One day, deep into production on David Lynch’s 2006 film, Inland Empire, a producer approached the actor Laura Dern in a panic, trying to parse a strange request from the director. “He took me aside and said, ‘Laura, David called me this morning, and I can’t figure out if it’s a joke,’” Dern, the movie’s lead, recalled in an interview. “‘He said, “Bring me a one-legged woman, a monkey, and a lumberjack by 3:15.
More than two years into this pandemic, we finally have an antiviral treatment that works pretty darn well. Paxlovid cuts a vulnerable adult’s chances of hospitalization or death from COVID by nearly 90 percent if taken in the first few days of an infection. For adults without risk-heightening factors, it reduces that likelihood by 70 percent. Also, it might make your mouth taste like absolute garbage the whole time you’re taking the pills.In Pfizer’s clinical trials, about 5.
The love song, the breakup song, the party song—all are excellent pop traditions, but a good doomsday song can do the work of all three. What connects David Bowie’s “Five Years” to Prince’s “1999” to Lana Del Rey’s “The Greatest” aren’t just visions of civilizational collapse.
Here is the foundational narrative on which I was raised: In March 1933, my great-uncle Arthur Kahn walked out of his apartment in Würzburg, Germany, for what was supposed to be a short Easter-break trip to see relatives. He was 21, training to be a doctor. He didn’t know it, but his name had been placed on a list of students suspected of Communist ties. He had none, but he was arrested in Nuremberg. A few weeks later, he was transferred to Dachau, which had just opened as a prison.
We speak to Yale University historian Timothy Snyder about his latest article for The New Yorker, “The War in Ukraine Is a Colonial War.” Snyder writes about the colonial history that laid the foundations for the Russian war in Ukraine, such as Russia’s imperial vision and how leaders including Hitler and Stalin have aimed to conquer Ukrainian soil on different premises. “The whole history of colonialism … involves denying that another people is real.
The European Union has announced a plan for a total ban on Russian oil by 2023. The move is backed by Germany, one of the countries most dependent on Russian fuel. World leaders hope that stricter sanctions on Russia will cut off financing for the war in Ukraine.
This week U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is in Nigeria, where he warned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is leading to a growing hunger crisis in Africa. A new report by Human Rights Watch finds the Russian invasion of Ukraine has worsened food insecurity, particularly for African countries that were already experiencing a hunger crisis.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has tested positive for the coronavirus. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Wednesday Blinken would isolate at home according to CDC guidelines. Blinken met Wednesday with Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde shortly before his positive test result. A day earlier, he met with Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard.
The push to develop daily oral contraceptives without prescription has been years in the making.
If the court adopts the initial draft opinion, the retreat on abortion rights would be sweeping.
With lawmakers stymied, much of the abortion-rights response is expected to fall to medical and activist groups.
Oregon and Kentucky are pursuing an Obama-era policy that uses federal dollars to establish a health insurance plan for people who make too much money to qualify for their state’s Medicaid programs.
Public opinion in the federal government’s leading public health agency remains low.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are divided but an aide to the group said that the push from civil rights leaders over recent weeks has “caused members to give greater thought to what could be potential unintended consequences.
The government said gross domestic product shrank at a 1.4 percent annualized rate in the first quarter.
The steady spending suggested the economy could keep expanding this year even though the Federal Reserve plans to raise rates aggressively to fight the inflation surge.
The war in Ukraine will “severely” set back the global recovery from Covid-19, according to the IMF.
The Fed’s campaign to raise interest rates — designed to reduce spending and curb inflation — will slow growth, which will have consequences for American workers.
As President Biden seeks $33 billion more for Ukraine, we look at the dangers of U.S. military escalation with Medea Benjamin of CodePink and George Beebe of the Quincy Institute. He is the former head of Russia analysis at the CIA and a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Reuters reports Alito was scheduled to appear at the event this week. The Supreme Court wouldn’t say why he canceled.
The now-telegraphed likely end of federal abortion rights in the United States continues to send the Republican politicians who have plotted that end for decades scurrying for cover; abortion rights remain overwhelmingly popular in this country, despite decades of demonization efforts by far-right theocrats, and the party must now turn its ample hoax-crafting powers on inventing reasons the public should not blame them for the very outcome that Senate Republicans and state lawmakers have
At this morning’s press event at the U.S. Department of Defense, Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Hilbert quoted Ukrainian sources as saying, “The worst thing the Russians did was give us eight years to prepare.” During that time, Ukrainian forces worked closely with the American military, including seeing numerous National Guard forces who spent extensive time in Ukraine training and working with the military there.
In a sea of absolutely brutal, exhausting news, it can be truly refreshing to focus on something good—or at least, something that doesn’t involve literal human rights and freedoms. As Daily Kos covered at the time, beloved country music star (and humanitarian) Dolly Parton politely declined a nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame back in March, and the Hall rather hilariously rejected her rejection.
With all the hullabaloo over Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft opinion reducing any American with a uterus to an involuntary fetus decanter, another Jesus-adjacent SCOTUS decision flew under the radar on Monday.
The high court ruled that the city of Boston violated the First Amendment rights of a group that wanted to raise a Christian flag outside city hall as part of a program that welcomed various emblems in celebration of civic pride.
Chief Justice John Roberts is understandably upset about the leaking of his fellow conservative, Samuel Alito’s, wrathful, misogynistic diatribe representing the views of (apparently) the majority of the Supreme Court toward the subject of abortion.
Justice Samuel Alito’s reasoning is stuck in the 1600s — literally.
Greg Gutfeld argued that pro-choice advocates “don’t have the balls to state their case plainly.
They may have been caught up in a scheme for power brokers to retain control.
The GOP congressman said the NSFW clip of unknown provenance simply showed him “being crass with a friend.
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Every Monday, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Question of the WeekWhat are your views on abortion?Email your thoughts to conor@theatlantic.com. I’ll publish a selection of correspondence in Monday’s newsletter.