Articles

A short-handed Supreme Court on Monday sent back to the lower courts several challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive-coverage requirement, saying there was a possible compromise between religious objectors and the Obama administration. The unsigned and unanimous three-page decision was unusual — and largely a punt by a court equally divided along ideological lines after the death of Justice…

The Obama administration’s bathroom directive, ordering local school districts to allow transgender students to use the restrooms of their choice, has caught congressional Republicans off guard. The response has been a mix of pessimism, frustration, and a call for the states to defy the directive at the local level. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., ventured into the fray Tuesday with a…

(CNN)”There was nothing left to do to me. They did everything.” It was an ordeal that nightmares are made of. A 20-year-old Yazidi woman, who says she was held as a sex slave by ISIS, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview that her captor was a fighter who told her he was from the United States. The victim,…

(CNN)”There was nothing left to do to me. They did everything.” It was an ordeal that nightmares are made of. A 20-year-old Yazidi woman, who says she was held as a sex slave by ISIS, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview that her captor was a fighter who told her he was from the United States. The victim,…

The violent persecution and near genocide of Iraq’s Yazidis and Christians have made headlines around the world. Less well-known is the story of Iraqi Jews, who face near eradication. As millions flee Islamic militants in Iraq, one man has emerged to help rebuild the Jewish remnant. When I met with Sherzad Omar Mamsani, the Jewish representative to the Kurdish government,…

For much of the last week, the very small world of pundits and policy wonks has been buzzing about the New York Times’s extended profile by David Samuels of Obama foreign-policy guru Ben Rhodes, the “aspiring novelist” (as the headline put it) with a master’s in fine arts who sneers with contempt at the president’s foes and has helped helm…

In a 2–1 panel ruling in mid April, a federal appellate court decided (or at least seemed to think that it decided) that G.G., a girl who identifies herself as male, has a legal right to use the boys’ restrooms at her high school in rural Gloucester County, Va. In so doing, the panel’s majority, consisting of two appointees of…

Hillary Clinton would have a significant electoral advantage over Donald Trump in the general election, based on an NPR analysis. The Democratic former secretary of state would start out with already exactly enough electoral votes to win the presidency, 270-191, based on states considered safe, likely and to lean toward either candidate. The ratings, which will be updated at least…

Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential “trending” news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically…

What lies behind Donald Trump’s nomination victory? Received wisdom among conservatives is that he, the outsider, sensed, marshaled, and came to represent a massive revolt of the Republican rank and file against the “establishment.” This is the narrative: GOP political leaders made promises of all kinds and received in return, during President Obama’s years, major electoral victories that gave them…

LONDON (Reuters) – Sadiq Khan, a Muslim opposition lawmaker, is on course to be elected London’s mayor on Thursday, loosening the ruling Conservatives’ hold on Britain’s financial center after a campaign marred by charges of anti-Semitism and extremism. The fight to run the British capital has pitted the Labour Party’s Khan, 45, the son of a bus driver who grew…