Today's Liberal News

There Are No More Redlines

When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post almost 12 years ago, he went out of his way to assuage fears that he would turn the paper into his personal mouthpiece. “The values of The Post do not need changing,” he wrote at the time. “The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners.” For much of his tenure, Bezos kept that promise. On Wednesday, he betrayed it.

Let Them Eat Art?

In its earliest days, the second Trump administration cut off lifesaving food and medical aid to countries worldwide. It halted efforts to stop teens from joining drug cartels in Mexico. And it shut down programs aimed at resettling Afghans who assisted U.S. troops during the fight against the Taliban.
But at least initially, the budget for expensive artwork to hang in U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide remained robust.

The American Weather Forecast Is in Trouble

If you have tips about the remaking of American climate science, environmental policy, or disaster response, you can contact Zoë Schlanger on Signal at @zoeschlanger.99.
At 4 p.m. ET yesterday, Andrew Hazelton got a form email telling him his work as a hurricane modeler at the federal government would be officially over at 5 p.m. that day. In his five months as a federal employee, his job was to help improve the models that serve as the basis for the National Hurricane Center’s forecasts.

It Was an Ambush

Leave aside, if only for a moment, the utter boorishness with which President Donald Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance treated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House today. Also leave aside the spectacle of American leaders publicly pummeling a friend as if he were an enemy.

“Detained, Tortured & Starved”: Report Details Abuse of Gaza Doctors & Staff in Israeli Detention

We continue to look at Israeli torture of Palestinian detainees with Naji Abbas from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which has just released a new report detailing the mistreatment of medical workers from Gaza. Hundreds of doctors, nurses, paramedics and other essential medical staff were arrested by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023 and held under brutal conditions, with many describing physical, psychological and sexual abuse, starvation, medical neglect and more.

Might Makes Right: Matt Duss on Trump’s Foreign Policy Doctrine, from Ukraine to Gaza

We speak with foreign policy analyst Matt Duss about increasingly fraught relations between the United States and Ukraine, which have undergone a seismic shift under the second Trump administration. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is meeting with President Trump at the White House on Friday and is expected to sign an agreement giving the U.S. access to his country’s rare earth minerals, which are key components in mobile phones and other advanced technology.

RFK Jr., America’s Leading Advocate for Getting Measles

“It’s not unusual.” That’s how Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist and secretary of Health and Human Services, described an ongoing measles outbreak in and around Texas that has already infected more than 100 people and killed one child. This incident is, in fact, unusual. Until this week, someone hadn’t died of measles in this country since 2015, and endemic spread of the virus was declared eliminated in the United States 25 years ago.

Trump Tests the Courts

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Nothing could have prepared Americans for what the first 50-ish days of the second Trump administration have been like. Even some Cabinet members and Republican members of Congress seem caught off guard.

There Was Never a Movie Star Like Gene Hackman

In 1956, an aspiring young actor named Gene Hackman joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California, struggling to find a way into a field he’d been fascinated with since childhood. Hackman, who was born in 1930, had already served five years in the Marine Corps, then bounced around New York, Florida, Illinois, and other places without much luck.