Salon

Plenty of people who saw the video of a 65-year-old grandfather being tossed in the air like a rag doll by a bison in Yellowstone National Park last weekend assumed that the man must have gotten close enough to the animal to piss it off. At Yellowstone, which has the largest population of the majestic animals, bison attacks are rare relative to the number of park visitors overall.

On Monday Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ​posted a video on X, the government’s de facto policy platform, explaining that the Pentagon and the Justice Department created a newfangled joint task force to identify and prosecute press leaks. The “joint task force” model of all things law enforcement became increasingly popular in the wake of 9/11. Now, under Donald Trump’s administration, it appears press freedom is the new terrorism.

American voters desperately want relief from rising prices — especially the increasingly unaffordable cost of healthcare. Democrats have a plan for that. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently introduced the Break Up Big Medicine Act with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a bill that would split up the huge conglomerates that have made the current healthcare system so expensive and frustrating to navigate.

Caregivers in the U.S. are paid just under $26,000 a year on average for the most important work there is. And this June, we learned the government drew up a plan to mark many of them dead. Let’s back up: When someone who receives Social Security dies, the government owes nothing for the month of the death, even if she lived to its final day. Benefits run a month behind, so her last payment lands after she’s gone, and the bank is told to send it back.

The rich and famous who filed into the Kennedy Center’s opera house in December were there to enjoy one of the nation’s most exclusive celebrations of the performing arts: the center’s annual honors gala. The black-tie event, hosted by President Donald Trump, prioritized tickets to people who donated more than $75,000 to the center. This year, it feted Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone, the legendary glam rock band Kiss and the Grammy Award-winning disco pioneer Gloria Gaynor.

An amendment seeking to nix over $3 billion in military aid to Israel failed in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, but the support it received is still likely to raise eyebrows. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined with over 100 Democrats who backed the proposal sponsored by GOP Rep. Thomas Massie. In a statement released ahead of the vote, Pelosi made it clear that she hadn’t completely split with Democratic Party leadership on the issue of the War in Gaza.

Due to a ban put in place by the Trump administration, transgender civilians are still barred from joining the U.S. military. However, that doesn’t mean that the military is entirely opposed to gender-affirming care for its soldiers. On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced new, annual testosterone check-ups for male service members over the age of 30. Hegseth shared that soldiers found to have low testosterone levels will be offered testosterone replacement therapy (TRT).

In Georgia Bernstein’s alluringly listless “Night Nurse,” something is afoot at a luxury retirement community. Residents have been receiving troubling calls from people pretending to be their grandchildren, swindling them out of thousands of dollars.

Despite his best efforts to govern like a tin-pot dictator, Donald Trump cannot control his own government. Now he is panicking. In the last week, his administration confirmed with its own actions that its problem with press leaks is not going away — no matter how many federal agents it sends to reporters’ front doors. To be clear, Trump is not fighting leaks so much as trying to criminalize causing embarrassment.

Throughout July, The Swell is celebrating the lasting cultural inspiration of animator Hayao Miyazaki and the legendary films he created with Studio Ghibli. As part of GKIDS’ annual Studio Ghibli Fest, which kicked off in June, you can enjoy theatrical re-releases of some of his most famous works. We don’t value peace enough. By “we” I mean Americans, connoisseurs of bareknuckle fight nights and gunplay and blowing things up, just to show the world we’re happy.