Today's Liberal News

Longtime Trump enabler Paul Ryan was ‘sobbing’ during Capitol coup

A new book about the astonishing pusillanimity of the Republican Party reveals that former House speaker and vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan “found himself sobbing” during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. And that’s very sad for him—it really is. It’s also sad when dog owners leave their pooches in hot cars and kill them, which is kind of what the GOP as a whole has done with our country since Donald Trump slimed onto the scene in 2015.

The Case for Dating a Friend

Online dating is the most common way for couples to meet these days, but sometimes it feels like it’s set up to disappoint you. You swipe right and don’t match. You start a chat and the conversation fizzles. You go on a date and there’s no spark. You meet someone you actually like and never hear from them again.I have a suggestion: Try dating a friend instead.

New COVID Vaccines Will be Ready This Fall. America Won’t Be.

Not so long ago, America’s next COVID fall looked almost tidy. Sure, cases might rise as the weather chills and dries, and people flock indoors. But Pfizer and Moderna were already cooking up America’s very first retooled COVID vaccines, better matched to Omicron and its offshoots, and a new inoculation campaign was brewing.

Party Politics

You can scroll horizontally to read the full lines below.
I’m at a party where everybody has matching towels.
I’m lying. This is the setup of “Rock Lobster” by the B-52s.
Björk was right: poems can lie. Omission is a common artist’s lie.

What Are Abortion Code Words Even For?

“If you want to come ‘see my cows’ for the weekend, let me know,” Laurel Ysebaert, the owner of a small Ontario cattle ranch posted on TikTok in May, as the U.S. Supreme Court prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade. “I can give you a safe space while you recover from ‘seeing my cows.’”You get it.

Why We Remember Floods and Forget Droughts

When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area 10 years ago, I bought a pair of rain boots. I’ve worn them once. The region is currently in what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls a “severe drought.” During the past decade, California has experienced two periods of “exceptional drought,” the agency’s highest drought ranking.

The Shame of the Secret Service

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.When people say the Secret Service’s job is to protect the president, they usually mean it in a physical way—not a political one.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

Joe Manchin’s Fickleness Is a Needless Catastrophe

For its many flaws, the world of cryptocurrency has bequeathed to the English language a vivid new verb: rug-pulling. As its idiom-derived name suggests, rug-pulling is when a crypto developer hypes up a new coin or new project, gets ordinary people to invest in it, and then—all at once—shuts it down in such a way that they take all of their investors’ cash with them.

James Webb’s Role in Purge of LGBTQ+ NASA Workers Prompts Push to Name Telescope After Harriet Tubman

The release of the first images from NASA’s new flagship James Webb Space Telescope brought renewed attention to the controversy over naming the telescope after James Webb, who led NASA ahead of the Apollo moon landings in the 1960s. He also played a key role in purging LGBTQ+ people from NASA in what was known as the “lavender scare,” and before that at the State Department under President Truman.

A Look Back in Time: How NASA’s Webb Telescope Gives Humanity a Revolutionary New View of Cosmos

NASA released revolutionary new images of the cosmos this week that were taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space observatory to date. Launched in 2021, the JWST was designed to study star and planet formation with exponentially more accuracy and detail than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. “We can actually essentially watch the formation of stars,” says astrophysicist Katie Mack.

“Reinfection Wave”: Ed Yong on BA.5 Omicron Variant Spread Amid Mask Mandate Rollbacks, Funding Cuts

COVID-19 cases are rising as the BA.5 Omicron variant puts more people in the hospital amid high rates of reinfection, which is the focus of a new piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Yong in The Atlantic that is headlined “Is BA.5 the ‘Reinfection Wave’?” Yong warns the premature rollback of protective policies, like mask mandates and public health funding, has left people more vulnerable to reinfection.

“Shameful”: Biden’s Trip to Saudi Arabia for More Oil Ignores Human Rights Abuses, Khashoggi Murder

President Biden is set to meet with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday as part of a four-day visit to restore key relationships and build security cooperation in the Middle East. Human rights activists are outraged that the U.S. is willing to support a leader responsible for human rights violations including in the brutal war in Yemen, the state-sanctioned killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and more.

California becomes first state to implement Universal Meal Program for all children

by Lily Levine

This article was originally published at Prism.

When Erin Primer first heard the news that California was implementing a Universal Meal Program, she didn’t think it was true. For Palmer, the director of food and nutrition services at San Luis Coastal Unified School District (SLCUSD) and a long-time advocate of universal meals, the announcement came as a colossal victory.

I’ve booked a trip to my Trumpy ancestral homeland, and I could use your help

A month from now, if all goes as planned, I’ll be in Northeast Wisconsin celebrating my niece’s wedding. And by “celebrating” I mean refusing to do the Chicken Dance, patiently explaining to the caterer that “vegan” does not simply mean “less Velveeta,” and trying to keep pace with a horde of professional drinkers (aka Wisconsinites) who were gradually weaned off Jägermeister as babies before being moved onto solid food.