Today's Liberal News

Hegseth Summons Top Military Leaders to Washington

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This week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of U.S. military leaders to Washington.

The Doomed Dream of an AI Matchmaker

Whitney Wolfe Herd has a vision for modern romance. More than a decade after founding Bumble, in 2014, she’s back at the dating-app company—and this time, she wants to get things right. For too long, she argues, people have been swiping in the dark: evaluating other multifaceted beings on the basis of a few pictures and superficial bits of description, being evaluated in turn, feeling judged and empty.

Nexstar and Sinclair Lost Their Game of Chicken

When ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air last week after his comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the obvious way to understand the story was that it was an attack on free speech. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr had, after all, publicly declared that ABC could do things “the easy way or the hard way” with regard to Kimmel, and then implied that local ABC affiliates might face “fines or license revocation” if nothing was done.

Charlie Kirk and the ‘Third Great Awakening’

In the two weeks since Charlie Kirk’s killing, Trump-administration officials and allies have not only promised a sweeping crackdown on liberal groups. They have marshaled the language of a rising charismatic Christian movement to describe their political agenda as a cosmic battle against the forces of evil.
At Kirk’s memorial service on Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the moment at hand as “not a political war” and “not even a cultural war—it’s a spiritual war.

RFK Jr.’s Obsession With the Past

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The ascent of MAHA—the Trump administration’s movement to “Make America Healthy Again”—is part of a broader health revolution in the United States, one that venerates the past in order to carve out a purportedly healthier future.

The Emptiness of Attacking Critics for Their Hypocrisy

The Trump administration’s systemic attack on free speech is hard to defend. The easier move for the president’s apologists is to attack critics for their hypocrisy.
“The left has amnesia when it comes to the cancel culture they perpetuated. It is a game they created with rules they made up. Now they hate that it’s being applied to them,” the USA Today columnist Nicole Russell writes.

Golf’s Very Loud Weekend

Give a guy from Bushwick several hours to day-drink and a chance to yell on Rory McIlroy’s backswing, and it’s going to happen. Garrulous and unseemly noises always seem to break out whenever golf and New Yorkers are adjacent. The organizers of the Ryder Cup have nevertheless brought the famously contentious event to Bethpage Black this weekend for the first time.

Why Is the Pentagon Afraid of the Press?

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In the 18 years I have been reporting at the Pentagon, military leaders have rarely been delighted to see me. Over the years, I have had heated conversations with generals, spokespeople, and civilian leaders. I have reported news that the department officials didn’t want publicized, as well as information they were eager to share.

A Rupture in One’s Sense of Self

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books.
As Patricia Lockwood’s second novel, Will There Ever Be Another You, begins, the protagonist is visiting Scotland with her family. That will be her last moment of relative normalcy, because in the very next chapter, she catches COVID, which changes her dramatically. She has a fever that won’t go away, and struggles to recognize faces, write, and read.