Today's Liberal News

News Roundup: Meadows texts, obstruction charges, and new lawsuit sheds light on Jan. 6 probes

In the news today: Significant public movement in the investigation and prosecution of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The House select committee investigating the coup has now released numerous text messages and documents that make a mockery of Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows’ claims of executive privilege—and show just how furiously Trump’s allies were working to create pretexts for voiding the election—including using the military, if necessary.

BIPOC moms are still trying to cope almost two years into the pandemic

by Sakshi Udavant

This story was originally published by Prism.

One evening last year after two months of being stuck inside due to shelter-in-place orders, Chital Mehta, an Indian mother living in Delaware, took her two young kids on a walk and broke down in the middle of the road.

“The lockdown deeply affected my sanity,” she said. “I struggled to engage my children inside our small apartment.

With application deadline just days away, Liberian families and advocates urge program extension

Liberian families in the U.S. won a huge victory in late 2019, following the passage of a pathway to legalization as part of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. The provision, championed by Liberians and their advocates, allows thousands of Liberians with temporary protections to apply for permanent relief. It was a historic win for many families who have been living in limbo.

I’m Starting to Give Up on Post-pandemic Life

“Today was great!” my 7-year-old exclaimed recently when I came home from work. By cosmic standards, her day wasn’t that special. She went to the playground, where she finally mastered the monkey bars. She visited the history museum—or at least its gift shop. She got “really big” nachos. She went to the kids’ art studio. Two years ago, visiting a museum and a nacho joint was so common, it wouldn’t even have registered.

The Future of Work Is a 60-Year Career

If 5-year-olds could read academic research reports, they might be alarmed by what they’d find in a recent one from the Stanford Center on Longevity.It opened with a bit of promising news: “In the United States, demographers predict that as many as half of today’s 5-year-olds can expect to live to the age of 100.” But that was followed, several pages down, by a haunting prediction: “Over the course of 100-year lives, we can expect to work 60 years or more.

The Supreme Court Is Playing Constitutional Calvinball

Gavin Newsom wants to believe that what’s good for Texas is good for California. Shortly after the conservative majority on the Supreme Court allowed a narrow challenge to Texas’s anti-abortion law to go forward while the law remains in force, the Golden State governor vowed that he would pursue passage of gun restrictions modeled on the Texas law’s unusual structure.

800,000 Deaths

Updated at 6:52 p.m. ET on December 14, 2021.Last week, at a small funeral home in Northwest Washington, D.C., I attended the funeral of a teacher I knew from my time working in Prince George’s County schools eight years ago, Yvonne Brown.Ms. Brown loved literature. She wrote and self-published a novel. She started her school’s poetry club. She loved the magic of words. She loved her students.

T Cells Might Be Our Bodies’ Best Shot Against Omicron

Killer T cells, as their name might imply, are not known for their mercy. When these immunological assassins happen upon a cell that’s been hijacked by a virus, their first instinct is to butcher. The killer T punches holes in the compromised cell and pumps in toxins to destroy it from the inside out. The cell shrinks and collapses; its perforated surface erupts in bubbles and boils, which slough away until little is left but fragmentary mush.

Striking Kellogg’s Workers Vow to Hold Out for Better Contract, Urge Boycott of Company’s Products

Kellogg’s announced it would begin permanently replacing the 1,400 workers who have been on strike for over two months to demand fair wages and better working conditions. The move comes after an overwhelming majority of Kellogg’s workers rejected a new five-year agreement they say falls short of their demands and sparked widespread public backlash, including from President Biden.

“Our Movement Is Growing”: How Starbucks Workers in Buffalo Fought Company’s Union Busting and Won

We look at the historic workers’ victory at the Elmwood Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, where workers successfully voted to unionize last week, making them the first to do so among the coffee chain’s 9,000 locations in the United States, and sparking new efforts at stores across the country. We speak to one of the 19 employees who voted in favor of forming a union about confronting the company and overcoming the challenges.

“No Rules”: A Border Patrol Unit Worked with the FBI to Investigate Journalists. Is It Still Running?

A shocking exposé reveals how a secretive Customs and Border Protection division investigated as many as 20 journalists and their contacts by using government databases intended to track terrorists. Those investigated include the Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter Martha Mendoza, along with others at The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.