Новости за 21.09.2021

Do you remember the twenty-first night of September, when Congress careened toward a government shutdown and defaulting on the national debt, amid a brouhaha between progressive and moderate Democrats over two massive infrastructure bills?

Lots of ink has been spilled this year trying to figure out what makes West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin tick. Is the Senate’s crucial swing voter a Machiavellian political genius out to save the Democratic Party from itself, or just a media gadfly enjoying his moment in the sun? Is he fighting for his legacy and the interests of West Virginians that national policy leaves behind?

More than 670,000 Americans have now died from Covid-19 in the last 18 months, with thousands dying in recent weeks even though a safe and effective vaccine is widely available. Americans have not died in such numbers since the Spanish flu pandemic 100 years ago or the Civil War 50 years before that. For most, this is a moment of profound tragedy and inescapable grief.

When Covid-19 hit, Misty Smith became extra panicked about her twin sister, who was behind bars at a minimum-security facility in Alabama. Both sisters, 41, suffer from sleep apnea, asthma, and high blood pressure. Pre-vaccine, Smith’s doctor told her to isolate by not leaving the house. “If I was to get it, I would probably die,” she said. Her sister, Kirstie, meanwhile, was packed in tight quarters with other women and didn’t have hand sanitizer or a mask.

William di Canzio’s Alec arrived in the mail looking like an English novel set in Italy, circa 1960: a black-and-white illustration of a handsome young man’s face framed by a gray square, his gaze on something just out of sight, his lips parted as if he is about to say something, or has just said something. The Alec of the title is Alec Scudder, a young man famous to us—if we know him at all—as the final love interest in Maurice, E.M. Forster’s posthumous novel of gay life, begun in 1913, published in 1971... Читать дальше...

It may be hard to remember, but six months ago, Democrats had a kind of super momentum. The euphoria of the early days of a new president, plus a fierce urgency to do what was necessary to slow the pandemic, brought congressional Democrats together to pass a sweeping, $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, covering everything from vaccine distribution to unemployment to direct cash payments. The politics were not particularly complicated: Democrats had run on ending the pandemic efficiently and competently—that is... Читать дальше...

As of Monday, Biden administration officials were in active discussions with their French counterparts to connect the president with French President Emmanuel Macron to clean up a diplomatic spat between the two countries that blew up last week. The row centers on a new Indo-Pacific-focused alliance between the United Kingdom and Australia. As part of the alliance, the U.S. agreed to provide nuclear-powered submarine technology to Australia in a $66 billion deal that left France out in the cold. Читать дальше...