Details here.

Federal legislation that would protect abortion rights nationwide and supersede state laws like Texas’ six-week abortion ban stalled out in the Senate on Monday after a vote to begin debate on the measure failed. The vote effectively blocks the Women’s Health Protection Act. After impassioned speeches on the Senate floor from both sides of the aisle, Democratic leaders couldn’t garner enough support to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to begin debate and eventually proceed to a vote on the bill.

This is a story about how to say my name. You’re probably reading it with your eyes, which isn’t the same as hearing it with your ears or saying it with your mouth. I’m sorry about that. My father was born in Russia’s Ural mountains, to one parent from eastern Ukraine and another parent of mixed Russian and Tatar ancestry. My last name, Plis, comes from that Ukrainian side. Most people with our name can trace their ancestry to a town that, today, is some 60 miles from the territory that Vladimir Putin claims is independent of Ukraine, and within earshot of the rockets that his troops are firing at buses and kindergartens. Both my parents were only children, which means I have zero aunts, uncles, or first cousins. But when I woke up on February 24 to my wife telling me that Russia had invaded, my first thought was to ask my dad if he’d heard from his cousin in Kharkiv. Plis was an odd name to have. It doesn’t mark gender like most Russian names, where your sons’ names end with -ov or -in or -skiy and your daughters’ match them with -ova or -ina or -skaya. Russians come from many places, and ours wasn’t the only name like this — my mom’s childhood neighbors included a Kim family with relatives in Korea — but it stood out. Plis has a drawn-out ee sound in Russian: if you type it into a Russian search engine, you’ll find teenagers writing it to spell the English word please.

Now that we’ve sold the agency, I’ll spill the beans: people don’t buy books, they buy souvenirs. The book isn’t the product; the book is the key chain, postcard, or novelty T-shirt. Most people don’t actually read all that much, but they like to think of themselves as smart, savvy readers. Books are ultimately aspirational purchases. People buy a book because they intend to read it, one day. People buy a book because they heard the author on a podcast and thought they were a pretty interesting guest. They were funny, engaging, and intelligent. They think, “Buying this book will make me like that too, right?” People buy a book because they want to see themselves as the kind of person who reads these kinds of things. We’re all in groups (and want to be in more)—what does our group do? People buy a book because they want other people to see it on their shelves on Zoom or at the next dinner party. Books are a set design for offices and living rooms; they are props for the performance of our lives. People buy a book because they’re thinking of starting a hobby or New Year’s resolution and this is the first, easy step. It’s far easier to plunk down a credit card for that paperback than to cut out gluten. The book isn’t the product. The idea, the aura, the movement, the group: that is what people are buying. A 300-page codex is just the packaging.

What it means to nominate a veteran public defender to the Supreme Court.

PORK RIBS

Early research suggests it spreads faster than the original omicron and in rare cases can sicken people even if they've already had an omicron infection. There’s mixed research on whether it causes more severe disease, but vaccines appear just as effective against it.

Leo Bersani, who over a 60-year career as a scholar of modern French literature had a profound influence on art and literary criticism, and who later played a central role in debates about gay and queer identity at the height of the AIDS crisis, died on Feb. 20 at an assisted-living facility in Peoria, Ariz. He was 90. His partner, Sam Geraci, confirmed the death. He said that the cause had not been determined, but that Dr. Bersani had entered the facility earlier this month after a brief hospitalization with septicemia. Dr. Bersani was best known for his 1987 essay “Is the Rectum a Grave?,” a dense, polemical critique of the tendency among some gay activists to respond to AIDS by downplaying their sexuality and emphasizing the need to replicate bourgeois heterosexuality.

I’m putting together a team. We still need a wisecracking demolitions expert, a haunted sniper with a checkered past, and a sexy computer hacker. The fat doofus post has been filled already, I repeat, has been filled already.

Cleveland’s Kurentovanje festival reflects the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood’s immigrant heritage, and its hopes for rebirth.

HUMANS HAVE A much longer and wider penis than the other great apes. Even the largest of gorillas, more than twice as heavy as a human, will have a penis just two and a half inches long when erect.

Makaziwe Mandela, the former president’s daughter, said her father’s watercolours represented “the triumph of the human spirit”. She said: “When my dad was on the island, he was surrounded by grey. Remember, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He never thought he would walk out of prison. But the paintings say we should never despair.” Offering the artworks as NFTs was a way of reaching new audiences, she added. “My dad was all about creating an accessible society. This is a way of democratising his art.”

The bomb tech reportedly said the volume and weight of the fireworks were too much before the blast that destroyed part of a South L.A. neighborhood.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has issued an order for the state to stop buying and selling vodka made by a Russian-owned distillery after the country invaded Ukraine earlier this week. (So glad my father doesn’t have to live through these dark times.)

A Florida jury acquitted retired Florida police captain Curtis Reeves in the shooting death of a man in a movie theater eight years ago. (He had to defend himself because the victim threw a bag of popcorn at him)

The invasion of Ukraine shines a harsh light on the obscene greed that has guided decision-making for decades.

Consider the case of an online retail bully who appears to keep harassing his customers.

Some of Wall Street’s largest banks told lawmakers and the Biden administration that kicking Russia off the SWIFT financial-messaging system would have far-reaching fallout that could hurt the global economy and undermine the purpose of the penalties, people familiar with the matter said. Firms including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. suggested Washington stick with other types of sanctions.

Township Clerk Diana Keller was in office for two months last year when she said three men — one wearing a gun on his hip and a bulletproof vest over his sweatshirt — walked into the township hall asking for election equipment. Keller said she wasn’t surprised to see Cross Village Township Trustee Howard Wood. He’d called a half hour prior asking to meet, though didn’t say why. Keller said she didn’t know the other two, and remembers blurting, “I don’t think so,” when the men said they were there to back up data they believed was stored on the township’s ballot tabulator. It was Jan. 14, 2021, Keller remembers being alone in the old Wadsworth Street schoolhouse that long ago was converted into township offices, when she said the men arrived together in Wood’s van. “One said he was a computer tech, the other one had the bulletproof vest on and he said, ‘I’ve got other things to do. Let’s just get it done with,’” Keller said. “He was like, ‘Get the machine out. We’ve got to get our information.’ Really, I was terrified.”

Most people in the United States live in areas where those who are healthy do not need to wear masks indoors, according to new US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance -- a sweeping change from what earlier Covid-19 metrics recommended.