Today's Liberal News

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.

ICE ignores pleas for release and instead transfers remaining immigrants detained at New Jersey jail

New Jersey’s Bergen County was the remaining locality in the state to continue holding a federal immigration contract when the commissioner board voted unanimously last month to end the agreement. Last Friday, the remaining 15 immigrants at the jail were removed, a week ahead of schedule. It was the culmination of years of organizing by immigrants and advocates.

New Orleans sheriff desperate to keep predatory prison phone call rates for sake of budget

Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman is facing his first major challenger in years. The sheriff, who’s been in power for 17 years and automatically won his 2017 re-election bid because no one challenged him, has found himself in a runoff with former police monitor Susan Hutson. The two could not be more different in their approach to running the office that oversees Orleans Parish Prison.

Birds Fake Their Own Death to Scare Off Intruders

In the spring of 2019, the biologist Tore Slagsvold headed into the forests outside Oslo to stage a series of tiny crime scenes. He didn’t need bullets, or bootprints, or even bodies or blood; only a handful of plush, white feathers.Slagsvold’s audience was avian—the region’s blue tits and pied flycatchers. And with any luck, his faux, fluffy evidence was going to scare the bejesus out of them.