Updated with new questions at 3:45 p.m. ET on December 11, 2025.
You’ve been waiting to build that dream place of yours, there in the spot you picked out a few years back, between the pons and the frontal lobe. Maybe you want to crib some designs from your friend Steve’s place; it’s got space for the first 115 digits of pi and the names of all 266 popes.
The White House plans to make affordability a key selling point for Republicans across the board as the 2026 midterm elections come into focus.
Palestinians were battered with rain and freezing temperatures overnight as winter storm Byron hit the Gaza Strip. Soaked tents and makeshift shelters flooded, causing some mattresses to float and improvised roofs to blow away. An 8-month-old baby girl, Rahaf Abu Jazar, died from hypothermia. Moureen Kaki, an aid worker living in Gaza, says conditions at hospitals have not improved since the announcement of the so-called ceasefire. “It is not really a ceasefire,” she says.
The acclaimed academic and writer Mahmood Mamdani speaks with Democracy Now! about the rise of his son, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. The professor cites Zohran’s “refusal to budge, to soften his critique of the state of Israel” as a critical aspect of his rise to power. “His refusal to change his stance told the electorate that this was a man of principle, that affordability was not just merely rhetoric, that he could be taken seriously at his word,” Mahmood says.
We speak with the acclaimed academic and writer Mahmood Mamdani, who has just released a new book, Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State. Mamdani, who has taught at Columbia for decades, was raised in Uganda and first came to the United States in the 1960s to study. He and his family were later expelled from Uganda during Idi Amin’s dictatorship. The book “is about the reversal of the anti-colonial movement” in Uganda, says Mamdani.
U.S. troops seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday, a major escalation that the Venezuelan government called “international piracy.” We speak with New York University professor Alejandro Velasco about the Trump administration’s intentions in the country, which has the world’s largest known oil reserves.
State health care exchanges say they have few problems with fraud. Instead of killing the subsidies, policy experts suggest fixing the federal exchanges instead.
In a last-minute plea, insurers are urging Republicans to crack down on fraud in their industry.
The Senate will vote Thursday on a key Republican health care plan, but its fate is uncertain, and Trump still hasn’t endorsed any specific proposals.
Tim Wu joins Elizabeth Spiers to discuss his book on how our economy ended up under the collective thumb of Big Tech.
Even though that might mean you-know-who buys the studio instead.
Heather Haddon joins Emily Peck to discuss the current challenges and trends she’s reported on in the fast food industry.
The top Republican on health care also said he wants a vote this week on a GOP alternative to a Democratic bill to extend expiring subsidies.
Democrats and health advocates described the strategy as highly unusual, and some fear it could be wielded to favor political allies.
Obamacare premiums will rise on Jan. 1 unless Congress acts.
The president weighed in after the health secretary’s vaccine advisers recommended a major change to the shots routinely given to children.
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.
A celebrity contracts HIV, the world finally pays attention to AIDS, and Jim Mitulski preaches to a community tired of people dying from it.
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.
An online bazaar of freelance headhunters finds new recruits to fight Ukraine, emboldening Vladimir Putin at the negotiating table and scaring European leaders about what his growing army might do next.
Economic adviser Kevin Hassett dismissed economic bedwetters, saying strong spending bodes well for the economy.
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.
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The president isn’t picking sides in the battle to own Warner Bros. Discovery—at least not yet. On Friday, the company announced that Netflix would acquire it for $83 billion.
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On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the absurd Peace Prize awarded to Donald Trump by FIFA. David discusses how the invented prize reflects what FIFA understands about our president—that he’s the kind of leader who can be won over with shiny trinkets and fancy ceremonies.
Updated with new questions at 3:50 p.m. ET on December 10, 2025.
You’ve been waiting to build that dream place of yours, there in the spot you picked out a few years back, between the pons and the frontal lobe. Maybe you want to crib some designs from your friend Steve’s place; it’s got space for the first 115 digits of pi and the names of all 266 popes.
Around the 1920s, a certain class of parents—those with enough money to indulge their kids from time to time—started to panic. Toy companies and trinket manufacturers were buffeting kids with ads, and children were pestering their parents for gifts. Many parents wanted their kids to have these new luxuries, but they also wanted them to understand that money had limits.
