Emily Romero, 11, and her mother Gypsy Romero attend a rally in Freedom Plaza on Saturday as part of demonstrations across the country in support of abortion rights. (Amanda Voisard for The Washington Post)
“Thousands of protesters marched at rallies in Washington and cities across the country Saturday, decrying Texas’s recent ban on most abortions and warning that the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority could impose further restrictions in the coming months.
Amassing in downtown D.C. before walking in a clamorous procession to the Supreme Court, a roster of speakers bemoaned a looming threat to Roe v. Wade and implored Americans to enlist in a nationwide campaign to preserve abortion rights.” Read more at Washington Post
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“The coronavirus death toll around the world surpassed 5 million on Friday, according to Reuters's tally.
Around the world, an average of 8,000 deaths a day were reported, according to the outlet. However, it noted that the global death rate has slowed in recent weeks.
Reuters reported that it took over a year to accumulate 2.5 million deaths, but it took under eight months to accumulate the second 2.5 million deaths.
The world reached this milestone the same day that the United States, which has the highest coronavirus death toll of any country, surpassed 700,000 deaths.” Read more at The Hill
Demonstrators hold a sign that reads in Portuguese 'Bolsonaro Out' during a demonstration in Brasilia as part of the protests against President Jair Bolsonaro around the country on Oct. 2. (Getty Images)
“Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities Saturday, calling for the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, to be impeached.
In Rio de Janeiro, the country’s second-largest city, huge crowds paraded through the downtown area in a sign of growing discontent with the president — a right-wing firebrand whom critics accuse of destroying Brazil’s economy, environment and world standing.
‘We have come to shout at the top of our voices: Bolsonaro’s place is behind bars,’ Carlos Lupi, president of Brazil’s Democratic Labor Party (PDT), told thousands of flag-bearing demonstrators, according to a statement released by the party after the protest.
Similar scenes played out in towns and cities across the country, including Sao Paulo and Brasília, as surging inflation in essential goods like food and electricity have added to discontent about the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.” Read more at Washington Post
“House progressives flexed. President Biden threw in with them. Now his agenda is in doubt.
Progressive lawmakers feared that moderates would vote for a $1 trillion infrastructure bill currently before the House and peel away from bigger social policy legislation, so they blockaded the bill. The nine centrist lawmakers who had tried to force an infrastructure vote by the end of September were enraged.
When Biden ventured to the Capitol on Friday to help House Democrats, he had to choose sides. He effectively chose the left, which vociferously opposed him in the primary, and an agenda that is widely popular with the public and with many Democrats in Congress.
But he also conceded that both pieces of legislation won’t pass until the progressives’ priorities are pared down to meet the approval of the centrist Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. He also conceded that reaching a deal could take weeks.” Read more at New York Times
“Back on the bench, the Supreme Court faces a blockbuster term.
During the new session, which begins Monday, the court will consider eliminating the constitutional right to abortion, vastly expanding gun rights and further chipping away at the wall separating church and state.
The highly charged docket will test the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts. At a time when the justices have become uncharacteristically defensive in public, one poll found that only 40 percent of Americans approved of the job the court was doing.
In other legal news, experts have for years testified that prone restraint by police is safe. Now the research is on trial.” Read more at New York Times
“John Eastman’s path from little-known academic to one of the most influential voices in Donald J. Trump’s ear in the final days of his presidency began in mid-2019 on Mr. Trump’s favorite platform: television.
Mr. Trump, who had never met Mr. Eastman, saw him on the Fox News talk show of the far-right commentator Mark Levin railing against the Russia investigation. Within two months, Mr. Eastman was sitting in the Oval Office for an hourlong meeting.
Soon, Mr. Eastman was meeting face to face at Mr. Trump’s urging with the attorney general, William P. Barr, and telling him how Mr. Trump could unilaterally impose limits on birthright citizenship.
Then, after the November election, Mr. Eastman wrote the memo for which he is now best known, laying out steps that Vice President Mike Pence could take to keep Mr. Trump in power — measures Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans have likened to a blueprint for a coup.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — The arrival of a new U.S. ambassador to Mexico is usually a routine event. But for the Biden administration, it was a notable victory.
With the Senate’s Aug. 11 confirmation vote, former Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado became the first Biden ambassador to arrive in a foreign capital. And, as of now, the last.
A bitter fight with Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, over a Russian gas pipeline has created what Biden officials call a personnel crisis, with Mr. Cruz delaying dozens of State Department nominees, including 59 would-be ambassadors, and vowing to block dozens more.
Democrats call Mr. Cruz’s actions an abuse of the nomination process and the latest example of Washington’s eroding political norms. They also say he is endangering national security at a time when only about a quarter of key national security positions have been filled.” Read more at New York Times
“In Alaska’s Covid crisis, doctors must decide who lives and who dies.
Overloaded facilities in the lower 48 states are able to transfer patients to neighboring cities and states. In Anchorage, most of the help is 1,500 miles away in Seattle. As Alaska struggles with the nation’s worst Covid outbreak, doctors are rationing oxygen, treating patients in hallways and sometimes denying emergency surgery.
The Nobel Prizes will be announced beginning Monday. Speculation about this year’s recipient of the Nobel for Medicine has turned to Covid vaccine pioneers, after two vaccine researchers won the Lasker award on Friday.
Two new studies suggest that newer variants of the coronavirus, like Alpha and Delta, are more contagious in part because they are better at traveling through the air.” Read more at New York Times
“Some 45 million Latinos were recorded as ‘some other race’ on the 2020 Census — making it the 2nd-largest racial category after "white." Experts worry the catchall could hinder progress toward racial equity.” Read more at NPR