Southern Progressives

On the Friday before Easter, just after the end of the workweek in Texas, a federal judge in Amarillo decided that Mifepristone, one of two key drugs used for medicated abortion, should be banned. This despite 20 years of data showing it’s safe and effective. Mifepristone has a lower rate of complications than Tylenol.

The nation’s top health official says a court ruling threatening the availability of a main drug used in medication abortion was “not America.” And Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra isn't ruling out defying the judge’s order if necessary. Becerra tells CNN's “State of the Union” that “we want the courts to overturn this reckless decision” so women can continue to have “access to a drug that’s proven itself safe.” He says that for now, women do have access to the abortion medication mifepristone because a federal judge in Texas has put his ruling from Friday on hold for a week so federal officials could file a challenge.

The freshness of the documents — some appear to be barely 40 days old — and the hints they hold for operations to come make them particularly damaging, officials say.

On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant of the United States Army at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Lee’s surrender did not end the war—there were still two major armies in the field—but everyone knew the surrender signaled that the American Civil War was coming to a close.

April 9, 2023

The Republican majority in Nashville set out to silence the Tennessee Three. In the process, the GOP helped make the Democrats heroes to a worthy cause.

Nashville officials are poised to vote to reinstate one of the two Black Democratic lawmakers expelled by Republican colleagues over their gun control protest on the House floor after a deadly school shooting. A metro council vote Monday would send Rep. Justin Jones back after essentially a long weekend. Many councilmembers have said they want to send Jones back to the statehouse. Expelled Memphis Rep. Justin Pearson, meanwhile, could be reappointed at a Wednesday meeting of the Shelby County Commission. The expulsions have made Tennessee a new front in the battle for the future of American democracy, while propelling the ousted lawmakers into the national spotlight.

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