Why I violated Texas's extreme abortion ban  —  Alan Braid is a physician who provides abortion care in San Antonio.  —  Newly graduated from the University of Texas medical school, I began my obstetrics and gynecology residency at a San Antonio hospital on July 1, 1972.

Sparse crowd gathers near Capitol to protest treatment of those jailed in Jan. 6 riot  —  WASHINGTON — A small, peaceful crowd gathered Saturday in Washington to protest what the organizers say is the unfair treatment of people charged in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

In red California, anger over recall blowout.  ‘The Democratic Party is the New York Yankees’  —  On election day, Denise Pickens had a surprising feeling: Hope.  —  Surely, she figured, Gov. Gavin Newsom would be booted out of office.  Or at least get a good scare.

What if Covid Were 10 Times Deadlier?  —  “I think I've come to believe that even if the Covid death toll was 10 times what it currently is,” the MSNBC host Chris Hayes wrote a few days ago on Twitter, “the politics of all of it wouldn't be appreciably different.”

AOC's ‘Tax the Rich’ dress designer Aurora James owes debt in multiple states  —  Designer Aurora James called her “Tax the Rich” dress for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “powerful message” — but it's not one she has taken to heart.  —  The 37-year-old fashionista who made waves at the Met Gala …

The AUKUS Dominoes Are Just Starting to Fall  —  The world's newest security partnership is a window into how the world works—and the unpredictable places it's heading.  —  On Sept. 15, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia unveiled a new security partnership, with the less-than-euphonious acronym AUKUS.

The Scientist and the A.I.-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine  —  Israeli agents had wanted to kill Iran's top nuclear scientist for years.  Then they came up with a way to do it with no operatives present.  —  Iran's top nuclear scientist woke up an hour before dawn, as he did most days …

28 U.S. citizens depart Afghanistan on Qatar Airways flight  —  The State Department on Saturday confirmed that a Qatar Airways charter flight left Kabul on Friday with 28 U.S. citizens and seven lawful permanent residents on board.  —  The big picture: Friday's flight is the third such airlift …

Gen. Milley's stress test  —  The final months of Donald Trump's presidency were a stress test for Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  He feared that Trump would use a violent crisis at home or abroad to draw the military into his machinations to retain power.

Senate Republicans say they will vote to allow a debt default, leaving Democrats scrambling for plan to avert economic crisis  —  Early last year, one of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's longest rivals offered a lesson about why the Kentucky Republican is unfazed by his critics whenever he digs in on a political strategy.

West Virginia Was a Covid-19 Vaccine Success Story, but Now Cases Are Surging  —  State's vaccination rate now lags behind others; 922 people with Covid-19 are hospitalized in West Virginia, up from 52 in early July  —  West Virginia has one of the fastest rates of new Covid-19 cases in the nation …

Elizabeth Holmes, A.O.C., and the Art of Owning It  —  What ever happened to the good old-fashioned art of Owning It?  —  Our culture is awash in people who get called out for their behavior and then retreat behind some victim-y excuse.  If you're going to go for it, go for it.

Joe Biden's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day  —  will go down in the books as one of the worst days of Joe Biden's presidency.  (At least so far, anyway.)  How bad was it?  Bad enough that even Jonathan Lemire  —  and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press felt compelled to tally up the damage for all of us.

Proposed Tax Changes Focus on the Wealthy  —  How is that defined?  The tax plans in Congress essentially say a wealthy individual earns $400,000 a year.  But that figure, a financial psychologist says, is “arbitrary.”  —  So how do you define who's wealthy?

Kinzinger says Trump ‘winning’ because so many Republicans ‘have remained silent’  —  Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) says that former President Trump is “winning” because so many Republicans “have remained silent.”  —  In a video statement posted to Twitter, Kinzinger weighed in on the fate …

VERIFY: Gov. Kemp claimed mandating a non-existent AIDS vaccine didn't work  —  Gov. Kemp first referenced a failed AIDS vaccine mandate in September of 2020.  He has since made similar comments twice in the past month.  —  ATLANTA — In a podcast episode of the Erick Erickson Show uploaded this week …

Think all politics are local?  The California recall says most politics are now national.  —  It may be time to revisit the old axiom from Tip O'Neill, the former Democratic House speaker from Massachusetts, who famously said that all politics are local.  These days, as the California recall …