Fashion

Will the Supreme Court Save Obamacare? It Looks Safe for Now.

It looks likely that the Supreme Court will reject the latest legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act….

In one of the worst weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases being reported each day in the United States, the Supreme Court began hearing challenges to the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, to determine if it should be struck down.

At issue is the technical matter of whether the absence of an individual mandate, which Congress effectively did away with in 2017, nullifies the law itself. The challenge to the ACA, brought by Texas, the Attorneys General of 17 other GOP-dominated states and, of course, the Trump administration, asserts that because the penalty has been eliminated, it raises no revenue, is no longer a tax, and thus the ACA is unconstitutional.

This is not the first time that a challenge to the ACA has come before the Supreme Court. In 2012, the court upheld the law’s requirement that most Americans obtain insurance or pay a penalty. The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority opinion, which said the mandate was authorized by Congress’s power to assess taxes. He was joined by what was then the court’s four-member liberal wing, including the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

This case is the first to be deliberated with the participation of the newly appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett, controversially confirmed just a few days before the Nov. 3 election.

That the case had even made it as far as the Supreme Court was criticized by a string of Democratic officials today, including the governor of one of the states that have joined in the act’s defense.

Based on the tea leaves-reading being done by many court-watchers after Tuesday’s oral arguments, it seems possible that the Court may strike down the individual mandate, but leave the law itself intact. Justice Brett Kavanaugh is seen as the likely swing vote this time, joining Roberts in a 5-4 majority, with Coney Barrett voting with the minority.

“It does seem fairly clear that the proper remedy would be to sever the mandate provision and leave the rest of the act in place — the provisions regarding pre-existing conditions and the rest,” Kavanaugh said during Tuesday’s session. Added Roberts: “Congress left the rest of the law intact when it lowered the penalty to zero.”

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Entertainment

A$AP Rocky Turned An Entire Manchester City Kit Into His Album Rollout

Photo: DannyB Photos / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

A$AP Rocky doesn’t do album rollouts quietly, and this one recruited an entire Premier League club to help. Manchester City, PUMA, and Rocky teamed up on a limited apparel run tied to “Don’t Be Dumb,” his 2026 album, timed around his September 5th show at Co-op Live.

The centerpiece is a long-sleeve PUMA King jersey in black and archive gold, with “DON’T BE DUMB” running down the sleeve and AWGE branding worked in throughout. A bold “MANCHESTER” graphic covers the back. Fans could also add limited “A$AP 11” name-and-number printing onto the club’s actual Home, Away, or Third kits, while supplies lasted at retail.

There’s a players-only version too, and it never went up for sale. That one sticks closer to City’s usual sky-blue identity, with its own sleeve detailing and back graphic — the kind of piece that exists purely because a handful of people got lucky.

The whole rollout kicked off with a one-night pop-up on September 4th, when PUMA turned a spot in Manchester’s Northern Quarter into a pop-up cafe for the night, mixing football, music, and street style into one room before the wider release hit the stadium store the next morning. Some of those jerseys even came with golden tickets to the concert or that Saturday’s match.

Rocky has called the project true to his own design language, and it’s not even his only club collaboration this cycle — a similar drop with AC Milan landed around the same time. At this point, the line between fashion week and matchday has basically disappeared.

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Entertainment

Quavo And Lids Are Going All In On Atlanta With Their New Cap Pack

Photo: Finish Line / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Quavo has never been shy about his hat obsession, and Lids just gave him another outlet for it. Their new “Atlanta” pack drops September 12th, marking another round in a partnership that’s been running strong since 2019.

The collection is a love letter to the city, spread across three very different caps. One mashes up pinstripes, script lettering, and Braves branding into a single design, working navy, red, white, and light blue into the mix. Another goes the opposite direction entirely — fully iced out in crystal detailing, done up in black and red, with both the Falcons and the Braves showing up in the design. The third strips things back to an old-school “ATL” trucker cap in red, white, and gold, the kind of understated piece that lets the city’s name do the talking.

None of this is new territory for Quavo. He’s talked before about waiting on hat releases as a kid, and that same excitement seems to be what’s kept this partnership going years past most celebrity collabs. His earlier Lids run leaned on one moment — the Braves’ 1995 World Series win — but this pack pulls from the city’s whole sports history instead of just one highlight.

Lids has called Quavo one of the rare voices who can blend music, fashion, and sports without it feeling forced, and this drop backs that up. Given how fast his past releases have moved, Atlanta might want to set an alarm for September 12th.

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