Red-State Governors Use People As Props

The White House announced a tentative agreement with freight rail companies and the unions representing 100,000 workers on Thursday, averting a strike that would have had huge economic consequences. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he paid to fly about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard – escalating a tactic used by other Republican governors to protest the Biden administration’s immigration policies. A recent study found that Muslim characters on TV face an “epidemic of invisibility.” Al-Baab Khan, the study’s lead author, tells us how portrayals based on stereotypes fuel Islamophobia. And in headlines: Vladimir Putin met with Chinese president Xi Jinping for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mississippi officials lifted the boil water advisory for Jackson residents, and Cardi B pleaded guilty to assault charges stemming from a fight at a strip club in 2018.