Today's Liberal News

“The Shame of Israeli Medicine”: How Israeli Doctors Turned on Palestinian Colleagues & Patients

We speak to political scientist Neve Gordon and medical anthropologist Guy Shalev about their new article, “The Shame of Israeli Medicine,” which looks at the “complicity of the Israeli medical establishment with Israel’s egregious violations of international law.” The article’s third author, Osama Tanous, is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and has not been able to make media appearances for fear of reprisal by the Israeli government.

As U.S. Vetoes U.N. Gaza Ceasefire Resolution, Kathy Kelly & Veterans Enter 3rd Week of Hunger Strike

A group of veterans and their allies have entered their third week of a “Fast for Gaza” outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The group is calling for an end to arms sales to Israel and of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. We hear from multiple hunger strikers on their decisions to join the planned 40-day action and why they are pressuring the U.N. in particular.

Mahmoud Khalil, Trapped in “Immigration Gulag” for Nearly 3 Months, Challenges Deportation Efforts

We get an update on the case of former Columbia University student protest negotiator Mahmoud Khalil from Baher Azmy, a member of Khalil’s legal team at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Khalil has been detained in Louisiana for nearly three months, in what Azmy calls one of “our immigration gulags.” Khalil’s legal team is now challenging the State Department’s determination that his presence in the United States harms the country’s foreign policy interests.

Trump Revives Travel Ban, Bars Citizens of 12 Nations in Move Decried as “Devastating”

President Trump has signed a new travel ban barring citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States. The ban applies to Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and the Republic of Congo. The Trump administration is calling some of the countries “terrorist safe havens” and citing high visa overstay rates for others.

Palantir: Peter Thiel’s Data-Mining Firm Helps DOGE Build Master Database to Surveil, Track Immigrants

The Trump administration has tapped Palantir — the notorious data-mining firm co-founded by billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel — to compile information on people in the United States for a “master database,” creating an easy way to cross-reference sensitive data from tax records, immigration records and more. Palantir also has a $30 million contract with ICE to provide almost real-time visibility into immigrants’ movements as the agency seeks to arrest 3,000 people a day.

Why Skepticism About College Is Hard to Shake

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.
College-graduation ceremonies are expressions of joy, but also of relief. As photos are taken, tassels turned, hugs exchanged, the hope is that all of the hard work, and the money, will have been worth it.
But many Americans aren’t convinced that it is.

The Writer Who Knew the Joys of Sex

Edmund White had the most beautiful blush. I recall watching him at a celebration of his work while one of his most sexually explicit essays (which is saying a lot) was read aloud—my mind had to perform its own gymnastics just to picture all the right organs in the right receptacles. Ed’s blush somehow managed to overlap his cheeks and spread across his chin, his forehead, his ears, and into his greatest receptacle of all: his kindly, contemplative soul.
No one blushed like Ed.

No One Can Offer Any Hope

Every month or so I get a desperate message from a 25-year-old Afghan refugee in Pakistan. Another came just last week. I’ve written about Saman in the past. Because my intent today is to write about her place in the moral universe of Elon Musk and Vice President J. D. Vance, I’ll compress her story to its basic details: During the Afghan War, Saman and her husband, Farhad (they requested pseudonyms for their own safety), served in the Afghan special forces alongside American troops.

Archivists Aren’t Ready for the ‘Very Online’ Era

In February 1987, members of a queer-student group at Queens College, in New York, started jotting down their private thoughts in a communal composition book. As in a diary, each entry was signed and dated. Members wrote about parties they’d attended, speakers they wanted to invite to campus, questions they had about their sexuality. The book, now housed in an archive at the college, was also a place to vent and snipe. In November 1991, a student wrote in all caps, “I HATE QUEENS COLLEGE.

A Ukrainian Crime Caper That Undermines Expectations

A relatively young Ukrainian state, having freed itself from Moscow’s grasp, is trying to find its place as an independent nation in a changing world order. Moscow, however, decides to reclaim what it lost and sends an army to take Kyiv. An outnumbered Ukrainian force intercepts the Russian soldiers just north of the city. Ukraine’s fate hangs in the balance.