More than one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, over 3.5 million people have died around the world, including nearly 500,000 in the United States. Historian and writer John Barry says the highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus was a predictable development based on how previous pandemics have developed. “This is not unusual, what we’re going through,” he says.
In the news today: After the U.S. military withdrawal ending two decades of occupation, the Afghanistan capital fell today to Taliban forces. Here in the United States, the Republican-state pandemic surge still continues to grow.
On Thursday, August 12, Daily Kos, Stand Up America, Black Voters Matter, Common Cause, Fix Our Senate, People for the American Way, and other voting rights advocates from across the country joined family members of the late Hon. John Lewis and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton to deliver a petition to the White House.
Had the United States caught and killed Osama bin Laden in December 2001, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would have faded away almost immediately afterward. I cannot prove that. It’s only an opinion from my vantage point as one of President George W. Bush’s speechwriters in 2001 and 2002.Yet I strongly believe it. The U.S.
I will never forget the time in 2018 when California Democratic Representative Maxine Waters said “If you shoot me, you better shoot straight,” after repeatedly receiving death threats from the Trump Klan—threats that continue in 2021. No matter the danger to herself, she continues to serve her district and the nation and will be celebrating her 83rd birthday on Sunday.
The Taliban executed a nearly complete takeover of Afghanistan, taking President Joe Biden and top officials by surprise.
Well, COVID-19 is back with a vengeance after a few precious months when it seemed like we might finally be able to breathe again. We thought it could be a chance to recoup, refresh ourselves, and move forward for those of us on the front lines.
I should say we hoped it would be all those things, in the same way Charlie Brown hopes Lucy will finally let him kick that football.
I didn’t get the memo about this one.
“We would have been back at war with the Taliban,” he said of the result of U.S. troops staying in Afghanistan any longer.
Within 24 hours, two teachers, a teaching assistant, and a graduate of Broward County Public Schools in Florida have died after testing positive for COVID-19, the local teacher’s union president told CNN. The three educators were unvaccinated. The recent deaths, like the some 1,000 reported last week throughout the state, have done little to motivate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to reverse his stance after banning schools from implementing mask requirements.
The Louisiana Republican received his vaccination much later than his coworkers in Congress, opting to delay his inoculation until July.
There’s plenty of blame to go around for the 20-year debacle in Afghanistan—enough to fill a library of books. Perhaps the effort to rebuild the country was doomed from the start. But our abandonment of the Afghans who helped us, counted on us, staked their lives on us, is a final, gratuitous shame that we could have avoided.
“It’s an issue, but it is certainly not the cause of our current dilemma,” Francis Collins said.
“This is going very steeply upward with no signs of having peaked out,” Collins said on “Fox News Sunday.
Proposed legislation would raise the state’s minimum marriage age from 14 to 16 and limit the age difference between a 16-year-old and their spouse.
Once, it was said that the eyes were the windows to the soul. Now the cellphone is. Consider Jeffrey Burrill, a man who regularly logged in to the gay dating app Grindr and whose cellphone emitted signals marking his visits to gay bars and a Las Vegas gay bathhouse. Hardly a story there, you might say.Except Jeffrey Burrill was Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, the secretary-general of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The current wave of voter suppression bills targets the Native vote that helped elect President Joe Biden and a Democratic Senate majority.
I light incense on the stovetop, trail cinders
through an empty house. I’ve decided to believein the power of ashes: Here I am,
buying fruit, mending torn shirts, brushing teethin cramped bathrooms, living
someplace new. Wish you were here.I sprinkle sandalwood dust on the ribbon
from my first 5K, the token from my first solo trip—milestones so small and unremarkable,
only you could understand and be proud.
Am I being given a freedom I can never really take advantage of?
The numbers are remarkable. More than 100 million people in the United States have likely been infected by SARS-CoV-2 and 167 million people are fully vaccinated. Yet despite this huge population of people with at least some level of immunity, the Delta variant has sent case and hospitalization numbers soaring. Florida is on its way to having twice as many people hospitalized now than during any previous wave, when essentially no one was vaccinated.
Crashing computers, three-week delays tracking infections, lab results delivered by snail mail: State officials detail a vast failure to identify hotspots quickly enough to prevent outbreaks.
Parenting advice on in-laws, weddings, and twins.
From literally pantsless CEOs to the Reddit mob’s muscle, we’re still living in the meme-stock moment.
A good sign for anyone freaking out about inflation (or shopping for a CRV).
Should I say something?
I warned them, but they’re still insisting I play in the office tournament.
The panel’s action comes after the FDA amended the emergency use authorizations for Pfizer and Moderna shots this week.
Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock emphasized that people whose immune systems are not compromised — the vast majority of Americans — do not need additional vaccine doses.
The policy announced Thursday will apply to more than 25,000 officials under HHS’ sprawling umbrella.
