A post-pandemic discussion question: You get home from work on a Friday night and change into sweatpants. It’s been an exhausting week. A text message comes in. Your good friend wants to know if you’d like to meet up last minute for a drink, which is something that’s safe to do again. You’d love to catch up, but you’re pretty tired.
The author Brontez Purnell’s short story “Early Retirement” focuses on Antonio, a struggling actor who is unfulfilled by his job. One night, Antonio drinks too much and blacks out in the middle of a performance, experiencing a “cool and complete dissociation onstage.” He is booted from the cast the next day.Purnell’s story illustrates a common experience of disillusionment in modern-day work culture.
As President Biden convenes a major climate summit, we speak with two leading climate activists from Africa about the “climate debt” rich countries owe the Global South and the major emissions cuts still needed in order to avert the worst effects of the planetary emergency.
We look at the link between migration and the climate emergency, which studies have estimated could displace over 200 million people by 2050, including many in Central American countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Last year, two hurricanes, Iota and Eta, devastated the region and forced thousands to flee north.
The White House convened a virtual summit on the climate crisis this week, with 40 leaders representing the world’s major economies pledging cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. President Joe Biden said the U.S. would cut its emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade — nearly double the target set by the Obama administration six years ago. Biden’s pledge fulfills “a basic requirement of the U.S.
Mourners gathered in Minnesota Thursday for the funeral of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was shot dead by a white police officer during a traffic stop in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center. Daunte’s mother, Katie Wright, fought back tears as she remembered her son. “When he walked in the room, he lit up the room. He was a brother, a jokester, and he was loved by so many. He’s going to be so missed.” We air excerpts of Wright’s funeral service.
The company is targeting one of news organizations’ weak points.
In a system designed to suppress turnout, he just might be the low-turnout candidate.
The marijuana movement has never been closer to its goal.
The pandemic dream of transforming abandoned downtowns into flourishing residential neighborhoods.
If the financial and crypto markets are going to be so dumb, count me in.
A new effort to sell the jab is focusing on a few things: financial hurdles, conservative media and not speaking down to those who are hesitant.
The FDA said the size and design of Emergent’s manufacturing facilities could prevent its bid to deliver millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines this year.
Millions of Americans are still getting shots each day — but, in a jarring twist after months of scarcity, too many slots remain open as skeptics hold out.
Former advisers say he’s done a lot and gotten little credit. But others wonder what good could have come if he’d been more aggressive in pushing the jab.
Some very misguided frozen treat drama.
She gave me permission to sleep with other women, but she wouldn’t approve of my approach.
Parenting advice on social media, adoption, and teaching consent.
Chrystia Freeland uses Budget 2021 to reveal Canada’s new emissions target.
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.
A Minnesota jury’s conviction of former police officer Derek Chauvin on three counts for murdering George Floyd does not go far enough in dismantling police brutality and state-sanctioned violence, says historian and author Khalil Gibran Muhammad. “We know that while the prosecution was performing in such a way to make the case that Derek Chauvin was a rogue actor, the truth is that policing should have been on trial in that case,” Muhammad says.
In the news today: The House passes a bill to grant statehood to Washington, D.C.; Biden attempts to repair international relationships at climate summit; and an internal Facebook report again confirms the company’s central role in spreading election disinformation, far-right hoaxes, and violence long before the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Here’s some of what you may have missed:
• House passes bill on statehood for Washington, D.C.
Ted Cruz has been accused of a lot of things: being the Zodiac Killer; being from Canada; being a churlish Sea Monkey that grew out of control in a secret Area 51 lab before escaping into the forest with a family-size bag of Bugles and a sixer of Zima; being the son of a key JFK assassination conspiracist; spending the past four years hiding in Donald Trump’s Underoos like a colicky baby wallaby; having the personality of a clammy loaf of reduced-salt Wonder Bre
Happy Earth Day to those who observe!
And who doesn’t observe? Extraterrestrials, maybe?
But don’t they want us to fix our own planet so we don’t go off and dirty up theirs?
Anyway, this missive missed 4/20 by just a couple of days, but that’s also a holiday worth celebrating.
Regardless of whether you do or plan to partake of marijuana, its increasing legality is a very good thing.
The millions of Trump voters who have thus far refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19 want us to know that we’re going about it all wrong if we want them to get the shot.
They’re tired of being “bullied,” they say. Besides, as one says, they haven’t gotten sick (yet) despite being “out and about” the entire pandemic. There’s just too much information out there to trust anyone, another says.
A former drill sergeant leader in the U.S. Army was caught on camera in a racist rant proclaiming “Black lives don’t f—ing matter.” The slight that sent John Miles—initially identified by local newspaper Sumter Item—into the fit of rage was reportedly a grocery store clerk refusing to sell alcohol to him.
Hawley was the only senator to vote against the legislation condemning hate crimes against Asian Americans.
The coronavirus pandemic has led businesses and governments to perform “hygiene theater,” which can give a false sense of security. But how do we thread the needle between being too cautious and too cavalier? Derek Thompson joins James Hamblin and Maeve Higgins to help us understand. Listen to their conversation on the podcast Social Distance:Subscribe to Social Distance to receive new episodes as soon as they’re published.
Get ready for private equity guys to start making jokes about Uncle Joe Stalin.