Today's Liberal News

The Books Briefing: How Fan Fiction Reimagines the Writing Process

When The Last Jedi came out, some viewers had déjà vu: Certain aspects of the movie’s plot were strikingly similar to the events in several popular stories on the fan-fiction site Archive of Our Own. The coincidence may seem strange, but in many ways it’s unsurprising that the people who were thinking most deeply about a franchise—its creators and devotees alike—would come to the same conclusions about each character’s fate.

Biden Is Betting Americans Will Forget About Afghanistan

Call it the White House’s dream scenario: In the end, the voters don’t blame Joe Biden. The president’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan simply aligns him with everyone else who has given up on the notion that the military could mold a fractious country into a stable democratic ally.

The Remote Work–Fertility Connection

Last year was a blur for Miranda Turner, but she remembers the day her kids’ school shut down like it was yesterday. On a Friday in March 2020, Arlington Public Schools, in Virginia, announced that it would close the following Monday because of the newly circulating coronavirus, sending working parents like Turner scrambling to figure out what to do with their kids.

Donald J. Trump pardoned a cyberstalker, but failed to grasp he didn’t have that power

Donald J. Trump took time out of his schedule to issue a pardon for a friend of his son in law, Jared Kushner. Ken Kurson, the friend in question, was facing the reality of potential federal charges for cyberstalking. Kurson had installed spyware on his wife’s computer in order to monitor, harass, and capture her communication—acts that constitute crimes under federal statute.

Black homeowner went to ‘strike conversation’ with neighbor. He responded he doesn’t have any money

I’m not a person who believes gentrification is inherently evil. You want to help a community that wants to update its housing and attract more business development? Great. The problem is, that seldom happens without displacing the people already there and pricing people of color out of their own communities—communities, by the way, that often have a history of white flight driven by racist ideology.

‘Do Not Abandon the Afghans’

Veterans, journalists, human-rights groups, and ordinary Americans had for months urged President Joe Biden to develop and implement a serious plan to protect and relocate our allies before the United States withdrew its forces from Afghanistan. This summer, I wrote privately to members of his administration on this issue. Now the situation has reached a crucial juncture.