Politics

The Texas Tribune reports: The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an initial bid by state Democrats to expand voting by mail to all Texas voters during the coronavirus pandemic. Justice Samuel Alito — whose oversight of federal courts includes cases coming through Texas — on Friday issued the court’s denial of the Texas Democratic Party’s request to let a federal …

CNN reports: House Democrats approved a bill to admit Washington, DC, as a state on Friday, marking the first time either chamber of Congress has advanced a DC statehood measure. The bill, introduced by DC’s nonvoting House member, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, would shrink the federal capital to a small area encompassing the White House, Capitol building, Supreme Court, and …

Agence France-Presse reports: A federal judge in Brazil ordered President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a face mask in public, after the far-right leader repeatedly flouted the coronavirus containment measures in place in Brasilia. Judge Renato Borelli ordered Bolsonaro, who has famously compared the new coronavirus to a “little flu,” to stop ignoring the capital city’s mask decree, or face a …

The Associated Press reports: John Bolton’s memoir officially comes out Tuesday after surviving a security review and a legal challenge from the Justice Department. But over the weekend, it was available in ways even his publisher is hoping to prevent. A PDF of “The Room Where It Happened” has turned up on the internet, offering a free, pirated edition of …

NewJersey.com reports: The state Assembly voted 63-10 with five members abstaining to pass the measure (A1897), one of two decriminalization bills currently proposed in the state Legislature. It seeks to replace arrests for possessing up to two ounces of weed with a civil fine of $50, and also lessens jail time and fines for possession of larger amounts of pot …

USA Today reports: They will be arriving in peace, and hoping to carry a message. Omar Chatman, 41, is one of the organizers for 1000 Brothers and Sisters in Arms, a pro-Second Amendment walk planned for Saturday led primarily by Black gun owners in Oklahoma. The demonstration, which will begin at 2 p.m. at Ralph Ellison Memorial Library, is intended …

CBS News reports: President Trump is set to deliver remarks and sign an executive order Tuesday addressing policing amid a groundswell of civil unrest and calls for police reform following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other African-Americans in law enforcement custody. Mr. Trump’s order, previewed by the White House on Monday, is shaped by three key components: …

The Washington Post reports: House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) has chosen June 26 to hold the first floor vote in a generation on D.C. statehood, hoping to harness a national reckoning on race and capitalize on widespread outrage over the federal response to street protests in the nation’s capital. Officials expect legislation making the District the 51st state …

CBS News reports: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed police reform legislation into law on Friday, more than two weeks after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis sparked a nationwide movement. The governor signed into law a bundle of police reform bills passed by the legislature this week. Among them are a repeal of law 50-A, a statewide ban on chokeholds, …

Reuters reports: Most Americans, including a majority of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, support sweeping law enforcement reforms such as a ban on chokeholds and racial profiling after the latest death of an African American while in police custody, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released today. For example, 82% of Americans want to ban police from using chokeholds, 83% …

The Washington Post reports: When Melania Trump stayed behind in New York after her husband’s presidential inauguration, she said it was because she didn’t want to interrupt their then-10-year-old son Barron’s school year. News stories at the time concentrated on an apparent frostiness between the first couple and the exorbitant taxpayer costs to protect Melania and Barron away from Washington. …

The Associated Press reports: Protesters tore down a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis along Richmond, Virginia’s famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday night. The statue in the former capital of the Confederacy was toppled shortly before 11 p.m., news outlets reported. Richmond police were on the scene and videos on social media showed the monument being towed away as a …

Axios reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the chairs of the Joint Committee on the Library on Wednesday requesting that the panel remove 11 Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall collection. The latest: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the vice chair of the Joint Committee on the Library, responded in a statement that she agrees …

The Richmond Dispatch reports: About a thousand protesters gathered around the city’s monument to Christopher Columbus in Byrd Park on Tuesday evening to stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples. After about seven speakers, the crowd began to march down Arthur Ashe Boulevard, chanting “take it down.” Less than two hours later, they did just that. Upon returning to Byrd Park …

The New York Times reports: The threats are swirling around the president: Deaths from the virus in Brazil each day are now the highest in the world. Investors are fleeing the country. The president, his sons and his allies are under investigation. His election could even be overturned. The crisis has grown so intense that some of the most powerful …

The Associated Press reports: Voters endured heat, pouring rain and waits as long as five hours on Tuesday to cast ballots in Georgia, demonstrating a fierce desire to participate in the democratic process while raising questions about the emerging battleground state’s ability to manage elections in November when the White House is at stake. A confluence of events disrupted primary …

From a statement by Rep. Steny Hoyer: “President Trump’s behavior in the District of Columbia in recent days, as well as his threats to impose his dangerous and callous will on a city about which he has proven again and again he has no understanding of, has underscored in dramatic terms the urgency of giving the District the same constitutional …

The New York Daily News reports: A Brooklyn court officer was suspended and had her gun taken away after she posted a racist meme depicting former President Barack Obama being lynched. Sgt. Terri Pinto Napolitano posted the vile meme to her Facebook page over the weekend, showing former president Barack Obama swinging from a noose, according to screen grabs shared …

The Times Of Israel reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hired prominent right-wing journalist Aaron Klein as his new strategic and communications consultant, the Likud party announced Monday. Klein, 41, has advised Netanyahu for several months, but in recent weeks quit his job as Israel correspondent for the far-right Breitbart website to work for Likud full-time. Klein’s new appointment made …

Reuters reports: Facebook announced Thursday it will no longer allow state-controlled media outlets to run ads on its social networks, effective this summer. The move is part of its efforts to prevent foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. election and follows massive criticism that it failed to do so in the 2016 election. “Later this summer we will begin blocking …