In the news today: One day after attending a crowded Republican fundraising meeting, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tested positive today for COVID-19. As Republicans cast about for a new Afghanistan narrative, Tucker Carlson and the party’s white nationalist base focus their attention on demonizing Afghan refugees fleeing the chaos.
In a statement, the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced this evening that Abbott has tested positive for COVID-19. Abbott, who was previously vaccinated, is said to be “currently experiencing no symptoms” but is allegedly “receiving Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment,” an expensive treatment that is in such short supply that doctors “approve the treatment for only those most likely to develop severe” COVID-19 symptoms.
Roughly 20 years ago, I wrote some (very unpopular, mind you) op-eds about our adventures in Afghanistan. As a lefty liberal in a conservative Northeast Wisconsin redoubt, I took a far less knee-jerk approach to 9/11 than some of my neighbors. I experienced the pain, horror, and fear of that day like anyone else. Still, my instinct was always to reject half-baked, jingoistic calls for “nation-building” (to resurrect a term George W.
If anything infuriates people during a global pandemic, it’s having to see other folks wearing masks. Wait, what? No, it doesn’t make sense, and yes, somehow, it’s our reality. While our understanding of the novel coronavirus has shifted since the world began reacting to COVID-19, experts and medical professionals have consistently recommended mask-wearing in public—and especially in indoor, enclosed spaces—for months.
Republican state senator André Jacque has taken a trip to the hospital after experiencing pneumonia brought on by COVID-19. On Monday, the De Pere Republican sent an email to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel saying that after some of his family members tested positive for COVID-19 last week, he himself had also tested positive and ended up at the hospital. Whether or not he was admitted to the hospital is unknown.
“If you’re one of those family members, I bet you’re not sleeping. I don’t even think My Pillow can do it. MyPillow dot com. That’s where I go,” he said.
Updated at 8:15 p.m. ET on August 17, 2021At this point, COVID-19 booster shots seem all but guaranteed for Americans. Last night, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House plans to recommend a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine to most Americans who have already gotten two shots from Pfizer or Moderna. The news comes just five days after the FDA authorized third doses for people who have received organ transplants or have certain immune conditions.
Cuttlefish, with their blimp-shaped bodies and eight squiggly arms, don’t age like people do. Sexual maturity tends to come late for them—about three-quarters of the way through their two-year lives, the rough equivalent of a human hitting puberty in their 60s. The geriatric cephalopods will then spend several weeks on an absolute bender, coupling up with as many partners as they can.
Trying to renegotiate the Taliban peace agreement Trump made in early 2020 would have led to an “onslaught,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
They’ve got their Shein dresses, their Kendra necklaces, and their Pants Store … pants.
The Republican governor, who is vaccinated, has been criticized for banning mask mandates in the state.
Witness Jeff Buongiorno, a Republican congressional candidate in Florida, said nothing he saw could be described as an attack that would leave Lindell in pain.
The transportation secretary, who had previously spoken about his desire to become a father, said he was “overjoyed” by the news.
The evidence showed a decline in the initial round of protection against Covid-19 infection that’s coincided with a resurgence in cases driven by the more contagious Delta variant.
I’m afraid he’ll soon realize the truth, too.
In the 1980s, doctors at an English hospital deliberately tried to infect 15 volunteers with a coronavirus. COVID-19 did not yet exist—what interested those doctors was a coronavirus in the same family called 229E, which causes the common cold. 229E is both ubiquitous and obscure. Most of us have had it, probably first as children, but the resulting colds were so mild as to be unremarkable.
“This is not Saigon,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on CNN on Sunday—and he was right. By the time helicopters took off from Saigon rooftops in April 1975, the evacuation of endangered South Vietnamese had been going on for several weeks.
We get an update from Les Cayes, Haiti, not far from the epicenter of Saturday’s earthquake, as Tropical Storm Grace drenched parts of the country and the death toll has now climbed to more than 1,400, with nearly 7,000 suffering from injuries amid overwhelmed hospitals. The impact from the latest earthquake is “just as great” as the devastation from the 2010 earthquake, says Jacqueline Charles, Haiti and Caribbean correspondent for the Miami Herald.
Investigative journalist Azmat Khan, who has reported extensively in Afghanistan, says President Joe Biden has not yet addressed the chaos unleashed by the collapse of the Afghan government. In remarks on Monday, Biden “really focused on the decision to end the war” and ignored criticism about chaos at the Kabul airport and the abandonment of thousands of Afghans who helped the U.S. over the last 20 years. “None of that was really discussed in any detail,” Khan says.
Retired U.S. Army colonel and former State Department official Ann Wright, who helped reopen the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in December 2001 and later resigned in protest, says the United States should reopen its embassy now and needs to maintain a diplomatic footprint in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. “If the United States really wants to help the people of Afghanistan … we’ve got to have a presence in Afghanistan,” says Wright.
Thousands of Afghans who worked for the United States and other foreign countries remain stranded in Kabul two days after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan. Military flights out of the Kabul International Airport have resumed a day after thousands of Afghans raced to the airport with hopes of leaving the country. President Joe Biden has defended his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of occupation and criticized the U.S.
I absolutely do not want to be in the middle of their conflict.
Parenting advice on youth sports, anxiety, and racism.
From literally pantsless CEOs to the Reddit mob’s muscle, we’re still living in the meme-stock moment.
A good sign for anyone freaking out about inflation (or shopping for a CRV).
Should I say something?
The Louisiana Republican received his vaccination much later than his coworkers in Congress, opting to delay his inoculation until July.
“It’s an issue, but it is certainly not the cause of our current dilemma,” Francis Collins said.
