Today's Liberal News

Cities across the country are giving employees paid leave after abortions

This article was originally published at Prism

In 2017, Beth Vial needed to have an abortion. She was 26 weeks into her pregnancy, and there was no legal cutoff in her resident city of Portland, Oregon, but she needed a simple majority vote from the department board at the hospital to approve her procedure. She was short one vote, and she was running out of time.

REI launches anti-union campaign as Manhattan workers organize, this week in the war on workers

Last week, workers at a Manhattan REI store filed for a union representation election, seeking what would be the first union at the outdoor equipment retailer. It didn’t take REI management long to start churning out anti-union messaging, including anti-union statements read by managers at captive audience meetings and workers being pulled into one-on-one meetings with managers.

Connect! Unite! Act! What makes for vulnerability and courage?

Connect! Unite! Act! is a weekly series that seeks to create face-to-face networks in each congressional district. Groups meet regularly to socialize, get out the vote, support candidates, and engage in other local political actions that help our progressive movement grow and exert influence on the powers that be.

Spotify Isn’t Really About the Music Anymore

The questions that arise in the face of any boycott effort—whether against an unethical retailer, a disgraced performer, or an exploitative employer—can be paralyzing. We live in a world of compromise and wickedness, built of systems guided not by virtue but by profit. So why, the boycotter must be asked, draw the line here? We also live in a world in which individuals rarely ever wield more power than institutions.

The Coronavirus Will Surprise Us Again

To understand how the coronavirus keeps evolving into surprising new variants with new mutations, it helps to have some context: The virus’s genome is 30,000 letters long, which means that the number of possible mutation combinations is mind-bogglingly huge. As Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me, that number far, far exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe.

I Figured Out Wordle’s Secret

Wordle! It’s a word game people are playing online. Each day, the game offers one new puzzle: Guess a five-letter English word correctly in six or fewer tries. After each guess, the game tells you which letters are correct, which are wrong, and which are the right letters in the wrong place. It’s fun! But why?Games seem like trifles, and many are, which can make them difficult to take seriously as art or culture.

The Enduring Lessons of the ‘Axis of Evil’ Speech

Twenty years ago today, President George W. Bush delivered a State of the Union address that would instantly become one of the most bitterly controversial in U.S. history. At its core were short indictments of the aggressions and human-rights abuses of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq.Then the kicker:“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.

Biden Undermined Faith in Elections

Joe Biden, who ran for president promising to restore trust in American democracy, recently undermined it. It’s not what he was elected to do, and he needs to repair the damage.During his marathon press conference last week, Biden was asked whether the failure of voting-rights legislation in Congress would render this year’s elections illegitimate.

“The Lords of Easy Money”: How the Federal Reserve Enriched Wall Street & Broke the U.S. Economy

As the Federal Reserve signals it will raise interest rates in March, we talk to Christopher Leonard, author of the new book “The Lords of Easy Money,” about how the Federal Reserve broke the American economy. He details the issues with quantitative easing, a radical intervention instituted by the federal government in 2010 to encourage banks and investors to lend more risky debt to combat the recession.

News Roundup: Supreme Court seat needs filling fast; Republican war on children; it’s crunch time

Hello Friday! As if on cue, our infrastructure continues to literally crumble, and the pittance put forward to fix the myriad issues BBB would have helped to ameliorate remain critical to our country’s future. The Biden administration is being pressured to make the moves that the majority of Americans support, come hell or high water—and the latter is coming, thanks to climate change.

Sixth-grader who wrote to Tennessee governor opposing ‘permitless’ gun law is killed by stray bullet

By all accounts, Artemis Rayford was a happy, vibrant 12-year-old. He loved playing football and wearing his Tennessee Titans jersey. As a sixth-grader at Memphis, Tennessee’s Sherwood Middle School, Rayford had participated, just before the last year’s winter break, in a program his school coordinated with the Memphis Police Department—intended to discourage violence and gang activity. He and his fellow students learned about a new law passed in Jul.

ICE blocked from re-detaining immigrants freed from two California facilities due to pandemic

Detained immigrants and their advocates scored a major court victory this week, reaching a “groundbreaking” settlement in a lawsuit filed nearly two years ago over unsafe pandemic conditions.

Under an agreement reached Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is barred from re-detaining immigrants previously released from two California facilities due to COVID-19. This could affect up to 250 people.

Liberation or Folly? Your Takes on Artificial Wombs

Earlier this week I asked readers, “What do you think about artificial wombs? Are they ethical? Desirable? Should they be a priority for scientists? If they become advanced enough to be viable, would you ever use one? How would a world in which they were available differ from ours?