The ride-hailing giant is partnering with two taxi technology companies in New York City.

Grimes casually revealed that she "DDOS"'d and "basically blackmailed" Hipster Runoff to take down a picture of her

How did Judith Clark, a 31-year-old white woman, find herself in the middle of a plot to pay for the foundation of a new Black republic in the continental United States?

The fact that Republicans don’t talk much about marriage equality these days doesn’t mean they’ve accepted it. For several decades, Republicans used Supreme Court nomination hearings to sharpen their knives against Roe v. Wade. They have long seized the opportunity to make their case against Roe, railing against the decision as a paragon of judicial activism and overreach. During Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearings this week, GOP senators have, predictably, condemned Roe—but not as much as might be expected. Instead, many senators have turned their attention to a different precedent that’s likely next on their hit list once Roe likely falls this summer: Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision recognizing same-sex couples’ constitutional right to marry. Loathing for Obergefell emerged early on Tuesday, when Republican Sen. John Cornyn launched a frontal assault on the ruling, then sought Jackson’s reaction. He began by criticizing “substantive due process,” which holds that the “liberty” protected by the due process clause protects substantive rights, not just procedural ones. The Supreme Court has used this theory to enforce “unenumerated rights” that it deems fundamental, including the right to marry, raise children, use contraception, and terminate a pregnancy. Along with equal protection, it served as the basis of Obergefell. According to Cornyn, however, this doctrine is “just another form of judicial policymaking” that can be used “to justify basically any result.” Obergefell, Cornyn told Jackson, was “a dramatic departure from previous laws” that contradicted “234 years” of history. Most states, he pointed out, had not yet repealed their bans on same-sex marriage when the “edict” came down. “Do you share my concern,” he asked Jackson, “that when the court … creates a new right, declaring that anything conflicting with that is unconstitutional, that it creates a circumstance where those who may hold traditional beliefs on something as important as marriage, that they will be vilified as unwilling to assent to this new orthodoxy?” Cornyn then lectured Jackson about the alleged evils of Obergefell. “When the court overrules the decisions made by the people,” he told her, “as they did in 32 of the 35 states that decided to recognize only traditional marriage between a man and a woman, that is an act of judicial policymaking.” The senator went on to claim that “Dred Scott, which treated slaves as chattel property, was a product of substantive due process.” (That’s not actually true, but it marks an obvious effort to sully decisions like Obergefell with the taint of racist origins.) Cornyn also dismissed Obergefell as “court-made law that we’re all supposed to salute smartly and follow because nine people who are unelected, who have lifetime tenure, whose salary cannot be reduced while they serve in office—five of them decide that this is the way the world should be.”

The pictures and videos of flooding on Birmingham’s city streets last week were startling, even for residents familiar with the city’s long-term issues with flash floods. One man drowned in Wednesday’s flash flooding. Birmingham Fire Chief Cory D. Moon said firefighters did more than 20 water rescues on March 16 in a period of about an hour and 20 minutes. “Just this year, we’ve responded to over 50 water rescues,” he said. Joseva Lawrence Speed, 60, died March 16 when he was swept away in flash flooding in the 800 block of 24th Street outside St. Vincent’s Hospital. Speed was trying to get into a family member’s vehicle when he went under water. Bystanders pulled Speed from the water but were unable to revive him. Nearly four inches of rain fell in areas of downtown in a short period that day, creating flooding in areas that rarely see such problems, the mayor’s office said after the flooding. It created dangerous, deadly conditions, and it could happen again. Last week’s flash flooding throughout Birmingham is all part of a much bigger picture that needs to be addressed, said Dr. Hamed Moftakhari, assistant professor for civil, construction and environmental engineering at the University of Alabama. “I don’t think Birmingham is an exception,” he said. “Our infrastructure for storm drainage is quite old in many cities around the United States. We are designing to a rainfall and urbanization plan that is outdated.”

Less than two years after racial justice protests sparked calls to “defund the police,” states and jurisdictions are using pandemic aid to pad already bloated law enforcement budgets.

Tribble clarified during his testimony Tuesday that the practice was not specific to fatal shootings and badges were bent for any officers who were involved in shootings. “I think it was a way to signify the fact that we would stand up and do our job,” Tribble testified.

Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes $11 billion in a California tax rebate to offset high gas prices, including $400 debit cards per vehicle.

Inside the apartment complex, the soldiers were telling their prisoners that Ukraine was about to be liberated, Ms. Anishchenko said. Ms. Borodyuk recalled a more senior Russian officer attempting to comfort a girl in the basement where they were detained. “He said: ‘My daughter is 8 years old too. I love her very much. I miss her. Don’t be afraid, little girl, we will liberate you from Nazis.’”

Madeleine Albright, the first woman US secretary of state, who helped steer Western foreign policy in the aftermath of the Cold War, has died. She was 84 years old.

This is not a happy story.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi affirmed her support Wednesday for U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, who was forced into a primary runoff earlier this month after the FBI raided his home. “I support my incumbents,” Pelosi said during an unrelated news conference in Austin. “I support every one of them, from right to left. That is what I do.” Cuellar, a centrist Democrat, is in the runoff against Jessica Cisneros, the progressive challenger who ran against him in 2020 and lost by a small margin. In the lead-up to that primary, Pelosi visited Laredo and campaigned for Cuellar, which she did not do this time.

The Liberals have agreed to launch a new dental care program for middle- and low-income Canadians and advance a number of other NDP priorities in exchange for New Democrats propping up the federal government until 2025.

We can all name daily newspaper comics that have outlived their creators: Mary Worth; Mark Trail; Nancy. But while some vanish into the background, others command the passionate and/or sardonic attention of readers. Zach Rabiroff speaks with the writers, artists and editors behind today's legacy strips.

The omicron surge reached individuals across race, class and location. But it hit unvaccinated and under-vaccinated people hardest, wounding communities where officials have been unable to stamp out vaccine misinformation and distrust. Covid-19 was a largely preventable disease when omicron arrived, health experts said. And yet in the past three months, more than 150,000 people in the United States have died of it, the vast majority of them from underserved pockets of society. In January, Black U.S. residents were hospitalized for covid-19 at a rate higher than any other race or ethnicity at any point in the pandemic, according to CDC data. Southern California recorded a covid-19 death rate triple that of the Bay Area due to lagging vaccination rates, the Los Angeles Times reported. In D.C. and surrounding states — one of the most vaccinated regions in the nation — 7,100 people have lost their lives since Christmas. While data from the surge is still being compiled, analysis conducted by The Washington Post found that rural communities in Virginia suffered a mortality rate double that of urban communities. In Maryland, poor families of color bore the brunt of omicron’s toll. And in the District, Black residents account for 84 percent of covid-19 fatalities since the start of the year, despite making up less than half the population. With new variants of the virus on the horizon, this pattern of harm will soon repeat itself, experts warn.

An NHPR investigation has revealed multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against Eric Spofford, the founder and former CEO of Granite Recovery Centers. GRC is New Hampshire’s largest provider of substance use disorder treatment. The claims involve former employees and a former client and include allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

No work of criticism needs that many references to oral sex.

If you haven’t seen the commercials yet, you will. This month, what is thought to be the biggest-ever Christian advertising campaign will go national. Television commercials, along with online ads and billboards, will target millennials and Gen Z with a carefully crafted, exhaustively researched, and market-tested message about Jesus Christ: He gets us. Those behind the “He Gets Us” campaign say they’ll spend $100 million—donated by a small group of wealthy anonymous families—on the national launch, putting the campaign in the same financial arena as big-name brands like Old Navy, TD Ameritrade, and Mercedes-Benz. The video ads, some of which are already garnering millions of views on YouTube, feature striking black-and-white photos and a stirring piano track. Made under the direction of Michigan-based marketing agency Haven, each ad focuses on an aspect of Jesus’ earthly experience with which today’s “the struggle is real” crowd might resonate: Jesus was judged too. Jesus had fun with his friends too. The ads direct viewers to HeGetsUs.com, where they can choose four ways to engage: chat live, text for “prayer and positive vibes,” sign up to join a small group with Alpha, or click through to a Bible reading plan on the YouVersion app.

Disney employees walk out to keep up the pressure on CEO Bob Chapek after his handling of a staff revolt over Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill.

The study adds to growing evidence showing increased risk for a wide range of cardiometabolic conditions after Covid-19. A large new study found that people who recovered from Covid-19 within the past year are 40% more likely to receive a new diagnosis of diabetes compared to those who weren’t infected. The increased risk translates into 1% of people who have had Covid-19 developing diabetes who otherwise wouldn’t have, the study’s author says, resulting in potentially millions of new cases world-wide. Most of the people with diabetes in the study, published online Monday in the journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, not Type 1. Some researchers say Covid-19 could also be triggering an entirely new type of diabetes in which certain cells mistakenly start to raise, rather than lower, blood sugar. The study adds to evidence showing an increased post-Covid-19 risk of cardiometabolic conditions, such as diabetes as well as heart and kidney complications. Normally when people think of long-term Covid-19 symptoms, they think of problems such as cognitive issues, fatigue or shortness of breath. But scientists say there are likely different types of long Covid, and one appears to be defined by cardiometabolic problems that arise after Covid-19. So far, the World Health Organization estimates there have been more than 464 million cases of Covid-19, so even small percentages of those people developing long-term complications would be significant.