Today's Liberal News
Trump Is Trying to Deflect Focus From the Epstein Case—Can He?
Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings, watch full episodes here, or listen to the weekly podcast here.
Lingering questions over the Epstein case are consuming the White House and paralyzing Congress. Panelists on Washington Week With The Atlantic joined to discuss how a once-fringe conspiracy theory became a spiraling controversy.
The Pleasures of Reading Outside
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“Reading has been unfairly maligned as an indoor activity for far too long,” Bekah Waalkes wrote this past spring. “As a child, when nice weather came around, I was told to put down my book and go play outside.
How Justin Bieber Finally Gave Us the Song of the Summer
Can this really be the song of the summer? For seven weeks now, the most popular tune in the country has been Alex Warren’s “Ordinary”—a solemn ballad that has all of the warm-weather appropriateness of a fur coat. Ideally, the song of the summer is a buoyant one, giving you a beat to bob a flamingo floatie to. “Ordinary,” instead, is made for stomping, moping, and forgetting.
Photos: Building a Medieval Castle in the 21st Century
Aufort Jerome / Getty
An aerial view of Guédelon Castle in Treigny, France, in 2023Jacky Naegelen / Hans Lucas / Reuters
Stonecutters work at the construction site of the Château de Guédelon on June 25, 2005.Xavier Rossi / Gamma-Rapho / Getty
A person in medieval-style clothing observes the building site of Guédelon Castle in June 2002.Thierry Perrin / Gamma-Rapho / Getty
A blacksmith in period attire works at the Guédelon Castle site on April 12, 2018.
American Summers Are Starting to Feel Like Winter
Americans have a long history of enduring heat waves by going outside. In a 1998 essay for The New Yorker, the author Arthur Miller described urbanites’ Depression-era coping mechanisms: People caught the breeze on open-air trolleys, climbed onto the back of ice trucks, and flocked to the beach. In the evenings, they slept in parks or dragged their mattresses onto fire escapes.
Bonus: The Reading Recommendations Edition
Felix, Emily, and Elizabeth disclose what they’re reading during the dog days of summer.
Floods Are Becoming Deadlier. We Aren’t Worried Enough About It.
Flooding is getting more frequent, extreme, and hard to predict—and most of us are dangerously unaware of its risks.
It’s a Natural Resource We Don’t Think About Often. Public Health Depends On It More Than Ever.
As extreme heat becomes deadlier, cities are rethinking trees, awnings, and shaded spaces as essential infrastructure.
Yes, We Have to Actually Worry About Tariffs Again
They’re risky for the president politically—and for your own bank account.
3 things to know about Trump’s vein condition
Chronic venous insufficiency is a common condition that can worsen over time.
Read the White House Physician’s Letter
The letter from President Donald Trump’s doctor details his new vascular diagnosis.
US has wasted hundreds of thousands of vaccines meant for Africa, health officials there say
The expiration of shots the Biden administration promised to send comes after President Donald Trump cut deeply into foreign aid.
Many American Indians put their faith in RFK Jr. They’re starting to lose it.
The health secretary has said repeatedly he wants to provide better care for Native Americans, but he’s yet to reveal how.
Is Aziz Ansari Sorry?
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
Your Opinions on Her Wardrobe Are Probably Unwelcome
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
What Role Does HR Play in the #MeToo Era?
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
Trump is under water on some of his top issues — including immigration, poll shows
The president’s approval rating had been ticking upward since its biggest drop in April.
An Easy Summer Project Worth Doing
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Earlier this summer, I spent one blissful week on vacation doing some of the best vacation things: lying in the sun with a book until my skin was slightly crisp, making full meals out of cheese and rosé. Of course, when I returned, I felt very, very sad.
How I Came to Be in the Epstein Files
I was taking soup to the orphans, as usual, when a young man I’d never before met seized me by the arm. “Donald,” he said. “My name is Barack Obama, although that’s not important right now. In fact, you’ve already forgotten it. Before I matriculate at Harvard Law School, I must introduce you to someone who’s going to change your life.”
I looked at my watch. It was 1987.
“Who?” I asked.
“A man with whom you have nothing in common,” the mysterious figure went on. “Not one single thing.
All End-of-the-World Menace, All the Time
This was supposed to be the summer superhero movies became fun again. At first, that appeared to be true: Superman, released earlier this month, relaunched DC’s previously dour cinematic universe as a brighter and bouncier affair; the film zips from one encounter to the next with sincere aplomb.
What Happened When Hitler Took On Germany’s Central Banker
Adolf Hitler’s first weeks as chancellor were filled with so many excesses and outrages—crushing states’ rights, curtailing civil liberties, intimidating opponents, rewriting election laws, raising tariffs—that it was easy to overlook one of his prime targets: the German central bank.
The Reichsbank president was a man named Hans Luther, a fiscal conservative who subscribed to the “golden rule” of banking, which stipulated that a country’s indebtedness should never exceed its obligations.
Why Is Airplane Wi-Fi Still So Bad?
“Wi-Fi is available on this flight,” the flight attendant announced on a recent trip I took from New York City to St. Louis. She recited her routine by rote, and Wi-Fi is among the details that now need to be conveyed, along with explaining how to use a seatbelt and enjoining passengers not to smoke e-cigarettes on board.
But when the time came to use the Wi-Fi, the service didn’t work. Eventually, enough people noticed this that the crew “rebooted” it, after which it still didn’t work.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Gaza Siege, American Killed by Israeli Settlers & Epstein’s Financial Network
Democratic Congressmember Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, responds to the Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s latest attempt to break the Israeli siege on Gaza, the lethal beating of a U.S. citizen by Israeli civilians in the occupied West Bank and the Trump administration’s attempt to conceal information related to the federal criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein.
Freedom Flotilla Sails to Gaza to Break Israel’s “Engineered Famine”: Activist Huwaida Arraf
A second group of international activists with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition are en route to Gaza to challenge Israel’s blockade. Their ship, named the Handala, launched from Italy five days ago carrying humanitarian aid desperately needed by Gaza’s starving population. The Freedom Flotilla’s most recent attempt to deliver aid was prevented by the Israeli military when their ship was raided and seized in international waters. Seven out of the 21 volunteers aboard the Handala are U.S.
“Why Is the World Letting It Happen?”: U.K. Surgeon, Back from Gaza, on Starving Children
Dr. Nick Maynard, a surgeon who has just returned from volunteering in Gaza for the past month, describes a pattern reminiscent of “target practice” visible in the injuries medical staff are treating in Gaza. As evidence grows of deliberate massacres of Palestinians seeking aid at the U.S.