Today's Liberal News

The Coronavirus’s Next Move

If the coronavirus has one singular goal—repeatedly infecting us—it’s only gotten better at realizing it, from Alpha to Delta to Omicron. And it is nowhere near done. “Omicron is not the worst thing we could have imagined,” says Jemma Geoghegan, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Otago, in New Zealand. Somewhere out there, a Rho, a Tau, or maybe even an Omega is already in the works.Not all variants, though, are built the same.

Ukraine update: Ukraine’s defense still holds; U.S. bans Russian oil

Though Ukraine still faces long odds in being able to fend off a far larger Russian military, optimism still appears to reign among Ukrainian defenders. At the beginning of the war, both sides were preparing for a swift Russian takeover that would necessitate a Ukrainian defense centered around small units and guerrilla warfare; instead, Ukrainian forces continue to inflict shocking damage on spread-out, under-supplied, and under-protected Russian attackers.

Arizona’s Wendy Rogers extremely desperate to be on the wrong side of history

Wendy Rogers claims she speaks for the people, yet she’s released just three paltry letters of support on her website, all of which slam the Arizona senate for censuring her in a historic 24-3 vote over her speech at a Nazi conference, plus her exhaustingly divisive social media presence. The folks who aren’t her constituents are somehow eating up her extremism, having donated nearly $2 million to a candidate they can’t even cast a ballot for.

White police officer found not guilty in vicious beating of an unarmed Black man in San Francisco

Monday, San Francisco Police Officer Terrance Stangel was found not guilty of three felony counts in what the Los Angeles Times reports as the first excessive-force trial for an on-duty officer in the city’s history. The jury was deadlocked on a fourth charge of unlawfully beating Spiers under the colors of authority.

On Oct. 7, 2019, Decari Spiers was out on a date with his then girlfriend at Fisherman’s Wharf. The couple had not committed any crimes.

America Is the World’s Largest Oil Producer. So Why Is Losing Russia’s Oil Such a Big Deal?

In December, in a ballet of global logistics, more than 30 tankers ferrying liquid natural gas from the United States to various destinations around the globe—Japan, Brazil, South Africa—canceled their trips and set a new course for the European Union. On the days they pulled into port, the U.S. supplied more natural gas to Europe than Russia did.This represented more than a minor milestone in global energy history. As recently as the mid-2000s, energy companies fretted that the U.S.

Of Course Putin Is Being Canceled

Perhaps the time has come for Vladimir Putin to go on Joe Rogan’s podcast, because Russia has been canceled. Following the invasion of Ukraine, governments and companies around the world have distanced themselves from Russia and its citizens. “The West is not just trying to surround Russia with a new Iron Curtain,” its director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, said last week.

The Information War Isn’t Over Yet

Sign up for Charlie’s newsletter, Galaxy Brain, here.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not yet two weeks old and yet a dozen headlines from major media outlets now suggest that Ukraine is “winning the information war” across much of the world (Russia and China may be notable exceptions).

What Democracy’s Advocates Can Learn From Ukrainians

In the oddly managerial language of military analysts, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is currently “behind schedule.” But it’s not just his military that’s struggled so far. Putin’s global propaganda machine—TV channels, social-media bot networks, government-sponsored hackers, and official mouthpieces—has floundered.This was not expected to happen.

Biden Answered the 3 a.m. Call

When Hillary Clinton sought to sow doubts about Barack Obama, her rival for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, she ran an attack ad tarnishing him as dangerously inexperienced. As the screen shows images from a suburban house, a husky-voiced narrator intones: “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep, but there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing.” There’s clearly been a terrible international incident.