Omicron spreads in New Zealand, spoiling prime minister’s wedding plans
Jacinda Ardern was to have been married next weekend.
Today's Liberal News
Beijing district orders mass virus testing ahead of Olympics
The ruling Communist Party is stepping up enforcement of its “zero tolerance” strategy.
Invitation
My initials curled inside the oval like three robins
crowding a tree hollow.The card stock was beveled, the envelopes lined in airy pink paper.My father was dying quietly like the sound of his pen lifting
then touching down again.Once, waking from a nap, he asked me, “Will I be okay?”
and I said, “Yes.” Then it was time to chant Torah.
Only Putin Knows What Happens Next
If Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t about to invade Ukraine—or, more accurately, isn’t about to expand his previous invasion—he’s certainly making a good show of it.Russian military forces have been moving into position for weeks. Russia and Belarus announced snap exercises that will continue for at least a month. President Joe Biden says he is expecting an invasion, and there are reports that the U.S.
When Your Doctor Is on TikTok
In the second week of March 2020, uncertainty ruled TikTok. Students shared clips of school PA systems announcing closures and cancellations. Travelers filmed their frantic efforts to return to the U.S. before President Donald Trump’s border restrictions went into effect. And yet many users speculated that warnings of a life-reordering pandemic were overblown. Comment sections seemed angsty, but conspiracies abounded, hinting at the diverging versions of reality that lay ahead.
Game-changing Covid pills remain out of reach for some patients
A flurry of regulatory, testing and logistical issues is complicating the rollout.
‘The CDC alone can’t fix this’: Walensky calls for overhaul of U.S. public health system
If the pandemic is to turn endemic — a situation top Biden health officials say they could more easily control — the U.S. needs to overhaul the nation’s public health workforce, she said.
How many health care workers are vaccinated? It’s anyone’s guess.
Without more precise data, “you don’t know what’s happening and you don’t have the ability to say how at risk is the health care workforce,” said Celine Gounder.
CDC: Vaccinated Americans with a prior infection fared the best during Delta
The study did not explain why protection against reinfection and hospitalization grew among those individuals with a prior infection during Delta.
How Omicron ruined new mayors’ honeymoons
The Omicron surge didn’t just upend mayors’ inaugural fetes. It’s overtaken their first days and weeks in office, jeopardizing their approval ratings before they get a chance to push their agendas.
Abortion pill fight could ensnare Biden’s FDA pick
Dozens of influential anti-abortion rights organizations are mobilizing against Califf, sending letters to senators arguing he has “a track record of rubber-stamping abortion industry demands.
Your Presidential Picks: Adam Silver, Tyler Cowen, Stacey Abrams
Sign up for Conor’s newsletter here.“You can appoint any American citizen to one term as president,” I wrote earlier this week, “so long as your choice has never run for president before. Who do you appoint to the White House and why?” Among politicians, Jared Polis, the governor of Colorado, was mentioned most. Former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and former Georgia State Representative Stacey Abrams were tapped, too.
Opinion | Why Are Minority-Owned Banks Disappearing? Washington Holds the Smoking Gun
Congress needs to create a new safety net for such lenders — not let regulators squeeze them out of business.
Biden’s first year: A tale of 2 presidencies
Inside the White House, there is still optimism: “President Biden was elected to a four-year term, not a one-year term.
Price spikes threaten to ground Biden’s big-spending plans
The government reported Wednesday that the consumer price index, the most widely watched gauge of inflation, hit a four-decade high in December compared to the previous year.
U.S. consumer prices soared 7 percent in past year, most since 1982
The jump is the latest evidence that rising costs for food, rent and other necessities are heightening the financial pressures on America’s households.
Powell’s warning to Congress: Inflation a ‘severe threat’ to jobs
The potential clash over the Fed’s plans to tighten monetary policy could be a harbinger of conflicts to come with Democrats and even some Republicans.
ACLU Lawyer: Biden Is “Hiding Behind CDC” to Keep Pushing Trump-Era Anti-Immigrant Title 42 Policy
As the Biden administration marks its first year in office this week, we look at the president’s ongoing defense of Trump-era anti-immigration policies. Department of Justice lawyers were in court Wednesday to defend the Trump-era order known as Title 42, which has been used to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants at the border without screening them for asylum.
Afghanistan Faces “Tsunami of Hunger” as U.S. Sanctions Crash Country’s Economy
The World Food Program has warned Afghanistan faces a “tsunami of hunger” as the economy continues to collapse, due in part to U.S. sanctions and the freezing of Afghan assets following the Taliban takeover of Kabul. Meanwhile, President Biden once again defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan on Wednesday without acknowledging the humanitarian crisis that followed his exit.
“Davos Man”: How Billionaires Devour the World & Fuel Global Inequality, Prolonging the Pandemic
As many of the world’s wealthiest people wrap up virtual talks today at the World Economic Forum based in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam reports the incomes of 99% of the world’s population dropped during the pandemic while the world’s 10 richest men saw their wealth double. Meanwhile, vaccine profits have minted at least nine new billionaires at Moderna, BioNTech and China’s CanSino, amassing a combined new wealth of over $19 billion.
Ralph Nader: Biden’s First Year Proves He Is Still a “Corporate Socialist” Beholden to Big Business
As President Biden marks one year in office, we speak with former four-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader and The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel, who say Biden has failed so far to sell his agenda to the American people and bring about the transformative policy he campaigned on — from quelling the pandemic to passing his landmark Build Back Better legislation. The two also critique the U.S.
‘I just got hit by a car’: Journalist goes viral for continuing to report after on-air accident
A video of a reporter in West Virginia being hit by a car while doing a live report has gone viral on social media, with many talking about the depths reporters go to get the news out. In the video, the journalist, identified as Tori Yorgey, immediately pulls herself up and continues speaking on camera—despite having just been hit by a car.
“Oh my God. I just got by a car, but I’m okay!” Yorgey says as she falls to the ground.
Real cancel culture: Organization goes after students who dare protest apartheid in Israel
University of Michigan freshman Reem Al-Khatib was asked to appear in a video supporting the #UMDivest resolution in the student government council. The resolution called for the University’s Board of Regents to create a committee to investigate three companies operating in Israel and involved in alleged human rights violations against Palestinians. The video was pretty innocuous, with her complete statement being, “I’m a Palestinian freshman.
Will Trump Try To Protect His Kids In Business Probes? ‘Not A Chance,’ Laughs Michael Cohen
“Donald cares only about Donald, more than he would care about his children,” says Cohen. And “Ivanka is interested only in Ivanka.
Florida Man wants to force all sports teams to play the national anthem, because ‘Merica!
The hair-on-fire emergency in the quaggy swamplands of Florida Man’s brain these days isn’t COVID-19—it’s the ghastly thought that somewhere within the sea-buffeted borders of America’s enormous schwanzstucker, a sports-baller might get gruesomely Theismanned without hearing a musical tribute to our nation first.
CNN’s Jim Acosta Has Case Tip For Gov. DeSantis’ Vote Cops: ‘Coup’ Plot At Mar-a-Lago
“I’d like to report an insurrection!” Acosta slammed back at the Florida governor’s plan to create a special force to police elections.
Republicans are preparing another ‘Contract on America’ with the aid of … who else?
There are few people in modern political history who have done as much damage to our democracy as Newt Gingrich. As the prototypical, ideological Republican “bomb-thrower” who first came of age during the Reagan “revolution” in the 1990s, Gingrich ushered in and patented an era of hyperpartisan viciousness and crass, unrelenting political rancor that finally reached its apotheosis in a GOP now firmly under the thumb of Donald Trump.
Union membership dropped in 2021, this week in the war on workers
Union membership as a percentage of all U.S. workers dropped from 10.8% to 10.3% in 2021, returning to its 2019 level. The bump in 2020 is instructive, since it came because, in the mass job loss of the pandemic, more nonunion workers lost their jobs. But the lousy numbers for union membership are also important to understand in the context of popular opinion and U.S. labor law.
The Atlantic Daily: Six Poems to Bring You Comfort This Winter
We’re fumbling our way through another challenging January. Writers and editors from around our newsroom share the poems that they’re turning to this month. Then: Here’s what else to read, listen to, and watch this weekend.“I Could Be a Whale Shark” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
It’s been a difficult couple of pandemic years for parents of young children.
Arizona Dems Vote To Censure Sinema Over Filibuster
Earlier this week, Sinema helped to prevent the passage of crucial voting rights legislation by voting against filibuster reform.