This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Soon after, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
About six months ago, my Twitter feed started getting confusing. I couldn’t tell the NFTs of cartoon women apart.World of Women, which is a collection of illustrated portraits of women, was one of the earliest and splashiest—the one with a film and television deal. Women Rise, which is a collection of illustrated portraits of women, expressed in its “roadmap” a commitment to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
The trees are living things. The grass, the clumps of ragwort, the hard full ground. All of it alive. In the sky an airplane is on its side, turning east with its belly up, its engines whining, a rumble in its wake that is felt in the gut, an additional tremble in the limbs. They are all frightened.There are eight men. And the boy. Nine of them. There are six soldiers. The soldiers are outnumbered, and the men can count.
It comes at a time when many global health groups are rethinking their pandemic responses amid new vaccine supplies, variants and treatment options.
In a win for immigrant rights, the Biden administration has granted temporary protected status, or TPS, to Cameroonians living in the United States. The move allows around 40,000 Cameroonians to become eligible for the relief, which would protect them from deportation back to a politically unstable state and grant them permission to work in the U.S. for at least 18 months amid escalating violence in Cameroon between government forces and armed rebels.
Republican-led states are enacting a wave of new abortion restrictions, including Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky and Oklahoma just last week. Reproductive rights are under attack as the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, says Caroline Kitchener, who covers reproductive rights for The Washington Post. We also speak with Kitchener about Lizelle Herrera, the Texas woman arrested for disclosing an attempted abortion with her doctors.
At least 19 were injured around occupied Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday after a violent crackdown by Israeli police cleared out worshipers from the compound. It was the second raid since Friday, when Israeli police used rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas on unarmed Palestinians, resulting in the arrest of more than 300 and at least 158 injuries. This latest violence in Jerusalem comes as the holy days of Ramadan and Passover overlap.
Sign up for Caleb’s newsletter here.The tumult of 2020 generated a host of new words to describe our changed circumstances. All of a sudden, everyone remembered the Before Times, essential workers needed to be distinguished from the rest of us, and socializing in a pod wasn’t just for the whales. As things got worse and stayed that way, a new form of speaking about the turmoil of our physical and emotional reality took hold.
Public health leaders fear preventable and possibly fatal diseases could become more common.
Lack of dedicated funding and staffing threaten its health-equity goal.
The agency’s upheaval marks another challenge in the already-difficult work of boosting vaccinations around the world.
The latest figures follow Congress’ decision last month to provide far less funding to sexual health clinics that provide free and subsidized testing.
In his latest special, Rothaniel, the comedian Jerrod Carmichael doesn’t seem all that interested in getting his audience to laugh—or even in being the star. Rather than emerge from a dressing room backstage, he wanders into New York City’s Blue Note Jazz Club as if he were just passing by, shrugging off his winter coat without fanfare. He takes a seat in a folding chair and grabs a mic, but he doesn’t launch into jokes. Instead, he makes sure the crowd is comfortable.
The Fed’s campaign to raise interest rates — designed to reduce spending and curb inflation — will slow growth, which will have consequences for American workers.
Prices have been driven up by bottlenecked supply chains, robust consumer demand and disruptions to global food and energy markets worsened by Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The Biden administration recently extended a Covid-related pause on repayments.
White House officials deny any sense of panic over the economy or their midterm chances.
The administration’s difficulties in getting bank cop nominees through a Democratic-controlled Senate underscore the fault lines within the party over how to approach financial regulation.
As the United States reels from an epidemic of mass shootings in schools, trains and other public places, we speak with Mark Follman, national affairs editor at Mother Jones, where he covers gun violence. Follman says mass shootings are typically planned over a period of time and follow a “robust trail of behavioral warning signs” that offer opportunities in community-based violence prevention to stop the crime before it happens.
As the Russian invasion in Ukraine enters its 50th day, we look at the war’s impact around the world with Vijay Prashad, author and director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. “When food prices go up, the political crisis is almost immediate,” says Prashad, who calls the U.S. pressure on Global South countries to cut off essential imports from Russia after a 30-year globalization campaign a double standard. He says if the U.S.
This week the Pentagon met with leading U.S. weapons manufacturers as Russia warned the Biden administration to stop arming Ukraine, claiming it was “adding fuel” to the conflict. This comes as a Russian warship sank in the Black Sea hours after Ukraine claimed to have attacked it with cruise missiles, and as Sweden and Finland say they may join NATO, which would require more weapons spending.
We speak with Lyiv-based professor Volodymyr Dubovyk about the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, where Russian attacks have displaced more than 11 million people, including two-thirds of Ukraine’s children. Russian forces “want to inflict the maximum pain on Ukraine,” says Dubovyk.
Rep. Fred Upton sounds the alarm over the upcoming midterm election.
After a weekend of deadly mass shootings, Donald Trump Jr. uses bunnies brandishing automatic weapons for his Easter greeting.
Trump has changed the entire nature of the GOP into an “authoritarian far-right party” that’s as hard on its own members as on foes, said historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat.
The far-right conspiracist has also been accused by Sandy Hook parents of shifting millions to an “alphabet soup” of holding companies to duck paying up for lies.
In a Kyiv interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy again vowed that Ukraine wouldn’t be negotiating away territory in exchange for a Russian end to the war. Zelenskyy dismissed the idea not out of bluster, but for a more fundamental reason: There’s no evidence that Russia would abide by any such agreement.
“I don’t trust the Russian military and Russian leadership.
by Vilissa Thompson
This story was originally published at Prism.
Over the past two years of the pandemic, we have witnessed the rise of telehealth services, but now that popularity is waning in the cultural push to “return to normal,” threatening to leave behind many for whom telehealth has become a lifeline.
Daily Kos senior political writer Kerry Eleveld joined Michelangelo Signorile on his show this week. The pair discussed Rick Scott’s “Rescue America” plan—an 11-point scheme that would raise taxes on low- and moderate-income Americans—and Joe Biden’s steady leadership as Ukraine faces a continued assault from Russia.
Welcome back to the weekly Nuts & Bolts Guide to small campaigns! Midterm elections are stressful. Democratic Party candidates and infrastructure feel the stress of holding on to majorities in the U.S. Senate and House in order to keep Joe Biden’s agenda moving forward and especially to make sure that President Biden’s court and administration nominations are successfully approved.