Новости за 11.03.2021

In his first primetime address to the nation Thursday night, President Joe Biden will likely spend at least a little time touting the provisions of the American Rescue Plan Act, the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package Biden signed into law Thursday afternoon. According to a recent internal memo, Biden, evidently keener to take credit for his successes than Obama was, will also be sending surrogates across the country in the days ahead to spread the good word about the bill. “We’re going to... Читать дальше...

On an evening in June 1924, a French colonial official named Merlin narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. He was visiting the city of Canton, in southern China, from Indochina, where he was posted. “The guests sat down to dinner at 8:30 p.m.,” Tim Harper writes in his new book, Underground Asia. Then, “just as the soup was being served, a man ‘rather luxuriously dressed’ appeared at one of the windows.” An eyewitness claimed this man surveyed the scene and then threw an attaché case through the window... Читать дальше...

Tuesday was a beautiful day in New York City—60 degrees, cloudless, a perfect March day after a brutal February. At 10 a.m., right when the weather was getting very nice, management at BuzzFeed called a meeting with the staff at HuffPost, which had been acquired by the company in November, a sale that was finally completed last month. The password for that meeting was “spr!ngisH3r3”—surely a good omen, some thought. What kind of monster announces layoffs in a meeting with a password celebrating the return of spring? Читать дальше...

In early February, Amazon released plans for its new corporate campus in Arlington, Virginia. The preliminary renderings show several generic glass office buildings clustered around a spire called “the Helix”—an indoor park that will loom 350 feet over Northern Virginia like a giant, twisted strand of DNA. Amazon is presenting the Helix as a companion structure to “the Spheres,” the indoor gardens at its Seattle headquarters. But as a space of consumption and leisure, the Helix actually resembles a lot of classic starchitecture. Читать дальше...

It’s September 2022, nearly three years after a mysterious virus began sweeping through China. In the United States, kids of all ages, newly vaccinated against Covid-19, are back in school, and their parents are back to work. But in pockets of the country, especially where vaccine hesitancy lingers, Covid still surges, shutting down schools and workplaces when too many people call in sick. Around the world, the vaccine rollout has been painfully slow, particularly in poorer countries as the richer ones hoard their vaccine patents. Читать дальше...

There is a rapidly consolidating consensus among the liberal commentariat that Democrats have learned from mistakes made during the Obama years and updated their thinking to adapt to new political realities. For once, it seems, Democrats may be in array.

A small guaranteed income is included in the new stimulus package approved by Congress on Wednesday afternoon. Starting around July, households earning $150,000 or less annually will receive monthly payments ranging from $250 to $300 per child, part of the larger $1.9 trillion package in response to the coronavirus pandemic. These are a kind of advance on an existing but expanded child tax credit. What that will look like for those families, however, is a direct deposit or check, not a new program they will then need to apply or ask for. Читать дальше...

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge of two voting rules in Arizona—one that bans most third parties from collecting absentee ballots and another that disqualifies lawful votes that were cast in the wrong precinct. Jessica Amunson, representing Arizona Secretary of State Katie Biggs, urged the high court to strike them down, arguing that they “impose discriminatory burdens on Native American, Latino, and black voters that are not justified by any legitimate... Читать дальше...