Today's Liberal News

Trump’s health secretary hits the road, not to virus hot spots but to Trump swing states

The whole goddamned lot of Donald Trump’s crew needs to be impeached, including Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar. He’s been traveling around the country since April, but not to respond to the raging pandemic. He’s been going, Politico reports, “to key battlegrounds in the 2020 campaign: Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Maine and North Carolina, as well as two trips apiece to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The Week America Lost Control of the Pandemic

The American pandemic is careening out of control. Yesterday, the United States reported more than 52,000 new cases of the coronavirus, setting a new all-time daily record, according to the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic. The surge has put the country’s supply of coronavirus tests under strain, especially in some of the worst-hit states, such as Arizona, Texas, Florida, and California.

Candidates for a vaccine in the U.S. are racing for a prize even bigger than beating COVID-19

Last month, biotech firm Moderna Therapeutics reported very, very early positive results from a Phase 2 trial of their COVID-19 vaccine. This week it was the turn of more established drug maker Pfizer to announce that their vaccine showed similar promise and that they were also heading into Phase 3 studies in the next two weeks. These two vaccines are just two of better than 80 vaccine efforts that have been announced around the world.

The Atlantic Daily: 11 Books We’re Reading This Summer

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.Reading can feel hard right now. It’s as if the books themselves got heavier and longer, and closed off like clams. If you’re struggling to pry one open, let us help: Today, 11 writers and editors from around our newsroom offer inspiration from their own reading lists.

The Statues Brought Down Since the George Floyd Protests Began

In the widespread protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25, statues of and memorials to Confederate soldiers and generals were vandalized or torn down. Some of the many statues of Christopher Columbus were targeted as well, as voices rose against historic and systemic racism and oppression. State and local governments then began acting to remove even more Confederate statues from public places.

Did the Army Ignore a Soldier’s Murder? Questions Mount over Vanessa Guillén Disappearance

The U.S. Army says it has a suspect in custody in connection with the disappearance of Vanessa Guillén, a missing 20-year-old Fort Hood soldier whose family says her remains were likely found in a shallow grave near the Texas Army base. A second suspect in the case — a soldier who the Guillén family lawyer named as Aaron Robinson — killed himself in Killeen, Texas, as officers approached.

Barbara Ransby on the Biden Problem: Social Movements Must Defeat Trump & Also Hold Dems Accountable

Amid a mass uprising against racism and state violence, social movements are not just fighting hostility and backlash from President Trump, but also dealing with a “Biden problem,” according to historian, author and activist Barbara Ransby. “I think it’s fair to say that Joe Biden is not our dream candidate, by any means,” she says. “We should be critical of Joe Biden. We should be ready to hold Joe Biden accountable come January.

The Untold History of Mount Rushmore: A KKK Sympathizer Built Monument on Sacred Lakota Land

As tribal governments call on President Trump to cancel his Mount Rushmore Independence Day celebration, we look at why Native Americans have long pushed for the removal of the monument carved into the sacred Black Hills and designed by a sculptor with ties to the Ku Klux Klan. “This place is very, very sacred to our people,” says Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of the NDN Collective.