Court Allows Biden Employer Vaccine Mandate To Take Effect
A federal appeals court panel allowed Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for larger private employers to move ahead.
Today's Liberal News
Trump Bandies About Anti-Semitic Tropes In Interview With Israeli Reporter
Among his ramblings was the claim that Jewish Americans “don’t care about Israel” and Jewish people used to have “absolute power over Congress.
Your Most Controversial Food Opinions
Sign up for Conor’s newsletter here.Earlier this week, I highlighted a debate about the merits of the Slow Food movement and asked readers to share any contested opinion about food or foodstuffs that they happen to hold.Some correspondents took aim at particular foods. “Green beans are chalky garbage,” Molly asserted, “and no, I don’t think that just because I haven’t had them the way you prepare them.
Succession Is a Game of Monopoly
The finale for HBO’s third season of Succession opens with a family session of Monopoly, a game that offers the perfect summary of the show: Players fight to be the last one standing—trading advantages and risking jail—going around the board over and over without a clear end in sight.
Trump Rioter Who Attacked Cops With Fire Extinguisher Gets Longest Jan. 6 Sentence Yet
Capitol rioter Robert Scott Palmer, known to online sleuths as #FloridaFlagJacket, was arrested by the FBI 12 days after he was named in a HuffPost story.
Forbes Editor Says He Testified Before Trump Grand Jury
In 2015, the journalist authored articles about the former president’s hang-up with where he landed on the magazine’s annual list of wealthiest people.
The Holiday-Rom-Com Fantasy Has Nothing to Do With Romance
Phylis Mitchell is a woman who is transformed, through the magic of the holidays, into a drill sergeant. Early on in The Christmas House, an already classic Hallmark rom-com, she enlists her husband and two adult sons in her mission to revive an old family tradition: creating the aggressively festive home that gives the movie its title. Phylis (played by Sharon Lawrence) devotes herself to the cause with comic zeal.
Capitol Rioter Who Bragged About Her ‘Infamy’ Sentenced To Prison
“Can’t wait to tell my grandkids i was here!” Gracyn Courtright posted on Instagram on Jan. 6.
We Know Enough About Omicron to Know That We’re in Trouble
Updated at 12:00 p.m. ET on December 17, 2021A lot has changed for Omicron in just two weeks. At December’s onset, the variant was barely present in Europe, showing up in 1 to 2 percent of COVID cases. Now it’s accounting for 72 percent of new cases in London, where everybody seems to know somebody with COVID. In the U.K. and Denmark, Omicron case numbers are doubling every other day.
The Books Briefing: The Quiet Skill of Mass-Market Novels
Editor’s note: This week’s newsletter is a rerun.
We’ll be back with a fresh newsletter soon.In dozens of novels written over a decades-long career, the romance writer Jackie Collins sharply observed the role of sex and power in Hollywood. She wrote incisively about abuse in the industry and empowered female characters who found liberation in a male-dominated world.
Bipartisanship at Whose Expense? Sen. Raphael Warnock Calls to End Filibuster, Pass Voting Rights Acts
Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia implored conservative members of his party to stop obstructing voting rights legislation in a powerful speech on the floor of the Senate Tuesday. While Warnock did not name Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the two have come out against doing away with the filibuster in order to allow Democrats to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Black Feminist bell hooks’s Trailblazing Critique of “Imperialist White Supremacist Heteropatriarchy”
We look at the life and legacy of trailblazing Black feminist scholar and activist bell hooks, who died at the age of 69 on Wednesday. We speak with her longtime colleague Beverly Guy-Sheftall, professor of women’s studies at Spelman College, who remembers her as “a person who would sit with young people and community people and students and help them understand this world in which we live, which is full of all kinds of domination.
“We Must See Action”: Police Killings Continue as George Floyd Justice in Policing Act Languishes
The county of Williamson, Texas, has announced a settlement of $5 million in the wrongful death of Javier Ambler II in 2019. The 40-year-old Black man died after being repeatedly tased by police during a traffic stop. Police bodycam footage showed Ambler telling officers, “I have congestive heart failure,” and “I can’t breathe,” as they continued to tase him.
“She Should Be Found Guilty”: Ben Crump on Trial of Ex-Cop Kim Potter for Killing Daunte Wright
The former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter, who faces manslaughter charges for fatally shooting 20-year-old Black man Daunte Wright during a traffic stop, is expected to take the stand in her own defense Friday. Potter claims she reached for her Taser and drew a pistol by mistake. “Black people should not be killed in America over misdemeanor, pretextual traffic stops,” says Benjamin Crump, attorney for Wright’s family.
Ben Crump: Derek Chauvin’s Guilty Plea of Violating George Floyd’s Civil Rights Sends Strong Message
Former police officer Derek Chauvin has pleaded guilty to violating George Floyd’s civil rights, marking the first time he publicly admitted to his role in Floyd’s death. Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, killing him with the excessive use of force in 2019. Floyd’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for social justice protests and calls to defund the police across the country.
Pfizer and BioNTech ask FDA to approve their Covid-19 vaccine for kids as young as 12
The companies submitted Phase III clinical trial data to FDA as a supplemental application for their vaccine, which is already approved for adults and children as young as 16.
HHS forecast shows Omicron stretching U.S. Covid testing supply
The nation’s supply could be stretched by the need to conduct 3 to 5 million tests per day by late January or early February.
Health spending growth more than doubled in first year of pandemic
Nearly the entire increase came from the burst of federal spending as the government mobilized to contain the spread of the virus.
Health spending growth more than doubled in first year of pandemic
Nearly the entire increase came from the burst of federal spending as the government mobilized to contain the spread of the virus.
Fed clears path for multiple rate hikes during election year as prices surge
The Fed plans to cease its bond buys entirely by March, rather than its earlier target of June to give itself room to begin raising interest rates as early as the second quarter of next year.
Inflation accelerates at lightning pace in new setback for Biden
Costs for key goods and services soared 0.8 percent for the month and 6.8 percent for the year, the highest since 1982, the Labor Department reported Friday.
Opinion | How the Return to Office Work Is Impoverishing the Middle Class
The middle class is facing serious economic hardship with little of the workplace flexibility now afforded to the well-off. Here’s how employers — and government — can help.
Powell: Fed may pull back economic support more quickly as prices spike
Powell’s comment came after the Fed already announced earlier this month that it would slow the pace at which it buys U.S. government debt and mortgage-backed securities.
Chile’s Future at Stake: Runoff Election Pits Leftist Student Leader Against Far-Right Pinochet Defender
In Chile, voters this weekend will determine a close runoff election between far-right candidate José Antonio Kast and leftist Gabriel Boric, a former student leader. If Boric, who holds a narrow lead, wins the race, he would become Chile’s youngest and most progressive president in years.
News roundup: Manchin is so far gone it’s embarrassing; Jimmy Carter is still awesome
It’s Thursday. Guess who’s standing in the way of voting rights and the child tax credit? Yes, the same two duplicitous Democratic senators who have spent 2021 peddling GOP talking points. Republican officials have a plan for ending the pandemic: Do nothing and then attack trans children’s rights.
Alan Lowenthal retiring from blue California House seat after long career in Long Beach politics
Democratic Rep. Alan Lowenthal, a longtime elected official in the Long Beach area, announced Thursday that he would not seek a sixth term in California’s 47th Congressional District. The current incarnation of Lowenthal’s constituency, which includes most of Long Beach as well as nearby communities in Los Angeles and Orange counties, is solidly blue turf at 62-35 Biden, though the state’s independent redistricting commission is still completing the new map.
Three companies indicted for negligence in Orange County oil spill
A federal grand jury indicted three companies on Wednesday for their role in the October pipeline rupture in Orange County, California that spewed 25,000 gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean near Huntington Beach. Amplify Energy Corp. and two subsidiaries—Beta Offshore and San Pedro Bay Pipeline Co.—face one misdemeanor count of negligent discharge of oil.
Thousands Of Seats Reportedly Unsold At Trump And Bill O’Reilly’s Orlando Event
There were supposed to be “Big crowds!” for Trump and O’Reilly’s “History Tour” in Florida. Not so much, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
MyPillow guy says he’s spent $25 million trying to prove Trump won the election Trump lost
Mike Lindell, CEO of the MyPillow thing, is supposedly spending a lot of his own money in pursuit of overturning our democracy—at least according to famed liar Mike Lindell. He told CNBC that he has spent $25 million of his own money since Nov. 3, 2020. That’s the day that America voted to make sure Donald Trump couldn’t continue to run our country into the dirt.
Biden admin asks Supreme Court to allow nationwide health worker vax mandate
Thursday’s move is expected to prompt justices to issue a final decision on whether the mandate can take effect.