Today's Liberal News

Prof. Rashid Khalidi Slams “Crushing Repression” at Columbia, Cancels Course over Trump Settlement

Rashid Khalidi, the renowned Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, says he is withdrawing from teaching his fall course after the school has agreed to pay a $200 million settlement in a major new deal with President Trump, who accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza. Columbia will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the U.S.

Israel’s Last Chance

When Hamas bulldozed its way across the Gaza fence on October 7, 2023, it hoped to eventually provoke the opprobrium that’s now flowing in Israel’s direction. Launching its carnival of murder, rape, and kidnapping, the group wagered that it could bait its enemy into moral blunders that would discredit it in the eyes of the world.
That vision is now unfolding as mass hunger engulfs the Gaza Strip, and images of starving children crumble American support for Israel.

Grief Counseling With Kermit

Jim Henson’s Creature Shop has sat, for the past 16 years, on the fourth floor of an office building in Long Island City, New York, behind a metal door that looks like any other. When I opened it one gray morning after the holidays, I was greeted by a plastic Christmas tree hung with fake fish skeletons and desiccated banana peels, Oscar leering nearby from his can, and a brown, fuzzy blob sitting on a table.

Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon Is Becoming a Bubble

Last month, a group of seven U.S. generals and admirals—including the top admiral in charge of U.S. military operations in the Asia-Pacific region—prepared to travel to the Aspen Security Forum, in Colorado. Security officials had spoken at the annual conference for years, including during Donald Trump’s first term, and were set to discuss topics such as the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the future of AI, and threats from China.

This Is the News From TikTok

When he learned one night this summer that the United States had bombed Iran, the content creator Aaron Parnas responded right away, showing what’s bad and what’s good about using TikTok for news. Shortly after 7:46 p.m. ET on June 21, he saw Donald Trump’s Truth Social post announcing the air strikes.

“Unprecedented Power Grab”: Trump & Texas Try to Create 5 More GOP House Seats with New Gerrymander

President Trump is pushing for a major redrawing of Texas’s congressional districts to favor Republicans and shape the outcome of future elections, including next year’s midterms. Voting rights expert Ari Berman says this “unprecedented” Republican gerrymandering scheme manipulates an already-gerrymandered map that “limits democratic representation. It already limits representation for communities of color, and now that would be much worse.

“Toxic Air”: Meet the Mother-Daughter Duo Fighting Pollution in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”

We’re joined by a mother-daughter duo from Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” Roishetta and Kamea Ozane are part of a group of environmental activists on a national tour to confront the financial backers of destructive natural gas projects that have devastated their community. The “Toxic Billionaire Tour” is targeting the offices of major banks and the homes of executives, who “sit here in New York and in offices in D.C.

“A Danger to the Entire Planet”: Amid Deadly Extreme Weather, Trump’s EPA Rejects Climate Science

The Trump administration is attempting to revoke a landmark rule that allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants and other sources under the authority of the Clean Air Act. For over a decade, what is known as the “endangerment finding” has been one of the most important legal underpinnings in the federal effort to combat climate change.

The National-Park Tours of Trump’s Dreams

Don’t worry. Although content that INAPPROPRIATELY DISPARAGES AMERICANS PAST OR LIVING or that includes MATTERS UNRELATED TO THE BEAUTY, ABUNDANCE, AND GRANDEUR OF THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE has been targeted for removal at national-park sites, the caliber of park tours has not suffered! Here is a glimpse of the kind of information you can look forward to receiving at each of these historic sites.

Faith

How do the small birds
       in the street know
how not to die—
that whatever
       they gather,
hunger for, is never
enough to keep them
       in the road
when our wheels bear down
upon them? They feast on
       what I cannot see
then fly away
& sing.
This poem appears in the September 2025 print edition.