Today's Liberal News

Jury will soon put ‘self-defense’ theory to test in trial of ex-cop charged with assaulting police

Grasping for a favorable verdict, ex-cop Thomas Webster has told jurors trying his case in Washington, D.C., that when he came to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and proceeded to charge a police officer with a metal pole before tackling him and choking him, it was just self-defense. 

The 56-year-old and his attorney have relied on Webster’s experience as a former U.S.

Are We in the Middle of an Invisible COVID Wave?

Over the past month, the number of new COVID cases in my social circle has become impossible to ignore. I brushed off the first few—guests at a wedding I attended in early April—as outliers during the post-Omicron lull. But then came frantic texts from two former colleagues. The next week, a friend at the local café was complaining that she’d lost her sense of smell. My Instagram feed is now surfacing selfies of people in isolation, some for the second or third time.

Humans Can’t Quit a Basic Myth About Dog Breeds

After four decades of training and studying dogs, Marjie Alonso has lost track of the number of pets she’s seen because their humans felt they weren’t acting as they “should.” There were the golden retrievers who weren’t “friendly” or “good enough with kids,” and the German shepherds who were more timid scaredy-cats than vigilant guard dogs.

The Tragedy of the Congress

Mitch McConnell isn’t known for his joyousness, but the dour Senate Republican leader was able to find delight even in the bleak aftermath of the January 6 insurrection: This, at long last, was the end of Donald Trump.“I feel exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally, totally discredited himself,” McConnell told the New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin late that night, according to Martin’s forthcoming book with Alex Burns, This Will Not Pass.

Shadowbanning Is Big Tech’s Big Problem

Sometimes, it feels like everyone on the internet thinks they’ve been shadowbanned. Republican politicians have been accusing Twitter of shadowbanning—that is, quietly suppressing their activity on the site—since at least 2018, when for a brief period, the service stopped autofilling the usernames of Representatives Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, and Matt Gaetz, as well as other prominent Republicans, in its search bar.

As Pentagon Chief Talks of “Weakening” Russia, Is U.S. Treating the Ukraine Conflict as a Proxy War?

The Biden administration has pledged billions in military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded in late February, and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said this week that the U.S. goal was “to see Russia weakened.” Author and analyst Anatol Lieven, senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, warns that unless there is a commitment to finding a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it could become a U.S.

Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery: New Report Documents How It Profited, Then Tried to Erase Ties

Harvard University released a 134-page report this week that detailed the school’s extensive ties to slavery and pledged $100 million for a fund for scholars to continue to research the topic. The report documents dozens of prominent people associated with Harvard who enslaved people, including four Harvard presidents. Harvard commissioned the study in 2019 as part of a wave of schools reckoning with their pasts and the ongoing legacy of racial discrimination.

Why wouldn’t Mike Pence leave the Capitol on Jan. 6?

“I’m not getting in the car.”

This is what former Vice President Mike Pence said on Jan. 6, 2021 to Tim Giebels, the lead special agent tasked to protect him.

Thousands of rioters, many of them armed with weapons makeshift and otherwise, were laying siege to the U.S. Capitol while clamoring to hang him, the second person in line for the presidency of the United States. This conversation reportedly happened just before 2:30 PM.

Ukraine update: The most important vehicle on the battlefield isn’t a tank

In a sea of tanks, armored personal carriers (APC), infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), armored fighting vehicles (AFV), Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicles, it can be easy to overlook the vehicles that are most often responsible for getting soldiers where they need to be on the battlefield—Infantry Mobility Vehicles. Also known as Jeeps.

Well, not actually Jeeps.