Today's Liberal News

Giving COVID-19 vaccinations is a spiritual experience

I have written before about the horrors of the pandemic, from my perspective as a physician and from our viewpoint in a typical emergency department in America: stories of death, sickness, suffering, and isolation. The corporate indifference and the government bungling. The physical and psychological damage to the survivors, the families, and the staff.

COVID-19 highlights the racism of the tipped minimum wage, this week in the war on workers

Black workers have been hit so hard during the coronavirus pandemic, and a full accounting of the hits is not yet complete. We know that Black people have been disproportionately likely to get sick, to be hospitalized, and to die from COVID-19. That they’ve been more likely to face job loss during the pandemic (when they aren’t being exposed to the virus at essential but underpaid jobs). That they’ve been less likely to get unemployment benefits.

A Novel That Captures the Allure of the Scam

MICHELLE MISHINA KUNZ / New York Times / ReduxIf you’ve ever been lured into a mediocre dining establishment by the promise of unlimited food, you’re not alone. In 2017, TGI Fridays made endless appetizers a permanent part of its menu because they had, in the words of the chain’s CEO, become such a “pop-culture phenomenon, as evidenced by the outcry we heard every time the limited-time offer expired.

Ultra-fast Fashion Is Eating the World

This article was published online on February 6, 2021.Last February, on a sunny afternoon in West Hollywood, two girls with precise eye makeup paused on Melrose Avenue and peered in the windows of a building whose interior was painted a bright, happy pink. Two pink, winged unicorns flanked racks of clothes: ribbed crop tops, snakeskin-print pants, white sleeveless bodysuits. One of the girls tugged on the door, then frowned. It was locked, which was weird. She tugged again.

Iowans Were Scared Into Taking the Virus Seriously

Updated at 10:28 a.m. ET on February 6, 2021.Public-health experts predicted a tsunami of COVID-19 infections in Iowa this winter. Doctors and researchers told me in November that they expected thousands of Iowans to travel to visit family over Thanksgiving and Christmas.

How One Supreme Court Decision Increased Discrimination Against LGBTQ Couples

Over the past few years, the Supreme Court has been sketching the outline of a broad compromise on LGBTQ rights. Civil-rights protections will shield people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. At the same time, religious objectors will have their own set of robust rights. For example, the Court recently clarified that Title IX, the federal antidiscrimination employment law, covers LGBTQ employees.

The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth

China, we are told, inveigles poorer countries into taking out loan after loan to build expensive infrastructure that they can’t afford and that will yield few benefits, all with the end goal of Beijing eventually taking control of these assets from its struggling borrowers. As states around the world pile on debt to combat the coronavirus pandemic and bolster flagging economies, fears of such possible seizures have only amplified.