Today's Liberal News

Mumia Abu-Jamal Tests Positive for COVID, Prompting Urgent Call to Release Elder Political Prisoners

Renowned political prisoner and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal’s lawyers confirmed Wednesday he has tested positive for COVID-19 and also has congestive heart disease. Abu-Jamal also suffers from the preexisting conditions of liver disease, which advocates say is directly related to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections’ failure to treat his hepatitis C in a timely fashion. Mumia’s doctor, Dr. Ricardo Alvarez, says the only appropriate treatment is freedom.

Vaccine Apartheid: Marc Lamont Hill, Mitchell Plitnick on Israel’s “Indifference to Palestinian Health”

Israel has had the fastest vaccination rollout in the entire world, with 40% of Israelis already fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have received almost no doses — a situation critics call “vaccine apartheid.” By one count, just 34,000 vaccine doses have been administered to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, which has a population of over 4.5 million.

COVID Deaths Soar in Brazil as Bolsonaro Blasts Lockdowns. Experts Warn It Will “Get Worse.”

Brazil’s COVID-19 death toll has now topped nearly 260,000, the world’s second worst after the United States, as hospitals are overwhelmed with new cases. International concern is also growing about the P1 variant of the virus, which overwhelmed the Amazonian city of Manaus and caused its hospitals to run out of oxygen. Less than 4% of Brazil’s population has been vaccinated.

Anti-Choice Forces Use Pandemic to Slash Abortion Access in Preview of Post-Roe v. Wade World

We look at how people across the U.S. have struggled to access abortions during the pandemic with reporter Amy Littlefield, who says that even before the COVID-19 outbreak, many states had restrictions, including three-day waiting periods and counseling sessions filled with misinformation. Then, many tried to use the pandemic as a pretext for banning abortion as a nonessential service.

Forceful testimony from commander of D.C. National Guard highlights unexplained delays on Jan. 6

At a joint Senate committee hearing on Wednesday, an array of intelligence and defense officials—including the commander of the Washington, D.C. National Guard—gave testimony concerning events leading up to and during the Jan. 6 insurgency. Much of the focus of the questions and answers remained around the timing of events, including when the National Guard was authorized, and on the clear failures of intelligence to anticipate the violent events of that day.

Under Biden, early polling shows Americans’ confidence in U.S. pandemic response is increasing

For the first time in nearly nine months, a national Harris tracking poll found that Americans’ fears of contracting the coronavirus and dying have dipped below a majority share of the public.

When given a binary choice between “I fear I could die as a result of contracting coronavirus” and “I do not fear I could die as a result of contracting coronavirus,” 48% said they harbor that fear while 52% said they did not fear such a death.

The Supreme Court is ready to gut what’s left of voting rights. How will Manchin and Sinema respond?

“What’s the interest of the Arizona RNC in keeping, say, the out-of-precinct ballot disqualification rules on the books?” Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Michael Carvin, the lawyer arguing before the Supreme Court Tuesday on behalf of Arizona Republicans that two of the state’s voter suppression laws should be upheld. He answered truthfully: “Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game.