Author: rpnadmin

The U.S. Capitol is seen during a procedural vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July in Washington, DC. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images More than a tenth of the current Congress has now indicated they will not return to their seats after the 2026 midterms, driven by redistricting, retirements and lawmakers running for different offices. According to NPR’s Congressional retirement tracker, as of Dec. 17, 2025, there are 54 current representatives and Senators who are retiring or running for a different office — 10 senators and 44 House members. They include the…

Books & the Arts / December 17, 2025 How can unions adapt to a new landscape of work? Ad Policy Seattle, Washington, 2022.(Jason Redmond / Getty) This article appears in the January 2026 issue. If you’re looking for a bright spot in today’s political and social gloom, the union idea seems to be it. Organized labor has rarely been more popular: Gallup reports that 68 percent of Americans “approve” of labor unions, while another poll found that almost 90 percent of people under the age of 30 view unions favorably. Just two years ago, the power of these statistics was…

President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Washington. Alex Brandon/AP hide caption toggle caption Alex Brandon/AP WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced Tuesday it was expanding travel restrictions to an additional 20 countries and the Palestinian Authority, doubling the number of nations affected by sweeping limits announced earlier this year on who can travel and emigrate to the U.S. The Trump administration included five more countries as well as people traveling on documents issued by the Palestinian Authority to the list of countries…

Activism / December 16, 2025 The late actor and director leaves behind a roster of classic films—and a much safer and juster California. Ad Policy Rob Reiner backstage at the Late Night With Seth Meyers show this September.(Lloyd Bishop / NBC via Getty Images) The horrific news from Los Angeles Sunday night, that filmmaker and actor Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Reiner, 70, were found murdered in their Brentwood home and that their own son, Nick, stood charged with their deaths capped a weekend of violent news. A shooter at Brown University killed two and wounded nine. The…

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles looks on during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump and members of Trump’s Cabinet at the White House on Oct. 17, in Washington. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Andrew Harnik/Getty Images A new Vanity Fair profile by author Chris Whipple cracks open the private world of a White House Chief of Staff who rarely speaks and, when she does, doesn’t hedge. Speaking with All Things Considered, Whipple said the piece is based on 11 in-depth, on-the-record interviews over the past year, with an extraordinary level of access…

Politics / December 16, 2025 Every day, Trump is saying and doing things that would get most elementary school children suspended. Ad Policy (ABC News) First off, let me say that today, I mourn. I mourn for the death of Rob and Michele Reiner, for the unfathomable tragedy of a mentally troubled young man killing both of his parents in cold blood. I mourn because in ways both big and small, Rob Reiner made the world a better place. I mourn because there are few people on earth whose work made me belly laugh even when I was feeling down—and…

A model of the statue of Barbara Rose Johns pictured in 2023, two years before the real thing was unveiled at the U.S. Capitol. Amy Davis/The Baltimore Sun/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters hide caption toggle caption Amy Davis/The Baltimore Sun/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters In 1951, a Black teenager led a walkout of her segregated Virginia high school. On Tuesday, her statue replaced that of a Confederate general in the U.S. Capitol. Barbara Rose Johns was 16 when she mobilized hundreds of students to walk out of Farmville’s Robert Russa Moton High School to protest its overcrowded conditions and inferior…

Activism / December 16, 2025 It should guide the Democrats. Ad Policy The COL4 AI-ready data center, located on a seven-acre campus in Columbus, Ohio on July 24, 2025. (Eli Hiller / Getty Images) It was a warm, late summer night, September 11, and hundreds of residents had packed the spacious chambers of City Hall in College Station, Texas, to collectively protest what has become a common occurrence in America: the corporate strip-mining of our resources, our communities, and our future.  Less than a week earlier, the city announced that it was considering selling 200 acres of city-owned land on…

An aerial view of the Warner Bros. logo displayed on the water tower at Warner Bros. Studio on Dec. 5, 2025 in Burbank, Calif. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Mario Tama/Getty Images Netflix and Paramount are in One Big Battle After Another to buy the storied Hollywood studio Warner Bros. (Yes, One Battle After Another is a Warner Bros. movie). This isn’t the first time Warner Bros. has been at the center of headline-grabbing merger or acquisition. Actually, Warner Bros. has a long history of messy corporate marriages and divorces. It could be a cautionary tale about the…

Feature / December 16, 2025 And how the rest of the country can too. Illustration by Adrià Fruitós. This article appears in the January 2026 issue, with the headline “How LA Defeated Trump.” This article is part of a special Nation package devoted to LA’s bold stand against the Trump administration’s assaults on the city. Donald Trump hates Los Angeles—and for good reason. Los Angeles is a deep-blue city that regularly backs Democrats at every level of government. It is a strong union town in a nation where the labor movement is treading water. It is majority Black and brown, with whites representing…