Today's Liberal News

Profit and Power

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Donald Trump’s willingness to mix public office with personal benefit is facing scrutiny, as are his latest pardons.

HIV’s Most Promising Breakthrough Has Taken a Hit

Updated at 3:38 p.m. ET on May 31, 2025
Solving HIV vaccination—a puzzle that scientists have been tackling for decades without success—could be like cracking the code to a safe. The key, they now think, may be delivering a series of different shots in a specific sequence, iteratively training the body to produce a strong, broad immune response that will endure against the fast-mutating virus, ideally for a lifetime.

When College Graduates Face Reality

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“History found you.” In 2020, Caitlin Flanagan told recent college graduates that their dreams were interrupted in much the same way her father’s dreams had once been interrupted. In 1941, he was a new student at Amherst College, “and he thought it was paradise,” Caitlin wrote.

When Mission: Impossible Had No Mission

Every major movie franchise has boxes to check. In Jurassic Park, dinosaurs must run amok; in Planet of the Apes, apes have to meditate on intelligence; in The Fast and the Furious, Vin Diesel absolutely has to evangelize the benefits of family, Corona beers, and tricked-out cars. But Mission: Impossible took four films to fully establish its franchise must-have: the ever more blurred lines between its death-defying, stunt-loving star, Tom Cruise, and the superspy he plays.

The Unconstitutional Conservatives

Not too long ago, many Republicans proudly referred to themselves as “constitutional conservatives.” They believed in the rule of law; in limiting the power of government, especially the federal government; in protecting individual liberty; and in checks and balances and the separation of powers.

The TACO Presidency

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One way to trace the past nine years of Donald Trump is the journey from taco bowls to TACO bulls. (Hey, don’t click away! This is going somewhere!)
Back in May 2016, the then–GOP presidential candidate posted a picture of himself eating a Trump Tower Tex-Mex entree. “I love Hispanics!” he wrote.

The Muddled Message of Bring Her Back

The horror genre has come to feel oversaturated with message films: artistically rendered stories that use scares less to frighten and more to manifest psychological or philosophical themes. So when the Philippou brothers—a pair of Australian directors (and twins) who got their start on YouTube—premiered their feature debut, Talk to Me, it felt like a burst of youthful energy.

The Two Extremists Driving Israel’s Policy

They are the leading extremists in the most right-wing government in Israel’s history: Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir are both West Bank settlers. They ran together on the same ticket in Israel’s most recent election, gaining more votes than ever before for the far right. They both want Israel to reoccupy all of Gaza, to renew Israeli settlement there, and to “encourage” Palestinians to emigrate.

Trump’s Attacks Threaten Much More Than Harvard

Updated at 3:54 p.m. ET on May 30, 2025
On May 22, the Department of Homeland Security stripped Harvard University of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, instantly jeopardizing the visas of nearly 6,800 international students—27 percent of the student body.
But the Trump administration’s attack didn’t end there.