would have required transgender people to have their sex assigned at birth labeled on their driver’s licenses, and banned local and state government officials from using transgender people’s pronouns. 

These bills may resurface in the future, but the fact that the bills failed to pass underlines the waning influence the governor and former GOP presidential candidate has on the legislative body.

Washington Examiner

Federal judge upholds Washington state gun industry accountability law

A federal judge has dismissed a challenge to a Washington state law that would hold gun makers and sellers accountable for preventing their products from getting into the wrong hands.

UPI

The downwinders: New Mexicans sickened by atomic bomb testing fight for compensation

“We see nothing on the impact the bomb had on people living in northern New Mexico,” Fernández said. “There’s no way [Manhattan Project physicists] could not have been aware of the radiation’s impact on the communities downwind of the Trinity bomb site.”

The Guardian

Do Americans still have a right to privacy?

With courts coming for abortion and IVF, it’s hard not to wonder what the Supreme Court will go after next.

Vox

Roe Was Never Enough to Ensure Reproductive Freedom

Biden vowed to codify Roe. But the ruling was never about whether the government had a right to your body, only when it had a right to your body.

The Intercept

Flint Residents Are Still Waiting To Be Paid From The $626.25 Million Legal Settlement, A Decade After Water Crisis

Residents were subjected to nearly a decade of lead-poisoned drinking water by the city.

Black Enterprise

Trump Finds Another Line to Cross

The former president used to exercise a modicum of restraint around Joe Biden’s stutter. No longer.

The Atlantic

Activists, volunteers call on mayor to extend migrant removal deadline from shelters

Activists held a rally Saturday to urge city officials and Mayor Brandon Johnson to reverse its plans to push out potentially thousands of migrants from temporary shelters next week, calling evictions “traumatic” and “damaging.” 

Chicago Tribune

Column: California isn’t sending a Black woman to the Senate. But Barbara Lee won anyway

We don’t have an outsized number of white men in elected office because most white men are political geniuses and most women and people of color are terrible candidates. We do because women of color, in particular, have a consistently harder time raising money because they have less access to high-end donors, and therefore have a harder time getting elected.

“That’s a reality when you’re in a poor community, and you’ve just been a regular campaigner and you work hard in your community and you deliver,” Weber said. “You’re not in a circle that raises $30 million.”

Los Angeles Times

How Psychedelics Could Help Soldiers Overcome Trauma

“The soldier above all others prays for peace,” the former American military general Douglas MacArthur once said, “for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” But what about peace with oneself? 

Time

Biden: Netanyahu ‘hurting Israel’ by not preventing more civilian deaths in Gaza

President Joe Biden said Saturday that he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” in how he is approaching its war against Hamas in Gaza.

NPR

Haiti: US evacuates embassy staff amid gang violence

The United States says it has airlifted non-essential embassy staff from Haiti, as the country spirals further into gang violence.

BBC

Protests As Israel President At Dutch Holocaust Museum Opening

Dutch King Willem-Alexander officially opened the country’s first Holocaust Museum Sunday, as demonstrators angry at Israel’s military campaign in Gaza protested against the Israeli president, who also addressed the ceremony.

International Business Times

Russian oil depot hit by Ukraine as Kremlin bans fuel exports

Attack is part of Kyiv strategy to strike oil and gas infrastructure across Russia, one that has forced Moscow into taking action

The Telegraph

Union calls on cabin crew at German airline Lufthansa to strike

The Ufo union is calling on some 19,000 flight attendants at German carrier Lufthansa and its subsidiary Lufthansa Cityline to go on strike on Tuesday and Wednesday, the union announced.

dpa

Vatican responds to criticism after Pope Francis says Ukraine should raise white flag

The Vatican has responded after politicians and religious leaders reacted with incredulity after Pope Francis indicated during an interview with a Swiss broadcaster that Ukraine should surrender to Russia to end the war.

UPI

Germany’s RAF terrorism — an unresolved story

Left-wing terrorism once shook the Federal Republic of Germany. The Red Army Faction emerged from the radicalized student protest movement in the 1960s and ’70s.

Deutsche Welle

Tibet boarding schools: China accused of trying to silence language

Tibetan educational sociologist Gyal Lo can speak Mandarin Chinese fluently – but he would rather not.

BBC

Why Portugal may be the latest country to fall to the far right

The hard-right Chega could take on a kingmaker role if, as expected, no clear winner emerges from the contest, making Portugal the latest European nation where the far-right has become a serious political force.

iNews

Palestinians prepare for Ramadan in the shadow of Gaza war

Ramadan in Palestine this year coincides with Israel’s unprecedented war on the besieged Gaza Strip, and deadly Israeli raids across the occupied West Bank.

The New Arab

Australian politician promises ‘world’s biggest chocolate factory’ if re-elected

Jeremy Rockliff pledged a £6.2 million ‘chocolate experience’ with a chocolate fountain, make-you-own chocolate bar and more

The Telegraph

Inkatha Launches South Africa Vote Campaign In Zulu Heartland

South Africa’s opposition Inkatha Freedom Party gathered a huge crowd of supporters for the spectacular launch of its general election campaign on Sunday, filling a stadium in the heartland of its Zulu base.

International Business Times

Irish voters hand resounding defeat to proposed family and care amendments

Some 67% of voters said “no” to the Family referendum, which proposed changes to the 39th Amendment, expanding the definition of family in the constitution to recognize “durable relationships” such as unmarried couples with children.

UPI

Zardari sworn in as Pakistan’s new president

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Pakistan’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was sworn in as the country’s 14th president on Sunday.

dpa

Tens of thousands call for Gaza ceasefire in London march

Tens of thousands of people have marched in central London calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

BBC