Huge Racial Disparities Found in Deaths Linked to Pregnancy

African-American, Native American and Alaska Native women are about three times more likely to die from causes related to pregnancy, compared to white women in the United States.

NY TIMES

Don't Ignore Black Voters' Complex Views on Reparations

NY TIMES

THE DEMOCRATS: LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

MICHAEL TOMASKY, DAILY BEAST

New Coach, New Star: The Raptors Made All the Right Moves To Win NBA Championship.

NY TIMES

Taking on Tehran

RICHARD HAAS, PROJECT SYNDICATE

Mexico Agreed to Take Border Actions Months Before Trump Announced Tariff Deal. A Threat Trump Created Ends as Planned With Trump the Hero.

NY TIMES 

NY TIMES, PETER BAKER

Landmark Deal Reached on Rent Protections for Tenants in N.Y. Vacancy Decontrol and 20% Raises on Apartments Rent Stabilized Tenants Move From are Eliminated.

NY TIMES

Newly empowered Democratic leaders in Albany announced a landmark agreement on Tuesday to strengthen New York’s rent laws and tenant protections, seeking to address concern about housing costs.

The changes would abolish rules that let building owners deregulate apartments, close a series of loopholes that permit them to raise rents and allow some tenant protections to expand statewide.

The deal was a significant blow to the real estate industry.The industry had long been one of the most powerful lobbies in Albany, but it suffered a loss of influence after its Republican allies surrendered control of the State Senate in the November elections.

The current rent regulations expire on Saturday. The new and strengthened rules would mark a turning point for the 2.4 million people who live in nearly one million rent-regulated apartments in New York City after a decades-long erosion of protections and the loss of tens of thousands of regulated apartments.

The legislation in Albany is far-reaching: While rent regulations are currently restricted largely to New York City and a few other localities, the new package would allow cities and towns statewide to fashion their own regulations, which are meant to keep apartments affordable by limiting rent increases.

It would also make the changes permanent — a major victory for tenant activists who have had to lobby Albany every few years when the old laws expired.

The agreement on Tuesday underscored the rising power of the progressive wing in Albany. Many of the lawmakers who fueled the Democratic takeover of the Senate last year pledged to decline contributions from real estate interests and ran on promises to take on the industry by passing legislation supported by tenant groups.


Winsome Pendergrass says a rent increase forced her to move from her apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn.CreditSarah Blesener for The New York Times

Lawmakers agreed to abolish so-called vacancy decontrol, a provision that allows landlords to lift apartments out of regulation when their rents pass a certain threshold. The rule has led to the deregulation of more than 155,000 units since it was enacted in the 1990s.

They also agreed to repeal the so-called vacancy bonus, which allows landlords to raise rents by up to 20 percent whenever a tenant moves out of a rent-stabilized apartment.

And they pledged to rein in provisions that allow landlords to raise the rents of rent-regulated apartments when they renovate units or fix up buildings — perhaps the most hotly debated proposal of the package.



Housing advocates have long argued that building owners routinely abuse those provisions, inflating construction costs to jack up rents and push out tenants. But Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City said they supported revising the provisions, not repealing them, because they provide incentives for landlords to keep buildings in livable conditions. The real estate industry has argued the same.

The legislation would also make it a punishable misdemeanor for landlords to evict tenants by illegally locking them out or through force.

 William Barr, The President's Protector,  Stockpiles Power and Expands His Influence.

NY TIMES

Ferryman (Butterworth) Wins Best Drama, Hadestown Best Musical, Elaine May, 87, Best Actress & Byron Cranston Best Actor at 2019 Tony's.

Standing from left: Reeve Carney as Orpheus, Eva Noblezada as Eurydice and Amber Gray as Persephone in the musical “Hadestown.”CreditCreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

NY TIMES

“Hadestown,” a pulsing, poetic contemporary riff on an ancient Greek myth, won the Tony Award for best new musical Sunday night, triumphing over film adaptations, a musical comedy and a jukebox show.

The win, coming at a time when Broadway is enjoying a long-running box office boom, marks the sixth year in a row that Tony voters have chosen an inventive show nurtured by nonprofits over more commercial fare.

“Hadestown,” dreamed up by a Vermont singer-songwriter who as a child became fascinated by the doomed love story of Orpheus and Eurydice, is at once tragic and hopeful, suggesting that the very act of storytelling can be a salve for sadness.

The director Rachel Chavkin Bryan Derballa for The New York Times

“Hadestown,” which is also notable for the number of women at the wheel — still a relative rarity in commercial theater. Rachel Chavkin, who previously brought “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” to Broadway, picked up her first Tony for directing the new musical. 

Anaïs Mitchell  Krista Schlueter for The New York Times

“Hadestown” was conceived and written by Anaïs Mitchell, a singer-songwriter with no ties to Broadway (besides a childhood affection for “Les Misérables”), who won a Tony for her score.

The show is shaping up to be a hit, despite a lack of name recognition and a very crowded theatrical marketplace. Since opening in April it has been selling well, and word-of-mouth appears strong.

“The Ferryman,” a sprawling Irish drama by the English writer Jez Butterworth, won the Tony for best new play, fueled by admiration for its sophisticated storytelling, which manages to be suspenseful and funny and romantic and eerie — all at once.

Jez Butterworth, who won a Tony for writing “The Ferryman,” handed it off to his partner, the actress Laura Donnelly, whose family history inspired the play.CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

The night belonged to “Ferryman,” which considers Ireland’s Troubles as refracted through a boisterous household that includes adults and children, plus a baby, a goose and a rabbit. Sam Mendes won as the play’s director, and Rob Howell won two prizes, for its costume and scenic design.

Ms. May returns to the Broadway stage CreditCreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

The 87-year-old comedian, writer and director Elaine May earned her first Tony, as leading actress in a play, for movingly portraying a woman losing her memory in a revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s “The Waverly Gallery.” Ms. May, who burst onto the scene in the 1950s performing comedy with Mike Nichols, won for her first Broadway role in more than 50 years.

Bryan Cranston, a favorite among Broadway audiences, won his second Tony for the stage adaptation of the film “Network.” Mr. Cranston, 63, starred as Howard Beale, the “mad as hell” anchorman in the classic satire of television news.

“Finally a straight old white man gets a break!” he said, before dedicating his award “to all the real journalists around the world, both in the print media and broadcast media, who actually are in the line of fire with their support of truth.”

“The media is not the enemy of the people,” he said. “Demagoguery is the enemy of the people.”

Tennis: Rafael Nadal Wins the French Open for the 12th Time

NY TIMES

Rafael Nadal has been giving it all in Paris and elsewhere since 2005, and he is now 12-0 in the French Open finals.That is not a typo. His only two losses at any stage at this event came in the fourth round in 2009 to Robin Soderling and in the quarterfinals in 2015 to Novak Djokovic. (In 2016, he withdrew with an injury after the second round.)

He has cemented his reputation and legacy year after year, duel after duel, rout after rout. He added another layer of mortar on Sunday by holding off Dominic Thiem, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1, in what was a dazzler of a final for exactly two high-powered, spectacularly athletic sets.

Such outrageous dominance has not been to the liking of those who prefer a healthy dose of suspense, but it is one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of professional sports.

Nadal has doubled Bjorn Borg, the greatest men’s clay-court player before him, who won six times in Paris. And he has, more intriguingly, closed the gap with his friendly rival Roger Federer, who has won a men’s record 20 Grand Slam singles titles. Nadal now has 18.

HOW RUPERT MURDOCH’S EMPIRE OF INFLUENCE REMADE THE WORLD



NY TIMES

Donald Trump’s Right to Fear Nancy Pelosi. Liberals Are Wrong to Mock Her.

Last year, when she was under fire, liberals insisted she was an infallible genius. And now she’s a moral coward? Really? She has a legislative majority to protect.

MICHAEL TOMASKY, DAILY BEAST

Dr. John, Hall of Fame Singer Who Brought New Orleans to the World.

“He created a unique blend of music which carried his hometown, New Orleans, at its heart, as it was always in his heart,” family says of Grammy-winning musician born Malcolm John Rebennack

ROLLING STONE

Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History

NY REVIEW OF BOOKS

de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza opt for symbolism on school integration and equal opportunity

NY DAILY NEWS, HARRY SIEGEL

How New York’s Elite Public Schools
Lost Their Black and Hispanic Students

NY TIMES

The Border Is Broken. And There’s No Plan to Fix It.

For years, there have been warnings that America’s immigration system was going to fail. That time may be now.

NY TIMES

When Anti-Immigrant Hatred Was Mainstream

In the 1920s, even the N.Y.T. supported racial restrictions at the border.

NY TIMES

The Electability Trap

AMY WALTERS, COOK POLITICAL REPORT

In Defeat for Netanyahu, Israel Moves to Hold New Election

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to form a government by midnight Wednesday has turned into a stunning debacle for him.
• It is first time that the country has found itself in this position, casting a cloud over Mr. Netanyahu’s future.

NY TIMES

Silent Bob Speaks! Mueller, in First Comments on Russia Inquiry, Declines to Be Coherent.

Robert S. Mueller III characterized for the first time his investigation of whether President Trump obstructed justice, saying “if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” Mr. Mueller called his report “my testimony” and said that he would not provide more information.

NY TIMES

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, declined on Wednesday to clear President Trump of obstruction of justice in his first public characterization of his two-year investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

He also noted that while Justice Department policy prohibits charging a sitting president with a crime, the Constitution provides for another remedy to formally accuse a president of wrongdoing — a clear reference to the ability of Congress to conduct impeachment proceedings.

Although it lasted less than 10 minutes, the news conference presented an extraordinary spectacle of a top federal law enforcement official publicly stating that the president’s conduct had warranted criminal investigation, even though it was impossible to indict him for any crimes. Mr. Mueller delivered his statement on his last day as special counsel, saying it was his final word on his investigation and he was returning to private life.

Democratic presidential candidates immediately seized on Mr. Mueller’s refusal to exonerate Mr. Trump to call for the president’s impeachment, intensifying pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has insisted impeachment proceedings would only play into Mr. Trump’s hands.

[But]By all appearances, Mr. Mueller’s statement did nothing to change Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s calculation that impeachment would hurt the party and the country because Senate Republicans remained unmoved and therefore could block conviction in any Senate trial, where it would require a two-thirds vote to remove Mr. Trump from office.

“It will certainly ratchet up pressure on the Dems to initiate impeachment proceedings, but I don’t think it changes the fundamentals much,” said Jeff Flake, the former Arizona senator who is one of the few prominent Republicans to openly defy Mr. Trump. “It’s still a bad move in terms of 2020, and the speaker knows it.”

PETER BAKER,NY TIMES

Rarely has a high-profile special prosecutor left Washington so flummoxed. During Watergate, Leon Jaworski left no doubt about his conclusions regarding President Richard M. Nixon, persuading a grand jury to name him an unindicted co-conspirator before his resignation.

After his Iran-contra investigation, Lawrence E. Walsh issued a report with definitive conclusions about Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush even though he accused neither of a crime. Ken Starr, operating with different authority than Mr. Mueller under a since-expired law, sent the House a list of 11 impeachable offenses he believed Mr. Clinton had committed.

Mo Elleithee, the executive director of Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service and a former Democratic strategist, said the bigger threat to the president may be in next year’s election if soft Trump voters who were never that committed to him turn away because of what Mr. Mueller’s investigation turned up.

[But]“If you start to see one or two, if you start to see a Mitt Romney or a Cory Gardner or a Susan Collins start to break and say, ‘Maybe we should look at this,’ then you might see a political snowball effect of epic proportions,” Mr. Elleithee said, referring to Republican senators who have expressed varying degrees of criticism of Mr. Trump.

“Until then, he is politically safe inside the beltway,” he added. “The question is whether all the noise will weaken himself outside the beltway.”

Robert Mueller: Warrior or Wimp
Was there anything really special in the special counsel?

GAIL COLLINS, NY TIMES

The special counsel made a brief farewell address, after two years and a 448-page report. “If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so,” he told America.

That was the bottom line, a sort of vague double negative that wouldn’t work in the first grade:

“Bobby, did Sylvia pull the class bunny’s tail while I was out of the room?”

“Teacher, if I had confidence that Sylvia clearly did not commit any infraction of the bunny rules, I would have said so.”

At that point, one would hope said teacher would write a letter to Bobby’s mom, expressing concern that the kid might grow up to be a self-protective weenie.

If Mueller’s speech had been accompanied by Real English subtitles, they’d have said something like: “Look, the guy obstructed justice, but you can’t charge a president with a crime while he’s in office. You’re gonna have to impeach him first."

But there was no helpful translation. So you know what happened.

“The case is closed! Thank you,” tweeted the president, who magically interpreted Mueller’s statement as saying that “there was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent.

Mueller, for all his warning bells about a president who you can’t say didn’t commit a crime, isn’t planning to be any further help. He made it pretty clear that if he’s forced to testify before a congressional committee, he’ll just point to his mammoth report. 

It’s been quite a ride. When Mueller became special counsel, a lot of us thought he’d wind up as a chapter in the history books of the future. Well, maybe at least an asterisk.

NY TIMES EDITORIAL

After two years of frenzied speculation, the special counsel Robert Mueller at last spoke publicly about his investigation of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections. His statement Wednesday was considered and temperate, its delivery passionless, if not robotic. If you tuned out for a moment — and who could blame you — you might have missed the import of the messages encoded in Mr. Mueller’s cautious language. Yet if you listened carefully, both for what he said and what he did not say, the statement was quite clarifying. Below is Mr. Mueller’s key point, translated.

Please, please don’t make me testify! I really don’t want to risk getting dragged into the congressional mosh pit and accidentally besmirching my reputation for standing above politics by straightforwardly answering a question. Even if, you know, I do expect everyone to answer my own questions honestly. And even if I’m standing here delivering a very strong hint that Congress should hold impeachment hearings. Heaven forbid that, as the foremost expert on the president’s questionable doings, with expertise earned on the taxpayer’s dime, I should endanger my own image by expressing a forthright view of those doings, even if the future of the Republic might be at stake. If you ignore this plea and subpoena me, expect me to dodge every hard question by referring you to my report. Which, by the way, you should read. Carefully.

RICH LOWERY, POLITICO

The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel has said a sitting president can’t be charged with a crime. Mueller explained in his public statement that this ruling led his office to conclude it could “not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime.”

So, Mueller by his own account, conducted a two-year investigation knowing from the beginning that he wouldn’t make the either/or decision that prosecutors exist to make. Attorney General William Barr was right when he told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “At the end of the day, the federal prosecutor must decide yes or no.” Mueller decided neither. The regulations say that the special counsel “shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions.” They don’t say a special counsel shall fail to reach a prosecution or declination decision,