China announces rollback of strict anti-Covid measures
Public frustration with the restrictions appears to have finally swayed the opinion of officials.
Today's Liberal News
Ex-FDA vaccine inspectors call for better training
The team overseeing licensed vaccines is overwhelmed by high turnover and a pandemic-induced backlog of inspections.
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.
U.S. economy returned to growth last quarter, expanding 2.6 percent
Housing investment, though, plunged at a 26 percent annual pace, hammered by surging mortgage rates.
More voters trust Republicans on economy as interest in midterms hits high, polls say
According to an NBC News poll released Sunday, 70 percent of registered voters expressed interest in the upcoming election as a “9” or “10” on a 10-point scale.
Sarah Leah Whitson on Growing Saudi-China Ties & Holding MBS Responsible for Jamal Khashoggi Murder
We speak with Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, about the campaign to hold Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This week a U.S.
“A Personified Weapon of Mass Destruction”: Ex-Arms Trafficking Inspector on Freed Russian Viktor Bout
Brittney Griner’s release from Russia has brought renewed attention to the notorious Russian arms dealer whom the U.S. exchanged for the basketball star in a prisoner swap. Viktor Bout, the former Soviet military officer who became known as the “Merchant of Death,” was serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States for conspiracy to commit terrorism.
Trump’s a loser. So’s McDaniel. The whole back-scratching crew is taking the GOP down with them
Donald Trump has turned the Republican Party into a wasteland of losers, but they’re his loyal losers and that’s all that really matters. With his 30% base of voters and MAGA maniacs running most of the state parties, Trump will likely continue driving the GOP into the ground without paying even a smidge of a price for costing the party dearly in 2018, 2020, and once again in 2022.
Old flames, baking competitions, and saving the family business: Time for some holiday TV movies
Made-for-TV holiday movies are having a moment. They’ve been a personal tradition of mine for more than a decade, and the truly overwhelming profusion of options coming from outlets like Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix, Hulu, BET+, Great American Family, and more suggests that I have more company every year in my affection.
Ukraine update: Russian propagandists show how to turn a humiliating defeat into a great victory
Sometime around Dec. 9 or 10, Russian forces mounted a major attack on the town of Velyka Novosilka in southern Ukraine. The Russian milblogger “Novorossiya Z.O.V.”, with 300,000 followers, reported the assault:
The decision to attack in the Velyka Novosilka area looks potentially dangerous for the right flank of the Ukrainian grouping in the Donbass.
Wisconsin Republicans have shredded democracy. We can restore it by winning back the Supreme Court
Embedded Content
When I tell you that the upcoming election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court is, without any doubt, the most massively important single race of the year, it’s impossible to overstate the case.
Negotiations over boosting child tax credits are proof we are a crooked, crooked country
Remember the expanded child tax credit? You know, the program that singlehandedly boosted millions of American children out of poverty, only to send them crashing back down because Republicans absolutely refused to keep the program running no matter how successful it was and were, in fact, enraged that Democrats managed to pass it in the first place? The one that saw Democratic Sen.
Iowa Court Blocks State’s ‘Fetal Heartbeat’ Law From Being Reinstated
Judge Celene Gogerty found there was no process for reversing a permanent injunction that blocked the abortion law in 2019.
Supreme Court Won’t Block California Flavored Tobacco Ban
The Supreme Court has refused a request from tobacco companies to stop California from enforcing a ban on flavored tobacco products that was overwhelmingly approved by voters in November.
Biden Forms Interagency Group To Draft Antisemitism Strategy
Amid a surge in hateful rhetoric and violence, President Joe Biden has formed an new interagency group to develop a national strategy to combat antisemitism.
DOJ Special Counsel Probing Trump Serves Subpoena To Georgia Secretary Of State
In a phone call dated Jan. 2, 2021, the former president asked Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to give him a win in Georgia.
The Wild Future of Artificial Intelligence
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.OpenAI’s impressive new artificial-intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, has intensified the debate over what the rise of AI-generated writing and art means for work, culture, education, and more.
What Does a Good Health-Care System Look Like?
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Last week I asked, “What’s been your experience with the health-care system and what lessons have you drawn?”Dennis kicks us off with a near-death experience:
I was young and foolish.
Is This the ‘Kitty Hawk Moment’ for Fusion Energy?
Tomorrow, the U.S. Department of Energy is expected to announce that the era of fusion power is finally upon us: Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California, have generated energy with a controlled nuclear fusion reaction. It has already been hailed as a transformative moment, even as the nature and reality of that transformation are nigh-impossible to discern.
White House Slams Marjorie Taylor Greene For Saying She’d Have ‘Won’ Jan. 6 Riot
The extremist Georgia lawmaker responded that the White House “needs to learn how sarcasm works.
Crypto Was Always Smoke and Mirrors
The world of cryptocurrency is rich with eccentric characters and anonymous Twitter personalities. So perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that one of the early figures who called attention to the problems with Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, is a 30-year-old Michigan psychiatrist who investigates financial crimes as a hobby.James Block, who runs a crypto newsletter called Dirty Bubble Media, has gotten overlooked in the swift and spectacular collapse of FTX.
The Erudite, Absurd White Lotus Finale
This article contains spoilers through the Season 2 finale of The White Lotus.In an interview with NPR’s Fresh Air last week, the writer and director Mike White suggested that his hit HBO series The White Lotus had less in common with most prestige TV dramas than with the network shows of his youth: Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Laverne & Shirley. I appreciate his lack of pomposity, but this is total stronzata, as one of the artichoke-wielding di Grasso women might say.
“Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power”: New Film on Radical Voting Activism in 1960s Alabama
We look at “Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power,” a remarkable new documentary that shows how a small rural community in Alabama organized during the civil rights movement to challenge white supremacy and systematic disenfranchisement of Black residents, and would become, in some ways, the first iteration of the Black Panther Party.
“We Are Fighting for Freedom”: 2022 Nobel Laureates from Ukraine, Russia & Belarus in Their Own Words
We feature excerpts from activists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus who were honored Saturday at the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, a rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who just days earlier vowed that his war in Ukraine would be a “long process” with no clear end in sight. Jan Rachinsky accepted on behalf of the Russian civil rights group Memorial, which was shuttered by the government last year.
Dems’ final Covid report slams government failures. Congress may repeat them.
The Coronavirus Crisis committee lays out 30 recommendations for protecting the country during future pandemics.
FDA greenlights bivalent vaccines for children as young as 6 months old
The move to authorize the shots comes as Covid-19 infections in the U.S. tick up amid the most intense flu season in years.
China announces rollback of strict anti-Covid measures
Public frustration with the restrictions appears to have finally swayed the opinion of officials.
Ex-FDA vaccine inspectors call for better training
The team overseeing licensed vaccines is overwhelmed by high turnover and a pandemic-induced backlog of inspections.
Fed jacks up rates again but Powell hints it might slow down
Inflation has cooled only slightly and job growth remains strong.