Today's Liberal News

The First Glimmer of Accountability

The indictment unsealed on Thursday in New York does not charge Donald Trump personally. It addresses only a small slice of alleged wrongdoing by the organization named after him and which, for most of his life, he ran. It doesn’t speak to any of the numerous instances of misconduct and potential criminality that took place during Trump’s presidency, nor should it be understood as a referendum on that misconduct. But it offers the first glimmer of accountability, all the same.

America’s Vaccine Future Is Fragmenting

Last winter, when vaccines were still incredibly scarce in the United States, Ashish Jha told The Atlantic that he was feeling optimistic about summer: By July 4, Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, expected enough people to be vaccinated that he could host a backyard barbecue. Indeed, Jha confirmed to me this week, he will be grilling burgers and hot dogs for friends this Fourth of July.

Give Reggie Bush His Heisman Back

College sports changed forever this week. Giving in to intense pressure from state lawmakers, the NCAA freed student athletes to profit off of their own name, image, and likeness for the first time. The next step in the NCAA’s forced evolution should be to restore the reputation of athletes whom the organization has demonized for capitalizing on their own fame.

What I’m Teaching My Daughter About Living in Extreme Heat

I moved from Phoenix, Arizona, to Portland, Oregon, in 2000, partly to get away from the heat. Last week, it found me.Heat radiated through the upstairs ceiling and walls of our home, turning our bedrooms into ovens. Even briefly fetching clothes from closets upstairs felt painful. Our house has had only a few updates since 1955, so along with an original pink toilet, it has no air conditioning and an uninsulated attic.

Supreme Court decision on Arizona puts Kyrsten Sinema on the spot. She must end the filibuster.

On Thursday, July 1, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s GOP voter suppression law—a crushing blow to our freedom to vote. This will have dire effects on the whole country, but especially in Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s home state of Arizona.

In order to restore and protect our democracy, we must pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Act. But both bills are blocked in the Senate due to the filibuster—an archaic rule that Sinema still defends.

Whistleblowers say ICE prisons ‘continue to threaten the lives of immigrants,’ urge vaccine access

Detained immigrants and their advocates have said since the beginning of the novel coronavirus pandemic that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) isn’t taking this virus seriously (or just doesn’t really care to). For example, ICE’s refusal to release immigrants to shelter at home and in their communities added hundreds of thousands of cases to the national caseload.

Black Olympians ‘disappointed and heartbroken’ after ban on swim cap made for natural Black hair

Ignorance has halted the chance for a product geared toward inclusion from making an appearance at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the products being swimming caps designed for natural Black hair. According to CBS News, Fédération Internationale De Natation (FINA), the federation for international competitions in water sports, rejected an application for the caps to be officially recognized—meaning the caps cannot be worn at upcoming games.

June jobs report shows an unexpectedly strong 850,000 new jobs

The U.S. economy is up 850,000 jobs, according to the June jobs report, and the past two months’ jobs reports were adjusted upward by 15,000. June’s jobs report is the strongest result in 10 months.

The unemployment rate rose slightly, to 5.9%, while the number of people who have been jobless for six months or more rose to 4 million, and “Black unemployment remains in deeply recessionary territory at 9.