For the first time since the global observance began, the U.S. government did not commemorate World AIDS Day on Monday.

World AIDS Day, first marked in 1988, has long served as an annual reminder of the ongoing effort to end an epidemic that has killed more than 44.1 million people worldwide and continues to disproportionately impact LGBTQ people, communities of color, and those in the American South. Yet the Trump-Vance administration declined to acknowledge the day this year, severing a symbolic but consistent tradition upheld by every president since Ronald Reagan.

The move comes despite the scale of the epidemic today. Approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. are living with HIV, according to federal estimates, and about 13 percent — 158,249 people — do not know their status. Glo

See Full Page