Alone in the dead of night, a man can fall into bleak thoughts. In the wee, small hours of the morning, he might think about lost loves, mull over great regrets, or wrestle with the inevitability of his own mortality. But Donald Trump, awake and restless in the Florida darkness, apparently consoles himself by imagining a war of liberation in a Middle Eastern nation of 92 million people.
At 2:58 a.m.
This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books.
Recently, I went out for drinks with a young woman who wanted advice about establishing herself as a book critic. “Everyone has read less than you think they have,” I told her immediately. I reassured her that in some respects, making your way through the world’s great literature is a numbers game: Someone twice your age has simply spent more time on the planet—and has therefore had more time to turn pages.
The Divine Comedy is more than 14,000 lines long and is divided into three parts, but it’s the first part, the Inferno, that gets all the attention. For centuries, readers have preferred the horrors of hell to the perfection of heaven. Gustave Doré, the celebrated French illustrator, did elaborate engravings for the three canticles in the mid-19th century and devoted 99 out of 135 of them to Dante Alighieri’s darkest scenes.
Zohran Mamdani hailed “a new era” for New York on Thursday, promising in his inaugural address to deliver on the ambitious agenda that electrified progressives in the city and saw him defeat the political establishment in both the Democratic primary and the general election last year. Addressing thousands of supporters who braved freezing temperatures to attend the ceremony at City Hall, Mamdani vowed to “govern expansively and audaciously” for residents.
“We have chosen courage over fear. We have chosen prosperity for the many over spoils for the few,” said Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her introduction to the historic inauguration of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as New York City mayor.
Tens of thousands of New Yorkers braved freezing temperatures and police barricades to be part of Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration as mayor on New Year’s Day. Democracy Now! spoke with many Mamdani supporters, including a high school student and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, about what the day represented to them, their hopes for the new administration and how it could set a model for progressives across the country.
New York City started 2026 with a new mayor, as democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani made history when he was sworn in as the city’s first Muslim, first South Asian and first African-born leader, as well as the youngest in over a century.
Rating the spiciness and truthiness of the hottest takes we heard in 2025.
Mary Childs learned about how places like ALIMA and Givewell are moving forward now that USAID is done.
Trump Media & Technology Group has merged with a nuclear fusion company TAE Technologies.
Disney invests $1 billion in OpenAI so you can’t use Sora to make Darth Vader porn among other concerns.
Even state governments that want to help can’t completely cover rising insurance premiums.
Montana and California will receive near equal amounts in 2026, despite their massive size disparity.
Despite a Trump administration push, there are few facilities offering the complex treatment in the rural areas where many patients live.
The companies behind Doritos, Oscar Mayer wieners, and Kraft Mac & Cheese are warning state regulation promoted by the health secretary is driving up your food bill.
In some cases, Europe has better contained disease, in others it’s let them spread to keep costs down.
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 vice president fine-tunes Trump’s economic message, but he’s only got so much wiggle room.
Voters who backed Donald Trump in 2024 and swung to Democrats in this year’s Virginia and New Jersey elections did so over economic concerns, according to focus groups conducted by a Democratic pollster and obtained by POLITICO.
In races across the country, Democrats focused on promises to make life more affordable — even as they offered contrasting approaches.
The White House plans to make affordability a key selling point for Republicans across the board as the 2026 midterm elections come into focus.
President Donald Trump will give a speech in Northeastern Pennsylvania on Tuesday, the first stop in a ‘tour’ where he will talk about affordability concerns, among others.
A new report from the grassroots organization RootsAction aims to do what a promised “autopsy” from the Democratic National Committee ultimately did not: publicly reckon with the failures of the Democrats’ 2024 presidential campaign.
New York City is preparing to welcome Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and member of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, into office as mayor. Ahead of the highly anticipated inauguration, we sit down with NYC-DSA’s co-chair Grace Mausser to discuss the goals of the incoming administration and next steps for the volunteer-powered campaign apparatus that helped propel Mamdani to City Hall.
Israel is set to suspend the operating licenses of Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam and dozens of other humanitarian aid groups in Gaza and the West Bank over alleged ties to Hamas, preventing international aid workers from entering Gaza and carrying out critical, lifesaving operations. Israel’s licensing process is “arbitrary and highly politicized,” explains Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the impacted groups.
