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      W.N.B.A.’s Nneka Ogwumike Takes Over More Than a Vote From LeBron James

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      Nneka Ogwumike, a nine-time All-Star, will lead More Than a Vote, which will focus on women’s reproductive rights this election cycle.More Than a Vote, a nonprofit organization founded by LeBron James in 2020, is rebooting this fall with a new focus on women’s issues and reproductive rights.Nneka Ogwumike, a nine-time W.N.B.A. All-Star with the Seattle Storm and president of the players union, will take over James’s role in leading the organization, and has recruited a group of female athletes to her cause.“It’s more than just abortion,” Ogwumike said in an interview. “It’s all about educating people about all the different roles that exist in society that support and protect the freedoms of women when it comes to family planning, I.V.F., birth control, everything. There’s just a lot that’s at stake.”More Than a Vote was founded when, motivated by nationwide protest movements after the killing by police of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, athletes like James said they were starting to think more deeply about how they could use their platforms.The organization was focused on protecting voting access for Black voters, including collaborating with NAACP Legal Defense Fund on a multimillion-dollar initiative to recruit poll workers. It partnered with teams to open sports arenas and stadiums as polling locations and created television ads and digital content designed to encourage voting. The organization raised about $4.2 million in 2020, twice the amount it expected. However, it has been essentially dormant for the past few years.Ogwumike, who volunteered as a poll worker in 2020, began speaking with James this year. At that point, James and his associates had been discussing the prominence of discussions about reproductive rights, as well as the increased attention around women’s sports. (Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to make abortion rights a focus of her campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      To Save Conservatism From Itself, I Am Voting for Harris

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      I believe life begins at conception. If I lived in Florida, I would support the state’s heartbeat bill and vote against the referendum seeking to liberalize Florida’s abortion laws. I supported the Dobbs decision and I support well-drafted abortion restrictions at the state and federal levels. I was a pro-life lawyer who worked for pro-life legal organizations. While I want prospective parents to be able to use I.V.F. to build their families, I do not believe that unused embryos should simply be discarded — thrown away as no longer useful.But I’m going to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 and — ironically enough — I’m doing it in part to try to save conservatism.Here’s what I mean.Since the day Donald Trump came down that escalator in 2015, the MAGA movement has been engaged in a long-running, slow-rolling ideological and characterological transformation of the Republican Party. At each step, it has pushed Republicans further and further away from Reaganite conservatism. It has divorced Republican voters from any major consideration of character in leadership and all the while it has labeled people who resisted the change as “traitors.”What allegiance do you owe a party, a movement or a politician when it or they fundamentally change their ideology and ethos?Let’s take an assertion that should be uncontroversial, especially to a party that often envisions itself as a home for people of faith: Lying is wrong. I’m not naïve; I know that politicians have had poor reputations for honesty since Athens. But I have never seen a human being lie with the intensity and sheer volume of Donald Trump.Even worse, Trump’s lies are contagious. The legal results speak for themselves. A cascade of successful defamation lawsuits demonstrate the severity and pervasiveness of Republican dishonesty. Fox paid an enormous settlement related to its hosts’ relentless falsehoods during Trump’s effort to steal the election. Rudy Giuliani owes two Georgia election workers $148 million for his gross lies about their conduct while counting votes. Salem Media Group apologized to a Georgia voter who was falsely accused of voter fraud and halted distribution of Dinesh D’Souza’s fantastical “documentary” of election fraud, “2,000 Mules.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Project 2025 architect compared abortion to slavery and the Holocaust

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      In a speech earlier this year, Kevin Roberts, the architect of Project 2025, a vast plan for a second Trump administration, compared abortion to slavery, lynchings, the Holocaust, antisemitic violence and terror attacks.“Every slave auction, every lynching, every concentration camp, every abortion mill, every pogrom, every terrorist bombing from the Middle East to Kermit Gosnell, from Herod to Hitler to Hamas, has been justified on the same inhuman pretense that the victims aren’t really people,” Roberts said.The remarks were reported by Media Matters for America, a progressive watchdog.Gosnell, an abortion doctor in Philadelphia, was sentenced to life in prison in 2013, for the murder of three babies.Roberts is the president of the Heritage Foundation, a hard-right thinktank. He spoke about abortion in Washington DC in January, at the National Pro-Life Summit, hosted by Students for Life in America, a Project 2025 advisory board member.Project 2025 is a 900-plus-page policy plan for rightwing change at every level of federal government. The Heritage Foundation has coordinated such plans since 1980 but Democrats and progressive groups have successfully raised alarm over Project 2025, regarding reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, environmental protections and other concerns.Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the Democratic nominees for president and vice-president, have made Project 2025 a key part of their campaign, their attacks echoed by candidates for Congress and state posts.Trump, his running mate, JD Vance, and key advisers have sought to back away. Earlier this week, a Trump spokesperson told the Washington Post, which reported links between Trump and Roberts including shared flights, Project 2025 “has never and will never be an accurate reflection of President Trump’s policies”.Efforts to limit damage continue. Last month the Project 2025 director, Paul Dans, stepped down, reportedly under pressure from Trump’s campaign. Earlier this week, as Democrats in Congress demanded publication of Project 2025 plans for the first 180 days of a second Trump administration, which remain under wraps, a book by Roberts and introduced by Vance was delayed until after election day.On Thursday, Roberts told a podcast it was “good” to see such moves, adding: “I mean, they’re trying to win an election. Also, legally it’s important for people to know that Project 2025 is independent of any candidate … we’ve put this together for any candidate to lean on.”But his January remarks about abortion added fuel to the fire. Then, Roberts said: “The butcher’s bill of history is chillingly clear. Once a society deems certain individuals not fully human, it soon treats them as if they weren’t human at all. And it never stops with one group.“… Is it any surprise that the same party of death celebrating violence in the womb also justifies, and even cheers, the surgical mutilation of children, the euthanizing of the depressed, the persecution of parents and churchgoers, even a genocidal war to exterminate the Jewish people?“Make no mistake: This idea of human inequality – that some people count and some people don’t – doesn’t come from the media or the government or the elite or the left or even Planned Parenthood. It comes straight from hell.”Earlier this week, Harris’s campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, said: “Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to inflict on our country.“Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real – in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.” More

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      in US Politics

      The coach v the couch: key takeaways from the first Harris-Walz rally

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      Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, to supporters at a packed, energetic rally at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The event, which kicks off a week-long tour through the most politically competitive US states, marks a new chapter for the Harris campaign after securing enough delegates to be the Democratic nominee.Here’s what you need to know:Harris sought to define Walz foremost as a teacher, veteran and football coachHarris called Walz the “kind of teacher and mentor that every child in America dreams of having”. She told a story about him agreeing to lead his school’s gay-straight alliance, knowing “the signal it would send to have a football coach get involved”.Harris also spoke of his skills as a marksman and his views on the second amendment. And finally, she talked at length about Walz’s time in the army national guard and his service to the country.Walz focused on a unifying, future-focused messageWalz, who like Harris is known for his smile, started his speech by saying: “Thank you for the trust you put in me, but more so, thank you for bringing back the joy.” He then spoke about growing up in the “heartland”, respecting neighbors, and his family of educators, attempting to differentiate the ticket from Donald Trump and JD Vance’s focus on mass deportation and crime.“If Donald Trump and JD Vance are irritated that Kamala Harris smiles and laughs, they’re really going to be irritated by Tim Walz,” Melissa Hortman, the Democratic speaker of Minnesota’s house of representatives, told the Guardian.’Mind your own damn business’: Walz attacked the Trump-Vance ticket with a focus on reproductive rights and other freedomsWalz talked about his daughter Hope, who often appears in videos and photographs with her father, being born through IVF, and Republican attacks on contraception and abortion. Abortion opponents have been increasingly pushing for broader measures that would give rights and protections to embryos and fetuses, which could have big implications for fertility treatments.He also spoke about gun control, a tenet of the Harris campaign, saying he supported the second amendment but that children should have the freedom to go to school without the concern of school shootings.Walz made a direct hit at Project 2025, the conservative manifesto created by Trump allies and advisers. “Don’t believe him when he plays dumb,” he said of the former president. “He knows exactly what Project 2025 will to do restrict our freedoms.”He encapsulated his idea in another sticky colloquialism to counter Republicans hoping to intervene in medical practices and schools: “Mind your own damn business.”Josh Shapiro, who had been a vice-presidential contender, still made his markThe Pennsylvania governor who was also in the final running to be Harris’s running mate, spoke before Harris and Walz. His pitch-perfect and fiery speech helped set the tone for the rally, and he threw his support behind the newly announced ticket.Shapiro and Walz’s speeches also made the distinction between the two politicians clear. Shapiro has been described as Obama-like in his polished and forceful delivery. Meanwhile, Walz, whose speech spanned dad jokes and pointed attacks on his opponents, seasoned his remarks with midwestern dialect, adding a “damn well” here and a “come on” there. “Say it with me! We are not going back,” he said, starting a chant from the audience. “We’ve got 91 days. My god, that’s easy,” he said. “We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”The couch joke was madeWalz said his GOP rival, Trump’s running mate JD Vance, and Trump “are creepy and yes, they’re weird as hell”. He added that he “can’t wait to debate the guy”, speaking of Vance. Then, to sustained cheers and laughter, he made a reference to the baseless, but much-shared claim, that Vance admitted to having sex with a couch in his memoir. “That is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up”.Stumping earlier today in Pennsylvania, Vance said: “I absolutely want to debate Tim Walz,” but not until after the Democratic convention, he said, because of the sudden change in the Democratic ticket. More

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      in Elections

      Utah Supreme Court Upholds a Block on a Strict Abortion Ban

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      Utah cannot enforce its near-total ban on abortion while a challenge to the law proceeds in the courts, the State Supreme Court ruled on Thursday. The Utah Supreme Court upheld on Thursday a suspension of the state’s near-total ban on abortion, meaning the procedure remains legal while a court challenge to the law proceeds. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, it cleared the way for two Utah laws to come into force: a ban on most abortions after the 18th week of pregnancy, which was passed in 2019 and is currently in effect, and a near-total abortion ban passed in 2020 that would prohibit the procedure at any time during pregnancy, with very limited exceptions, including for cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother.The near-total abortion ban took effect in 2022, but the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah almost immediately filed a lawsuit in the state seeking to block the ban. The organization argued that the ban violated several provisions in the State Constitution, including those that guarantee a right to determine family composition and a right to gender equality.A trial court issued a preliminary injunction in July 2022 blocking the state from enforcing the near-total ban while the case proceeded. Utah state officials appealed, but the State Supreme Court ruled against them on Thursday and left the injunction in place. Camila Vega, a staff attorney for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and one of the litigators on the case, said after the state’s appeal was filed last August that the organization would “once again make the case that the trigger ban violates the Utah constitution, which protects pregnant Utahns’ ability to make their own medical decisions and their right to determine when and whether to have a family.”In court filings, the state argued that the Utah constitution does not protect a right to abortion, and that the injunction imposed “severe irreparable harm on the State side of the balance, given the profound state and public interest at stake — the preservation of human life, both the mother’s and the unborn child’s.” The state challenged Planned Parenthood Association of Utah’s standing to file the lawsuit, and argued that the trial court had abused its discretion and erred in issuing the injunction. The State Supreme Court rejected those arguments on Thursday. Whether abortion up to 18 weeks will remain permanently legal in the state of Utah depends on the outcome of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the near-total ban. The ruling on Thursday did not decide that question; rather, it said that the lower courts were right to let the case proceed and to keep the state from enforcing the ban in the meantime. More

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      in US Politics

      Harris urges Americans to vote after six-week abortion ban takes effect in Iowa

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      Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, urged Americans to vote after a six-week abortion ban took effect in Iowa on Monday.“This ban is going to take effect before many women even know they’re pregnant,” Harris said in a video posted to YouTube. “What this means is that one in three women of reproductive age in America lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban.”During the 33-second clip, Harris used the phrase “Trump abortion ban” three times – part of a wider effort by her campaign to blame her rival Donald Trump, who appointed three of the supreme court justices who overturned Roe v Wade and enabled states to outlaw abortion, for the spate of unpopular bans that now blanket the south and midwest.The Republican-dominated Iowa state legislature passed the ban last year, but a lengthy court battle initially stopped it from taking effect. Last month, the Iowa supreme court ruled that the ban could be enforced, leading a lower-court judge to rule it could take effect on Monday morning at 8am local time.“The upholding of this abortion ban in Iowa is an absolute devastation and violation of human rights, depriving Iowans of their bodily autonomy,” Leah Vanden Bosch, development and outreach director of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund, said in a statement. “We know a ban will not stop the need for abortions.”Up until Sunday, abortion had been legal in Iowa up to roughly 22 weeks of pregnancy. Now, abortion clinics in the state have indicated that they will continue offering the procedure to the legal limit. The closest options for Iowans who want abortions after six weeks of pregnancy will probably be Minnesota and Illinois, Democratic-run states that border Iowa and that have become abortion havens since Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022.The Iowa ban permits abortions past six weeks in cases of rape or incest, or in medical emergencies.Fourteen other states enacted near-total bans on abortion since the US supreme court overturned Roe. Three other states – Georgia, South Carolina and Florida – have banned abortion past about six weeks of pregnancy.Roe’s demise led to surge in support for abortion rights, even in red states. Sixty-one per cent of Iowans, including 70% of women, say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll found last year.The end of Roe has made abortion rights one of the top issues in the 2024 election. Harris, the face of the issue for Democrats, has said that she would sign a bill codifying Roe’s protections into law. On the other side of the aisle, Trump, the Republican nominee has tried to downplay the issue as it has become a liability for Republicans.Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s Republican governor, celebrated the ban, calling it a “victory for life”. In a statement, she added: “There is nothing more sacred and no cause more worthy than protecting innocent unborn lives.” More

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      in Elections

      JD Vance Stumbles in His Debut as Democrats Go on Offense

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      In the 12 days since Ohio’s junior senator was tapped as the future of Donald J. Trump’s movement, old comments and a chorus of derision have blunted any sense of invulnerability.The choice of Senator JD Vance as former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate reflected the confidence of a campaign so sure of victory in November that it could look beyond a second Trump term to the legacy of his movement.But in less than two weeks, Mr. Vance has found himself on the defensive, and his struggles have dented the sense of invulnerability that only a week ago seemed to be the overriding image of the Trump campaign.A stream of years-old quotes, videos and audio comments unearthed by Democrats and the news media in recent days has threatened to undermine the Trump campaign’s outreach to women, voters of color and the very blue-collar voters to whom Mr. Vance, a first-term Ohio senator, was supposed to appeal.His past comments deriding “childless cat ladies,” supporting a “federal response” to stop abortion in Democratic states and promoting a higher tax burden for childless Americans have yielded a chorus of criticism from Democrats. Mr. Vance’s fresh efforts to explain them have provided Democrats more material, with the Harris campaign promoting one short clip in which he seems to suggest that when he spoke of childless cat ladies, he meant no insult to cats — “I’ve got nothing against cats,” he said.And his first handful of appearances on the stump have drawn unflattering attention. During an appearance in his hometown, Middletown, Ohio, he tried to explain how his critics would call his drinking Diet Mountain Dew racist, with an awkward aside assuring the audience that Diet Mountain Dew was good.Mr. Vance’s stumbles have come after a remarkable two weeks when Mr. Trump survived an assassination attempt, and then rallied the party — and even some skeptics — behind him. The Republican National Convention began with calls for national unity, and though those calls were at times undercut by the Republican presidential nominee, the ticket vaulted out of Milwaukee with a head of steam and an expanded lead in the polls.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Silent No More, Harris Seeks Her Own Voice Without Breaking With Biden

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      The vice president’s expressions of concern for Palestinian suffering marked a shift in emphasis from the president’s statements as she moved to establish herself as the leader of her party.After meeting with Israel’s prime minister this week, Vice President Kamala Harris said she “will not be silent.” She was referring to her concerns about Palestinian suffering in the Gaza war, but in a way it was a larger declaration of independence.For nearly four years, she has been the quiet understudy, relegated to the role of the supportive deputy while President Biden made pronouncements. Now she has suddenly been thrust to the fore as the new presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and neither silence nor agreeable head nods are sufficient any more.The challenge for her over the next 100 days will be to find her own voice without overtly breaking with Mr. Biden, a delicate political high-wire act without a reliable net. Every statement she makes, every sentence she utters, will be scrutinized to determine whether it is consistent with the president she serves. Yet even as she wants to demonstrate loyalty to Mr. Biden, she also hopes to show the public who she is.She is fortunate in that she and Mr. Biden do not diverge all that much, according to people who have worked with them. While friction between presidents and their vice presidents is common, there have been few notable instances where Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have been reported to be at odds. So for her, it may not be as difficult to suppress contrary instincts in the truncated election campaign she faces as it has been for other vice presidents eager to differentiate themselves.But this is a balancing act being figured out on the fly. Because Mr. Biden was running himself until less than a week ago, neither he nor Ms. Harris has had much time to figure out how to coordinate their messages. It was notable that Mr. Biden left it to Ms. Harris on Thursday to be the public voice of the administration during the White House visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, taking the silent role himself.Mr. Biden cares deeply about keeping former President Donald J. Trump out of the White House and therefore has reason to be invested in Ms. Harris’s success. He also knows that because, until he was forced to quit the race, he had insisted on running again despite concerns about his age, many will blame him for not ceding the stage earlier if Mr. Trump wins.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More