The war in Iran has reaffirmed two truths. One is that the United States is blessed with the most professional and effective military in the world. The men and women of the American armed forces can conduct missions of almost any size with formidable competence, from special operations to seize a rogue-state president to a large-scale war. The other truth is that the Trump administration, when it comes to strategy, is incompetent.
Outside OpenAI’s headquarters, a handful of people gathered on Monday holding pieces of colorful chalk. They got down on their knees and started writing messages on the sidewalk. Stand for liberty. Please no legal mass surveillance. Change the contract please.
At issue was a business deal that the company recently signed with the Department of Defense, following the Pentagon’s sudden turn against Anthropic.
Vinay Prasad’s exit — his second from the agency in less than a year — comes after sharp criticism of his handling of drug applications.
Monster movies come in strange bunches. Vampires dominated the screen in the 2010s, as gritty zombie hordes had the decade before that. Lately, we’re awash in Frankensteins, each adding stylized flavor to Mary Shelley’s novel: Zelda Williams’s goofy high-school version, Lisa Frankenstein; Yorgos Lanthimos’s steampunk reimagining, Poor Things; and Guillermo Del Toro’s faithful-to-a-fault take, currently up for nine Oscars.
Antonio Calanni / AP
Dancers perform during the opening ceremony at the 2026 Winter Paralympics, in Verona, Italy, on March 6, 2026. The Paralympic Games will take place through Sunday, March 15.
In 1953, when President Dwight Eisenhower authorized the CIA to topple Iran’s elected prime minister, the American public was told a familiar story: Communism was creeping in, the Cold War demanded vigilance, and the United States could not afford another Moscow ally. But beneath the neat narrative of containment was a more tangible obsession—oil. Iran’s enormous reserves were not merely a strategic asset; they were a prize.
Casey Means alarmed immunization advocates at her confirmation hearing, but some opponents don’t trust her either.
President Trump is hosting right-wing leaders from across Latin America in Miami for a summit discussing his so-called Shield of the Americas initiative. This comes as the U.S. deploys special forces to Ecuador and as Trump hints about regime change in Cuba. “This summit is … an opportunity for Trump to play out a moment of imperial fantasy in front of fans in South Florida,” says Jake Johnston, director of international research at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Kristi Noem has been ousted from her position as homeland security secretary after intensifying calls for her resignation. Noem’s tenure has been marked by allegations of corruption, deadly immigration raids and legal challenges. ProPublica reporter Justin Elliott has reported extensively on Noem’s tenure, including a $200 million ad campaign that may have been the inciting incident for her firing. “This did not go through the normal competitive process,” says Elliott.
It is the seventh day of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, and Israel is escalating attacks on Lebanon after ordering the entire population of southern Lebanon to flee. This comes as Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened to turn areas of Lebanon into another Gaza in a video shared on social media Thursday. “The word on everyone’s mouths here is ethnic cleansing,” says Lylla Younes, an investigative journalist speaking with Democracy Now! from Beirut.
Hillary Frey and Anna Szymanski join Emily Peck to unpack the wild ride that was ‘Industry’ season 4.
A week after the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s tariff unconstitutional , no one really knows how or if tariff refunds will happen.
The Ellisons might have beat Netflix, but their $111 billion deal still needs to survive lawsuits, regulators, and a mountain of debt.
When the city needed digging out, it called its emergency shovelers. One Queens resident describes the pay, the crosswalks, and the yellow snow.
No one knows what happened. That explains what’s unfolding just north of Tucson.
The Trump administration wants to tackle fraud. Oz, a famed television host, has put his skills to the task.
Two Republican senators told POLITICO they were undecided after Means faced tough questions on her vaccine views at a nomination hearing.
Longstanding Republican orthodoxy on free markets and scant details are making Trump’s drug pricing law push difficult.
Supporters of the health secretary’s Make America Healthy Again movement are worried Kennedy is selling out.
Outward’s hosts sit down with the host and co-creator of When We All Get to Heaven.
The neighborhood changes, the church moves, people forget and remember “the AIDS years,” but AIDS isn’t over.
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 minister gets sick and everyone knows it.
The church’s “it couple” faces AIDS, caregiving, and loss as part of a pair, part of families, and part of a community.
The president stopped in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s old district to defend his economic record.
A brief swing through the farm state underscored administration fears about the midterms.
Sixty-one percent of voters told a CNN poll released Friday that they disapprove of the way Trump is handling the economy.
Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho joins us to discuss his Oscar-nominated film, The Secret Agent, and the history that inspired it. The film is set in the northern Brazilian city of Recife in the 1970s, during the country’s U.S.-backed military dictatorship.
Kristi Noem played “Hot Mama” as the walk-up song for her formal introduction at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters in January 2025. President Trump had put her in charge of his signature campaign promise—the largest mass-deportation campaign in U.S. history—and Noem took a fast, flashy approach to the job. She dressed as a Border Patrol agent and an ICE officer, and rode horseback at Mount Rushmore in ads.
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Donald Trump campaigned on the idea that electing him was the best way to avoid wars. He has referred to himself as the “peace president,” going so far as to complain that he hadn’t won a Nobel Peace Prize.