The big hole in America’s plan to fight Covid-19 variants
Vaccine makers are studying whether booster shots or revised vaccines will be needed to fight new strains — but they don’t have an easy way to expand production.
Today's Liberal News
Sen. Marsha Blackburn Mocked For Griping About Funding Elder Care
The Republican Party’s opposition to anything that President Joe Biden is for is pushing GOP politicians into taking some bizarre positions.
Georgia Governor Suggests Voters Waiting In Long Lines Order Uber Eats
A new Georgia law bars anyone other than election workers from offering food or water to voters close to polling stations.
GOP Politicians & Pundits Lie About Colorado’s Voting Laws In Attempt To Embarrass MLB
It’s easier for the average person to vote in Colorado than it is in Georgia. Their laws aren’t even in the same ballpark.
Gender-Affirming Care Doesn’t Just Help Trans Youth Survive. It Allows Them to Flourish.
Affirming care for transgender kids is a blessing. Efforts to outlaw it are an abomination.
Boston in the 1970s
Here’s a collection of some of the sights and events taking place in and around Boston from 1970 to 1979. Below, images of the blizzard of 1978, a victory parade for the Bruins after they won the 1970 Stanley Cup, enforcement and opposition to school segregation by busing, a Celtics game in Boston Garden, urban renewals and restorations, a St. Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston, anti-war protests, charm-school lessons, and much more.
The Dark Side of Box Tops for Education
For many young adults and their parents, the words box tops evoke fond memories of cutting out cardboard rectangles and stuffing them into Ziploc bags to carry to school. The Box Tops for Education program, founded in 1996, is a General Mills initiative that allows families to redeem labels from eligible food and household products for 10-cent contributions to their schools. Over the past 25 years, the program has given nearly $1 billion to schools nationwide.
You Probably Have an Asymptomatic Infection Right Now
One of the most perplexing and enduring mysteries of the pandemic is also one of the most fundamental questions about viruses. How can the same virus that kills so many go entirely unnoticed in others?The mystery is hardly unique to COVID-19. SARS, MERS, influenza, Ebola, dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, West Nile, Lassa, Japanese encephalitis, Epstein-Barr, and polio can all be deadly in one person but asymptomatic in the next.
“This Agreement Protects Jobs”: Four Unions at Rutgers University Reach Historic Deal to End Layoffs
After a year of layoffs, cuts and austerity, the faculty and staff of four unions at Rutgers University have voted in support of an unusual and pioneering agreement to protect jobs and guarantee raises after the school declared a fiscal emergency as a result of the pandemic. A key part of the deal is an agreement by the professors to do “work share” and take a slight cut in hours for a few months in order to save the jobs of other lower-paid workers.
Do Prisons Keep Us Safe? Author Victoria Law Busts Myths About Mass Incarceration in New Book
As the first anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd approaches, we speak with author and journalist Victoria Law, who says despite the mass movement to fight systemic racism sparked by Floyd’s death, persistent myths about policing, incarceration and the criminal justice system still hinder reform.
Retired Black NYPD Detective: Derek Chauvin Trial Highlights “Race-Based” Police Brutality Problem
This week at the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, numerous members of the Minneapolis Police Department have taken the stand and testified that Chauvin violated policy by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine-and-a-half minutes, and the emergency room doctor who tried to save Floyd’s life said his chances of living would have been higher if CPR had been administered sooner.
The Crime Drama That Will Enthrall and Repel You
Writing about Titus Andronicus in 1948, the scholar John Dover Wilson bemoaned how Shakespeare’s bloodiest play “seems to jolt and bump along like some broken-down cart, laden with bleeding corpses from an Elizabethan scaffold, and driven by an executioner from Bedlam.” You couldn’t say the same for Gangs of London.
Dear Care and Feeding: My Husband Won’t Let Me Teach Our Baby My Native Language
Parenting advice on bilingual babies, autism adjustments, and motherly meddling.
What if Working at Home Makes Us Drive More, Not Less?
A surprising, very real possibility for our post-pandemic lives.
Joe Biden Picked a Good Time to Become President
The opportunity for a competent administration to do something historic was helped by timing, weather, and, yes, Trump.
What Two Dealers and One Smoker Think of New York’s New Weed Laws
“We’ve already been f—ing smoking weed the whole time.
L.A. Cleared One of Its Largest Homeless Encampments. Is It the Start of a Crackdown?
Activists fear the police-enforced closure will inspire similar actions across the city.
What Was VW Thinking With Its “Voltswagen” Prank?
After its diesel fraud, the carmaker tries lying to reporters about its electrical vehicle marketing.
Former USAID chief tapped to lead vaccine diplomacy efforts
Gayle Smith, who led the agency under former President Barack Obama, will serve as coordinator of global Covid response and health security.
Arkansas governor vetoes ban on youth transgender care
The Republican warned the measure amounted to government overreach, but Republican lawmakers are likely to override his veto.
U.S. searches for new AstraZeneca vaccine producer after Emergent mix-up
Officials are telling AstraZeneca to cut ties with Emergent entirely, a senior health official said.
Biden’s spending plans collide with a resurgent U.S. economy
The numbers signal the U.S. is well on its way toward a revival, one that’s widely expected to reach record levels of growth later this year.
‘Crazy things happen’: Biden’s next spending spree fuels a fight over risks
The president’s team is preparing a $3 trillion spending proposal to power through Congress. They’re betting markets and the economy will cooperate long enough to pass it.
Black workers, hammered by pandemic, now being left behind in recovery
Structural inequities in the U.S. labor market that have affected Black and Hispanic workers’ ability to advance out of low-paying jobs, as well as discrimination in hiring practices, are also likely having an effect.
Fed sees U.S. economic growth surging to 6.5 percent this year
Central bank officials now expect the unemployment rate to drop to 4.5 percent by the end of 2021.
Treasury secretary minimizes risk of inflation caused by Covid relief package
Janet Yellen said the greater risk was not strengthening the economy as it recovers from the impact of the pandemic.
MLK Opposed “Poverty, Racism & Militarism” in Speech One Year Before His Assassination 53 Years Ago
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 53 years ago, on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 39. While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor, organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice, and was a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War.
News Roundup: Infrastructure plans pass key hurdle; Gaetzgate; Republicans against baseball
While Republicans continue to fume and promise consequences for corporations that are objecting to the party’s newest voter suppression laws, the Democratic Senate got some very good procedural news that will allow new infrastructure programs to move forward despite Republican vows to block them.
Study indicates the Jan. 6 riots were motivated by racism and white resentment, not ‘election theft’
The first major comprehensive study of those arrested for participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol strongly indicates that the true motivation of these rioters was not some quasi-patriotic reaction to Donald Trump’s fanciful assertions of election fraud. Rather, the root cause underlying that day of violence boils down to out-and-out racism by insecure whites, alarmed about the prevalence of darker-skinned Americans in their hometown environments.