Today's Liberal News

Contributing Writers

Kenyan Activist at Africa Climate Summit: Fund Green Transition on Continent & Phase Out Fossil Fuels

As the Africa Climate Summit wraps up in Nairobi, we get an update from Kenyan climate justice organizer Eric Njuguna. He says the focus by Western leaders and multinational companies on establishing carbon markets in Africa amounts to a “ticket to pollute” without directly addressing the need to phase out fossil fuels. Njuguna says a key demand from activists is to create access to climate financing without new debt burdens on the continent’s governments.

“Alarming”: Biden to Supply Depleted Uranium Shells to Ukraine Despite Contamination Risks

The Biden administration is expected to send armor-piercing munitions containing depleted uranium to Ukraine as part of the latest military aid package, even though the weapons are radioactive and their use causes contamination that is hazardous to human health. It’s the latest escalation in the war between Ukraine and Russia that nonproliferation activists warn could possibly lead to a nuclear confrontation.

Democratic Republic of Congo Faces “Worst Hunger Catastrophe” as Mineral Extraction Enriches the Few

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is seeing a dramatic deterioration of infrastructure and displacement of citizens as a result of armed violence, flooding and the world’s largest hunger crisis. In recent months, rampant violence of armed groups has forced more than half a million people to flee their homes, while the United Nations says some 3,000 families also lost their homes after recent intense flooding and mudslides in the eastern part of the country.

Ukrainian & Russian Activists on How Putin’s War Emboldens “Authoritarian Forces” Around the World

On the same day U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv to announce $1 billion in new U.S. aid to Ukraine, 17 Ukrainians were killed in a Russian missile attack on a Donetsk market. “It’s very painful for me to see all the streets and cities that I spent my childhood in to be completely destroyed by the ongoing war,” says Hanna Perekhoda, Ukrainian historian from the Donetsk region on a speaking tour of the U.S.

“Doing Harm”: Roy Eidelson on the American Psychological Association’s Embrace of U.S. Torture Program

A military judge at Guantánamo has thrown out the confessions of Saudi man Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri because he had been tortured and waterboarded at secret CIA black sites in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland, Romania and Morocco before being sent to Guantánamo. Psychologists James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen, who were paid at least $81 million by the CIA to develop and then implement the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program, had waterboarded al-Nashiri at a CIA black site.

Kenyan Activist at Africa Climate Summit: Fund Green Transition on Continent & Phase Out Fossil Fuels

As the Africa Climate Summit wraps up in Nairobi, we get an update from Kenyan climate justice organizer Eric Njuguna. He says the focus by Western leaders and multinational companies on establishing carbon markets in Africa amounts to a “ticket to pollute” without directly addressing the need to phase out fossil fuels. Njuguna says a key demand from activists is to create access to climate financing without new debt burdens on the continent’s governments.

“Alarming”: Biden to Supply Depleted Uranium Shells to Ukraine Despite Contamination Risks

The Biden administration is expected to send armor-piercing munitions containing depleted uranium to Ukraine as part of the latest military aid package, even though the weapons are radioactive and their use causes contamination that is hazardous to human health. It’s the latest escalation in the war between Ukraine and Russia that nonproliferation activists warn could possibly lead to a nuclear confrontation.

Salvadoran Writer Javier Zamora on Coping with Trauma from Being Detained & Undocumented in U.S.

Salvadoran poet and writer Javier Zamora discusses the roots of his memoir Solito, which details his odyssey as an unaccompanied 9-year-old child through Guatemala and Mexico to reunite with family in Arizona. “After surviving that nine-week journey, surviving the United States as an undocumented person was perhaps the main reason why I became a writer,” Zamora says.

“Doing Harm”: Roy Eidelson on the American Psychological Association’s Embrace of U.S. Torture Program

A military judge at Guantánamo has thrown out the confessions of Saudi man Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri because he had been tortured and waterboarded at secret CIA black sites in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland, Romania and Morocco before being sent to Guantánamo. Psychologists James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen, who were paid at least $81 million by the CIA to develop and then implement the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program, had waterboarded al-Nashiri at a CIA black site.

Racist Shootings “Don’t Happen in a Vacuum”: Bishop Barber on DeSantis, Trump & Those Who Spread Hate

As federal law enforcement opens an investigation into the Jacksonville, Florida, shooting where a white gunman killed three Black people at a Dollar General as a possible hate crime and act of domestic violent extremism, we speak with civil rights leader Bishop William Barber about the increasing number of racist attacks in America fueled by racism.

Leopards ate the face of this conservative Idaho community

West Bonner County, Idaho, like most of the state, is Trump country. The four-time indicted former president won 73% of the vote in the county in 2020. And, following their MAGA instincts, county voters swept in a radical right-wing school board in the November 2021 elections. 

After seeing those two board members work diligently to destroy their schools, county voters overwhelmingly recalled them last Tuesday.

Green New Deal Architect Rhiana Gunn-Wright Warns the Green Transition May Leave Black People Behind

As the cost of the climate crisis continues to rise and climate justice groups demand more government action to halt the heating of the planet, we speak with policy expert Rhiana Gunn-Wright, one of the architects of the Green New Deal. She says the Inflation Reduction Act championed by President Biden, which is the largest climate bill in U.S. history, has many provisions that “structurally leave out Black people.