Progressive search for action

18+ min ago (1067+ words) The affordability crisis is a growth crisis. I live in New York City, which fashions itself as many things: the financial capital of the world, the media capital of the world, and obviously, the bagel capital of the world. But I like to think of it as something else as well: the zero-sum capital of the world. Or at least, the US. A weekly dose of stories chronicling progress around the world. The essential fact of life here is that more people want to live in New York than there are homes that we allow to exist. New Yorkers talk about the competition for apartments " or for slots in decent schools or tables at decent restaurants or virtually anything save tickets to your friend's improv show " as if it is a Hobbesian war of all against all. It's not just…...

25+ min ago (416+ words) President Donald Trump made a telling slip and then went with it when he renamed the FIFA World Cup draw after the newly-created "Peace Prize" he was awarded during the event. Trump was on hand at The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts on Friday for the FIFA Draw, the purpose of which is to determine the groups of teams for the World Cup tournament. But during the event, FIFA President Gianni Infantino presented Trump with a brand-new honor: the "inaugural 2025 FIFA Peace Prize." The president'has relentlessly lobbied'for a Nobel Peace Prize while also disdaining it. FIFA's prize was introduced with a video that described Trump as "a dynamic leader who has engaged in diplomatic efforts that created opportunities for dialogue, de-escalation and stability, and who has championed the unifying power of football on the world stage." It…...

26+ min ago (228+ words) Donald Trump started off his Saturday morning by flipping out on the hosts and producers of Fox and Friends for booking a guest who pushed back at the president's insistence that he has turned the economy around. The president, who stayed in snowy Washington, DC, this weekend, took to his Truth Social account to complain about the appearance of Peter Schiff, a financial commentator and radio personality who has been raising alarms about America's affordability crisis. That led Trump, who has been calling the concept of affordability a "con job" by Democrats, to snarl about letting Schiff make his case. "Why would Fox and Friends Weekend (of all things?) put on a "Stockbroker' named Peter Schiff, a Trump hating loser who has already proven to be wrong. Either the show made a mistake, or it is heading in a different…...

48+ min ago (385+ words) Donald Trump is facing increasing sniping from members of his own party that he is ignoring the mood of the country when it comes to the economy and voters turn on him. According to a report from the Washington Post's Naftali Bendavid, the president is now faced with a "new reality" that he can no longer convince even some of his most ardent supporters that his words are turning into deeds as prices rise and he ridicules the idea of "affordability." The report notes that long-time Republican Party stalwart Newt Gingrich has been increasingly raising the alarm that the GOP is being trapped by Trump's inaction. As the former House Speaker from Georgia explained, "Any Republican who refuses to admit we have an affordability problem is not listening to the American people. It's real because the American people think it's…...

48+ min ago (1029+ words) Every DoorDash driver has a story of that one crazy delivery. A driver in Oklahoma may have just topped them all. Either way, she's got quite a story to tell. Earlier this week, TikTok creator Rachael (@subtly_420) picked up a DoorDash order that left her stunned. It was a live Christmas tree. En route to her destination, Rachael filmed a short video from her car. In it, you can see a full-sized Christmas tree in the backseat. "You guys somebody really [expletive] DoorDashed their Christmas tree. It's going to smell like [expletive] spruce in here for months," she says. In just a few days, Rachael's post has accrued over 653,000 views and inspired more than 1,300 comments. The viral video has some people laughing and others, unfortunately for DoorDashers everywhere, inspired. In the caption, Rachael adds, "Absolutely diabolical. But hey he tipped me…...

48+ min ago (1296+ words) Is Hamnet great art or grief porn? It's complicated. There is something about the sheer force of emotion Hamnet evokes, in its theaters full of weeping audiences, that seems to make critics as suspicious as they are moved. "Hamnet' Feels Elemental," went the headline of Justin Chang's New Yorker review, "But Is It Just Highly Effective Grief Porn?" In the review itself, Chang confessed he watched the movie with eyes "blurred by tears, brought on with such diluvial force as to both quench my skepticism and reawaken it." As the Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt lays out, Shakespeare simply trashed that straightforward plot. Shakespeare's Hamlet has no good reason to pose as a madman. His motives are opaque, apparently as much to himself as they are to us. It's that very mystery that makes Hamlet such a profoundly complex figure. By…...

58+ min ago (535+ words) Eric Trump, left, Donald Trump Jr., right, and their World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff, behind Don Jr., at the Nasdaq Market in New York in August to celebrate the closing of a deal under which blockchain company Alt5 Sigma raised hundreds of millions of dollars to buy World Liberty Financial tokens, yielding a windfall for the Trump family. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz The Trump administration acts less like a presidential administration and more like a royal family in medieval Europe " a kind of American "neoroyalism," Joshua Keating tells Vox. "Signs of neoroyalism [include] the degree to which the administration mixes private enterprise and diplomacy," said Keating. It's also clear in Trump's habit of handling negotiations through family members and old business partners rather than the traditional bureaucracy. Other countries take advantage of this, like Russian representatives getting cushy deals by bypassing…...

1+ hour, 14+ min ago (215+ words) The amount of times I've heard "I'm good, just tired" during small talk exchanges is both countless and overwhelming. I don't blame anyone for this response, as the amount of times I've used it is also countless and overwhelming. I've divided gift options into the three major categories I think of when shopping for someone who's chronically burnt out. In general, I've noticed great energy-restorative gifts are typically food- or drink-related, wellness based, or some sort of lifehack gadget that genuinely makes everyday tasks easier. 1. Spill-proof Portable Blender($50) 2. Vegetable Chopper($12) 3. Tile Mate($48) 4. WaterH Boost Smart Water Bottle($55) 5. Programmable Coffee Maker($69) As the tired friend who would love any of these gifts, I invite you to share any other great gifts you've given or received that have helped with being constantly burnt out. We could also use a little restoration right…...

1+ hour, 18+ min ago (1800+ words) This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the'Climate Desk'collaboration.For a moment, Jacob Hannah saw an unprecedented opportunity to make Appalachia great again. In 2022, the Biden administration earmarked billions of dollars to help revitalize and strengthen former coal communities. The objective was to lay down building blocks for the region to transition from extractive industries like coal and timber to a hub for solar and other advanced energy technologies, with a view to long-term economic, climate and social resilience. But on his first day in office,'Donald Trump'scrapped Biden's clean energy and environmental programs, which he lambasted as woke, anti-American, liberal hoaxes. Hannah, a fifth-generation Appalachian with a bushy beard and signature wide-brimmed hat, has been crisscrossing the country on a mission to raise philanthropic capital to limit the economic damage caused…...

1+ hour, 33+ min ago (416+ words) U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) looks on during an interview with Reuters, during his visit to Panama, in Panama City, Panama, August 28, 2025. REUTERS/Enea Lebrun "There was never that much distance between the Establishment and the extremists of the right, even in [William F.] Buckley's era; now they are even closer," reports Intelligencer Senior writer Sarah Jones. Now a simmering civil war within Heritage " and the conservative movement itself " has spilled out into public view, said Jones. Jones said the Roberts video arrived at a contentious moment for American conservatives. The post-Trump trajectory of the right "is not yet assured, and the movement is consumed by questions of succession, ideology, and strategy." "To many, like Roberts, the furthest-right fringe is more palatable than liberalism or the neoconservatism that preceded the Obama years. Only an alliance of the most radical tendencies on the…...