Today's Liberal News

We Don’t Know Neptune at All

You don’t really hear about Neptune, do you?Not as often as the other planets, certainly. Space robots regularly provide snapshots of the surface of Mars and the clouds of Jupiter. Mercury is a frequent scapegoat for astrology-minded folks having a bad day (even though Mercury being in retrograde is actually just an optical illusion in our night sky). For 13 whole years, the Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn before plunging into the planet, ending its glorious streak of observations.

Our First Encounter With T. Rex

The money had come fast. As a young man from humble stock, he had toiled away at an entry-level job in telecommunications. Now, as his ambition rode the wave of new technology, a small opportunity had turned into unimaginable riches. What to do with so much wealth? Restless and bursting with pride, and perhaps a tinge of guilt for his good fortune, the multimillionaire transformed into a titan of science.

The Indian Action Blockbuster That Should Make Hollywood Jealous

I can think of two action films from the past decade that involved a stunt in which an actor throws an entire motorcycle at someone. The first is the 2015 Marvel sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron. Captain America (played by Chris Evans), battling bad guys in a snowy forest, does a flip with his bike and flings it at an armored tank.

The United States Must Stand Up for One of Its Own

Updated at 12:52 p.m. ET on June 7, 2022.When the Palestinian American journalist and longtime Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was killed on May 11 while reporting on an Israeli military raid in the city of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, competing narratives quickly began to take shape.

“Corrections in Ink”: Keri Blakinger on Her Journey from Addiction to Cornell to Prison to Newsroom

Criminal justice reporter Keri Blakinger speaks with us about her new memoir, out today, called “Corrections in Ink,” which details her path from aspiring professional figure skater to her two years spent in prison after she was arrested in her final semester of her senior year at Cornell University with six ounces of heroin. Blakinger says her relatively short jail sentence was a lucky case, which she attributes to progressive drug reform as well as her racial privilege.

Texas Editor: Police in Uvalde Are Actively Obstructing Us from Doing Our Jobs

Police and bikers in Uvalde, Texas, are restricting a growing number of journalists from reporting on the aftermath of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 fourth graders and two teachers dead. “None of us can ever recall being treated in such a manner and our job impeded in such a manner,” says Nora Lopez, executive editor of San Antonio Express-News and president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

We Can’t Get Answers: Texas Lawmaker Decries Police Refusal to Address Response to School Massacre

We speak with Texas Democratic state Senator Roland Gutierrez about how the police botched the response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, a small town that is part of Gutierrez’s congressional district. The shooting left 19 fourth graders and two teachers dead after the police waited over an hour before anyone confronted the gunman.

U.K. PM Boris Johnson Survives No-Confidence Vote But Faces Uphill Battle to Stay in Power

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson survived a vote of no confidence held by members of his own Conservative Party on Monday. The 211-148 vote came just days after Johnson was booed by conservative royalists when he arrived at a service to honor the queen’s 70-year reign. We speak with Priya Gopal, English professor at the University of Cambridge, who says the vote signals a division within the country’s Conservatives and an opening for progressives.

Biden OKs $5.8B in Debt Relief for Corinthian Students; Pressure Grows to Abolish All Student Debt

The Biden administration this week canceled almost $6 billion in student loan debt for borrowers who attended the now-defunct network of for-profit schools known as Corinthian Colleges, which defrauded thousands of students before being shut down in 2015. We speak to two activists from the Debt Collective, a group working to end the student loan crisis, about the ongoing fight for full federal student debt cancellation.

Many Republicans think mass shootings are ‘something we have to accept as part of a free society’

A horrific trend of mass shootings continues across the country, with more shootings reported every day. According to Axios, this weekend alone at least seven occurred, resulting in 11 deaths and injuries to at least 54 others. The gun control debate has now been pushed to center stage in the U.S., but despite the increasing concerns about gun violence, some lawmakers continue to claim guns are not to blame.

Along with inflation and supply chain issues, parents and schools now need to worry about lunches

Here in the United States, we have a truly unwieldy number of issues to tackle at any given time, especially if you’re not a white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied person. Those people face real issues and barriers, too, of course, but marginalized folks face all of those and then some. Extra sadly but not surprisingly, low-income youth in the nation also face barriers, including access to school lunch.

Ukraine update: 70% of Severodonetsk is back under the control of Ukraine, heavy fighting continues

At some points in the war, it’s been not only possible, but sensible, to doubt reports from either side, especially when they have sounded too rosy. Russia has repeatedly made claims or even shown videos that were absolutely at odds with the reports of those on the ground—that includes happy-happy-joy-joy videos showing smiling people in the areas occupied by Russia going about their day in cities unscarred by weeks of pounding artillery.

These North Carolina organizations are mobilizing frontline communities to vote in 2022 and beyond

Since moving from North Carolina to Massachusetts five years ago, I’ve heard over and over again that I must be so relieved to live somewhere more progressive and accepting—somewhere that isn’t as “backward” as the South.

These statements don’t surprise me anymore, but they do make me sad. There’s no doubt that many Southern states are the home of some of the most extreme anti-abortion, anti-trans, and anti-voter laws in the country.

Boris Johnson Has Only Delayed the Inevitable

Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Britain, meanwhile, lives to endure another day in his shadow, a bit part in the soap opera of his life, watching on as the drama is set on an endless doom loop from comic farce to tragedy.