Today's Liberal News

The Double-Whammy COVID-Flu

In late February 2020, only a couple of weeks after the pandemic coronavirus disease had even received a formal name, a man with a terrible cough and fever showed up at one of the ProHealth Urgent Care centers in Queens, New York. At that point, no COVID-19 cases had yet been confirmed in New York City, but numbers were on the rise in spots across the country, and the man had recently been at a conference.

King Richard Is an Unconventional Sports Biopic

The protagonist of Reinaldo Marcus Green’s new film, King Richard, is, to put it mildly, an unconventional networker. Driving around Los Angeles in a ramshackle VW bus, Richard Williams (played by Will Smith) is focused on finding a coach for his daughters, whom he is hell-bent on molding into tennis prodigies.

The Mystery of Pete Buttigieg

Here’s a surprise from President Joe Biden’s time in office: One of the most prominent figures in the debate over paid parental leave—a right that 186 other countries give at least to mothers, and that could boost the national birth rate and strengthen the traditional family unit—is the gay, male secretary of transportation.Starting in August, Pete Buttigieg left work for several weeks to care for the twins that he and his husband, Chasten, had just adopted.

Maybe Don’t Blow Up Satellites in Space

The astronauts were still asleep when NASA called the International Space Station. “Hey, Mark, good morning. Sorry for the early call,” a mission controller said in the early hours of Monday morning, speaking with Mark Vande Hei, one of four NASA astronauts on board. But the astronauts needed to get up, mission control said calmly, and move to the spacecraft docked to the station. They needed to be prepared to potentially escape and head back to Earth. This was an emergency.

Climate Colonialism: Why Was Occupied Western Sahara Excluded from COP26 U.N. Summit in Scotland?

Activists are criticizing the British government for excluding Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco since 1975, from the U.N. climate summit in Scotland. Meanwhile, Morocco is counting renewable energy developments in Western Sahara towards its own climate pledges. Sahwari activists and the Sahrawi government in exile known as SADR, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, have described this as climate colonialism.

Rep. Gosar Faces Censure for AOC Murder Video, Refuses to Apologize. Sister Calls Him a “Sociopath.”

We speak with Jennifer Gosar, the youngest sister of far-right Arizona Congressmember Paul Gosar, who faces censure in a House vote today for posting an animated video on social media that features him murdering Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden with swords. Gosar will be required to stand in the well of the House while the resolution is read.

Protect Voting Rights Now! MLK’s Granddaughter, Ben Jealous & More Risk Arrest at White House Protest

Republicans may retake control of the House next year thanks largely to extreme gerrymandering by Republican state legislators, even as Republican opposition in Congress has impeded critical legislation to combat discriminatory voting practices and eliminate barriers to the ballot. As pressure grows for Democrats to pass two key voting rights bills, activists are holding the last in a series of protests at the White House, where nearly 100 have been arrested since August, including Rev.

“Blackness Itself Is the Crime”: Bishop William Barber on Racism in the Ahmaud Arbery Murder Trial

We speak with Bishop William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign, who was one of the Black pastors who visited the trial of the three white men who hunted down and shot dead Ahmaud Arbery, where last week a defense attorney claimed Black pastors sitting with the Arbery family in the courtroom could be “intimidating” for the jury, which is almost all white.

News Roundup: Biden promises infrastructure is ‘just the beginning’; Republicans defend Gosar

In the news today: While President Biden vows the newly passed infrastructure bill is “just the beginning” of revitalization efforts, House Republicans are still focused on protecting even their worst members from consequences for their acts. Another revelation seems to confirm that Trump’s most vocal advocates for nullifying the election were swimming in a whole sea of crackpot conspiracy theories—and demanding Trump’s military act on them.