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“Tens of millions of dollars of advertising has not changed President Biden’s polling deficit. Donald Trump’s criminal trial has not altered the race’s trajectory. And Mr. Biden’s significant cash and infrastructure advantages have yet to pay political dividends,” the New York Times reports. “So on Wednesday, the one weekday Mr. Trump is not confined to a courtroom, the Biden campaign shook up the race, publicly offering to bring forward the first presidential debate by three months.

New York Times: “Since 1987, presidential debates have been simulcast on every major channel in the country. But President Biden’s shock announcement that he would skip this fall’s preplanned matchups in favor of debates sponsored by individual news outlets sent network executives into a scramble.” “Such debates typically take months to plan.

“Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are pushing forward with their plan to repeal a pandemic-era law that allowed the wearing of masks in public for health reasons, a move spurred in part by demonstrations against the war in Gaza that have included masked protesters camped out on college campuses,” the AP reports.

Just published: The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis by George Stephanopoulos. “No room better defines American power and its role in the world than the White House Situation Room. And yet, none is more shrouded in secrecy and mystery.” The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis Amazon Kindle EditionStephanopoulos, George (Author)English (Publication Language)346 Pages - 05/14/2024 (Publication Date) - Grand Central Publishing (Publisher) Check Price on Amazon

“The U. S. Supreme Court on Wednesday effectively ordered Louisiana to hold this fall’s congressional elections using two Black majority districts instead of one,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. “The high court did so by suspending a three-judge panel’s decision that threw out a map drawn by the Louisiana Legislature in January to create two minority-majority districts.”

Erstwhile GOP presidential candidate and current vice-presidential hopeful Ben Carson has joined right-wing peers like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson in supporting the end—or at least the rolling back—of no-fault divorce laws across the nation. “For the sake of families,” the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development wrote in his book, The Perilous Fight, released Tuesday, “We should enact legislation to remove or radically reduce incidences of no-fault divorce.” Over the past year, I have been tracking the rise of men on the right, both elected and civilian, who think it ought to be harder to get divorced in this country.