Donald Trump cares deeply about the Justice Department, and he appears to care about exactly one thing: an attorney general who will do whatever he says, specifically in the realm of trying to lock up as many of his political enemies as possible.
William Barr, a former attorney general under Trump and an esteemed legal mind within the conservative movement, also cares deeply about the Justice Department, but for different reasons.
If you wanted to make an argument that we are all living in some cruel simulation, a key piece of evidence might be that the news keeps providing us with absurd, occasionally quite alarming metaphors for what it’s like to exist in 2026. To wit: The London School of Economics recently canceled an event on extreme heat because of an extreme-heat warning issued by the United Kingdom’s Met Office.
In stifling apartments and sweaty row houses in England, Germany, and even Scandinavia, some Europeans are considering a very American idea: They really need an air conditioner.
One of their most accessible options, though, might feel unfamiliar to anyone accustomed to central air. Among Europe’s commonly used types of air conditioning is a clunky, inefficient unit that stands a few feet high and has a wide exhaust tube meant to go out a window.
The six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court have made one thing clear: People may have rights, but in many cases they have no way to enforce them. Four decisions released this week have that paradox at their core.
Two of them, both issued Tuesday, held that the plaintiffs lacked “causes of action”—the legal authorization to sue to vindicate their federal rights. In Cisco v.
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 to restrict thousands of lawsuits claiming Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto, had a duty to warn consumers about potential cancer risks from its popular weed killer Roundup. The case before the Supreme Court began in St. Louis, Missouri, where a resident named John Durnell, who had used Roundup for decades and was later diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, sued Monsanto under Missouri state law for not putting a warning label on its product.
Thousands of Haitians and Syrians living in the United States are newly at risk of deportation after the Supreme Court ruled to allow the Trump administration to strip them of “temporary protected status,” or TPS. The program, designed for foreign citizens of countries the U.S. government believes are too unstable or dangerous to be returned to, often due to natural disasters or war, has been a major target of attack by the Trump administration and its anti-immigrant agenda.
The death toll from twin earthquakes that hit Venezuela Wednesday night is expected to reach into the thousands as rescuers continue to search for bodies trapped in the rubble. Hospitals are rapidly reaching a breaking point, and thousands of survivors have been left homeless. Reporter Andreína Chávez’s building was one of the countless residences in Venezuela’s capital Caracas and its surrounding region that were damaged by the massive quakes.
The Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration in a major blow to the rights of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The court ruled 6 to 3 along partisan lines to sanction so-called metering at the southern border, which allows immigration officers at ports of entry to block asylum seekers from setting foot on U.S. soil.
Fans spend thousands planning once-in-a-lifetime trips to see their favorite teams—only for those plans to be spoiled by ticket resellers.
Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown explain how the rulebook has changed.
Only Elon Musk and his memestock appeal could get serious investors to go along with a business plan that includes colonizing Mars…
Inflation is on the rise, but the Trump administration doesn’t seem concerned.
A bipartisan bill to implement a $35 cap on out-of-pocket insulin costs is gaining steam among Republicans, but big hurdles remain to get the legislation through Congress.
In at least two battleground states, voters will decide in the midterms whether to protect a right to the procedure.
The State Department said the country had failed to address the president’s concerns about treatment of its white citizens.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has a leading role in determining how gender-affirming care is provided.
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.
A new documentary explores a growing body of scientific research documenting the wide range of gender and sexual diversity found in the animal kingdom, from pregnant male seahorses to matriarchal monkey troops. Second Nature, directed by queer filmmaker Drew Denny, is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Elliot Page, who says he joined the project because “I was so moved by it and found it so affirming as a trans and queer person.
A desultory, grievance-filled speech on what should have been a joyous occasion. The last-minute cancellation of a rare bipartisan bill signing in favor of yet another push for doomed, unpopular legislation. A loud confrontation with members of his own party followed by sneering remarks about some of the nation’s oldest allies.
Chris Klomp, a 45-year-old tech entrepreneur, gained the president’s confidence when he negotiated price cuts with drug companies.
In September 1862, General George B. McClellan, the general in chief of the Union Army, had just repelled the Confederate advance under Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Antietam. But, as Lee’s battered army retreated across the Potomac River, McClellan failed to pursue him—leaving Lee’s army mostly intact. Abraham Lincoln relieved McClellan that November for his failure to be aggressive on the battlefield.
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Last July, a group of activists staged what they called a “noise demonstration” at ICE’s Prairieland Detention Facility, near Dallas. They shot off fireworks, damaged a surveillance camera, and vandalized government vehicles.
For one night, in the heart of deep-blue Washington, D.C., a fenced-off section of the National Mall became an oasis for members of the MAGA base. They had believed in President Trump from the beginning and carried him triumphantly back to power in 2024, and now they came to the grand opening of America’s 250th-birthday celebration in red-white-and-blue headbands, draped in flags, and sporting dangly blue AMERICA earrings.
So long, metaphor. We had a good run. Goodbye, “All the world’s a stage.” Farewell, “She’s a brick house.” See you later, the swamp (drained or undrained). Now we have a symbolic black hole in the middle of Washington, D.C., that is pulling all other symbols into its orbit and devouring them, one by one.
I am, of course, talking about the Reflecting Pool. That is what everyone is talking about, even and especially the president.
Democracy Now! speaks with science fiction author, activist and journalist Cory Doctorow about AI and his latest book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence — Before It’s Too Late.
Doctorow comments on AI’s “bad unit economics” and the connection between automation and labor.
A group of anti-ICE protesters in Texas were sentenced to 30 to 100 years in jail on Tuesday, after federal prosecutors accused them of being an “antifa terror cell.” The activists attended a protest outside the Prairieland ICE jail in Alvarado, Texas, on July 4 of last year, during which fireworks were set off and a police officer was shot and wounded. All nine defendants were found guilty after being tried before a federal judge in Texas.