Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here. Yesterday, hospitalizations in the United States fell below 60,000 for the first time since November 9, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic. This milestone is not just another round number. In the spring and summer waves, hospitalizations peaked at just fewer than 60,000 both times.
Father Kevin Gillespie and the staff at Holy Trinity Catholic Church find out that President Joe Biden is coming to Mass an hour and a half ahead of time. For security reasons, only a few people can know, including the music director, who might otherwise get suspicious when Secret Service agents start poking around in her piano. The parish limits its services to 50 people to minimize the spread of COVID-19, but it makes an exception when the president and his detail attend.
Even today, in this time of racial awakening, many white Americans continue to ask the same demeaning question about historically Black colleges and universities that they did a decade ago and in the decade before that: With the end of Jim Crow and the integration of college campuses, does the country still really need HBCUs?What a loaded question.
Take a good look at a Monopoly board. The most expensive properties, Park Place and Boardwalk, are marked in dark blue. Maybe you’ve drawn a card inviting you to “take a walk on the Boardwalk.” But that invitation wasn’t open to everyone when the game first took on its current form. Even though Black citizens comprised roughly a quarter of Atlantic City’s overall population at the time, the famed Boardwalk and its adjacent beaches were segregated.
“Hatchet houses” survived a terrible year by providing a valuable public service.
President Biden’s plan would actually do a lot of good—but it could do even more.
From the Capitol riot to LGBTQ representation, reality is intruding on the company’s traditional, conservative fantasy.
Thanks to the pandemic, it’s never been easier to give your mayor an earful.
It turns out the pandemic may not have been the budget wrecker everyone feared.
Some governors are increasingly rankled by federal maneuvers like moving vaccine out of their control, creating early friction as Biden wraps up his first month.
Poor countries and global health advocates have been pushing wealthy nations to share some of their supply, warning that the inequitable vaccine rollout could leave them playing catch-up for years.
“This is a huge decline,” said Robert Anderson, who oversees the numbers for the CDC. “You have to go back to World War II, the 1940s, to find a decline like this.
A once-in-a-century pandemic provides a once-in-a-lifetime chance to improve public health.
A new series from POLITICO and The Fifty surfacing the best ideas from around the country for speeding recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Nearly a year ago, Atlantic staff writer Helen Lewis predicted that the pandemic would be “a disaster for feminism,” and far too many of her predictions have proved true. With women leaving the workforce at unprecedented rates, why has the pandemic’s burden fallen so much harder on them? And what can we, as a society, do about it?Lewis joins staff writer James Hamblin and comedian Maeve Higgins on the podcast Social Distance.
Parenting advice on adult ADHD, new mom support, and infidelity revelations.
Long, late hours in Boston with the rent past due.
I want to be supportive, but I’m hurt that he didn’t tell me sooner.
My daughter’s teacher already gave her a stern talking-to.
Allies laud Brian Deese’s leadership on the stimulus negotiations, but he’s rubbed some the wrong way.
The U.S. wants to stop new coal projects, but risks losing poor countries to Beijing’s “Belt and Road” agenda.
Investors are pumping up bubbles across markets, with excitement growing about more stimulus and widespread vaccinations.
As the critical swing vote in a 50-50 Senate, Joe Manchin has emerged as the most powerful man in Washington.
The decision breaks with the Trump administration’s opposition to Okonjo-Iweala and brings the U.S. in line with much of the rest of the world.
Democracy Now! first aired on nine community radio stations on February 19, 1996, on the eve of the New Hampshire presidential primary. In the 25 years since that initial broadcast, the program has greatly expanded, airing today on more than 1,500 television and radio stations around the globe and reaching millions of people online.
As Democracy Now! prepares to mark 25 years on air, we celebrate Nermeen Shaikh’s 10th anniversary as a Democracy Now! co-host and feature a report she filed from protests at New York’s JFK Airport against the Trump administration’s Muslim ban, one of the many highlights from her time on the program.
Students, campaigners and top Democrats have been pushing President Joe Biden to use executive authority to cancel at least $50,000 in student loan debt per person. Student loan debt in the U.S. stands at $1.7 trillion, with some 45 million people owing money. Filmmaker and organizer Astra Taylor, an author, documentary director and organizer with the Debt Collective, says Biden has clear legal authority to cancel student debt. “Not doing this is a choice,” she says.
While COVID-19 infection rates and hospitalizations appear to be waning, the United States has a long way to go before people can safely return to everyday life without masks. Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, says it’s vital to stay vigilant even as vaccinations ramp up. “If we can get our transmission down as low as possible, that is actually going to make the vaccines more effective.
Trump reportedly plans to speak to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 28, the last day of their meeting.
Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.
Caitlin Cruz at The New Republic writes—I’m Tired of Living Through Extraordinary Times in Texas. As a devastating storm hit my home state, we relied on mutual aid as our elected officials showed their true face:
The state turned away from us; we turned toward each other.