Ulises Ruiz / AFP / Getty
Children with their faces painted pose in a field of cempasuchil (marigold) flowers during preparations for the Day of the Dead celebration at Rancho San Juan Diego, in Tlajomulco de Zuniga, Jalisco, Mexico, on October 24, 2026. On November 2, Mexico will celebrate the Day of the Dead to pay tribute to deceased family members and friends.
Many Democrats have a post-midterm dream that goes something like this: Pete Hegseth, the push-up-loving, beardo-mocking former Fox News host who has led the Pentagon for almost two years with bombast and theatrics, is either fired or hauled before their new majority in the House to face impeachment—which would make him just the third Cabinet secretary in history to face such a sanction.
Unto every season is given a certain kind of book. When the new year beckons a new you, self-help thrives. Breezy beach reads rule the summer. Cookbook recommendations abound in the lead-up to Thanksgiving. Curiously, publishers told me, Easter is big for picture books (which are easy to stick in a basket next to the chocolate bunny). And Halloween is for horror. Time to bust out some Shirley Jackson (or perhaps some Stephen King or Edgar Allan Poe).
All Halloween candy is the same now. Nothing stands out, apart from the quantity of candy dumped out on the floor back home. Every house seems to buy a variety bag of seemingly random candy, and consequently every stop metes out a little more of the same treats as the previous one did or the next one will. A harvesttime holiday that evolved from traditional reflections on death is now merely another household chore to carry out on the way to mortal life’s certain end.
The judge sided with a coalition of 25 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia in a lawsuit challenging the requirement that states force chronically ill people to prove they can’t work.
Several tech workers at Google’s AI unit DeepMind have resigned in protest over the tech giant’s work with the U.S. and Israeli militaries. Last week, DeepMind research engineer Sofia Liguori announced her resignation in a letter to her colleagues titled “Stay Human.” She denounced what she called “Google’s complicity in the Gaza genocide” and the increasing integration of Google’s technology into military and surveillance systems.
Immigrant rights and labor icon Dolores Huerta died Wednesday at the age of 96. Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962 and then the United Farm Workers of America, working with Cesar Chavez. From 1965 to 1970, the union organized the historic Delano grape strike, which ended in major gains for farmworkers’ labor rights.
A monopoly on mortgages is finally loosening. Homebuyers aren’t the only ones who stand to benefit.
What’s alarmist and what’s real about artificial intelligence. Plus, how lawmakers are dealing with a situation they don’t really understand.
Meta makes a deal to keep Zuckerberg happy as Musk eyes a power-consolidating merger.
No regulator has found the drugs safe or effective, but a VA official says as many as 2.1 million ex-service members could find them helpful.
Calley Means’ departure is the latest sign that Kennedy’s supporters are unhappy with how the White House is treating them.
The Treasury Department’s proposed restrictions on U.S. investment in Chinese biopharma collide with Beijing’s new export curbs on cutting edge biotech innovations.
Democrats’ confidence in their health care message is showing up on the airwaves and the debate stage.
Tony Lyons, who leads the Make America Healthy Again movement the health secretary started, was in the London courthouse for jury selection.
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.
In a Canberra Playbook Podcast interview Jim Chalmers accused Liberals of wanting Australians to suffer, as their path back to power.
Jim Chalmers warns global pressures mean more domestic pain.
The Louisiana Republican’s comments come as both Democrats and Republicans have been forced to find ways to address the backlash against data centers.
A court in Cairo has ordered the closure of the independent Egyptian news site Mada Masr. The court also ordered the site’s editor-in-chief, Lina Attalah, to be detained until she pays a fine of over $50,000. She was convicted on charges of managing an unlicensed website. Mada Masr is “the flagship independent media outlet in Egypt and a pillar of independent media in the region,” says Sharif Abdel Kouddous of Drop Site News, who previously worked at Mada Masr.
With the U.S. midterm elections just a week away, the affordability crisis — intensified by President Trump’s tariffs and war on Iran — has emerged as a major campaign issue. Across the country, families are struggling to make ends meet, while oil and gas companies have reported record profits during recent periods of price shocks.
A competitive Senate race has gripped the once reliably Republican state of Alaska. If Democratic challenger Mary Peltola wins the election against incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, it could tip the balance of power in Washington. Attorneys for Peltola and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have submitted a motion to dismiss a Department of Justice lawsuit filed last week that seeks to block the certification of the election results in Alaska if Sullivan loses.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon’s chief planner, Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia, was ousted from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No explanation was given. This comes at an inopportune moment, given that President Trump may be planning to relaunch the war on Iran. Sylvia, the former commander of the 101st Airborne Division, becomes the latest in a long line of senior officers who have been shown the door since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon almost two years ago.
For anyone who isn’t angling for a job in the Trump administration, “Who won the 2020 presidential election?” should be an easy question. But when I asked Google’s AI Mode—the AI function built into its search bar—about the race earlier today, the bot clammed up.
Modern political history offers few examples of closing arguments that appear more out of touch, self-defeating, or downright bizarre than what Donald Trump has offered his fellow Republicans ahead of next week’s midterm elections. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan told voters to consider Jimmy Carter’s presidency and ask themselves, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?,” it helped turn a tight race into a Reagan landslide.
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Brazil’s incumbent president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was reelected on Sunday night. Not everyone saw it coming.
For weeks, many U.S. pundits had been suggesting that he would lose, thanks to the growing power of the South American right and the lingering curse of incumbency.