As Joe Biden convened his virtual Summit for Democracy this week, he warned that democratic erosion represents “the defining challenge of our time.” He isn’t wrong. Democracy is under siege, and this year has been marked by contested elections, coups, and autocratic brazenness. This was the fifth consecutive year in which the number of countries moving in the direction of authoritarianism outpaced those moving toward democracy.
Steven Spielberg has been making films that feel like musicals for his entire career. No, the fearsome shark of Jaws and dinosaurs of Jurassic Park didn’t belt out a tune, and heroes like Indiana Jones and Tintin weren’t dancing through their set pieces, but they might as well have been. Spielberg is an expert at the careful choreography of camera blocking; his gift for legibly communicating complicated sequences of movement on a massive scale is second to none.
House Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney dismissed pharmaceutical industry arguments that the drug price controls the Democrats are pursuing would limit efforts to develop new cures and therapeutics.
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.
We speak with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney on his new film, “The Forever Prisoner,” which follows the story of Guantánamo prisoner Abu Zubaydah, who was the first so-called high-value prisoner subjected to the CIA’s torture program and has been indefinitely imprisoned since 2006 without charge. Nearly two decades after the start of the U.S.
Filipina journalist Maria Ressa and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov accepted the Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.” “There are so many more journalists persecuted in the shadows with neither exposure nor support, and governments are doubling down with impunity,” said Ressa in her acceptance speech at Friday’s Nobel ceremony, which we play in full.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could soon face charges in the United States after a U.K. court ruled Friday in favor of the U.S. government’s appeal to extradite him. U.K. Judge Timothy Holroyde said he was satisfied with a pledge from the United States that Assange would not be held in a so-called ADX maximum-security prison in Colorado, despite a U.K.
The companies said a third dose appears to provide a similar number of antibodies as a two-dose series against the original virus and other variants.
Despite promises to distribute shots based on need alone, U.S. negotiations with Myanmar and Taiwan have fanned fears that the administration is mixing politics and public health.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit from several contractors and seven states.
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 the end, President Joe Biden did what many close to him expected: He took a longer-than-anticipated amount of time to arrive at a reasonable, moderate decision that thrilled few but carried limited risk.
The Commerce secretary said in an interview that the Biden administration sees trading partners in Asia as part of the solution.
Aggressive action to deliver pandemic relief was the right call — and withdrawing support now would only hurt American workers.
Animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung has been convicted on felony charges of burglary and larceny for removing a sick baby goat from a goat meat farm in North Carolina in 2018. Hsiung is the co-founder of the animal rights organization Direct Action Everywhere. He was given a suspended sentence and 24 months probation.
By April 1968, Charles de Gaulle was bored. “None of this amuses me anymore,” the French president told his aide-de-camp, Admiral François Flohic. “There is no longer anything difficult or heroic to do.
In the news today: The economic news continues to be surprisingly bright, considering that we’re still knee-deep in a worldwide pandemic.
Here in the United States (and, really, globally) there are plenty of LGBTQ+ people and allies who are religious. This might sound surprising as religion can be harmful, oppressive, and isolating for queer people, but it can also be a space of affirmation, care, and community. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.
In 2004, Hurricane Ivan tore through the Gulf of Mexico. One of the worst disasters wrought by Ivan’s wrath was damage to an offshore oil rig, owned by Louisiana-based company Taylor Energy, which fell over—uncapping the well beneath. Crude oil began to fill the Gulf.
Taylor Energy first lied and said that only a few gallons of oil were leaking every day out of the broken well, while they worked to plug the holes created by Ivan and their rig.
Two Illinois counties went straight to court after lawmakers passed into law legislation that effectively ends immigration detention in the state. Their plan was to deal the Illinois Way Forward Act a death blow, and continue reaping in millions from federal contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
But that legal effort by McHenry and Kankakee Counties has failed for now, because a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.
On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer notified Senate Democrats he is prioritizing an effort to “restore the Senate,” and do something about the filibuster in order to pass voting rights legislation. Politico has a bit more information on what “restore the Senate” means, and also why Schumer is so intent on trying to get the budget reconciliation for President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) plan done before Christmas.
The National Archives said it is working with Meadows, who is also clashing with a House panel over records related to the Capitol riot.
The former president is trying to stop the release of hundreds of records related to the White House’s involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Last year, TV became essential. When the stages we used to go to—concert halls, movie theaters, sports arenas—closed amid the pandemic, the small screen became the only outlet for safe viewing entertainment. Things have begun to change this year: Artists are announcing tours, people have trickled back into cinemas, and even the Summer Olympics happened. (Sort of.)But TV, thankfully, hasn’t stopped keeping us enthralled.
Sign up for Derek’s newsletter here.The flood of Omicron news can be overwhelming. The endless data, anecdotes, and studies are hard enough to synthesize. But what makes the information even harder to parse is that so much evidence (i.e., what people are seeing) is intertwined with opinion (i.e., what people are hoping and fearing).
Even before the arrival of Omicron, the winter months were going to be tough for parts of the United States. While COVID transmission rates in the South caught fire over the summer, the Northeast and Great Plains states were largely spared thanks to cyclical factors and high vaccination rates. But weather and the patterns of human life were bound to shift the disease burden northward for the holidays—and that was just with Delta.
James, a progressive whose investigation of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) pushed him out of office, is running for reelection as attorney general.
Eligible teens will be able to get the shot once they are at least six months past their second dose.
Attorney General Letitia James wants the former president to sit for a deposition related to the Trump Organization.