170 days remain until the November midterm elections.
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• More than half the 22 Dems competing in the Texas primary tout single-payer health care:
Democrats hoping to wrest congressional seats away from diehard repeal-and-replace Republicans are campaigning on an unlikely issue for Texas — single-payer health care.
Across the country, many Democrats are trying to minimize internal battles on health care. But Democrats in this deep red state have also watched closely races where single-payer advocates have upset centrist primary opponents. And some believe that moving left on health care will mobilize new voters in primaries —and offer a shot at winning come November.
More than half the 22 Democratic House candidates competing in the Texas primary runoff next Tuesday openly tout their support for single-payer health care. On the Senate side, Democrat Beto O'Rourke, who handily won his March primary, will face Sen. Ted Cruz. Cruz built his reputation on shutting down down the government in a failed bid to stop Obamacare in 2013.O'Rourke says he supports strengthening the Affordable Care Act now but starting on a path to an eventual single-payer health system.
• Exceeding Paris’s aspirational limit of 1.5° will put tens of thousands of species at risk:
Humanity can powerfully improve the survival odds of tens of thousands of species, but only if nations dramatically raise their ambitions in the fight against climate change, according to new research published on Thursday in the journal Science. [...]
The study assessed, in more detail than ever before, a key measure of extinction risk: the shrinking size of each species' current geographical range, or natural habitat. It projected that for an alarming number of species, their range size would shrink by at least half as temperatures rise past the Paris goals.
• Trump vows to sign broad bipartisan bill that could release 4,000 federal prisoners: The bill, called the First Step Act, passed the House judiciary committee last week and could be voted on in the House as early as next week. It would expand compassionate release of elderly and terminally ill prisoners and provide tens of millions of dollars in re-entry programs, as well as end the shackling of women giving birth behind bars and providing them with necessary hygiene items for free. But if the bill manages to pass the House, it could face tough sailing in the Senate because advocates don’t think it goes far enough.
MIDDAY TWEET
• Are Millennial women not having children for economic reasons?
• American Indians are running for more top offices than ever before:
• Catholic Church agency sues Philadelphia over ban on placing foster children with it:
Catholic Social Services has sued Philadelphia in federal court, claiming the City Council unconstitutionally stopped placing children in its foster homes because of the church’s opposition to gay marriage, “prioritiz(ing) political grandstanding over the needs of children.”
Joined by three of its foster parents, including lead plaintiff Sharonell Fulton, one of Catholic Social Services’ 16 legal claims is that the city breached its contract, under which the century-old nonprofit church agency is helping to care for 127 children today.