Today's Liberal News

Why This COVID Wave Feels Different

In mid-March, I began to notice a theme within my social circle in New York, where I live: COVID—it finally got me! At that point, I didn’t think much of it. Only a few of my friends seemed to be affected, and case counts were still pretty low, all things considered. By April, images of rapid tests bearing the dreaded double bars were popping up all over my Instagram feed. Because cases had been rising slowly but steadily, I dismissed the trend to the back of my mind.

The Bittersweet Silliness of Hulu’s Fire Island

What Fire Island, the movie, understands about Fire Island, the place, is that paradise can feel like purgatory. The smart new comedy does depict the New York vacation spot’s famously titillating amenities: outdoor dance parties whose rhythms echo for miles, ornery drag queens wearing cheery colors, physiques buffed and flaunted like Ferraris. But it also captures a stillness in the air, an emptiness in the landscape, and an ambient sense of tension and futility.

We Should Have Seen Monkeypox Coming

Nearly five years before an unusual cluster of monkeypox cases in the U.K. alarmed the world, doctors were dealing with an unusual cluster of monkeypox in another unexpected country: Nigeria. The virus is endemic to Central Africa, but Nigeria, far to the west, had not recorded a case of monkeypox since 1978. When an 11-year-old boy showed up with skin lesions in September 2017, doctors first suspected chickenpox. But no, tests pointed to the much more unusual monkeypox.

Learning How to Grieve in Public

To insist, as the journalist John Gunther did, that Death Be Not Proud deserved to be published was to insist that the boy it memorialized deserved to be remembered, not only by his family but by the world. As his 17-year-old son, Johnny, died of cancer, Gunther drafted a candid portrait of his grief. When it was published, in 1949, his level of disclosure was still considered uncouth, and Gunther knew it.

Biden OKs $5.8B in Debt Relief for Corinthian Students; Pressure Grows to Abolish All Student Debt

The Biden administration this week canceled almost $6 billion in student loan debt for borrowers who attended the now-defunct network of for-profit schools known as Corinthian Colleges, which defrauded thousands of students before being shut down in 2015. We speak to two activists from the Debt Collective, a group working to end the student loan crisis, about the ongoing fight for full federal student debt cancellation.

“We Can’t Jail Our Way Out of Poverty”: San Fran. DA Chesa Boudin Defends Record Ahead of Recall Vote

We speak to San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was elected in 2019 after promising to end cash bail, curb mass incarceration and address police misconduct. He now faces a recall campaign, with opponents blaming rising crime rates on his policies, even though sources like the San Francisco Chronicle report that crime rates have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

“This Is Racist Terrorism”: Ex-Buffalo Cop Says Gun Violence & White Supremacy Must Both Be Addressed

As President Biden calls on Congress to enact new gun control measures, we go to Buffalo to speak with Cariol Horne, a racial justice advocate and former Buffalo police officer. She says the nation must address white supremacy, as well as gun control, following last month’s massacre in Buffalo, when a white supremacist attacked a grocery story, fatally shooting 10 people, all of whom were Black.

News Roundup: Miami GOP embraces Jan. 6 seditionists; Biden wipes $5.8 billion of student debt

As the Biden administration ponders how aggressively it should confront the student loan crisis (which more accurately might be called the grifting college crisis), at least some students will be seeing full relief. The administration announced that the federal government will erase all of the nearly $6 billion in student debt incurred by those defrauded by the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges.

Ukraine update: Fighting continues in Severodonetsk, and things are definitely not going as expected

A funny thing happened on the way to Russia’s capture of Severodonetsk. After reports from Ukrainian officials that Russia held about 80% of the city, and a full week after Chechen forces claimed to have taken the whole city (which never happened), Ukraine now appears to hold more of Severodonetsk than it did on Wednesday.

Some statements are now going as far as saying that Severodonetsk was a trap to lure in Russian soldiers.

Kooky MAGA tour starring Roger Stone and Mike Flynn inspires fierce pushback in upstate New York

The best way to picture the ReAwaken America Tour is as a sort of flat-Earth conference for political junkies. The second-best way is to get one of those Ronco inside-the-shell egg scramblers, attach it to your skull, adjust the setting to “Don Jr.,” and commence pureeing your brain until Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, and Mike Lindell appear in your mind’s eye, screaming bilious nonsense about the “stolen” 2020 election.

Republicans show they’re the NRA’s servants during House meeting on gun reform

The House Judiciary Committee is meeting Thursday to discuss a package of bills that would stiffen gun laws in the nation after three separate mass shootings in the past 10 days. The Democratic-led panel is trying to get bipartisan agreement, but that, as we know, is highly unlikely.

The Democrats are hoping to push the “Protecting Our Kids Act” in front of the full House as soon as next week, CBS News reports.

The First Amendment Is Stronger Than Johnny Depp

After Johnny Depp’s successful defamation claim against Amber Heard, many observers are wondering if a recalibration of First Amendment law is occurring in the United States.By all indications, it was a close case. The jury spent dozens of hours deliberating, evaluating six weeks’ worth of testimony and evidence. It ultimately decided that the preponderance of evidence favored Depp.

The Lessons of Newtown for the Future of Uvalde

Isla Vista, Charleston, San Bernardino, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Parkland, Thousand Oaks, Virginia Beach, Buffalo: Over the decade since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, scores of American communities have become inextricably linked to mass death. With the killing of 19 children and two of their teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last week, the town of 16,000 near the southern border became yet another of our nation’s landmarks of loss.