Today's Liberal News

“The Sum of Us”: Heather McGhee on How Racism Undercuts the American Dream for Everyone

Amid a national reckoning with structural racism and the dangers of white supremacy, author Heather McGhee’s new book details how racism in the United States hurts not just people of color but also white people. In “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” McGhee details how zero-sum thinking has worsened inequality and robbed people of all stripes of the public goods and support they need to thrive.

Israel’s ‘Totally Crooked’ Prime Minister

Today, Israel will hold its fourth election in two years. This is a sign not of democracy on steroids, but instead of acute dysfunction, a semipermanent paralysis brought about, strangely, by the extreme stability of Israeli voting patterns: Neither the incumbent, Benjamin Netanyahu, nor his various opponents have been able to change enough minds to build a durable parliamentary majority.

News Roundup: Sedition regains corporate sponsors; Rep. Tom Reed won’t run again

In today’s news, the House hears arguments for Washington, D.C., statehood, a House Republican announced he would no longer run for reelection after accusations of sexual assault, and some corporate promises to distance themselves from politicians who voted to overturn election results are turning out to have some big, big loopholes.

Texas Democrat will retire from House seat that moved hard to the right in 2022

In a surprise, Democratic Rep. Filemón Vela said Monday that he would not seek a sixth term in Texas’ 34th Congressional District, a heavily Latino seat that snapped hard to the right last year. Vela is the second Democratic House member to announce his retirement following Arizona Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who made her 2022 plans known earlier this month.

America Is Now in the Hands of the Vaccine Hesitant

It’s official: America’s vaccine-supply crunch is over. The U.S. has ordered, optioned, or procured enough doses to immunize every single member of the population more than five times over, and all adults will be eligible for the shots by May 1. In other words, after months of careful rationing and distribution snafus, we’ve finally hit a new phase of the pandemic endgame: vaccines galore.

You Recovered From COVID-19. Now Your Coffee Smells Like Sewage.

Ruby Martinez was eating a banana when she noticed the nothingness. She chewed but tasted no sweetness. She sniffed but got none of the fruit’s redolent musk. “I started freaking out,” she says. She smelled a bottle of perfume. Nothing. She ate a pickle. Still nothing.That was in June. Since then, her senses of smell and taste have started to come back—but intermittently and in strange ways.