Editor’s Note: In yesterday’s keynote at Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy, a conference hosted by The Atlantic and the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, Maria Ressa compared the impact of social media on our information ecosystem in recent years to that of an atom bomb: destructive, all-consuming, irreversible.
Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum, an expert on Eastern Europe, has long watched social media’s power with great concern. Yesterday, at Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy, a conference hosted by The Atlantic and the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, she spoke with David Axelrod, the founding director of the Institute of Politics, about the dangers these platforms pose to democracy.
The agency made a few tweaks, but mostly sticks to its proposed coverage plan despite outrage from drug companies and patient advocates.
If the governor signs the measure into law, Alabama would become the third state to block access to gender-affirming care for minors, and the first to mandate prison time.
Yesterday afternoon, President Joe Biden hosted a good old-fashioned bill-signing ceremony at the White House. Before an audience of several dozen in the State Dining Room, the president celebrated the long-awaited enactment of a postal-reform bill. After his brief remarks, a large, bipartisan group of lawmakers crowded around Biden as he put pen to paper on the legislation. They huddled in close, as politicians do, silently jostling for prime position in the photo.
When they last sat down for an interview, in November 2020, Barack Obama told Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg that disinformation is “the single biggest threat to our democracy.” The threat was not a new one, he said, but it was accelerating. It has continued to accelerate since. A month and a half after that conversation, a violent mob stormed the Capitol, driven by the false belief that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump and could be taken back by force.
The Supreme Court is expected to roll back or completely reverse Roe v. Wade this summer, kicking abortion policy to the states.
President Biden announced Tuesday he would extend the pandemic pause on federal student loan payments until August 31, but debtors are demanding total cancellation. We speak with Astra Taylor, co-director of the Debt Collective, who discusses the implications of the latest extension, economically and politically. Taylor says Biden should stop letting loan servicers profiteer from borrowers and cancel student loans, which would immediately narrow the racial wealth gap.
Far-right nationalist prime minister and longtime Putin-ally Viktor Orbán won his fourth consecutive election in Hungary, aided by biased media coverage and campaign regulations that favored the sitting prime minister. We speak to historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat about the future of Hungary under the Fidesz party, which, aside from passing anti-LGBTQ legislation and stoking xenophobia, has also been an important ally for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A new report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns the opportunity to mitigate the worst effects of global warming by maintaining global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius is quickly closing and that humanity has less than three years to slash greenhouse gas emissions. “Fossil fuel is at the root of our problems.
Over a month into Russia’s war in Ukraine and after multiple countries imposed sanctions on Russian fossil fuels, Ukraine’s pipelines are still carrying Russian gas into Europe. Ukrainian climate activist Svitlana Romanko says Ukraine cannot shut off the gas flow if EU governments refuse to implement an embargo on Russian imports. “There should be a collaboration on both sides of this supply chain,” says Romanko.
House Democrats grilled CEOs of Big Oil companies, like ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell, Wednesday about rising gas prices and profiteering from the Ukraine war. We get response from environmentalist Bill McKibben and speak with Ukrainian environmental lawyer Svitlana Romanko about how the war in Ukraine is impacting energy markets around the world.
It’s unclear when the White House will hold the meeting. The decision comes as the administration tries to shore up its global Covid work.
Public health leaders warn that short-term bursts of cash are creating gaps in preparedness, leaving millions vulnerable to a new Covid surge.
The move would target loophole that keeps about 5 million people from qualifying for subsidized health plans
Health officials from Alabama to Washington state say that congressional gridlock over providing billions in new money has undermined efforts to transition to a steady, long-term approach to Covid-19.
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.
The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates — but Congress has a chance to bring real relief.
The increase reported by the Labor Department reflected the 12 months ending in February and didn’t include most of the oil and gas price increases that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb.
The Fed is already expected to begin a campaign of interest rate increases next month in a bid to remove its support for economic growth amid a blistering job market and rapidly rising prices.
The newly released “Poor People’s Pandemic Report” shows poor people died from COVID at twice the rate of wealthy Americans and that people of color were more likely to die than white populations. “Our country has gotten used to unnecessary death, especially when it’s the death of poor people,” says Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.
We go to El Salvador for an update on how the government under President Nayib Bukele has arrested over 6,000 people since a 30-day state of emergency was imposed following a wave of violence. The state of exception has suspended freedom of assembly and weakened due process rights for those arrested, including an extension of how long people can be held without charge.
The Senate is expected to confirm Jackson on Thursday, securing her place as the first Black woman on the high court.
The former president said he had seen firsthand the “degree to which information, disinformation, misinformation was being weaponized.
The congresswoman who once supported executing Democrats said she had reported the comedian’s Will Smith slap joke as a “threat of violence.
The atrocities committed by Russian troops in Bucha have resulted in world fury. They may not, however, be an outlier.
The Arkansas senator’s insinuation about the Supreme Court nominee was apparently “a bridge too far,” even on Fox News.
The former Border Patrol agent who in August 2019 pleaded guilty after intentionally hitting a Guatemalan man with his truck and then lying about it to investigators used text messages to call migrants “disgusting subhuman shit unworthy of being kindling for a fire” and “mindless murdering savages.
As hate crimes against the country continue to increase, people of East Asian descent are not the only victims. Asians across the country are being attacked without provocation. Most recently, a 70-year-old Sikh man visiting from India was brutally attacked in an incident being investigated as a possible hate crime, officials with the New York City Department and a Sikh-American advocacy group said.