Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal This story was originally reported by Marissa Martinez of The 19th. Meet Marissa and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. A week after an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fatally shot a Minneapolis woman, half of American women are in favor of abolishing the law enforcement agency altogether, according to one new poll.  Dismantling ICE was a policy embraced by a number of Democratic politicians under President Donald Trump’s first administration, particularly the progressive Squad made up largely of women of color legislators. But whether to double down on a renewed…

Sky York Journal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson bemoaned in a dissent that the Court’s majority had, in a Wednesday opinion, crafted a “bespoke” doctrine allowing candidates to challenge voting laws with far more leeway than it had even been willing to give victims of law enforcement violence. She wrote that the plaintiff in Los Angeles v. Lyons had sued “forty-some years ago,” seeking a ban on life-threatening chokeholds after having been subjected to one by the police that almost killed him. The Court in 1983 found that Adolph Lyons didn’t have enough of a reason to believe that he’d be…

Sky York Journal In the days before the Trump Justice Department asked Minnesota federal prosecutors to investigate Renee Good’s wife over her death, right-wing media pushed to blame the widow for the killing. Right-wing news outlets and conservative influencers have focused on Rebecca Good, who was in the passenger seat as their car careened out of control after ICE officer Jonathan Ross fired three bullets at her wife, who was behind the wheel. Of particular interest to these influencers and outlets has been a video showing the widow moments after her wife was killed. In the video, Rebecca Good appears…

Sky York Journal The Supreme Court majority’s radicalization on trans issues has become apparent not just in its unusual willingness to take up so many cases on the topic, but in its eagerness to shoehorn anti-trans refrains into unrelated cases. Justice Samuel Alito, dissatisfied with the double header cases on trans women in sports before him, pivoted to an anti-trans monologue Tuesday that had nothing to do with the facts at hand.  “This does present a particular factual situation and we have to decide that case, but looking to the broader issue that a lot of people are interested in,”…

Sky York Journal On the heels of its landmark 2025 decision allowing red states to deny trans youth medical care, the Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments on another right-wing fixation: state laws that block trans girls and women from playing on women’s sports teams. The Court heard two similar cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. — one brought by a trans woman in college, and one by a trans girl in middle school. They both involve constitutional challenges, and the middle schooler’s also brings a claim under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in…

Sky York Journal The midterm elections are often treated by voters as a referendum on the current presidential administration’s performance. In recent history, that has translated to the party in the White House almost always losing — and losing big — in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. But the second Trump administration has been far from typical, and, as we head into 2026, several factors make it considerably harder than usual to get a read on what to expect this November. The administration’s months-long, Trump-pushed state redistricting crusade — an overt attempt to predetermine the outcome of the…

Sky York Journal Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) sued Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Monday for directing the U.S. Navy to “reconsider” his rank and pay grade. Hegseth’s retribution followed Kelly’s participation in a video reminding members of the military that they cannot follow illegal orders. While other lawmakers also participated, Kelly — with his possible presidential ambitions and military pension — became the administration’s target. Kelly is suing Hegseth for both constitutional and statutory violations, including infringement on his freedom of speech.  “It appears that never in our nation’s history has the Executive Branch imposed military sanctions on a Member…

Sky York Journal National outrage continues to escalate over the Trump administration’s violent immigration crackdown. Over the past two days, protesters urging Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol to leave their cities took to the streets from Minneapolis and Chicago to Houston, Texas; Portland, Oregon; New York; Oakland and San Diego, California. Many of the demonstrators’ signs memorialized Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mom and poet who was shot in the face by an ICE officer on Wednesday while attempting to drive away from several ICE agents parked on her block. Top Trump officials have smeared Good…

Sky York Journal More than 2,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are on the ground in Minnesota in what President Donald Trump’s administration officials have called the “largest immigration operation ever.” Deployed just days ago by Trump, one agent has already shot and killed a person and federal law enforcement has deployed tear gas and pepper spray against protesters. The massive operation and subsequent violence in Minneapolis comes against the backdrop of Trump’s announcement Tuesday that he’s freezing $10 billion in federal funds approved by Congress for child welfare programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, foster care, and…

Sky York Journal This story was originally reported by Mariel Padilla of The 19th. Meet Mariel and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. The social media platform X has been flooded with AI-generated sexualized images of women and children in recent weeks — months before a new law aiming to ban the spread of nonconsensual intimate imagery goes into effect. Elon Musk, the owner of X, announced a new feature with a post on Christmas Eve encouraging users to try editing images and videos with Grok, the app’s chatbot. Then, a few weeks later, as the…