A coyote in the El Capitan meadow area at sunrise in Yosemite National Park. | Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Your taxes fundan obscure government program that kills millions of wild animals to benefit Big Ag. A red fox killed with a cyanide bomb. A gray wolf gunned down from an airplane. A jackrabbit caught in a neck snare. These are just a few of the 1.45 million animals poisoned, shot, and trapped last year by the euphemistically named Wildlife Services, a little-known but particularly brutal program of the US Department of Agriculture. The program kills wildlife for many reasons, including poisoning birds to prevent them from striking airplanes and destroying beavers that sneak onto golf courses. But one of the primary purposes of the mostly taxpayer-funded $286 million program is to serve as the meat and dairy industries’ on-call pest control service. “We were the hired gun of the livestock industry,” said Carter Niemeyer, who worked in Wildlife Services and related programs from 1975 to 2006. Niemeyer specialized in killing and trapping predators like coyotes and wolves that were suspected of killing farmed cattle and sheep. Wildlife Services has also killed hundreds of endangered gray wolves, threatened grizzly bears, and highly endangered Mexican gray wolves, often at the behest of the livestock industry and enabled by exemptions from the Endangered Species Act. The top three species Wildlife Services killed in 2023 were European starlings, feral pigs, and coyotes, according to data released last month. How these animals were targeted — from shooting coyotes to poisoning birds — has prompted Congress to fund nonlethal initiatives within the program and conservation groups to call for sweeping changes to how Wildlife Services operates. The USDA didn’t respond to several questions sent via email. “God was our only witness out there,” Niemeyer said about agents killing animals in the field. “You just hope that everybody makes [choices] morally and ethically acceptable and as humane as possible.” To Wildlife Services’ credit, the vast majority of its work entails nonlethally scaring animals off. Controversy, though, has dogged the program for decades, as critics like Niemeyer and other former employees say much of its predator killing is unnecessary, imprecise, and inhumane. Conservation groups say it’s ecologically destructive, as such predators are crucial to ecosystem health and biodiversity. Predator hysteria, explained Adrian Treves, an environmental science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the origins of today’s rampant predator killing can be found in America’s early European settlers, who brought with them the mentality that wolves were “superpredators,” posing a dangerous threat to humans. “We’ve been fed this story that the eradication of wolves was necessary for livestock production,” he said. Today, Wildlife Services’ most controversial work is its killings of coyotes and other predators for the supposed threat they pose to American ranchers and the food supply. But according to a USDA estimate, predation accounted for just 4.7 percent of cattle mortality in 2015. Conservation groups say that figure is exaggerated because it’s based on self-reported data from ranchers and shoddy methodology. According to an analysis of USDA data by the Humane Society of the United States, predation accounts for only 0.3 percent of cattle mortality. (Disclosure: I worked at the Humane Society of the United States from 2012 to 2017 on unrelated agricultural issues.) The Humane Society points to several flaws in the USDA data, including the fact that ranchers reported livestock predation from grizzly bears in six states that don’t have any grizzly bears. In the Northern Rocky Mountains region, the rate of livestock predation reported by ranchers was 27 times higher than data provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which had actually confirmed livestock deaths by predators. “When I first went to work, there was just sort of this acceptance that if a rancher called and he said he had a coyote problem, we assumed that [he] had a coyote problem,” Niemeyer said. “We didn’t question it. I didn’t see a lot of meticulous necropsy work done” to investigate the cause of death. The numbers reported to the USDA by ranchers, he now believes, are “exaggerated and embellished.” USDA-APHIS A coyote caught in a foothold trap. The USDA financially compensates ranchers for livestock killed by wolves and some other species, which can create an incentive to attribute farm animal deaths to predators. Robert Gosnell, a former director of New Mexico’s USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service who administered the state’s Wildlife Services program, told the Intercept in 2022 that the agency’s field inspectors had been ordered to report livestock deaths as “wolf kills” for ranchers. “My guys in the field were going and rubber-stamping anything those people asked them to,” Gosnell said. Niemeyer is not opposed to killing individual coyotes or wolves suspected of killing a particular cow or sheep. But much of Wildlife Services’ predator control, he said (and another former employee has alleged), is done preventively in an attempt to reduce coyote populations. “Every coyote is suspected of potentially being a killer,” Niemeyer said, which he characterizes as coyote or wolf “hysteria.” Last year, 68,000 coyotes were taken down by a variety of means, including ingestion of Compound 1080, a poison that causes acute pain in the form of heart blockage, respiratory failure, hallucinations, and convulsions. Thousands more animals are killed as collateral damage. Last year, over 2,000 were killed unintentionally, a consequence of setting out untold numbers of traps and baited cyanide bombs. These devices have also injured a small number of humans and, between 2000 and 2012, killed more than 1,100 dogs. Some employees have died on the job, and there have even been allegations of orders within the agency to cover up unintentional kills of pets and a federally protected golden eagle. USDA-APHIS A hawk caught in a trap. An irrational bias against predators has made it hard for Americans, and its regulators, to recognize predators’ many ecological and social benefits. One study in Wisconsin, for example, found that wild wolf populations keep deer away from roadways, which in turn reduces costly, and sometimes deadly, car crashes. And killing predators may, counterintuitively, lead to more livestock deaths, Treves said. Some predator species that experience mass killing events may compensate by having more babies at younger ages. That could partly explain why, when wolf killings increased in some Western states, livestock predation went up, too. And when you wipe out some animals, others may fill the void. Coyotes significantly expanded their range in the 1900s after America’s centuries-long wolf extermination campaign. Finally, Treves said, killing suspected predators from one ranch may simply drive the remaining population into neighboring ranches. One study he co-authored on wolf kills in Michigan found “a three times elevation of risk to livestock on neighboring properties after a farm received lethal control of wolves from Wildlife Services.” Agricultural sprawl and the war on “invasive” species Wildlife Services represents yet another example of the USDA’s seeming indifference to animal welfare, but it also highlights a little-known fact of human-wildlife conflict: Most of it stems from agriculture. Almost half of the contiguous United States is now used for meat, dairy, and egg production — most of it cattle-grazing — which has crowded out wildlife and reduced biodiversity. And whenever wild animals end up on farmland that was once their habitat, they run the risk of being poisoned, shot, or trapped by Wildlife Services. That’s true for animals that find their way onto fruit, vegetable, and nut orchards for a snack, too. But Wildlife Services’ primary goal is to protect the interests of livestock producers, USDA public affairs specialist Tanya Espinosa told me in an email — yet another subsidy for an already highly subsidized industry. While much of the criticism lobbed at Wildlife Services pertains to its treatment of charismatic megafauna like coyotes, bears, and wolves, little attention is paid to the European starling, Wildlife Services’ most targeted species. Starlings accounted for a little over half of all animals killed by Wildlife Services, at 814,310 birds. Starlings, which are targeted because they like to feast on grain at dairy farms and cattle feedlots, are mostly mass-poisoned with DRC-1339, also known as Starlicide, which destroys their heart and kidney function, slowly and excruciatingly killing them over the course of three to 80 hours. It’s not uncommon for towns across the US to suddenly find thousands of starlings dropping dead out of trees or raining from the sky. Despite these deaths, starlings receive little sympathy — even from bird enthusiasts — given its status as an “invasive” species, a term often invoked to justify excluding a species from moral consideration, according to Australian ecologist Arian Wallach. Here too, as with predators, we may be in need of a reframe, or at least a broadening of our often one-track conversation about nonnative species like feral pigs and starlings. “In no way does the starling imagine itself as an invasive species — that is a human construction,” said Natalie Hofmeister, an assistant professor of ecology at the University of Michigan and author of the forthcoming book Citizen Starling. Rethinking mass killing Despite Wildlife Services’ high kill counts, it has expanded its use of nonlethal methods in recent years, including guard dogs, electric fencing, audio/visual deterrents, bird repellent research, and fladry — tying flags along fences, which can scare off some predator species. “The last three years have shown a little bit of a turning of the tide for Wildlife Services,” said Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation director of the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity. “There’s been more focus on preventing conflicts versus the Band-Aid of killing animals.” Matt Moyer/Getty Images A range rider in Montana hangs fladry — long red flags attached to fencing — to scare away livestock predators. Treves agrees, but is skeptical there will be meaningful change. Most importantly, he wants to see Wildlife Services experimentally test its lethal methods to see if they actually prevent livestock predation. “I am cynical,” he said. “I am frustrated that this is 20 years of arguing with this agency that’s entrenched, stubborn, and will not listen to the people who disagree with them.” There are no easy answers here. While much of Wildlife Services’ work is ecologically ruinous and unjustifiably cruel, wild animals do inflict real damage on our food supply. Better management on the part of farmers and ranchers and further USDA investment into nonlethal methods could help. Even better would be to rethink the USDA’s — and the meat industry’s — license to wage war on wildlife. A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here!

On April 18, the United Auto Workers won the union vote at a Volkswagen assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. | Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images The UAW is unlocking worker power in the South. An expert explains why it matters. The Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has about 5,500 employees. On April 19, almost three-quarters of them voted to join the United Auto Workers. It’s the latest victory for one of the country’s largest labor unions, coming on the heels of a major contract win last fall with the “Big Three” American carmakers: GM, Ford, and Stellantis (which merged with Chrysler), whose workers make up about 150,000 of the UAW’s 400,000-plus membership. A union vote at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga assembly plant is big news for many reasons. For one, the US was the last country where Volkswagen workers didn’t have some form of representation. But perhaps more importantly, it’s failed twice before, once in 2014 and again in 2019; Volkswagen Chattanooga will be the first non-Big Three auto plant in the South to become unionized. The UAW has no intention of slowing down now. Union president Shawn Fain told the Guardian that the Volkswagen plant was “the first domino to fall” in a strategy targeting mainly foreign automakers in the South: In May, there’s a UAW vote at a Mercedes plant in Alabama, and organizing efforts are also beginning at BMW, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and Nissan plants, among others, across several Southern states. (The union has also set its sights on Tesla facilities in Texas, Nevada, and California.) The UAW has eyes on the South because it stands to gain huge ground there. In the last few decades, a slew of auto plants have popped up in the region, a trend that’s only accelerating as more car companies invest in making EVs and announce new manufacturing facilities in the US. States often offer tempting subsidies to attract automakers to set up shop within their borders, but companies have an extra incentive to head South: it has some of the lowest unionization rates in the nation. In South Carolina, just 2.3 percent of workers belong to a union, compared to 24.1 percent in Hawaii and 20.6 percent in New York. This stark regional difference is tied to a history of racist anti-labor laws, an outgrowth of Jim Crow laws that segregated Black and white Americans in the South until they were overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Vox spoke to Andrew Wolf, a professor of global labor and work at Cornell University, on how unionizing the South could not only raise wages for all auto workers, but also tear down some of the racial disparities workers of color experience in the economy. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Why was the union vote at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant such a big deal? This was a big deal for many reasons. There has not been an organizing victory of this size in the South in decades. It’s a place where the union had lost previously. It just has really big ramifications for the future of organized labor, and the future of the economy in the South. This is the first Volkswagen union in the US, but Volkswagen already has unionized workers in other countries. Did that make organizing easier or harder here? The existence of unions and the really strong labor laws that exist in Germany generally certainly helped. It helped compel the company to be far more neutral and less aggressive in opposing the union than, for example, what’s happening right now at Mercedes in Alabama. Yes, workers at the Alabama plant are claiming Mercedes is retaliating against their union efforts. As you noted, the Chattanooga vote is a huge deal because it’s in the South. I think I know the answer to this, but — are there many unionized auto plants in the South? No. These companies opened in the South to avoid unions, especially with the rise of neoliberalism after the general financial crisis in the 1970s. It’s a within-country version of outsourcing. More and more companies move to the South to avoid unions, to take advantage of the lower wages that are the historical legacy of Jim Crow. You see it explicitly in the comments of the governors — you had the governors of all of these states talking about how this unionization would undermine the culture and values of the South. That’s very coded language for, “We don’t let workers get representation or fair pay in the South, because it’s better for business.” In the past few years we’ve seen some high-profilewins for American unions, but the reality is that union membership rates in the US are pretty low. In the 1950s, about a third of workers were in a union. What happened in those intervening years? Many things happened — globalization, neoliberalism, change in laws. The biggest thing was just that there were declines in the industries where unions were strongest, and a lack of union organizing in the industries that were fast-growing. So that combined with increased employer hostility, increased political hostility, and weakening of labor and employment laws, drove down the rate of unionization in this country. In the South, specifically, what were the policies that led to such low unionization? As with everything in America, the answer to the question is race. Avoiding unions was part of the Jim Crow apparatus. Unions are particularly threatening to orders like Jim Crow, because they bring workers across races together in common cause. So unionization was a real threat to the economic order of the South and that has had lasting impact, with wages being significantly lower in the South, unionization rates lower in the South, and poverty rates being higher. The National Labor Relations Act passed in the ’30s, and then after World War II, Congress passes the Taft-Hartley Act, which undermined the NLRA. But specifically, [Taft-Hartley] empowers states to undermine [the NLRA]. All the Southern states passed these right-to-work laws while the more heavily unionized states in the North and Midwest didn’t institute right-to-work. Essentially, it’s a strategy that makes it both harder to organize and keep the unions funded if you do organize. And what are right-to-work laws? Right-to-work laws are laws that allow workers in unionized workplaces to refuse to pay fair-share fees. Where unions exist, workers can either become a member, in which case they pay dues, or if they don’t want to become a member they have to pay their fair-share fees, which covers the cost of the union representing them. This makes it much harder for unions to fund themselves. Then there’s other little things that exist in right-to-work laws in different states, such as requiring the union to get everyone to re-sign up for the union every single year in order to pay dues. Do workers who aren’t members of a union still benefit from them? [Yes.] For example, if you’re a worker in a shop that’s unionized in a right-to-work state, and you decide you don’t want to pay dues, but then you get fired and you want to challenge that termination — the union is still legally required to represent you, even though you have not paid for that representation. How does low unionization tie into the high rates of poverty we see in the South today? There’s two mechanisms. There’s a significant and persistent union premium, with unionized workers making more money. Additionally, there’s the spillover effects of this. If you have a high unionization rate in your locality, the other employers pay better as well, to remain competitive — a kind of “rising tides lifts all boats” situation. Without unionization, in the South, it depresses wages across the board, and then in turn it depresses wages across the country because there’s always this threat that auto companies could leave Detroit and go south. Also, many Southern states haven’t set their own minimum wage separate from the federal minimum [which is still $7.25 per hour]. Yes, exactly. And right now there’s this huge push across the South to roll back the few labor rights they do have — most prominently, removing all these child labor laws. They just rolled back health and safety laws, including heat laws in Florida for agricultural workers. To get back to Volkswagen in Chattanooga — the union vote passed with 73 percent saying yes. Is that high? Just okay? I was shocked. I mean, it’s a completely overwhelming victory, especially when you consider that the union had lost here in the past. It just really shows you how powerful this moment is right now, and how much workers are buying the message that the current UAW is selling. The Chattanooga facility voted no to unionization twice before. What do you think was different this time? Everything’s different. The biggest difference was this massive contract victory that UAW had at the Big Three last fall. When workers see unions win, it increases interest in the unions — so it had a real galvanizing effect. There was so much publicity on it, talking about these big wage increases. I think these workers down in the South were looking at their paychecks and comparing, right, and realizing the raw deal they have. Additionally, you had the experience of the pandemic, where all these workers were told they were essential, but then they weren’t compensated as if they were essential. It’s just spurred this massive upsurge in labor organizing since the pandemic. What did you think when you heard that the UAW was going to try to unionize the South? It just struck me as really smart, to leverage this big contract victory to go out and try to improve conditions more generally in the industry. Because, as I said, a rising tide lifts all boats, but also, the sinking tides in the South can diminish the wages for unionized workers in the North. I think [UAW organizers] also realize there’s this imperative, that you can’t let this big disparity in auto wages exist between the North and South and continue to win these meaningful contracts. What does this portend for the upcoming Mercedes UAW vote? It’s a different state, a different company. Are there different headwinds? It will be more challenging there, because the company is being far more aggressively anti-union. We talked about how the relationship with the VW union in Germany helped in this situation. But, at the same time, I think there are reasons to be hopeful that the UAW might succeed given what we’ve seen elsewhere. I feel much better about it considering that the Chattanooga vote was 73 percent than if it had been, say, 51 percent. Right now, many foreign carmakers are trying to establish a bigger presence here as the US transitions to electric vehicles. Does that make it more pivotal that the UAW expansion happen right now? Yeah, and you saw this reflected in the contract the UAW secured with the Big Three as well. The move to electric vehicles is going to really change the auto industry — it’s probably going to result in less putting-the-car-together jobs, so to speak, but probably more parts jobs. So the UAW contracts last fall secured the right to organize some of these battery factories. It’s absolutely coming at the right time, because it’s a moment [that] would have only further undermined the UAW foothold in the industry. Do you see this as potentially inspiring for other companies and industries in the South? For sure. I would imagine that is what we would see. It’s hard, though — I don’t know if interest in movements for it will necessarily result in victory. But I think you’ll see much more labor action in the South and elsewhere across the country.

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 Joe Biden. He said he’ll sign it today. The new weapons can’t come soon enough. During recent months, the tide has turned decisively against the Ukrainians on the battlefield as they have been forced to conserve artillery and air defense ammunition. Russia’s military has been firing as much as five times as many artillery shells as the Ukrainians, and one US commander recently warned that the advantage could soon be as high as 10-1. Farther from the front lines, Ukraine’s much-vaunted air defense systems —which once shot down around 90 percent of Russian missiles and drones — have become dramatically less effective, with disastrous consequences for Ukraine’s cities and infrastructure. Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told Vox that Ukraine has lost an estimated 583 square kilometers (225 square miles) of territory since last October, when the US began reducing the size of its aid packages. This is not a huge amount of territory within Europe’s second-largest country, but more important than the actual ground covered was that the Russian advances forced the Ukrainians to “waste their precious resources on repelling Russian attacks rather than taking the initiative,” Stepanenko said. “The delay in providing assistance to Ukraine cost us dearly,” Yehor Cherniev, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and deputy chair of its defense committee, told Vox. “Due to a lack of ammunition, we lost [the city of] Avdiivka and a number of small settlements, and also suffered significant human losses … All this could have been avoided if help had been provided on time.” Now that help has been provided — can it stanch the bleeding? Turning the tide, or buying time? The Pentagon, which has certainly had ample time to prepare, reportedly has an initial weapons package ready for approval and deployment as soon as the funding comes through. While the administration has not yet announced what specific weapons will be sent, Reuters reports that the initial tranche may be worth as much as $1 billion and include vehicles, artillery ammunition, and air defense ammunition. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) has also suggested it could include long-range ATACMS missiles, a capability Ukraine has been asking for since the early days of the war but which the White House has been reluctant to approve due to concerns they could be used to strike targets inside Russia. But more than two years into the war, will this aid really make a difference? “Yes, this is enough to stabilize the front lines,” said Mark Cancian, a retired US Marine colonel and expert on defense logistics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “You’ll see almost an immediate battlefield impact.” That’s no small thing considering the concerns expressed recently by observers in Ukraine that the country’s defenses could collapse entirely. Franz-Stefan Gady, an analyst with the Center for a New American Security who recently returned from a study trip to the front lines in Ukraine, said the new aid package was likely to “restore a situation more akin to November 2023, when the Ukrainians didn’t have to make as many trade-offs” about which sections of the front line and targets in the rear they were able to defend. The aid also comes in the nick of time, as Russia has been stepping up its strikes along the front line, likely ahead of new attempts to seize territory in the spring, when drier conditions will make it easier to maneuver military vehicles. However, Gady cautions, “the package doesn’t address the most critical issue, which is manpower.” Ukraine’s front-line units have an acute shortage of infantry soldiers and the government has been reluctant to expand the use of conscription to refill their ranks. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did sign a law earlier this month lowering the minimum conscription age from 27 to 25 (the average age of Ukrainian soldiers is over 40) but Russia, with its higher population and much higher tolerance for large numbers of casualties, is still likely to have the manpower advantage. The optimistic view of the conflict for Ukraine is that new assistance will buy it much-needed time. It can hold the line this year and replenish units that were badly damaged in last year’s disappointing counteroffensive, hopefully putting it in a better position to push back Russia’s gains in 2025. By that time, Ukraine will have access to some new capabilities, such as F-16 fighter jets, and more importantly, the US and Europe will have ramped up their production of artillery ammunition, hopefully allowing the Ukrainians to narrow the Russians’ ammo advantage. But there’s a difference between avoiding losing the war and actually winning it. No one expects this new aid alone to accomplish the latter. “Okay, you’ve stabilized the front. Now what?” said Cancian. “The Ukrainians have to answer that question. What is their theory of victory?” The Washington front No one should expect a Russian collapse overnight. Even the most optimistic scenarios for Ukraine envision a long and costly war of attrition. Unfortunately, the lengthy and agonizingly difficult process of passing this aid bill suggests Washington may not be so patient. If the new aid allows Ukraine merely to preserve a new stalemate on the battlefield rather than make significant gains, international pressure on Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow may grow more prominent. Ukrainian leaders will counter that they have no reason to trust that Russia will honor such a settlement. As for Russia’s own calculations, the passage of the aid bill was an important signal to President Vladimir Putin that there’s still strong political support for Ukraine in the United States, even if it’s not quite as robust as it was two years ago. Of course, that could all change next year if former President Donald Trump, who would likely pressure Ukraine to give up territory to end the war, returns to the White House. Ukraine and its allies have been reaching out to Trump and his allies in hopes of hedging their bets, and in a slightly positive sign for Kyiv, Trump ended up backing the new aid package after it was structured as a loan rather than a grant, an idea he had floated earlier. But it’s safe to say that leaders in both Kyiv and Moscow will have to continue keeping one eye on America’s political climate even as they plot their next moves on the battlefield. This story appeared originally in Today, Explained, Vox’s flagship daily newsletter. 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Finnish activist Aiski Ryökäs at a My Voice, My Choice press conference. | Varja Jovanovič A massive effort to expand access throughout Europe launches today. An unprecedented effort to expand abortion rights throughout Europe launches today, led by groups that were already fighting for reproductive freedom at the national level in their eight home countries. The My Voice, My Choice campaign aims to collect 1 million signatures in the next few months to pressure leaders of the European Union to commit to helping anyone who is not easily able to end an unwanted pregnancy where they live. While legal abortion is supported throughout Europe andis broadly more accessible and affordable in the EUcompared to the United States, there are some exceptions.Poland and Malta have near-total abortion bans, Austria and Germany generallydo not provide free abortion care through national health insurance, and in countries such as Croatia and Italy, many doctors refuse to provide the procedure. Activists say their effort could help shore up access for nearly 20 million women. Their campaign for a European Citizens’ Initiative would help address those gaps by providing financial support for people to get care internationally if needed. Activists are presenting their initiative as voluntary — member states can choose to opt in. Those states that do participate “in the spirit of solidarity” could then receive financial support from the EU to terminate pregnancies for those who lack access to safe and legal abortion where they live. The proposed EU mechanism would cover the cost of the procedure but not travel costs. “What’s really special is it’s basically being built as the largest feminist movement in Europe, which is crazy and super tiring sometimes, and also really, really beautiful,” said Nika Kovač, a Slovenian activist leading the campaign. Varja Jovanovič Nika Kovač. Kovač told Vox she decided to mobilize on the European-wide level after seeing the Supreme Court overturn legal abortion in the United States. “The whole idea for this campaign came from the despair in the US,” she said. Kovač and her colleagues at the 8th of March Institute, a Slovenian human rights group named for International Women’s Day, planned this citizens’ initiative idea in secret for about 18 months, and then started recruiting international partners in late 2023. The core coalition now includes activists from Poland, Ireland, Spain, France, Austria, Croatia, and Finland. They aim to collect 1 million signatures in advance of the European parliamentary elections in June, which occur only once every five years. Collecting so many signatures in such a short time will be difficult, and if they’re successful, it would be the fastest signature collection for a European Citizen Initiative in history. Still, success is not inconceivable given that the effort is being led by organizers with years of mobilization experience in their home countries. Signature collection can be done both in-person and online, and activists are looking to organize at big upcoming events like May Day protests. “One thing I can rely on is the stubbornness of these women,” Kovač said. “In Europe we are so often caught up in our own national context, and this is the first time I feel like we’re slowly coming out of it.” How the proposed European abortion rights measure would work The European Union, which is comprised of 27 member states, has authority to govern via international treaties, primarily in realms such as monetary policy, trade policy, environmental policy, and consumer protection. Any powers — officially known as competences — not covered by these treaties remain exclusive to the member states, and for years activists were told that reproductive rights were simply beyond the scope of what the EU could legislate on, meaning that abortion had to be left to each sovereign country. “So many European politicians and bureaucrats say nothing can be done in the context of abortion on the European level because it’s not directly one of the competencies of the European Commission,” Kovač explained. “So we had to do a lot of thinking and researching.” They convened a group of international lawyers who helped develop a novel legal strategy, positioning their citizens’ measure as one within the “supporting competence” of the EU, an established official authority that allows the European Commission to support member states for a variety of purposes, including the protection and improvement of human health. Even with broader grounds for legal exceptions in European countries with earlier gestational age limits, first-trimester bans in Europe still force thousands of pregnant people to travel internationally every year to end their unwanted pregnancies. One study published in 2023 looked at pregnant people who traveled from countries like Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, and Italy to the Netherlands or England for later abortion care. Over half of the pregnant people surveyed hadn’t learned they were even pregnant until they were at least 14 weeks along, when they had already surpassed the limits in their home countries. If activists succeed in collecting enough signatures, then members of the European Commission would need to decide if they would support the citizens’ initiative. Activists aim to press all candidates running for European Parliament in June to clarify their stance on the proposal so voters have that information when they go to the polls. “It really will depend on what the next European Commission looks like, but the important thing for us is that this will go to them and they will need to speak to it and then do something,” Kovač said. “It’s really the first concrete solution for the people in Europe.”

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’s airstrikes, has fielded critiques from some Jewish leaders and members of her constituency for taking these positions. Her moderate challenger, Edgewood City Council member Bhavini Patel, has been vocal about her support for Israel and has focused her attacks on Lee on the Israel-Hamas conflict, as have outside groups. Their race reflects the intense focus there’s been on the conflict in the wake of Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack and Israel’s devastating bombings of Gaza. Democrats have been divided in their stance on the ongoing war, with many progressives on the Hill calling for a ceasefire and more moderate lawmakers arguing for military aid to Israel. As congressional primary season unfolds, many anti-war progressives — particularly those in the Squad, including Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) — are facing primaries against challengers supported by pro-Israel groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Though Lee’s race isn’t a perfect analog for those of her Squad colleagues, it will send an early signal about just how serious a threat the primaries pose to those progressives facing challengers. “What it can tell you if someone wins with [Lee’s] position is that it may not be a vulnerability,” says Berwood Yost, the head of the Franklin and Marshall College poll in Pennsylvania. “But of course, it will depend on the candidates who are running and what they’re emphasizing.” Summer Lee’s primary, briefly explained Lee, a former community organizer and state representative, is a first-term lawmaker who represents Pennsylvania’s 12th district. The district — which is in the western part of the state and includes Pittsburgh — is solidly Democratic, but more moderate than some of the other districts that progressives hold around the country, and Lee has said that she strives to “be a representative” for everyone in her district. Lee has long backed progressive policies like Medicare-for-all and a Green New Deal. During the race, she has emphasized how much federal funding has flowed to her district during her term, including $1.2 billion dedicated to everything from replacing lead water pipes and building out passenger rail in the region. (Much of this funding is tied to the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which passed before Lee took office, but she could have still had a role in its distribution.) When it comes to Israel-related policy, she has condemned Hamas, called for a ceasefire, voted against a resolution establishing that Congress stands with Israel, and voted against sending a recent aid package to Israel. These positions build on past statements Lee has made in support of Palestinian rights and calling for the conditioning of US aid based on humanitarian requirements. Lee’s position on Israel’s war in Gaza has been scrutinized and, at times, criticized by some of her constituency, which includes a large Jewish American population. Squirrel Hill, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh and part of Lee’s district, was the site of a devastating antisemitic mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018. “We call on Rep. Lee to exercise better leadership and join her colleagues in upholding the moral obligation for Israel to protect its citizens against Hamas,” a group of Jewish leaders in the region wrote in a letter last November. Some Jewish constituents who’ve expressed concerns about Israel’s attacks on Gaza have, however, supported Lee’s stances. Patel, meanwhile, is an entrepreneur and city council member. Some of her key policy positions include backing labor unions, supporting policing, and lowering prescription drug costs. Across a broad array of issues, including criminal justice reform, health care, and environmental policy, her stances are to Lee’s right. Patel has also taken a more moderate position on Israel’s offensive and has expressed support for the country. She’s claimed, too, that Lee’s position is not a reflection of where her constituents stand and condemned Lee’s backing of voters who choose “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary instead of supporting President Joe Biden. “She’s clearly picked a side in this situation and completely disregards her entire district,” Patel told the Washington Post. “I think it’s important that any call for a cease-fire should acknowledge that hostages are still being held.” As Post noted, however, Lee’s support for a ceasefire in Gaza reflects where many Democrats stand on this issue as well. A February 2024 Data for Progress poll found that 63 percent of Democrats support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. “There has been increasing criticism of this war, even among those who were horrified by the October 7 attacks and believe Israel has the right to defend itself,” says Dan Mallinson, a political scientist at Penn State University. “If this was January, or maybe November of last year, she may be in a slightly different position politically than she is now.” Lee has also built up an impressive arsenal of fundraising and endorsements that far outpace Patel, including backing from Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman — an indication of the strength of her candidacy. Such support signals that she’s in a solid position going into this race, despite the disagreement some constituents have expressed about her stances. This strength may be a reason why AIPAC, a pro-Israel group that’s vowed to send $100 million to unseat progressive candidates, did not invest in this particular primary. Other outside groups — including the Moderate PAC, which draws much of its funding from a pro-Israel Republican donor — are backing Patel. Due to fundraising gains, incumbency, endorsements, and the state of public opinion, Lee is widely expected to come out victorious against her moderate challenger. Her success would send a positive signal to her fellow progressives who are also under threat of primary challenges, including some that could be heavily supported by pro-Israel groups like AIPAC. Democratic divides are set to play a role in the election Lee’s race is far from the only one in which lawmakers’ stances on Israel are expected to be a flash point. AIPAC has already said it intends to spend its sizable war chest — as much as $100 million — on taking out certain progressive members, though that spending has yet to manifest, and groups including the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC (DMFI) have said the same. In 2022, AIPAC saw successes in six of eight Democratic primary races that it invested in, including Rep. Haley Stevens’s win over Rep. Andy Levin in Michigan. Some of the members that AIPAC and DMFI intend to target include other members of the Squad like Reps. Jamaal Bowman (NY), Cori Bush (MO), Ilhan Omar (MN), and Rashida Tlaib (MI), all of whom will be up for primaries later this year. “We’re not interested in defeating people who are pro-Palestinian, we’re interested in defeating people who are anti-Israel and I think it’s fair to say that Bowman, Bush, and some of these other members are decidedly anti-Israel,” Mark Mellman, the head of the DMFI, told the Hill. Experts note that AIPAC and DMFI may have passed on investing in Lee’s race in favor of putting their dollars in primaries in which lawmakers are perceived to be more vulnerable. Bowman and Bush are two of the lawmakers who could well see more difficult races because they’re navigating other issues that could affect their candidacies, including Bowman’s past blog posts regarding September 11 conspiracy theories and a DOJ investigation of Bush’s use of campaign security funds. “I think with Bowman and Bush, in particular, they both have controversies surrounding them that have nothing to do with the Israel issue that have made them uniquely vulnerable,” Erin Conley, a House analyst for Cook Political Report, tells Vox. Beyond Democratic primaries, there’s also an open question on the impact that intraparty fissures on Israel will have on support for Biden in November. Already, a fraction of Democratic voters have expressed their opposition to his willingness to continue backing the country’s military as more than 30,000 Gazans have been killed. In Michigan, for example, more than 100,000 people cast their vote for “uncommitted” in order to register their opposition to Biden. “We’re anticipating [the presidential race] to be close again. So anything that’s going to depress your turnout or people not being excited about you is potentially problematic,” says Mallinson.

Hundreds of “Freedom Convoy” supporters march in downtown Ottawa on Canada Day, July 1, 2022, in Ottawa, Canada. | Dave Chan/AFP via Getty Images Justin Trudeau’s true dough plans to fight populism with policy. Canada has a growing populism problem. Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thinks so. Like many other countries — including the United States — Canadians have spent the last several years dealing with pandemic restrictions, a rise in immigration, and a housing affordability crisis (among much, much else). And like many other countries, that’s showing up in a host of ways: Trust in institutions like the government and media is down. Sentiment on immigration is becoming more negative. “Well, first of all, it’s a global trend,” Trudeau told Sean Rameswaram in an exclusive interview on Today, Explained. “In every democracy, we’re seeing a rise of populists with easy answers that don’t necessarily hold up to any expert scrutiny. But a big part of populism is condemning and ignoring experts and expertise. So it sort of feeds on itself.” As Trudeau points out, Canada is not alone. But our northern neighbor’s struggle is notable because the country has long been seen as resistant to the kind of anti-immigrant, anti-establishment rhetoric sweeping the globe in recent years — in part because multiculturalism is enshrined in federal law. It goes back to the 1960s, when French Canadian nationalist groups started to gain power in Quebec. They called for the province’s independence from Canada proper. The federal government, led then by nepo daddy Pierre Trudeau, stepped in. Rather than validating one cultural identity over the other, the elder Trudeau’s government established a national policy of bilingualism, requiring all federal institutions to provide services in both English and French. (This is why — if you ever watch Canadian parliamentary proceedings, as I did for this story — politicians are constantly flipping back and forth between the two languages.) Canada also adopted a formal multiculturalism policy in 1971, affirming Canadians’ multicultural heritage. The multiculturalism policy has undergone both challenge and expansion in the half-century since its introduction. But Pierre Trudeau’s decision to root Canadian identity in diversity has had lasting impacts: Canadians have historically been much more open to immigration — despite having a greater proportion of immigrants in their population — than their other Western counterparts. But in more recent years, that’s begun to change rapidly as large numbers of immigrants have entered the country amid a housing affordability crisis. An Environics Institute survey showed that in 2023, 44 percent of Canadians felt there was too much immigration — an increase from 27 percent the year before. That’s where Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre comes in. Known as a “soft” populist, he’s started calling on Canada to cut immigration levels (so far, without demonizing immigrants, as we’ve seen from his populist counterparts elsewhere in the West). That said, he looks like a traditional populist in a lot of other ways: Poilievre embraced Canada’s 2022 Freedom Convoy protests, opposed vaccine and mask requirements, voted against marriage equality, has proposed defunding the Canadian Broadcasting Service, wants schools to leave LGBTQ issues to parents, and has talked about repealing a litany of government regulations — from the country’s carbon tax to internet regulations. Basically, he’s against any “gatekeepers” to Canadians’ “freedom.” And that message? It seems to be resonating with voters, including young ones. The plan: Fight populism with policy Enter: Trudeau’s half-trillion-Canadian-dollar plan for “generational fairness,” also known as the “Gen Z budget” for its focus on younger generations feeling the economic squeeze most acutely. “People are facing an anxiety that the economy doesn’t work for them anymore. That the deck is stacked against young people in a way that is different from previous generations,” Trudeau said on Today, Explained. “And that’s a problem because it leads to a sense of uncertainty about the future and a sense of, ‘Okay, the institutions and society and government can’t actually help.’ And that sort of feeds into populism.” To demonstrate that government can work for young people, Trudeau has allocated C$6 billion to help Canadian provinces build new housing — if they agree to certain conditions, like building denser neighborhoods and more climate-friendly housing. It also includes provisions to expand child care, provide school lunches, and invest in the Canadian AI sector. To pay for it, the country plans to increase capital gains taxes on the wealthiest Canadians — C$19 billion over the next five years. “I know there will be many voices raised in protest. No one likes paying more tax, even — or perhaps particularly — those who can afford it the most,” Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland said. “But before they complain too bitterly, I would like Canada’s 1 percent — Canada’s 0.1 percent — to consider this: What kind of Canada do you want to live in?” Though the Conservatives will oppose the plan, it’s likely to pass. Arlyn McAdorey/Bloomberg via Getty Images Trudeau speaks in April about the government’s proposal to provide low-cost leases of public land to developers and push factory construction of homes as part of a “historic” plan to alleviate Canada’s housing crisis. Can it work? The bet Trudeau is making is this: The best counterpoint to anti-establishment rhetoric is … using the establishment to make people’s lives better. “The biggest difference between me and the Conservatives right now is: They don’t think government has a role to play in solving for these problems,” Trudeau told Today, Explained. “I think government can’t solve everything, nor should it try. But it can make sure that if the system isn’t working for young people, that we rebalance the system. Market forces are not going to do that.” A key challenge will be demonstrating progress by the time elections roll around. Housing and real estate experts generally cheered the announcement — but noted that it might be years before people on the ground see any real change. Elections, on the other hand, aren’t yet scheduled but have to happen by October 2025 (parliamentary systems, man). In the meantime, Conservatives are still ahead in the polls, though there’s some evidence that their lead is starting to diminish after the Liberals spent a month previewing their budget. If he’s successful, Trudeau argues that his strategy could be a blueprint for other nations confronting similar trends — particularly during an election year in which we expect populist rhetoric to play a significant role. “There’s no question that democracies remain a lot more advantageous to human beings than any other structures, but it’s not as obvious as it used to be,” Trudeau told Today, Explained. “We have to remember: Democracies didn’t happen by accident, and they don’t continue without effort.” This story appeared originally in Today, Explained, Vox’s flagship daily newsletter. Sign up here for future editions.

A new study found that empathy among young Americans is rebounding after having reached worrying lows a decade ago. | Getty Images/iStockphoto A decade ago, research showed a troubling dip in empathy. A new study provides more hope. Think back to the United States as it was a year ago, a decade ago, a generation ago. Is the US a more caring or less caring nation now than it was back then? If you think Americans have lost their compassion, the data would be on your side — until recently. Since the late 1970s, psychologists have measured empathy by asking millions of people how much they agreed with statements such as “I feel tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.” In 2011, a landmark study led by researcher Sara Konrath examined the trends in those surveys. The analysis revealed that American empathy had plummeted: The average US college student in 2009 reported feeling less empathic than 75 percent of students three decades earlier. The study launched a thousand think pieces agonizing over what had gone wrong. There were plenty of theories: We were too lonely to care about each other, or too stressed, or too siloed, or too tech-addled. Younger generations took the most fire, labeled as too self-obsessed and too hyper-online to connect. Most of all, the research provided new fuel for old fears that American morality was on the decline. As Jennifer Rubin wrote for the Washington Post, “The empathy decline has manifested itself in an erosion of civility, decency and compassion in our society and our politics.” But the decline also revealed something else: Empathy is not a fixed trait. It’s easy to assume that each of us is born with a given level of care, and stuck there for life. But that’s not true; our experiences can grow or shrink our empathy. That’s true of individuals’ lives and across generations. Sara Konrath emphasized this back in 2011, telling me, “The fact that empathy is declining means that there’s more fluidity to it than previously thought. It means that empathy can change. It can go up.” By now, Konrath’s optimism might seem quaint. The news bludgeons us with stories of callousness and cruelty. If empathy indeed changes, these examples encourage us to think it’s taking a one-way trip downward. And yet, Konrath’s hopes from over a decade ago have turned out to be prescient. A few months ago, she and her colleagues published an update to their work: They found that empathy among young Americans is rebounding, reaching levels indistinguishable from the highs of the 1970s. Why aren’t we celebrating an increase in compassion? As with the decline, we might grasp for explanations for this rise. One possibility is collective suffering. Since the empathic lows of 2009, we have faced the Great Recession and a once-a-century pandemic. For all their horrors, hard times can bring people together. In her beautiful book, A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit chronicles disasters including San Francisco’s 1906 and 1989 earthquakes, Hurricane Katrina, and 9/11. In the wake of these catastrophes, kindness ticked up, strangers stepping over lines of race and class to help one another. More recently, researchers chronicled a “pandemic of kindness,” as donations to charity and volunteering increased in the face of COVID-19. Still, history is not a science experiment, and it’s impossible to know exactly why American empathy has risen, just like we can’t isolate with certainty why it fell. But we might ask another question: Will people react to this good news as strongly as they did to the bad news that preceded it? Human beings pay more attention to negative news compared to positive events. This makes evolutionary sense: It’s safe to ignore a sunset, but not a tsunami. But a bias toward badness can also give us the wrong idea about our world and the people in it. We judge people more readily based on the worst things they’ve done, rather than their best, and routinely underestimate how kind, caring, and open-minded others are. Humans are prone to seeing the worst side of each other, and to imagine things are getting worse, even when they’re not. Researchers recently amassed surveys in which nearly 600,000 people were asked how humanity in the modern era compared to years past. Across dozens of countries and several decades, people agreed: Human beings were less honest, kind, and moral than they had been before. This decline is almost certainly an illusion. In other surveys, people reported on kindness and morality as they actually experience it — for instance, how they were treated by strangers, coworkers, and friends. Answers to these questions remained steady over the years. And across the decades, even as people complained about society’s collapsing morals, some major trends like decreases in violent crime pointed in the opposite direction. Our biased minds tempt us to see the worst in people. The empathy decline reported 13 years ago fit that narrative and went viral. The comeback of American compassion, I worry, might instead fly under the radar. Konrath tells me that reporters still regularly contact her about her 2011 paper on empathy decline. She tells each one about the more optimistic update on this work, yet articles on this new work appear to be much scarcer than ones about the gloomier, earlier science. At least some of this is up to us. We can keep paying attention to callousness, cruelty, and immorality. There’s certainly plenty of it to occupy us. But we can also balance that perspective by looking for kindness and care in the people around us. The data is clear: There’s plenty of that, too.

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 GOP infighting about the wisdom of sending more money to Ukraine as its war with Russia enters its third year. Ukraine is heavily dependent on US aid, and its leaders have argued that American money will be critical to break the impasse the country is in amid tenacious Russian attacks. The bill is also a strong signal of support for Israel as global and domestic outcry has grown regarding the country’s attacks in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there. And, it contains two elements meant to target China’s power: military funding for Asian allies — in support of Taiwan — as well as a measure banning TikTok in the US if the app’s China-based owner, ByteDance, does not divest it. All four measures advanced with the help of significant Democratic support, since many Republicans have maintained vocal opposition to more Ukraine funding. The votes for the package also point to a new reality: Due to fracturing in the GOP conference, and the party’s narrow majority, House Speaker Mike Johnson has increasingly had to seek help from Democrats, risking threats to his job in the process. What’s in this package In total, the package contains four bills meant to assist key allies with their military efforts, while also deterring China and Russia. Ukraine aid: The bulk of this aid package — $61 billion — is dedicated to helping Ukraine counter Russia’s ongoing military offensive. These funds include $14 billion aimed at replenishing Ukraine’s weapons and ammunition, $13 billion to restock US military supplies that have previously been sent over, and $9 billion in forgivable loans for other rebuilding efforts, including infrastructure. This measure passed 311-112, with only Republicans voting against it, and provides long awaited funds to Ukraine as Russia has made territorial gains. This bill prompted backlash from far-right Republicans, who argue these funds would be better spent domestically. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has threatened to call for Johnson’s removal as a result of this vote. Israel aid: There’s $26 billion in the measure dedicated to aid related to the Israel-Gaza conflict, including $13 billion to bolster Israel’s military capabilities and US stockpiles that have been depleted due to material transfers, and $9 billion for humanitarian aid for Gaza and other places around the world. This measure passed 366-58, and signals that the US will continue to boost Israel’s military resources despite the Biden administration’s occasional criticism of the country’s bombings of Gaza. More than 30 progressive Democrats opposed this bill and a handful of far-right Republicans did the same. Progressives have been vocal about the need for an immediate ceasefire and have spoken out against sending more money to arm Israel. Aid to Indo-Pacific allies: About $8 billion in the aid package is focused on helping US allies in the Indo-Pacific region boost their military capabilities and better support Taiwan. That includes roughly $6 billion for deterrence, which includes building out stronger submarine infrastructure in the region. This measure passed 385-34 and comes as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put a new spotlight on Taiwan and the question of whether the Chinese government would one day invade it. Of the three aid bills, this one received the most bipartisan support, with just roughly three dozen Republicans voting against it. REPO Act and sanctions: A fourth bill, which contains provisions of the REPO Act, would allow the US to transfer seized Russian assets to Ukraine, which it could use for reconstruction. It also imposes harsher sanctions on Russia, Iran, and China. TikTok bill:A TikTok “ban” is also included in this fourth bill. That measure requires ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to sell the app within nine months or risk getting banned from operations in the US. This fourth bill passed 360-58 and had about 30 progressives and 20 far-right Republicans opposed. The REPO Act and TikTok measures were an attempt to add some concessions for Republicans reluctant to back Ukraine aid. Why this is such a big deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy enthusiastically welcomed the House’s actions, calling them “vital” and claiming they will save “thousands and thousands of lives.” Military leaders and foreign policy experts have emphasized that US aid to Ukraine has been central to its ability to hold off Russia and will be critical if Ukraine is to counter a potential summer offensive. Since the war began, the US has sent Ukraine roughly $111 billion in aid. In recent months, Ukraine has been running low on ammunition and materiel needed for its air defenses, as Russia has made more inroads. “Make no mistake: without US aid, Ukraine is likely to lose the war,” Max Boot, a military historian and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has written. The Ukraine bill was a sharp reminder of the divides in the Republican Party, with more moderate and classically conservative members supporting aid and some far-right members calling for a more isolationist stance. Because of his support of Ukraine aid, and caucus rules allowing any member to trigger ouster proceedings, Johnson is now in a more precarious position. After the House returns from its current recess, he could face additional calls to vacate from those on the right, though some Democrats have signaled that they could save him. Should Johnson lose his gavel, the House would, once again, have to navigate the chaos of another speaker’s race as it did last year. The aid to Israel is notable in that the Democratic-led White House has offered critiques of the country’s offensive while simultaneously encouraging funding for it. The money comes as more than 34,000 people have been killed in Gaza and as experts warn of famine and a deepening humanitarian crisis in the region. The humanitarian crisis, as well as some members’ backing for a ceasefire, led to the measure being sharply debated among Democrats. Overall, Israel aid remains an enduring flash point for Democrats, with progressives calling out the Biden administration’s ongoing willingness to provide this support without strings attached. “To give Netanyahu more offensive weapons at this stage, I believe, is to condone the destruction of Gaza that we’ve seen in the last six months. And it’s also a green light for an invasion of Rafah,” Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT), a Jewish lawmaker who has called for a ceasefire, told the New York Times last week. Many of the issues raised by this package are enduring ones. Ukraine will need more support from the US down the line as Russia maintains its attacks, and Republican divides are expected to persist. It’s possible Israel could seek more funding too, as its war continues, and the bill doesn’t resolve the tensions inherent in the US’s current stance toward the country. And the TikTok measure isn’t necessarily the end of the dispute over what to do about the app. As Vox’s Nicole Narea has explained, TikTok intends to challenge the policy in court on the grounds that it threatens people’s free speech.

A homeless man takes a break from clearing his belongings along the Santa Ana River Trail in Anaheim, California, on January 29, 2018. | Paul Bersebach/Orange County Register via Getty Images Grants Pass v. Johnson is probably going to end badly for homeless people, but it’s not yet clear how broad the Court’s decision will be. The Supreme Court’s ultimate decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson probably isn’t going to end well for homeless people. The case, which asks whether a city in Oregon may enact so many restrictions on sleeping in public and similar behavior that it amounts to an effective ban on being unhoused, drew many questions from justices skeptical that the federal judiciary should play much of a role at all in addressing homelessness. That said, there is an off chance that Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett might join with the Court’s three Democratic appointees to permit a very narrow injunction blocking the web of anti-homelessness ordinances at issue in this case. Barrett, in particular, seemed concerned by the fact that the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, “criminalizes sleeping with a blanket” while outside. The bulk of the Court’s questions, however, and especially the questions from the Court’s Republican appointees, focused on the difficult “line-drawing” questions that arise once the Supreme Court says that there are constitutional limits on what the government can do to criminalize behaviors that are associated with homelessness. If a city cannot criminalize sleeping in a public park with a blanket, for example, can it criminalize public urination or defecation by someone who does not have access to a toilet? Can it criminalize lighting a fire in public to stay warm? And does the answer change if the person who lights the fire needs to do so in order to cook? Given these difficult questions, many of the justices — and especially Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Neil Gorsuch — suggested that maybe the courts should stay away from homelessness policy altogether and let local governments sort out how they want to deal with this issue. Meanwhile, at least three justices — Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — floated the possibility that the federal judiciary may lack jurisdiction to hear this case to begin with. Such a decision would allow the Court to punt on the broader question of whether the Constitution permits the government to effectively criminalize homelessness. Given the morass of competing concerns raised by different justices, it is difficult to predict what the Court’s opinion will ultimately say — although, again, it is unlikely that Grants Pass will end in a significant victory for people who lack shelter. Grants Pass turns on the difference between “status” and “action” This case asks how the Court should apply its decision in Robinson v. California (1962), which struck down a California law making it a crime to “be addicted to the use of narcotics.” Robinson reasoned that the government may not make it a crime simply to be something — what the Court called a “status” crime — so a state cannot arrest someone simply for being a person with a drug addiction. That said, Robinson does permit a state to punish “a person for the use of narcotics, for their purchase, sale or possession, or for antisocial or disorderly behavior resulting from their administration.” So it is constitutional to punish someone for actions that are closely tied to their status as an addict, even if the addiction itself cannot be a crime. The issue in Grants Pass is that the city enacted a web of ordinances that do not explicitly ban being homeless within the city’s borders — that is, they do not actually say that someone can be charged with a crime simply for existing without a permanent address. But the plaintiffs in this case, unhoused residents of Grants Pass, Oregon, argue that the city enacted so many restrictions that it is inevitable that any homeless person in that city will eventually violate one, and thus these ordinances amount to an effective ban on the status of being homeless. Among other things, the city forbids so much as wrapping yourself in a blanket while sitting or lying down in public. Because it is often very cold in Grants Pass, that means that an unhoused individual in that city has nowhere to sleep. At least some of the justices appeared unconcerned with the fact that Grants Pass is effectively criminalizing an activity that every unsheltered person in the city will have to do eventually: sleeping. Gorsuch, for example, accused Edwin Kneedler, the Justice Department lawyer who argued that Robinson should give some protection to homeless people in this case, of trying to “extend Robinson.” In Gorsuch’s view, Robinson was strictly focused on explicit bans on living with a particular status. So, just as the government cannot criminalize addiction itself but can prohibit activities commonly associated with addiction (such as drug use), it also is free to criminalize any activity associated with homelessness — even if it is inevitable that a particular homeless person will engage in that activity. Roberts, meanwhile, tossed out various competing theories for why he might rule in favor of the city in this case. At one point, he warned that a too-broad definition of what constitutes a status crime could prevent the government from criminalizing the “status” of being a bank robber. At another point, he suggested that the status of being homeless is too transient to qualify for protection under Robinson, pointing out that someone may gain or lose access to shelter on any particular day. The Chief’s overarching concern, however, appeared to be that courts are just not well-suited to address homelessness policy. Why would someone think that “these nine people,” meaning himself and his colleagues, are better suited to decide whether a city should focus its limited resources on addressing homelessness and not, say, replacing lead pipes or some other important problem? Not every justice was as skeptical of the plaintiffs’ arguments as Roberts and Gorsuch, but even some of the more sympathetic justices worried about the courts getting too involved in addressing homelessness. Barrett, for example, pointed out that Grants Pass is a “pre-enforcement” case — meaning that the lower courts forbade the city from enforcing its ordinance against anyone experiencing “involuntary” homelessness, regardless of that person’s individual circumstances. Barrett suggested that a better approach might be a narrow Supreme Court decision holding that Robinson may still protect some unhoused individuals, but also holding that individual homeless people must wait until they are charged with violating the law and then raise Robinson as a defense against those charges. The advantage of this approach is that it would mean that a court could determine whether this particular individual was truly unable to exist in Grants Pass without violating the city’s ordinances. And there’s also a possibility that the Court might make this case go away without deciding it at all. The federal courts may not have jurisdiction over this case No one is allowed to file a federal lawsuit challenging a particular law unless they can show that they’ve been injured in some way by the law they are challenging, a requirement known as “standing.” Federal courts also typically lose jurisdiction over a case challenging a particular law if that law ceases to operate against the plaintiffs, rendering the case “moot.” As at least three justices noted at oral argument, there are plausible arguments that the plaintiffs in this case either lack standing or that their case has become moot. Thomas and Sotomayor raised a potential standing problem. Robinson says it is unconstitutional to make it a crime to have a particular status, but it’s less clear whether Robinson prohibits civil lawsuits arising out of an individual’s status. As Thomas noted, it’s not clear whether any of the plaintiffs named in this suit have actually been hit with a criminal sanction (as opposed to a civil fine), so they may lack standing to assert their claims under Robinson. Meanwhile, Jackson flagged a potential mootness problem. The state of Oregon, she noted, has passed a law that limits Grants Pass’s (or any other municipality in Oregon’s) authority to target homeless individuals with ordinances like the ones in this case. So there may no longer be a live conflict between the plaintiffs in Grants Pass and the city because state law now forbids the city from enforcing its ordinances against those plaintiffs. A decision on standing or mootness grounds would most likely delay a reckoning on whether the law can criminalize homelessness, but it is unlikely to put that dispute off altogether. That’s because a 2018 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 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.” That decision will remain in effect unless the Supreme Court modifies it or tosses it out, so another jurisdiction in the Ninth Circuit (which encompasses nine western states) could raise the same question presented by Grants Pass in some future case. But the justices did appear uncertain how they want to resolve the difficult line-drawing questions raised by Grants Pass. A decision punting the case on standing or mootness grounds would, at the very least, buy them more time to think about those questions.