Canada's government designated the Proud Boys and 12 other extremist groups as terrorist entities on Wednesday, placing the groups on the same list as the Islamic State and al-Qaida.Read More
Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" has long been offered as an "alternative national anthem," performed by musicians from Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger to Chicano Batman and Sharon Jones. Its message seems fairly simple — we are all equally entitled to the rights of this country, including the land we stand on. But Native Americans will just as soon point out Read More
President Biden and congressional Democrats are pressing ahead on a massive $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, taking the steps in the House and Senate to approve the measure without Republican support.Read More
Scientists estimate that somewhere between 70% and 85% of people need to be immune from the coronavirus before the disease will wane through a process known as herd immunity. Both natural immunity and vaccines can play a role in achieving that goal. But getting there won't be easy.Read More
Author Rachel Lynn Solomon based the story partly on her own experience. "Shay's journey mirrors mine in a lot of ways," she tells me via email. "We both studied journalism in college, and at the beginning of the book, she produces a talk show similar to the one I worked on in my early twenties. I also reported a handful of stories and produced a weekly pre-recorded show Read More
Last fall, former President Barack Obama told Stephen Colbert that he was "shocked" Dolly Parton hadn't gotten a Presidential Medal of Freedom during his time in office. "That was a screwup," he said. "I think I assumed she had already got one."Read More
Brian Sicknick, the U.S. Capitol Police officer who was fatally injured during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol complex, will be given the rare distinction of lying in honor in the building's Rotunda. Sicknick's remains are scheduled to arrive Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. ET in a motorcade including his family.Read More
On Wednesday, lawmakers will have some tough questions for Miguel Cardona, President Biden's nominee to be the next U.S. education secretary. The Connecticut educator will no doubt have to navigate the choppy policy waters of school choice, how to close opportunity gaps and, most critically, how he would help schools reopen as the pandemic rages.Read More
In recent months, many suicidal children have been showing up in hospital emergency departments, and more kids are needing in-patient care after serious suicide attempts. "Across the country, we're hearing that there are increased numbers of serious suicidal attempts and suicidal deaths," says Dr. Susan Duffy, a professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Brown University.Read More
The Biden administration has made a $231.8 million deal with an Australian company to boost availability of the first at-home rapid test for the coronavirus which causes COVID-19 that is available without a prescription. The test, made by Ellume, can send results to a smartphone within 15 minutes of receiving a sample.Read More
A U.S. House subcommittee is investigating coronavirus outbreaks at meatpacking plants, citing the deaths of more than 250 employees nationwide and accusing the Trump administration of failing to enforce worker safety laws.Read More
Ten Republican senators on Sunday requested a meeting with President Biden to detail a smaller counterproposal to his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, an alternative they believe could be approved "quickly by Congress with bipartisan support."Read More
Former President Donald Trump has named two new attorneys to head up his impeachment defense ahead of next week's trial in the Senate. Trump was in need of new representation following the reported departure of all five members of his defense team this weekend. Now leading the team are attorneys David Schoen and Bruce Castor Jr. — both experienced in criminal defense.Read More
Chelsea Clinton has taken her bestselling She Persisted series of picture books, and with the help of some pretty amazing women in their own right, is turning them into chapter books. Chapter books! Clinton says chapter books were not part of the original vision for She Persisted, but when she saw that kids were getting more and more curious about the women featured in the Read More
The order, issued late Friday, will require masks to be worn by "all passengers on public conveyances" traveling into or within the United States, including airplanes, ships, ferries, trains, subways, buses, taxis and ride-shares. Coverings will also be required at transportation hubs like airports, bus terminals and train or subway stations. The new guidelines take effect Read More
In the new film "Palmer," Justin Timberlake plays Eddie, a former high school football star who comes back to his Louisiana hometown after more than a decade in prison. As he pieces together his new life, Eddie moves in with his grandmother and befriends her young neighbor, a boy named Sam.Read More
Mama (Beautiful Skin) — Natal-San Miguel added the parenthesis — belongs to the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C. It's part of their first online exhibition. Twenty six of Natal-San Miguel's photos are on view in "Expanding the Pantheon: Women R Beautiful." His subject in this one has vitiligo. Pigment is missing from parts of her skin. She's dappled. And Natal-San Miguel Read More
The study was conducted in the U.S., Latin America and South Africa. The vaccine did better at preventing disease in the U.S. – 72% — and less well in South Africa – 57% efficacy. The efficacy seen in Latin America was 66%.Read More
The biotech company Novavax says its COVID-19 vaccine is 89% effective at preventing the illness, according to an interim analysis of a large study conducted in the U.K. The results come from a clinical trial involving more than 15,000 volunteers, of whom more than a quarter were older than 65.Read More
The Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is the latest to detail how the Trump administration's family separation policy was a mess from the beginning. In a report out this month, the inspector general found there was little recordkeeping and no plan for how to reunite these families.Read More
Some time into his new book The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, Charles Blow recalls hearing Harry Belafonte give a speech.Read More
Disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and last-minute changes by the Trump administration, the U.S. Census Bureau announced Wednesday that the release of the first results of the 2020 census will likely be delayed by four months. The latest state population counts used to determine each state's share of votes in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College for Read More
From Hand Habits to a violin concerto that includes whistling, this week's All Songs Considered has some surprises along the way. Hand Habits is the music of Meg Duffy. On their new EP dirt, we hear the climactic tune "4th of July," filled with Meg's intriguing guitar. It was also the guitar that attracted me to Miss Grit, the music of Korean American Margaret Sohn. She Read More
The Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin on Wednesday warning of a continued threat from domestic violent extremists. The bulletin did not cite any specific threat but described "a heightened threat environment across the United States, which DHS believes will persist in the weeks following the successful Presidential Inauguration."Read More
Boeing is trying to close the books on a dismal year. The aircraft manufacturer Wednesday reported that the company lost close to $12 billion in 2020, a record loss, as the pandemic depressed demand for new airplanes and the company continued to reel from its 737 Max debacle.Read More
The vast majority of mayors in American cities do not support sweeping changes to the funding of their police departments, and most say last year's racial justice protests were a force for good in their cities, according to a new survey of more than 100 mayors from across the U.S.Read More
In his first phone call with Vladimir Putin since taking office, President Biden pressed his Russian counterpart on the detention of a leading Kremlin-critic, the mass arrest of protesters, and Russia's suspected involvement in a massive cyber breach in the United States.Read More
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton requested a temporary restraining order against the Department of Homeland Security last Friday. A federal judge granted the request Tuesday, suspending President Biden's 100-day deportation ban.Read More
President Biden's nominee for overseeing the U.S. Census Bureau, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, said she intends to depoliticize the 2020 census and listen to experts at a federal agency that had been caught in a partisan firestorm during the Trump administration.Read More
President Biden announced Tuesday that his administration is working to purchase an additional 200 million doses of the two COVID-19 vaccines that have been authorized for emergency use, with the goal, the White House says, of having enough vaccine supply for the entire adult U.S. population by the end of the summer.Read More
How to make sure the world is never so devastated by another pandemic? Health officials from around the globe have been vigorously discussing that question over the past week at the annual meeting of the World Health Organization's Executive Board. The members, whose nine-day-long, mostly virtual gathering concludes on Tuesday, have heard recommendations from four separate Read More
At about 7 p.m. ET Monday, House impeachment managers delivered to the Senate an article of impeachment against former President Donald Trump, a move that prompts preparations for a historic trial.Read More
Protests erupted late Sunday in Tacoma in response to an incident a day earlier in which a police officer used his patrol vehicle to plow through a crowd, hitting several people and injuring at least two.Read More
On Jan. 25, 1996, a new rock musical by a little-known writer, Jonathan Larson, gave its first performance. Friends and family filed into a small off-Broadway theater to see Rent. The show was a retelling of La Boheme, set on the Lower East Side of New York, as people were dying of AIDS. It became an international phenomenon, winning the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, Read More
President Biden on Monday repealed a controversial Trump-era ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military. Biden signed an executive order on the issue as he met in the Oval Office with new Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Vice President Harris.Read More
Those who have savings have to decide if they should dip into their accounts early, potentially eating away at funds they'd earmarked for later. Others are having to calculate how starting to receive their Social Security payments earlier than planned could reduce their checks in the future.Read More
Dominion Voting Systems has filed suit against former President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani over baseless claims he's made that Dominion was at the center of a scheme to perpetuate widespread election fraud.Read More
These half-dozen short pieces can offer two very different modes of experience. Shot in artful black and white, their simplicity and beauty invite us into a world as we once knew it, where fresh air wafts through open doors and dogs peacefully snooze (canine cameos by Evie and Haku) in the late summer sunshine in southern England.Read More
Eight days before the Trump administration departed, it declassified a key document that it said "provided overarching strategic guidance" to its approach toward Asia, a region it dubbed the Indo-Pacific.Read More
Joe Biden is only the second Catholic president of the United States. He's also a supporter of abortion rights — a position at odds with official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.Read More
Since his first American concert, Zakir Hussain has become perhaps the most famous tabla player in the world. He now lives in California, and he says it was this performance 50 years ago that showed him that Indian classical music could be played in the West in its purest form. "It really set the tone of how I would present myself to my fellow musicians — whoever I was Read More
While it's only 2021, a major question facing Democrats this year and next will be what to do about the presidential nominating calendar and whether Iowa, in particular, should retain its prized place at the front of the calendar in 2024.Read More
With his trademark suspenders and deep baritone voice Larry King spoke with presidents, world leaders, celebrities, authors, scientists, comedians, athletes — everyone. The Peabody Award-winning broadcaster died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 87.Read More
At the start of the story, Fatima is a young Ghanian girl who has taken on the mantle of the Adopted Daughter of Death. Renamed Sankofa — an avian symbol of the West African Akan people, one that embodies the idea of harnessing the past to forge a better tomorrow — she wanders the land, inducing dread and awe in the towns she encounters, a living legend wielding the power Read More
The U.S. Postal Service has an answer at the very top of its official tracking page. A disclaimer there notes the system is "experiencing unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to the impacts of COVID-19." That combination is making it tough on those at the other end of the mailbox.Read More
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the sole article of impeachment for incitement to insurrection against former President Donald Trump will be delivered to the Senate on Monday and a trial against the Republican will begin the week of Feb. 8.Read More
A U.N. treaty outlawing nuclear weapons went into effect on Friday, having been ratified by at least 50 countries. But the ban is largely symbolic: The U.S. and the world's other nuclear powers have not signed the treaty.Read More
Lloyd Austin, a retired four-star Army general, has been confirmed by the Senate, making him the first Black secretary of defense in U.S. history. The Senate approved President Biden's nomination for Pentagon chief in a near-unanimous 93 to 2 vote.Read More
Riley Williams, the 22-year-old woman who is accused of participating in the theft of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's laptop during the attack on the Capitol building on Jan. 6, has been released from jail Thursday, The Associated Press reported.Read More
Because of his skill and power at the plate — Aaron batted in more than 100 runs in a season in three decades — Major League Baseball named its award for the best offensive player after him.Read More