A divided House on Tuesday approved legislation that aims to bar transgender women and girls from participating in school athletic programs designated for female students, as Republicans sought to wring political opportunity from a social issue that helped them win the 2024 elections. The bill, approved almost entirely along party lines on a vote of 218 to 206, would prohibit federal funding from going to K-12 schools that include transgender students on women’s sports teams. It faces a steep challenge in the Senate, where seven Democrats would have to join Republicans to move it past a filibuster and to a final vote. Just two Democrats joined all Republicans in voting in favor in the House, while another Democrat voted “present,” declining to register a position. Republicans on Tuesday presented the legislation, which they also pushed through during the last Congress, as a popular and pragmatic way to level the playing field for female athletes, and as a move to protect women’s spaces and women’s rights. “The overwhelming majority believe men don’t belong in women’s sports,” said Representative Greg Steube, the Florida Republican who sponsored the measure. “This bill will deliver upon the mandate the American people gave Congress.” But Democrats, who dubbed the bill the “Child Predator Empowerment Act,” said it was a dangerous invasion of privacy for young girls that would put them at greater risk. They also pointed to the bill as the latest example of an unhealthy fixation among Republicans with trying to restrict the rights of transgender individuals, when they could be spending their time passing legislation to create jobs or reduce the prices of groceries. Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, said bluntly that the bill was an example of Republicans’ “creepy obsession with your kids’ private parts” and that it would fuel more hate against a small and vulnerable population of transgender children that already faces higher rates of bullying and mental health issues. “Every kid should be able to play sports,” Mr. McGovern added. “This is a mean, cruel, bullying tactic.” Representative Lori Trahan, Democrat of Massachusetts and the only former Division I female college athlete currently serving in Congress, said there were legitimate concerns about transgender athletes competing in women’s sports at the highest levels. But she criticized Republican lawmakers for injecting themselves into the issue. “Why in the world would we let insincere, attention-seeking politicians here in Washington — many of whom know little to nothing about competitive sports — take over?” Ms. Trahan said. “It doesn’t make any sense.” Democrats also said that while there could be instances of transgender athletes competing in elite sports that were concerning, the measure would lump those with harmless situations in which elementary school children simply want to be included in activities with their friends. The decision by Republicans to bring up a bill cracking down on transgender rights in the second week of Congress indicated that they believe the issue continues to be politically potent for them. During the 2024 presidential election season, the Trump campaign spent more than $37 million on television ads dealing with transgender issues, nearly 20 percent of its overall ad budget, according to data provided by AdImpact, an organization that tracks political ad placement and spending. Last year, House Republicans brought up 87 bills curtailing transgender rights, according to Trans Legislation Tracker, an independent research organization tracking such bills.And as they have started the unpleasant process of conducting a post-election autopsy, studying their own deficits, Democrats have been split on how much their stance defending transgender rights cost them with swing voters. On Tuesday, Democrats notably spent more time raising alarms about how the bill would trample the privacy of girls, who they said would be subject to invasive questioning about their bodies, than on defending the rights of transgender athletes. “This doesn’t protect a girl’s rights, it eliminates them,” said Representative Katherine M. Clark, Democrat of Massachusetts. “It puts a target on the back of every girl, every young woman who chooses to play sports. The genital inspection of little girls is the wrong answer.” What followed was a heated disagreement about how such legislation would be enforced. Representative Tim Walberg, Republican of Michigan, said there would be no need for invasive questions or any physical exam; enforcement would mean simply reviewing a student’s birth certificate to see what gender he or she was assigned at birth. Democrats said that some birth certificates list babies who are born intersex, meaning their biological or physiological traits are not clearly male or female, and argued they would not be a reliable way to enforce the ban on transgender athletes from women’s sports. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, said that “when there is no enforcement mechanism, you open the door to every enforcement mechanism.” Democrats also noted how small a population was at stake. There are about 510,000 athletes competing at the N.C.A.A. level, Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Democrat of Oregon, noted, and just 10 are transgender. But Republicans said the legislation would strengthen Title IX protections and railed against Democrats for what they characterized as extreme positions on transgender issues, citing stories from their own districts about girls losing out on opportunities that went instead to transgender students. Mr. Steube blasted the “radical left who seek to dismantle the core foundation of our society” by recognizing more than two genders. “In worship to their trans idols, radical leftists want to kill Title IX.” Mr. Walberg added that Democrats were missing the reality that “the American people, parents, grandparents, teachers, don’t stand with them” on this issue. The two Democrats who voted with Republicans in favor of the measure were Representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas. Representative Don Davis, Democrat of North Carolina, voted “present.” Mr. Cuellar opposed the same bill last year, while both Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Davis did not vote on it. President Biden had sought to expand protections for transgender students and make other changes to the rules governing sex discrimination in schools. But last week, a federal judge in Kentucky struck down that effort. It is still early days in the new Congress, and President-elect Donald J. Trump has not yet been sworn into office. But railing against transgender rights is already becoming a theme for the Republican-led House. Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, began a campaign against the first openly transgender member of Congress, Representative Sarah McBride of Delaware, before she was even sworn in. During member orientation, Ms. Mace introduced a measure to bar transgender women from using women’s restrooms and changing rooms in the Capitol complex. Ms. McBride so far has steered clear of weighing in on issues that have to do with her identity. She did not take the bait on the bathroom ban, saying simply that she would adhere to the new rules. And on Tuesday, Ms. McBride opposed the bill, but she notably did not speak out against it on the floor as many of her Democratic colleagues did. A correction was made on Jan. 14, 2025: An earlier version of this article misstated Representative Lori Trahan’s status as a former college athlete. She is the only former Division I female college athlete serving in Congress, not the only former Division I college athlete there.

There are a lot of variables at play in the catastrophic wildfires currently clawing through southern California: dry vegetation, lack of rain, dense housing development, errant sparks potentially from cigarette butts or campfires or power lines or even arsonists. And then of course there’s gravity. Of all of the factors involved, there may be nothing as basic or as powerful as the tendency of an object with mass to roll or slide or plunge downward under the pull of the Earth below it. In the case of the wildfires, the massive object is air—specifically cold air, swirling and flowing 1,200 meters (4,260 ft.) high in California’s Sierra Nevada and White mountains, and the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon and northern California—a whirling of atmospheric dervishes that creates the signature Santa Ana winds. The warmer, less compacted air down at sea level is no match for the colder, denser air in the high elevations and what’s at the top comes crashing down. Fire absolutely loves it when that happens. “We call those downslope winds,” says Alexander Gershunov, a research meteorologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. “They act as water does in an obstructed stream—they pull up against topography, and as they rush over the crests and through the gaps in the topography, they accelerate down the lee slopes and form something of a waterfall—or an airfall of downslope winds.” It is those atmospheric gushers that did as much as anything else to fan the flames that have so far killed dozens, displaced tens of thousands and destroyed thousands of structures across the Los Angeles area. Last week, isolated gusts, especially in the Santa Monica Mountains, reached 100 mph. The weekend saw some easing back, but Wed. Jan. 15 and Thurs. Jan. 16 are expected to see winds back up to 65 mph. Category One hurricanes, by comparison, start out at 74 mph. Blindsided as Los Angeles has been, some of this was entirely foreseeable. On the whole, Gershunov says, the Los Angeles area absorbs five batterings by Santa Ana winds every December and four or five every January. Most of that turbulence is stirred by seasonal changes in pressure gradients and the jet stream sitting over the Great Basin and the Four Corners region that cause the high, dense air to spill its banks. That’s not to say those are the only two months that the Santa Anas can do their damage. Wind events occur in October as well and that is typically the end of the fire season, which usually begins in June or July, since the gusts arrive before the first winter rains do. The problem in late 2024 and early 2025: there’s been winter wind but no winter rain—the latest start to the wet season in 150 years—and there’s none in the forecast; that’s bad news given the likely resurgence of the Santa Anas at the same time the land continues to burn. “We are beginning to experience another Santa Ana wind event now, and there'll be another one early next week, and we may have two to three Santa Ana winds before we get the first rains,” says Gershunov. “That's what happened in 2017 and 2018, when the Thomas fire burned through most of December and the smoldering remains were put out by an atmospheric river Pacific storm that occurred on Jan. 9, 2018. But [the fire] was extreme enough over Montecito, in Santa Barbara County, that it caused debris flows from the fire scar that killed 22 people.” Containing wildfires—never mind extinguishing them—in parched and windy conditions can be monstrously difficult. Dry vegetation is rocket fuel for blazes and wind both feeds the flames and spreads the embers. “The winds are like pointing an air blower at a fireplace,” says Gershunov, “except it’s not contained and it’s on a much larger scale.” What’s more, while the ability of weather forecasters to predict a resurgence of the Santa Ana winds as they’re doing this week inspires some confidence that Los Angelenos can plan for what’s coming, the fortune telling is reliable only until it isn’t. Surface features—trees, hills, mountains, buildings—are agents of chaos, causing all manner of unpredictable turbulence when the winds touch down. And higher in the atmosphere things can be even screwier—and on a larger scale. “Last week the jet stream did this tremendous loop and retrograde up in the upper troposphere and was blowing in the opposite direction from what it normally does,” says Gershunov. “It was pointed right into the L.A. basin.” Humidity—or, specifically, the lack of it—is another problem. Hot, arid winds blowing in from the Sierra Nevadas, White Mountains, and Klamath Basin strip whatever moisture there might be in the Los Angeles air, and that further dries out leaves and underbrush and other fuel. “Single digits in terms of relative humidity are a prescription for uncontrollable wildfires if the fuels are dry,” says Gershunov. What less humid wind there is often blows in from the ocean, which unhandily pushes fires that might actually be rolling down to extinguish themselves in the water back up hill. If there’s even a faint bright spot in the current disaster, it’s that the Santa Anas have been gusting in clear blue skies, meaning no lightning to act as an additional ignition source. But even so, regardless of the cause, once a fire is lit in a tinder box environment like a windy Los Angeles, the business of extinguishing it takes a massive expenditure of public effort and treasure—all in the face of a massive loss of life and property. The current crisis will end, though for now no one can say when.

Scroll through TikTok or Instagram and you’ll be inundated with protein-centric recipes. Maximizing protein is a huge trend right now on social media—and not just in the usual suspects, like your dinner or post-workout smoothie. High-protein coffee, desserts, snacks, and more are now on the table. High-protein recipes aren’t new, especially for gym-goers and proponents of a hearty breakfast, but they’ve exploded on social media over the past few years. Why is there such an emphasis on protein right now? And do you really need to focus on getting more? Here’s what experts say. Why is protein important—and why is it so hot right now? Protein is one of the body’s three macronutrients: those your body needs in the largest amounts in order to perform. “We need it for many functions, but particularly to build muscle, to build a lot of the tissues that we have in our bodies,” says Andres Ardisson Korat, a scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. Unlike carbohydrates and fat—the other two macronutrients—protein doesn’t come with the same kind of cultural stigma. Branded Content XPRIZE at the 2025 TIME100 Summit: Making the Impossible, Possible By XPRIZE “I think people often view protein as ‘the healthiest macro’ in comparison to carbs and fat,” says Kylie Sakaida, registered dietitian, social media content creator, and author of the forthcoming cookbook So Easy So Good. Protein’s health halo, in other words, keeps people coming back for more. Sakaida, who shares recipes on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, has noticed more traffic and interest on her own videos when they feature higher protein. She attributes the rise in interest on these videos to people looking to manage their weight and get fitter. Read More: A Head-to-Toe Guide to Treating Dry Skin Americans’ obsession with protein isn’t new, but now, long-standing grocery brands are creating higher protein versions of their usual fare while a flood of new, smaller brands have entered the market selling high-protein everything. (You can now find high-protein chips, sweets, bread, and even ramen.) Chobani, a brand known for its naturally protein-rich Greek yogurt, launched a higher protein version of their single-serve yogurt in October, and is soon rolling out drinkable yogurt with 30 grams of protein—three times more than its standard drinkable yogurt. Niel Sandfort, chief innovation officer at Chobani, says the lean towards protein started in the late 2010s, and the company has seen steady growth in protein shakes, bars, and similar products. Its recently launched high-protein options were designed to appeal to athletes, but Sandfort was surprised to find that baby boomers, people in their 40s, and younger women were big buyers as well. American anxiety about weight loss—ramped into overdrive by powerful new weight-loss drugs—is probably also a factor driving increased interest in protein. “I think a lot of people are looking into managing their weight, and they’re being told to eat high-protein diets if they want to gain muscle and lose weight," says Sakaida. "Focusing on protein can help you feel more satiated and therefore can help you cut down on certain calories.”

Watching your home, belongings, and neighborhood disappear to a tremendous wildfire is physically and emotionally unimaginable. Even for people in Los Angeles currently living it. While many people who have lost everything aren’t yet able to fully process what they’re feeling, their emotions will evolve and intensify over the coming days, weeks, and months, says Nancy A. Piotrowski, a psychologist in Vallejo, Calif., who’s on the American Psychological Association’s Board of Scientific Affairs and counsels clients hit by natural disasters. The trauma can linger for a lifetime. “Initially, people are shocked and overwhelmed and feel grief, fear, and anger," she says. "They might be experiencing relief to be alive, or guilt if others they loved were hurt or died.” Some will simply feel numb, she adds. There are no perfect words to use when talking to someone who's been affected, but it's vital to show you care and offer support. First, what not to say: steer clear of the word “should,” which is judgmental, Piotrowski suggests, or “at least,” which sugar-coats the situation. It’s also not a good idea to insinuate that everything happens for a reason, or that your loved one should just focus on what they still have. We asked experts exactly what to say to friends or family members who lost everything—or close to it—in the Los Angeles fires. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this traumatic loss. What’s it been like for you?” Two days after evacuating to a hotel in Ventura, Calif., with her daughter, dog, and two cats, Dr. Carole Lieberman couldn't stop watching the news. She looked up from her phone, where she was refreshing the latest headlines, only to fix her gaze on the TV. Lieberman—a psychiatrist who had been living in a rental for the last six years, since her home was damaged in the 2018 Woolsey Fire—was in “panic mode” and couldn’t stomach eating breakfast for days. Read More: Understanding How Massive the L.A. Fires Are As the fires ravaged Los Angeles, lots of people reached out to make sure Lieberman was OK. She appreciated those who made it clear they truly wanted to understand what she was going through. She told her best friend about how she called the fire station about the Freddy Fire (“no one answered, of course”) and how she made the decision to evacuate along the Pacific Coast Highway in dangerous winds. Recounting the harrowing experience felt cathartic. “It really does help to share,” she says. “Be compassionate and empathetic, and ask about the person's story, because everybody has a story—or lots of stories.” “Please let me know how you’re doing when you can. No need to respond right now.” Don't underestimate the power of reaching out. Dr. Gary Small, chair of psychiatry at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, owns a house in the affected area, and a friend called to offer support. “He was really kind and said, ‘I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?’” he recalls. “You don’t have to say a lot—just be real and sincere and offer help if it’s needed.” A “light check-in” can be the perfect way to approach your early communication, Piotrowski says. Otherwise, having to respond to well-intentioned messages can make long to-do lists even more daunting. “We know from research that sometimes social support feels like support,” she says. “Other times, it feels like pressure, or one more thing we have to respond to.” The way you word your message can ensure your loved one doesn’t feel like another assignment they don’t have time for just landed on their plate—and makes it more likely they’ll reach out once they’re able to do so. “Can I bring you some food or water or clothes or a book? What about supplies for your pets?” Rather than issuing a vague offer to help—or asking your friend if they need anything—focus on making specific offers, Piotrowski suggests. That might mean bringing them face masks that will help protect against the smoky air, toiletries, games or other entertainment for their kids, or a bag of dog food. “You’re prompting the person with ideas,” she says. “They might not remember offhand what they need, but they’ll recognize it if you ask them if they need it.” Read More: 11 Ways to Respond When Someone Insults a Loved One’s Disability She also recommends making clear that your offer to help won’t expire. "I'd like to be able to help you,” you might say. “If you need something, please let me know. It doesn't matter if it’s today, tomorrow, or six months from now. Let me know, and if I can't do it, I'll try to help find someone who can.” “You’re safe in my home. You can bring whoever you need to and stay as long as you’d like.” When Amber Robinson, a trauma therapist in Los Angeles, looked out her window last week, she had a 360° view of flames: There was a fire in every direction, including one about 7 miles from her home. The fires have had a personal and professional impact on her. As her friends and family members evacuated and were forced to make quick decisions about which belongings to take with them, her clients were grappling with the same situation. She’s devastated for everyone who lost their home—and has given a lot of thought to what she can say to show she cares. That includes welcoming friends in need into her home, if she ends up being in a position to do so. “It can be immeasurably helpful,” she says, especially since people who are displaced will likely feel as though they’re a burden to others. “If someone is able to invite you into their home with no expiration date, and just be there with you to sit and talk about it or not talk about it—just offering a safe space—that can be so comforting.” “Go ahead and cry or scream it out. I'm here.” Therapist Karen Stewart’s office overlooks the Palisades Fire—she’s less than 2 miles away from the worst of the blaze. She recalls seeing the fire growing on the mountains last week, and then watching in horror as the flames engulfed nearby buildings. She knows many people who lost everything: “All they have left is the clothes on their backs, the dogs in their car, a passport, and a few pictures,” she says. Stewart has learned that the best way to approach communication in such a vulnerable time is to make it clear that, while you might not know exactly what to say, you're there to listen. “Let them speak; let them cry, let them scream, let them sit in silence,” she says. “Hold the space for them, because they’re feeling literally and figuratively displaced.” “I wasn’t sure if you’d be comfortable taking money from me, but I sent a check to the Red Cross in your area. I hope you’ll reach out to them.” Depending on the nature of your relationship, you might decide to send your friend a gift card or some money to help offset their financial stress. If you think they’d have a hard time accepting that kind of gesture, make a donation to a local organization that’s helping those in need, and urge your friend to reach out, Piotrowski suggests. The money won’t go directly to them, of course, but knowing what you did might encourage someone who would otherwise resist help to tap into available resources—maybe accepting free meals, clothing, or baby supplies, for example. Either way, you can feel good knowing your donation will support people affected by the blazes, and your friend will likely appreciate what you’re doing for their community. Read More: 10 Boundaries Therapists Want You to Set in the New Year In general, directing your loved ones to helpful resources can be an effective way to show support, Piotrowski adds—especially if you’re in a better position to do extensive online research than they are. “I have an inkling of how you feel.” One of the worst things you can say to someone affected by the wildfires is that you know how they feel—unless, of course, you really do. If you try to compare losing a house full of memories to a much less significant loss, it’s not going to go over well, Lieberman says. But if you’ve suffered a comparable loss, it’s OK to tell your friend or loved one about it. As long as you emphasize that you know it’s not exactly the same situation, she adds, your friend might take some comfort in talking to you about how you worked through your grief. “Here are some good memories for you.” Kay Connors’ sister-in-law lost her home in last week’s fires—which means she lost not just physical items, but special family keepsakes and memories and all the other irreplaceable artifacts that make a life. Connors, a social worker in the psychiatry division at the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital, specializes in psychological first aid, which includes helping communities, families, and children who have experienced traumatic mass events. That training inspired different ways of showing support to her own family members. Read More: How to Break 8 Toxic Communication Habits “I texted my sister-in-law some family photos that she probably would have lost, just to cheer her up,” she says. “Like, ‘Here’s some good memories to focus on.’” As time unfolds, perhaps you could make a scrapbook or photo album for your loved one—a small way of helping them recover something sentimental they lost. “It’s OK to be angry.” Make it clear to people affected by the wildfires that they’re allowed to feel their feelings, whatever that looks like. “They’re allowed to be upset, they're allowed to be angry, they’re allowed to be confused, they're allowed to be scared,” Robinson says. Research suggests that validation helps people feel understood and accepted, and can even defuse intense emotions. “LA is a weird place to be right now,” she adds. “There’s a lot of anxiety, and there’s a lot of dystopian feelings, so leaning on each other and talking through fears and anxiety is important.” “I really care about you, and I wish I knew what to say. But I want you to promise me you’ll call 988 if you need to.” Researchers have found that suicide rates increase after natural disasters. Some people might be at heightened risk, Piotrowski says: “Imagine you’re an elder and you live alone, and everything’s gone. Or maybe you just went through a divorce, and you were finally getting back on your feet, and then bang, this happened.” It can feel like too much to endure. If someone tells you they no longer want to live, point them toward the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, Piotrowski urges. It’s available 24/7 via call, text, and online chat. “Can I give you a hug?” If you have the kind of relationship with someone that includes physical touch, now might be a good time to lean in for a hug. If it’s new for you, ask permission first, Piotrowski advises. Putting a gentle hand on someone’s shoulder can have an equally comforting effect, she adds, especially when they’re lost in their thoughts or so frozen in the moment that they’re unable to talk. “You don’t want to invade their physical space,” she says. “But that can bring people out of their mind and help them be back sitting right next to you.” Read More: 9 Things You Should Do for Your Brain Health Every Day, According to Neurologists “I’m here for you, and I’m not going anywhere.” The thousands of people who lost their homes in the Los Angeles wildfires will likely receive a lot of support early on. “I imagine there would be a ton of rallying around them in the first few days, weeks, or even months,” Robinson says. “But this is a long, long process, and a lot of times people tend to scurry—not intentionally—as time goes on.” The fires will create long-lasting trauma, she adds; she's worked with clients who lost their homes to wildfires and were still struggling with the experience years later. Making it clear that you’ll be there every step of the way, no matter how long that might be, is one of the best ways to provide support. That could simply mean checking in a few months down the road with a heart emoji or a quick text to let your friend know you’re thinking of them. “Something I say to my clients all the time is that grief is not linear, but neither is healing," Robinson says. “It will take time. But grief shared is grief lightened, and one of the most comforting things is having a community.

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. President Joe Biden is down to his last week in the White House and he’s about to discover how little his half-century of service to the Democratic Party gets him once he is back on the outside. Heading into his final days in office, Biden is rightly feeling a little chaffed if not cheated as he rides a job approval rating so bad that you have to go back to Jimmy Carter’s surveys to find someone in worse shape. (Lost to no one is the fact that Biden last week eulogized Carter, a fellow one-term Democrat shown the door amid a frustrated public in favor of a mold-breaking outsider.) California fires derailed Biden’s plans for a final foreign trip to Italy and to Vatican City. He is set Monday evening to deliver the first of two legacy-polishing speeches that won’t do much to remedy the lack of enthusiasm from his party’s base to see him transition into sage leader. Let’s just look at the numbers. Only 37% of Americans approve of the job Biden is doing, besting Carter’s outgoing rating by about 5 points, but still way down from the 53% approval Biden had on Week One, according to polling shop FiveThirtyEight. The Associated Press-NORC poll puts Biden at 39% approval, including 72% of Democrats, down from 97% of them when he took office. More than half of Democrats—55%—said they are the same as or worse off than before Biden came to power in that AP-NORC polling. In short, no one is looking to Biden to guide a party that has now been cast as almost as much of an afterthought in official Washington as the President himself. Since Election Day, there has been a muted—but nearly universal—grumbling about Biden’s choices, mostly since the 2022 midterms that saw Democrats fare better than expected, building up the party’s hope in holding on to the White House in 2024. Biden’s insistence that he would proceed with plans to chase another four years now seems folly, but the President himself does not share that view. In fact, in an interview published last week, Biden flatly declared he would have defeated Trump. "It's presumptuous to say that, but I think yes," Biden told USA Today in the lone print exit interview he accepted as he leaves office. Giving voice to his own stubbornness only further depleted the little reservoir of goodwill for Biden inside the party. His decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, put Democrats in an almost impossible position of demanding equal treatment under the law for convicted felon Trump while trying to excuse Biden’s whitewashing of his son’s own criminal record. His awarding the nation’s top civilian honors to the likes of George Soros and Hillary Clinton came with thunderous objection from the right-wing ecosphere, and the bipartisan effort to recognize the late former Gov. George Romney—accepted by now-former Gov. and Sen. Mitt Romney—did little to balance that. (He drew better reviews for nearly emptying federal death row.) Come Monday, Biden will be delivering the first of two farewell addresses scheduled for his last week in power. The first, to be presented at the State Department, is set to cover what his team sees as foreign policy victories on his watch. (His Democratic critics, meanwhile, are all too aware of the counters about the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, a still-live Russian invasion of Ukraine, and a China that seems unchecked.) Given Biden’s years as a top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his eight years as Vice President and four as a globe-trotting President, the legacy-building set piece makes sense and the easiest to sell to a nation that is not exactly conversant in international affairs. Biden then plans to deliver a more traditional farewell from the Oval Office Wednesday evening, before he once again trades Washington for Delaware next Monday. Fatigue with an outgoing President is nothing new. Even some Democrats were exhausted by the time Obama made his exit with a speech delivered in Chicago, where he began his career and twice delivered winning election night remarks. (Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump played no small part in that.) George W. Bush’s final months in office were marked with managed chaos around a Wall Street meltdown, a housing crisis, and auto bailouts—so much so that even during the summer he opted to visit Africa in a piece of legacy-building rather than attend the GOP convention. And Bill Clinton’s final years in office left him leaving as a popular and even sympathetic figure, but his own VP, Al Gore, maintained an arm’s length between the two as he tried unsuccessfully to keep Democrats in the White House for a third term. To be clear, Biden is in worse shape than all of them, at least according to polling. The public is sour on him—in part because of Democrats who blame him for saddling the country with another four years of Trump. Biden’s own loyalists are not much more keen to spend time lingering on his legacy. While White House aides and apologists insist with plenty of credibility that Biden’s legislative wins rival any of his predecessors, legacies are like the economy: you cannot overpower a gut feeling with facts. It’s how Trump won during a third run for the White House, how Obama’s message of hope and change proved effective amid the turmoil of 2008, and how Bush 43 rode a wave of decency pledges to Washington in 2000 after the scandal-soaked Clinton years. But here’s why Biden shouldn’t be despondent: No one can say any of those three immediate predecessors saw their reputations unchanged after decamping from Washington. In that—more than anything his talented writing staff and outside cheerleaders may put on the Teleprompter for his final attempts at historical revisionism—Biden should take a true measure of comfort. While the polling shows him at an historical low, the tape also shows plenty of room for comeback, and it often comes in short order. Gallup routinely follows-up on former Presidents in their surveys, and even the first at-bat often shows big gains: Ronald Reagan rocketed up 15 points in his first reassessment; Carter jumped 12 points; and George H.W. Bush rose 10 points. Maybe after the nation has a bit of a break from Biden, it may give him a similar second chance—albeit one that could not keep him in the job he’d dreamed of having for almost his entire life. Snap judgements—like elections themselves—sometimes get the big questions wrong.

A little over a year ago, Donald Trump claimed he would be a “dictator”—but only for the first 24 hours of his presidency. Now, as his Jan. 20 inauguration approaches, the President-elect’s plans for his first day in office are becoming clearer. Trump told Republican Senators that he is preparing around 100 executive orders for the first day of his presidency, designed to strike swiftly at the heart of the Biden Administration’s legislative agenda. He has spent months teasing an ambitious list of measures he would take on Day One, including shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border, ending the Russia-Ukraine war, and pardoning Jan. 6 prisoners, among others. “Look, I can undo almost everything Biden did, he through executive order. And on Day One, much of that will be undone,” Trump told TIME in a November interview. While some of Trump’s first-day promises can be achieved through executive action, others may require months—or even years—of negotiation with Congress. Legal battles over several of his proposed orders are inevitable, particularly regarding issues like birthright citizenship and federal mandates on transgender rights. And it’s not clear that Trump will follow through on everything he’s vowed to do in his first hours back in the Oval Office. Here are the main promises Trump has said he would roll out on Day One of his presidency. Close the border and reinstate travel bans Trump’s plans to overhaul immigration enforcement are among the most sweeping of his Day One promises. He has vowed to close the U.S. southern border, reinstate his controversial travel bans, and suspend refugee admissions into the country—actions that would likely be performed through a series of executive orders soon after he is sworn in as President. “I want to close the border,” Trump said in December 2023 of his Day One plans. He went even further on the topic at a campaign rally in July: “On Day One of the Trump presidency, I will restore the travel ban, suspend refugee admissions, stop the resettlement and keep the terrorists the hell out of our country,” he said. Read More: What Donald Trump’s Win Means For Immigration Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner who was recently tapped to serve as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, told Fox News last month that Trump would issue a series of executive orders on the first day to “seal the border shut and begin the largest deportation operation in American history.” While the contours of those executive orders are currently unclear, ideas floated by Republicans include mandating the federal government to finish the unbuilt area of the southern border wall and depriving sanctuary cities of federal resources. Mass deportations and end birthright citizenship Trump said that he intends to launch what he calls the "largest mass deportation operation" in U.S. history on his first day in the White House. He says his focus will be on removing criminals, recent border crossers, and individuals who have been ordered deported by the courts. Under his proposed system, parts of federal law enforcement would be shifted to immigration duties, and the Biden-era migrant app, CBP One, would be discontinued. Trump has also pledged to end birthright citizenship on his first day, which would mean children born to undocumented immigrants would not automatically gain U.S. citizenship—a move that is expected to face immediate legal challenges. “On Day One of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship,” Trump said in May 2023. Pardon Jan. 6 prisoners One of Trump’s most personal promises is to pardon those convicted for their roles in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. Trump has repeatedly indicated that he will act quickly, issuing pardons for many of the more than 1,500 individuals convicted of crimes related to their involvement in storming the Capitol in protest of the electoral certification. Asked by TIME in December what the first 24-to-48 hours of his Administration would look like, Trump said: “I'll be looking at J6 early on, maybe the first nine minutes.” The move will be deeply controversial and likely to reignite the political battle over the Capitol attack. While most participants were charged with misdemeanor offenses for illegally entering the Capitol, others were charged with felony offenses, including assaulting police officers. Trump has said that he would consider pardons for some individuals charged with violent offenses. In addition to pardoning individuals, Trump has suggested he may establish a task force to review other cases of Jan. 6 participants still imprisoned. “I'm going to do case-by-case, and if they were non-violent, I think they've been greatly punished,” Trump told TIME in November. “And the answer is I will be doing that, yeah, I'm going to look if there's some that really were out of control.” End the Russia-Ukraine war On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly said that before taking office he would put an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine before taking office—a violent conflict which has raged for nearly three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. “If I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours,” Trump said at a CNN town hall in May 2023. “It will be over. It will be absolutely over.” He reiterated that promise at the September 2024 presidential debate, claiming that his relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would help him broker peace between the two nations: “I will get it settled before I even become President… When I’m President-elect, what I’ll do is I’ll speak to one, I’ll speak to the other, I’ll get them together.” However, after winning the presidency, Trump appears to have walked back on that promise. “I hope to have six months," Trump said at a January press conference when asked how soon he could resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict. "I hope long before six months." End the ‘electric vehicle mandate’ and Green New Deal policies On his first day, Trump has said that he will reverse many of the climate-related policies instituted by the Biden Administration. His plan includes ending the so-called "electric vehicle mandate" and scrapping the Biden Administration’s climate subsidies. “I will end the electric vehicle mandate on Day One,” Trump said in his address at the Republican National Convention in July, referring to a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation that limits tailpipe pollution so automakers are compelled to sell more electric and hybrid models. At a campaign rally in October, Trump said that these policies are part of a "Green New Scam" that hurts American energy producers and families. His Day One executive orders would likely focus on lifting restrictions on fossil fuel production and reversing mandates on electric vehicles, while he also pledges to expand domestic oil drilling, including the reversal of offshore drilling bans imposed under the current administration. Roll back federal regulations In a bid to lower the cost of living for Americans, Trump has promised to eliminate numerous federal regulations, which he argues have driven up the cost of goods and services. “On Day One, I will sign an executive order directing every federal agency to immediately remove every single burdensome regulation driving up the cost of goods,” he said at a campaign rally in October 2024. His goal is to ensure that for every new regulation introduced by a federal agency, 10 regulations would be eliminated. Trump has tasked billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former rival for the Republican nomination Vivek Ramaswamy with running a “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), which is aimed at cutting rules and reducing the size of the federal government. Read More: How Elon Musk Became a Kingmaker Ban transgender individuals in women’s sports and the military Trump has vowed to make moves on his first day in office to protect what he describes as "women’s rights" by banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports. “With the stroke of my pen, on Day One, we’re going to stop the transgender lunacy,” Trump said at a Turning Point USA event in December. “I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools.” (In his first term, Trump had instituted a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, which was overturned by President Joe Biden during his first year in office.) He added: “Under the Trump Administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.” Read More: What Trump’s Win Means for LGBTQ+ Rights Trump has also signaled that he will convene a panel with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review whether hormone treatments for transgender individuals are linked to violent behavior, adding fuel to the ongoing debate over gender-affirming care for minors. “Upon my inauguration, I will direct the FDA to convene an independent outside panel to investigate whether transgender hormone treatments and ideology increase the risk of extreme depression, aggression and even violence,” Trump said in April 2023. Cut federal funding for ‘woke’ schools Trump has vowed to take a stance against what he calls "woke" educational policies, particularly the teaching of critical race theory (CRT). On Day One, he has said that he plans to cut federal funding to schools that teach CRT or enforce vaccine mandates. Trump also aims to ban CRT from being taught in the armed forces. His Administration will also focus on removing any federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) requirements, which he claims are divisive and harmful to the nation’s unity. His education policies are expected to face significant opposition from public school advocates and civil rights groups. “On his first day back in office, President Trump will immediately revoke Joe Biden’s sinister executive order mandating that federal departments establish an ‘equity’ enforcement squad to implement a Marxist takeover of the federal government—and he will urge Congress to create a restitution fund for Americans who have been unjustly discriminated against by such ‘equity’ policies,” Trump’s campaign website says.

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. Pete Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Pentagon is, at the moment, the most endangered of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet choices. Hegseth’s hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday—among the first of the incoming Administration—could offer some clarity on whether the former Fox News host is still on track to lead the nation’s largest employer. Central to that debate is likely to be Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat on the committee who happens to be disabled combat veteran who lost both of her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the Army Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting in Iraq. Duckworth is among the first women to have flown combat missions. Hegseth says women have no place in combat operations. “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated,” Hegseth said in November before he was nominated. That position is among a host of past comments that have come to dog Hegseth's nomination to be Defense Secretary—along with a raft of allegations about alcohol, women, and mismanagement. “He's not qualified for the job,” Duckworth told TIME Monday evening ahead of Hegseth’s confirmation hearing. She points to not only his background, but his positions on issues like women in the military. “We could not go to war and keep America safe if we were to keep our female service members out of combat or areas of combat,” she says. Duckworth: Based on what I know so far, no. I was not afforded the opportunity to meet with him in person, either. I understand there was a scheduling conflict there. Oh, no, there's no scheduling conflict. I have the receipts. I have an email dated Dec. 18 where his team gives me the date of the week of Jan. 19. He was never planning on meeting with the Democrats prior to this. And we've made ourselves more than available. So whatever they're telling you is a fib. I went back through your voting record from the first Trump term. You have not been an automatic rejector of his Cabinet. Why is this nomination different? He's not qualified for the job. The largest organization that this man has led, best I can tell, was a 40-person platoon—if that was a fully manned-up platoon. The largest budget that I can tell that he has managed was somewhere around $16 or $18 million. And even that was in financial distress while he was in charge of it. We're talking about a 3 million personnel organization, military and civilian, and a budget this year of $825 billion. The manager of the local Applebee's has managed more people than Mr. Hegseth has. And I would no more want that person in charge of the Pentagon than I would Mr. Hegseth. You've served in combat as a woman. Can you explain what a Secretary Hegseth would mean for folks like yourself? It's not just about me as a woman serving. It's the fact that he's not qualified for the job. The military, what I love about it is that it's a pure meritocracy. Can you do the job? Can you meet the standards? If you can't fly the helicopter, you don't get to be a helicopter pilot. Yet here's a guy who can't meet the standards and is asking for special dispensation to do a job that he's not qualified to do. And so what does that say to the women who've earned their position? What does it say to the team leader, the company commander, or the brigade commander who has earned that position, to look and see there's a guy there who's a weekend talk show host who has no experience, and now he gets to do the job? It undermines the meritocracy and the very foundation on which the military trains and executes its mission. You're a retired member of the military now. You're on the Senate Armed Services Committee. You've seen the effects of DEI programs that Mr. Hegseth has made one of the cornerstones of his candidacy here. Do they hurt national security in the way he says? Not at all. Diversity is one of the greatest strengths of our military. You could just look at things like The Lionesses, right? The Marine Corps's women who formed units after it was found out that they could better get information on enemy actions from Afghan women villagers because they would talk to them. When we were in Iraq, especially in the early days of the war, we were attaching women who were supply clerks or medics to infantry units as they're going to kick down doors looking for insurgents, because then the women were there and they could actually frisk the local women who could not be examined by our male counterparts. Having people within the ranks from all different perspectives and backgrounds with language abilities makes our military more diverse and stronger and more able to defend America. I wish Mr. Hegseth would focus on our adversaries and the needs of the military and less on being a culture warrior. This seems to be all that he's talking about when we don't have enough battleships and the Chinese are building more and more submarines to rival our submarine force. He's worried about renaming a military base for the worst generals in the Confederate war. It's, like, where are you focused, buddy? Those are tangible experiences of women in combat or combat-adjacent roles who actually made the United States safer. Why would there be a downside to that? The nature of modern warfare and the nature of the United States military is one that we could not go to war and keep America safe if we were to keep our female service members out of combat or areas of combat. In Iraq, over 50% of the casualties that we took in Operation Iraqi Freedom happened not when we were kicking down doors. It actually happened during convoy operations. Women have been driving vehicles in the military since the first World War. So if we were to take all of the females out of those convoy operations, they would never have happened. This is not like the Civil War, the Revolutionary War where we have a forward line of troops someplace and everybody stands behind it, and you can keep the women back 30 miles or 50 miles. That's not how war works today. He is completely out of touch with the realities of modern warfare and our military. So what does he want to do? Keep the women from being deployed completely? So that's 20% of the force that can't deploy. Does that mean that the men have to deploy more often? It's going to make our military unable to execute the mission. Is there any way you get to yes on him? Maybe he has hidden talents I don't know about. Maybe he's run a major multinational corporation. Maybe he actually has negotiated a major diplomatic agreement with a foreign military. Maybe he just is being very, very, shy and not telling us about it. Can Democrats stop this, though? I don't know. Unfortunately, if you'd asked me this a month ago, I would've said there are certainly Republican members who care enough about the military and the ability to secure our nation and provide for national security who would step up. But unfortunately, the ones who did speak up with anything other than enthusiastic support from Mr. Hegseth immediately came under extremely volatile attack from everybody from President Trump down to his MAGA base. I know [Sen.] Joni Ernst [of Iowa] certainly faced an onslaught of attacks. My understanding is that many of these attacks were very threatening to her physical security. I don't know what my Republican colleagues are going to do, whether they're going to choose to put country over self, or MAGA over country.

Days before Donald Trump will return to the White House, Special Counsel Jack Smith relayed an unsettling message to the American people: He had unearthed enough evidence to potentially send the incoming President to prison. The Justice Department released on Tuesday its final report on Smith’s charges alleging that Trump illegally conspired to overturn the 2020 election, saying that prosecutors secured the goods to convict Trump had his November victory not prevented the case from proceeding. “But for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” the document says. The report amounts to a remarkable rebuke of someone soon to assume the powers of the presidency. While few of the findings were new—Trump’s schemes to remain in office after losing the 2020 election have been extensively chronicled through news reports, documentaries, and landmark congressional hearings—it’s yet another detailed account of how the President-elect waged an assault on American democracy and the U.S. government he will soon lead once again. Smith’s team interviewed more than 250 people, obtained grand jury testimony from more than 55 witnesses, and said the findings of the House committee that probed the attack constituted “a small part of the office’s investigative record.” In the sprawling 137-page report, Smith unspools Trump’s efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power, from pressuring state and federal officials to nullify the election outcome to inciting a mob to ransack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Smith accuses Trump of trying to obstruct the certification of Biden’s election “through fraud and deceit,” including by encouraging “violence against his perceived opponents” in the days and weeks leading up to the insurrectionist riot. “As set forth in the original and superseding indictments, when it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power,” the report says. The case faced a series of unique challenges that come with not only investigating a former President but the inexorable force of Trump himself. Smith outlined legal tussles over executive privilege, the Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity, and Trump’s scare tactics. “Mr. Trump used his considerable social media presence to make extrajudicial comments—sometimes of a threatening nature—about the case, and the Office was forced to pursue litigation to preserve the integrity of the proceeding and prevent witness intimidation.” At the same time, the case suffered from a public perception that it was politically motivated and the fact that it was transpiring amid an election season. “Mr. Trump’s announcement of his candidacy for president while two federal criminal investigations were ongoing presented an unprecedented challenge for the Department of Justice and the courts,” Smith wrote. Those weren’t the only roadblocks. The report says that prosecutors considered charging Trump with violating the Insurrection Act—a 19th century statute that prohibits engaging in a rebellion against the U.S. government—but ultimately decided there was not enough evidence that Trump intended to instigate the “full scope” of violence on Jan. 6. Many of those who committed violent acts may soon escape legal peril. Trump has said that one of his first acts after taking office on Jan. 20 will be to pardon most, if not all, of the defendants charged in relation to the attack on the Capitol. “It’s going to start in the first hour,” he recently told TIME. “Maybe the first nine minutes.” On Sunday, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance said on Fox News that those who “committed violence” on Jan. 6 “obviously” shouldn’t be pardoned. Trump’s lawyers were shown a draft copy of the report more than a week ago and fought against its release, calling it a hit job that was designed to “disrupt the presidential transition.” They are also trying to thwart the release of a separate Smith report on his prosecution of Trump for mishandling classified documents. On Monday, Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, blocked its immediate release and scheduled a hearing Friday for how to handle that volume. In each case, though, Trump won’t face consequences. Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the 2024 election, citing a Justice Department policy that prohibits the prosecution of sitting presidents. Under a separate agency regulation, he was obligated to submit a final report—one volume on each prosecution—to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has committed to publishing both documents. But with Trump’s inauguration in less than a week, the report will have little tangible effect beyond its addition to the historical record. To Trump, who possesses a profound ability to evade accountability, that in itself marks a victory. “Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide,” Trump posted on his social media platform. “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”

Days before Donald Trump will return to the White House, Special Counsel Jack Smith relayed an unsettling message to the American people: He had unearthed enough evidence to potentially send the incoming President to prison. The Justice Department released on Tuesday its final report on Smith’s charges alleging that Trump illegally conspired to overturn the 2020 election, saying that prosecutors secured the goods to convict Trump had his November victory not prevented the case from proceeding. “But for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” the document says. The report amounts to a remarkable rebuke of someone soon to assume the powers of the presidency. While few of the findings were new—Trump’s schemes to remain in office after losing the 2020 election have been extensively chronicled through news reports, documentaries, and landmark congressional hearings—it’s yet another detailed account of how the President-elect waged an assault on American democracy and the U.S. government he will soon lead once again. Smith’s team interviewed more than 250 people, obtained grand jury testimony from more than 55 witnesses, and said the findings of the House committee that probed the attack constituted “a small part of the office’s investigative record.” In the sprawling 137-page report, Smith unspools Trump’s efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power, from pressuring state and federal officials to nullify the election outcome to inciting a mob to ransack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Smith accuses Trump of trying to obstruct the certification of Biden’s election “through fraud and deceit,” including by encouraging “violence against his perceived opponents” in the days and weeks leading up to the insurrectionist riot. “As set forth in the original and superseding indictments, when it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power,” the report says. The case faced a series of unique challenges that come with not only investigating a former President but the inexorable force of Trump himself. Smith outlined legal tussles over executive privilege, the Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity, and Trump’s scare tactics. “Mr. Trump used his considerable social media presence to make extrajudicial comments—sometimes of a threatening nature—about the case, and the Office was forced to pursue litigation to preserve the integrity of the proceeding and prevent witness intimidation.” At the same time, the case suffered from a public perception that it was politically motivated and the fact that it was transpiring amid an election season. “Mr. Trump’s announcement of his candidacy for president while two federal criminal investigations were ongoing presented an unprecedented challenge for the Department of Justice and the courts,” Smith wrote. Those weren’t the only roadblocks. The report says that prosecutors considered charging Trump with violating the Insurrection Act—a 19th century statute that prohibits engaging in a rebellion against the U.S. government—but ultimately decided there was not enough evidence that Trump intended to instigate the “full scope” of violence on Jan. 6. Many of those who committed violent acts may soon escape legal peril. Trump has said that one of his first acts after taking office on Jan. 20 will be to pardon most, if not all, of the defendants charged in relation to the attack on the Capitol. “It’s going to start in the first hour,” he recently told TIME. “Maybe the first nine minutes.” On Sunday, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance said on Fox News that those who “committed violence” on Jan. 6 “obviously” shouldn’t be pardoned. Trump’s lawyers were shown a draft copy of the report more than a week ago and fought against its release, calling it a hit job that was designed to “disrupt the presidential transition.” They are also trying to thwart the release of a separate Smith report on his prosecution of Trump for mishandling classified documents. On Monday, Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, blocked its immediate release and scheduled a hearing Friday for how to handle that volume. In each case, though, Trump won’t face consequences. Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the 2024 election, citing a Justice Department policy that prohibits the prosecution of sitting presidents. Under a separate agency regulation, he was obligated to submit a final report—one volume on each prosecution—to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has committed to publishing both documents. But with Trump’s inauguration in less than a week, the report will have little tangible effect beyond its addition to the historical record. To Trump, who possesses a profound ability to evade accountability, that in itself marks a victory. “Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide,” Trump posted on his social media platform. “THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!”

Michigan prohibited segregation in public education decades before the Supreme Court did the same for the nation in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Yet nearly 20 years after Brown, the public schools in Detroit remained almost totally segregated. The story of how that happened, the failed effort to change it, and the implications for public education and civil rights today is the subject of Michelle Adams’s splendid new book, “The Containment.” The Detroit schools were segregated not because a law required it, but because the city, like virtually everywhere in the United States, operated on a neighborhood school model. And since Detroit’s neighborhoods were highly segregated — 99 percent white in some areas and 95 percent Black in others in 1970 — its schools were, too. Why? Because, Adams writes, of a longstanding policy of containment: a system of government and private actions that kept the city’s Black citizens confined to a handful of neighborhoods in Detroit and out of the suburbs altogether. The tools of the containment included racially restrictive covenants in housing deeds (no sales to Black people allowed), redlining (mortgages for Black home buyers only in certain areas), as well as segregated public housing and segregated real estate salesperson associations. “The Containment” follows the lawsuit, filed in 1970 by the N.A.A.C.P., to integrate Detroit’s schools. In this objective, the civil rights group eventually found an unlikely but revealing ally: the Citizens Committee for Better Education, which represented the already shrinking white population of the northern part of the city, an area bordered, as all Eminem fans know, by the road known as Eight Mile. The C.C.B.E. originally entered the case as an opponent of the N.A.A.C.P. In time, however, the C.C.B.E. became a partner of sorts, because its members — mostly working-class white families — began arguing to the federal judge Stephen J. Roth that it was unfair to place the burden of integration exclusively on the whites of Detroit, who could not afford to move north of Eight Mile, while shielding their wealthier white neighbors in the suburbs. Roth, a conservative Democrat and former state attorney general, ultimately saw the logic of the argument. In this way, Adams’s book explores class as well as race, with a richness and sophistication that recall J. Anthony Lukas’s 1985 masterpiece, “Common Ground,” which told the story of the struggle over the desegregation of Boston’s public schools at around the same time. In June 1972, Judge Roth ordered a broad integration plan, which included such prosperous suburbs as Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills in the same “metropolitan” school district as Detroit. That is, he established a system of “busing” — a word that was every bit as politically incendiary at that time as “trans” is today. The suburbs recoiled in horror, and politicians joined in. On May 16, 1972, George Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor, had ridden an antibusing platform to a smashing victory in the Michigan Democratic presidential primary. (He had been shot and paralyzed in Maryland the previous day.) Richard Nixon, running for re-election, had demanded “an immediate halt to all new busing orders by federal courts,” and his campaign responded to Roth’s ruling with a TV ad declaring: “President Nixon believes busing is wrong. And he intends to do something about it.” Meanwhile, the state of Michigan appealed Roth’s order to the Supreme Court in a case called Milliken v. Bradley. The issue before the court was profound. In Brown, the court held that segregating students by race was unconstitutional, but how did this ruling apply to schools located in neighborhoods that happened to be racially segregated — in other words, when racial separation was not a binding policy of the school district (de jure segregation) but the reality of the community (de facto segregation)? By 1974, Nixon had placed four new justices on the court, and they formed the core of the 5-to-4 majority that voted that July to overturn Roth’s desegregation plan on the grounds that the Constitution compelled states to remedy only de jure, not de facto, segregation. (Roth himself died of a heart attack at 66, just before the Supreme Court’s decision was announced.) In an apt summary, Adams writes that Chief Justice Warren Burger’s majority opinion was “grounded in white innocence. … There was no acknowledgment of how Blacks were locked in specific Detroit neighborhoods and mostly Black schools, and then into an ever-expanding urban core that was hermetically sealed off from the suburbs.” Though a subsequent, much more modest plan by Roth’s successor, another federal judge, attempted to address segregation within Detroit, it affected just 10 percent of the students in the city’s school system and left many schools untouched. (Adams observes that in this period, there was actually more successful court-ordered integration in the public schools of the South, because municipalities there tended to include the suburbs, while in the North suburban towns were often legally separate from the cities they abutted.) In all, as Adams puts it, “Milliken was where the promise of Brown ended.” If anything, Adams, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, understates the continuing effect of Milliken and its prohibition on metropolitan desegregation orders. She writes about white flight to the suburbs and their public schools, but little about white flight to private and parochial schools. (Adams notes that she is a Black Detroiter whose parents sent her to a mostly white private school in the suburbs.) The white population of Detroit’s public schools currently hovers at about 2 percent. Adams recognizes that there is a long history in the Black community, including in Detroit, of hostility to integration, or, to put it another way, of belief in Black self-sufficiency. The theory goes that Black excellence in all matters, including in education, does not require the presence of whites. (Justice Clarence Thomas is now a leading advocate for this view.) But Adams is firm in her belief, like that of Justice Thurgood Marshall and many others, that students thrive most in diverse settings. As she writes, the research shows that “students in racially and socioeconomically integrated schools and classrooms have stronger academic outcomes and higher test scores, are more likely to enroll in college, have higher earnings and health outcomes as adults, and are less likely to become incarcerated.” In the half-century since Milliken, the Supreme Court, as well as the evolving structure of the American economy, has made those kinds of public schools only harder to find. “The Containment” explains why.