FiveThirtyEight’s top stories this week

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Popular This Week] Sunday, April 9, 2023 [1. A Texas Judge’s Decision Could Reduce Abortion Access … Again]( [MIFE-RULING-4×3]( UPDATE (April 7, 9:10 p.m.): This article has been updated to reflect that, shortly after Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk released his ruling on the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, the Department of Justice filed a notice of appeal. [Read more]( [2. Trump’s Indictment Might Be Making Him More Popular Among Republicans]( [0407_POLLA-4×3]( Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. [Read more]( [3. Will One Of Golf’s Big 3 Win The Masters?]( [MASTERS-2023-4×3]( Before the Masters Tournament comes around every year in early April, it’s common for one golfer to sit head and shoulders above the rest. In most current fans’ minds, that player was Tiger Woods — who had two separate reigns of at least 250 weeks at No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings between 1999 and 2010 — but before him there were singular stretches of dominance by Greg Norman and Nick Faldo, and since 2010 we’ve also seen long runs by Rory McIlroy and, later, Dustin Johnson. [Read more]( [4. What Can House Republicans Actually Do To The Manhattan DA?]( [Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg]( From the moment it became clear that former President Donald Trump was almost certainly going to be indicted, his Republican allies in Congress have been waging a proxy war on his behalf. Their primary target: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the man who brought forth the charges. [Read more]( [5. How Bad Is The Indictment For Trump?]( [SlackChat-0405-4x3b]( Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited. [Read more]( [6. Trump’s 2024 Challengers Aren’t Attacking Him On The Indictment. They Might Want To.]( [Former President Donald Trump walks into his Palm Beach estate Mar a Lago]( In 2016, when then-Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio was asked a question about Donald Trump’s complaints of a rigged election in Iowa, the Florida senator went to great lengths to avoid attacking Trump directly. He instead focused his ire on another then-presidential contender: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. That was a microcosm of Trump’s 2016 campaign. Despite spirited attempts by nearly all of Trump’s competitors to cast him into the outer darkness, the former president often managed to avoid fierce blowback from rivals and other Republican elites. [Read more]( [7. Your MLB Team Just Started Hot (Or Cold). How Much Does That Matter?]( [Bryce Harper of the Philadelphia Phillies looks on during the eighth inning against the Texas Rangers]( It warms this writer’s baseball-loving heart to see the MLB standings finally beginning to fill in anew this spring. Yes, that’s with an emphasis on “beginning” — we’re only a week into the season, after all. The temptation is always to overanalyze these super-early results, since it’s all we’ve seen of the fun new rules, new rookies and new roster configurations in games that actually count. But even though you shouldn’t get too excited (or down) about a team’s April results, there is still some signal in the early-season noise. [Read more]( [8. Biden Is Moving Right On Immigration. Will That Hurt Him In 2024?]( [US President Joe Biden walks along the US-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023.]( President Biden’s administration recently announced new asylum restrictions and other proposed stringent initiatives to deter an influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. But for some Democrats, the latest crackdowns stand in stark contrast to the “fair and humane immigration system” that Biden once promised voters following the harsher policies of his predecessors, Donald Trump and Barack Obama. [Read more]( [9. UConn Left No Doubt About Its Greatness. But Did The Huskies Finally Win Respect?]( [2023-Mens-Winner-4×3]( With apologies to fans of Florida Atlantic, Miami and San Diego State, three-quarters of the 2023 men’s Final Four didn’t look like they belonged there. One year after we got four of the game’s preeminent programs, this year’s event welcomed three programs that entered March Madness with a higher combined seed total (19) than all-time tournament wins (17) — and zero Final Fours between them. This anonymous trio was symbolic of a tournament in which zero No. 1 seeds advanced to the Elite Eight, a No. 15 seed advanced to the Sweet 16 and just one of the sport’s blue bloods advanced to the second weekend. [Read more]( [10. The 4 Political Neighborhoods Of Chicago]( [CHICAGO-NIEGHBORHOODS-4×3]( America’s cities are some of its most solidly Democratic areas — but that doesn’t mean they are solidly liberal. Over the past two years, the mayoral elections in our two biggest cities have boiled down to surprisingly tight contests between a moderate Democrat and a more liberal alternative. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: The Takeaways From 2023’s Super Tuesday]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.