Today's Liberal News

Ukraine update: Refugees top 4.5 million; Russian crimes provoke NATO into broader weapons transfers

The number of refugees who have fled Ukraine after Russia’s invasion has now topped 4.5 million, according to the United Nations, and is expected to grow even more as Ukrainian officials to advise civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk to leave those regions before new Russian attacks.

Getting out, however, remains dangerous. The death toll from a Russian missile strike on a Kramatorsk train platform crowded with evacuating civilians has now risen to 57.

SNL’s Poignant Celebration of Ketanji Brown Jackson Stole the Show

Last night’s cold open on Saturday Night Live, which featured four of the show’s Black cast members, illustrated how far the show has come in the past decade. SNL has struggled with diversity throughout its tenure, but during the 2013–2014 season, the problem reached a fever pitch. The show had not hired another Black woman after Maya Rudolph’s departure in 2007, leaning instead on Kenan Thompson and Jay Pharoah to dress in drag when necessary.

The Necklace

Illustrations by Miki LoweWhen the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam published his collection Tristia in 1922, the Bolshevik government had begun to tighten its grip on artists, pressuring them to use their talent for propaganda. Though he sympathized with the socialist cause, Mandelstam didn’t believe in writing for any political agenda. But he knew how grave the consequences of refusing could be: All around him, artists were fleeing or falling victim to the state.

I Worry We’ll Soon Forget About Ukraine

“Don’t forget about Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said last Sunday at the end of an interview with CBS. “We have the same values, we have the same color of blood, and we are fighting for freedom and we will win.”Less than two months ago, democracy in America and elsewhere seemed to be drifting toward its own expiration. Then the Russian invasion and unbending Ukrainian resistance delivered a shock to the democratic world that restored its heartbeat.

Pop Music’s Nostalgia Obsession

The Grammys have always been more than a bit old-fashioned. The ceremony typically consists of exciting new artists covering the songs of yesteryear, interspersed with awards going to established acts over those same exciting new artists. But though reforms at the Recording Academy, which hands out the awards, have led to better representation in recent years, this past week’s Grammys renewed debate about whether they’re still too stuck in the past.

Is It Time to Start Masking Again?

Well, here we are again. After our fleeting brush with normalcy during Omicron’s retreat, another very transmissible new version of the coronavirus is on the rise—and with it, a fresh wave of vacillation between mask-donning and mask-doffing.The Omicron offshoot BA.2 is now the dominant variant around the world and in the United States. Case counts are rising in a number of states. It’s too early to tell whether BA.

Trita Parsi: War Could Be on Horizon If Iran Nuclear Deal Is Not Restored Soon

Will the U.S. and Iran revive the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by the Trump administration? President Biden is facing heat from lawmakers in both parties who oppose the deal, which would relax U.S. sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. At the crux of the debate is the Iranian request for Biden to lift the designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, which would have a high political cost for the administration.

End the Double Standard: U.S. Accuses Russia of War Crimes While Continuing to Oppose the ICC

The United Nations General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday, a resolution that accused Russia of committing human rights abuses in Ukraine. We speak with human rights lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck about the apparent double standards and weaknesses in the current international criminal justice system in light of the U.S. committing similar crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nations like the U.S.

Law Professor Michele Goodwin Condemns Wave of “Unprecedented & Unfathomable” Anti-Abortion Laws

Anti-abortion legislation is sweeping the U.S., including in Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri. We speak with Michele Goodwin, author of “Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood,” about the links between current conflicts between state and federal law and their historic precedents, such as Brown v. Board of Education and the Fugitive Slave Acts.

Justice: Ketanji Brown Jackson Makes “Herstory” as First Black Woman Confirmed to Supreme Court

The U.S. Senate voted 53-47 on Thursday to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. She will be the first Black woman and first former public defender to serve on the country’s top court. While Jackson’s confirmation was a “monumental moment in United States history,” it was undercut by the “shameful spectacle” of Republican senators behaving disrespectfully toward Jackson, says law professor Michele Goodwin.

Asylum-seekers have been waiting years for an interview because of a Trump-era processing system

This article was originally published at Prism.

Over 430,000 affirmative asylum-seekers have been subject to a processing policy referred to as “Last In, First Out” (LIFO) that prioritizes recently submitted applications over older cases. A person who applies for affirmative asylum this year should have their interview within 45 days, but the wait is averaging 1,621 days. For those who applied in 2015, 2016, or 2017 when the backlog began, the delay has lasted seven years.

Trans rights: How to center trans voices and tips for allies (VIDEO)

Transgender rights are consistently being threatened, with a record number of anti-trans bill being filed in just the first few months of this year alone. According to NBC News, nearly 240 such pieces of legislation have been filed, ranging from bills that target trans athletes and youth to restricting health care access and barring students from learning about LGBTQ issues.

NLRB official moves to ban captive audience meetings, this week in the war on workers

Captive audience meetings are one of the major tools of corporate union-busting efforts, in which management intimidates workers in person, on the clock, with the knowledge that their responses are being watched. Now, Jennifer Abruzzo, the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, is asking the board to classify most captive audience meetings as an unfair labor practice based on coercion in violation of workers’ rights.