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. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Last week I asked readers for their best tips on cutting costs in times of economic strain—and, looking back on their lives, what they might consider to have been their most wasteful spending.
If you remember A Raisin in the Sun as a play about a family that decides to buy a house, you might be surprised that the author thought its crucial line was about African decolonization. Lorraine Hansberry’s favorite character wasn’t Lena Younger, the stalwart widow who wants to use her husband’s life-insurance payment to move her family out of a cramped apartment on Chicago’s South Side.
In the 1970s, the cartoonist Art Spiegelman jotted down a thought in a notebook. “Maybe Western civilization has forfeited any right to literature with a big ‘L,’” he wrote. “Maybe vulgar, semiliterate, unsubtle comic books are an appropriate form for speaking of the unspeakable.
As the World Cup begins, we look at the host country of Qatar’s labor and human rights record. “This is the deadliest major sporting event, possibly ever, in history,” says Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch, who describes how millions of migrant workers from the world’s poorest countries have faced deadly and forced labor conditions working on the $2 billion infrastructure.
A gunman wearing body armor and armed with an AR-15-style rifle attacked an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs late Saturday night, killing five people and injuring at least 25. Two Club Q patrons managed to disarm the shooter, a 22-year-old suspect with ties to an extremist family, before he was taken into police custody. The attack came on the the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, and police are investigating the attack as a potential hate crime.
Rich countries agreed to establish a “loss and damage” fund at the close of the two-week-long U.N. climate summit in Egypt to help the Global South deal with the worst effects of the climate catastrophe. The fund is a major breakthrough for Global South countries, which have been demanding a similar mechanism for the past 30 years but faced opposition from the United States and other large polluting nations.
The divisions among anti-abortion groups and Republican leaders threaten to undercut a movement that for decades has shaped party platforms, tipped the scales in primaries, and helped steer the federal judiciary rightward.
An HHS spokesperson defended the medication as safe and effective.
The ruling allows most abortions to resume in the state.
That win at the ballot box last week set up the groups challenging the laws to argue that the court should block two abortion laws.
Their loss of state supreme court races in Ohio and North Carolina could imperil the future of the procedure in two of the country’s most populous states
The inside story of how lobbying, threats and the desire to protect industry gutted a proposal that was meant to make vaccines widely available in poorer countries.
Inflation has cooled only slightly and job growth remains strong.
A new POLITICO-Morning Consult poll suggests voters’ views of the economy are baked in.
Housing investment, though, plunged at a 26 percent annual pace, hammered by surging mortgage rates.
According to an NBC News poll released Sunday, 70 percent of registered voters expressed interest in the upcoming election as a “9” or “10” on a 10-point scale.
We continue our coverage from the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with prominent Russian environmentalist Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of the Russian environmental organization Ecodefense and winner of the 2021 Right Livelihood Award for defending the environment and mobilizing grassroots opposition to the coal and nuclear industries in Russia.
We speak with prominent Ukrainian climate scientist Svitlana Krakovska at the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, about how the Russian war in Ukraine has intensified calls to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Krakovska is the head of the delegation of Ukraine to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.
Ukrainian climate activist Svitlana Romanko joins us after she was suspended from the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, when she accused Russian officials of war crimes and genocide at an event on Wednesday. Romanko is the founder and director of Razom We Stand, an organization demanding a total permanent embargo on Russian oil and gas.
The family of imprisoned British Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah visited him on Thursday for the first time since he ended his full hunger and water strike, which they say occurred after he collapsed inside his prison shower last week. El-Fattah had intensified his strike on the first day of the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh to draw international attention to the country’s human rights violations and protest his seemingly indefinite imprisonment.
Fox News reported that Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates was moved “for his own safety” after ugly attacks linked to midterm losers.
The California Democrat slammed the billionaire’s decision to reinstate Donald Trump on Twitter.
The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said the panel is reviewing allegations that a landmark 2014 decision was leaked by Justice Samuel Alito.
“Florida is where ‘woke’ goes to die,” he crowed to a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in what sounded like a presidential campaign speech.
UPDATE: Sunday, Nov 20, 2022 · 7:54:33 PM +00:00 · Lauren Sue
Officials said in a news release the number of victims injured has increased to 25 people.
President Joe Biden released his statement on social media Sunday. “Jill and I are praying for the families of the five people killed in Colorado Springs, and for those injured in this senseless attack,” the president said.
If this war was a long-running television series, we’d be in the off season, with writers writing new scripts, actors resting up, and the props department designing new sets, gear, and costumes. Season 1 was the Battle of Kyiv. Season 2 was the grinding battle for the Donbas, ending with Russia’s capture of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Season 3 was Russian culmination at Izyum, and the liberation of Kharkiv Oblast. Season 4 was the liberation of Kherson.
Welcome to Nuts & Bolts, a guide to Democratic campaigns. I’ve helped write this series for years using information from campaign managers, finance directors, field directors, trainers, and staff, responding to questions from Daily Kos Community and staff members, and addressing issues that are sent to me via kosmail through Daily Kos.
On Nov. 9, Columbus, Ohio’s public health officials released a statement that they were investigating 4 cases of measles at a child care facility. According to WBNS10, one of the children ended up in intensive care. Thankfully, that child had been released home. All four cases were in unvaccinated children with no history of traveling out of the United States.
Universities depend on graduate student workers’ labor but won’t provide adequate pay without the pressure of collective bargaining efforts.
Last night, at least five people were killed and 25 were injured in a shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The venue, Club Q, has been described as a “second home full of chosen family,” a safe space for people to be who they are. No more. The motive of the attacker remains unclear, but officials are investigating whether the attack should be classed as a hate crime.