Is the Tide Turning Against Water Privatization? Is the Tide Turning Against Water Privatization?
You can’t squeeze clean water out of dirty business.
Apr 27, 2015 / Michelle Chen
How Do You Win a Failed War? Rewrite the Ending. How Do You Win a Failed War? Rewrite the Ending.
The Vietnam War was indisputably an American-grown disaster. But why let truth stand in the way of glory?
Apr 27, 2015 / Christian Appy
Auf Wiedersehen Günter Grass Auf Wiedersehen Günter Grass
Günter Grass not only taught us about German history, but also ourselves.
Apr 27, 2015 / Norman Birnbaum
Camden Yards and the Baltimore Protests for Freddie Gray Camden Yards and the Baltimore Protests for Freddie Gray
The decision by Baltimore’s mayor to lock baseball fans inside a stadium to “protect” them from protestors sent a message to the world built on a lie.
Apr 27, 2015 / Dave Zirin
Will the Courts Finally Block Texas’ Worst-in-the-Nation Voter-ID Law? Will the Courts Finally Block Texas’ Worst-in-the-Nation Voter-ID Law?
Longtime voters are being turned away from the polls by Texas’ voter-ID law
Apr 27, 2015 / Ari Berman
No Joke, Cheney Was the Worst President No Joke, Cheney Was the Worst President
Obama's barb worked because it had the ring of truth.
Apr 27, 2015 / John Nichols
April 27, 1994: South Africa Holds Its First Free Election After the End of Apartheid April 27, 1994: South Africa Holds Its First Free Election After the End of Apartheid
"It was as if all South Africans, black, white and “coloreds” alike, were voting for the first time in their lives."
Apr 27, 2015 / Richard Kreitner and The Almanac
April 26, 1986: Catastrophic Nuclear Accident at Chernobyl April 26, 1986: Catastrophic Nuclear Accident at Chernobyl
A series of explosions and fires at the nuclear plant in Chernobyl caused a massive plume of fallout to spread across Russia and Europe, leading to dozens of deaths of immediate deaths, thousands of additional radiation-caused fatalities, and hundreds of thousands of evacuations. In an editorial (May 10, 1986), The Nation heralded what it hoped would be the beginning of the end of the age of nuclear power. Alas, we yet await the nuclear disaster that will finally convince people around the world that it may be time for a change. The Chernobyl accident is, by early accounts, the worst to date, and it is very bad news for the Russians, who handled it poorly from the start. But it is also bad news for the scores of other countries where reactors are already working or under construction or planned. Whatever the weather patterns, we are all downwind from Chernobyl…. The politics of nuclear power will surely produce attempts to stop the spread of new plants and perhaps curb the proliferation of weapons as well. Already Sweden plans to phrase out its nuclear industry by the early twenty-first century. In 1978 Austrians voted to bar a completed facility from going on line. Only citizen-based environmental action movements have challenged the containment structure of secrecy that the nuclear establishments, both East and West, built to shield their work from the beginning. Activist groups in several American states are fighting the construction or operation of nuclear plants, including the Shoreham station in New York and Seabrook in New Hampshire. Depressed oil prices and exorbitant construction costs are taking their toll. Antinuclear activists always said that it would take a major accident to convince the world that atomic power is unsafe in any form. At Chernobyl we may have witnessed the dawn of the postnuclear age. April 26, 1986 To mark The Nation’s 150th anniversary, every morning this year The Almanac will highlight something that happened that day in history and how The Nation covered it. Get The Almanac every day (or every week) by signing up to the e-mail newsletter.
Apr 26, 2015 / Richard Kreitner and The Almanac
Two Senate Dems Challenge Obama: Release the TPP Text Two Senate Dems Challenge Obama: Release the TPP Text
Apr 25, 2015 / George Zornick
April 25, 1898: The US Declares War on Spain April 25, 1898: The US Declares War on Spain
“Are there no gentlemen left in in American public life?”
Apr 25, 2015 / Richard Kreitner and The Almanac