In 2011, Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, announced that he had cancer. The details of his illness, and his treatment by doctors in Cuba, remained a mystery: He wouldn’t say what type of cancer it was or where it had been found in his body. But a presidential election was scheduled for the following year, so in January 2012, Chávez announced that he was cured and prepared to start campaigning.
On December 30, 2019, Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital in Hubei, China, began to warn friends and colleagues about the outbreak of a novel respiratory illness. Four days later, he was summoned to appear before local authorities, who reprimanded him for “making false comments” that “severely disturbed the social order.
We speak to Russian activist and historian Ilya Budraitskis after over 5,000 antiwar protesters were detained on Sunday as part of a sweeping crackdown on Russian civil society and the media. Activists in Russia are relying on alternative outlets such as social media for information, as the Russian government continues to censor major news outlets.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has entered its 12th day as civilians across Ukraine are shelled while trying to flee for safety. More than 1.5 million refugees have now left Ukraine in what the United Nations is calling the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. We speak to Kateryna Ivanova, who ran a dental clinic with her husband just outside of Kyiv, about the toll of war on daily life as medical professionals risk their lives by staying behind to meet the shortage.
After multiple failed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, Russia has promised a ceasefire and several so-called humanitarian corridors to allow Ukrainians to flee to predetermined countries, though similar agreements have fallen apart amid continued Russian shelling of civilian areas. We speak to Anatol Lieven from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft about what a Ukraine-Russia peace deal could look like and what is at stake in a prolonged war.
The milestone is the latest tragic reminder of the unrelenting nature of the pandemic even as people are shedding masks, travel is resuming and businesses are reopening around the globe.
A recall of infant formula tied to two deaths came five months after the agency learned of the first hospitalized child, raising questions about the pace of the government’s investigation.
The White House on Thursday called the GOP attempt to terminate the pandemic emergency declaration “a reckless and costly mistake.
The majority opinion pointed to “the importance of ensuring that States have a fair opportunity to defend their laws in federal court.
The new ask raises questions about when the White House will have to come back to Congress for more.
The strategy represents a major milestone for the president after a first year consumed by the pandemic.
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.
“America’s job machine is going stronger than ever,” Biden said at the White House.
The burst of jobs came despite a wave of Omicron inflections that sickened millions of workers, kept many consumers at home and left businesses from restaurants to manufacturers short-staffed.
Congress needs to create a new safety net for such lenders — not let regulators squeeze them out of business.
Inside the White House, there is still optimism: “President Biden was elected to a four-year term, not a one-year term.
We speak with Ukrainian American journalist Lev Golinkin about the rise of the far right in Ukraine. Golinkin says Russian bombing of the sacred Jewish site of Babi Yar disproves Putin’s claims that the invasion is about “denazification,” and attacks on cities in eastern Ukraine show he does not care about Russian-speaking Ukrainians either.
As the Russian military escalates its invasion in Ukraine, Russian police are cracking down on antiwar protesters at home, arresting more than 8,000 over the past eight days. Meanwhile, Russia’s lower house of parliament has passed a new law to criminalize the distribution of what the state considers to be “false news” about military operations, and remaining independent news outlets in the country are shutting down under pressure from the authorities.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of “nuclear terror” after Russian forces shelled and subsequently set on fire the largest nuclear power plant in Europe on Friday morning. The fire at the Zaporizhzhia plant burned for hours but reportedly did not spread to any of the plant’s six reactors before the Russians ultimately seized the site. Ukraine heavily relies on nuclear power, with 15 active nuclear power reactors across the country.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that if a Third World War were to take place, it would be a nuclear war. His comments come just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert and after Russian nuclear submarines set sail for tests in waters near Norway. Meanwhile, voters in Belarus have approved a referendum opening the door for Russia to station nuclear weapons in Belarusian territory, and Russia has called on the U.S.
The last day saw few new military developments, but experts suspect that Russia is massing troops for renewed attacks around Kyiv. In Russia, at least 3,000 arrests were made on Sunday as anti-war protests in that country continue. Meanwhile, the Russian economy continues to reel as the nation faces a likely default on its sovereign bond payments.
I arrive at Daily Kos with eager fingers, a hungry mind, and open ears. My name is Sophia, and I am excited to nudge my way into your conversations and pick your brains in the comments. Thank you for making some room for my words in your corner of the internet.
The Emerging Writers Fellowship at Daily Kos appeared to me via the generous and brilliant writing community on Twitter, where I’ve been lurking since 2018.
Daily Kos—and its wider engaged community—has been a place I’ve known about for some time, but have been more on the outside looking in. I am excited to be here, joining this vibrant place as part of the first cohort of Daily Kos Emerging Fellows. It is a pleasure to meet you, Daily Kos Community. I’m Matthew.
Hi there, Daily Kos community!
My name is Robyn Parks and I am a 26-year-old writer and mother of a toddler boy. I began writing as a coping mechanism for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that lead to repetitive actions that may affect a person’s daily activities. It started off as writing songs when I was little; more specifically, the songs were commercial jingles written to beats from popular music.
Well, hello there. My name is Satchel and I’m excited to be accepted as both a Daily Kos Emerging Fellow and as part of the Daily Kos Community. I’ve been looking for an opportunity like this for a long time and I’m so glad it could be here, with this incredibly engaged audience.
A little bit about me: I’m 25. I’m from suburban New Jersey. I’m the oldest of three. My parents are Guyanese immigrants.
An activist described it as a “small symbolic act” to support Ukraine.
The audience at the event for Republican donors reportedly responded with laughter.
Thursday morning, after the publication of my profile of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in the April issue of The Atlantic, Saudi Arabia’s propaganda machine cranked into operation. For the rest of the day, I watched it work: attempting to hide the uncomfortable parts (in my article I made numerous observations that would get a Saudi journalist imprisoned or worse), amplifying the parts the government liked, and straight-up lying about others.
The Ukrainian president criticized Western leaders for not responding to Russia threatening to strike the smaller country’s military-industrial complex.
The small Western-leaning former Soviet republic is coping with an influx of refugees from Ukraine and warily watching Russia’s intensifying aggression