Senators Slam Southwest, Demand Compensation For ‘Ruined’ Holidays
“Southwest Airlines is failing consumers during the most important travel week of the year,” Sens. Markey and Blumenthal said in a joint statement.
Today's Liberal News
Supreme Court Keeps Immigration Limits In Place Indefinitely
Pandemic-era limits on people seeking asylum will stay in place, dashing hopes of immigration advocates who had been anticipating their end this week.
Kari Lake Will Have To Pay More Than $30K Because Of Her Election Lawsuit
Courts “should not be used to harass political opponents and sow completely unfounded doubts about the integrity of elections,” the complaint read.
Republican Jewish Group: George Santos ‘Deceived Us’
Santos argued he claimed to be “Jew-ish,” not Jewish, while campaigning for a seat in Congress.
Eight Books to Comfort You When You’re Lonely
The holidays are a notoriously fraught time for big feelings, loneliness chief among them. In 2017, the surgeon general declared loneliness an American “epidemic,” with “over 40% of adults” in the U.S. suffering from it. Globally, the rates rose even further when the coronavirus pandemic made gathering dangerous.What makes things tricky is that solitude is not the same as loneliness.
Pandemic Poverty: Ray Suarez on How COVID-19 Set Back Low-Income Workers in the U.S., Especially Women
A new series of video reports by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Intercept called “Insecurity” looks at women leaving the workforce, the impact of the expanded child tax credit, and the wave of union organizing during the pandemic. The series spotlights people navigating food, housing and healthcare insecurity — who are falling through the cracks of the social safety net in the process.
“A Criminal Act”: Taliban Government Bars Women from University, Working for NGOs in Afghanistan
International aid groups are suspending their relief programs in Afghanistan after the Taliban government announced on Saturday that humanitarian organizations are barred from employing women. The edict is the latest blow to women’s rights in the country as the Taliban reimpose draconian rules they employed in the 1990s, when they were previously in power. Last week, the government also barred women from attending universities.
‘The Universe Doesn’t Care That We Have Holidays’
If an asteroid were to gain sentience and set a course for Earth, might it pick a time like the holidays in order to catch the humans off guard? Well, that’s not going to work: Someone is monitoring space for incoming objects, holidays or not.Kelly Fast manages the Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which funds observatory teams at U.S. institutions using telescopes located around the world.
The Married-Mom Advantage
Judging by its press since COVID began, you might think that married motherhood is a pathway to misery and immiseration. “Married heterosexual motherhood in America, especially in the past two years, is a game no one wins,” in the middle of the pandemic. “The whole support system I had put in place to keep me going has now completely fallen apart.” Another single mother in the city said: “Some days, I feel like I’m melting.
White House sees light at the end of the monkeypox tunnel
The administration’s mpox response advisers asked for trust, patience and a chance. Even their critics say the work ‘paid off.
These states tried an Obamacare public option. It hasn’t worked as planned.
An early look at Washington, Colorado and Nevada show their plans to provide more affordable coverage to hundreds of thousands of people aren’t working out as hoped.
In one state Senate race, signs of a national struggle over abortion
Gov. Glenn Youngkin has proposed prohibiting the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy in his recently released budget, but doesn’t yet have the votes to enact that ban.
Covid-19 and overdose deaths drive U.S. life expectancy to a 25-year low
A baby born in 2021 can expect to live 76.4 years, down from 78.8 in 2019.
First post-Roe spending bill includes no funding boost for family planning, angering groups
With Republicans taking the House majority next year, progressives had framed the bill as a critical opportunity.
Why Democrats warmed to severing Medicaid eligibility from the Covid public health emergency
The Congressional Budget Office assumes the public health emergency for Covid will expire in July — barring another extension by the Biden administration.
U.S. inflation slowed sharply to 7.1 percent over past 12 months
Even with last month’s further easing of inflation, the Federal Reserve plans to keep raising interest rates.
Fed jacks up rates again but Powell hints it might slow down
Inflation has cooled only slightly and job growth remains strong.
Voters remain gloomy despite recent economic gains
A new POLITICO-Morning Consult poll suggests voters’ views of the economy are baked in.
“The Quest to Defuse Guyana’s Carbon Bomb”: Meet the Environmental Lawyer Taking On ExxonMobil
We speak with Guyanese environmental lawyer Melinda Janki about how she’s taking on the oil giant ExxonMobil to stop the company from developing an offshore oil field that would turn Guyana into a “carbon bomb.” Guyana is currently a carbon sink, but Exxon plans to produce more than 1 million barrels of oil a day, which could transform the South American country into one of the world’s top oil producers by 2030.
“This Is a Racial Backlash”: Stanford Prof. Hakeem Jefferson on Role of White Supremacy in Capitol Attack
The House select committee on the January 6 attack released its final 845-page report Thursday, and the word “racism” appears only once throughout the entire document — despite the central role white supremacist groups played in the insurrection. “Those who stormed the Capitol … didn’t merely come in defense of Donald Trump,” says Stanford professor Hakeem Jefferson, an expert on issues of race and identity in American politics.
“The Central Cause of January 6th Was One Man”: House Panel Urges Trump Be Banned from Public Office
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol released its final 845-page report on the insurrection at the Capitol and Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The report names former President Trump as the central cause of the insurrection and calls for expanded efforts by the government to combat far-right and white supremacist groups.
‘Toxic masculinity’ may be caused by an actual, infectious, brain-altering parasite
When you look around America these days, it’s hard to feel like there hasn’t been some kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers event. So many people seem not just anxious, but genuinely militant in their desire to bend back the arc of history. So many seem to be willing to work against their own best interests only because it brings other people pain.
Ukraine update: Revisiting the Day One war update
Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. For historical purposes, I thought it would be interesting to go back and revisit that first day. I had spent the entire night up, furiously consuming fragmented information coming through Twitter and Telegram sources. Things looked bleak that night. I slept little, but at first light it was already clear Russia wasn’t moving as quickly as it expected. I wrote up the following state of play at 3 PM PT.
Right-wing hypocrisy is never hypocrisy. It’s a coherent belief system
Pointing out Republican hypocrisy is always tempting. It’s so easy to come up with examples—but the sheer ease of finding those examples shows why we need a different way of understanding what might appear to be hypocrisy. Because something else entirely is going on.
I will not wave the white flag for Elon Musk
I am not leaving Twitter. Not yet.
I understand the reason many are interested in boycotting the social media platform now that Elon Musk has taken control. He appears to be turning it into a Shangri-la for right-wing trolls and hate-drenched propaganda and disinformation and he boots journalists from the platform who critique him or report on him generally.
A Pandemic Guide To Anime: Bocchi the Rock!
Welcome back to this site’s least regular ongoing series, the vastly important and criminally underlooked Pandemic Guide to Anime.
White House Wishes Black Families A Happy Kwanzaa On Holiday’s First Day
President Joe Biden commemorated the seven-day holiday honoring African heritage and Black American culture.
Biden, First Lady Thank Service Members In Christmas Calls
The president celebrated a quiet Christmas with his family at the White House and has spoken with American service members stationed around the world.
“An Immense World”: Ed Yong on How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
Ed Yong, the Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer at The Atlantic, talks about his recent book, “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.
To Catch a Dictator: Human Rights Lawyer Reed Brody on the Pursuit and Trial of Chad’s Hissène Habré
In this special broadcast, we speak with Reed Brody, the international human rights lawyer who has been called “the dictator hunter” for his role in bringing historic legal cases against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and others. Brody’s new book is just out, titled “To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissène Habré.” Habré, a former U.S.