Today's Liberal News

The Atlantic Daily: What’s at Stake in the Pence-Harris Debate

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.DREW ANGERER / MICHAEL A. MCCOY / GETTYThe stakes of tonight’s vice-presidential debate are higher for Senator Kamala Harris than for Vice President Mike Pence, my colleague David A. Graham argues.

Why Kamala Harris Is Still Showing Up Tonight

Watching Kamala Harris take the stage tonight for her debate with Mike Pence, many Democrats may be wondering the same thing: Why would she agree to appear in person, just a few feet away from the vice president, amid a coronavirus outbreak that has ravaged the White House and infected President Donald Trump?

What Earth Owes to Black Holes

The first picture ever captured of a black hole, one situated in the center of another galaxy, was pretty blurry. Seen in silhouette, it appeared fuzzy, as did the ring of hot gas surrounding it. The reaction of the public did not necessarily match the unalloyed joy of astronomers accustomed to extracting cosmic wonders from lines in a graph. To anyone more familiar with black holes from epic space films, this one mostly looked like a flame-glazed donut.

Greensboro Massacre: City Apologizes 41 Years After Cops Allowed Klan, Nazis to Kill 5 Antiracists

Nearly 41 years after Ku Klux Klansmen and American Nazis shot dead five antiracist activists in the town of Greensboro, North Carolina, the City Council there has passed a resolution apologizing for the attack and the police department’s complicity in the killings. We speak with two survivors of the 1979 attack, Reverend Nelson Johnson and Joyce Hobson Johnson, who say the city’s apology acknowledges “the police knew and chose to do nothing.

Mary Trump: My Uncle Is Responsible for 210,000 Deaths and Is Now “Willfully Getting People Sick”

As President Trump compares the deadly COVID-19 outbreak to the flu despite being hospitalized for the virus, we speak to his only niece, Mary Trump, about his increasingly erratic behavior in the final weeks of the election season and how his family views illness as a weakness. “To be treated for something is to admit that you need the treatment, and I don’t see him having any self-awareness,” she says.

Hey, Bosses: Let Everyone Work Less

The only way parents and their child-free co-workers can survive this pandemic is for bosses to acknowledge reality, lower their goals, and do their part.

“Black Women’s Lives Matter”: Breonna Taylor’s Family Demands a Special Prosecutor to Reopen Case

Breonna Taylor’s family is calling on Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear to appoint a new special prosecutor to reopen the case after they say newly released grand jury tapes confirm the state Attorney General Daniel Cameron “did not serve as an unbiased prosecutor in this case and intentionally did not present charges to the grand jury that would have pursued justice for Ms. Taylor.

Trump toadies craft ‘report’ accusing top Voice of America reporter of not liking Dear Leader enough

Donald Trump’s remaking of the federal government into a fascist personality cult continues apace. Surprising exactly no one, NPR reports that two of Trump’s new political hires have compiled a confidential “report” on Voice of America’s (VoA) White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman, accusing him of being unfair to Donald Dear Leader in his reporting. They presented their report to VoA acting director Elez Biberaj “for action.

Arkansas Republican official just died of COVID-19. Will the GOP change its ways?

Craighead County Republican committee chairman Steven Farmer has died of COVID-19, according to a post on Facebook from his daughter, Audrey Haynie. It is unclear when or where Farmer contracted the disease, but Haynie had been providing updates on her father’s progress on Facebook. She said he had been admitted to the ICU on September 18.