Former President Donald Trump greets his own appointee, Justice Neil Gorsuch, ahead of the State of the Union address in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives on February 04, 2020. | Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images The justices already effectively gave Trump what he wants in his Supreme Court immunity case. Today, the Supreme Court will hear what might be one of its least consequential arguments in modern history. I’m referring, of course, to Trump v. United States, the case asking whether former President Donald Trump is immune from a federal criminal prosecution arising out of hi ..read more

Confiscated guns on display at Attorney General Letitia James’s announcement that the Attorney General’s Office, Drug Enforcement Administration, New York Police Department, and State Police took down ghost guns and narcotics trafficking ring in New York.  | Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images The fight over “ghost guns” is back before the justices. The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear Garland v. VanDerStok, a case that could open up a massive loophole in US gun laws, effectively neutralizing federal laws requiring gun buyers to submit to a background c ..read more

Pro-Palestine student demonstrators march from the University of Colorado campus in Boulder to show solidarity and to protest the sale of US jets to Israel in this October 1973 photo. | Denver Post via Getty Images And for decades, schools have tried to crack down on their activism. Last week, the country watched one of the biggest escalations in campus unrest this year unfold, when dozens of New York City police officers clad in riot gear entered the grounds of Columbia University and, on the orders of university president Minouche Shafik, arrested more than 108 student protesters who had bui ..read more

An activist with the Center for Popular Democracy Action holds a large photo of US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s head as the group blocks an intersection during a demonstration in front of the US Supreme Court on December 1, 2021, in Washington, DC.  | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images But it’s not yet clear they’ve settled on a rationale for doing so. A federal law requires most US hospitals to provide an abortion to patients experiencing a medical emergency if an abortion is the proper medical treatment for that emergency. This law is unambiguous, and it applies even in red states wi ..read more

Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images The Columbia protests and the debate over pro-Palestinian college students, explained. Protests over the war in Gaza erupted on Columbia University’s campus last week and have sparked demonstrations at other universities across the country. The demonstrations have resulted in some intense crackdowns and political scrutiny, all coming in the wake of recent congressional hearings on antisemitism on campus and amid an uptick in both antisemitism and anti-Muslim sentiment in the US. Protests have emerged across the country, including at Yale University, New Yor ..read more

Ukrainian soldiers fire artillery near Siversk, in Donetsk, Ukraine, on April 1, 2024. | Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu via Getty Images New American weapons will buy Ukraine’s defenders some valuable time. Ukrainian forces are having their best week in months, and it’s coming not on the muddy battlefields of the Donbas, but across the Atlantic. On Saturday, after months of delay, the US House of Representatives approved $61 billion in new funding for Ukraine, alongside aid packages for Israel and for US allies in the Pacific; last night, the Senate approved the package and sent it on to President Jo ..read more

Trump speaks at an event in Pennsylvania on April 13. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Voters trust Trump to lower prices, even as his advisers put forward plans for increasing Americans’ cost of living. Donald Trump is currently leading the 2024 presidential race, in no small part because voters trust him to combat inflation. This is a bit strange since Trump has for months now been advertising plans to drastically increase consumer prices. Over the weekend, an NBC News poll found Trump leading Biden nationally by a 46 to 44 percent margin. Yet on the question of which candidate would better hand ..read more

Rep. Summer Lee, a progressive and member of the Squad, is running for reelection in Pennsylvania. | Nate Smallwood/Bloomberg via Getty Images Lee is the first Squad member to face a 2024 primary challenge. It could send a strong message about progressive power. Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) is the first member of the progressive group of House Democrats known as the Squad to be up for a 2024 primary challenge, a contest expected to be a preview of how Democratic divides over Israel could play out this year. Lee, one of the earliest lawmakers to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and to condemn Israel ..read more

Paige Vickers/Vox; Getty Images American conservatives are cozying up to British feminists who argue that the sexual revolution has hurt women. In February, America’s most prominent conservative activist declared his opposition to having sex for fun. In a post on X, the “anti-woke” crusader Christopher Rufo wrote, “‘Recreational sex’ is a large part of the reason we have so many single-mother households, which drives poverty, crime, and dysfunction. The point of sex is to create children—this is natural, normal, and good.” Much gawking at Rufo’s grimly utilitarian take on sex ensued. Yet the f ..read more

House Speaker Mike Johnson talks with members of the media following passage of a series of foreign aid bills at the Capitol on April 20, in Washington, DC. | Nathan Howard/Getty Images It heads to the Senate this week, and could soon be law. After months of uncertainty, the House has greenlit a $95 billion package with substantial aid for Ukraine, as well as funds for Israel and US allies in the Indo-Pacific region. It now heads to the Senate, which is expected to pass it later this week. This move is one of the most significant bills to pass the House in months, and follows weeks of intense ..read more