The FDA’s top drug regulator submits his resignation to the agency
Food and Drug Administration chief Marty Makary convinced Rick Pazdur to take the role to help bring stability to the roiling agency.
Today's Liberal News
A Stellar Nursery
ESA / Hubble & NASA, G. Duchêne
Day 2 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: a stellar nursery. Reflection nebula GN 04.32.8 is part of the stellar nursery called the Taurus Molecular Cloud, roughly 480 light-years from Earth. Enormous clouds of dust surround a group of chaotic young stars, illuminated by their starlight.
Trump’s Cuts to AIDS Prevention Are Devastating LGBTQ+ Communities Globally: Steven Thrasher
President Trump has gutted the U.S. government’s support for AIDS healthcare around the world while ordering an end to commemorations of World AIDS Day, observed annually on December 1. Cuts to U.S. foreign aid are having a disproportionate impact on LGBTQ+ communities in many countries, says journalist and scholar Steven Thrasher, speaking from Uganda. “There are people who’ve been harmed very immediately,” he says.
“This Is a Union Town”: Zohran Mamdani & Bernie Sanders Join Striking Starbucks Workers’ Picket
New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders joined striking Starbucks workers on the picket line Monday to demand the coffee giant reach a fair contract with its unionized workforce after years of delay tactics.
Speaking outside a store in Brooklyn, Mamdani said New York is a “union town,” and vowed to continue joining pickets even after he is sworn in as mayor on January 1.
“A War Crime & Murder”: David Cole on U.S. Killing of Survivors of Boat Strike in Caribbean
As bipartisan criticism intensifies over U.S. attacks on alleged “drug boats” in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the White House is defending a September 2 operation that killed 11 people. The Washington Post reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a second attack to kill two survivors of an initial strike, an order that legal experts say would constitute a war crime.
Doctors call Ozempic a miracle drug. Medicaid officials aren’t so sure.
States are choosing not to cover the new weight-loss drugs, sacrificing a chance to stem cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
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.
This Major American Airport Is Getting a $1.7 Billion Facelift. Thank God.
After US Airways left Pittsburgh high and dry, yinzers finally built an airport on their own terms—and it’s incredible.
There Are Idiots, Look Around
Larry Summers’ appalling emails to Jeffrey Epstein aren’t the only reason not to like the guy.
RFK Jr. is overhauling the program that helps preserve Americans’ access to vaccines
A Kennedy adviser said he wants to preserve the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The health secretary’s anti-vaccine allies prefer it collapse.
Americans are buckling under medical bills. It could get worse.
Charities that help people pay for care say demand is way up. That’s before scheduled Medicaid and Obamacare cuts take effect.
Trump opens the door to Obamacare subsidy extension
The president said an extension of subsidies that help people pay for health insurance “may be necessary” to buy time for a broader overhaul.
Trump’s CMS touts $12B savings from Medicare drug price negotiations
The second round of Inflation Reduction Act negotiation prices, which includes 15 brand-name drugs, will kick into effect in 2027.
Obamacare premiums are skyrocketing. Republicans can’t figure out what to do.
GOP lawmakers knew subsidies were expiring and premiums would spike, but no clear, conservative alternative emerged.
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.
To Preach About Healing When You Know You’re Going to Die
A gay minister seeks healing with his family and his queer kin, even as he knows he’ll soon die from AIDS.
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.
Trump Seizes Back the Spotlight
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For the past few weeks, President Donald Trump has seemed uncharacteristically passive. His own Republican Party bucked him on the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein—in a movement partly led by Marjorie Taylor Greene, who once seemed like his staunchest apostle. His U.S.
Today’s Atlantic Trivia: Shakespeare and Company
I have much extolled here the value of new knowledge. Let us now hear a counterargument: Some months after Yale gave Mark Twain an honorary degree in 1888, the writer’s schedule cleared up enough for him to pull together a speech advising that the good people of the college learn less.
“I found the astronomer of the university gadding around after comets and other such odds and ends,” he wrote.
Pete Hegseth Needs to Go—Now
Presidents have always sent people to lead the Pentagon who respect the institutions and personnel of the armed forces, not least because Americans tend to bristle at any sign that an administration does not unreservedly support the men and women of the U.S. military. (Just ask Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom were castigated for such supposed disrespect.
Tom Stoppard Made a Spectacle of History
At necessary moments in my life, Tom Stoppard, the preeminent British playwright who died last Saturday, has popped up like one of his frenetic characters, spouting enigmatic lines and leaving me thrilled, confused, and somehow heartened.
2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar
ESA / Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Villenave et al.
A Cosmic Butterfly. In August, the James Webb Space Telescope provided this new view of IRAS 04302+2247, a planet-forming disk about 525 light-years away. This protoplanetary disk, a structure that is several times the diameter of our solar system, can be seen at center, encircling a protostar—a young star that is still gathering mass from its environment, possibly forming new planets.