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As judges weigh the limits of medical exceptions, Idaho’s abortion ban is being tested — in courts, hospitals and patients’ lives

Veterans Guardian says it’s fighting to give veterans a choice. Critics say they’re guardians of greed.

A little-known firm with investors linked to JD Vance, Elon Musk and Trump could get a piece of the federal expense card system — and its hundreds of millions in fees. “This goes against all the normal contracting safeguards,” one expert said.

On Monday, federal immigration agents smashed the car window of Guatemalan immigrant Juan Francisco Méndez and arrested him on a street in New Bedford, Massachusetts, as his wife looked on.

Méndez, 29, has been taken to a detention facility in New Hampshire. He has been in the US lawfully for two years, and he and his wife have no criminal record. His wife, Marilú Domingo Ortiz, was granted asylum after fleeing persecution in Guatemala and, because the two are legally married, Méndez has received the same protection. They have a nine-year-old son who is in school.

A smartphone video taken from inside their car shows a group of police officers—apparently Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, at least one of whom was in plain clothes—demanding that Méndez and his wife, Marilú, open their door or roll down their window so they can “talk, just talk.”

Speaking in Spanish through the car window, Méndez says, “My lawyer is on her way,” and “I will only speak when my lawyer arrives.” The officer then says, “Tell the lawyer to hurry up.” Juan replies, “She says she’ll be here in half an hour,” and then carefully places both hands on the steering wheel.

Marilú, who is on the phone with an attorney, asks the officers through the window, “Excuse me, do you have a warrant?” and “Do you have an arrest warrant?” When the officers do not respond, Marilú asks, “Can I leave?” to which one officer responds quickly, “No.”

Also speaking in Spanish, the individual in plain clothes approaches the car door and says, “I can open the door. Do you understand me?” and Marilú says, “Yes.” The officer then threatens, “Do you want it hard or easy?” to which Marilú replies, “Yes, but when my lawyer is present.”

One of the officers then approaches the rear passenger side door with a large pick-axe and smashes the rear door window while the other officers open the front passenger door where Marilú is sitting. At this point, there is a break in the video.

When it resumes, Marilú appears saying in tears, “They pulled us out violently. They treated us very harshly.”

In a report by WPRI 12 News, which covers Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts, their attorney Ondine Galvez Sniffin gave a statement. She said her clients were told the agents were looking for someone named “Antonio.”

The argument that the erosion of the dollar’s global status could benefit the US is gaining traction in Washington. That move would be a needless act of self-harm.

In spite of the criticisms levied at the protests being staged outside of Tesla dealerships nationwide, including Easton in Columbus, the growing movement given rise by the drastic cuts to federal government initiated by Elon Musk are hitting the billionaire where it counts.

In January, I returned to Damascus after 14 years in exile. The last time I had stood in the city’s streets, towering statues of Hafez al-Asad and Bashar al-Asad loomed over the squares. Following the collapse of Bashar Al-Asad’s rule in December of 2024, those statues now lay in fragments—some torn down, others left to decay.

In January, I returned to Damascus after 14 years in exile. The last time I had stood in the city’s streets, towering statues of Hafez al-Asad and Bashar al-Asad loomed over the squares. Following the collapse of Bashar Al-Asad’s rule in December of 2024, those statues now lay in fragments—some torn down, others left to decay.

In January, I returned to Damascus after 14 years in exile. The last time I had stood in the city’s streets, towering statues of Hafez al-Asad and Bashar al-Asad loomed over the squares. Following the collapse of Bashar Al-Asad’s rule in December of 2024, those statues now lay in fragments—some torn down, others left to decay.

In January, I returned to Damascus after 14 years in exile. The last time I had stood in the city’s streets, towering statues of Hafez al-Asad and Bashar al-Asad loomed over the squares. Following the collapse of Bashar Al-Asad’s rule in December of 2024, those statues now lay in fragments—some torn down, others left to decay.

It’s August in Tokyo—hot and muggy, as usual. So I’ve scheduled my daily walk to be early and close to where I’m staying with a friend in the western part of the city. I walk to Tama-Reien, Tokyo’s largest municipal cemetery. Headstone and funerary shops line the street near the entrance. Once inside, I sense the order of a well-run place: a map laying out the grid, toilets and water taps well-marked, and row upon row of family headstones.

Yet, just as mosquitoes break the stillness of the air, a degree of neglect punctuates the place. While many plots are well-tended—gravestones washed, greenery neatly clipped, remnants of flowers and incense—others are overgrown, a jumble of weeds, with headstones broken or missing altogether. These are “abandoned graves” (akihaka) that no one cares for due to the family dying out or moving away.

Walking through Tama Reien, I also discover another category of dead: those who enter the ground abandoned already. When someone dies kinless and unclaimed, the municipality assumes responsibility and buries them in the zone for the “disconnected dead” (muenbo). A single marker designates the collective, anonymous remains gathered here. Devoid of the tenderness of flowers and care, the plot feels lonely. While saddened, I’m nonetheless drawn to it.

Later I ask my friend Yoshiko Kuga about it. She tells me that more and more Japanese are worried about meeting this undesirable fate.

Sociality, or the relations humans have with other humans, has long interested me. As an anthropologist, I’ve researched social hierarchies, gender, and capitalism in urban Japan for several decades. Yoshiko, who I became fast friends with during an earlier fieldwork project, is the one who first pointed me in the direction of my recent research on how the practices surrounding care for the dead, once dependent on family relations, have radically changed due to demographic and socioeconomic shifts in the population.

• Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman has agreed to surrender his license to practice law for three years due to several infractions during his investigation of the 2020 election, but his career — built on serving Republican party interests — began to spiral downward after his attendance at the 2016 Republican National Convention, according to new reporting from Wisconsin Watch.
• Gableman’s participation as a sitting Supreme Court justice at the 2016 Republican Convention in Cleveland may have violated the state judicial code, which bans partisan political activity. He caused disturbances in two hospitality suites and was escorted out of the convention hall by Wisconsin Republicans. Less than a year later, he decided, at age 50, not to seek re-election to a second 10-year term.
• Gableman was hired in 2020 by President Donald Trump’s first administration to work in the federal Office of Personnel Management. He was involved in implementing a Trump executive order to curb diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training for federal employees. When Trump lost his 2020 bid for reelection, Gableman returned to the public spotlight by supporting claims the election had been stolen.
• After Trump accused Wisconsin Republican leaders of not investigating election fraud and of “working hard to cover up election corruption,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos announced at the state Republican Party convention that he had retained Gableman, a Trump-aligned former Supreme Court justice, to investigate the 2020 election.
• Gableman was paid $117,000 for the investigation — more than twice the amount budgeted — and the investigation cost taxpayers a total of $2.8 million — four times the budgeted amount, including $432,000 for a recently settled public records lawsuit. It found no evidence to overturn the election. “He paid no attention to detail, he delegated almost all the work to somebody else and very poor follow-through,” Vos told Wisconsin Watch. “It seemed like Mike Gableman was more concerned about the money he was earning as opposed to finding the truth.”