The 51st state?

The Trump administration still wants to kill Obamacare; the House passes a DC statehood bill. Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters. TOP NEWS The Trump administration asks SCOTUS to end Obamacare Mark Wilson/Getty Images - On Thursday, the Trump administration renewed its push to end the Affordable Care Act — the health care law better known as Obamacare — in a brief filed with the Supreme Court. [[NPR / Mark Katkov](] - According to Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the ACA’s individual mandate, which congressional Republicans functionally eliminated in 2017, is inseparable from the rest of the law; thus, its elimination means that “the rest of the ACA must also fall.” [[AP / Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Mark Sherman](] - As Vox’s Ian Millhiser writes, the ACA will probably survive this challenge. Many of the legal arguments against the law are widely regarded as “implausible” even by opponents of the ACA, and Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court’s swing vote, is unlikely to side with the DOJ. [[Vox / Ian Millhiser](] - But were the law to be struck down in its entirety, the repercussions would be massive: Some 23 million Americans would lose their health insurance, and even more would be affected by the loss of protections for preexisting conditions. [[NYT / Sheryl Gay Stolberg](] - Particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, the ACA has been a lifeline for many Americans. A new report this week found that sign-ups were up by 46 percent for the year — 154,000 more people than in 2019. [[Axios / Bob Herman](] - Thursday’s filing by the Trump administration could prove politically toxic. The ACA has experienced a surge in popularity amid recent GOP efforts to repeal it, and health care was a key issue when Democrats won back the House in 2018. [[Politico / Susannah Luthi](] - The DOJ brief also undercuts President Trump’s repeated promises to protect coverage for preexisting conditions. As NBC’s Sahil Kapur points out, the brief argues in no uncertain terms that those protections should be struck down along with the rest of the law. [[Twitter / Sahil Kapur](] - Former Vice President Joe Biden has made strengthening the ACA a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. In remarks Thursday, he condemned Trump’s “heartless crusade to take health-care protections away from American families.” [[Washington Post / Matt Viser and Amy Goldstein](] - The Court will hear the case — California v. Texas — in its next term, and a decision is likely to be handed down sometime this fall. [[CNN / Ariane de Vogue, Tami Luhby, and Sarah Mucha](] A DC statehood vote in the House - On Friday, the House of Representatives passed a historic measure to grant the District of Columbia statehood by a 232-180 vote. [[Twitter / House Press Gallery](] - The measure, if signed into law, would grant DC’s more than 700,000 residents full representation in Congress for the first time in history. Currently, the district is represented in Congress by a non-voting delegate. [[ABC News / Alisa Wiersema and John Parkinson](] - However, the bill is all but certain to be dead on arrival in the Senate. Neither the chamber’s Republican majority nor President Donald Trump looks favorably on the prospect of two new Democratic senators for the district. [[NPR / Barbara Sprunt](] - House Republicans also opposed the bill. As Washingtonian’s Jane Recker points out, though, “a number of the arguments against statehood from the right seemed, well, less than informed.” [[Washingtonian / Jane Recker](] - Friday’s vote is still an important step for advocates of DC statehood despite the bill’s prospects in the Senate: If Democrats take control of the presidency and the Senate in November, then the 51st state could quickly become a reality. [[Vox / Ian Millhiser](] MISCELLANEOUS The US set a new single-day record for Covid-19 cases, with almost 40,000 reported cases on Thursday alone. [[NPR / Mark Katkov](] - After almost two years, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak is over. [[NYT / Abdi Latif Dahir](] - The Ninth Circuit ruled Friday that Trump’s attempt to shift $2.5 billion in Pentagon funding to border wall construction was illegal. [[CNN / Priscilla Alvarez](] - How to be safe about going out to eat and drink in a pandemic. [[Vox / Alex Abad-Santos](] CROSSWORD OF THE DAY [Can you solve today's crossword?]( What’s a 10-letter word for a member of France's center-right, Gaullist, conservative political party? [Solve today's new Vox crossword puzzle](, and stay tuned for more puzzles coming out Monday through Saturday. VERBATIM "If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments, well, then, my body is a monument. My skin is a monument. ... I am a black, Southern woman, and of my immediate white male ancestors, all of them were rapists. My very existence is a relic of slavery." [[Poet Caroline Randall Williams on the legacy of the Confederacy / NYT](] LISTEN TO THIS [Warren, Abrams, Harris, and the Tammies and the links between racial and economic justice]( Warren, Abrams, Harris, and the Tammies and the links between racial and economic justice. [[Spotify / Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias](] [Read more from Vox](#) [Colleges say campuses can reopen safely. 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