The harrowing scenes of paramilitary-style units in the streets of American cities like Portland has shocked mainstream America, but award-winning independent journalist Todd Miller, who has reported on border security and immigration for over a decade, says it’s a reflection of how the U.S. has operated around the world. We also speak with Cecilia Menjívar, UCLA sociology professor, who says the image of unmarked vans snatching people from the streets “brings back memories to Latin Americans who lived through disappearances of families and friends and co-workers.”

In a polarized climate, on issues of existential importance, it can be difficult even to hear opinions that contradict our own — on issues such as same-sex marriage, for example, or climate change, or Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump. It seems offensive that someone doesn’t see the world as we do, and there’s a tendency to correct them, to tell them they’re not just wrong, but deplorable.

Expressing such frustration may provide emotional relief, but it’s not likely to persuade. In fact, it can make people harden their existing views.

For a 2016 study published in Science, Broockman and Kalla worked with the Los Angeles LGBT Center and SAVE, a South Florida LGBT organization, on a field assessment of voter attitudes toward a new Miami-area law protecting transgender people. One group of door-to-door canvassers, a control group, said nothing to residents about transphobia.

But another group engaged in “deep canvassing,” a process based on asking sensitive questions, listening to the answers with sincere interest and then asking more questions. If residents expressed bias toward transgender people, the canvasser might ask them to recall a time when they were treated unfairly for being different and what that felt like.

The outcome? “These conversations substantially reduced transphobia, with decreases greater than Americans’ average decrease in homophobia from 1998 to 2012,” the research found. In effect, about 10% of the deep canvassing respondents shifted toward a more sympathetic view of transgender rights, with effects lasting for at least three months.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says in an interview that the "biggest risk" to his re-election prospects in November is increased mail-in voting and whether he can win lawsuits to stop its expansion.

"My biggest risk is that we don't win lawsuits," Trump said in an Oval Office interview Thursday with Politico that focused on the 2020 race.

"We have many lawsuits going all over. And if we don't win those lawsuits, I think — I think it puts the election at risk," he added.

Her most radical GOP constituents have called the order tyrannical, as they made evident by blaring car horns, waving signs that likened Whitmer to Hitler—including one that read, “Trump, lock up the Nazi woman from Michigan”—and chanting, “Lock her up!” and “We will not comply!” on the capitol front lawn. The protest was organized by the Michigan Freedom Fund and Michigan Conservative Coalition, the former of which is backed by the billionaire family of Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s education secretary. MLive reporter Malachi Barrett highlighted the president’s influence on the rallygoers, calling it “half protest, half Trump rally,” an unsurprising connection given that Trump has recently upped demands for “OPENING UP AMERICA AGAIN!”

Over at Fox News, a number of top hosts had nothing but praise and encouragement for protesters demanding a return to normalcy. “They want to keep us away from churches and synagogues. They want to make sure we don’t go back to work. They don’t get it. The American spirit is too strong, and Americans are not gonna take it,” host Jeanine Pirro said on Sean Hannity’s Wednesday show. “And what happened in Lansing today? God bless ’em, it’s gonna happen all over the country.” An hour prior, Tucker Carlson hosted Michigan protest organizer Meshawn Maddock and thanked her for her service. “Thank you for coming on tonight, and thank you for exercising your constitutionally protected rights as an American. Bless you,” he said, denouncing Whitmer’s “mindless and authoritarian” leadership and saying he hopes “she loses her job.”

Laura Ingraham lionized the protesters in a Wednesday tweet, writing, “Time to get your freedom back,” in response to a video of cars heading to the Lansing rally. The Fox prime-time host, who called scientific findings about the virus “wrong” and envisioned many more Americans throwing rallies “for their right to work, travel, assemble, socialize, and worship,” previously advised her fans to continue air travel, tweeting last month that it was actually a “great time to fly.” Elsewhere at Fox News—where most employees are working from home and others are being advised to heed the CDC’s precautionary guidelines—a “NO TO THE ‘NANNY STATE’” headline led the website on Wednesday, and Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade mocked Democratic governors’ “ridiculous” mitigation efforts on Thursday, while anticipating more protests flaring up across the country.

With every passing day that lockdowns are extended, Ingraham’s prediction appears more and more likely, especially if conservative pundits have their way. Infowars host Owen Shroyer, a conspiracy theorist currently facing a lawsuit for promoting hoax claims about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, has already scheduled an April 18 “You Can’t Close America” rally in Austin, Texas. “It’s time for citizens to stand up and take our country back, just like President Trump promised during his inaugural address,” Shroyer said on Tuesday, downplaying the risk of a mass gathering by telling viewers he was not afraid to catch COVID-19 and ginning them for a revolt. “Are we in martial law right now? Because we’re acting like it.”

The debt-laden Dallas-based company has been left with few options after the pandemic forced it to temporarily shut all 43 of its Neiman Marcus locations, roughly two dozen Last Call stores and its two Bergdorf Goodman stores in New York.

Neiman Marcus is in the final stages of negotiating a loan with its creditors totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, which would sustain some of its operations during bankruptcy proceedings, according to the sources. It has also furloughed many of its roughly 14,000 employees.