After I became a parent, I created a secret ritual: Once a year, I would take a vacation day from work, tell absolutely no one in my family about it, and go see the latest Marvel blockbuster. In the mostly empty theater, I’d forget about the long hours commuting in standstill traffic, the dark circles that had formed under my eyes after a child woke me up multiple times a night, and all the other mundane sources of suburban exhaustion.
President Joe Biden has ordered a series of executive actions on gun control in the wake of mass shootings in Georgia, Colorado and elsewhere, calling gun violence in the U.S. an “epidemic” and an “international embarrassment.” The most significant executive order aims to crack down on so-called ghost guns — easily assembled firearms bought over the internet without serial numbers, which account for about a third of guns recovered at crime scenes.
A new Amnesty International report lays out how the pandemic has significantly exacerbated inequality across the Americas over the past year. Over 1.3 million people have died in the region from COVID-19, making the Americas the hardest-hit area in the world.
Since last year, approximately 440 Cubans have died from COVID-19, giving Cuba one of the lowest death rates per capita in the world. Cuba is also developing five COVID-19 vaccines, including two which have entered stage 3 trials. Cuba has heavily invested in its medical and pharmaceutical system for decades, in part because of the six-decade U.S. embargo that has made it harder for Cuba to import equipment and raw materials from other countries.
Between YouTube and thrifty experimentation, women found routines and products that worked for them.
A surprising, very real possibility for our post-pandemic lives.
Get in, Jack—we’re transforming American infrastructure.
Vaccine makers are studying whether booster shots or revised vaccines will be needed to fight new strains — but they don’t have an easy way to expand production.
A new analysis raises questions about whether more could have been done to prevent a contamination that ruined more than 15 million vaccine doses.
The public health effort has been stymied by a shortage of disease trackers.
The numbers signal the U.S. is well on its way toward a revival, one that’s widely expected to reach record levels of growth later this year.
The president’s team is preparing a $3 trillion spending proposal to power through Congress. They’re betting markets and the economy will cooperate long enough to pass it.
Structural inequities in the U.S. labor market that have affected Black and Hispanic workers’ ability to advance out of low-paying jobs, as well as discrimination in hiring practices, are also likely having an effect.
Central bank officials now expect the unemployment rate to drop to 4.5 percent by the end of 2021.
Janet Yellen said the greater risk was not strengthening the economy as it recovers from the impact of the pandemic.
After a year of layoffs, cuts and austerity, the faculty and staff of four unions at Rutgers University have voted in support of an unusual and pioneering agreement to protect jobs and guarantee raises after the school declared a fiscal emergency as a result of the pandemic. A key part of the deal is an agreement by the professors to do “work share” and take a slight cut in hours for a few months in order to save the jobs of other lower-paid workers.
Ballet in an empty Syrian market, a forest fire in California, releasing turtles in Israel, a briefing by the Easter Bunny in the White House, riots in Northern Ireland, a giant sand dune in France, a wheat harvest in India, sunny weather in New York City, and much more.
Gaetz has so far resisted calls he step down over a sexual misconduct investigation, saying that would “absolutely” not happen.
Joel Greenberg, facing sex trafficking charges, is in talks to potentially strike a plea deal, putting heat on the GOP congressman accused of sexual misconduct.
In the news today: More trouble for Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, a planned Biden executive order on “ghost guns,” and a Georgia Republican acknowledges that the Georgia Republican drive to make voting harder was indeed based on Trump’s false “misinformation.
Wait, I’m confused. I thought we lived in a free-market democracy in which corporations are “people” with sacrosanct “opinions” (which, for some reason, usually come in the form of gobs and gobs of campaign cash).
So when corporations literally write their own legislation, it’s A-OK. That’s just what the Founding Fathers envisioned as they grew hemp and curated their expansive STD collections.
We’re still a few weeks away from April showers bringing anything May-related, but as many state legislative sessions hurtle towards final adjournment for the year, the deluge of bad new policies and laws is right on top of us, like one of those little cartoon rainclouds hovering over an unhappy character.
Take, for instance, all those bills targeting transgender kids that are becoming law.
On Tuesday night, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill denied allegations that he carried on a “sordid” affair with a Montgomery woman named Cesaire McPherson. McPherson detailed “a number of sordid accusations” about an affair she and Merrill had that lasted at least 16 months. McPherson also accused the Alabama Secretary of State of making racist comments.
The Los Angeles Police Department tried its best to keep officer body camera footage showing cops arresting a Black Hollywood music producer out of the public’s eye, and for good reason.
Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, said the agency would take steps to address an issue affecting “the health of our entire nation.
A group calling itself the “Women of U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz’s office” released an unsigned statement in support of the Florida politician.
The bill would also require faculty to complete annual surveys on their political beliefs.
Here’s a cool trick for blowing any American’s mind. Tell us that in France, so many boulangeries shut down for vacation every summer that it can be tough to snag a baguette. Bakers aren’t the only ones who get time off. In August, up to half of the country’s salaried employees have been known to take at least a full week off from work. Half!Americans are good at lots of different things, but going on vacation is not one of them.
Karlin Chan started the Chinatown Block Watch last February. He’s still at it.
