Today's Liberal News

Report from the Donbas: Shelling Intensifies in Severodonetsk as Russia Moves to Capture Key City

Heavy fighting is continuing in eastern Ukraine as Russia attempts to seize the entire Donbas region, where fighting began in 2014. We speak to independent journalist Billy Nessen, who just left the city of Severodonetsk, where Russian shelling has exponentially increased. He says a possible Russian capture of Severodonetsk would be a “big propaganda victory for Russia,” but predicts that Ukrainians are not yet at the point where they are willing to concede.

“Trigger Points”: Author Mark Follman on How to Stop Mass Shootings Through Community Prevention

Shortly before the massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, we spoke with author and journalist Mark Follman about the epidemic of mass shootings in the United States. Follman is the author of the new book “Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America,” in which he closely examines how a community-based prevention method called “behavior threat assessment” can help prevent mass shootings.

Patrick Cockburn Warns the West’s “Triumphalism” in Ukraine Could Prolong Conflict Indefinitely

As fighting continues in Ukraine, we speak with journalist Patrick Cockburn, who says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is peddling a “vague triumphalism” which is “obscuring just how dangerous and how bad the situation has become.” His recent CounterPunch piece is headlined “London and Washington are Being Propelled by Hubris — Just as Putin was.

The West’s Long Haul in Ukraine

The Western world must prepare itself for a long war in Ukraine that will require ongoing support for Kyiv to guarantee Russia’s defeat, as well as reinforced defenses across Europe to ensure that Vladimir Putin does not underestimate NATO’s readiness to defend “every inch” of its territory, Jens Stoltenberg, the military alliance’s secretary-general, told me recently.

Vision

Photograph by Stephen DiRadoSitting on the porch of the house  
the father doesn’t remember is his own,
the daughter confides to the father
that her love for him has become
a trapped animal. The father, almost deaf,
doesn’t hear the daughter. In the daughter’s
humid periphery, the father becomes
a younger version of himself.

Airlines’ Premium-Economy Trick

Let’s say you receive an unexpected financial windfall. What’s the first thing you’re spending money on? If it’s a lavish vacation—how are you getting there? Americans top the list of consumers who say they’re interested in private travel, so there’s a clue. Many of us would prefer to opt out of the commercial-flight experience, but the odds of hailing a private jet are lottery-long for anyone not in the 1 percent.

A Holocaust Survivor’s Secret Sadness

In my earliest memories of my mother, I see her braiding the challah for our Friday-night meal, cutting and laying sheets of strudel dough across the dining-room table, feeding the goose she kept in the attic of our home in Kassa, Hungary, for her decadent foie gras. But I also remember her sorrow—for the mother she’d lost when she was only 9, and also, I sensed, for the woman she herself had become.