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It is yet another sign of our political dysfunction that a government that dithered for weeks before getting serious about fighting a global pandemic now can’t take a few days for thoughtful debate about how to spend a trillion dollars to deal with the economic fallout.

It is not just an inefficient and ineffective way to stabilize the economy — it’s also a cynical ploy by President Trump and the Republican leaders in Congress to buy the next election.

The only reason this foolish proposal is under serious consideration is that it was cooked up in secret over the weekend by politicians spooked by the rout on the stock market, worried about losing the next election and desperate to show they are doing something “big” other than bailing out private industries.

Patrick, a Republican, noted that it’s time to “get back to work,” adding that seniors such as him should be willing to be “sacrificed” if necessary, so our children don’t “lose our whole country” to an “economic collapse”:

Right now, Trump is actively considering relaxing federal recommendations on social distancing. As Trump put it, “we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.”

Health experts are screaming warnings. As Tom Inglesbe, the director of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, powerfully argues, the failure to test has dramatically undercounted the true numbers of those infected. This, plus a looming exponential surge in cases, almost certainly means that, if we don’t continue major social distancing, our health system will soon be overwhelmed.

Who’s left?

Who’s left is the president we’ve got, the one elected in 2016. With Democrats bailing out on bipartisanship in a unique circumstance, the responsibility of national leadership—a historic opportunity—defaults to Mr. Trump.

There are national problems and there are national crises. In the latter, as in world wars, the task of national leadership is to protect a nation’s confidence in itself so that it can emerge intact as a society.

Long-simmering fears of violence boiled over for many Asian Americans last week, when eight people were gunned down at Atlanta-area spas

"I'm Asian, and I'm a woman. And if I don't stand up for myself, then no one else will

"I want people to finally hear us ... not only when we're trending,"

Three days after he was led away in handcuffs from a Boulder supermarket where 10 people were fatally shot, the suspect appeared in court Thursday for the first time and his defense lawyer asked for a mental health assessment “to address his mental illness.”

Alissa, 21, remains held without bail on 10 charges of first-degree murder and a prosecutor said that authorities planned to file more charges.

A law enforcement official briefed on the shooting had previously said the suspect’s family told investigators they believed Alissa was suffering some type of mental illness, including delusions.

In the days before the vote, there was a dress rehearsal of sorts, testing how quickly city council members could duck behind the dais, which had been made bulletproof before the occasion.

“So it was clearly more than just theoretical at that point,” Weaver said. “It was probably the most intense piece of council work I have ever done.”

The night this city banned assault weapons provides a vivid, frightening example of how hard corralling gun ownership and mass shootings has been in Colorado, where the killings at Columbine High School in 1999 and a movie theater in Aurora 13 years later have proved that gun violence here is far from theoretical.

Few countries exemplify the tragedy of the Arab Spring like Libya. The fall of the 42-year dictatorship of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi brought a decade of anarchy as competing governments, militias and foreign powers struggled to seize control of the oil-rich country. The United States and NATO allies that had backed the anti-Qaddafi uprising with a bombing campaign largely turned their backs after he fell, and past United Nations efforts to forge a government foundered in the chaos.

Libyans have a chance to clamber out of the mess. A cease-fire of sorts has been holding since October, and a broad-based political forum convened by the United Nations in November managed to appoint a prime minister and a three-member presidential council charged with leading the country to elections this coming December.

But if there’s to be any chance for peace, the foreign powers that have flooded Libya with weapons, drones and mercenaries — primarily Russia, Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates

China's legislature has approved a resolution to overhaul Hong Kong's electoral system - its latest move to tighten control over the city.

The "patriots governing Hong Kong" resolution was passed at the National People's Congress (NPC) on Thursday. It will reduce democratic representation and allow a pro-Beijing panel to vet and elect candidates.The former British colony was handed back to China in 1997 under a model called "one country, two systems".Under the deal, which gave the territory freedoms not available in mainland China, Hong Kong also had its own mini-constitution and an elected parliament.The latest Chinese move follows a series of measures that have tightened Beijing's grip on Hong Kong, including the passing of a national security law and a crackdown on activists and opposition politicians.Detailed legislation will now be drafted and could be enacted in Hong Kong within the next few months.

Once again, China is arguing that this reform - with its political loyalty test for candidates - is necessary to ensure stability. But critics will argue it abolishes another fundamental underpinning of the city's special freedoms - the ability to channel dissent through the political process itself.The pro-democracy protests, although sometimes violent, were accompanied by mass popular support with as many as two million taking peacefully to the streets. In late 2019, the democrats won a landslide in Hong Kong's local elections, the city's only truly democratic ballot. That may have spooked Beijing more than barricades and petrol bombs. But is its victory now complete? "It is very sad," the former Democratic Party chairperson Emily Lau told me. "But I insist this doesn't mean the game is over for Hong Kong because the fight will go on."

Should Biden Cancel Student Debt?Economics offers only part of the answer. The rest depends on whether you think higher education is an investment or a public good.

Whenever I think about student loan debt, one of the first things I think about — besides my own — is a 2018 essay by my colleague M.H. Miller. As one of the 45 million Americans who collectively owe $1.71 trillion for student loans, Mr. Miller wrote about what it is like to have debt — more than $100,000 worth in his case — become the organizing principle of your life, to be incapacitated by it, suspended, at age 30, “in a state of perpetual childishness.”

The economic injustice argument tends to invite a lot of debate about how best to tailor cancellation to those who are suffering most from the crisis, which isn’t always the same thing as who has the largest student loan balance. That’s because student debt, in dollar terms, is concentrated among people who make more money and tend to be much better able to make their monthly payments than borrowers who owe relatively small amounts.Here’s a chart from Matt Bruenig at the People’s Policy Project that shows the spread:Editors’ PicksWhere Is Hollywood When Broadway Needs It?75 Artists, 7 Questions, One

A Wisconsin judge on Wednesday delayed the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, who is charged with fatally shooting Black Lives Matters protesters in Kenosha last summer.

Prosecutors as well as Rittenhouse's defense attorneys had asked for the postponement, arguing they needed more time to build their respective cases. Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder also set a meeting for May, to ensure that the new timeline still works for the two legal teams.

Months after his release, Rittenhouse was spotted in a Wisconsin bar with possible members of the Proud Boys, an extremist group that federal prosecutors say played a critical role in storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

when you look over the longer history of what’s been going on in Portland — there’s something else happening. It’s not just the protests. It is not just covid-19. There is something else going on in Portland.”

Henning and others say crime was rising in the city before the pandemic shut it down and before Floyd died in Minneapolis with a White police officer’s knee on his neck. From 2019 to 2020, the number of homicides nearly doubled, something Henning called “unheard of” in Portland. This followed years with some of the nation’s lowest crime rates for a city its size.

“So these perpetrators, my guess, were coming of age, were in elementary and middle school right around the Great Recession,” said Brian Renauer, director of the Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute at Portland State. “Now they’re in their early to mid-20s. So what we’re seeing is the outgrowth of a breakdown in the family, in the economy, in those neighborhoods they came out of, if this is very much a homegrown phenomenon.”

The man accused of killing his girlfriend's 2-year-old son in Las Vegas pleaded not guilty Wednesday.

Terrell Rhodes, 27, appeared in court, confirming to a judge that he understood the charges against him and pleading not guilty. Bail was not discussed, and Rhodes remains in custody.

He faces 11 charges: first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder with the use of a deadly weapon, four counts of assault on a protected person using a deadly weapon and four counts of resisting a public officer with a firearm.

WASHINGTON – The fight over Texas Republican lawmakers' attempts to rewrite election laws reached a fever pitch over the Memorial Day weekend. 

In response, Abbott announced the bill will be added to a special session agenda. "Election Integrity & Bail Reform were emergency items for this legislative session. They STILL must pass," he wrote on Twitter. "Legislators will be expected to have worked out the details when they arrive at the Capitol for the special session."

Texas Democrats called for Congress to pass national legislation that would protect the right to vote. "We did our part to stop SB 7. Now we need Congress to do their part by passing HR 1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act," tweeted state Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood.

In any reading, the most unusual thing about Wall Street’s being challenged by a rowdy band of Redditors is that it took so long to happen. This kind of populist revolt — internet-based insurgents gleefully pulling down the pants of the unsuspecting establishment — has been happening for years, to many powerful institutions.

Book publishers, movie studios, restaurant chains — all of them have, in some way, been forced to cede power to their online critics. Our politics, too, have been transformed by internet activists, with TikTok teens disrupting presidential rallies and Twitch-streaming memelords storming the Capitol.

these internet-based insurgencies tend to follow a similar pattern. One day, a group decides to take action against a system it feels is immoral or corrupt. Members identify structural weak points (a vulnerable political party, a risk-averse studio head, an overexposed short position) and figure out creative ways to exploit them, using social media for leverage and visibility. With enough highly motivated people pushing in the same direction, they eventually prevail, or get enough attention that it feels like they did.

the most important, least understood, and underappreciated political dynamic of our era: a full-on middle-class revolt against the elites and the privileges they hoard. For all the focus on inequality and social justice, this middle-class revolt is the most important barrier standing between Democrats and the White House.

Think of what’s happened over the past decade and a half. America endured a war sold on false premises, a bailout of bankers issuing entirely toxic debt, and a massive public effort to prop up auto executives who were building cars that weren’t selling. Is it any wonder so many middle-class taxpayers resent the elites? The middle class has been forced to bail them out from their own mistakes time and time again—and yet the beneficiaries of that goodwill haven’t apologized, let alone taken responsibilit

No matter how noxious he was personally—and despite the irony that he was a perfect example of elite privilege—Trump embodied the country’s desire to hit back. Justice was a long time coming.

Progressive activists are working to turn this year's nationwide protests over police brutality and racial injustice into results at the polls on Election Day,

Georgia Democrats need to flip 16 seats out of 180 to take control of the chamber.

In addition, the Color of Change PAC, the political arm of a longstanding civil rights organization, has endorsed a slate of what it defines as progressive prosecutors. And liberal organizations recently created The Frontline initiative to turn out young people of color.

Because the state and city had reopened restaurants, Josh, who asked to be identified only by his first name to protect his privacy, assumed that local health officials had figured out a patchwork of precautions that would make indoor dining safe.

They were listening to the people they were told to listen to—New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently released a book about how to control the pandemic—and following all the rules.

Josh was irritated, but not because of me. If indoor dining couldn’t be made safe, he wondered, why were people being encouraged to do it? Why were temperature checks being required if they actually weren’t useful? Why make rules that don’t keep people safe?

SARS, which stood for Special Anti-Robbery Squad, was supposed to be the elite Nigerian police unit dedicated to fighting crime, but it was really a moneymaking terror squad with no accountability.

SARS officers would raid bars or stop buses on the road and arbitrarily arrest young men for such crimes as wearing their hair in dreadlocks, having tattoos, holding a nice phone or a laptop, driving a nice car. Then they would demand large amounts of money as “bail.”

In 2012 Mr. Iloanya was 20 when SARS officers arrested him at a child dedication ceremony in Anambra State. He had committed no crime