When the cicadas of Brood X start to swarm the United States in their billions, try to look beyond their overwhelming numbers. Instead, focus on just one of them. Despite appearances, that individual cicada will be a swarm unto itself—the insect and a community of organisms living inside it. Their lives have been so tightly entwined that they cannot survive alone. Their fates have been so precariously interlinked that their future is uncertain.
This morning an oversight board created by Facebook approved the company’s January decision to indefinitely suspend Donald Trump from its platform, and gave the company six months to clarify the duration of the suspension. The result is a bit of a procedural dodge. There is only one reasonable path available for the company to take: Ban the former president permanently.The reasons for this are straightforward.
The Atlantic’s CEO Nick Thompson announced that Andrea Valdez is joining his senior leadership team as senior vice president of audience strategy later this month. Valdez is the founding editor in chief of the nonprofit, independent news organization The 19th, and was previously an editor at The Texas Observer, Wired, and Texas Monthly.“Andrea is one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with,” Thompson said.
The bong-ripping frat of the crypto world is having its moment.
China topped the agenda Tuesday when foreign ministers from G7 nations met in London. This comes as both China and the United States are accusing each other of escalating tensions in the South China Sea. Last week, the Chinese government claimed there has been a 40% increase of activity by U.S. planes in Chinese-claimed areas since Biden took office. Critics increasingly argue Biden’s policies on China are risk sparking a new Cold War.
The international disparity in vaccine access between rich and low-income countries highlights “the irrationality of global capitalism,” says acclaimed Filipino scholar and activist Walden Bello, who urges the Biden administration to sign on to an effort at the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive intellectual property rules on vaccine technology. He also discusses the COVID crisis in the Philippines.
Pressure is growing on the Biden administration to support a temporary waiver on intellectual property rights for COVID-related medicines and vaccines at the World Trade Organization. India and South Africa first proposed the waiver in October, but it was blocked by the United States and other wealthy members of the WTO. Big Pharma has also come out against the proposal and has lobbied Washington to preserve its monopoly control.
Parenting advice on gender fluidity, SAHM anxiety, and addiction.
Introducing Pay Dirt, Slate’s new money advice column.
Let’s talk about the period when Roosevelt actually created the modern welfare state.
And what the gig economy really has to fear.
One group has too much power over what gets built—or, more often, what doesn’t.
The American Families Plan is really a plan to give us what other industrialized countries already have.
A sensible, way overdue idea for fixing the welfare state.
The Australian government announced it will jail and fine citizens attempting to return from India.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has been pressing Washington for help obtaining vaccines since December, before Donald Trump left office.
The White House expected vaccination rates to drop off in rural communities and among younger people who are hesitant about the shot.
The comments from the commander in chief come as the Pentagon has sounded the alarm about service members refusing the shots in large numbers.
“There were elements of growth in the balance from what I can see and understand,” Carney said in a long response that didn’t directly answer the question.
Chrystia Freeland uses Budget 2021 to reveal Canada’s new emissions target.
Big Pharma has hired an army of lobbyists to pressure U.S. lawmakers to block an effort at the World Trade Organization to loosen intellectual property rules on COVID-19 vaccines, which would allow countries around the world to ramp up production, vaccinate more people and bring the pandemic to an end sooner. Dozens of countries from the Global South, led by India and South Africa, are demanding a temporary waiver on vaccine patents, but rich countries, including the U.S.
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the 1971 May Day protests, when tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C., and brought much of the capital to a standstill through acts of civil disobedience. The mass demonstrations terrified the Nixon administration, and police would arrest over 12,000 people — the largest mass arrest in U.S. history.
More than 100 people marched alongside the family of Anthony Alvarez in Chicago Saturday, calling for the police officer who shot and killed him to be charged. Newly released video reveals police killed 22-year-old Alvarez while he was running away during a foot chase. Police have not said why they initially confronted and then chased Alvarez, who was killed just two days after Chicago police shot dead another young Latinx male, 13-year-old Adam Toledo.
Ask people for adjectives to describe Nicola Sturgeon and the same few words tend to crop up: poised, perfectionist, regal. Sturgeon has been Scotland’s first minister for six and a half years, leading its devolved government, and she utterly dominates its political scene.
In today’s news: House Republicans begin the process of removing Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership position. Cheney’s sin: Refusing to back the House Republican claims of election “fraud” that led to the attempted toppling of government. Polls show the public still isn’t buying Republican claims that it’s Biden who’s blocking “bipartisanship.
For those who aren’t policy wonks—and who somehow can’t decide whether Joe Biden is a compassionate family man or a rapacious baby’s blood aficionado—it can be difficult to suss out the real benefits of Biden’s recent economic proposals. Luckily, new analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) spells out the pluses (for the vast majority of Americans) and the minor minuses (for the ultra-wealthy) pretty clearly.
There are myriad reasons why bottled water is problematic. Plastic containers are no good for the environment, the costs of bottled water continue to rise even though it is … water. Most importantly, the very existence of bottled water as a private business is only the result of our crumbling infrastructure and misuse of public resources. In recent years, the Nestlé company, and their egregious profiting off of public resources, has been in the news.
Now that Donald Trump is out of office, the right-wing smear machine has kicked into high gear in its efforts to find something—anything—that might tarnish the Biden administration. It is sadly indicative of how difficult a task they face that the most inviting target appears to be a four-legged member of the president’s family.
Alejandra Juarez, the undocumented military spouse cruelly deported by the previous president despite outcries from legislators and advocates, will soon be returning home to the United States. Orlando Sentinel reports that the Biden administration has granted the mother of two U.S. citizen daughters humanitarian parole.
“This is the moment I’ve been waiting for,” Juarez told the Sentinel.
