Trump is considering Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as a potential running mate, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday—even though Abbott has said that he doesn’t want the job. 

When Hannity asked Trump if Abbott was on his short list during a joint interview with the two politicians in Eagle Pass, Texas—the epicenter of the fight between Texas and the feds over control of the border—the former president said yes.

“He’s a spectacular man,” Trump said of Abbott, praising him for endorsing his reelection campaign. 

“Certainly he would be somebody that I would very much consider,” Trump added later. 

Abbott, meanwhile, sat there nodding and smiling and presumably feeling awkward given that just last week he told CNN that “there’s so many people other than myself who are best situated” to the role. 

Trans teen Nex Benedict died after an altercation in the girl’s bathroom of his public high school in Owasso, Oklahoma a bathroom he was required to use because of the state’s 2023 legislation forcing students at public and charter schools to use bathroom and changing facilities that match their biological, sex rather than their identity.

The exact cause of Benedict’s death—which occurred less than 24 hours after he was “jumped” by three other students who, in Benedict’s words, were “beating the shit out of me”—remains under investigation. The latest update from police confirmed that the fight has not been ruled out as Benedict’s cause of death. 

Benedict’s grandmother and guardian told the Independent that Benedict had been bullied over the past year for being transgender. Since Benedict’s death, calls to LGBTQ crisis centers from Oklahoma youth have increased by 300 percent. Eighty-five percent of those callers said they had faced bullying and 79 percent feared for their physical safety.

Benedict’s death also highlights the unique struggles that trans youth face under anti-trans policies and laws. In 2023, in addition to the bathroom ban, the Oklahoma legislature stopped trans kids from playing on sports teams that align with their gender and banned gender-affirming care for minors. The Oklahoma education department appointed far-right TikToker Chaya Raichik—of “Libs of TikTok”—to sit on the statewide library advisory board. Raichick promotes the “eradication of transgenderism.”

Many of these same politicians have used Benedict’s death as an opportunity to double down on their anti-trans rhetoric. During a public forum last week, state Sen. Tom Woods (R) said, “I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma. We are going to fight to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma, because we’re a Christian state.” When pressed on if he was referring to the LGBTQ community when he said “filth” he said “no comment.”

Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll are urging the judge in her defamation case against Donald Trump to reject the former president’s last-minute request to avoid paying the $83.3 million Carroll had been awarded as he appeals the ruling.

In a new filing on Thursday, Carroll’s lawyers blasted the request, arguing that it amounted to little more than a “trust me” written on a “paper napkin” by a cash-poor man with a long record of stiffing legal bills, incurring enormous debts, flouting financial deadlines, and inflating his wealth. They also pointed to the other legal battles Trump is mired in—including the civil fraud case in which Trump has been ordered to pay a $454 million penalty—as reason to deeply question his cash position.

“Trump does not even mention, much less address, these developments, which are obviously highly relevant to his ability to satisfy the judgment here,” Carroll’s lawyers wrote in their filing. “Nor does Trump mention the four criminal cases he is currently facing, including one set to go to trial on March 25, 2024.”

Since winning her defamation case against Trump, Carroll has since publicly vowed to use the $83.3 million award for “something good,” hinting that she may dedicate the money to assisting other women who have accused Trump of sexual assault. “If it’ll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent,” Carroll told George Stephanopoulos in January.

So what happens next? If the judge denies Trump’s request to delay payment, the former president is hoping that he’ll be allowed to post a bond to only partially cover the $83.3 million award. But as the New York Times reports, posting a bond poses its own challenges as that option would require the company providing one to pay up if Trump ends up dodging responsibility. It’s unclear what would happen if Trump simply refuses to pay. But in the situation of his civil fraud case, New York Attorney General Letitia James has already signaled that she is coming for his properties. 

This story was reported by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.

At a press conference last month, flanked by sheriffs and attorneys, Ohio Attorney General David Yost announced the indictments of two utility executives who allegedly tried to “hijack” state electricity policy for their own corrupt ends by paying $4.3 million in bribes to Sam Randazzo, then chair of the state Public Utilities Commission. The two men stand accused of trying to bilk taxpayers out of $1.2 billion on behalf of their former employer, FirstEnergy.

This was just the latest in an ongoing criminal probe of utility corruption that reached deep into the Ohio statehouse. Randazzo had been indicted previously by the Department of Justice, accused of working secretly with executives for more than a decade to secure favorable regulations for FirstEnergy—which pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in 2021 for its role in the scandal. Last year, three lobbyists, along with former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal racketeering charges. (Faced with the prospect of years in prison, one of the lobbyists took his own life.) Another utility operating in Ohio, American Electric Power, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Power is inherently seductive and corrosive,” noted a somber Yost, after laying out the latest alleged plot.

The Ohio scandals are no fluke. They are part of a generational resurgence of fraud and corruption in the utility sector, according to a Floodlight analysis of 30 years of corporate prosecutions and federal lawsuits. And they come at a time when trillions of dollars and the health of the planet are at stake as some power companies embrace—while others seek to block—the transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar, and battery storage.

Over the past five years, at least seven power companies have been accused of fraud or corruption. Seven industry executives have pleaded guilty or been federally indicted, along with a handful of appointed and elected officials. And a growing number of industry shareholders have sued the companies, claiming executives lied about their alleged misdeeds.

Washington state’s largest private-sector labor union has followed Michigan voters‘ lead, urging its 50,000 members to vote “uncommitted” rather than for Joe Biden in the state’s March 12 primary.

The news, first reported by NBC today, comes as Biden faces growing protests from voters on the left about his support for Israel in its war in Gaza, and concerns about his ability to defeat Trump, the GOP’s all-but-certain nominee, in November.

The executive board for the Washington chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers—which represents more than 50,000 of the union’s more than one million workers, including some in parts of Oregon and Idaho—unanimously voted for the endorsement Wednesday night, just one day after more than 100,000 voters in Michigan, or 13 percent overall, opted to vote “uncommitted” as a protest vote, as my colleague Noah Lanard reported. Enough uncommitted votes can mean some state delegates at the party’s national convention are uncommitted, and can vote for the nominee of their choosing. 

“While Biden has been an ally to workers over the last four years, low-wage workers cannot afford setbacks when it comes to the right to organize and the protections we’ve won during Biden’s time in office,” UFCW 3000’s statement said. 

The Washington union also said it’s “in solidarity with our partners in Michigan who sent a clear message in their primary that Biden must do more to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Biden must push for a lasting ceasefire and ending US funding toward this reckless war.” As I wrote on Tuesday about the effort in Michigan, a state with large Arab and Muslim populations: 

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Ariana Tibon was in college at the University of Hawaiʻi in 2017 when she saw the photo online: a black-and-white picture of a man holding a baby. The caption said: “Nelson Anjain getting his baby monitored on March 2, 1954, by an AEC RadSafe team member on Rongelap two days after ʻBravo.’” 

Tibon had never seen the man before. But she recognized the name as her great-grandfather’s. At the time, he was living on Rongelap in the Marshall Islands when the US conducted Castle Bravo, the largest of 67 nuclear weapon tests there during the Cold War. The tests displaced and sickened Indigenous people, poisoned fish, upended traditional food practices, and caused cancers and other negative health repercussions that continue to reverberate today. 

A federal report by the Government Accountability Office published last month examines what’s left of that nuclear contamination, not only in the Pacific but also in Greenland and Spain. The authors conclude that climate change could disturb nuclear waste left in Greenland and the Marshall Islands. “Rising sea levels could spread contamination in RMI, and conflicting risk assessments cause residents to distrust radiological information from the US Department of Energy,” the report says. 

In Greenland, chemical pollution and radioactive liquid are frozen in ice sheets, left over from a nuclear power plant on a US military research base where scientists studied the potential to install nuclear missiles. The report didn’t specify how or where nuclear contamination could migrate in the Pacific or Greenland, or what if any health risks that might pose to people living nearby. However, the authors did note that in Greenland, frozen waste could be exposed by 2100. 

Telehealth abortions continue to grow in popularity, even in states where anti-abortion activists try to ban them, according to new data published today.

Abortions obtained through virtual providers accounted for 15 to 16 percent of all abortions conducted between July and September of last year—amounting to about 14,000 abortions each month—up from 11 percent of abortions, or about 8,500, in December of 2022, according to the report, prepared by researchers from Ohio State University, the University of California, San Francisco, and the Society of Family Planning. The increase is partly thanks to the rise of shield laws, which protect providers who virtually prescribe and mail abortion pills to people in states with abortion bans, according to one of the report’s co-authors, Ushma Upadhyay, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. 

Five states—Massachusetts, Colorado, Washington, New York, and Vermont—passed laws last year that protect telehealth providers who help people elsewhere in the country get abortions, according to Upadhyay. California enacted its shield law last month. As the New York Times reported last week, while these laws have not yet faced legal challenges, many expect them to. But in the meantime, they’re serving as the key to abortion access for people across the country: The Times reports that Aid Access, one of three main organizations providing telehealth abortions, serves about 7,000 patients a month, about 90 percent of whom are in states with abortion bans or severe restrictions. Advocates say telehealth abortion can also be particularly significant for low-income people and those in rural areas who may otherwise have difficulty accessing abortion clinics. 

The new data from Upadhyay and her colleagues—part of a recurring study known as #WeCount, aimed at providing quarterly updates on abortion access post-Dobbs—comes just weeks before the Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments in a case brought by anti-abortion activists arguing against the FDA approval of mifepristone, one of two pills taken in a medication abortion. That case—billed as the biggest abortion case since Dobbs, since medication abortions account for more than half of all abortions nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute—will go before the high court despite the fact that more than 100 studies have shown that medication abortion is safe and effective. One of those studies was also conducted by Upadhyay, and was published in the journal Nature Medicine this month; it showed the pills are just as safe when prescribed virtually and mailed as when they’re prescribed and obtained in-person, as I previously reported. As I wrote then: 

If the court restricts the accessibility of mifepristone through telehealth, it could have a significant effect. With abortion restrictions on the rise, obtaining abortion pills from virtual clinics has continued to grow in popularity. After the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision in June 2022, abortions obtained through telehealth increased drastically—from 3,610 in April 2022 to 8,540 by December of that year, according to research published last year by the Society of Family Planning. And as I reported last month, a study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine shows that more Americans are using telehealth to stockpile abortion pills in case they need them in the future. 

This week’s episode of Reveal features WNYC’s Kai Wright and the Nation‘s Lizzy Ratner, hosts of New York Public Radio and the History Channel’s Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows. Wright and Ratner take on the history and politics of the early AIDS crisis, surveying contemporary media coverage, community responses, and the enduring waves of activism that followed the dawn of HIV.

Wright’s look at some of the first reporting on HIV and AIDS brings him into conversation with Lawrence Altman, physician and author of a groundbreaking 1981 New York Times article that brought the little then known about HIV to wider attention; veteran AIDS activist Phil Wilson, and Anthony Fauci, then head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases and a leading HIV researcher. Then, through interviews and archival recordings, Ratner sketches the life of Katrina Haslip, whose activism and educational work around AIDS began in the 1980s at New York’s Bedford Hills women’s prison and continued, in conjunction with ACT UP, until her death in 1992 at the age of 33. 

Special thanks to Blindspot, all three seasons of which can be heard at WNYC.

In the past, former President Donald Trump has promised a consensus on abortion, criticizing Republicans for being too stringent but without getting more specific. 

According to a report published in the New York Times this morning, Trump has landed on a limit that he thinks will do the job: a 16-week abortion ban. 

Citing “two people with direct knowledge” of Trump’s thinking, the Times reports that the former president “privately favors” a 16-week ban with exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. (It is unclear whether that means only cases of rape or incest reported to law enforcement.)

Abortion is already banned before 16 weeks in 20 states, so the national ban Trump is reportedly considering would, if enacted, likely further restrict it in another 30 states that currently lack such a limit. (Though the majority of abortions—nearly 94 percent—take place before the 13-week mark, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

The paper reports that Trump sees that limit as one that can appeal to both social conservatives who want harsh abortion bans as well as voters who want more modest rules. 

A New York judge ruled on Friday that former President Donald Trump must pay $355 million and cease doing any business in New York for three years after being found liable for years of deceiving banks and insurance companies about his net worth. While Trump has said he will appeal the decision, if the ruling stands, it would potentially obliterate his financial resources. What’s more, it comes on top of an earlier decision by the same judge to revoke Trump’s license to operate businesses in New York. Between the payments and the license revocation, Trump’s business career would likely be in serious jeopardy, at least in the state of New York. But, with an appeals process that is expected to last several years, his fate is far from settled. 

The decision, issued by New York Superior Court judge Arthur Engoron, is the result of a civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. James accused Trump of telling banks and insurance companies that his assets were worth far more than they really were in an effort to get better deals on loans and insurance policies. Among other falsehoods, Trump told banks was that condos in New York were worth tens of millions on the open market, when in actuality they were rent-controlled and unavailable to sold, and that his Mar-a-Lago resort was worth hundreds of millions or even as much as $1.5 billion, when in reality, because of deed restrictions, it would likely be worth just a fraction of that. 

Over the course of several months this past fall, Trump’s attorneys wrangled with James’ legal team, and just as often with Engoron, bitterly denying Trump had done anything wrong. But the fact that Trump was liable for the fraud was never really in question throughout the trial—after Trump’s team largely failed to address any of James’ accusations directly, Engoron ruled before the trial even began that Trump had indeed acted fraudulently. The trial essentially was to determine exactly how much Trump would owe for his fraudulent behavior. James’ called a string of witnesses, including former Deutsche Bank employees, to testify that they would never have given Trump such good terms for loans and insurance policies. Trump and his attorneys continually maintained that Trump had paid his creditors back and had paid his insurance policy bills, so there was no effective harm done. 

The trial was especially notable for the clashes between Trump and Engoron. After Trump repeatedly used his social media account to complain about Engoron’s clerk, the judge issued a limited gag order prohibiting the former president from denigrating courtroom staff. When Trump violated the order—twice—Engoron fined him and eventually forced Trump to testify. Engoron ruled Trump’s testimony on the subject was “not credible.” Trump later lashed out against Engoron when he returned to the stand to testify in the trial, and at one point he stomped out of court, Engoron refused to dismiss the case. None of the theatrics seemed to help the former president. The case also named Trump’s adult children and a number of his top employees at the Trump Organization.

This story first appeared on Meduza, an independent, reader-supported Russian newsroom based in Latvia.

Officials in the Kremlin’s political bloc see Alexey Navalny’s death as “a very negative development” — for Vladimir Putin’s reelection campaign. At the same time, members of the Putin administration do not expect the opposition politician’s demise to seriously affect the results of next month’s tightly controlled presidential vote. 

This is according to two sources close to the Putin administration, one source close to the leadership of the ruling United Russia party, and a Kremlin political strategist, all of whom spoke to Meduza on condition of anonymity. (It should be noted that these are typical remarks regarding any events that may affect the course of Putin’s reelection.) 

Asked to comment on Navalny’s death, two of the aforementioned sources gave extremely cynical responses, saying that the opposition politician “knew what he was getting into when he returned to Russia” in 2021 and that he was “punished for working against the country.”

At the same time, both sources believed that Navalny wasn’t “purposefully” killed, instead attributing his death to poor prison conditions. “Did you expect anything else? It was bound to happen sooner or later,” one said. 

Earlier this week, Meta decided to create the grandest of Gordian knots for itself when Adam Mosseri, its executive in charge of Instagram and Threads, announced that the company doesn’t want Threads to “proactively amplify political content from accounts you don’t follow”—in effect, announcing the company hopes to limit how “political” content is spread and shared. 

Given the boundless and ill-defined nature of politics, his plan seems nearly impossible to implement. Mosseri did not say the plan was to tone down “content involving electoral politics,” or even something as vague as “turning the volume down on toxic politics.” He referred only to leashing the vast but vague category of  “political content.”

Billionaire Mark Cuban did ask Mosseri on threads what Meta means when it says “political content.” But Mosseri never replied. When CNN’s Oliver Darcy pressed the company, he received a written reply: “Informed by research, our definition of political content is content likely to be about topics related to government or elections; for example, posts about laws, elections, or social topics,” with the caveat that “global issues are complex and dynamic, which means this definition will evolve.” 

In effect, Mosseri was asking users of Threads to stick to dumb posts—nothing that would, actually, have to be moderated. It reminded me of the edict at the old Deadspin to “stick to sports.” Jim Spanfeller, the CEO of the blog’s new parent company, demanded that of staff, telling them to not write about politics. Apart from bad business, it quickly didn’t make any sense. Sure, you can write a story about Tiger Woods without contextualizing what it means for a Black man to dominate the whitest sport, but it would be stupid. And the only way to avoid politics in writing about the scandal that ensued when the then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protests would be not to write about it at all.

The cynical read is that politics being ill-defined is the point. Anything annoying for them to deal with, that could even tenuously be described as “political,” can be contained by limiting its algorithmic boost.

At a televised White House press conference Friday, President Joe Biden rebuked the Kremlin for insisting that leading Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny simply lost consciousness and died after taking a stroll in prison.

“Make no mistake: [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Biden said. “Putin is responsible. What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. No one should be fooled, not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world.”

Navalny had been incarcerated in a high-security prison at an Arctic penal colony known as Polar Wolf on extremism charges widely believed to be politically contrived. Known as the country’s most outspoken critic of Putin and his United Russia party, Navalny had returned to Russia from Germany after receiving treatment there in 2020 for poisoning by a nerve agent called Novichok, which was developed by the Soviet Union. Upon re-arriving in Russia in 2021, Navalny was immediately arrested and subsequently sentenced to 19 years in prison.

“We don’t know exactly what happened,” Biden added, “but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”

Speaking to reporters, Biden said Navalny’s mysterious death reinforces the need for Congress to put together an aid package to help Ukraine continue fighting Russia’s invasion. 

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Raw sewage and runoff in the Tijuana River is exposing communities at the US-Mexico border to an unusual and noxious brew of pathogens and toxic chemicals, according to a report released this week.

Billions of gallons of sewage flow through the river, which winds north from Mexico through California and empties into the Pacific Ocean, containing a mix of carcinogenic chemicals including arsenic, as well as viruses, bacteria and parasites, according to public health researchers at San Diego State University, who published the report.

The researchers have called the situation “a pressing public health crisis.”

Wastewater flowing into the ocean has resulted in more than 700 consecutive days of beach closures in San Diego county, but the contamination isn’t limited to the water. Pollutants and pathogens contained in sewage have also been detected in the local air and soil—exposing even those who live miles away from the water.

A Democratic candidate for the Ohio Senate is a transgender man who has long gone by the name Ari Faber, but a 1995 law will require the state’s upcoming March primary ballots to use the name he was given at birth: Iva Faber.

Title 35, Section 3513.271 of Ohio Revised Code requires that “[i]f any person desiring to become a candidate for public office has had a change of name within five years immediately preceding the filing of his statement of candidacy, both his statement of candidacy and nominating petition must contain, immediately following the person’s present name, the person’s former names.”

Additionally, the statute says, people who are “elected under the person’s changed name, without submission of the person’s former name, shall be immediately suspended from the office and the office declared vacated.”

According to the New York Times, which published a feature story on Faber and the Ohio law on Saturday morning, the law originated to prevent candidates from deceiving voters. There is an exception to the law for candidates who changed their names through marriage.

Faber, who is running for a state senate seat in southeast Ohio and has not legally changed his name, told the Times he is “concerned that supporters might be confused when they see my deadname on the ballot.”

Who among us has not handed $50,000 cash in a shoebox to a purported undercover CIA agent in an SUV with tinted windows because a fake FTC investigator told us to?

Well, I haven’t. Nor do I have a stray $50,000 to give. Still, a February 9 report from the real Federal Trade Commission reveals that the saga Charlotte Cowles describes with painstaking detail in her recent viral essay isn’t entirely unique. 

In fact, consumers reported losing more than $10 billion to fraud last year, the FTC said. It’s the first time fraud losses have reached the double digit billions, and marks a 14 percent hike over losses in 2022.

Investment scams made the top category of fraud, with people reporting losses exceeding $4.6 billion. Imposter scams, such as the one Cowles fell victim to, was the second-highest money loser with reported losses nearing $2.7 billion.

To summarize Cowles’ experience—which you really should read for yourself—the financial-advice columnist lost $50,000 to an elaborate con in which a phony Amazon customer service imposter called her about fraudulent charges for iPads on her non-existent business account. After clearing up that she didn’t purchase tech products, the faux-Amazon employee offered to connect Cowles to a supposed FTC investigator, who informed her that her identity was connected to bank accounts that had wired more than $3 million overseas, and that a car rented under her name was found with blood and drugs inside. He said there were warrants out for her arrest. Cowles would need to immediately give a CIA officer $50,000 cash from her compromised bank account, which the government would kindly convert into a Treasury check that her family could live on for up to a year until all of this identity fraud nonsense was sorted out.

In mid-October, Wesley Bell, St. Louis County’s first-ever Black prosecuting attorney, appeared at a virtual event for Missouri Democratic voters eager to discuss the race he was running against Sen. Josh Hawley. “We’re in a place to get this guy,” Bell boasted. Come Election Day, he said, “I’m going to wake up either as the St. Louis County prosecutor or the US senator-elect.”

But less than three weeks later, Bell abruptly called a press conference. Standing in front of a wall of posters bearing his name—and with the words “U.S. Senate” covered by white masking tape—Bell announced he’d instead decided to primary Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), one of the most progressive members of the House.

Bush had been making national headlines as a leading voice for a ceasefire in Gaza, where more than 6,000 Palestinians had already been killed in the Israeli bombardment launched after Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack. (As of this writing, the death toll has risen to over 26,000.) In a tweet a day prior to Bell’s announcement, Bush had decried Israel’s military operations as an “ethnic cleansing campaign.” ​​

Bell insisted there was “nothing personal” about his decision, but he called Bush’s statements “offensive” and contrasted himself with her—on the war and more generally—by pledging to “stand with the president.” Asked by a reporter whether US aid to Israel should be conditioned on adherence to international law, he responded, “I think we have to stand with our allies.” And, drawing a clear contrast with his new opponent on criminal justice issues, Bell called Bush’s support for defunding the police “misguided,” claiming it hurt Democrats electorally. The following day, he released a list of endorsements that included a number of prominent Jewish members of the St. Louis community, as well as a handful of police chiefs in the district.

On Tuesday, another possible line of attack emerged for Bell, as news broke that Bush was under federal investigation for allegedly misspending security money. (In late 2023, a congressional ethics board recommended a complaint regarding campaign funds being used to pay her husband for “security” be dismissed.)

The Supreme Court of Oregon on Thursday ruled that 10 Republican and Independent state senators cannot run for reelection this year. Their transgression? Not showing up for work.

Since 2019, Republicans, Oregon’s minority party, have been staging walkouts to prevent the majority party from passing progressive measures, like a proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and to protest Covid restrictions. The AWOL senators were facing fines of $500 for every day of missed work, but that didn’t stop them: During the 2019 walkouts, some senators even went into hiding or fled the state. Then-Goc. Kate Brown (D) admonished them. “Public servants are chosen by and entrusted to represent their constituents, and working for the people of Oregon is an honor and a privilege,” she said. “Playing games and avoiding tough conversations is a dereliction of that responsibility and trust.”

Conservatives’ unusual strategy works in Oregon because it is one of the few states that require at least two-thirds of its 30-member Senate to be present to conduct legislative business. The legislature tilts blue but consistently has more than a third of Republican and Independent senators.

In 2022, voters amended the Oregon Constitution to have more stringent attendance rules for state legislators—no more than 10 absences—or else they would be banned from holding state office for the next term. Hannah Love, a campaign strategist for the ballot measure, explained to Oregon Public Broadcasting that “Oregonians…do not want to let the gridlock of the extreme partisan walkouts hold our democracy back any longer. They know that as regular people, we can’t walk off the job with zero consequences or accountability. And we’re sick of politicians who think they can play by a separate set of rules.” The measure passed with 68.3 percent of the vote, but there were sharp detractors. “What they’re trying to do is use extortion to prohibit freedom of speech,” said John Large, chair of the Lane County Republicans.

Despite the new attendance rules, 10 lawmakers still boycotted the senate in 2023 over a bill to expand gender affirming care and access to abortion. Their main point of protest was language allowing minors under the age of 15 to receive an abortion without parental consent or notification. “That, to us, is the issue,” said Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend). They walked out of work for six weeks. The bill ultimately passed, but the final language required parental notification for minors under the age of 15 getting abortions. Both parties celebrated the passage as a win.

Earlier this week, a right-wing group calling itself the “Take Our Border Back” convoy began its journey from Virginia to the US southern border. The organizers, who plan to hold anti-immigration rallies in three border cities, say their goal is “to call for immediate action to secure our borders before irreversible serious consequences befall our nation.”

Their catalyst, presumably, was the standoff in Eagle Pass, Texas, where the Texas National Guard has blocked the US Border Patrol from patrolling a section of the US-Mexico border along the Rio Grande. Abbott has accused President Biden of failing to enforce laws that protect the US border, and has said that Texas “has the legal authority to control ingress and egress into any geographic location in the state.” The convoy organizers appear to agree: In their promotional materials, they complain about politicians “who are enabling tens of thousands of illegal entrants, criminals, and known terrorists from over 160 countries worldwide to cross daily into our country along our southern border!”

It’s hard to predict exactly what this convoy will amount to. Initial reports on its size were underwhelming—some accounts estimated that the initial size to be around 40 vehicles, a far cry from the 700,000 that the organizers had hoped for.

Small though the convoy may be, extremism experts that I spoke with told me they were still watching it closely. Noelle Cook, a researcher who is working on a book about the women who participated in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, has been monitoring long-dormant channels from the 2022 People’s Convoy, in which vehicles converged outside of Washington, DC, to protest Covid vaccine mandates. Recently, Cook says, these channels have come alive with fans following the new convoy from home. For the organizers, these channels are “a way to get people across the country thinking that they can participate in something.”

And in those online spaces, networking opportunities abound. The organizers draw from a veritable grab bag of right-wing movements and conspiracy theories: The Christian nationalist organizers refer to the convoy as “God’s army;” the QAnon adherent leaders use hashtags associated with the conspiracy theory; the Covid denialist leaders spread the word about the convoy in anti-vax forums. The cross-pollination of these various factions is one thing Devin Burghart, the president and executive director of the extremism tracking group Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, is paying close attention to.

While Gov. Ron DeSantis traveled the country promoting his state’s effort to ban everything from books to student pronouns in what turned out to be a failed presidential campaign, Black community educators felt swamped by an energized public ready to learn the history their state is intent on denying them.

“It has been overwhelming,” says Kristin Fulwylie, executive director of the Black History Project, an education nonprofit that oversees Black history courses in Orlando, Miami, Jacksonville, and Fort Lauderdale. “There’s a lot of energy. Our students are really eager and asking for new additions to our programs.” 

Many of these extracurricular programs have grown in strength since last February, when the College Board publicly capitulated to DeSantis’s stripped down version of the Advanced Placement (AP) African American studies course. Florida Commissioner of Education, Manny Diaz Jr., took to Twitter to claim that the course was “filled with Critical Race Theory” and “woke indoctrination” for including lessons on intersectionality, Black queer studies, and the reparations movement for decendents of the formerly enslaved, among others. Conservative officials across the state parroted the same rhetoric to ban lessons on race, gender, and sexuality, dismantle diversity and inclusion initiatives, and target LGBTQ students. Not only did Florida legislators succeed in forcing changes to the AP African American studies course, a flood of censorship legislation –from the Stop WOKE Act in 2022 to last year’s “curriculum transparency” law–has criminalized teaching Black and LGBTQ authors and subjects. Disturbingly, school libraries and even assigned reading lists must now be vetted by “media specialists” who have been trained by the state. 

Some educators outside of Florida’s strictly monitored classrooms have responded by bringing the fight to the schools; others have carved out new spaces to learn on their own terms, filling libraries, community halls, and cultural centers or what researchers call “third spaces.” 

Freedom Schools