It’s day five and counting of a budget impasse in Washington, but critics say characterizing this moment as a government “shutdown” is misleading. For months, Donald Trump and his budget director Russell Vought have taken a sledgehammer to the federal bureaucracy and are now using this moment to gut agencies and programs that benefit working and middle-class Americans, while conveniently keeping in place everything that benefits the wealthy. 

Since returning to office, President Trump has sought to reshape Immigration and Customs Enforcement to fit his mass deportation agenda. ICE insists agents use a “minimal amount of force” when making arrests, but video footage shows otherwise. Now with Trump ordering federal deployments into Chicago against the wishes of local officials, Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes says, “This is not about safety or security. This is about sowing division. This is about control.”

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Senate Democrats told the secretary of state they have "grave concerns" about the U.S. role in financing GHF, the main group distributing aid in Gaza.

"Ozzy got to say goodbye, & he got to do it on HIS terms, with HIS band."

Pete Hegseth seems to be on a mission to erase women from the top ranks of the U.S. armed forces.

More than a hundred people died because of devastating flash floods in Texas earlier this month. It’s important to understand how floods happen, and what we can do to keep ourselves safe. Ali Velshi s...

Important new reporting from Puck’s Julia Ioffe reveals what America's bruised diplomats really think of their boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. With the Trump administration’s cuts hitting the State Department, employees at Foggy Bottom say Rubio has become “the disappearing Secretary of State” and “a mute accessory to Trump.” Ioffe discusses who is being promoted up the ranks, including one “MAGA toddler” now leading HR at State.

Former federal judge J. Michael Luttig joins Ali to discuss his powerful new piece, “The Self-Evident Truths of Freedom— and of Tyranny,” a reflection on the Declaration of Independence and its 27 “self-evident truths” about freedom and tyranny that apply today more than ever. Luttig warns that “almost every single right, privilege, and liberty,” Americans have cherished for almost 250 years is now “under attack,” and that power has dangerously “drifted away from the people to the government” itself. “The main problem and the main issue for America today is that we have no leader and we have no leadership,” he warns. “Our elected politicians…have followed like lemmings those who would walk this country off a cliff toward tyranny.

Critics debate whether the primary win of Zohran Mamdani is a referendum on the future of the Democratic party. One thing is certain – he clearly struck a nerve with voters, and it’s that Americans can barely afford to live in this country. Author and economics professor Andre Perry argues that nothing will be affordable if wages can’t keep pace with rising costs. He notes that New York City has “lost 75,000 middle income jobs” just in the last year. According to radio show host and NYT best-selling author, Thom Hartmann, the housing crisis has been driven in part by giant corporations buying up properties and driving up costs, stating when prices “you start to see homelessness explode in these communities.”

Max Brooks’ seminal zombie thriller, “World War Z”, is set in an alternate 21st century world after a zombie apocalypse -- a pandemic that began in a small Chinese village -- infected and subsequently killed millions. Told through a series of interviews, all conducted by a fictional version of Brooks, there is very intentionally no hero. Each interview subject is a survivor of the apocalypse, each with a different role to play. While “World War Z” grapples with human shortsightedness, the power of fear, the fragility of modern life, the necessity of humanity in the face of chaos, at its core, it is a book about survival.