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Say what you will about Donald Trump’s effect on American civic life as a whole, but he’s done wonders for public participation. Voter turnout in the past few elections has reached record highs, for example.
The prompts read like tiny, abstract poems.
“A brutal storm off the coastal cliff. The clouds are formed into tubular formations and lightning strikes are never ending.”
I scroll; another appears:
“A male figure formed of gentle fire, his outline glowing with soft embers, approaches a female figure shaped from flowing water, her form glistening with ripples and fine mist. They move toward one another with calm grace, meeting in a warm embrace.
President Donald Trump’s plan to double the size of the ICE workforce has met a foe more powerful than any activist group. It is decimating new recruits at the agency’s training academy in Georgia. It is the ICE personal-fitness test.
More than a third have failed so far, four officials told me, impeding the agency’s plan to hire, train, and deploy 10,000 deportation officers by January. To pass, recruits must do 15 push-ups and 32 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes.
In the 1950s, the TV quiz show Twenty-One stumbled upon a viewership-boosting strategy that for a brief period of time would be all the rage: cheating. The program fixed winners and losers, coached contestants, and generally dabbled in malfeasance. Other shows followed suit, scandal ensued, and Congress—Congress!—got involved.
Lieutenant Colonel Harald Jäger was in charge of a Berlin Wall checkpoint on the evening of November 9, 1989, when a garbled televised press conference convinced thousands of East Berliners that they were allowed to cross into West Germany. People ran to the checkpoint. They started shouting at Jäger, telling him to open the barrier, even though no one had told him about any changes.
Nearly as many migrants have died in detention so far this year than over the four years of the Biden administration.
Immigrant rights and labor icon Dolores Huerta, now 95 years old, is continuing her lifelong activism as immigration raids intensify across the country. She addressed the No Kings rally in Watsonville, California, this weekend to speak out against the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. “This is ethnic cleansing,” Huerta tells Democracy Now! “We have never seen such horrific, horrific attacks on our people.
An estimated 7 million people took part in No Kings rallies Saturday to protest President Trump’s authoritarian policies. Organizers say protests were held at about 2,600 sites across all 50 states in what was one of the largest days of protest in U.S. history, surpassing the first No Kings day of action in June. One of the biggest mobilizations was in Washington, D.C., where Trump has fired thousands of federal workers and sent in National Guard troops to patrol the streets.
“Even after having released almost 2,000 people last week, the Israeli military is still holding about 9,000 Palestinians, in what it calls security prisoners or detainees,” says Sari Bashi, an Israeli American human rights lawyer and former program director at Human Rights Watch. “Only about a thousand of them have actually been convicted of any crime. The vast majority of people being held are being held without trial.
We speak with Al Jazeera reporter Ibrahim al-Khalili in Gaza, where the shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appears to be holding despite sporadic violence. Gaza officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly violated the agreement, including when they opened fire on a civilian bus, killing 11 members of a Palestinian family attempting to return home in Gaza City.
Are the “cockroaches” Jamie Dimon spoke of really a private credit problem or are they a bit closer to home?
It may only be the beginning of a wider crackdown for the Wolverine State’s marijuana industry.
Next week’s rain might be the start of a sinkhole near you.
Bot-made listings are forcing homebuyers and professionals to ask themselves if this is a straight-up deceptive practice.
“Deserves to be called out,” says the president of the United States about a fawning magazine cover.
Jeffrey Tucker, who elevated Covid contrarians now working for the health secretary, is building support for Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.
The moves, to lower the cost of a drug prescribed to women going through IVF and boost employer coverage, follow Trump’s campaign promise to make fertility care more accessible.
States are worried Congress missed its opportunity to extend enhanced ACA subsidies and lower premiums before consumers start picking plans in a few weeks.
The budget stalemate is forcing some hospitals to withdraw from a successful Medicare program that allows seriously ill patients to be treated at home.
Updated at 12:30 p.m. ET on October 19, 2025
Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty
A person dressed in a Statue of Liberty costume participates in a “No Kings” national day of protest in New York on October 18, 2025.Alyssa Pointer / Reuters
People attend a “No Kings” protest against American President Donald Trump’s policies, in Atlanta on October 18, 2025.Alyssa Pointer / Reuters
A person looks on during the “No Kings” protest in Atlanta on October 18, 2025.
Troy Perry starts the gay/lesbian Metropolitan Community Church. A young lesbian is a regular at the San Francisco congregation when her friend gets sick.
Rescued archival audio takes listeners into the heart of an LGBTQ+ church during the height of the AIDS epidemic in 1980s and ’90s San Francisco.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
Trump’s strength with Republicans on the economy could prove to be a boon for the GOP.
A survey from the liberal-leaning group Somos Votantes shows Latino voters are souring on the president.
Privately, aides concede voters remain uneasy about prices but argue their policies are beginning to turn things around.
Even as President Trump has cracked down on dissent and sent troops into multiple cities, organizers of Saturday’s anti-authoritarian “No Kings” protests expect millions to join at least 2,500 rallies across all 50 states and several U.S. territories. The turnout could surpass the 5 million protesters who turned out for “No Kings Day” events in June.
There are growing questions over the legality of U.S. strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. “These are sitting ducks, and we are simply engaged in cold-blooded murder of individuals who may or may not be drug smugglers,” says David Cole, professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Cole says that President Trump is “committing homicide” by killing people without trial.
