Today's Liberal News

Listen: A History of Pandemic Xenophobia and Racism

The recent shootings in Atlanta highlighted a surge of anti-Asian violence in the United States throughout the pandemic. Disease stigma and racism have together shaped pandemic response and policy for centuries.And so to better understand this history, on the podcast Social Distance, co-hosts James Hamblin and Maeve Higgins speak with Alexandre White, a sociologist and medical historian at Johns Hopkins University.

In House hearing on extremism, Republican reveals he’s been duped by military version of ‘The Onion’

Most of us don’t think Bill Gates has uploaded Windows Vista into the COVID-19 vaccine, and we won’t give credence to inanities burped out by semi-ambulatory heaps of knob cheese who listen to demon sperm doctors instead of world-renowned infectious disease experts. Why? Because we’re astute consumers of media.

But Republicans, by and large, are not.

Dr. Rachel Levine makes history—and makes a promise to support and advocate for transgender youth

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate voted 52-48 to confirm Dr. Rachel Levine, an openly transgender pediatrician, as assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services. Levine, who previously served as Pennslyvania’s secretary of health, is the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate, as reported by NPR. In other words, Levine quite literally made history.

After a year of misinformation, Fox News senior employee dies of COVID-19 at the age of 52

Maria Bartiromo’s Fox News gig has been a long march into the bottom of an ocean awash in fearmongering, bigotry, and misinformation. Like most Fox News programming this past year, Bartiromo’s programs have been showcases for easily debunked conspiracy theories, all racist and anti-China by nature. 

On Monday, CNN reported Eric Spinato, a senior Fox News employee who’d been with the network for 20 years, died from COVID-19 complications.

What Biden’s First Press Conference Revealed

Joe Biden has a reputation as a softie—grandfatherly if you’re inclined toward him, somewhat windy and elderly if you aren’t. But when he reached for a phrase to define his approach to office during his first press conference, held today, he didn’t pick an Irish poet or an American statesman. Instead, he quoted the hardheaded Teutonic conservative known as the “Iron Chancellor”: “Politics is the art of the possible,” Biden said.

The Big, Stuck Boat Is Glorious

Yesterday, with only a few minutes left in my weekly Zoom appointment with my therapist, I decided to derail the proceedings to ask her what I believed was an essential question. It had nothing to do with my fear of vulnerability or difficulty asking for help; in fact, it had nothing to do with me at all.

What Killed These Bald Eagles? After 25 Years, We Finally Know.

It was 1996, Bill Clinton was president, and endangered bald eagles were dying in his home state of Arkansas.Twenty-nine were found dead at a man-made reservoir called DeGray Lake, before deaths spread to two other lakes. But what really puzzled scientists was how the eagles acted before they died. The stately birds were suddenly flying straight into cliff faces. They hit trees. Their wings drooped. Even on solid ground, they stumbled around as if drunk.

Yemen Enters 7th Year of U.S.-Backed, Saudi-Led War That Caused the World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis

As the world’s worst humanitarian crisis enters its seventh year in Yemen, we look at the toll of the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led air war. A new report by the Yemen Data Project summarizing the impact of air raids over the past six years finds the bombing campaign has killed almost 1,500 civilians every year on average, a quarter of them children. Journalist Iona Craig, who heads up the Yemen Data Project, says there have been almost 23,000 air raids since the war began in 2015.

“Tragic Moment”: Rohingya Suffer New Blow as Cox’s Bazar, World’s Largest Refugee Camp, Burns Down

We get an update on a massive fire at the world’s largest refugee camp: the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The fire killed at least 15 people and displaced 45,000 this week, with hundreds possibly still missing. Bangladeshi authorities are investigating the cause of the fire, which destroyed about 17,000 shelters as the blaze ripped through the crowded camp, leaving behind scenes of utter destruction and despair as people were separated from their loved ones.

1 in 5 Capitol Insurrectionists Tied to U.S. Military; Soldiers “Targets” for Extremist Recruitment

Nearly one in five people facing charges related to the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol had some connection to the military, including at least two active-duty troops, prompting Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to order a 60-day stand-down across the services to address extremism. Ahead of the first deadline on April 6, the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing Wednesday on extremism in the U.S. military. We speak with one of the experts who testified.

Pandemic Profiteers: How U.S. Billionaires Like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Saw Wealth Grow by $1.3 Trillion

A new report reveals that as a record number of people in the United States lost their jobs and struggled to put food on the table during the past year of the pandemic, the combined wealth of the 657 billionaires in the country grew more than $1.3 trillion, nearly 45%, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who saw his personal wealth increase by $65 billion — more than $7 million every hour.