Valeri Liukin has been a presence on the sidelines of USA Gymnastics for decades, both before and after his daughter Nastia Liukin captured the All-Around gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In September 2016, he was appointed coordinator for the U.S. women’s national team. But on Friday, amid another round of testimony by sexual abuse […]
Republicans on Capitol Hill and beyond struggled to come to a consensus on Friday following the release of a controversial House Intelligence memo, which they claimed showed corruption at the highest levels of the Justice Department. While many argued that the details in the memo are explosive and troubling, others insisted that the contents are […]
As part of his administration’s rollback of key safety and environmental protections, President Donald Trump wants to eliminate the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency with a strong record of improving public safety. The proposed gutting of the agency comes as the Trump administration seeks to give a boost to the nation’s petrochemical industry as […]
On Friday, House Republicans and Donald Trump decided to release the Nunes memo, which purports to expose corruption and partisanship within the Department of Justice and the FBI. It suggests that surveillance of Carter Page, a one-time adviser to the Trump campaign, was based in part on a dossier funded by Democrats. The memo, taken […]
On Friday, the Republican National Committee approved a resolution supporting President Trump’s efforts to prevent transgender people from serving in the military. Calling being transgender “a disqualifying psychological and physical” condition, the resolution urges the Department of Justice to seek the Supreme Court’s intervention if need be. Last summer, before President Trump decreed on Twitter that […]
On Thursday, The New York Times ran a “memo” from conservative opinion columnist David Brooks that amounts to a condescending history lesson imploring Democrats to adopt a major anti-choice policy priority: 20-week abortion bans. Brooks writes as if he were an “Imaginary Democratic Consultant.” Taking a cue from an insidious and highly effective talking point in the […]
White supremacist groups have stepped up their recruiting on college campuses over the past two years with a sharp increase in their presence and activism in the past year, a period that perfectly overlaps with the political presence and prominence of President Donald Trump, according to a new study released this week by the Anti-Defamation […]
Community activists, strippers, and service workers protested Thursday in New Orleans, in response to police raiding eight strip clubs in the city’s French Quarter over the past two weeks. Police say the raids were meant to combat human trafficking, but haven’t made any arrests from the raids and police have not provided evidence of human […]
House Republicans and Donald Trump released the infamous “memo” on Friday afternoon that purports to show corruption and malfeasance by the FBI. It mostly focuses on the process used to obtain a surveillance warrant on Carter Page, a former Trump adviser, arguing the process was flawed and partisan. It was written by staffers for House […]
In Idaho, some students are begging politicians to let them learn about climate change. “Years later, me and my generation will be the ones that will have to deal with the … effects on the earth due to climate change or anything else that might be going on, whether or not we are to blame,” […]
The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has broadened its net, arresting those who are speaking out against Turkey’s strikes across the Syrian border, which started on January 20 and have displaced some 16,000 people, driving many into caves for safety. Earlier this week, a prosecutor ordered the arrest of 11 members of the Turkish Medical […]
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Illinois detained an immigrant in court for a traffic ticket, the Chicago Tribune reported, and released him three days later on Thursday. As Christian Gomez Garcia — a 29-year-old immigrant who came to the country at the age of four from Mexico — came out of traffic […]
Last spring, an image of a white milk carton with the words “Find Our Girls,” set against a hot pink background, began to spread across social media like wildfire. People had suddenly become aware of more than a dozen cases of young Black girls who had gone missing in Washington, D.C. in the preceding months. A […]
Some of the numbers tossed out in Judge Mark Walker’s opinion in Hand v. Scott, which was released Thursday, are simply shocking. “More than one-tenth of Florida’s voting population — nearly 1.7 million as of 2016 — cannot vote” due to a felony conviction, Walker writes. That includes “more than one if five of Florida’s African American voting-age […]
Former Maricopa County sheriff and current Republican candidate for senate in Arizona Joe Arpaio would like you to know that he didn’t know that he recently gave an interview to a publication that supports anti-Semitism — an outlet called American Free Press — and he doesn’t support that “view point.” The only thing is that […]
While Devin Nunes tries to mislead audiences about his memo, an actual document hunt in Washington could have far-reaching ramifications, both for the Russia investigation and national security writ large. On Friday Sen. Ron Wyden. (D.-Ore.) wrote a pair of letters, obtained by ThinkProgress, to both Treasury Department head Steve Mnuchin and National Rifle Association […]
Teachers from southern West Virginia are staging protests over staggering health insurance premiums and negligible pay raises, amid growing resentment toward the state government and ongoing disparity across Appalachia. Schools in a number of counties, including Logan, Mingo, and Wyoming, are closed on Friday as teachers travel to the Capitol to express anger and frustration […]
The White House on Thursday released an extensive fact sheet calling on the elimination of the diversity visa lottery program, out of concerns of fraudulent applications and in order to “reduce waitlists in nuclear family-based and high-skilled employment immigration.” But the claims made by the Trump administration misrepresent the program. Created through the Immigration Act […]
Despite heading into the middle what is normally snow season, areas from Oregon to Nevada aren’t necessarily feeling the chill. Months of above-average temperatures and a slow start to the winter wet season have combined to leave much of the Western United States facing a snow drought, with snow levels in many places measuring less […]
Everyone is entitled to legal representation. It’s a key tenet of the American legal system. But over the past few weeks, as nearly 200 women have faced their sexual abuser, Larry Nassar, in court, giving gut-wrenching testimony about the devastating impact his abuse has had on their lives, it’s been hard not to wonder how […]
As he faces continuing backlash for inviting Charles Johnson, a notorious far-right troll dubbed “the web’s worst journalist,” to Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) desperately tried to defend the invitation by lying about Johnson’s record. “I met Chuck just briefly before allowing him to snag a ticket that was at […]
Recent temperatures experienced across Europe and North America are unprecedented in the past 11,000 years, a new study in the journal Nature finds. Significantly, the new study found that the average temperature of the last decade (between 2007 and 2016) exceeded the warmest centuries of the last 11,000 years by more than 0.5°F — which […]
A new study from the Pentagon reveals that almost half of all U.S. military sites are threatened by climate change. The findings stand in stark contrast to the White House’s position on global warming and climate science. Around 1,700 sites around the world, ranging from outposts to large bases, are imperiled by drought, wind, and flooding, […]
During a news conference on Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) was asked to respond to concerns that Republicans are weaponizing the Department of Justice. Within five seconds, he changed the topic to tax cuts. “Schumer as well as Nancy Pelosi have called on you to remove Chairman Nunes from his position on the intel committee,” […]