Today's Liberal News

Paralympics Photo of the Day: The Hazards of Blind Football

Steph Chambers / Getty
Hicham Lamlas of Team Morocco collides with Maximiliano Espinillo of Team Argentina during a men’s preliminary group B blind football match on day four of the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games at Eiffel Tower Stadium. Blind football is played between two teams of five, made up of four vision-impaired outfield players wearing blindfolds and a goalkeeper who is sighted or partially sighted.

Hamas’s Devastating Murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin

There was a thin hope that despite everything, he might actually return home. It was stoked by a series of images that unexpectedly emerged.
Not long after Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s abduction on October 7, CNN stumbled on video of terrorists loading the Berkeley-born, Jerusalem-raised 24-year-old into a pickup truck, the stump of one of his arms wrapped in a tourniquet because a grenade had blown off the rest. It was proof of life.

“Master Plan”: New Lever Podcast Series Traces How Oligarchs “Legalized Corruption” in U.S.

Investigative journalist David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, is the host of a new podcast series exploring how extremist ideologues and wealthy oligarchs have developed a system of legalized corruption in the U.S. Master Plan traces the decadeslong conservative-led plan to increase the role of money in politics. “This was a plan, a specific plan, to deregulate the campaign finance laws,” says Sirota.

Paralympics Photo of the Day: Tears of Gold

Franck Fife / AFP / Getty
Gold medalist Nicholas Bennett of Team Canada celebrates during the victory ceremony for the men’s SB14 100-meter breaststroke final event at the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, France, on September 2, 2024. The SB14 classification is for swimmers with an intellectual impairment. Bennett, who is autistic, won his second medal of the games, and Team Canada’s first gold medal of the 2024 Paralympic games.

Legendary Labor Organizer Jane McAlevey: One of Her Last Interviews on Strategies for Workers to Win

As part of our Labor Day special, we remember the longtime labor organizer and scholar Jane McAlevey, who died in July at the age of 59. She dedicated her life to empowering rank-and-file workers, training tens of thousands around the world to effectively strengthen their unions. She gave one of her last interviews to Democracy Now! in April after she announced she was entering hospice. “We like to win,” says McAlevey, “and we like to teach workers how to win.

Labor Day Special Featuring Howard Zinn & Voices of a People’s History of the United States

In 1980, historian Howard Zinn published his classic work, A People’s History of the United States. The book would go on to sell over a million copies and change the way many look at history in America. We begin today’s special with highlights from a production of Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History of the United States, where Zinn introduced dramatic readings from history.

Six Great Labor Day Reads

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.
Our editors compiled these six articles for your Labor Day reading. Spend some time with stories about the questions we should ask our families, Amazon’s big secret, the myth of the broke Millennial, and more.

The Labyrinthine Rules That Created a Housing Crisis

This article has been adapted from the introduction of On the Housing Crisis: Land, Development, Democracy.
Consider how a home is built in America. Long before the foundation is poured, the first step is to check the rule books. For the uninitiated, the laws that govern the land appear hopelessly technical and boring, prescribing dozens upon dozens of requirements for what can be built and where.