Today's Liberal News

The U.S. Is Naive About Russia. Ukraine Can’t Afford to Be.

Children twirled around a skating rink just outside the president’s office in central Kyiv last week, while tourists took pictures of themselves in front of onion-domed, snow-dusted churches. The stores were full of people shopping for the New Year’s holiday and Orthodox Christmas, just as they always are at this time of year. The airports were crowded.

Meet the Scientist Who Built a Cheap Rapid Test in March 2020. The FDA Never Approved It

The United States faces a shortage of rapid COVID-19 tests amid the Omicron surge even as many inexpensive at-home rapid testing models have been ready for distribution — but refused approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One scientist, Harvard-trained Irene Bosch, submitted a rapid test to the FDA for emergency approval in March 2020 and even had a factory ready to produce it.

“A Vaccine for the World”: U.S. Scientists Develop Low-Cost Shot to Inoculate Global South

As COVID cases skyrocket, we speak to Dr. Peter Hotez at Texas Children’s Hospital about the Omicron surge, as well as his groundbreaking work developing an affordable patent-free coronavirus vaccine. Last week the Indian government gave emergency approval to the new low-cost, patent-free vaccine called Corbevax, which Hotez co-created. He says it could reach billions of people across the globe who have lacked access to the more expensive mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna.

Normcore: Just Your Average, Everyday Paradox

Like a suspenseful story or a taut tightrope, a good word can carry a sense of internal tension. This is most evident in a portmanteau, where multiple words are smashed together to form a new word that combines their meanings (it’s named after the portmanteau suitcase, which opens into two separate compartments). Bromance, labradoodle, Chamillionaire: A collision of two words yields a natural sense of drama.

The Sly Sunniness of Betty White

In 1973, before the series’ fourth season, the producers of The Mary Tyler Moore Show discussed the casting of a new character they were soon to introduce. Sue Ann Nivens, the host of the Happy Homemaker program on the fictional WJM-TV news station, would be cunning and cutting and a foil for her colleague Mary’s adamant optimism.

Five Lessons in Creativity From Metallica

Metallica’s “Sad but True” is one of the metal canon’s great statements. The groove is ogre-ishly heavy, downtuned, encumbered, a fantastically oppressed/oppressing trudge, with guitar notes that seem to bend and bow under the conditions of existence itself—the incurved gravity between God’s hands.As for the lyrics, they are rich with a kind of deep-space irony.

Arundhati Roy on the Media, Vaccine Inequity, Authoritarianism in India & Challenging U.S. Wars

We go to New Delhi, India, to speak with acclaimed Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy about the pandemic, U.S. militarism and the state of journalism. Roy first appeared on Democracy Now! after receiving widespread backlash for speaking out against the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. At the time, her emphatic antiwar stance clashed with the rising tides of patriotism and calls for war after 9/11. “Now the same media is saying what we were saying 20 years ago,” says Roy.

Here’s a little positivity for the new year: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s banned from Twitter

The personal Twitter account for the COVID-19 misinformation expert Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene herself was permanently suspended after “repeated violations,” Twitter announced on Sunday. How’s that for bringing in the new year right? “We permanently suspended the account you referenced (@mtgreenee) for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” Twitter said in a statement NBC News obtained.

Anti-vaxx Chronicles: The OG, Herman Cain himself

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This series documents stories from the Herman Cain Awards subreddit. tracking the COVID mis- and disinformation on Facebook that is leading to so many deaths. Today’s cautionary tale is Herman Cain, who died for Donald Trump. Who is this guy that has this award named after him? 

Herman Cain was one of a handful of prominent Black conservatives riding that juicy grift for years.

Watch: Bigg’s killer whales hunting seals along rocky Salish Sea coastline

There are two distinct populations of killer whales in the Salish Sea. The most famous are the so-called Southern Resident killer whales, an endangered clan currently down to 73 members. But there’s an entirely different orca ecotype—who have not had any kind of genetic interaction, according to scientists, for at least 300,000 years and perhaps longer, with the SRKWs—who are known as “transient” orcas, scientifically known as “Bigg’s” whales.

New Zealand journalist becomes the first person with a Māori face tattoo to present primetime news

As 2021 comes to an end, we celebrate another first for representation—this time not in the U.S. but in New Zealand. A Māori journalist made history in New Zealand by becoming the first person with traditional facial markings to host a primetime news program on national television. Making headlines worldwide, Oriini Kaipara was the first person to have Indigenous markings on her face while reading Newshub Live 6 PM news bulletin in a prime spot on Christmas Day.

Late-night taco truck adventures pay off

It was after 9 PM on Isla Mujeres, a lovely little island in Mexico just off the edge of the Yucatan peninsula. I had been in-country for 24 hours. I had finished a dinner hours earlier of panuchos and taquitos but as a traveling woman with a ravenous appetite egged on by much mezcal, I accepted an invitation to search for good street food just before midnight.