Today's Liberal News

Timing Is Everything for Merck’s COVID Pill

Two years into the pandemic, we’ve gotten a lot better at tackling the coronavirus at the extremes of infection. We have preventives—including masks, distancing, ventilation, and our MVP vaccines—that can be deployed in advance of a viral encounter. We have regimens of last resort: drugs, such as dexamethasone, that do their best, lifesaving work in hospitals with trained health-care workers, in patients whose disease has already turned severe.

The Gender Researcher’s Guide to an Equal Marriage

Over the years, as I’ve interviewed many sociologists about gender divisions in how couples handle chores and child care, I’ve often wondered what happened after we got off the phone. When these researchers returned to their life, how were they splitting up the tasks in their own home? Because gender scholars—they’re just like us: They too have floors to sweep, kids to feed, toilets to clean.But, I learned, they are also decidedly not like us.

In One Place, for One Fish, Climate Change May Be a Boon

This story was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a nonprofit investigative-news organization.On a mid-July afternoon, when the tide was starting to come in on the Naknek River, the Bandle family’s commercial fishing nets lay stretched across the beach, waiting for the water to rise.

The Rot of Democracies

Sitting on a shelf in my sunlit study are two massive works of history by the late, great scholar Zara Steiner, each dealing with the international politics of the 1920s and ’30s. The first volume is The Lights That Failed; the second is The Triumph of the Dark.

“Becoming Abolitionists”: Derecka Purnell on Why Police Reform Is Not Enough to Protect Black Lives

Derecka Purnell draws from her experience as a human rights lawyer in her new book, published this month, “Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom,” to argue that police reform is an inadequate compromise to calls for abolition. Since the murders of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville in 2020, many states have passed laws aimed at reforming police, but congressional talks at the federal level have broken down.

Facebook Whistleblower to Congress: Regulate Big Tech. Silicon Valley Can’t Be Trusted to Police Itself

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified to Congress Tuesday, denouncing the company for prioritizing “astronomical profits” over the safety of billions of users, and urging lawmakers to enact strict oversight over Facebook. Haugen’s testimony gave a rare glimpse into the secretive tech company, which she accused of harming children, sowing division by boosting hateful content, and undermining democracy.

“Blah, Blah, Blah”: Youth Climate Activists Slam Political Inaction at U.N. Summit Ahead of COP26

Thousands of youth climate activists marched through the streets of Milan last week demanding world leaders meet their pledges to the Paris Climate Agreement and keep global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. The protest came at the end of a three-day youth climate conference, ahead of the United Nations’ COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Bans Off Our Bodies: Planned Parenthood Pres. on Abortion Bans, Bills in Congress & the Supreme Court

After thousands of people marched in hundreds of rallies across the United States to protest against tightening abortion restrictions, we speak with Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson, who says the weekend actions represent “a movement moment” for reproductive rights. “More than 80% of Americans believe that Roe should be the law of the land,” she says.

News Roundup: Facebook makes money sowing discord; debt limit stalemate

In the news today: There’s still no plan for keeping the United States from defaulting on its debts by mid-October in the face of unanimous Senate Republican opposition to allowing an alternative. A whistleblower confirms that Facebook knows it’s sowing social discord and violence, and that those are the posts that make it the most money.

Black homecoming king says he was called racial slur during game. He, not opponents, was suspended

Just about the only thing students should have to worry about when going to school is learning. That’s an ideal scenario, but not all students are given the resources and support to live. School is an especially contentious subject given that we’re still facing the novel coronavirus pandemic and that both parents and community members are still raging about mask mandates.

Americans Had It Easy During the Facebook Outage

Before WhatsApp went dark yesterday, the last messages I sent were to my editor in London, my doctor here in Mexico City, and to the family group chat, asking whether my father—recovering from COVID-19 back home in Pakistan—had finally tested negative. For me, WhatsApp is as much a verb as Google, and the platform is the engine that fuels my personal and professional lives.