Today's Liberal News

Expect the Unexpected From the Delta Variant

This much is clear: The coronavirus is becoming more transmissible. Ever since the virus emerged in China, it has been gaining mutations that help it spread more easily among humans. The Alpha variant, first detected in the United Kingdom last year, is 50 percent more transmissible than the original version, and now the Delta variant, first detected in India, is at least 40 percent more transmissible than Alpha.

The Books Briefing: Finding Place as a Black American

As this year’s Juneteenth celebrations begin—commemorating when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were told that the Civil War had ended and they were now technically free—thinking about place can be illuminating. America has a long history of denying and violating the basic rights of Black people, leading many of these citizens to carve out spaces that celebrate and recognize their full humanity.

“Here I Am”: Meet a Descendant of One of 272 Enslaved People Sold on June 19, 1838, by Georgetown U.

We look at another significant June 19 in the history of slavery in the United States: June 19, 1838, when Jesuit priests who ran what is now Georgetown University sold 272 enslaved people to pay off the school’s debts. In 2016, Georgetown University announced it would give preferential admissions treatment to descendants of the Africans it enslaved and sold.

Clint Smith on Juneteenth & Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

As President Biden signs legislation to make Juneteenth a federal holiday to mark the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, we speak to the writer and poet Clint Smith about Juneteenth and his new book, “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.

The Strange Elegance of Joe Manchin’s Voter-ID Deal

In order to secure his vote on the most significant voting-rights legislation in more than half a century, Senator Joe Manchin is demanding that every American be required to show identification in order to vote. Democrats shouldn’t hold their nose and take that deal.They should embrace it with open arms.Manchin has been frequently and fairly criticized for incoherence on democracy issues.

The Dark Side of Fitness Culture

This is supposed to be the season of unleashed, exuberant exhibitionism. Many of us have swaddled our pale bodies in Lycra and terry cloth for more than a year; the theory of Hot Vax Summer is that we’re long overdue to expose them to the cruel light of other people’s eyes. In the music video for “Solar Power,” Lorde basks on the beach in a lemon-yellow crop top, the symmetry of her rib cage its own work of art.

Masha Gessen on the Biden-Putin Summit, Alexei Navalny & the Future of U.S.-Russia Relations

President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are meeting in Geneva for a closely watched summit between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. Topics expected to be discussed include nuclear arms, cybersecurity, Syria, the Iranian nuclear deal, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the Korean Peninsula, Putin’s crackdown on dissent inside Russia and the U.S. military presence near the Russian border.

Jennifer Gosar says what many of us are thinking: Her brother, Paul Gosar, is responsible for Jan. 6

Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona is a very well-known dirtbag bigot. He has been one of the leading vacuous blobs of hate that has taken up the space left by fellow white nationalist former Rep. Steve King. Along with fellow fascist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Gosar has founded the America First Caucus—which is exactly the kind of racist and xenophobic drivel you might imagine it to be.