Today's Liberal News

The Delightful Pretentiousness of Irma Vep

HBO’s Irma Vep, perhaps the most meta show currently on TV, has the kind of high-concept premise that would confuse even its own characters. They’re members of a TV production themselves, but they can’t agree on the nature of what they’re making. One character suggests that they’re creating a long movie broken up into parts—like the way novels used to be published.

“Act Now”: House Hears from Uvalde & Buffalo Gun Violence Victims, Passes Reforms Doomed in Senate

The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved new gun control measures, including raising the minimum age for the purchase of most semiautomatic rifles to 21 and banning high-capacity magazines. The new rules passed the House in a 223-204 vote, but are doomed in the Senate, where a bipartisan group is working on passing a much more limited set of reforms.

Sexual Violence by Russian Troops in Ukraine “Chronically Underreported,” U.N. & Amnesty Int’l Find

The United Nations is demanding an independent investigation into charges of rape and sexual assault committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine since the start of the invasion. We speak with Pramila Patten, the U.N.’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, who is just back from Ukraine and told the Security Council Monday about multiple shocking reports of rape and assault — all of which Russia has since denied.

News roundup: Gun violence survivors testify in the House as Jan. 6 committee prepares for hearing

It was a gutting day on Capitol Hill as survivors of gun violence, including a child who covered herself in her dead friend’s blood to survive the Uvalde mass shooting and the parents of a child who died, testified before a House committee. 

“Today we stand for Lexi and as her voice, we demand action,” Kimberly Rubio said in her daughter’s honor. “We seek a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines.

Colorado attorney general reviewing Lauren Boebert’s dubious campaign spending for fraud

First they came for Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina. Now, as foretold, they are coming for Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado. The battle for control over what will be the Neo-fascist Republican Party continues as a new leak of dirty dealings makes its way back into the public sphere. Boebert is running for re-election in Colorado’s 3rd District, and the conservative Super PAC group that helped run media attacks on Rep.

House Democrats are investigating foreign gifts that apparently went ‘missing’ under Trump’s watch

It’s looking increasingly like Donald Trump illegally made off with a bunch of foreign gifts without notifying anyone. Why? Because he’s Donald Effing Trump, you naif.

It’s unlikely Trump wanted to be president just so he could steal stuff when he left, but he had to see that as a perk—and without question, it was inevitable. If he’d worked at Chuck E. Cheese, he would have stolen an animatronic banjo-playing bear.

New cancer drug destroyed 100% of tumors in trial, but it’s not quite the miracle the media claims

On Monday, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a new treatment for a specific form of cancer. In that trial, all 12 patients that completed treatment with the new drug, called dostarlimab, had what was called a “100% response.” That is, every one of these patients saw their tumors completely eradicated.

Drug trails, especially early trials, often give murky results.

The Dinosaurs Deserved Better

In Jurassic World: Dominion, a fate worse than extinction has cruelly visited the cloned dinosaurs that have been roaming on silver screens since 1993: They’ve become mundane. A nuisance. The kind of pests you might call your local wildlife department about, as you peek out your window onto the backyard and say with a sigh, “Honey, there’s another pack of Compsognathus trampling the daffodils.

Biden’s Climate Goals Rest on a 71-Year-Old Defense Law

Sign up for The Weekly Planet, Robinson Meyer’s newsletter about living through climate change, here.A legal relic dating back to the Korean War has become one of the White House’s most important tools to pursue its climate goals.On Monday, the White House announced that it was invoking the Defense Production Act to boost manufacturing of certain technologies that will be essential for decarbonization, such as solar panels, heat pumps, and transformers for the electrical grid.

Is This the End of the George Floyd Moment?

Since the massive nationwide protests that erupted in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, the debate over crime and public safety in the Democratic Party has been dominated by urgent calls for reforming police departments and confronting entrenched racial inequities in the criminal-justice system. History might record yesterday’s elections in San Francisco and Los Angeles as the end of that moment.

“Intensify the Search”: Journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous Expert Bruno Pereira Missing in Brazil

British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira have still not been found, after being reported missing Sunday in one of Brazil’s most remote areas of the Amazon. The pair were traveling across the region to interview Indigenous leaders patrolling the area for illegal miners and fishers for Phillips’s upcoming book. “We know that they had been receiving threats.

Indigenous Amazon Leader, Excluded from Summit of Americas, Urges Leaders to Protect Rainforest

The Biden administration has denied members of an Indigenous delegation from the Amazon rainforest entry at this week’s U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas. Meanwhile, President Biden agreed to meet with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who told Biden he would only attend the conference if he was guaranteed immunity from criticism on his systematic destruction of the Amazon rainforest, among other policies.