The first known record of an exploding star comes from Chinese astronomers in the second century. A radiant object, bursting with color, appeared suddenly in the night sky and glowed for about eight months before fading away. In the 11th century, the glow of an exploding star hung around for two whole years, appearing brighter than the moon in the beginning.
We get an update on the Donbas region of Ukraine, where Russian forces are now focused. Russia has backed a separatist movement in the Donbas since 2014 and used protecting the Russian-speaking population there as a justification for its invasion in February. We speak with Brian Milakovsky, who lived in the Donbas town of Severodonetsk before he evacuated to Croatia in January and is now fundraising for people trying to flee Russian attacks.
At the start of his career, Joe Biden was a young man in a hurry: the sixth-youngest senator, an ambitious force in Washington, and a repeat presidential candidate. Now, at the pinnacle and close of his career, the president prefers to procrastinate.Although every leader comes to a decision he or she would rather not make, delay has become a signature tactic of this presidency.
Russians are weathering the fallout of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with no sign of a negotiated peace deal soon. Economic sanctions have driven up food prices, and there has been repression of political dissent within the country. We speak with author Tony Wood, a member of the New Left Review editorial board, who says the crushing Western sanctions are unlikely to end Putin’s rule and are only hardening attitudes.
We go to Ukraine, where Russia continues its assault along a 300-mile frontline in the eastern region. This comes as the U.S. and Western allies promise more weapons for Ukrainian defenses, prompting worry of escalation as Russian President Vladimir Putin abandons negotiations for a ceasefire agreement.
The Biden administration says it wants to help the millions of Americans suffering from long Covid. Critics say its approach is inconsistent with that goal.
Administration officials publicly sent mixed signals throughout the day.
The move comes as many GOP-led states are moving to limit access to abortions and transgender care.
It comes at a time when many global health groups are rethinking their pandemic responses amid new vaccine supplies, variants and treatment options.
Public health leaders fear preventable and possibly fatal diseases could become more common.
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 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.
Calls are growing for the release of imprisoned Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who launched a hunger strike on April 2 to protest the harsh conditions he is held under at Cairo’s Tora prison. Abd El-Fattah, who became a leading voice of the Arab Spring revolution, has been in and out of prison for nearly a decade for his human rights activism. His family recently obtained U.K.
“The Russians get their soldiers to rape children by dehumanizing them,” said the MSNBC anchor.
With the ubiquity of smartphones, the on-the-ground details of Russia’s war against Ukraine have been more closely documented than any war. The footage is omnipresent, even allowing independent observers to make detailed catalogs of destroyed equipment. The movement of Russian troops is being tracked by satellite, as well as by pinging electronic devices they have stolen and taken with them. We can hear individual conversations between Russian soldiers and their families.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:
“I like new questions,” he said. “It’s not interesting to answer the questions you already heard.” He is frustrated, for instance, by repeated requests for his wish list of weapons systems. “When some leaders ask me what weapons I need, I need a moment to calm myself, because I already told them the week before. It’s Groundhog Day. I feel like Bill Murray.
by Frances Nguyen
This article was originally published at Prism
The night before the Jan. 6 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol, Virginia state Sen. Jennifer McClellan came across an envelope tucked inside her father’s Bible. Inside was a receipt for $2.12: the poll tax her father paid in 1948 to vote in Tennessee, a financial barrier meant to exclude Black voters in the decades after Reconstruction.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it is changing the cutoff date for Ukrainian Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a welcomed decision that stands to greatly increase the number of immigrants eligible for relief.
The Biden administration initially announced that Ukrainian immigrants who are already in the U.S. as of March 1 would be eligible to apply. But this week, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced a new eligibility date of April 11.
The conservative network apparently couldn’t come up with four living Black Republicans to make its point.
The Groyper War—the internecine battle among far-right groups vying for the college-age audience, pitting Charlie Kirk’s slick Turning Point USA operation with Nick Fuentes’ America First and its white nationalist Groyper Army—seems to be over. With barely a whimper, the Groypers are the victors.
A two-year civil rights investigation uncovered a horrifying pattern of homicides, suicides and deplorable conditions inside the prison.
The agency said that it would continue to “monitor public health conditions” to determine whether the mask mandate remains necessary.
The aircraft in question appeared to be flying U.S. Army parachuters to a nearby Washington Nationals game as part of “military appreciation day.
The mask requirement “remains necessary for the public health,” the CDC told the Justice Department.
Updated at 6:50 p.m. ET on April 20, 2022If you commuted to work today on a bus, train, or metro system, you probably saw more mouths and noses than usual. On Monday, a Trump-appointed federal judge struck down a CDC rule that mandated masks on all U.S. transportation networks, including in airports and on planes.
The magic of Robert Eggers’s breakout first film, The Witch, a horror fable about a Puritan family besieged by supernatural forces, lay in its authenticity. Not from the close attention to period detail, though that was itself impressive, but from the earnestness of its tone, which presented every supernatural element as matter-of-factly as the grim realities of corn farming in 17th-century New England.
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 WeekSay you received $1 billion to spend on improving the world. How would you spend it? Why?Email your thoughts to conor@theatlantic.com. I’ll publish a selection of correspondence in an upcoming newsletter.