NEWS

Howdy, Meteor readers,

I know everyone is talking about Sinners, but I am what you would call a certified scaredy-cat; I still suffer from Scream. But a bunch of fellow scaredies online say it’s not too bad if you watch it during the day so I’ll see y’all at the afternoon matinee.

In today’s newsletter, we investigate sex miseducation in Indiana. Plus, Nona Willis Aronowitz remembers her “feminist fairy godmother.”

Meow,

Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

Virginity education: Yesterday, Indiana’s House and Senate voted in favor of SB 442, titled “Instruction on Human Sexuality.” You might have heard of it (on our Instagram feed and elsewhere) because of a debate over whether that “instruction” should include the idea of consent. The bill’s author, Sen. Gary Byrne (R-IN), had removed a requirement that teachers address consent earlier this week, arguing that the subject could be seen as “controversial.” (Research from the Indiana Department of Health shows that 56 percent of sexually active high schoolers had experienced some form of sexual violence, with 11th grade girls making up most of that group.) After public outcry, though, the consent requirement was re-added to the bill yesterday—your latest reminder that yelling works.

But here’s the thing: The bill is still light on the education part of sex education. In addition to consent, it requires sex-ed classes in Indiana to teach four things: abstinence, abstinence (yes it’s listed twice), instruction that the best way to avoid STIs is a “mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage” (we remind you, these are children and teens), and the viewing of a high-definition ultrasound video, at least three minutes long, depicting the development of organs in a fetus. It’s giving Catholic-school health class, and I would know, as someone whose sex-ed was having to watch the movie Riding in Cars with Boys.

Let’s linger on the video for a second. These kinds of videos—most notably the notorious “Baby Olivia”—have cropped up over the last two years as a tool of the anti-abortion movement and are more often than not, medically inaccurate and meant to elicit an emotional response rather than be strictly educational. When pressed about the video requirements by Democratic senators yesterday, Byrne insisted he was not specifically suggesting “Baby Olivia,” IndyStar reported, and that school boards would be able to choose which films get shown to students. “There’s plenty of examples of videos,” he argued. (When pressed to name them, he could not.)

Indiana is, of course, not the first state to introduce such narrow requirements for sex-ed classes or to inject what sound like conservative Christian views of sex into a secular public school system. Currently, 37 states have laws that require abstinence as part of sex education, while only 18 require teachers to share information about birth control. As far as education around consent? Only 12 states—13 if the Indiana bill passes—require that it be mentioned. But studies show that simply telling teenagers not to have sex doesn’t protect them from STIs or unwanted pregnancies. What does work, according to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, is comprehensive education that includes consent, contraception, STI prevention, and sexual health for LGBTQ+ communities.

AND:

• The Women’s Health Initiative, a landmark federal project dedicated to studying women’s health, lost a huge portion of its funding this week as a result of the Trump administration’s cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services. Largely known for its contributions to understanding menopause, the WHI also conducted research on chronic disease in older adults. Jean Wactawski-Wende, who led a WHI research branch at the University of Buffalo, told NPR, “It's been one of the most productive studies in history. And to really understand older women's health — dementia, heart failure, frailty — we are the study to do that. And it's been eviscerated right now because of these budget cuts.” Another researcher said there was a “glimmer of hope” that WHI’s work could continue but that nothing was certain.

• On a recent episode of her podcast, former First Lady Michelle Obama discussed why she chose to skip Donald Trump’s inauguration, and the very simple answer was: She didn’t want to go. “I'm here really trying to own my life and intentionally practice making the choice that was right for me,” she said. “And it took everything in my power to not do the thing that 'was right,' or was perceived as right, but do the thing that was right for me.”

OBAMA AT A LIVE TAPING FOR HER PODCAST, "IMO." IN HER LEFT HAND, SHE CAN BE SEEN HOLDING ALL OF HER DESIRE TO CONTINUE BEING A PEOPLE PLEASER. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

• This week, Sportico released its list of the 50 highest-paid athletes of all time; topping the list is Michael Jordan, who has earned roughly $3 billion since turning pro in 1984. That’s not surprising—but what is is that there’s only one woman on this list, coming in at number 40. Can you guess who it is? Some hints: she retired in 2022 and did not play a team sport. Click here for the answer.

• The Department of Education is set to resume student loan collections beginning May 5, ending a five-year pause that began as part of pandemic relief. This will be especially troublesome for women borrowers. So what does it mean for you? If your account is in default or is very close to being in default (you can determine your status here if you’re not sure), then the DOE will move your loan into collections. Once in collections, you can either try to arrange a payment plan or, in the worst-case scenario, the Treasury Offset Program could authorize “involuntary payments” from your paycheck. May the finance gods be with us all.

• Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum has had enough of Kristi Noem’s mierda. After ads featuring U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Noem threatening to “hunt down” Mexican immigrants ran on Mexican television, Sheinbaum responded by asking her government to approve a measure that would ban “foreign governments from carrying out political and ideological propaganda in our country.” Sigue jodiendo para que vea.

• Feminist journalist Karen Durbin died last Tuesday at the age of 80. She was a widely revered critic who ran The Village Voice in the 90s, famously putting an image of a woman with an exposed tampon string on the magazine’s cover in 1995. The Meteor’s Nona Willis Aronowitz, whose mother was close to Durbin, remembers Durbin “as a dishy, witty auntie figure, a bottle-redhead who loved girly things like shopping and celebrity gossip but also was a dead-serious feminist and journalist who steered me toward foundational pro-sex essays when I was writing my college thesis on 70s porn. She was one of my first feminist fairy godmothers.”

DURBIN IN 1994. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

WEEKEND READING 📚

Online: When we said we wanted a “womanosphere” this is not what we meant. (The Guardian)

On history repeating itself: Historian Greg Grandin explores Latin America’s journey from “fighting to facilitating fascism.” (Democracy Now)

On mixtapes: Have a cry with writer Jill Mapes, her dad,  and a shared appreciation for good music. (Hearing Things)

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Greetings, Meteor readers,

It’s Earth Day! And also, it’s Taurus season! May we all feel some stabilizing, comforting energy over the next few weeks because boy, do we need it.

In today’s newsletter, Nona Willis Aronowitz explains what’s behind the administration’s “make more babies” plan. Plus, we bid farewell to the pope.

Bulls up,

Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

Baby bust: Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the pro-natalist Trump administration, concerned about the U.S.’s falling birth rate, has been brainstorming ways to get American women to have more children. Some of their ideas include five-thousand-dollar baby bonuses, menstrual-cycle education, and a National Medal of Motherhood (a tactic you might recognize from the Nazis). Notably missing: plans to subsidize childcare, parental leave, or any other crucial improvements actual families have been requesting for generations. Lots of incredulous reactions across the internet made that exact point: “How can you expect us to have more babies without a strong social safety net?”

As someone who yearns for free daycare and paid maternity leave, I’m tempted to say the same. Yes, it’s darkly ironic that the Trump administration is calling for more babies even as it has made deep cuts to maternal and child health and opposed any repair of the U.S.’s woefully inadequate family policies. But the thing is, offering benefits to families doesn’t actually boost birth rates. In fact, many countries that provide robust support for parents, like Finland, Norway, and Germany, have birth rates below ours. There’s no evidence that Trump’s proposed policies would work, either. “Even the richest, savviest, most committed governments” are stumped, a history professor told Vox in 2023. “If such policies were discoverable, I think someone would have discovered them.”

So the question you’re probably wondering is: What’s so bad about the birth rate falling? Most countries in the world are now below the “replacement rate” of 2.1, and the trend is most pronounced in the richest nations; the United States is at about 1.6, a drop of more than 20 percent in the last decade. Seen one way, fewer babies is a success story of women truly having control over their own lives, and—thanks to contraception access, education, and career opportunities—being able to make choices that may or may not involve children. Maybe those decisions “shouldn’t scare us,” writes feminist writer Jill Filipovic, “but should inform us that when women have more options and opportunities, women’s desires become far more varied.”

Still, experts across the political spectrum agree that a shrinking population with more old people than young presents huge economic and humanitarian challenges. An aging society means fewer workers to keep society functioning—to grow our food, to build our houses, to care for the elderly. For many, the story of South Korea, which has the lowest birth rate in the world, provides a disconcerting glimpse of what happens when so few babies are born: 1 in 5 people in South Korea are over 65, and nearly 40 percent of those elders live in poverty.

But no matter how valid these concerns are, Trump’s “solutions” are both demeaning (ugh, that medal) and historically familiar: The one way governments have temporarily bumped up birth rates throughout history is by oppressing women. Think Nazi Germany and its Lebensborn program, which used women as incubators for 20,000 “Aryan” babies. Or Ceausescu's Romania, which severely restricted abortion and birth control access to devastating effect. Even our own “baby boom” in the repressive 1950s partially relied on pushing women into domesticity. This brand of pro-natalism—promoted by people like J.D. Vance, Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk—often goes hand-in-hand with racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. While immigration is often touted as a short-term solution to the U.S.’s low birth rate, the Trump administration’s cocktail of natalism and xenophobia makes clear that they don’t want more babies of all kinds, just white, Christian babies in heterosexual nuclear families.

So, yes, I agree that we should seriously grapple with how to reshape society in the face of population decline. I just don’t trust this administration—with its blatant disregard for families and basic human decency—to do it.

—Nona Willis Aronowitz

AND:

• Following the death of Pope Francis on Monday, the news cycle was flooded with praise and in-depth examination of his polarizing legacy. Over his 12 years of service, Francis was a champion of immigrants and the poor, modeling his papacy after his namesake St. Francis of Assisi. In his final months, he also spoke out staunchly against the violence in Gaza, even using his final Easter sermon to call for peace. Still, as he himself pointed out multiple times, Pope Francis was the head of a corrupt church that even under his watch continued to abuse children, protect predators, and deny the sacrament of matrimony to same-sex couples. Did he bring the massive reform that many Catholics were calling for? No. But did he, as Phillip Picardi explained last year, create, for many faithful, “an opportunity for healing or reconciliation after a lifetime of religious-based trauma” through declarations and sermons? Yes. And that may be his true legacy.

POPE FRANCIS DELIVERED HIS FINAL EASTER SERMON AT THE VATICAN THE DAY BEFORE HE DIED. VIA GETTY IMAGES

• In March, Ricardo Prada Vásquez called a friend from a Texas detention center to let him know he was being deported to El Salvador. But Vásquez never made it there, and his family, friends, and the U.S. government have no record of where he was deported to. An attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center working to locate Vásquez told the New York Times that the story was “incredibly tragic—and we don’t know how many Ricardos there are.” (The story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia implies there may be many.)

• In related news, Dr. Noor Abdalla, who is married to detained Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, gave birth to the couple’s first child yesterday; her husband remains a political prisoner at a facility in Louisiana. In a statement, Abdalla wrote, “Despite our request for ICE to allow Mahmoud to attend the birth, they denied his temporary release to meet our son. This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer.”

COLUMBIA STUDENTS AND ALUMNI CHAINED THEMSELVES TO THE UNIVERSITY'S MAIN GATE LAST WEEK TO PROTEST THE DETENTION OF STUDENTS. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) 

• Yesterday, Kenyan long-distance runner Sharon Lokedi won the women’s elite division of the Boston Marathon, completing it in two hours and 17 minutes, breaking the record previously held by Buzunesh Deba. We’ve come a long, glorious way from the first official run of Kathrine Switzer.

• The Mississippi Supreme Court has upheld a judge’s decision that trans people in the state may not legally change their names until they’re 21, even with parental consent. The ruling comes after a trans teenager and his parents filed for a name change in their county and were denied. But as writer S. Baum points out, girls in Mississippi can get married and change their last names to match their husbands…at age 15. Make it make sense.

• Still trying to figure out what the hubbub is about AI? Well, some scientists and researchers are currently using it to rescue all of us from a potential “sixth mass extinction.” Not as fun as turning yourself into a Studio Ghibli character, but who am I to yuck anybody’s AI yum?

• Let’s leave on a high note! Last year at our Free Future event, held in partnership with the Ford Foundation, former Hallandale, Florida, vice mayor Sabrina Javellana recounted her harrowing story of being targeted with deepfake porn images made and circulated without her consent. Local law enforcement told her the violation was “heinous,” but that there was nothing they could do. But Javellana persisted, and “turned my pain into advocacy,” getting a law passed to make creating any kind of nonconsensual deepfake a felony. Watch—and cheer for her—here.

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Dearest Meteor readers,

I’m feeling tender this week and I’m gonna blame Dying For Sex, the new FX miniseries about actual death, the little death, and ride-or-die friendship. The final episode had me in a puddle the other day. Highly rec’d if you’re a fan of Michelle Williams and/or catharsis.

Today, we dig into a surprising new statistic about young women and drinking. Plus, affirmative action for white men and justice for Black mothers.

Still sniffling,

Nona Willis Aronowitz

WHAT'S GOING ON

A sobering new study: If your image of a young binge-drinker is a frat boy doing keg stands, you’re out of date, according to a new analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association. While drinking among young people is declining overall and older women still drink less than older men, women ages 18 to 25 now binge-drink slightly more than their male counterparts. (Binge-drinking is defined as regularly having more than four drinks in one sitting for women and more than five drinks for men; the study compared data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health between 2017-2019 and 2021-2023.)

Women’s drinking habits have been catching up to men’s for decades, and scholars, journalists, and public health advocates have been noting the results: Women are increasingly dying, getting sick, and going to the ER from drinking. And why are we drinking more? It’s partly  because of stress. (Research indeed shows that women are more likely to drink in order to cope than men. See also: “Mommy wine culture.”) The pandemic seems to have compounded the problem; articles and studies have abounded since 2020 showing how much more women were drinking to get through their days. Women, some have concluded, “need an intervention.” (Others, as one Meteor commenter put it a few months back, are “tired of being targeted for all the things.”)

But what accounts for younger women binge-drinking more than younger men? The study was careful not to draw conclusions; the authors say that because the groups analyzed in each time period are not the same people, they don’t know whether we’re seeing an actual rise among young women or, perhaps, a decline among men. But Susan Stewart, a professor of sociology at Iowa State University who studies alcohol use among women, has an initial hypothesis: “I think it has to do with women’s independence,” she says. “Young people are dating and having sex at lower rates, and less interested in serious relationships. Women are doing their own thing, which includes partying.”

Stewart also points out that young women have higher rates of college completion than men, and college students binge-drink more than their non-college peers. It’s too early to tell whether this will be a longterm trend, Stewart says, but it could just be a side effect of an otherwise encouraging phenomenon: “women exercising a greater latitude of freedom.”

In any case, it doesn’t hurt to familiarize yourself with the most recent health guidelines on drinking. And yes, alcohol can be a source of great pleasure—but in case you are struggling, there’s help to be had.

AND:

• Yesterday, the UK Supreme Court issued a unanimous and definitive ruling that the terms “women” and “sex” in the UK’s Equality Act refer only to biological sex. The case was brought by the campaign group For Women Scotland (bankrolled by notorious transphobe J.K. Rowling) after two Scottish courts rejected the group’s claim that the definition of a woman was limited to people born biologically female. The decision could have wide-ranging consequences on sports, prisons, hospitals, and schools. Ellie Gomersall, a trans woman and Scottish Green Party activist, told the Guardian she’s “gutted”; she expects some will “use [the decision] as justification or vindication to discriminate further against trans people, and that makes me really worried for my community.”

THE TRANS RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN SCOTLAND HAS BEEN FIGHTING FOR YEARS. VIA GETTY IMAGES

• A new analysis finds that 38 of 43 experts purged last month from the boards that review the science and research of the National Institutes of Health are female, Black or Hispanic. That’s an astounding number, and radically affects the boards’ diversity: The cuts removed fully half of the Black and Hispanic women serving, and a quarter of all women—some of whom served during the first Trump administration with no incident. But only six percent of white men serving on the boards were let go. (It almost seems like the government thinks white men need all the help they can get…you might even see it as….affirmative action??) A civil rights lawyer called this data “rather compelling” and asked the obvious question: “Is there any way to attribute this to something other than race and gender?”

• Various Fox News pundits have been bending over backwards to tout Trump’s tariffs as “manly” and the key to solving the “crisis in masculinity.” Please enjoy this video by friend of The Meteor Liz Plank, wherein she asks men at Bernie Sanders’ War on Billionaires rally how they’re feeling about their impending assembly line jobs. (Spoiler: A little nervous!)

• And now for a surprisingly likeable billionaire: Melinda French Gates (owner of exactly zero space-tourism companies!) has released her second book, The Next Day, about life transitions, including her own divorce from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, her partner in marriage and philanthropy for decades. The most touching parts? Her reliance on her close circle of female friends, honesty about the “grief” she felt at divorcing, and her slow realization that anxiously overpreparing for every meeting was neither necessary nor healthy. “These days, I’m no longer driven by the same kind of insecurity,” she writes. “I finally believe that it’s okay if…the limits to my knowledge reveal themselves. Now that I’m finally okay showing up as no one but myself, I no longer treat every appointment on my calendar as a referendum on whether I deserve to be there. It’s a much gentler way to live.”

• Today is the last day of Black Maternal Health Week, an excellent time to spotlight the fact that Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related reasons as white women. Some wisdom from the Meteor archives on that subject: Rebecca Carroll’s interview with Tonya Lewis Lee about her documentary on the subject, Aftershock; and this UNDISTRACTED episode with podcasters Gabrielle Horton and Martina Abraham Iluga, along with host Brittany Packnett Cunningham, on having a baby while Black.

WEEKEND READING 📚

On the bigger picture: The CEO of the Society for Women’s Health Research breaks down exactly how Trump-era NIH cuts will affect women’s health. (XX Factor)

On the man at the center of a crisis: Here’s what to know about Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man unjustly trapped in a notorious prison in El Salvador. (The Guardian)

On playing the game: Fox Sports host Joy Taylor talks to Irin Carmon about work, beauty, and those sexual harassment lawsuits. (The Cut)

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Hello, sweet Meteor readers,

Happy Tax Day! This year I learned about the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, which sounded heavenly given that my family spent fully $15,000 on daycare last year. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that the maximum credit you can claim is 20% of $3,000…i.e. $600. Womp womp. (And Republicans have contemplated dropping even this piddling credit.) The state of childcare in this country is enraging.

Today, we’re tracking the sneaky, scary erosion of birth control rights in America. Plus, Harvey Weinstein is back in court, and the “broligarchy” gets a dressing-down.

Free daycare on demand,

Nona Willis Aronowitz

WHAT'S GOING ON

The secret war on birth control: From the moment the high court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, one Supreme Court justice signaled that birth control access was in danger. In a concurring opinion back then, Justice Clarence Thomas urged the court to re-examine “demonstrably erroneous decisions” like Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 ruling which granted Americans a constitutional right to birth control.

So what’s happened to birth control since that fateful ruling? Last week, the National Women’s Law Center released a report addressing that question, and it finds that our right to contraception is indeed eroding. Since 2022, some lawmakers have wasted no time proposing or musing about bans on some forms of birth control; a nominee for Michigan attorney general compared emergency contraception to fentanyl. But there’s one big obstacle in their way: Birth control is incredibly popular. Upward of 90% of Americans believe it should be legal. So policymakers have turned to less obvious tactics to restrict contraception.

BIRTH CONTROL PILLS SHOULD BE AS CONTROVERSIAL AS DANGLY EARRINGS. VIA GETTY IMAGES

Lawmakers “know that they can’t attack birth control publicly or on paper, so they’re doing it secretly,” said Kimi Chernoby, senior counsel for reproductive rights and health at the National Women’s Law Center and the primary author of the report. Chernoby pointed to an innocuous-sounding bill called the Medical Ethics Defense Act, passed just last week in the Tennessee Senate that has a good chance of passing the House, given that a subcommittee already approved it. Not once does it mention birth control. But the legislator who sponsored the bill later said in an interview that the law would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control. This sneakiness can reach the point of absurdity: Texas senator Bryan Hughes, the guy who crafted the state’s abortion ban, just presented a bill that would test wastewater for abortion medication and hormones found in birth control, because of the supposed health risk it poses “especially for pregnant women and children.” Oh, the irony.

And to avoid political blowback, birth control opponents are also going after people on the margins, namely teens (by introducing parental consent laws for birth control) and low-income people (by restricting Title X and Medicaid recipients’ access to contraception). It’s a strategy the report calls “the anti-abortion playbook” because it mirrors anti-abortion activists’ journey from Roe to Dobbs: Start by targeting people who hold less political clout, and inch toward the mainstream from there. They’re also focusing on certain kinds of birth control like emergency contraception, which has been endlessly (and erroneously) attacked by rightwing lawmakers and institutions as a form of abortion, despite the FDA’s explicit clarification in 2022. “Some people are making a conscious decision not to listen to science,” Chernoby said.

CONGRESS TRYING (AND FAILING) TO PROTECT THE RIGHT TO CONTRACEPTION IN 2022. VIA GETTY IMAGES

So what can you do? Since this erosion is mostly on the local and state level for now, Chernoby suggests reaching out to state legislators urging them to codify protections to birth control, which a handful of states have done in the wake of Roe’s fall (and Thomas’ warning). Be sure to call your representatives if you live in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin—all states that have blocked attempts to pass a Right to Contraception Act in the past. And if lawmakers don’t listen, make your outrage known. Chernoby said that when these issues get widespread coverage, restrictions often get reversed. For instance, in 2023, Iowa’s attorney general paused payments to hundreds of sexual assault victims for the emergency contraceptive Plan B. But she backed down after an outcry from Democrats and reproductive rights advocates, who pointed out that paying for pregnancy prevention should be the last thing survivors have to worry about.

“When these attacks start happening more in the open,” Chernoby said (and she thinks they eventually will), “I predict there will be a lot of resistance.” Let’s make sure she’s right.

 AND:

• Fans of academic freedom (hi!) breathed a sigh of relief when Harvard announced yesterday that it wouldn’t comply with a mind-boggling list of requests from the Trump administration. That list—which, among other things, called for “viewpoint diversity” in admissions and hiring—went far beyond more limited (but still batshit) demands aimed at places like Columbia. Harvard’s defiance wasn’t exactly a given, judging by its previous concessions, including forcing out its first Black woman president, Claudine Gay. But its stand feels like a big, potentially tide-turning beacon for other institutions, and was applauded by alums across the globe, including Barack Obama. “Harvard reminded the world that learning, innovation and transformative growth will not yield to bullying and authoritarian whims,” said Anurima Bhargava, a Harvard alumna, civil rights lawyer, and advocate for sexual assault victims.

• Harvey Weinstein is back in court in New York today for a new trial. In case you’ve forgotten, last year the state’s Court of Appeals overturned his 2020 conviction, determining that it had been a mistake to allow testimony from women whose accusations were not part of the charges he faced. This time around, though, he faces new charges from an unnamed woman, along with charges from accusers Miriam "Mimi" Haleyi and Jessica Mann, who were both part of the first trial. So far, jury selection has been bumpy; “I don’t like the guy, he is a really bad guy,” one potential juror volunteered after being dismissed from consideration. Again, we say: Who says #MeToo is dead?

• British author and investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who brought the Cambridge Analytica scandal to light six years ago, weighed in on the threat of the “broligarchy” in a new TED talk. “We are now in techno-authoritarianism,” she warned. “Some people are calling this ‘oligarchy,’ but it’s actually bigger than that.” Her advice? To “digitally disobey”—to refuse the cookies, to not give your real name, to use Signal. You can watch the full talk here.

• Forty-three women in Argentina are suing Opus Dei, accusing the Catholic organization of forcing them into isolation and grueling, unpaid domestic labor as children and teens. Argentinian federal prosecutors allege that Opus Dei routinely recruited girls from poor rural families, then exploited them. “They treated me like a slave, without any capacity to think or act or do,” one of the accusers told the Guardian. A judge will now decide whether to proceed to trial.

• After the all-women crew returned safely from space, Gayle King gushed that she now “can take on anything.” But ngl, her face tells a different, far wearier story…

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Greetings, Meteor readers,

Congratulations to newly crowned NCAA champions the Florida Gators and UConn Huskies. But more importantly, congratulations to me for winning my first bracket pool ever! It only took three years 🥴.

In today’s newsletter, we look at the woman-specific impact of layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Plus, we’re all still thinking about The White Lotus.

Should I get a new dog,

Shannon Melero 🏆

WHAT'S GOING ON

Death by (ten) thousand layoffs: Last week the Trump administration decimated the Department of Health and Human Services; in the words of one former employee, “shitshow is an understatement.” As a result, the organizations housed under HHS—the Center for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid— lost 10,000 staff members, effectively shuttering a number of departments.

But not just any departments; the cuts will roll back decades of hard-won progress on women’s health research. Just take a look at what we’ve lost: Most of the CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health was laid off, including the team responsible for updating contraception guidelines and groups researching IVF and fertility clinics’ success rates (despite Trump’s promises to make the procedure more accessible). Three of the four branches of the Division of Violence Prevention were also eliminated. The division, established three decades ago, was crucial to framing violence as a public health problem, and yet last week, on the first day of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, all of the staff working on intimate partner violence prevention and sexual assault prevention programs were dismissed. The administration also fired all of the CDC scientists researching drug-resistant STIs.

As is usually the case, these cuts will disproportionately impact Black, Latine, and lower-income women. The entire team working on the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, a project started in 1987 to reduce infant morbidity and mortality by offering maternal health guidance through the entire birth process, was laid off last week. “Black women in America are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women,” one expert told Rolling Stone, and “we know this in large part because of the data collected and analyzed by the CDC.” And the timing of the system’s shutdown couldn’t be worse, a public health professor explained to Mother Jones: It “jeopardizes women and infants’ health at a time when maternal mortality rates in the US have been rising and access to maternity care is increasingly difficult.”

So what happens next and how can you help? Lawyers contend that many of the layoffs are on “shaky legal ground”; some state attorneys general have sued to block them. If your state hasn’t joined the lawsuit, file a complaint with your AG’s office online and ask them to fight back against these layoffs. If there is a local domestic violence shelter or rape crisis center in your area, it’s a great time to call them and ask exactly what they need. The government may not care, but we still can.

AND: 

• The Supreme Court has ruled that the Trump administration can continue to deport Venezuelans en masse under the protection of the rarely used wartime law, the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, with only one caveat: the administration now has to give notice of deportation ahead of time. The ruling is only a half-win for the administration, though,  since the Court ruled that the ACLU and Democracy Forward could reintroduce their suits against the Act—just one at a time for each man detained, rather than in one large group. In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recalled the internment of the Japanese during World War II, writing, “We are just as wrong now as we have been in the past, with similarly devastating consequences. It just seems we are now less willing to face it.”

• Beloved YouTube star Ms. Rachel is once again under attack for her salacious political view that children should not be killed or starved to death. But I hope she cannot hear those people over the sounds of kisses she’s giving to her new baby girl, Susannah. Our biggest congratulations to the Griffin-Accurso family!

MY CHILD'S FAVORITE COUPLE, MS. RACHEL AND HER HUSBAND MR. ARON. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) 

• Back in February, a large image of Harriet Tubman, along with a quote from her, was removed from a National Park Service web page about the Underground Railroad. They were replaced with text that didn’t mention slavery until the third paragraph—and pictures of Postal Service stamps that touted “Black/White cooperation.” No one noticed these changes until The Washington Post reported on them earlier this week, but thanks to backlash from historians and social media users, the missing content has been restored. Yelling works.

• And here’s something you can yell about right now! The Trump administration is threatening to withhold funding from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum unless it promises it will “not recognize men as women in any respect.” In other words? Trans Americans (whether scientists, writers, activists or athletes) are not part of Trump’s version of American history. It doesn’t have to go down like that. Tell the Smithsonian what you think.

• If you need a little pick-me-up after all the news of the day, we invite you to spend some time in a happy place with Bad Bunny’s Tiny Desk concert.

• Still trying to unpack the season finale of The White Lotus? Us, too. I’m locked in an intense debate with my colleague Rebecca Carroll over Belinda’s fate. And if you’re wondering why Parker Posey’s character Victoria Ratliff is so beloved despite being generally annoying, writer Amy Odell has theories. Spoilers if you click!

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Greetings, Meteor readers,

The women’s Final Four is set, and thankfully for my bracket, UConn is still in it along with UCLA, Texas, and South Carolina. As much as I love Dawn Staley, I need anyone but South Carolina to win as I refuse to lose to my own husband in our bracket battle.

In today’s newsletter, we celebrate a win for abortion in Alabama. Plus, one very expensive election and an answer to whether or not your basketball tattoo can get you arrested (it can).

Cheering for Paige,

Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

Sometimes we win: On Monday, a federal judge in Alabama ruled that the state could not prosecute people for obtaining abortions in states where the procedure is legal, writing in his decision that “Alabama’s criminal jurisdiction does not reach beyond its borders.” (Someone tell that to Ken Paxton.) The judge also wrote that going after people or organizations who help others get abortions “would violate both the First Amendment and the right to travel.” The ruling comes in response to a 2023 lawsuit filed by Yellowhammer Fund, the state’s only abortion fund, along with West Alabama Women’s Center (WAWC) and Huntsville OB/GYN Dr. Yashica Robinson against the state’s attorney general Steve Marshall, who had publicly threatened to criminalize anyone aiding out-of-state abortions under a criminal conspiracy law from 1896.

Even just those threats had been having real-world consequences in Alabama, where abortion is illegal in all instances with very, very few exceptions. Robin Marty, the director of operations for WAWC, told The Meteor that even after Roe was overturned, people came to the center seeking care—often unaware that abortion had become illegal. But because of Marshall’s threats to enforce anti-conspiracy laws, Marty says her staff was severely hindered from offering patients guidance on how to get an abortion, despite no new legislation being on the books. “We had to say ‘I can't help you,’” Marty tells The Meteor. “Because any information that we provided would then be potentially considered to be the beginning of that so-called criminal conspiracy.”

If that kind of cruelty on top of cruelty—in which the state mistreats patients and bars anyone from helping them—sounds familiar, that’s because a number of other anti-abortion states are also manipulating existing racketeering and conspiracy laws to make it nearly impossible to access abortion care. Idaho and Tennessee have already codified so-called “abortion trafficking” laws, making it a felony to help teens get out-of-state abortions without parental consent. (Tennessee’s law is being challenged in court.) Last month, Texas, the least magical place on earth, introduced SB 2880, which would open providers, funds, and even abortion pill manufacturers up to civil suits.

But the ruling in Alabama is a considerable bright spot in the fight for abortion access and could provide a legal boost to the fight against other abortion travel bans. Marty still has concerns—“the state has said that they’re looking at their options”—but, she says, “we are just excited that we are able to provide as much care as we are legally allowed to right now.”

AND: 

• There’s a consequential election happening today in Wisconsin, where voters in the “swingiest swing state” will put a new state Supreme Court justice on the bench. The candidates are Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel, and while justices are meant to be non-partisan, Schimel’s loudest supporter has been Elon Musk, who has poured more than $20 million into Schimel’s campaign and even gave million-dollar checks to two Wisconsin voters last weekend. Crawford’s campaign has broken funding records in response. Why all this money? Because, as Musk himself said, as a result of redistricting issues it’s a “vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives”; the balance of the court could also affect labor outcomes, election laws, and abortion access in the state. In other words? The results will serve as a referendum on whether or not one billionaire can buy an election and alter policy for years to come.

• Under the guise of removing gang members from the U.S., the Trump administration is continuing to deport young Venezuelan men to El Salvador, where they are allegedly subject to torture and forced labor.  However, in most cases, there is not sufficient evidence that those deported are in fact members of Tren de Aragua, a gang recently designated a terrorist group. Instead, the administration is asking immigration officials to adhere to an “alien enemy validation guide,” which specifies that clothes and tattoos—of things like a crown, train, or Michael Jordan’s Jumpman logo— seen on a boy over 14 are sufficient reasons to detain and eventually deport. Customs and Border Patrol had previously argued that tattoos are “not a definite indicator” of allegiance to this particular gang. So when exactly are we going to start calling this what it is?

• Amber Ruffin has been relieved of her duty as headliner at the upcoming White House Correspondents’ dinner after calling Trump administration officials “kind of a bunch of murderers” on a Daily Beast podcast and refusing to write jokes that would amount to a “false equivalency” between Democrats and Republicans. Ruffin was told that she would have to evenly mock both parties at the dinner and replied, “There’s no way I’m going to be freaking doing that, dude. It’s bonkers that we’re still acting like things are normal.” Ruffin later pulled out an infamous Trump line on Late Night with Seth Meyers, sarcastically conceding that there are “very fine people on both sides.”

• Cammie Woodman, a self-described “trans tennis princess,” was kicked out of the Brooklyn Tennis League last week. Her violation? Winning a tennis match against a cisgender woman. After the match, Woodman was asked to move to an “appropriate level” men’s division within the league. She declined, writing in part, “I believe in my integrity as a woman player…my win yesterday was based on my skill and consistency that a player at her level was respectfully unable to keep up with.” Woodman also says she was shocked at the decision to remove her as she was under the impression that trans players were welcome.

• In recent years, there has been a decline in Black men attending HBCUs. But the decrease is now so great that at Howard University, one of the most prestigious colleges in the country and a historically Black university, Black men only make up 19 percent of the student body. The reasons for this are many, but one expert told the Times, “ If we are serious about reducing race gaps in economic opportunity, household wealth, et cetera, then our attention should be squarely focused on economic outcomes for Black boys and men — period. Full stop.”

• From 7 pm Monday up until the time of this writing—21 hours!—Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has been giving a marathon speech on the Senate floor protesting the Trump administration’s policies. Technically not a filibuster because he’s not holding up a vote for legislation, his speech is meant to serve as a public, forceful attack on Trump and Musk’s actions, which he’s called “a complete disregard for the rule of law, the Constitution and the needs of the American people.” Booker has filled the time by reading letters from constituents, taking questions from fellow Democrats, and quoting speeches from people like late senators John McCain and John Lewis, the latter of whom encouraged “good trouble, necessary trouble.”

WHEN YOU'RE TIRED BUT YOU PROMISED YOUR CONSTITUENTS YOU WOULD "STAND UP AND SAY SOMETHING" EVEN IF IT MEANT NOT GOING TO THE BATHROOM FOR A FULL DAY. (SCREENSHOT VIA YOUTUBE)

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The weather is absolutely gorgeous in New Jersey, which means it is officially hiking season for me and my mini. We’re packin’ snacks, makin’ tracks, and yelling “dog” every time we see one.

And speaking of sunny optimism, thanks to all of you who turned out for our International Women’s Day event at the Brooklyn Museum last Saturday! We loved seeing every one of you almost as much as Aurora James loved seeing Diane von Furstenberg.

ALL LOVE! (PHOTO BY REDENS DESROSIERS)

In today’s newsletter, we look at the larger impact of a student arrest, plus a frightening report on who exactly is in our state legislatures. Plus, the second annual Meteor Madness bracket group is now open.

From the trail,

Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

A green card didn’t save him: On Saturday, Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student at Columbia University in New York and a vocal member of the pro-Palestinian movement on campus, was arrested by Department of Homeland Security officers in the lobby of his university-owned apartment building. According to Khalil’s attorney, who spoke to NPR, he was told by the arresting officers that he was being apprehended because his student visa had been canceled. When Khalil, who is Palestinian, told officers that he was a legal permanent resident with a green card, they said that his green card had been revoked, too. He was arrested without a warrant, and for several hours, his lawyers and his wife could not find him. He is now in a detention center in Louisiana—although attempts to deport him were temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Monday morning.

A little context: Khalil’s arrest comes on the heels of an executive order issued by Donald Trump which promised to detain and deport “Hamas sympathizers on college campuses” and any non-citizen who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity.” (There is no evidence he has committed a “criminal offense,” The Atlantic reported. ) But Trump is still taking a twisted victory lap, posting on Truth Social: “This is the first arrest of many to come,” he wrote, calling protesters “paid agitators” and “terrorist sympathizers.”

Khalil has not been charged with a crime, nor is there proof that he’s a “paid agitator.” There’s no evidence that he’s said anything threatening or violent. He was, however, a very visible protester of the genocide in Gaza. He’s a leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a coalition demanding the school’s divestment from Israel. A quick search of Khalil will turn up photos of him at protests, sit-ins, rallies, and encampments. But those activities—per the Constitution!—are not crimes. So let’s be clear: Mahmoud Khalil is a political prisoner, punished for exercising his First Amendment rights.

A lot of us are rightly up in arms about Khalil’s arrest—an arrest that feels ironic because Mahmoud Khalil is what the state would normally consider a “model minority.” He has a master’s degree from a prestigious institution, he’s a husband and soon-to-be father, and he presented a green card at the time of his arrest. But none of that saved him—all because he expressed views the government disagreed with.

PROTESTORS GATHERING ON KHALIL'S BEHALF IN NEW YORK CITY. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)  

So as social-media users have been asking: If basic human rights are not extended to people like Khalil, who is protected? If you can disappear someone with a green card, who can’t you disappear? These are fair questions. It’s also worth a reminder that other vulnerable people’s rights were taken away recently with far less outcry. In January, the bipartisan Laken Riley Act rendered due process a thing of the past for undocumented immigrants; the bill is apparently a driving force in the increase in targeted ICE raids. Just last month, more than 100 Venezuelans —some of whom had no criminal charges against them—were also “disappeared” after being detained in Guantanamo Bay. What’s being done to Khalil is egregious, but it’s not isolated. Like many immigrants, Khalil sensed he could become a target and reached out for help, only for it to fall on deaf ears.

When the president of the United States promised months ago that he was coming for everyone who was against him, we should have believed him—and not waited until he came for someone with a green card.

AND: 

• A new report from the National Women’s Defense League found that there have been approximately 400 allegations of sexual harassment filed against 145 sitting state lawmakers between 2013 and 2024. (A note in the report clarifies that the number of actual incidents is likely three times higher.) Now, are these the same people we task with writing laws meant to protect victims from assault or??? (They are.)

• Elizabeth Oyer, a pardon attorney with the Department of Justice, was fired last week—just one day after she refused to grant an unusual request: to restore Mel Gibson’s right to own a gun. Oyer was part of a working group that had been given a list of names to consider for gun-rights restoration. She was later told by her superiors to add Gibson, who pleaded no contest to domestic abuse in 2011. Normally, those convicted of homicide, domestic abuse, or armed robbery are not eligible for gun rights restoration; even the very pro-gun Supreme Court agrees with that policy. So, following that well-established precedent, Oyer denied the request. “There are real consequences that flow from people who have a history of domestic violence being in possession of firearms,” she told the New York Times. But after her denial, she was pressured to reconsider her recommendation, given what a senior Justice Department official called Gibson’s “personal relationship with the president” and his recent appointment to a special position. She was fired on Friday. (No word yet on if or when Gibson will get what he wants.)

• Today the Supreme Court declined to hear a lawsuit brought by 19 Republican attorneys general seeking to block climate change lawsuits in their respective states. The states in question are allowing their own courts to hear cases against fossil fuel companies for lying to the public about their products’ impacts on the environment. In the lawsuit, Republicans whined argued that largely blue states are trying to manipulate energy policy. Cry me a polluted river, dude 🙄.

• Basketball sistren and bracket babes, lend me your ears! Selection Sunday for the NCAA March Madness tournament is THIS weekend, and your favorite brackmaster has already set up the group for my early birds. You can join the Meteor Madness bracket challenge by clicking here. If you competed with us last year, here's one small update: We are operating on the “upset scoring” system to make things more exciting, but just like last year, first place will be getting a sweet Meteor tote.

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Dearest Meteor readers,

Wishing you a happy Women’s History Month…or at least an informative one. This month-long holiday was established in 1987, in the thick of the Reagan era—another historical moment of backlash against feminism. May we take the missteps and thrilling victories of ‘80s feminists to heart.

In today’s newsletter, we lay out what to expect tonight during Trump’s speech to Congress (whether or not you actually tune in). Plus, a rare display of spine by moderate Democrats, and a few ways to make Mikey Madison’s support for sex workers more tangible.

Re-reading Susan Faludi,

Nona Willis Aronowitz

WHAT'S GOING ON

• State of disunion: Trump will address a joint session of Congress tonight, which raises the question of how we react to these Big Presidential Moments from our not-presidential-at-all dictator. Democrats hope to turn a rote presidential custom into a flashpoint. Some of them are boycotting the event, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Chris Murphy (CT), who called the speech a “MAGA pep rally.” Others have invited an array of citizens already hurt by Trump’s policies—including fired federal workers. Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY) invited Alissa Ellman, a disabled Army veteran who was recently fired from the Veterans Affairs Department in Buffalo. “I hope people will understand that these are actual human beings and not just numbers that we can sort of strike arbitrarily,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), whose guest is a fired architect at Valley Forge National Park named Jessica Malarik Fair, told the New York Times. Some Democratic lawmakers are floating more raucous ideas, like noisemakers, empty egg cartons, pointedly timed walkouts, and protest signs in the spirit of Rep. Rashida Tlaib.

  So, what to expect tonight? Trump will likely try to orchestrate a “big moment” or two; he relishes a prime-time audience and often resorts to shocking statements as a distraction tactic. Don’t take the bait. Stay focused on the substance of his policies’ havoc: his DOGE takeover, his tariffs, his border crackdown, his anti-DEI moves, his persecution of trans people, his disregard for the checks and balances that make democracy work. Or, feel free to ding Trump’s ratings by skipping the speech altogether. There’s plenty of counterprogramming to keep you in the loop, from the State of the People marathon to the “Calling BS” livestream to the blitz of progressive digital creators, from Liz Plank to Deja Foxx, slated to cover the speech from Capitol Hill.

• Keep reading: We’ll see you at our International Women’s Day Meet the Moment event this Saturday, March 8, yes? Don’t miss our Banned Book reading, in which powerhouses like Emmy Rossum, Glory Edim, Stephanie Pacheco, and Jamia Wilson will read excerpts from crucial, classic books that have been banned. Last year’s readings included This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki, Sold by Patricia McCormick, and Wilson’s own Young, Gifted, and Black. Here’s the rest of the 2025 speaker lineup, which includes the announcement of the brand-new organization Future Forward Women and much more.

  AND:

• Finally, a little bravery from our beleaguered Senate Democrats! Every single one of them put up a united front last night when they voted down a bill banning transgender women and girls from girls’ school sports teams. This unanimous opposition was not a sure thing; activists and reporters had their eyes on swing-state senators like Jon Ossoff and John Fetterman, who recently joined Republicans in taking away undocumented immigrants’ due process rights and, it was feared, could abandon trans kids too. But even Fetterman—not exactly a progressive hero—said in a statement that these are “just schoolchildren” and that the “small handful of trans athletes in PA in a political maelstrom deserve an ally, and I am one.”

• In her speech accepting the best actress award for Anora, Mikey Madison made sure to “recognize and honor the sex worker community,” adding that “I will continue to support and be an ally.” Wondering how you can support sex workers if you don’t have an Oscar statuette? Donate to organizations working to decriminalize sex work on the state level. Volunteer with or give to the many local groups that distribute mutual aid, offer legal support, and provide harm reduction supplies like condoms and Narcan. Trans sex workers are extra-vulnerable, particularly now.

• A Chinese factory gave its workers an ultimatum: get hitched and have babies, or leave. No, seriously: “If you cannot get married and start a family” by September 30, an internal memo from Shandong Shuntian Chemical Group read, “the company will terminate your labor contract.” It wasn’t the first attempt by a Chinese company to dictate their employees’ love and sex lives, amid a steep decline in the country’s birth and marriage rates. (What do we think are the odds that DOGE’s next email demands the same? JD Vance, I believe this is your lane?)

BILLIONAIRE EX-WRESTLING EXECUTIVE LINDA MCMAHON. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

• Brand-new education secretary Linda McMahon, shortly after being confirmed yesterday, sent an ominous message to her employees laying out the department’s “final mission.” McMahon, who has never worked as an educator, wrote that her “vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states.” One worker called the email a “power grab” in The Guardian; another said it made them “realize that I have three bosses that are billionaires that know nothing about improving performance for America’s students.” The email comes on the heels of reports that Trump is planning to issue an executive order eliminating the Department of Education altogether, though (whether he knows it or not) he can’t actually do so without Congress’s approval.

• If you’ve uttered a lot of “Oh, fucks” and “Goddamit”s in your life, especially in the last six weeks, here’s a nice update: New research shows that cursing is linked to increased tolerance to pain (both physical and social), stronger social bonds, and better memory. Pretty fucking amazing.

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