Today's Liberal News

News Roundup: Gas prices fall; Jan. 6 texts expose GOP leadership; Trump’s touch turns to snake oil

It is Friday. There is good news and bad news this week. The good news consists of Jan. 6’s attempted coup d’etat defendants taking a few steps closer to receiving their just deliverance; Donald Trump continues to fail both in business and in endorsements; and gas prices have begun to come back down from the stratosphere. The bad news is that the Democratic Party needs to message better and do more from the top down domestically.

Ukraine update: Russian media claims the EU is about to splinter, with Russia regaining East Germany

News out of Mariupol suggests that many of the remaining Ukrainian fighters are restricted to the Azovstal metal refinery on the southeast of the city. That may make it seem that Russia has these Ukrainian forces backed into a single building, which they can simply level with the next round of artillery.

But that plant is actually an enormous expanse of connected refineries, factories, offices, and shipping facilities.

Far-right Marine Le Pen pledges submission to Moscow, reminding us what Trump 2.0 would look like

In the span of a few weeks, the tilt of the geopolitical world has shifted so quickly that perhaps Americans just haven’t had enough time to digest how fortunate they are Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election. Doubtlessly the Ukrainians are aware, and those living in the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are as well because their very lives would have been entirely forfeit or at grave risk right now.

Dianne Feinstein Is the Future of the Senate

Look, it’s right there in the name: Senate, borrowed from the Romans and meaning a “council of elders.” More than ever, the label fits. This is the oldest Senate, by average age, in American history, at 64 years. Jim Inhofe and Richard Shelby, both 87, have announced plans to retire. Chuck Grassley, 88, is running for reelection this fall. But even he is a shade younger than Dianne Feinstein, also 88.

Keeping a Diary at the End of the World

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the writer and photographer Yevgenia Belorusets began to journal about her experience living in Kyiv. The resulting account, which she published online in real time, provides insight into the conflict that more straightforward news coverage has failed to capture. It is, as she put it in an interview with my colleague Gal Beckerman, “a very complex picture of reality at a moment when war has turned everything incredibly awful.

Have We Already Ruined Our Next COVID Summer?

Almost exactly 12 months ago, America’s pandemic curve hit a pivot point. Case counts peaked—and then dipped, and dipped, and dipped, on a slow but sure grade, until, somewhere around the end of May, the numbers flattened and settled, for several brief, wonderful weeks, into their lowest nadir so far.I refuse to use the term hot vax summer (oops, just did), but its sentiment isn’t exactly wrong.

“Trigger Points”: Author Mark Follman on How the U.S. Can Prevent More Mass Shootings

As the United States reels from an epidemic of mass shootings in schools, trains and other public places, we speak with Mark Follman, national affairs editor at Mother Jones, where he covers gun violence. Follman says mass shootings are typically planned over a period of time and follow a “robust trail of behavioral warning signs” that offer opportunities in community-based violence prevention to stop the crime before it happens.

Vijay Prashad on the War in Ukraine & the West’s “Open, Rank Hypocrisy” in Condemning War Crimes

As the Russian invasion in Ukraine enters its 50th day, we look at the war’s impact around the world with Vijay Prashad, author and director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. “When food prices go up, the political crisis is almost immediate,” says Prashad, who calls the U.S. pressure on Global South countries to cut off essential imports from Russia after a 30-year globalization campaign a double standard. He says if the U.S.

Russia Warns U.S. About Arms Sales to Ukraine as Weapon Makers Reap “Bonanza” from War

This week the Pentagon met with leading U.S. weapons manufacturers as Russia warned the Biden administration to stop arming Ukraine, claiming it was “adding fuel” to the conflict. This comes as a Russian warship sank in the Black Sea hours after Ukraine claimed to have attacked it with cruise missiles, and as Sweden and Finland say they may join NATO, which would require more weapons spending.

Liberation Without Victory

Kyiv is halfway normal now. Burnt-out Russian tanks have been removed from the roads leading into the city, traffic lights work, the subway runs, oranges are available for purchase. A cheerful balalaika orchestra was performing for returning refugees at the main rail station earlier this week, on the day we arrived to meet Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.The normality is deceiving.

200 Starbucks & Counting: Barista Jaz Brisack Says Union Busting Can’t Stop Worker Solidarity

We speak with Starbucks Workers United organizer and barista Jaz Brisack on the growing Starbucks union drive that has swept across 30 U.S. states since she helped successfully organize the first U.S. unionized location in Buffalo, New York, last December. Starbucks Workers United has now successfully unionized over a dozen Starbucks shops, and about 200 stores have filed for union elections, covering 5,000 workers in 30 states.

Ukraine update: Russian flagship sinks; U.S. escalates weapon deliveries

Russia’s state-owned news agency has now confirmed that the Russian warship Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, has sunk. The heavily damaged ship reportedly sank during an attempt to tow it back to port. Russia is being less forthcoming about the fate of the crew, thought to number over 500, the number claimed to have been successfully evacuated is far less.