In “Pandemic, Inc.: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick,” ProPublica investigative reporter J. David McSwane tracks pandemic federal relief funds and finds many contracts to acquire critical supplies were wrapped up in unprecedented fraud schemes that left the U.S. government with subpar and unusable equipment.
“When Putin’s forces were advancing, we needed to defend the country,” Russian dissident Ilya Ponomarev said.
“Only those who can afford to travel across state lines will be able to have agency over their bodies,” Planned Parenthood said.
(I’m basing this report on early information. The fog of war is thick. So approach everything with appropriate hesitation and skepticism.)
The day’s big war news is … it’s big. Ukraine has sunk the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the guided missile cruiser Moskva—the very ship Ukrainians told to go fuck themselves on the first day of the war.
Even in the worst of times, Congress can usually get its act together to name federal buildings. It’s kind of a joke about Congress, actually. But House Republicans just got to the point of divisive extremism where they won’t even reliably do that.
Every member of Florida’s congressional delegation had co-sponsored a bill to name a federal courthouse after Justice Joseph W.
After hundreds gathered to protest the shooting of Patrick Lyoya, police officials from Grand Rapids, Michigan, said they would release footage of the incident. Lyoya was fatally shot on April 4, after his vehicle was stopped by Grand Rapids officers for having an unregistered license plate issue, the Associated Press reported. Lyoya leaves behind two small children, a two-year-old and a three-month-old.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden released a statement on his latest conversation with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy. In the call, Biden not only revealed that he was sending an additional $800 million in “weapons, ammunition, and other security assistance” to Ukraine, he provided some exciting details of just what would be heading down the high-speed pipeline between the U.S. and Kyiv.
For many of us, “throwing your life away” might look like refusing a safe and effective vaccine that keeps your lungs from turning into turbid sacks of wet cement. But Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has other ideas. To her way of thinking, military service really is for losers and suckers.
In an April 9 interview with once-and-future DJT rectal parasite Lou Dobbs, Greene disparaged our military, concluding that joining the U.S.
The group arrived at a building near Capitol Hill that is home to Fox News, NBC News and C-SPAN.
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.
Restrictions and bans on abortion are in the books in other states, including Michigan.
The court did not explain why the church was excluded after the Diocese of Boise on Monday asked to be allowed to join the lawsuit in support of the ban.
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. Soon after, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Question of the WeekWhat worries you most about the direction of the country? And/or what makes you most optimistic about its future?Email your thoughts to conor@theatlantic.com.
You couldn’t miss the sound—a piercing, atonal whine—even if your phone had been set to vibrate. Usually this repetitive blare manifests as an Amber Alert, but this morning it accompanied a push notification about an alleged criminal on the loose in New York City. Curiously, the message that flashed across scores of smartphone screens didn’t use the phrase person of interest or suspect. Instead, the jarring alert felt more like something out of a Philip K.
Gilbert Gottfried, who died yesterday at 67 of complications from muscular dystrophy, was probably best known as the voice of Iago the parrot in Disney’s Aladdin, as the Aflac-commercial duck, or for any number of projects that put his brazen, just-shy-of-whiny voice front and center. As a comedian, he was often characterized as “offensive,” given that a lot of his most high-profile (and, at times, infamous) work involved insulting celebrities on TV.
Updated at 3:45 p.m. on April 13, 2022.The world’s biggest tech companies are getting serious about carbon removal, the still-nascent technology wherein humanity can pull heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Yesterday, an alliance of prominent Silicon Valley companies—including Google, Meta, Shopify, and the payment company Stripe—announced that it is purchasing $925 million in carbon removal over the next eight years.
We speak with Starbucks Workers United organizer and barista Jaz Brisack on the growing Starbucks union drive that has swept across 30 U.S. states since she helped successfully organize the first U.S. unionized location in Buffalo, New York, last December. Starbucks Workers United has now successfully unionized over a dozen Starbucks shops, and about 200 stores have filed for union elections, covering 5,000 workers in 30 states.
The U.S. Labor Department said Tuesday inflation in the United States rose to 8.5% in March — the highest in four decades. Meanwhile, Oxfam is warning over 260 million people around the world could be pushed into extreme poverty by the end of year due to the pandemic and rising energy and food costs.
After a gunman opened fire on a subway train during morning rush hour Tuesday, with 10 people shot and another 13 injured, we speak with New York City public advocate and gubernatorial candidate Jumaane Williams, who says “the answer to the gun violence problem cannot be solely sending police,” adding that New York must respond with a comprehensive plan to beef up social services and programs.
The move to tighten restrictions could be a sign that leaders across the country will reimpose mask mandates if cases continue to rise.
The FDA’s rodent problem worsened during the pandemic, forcing the agency to assign some employees returning to the campus after two years to temporary desks and ask others to continue to telework.
“The protocols to protect the president are pretty strong,” he said.
The GOP is openly discussing tying Biden administration’s scrapping of Title 42, a Trump-era pandemic border policy, to a range of other voter concerns.
The Biden administration recently extended a Covid-related pause on repayments.
White House officials deny any sense of panic over the economy or their midterm chances.
The administration’s difficulties in getting bank cop nominees through a Democratic-controlled Senate underscore the fault lines within the party over how to approach financial regulation.
The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates — but Congress has a chance to bring real relief.
Today has seen little evident movement in Ukraine—literally—as spring rains fall on much of the region, kicking off “mud season” in the flat farmlands of eastern Ukraine. Behind those frontlines, both Russian attackers and Ukrainian defense forces are continuing to frantically rush whatever equipment they can to the Donbas in preparation for what may be the decisive campaign of the war.
Multiple people were shot this morning at the 36th Street stop in Sunset Park.
Preliminary reports indicated that five people were shot, a law enforcement official said. The police were seeking a man with a gas mask and an orange construction vest, the official said.
Initial reports say several undetonated devices were found inside the subway station.
We seem to be having Russian History Month. There has been the head of the Russian orthodox church reaching back 900 years to claim that neither Ukraine nor the Ukrainian church is “real.” Vladimir Putin has insisted that Ukraine is not a country because it “illegally left” the USSR. And on Tuesday, Russian diplomats insisted that Japan pay them back for gold supposedly stolen in 1920.