Today's Liberal News
Money Talks: Hard Times for Fast Food
Heather Haddon joins Emily Peck to discuss the current challenges and trends she’s reported on in the fast food industry.
It’s Popular, Great for the Economy, and Surprisingly Good for You. Why Is Congress Trying to Ban It?
Lawmakers want to close a so-called hemp loophole. They might blow up a massive industry in the process.
Trump asks RFK Jr. to ‘fast track’ vaccine schedule review
The president weighed in after the health secretary’s vaccine advisers recommended a major change to the shots routinely given to children.
CDC vaccine panel chair compares team to ‘puppets on a string’
The newly appointed chair’s comments were overheard Friday during a break in the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ proceedings.
RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel says not all newborns need Hep B shots
The shot was previously recommended for all infants after birth to prevent an infection that can cause severe liver disease and cancer.
CDC advisers delay vote at chaotic vaccine meeting
After last-minute changes, members complained they didn’t fully understand what they were voting on.
What Happens When You Organize Church Around AIDS – and AIDS Changes?
The AIDS cocktail opens new possibilities. And MCC San Francisco tries to use the experience of AIDS to make bigger social change.
The Church’s Pastor Gets Diagnosed with AIDS. And the Church Wonders How Much They Might Lose.
The church’s minister gets sick and everyone knows it.
A Church Romance Between a Hula Dancer and a Lumbersexual Blossoms in a Dangerous Time.
The church’s “it couple” faces AIDS, caregiving, and loss as part of a pair, part of families, and part of a community.
A Sermon With “Old Fashioned Homosexual Values.”
A celebrity contracts HIV, the world finally pays attention to AIDS, and Jim Mitulski preaches to a community tired of people dying from it.
How Should Queer Christians Respond to Anti-Gay Violence, its Victims, and the People Who Perpetrate It?
When a lesbian minister is physically assaulted, the church is galvanized. When it happens again, the city is galvanized.
How Russia keeps raising an army to replace its dead
An online bazaar of freelance headhunters finds new recruits to fight Ukraine, emboldening Vladimir Putin at the negotiating table and scaring European leaders about what his growing army might do next.
White House bullish on economic growth as Thanksgiving spending rises
Economic adviser Kevin Hassett dismissed economic bedwetters, saying strong spending bodes well for the economy.
Trump, stung by Republican losses, stands his ground on affordability
Democrats running on cost-of-living anxieties outperformed Republicans in Tuesday’s elections by greater-than-expected margins. The president chalked it up to partisan lies.
Voters on Tuesday rewarded Democrats who addressed economic costs. Hours later, Trump said he delivered an ‘economic miracle.’
A recent poll found a majority of Americans feel they’re spending more on groceries than they did a year ago.
Reaganomics in Jersey: Jack Ciattarelli has a supply-side dream if he’s elected governor this week
The Republican nominee has promised tax cuts and economic growth, but the numbers are fuzzy.
“Alejandro Was Murdered”: Colombian Fisherman’s Family Files Claim Against U.S. over Boat Strike
The U.S. military said Thursday that it blew up another boat of suspected drug smugglers, this time killing four people in the eastern Pacific. The U.S. has now killed at least 87 people in 22 strikes since September. The U.S. has not provided proof as to the vessels’ activities or the identities of those on board who were targeted, but now the family of a fisherman from Colombia has filed the first legal challenge to the military strikes.
Trump Calls Somali Community “Garbage”: Minnesota Responds to Racist Rant and Immigration Sweeps
Federal authorities are carrying out intensified operations this week in Minnesota as President Donald Trump escalates his attacks on the Somali community in the state. The administration halted green card and citizenship applications from Somalis and people from 18 other countries after last week’s fatal shooting near the White House.
5,000 Arrests? ICE Descends on Louisiana to Carry Out Raids in World’s “Incarceration Capital”
A major immigration crackdown is underway in New Orleans and the surrounding areas of Louisiana, dubbed “Operation Catahoula Crunch” by the Trump administration. According to planning documents, 250 federal agents will aim to make 5,000 arrests over two months.
Rigging Democracy: Supreme Court Approves Racial Texas Gerrymander, Handing Trump Midterm Advantage
The conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for Texas to use a gerrymandered congressional map in next year’s midterm elections that a lower court found racially discriminatory. The 6-3 ruling is another political win for President Donald Trump and his allies, who have gotten a number of favorable rulings from the justices after being stymied by lower courts.
Congress struggles to unite behind a plan for Obamacare
Obamacare premiums will rise on Jan. 1 unless Congress acts.
The Shell of a Dying Star
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL, Caltech, UCLA
Day 6 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: The Shell of a Dying Star. About 1,500 light-years from Earth, a dying star at the heart of planetary nebula NGC 1514 is performing a spectacular final act. One of a pair of binary stars has been shedding huge amounts of gas and dust for more than 4,000 years, blasting into the surrounding space and lighting it up from within.
How to Approach Even the Hardest Family Discussions
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
“Talking about politics at our family gatherings can be like smoking a cigarette at a gas station—there’s a good chance it will make the whole place explode,” the journalist Elizabeth Harris wrote last year.
Fallout From the Signal Report
Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings, watch full episodes here, or listen to the weekly podcast here.
This week, the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense released a report that found Secretary Pete Hegseth could have put U.S. troops and national security at risk with messages sent in a Signal chat about strikes in Yemen.
The Mad Men Streaming Debacle Is a Strange Cautionary Tale
When Mad Men arrived on HBO Max earlier this week, after years languishing on the less-subscribed-to AMC+ service, the streamer’s parent company, Warner Bros., heralded it as a triumph. Finally, the much-acclaimed Emmy magnet would be available to watch in glorious 4K resolution; viewers would now have “the opportunity to enjoy the series in a fresh way,” as the WB executive Royce Battleman trumpeted.
By the Horns
Photographs and videos by Owen Harvey
The week before the biggest bullfight of her career, in Cádiz, Spain, this past July, 24-year-old Miriam Cabas posted a carefully produced video on Instagram. Cabas appears not in a traditional matador costume but in a cream pantsuit, watching a little girl—4, maybe 5—wave a red muleta at an imaginary bull. “Dreams come true,” she wrote in the caption. “The little girl I used to be still guides me.
You Should Be Rooting for Donald Trump to Kill Netflix’s Deal to Buy Warner Bros.
Even though that might mean you-know-who buys the studio instead.
