Phylis Mitchell is a woman who is transformed, through the magic of the holidays, into a drill sergeant. Early on in The Christmas House, an already classic Hallmark rom-com, she enlists her husband and two adult sons in her mission to revive an old family tradition: creating the aggressively festive home that gives the movie its title. Phylis (played by Sharon Lawrence) devotes herself to the cause with comic zeal.
“Can’t wait to tell my grandkids i was here!” Gracyn Courtright posted on Instagram on Jan. 6.
Updated at 12:00 p.m. ET on December 17, 2021A lot has changed for Omicron in just two weeks. At December’s onset, the variant was barely present in Europe, showing up in 1 to 2 percent of COVID cases. Now it’s accounting for 72 percent of new cases in London, where everybody seems to know somebody with COVID. In the U.K. and Denmark, Omicron case numbers are doubling every other day.
Editor’s note: This week’s newsletter is a rerun.
We’ll be back with a fresh newsletter soon.In dozens of novels written over a decades-long career, the romance writer Jackie Collins sharply observed the role of sex and power in Hollywood. She wrote incisively about abuse in the industry and empowered female characters who found liberation in a male-dominated world.
Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia implored conservative members of his party to stop obstructing voting rights legislation in a powerful speech on the floor of the Senate Tuesday. While Warnock did not name Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the two have come out against doing away with the filibuster in order to allow Democrats to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
We look at the life and legacy of trailblazing Black feminist scholar and activist bell hooks, who died at the age of 69 on Wednesday. We speak with her longtime colleague Beverly Guy-Sheftall, professor of women’s studies at Spelman College, who remembers her as “a person who would sit with young people and community people and students and help them understand this world in which we live, which is full of all kinds of domination.
The county of Williamson, Texas, has announced a settlement of $5 million in the wrongful death of Javier Ambler II in 2019. The 40-year-old Black man died after being repeatedly tased by police during a traffic stop. Police bodycam footage showed Ambler telling officers, “I have congestive heart failure,” and “I can’t breathe,” as they continued to tase him.
The former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter, who faces manslaughter charges for fatally shooting 20-year-old Black man Daunte Wright during a traffic stop, is expected to take the stand in her own defense Friday. Potter claims she reached for her Taser and drew a pistol by mistake. “Black people should not be killed in America over misdemeanor, pretextual traffic stops,” says Benjamin Crump, attorney for Wright’s family.
Former police officer Derek Chauvin has pleaded guilty to violating George Floyd’s civil rights, marking the first time he publicly admitted to his role in Floyd’s death. Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, killing him with the excessive use of force in 2019. Floyd’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for social justice protests and calls to defund the police across the country.
The companies submitted Phase III clinical trial data to FDA as a supplemental application for their vaccine, which is already approved for adults and children as young as 16.
The nation’s supply could be stretched by the need to conduct 3 to 5 million tests per day by late January or early February.
Nearly the entire increase came from the burst of federal spending as the government mobilized to contain the spread of the virus.
Nearly the entire increase came from the burst of federal spending as the government mobilized to contain the spread of the virus.
The Fed plans to cease its bond buys entirely by March, rather than its earlier target of June to give itself room to begin raising interest rates as early as the second quarter of next year.
Costs for key goods and services soared 0.8 percent for the month and 6.8 percent for the year, the highest since 1982, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The middle class is facing serious economic hardship with little of the workplace flexibility now afforded to the well-off. Here’s how employers — and government — can help.
Powell’s comment came after the Fed already announced earlier this month that it would slow the pace at which it buys U.S. government debt and mortgage-backed securities.
In Chile, voters this weekend will determine a close runoff election between far-right candidate José Antonio Kast and leftist Gabriel Boric, a former student leader. If Boric, who holds a narrow lead, wins the race, he would become Chile’s youngest and most progressive president in years.
It’s Thursday. Guess who’s standing in the way of voting rights and the child tax credit? Yes, the same two duplicitous Democratic senators who have spent 2021 peddling GOP talking points. Republican officials have a plan for ending the pandemic: Do nothing and then attack trans children’s rights.
Democratic Rep. Alan Lowenthal, a longtime elected official in the Long Beach area, announced Thursday that he would not seek a sixth term in California’s 47th Congressional District. The current incarnation of Lowenthal’s constituency, which includes most of Long Beach as well as nearby communities in Los Angeles and Orange counties, is solidly blue turf at 62-35 Biden, though the state’s independent redistricting commission is still completing the new map.
A federal grand jury indicted three companies on Wednesday for their role in the October pipeline rupture in Orange County, California that spewed 25,000 gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean near Huntington Beach. Amplify Energy Corp. and two subsidiaries—Beta Offshore and San Pedro Bay Pipeline Co.—face one misdemeanor count of negligent discharge of oil.
There were supposed to be “Big crowds!” for Trump and O’Reilly’s “History Tour” in Florida. Not so much, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
Mike Lindell, CEO of the MyPillow thing, is supposedly spending a lot of his own money in pursuit of overturning our democracy—at least according to famed liar Mike Lindell. He told CNBC that he has spent $25 million of his own money since Nov. 3, 2020. That’s the day that America voted to make sure Donald Trump couldn’t continue to run our country into the dirt.
Thursday’s move is expected to prompt justices to issue a final decision on whether the mandate can take effect.
While applauding Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s announcement of the establishment of a memorial and archive of slavery in Barbados, which was featured in last week’s Caribbean Matters, it got me thinking about right-wing forces here in the U.S. pushing to abolish or whitewash what we learn about our enslavement history.
The former president is telling people he saved Christmas again.
In late May of 2020, the U.S. hit one of what has become so many grim pandemic milestones: our first 100,000 dead from COVID-19. I remember how heartbroken I was then—and how frustrated. The novel coronavirus, a stealthy pathogen, was bound to take a toll no matter how perfect Americans’ response was to the crisis. But Americans’ response was far from perfect. I was frustrated by people who refused to wear a mask.
Election conspiracy theorist Phil Waldron was ordered to turn over documents and sit for a deposition next month regarding his work to overturn the 2020 election.
Heightening the stakes is the Supreme Court’s pending decision on Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.
Many people across the country will be able to access abortion pills through a pharmacy or by mail, which could revolutionize access to care.