Today's Liberal News

In 5-4 vote, Supreme Court refuses to block Texas’ six-week abortion ban from taking effect

In a 5-4 vote announced at midnight Eastern Time on Wednesday night, the Supreme Court refused to halt a Texas law banning abortion after six weeks, a point at which most women do not yet know they are pregnant. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the three liberal justices in favor of blocking the law while litigation challenging it proceeds in the lower courts, while the conservative majority opposed doing so in a brief unsigned opinion.

Biden, Schumer, Pelosi: Enough talk. Act. Expand the courts. Now.

The Supreme Court just made it absolutely clear that they’re ready to toss the one thing Democrats have been running on since 1973, the year Roe v. Wade was decided—protecting women’s right to choose an abortion and have control over their own bodies. By refusing to act to uphold Roe in Texas, the conservative majority played their hand.

The cruelty in the new Texas abortion ban has layers upon layers

The Supreme Court didn’t just silently overturn Roe v. Wade by allowing a Texas law banning abortion at six weeks to go into effect. The Supreme Court, with its three Trump justices—two of them appointed through precedent-shattering Republican maneuvering—allowed Texas to put a bounty on the heads of anyone involved in any way in an abortion performed after six weeks gestation.

The Deviousness of Texas’s New Abortion Law

Last night, the Supreme Court faced an unprecedented emergency application. Unless the Court acted, abortion would be functionally illegal in Texas.In May, the state had adopted a version of a “heartbeat bill” that went into effect today. So-called heartbeat bills prohibit abortions once a physician can detect fetal cardiac activity, usually around the sixth week of pregnancy, before most people know that they are pregnant.

A Fairy Tale That Hollywood Didn’t Need to Modernize

What would a modern Cinderella look like? The classic fairy tale has been told so many times on film, always following the same basic arc: A charming girl, who is forced into servitude by her mean stepmother and wishes to go to a ball, ultimately gets what she wants with the help of three mice and a magic fairy. Cinderella is the world’s most famous underdog, but she’s also more of a plot vehicle than a deep character.

The Planet Needs Jerome Powell

In recent weeks, the climate movement has become caught in the middle of a fight that seemingly has nothing to do with the environment: Should President Joe Biden renominate Jerome Powell to lead the Federal Reserve?The choice of who should run the country’s central bank has historically not captivated climate advocates—or many Americans, for that matter—yet it has carved the left into two opposing camps, each claiming to fight for a greener economy.

“Blanket Unconstitutional” Texas Abortion Ban Takes Effect in Major Setback for Reproductive Rights

In a major setback for reproductive rights, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a Texas law to go into effect that bans abortions after six weeks — before most people even know they are pregnant. Until now, no other six-week ban has ever gone into effect in the United States. The law is seen as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and allows private citizens to file civil suits against abortion providers or anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks.

“Disaster for Me and My Children”: Afghan Doctor Describes Escape from Kabul After Taliban Takeover

Afghan doctor Wais Aria describes how he fled Afghanistan with his family after the Taliban takeover, packing up his wife and four children and trying for days to leave from the Kabul airport, where he was beaten by the Taliban. They managed to catch a flight out of the country Thursday and arrived in the U.S. on Saturday. “It was a disaster for me and my children,” says Aria, now in Alexandria, Virginia.

Long-Haulers Are Fighting for Their Future

While watching the scientific community grapple with long COVID, I have thought a lot about a scene in The Lord of the Rings. Faced with impending doom, the hobbits Merry and Pippin ask the powerful treelike ents for help. But despite the urgency of the situation, the ents are slow. They meet for hours, and after a lot of deliberation, they announce that they’ve agreed that the hobbits are not orcs. The hobbits, who already knew that, are shocked. They were hoping for more.