Hospitals in the United States are again filling up with COVID-19 patients, most of whom have refused COVID-19 vaccinations, likely due in part to medical misinformation circulating online and on television. We are eight months removed from a violent attack on the nation’s capital, organized online and carried out by individuals who believe—incorrectly—that the 2020 election was stolen.
The number of kids contracting the coronavirus is rising. In the week that ended with July 29, more than 70,000 children got COVID-19, representing nearly a fifth of all cases. Though a vanishingly small number of kids have died of the disease—358 since the start of the pandemic, as of July 29—some states, like Florida, now have dozens of children hospitalized. Few parents want to hear that their little ones may get COVID-19, no matter how low their odds of death.
Updated at 1:35 p.m. ET on August 6, 2021Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with Kappa Delta sorority sisters who attended the University of Virginia in the ’70 and ’80s.
Protests across the United States are calling for the immediate release of environmental and human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, who has been held under house arrest in New York for two years after being targeted by the oil giant Chevron. Donziger sued the oil giant in Ecuador on behalf of 30,000 Amazonian Indigenous people for dumping 16 billion gallons of oil into their ancestral lands.
As the United Nations Security Council holds an emergency session to discuss the crisis in Afghanistan, we speak with Polk Award-winning journalist Matthieu Aikins, who is based in Kabul. The Taliban have been seizing territory for months as U.S. troops withdraw from the country, and the group is now on the verge of taking several provincial capitals. “In the 13 years I’ve been working here, I’ve never seen a situation as grim,” says Aikins.
Richard Trumka, the longtime president of the AFL-CIO and one of the most powerful labor leaders in the United States, has died of a heart attack at the age of 72. Trumka’s death has prompted an outpouring of tributes from fellow labor figures, activists and lawmakers, including President Joe Biden. Trumka was a third-generation coal miner from Pennsylvania who, at the age of 33, became the youngest president of the United Mine Workers of America.
Parenting advice on nanny regrets, toddler control, and math class.
We didn’t realize we were such an anomaly.
Aggressive developers looking for a way in—or desperate homeowners looking for a way out.
The Shiba Inu memes are howling—and it turns out they also have teeth.
How did Democrats overcome Republican intransigence in order to to take on one of their highest priorities?
The new program to “unlock New York City” will begin Aug. 16, with enforcement set to start Sept. 13, according to City Hall.
School districts view the mask mandates as a matter of life or death.
Officials have recently accelerated their work and now hope to finalize approval in a matter of weeks.
Nearly 18 months into the pandemic, there’s no consensus on how to keep students and staff safe.
Tell me I’m wrong about what’s really going on.
The hands-on science labs will have to wait.
“We’re not trying to hide this,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s executive director said.
Some economists have already begun to ease back on forecasts for the rest of this year.
The growth is another sign that the nation has achieved a sustained recovery from the pandemic recession.
A new wave of cases followed by the looming expiration of enhanced jobless benefits, a ban on evictions and other rescue programs is sparking concern among lawmakers and economists.
Their absence could hurt the broader U.S. economy, so policymakers are weighing ways to help them return to work.
In the news today: Top labor leader and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka has died at age 72. The Florida pandemic surge continues to hold national headlines. Conspiracy crank Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to make violence-stoking statements, this time with a suggestion that southerners use their “Second Amendment rights” against anyone “showing up” at their homes to promote vaccinations.
“We’re going to push back on the phony narrative that there was an insurrection,” Matt Braynard told former White House strategist Steve Bannon.
I get that writing for a living can be hard sometimes. It can be difficult to find a voice. Or a platform. Or any reason at all to remain an ink-stained wretch instead of, say, trying one’s hand at perpetual lighthouse-sitting.
Unless you’re Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, the pay is frequently low, the laurels few and far between, and the indignities often serial.
Don’t look now, but … August is fully upon us.
Normally, this month (August of an off-off year) would be chill as heck, but because Republicans are so desperate to cling to political power, statehouse action persists.
You Can’t Count On Me: Let’s be real—I just can’t responsibly write this missive without catching up on the GOP’s so-called election “audit” in Arizona’s Maricopa County.
Families forcibly separated at the southern border by the previous administration have already experienced trauma on top of trauma. Being ripped apart without so much as a chance to say goodbye. The months—often years—of separation. The danger that caused them to flee their homes in the first place.
Back in 2019, Illinois became first in the nation to ban private immigration detention facilities. Now, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed into law further legislation that effectively ends immigration detention in the state. The Illinois Way Forward Act mandates local jails end their contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by next year, and prohibits the renewal of any existing agreements.
