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.
Congress struggles to unite behind a plan for Obamacare
Obamacare premiums will rise on Jan. 1 unless Congress acts.
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.
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.
‘Sort of blackmail’: Billions in rural health funding hinge on states passing Trump-backed policies
Democrats and health advocates described the strategy as highly unusual, and some fear it could be wielded to favor political allies.
The Loneliness Crisis Hits SNL
In a sketch from last night’s Saturday Night Live, the cast member Andrew Dismukes played a suburban husband who threw a successful dinner party. As he basked in the company of his friends, he proposed a sweet, well-intentioned idea.
“Guys,” he said.
A Warped View Through an Einstein Ring
ESA / Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Mahler
Day 7 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Warped View Through an Einstein Ring. You are seeing two galaxies here, one in front of the other. The more distant spiral galaxy appears warped and distorted due to the gravitational lensing occurring around a massive, much closer galaxy, which is part of galaxy cluster SMACSJ0028.2-7537.
Recall
Maybe a pay-phone in France
would still reach you;
in the South; in the third
or second life. Still then
as a teenager, bloodless
and senseless, skidding
another riven diagram
into the dust. Now even
staggered into fake quietude
I can’t believe there is
no causeway to the dead.
Why should there not be.
I know it is just a zip
in circumstance. Tending June’s
snow driven to musk
and peachlit common rain.
I would rather be studding euros
into a slot, sighing and missing
my tether for living.
Trumpian Corruption Is Worse Than Ukrainian Corruption
A few days ago I called Oleksandr Abakumov, a senior detective at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. I wanted to ask him about his investigation into a kickback scheme in his country’s energy industry. While we were talking, I got interested in Abakumov himself.
Trump Is Making the Same Mistake as Biden
Donald Trump recaptured the White House in part by relentlessly exploiting Joe Biden’s failure to heed widespread concerns about the rising cost of living. Now, bizarrely, President Trump is walking himself—and his party—into the same perilous trap by denying the economic reality that working families are living.
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.