Новости за 25.04.2022

Just days after his inauguration, President Biden promised to use the federal government’s procurement authority to achieve a zero-emission fleet of government vehicles. This spring, however, that’s led to a standoff with the United States Postal Service—an independent agency overseen by a Trump-aligned postmaster general who wants to replace 225,000 out-of-date mail delivery trucks with fresh gas-guzzlers, to the tune of $11.3 billion.*

The pivotal scene in Robert Altman’s 1988 miniseries Tanner ’88 happens early in the show—in fact, it happens near the very end of the pilot, as former congressman Jack Tanner (Michael Murphy), a fictional addition to the already stuffed roster of Democrats running for president that year, winds down with his staff after a humiliating day on the campaign trail, one of many to come. Earlier, he’s told, members of a focus group who viewed his ads had peppered his team with different versions of the same question: Why, exactly, was he running? Читать дальше...

Earlier this month, with little fanfare, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra renewed the public health emergency declaration regarding the coronavirus pandemic. Society at large may be returning to a sense of normalcy, but at least for the next 90 days, the Biden administration has deemed the situation worthy of such a declaration.

There exists on the broad left the reflexive and terrified assumption that, in politics, right-wing dog whistles work every time. We see an election outcome like Glenn Youngkin’s upset win over Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race, and the media follows with an explosion of hot takes about how the new hot-button issue X—in this case, overwoke education—will surely continue to be the Democrats’ undoing and that electoral disaster is certain.

As we emerge (we hope) from the worst throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, millions of workers are taking stock of what the crisis has meant for them. For those privileged enough to have worked from home throughout the pandemic, the question of a return to the office looms large. For those forced to work in-person throughout the ordeal, the profound toll of the crisis is setting in: Millions contracted the virus—millions more feared contracting it. Though Covid relief checks had helped ease the financial burden early on... Читать дальше...