The rule’s language, according to the leaked text, states that single-sex shelter staff “may determine an individual’s sex based on a good faith belief that an individual seeking access to the temporary, emergency shelters is not of the sex, as defined in the single-sex facility’s policy, which the facility accommodates.”

In order to do this, HUD will allow shelter staff to take into account “factors such as height, the presence (but not the absence) of facial hair, the presence ...

We humans are a rowdy, disruptive bunch. Our very day-to-day living causes the planet to hum. Quite literally - driving and travelling, digging and construction, industry, and even sports events all contribute to a constant background hum of high-frequency seismic noise.

Now, thanks to global lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is experiencing the most dramatic reduction in that anthropogenic seismic noise in recorded history.

"This quiet period is likely the longest and ...

Trump, they feared, was either trying to score political points by casting himself as the law-and-order candidate, or putting federal agents on the ground to forcefully crack down on demonstrators, as happened in Portland. And they wondered how useful the federal presence might be. In Kansas City, the initiative has so far produced public charges against one person, even though Attorney General William P. Barr claimed inaccurately on Wednesday, “The FBI went in very strong into Kansas City, ...

By Isaac Chotiner

On July 7th, Harper’s Magazine published what it called “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” which quickly became part of the conversation around the subject of “cancel culture.” The letter, which has been signed by more than a hundred intellectuals, academics, and authors, noted that “the forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump,” and argued against an “intolerant climate that has set in on ...

President Donald Trump on Thursday moved to cancel the Jacksonville, Florida, portions of the Republican National Convention, scheduled for August, citing the threat of the coronavirus.

“I told my team it’s time to cancel the Jacksonville, Florida, component of the GOP convention,” Trump said at a White House briefing on the coronavirus. The state has become a hot spot for the virus.

This month, Stephen Miller, the extremist anti-immigrant Trump adviser who has promoted white nationalist ideas, lost a relative to the coronavirus pandemic, and his uncle tells Mother Jones that the Trump administration is partly to blame for this death.

On July 4, David Glosser, the brother of Miller’s mother, posted a Facebook note announcing the death of his mother, Ruth Glosser, who was Miller’s maternal grandmother:

This morning my mother, Ruth Glosser, died of the late effects ...

President Trump sees two school issues as key to reelection, and after paying almost no attention to education for most of his presidency, he’s pushing both in negotiations over the next pandemic relief bill.

The president’s first priority is getting schools to reopen this fall, which he sees as central to economic recovery and getting parents back to work. Trump regularly tells advisers that he believes it is “totally safe” for children to return to school, a senior White House ...

But then yesterday, Rep. Yoho decided to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and make excuses for his behavior. And that I could not let go. I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse and worse to see that, to see that excuse, and to see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology, and to accept silence as a form of acceptance. I could not allow that to stand.



Which is ...

Effective immediately, Washington will call itself the "Washington Football Team" pending the adoption of a new name, the franchise announced.

This is not a final renaming and rebranding for the team; this is the name it wants to use until pending adoption of a new name at some point.

The team will continue the process of retiring the former name and hopes to be entirely rid of it on physical and digital spaces in the next 50 days, by the Sept. 13 regular-season opener against the ...

It’s been a rough few months for Chelsie Caudle.

The mother of two has run into delays applying for unemployment and food stamps in Portland, Oregon, after Grace Salon, a hair salon that specializes in cutting and coloring, was forced to shutter in March when the coronavirus pandemic hit. 

Caudle, who is self-employed, sublet a spot at Grace Salon to run her own business called Benjamin LLC. But with no income coming in for months, bills piled up, making it hard for her to afford ...

California recorded some of the first COVID-19 cases in America and the country’s first known death, in what would become a worldwide pandemic. It responded with the nation’s initial stay-at-home order. Now, the Golden State claims another dubious distinction: more confirmed coronavirus cases than any other state.

California passed New York for that record Wednesday morning, reaching more than 409,000 cases and eclipsing New York’s 408,886, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center ...

"We need to declare a moratorium on vaccines," Judy Mikovits declared, not long ago, and not for the first time. "And I mean all vaccines."

While vaccines are temporarily banned and undergoing further study, Mikovits asserted, the world will come to a realization. "We will show everyone that not only are vaccines not needed, but everyone's health will be restored," she promised her audience. "Everyone will have faith in their own natural God-given immunity."

In the last several months, ...

Texas on Wednesday set one-day records for increases in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the state, forcing one county to store bodies in refrigerated trucks and prompting a top health official there to call for new stay-at-home orders.

Texas, which reported 197 deaths and 10,893 hospitalizations, has been one of the states hardest hit by the resurgent coronavirus. Hidalgo County, at the southern tip of the state on the U.S. border with Mexico, has seen cases rise 60 percent in the ...

The mayor of Portland, Oregon was tear-gassed by U.S. government agents late Wednesday as he stood outside a federal courthouse during another night of protests against the presence of the agents dispatched by President Donald Trump to quell the city's ongoing unrest.

Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, appeared slightly dazed and coughed and said it was the first time he'd been tear-gassed.

He put on a pair of goggles someone handed him and drank water but did not leave his spot at the front ...

Senate Republicans are considering a short-term extension of boosted federal unemployment benefits, just days before the payments are scheduled to expire for millions of Americans.

Senators said Wednesday that talks are in the early stages and that there's no consensus on the size or duration of any extension. Out-of-work Americans are getting $600 a week in extra benefits, which have been an economic lifeline for millions who lost their jobs because of the pandemic.

"Discussions come ...

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release from prison of President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen by Friday afternoon.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein found that Cohen was sent back to prison on June 9 in retalation for balking at a condition of his home confinement that he not publish a book — about Trump or anyone else  — while serving the remainder of his three-year prison term on home confinement. 

“I’ve never seen such a clause, in 21 years in being ...

In Bukavu, beautiful buildings have an ugly colonial history. But locals want to save them

The U.S. Army has dealt with sustained backlash over the past few weeks against its recruitment-oriented Twitch channel, which has banned viewers for asking about war crimes and hosted supposed giveaways that just dumped people out onto a recruitment page (which the Army has since claimed did enter viewers into a competition through other means, but which Twitch nonetheless forced it to stop running). Now, in response to this, it looks like the Army is putting a halt to all Twitch activity — ...

The Dallas Police Department’s preliminary report on its response to a chaotic first four days of still-ongoing police brutality protests in Dallas — including the department’s highly publicized arrest of 674 protesters on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge on Monday, June 1 — has existed since at least June 12.

On June 5, a week prior to the June 12 filing date listed atop the 13-page document, Mayor Eric Johnson publicly lambasted Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall during an eight-hour ...

After three and a half months in lockdown with her two kids, ages 3 and 6, Hannah Lebovits was desperate to get the children out of the house and have some time for herself. “I’m behind on everything; my husband’s behind on everything. We just cannot keep up,” says Lebovits, who is getting ready to start a new job in the fall as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. When she considered sending her kids to day camp, safety was her main focus. While Lebovits was ...