Search progressive ideas and resources

3+ min ago (311+ words) Top court sentences Alejandro Gil in the highest profile case against an ex-official in Cuba in decades. Cuba's top court has sentenced former Economy Minister Alejandro Gil to life in prison for espionage following a closed-door trial, in one of the country's highest-profile cases in decades. In a statement on Monday, the Supreme Popular Tribunal said Gil also received a second concurrent prison sentence of 20 years on corruption charges. These include bribery, falsification of documents and tax evasion. Gil, who served as economy minister from 2018 to 2024, was once a close confidant of President Miguel Diaz-Canel. The 61-year-old politician was sacked in February 2024 and had not been seen or heard from until the trials. The court did not give details about what exactly the former minister did or who he was spying for. It said Gil had engaged in "corrupt and…...

15+ min ago (10+ words) Seems kind of obvious once you realize what it is....

26+ min ago (797+ words) Senate Republicans have no shortage of health care plans. The challenge is getting all 53 of them to rally behind one," Politico reports. Three days before a high-profile vote on a Democratic proposal to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies, GOP senators are nowhere near coalescing behind any single alternative that could be put up alongside it. Instead, Republican leaders appear happy allowing their members to freelance, even as Democrats and some in their own ranks fume at the lack of clear direction." For Republicans, the risk of proceeding Thursday with a side-by-side vote is clear. While Democrats say they will have their entire 47-member caucus behind the three-year extension, any GOP plan right now is likely to fall well short of complete unity " and highlight the divisions in their party." The Best Laptop I've Ever Used In 25 years of running Political Wire,…...

30+ min ago (654+ words) If Ukraine ends up capitulating to Russian demands to end the war, give the self-proclaimed peacemaker Donald Trump the lion's share of the credit. Since he took office, Trump has done nothing but strengthen Russia's hand while putting Ukraine in its weakest negotiating position. Trump is far from an honest, impartial broker. He has been a great admirer of Russia's murderous dictator, Vladimir Putin, for more than a decade, and in 2022 called Putin's invasion of Ukraine "genius" and "savvy." Trump has refused to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine " thereby putting the U.S. in league with countries including China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, and Nicaragua. On the other hand, Trump has treated Ukraine's courageous president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as a minor-nation inferior, someone purely to bully. In 2019, Trump withheld military support from Ukraine for 55 days while trying to extract damaging information from Zelenskyy…...

30+ min ago (788+ words) Since the start of the war, the Ukrainian government has been cracking down harder on unions and workers" rights. But slowly, the public mood is shifting. On June 5, shortly after ten in the morning, black-clad officers stormed into the House of Trade Unions. The symbolic building on the Maidan, Kyiv"s Independence Square, is the headquarters of the country"s largest trade union federation, the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FPU). The roughly 30 officers ordered the union employees to pack their things. The House of Trade Unions, they stated, has been confiscated. Employees and journalists were stopped outside, prevented from entering the building'by force if necessary. The president of Profbud, an FPU member union representing the rights of workers in the construction industry,Vasyl Andreyev, speaks of a completely new level of escalation. Despite the government"s aggressive campaign…...

30+ min ago (1669+ words) This past June, Ashley Voss-Barnes received a court summons in the mail. PrairieStar Health Center, a nonprofit community health center in south-central Kansas, was suing her for $675 and her wife for $732 in unpaid medical bills. Voss-Barnes knew the clinic received federal funding to make preventive health care accessible in a region where many families, including her own, needed financial help. "If I have something due, then I will try to pay it," she said to ProPublica. "It came out of nowhere." Voss-Barnes, a nurse who feels confident navigating the health care system, wanted to push back. She reached out to a local lawyer to see if he could represent them, but he said the debt was too small to be worth it. So she represented herself, filing a letter in court objecting to the lawsuit and asking to continue the…...

30+ min ago (431+ words) But local MAHA laws may be an even bigger threat. Even within the freakshow that is Donald Trump's cabinet, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a singular knack for dominating the headlines with the most disturbing sort of carnivalesque spectacle." But focusing exclusively on RFK Jr.'s transgressions risks overlooking the broader exploits of the Make America Healthy Again movement. While his never-ending font of personal and professional controversies draws national news coverage, a dangerous array of MAHA initiatives flies under the radar'including hundreds of state-level legislative efforts to roll back public health advances. Some of the most extreme legislation thankfully faces slim odds of passage, like the attempt by Minnesota Republicans to ban mRNA treatments as "weapons of mass destruction." The bill, which was reportedly drafted not by legislators or public health experts but by a"Florida-based hypnotist, would…...

32+ min ago (66+ words) As refugees return to Syria, millions in the country remain displaced. Al Jazeera's Osama Bin Javaid visited Atmeh Camp. Millions of people in post-Assad Syria are still displaced As refugees return to Syria, millions in the country remain displaced. Al Jazeera's Osama Bin Javaid visited Atmeh Camp in Idlib, where many still live, unable to return to their homes destroyed in the war....

32+ min ago (707+ words) The Honduran attorney general announced on Monday night that he had issued an international arrest warrant for the country's former president Juan Orlando Hern'ndez, who was recently pardoned by President Trump and released from prison in the United States," the New York Times reports. The Best Laptop I've Ever Used In 25 years of running Political Wire, no computer has ever served me better than the latest MacBook Air. It's the rare machine that's powerful enough to handle my entire workflow yet light enough to take everywhere " and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's on sale now for an astonishing 21% off. Senate Republicans have no shortage of health care plans. The challenge is getting all 53 of them to rally behind one," Politico reports. Three days before a high-profile vote on" Senior Trump advisers are telling top GOP donors that a…...

40+ min ago (810+ words) President Trump said he would let Nvidia export its H200 chip to China and that the U.S. would receive a 25% cut, his latest bid to make money for the government in an unusual agreement with a private company," the Wall Street Journal reports. The move is a boon for Nvidia, which has fought for months to maintain access to the world's second-largest economy. The company had agreed earlier this year to give the U.S. 15% of the China sales from a lower-performing chip, only for the Chinese to scuttle those plans as part of continuing trade talks between the two sides." New York Times: The administration had spent months wrestling with whether it was comfortable relaxing its policy on sales of a critical A.I. technology that has the potential to help China militarily and economically." Filed Under: Foreign Affairs, Technology The Best Laptop I've Ever…...