With the emergence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, the United States is now averaging over 130,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, and health officials warn the U.S. could see a million new cases a day by February. We speak with health expert Dr. Carlos del Rio, who says that vaccination complemented by booster shots is the best defense against severe illness. “Everybody’s going to get infected.
A standard 50-microgram boost raised antibody levels about 37-fold higher than pre-boost levels 29 days after the shot was administered.
The U.S. was behind other countries in charting the spread of disease in the pandemic’s disastrous early months. It’s still behind as new variants threaten to disrupt the winter.
Discussions within the administration are focused on whether a third shot should be considered part of the original Covid-19 vaccine regimen.
Nearly the entire increase came from the burst of federal spending as the government mobilized to contain the spread of the virus.
The Fed plans to cease its bond buys entirely by March, rather than its earlier target of June to give itself room to begin raising interest rates as early as the second quarter of next year.
Costs for key goods and services soared 0.8 percent for the month and 6.8 percent for the year, the highest since 1982, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The middle class is facing serious economic hardship with little of the workplace flexibility now afforded to the well-off. Here’s how employers — and government — can help.
Powell’s comment came after the Fed already announced earlier this month that it would slow the pace at which it buys U.S. government debt and mortgage-backed securities.
Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia implored conservative members of his party to stop obstructing voting rights legislation in a powerful speech on the floor of the Senate Tuesday. While Warnock did not name Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the two have come out against doing away with the filibuster in order to allow Democrats to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
We look at the life and legacy of trailblazing Black feminist scholar and activist bell hooks, who died at the age of 69 on Wednesday. We speak with her longtime colleague Beverly Guy-Sheftall, professor of women’s studies at Spelman College, who remembers her as “a person who would sit with young people and community people and students and help them understand this world in which we live, which is full of all kinds of domination.
The county of Williamson, Texas, has announced a settlement of $5 million in the wrongful death of Javier Ambler II in 2019. The 40-year-old Black man died after being repeatedly tased by police during a traffic stop. Police bodycam footage showed Ambler telling officers, “I have congestive heart failure,” and “I can’t breathe,” as they continued to tase him.
The former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter, who faces manslaughter charges for fatally shooting 20-year-old Black man Daunte Wright during a traffic stop, is expected to take the stand in her own defense Friday. Potter claims she reached for her Taser and drew a pistol by mistake. “Black people should not be killed in America over misdemeanor, pretextual traffic stops,” says Benjamin Crump, attorney for Wright’s family.
Former police officer Derek Chauvin has pleaded guilty to violating George Floyd’s civil rights, marking the first time he publicly admitted to his role in Floyd’s death. Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, killing him with the excessive use of force in 2019. Floyd’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for social justice protests and calls to defund the police across the country.
In the news today: Sen. Joe Manchin faced harsh statements from the White House and fellow Democrats today after he appeared on Fox News to claim he now opposed the Build Back Better framework even though he had been negotiating with Joe Biden directly on its contents less than a week ago. The omicron variant of COVID-19 is here, and both the federal government and hospitals are preparing for another winter of mass casualties.
Here at Daily Kos, we believe in fighting hard for what matters and celebrating the wins whenever possible. We’ve been through highs and lows, but when we win, we win big.
This year, the Daily Kos activism team launched a long-term campaign to confirm progressive, fair-minded federal judicial nominees who are committed to justice for all and represent all of America—not just the wealthy, white, and privileged.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday night confirmed Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett as ambassador to Luxembourg, a move that ensures there will be a 2022 special election to succeed him at home.
Barrett, who is a former Democratic congressman and three-time gubernatorial candidate, has not yet announced when he’ll officially resign from the job he’s held since 2004, but he indicated it would be before Dec. 28.
by Alexandra Martinez
This article was originally published at Prism
Six weeks after it began, the student workers’ unfair labor practices strike at Columbia University has become the largest ongoing labor strike in the nation. The union has been on strike since Nov. 3, with workers calling for higher wages and more protections for graduate and undergraduate student workers.
by Alexandra Martinez
This article was originally published at Prism
The Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness (LRIF) program is set to expire Dec. 20, leaving thousands of eligible Liberian nationals at risk of deportation by next summer when current Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) protections will also end. LRIF, which was passed in 2019 as part of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, provided permanent residency and deportation protection to Liberians in the U.S.
“Nobody is above the law,” the Republican congressman said.
Both Democratic senators were reportedly experiencing only mild symptoms.
The Build Back Better Act is dead. Long live the Build Back Better Act?With a few short sentences on Fox News, Senator Joe Manchin today dashed the dreams of Democrats by coming out firmly against President Joe Biden’s signature legislative proposal. “I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there,” Manchin said of the $1.75 trillion bill that the House passed last month.
“If he doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing … let him vote no in front of the whole world,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
The Omicron wave is upon us, and the national conversation is vacillating between panic and indifference. Those who are near panic point to rapidly rising case counts and lockdowns in several European nations. Those who are indifferent lean into reports of Omicron being a milder coronavirus variant; after nearly two years of COVID, that can feel like reason enough to put the pandemic in the rear-view mirror and get on with their life.Both perspectives are understandable, but neither is helpful.
“Maybe they’ll believe us next time. Or maybe people will just keep calling us naïve,” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Jared Polis also said the unvaccinated are “often victims of misinformation.
In an unusually sharp statement, the White House blasted Manchin for his “sudden and inexplicable reversal” on President Joe Biden’s top priority.
Saturday Night Live’s final episode before Christmas is usually a festive affair, and this year’s was supposed to be even more triumphant than usual. As the last show of 2021, it would’ve marked the end of a full year of uninterrupted programming, after the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 led to canceled episodes and remote sketches.
“I don’t foresee the kind of lockdowns that we’ve seen before,” he also said.
He reiterated that those who are vaccinated and boosted are apt to be safest.