Today's Liberal News

Six Rules That Will Define Our Second Pandemic Winter

For nearly two years now, Americans have lived with SARS-CoV-2. We know it better than we once did. We know that it can set off both acute and chronic illness, that it spreads best indoors, that masks help block it, that our vaccines are powerful against it. We know that we can live with it—that we’re going to have to live with it—but that it can and will exact a heavy toll.Still, this virus has the capacity to surprise us, especially if we’re not paying attention.

Elon Musk Must Be Pretty Relieved

The space tourists are back.On Saturday night, the private astronauts braced themselves as their spacecraft streaked through Earth’s atmosphere, deployed parachutes, and then drifted down off the coast of Florida. When the capsule touched the waves, they might have heard a voice from mission control radio in: “Thanks for flying SpaceX.” As if the passengers had just touched down on a runway at O’Hare instead of surviving a fiery reentry.

“Another World Is Possible”: How Occupy Wall Street Reshaped Politics & Kicked Off New Era of Protest

On the 10th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, we examine the legacy of the historic protests with three veterans of the movement: Nelini Stamp, now the director of strategy and partnerships at the Working Families Party; Jillian Johnson, a key organizer in Occupy Durham who now serves on the Durham City Council and is the city’s mayor pro tempore; and writer and filmmaker Astra Tayor, an organizer with the Debt Collective.

El Salvador Becomes First Nation to Make Bitcoin Legal Tender Amid Growing Authoritarianism

Thousands in El Salvador took to the streets Wednesday to protest President Nayib Bukele’s growing consolidation of power and a new law making El Salvador the world’s first country to recognize the highly volatile cryptocurrency bitcoin as legal tender. Protesters in El Salvador are also criticizing a recent court ruling that paves the way for Bukele to run for reelection in 2024.

As Wealthy Nations Debate Giving Booster Vaccine Shots, Calls Grow for Global Vaccine Equity

As the debate over booster vaccine shots heats up in the United States, global health leaders have issued an urgent call for global vaccine equity. The WHO reports vaccination rates on the African continent fall far below its target for 70% of the population of all countries to be vaccinated by mid-2022. “The science is not completely behind the need for booster shots yet,” says Zane Dangor, special adviser to the foreign minister of South Africa, who has called on the U.S.

News Roundup: Mississippi governor pushes state into pandemic disaster; pro-insurrection rally flops

In the news today: Mississippi’s Republican government has managed a milestone with a pandemic death rate that ranks it among the world’s very worst; in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Gov. Tate Reeves gave the world a good long look at the sort of governor who could pull off such a feat. Saturday’s pro-insurrection protest at the U.S. Capitol turned out to be a bust, but that doesn’t mean fascism’s supporters were quiet this weekend.

Challenges don’t end for Afghan refugees after they enter the U.S.

This story was originally published at Prism. 

By Jennifer Chowdhury

On Sept. 1, Hamed Ahmadi tweeted a picture of a few slices of stale chicken breast and melon in a styrofoam container with the caption, “Not complaining but this is what I got last night for dinner and the next meal is 12 hours later. Refugee life might be safe but never easy & favorable.”

Twenty-eight-year-old Ahmadi had worked on the ground in Afghanistan for several years.

No papers, No care: Disabled migrants seek help through lawsuit, activism

By Heidi de Marco, for Kaiser Health News

Desperation led José Luis Hernández to ride atop a speeding train through northern Mexico with hopes of reaching the United States 13 years ago. But he didn’t make it. Slipping off a step above a train coupling, he slid under the steel wheels. In the aftermath, he lost his right arm and leg, and all but one finger on his left hand.

He had left his home village in Honduras for the U.S.