Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) says the idea that the U.S. has systemic policies that perpetuate racism is absolute “horse manure.” While speaking to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham at a governors’ town hall event on Thursday night, DeSantis was asked about systemic racism, which Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) discussed in his rebuttal to President Biden’s speech to Congress. Scott declared “America is not a racist country,” an increasingly hot topic as politicians disagree “over the pervasiveness of non-obvious racism within systems,” writes The Washington Post. DeSantis’ position in the debate is obviously clear, as he called the notion of systemic racism “a bunch of horse manure.” But the timing of his comments was conspicuous, as earlier that same day, Florida’s Republican-led legislature passed new rules on voting that Black lawmakers said would make it harder for millions of voters, especially people of color, to cast ballots. DeSantis said “of course” he’ll sign the bill into law. “Give me a break,” DeSantis told Ingraham, arguing that because “we’ve had people that have been able to succeed” the system must be fine. However, the latest voting law, which restricts voting by mail and ballot drop boxes, has been criticized as an example of systemic racism in that it deepens longstanding discrepancies between voting access for white voters and nonwhite voters — Florida state Rep. Omari Hardy (D) called the bill “the revival of Jim Crow in this state, whether the sponsors admit it or not.” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) calls the idea of systemic racism “a bunch of horse manure.” “Give me a break … It’s a very harmful ideology, and I would say really a race-based version of a Marxist-type ideology.” pic.twitter.com/xcTuLmZtoE — The Recount (@therecount) April 30, 2021 More stories from theweek.comRepublicans reveal their red lineThere’s no such thing as intellectual propertyKazuo Ishiguro’s Klara illuminates what meritocracy does to the soul

The 1.6 million voters who signed a petition for the Republican-led recall effort have 30 business days to ask to have their names removed if they so choose.

The U.S. Census Bureau released apportionment data, but the pandemic-induced lag has already caused ripple effects on redistricting and 2022 races.

While India is recording hundreds of thousands of new COVID-19 cases everyday, the US has started to see domestic vaccination rates decline.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is bringing out the billionaires, the CEOs and the union executives Friday to help sell President Joe Biden’s climate-friendly transformation of the U.S. economy at a virtual summit of world leaders. The closing day of the two-day summit on climate change is to feature Bill Gates and Mike Bloomberg, steelworker and electrical union leaders and executives for solar and other renewable energy. It’s all in service of an argument U.S. officials say will make or break Biden’s climate agenda: Pouring trillions of dollars into clean-energy technology, research and infrastructure will jet-pack a competitive U.S. economy into the future and create jobs, while saving the planet.