If you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Downballot on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Embedded Content
The 2022 election cycle really gets going next month with primaries in more than a dozen states, so we invited Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer to join us on this week’s episode of The Downballot to run us through all the key contests.
Nineteen-year-old Florida resident Alexander Jerich was looking for a way to commemorate the birthday of his hero, Donald Trump. Simply driving around West Palm Beach in his white Chevy pickup truck, with its giant Trump flag flying proudly from its bed, just didn’t seem to make enough of a statement.
When the Russian army first began shelling Lukashivka, a village in northern Ukraine, dozens of residents fled to the Horbonos family’s cellar. Children, pregnant women, bedridden pensioners, and the Horbonoses themselves headed down below the family’s peach orchard and vegetable patches, and waited. For 10 days, they listened as shells whistled and crashed above several times an hour.
After I lost my breast, I became a woman
sutured by a kind of knowledge.All day I moved as if walking was no different
from falling. I owned the potholes
and the riddled sky. I owned nothing at all. Even from far away,
I could hear the record skipping.
Time was running out
of hands. Of faces. The first time a lover traced
my scar, fingered its river
and kissed its groove, I woke early
the next morning and, quietly, I left.
Cinemas are pretty much always the best way to watch a movie. The darkened screening room is the ideal place to immerse yourself, distraction-free, in a film’s sound and visuals. That’d be a fine setting for Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a tale of online alienation that debuted at 2021’s Sundance Film Festival and hit theaters and some streaming services this month.
Janet Malcolm once wrote that psychoanalysis requires the analyst and the patient to wrestle with an arrangement whose “radical unlikeness to any other human relationship” is dizzying for both parties involved. They consent to meet alone at the same time and place every week.
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 bill approved by the GOP-led House on a 68-12 vote without discussion or debate now heads to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who is expected to sign it within days.
The request comes a month after the drug company signaled its two-dose regimen generated immune protection in the youngest children comparable to young adults.
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.
Prices have been driven up by bottlenecked supply chains, robust consumer demand and disruptions to global food and energy markets worsened by Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The landmark 1979 labor documentary, “The Wobblies,” has been restored and rereleased for May Day, International Workers’ Day.
Climate change is forcing animal migrations at an unprecedented scale, bringing many previously disconnected species into close contact and dramatically raising the likelihood of viruses leaping into new hosts and sparking future pandemics. That’s according to a new study in the journal Nature, which predicts that climate-driven disruptions to Earth’s ecosystems will create thousands of cross-species viral transmissions in the coming decades.
Nuclear watchdogs are expressing alarm over safety conditions at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been under Russian control since early March after a fight that led to a fire near one of the plant’s reactors. It is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and located in the largest city in southeastern Ukraine still under Ukrainian control.
The Biden administration has pledged billions in military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded in late February, and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said this week that the U.S. goal was “to see Russia weakened.” Author and analyst Anatol Lieven, senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, warns that unless there is a commitment to finding a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it could become a U.S.
“It was a grab. It was like he knew that I couldn’t say anything,” said ex-legislative assistant about Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster.
Ohio Senate candidate claims Biden is giving drug traffickers at the border a pass so they can wipe out right-wing voters. “It does look intentional,” Vance said.
For the second straight day, Russia lost more ground than it gained. Ukraine is pushing Russian forces around Kharkiv toward the international border. Mark Sumner made this map for his last update—blue cities taken the last couple of days, yellow ones under current Ukrainian assault.
Mark searched the names of all the villages NE of Kharkiv on Google and social media to get a handle on that Kharkiv front. All the villages.
Russian media is now bragging about the one aspect of the Ukraine invasion where Russia is actually demonstrating an ability to conduct operations on a frighteningly large scale. That thing doesn’t involve standing up to the Ukrainian military; it involves the wholesale processing of Ukrainian civilians for torture, kidnapping, and enslavement.
And there goes another month. Goodbye winter, hello spring. Ending April with a smile, we are back with the Joy Collective, a collection of the cutest, funniest clips we can find on the Internet.
Social media is filled with funny moments and stories. Sometimes we just need to step away from the seriousness and take some time to relax; lighter posts allow us to mentally recharge.
Workers in New York could gain new protections through separate bills in New York City and in the state legislature—but the New York City measure was delayed Thursday for five more months, despite having been passed by lawmakers four months ago. That bill would require many job listings to include salary information, a move that could help crack down on pay inequities. It would apply only to employers with four or more employees.
Imagine being part of an industry bringing in record profits—nearly $174 billion in profits in 2021. You receive incentives to grow through taxes, you have benefits thrown at you through state incentives, you are able to work with people to split their surface and mineral property rights to grow when you need to if you want to find more places that can handle your business. Every indicator is coming up roses for you.
The White House press corps is ready to party like it’s 2019.
The far-right Georgia Republican claimed not to be able to answer at least 80 questions during her testimony earlier this month.
The former Trump White House chief of staff also accused the committee of of waging a “sustained media campaign” against him.
Recently, after a particularly invigorating car wash, I had a yen for a slushie. Maybe the warming weather inspired me. Perhaps the proud signage of the QuikTrip convenience store nearby activated an unconscious desire. No matter, a slushie I did get. At QuikTrip, it’s called a Freezoni, a curious, quasi-Italian aspiration that bears no relation to the dispensed product.