State Department will dispense $600M for vaccines RFK Jr. held up, Collins says
The health secretary had blocked the funding, accusing the group to which Congress had directed it of using outdated and dangerous vaccines.
Today's Liberal News
Berlin’s Queer Commissioner on Fatal Car Ramming Attack on LGBTQ+ Pride Celebration
A man drove a minivan into a crowd of people near Berlin’s Pride celebrations on Saturday, killing one person and injuring 29 others. Authorities shot and killed the man during an operation on Sunday. The alleged suspect was identified as Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German citizen. According to authorities, Ballout tried to join the Islamic State in 2025 and was released from prison in May after being jailed for preparing an attack.
Meet Beto Coral, Activist Targeted by ICE for Criticism of Trump-Backed Colombian President-Elect
A prominent Colombian activist left the United States after he was arrested by immigration agents and detained for over a month in an ICE jail. Franklin Humberto Coral Garrido, known as Beto Coral, was a frequent online critic of far-right President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella, a Trump ally, in the run-up to Colombia’s election.
In a memo obtained by The New York Times in June, U.S.
A New McCarthyism? House GOP Subpoenas BreakThrough News in Escalating War on Progressive Groups
The Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed BreakThrough News last week, demanding the independent online news outlet hand over internal communications and financial records. BreakThrough News says it’s being targeted over its coverage of U.S. mass deportations, ICE abuses, Cuba and Palestine solidarity and U.S. foreign policy.
“We Can’t Be Intimidated”: CodePink Slams Rubio-Led Campaign Against Cuba Solidarity Groups
As the Trump administration threatens to intensify its “global campaign to crush radical left terrorism,” we look at a new 100-page report issued by the State Department last week accusing the Cuban government of waging a “sustained campaign of subversion against the United States.” The report claims Cuba has backed a number of groups in the United States, including the National Lawyers Guild, Pastors for Peace, the National Network on Cuba and the feminist antiwar organization CodePink.
A cancer diagnosis may not be enough: Trump and Democratic states clash in court over who’s too sick to work
Medicaid eligibility will soon hinge on how the government defines “medical frailty.
The “Explosive” News Story That We All Couldn’t Stop Talking About.
Cyclosporiasis’ rebranding as “explosive diarrhea” has brought our collective attention to food safety concerns and the MAGA-cultivated Taylor Farms.
Money Talks: Your Plastic Guilt Is by Design
Beth Gardiner explains how we ended up holding the (plastic) bag for Big Oil’s wastefulness.
A.I. Is Growing. So Is Your Electricity Bill.
The rush to build more data centers is driving up electricity costs.
The Hottest Lunch Trend in America Just Ran Into a Very Unpleasant Problem
From Chipotle to Chopt, the cyclosporiasis outbreak is causing an implosion of sales—and an explosion of problems elsewhere.
Evernote Forever
It looks like Bending Spoons’ bet on nostalgia brands like AOL, Vimeo, and Evernote is playing off after its big IPO this week.
Your health care bill is incomprehensible. Congress is stepping in.
Bipartisan lawmakers are advancing bills that would require hospitals and insurers to disclose their prices.
Activists ‘throwing everything’ they can against abortion turn to wastewater data
Anti-abortion activists are hoping to get the attention of an administration that has embraced theories shunned by mainstream science about Tylenol, peptides and vaccines.
RFK Jr. promised to stop the ‘aggressive suppression’ of these controversial drugs. He’s making progress.
A panel of FDA advisers voted this week to broaden access to peptides.
CMS suspends more than $1 billion in Medicaid dollars to Minnesota and California over suspected fraud
The deferrals are part of a nationwide crackdown on health fraud in government programs.
Red states reject Trump’s shift on overdose prevention
With drug deaths plummeting, state officials are wary of halting harm reduction initiatives.
When Church Was a Queer Space
Outward’s hosts sit down with the host and co-creator of When We All Get to Heaven.
Remembering, with the People of MCC San Francisco, AIDS Still Isn’t Over.
The neighborhood changes, the church moves, people forget and remember “the AIDS years,” but AIDS isn’t over.
What Happens When You Organize Church Around AIDS – and AIDS Changes?
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 Pastor Gets Diagnosed with AIDS. And the Church Wonders How Much They Might Lose.
The church’s minister gets sick and everyone knows it.
A Church Romance Between a Hula Dancer and a Lumbersexual Blossoms in a Dangerous Time.
The church’s “it couple” faces AIDS, caregiving, and loss as part of a pair, part of families, and part of a community.
“Farmers of the Sea”: PBS Film Profiles Puerto Rican Fishermen on the “Frontlines of Climate Change”
Filmmaker Juan Carlos Dávila’s new film for PBS, Farmers of the Sea, documents climate change’s threats to the fishing industry and food security in Vieques, Puerto Rico. For islands in the Caribbean, explains Dávila, “we are situated geographically in one of the frontlines of climate change. [We’re] not only facing stronger hurricanes now, [but] we could face food shortages, especially the islands that depend so much on the food that comes from the sea.
Is This What Comes After AI Slop?
Most self-published authors can only dream of writing something as popular as Daggermouth. Set in a surveillance state ruled by a masked elite, the novel traces the unlikely romance between the president’s son and an assassin hired to kill him. Since H. M. Wolfe uploaded Daggermouth to Amazon as a Kindle ebook, it has been a viral hit. “Did I finish Daggermouth, or did Daggermouth finish me?” a TikTok book influencer gushed.
The War That Shall Not Be Named
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Last week, the Pentagon quietly lowered the death toll of the war with Iran from 18 to 14. This wasn’t happy news about an initial miscount but a sketchy accounting trick.
A Battle for the Future of the Democratic Party
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In primary elections, politicians run to win over their party faithful, which is often a different demographic than those they need to appeal to in the general election. So strategists, consultants, and party leaders spend a lot of money trying to figure out what voters want—yes, what sort of policy they want on the economy or health care or education, but also what kind of person they want.
Photos: Wildfires Rage Across France and Spain
Maximilien Lamy / AFP / Getty
Beachgoers rest on the beach of Moutchic on the shore of Lake Lacanau in Lacanau, southwestern France, on July 24, 2026, as clouds of smoke rise into the sky from the Gironde wildfire.Ana Beltran / Reuters
A tree burns during the La Mierla wildfire in Albendiego, Guadalajara, Spain, on July 21, 2026.
An Odyssey for Our Own Time
“A war. A man. A trick. A trick to break the walls of Troy. And burn it—screaming—to the ground.” Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opens in the great hall of Ithaca, with a bard singing a hymn about the cunning of Odysseus, the hero of the tale, to the men who have overrun his house—courting his wife, menacing his son—while he is absent. A feast has been turned into a desecration.
The law these men broke was the most sacred in the ancient world: “xenia,” the law of hospitality.
Israeli Army & Settlers Are Working Together to “Ethnically Cleanse” West Bank: Mariam Barghouti
Israeli settlers torched two mosques over the weekend in a new wave of violence targeting Palestinian towns and villages across the occupied West Bank. Meanwhile, Israeli military forces on Saturday detained over 70 Palestinians in raids across the occupied territory. This follows the killing of at least four Palestinians in the village of Tal on Friday, when Israeli settlers and soldiers opened fire on residents attempting to protect their homes; two Israelis were also killed.
“Iraq 2.0”?: Rep. Jim McGovern on Iran War, New Red Scare, Israeli War Crimes & Dem Party Divide
We speak with Democratic Congressmember Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, a longtime critic of U.S. foreign policy, in a wide-ranging conversation about Iran, Cuba, ending military funding for Israel and more. Last week, McGovern joined the entire Democratic caucus and four Republicans to pass a resolution calling on President Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran.
“It’s just like Iraq,” says McGovern. “We’re getting involved in a quagmire here, an endless war.
“Frontlines of a Burning World”: Climate Change-Fueled “Megafires” Sweep Europe & North America
France and Spain are battling catastrophic wildfires that have forced more than 350,000 people to evacuate their homes. The fires began in the southwest of France on Wednesday before spreading to Spain, where they have consumed more than 120,000 acres in what is now the most destructive fire in Spain’s recent history. Meanwhile, a new heat wave is expected to hit Europe this week, with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).