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This Is No Way to Gimme Shelter
Who's accountable for the results?

Americans today are justifiably angry about the price of rents and mortgages. Home prices have roughly tripled over the last 25 years, and the median home price is now $415,000.

China's top general under investigation in latest military purge
Be honest—this is ridiculous.

Analysts believe these purges aim to reform the military and ensure loyalty to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Another commission member, Liu Zhenli, is also under investigation.

Trump takes aim at Senate 'blue slip' tradition as GOP resists change
Who benefits from this decision?

President Donald Trump is waging war against a century-old tradition in the Senate that both Republicans and Democrats don’t want to touch.
Trump has ebbed and flowed in his disdain for the blue slip tradition in the upper chamber, taking out his frustrations on Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and other Republicans who have drawn a firm line in the sand for their support of the practice.
Much of his anger stemmed from the blue slip’s role in derailing a pair of his hand-picked U.S. attorney nominees — Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan — last year.
SENATE DEMOCRATS REBEL AGAINST THEIR OWN LEADERSHIP OVER DHS FUNDING PACKAGE, INCREASING SHUTDOWN ODDS
Trump sounded off on the practice late last year in the Oval Office, arguing that the GOP should "get rid of blue slips, because, as a Republican President, I am unable to put anybody in office having to do with US attorneys or having to do with judges."
But the practice, which has been around since World War I, is likely not going anywhere, given that it’s been a valuable tool for minority parties to block nominees.
The tradition allows for home state senators to weigh in on judicial nominees, giving them a say on who does and doesn’t move forward. Returning a blue slip is the equivalent of giving a thumbs up to the nominees moving forward, while keeping the slip effectively blocks the process.
While the tradition was used to block both Halligan and Habba, both of whom served as Trump’s attorneys while in between stints in the White House, Republicans have still been successful in confirming several of the president’s judicial picks.
REPUBLICANS NARROWLY REJECT EFFORTS TO HANDCUFF TRUMP'S WAR POWERS IN VENEZUELA
Grassley noted in a post on X that "nearly 1/5 of the 417 nominees who were confirmed this [year] went" through his committee.
"I’m ready to process even more in the new [year] just need materials from WH and DOJ so [committee] can continue contributing to Senate's historic nominations progress," he said.
While Senate Democrats tried to block as many of Trump’s nominees throughout last year, Republicans changed the rules to ram more through. That resulted in the upper chamber confirming 36 U.S. attorneys and 26 federal judges.
Four of those were from Democratic senators with blue slips in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota, where the Trump administration’s usage of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has faced legal challenges.
Both of Minnesota’s Democratic Sen…

Trump warns Canada of 100% tariffs if it becomes China's 'drop off port' with new potential trade deal
We're watching the same failure loop.

President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday that he would implement 100% tariffs on Canada if it strikes a deal to become a "drop off port" for China.
"If Governor Carney thinks he is going to make Canada a "drop off port" for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken. China will eat Canada alive, completely devour it, including the destruction of their businesses, social fabric, and general way of life," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the U.S.A.," the president added.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Why 3 Catholic cardinals released a statement critical of Trump's foreign policy
This deserves loud pushback.

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago tells NPR's Scott Simon why he and two other Catholic cardinals released a statement critical of the Trump administration's foreign policy.

The Left’s Search for a New Cause
Every delay has consequences.

Monday marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday honoring a man best remembered for urging Americans to judge one another by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. It is a legacy rooted in a specific historical struggle—one that culminated in the Civil Rights Act after years of fierce resistance, largely from Southern Democrats, to dismantling Jim Crow.

Since that era ended, the Democratic Party has repeatedly searched for what might come next: a successor to the civil rights movement that once defined its moral authority. Over the decades, a series of causes have been framed in those terms, often with strained comparisons to the racial discrimination of the mid-20th century.

First came a movement centered on gender, casting women as victims of a patriarchal system in a way likened to black Americans’ experience under segregation. The analogy never quite fit. Later, similar language was applied to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, with LGBTQ+ advocacy presented as the new front line of civil rights.

Now, Democrats appear to have settled on a new cause: illegal immigration.

In this framing, enforcing immigration law is portrayed not merely as a policy disagreement but as an expression of white supremacy itself. Illegal immigrants, the argument goes, must be allowed to remain in the country, and any attempt at enforcement is morally suspect.

This is a stretch—one that suggests demand for examples of systemic American racism has outpaced the available supply.

Consider a recent example. On Monday, former Attorney General Eric Holder warned that the Voting Rights Act faces an abiding threat, claiming that the Trump administration is pursuing “unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering attempts” and engaging in a “concerted effort to resegregate America.”

Such rhetoric dramatically overshoots reality. There is no serious movement in the United States to reinstate segregated schools, water fountains, restaurants, or public accommodations. No credible constituency is calling for a return to Jim Crow, and no sentient observer believes America is on the verge of enforced racial separation.

In fact, the post-Jim Crow story of race in America was, for decades, one of steadily improving relations. Polling data show that until around 2013, large majorities of both black and white Americans believed race relations were getting better and had improved significantly since the 1960s.

That perception changed during the later Obama years and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, which coincided with a sharp decline in public optimism about race relations. But declining optimism is not the same as renewed racial oppression, nor does it suggest that white supremacy now rules the roost.

Yet the search c…

You See Your Crush. You Lock Eyes. You Hold Your Gaze. Then You Do the Most 2026 Thing Possible.
The headline tells the story.

Relationships

A Feast for the Eyes

A buzzy new word encapsulates a previously undefined, yet nearly universal crush.

By

David Mack

Jan 24, 202610:00 AM

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The English language is a marvelous thing. In just the past few years, we’ve been treated to the invention of words or terms that have captured new technologies or given voice to how it feels to be alive in 2026: rage bait, rizz, slop, hard pants, nepo baby, brain rot. But occasionally, new phrases arise that describe something much older—perhaps even ancient—to which no one has given a name. That’s the feeling I experienced late last year when I first encountered a word that I instantly knew no one in my bloodline had ever seen, but which they might all understand: eye-contactship. Idiotic? Certainly. Instantly relatable? Absolutely.

For me, the word first appeared in a tweet I read on Dec. 27 from Jimmy Ryan, a 23-year-old senior studying advertising at Temple University in Philadelphia. For about six months starting last summer, Ryan had been enjoying a casual but silent flirtation with a cute guy at his gym, wherein they would routinely lock eyes for a few seconds and exchange a knowing smile. Ryan enjoyed playing the long game and liked the feeling of tension building up. But one day in November, this man turned up for his workout with another man, and it soon became evident from their constant kissing between sets that they were an item. “That stung a bit,” Ryan told me. “I love seeing queer romance in public, but not with the man I wanted! So now it’s like, Shit, that’s cut off. Now he’s my ex-eye-contactship.”

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Ryan’s tweet, featuring a sad clip of Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw looking forlorn and set to “Headphones On” by Addison Rae, blew up almost instantly and has since been seen by about 12 million people. Many were taken by his use of “eye-contactship,” expressing some version of “I hope language never stops evolving” or “Twitter is full of poets.” Pleased to have finally encountered a word to describe such a situation, others vowed to immediately add it to their lexicon. Don’t believe them? Consider, then, how “situationship” (i.e., a romantic relationship between two people who are more than friends, but not yet an official couple) went from a piece of slang to a word that is now so widely used, especiall…

Heavy snow and rainfall kill 61, injure 110 over 3 days in Afghanistan
This deserves loud pushback.

Dozens were killed and hundreds homes destroyed, according to the country's disaster management authority, in storms impacting 15 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

Millions go without power as Russia launches barrage at Ukraine during peace talks
How is this acceptable?

Russia launched 375 drones and 21 missiles on Saturday against Ukraine, causing millions to lose power in the middle of winter, the embattled country said. The attack occurred on the second day of Ukrainian, Russian, and American diplomats meeting in Abu Dhabi for trilateral peace talks.

“Peace efforts? Trilateral meeting in the UAE? Diplomacy? For Ukrainians, this was another night of Russian terror,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X. “Cynically, Putin ordered a brutal massive missile strike against Ukraine right while delegations are meeting in Abu Dhabi to advance the America-led peace process. His missiles hit not only our people, but also the negotiation table.”

The strike’s targets included Kyiv and Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city after the capital. Ukraine says that the main targets of the attack were civilian electrical infrastructure and residential areas.

A MASSIVE WINTER STORM IS SET TO FREEZE DC: WHAT TO KNOW

The peace talks in Abu Dhabi are based on a joint 20-point peace plan crafted by the United States and Ukraine. Discussions could focus on territorial control in the Donbas, the eastern region of Ukraine where much of the war’s fighting has occurred, a central concern for both sides.

“The central focus of the discussions was the possible parameters for ending the war,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X. “I highly value the understanding of the need for American monitoring and oversight of the process of ending the war and ensuring genuine security.”

Our delegation delivered a report; the meetings in the UAE have concluded. And this was the first format of this kind in quite some time: two days of trilateral meetings. A lot was discussed, and it is important that the conversations were constructive.The negotiations also…
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 24, 2026

Present at the meeting are Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who flew to Abu Dhabi from Moscow after conducting negotiations with the Kremlin. Ukraine is sending its top diplomatic team, including Zelensky’s new chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov.

The Ukrainian president heavily criticized European countries at Davos on Friday, citing their inability to take Russia’s threat to continental security seriously and build up their armed forces.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivers a speech at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP…

REPORT: 'Border Patrol Involved' Shooting in Minneapolis
Every delay has consequences.

Multiple reports have come in showing what appeared to be federal officers shooting a suspect in Minneapolis, a city already at the heart of increased tensions between the immigration enforcement and local protestors.