Today's Liberal News

No One Has Seen a Mars Landing Quite Like This

The descent of a little rover from the top of the Martian atmosphere to the surface is one of the most notoriously stressful occasions in space exploration. When NASA’s newest rover, Perseverance, took the plunge last week, the engineers at mission control braced themselves. They knew just how much had to go right—and how much could go terribly wrong—in the next seven minutes.The spacecraft came barreling into the atmosphere at thousands of miles an hour.

The Awful Intimacy of Allen v. Farrow

Watching Allen v. Farrow, HBO’s new four-part miniseries about the 29-year-old allegations of child molestation against the director Woody Allen, I kept having a feeling that I couldn’t entirely identify. Since revelations about Harvey Weinstein emerged in late 2017—broken, in part, by Allen’s son, Ronan Farrow—harrowing stories about abusive men in the workplace have been reported one after another.

adrienne maree brown: Octavia Butler’s Visions of the Future Have Transformed Generation of Readers

The visionary Black science-fiction writer Octavia Butler died 15 years ago on February 24, 2006, but her influence and readership has only continued to grow since then. In September, Butler’s novel “Parable of the Sower” became her first to reach the New York Times best-seller list. We speak with adrienne maree brown, a writer and Octavia Butler scholar, who says Butler had a remarkable talent for universalizing Black stories.

Remembering Octavia Butler: Black Sci-Fi Writer Shares Cautionary Tales in Unearthed 2005 Interview

As Democracy Now! marks 25 years on the air, we are revisiting some of the best and most impactful moments from the program’s history, including one of the last television interviews given by the visionary Black science-fiction writer Octavia Butler. She spoke to Democracy Now! in November 2005, just three months before she died on February 24, 2006, at age 58.

U.S. COVID Death Toll Hits 500,000 as Rich Nations Hoard Vaccines, Leaving Poorer Nations Without Any

The United States has passed 500,000 COVID-19 deaths, by far the highest toll in the world. The morbid milestone comes as new COVID-19 cases continue to fall across the country amid an accelerating vaccine rollout, but the head of the World Health Organization is calling on rich countries not to undermine efforts to get vaccines to poorer nations by buying up billions of doses — in some cases ordering enough to vaccinate their populations more than once.

Daily Kos amasses over 260,000 signatures in support of Deb Haaland for secretary of the interior

Today, Daily Kos delivered over 260,000 signatures in support of Rep. Deb Haaland as the Senate is about to begin hearings to confirm her as the new secretary of the Department of the Interior under the Biden-Harris administration. Haaland currently serves as the representative from New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District and was nominated to lead the Department of Interior by President Joe Biden in December 2020.

Learning from the New Deal—for the Next Recovery

A few days ago, I was talking on the phone with the mayor of a medium-sized “red state” city about how his town was weathering the public-health and financial crises of this era. I told him I was mainly curious about his observations, rather than looking at the moment for on-the-record quotes.

‘Finally, I can go home’: Ohio mother targeted by ICE leaves sanctuary for the first time in years

For more than three years, asylum-seeker Edith Espinal has been in sanctuary at Columbus Mennonite Church in Ohio. She’d lived in the state for 20 years. She has no criminal record. She’d been checking in regularly with the government. But in October 2017, she was forced to go into sanctuary after becoming a priority for deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

That church has been her home since.