It’s hard to get back onto an even keel here at NNR headquarters with the news running so absolutely amok. I expected Tuesday to be full of surreal and/or terrible news, and it did not disappoint in that regard. (It did, however, disappoint in several other regards.) At any rate, the NNR is here to help make sense of the mess.
Standard standing reminders still apply: I may be starting a seventh year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an indictment!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!
Cleanup in Aisle 45:
We finally have details about Trump’s indictment on the Election Rejection front, and they are indeed kind of fascinating. Here’s what has happened:
- Indictment and Arraignment (For Real). After weeks of everybody waiting for it, Donald Trump was indicted on Thursday in one of the five open investigations against him–more specifically, the New York criminal case about paying off a porn star and cooking books about it. (Since I know it’s hard to keep them all straight, the other investigations are: 1) the DOJ Jan 6 investigation; 2) the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation; 3) the New York overvaluing assets inquiry; and 4) the Georgia election grand jury proceedings.) Interestingly, the New York indictment featured 34 charges of the same exact class E felony–more specifically, falsifying business records in the first degree. He was arraigned today in New York and pleaded not guilty, at which point the charges became public, but is already back at Mar-a-Lago and giving psycho speeches by this evening. Sadly, none of this precludes him from running for President, even though he’s now the first former President in U.S. history to be indicted in a criminal court. And given his fifty-year history of investigation, I don’t know that we can expect much from this indictment. But it’s a nice moment of schadenfreude nonetheless.
Needless to say, Biden Rebuilding stories aren’t quite as sensationalized as the above. Here’s what I have for you:
- Derailment Continues. The DOJ announced this week that it is suing Norfolk Southern over its catastrophic derailment in East Palestine. The news came right on the heels of another major derailment disaster, this time in Minnesota, where 22 train cars full of ethanol derailed and then caught fire. The area was evacuated, but that order has been lifted as I type this; needless to say, I’ll keep folks posted on this.
Your New Normal:
- Health News Mini-Roundup: Federal Changes. Good gravy, there are a lot of health news stories to summarize this week. As I signaled last week, Medicaid redeterminations started on Saturday as part of COVID protections ending. This will impact literally millions of people, and will likely cause a lot of those people to lose coverage. In other COVID unwinding news, changing telehealth practices may make testosterone even harder to obtain on a national level. There was also a federal report published this week about the discrimination that gender diverse people experience from their own providers, even in states where gender-affirming care is still legal (but more on that last point below). Meanwhile, remember federal judge Reed O’Connell in Texas, who has issued such great previous hits as I’ve Tossed Out the Entire ACA As Unconstitutional and No One Should Make Navy Seals Vaccinate? Yeah, he went ahead and decided this week that the ACA’s preventative care requirements for insurance companies are, you guessed it, unconstitutional, and it’s the whole nation’s problem. Needless to say, this will be appealed, though who only knows what the current Supreme Court will do with it.
- Health News Mini-Roundup: State Nightmare Fuel. The testosterone news above is particularly unfortunate when there are currently 422 pending bills targeting trans people already–including, as of this week: 1) new bans on gender-affirming care for minors in GA, KY, and WV; 2) a planned expansion of Don’t Say Gay in Florida to include all grades; and 3) a new bathroom ban for trans students in Arkansas. As of this week, the Human Rights Campaign estimates that roughly one in four trans kids now lives in a state that has closed off access to gender-affirming care for them. In other horrifying news regarding minors, Idaho passed a bill this week that criminalizes letting minors leave the state to obtain abortion services, calling it “abortion trafficking” punishable by up to five years in prison.
The Bad:
- Climate Change Catastrophes (Again, Still). There were several major storm events in the past week, creating tornadoes from Alabama and Mississippi all the way up to Illinois and Indiana. These events killed at least 31 people in at least eight states. Experts say that it’s likely these tornadoes were exacerbated by climate change, if not caused by it outright.
- Tragedy in Tennessee. In Nashville, a former student of a private Christian elementary school, Covenant School, opened fire on the school last Monday, fatally shooting three children and three staffers. In response, a thousand students in Tennessee flooded the statehouse later that week, demanding gun law reform to prevent this from happening again. Three House Democrats coordinated with the protesters, standing on the House podium and leading protesters in the galleys of the Statehouse. Because this was a breach of TN House etiquette, Republicans are now moving to expel these three Democrats from the House entirely, a move expected to pass on Thursday due to the Republican supermajority. On the same day the resolutions were announced, one of the Democrats in question released a phone video of another Republican assaulting him and stealing his phone on the House floor. Needless to say, this is not normal for Tennessee, and there’s also no indication that the House is going to consider any gun reform.
The Good:
- Recent Medical Resilience. With all of the dark news above, I’m glad to have some positive medical news to report as well. The FDA has approved the first over-the-counter version of naloxone nasal spray, commonly known as Narcan. This is a big deal, and will likely increase access to a really important tool for preventing opioid overdose. It’s likely we’ll see the over the counter version hit stores this summer, and I’m really excited about it!
So that’s all the news I have for this week, and I think we can agree it is more than enough. For making it through, you deserve this household coparenting and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me luck for making it through Passover!
National News Roundup 