Search focused on Liberal Politics

5+ min ago (444+ words) Ethiopian children eating food provided by foreign aid in Addis Ababa For decades, the United States has played a major role in reducing child mortality. The Trump administration's stance seems to be "well, what if we didn't?" The Gates Foundation issued a report Thursday that said about 200,000 more children worldwide under age five have died or will die this year compared with 2024. Last year saw 4.6 million children die before their age 5, but that is projected to increase to 4.8 million in 2025. This is the first time this century that annual child deaths have increased. Child deaths have declined sharply since 1990, when 11.6 million children under 5 died. Nations made a concerted effort to drive that rate down, and it's a genuine miracle that the number of deaths has been more than halved in just 35 years. Bill Gates called the Trump administration's cuts to…...

17+ min ago (390+ words) Background: The Citgo located at 701 Dickerson Pike in Nashville, Tennessee, and the area behind it, where the alleged kidnappings took place (Google Maps). Inset: Jericco McFarland (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department). A man in Nashville, Tennessee, allegedly held two victims at gunpoint and forced them into the trunk of a car behind a gas station so he could rob them. Police said one of the men was able to call 911 while in the trunk, helping lead to the capture of 41-year-old Jericco McFarland. The suspect was arrested on Tuesday and charged with two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of aggravated robbery, and being a felon in possession of a gun. On Nov. 16 at about 4:45 p.m., two men were outside the Citgo gas station at 701 Dickerson Pike in the city, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. At some point, the men…...

18+ min ago (840+ words) Federal judges in Alexandria, Virginia, have lashed out at the Justice Department as they continue to list Lindsey Halligan on court documents " some going as far as striking her name from paperwork from the bench," CNN reports. If you've ever worked on a campaign, you know how fast someone can dig up your phone number, old address, and half your family tree. Now imagine that same oppo research" power in the hands of scammers. One Redditor described a nightmare call: Someone contacted me, my ex, his girlfriend, my brother, my cousin, and my parents. He knew everyone's names " even where I work." That's not a lucky guess. That's a data trail. Every job you've held, every move you've made, every database you forgot existed " it's all archived and sold by data brokers and genealogy sites. And unless you actively wipe…...

21+ min ago (117+ words) Corbin Bolies is a media reporter at TheWrap, covering the business of journalism, its personalities, and its intersections with media, politics and tech. A University of Florida alum, he previously worked as a media reporter and a breaking news reporter at The Daily Beast. His work has also been published in the Associated Press and [] The lawsuit marks the second one the paper has filed against an AI company after its OpenAI suit in 2023 Perplexity did not respond to an immediate request for comment. The lawsuit marks the second one the paper has filed against an AI company after its OpenAI suit in 2023 Perplexity did not respond to an immediate request for comment....

23+ min ago (377+ words) A Republican senator has warned self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to stop releasing "snap statements" on the boat bombing controversy. Four people were killed in a US drug boat strike in the Caribbean, with Hegseth alleged to have ordered the killing of survivors after the first strike. Top Democrat and Republican representatives, according to The Guardian, ruled Hegseth had not ordered a military strike to kill surviving members of the boat, which is alleged to have been carrying drugs in the Caribbean. Republican representatives are now saying it is up to Donald Trump to decide on Hegseth's future with the administration, though some believe he has reached the end of the line. Speaking to The Hill, Senator Thom Tills has warned Hegseth to not "say anything" further on the boat strike as the controversy continues to swell over his…...

27+ min ago (261+ words) The streamer expects the deal to close in the next 12 to 18 months Netflix says it is "highly confident" that it will receive and "running full speed" toward regulatory approval for its acquisition of Warner Bros. streaming and studio assets. When asked if they are concerned about another bid coming in and having to raise their offer, Sarandos added: "We are running full speed towards regulatory approval. We're focused on getting the deal done. We're not going to speculate on what comes after that. We're full steam ahead." The deal, which is expected to close in the next 12 to 18 months, values Warner Bros. Discovery at $27.75 per share, implying a total equity value of approximately $72 billion and an enterprise value of approximately $82.7 billion. Under the terms of the deal, each WBD shareholder will receive $23.25 in cash and $4.50in shares of Netflix common stock…...

28+ min ago (990+ words) The revised policy "will immediately put people'in danger," one expert said. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has instructed inspectors to stop evaluating prison standards for stopping sexual violence against transgender, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people, NPR reported. A newly unveiled DOJ memo revises the standards of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in light of the president's January executive order denying any federal recognition of non-cisgender identities. During this revision, the memo says, PREA audits will no longer evaluate jail, prison, and detention center standards to protect LGBTQ+ and intersex people. As a result, auditors will no longer review whether trans inmates get housed according to their gender identity nor will they consider whether instances of sexual violence were motivated by victims' LGBTQ+ identities. The PREA audits are some of the only federal tools for ensuring that detention facilities follow laws…...

28+ min ago (1409+ words) We don't always want the big names. You want somebody who keeps you in the film and doesn't take you out. Actors included Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Regina Hill, Benicio del Toro and newcomer Chase Infiniti, who they found only after an eight-year search through "anyone who was remotely mixed-race, anyone who was fighting, dancing, doing gymnastics. I wasn't sure if she was gonna come from the real world or the acting world, so we cast a wide, wide net." On the set, though Kulukundis has learned not to hang out with this grandly disparate group of people she and Anderson cast. "You never really want to mess with anyone's process, so I try to stay out of the way," she said, and then reconsidered. "But, you know, when Benicio came around, it was fiesta time. I was like, "Now…...

30+ min ago (371+ words) The initiative is helping Gaza's children "glimpse a better reality', says Palestinian filmmaker Mustafa al-Nabih. Children in Gaza City, traumatised from more than two years of mass bombardment and displacement, the loss of family, friends and the destruction of their homes and schools in Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, are getting a brief reprieve through a local cinema initiative. Volunteers have set up a makeshift screen in one of the city's displacement camps to show films, offering children a rare space to have fun and experience moments of normalcy and solace despite the war and ongoing ceasefire violations by Israel. "We're here trying to present so many activities for children to live in a positive vibe," said Minass al-Jabour, the initiative's media coordinator. "So we are trying to make them skip the scenes, the hard scenes that they were living…...

32+ min ago (446+ words) In yet another seasonal blunder that's become almost as much a Hanukkah tradition as wondering how kids in olden days got excited about dreidels or "A Rugrats Chanukah," Vice President JD Vance's office sent out invitations to a Hanukkah celebration at the Veep's residence that treated the Jewish holiday as just one more part of Christmas. Twice! But don't worry, it wasn't a mistake; it was actually a conscious decision, OK? That makes it all better! Here's the invite, spotted by Jewish Insider reporter Gabby Deutch, who posted the image to social media Wednesday (Mediaite link). with "Hanukkah" at least getting the biggest typeface, but it's underneath a heading that's all about the Christian holiday: We initially thought a "Golden Noel" might be some kinky sex act defined only on Urban Dictionary, but then we shouted "Enhance!" and saw the…...