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The Supreme Court case that could turn homelessness into a crime, explained

Two people in hoodies sit on a sidewalk with their backs against a low wall and their heads down. Unhoused people photographed in San Francisco in February of 2024. | Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

Grants Pass v. Johnson could make the entire criminal justice system far crueler. It also tests the limits of judicial power.

The Supreme Court will hear a case later this month that could make life drastically worse for homeless Americans. It also challenges one of the most foundational principles of American criminal law — the rule that someone may not be charged with a crime simply because of who they are.

Six years ago, a federal appeals court held that the Constitution “bars a city from prosecuting people criminally for sleeping outside on public property when those people have no home or other shelter to go to.” Under the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Martin v. Boise, people without permanent shelter could no longer be arrested simply because they are homeless, at least in the nine western states presided over by the Ninth Circuit.

As my colleague Rachel Cohen wrote about a year ago, “much of the fight about how to addresshomelessness today is, at this point, a fight about Martin.”Dozens of court cases have cited this decision, including federal courts in Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Texas, and New York — none of which are in the Ninth Circuit.

Some of the decisions applying Martin have led very prominent Democrats, and institutions led by Democrats, to call upon the Supreme Court to intervene. Both the city of San Francisco and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, for example, filed briefs in that Court complaining about a fairly recent decision that, the city’s brief claims, prevents it from clearing out encampments that “present often-intractable health, safety, and welfare challenges for both the City and the public at large.”

On April 22, the justices will hear oral arguments in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, one of the many decisions applying Martin — and, at least according to many of its critics, expanding that decision.

Martin arose out of the Supreme Court’s decision in Robinson v. California (1962), which struck down a California law making it a crime to “be addicted to the use of narcotics.” Likening this law to one making “it a criminal offense for a person to be mentally ill, or a leper, or to be afflicted with a venereal disease,” the Court held that the law may not criminalize someone’s “status” as a person with addiction and must instead target some kind of criminal “act.”

Thus, a state may punish “a person for the use of narcotics, for their purchase, sale or possession, or for antisocial or disorderly behavior resulting from their administration.” But, absent any evidence that a suspect actually used illegal drugs within the state of California, the state could not punish someone simply for existing while addicted to a drug.

The Grants Pass case does not involve an explicit ban on existing while homeless, but the Ninth Circuit determined that the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, imposed such tight restrictions on anyone attempting to sleep outdoors that it amounted to an effective ban on being homeless within city limits.

There are very strong arguments that the Ninth Circuit’s Grants Pass decision went too far. As the Biden administration says in its brief to the justices, the Ninth Circuit’s opinion did not adequately distinguish between people facing “involuntary” homelessness and individuals who may have viable housing options. This error likely violates a federal civil procedure rule, which governs when multiple parties with similar legal claims can join together in the same lawsuit.

But the city, somewhat bizarrely, does not raise this error with the Supreme Court. Instead, the city spends the bulk of its brief challenging one of Robinson’s fundamental assumptions: that the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments” limits the government’s ability to “determine what conduct should be a crime.” So the Supreme Court could use this case as a vehicle to overrule Robinson.

That outcome is unlikely, but it would be catastrophic for civil liberties. If the law can criminalize status, rather than only acts, that would mean someone could be arrested for having a disease. A rich community might ban people who do not have a high enough income or net worth from entering it. A state could prohibit anyone with a felony conviction from entering its borders, even if that individual has already served their sentence. It could even potentially target thought crimes.

Imagine, for example, that an individual is suspected of being sexually attracted to children but has never acted on such urges. A state could potentially subject this individual to an intrusive police investigation of their own thoughts, based on the mere suspicion that they are a pedophile.

A more likely outcome, however, is that the Court will drastically roll back Martin or even repudiate it altogether. The Court has long warned that the judiciary is ill suited to solve many problems arising out of poverty. And the current slate of justices is more conservative than any Court since the 1930s.

Grants Pass’s litigation strategy is bizarre

One reason why this already difficult case is being needlessly complicated is that Grants Pass made some odd strategic decisions when it brought this case to the Supreme Court. While the city’s primary argument seems to attack one of the fundamental principles of American criminal law, there is probably much less to this argument than an initial read of their brief would suggest.

Robinson was an Eighth Amendment decision. It held that this amendment, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments,” does not permit the government to punish mere “status.” Instead, as mentioned, criminal laws must target some “act” committed by a defendant.

The city’s primary argument is that Robinson erred in this decision. The Eighth Amendment, it claims, “focuses not on the nature of a criminal offense, but the sentence imposed for it.” So, under this approach, California did not violate the Eighth Amendment in 1962 when it made merely existing while experiencing addiction a crime, so long as it was not imposing an excessive sentence on that addiction. Similarly, the amendment would forbid Grants Pass from imposing the death penalty on homeless people — because such a harsh punishment would be excessive — but it wouldn’t forbid a city from making existing while homeless a crime.

On the surface, this is an extremely consequential argument. If the Supreme Court should agree that mere status can be criminalized, that would open the door to thought crimes and allow states and localities to effectively banish entire classes of people they deem undesirable.

But there is probably less to this argument than it initially seems. As the city notes in its brief, some scholars argue that even if being arrested for a status crime does not violate the Eighth Amendment, it does violate two other provisions of the Constitution, which forbid the government from denying “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” So even if a majority of the current justices agreed that Robinson misread the Eighth Amendment, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the government can criminalize status.

Moreover, the idea that government may only punish voluntary actions, and not status, is hardly some newfangled idea invented by liberal justices in the 1960s. It has deep roots in the common law, the body of judge-made law that developed in English courts over many hundreds of years and that still shapes much of US law. In their brief, the unhoused plaintiffs quote a 1754 lecture by an English legal scholar who said that “no action can be criminal, if it is not possible for a man to do otherwise. An unavoidable crime is a contradiction.”

There’s even a Latin term, “actus reus,” that refers to the criminal act that someone typically must commit before they are charged with a crime. This is one of the most basic concepts in American criminal law. Virtually any law student who has completed the first week of their introductory course in criminal law will be familiar with this term.

So, while it is theoretically possible that the current Supreme Court could eliminate the requirement that someone commit an actus reus before they can be criminally punished, that seems unlikely. This is such a foundational principle in US criminal law that even this Court is unlikely to disturb it.

The line between “status” and “action” is often blurry

Yet while the Court is unlikely to say that people can be declared criminals simply because of who they are, the line between what constitutes a law criminalizing “status” and a law criminalizing action can be quite blurry at the margins.

Consider Powell v. Texas (1968), which asked whether an alcoholic who claimed to have an irresistible urge to drink could be charged with a crime for being drunk in public. Leroy Powell, the defendant in this case, claimed that arresting him for being drunk was no different than arresting someone addicted to drugs simply for being addicted, because his drunkenness was an unavoidable consequence of his status as someone with alcoholism.

The Court, however, rejected this argument — albeit in a close 5–4 decision.

Writing for himself and only three other justices, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote the Court’s lead opinion in Powell. That opinion leaned heavily into Marshall’s doubts that Powell’s alcoholism was a truly an “irresistible compulsion to drink and to get drunk in public” that was so strong he was “utterly unable to control” his drinking.

Justice Byron White, meanwhile, cast the fifth vote against Powell but did not join Marshall’s opinion. Citing Robinson, White argued that “if it cannot be a crime to have an irresistible compulsion to use narcotics,” then “I do not see how it can constitutionally be a crime to yield to such a compulsion.” He also wrote that “the chronic alcoholic with an irresistible urge to consume alcohol should not be punishable for drinking or for being drunk.”

Ultimately, White voted against Powell because Powell was convicted of publicdrunkenness — the justice reasoned that, even if Powell could not avoid drinking, he could have remained at home. But White’s approach has fairly obvious implications for the Grants Pass case.

That case involves a web of local ordinances that, the Ninth Circuit determined, punish homelessness in much the same way that a ban on drinking punishes an alcoholic who genuinely is incapable of not drinking. Among other things, these ordinances include strict limits on where people can sleep and prohibit anyone from using “material used for bedding purposes” on public property — a provision that, the city claims, permits it to cite anyone who so much as wraps themselves in a blanket while sitting on a park bench.

Violators face a fine of at least $180, an enormous amount for someone who cannot afford housing, and the penalties escalate quite quickly for repeat offenders.

Because everyone has to sleep eventually, and because Grants Pass is too cold in the winter for anyone to sleep outside without a blanket or similar protection, the Ninth Circuit reasoned that Grants Pass’s web of ordinances effectively makes it impossible to live while homeless in Grants Pass — thus criminalizing the status of being homeless.

One way that the Supreme Court could resolve this case is to reject White’s conclusion in Powell that there is no difference between a law that criminalizes status directly and one that does so indirectly by criminalizing an involuntary act that arises out of their status. That would be a huge blow to unhoused people, as it would fundamentally undermine the Martin decision.

Even under White’s framework, moreover, Robinson only protects individuals who have an “irresistible compulsion” to drink alcohol. It follows that Robinson should only protect people who cannot voluntarily sleep anywhere except for places where Grants Pass’s ordinances effectively forbid them from sleeping.

And this distinction between voluntary and involuntary action presents the biggest problem for the unhoused plaintiffs in Grants Pass.

The biggest problem with the Ninth Circuit’s decision, briefly explained

The Ninth Circuit determined that people are protected by Robinson only if they are “involuntarily homeless,” a term it defined to describe people who “do not ‘have access to adequate temporary shelter, whether because they have the means to pay for it or because it is realistically available to them for free.’” But, how, exactly, are Grants Pass police supposed to determine whether an individual they find wrapping themselves in a blanket on a park bench is “involuntarily homeless”?

For that matter, what exactly does the word “involuntarily” mean in this context? If a gay teenager runs away from home because his conservative religious parents abuse him and force him to attend conversion therapy sessions, is this teenager’s homelessness voluntary or involuntary? What about a woman who flees her violent husband? Or a person who is unable to keep a job after they become addicted to opioids that were originally prescribed to treat their medical condition?

Suppose that a homeless person could stay at a nearby shelter, but they refuse because another shelter resident violently assaulted them when they stayed there in the past? Or because a laptop that they need to find and keep work was stolen there? What if a mother is allowed to stay at a nearby shelter, but she must abandon her children to do so? What if she must abandon a beloved pet?

The point is that there is no clear line between voluntary and involuntary actions, and each of these questions would have to be litigated to determine whether Robinson applied to an individual’s very specific case. But that’s not what the Ninth Circuit did. Instead, it ruled that Grants Pass cannot enforce its ordinances against “involuntarily homeless” people as a class without doing the difficult work of determining who belongs to this class.

That’s not allowed. While the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure sometimes allow a court to provide relief to a class of individuals, courts may only do so when “there are questions of law or fact common to the class,” and when resolving the claims of a few members of the class would also resolve the entire group’s claims.

But that’s not true in Grants Pass. A case involving a queer teen who fled his parents’ home is materially distinct from a case involving a woman who sleeps outside because she cannot find a shelter that will allow her to bring her dog. That does not mean that both of these individuals should not prevail in court. But the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require them to bring separate legal proceedings that can address the unique facts of their unique cases.

The courts probably aren’t going to provide much help to homeless people in the long run

Grants Pass is hardly the first time the courts have been asked to intervene in a complicated question of anti-poverty policy. The best-known example is probably San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), which challenged a public school funding scheme in Texas that tended to provide much more money to wealthy school districts than to poorer ones. The Court turned away this suit in a 5–4 decision.

In the decades after Rodriguez, however, many state supreme courts broke with their federal counterparts and ordered their states to spend more on education, to provide more resources to poor districts, or to otherwise implement a more equitable finance system. As of 2019, plaintiffs bringing Rodriguez-like suits in state courts had prevailed in 23 states.

But these cases are difficult to litigate and often require multiple trips to the state supreme court over the course of many years. Frequently, after a state supreme court issues a decision calling for some change in the state’s funding scheme, the legislature makes some small changes and then drops the issue until a court orders them to act again.

In Arkansas, for example, school finance reformers won a state supreme court victory in 1983 declaring that the state’s school finance system bore “no rational relationship to the educational needs of the individual districts” and then had to return to court nearly two decades later. Seventeen years after its initial decision, the Arkansas Supreme Court found that the wealthiest school districts were still spending nearly twice as much per pupil as the poorest districts.

Even if Martin survives contact with the Supreme Court, anti-poverty advocates are likely to face even more difficulties trying to wield it to mitigate the problem of homelessness than those same advocates have faced in school finance cases. Because the law restricts when courts can provide class-wide relief to anyone experiencing homelessness (or even to “involuntarily homeless” people), enforcing Martin is likely to become a long, slow slog of individual cases attempting to rescue individual criminal defendants from an individual arrest for sleeping outside.

Of course, the courts could relax the rules governing when judges can provide class-wide relief. But such a relaxation would have implications far beyond homelessness policy and would likely do far more to empower the judiciary’s far right than it would to help anti-poverty advocates.

Imagine, for example, what Matthew Kacsmaryk, the Trump-appointed judge who tried to ban the abortion drug mifepristone and who routinely hands down court orders implementing right-wing policy preferences, would do if he were handed a new power to issue class-wide relief to any group of people he wants to help out.

So, with so many ways that Grants Pass could end very badly for homeless people — and for criminal defendants generally — the case is unlikely to end well for them.


Read full article on: vox.com
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Armed with a substantial budget surplus, Minnesota lawmakers in 2023 raised early childhood education workers’ pay with a half billion dollar investment, and invested $300 million more into early learning, including new investments in Head Start and low-income scholarships. “For a long time the emphasis has been on most vulnerable kids and we made some really big strides in that area last session,” said Ericca Maas, director of policy and advocacy for Think Small. “We came together after that and said well glaring at us is middle-class families.” Clare Sanford, the government relations chair for the Minnesota Child Care Association, a provider group, said the debates around equity continued this year as advocates lobbied for the Great Start Affordability Scholarships program. Some activists protested pushing to help wealthier families before those with the least resources were fully covered. This debate was never fully resolved, but ultimately, Sanford said, leading groups decided they’d be more successful in the long-term if they could expand their coalition to include more families. “There’s a fundamental agreement that we need to help those who have the least first, and we know we haven’t finished doing that, however part of the strategy, is we need middle class families to see themselves as part of this,” she told Vox. “We need more political will to form a greater political base.” Megan Pulford, a single mother of two in northeastern Minnesota, is the type of parent advocates like Sanford want to bring into their coalition. As a bank loan officer Pulford has never qualified for state child care assistance, but covering the cost of daycare for her two kids comes at nearly $2,000 a month. “Money is just so tight, our bills are just so tight,” she told Vox. “If we didn’t have to pay as much for child care we could actually put more into our local grocers, local businesses.” A big part of the coalition-building strategy is helping middle and upper-middle class parents overcome feelings of shame that they may be struggling with costs at all. Lawmakers have long treated child care assistance as a carrot to induce poor mothers to work, rather than a general investment in the healthy development of all children. “The myth in our country is that very young children are a private responsibility, not a public one,” said Sanford. “Everyone will pay taxes to fund public K-12 schools whether or not they have kids because that’s a commitment we’ve made as a society that an educated workforce is something we all need. We do the exact opposite for ages 0-5.” “We feel the need to help parents really understand that this is a shared experience, and that it’s okay for them to share that they’re not holding up,” Maas, of Think Small, added. The search for simple language continues American child care advocacy is often plagued by cumbersome math and jargon, and the effort in Minnesota this year was no different. In contrast to Canadian politicians who’ve been spearheading a message around child care costs for no more than $10-a-day, US progressives have long stuck with more complicated language around limiting costs to thresholds of annual household income. (The specific threshold to signal affordability used to be ten percent, though was lowered to seven percent about ten years ago.) The seven percent benchmark was recently included in Senate Democrats’ Child Care for Every Community Act, and the Biden administration’s new rule to reduce child care costs for families already receiving subsidies. Rep. Kotyza-Witthuh, the Minnesota House sponsor of the Great Start Affordability Scholarships, said they felt seven percent was a good target because Minnesota lawmakers had already pledged commitment to the goal last year in statute, and because it already exists as a federal recommendation. But advocates acknowledge it can be very confusing, particularly since many families don’t know what seven percent of their household income is, and for some families the goal is to still have them spend less than seven percent. Talking about “capping” child care costs, advocates hoped, would at least provide a clear policy message they could galvanize parents around, but then child care providers started getting nervous, interpreting the cap language as a cap on their expenses, or a cap on the amount of tuition they can charge. “People freak out when you talk about a cap,” Maas told Vox. “Providers freak out about things they charge being capped, and some parents really bristle too at the idea that they couldn’t invest more in their child if they wanted to.” To mitigate this confusion, some advocates started describing the proposed scholarship subsidy as more like a co-pay, similar to health insurance. But health insurance costs are also among the most confusing Americans have to budget for. While the fight was unsuccessful this session, Democratic leaders in Minnesota say they’re keeping it as a goal for 2025. “It is a priority for my caucus and our leadership,” said Kotyza-Witthuhn. “Everyone knows the system is broken.”
vox.com
Matt Bellamy and wife Elle Evans welcome their second baby together
The infant got his first name from the Muse frontman's father, George, and his middle names from the model's parents, Julie and Billy Wade.
nypost.com
Kate Middleton issues her first major update on new project since cancer diagnosis
The Princess of Wales, 42, has been undergoing chemotherapy treatment behind the scenes after revealing her cancer diagnosis to the world in March.
nypost.com
Introducing Vox’s next chapter
Ten years ago this spring, Vox was founded with the mission to help people understand the news through explanatory journalism that made complex topics accessible to anyone. Central to that mission was our promise to put our audience first in everything we do: constantly innovating to create accessible journalism for our audience, answering their biggest questions, and meeting them where they were.  Over that same decade, the world has navigated a pandemic, the worsening impacts of climate change, the global rise of authoritarianism, the devastation of multiple wars, and more. We’ve also seen turbulence in the media industry, with audience habits changing, constantly shifting technology and social media algorithms, and a fast-evolving advertising economy. We’re living and working in a complicated era. But 10 years on at Vox, we still strive every day to provide clarity on the most complex topics. Our goal since our launch has expanded: We want to explain the news, but also to offer context, analysis, solutions, and advice, on the topics that are getting our attention, and those that should get more of it. We want our audience to understand the world they live in so that they can help shape it. One thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to putting our audience first, and to continuing to develop new ways to serve them wherever they are — be it our website, podcasts, videos, social platforms, or newsletters.  That’s why at Vox, we’re proud to be celebrating our 10-year anniversary, and we’re kicking off our next decade with a number of new innovations to better serve you, our loyal audience: a new website, a new membership model to expand our offerings and support our business, and a slate of new newsletters and podcasts to double down on the journalism our audiences have come to know and love over the last decade. Here’s a peek at what’s coming: Our new website: You’ve probably noticed our website is looking a little different! We’ve relaunched our website with a sleek, updated design that makes it easier for you to discover and find all of the journalism you love, be it politics, culture, climate, or everything in between; articles, podcasts, or videos; or entire sections like Even Better, Future Perfect, or Down to Earth. A new membership program: To keep producing the journalism you love, we need your support. Over the past four years, financial contributions from our audience have helped sustain our work. Now, we’re excited to announce a new program that will allow our audience to get even closer to Vox. Today we’re launching Vox Membership, where in exchange for your financial support, you’ll receive exclusive member perks like behind-the-scenes content, opportunities to connect with our journalists through Q&As and chats, virtual events, access to our digital magazine, The Highlight, and a bonus monthly edition of The Highlight Podcast, and more. Read more about Vox Membership here, and sign up to become a member here. A slate of new newsletters coming this year: We know one of the reasons our audience is loyal to Vox is because of our journalists and the deep expertise, perspectives, and analysis they bring to their work. So throughout this year we’ll be launching new newsletters from a number of our journalists, such as: SCOTUS, Explained, a Supreme Court newsletter from Ian Millhiser; On the Right, about what’s happening with the American right from Zack Beauchamp; Within Our Means, on ending poverty in America from Abdallah Fayyad; Next Page, full of book recommendations from Constance Grady (with a special Ask a Book Critic edition for Vox Members); and many more to come.  We’re launching two new podcasts: The Weeds host Jonquilyn Hill will helm a new, audience question-driven show that will tackle a wide range of topics and harness the expertise of Vox’s reporters to explain everything from personal finance to pop culture to public policy. And we’ve recently brought on award-winning host Julia Longoria to develop a new, narrative audio series in collaboration with Future Perfect that will dig into questions about our future in complex, difficult-to-understand topics like artificial intelligence, medical technology, and factory farming. We’ll share more on both new shows in the coming months.  At Vox, we’ll continue to always put you, our audience, at the heart of everything we do. Thank you for supporting Vox and for being along for the journey this past decade, and into the next one. 
vox.com
Caitlin Clark signs historic multi-year partnership with Wilson
Caitlin Clark has entered the same stratosphere as Michael Jordan.
nypost.com
Scarlett Johansson dice que voz de ChatGPT es muy parecida a la suya; OpenAI suspende su uso
OpenAI anunció el lunes que planea suspender el uso de una sus voces de ChatGPT después de que la actriz Scarlett Johansson señaló que sonaba “inquietantemente parecida” a la suya.
latimes.com
Carles Puyol visitó el Este de Los Ángeles para extender invitación de campamento de LaLiga
El exjugador de la selección de España y el FC Barcelona, Carles Puyol, visitó el Este de Los Ángeles para anunciar un campamento de futbol gratuito que se llevará a cabo en el verano.
latimes.com
MAGA Rages At Treatment Of Trump Trial Witness Robert Costello
The defense witness in hush money trial was reprimanded by Judge Juan Merchan for his behaviour while on the witness stand.
newsweek.com
Vox’s new membership program, explained
Since our founding in 2014, you’ve supported Vox in our mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world so that we can all help shape a better one. We think of you — our audience — as being at the heart of everything we do. With every story, podcast, and video we create, we ask ourselves: What does our audience need to know about this topic? What matters to them? What questions do they have? Our journalists strive to bring you clarity, context, and nuance on all the topics that affect your world and your daily life. Together, we’ve learned about everything from artificial intelligence, the Supreme Court, and meatless meat to personal finance, climate solutions, parenting, and more. This vital journalism wouldn’t have been possible without the continued support of our readers, listeners, and video audience. That’s why today we’re launching the Vox Membership program. It’s a celebration of our decade-long commitment to serve our audience and build our community. This program will allow us to offer you deeper access to Vox than ever before.  So what does it mean to be a Vox Member? What kind of cool perks do you get? And why is Vox doing this?  Why is Vox launching a membership program? Quality journalism is expensive to produce. We rely partly on direct support from our audience to fund our work. For the past four years, people have been contributing to Vox because they believe in our mission of creating smart, approachable journalism. With our new membership program, we plan to build on that foundation by creating a closer two-way relationship between our audience and Vox.  So what exactly is the Vox Membership program? What do I get for joining? It’s a new community with some exciting perks. Most importantly, you’ll help Vox continue to produce the journalism that you rely on to understand the world around you. But we’ll also be rolling out special benefits to members to thank them for their support. Members will receive:  Biweekly editions of The Vox Explainer members-only newsletter, which goes behind the scenes on how we make our journalism. Access to The Highlight, our members-only digital magazine, which includes a selection of in-depth features, conversation-driving essays, definitive explainers, and more. The Highlight Podcast, a monthly bonus podcast included with the digital magazine, featuring a rotating cast of Vox podcast hosts and journalists talking with an expert at the forefront of their field working on an idea or pursuit that feels important, novel, and exciting. Invitations to exclusive quarterly Q&As with our journalists and subject-matter experts on topics like artificial intelligence, family policy, and climate solutions.  Live virtual tapings of select episodes of Vox podcasts.  Interactive video interviews with voices from our video team More members-only newsletters in the months ahead, including the monthly Ask a Book Critic, a special members-only edition of Vox’s Constance Grady’s upcoming newsletter. And that’s just the start — we’ve got more planned and we want to hear from you about how we can build this community in the months ahead.  How do I become a Vox Member?  If you have already committed to a recurring monthly or annual contribution to Vox, you don’t need to do anything else. You can now consider yourself a Vox Member and you can expect to hear from us on your new benefits! Thank you for your continuing support. If you’re not already a recurring contributor, become a member by clicking right here. Vox Members make recurring contributions of at least $5 per month or $50 per year. Reliable support from our audience allows us to invest in ambitious projects and continue to cover the most important issues and ideas shaping society. Can I still make a one-time contribution? Vox’s mission is to make reliable news coverage accessible to everyone, and that isn’t changing. We created Vox Membership to encourage recurring support and express our gratitude to those who are able to make that commitment. However, one-time contributions to our newsroom are as important as ever and we’re working on ways to keep one-time contributors informed on what’s new at Vox.  How do I access my member benefits? Once you’ve signed up, you’ll start hearing from us via email. We’ll make sure that you’re getting the latest behind-the-scenes information from the Vox newsroom and access to all the perks that members receive. It’s as simple as that. And if you ever experience issues or have a question for us, email us at membership@vox.com. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you for supporting us for the last 10 years. We hope you’ll join us for the next decade and join the Vox Membership program today.
vox.com
Attorney who advised Michael Cohen to resume testimony in Trump trial
Former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial continues in New York. Follow here for the latest live news updates, analysis and more.
edition.cnn.com
We tested 11 cooling sheets to find the best sets for hot sleepers in 2024
We've never felt this airy and breathable when sleeping (truly).
nypost.com
10 Memorial Day events, celebrations and tributes in the D.C. area
Solemn tributes, community parades and concerts fill Memorial Day weekend in the DMV.
washingtonpost.com
Princess Kate's Royal Career Milestones: A Timeline
From her marriage in 2011, Kate has built a number of projects connected with her passion for mental health and children.
newsweek.com
'Surprising Link' Solves California's Prehistoric Seafloor Mark Mystery
The research is being used to see if the seabed is suitable to support offshore wind farms.
newsweek.com
Boiling Point: Six months until November, climate change looms large
Want to stop global warming? Start thinking about Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
latimes.com
A lawmaker held an AI roundtable with scholars. Most had industry ties.
Rep. Ro Khanna’s artificial intelligence roundtable mostly featured academics with tech industry ties, according to a report by the Tech Transparency Project.
washingtonpost.com
You asked: I have an air fryer. Do I need an Instant Pot, too?
How do I use my new Instant Pot, and should I get rid of my slow cooker and air fryer? We answered this reader question.
washingtonpost.com
Want to Heal America? Look to 19th Century France
The infamous battle ripped French society in two — until a new Prime Minister moved to heal his country.
time.com
What Jennifer Lopez said about Ben Affleck on ‘JKL!’ as divorce rumors loom
Jennifer Lopez went on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" the same day that Ben Affleck skipped the red carpet premiere for her new Netflix movie.
nypost.com