Comment on Poll: Illinois voters back referendum issues

Donald Trump's ex-attorney and fixer Michael Cohen continues to testify Thursday in the former president's criminal hush money trial in New York. Follow here for the latest live news updates, analysis and more.

Yesterday a barge slammed into a bridge pillar in Galveston, Texas, spilling oil into waters near busy shipping channels and closing the only road to a small neighboring island. Via NPR: The impact sent pieces of the bridge, which connects Galveston to Pelican Island, tumbling on top of the barge and shut down a stretch of waterway so crews could clean up the spill.

SCOTUS restored a congressional voting map in Louisiana yesterday that includes an additional majority-Black district, handing an edge to Democrats less than six months before the November election. However, the three liberal justices dissented, pointing to problems down the line. Via the Washington Post: The order was in response to emergency appeals filed after a federal three-judge panel in the state threw out the recently redrawn map last month, ruling that it was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. That decision left the state without a congressional voting map heading into a 2024 contest that will determine which party controls the narrowly divided House.

As we reported earlier, President Joe Biden just demolished one of Donald Trump’s big attacks: that the president is so feeble, he’s afraid to debate Trump. Biden and the Trump campaign promptly agreed to terms and set the dates for two debates. Biden also got in a well-publicized dig in the process, saying, “I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.” Well, that woke up Sleepy Don!

On this date in 1941 Nazi occupiers in Netherlands forbade Jewish music. So our musical selection today is Spike Jones' classic eff-you to der master race. alicublog: Sunday ‘Round-the-Horn: Two days late and a dollar short edition. The Wisconsin Independent: Van Orden doubles down on anti-abortion stance, says life begins at conception. Left Jabs: The Ascendancy of Half-Assed Fascism. Attention space nerds!

Rep. Jasmine Crockett called out Project 2025 horrors in a congressional hearing on May 15. Once again, journalist Aaron Rupar watched the House Judiciary Weaponization Subcommittee hearing, so you don't have to. The hearing featured GOP witness Gene Hamilton, a former Trump DOJ staffer who wrote Project 2025's Department of Justice chapter.