Today's Liberal News

“I Didn’t See You There”: Filmmaker Reid Davenport on His Directorial Debut, Ableism & More

We speak with the award-winning filmmaker Reid Davenport about his directorial debut, “I Didn’t See You There,” in which he reflects on the portrayal of disability in media and popular culture. “Documentary film has traditionally subjugated disabled people, so I wanted to completely turn that on its head” by filming from his perspective without being seen, says Davenport.

Brent Renaud, First U.S. Journalist Killed in Ukraine War, Honored at New NYC Documentary Cinema

The lobby of DCTV’s new documentary film center in New York will be dedicated to the filmmaker Brent Renaud, who worked out of the historic firehouse alongside Democracy Now! for many years. Renaud was the first journalist to be killed in the Ukraine war after he was shot dead on March 13, 2022, while filming refugees near the capital Kyiv for a documentary series.

Brazil’s Lula Goes into Sunday Election with Massive Lead. Will Bolsonaro Accept an Electoral Defeat?

Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro faces former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Sunday’s presidential election. Lula is a former union leader who held office from 2003 through 2010. He’s running on a leftist platform to uplift Brazil’s poor, preserve the Amazon rainforest and protect Brazil’s Indigenous communities, and is supported by a broad, grassroots alliance, explains Brazilian human rights advocate Maria Luísa Mendonça.

Fighting California’s fires requires carceral reform and a just transition

by Ray Levy Uyeda

This article was originally published at Prism

Fall is a tough season for Da’Ton Harris, a wildland firefighter who spends multiple weeks at a time attempting to tamp down fires without hoses. Harris and his crew of 20 other firefighters with the Urban Association of Forestry and Fire Professionals, where he’s a superintendent, are responsible for cutting down a forest to its soil so that, theoretically, there’s less fuel to burn.

Even a pandemic didn’t get paid sick days for most low-wage workers, this week in the war on workers

More than two years into the pandemic (still not over, President Biden!), there have been nearly 100 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States. In the early part of the pandemic, some workers benefited from a first-ever federal paid sick leave law, and a growing number of states require paid sick leave for many workers. But many workers have had to face COVID-19 with no paid sick time, and as usual, the burden falls most heavily on the workers who already have the least.

Ukraine update: Now that Lyman is liberated, Ukraine selects its next target

On Saturday evening in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces are moving block by block through the city of Lyman, looking into houses, checking IDs of any residents still there, and accepting the surrender of any Russian forces willing to lay down arms. Russian casualties north of the city, and along the highway to the east, are reported to be horrendous, and it’s probably going to be some time before any since of the true scale of the carnage becomes clear.

Way too many Republican secretary of state candidates are getting ready for the next coup attempt

Secretaries of state are almost always the top elections administrators in their states, giving them a crucial role in upholding the basic tenets of democracy across the United States. That hasn’t exactly been a secret before this year, and Republicans in those roles have repeatedly made it more difficult to vote or purged voter registrations. Abuse of power has been frequent.

Why the Florida Fantasy Withstands Reality

Five years ago, after Hurricane Irma pummeled Florida’s Gulf Coast, I rode a boat through the canals of Cape Coral, the “Waterfront Wonderland,” America’s fastest-growing city at the time. It was a sunny day with a gentle breeze and just a few puffs of clouds, so as I pointed to the blown-out lanais and piles of storm debris, my guide, a snowbird named Brian Tattersall, kept teasing me for missing the point of a magical afternoon.

Our Food System Could Have Been So Different

The old, epic story of agriculture in North America had two heroes, long sung and much venerated. One was human ingenuity. The other was corn.That story went something like this. On this continent, agriculture—and therefore civilization—was born in Mesoamerica, where corn happened to be abundant. The more advanced people there began cultivating this knobbly little plant and passed their knowledge north, to people in more temperate climes.

In Iran, Raw Fury Is in the Air

“After Mahsa, everything is hanging by a hair.”Those words, spray-painted in red on a Tehran wall last week, sum up the atmosphere of rage and defiance that has consumed Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died in police custody in mid-September after being arrested for failing to properly veil her hair.Rallies have turned progressively more violent.

Don’t Question the Magic of Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus, as a film, makes little sense. The plot, about a coven of witches who seek to eat children, involves a talking cat, a boy who despises trick-or-treating, and far too many mentions of virgins lighting candles. Released inexplicably in the middle of summer 1993, it was a box-office failure that put off critics.But Hocus Pocus, as a cultural phenomenon, makes perfect sense. The costumes are easily replicable, the one-liners fantastically quotable.

The Reason Child Care Is So Hard to Afford

After my second son was born, my family crossed a painful threshold: We started spending more on child care than we do on rent. The situation is temporary, I keep telling myself—promising myself, praying for myself. My older son will be able to enroll in kindergarten in two years and my younger son in four. But it is excruciating. And I say that from a place of privilege. Most American families earn less than mine does. That does not make day care any cheaper for them.