Last week the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1, a bill that would make voter registration automatic, end partisan gerrymandering, strengthen campaign-finance law, and bolster oversight of lobbyists. It’s the most sweeping package of democracy reforms in generations. Yet the mood among most democracy reformers was not giddy excitement but resigned dismay: Although H.R.
Updated at 1:03 p.m. ET on March 8, 2021.Why regulate guns? The standard answer is that gun laws can prevent needless deaths and physical injury. But this is not a complete accounting. As gun-brandishing protesters and armed invasions of legislatures demonstrate, guns inflict more than physical injuries—they transform the public sphere on which a constitutional democracy depends.
A new feature film, “The Mauritanian,” tells the story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man who was held without charge for 14 years at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo and repeatedly tortured. We speak with Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who says the film is not just about his struggle. “This is not my movie. This is the movie of so many people,” he says. “Some of the people who were kidnapped after 9/11 were tortured to death.
President Joe Biden is facing new calls to close the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an enduring symbol of U.S. abuses in the “war on terror.” Since 2002, about 770 men and boys have been held at the prison, and only eight have been convicted of a crime. Three of the convictions were later overturned on appeal.
Millions of women around the world are taking to the streets today to mark International Women’s Day — in a year where women have been disproportionately impacted by rising poverty, unemployment and violence during the pandemic. We hear voices from protests in the Philippines, Mexico and Guatemala.
Our memories are stored up in the places we couldn’t go.
Our memories are stored up in the places we couldn’t go.
The expansion in vaccine supply marks a critical time to confront deep skepticism among large numbers of rural whites and Republicans.
The expansion in vaccine supply marks a critical time to confront deep skepticism among large numbers of rural whites and Republicans.
Oh good, the Democrats are avoiding the obvious political disaster they were loudly warned about.
The issue used to be a nonstarter for the GOP. Here’s what changed.
Raise a glass for comity and moderation.
A tale of “insider trading,” but sneakers.
Congress is figuring out it can’t always count on itself to help Americans in an economic crisis.
Senior officials at two federal health agencies will meet as early as next week with House Ways and Means Committee Republican staff about how to improve the tracking of nursing home deaths.
It’s been nearly a year since New Jersey’s 1.4 million K-12 students have been in classrooms full-time.
The Republican governor also criticized President Joe Biden for accusing him of “neanderthal thinking.
My mother had a ban on pork, and I thought she was mad that I broke it. One afternoon four decades ago, when I was about 8, I walked into my family’s house after playing outside and saw my mother sitting in the yellow recliner with a book in her lap. She had found the copy of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham.I knew that I was in trouble, because normally no one sat in the canary-colored La-Z-Boy, a throne reserved for my grandmother.
The problem may not be the royal family itself, but all that surrounds them.
The February gain marked a sharp pickup from the 166,000 jobs that were added in January.
“I mean, Shaq has a SPAC. What could go wrong?” one economist says of the euphoria rippling through Wall Street and raising a new round of worries.
Only businesses with fewer than 20 employees will be able to apply for aid through the massive Paycheck Protection Program.
Allies laud Brian Deese’s leadership on the stimulus negotiations, but he’s rubbed some the wrong way.
The U.S. wants to stop new coal projects, but risks losing poor countries to Beijing’s “Belt and Road” agenda.
Outrage over police brutality and the mass incarceration of Black and Brown people has generated calls to defund and abolish the police.
Israel has failed to make COVID-19 vaccines available to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, despite its responsibility under the Geneva Conventions. Critics in the United States say this “vaccine apartheid” is another example of Israeli human rights abuses going unpunished, even as the country receives billions in U.S. aid each year. Congressmember Mondaire Jones of New York says Israel must ensure that Palestinians are vaccinated.
The House of Representatives has approved sweeping legislation protecting the right to vote with the For the People Act, which has been described as the most sweeping pro-democracy bill in decades. The legislation is aimed at improving voter registration and access to voting, ending partisan and racial gerrymandering, forcing the disclosure of dark money donors, increasing public funding for candidates, and imposing strict ethical and reporting standards on members of Congress and the U.S.
The Senate has voted to open debate on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. The legislation has widespread support from voters, with one new poll showing 77% of Americans support the bill, including nearly 60% of Republicans. But the Senate bill has some key differences from the package approved by the House, including a reduction in the number of people eligible for direct stimulus checks and no provision to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Plus, the straight-up weirdest moments.
