Today's Liberal News

Indigenous Peoples’ Day: Leonard Peltier on Resistance, New Film & Fighting for Freedom

On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we feature a conversation with one of the world’s most prominent champions for Indigenous rights, Leonard Peltier. “Indigenous Day is a day that’s been long overdue for any type of recognition,” says Peltier. “I am not going to give up, because we are not free yet. We are in danger. Trump and these organizations, they’re talking about doing away with our reservations and our treaties and everything else. … We’re going to stay here.

Protesters Say India’s Democracy Is “Rotten” as Modi Gov’t Purges Voter Rolls, Arrests Thousands

Tens of thousands of people in India have taken to the streets in recent days to protest the deletion of 130 million names from the voter rolls, a large majority of which are believed to be opposed to Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP party. The demonstrations, joined by leaders from India’s opposition parties, are being led by students and the youth-led “Cockroach” movement.

Hi, I’m Your New Press Secretary, and It’s My First Time Reading Words Out Loud

I’m your new press secretary, Katie Zacharia! You may know me from my appearances on Fox News; I am pretty sure that is how the president knows me. That is how he identifies all possible candidates for jobs: turning on the TV and pointing. My successor will be a Kalshi commercial.
I also might be a lawyer! Where did I pass the bar, you ask? After I moved to China. No further questions! (See, I am getting into the press-secretary spirit already.

A Novel That Turns the Tables on AI

What’s the point of playing? Games don’t provide an organism with food, water, or shelter. They distract from the pursuit of survival and reproduction. And yet play is found across the animal kingdom; the act separates creative, joyful, living creatures from “merely mechanical things,” as the Dutch historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga once put it.

Trump’s Affection for Russia Is No Mystery

A large majority of the Republican Party, including many officials who initially viewed Donald Trump with deep skepticism, decided early in Trump’s first term that the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election were the hysterical product of Trump Derangement Syndrome in the Deep State and the media. There was no mystery to solve, no scandal to uncover, in Trump’s affinity for Vladimir Putin. And yet this strange alliance continues to bedevil American foreign policy.

Photos: Fall Is in the Air

Stan Grossfeld / The Boston Globe / Getty
A bull moose emerges from the deep woods somewhere in northern Maine, on September 26, 2026.VCG / Getty
Trees display autumn colors in Huanggangliang, in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on September 18, 2026.Ellen Schmidt / AP
Laura Fairchild paddles a giant pumpkin to the finish line in the Pumpkin Regatta, part of the annual Harvest Fest in Stillwater, Minnesota, on October 11, 2026.

Trump’s Dubious Claim About the Ilhan Omar Search

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Donald Trump is the quantum president: simultaneously all-powerful and also a wee, innocent figurehead, blithely unaware of what his aides are doing.

“Musk”: Alex Gibney on New Film, Legal Threats & Elon Musk Spending $366M to Help GOP in Midterms

We speak with the Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney about his new documentary Musk, an expansive, nearly four-hour examination of the world’s first trillionaire and how he has amassed unprecedented power in business, technology and politics. The film traces Elon Musk’s early ventures and the rise of SpaceX and Tesla, examining the role of government support in their growth.