Women in Wisconsin will continue to have access to abortion services under a new ruling from the state's highest court that invalidates a 176-year-old state law that had banned abortions in nearly every situation.

In a 4-3 ruling July 2, the liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed a lower court's previous decision that overturned the 19th Century law.

The decision ends three years of tumult over the issue following the 2022 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade, which had provided women nationwide with a constitutional right to abortion.

Writing for the court's liberal majority, Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Dallet said the Wisconsin state Legislature had effectively repealed the 1849 law when it enacted additional laws regulating access to abortion.

"... this case is about giving effect to 50 years’ worth of laws passed by the legislature about virtually every aspect of abortion including where, when, and how health-care providers may lawfully perform abortions," Dallet wrote. "The legislature, as the people’s representatives, remains free to change the laws with respect to abortion in the future."

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Former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan is weighing a run for higher office as a Democrat. But is the party ready for him?

In a conversation with the “Politically Georgia” podcast airing today, Duncan, an AJC contributing opinion columnist, expressed his ongoing exasperation over the direction of the Republican Party under President Donald Trump. He called the “big, beautiful” bill moving through the Senate this week “an abomination of any sort of conservative values.”

And he expressed frustration with the field running for Georgia governor so far from both parties. That includes two Republicans, Attorney General Chris Carr and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is expected to announce his campaign later this summer, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and state Sen. Jason Esteves for the Democrats.

“From the right, I’ve got everybody embracing Donald Trump and that’s just an unacceptable strategy for me for a number of reasons,” he said of the 2026 field. “And on the left, I just personally don’t believe Mayor Bottoms is positioned well to beat a Republican.”

Duncan has been the subject of wide speculation as a potential candidate for governor. Asked if he’s considering a run, he said, “I’ve certainly heard the rumor. And, I’m certainly fielding phone calls from folks across the state that are asking the same question.”

He noted he’s getting calls from people across the political spectrum, but that his days as a GOP candidate are likely over.

“I’m certainly not going to run as a Republican. I’ve given up on them as much as they’ve given up on me,” he said.

Another win for freedom to read legislation on the West Coast this week, as Oregon’s state House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 1098 on Monday, a bill that will protect access to books in school libraries. It’s great news: books can no longer be banned solely because they discuss sexuality, religion, or other topics, nor can books be removed because they are written by someone from a protected class. SB 1098 now goes to the governor, who is expected to sign it into law.

The successful legislative effort got a big lift from a coalition of advocates and citizens, including the ACLU of Oregon, Basic Rights Oregon, and Authors Against Book Bans, a organization with a great track record in fights like these.

As we all know, Mamdani has proposed making New York City’s bus system free. Writer Matt Bruenig makes the case for Mamdani’s free bus idea on the basis that school bus systems and libraries are already free and he asked for a more of an enlightened debate on the utility of bus fares rather than a hyper-charged culture war. Well, I’m here to do that!

I helped start a group called East Bay Transit Riders Union in 2020. Socialists members quickly realized that the organizers were all YIMBY liberals so they made their own socialist version: People’s Transit Alliance (PTA). While EBTRU focused more on technocratic things like bus lanes and service, PTA prioritized organizing with the transit workers union and popularizing free fares. In my article on this divide, I wimped out on taking a direct position, mainly because it felt like a culture war issue and those are boring.

So I’m going to take a position here: free bus fares is not the optimal approach to easing low-income rider burdens, but it’s a well-intended idea and would have mostly positive benefits if implemented. I don’t think Mamdani is actually concerned with the optimal decision for transit agencies but rather the politically optimal decision to build his movement — and that’s not bad.

The U.S. student movement in solidarity with Palestine is facing ferocious repression as the Trump administration revokes student visas en masse. Masked federal agents roam around looking to snatch students and faculty off the streets and send them to jail for their activism, including their mere beliefs. One of the students targeted is Momodou Taal, a graduate student at Cornell University who led pro-Palestine activism there and was suspended twice by the university. A dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the Gambia, he joined another graduate student and a faculty member in suing the Trump administration for allegedly violating their First and Fifth Amendment rights by punishing speech and quashing political dissent. On March 21, Taal’s lawyers were notified that the State Department had revoked Taal’s student visa after Immigration and Customs Enforcement condemned his “disruptive action” and ICE requested that he turn himself in. Instead, Taal left the country on his own terms, “free” and with his “head held high,” and continues his struggle on behalf of a free Palestine, upholding the Pan-Africanist tradition.

Taal and Hammer & Hope editor Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò spoke in April 2025.

Esther Fallick wants her comedy to be an escape from the horrors. But that escape has a purpose: to make it easier to face these times for what they are. By poking fun at something that can feel so heavy, like the president pitting his administration against transgender people, Fallick wants to find ways to bring people together and laugh off the darkness creeping in on everyday life.

“We could be having a little more fun as a community, as a country. I just feel like so much of what we’re talking about as trans people right now is so dire. There’s reason for that, but I just wanted a space to be intentionally silly,” she said. Intentions aside, she still spent the first episode of her podcast — aptly titled, “Having Fun” — joking about fleeing anti-trans violence in America with fellow comedian Ella Yurman. The gallows humor is inescapable.

Her weekly variety show in Brooklyn, titled “While We’re Here,” is also a dark joke: We’re only here, alive and on this planet, for so long. And life is only getting harder. So what should we do in the meantime? Fallick suggests laughter, to start, followed by music, reading and teach-ins on topics ranging from transmisogyny — how trans women are hurt by both misogyny and transphobia — to demilitarizing New York City’s police force, especially in Brooklyn.

You may hear the phrase “electronic music” and think of superstar dubstep DJs in funny helmets at beachside celebrity parties. Alternatively, you may think of the mercurial compositions of Karlheinz Stockhausen, the musique concrete of Pierre Henry, or the otherworldly experimentalism of François Bayle. If you’re in that latter camp of music nerd, then this post may bring you very glad tidings indeed. Ubuweb—that stalwart repository of all things 20th-century avant-garde—now hosts an extraordinary compilation: the 476-song History of Electronic/Electroacoustic Music, originally a 62 CD set. (Hear below Stockhausen’s “Kontact,” Henry’s “Astrologie,” and Bayle’s spare “Theatre d’Ombres” further down.)

Spanning the years 1937–2001, the collection should especially appeal to those with an avant-garde or musicological bent. In fact, the original uploader of this archive of experimental sound, Caio Barros, put these tracks online in 2009 while a student of composition at Brazil’s State University of São Paulo. Barros’ “initiative,” as he writes at Ubuweb, “became some sort of legend” among musicophiles in the know.

Nowadays we associate the word “prodigy” with precocious children, but in centuries past the word was used to describe anything monstrous. Victor Stott clearly qualifies as a prodigy in the modern sense, but he qualifies in the older sense too: Not only does he frighten the ignorant and superstitious, he induces a profound terror in the educated and intellectual. Seen in this light, the first novel about superintelligence is actually a work of horror SF, a cautionary tale about the dangers of knowing too much.

Berlin-based advocates are one step closer to creating a car-free zone in their city that's bigger than the entirety of Manhattan.

A decision on Wednesday by the Berlin Constitutional Court allows a long-stalled initiative by the advocacy group Volksentscheid Berlin Autofrei ("Ballot Measure for an Auto-Free Berlin) to continue gathering signatures for a referendum to create a zone in the center of the German capital that would be free of almost all private automobiles.

The group's efforts had already reached the initial, 50,000-signature threshold before a series of procedural impediments threw a wrench in their effort. Wednesday's court decision pushes the long-delayed process forward, beginning with a debate at the Berlin House of Representatives, followed by another round of signature collection that would allow the referendum to take place in 2026, the group said.

The "ban" would still allow up to 12 uses of a private automobile per year per person. It would also include exceptions for rental vehicles, people with disabilities, and service vehicles like delivery vans and garbage trucks.

With the backing of DSA, Somerville City Councilor-at-Large and democratic socialist Willie Burnley Jr. is challenging two-term incumbent Mayor Katjana Ballantyne.

Burnley’s campaign comes as Zohran Mamdani’s upset in the New York City mayoral race stunned the world. Mamdani made international headlines on June 24th by defeating a powerful ex-Governor born into a political dynasty and backed by the entire Democratic Party establishment.

Mamdani and Burnley are DSA-endorsed members of their local chapters, and their political styles are similar. They are both self-described organizers. Both have employed creative campaign techniques and developed robust field operations on a scale that addresses the needs of two very different cities, while tackling broadly felt working-class issues. For Zohran, it was freezing the rent, making buses fast and free, and universal childcare. For Burnley, it’s affordable social housing, uplifting union rights and tenants’ rights, and increasing resources for K-12 students. The campaign has hosted creative events like a cannabis-infused fundraiser, and its volunteers are already knocking on doors five days a week.

Working Mass spoke with Willie over video call to ask him about his background, his historic campaign, his work on Somerville City Council so far, and – of course – his views on what is most important for Somerville’s future.

Denzel has deep roots in this city. He is a lifelong Detroiter. He has been an activist since his college days at Michigan State University. He is a founding member of Black Youth Project 100, an organization that fights against the “school-to-prison pipeline” that undermines the futures of young people of color. Denzel was also an elected Detroit City Charter Commissioner, and served as communications director and advisor for U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.

DSA has already backed him in the past, in his run for Detroit City Clerk in 2021. This time DSA members are pouring a lot of resources and time into his campaign, in the Electoral Committee and beyond. Denzel is a self-identified and unapologetic socialist, and a lot of us are looking at the current political climate as an opportunity to elect such candidates, a climate which is reflected in our growing membership in the last year.

Americans are crying out for representation that openly addresses their economic anxiety instead of gaslighting them that everything is just great, as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did in 2024. Voters want something different. And many of them are open to listening to someone willing to say, for example, that billionaires shouldn’t exist, and that immigrants are a vital part of our community who should not be rounded up like dogs. Denzel is one of these candidates.