Jane never expected so many people to see the chalking she and her friend made on Saturday afternoon. She really only cared that one person did, and that was her Bangor, Maine, neighbor, Sen. Susan Collins. And Collins most certainly saw it. So did countless others across the country, thanks to the Republican senator herself, who called the police over the polite chalk message and took the story of the colorful abortion rights message from her sidewalk to the national news cycle.

Chobani employees who need to travel out-of-state for women's reproductive health care not available in Idaho will have their travel and lodging expenses covered, the company's CEO announced Thursday. CEO Hamdi Ulukaya announced on social media transportation, lodging and childcare costs for an employee or their dependents will be covered under amended company health plans. A memo sent to employees Thursday notes the updated policies also applies to cancer treatment, transplant surgery, bariatric surgery, gender reassignment care, abortion and other non-routine procedures that require travel.

The mom-and-pop shops of the past are gone. In their place? Skeleton crews, long waits, and endless bureaucracy. To understand this sudden trans­formation in the $56 billion durable medical equipment market, of which complex rehabilitation technology (CRT) is one part, experts and advocates point to a decade-old decision by Medicare to abandon set prices in favor of ones set by competitive bidding. By one estimate, the move reduced the federal government’s costs by 35 percent. But at the same time, locally owned wheelchair shops quickly began to disappear as large corporations offered rock-bottom bids to Medicare and private insurers. Numotion, based in Brentwood, Tennessee, was one of the winners to emerge from the new system. Formed by the union of two PE-backed companies, Numotion spent the last decade buying up dozens of smaller suppliers from coast to coast, now employing about 3,000 people in 47 states. National Seating and Mobility, based outside Nashville and owned by the PE firm Cinven, is Numotion’s biggest competitor; it has acquired more than 50 suppliers in the United States and Canada since 2014 and now has 2,600 employees in 174 locations. Brendan Schroeder, a senior analyst at the health care advisory firm Provident, estimated that Numotion and NSM together control more than half the CRT industry. “They’re the two behemoths,” he said. (Neither company was willing to disclose revenue figures or other financial information when asked.) But consolidation and the downward pressure on reimbursement rates have come at a big cost to wheelchair users, ­according to customers and advocates for disabled people.

The cryptocurrency market continued to hemorrhage money Thursday, with the most popular coins down double-digit percentages over the past 24 hours. And absolutely no one knows when things will bottom out, with many people worried the entire market of fake digital money could go to zero as the stablecoin Tether officially traded below $1 for the first time ever early Thursday. Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency in the world, is down 11.2% over the past day, currently sitting at $27,959—roughly 58% lower than its all-time high of $69,000 in mid-November. Ethereum has struggled even worse in the past 24 hours, down 19.9% to a price of $1,930.

Tony Finn had worked for the West Yorkshire-based British Bung Company for almost 24 years when he was fired in May last year. He took them to the tribunal claiming, among other things, that he had been the victim of sex harassment following an incident with factory supervisor Jamie King. Mr Finn alleged that during a shop floor row that almost erupted in violence in July 2019, Mr King had referred to him as a 'bald c***'.

Isaac Chotiner interviews Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League

The Central American country made the cryptocurrency legal tender last year, but since then, it has continued to fall, raising concerns about whether it will be able to meet its next debt payment

In a swift reversal of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bold political gambit, a Leon County Circuit Court judge on Wednesday threw out the congressional map drawn by the governor and approved by legislators, ruling that it violates the Florida Constitution and ordering a new map drawn by a Harvard expert to be put in place. “I am finding that the enacted map is unconstitutional under the Fair Districts Amendment Article 3, Section 20, because it diminishes the African Americans’ ability to select the representative of their choice,” said Judge Layne Smith, in a ruling from the bench after a four-hour hearing. He was referring to the anti-gerrymandering provisions of the state Constitution that prevent the state from enacting redistricting maps that diminish minority voting rights. Smith, who was appointed to the court by DeSantis, said it would be up to lawmakers to decide if they want to enact a new map when the Legislature convenes for a week-long special session on May 23. But in an effort to get precincts set for candidates to qualify, he ordered a map drawn by the plaintiffs’ expert, Harvard professor Stephen Ansolabehere, to replace the one approved by the governor and Legislature.

The Biden administration’s recent entrenchment and expansion of the Trump administration’s efforts to privatize Medicare is helping a shadowy set of big-business beneficiaries: private equity firms and major health care companies, including one that previously employed the government official overseeing the privatization plan, a Lever analysis shows. In April last year, the Biden administration contracted with 53 third-party companies to mandate privatized health care plans through Medicare. The resulting health care options are effectively Medicare Advantage plans, or private coverage offered through the national health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities — but with one wrinkle: Patients are being assigned to these new plans without their consent. The 53 participating companies — called “direct contracting entities,” or DCEs — are allowed to offer benefits beyond traditional Medicare, like gym membership coverage. But as for-profit businesses that receive a set payment from Medicare no matter how much care they approve, these DCEs are incentivized to limit the care that patients receive, especially when they are very sick. The first DCEs were launched by President Donald Trump in 2019, and so far, at least 350,000 seniors have already been moved onto these privatized Medicare plans.

When President Biden assumed office, he made it his mission to clean off the cobwebs clinging to the Domestic Policy Council (DPC), a White House office long eclipsed in both visibility and power by its prestigious cousin, the National Security Council. To revamp the advisory body focused on critical policies like Medicare, immigration, education, and labor, Biden installed at its helm one of D.C.’s most high-profile power players, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice. Biden has worked hard—on both the campaign trail and in the Oval Office—to project a Norman Rockwell-esque aura of respectability to the American public, in contrast to the Trump administration’s poorly concealed chaos. Part of that image is represented by the way some colleagues have publicly described Rice as “an extraordinarily generous person” and “full of kindness.” However, the desire to tone down the vitriol of the previous administration is also deeply at odds with another side of Rice’s reputation during the Obama years for running a fiery workplace, filled with “shouting matches,” “insults,” and middle fingers. Conversations with current and former White House officials suggest that little has changed in the intervening years. Rice regularly excoriates her colleagues, creating an “abusive and dehumanizing environment” according to one source, who spoke to The American Prospect on the condition of anonymity. The vitriol of the Rice-controlled workplace is something of an open secret, with previous reports filed about Department of Health and Human Services staff being yelled at in meeting after meeting. The Prospect has learned previously unreported details that Rice also berated HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, himself the son of immigrants, alleging incompetence at addressing the processing of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border. At one point during a meeting, where President Biden expressed his displeasure at Becerra’s efforts at HHS, Rice wrote a note to a colleague that said, “Don’t help him,” referring to Becerra.

Body camera footage from Georgia deputies who stopped a Delaware State University women's lacrosse team bus late last month directly contradicts Tuesday statements by the sheriff who defended the stop. In a public address, Liberty County Sheriff William Bowman said "no personal items on the bus or person(s) were searched" during the April 20 stop. But the bodycam footage, which Delaware Online/The (Wilmington) News Journal has obtained and made publicly available without editing, shows deputies rifling through players' backpacks and bags – something those on the bus have said for days. In addition to contradicting Bowman's Tuesday statements, the video also raises questions about the legality of the traffic stop. Jones is told by a deputy he was pulled over for driving in the far left of the three lanes. Jones, who said he was passing another vehicle, responds by saying he saw signs that said trucks couldn’t drive in the left lane but it doesn’t mention busses. The deputy asks if the bus has air brakes – Jones said it does – and said any vehicle with six wheels and air brakes cannot travel in the left lane. However, Georgia Code actually says the term “truck" means “any vehicle equipped with more than six wheels, except buses and motorcoaches.”

It’s a quiet Friday afternoon in McFarland, California. Inside the Clara M. Jackson Library in the center of town, there’s a steady but calm hum of activity. Yet the overall mood is weighty, and the situation, beyond the smiles on its youngest patrons’ faces, seems dire. The library, the town’s only one, may soon no longer be in this building. Why? Because McFarland’s police are attempting to take it over as their new headquarters.

As Fetterman closes in on the Democratic Senate nomination, his work at the Board of Pardons offers a lens into his political style: direct, unabashed, and sometimes stubborn. John Fetterman was a year into his leadership of Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons when the panel held a hearing that infuriated him. Fetterman, who leads the board as lieutenant governor, believed many of the 14 people serving life sentences in state prisons at the time deserved early release. But the group, which has to agree unanimously, approved recommendations for only two commutations in the December 2019 hearing. So Fetterman went to the only other elected official on the five-member board, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who had voted against many of the cases. And he came armed with a political threat. Fetterman, according to several people with direct knowledge of the conversation, said he would run against Shapiro in the 2022 Democratic primary for governor unless more of the cases cleared the board. In particular, he wanted clemency for Lee and Dennis Horton, brothers from Philadelphia who for 27 years maintained they were innocent of murder. Eight months later, the Horton brothers were granted a new hearing, and in December 2020, the board unanimously recommended freeing them. Gov. Tom Wolf signed off in February 2021, the same month Fetterman launched his campaign for U.S. Senate.

Representative Alex Mooney, who was endorsed by the former president, beat out Representative David McKinley in a GOP primary for a U.S. House seat.

Body of Abu Akleh, who was fatally shot by Israeli troops, arrives in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

An ugly encounter in a Brooklyn stationhouse is setting off a new legal battle over filming the police. Patricia Rodney walked into the 62nd Precinct in Dyker Heights on December 2, 2020 because she had lost her glucose monitor. Rodney knew how important the instrument was to her survival. A diabetic, she had been hospitalized multiple times for complications related to her diabetes, and used the device to check her blood sugar levels many times a day. “The insurance company said, the only way you will get a replacement is to get this report from the police department,” the 61-year-old grandmother of three recalled. Rodney, who serves food in a school cafeteria, had never had much cause to have interactions with the police, but she had gone down to the precinct a few days earlier to lodge her lost-property report. To her dismay, the officer who took her information told her he couldn’t give her the papers she needed immediately; she’d have to come back to the station house in a few days to pick them up. Rodney would have to wait a little longer for her medical device. But when Rodney returned on December 2, a new officer was behind the desk, and she told Rodney that she couldn’t get her police report. The precinct doesn’t issue stolen property reports, the officer said. To get one of those, Rodney would have to go to NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza in Manhattan. Rodney was at the end of her rope: She’d already been told she could get the report here. Now she was getting the runaround. She dug in, telling the officer she’d been told to come back and get the report, and she wasn’t leaving the stationhouse until she got it... “It felt like they were breaking my arm, Rodney said. “And yes, it turns out they did.” A medical report confirms that Rodney suffered a fractured elbow. “I’m not playing with you!” the officer bellows as he works to get Rodney into handcuffs and leg shackles. “I’m a diabetic,” Rodney sobs. “I just need a piece of paper.” “Now you’re going to jail,” the officer replies. As Rodney is brought to her feet and frog-marched out of the vestibule and into the precinct house, the officer, who, like other police surrounding Rodney, is not wearing a mask himself, grabs her mask from her mouth and pulls it up over her eyes so she can’t see. “Put your mask up,” he says. “All you had to do was cooperate. You did this to yourself.”

Labor’s candidate for Reid is demanding an apology from Liberal MP Fiona Martin, claiming she has either confused her with another Asian Australian political aspirant or misled voters. In a debate between Martin and her Labor rival Sally Sitou on 2GB radio, Martin sensationally claimed that “Kristina Keneally kicked you out of Fowler too” in an apparent reference to Keneally winning preselection over Vietnamese Australian lawyer Tu Le in Fowler. In a heated exchange, Martin asked Sitou where she grew up, drawing a comparison between the Chinese Australian candidate who grew up in Cabramatta, and herself.

He then turned his attention to praising the competition coming out of China, which is the world’s biggest car market and where Tesla has a manufacturing plant in Shanghai. “I think there will be some very strong companies coming out of China, there is just a lot of supertalented hardworking people in China who strongly believe in manufacturing,” he added. “They won’t just be burning the midnight oil, they will be burning the 3am oil, they won’t even leave the factory type of thing, whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all.”

The white nationalist America First movement has become embroiled in a bitter feud after its former treasurer got a girlfriend—a faux pas with the movement’s celibate leader.

Oscar-nominated actor James Cromwell superglued himself to the counter of a Starbucks café in New York City on Tuesday to protest of the chain’s policy of charging extra for milk alternatives.