The Slatest for Aug. 31: The Moms Taking On Clarence Thomas Over Gun Laws

A volunteer army of moms has been poring through records from the 1800s in an attempt to prove Clarence Thomas wrong. And they’ve had some success in poking holes in the shaky research that Thomas and other judges have used to strike down gun laws. Mark Joseph Stern tells their story. “At a bare minimum,” he writes, “setting the record straight helps the public understand that Justice Thomas is endangering people’s lives on the basis of a lie.”

After a three-and-a-half-year hiatus, student loan interest and repayments are resuming. Shirin Ali explains what is going to happen next, and what other paths toward debt relief are still available.

In the wake of a racist mass shooting in Florida, many can’t help but see the overlap between the views of the gunman and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ vehement crusades against “wokeness” and the teaching of African American history in public schools. Aymann Ismail spoke to a high school teacher about the current climate in the state.

Slate’s history podcast, One Year, is back to tell five stories from 1955. The first episode follows a team of Black Little Leaguers who battled the white establishment in the Deep South.

Ethan Freedman has a radical proposal for making New York a better place to live. It starts, surprisingly, with beavers.

If not even Jonathan Taylor can get paid, who can? Alex Kirshner explains why many of the NFL’s biggest stars are now seeing their paychecks plummet.

… much like the act of reading books, articles, and studies about how to overcome procrastination! Franklin Schneider explains what’s wrong with our assumptions about why people put things off.

Thanks so much for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.